The current situation.

[wee_hughie]

He had chemical Compound V running through his veins and bonding to his DNA. He had a black trench coat that made him look like a badass. ...He had a wee hamster in a cage, running on its wheel, going nowhere.

Hughie had had a choice to stay in New York and go somewhere, or leave it and go nowhere. It would have been much easier to go nowhere. But he didn't want to make things easy. He wanted to make things right.

So he sat on the edge of his bed with murder on his mind.

No, not committing one, but solving one. He hadn't expected to take on a case like this so quickly, but if Billy Butcher said that The Legend wanted a job done, then it had to be done.

The photo of the victim, a college boy, was black-and-white. His skull was cracked open on the sidewalk. The blood was a huge dark stain on the concrete.

How could anybody get used to seeing things like that?

Something edged in on the sympathy Hughie innately felt for that kid in the photo. Anger. Vengeful anger. He'd never really experienced the sudden rush of it, like endorphins surging into his brain, before he'd met The Boys. But knowing that an innocent person met a wrongful, brutal death at the hands of a superhero...

Somebody had to pay.

Blood...bone...skin...brick and mortar...

Her hands in mine... Her cold...dead...hands...

Hughie looked down at his open palms and clenched them into white-knuckled fists. He hadn't wanted to let go of Robin's hands. He could still feel them in his grip.

I just want her back.

I just...

Please...

A pang of horror jolted him at the memory of his fist smashing clean through that superhero's torso. Wet with blood. Shattered bone snagging his sleeve. Pulsating guts sucking at his forearm.

Hughie tremblingly unclenched his hand, staring at it with wide, frightened eyes.

The hamster stopped running on its wheel. It waddled off into a corner of its cage and proceeded to fluff up its nest of wood chips and shredded newspaper. When satisfied, it curled up into a ball and went to sleep.

"Easy for you to do, mate," Hughie retorted.

This was all too much for him. And it was only Wednesday.