The Boys: I'm the New Hue, I Need More Power

Chapter 1: The Splatter and the Spark

" Okay, so this is it. This is how my life officially became a bad acid trip directed by Zack Snyder. One minute, I'm holding Robin's hand, talking about… I don't even remember what inane, perfectly normal, utterly mundane thing we were talking about. Probably something about her terrible taste in superhero merch, because, you know, irony. The next? She's a fine red mist, a literal human confetti explosion, and I'm standing here, still holding her hands. Her hands. Just… her hands. The rest of her? Gone. Poof. Like a magic trick, but instead of a rabbit, it was my girlfriend. And the magician? A-Train. The fastest man alive. Apparently, also the fastest man to turn your loved one into a Jackson Pollock painting on a brick wall. And me? I felt something. A jolt. Like a faulty toaster oven, but instead of electrocuting me, it just… hummed. Under my skin. Great. Just great. Because a normal breakdown wasn't enough, I needed a side of existential dread with a hint of potential, terrifying superpowers. Or maybe just a really bad case of shock. Because that's what every grieving, emotionally stunted electronics store clerk needs, right? More complications. More reasons to question if I'm actually awake or if I've just been mainlining Vought-brand nightmares. "

The air still tasted like ozone and something metallic, something that made Hughie's stomach churn with a sickening familiarity. It was the taste of… Robin. He stood there, a human statue of grief and disbelief, clutching two severed hands. The world around him, once a comforting blur of ordinary New York life, had fractured into a million jagged shards. Sirens wailed in the distance, a mournful symphony for a life extinguished in less than a nanosecond. People screamed, pointed, whispered, but their sounds were distant, muffled, like listening to a podcast through a wet sock. His brain, usually a whirring, overthinking supercomputer of anxieties and pop culture trivia, had flatlined. Error 404: Girlfriend Not Found. And then, the hands. Still warm. Still hers.

He didn't know how long he stood there, a macabre tableau for the horrified onlookers. Eventually, someone, a kind-faced EMT, gently pried Robin's hands from his grasp. He didn't resist. He just watched them go, like a final, slow-motion goodbye. The world started to bleed back into focus, the screams becoming sharper, the sirens louder, the metallic taste in his mouth more pronounced. He was led away, numb, to a sterile white room in a hospital, where a Vought representative, a woman with a smile that didn't reach her eyes, offered him a check. A check. For Robin. For his entire world.

" A check. They offered me a check. Like Robin was a faulty toaster oven. 'Here, Mr. Campbell, for your inconvenience, please accept this generous sum. We understand the inconvenience of spontaneous human combustion via superhero. Have a nice day.' I almost laughed. Or cried. Or threw up. Probably all three, in that order. The sheer audacity. The casual disregard. It's like they thought money could fix a hole in your soul. Spoiler alert: it can't. But it can buy a lot of therapy, I guess. Or, you know, a really good set of noise-cancelling headphones to block out the sounds of your life imploding. "

His father arrived shortly after, looking pale and distraught. His dad, bless his cotton socks, tried to be supportive, but his attempts at comfort felt like trying to patch a gaping wound with a Band-Aid. He just wanted to be left alone, to curl up in a ball and disappear. The hospital room felt suffocating, the fluorescent lights humming with an almost aggressive cheerfulness that mocked his despair. He could hear the muffled sounds of the emergency room outside, the distant clatter of equipment, the hushed voices of nurses. Each sound seemed amplified, grating on his raw nerves.

"Hughie, son," his dad began, his voice thick with unshed tears, "I… I don't know what to say. It's… it's just awful. A-Train… Vought… they said it was a freak accident. He's so sorry."

" So sorry. Yeah, I bet he is. Sorry he had to slow down for five seconds to issue a press release. Sorry he might lose an endorsement deal. Sorry he had to acknowledge the existence of a civilian he just turned into a fine red mist. 'Freak accident.' That's Vought's favorite phrase. It's like their catchphrase. 'Vought: We Turn Your Loved Ones Into Freak Accidents!' Should be on a T-shirt. Probably already is. And my dad, bless his heart, actually believes it. He believes the corporate spin. He always does. It's why he's so… normal. And why I'm so… not. "

Hughie just stared at the blank wall, his mind a chaotic swirl of images: Robin's smile, the blur of blue, the sudden, impossible void. He felt that hum again, a faint, almost imperceptible vibration deep within his chest, a low thrumming that seemed to echo the chaos in his mind. He tried to dismiss it, to rationalize it as shock, as his body's desperate attempt to cope with the trauma. But it was persistent, a quiet, unsettling presence beneath his skin. It wasn't painful, not exactly, but it was there, like a faulty wire buzzing in the walls of his own being.

The Vought representative, a perfectly coiffed woman named Ashley, returned, her smile still unnervingly fixed. "Mr. Campbell, we understand this is a difficult time. Vought International extends its deepest sympathies. We've prepared a comprehensive settlement package to assist you during this period of adjustment." She pushed a thick folder across the table, its contents gleaming with legal jargon and impressive numbers.

" A settlement package. For Robin. For her life. For my entire future. It's like they're trying to buy my silence. And my grief. And my soul. And honestly, for a second, I almost took it. Because what else was there? What could I do? I'm just Hughie. An electronics store clerk. What am I going to do, sue Homelander? Challenge A-Train to a foot race? My only superpower is my ability to overthink everything into oblivion. And maybe, apparently, a weird internal hum that probably means I'm going crazy. "

Hughie looked at the folder, then at Ashley's perfectly impassive face. He saw no empathy, no genuine sorrow, just practiced professionalism. It was a transaction. Robin's life, reduced to a monetary value. The anger, which had been simmering beneath his grief, began to boil. It wasn't just an accident. It was negligence. It was arrogance. It was them. Vought. And A-Train. They were untouchable. Gods. And he was just… Hughie.

He pushed the folder back across the table. "I don't want your money." His voice was hoarse, raw.

Ashley's smile faltered for a fraction of a second. "Mr. Campbell, this is a very generous offer. It includes therapy, relocation assistance, a significant financial sum…"

"I said, I don't want it," Hughie repeated, his voice gaining strength. "It won't bring her back. And it won't make this right."

His dad, looking startled, tried to intervene. "Hughie, son, be reasonable. This could help you…"

"Help me what, Dad?" Hughie snapped, turning to him, his eyes blazing with a sudden, fierce intensity. "Help me forget? Help me pretend this never happened? Help me pretend that A-Train isn't out there, still running around, still getting endorsement deals, still being a 'hero' after he turned Robin into… into nothing?"

Ashley, recovering her composure, stood up. "Very well, Mr. Campbell. The offer stands. Please reconsider. Our legal team will be in touch." She exited the room, her heels clicking crisply on the tile floor, leaving behind a faint scent of expensive perfume and corporate indifference.

" Legal team. Right. Because I'm sure their legal team is just dying to get into a drawn-out battle with a grieving civilian who just refused a massive payout. They're probably already drafting the 'Hughie Campbell is Mentally Unstable' press release. This is fine. I'm fine. I'm just… really, really angry. And that hum? It's getting louder. It's like a tiny, angry hornet buzzing inside my chest, vibrating with every beat of my furious heart. This is not just shock. This is something else. Something… new. And terrifying. And maybe, just maybe, useful. "

The next few days were a blur of forced condolences, awkward silences, and the suffocating presence of his well-meaning but utterly useless father. His dad, bless his cotton socks, tried to be supportive, but his attempts at comfort felt like trying to patch a gaping wound with a Band-Aid. He just wanted to be left alone, to curl up in a ball and disappear. He spent hours staring at the ceiling in his apartment, the silence broken only by the hum of his refrigerator and the unsettling, persistent hum beneath his own skin. He'd close his eyes and see Robin's face, then the blur, then the emptiness. The grief was a physical weight, pressing down on him, making it hard to breathe.

He tried to go back to work at the electronics store. It was a mistake. The familiar hum of the appliances, the constant low thrum of electricity in the wires, it all seemed to amplify the hum he felt within himself. He'd stand in front of a display of high-definition TVs, the vibrant colors a cruel mockery of his monochrome world, and feel a strange, almost magnetic pull towards the electronics. It was like they were speaking to him, a silent language of currents and frequencies. He'd shake his head, trying to clear it, blaming it on stress, on lack of sleep, on the sheer, overwhelming absurdity of his life.

" This is my life now. Trying to sell someone a surround sound system while my internal organs are doing a low-frequency hum. And I keep thinking the TVs are talking to me. I'm officially losing it. This is the part where I start talking to inanimate objects. Or, you know, where I accidentally short-circuit a microwave with my mind. Because that would be my luck. A useless, inconvenient superpower. Not like, you know, super-strength. Or flight. Or the ability to make Homelander spontaneously combust. No, I get the 'electronics whisperer' power. Great. Just great. "

He'd catch himself staring at the news, at the endless parade of Vought's carefully curated heroism. Homelander, with his perfect smile and terrifying eyes. Starlight, trying so hard to be good, to make a difference, while being trapped in the gilded cage of corporate control. And A-Train. Always A-Train. His face plastered on billboards, on cereal boxes, on action figures. The sheer injustice of it all was a burning coal in his gut.

He started spending more time online, not on his usual forums about obscure indie bands or vintage electronics, but on the darker corners of the internet. The conspiracy theories. The anti-Supe forums. The places where people whispered about Vought's true nature, about the accidents, about the cover-ups. He devoured every article, every grainy video, every desperate plea for justice. He was looking for answers, for anything that could explain the inexplicable, for anything that could give his grief a target.

And the hum. It was always there. A constant, low-level vibration, a silent companion to his rage and despair. Sometimes, when he was particularly angry, or when he saw A-Train's smug face on a screen, it would intensify, a frantic, almost desperate thrumming that made his teeth ache. It felt like a pressure building, a silent scream trying to escape. He didn't understand it. He didn't know what it meant. But he knew, with a terrifying certainty, that it was real. And it was tied to them. To the Supes. To Vought.

He was a civilian. He was powerless. But something inside him was stirring. Something that felt like a nascent, terrifying potential. A ghost of a whisper that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't as helpless as he thought. The idea was absurd. It was insane. But in a world where girlfriends exploded into red mist and superheroes endorsed breakfast cereal, perhaps insanity was the only sane response.

" This is it. This is my new normal. A life filled with grief, rage, and a persistent internal hum that may or may not be a sign of impending madness. And a growing obsession with taking down the most powerful corporation on the planet. With what, exactly? My wit? My encyclopedic knowledge of 80s pop culture? My ability to fix a faulty stereo? I'm going to need more than that. A lot more. But the fire's lit now. And it's burning. And I'm pretty sure it's going to consume me. Or them. Or both. Probably both. This is going to be a long, painful ride. And I don't even like rollercoasters. "