In the Muck
The rain in New York didn’t wash things clean; it just turned the grime into a slick, reflective oil that coated the pavement.
You sat at your desk on the thirty-fourth floor of Vought Tower, the soft hum of the HVAC system the only sound keeping you company at 11:42 PM. As a mid-level data analyst for Vought’s Risk Assessment division, your job description was essentially "spreadsheet magician." You didn't design the capes, you didn't schedule the press junkets, and you certainly didn’t know the dark secrets of the Seven. You just looked at graphs that predicted how much a localized structural collapse in Chicago would cost the company in liability insurance.
You clicked *save* on a massive Excel sheet, rubbed your aching eyes, and reached for your lukewarm coffee.
"Fascinating stuff, innit? Numbers. Columns. The exciting world of corporate bureaucracy."
The voice didn't belong there. It was a low, gravelly baritone, dripping with a thick, heavy accent that felt entirely too rough for the pristine, sterile glass walls of Vought Tower.
You froze, your heart slamming against your ribs. Slowly, you turned your chair.
Leaning against the doorframe of your cubicle was a man who looked like he had been chewed up and spat out by the city itself. He wore a heavy, dark trench coat over a floral Hawaiian shirt that had seen better days. His dark hair was a wild mop, a thick beard framed a jawline that looked carved from granite, and his eyes—dark, sharp, and terrifyingly intelligent—were locked onto you.
"Who are you?" your voice hitched. Your hand slid toward the desk phone, finger hovering over the security speed-dial. "Security is—"
"Security on this floor is currently having a lovely, synchronized nap in the breakroom," the man interrupted, taking a slow, heavy step into your cubicle. He didn't look worried. He looked amused. "Name’s Butcher. And you, sweetheart, are exactly who I've been looking for."
"I don't have any money," you stammered, backing your chair up until it hit the edge of your desk. "If you're looking for Vought tech, the labs are on forty-five—"
"Don't want their bloody toys," Butcher said, pulling a rolling chair from an adjacent cubicle and sitting down right in front of you. He leaned forward, crowding your space, smelling faintly of cheap cigarettes, expensive whiskey, and rain. He dropped a heavy manila folder onto your keyboard. "I want what’s in your head. And what’s on that hard drive."
You blinked, looking from the folder to his face. "I'm a risk analyst."
"Exactly. Which means you're the one who tracks the 'collateral damage' budgets for Homelander’s little mishaps. You know exactly which shipping manifests went missing in sector four last month. You see the numbers Vought hides from the public." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. It was a predatory baring of teeth. "You’re gonna copy the internal server logs for the last three quarters onto a thumb drive for me. And then, you're gonna keep your pretty mouth shut."
"That's corporate espionage," you whispered, outraged despite the sheer terror sweating through your palms. "I'll go to prison!"
"Or," Butcher leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous, gravelly whisper that vibrated in your chest, "I could let Homelander know that someone in Risk Assessment has been flaggin' his flight paths as 'high-risk anomalies.' Now, I know you were just doing your job, love. But Homelander? He’s a sensitive soul. He gets awfully touchy about people tracking his whereabouts. What do you think he’d do to a little mouse like you?"
The temperature in the room seemed to drop. You stared into his dark eyes and realized, with a sickening jolt, that he wasn’t bluffing. He didn’t care about you. You were a tool. A means to an end.
"You're a monster," you breathed.
Butcher’s smile widened, sharp and devoid of warmth. "A monster? No, no, no. I’m the bloke who hunts 'em. Now, get to cloning that drive, there's a good girl."
---
That was how it started. A forced partnership born out of cold-blooded blackmail.
Over the next three weeks, your life became a living nightmare of paranoia. Butcher didn't just take the data and run; he realized the value of having an inside source. He forced you to install an encrypted communication app on your phone. He would text you at three in the morning with a string of numbers—coordinates, shipping codes, flight times—and you would have to dig through Vought’s secure databases to find the corresponding files.
Every time you met him to hand off information, it was in a different, sketchy location. A desolate pier at midnight, the back of a dingy diner in Queens, a neon-lit laundromat that smelled like bleach and old coins.
You hated him. You hated the arrogant tilt of his head, the way he casually tossed around casual slurs for the Supes, and the way he treated your terror like a minor inconvenience.
"You're going to get me killed," you hissed at him one rainy Tuesday, meeting him in an alleyway behind a dive bar. You shoved a flash drive into his leather-gloved hand. "Vought’s cyber-security team is upgrading their firewalls. They’re looking for leaks. They’re going to find me."
Butcher slotted the drive into his coat pocket, looking down at you with a casual, dismissive smirk. "They won't find a thing, love. You're too clever for 'em. Besides, you've got me looking out for you."
"You don't look out for anyone but yourself," you spat, your voice cracking with a mix of fury and exhaustion. "I am a hostage to you. Do you have any idea what it’s like? Walking into that building every day, knowing that if I make one mistake, a man who can fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes will turn me into ash?"
Butcher’s smirk faltered. For a fraction of a second, something dark and heavy flashed across his face—a shadow of a memory, old and deeply scarred. His gaze hardened, losing its mocking edge.
"You think I don't know what they can do?" he said, his voice terrifyingly quiet, devoid of the usual theatrical bravado. He stepped closer, towering over you in the narrow, rain-slicked alley. "You think I don't know what it’s like to have your whole bloody world ripped apart by those caped freaks? You're terrified? Good. Keep being terrified. It’ll keep you alive."
You backed away from him, your breath hitching. "You're psychotic."
"Maybe," he shrugged, the arrogant mask slipping right back into place as if it had never left. "But I'm the only thing standing between you and the deep blue sea. See you next week, sweetheart."
---
The breaking point arrived on a Thursday.
You had found something you shouldn't have. It wasn't just financial data; it was a routing slip for a shipment of Compound V bound for a private clinic in the Bronx, signed off by a high-ranking Vought executive. You knew Butcher would want it. You also knew that the moment you downloaded it, a silent alarm had likely tripped in Vought’s IT department.
You left the building in a panic, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. You didn't even use the encrypted app; you just fled to your apartment, locking the deadbolt, the chain, and pushing a heavy chair against the door.
You sat on your living room floor, clutching your knees, staring at the door, waiting for the security teams to burst through.
An hour passed. Then two.
Suddenly, a loud, heavy *thud* echoed from your fire escape.
You shrieked, scrambling backward as the window shattered inward. Shards of glass rained down onto your hardwood floor. A large, heavy figure tumbled through the frame, landing hard on his shoulder before rolling onto his back with a groan that sounded like a dying engine.
It was Butcher.
But he wasn't smirked or gloating. His face was pale, slick with cold sweat and rain. His signature trench coat was shredded at the waist, soaked through with a terrifying amount of dark, thick blood.
"Butcher!" you gasped, rushing forward, your anger entirely eclipsed by pure, human panic.
"Don't... don't shout, love," he grunted, his teeth clenched so hard his jaw looked like it might snap. He clutched his left side, his large hands stained crimson. "G-got into a bit of a disagreement. With a bloke... who could turn his hands into bloody buzzsaws."
"You're bleeding out! I'm calling an ambulance—"
"No!" Butcher roared, his hand shooting out like a viper to grab your wrist. His grip was weak, trembling, but still tight enough to bruise. His dark eyes burned into yours. "No hospitals. Vought owns the hospitals. You call 'em, and we’re both dead before sunrise. Understand me?"
You stared at him, your breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He was heavy, bleeding, and dangerous. Everything in your logical brain told you to run out the front door and never look back. This was your chance to be free of him.
But as you looked down at him, you saw the raw, unadulterated vulnerability in his eyes. For all his posturing, for all his terrifying threats, he was just a man. A mortal, fragile man bleeding on your floor.
"Fine," you whispered, pulling your wrist from his grip. "Fine. But if you die on my rug, I'm never forgiving you."
The next two hours were a blur of adrenaline and agony. You dragged him into the bathroom, propping him up against the bathtub. You fetched your emergency first aid kit—the standard corporate-issue one, completely unsuited for a massive abdominal laceration.
You had to cut his shirt away. Beneath the fabric, his torso was a map of violence. Old scars—bullet wounds, jagged tears, burns—crisscrossed his tanned skin. And right along his ribs was a deep, jagged gash that was steadily pumping blood.
"This is going to hurt," you warned, your hands shaking as you uncapped a bottle of high-proof rubbing alcohol.
"Just get on with it, you little mouse," he panted, his eyes closed, his head resting against the porcelain of the tub.
You poured the alcohol. Butcher’s entire body violently convulsed. A strangled, guttural scream caught in his throat, his veins bulging against his neck, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edges of the bathtub. He didn't cry out, but the sheer agony radiating off him was palpable.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," you muttered, tears pricking your own eyes as you grabbed a needle and medical thread from the kit. You had never stitched a wound in your life, but you had watched enough tutorials during late-night internet rabbit holes.
As you leaned over him, trying to stabilize your trembling hands, Butcher’s eyes fluttered open. They were bloodshot, dazed with pain, but they locked onto your face.
"You've got... steady hands for a corporate drone," he wheezed, trying to find his smirk, though it looked more like a grimace.
"Shut up, Billy," you snapped, using his actual name for the very first time.
The name seemed to catch him off guard. He quieted down, his breathing ragged as you began the agonizing process of piercing his skin, threading the needle through, and pulling the flesh together. Every time he flinched, your heart broke a little. You hated him. You reminded yourself that you hated him. He had ruined your life. He had blackmailed you.
But as you worked, you realized how close you were to him. You could feel the intense heat radiating from his skin. You could see the thick eyelashes framing his dark eyes, the gray hairs dusting his beard, the desperate, heavy rise and fall of his chest.
When you finally tied off the last knot and pressed a thick layer of gauze against the wound, you were covered in his blood, sweat, and your own tears.
"There," you breathed, sitting back on your heels, wiping your forehead with the back of your arm. "It's done. You're patched up."
Butcher didn't move. He just stared at you, his dark eyes wide and unreadable. The silence in the small bathroom was deafening, heavy with a strange, sudden tension that had nothing to do with Vought or Supes.
Slowly, painfully, Butcher raised his large, rough hand. His fingers were stained with dried blood, but as he reached up, his touch was shockingly, devastatingly gentle. He brushed a stray lock of hair away from your face, his thumb lingering against your cheekbone.
"You didn't run," he murmured, his voice a low, raspy rumble. "Had every reason to. Could've left me to rot."
"I should have," you whispered, your heart hammering for an entirely different reason now. You didn't pull away from his touch. "You're a horrible man."
"Yeah," he agreed softly, his thumb tracing a slow circle on your skin. "I am. A real bastard."
"You blackmailed me."
"I did."
"I hate you."
Butcher’s eyes darkened, dropping down to your lips for a fraction of a second before rising back to meet your gaze. A slow, genuine smile touched his lips—not the predatory smirk, but something softer, something tired and profoundly human.
"I know, love," he whispered. "But you're doing a bloody terrible job of showing it."
Before you could process the proximity, before you could let your logical brain reassert control, Butcher leaned forward. He groaned slightly from the movement in his ribs, but he closed the distance, his hand sliding to the back of your neck to pull you down.
The kiss was nothing like the polished, PR-approved romances Vought put on television. It was desperate, rough, and intoxicating. It tasted like copper, whiskey, and raw survival. Butcher pulled you against him, his large frame grounding you, his lips demanding and fierce, yet there was a desperate undercurrent of reverence in the way he held you.
You melted into it, your hands finding their way into his thick, damp hair, gripping him as if he were the only solid thing left in a world that had completely spun out of control. The hatred, the fear, the blackmail—it all burned away in the heat of his mouth, replaced by a fierce, electric connection forged in the dark.
When he finally pulled back, just an inch, his forehead rested against yours. Both of your breaths came in ragged, synchronized gasps.
"Diabolical," Butcher breathed, a low laugh vibrating in his chest, though he winced immediately after as it pulled at his stitches.
"Don't laugh, you'll open the wound," you scolded, though your voice lacked any real bite. You stayed right there, tangled up with him on the bathroom floor, the rain still tapping softly against the broken living room window.
Butcher looked at you, his hand still cradling the back of your neck, his thumb caressing your jaw. The wall he kept erected between himself and the rest of the world hadn't crumbled entirely, but for you, he had left the door wide open.
"Looks like we're in the muck together now, sweetheart," he murmured.
You looked at the blood on your hands, then back up into the eyes of the man who had dragged you into hell—and realized, with a terrifying certainty, that you never wanted to leave.
"Yeah," you whispered, leaning back in to press your lips against his. "I guess we are."