Chapter Text
Buttercup had never known a world without the strings.
They were there as long as she could remember, lacing the air in quiet, persistent lines of red. They stretched across streets and skies, threaded through crowded markets and silent corridors, draped over railings and doorframes like something the world had forgotten to clean up. Some hung loose and gentle. Others were pulled so tight they looked painful to bear.
For all her life, she assumed this was simply how reality looked.
She learned otherwise when she finally asked.
“Do you see them too?” she said once, pointing vaguely ahead of her.
Her father paused mid-step. His brows knit together; concern plastered across his face as his eyes followed her gesture only to find empty air. Others reacted the same way. Friends, teachers, neighbors, and even her sisters. They looked at her strangely. Some laughed it off. Some frowned. A few grew worried, one of them crouched down and asked her if she felt alright. The way adults did when they thought a child might be seeing supernatural things.
Buttercup stopped asking after that. She already knew the answer anyway. It was the moment she realized something was wrong.
Not with the world.
With her.
She began to watch more carefully. People walked straight through the strings. Over them. Toward them. They never hesitated, never flinched. Entire lives unfolded without ever acknowledging the threads that surrounded them.
This sight belonged to her alone.
She wondered what the strings meant. That was when she noticed something.
Everyone was tethered.
Lovers and strangers, every person bound to something unseen but undeniable.
Soulmate—is what people like to call it.
Over time, she learned their language. Fresh strings glowed vividly, warm, and steady. Older ones dulled, thinning at the edges. Some frayed slowly, trembling on the brink of disappearance. Others tangled into tight, messy knots held together by stubbornness more than love. She saw strings fade long after relationships had already died. She watched couples laugh and touch and promise things, even though their threads pointed elsewhere.
On her father, she saw a single string—unbroken, patient, trailing off into a future that hadn’t arrived yet. Sometimes she wondered when would someone step into his life and complete it. She never asked. Some questions felt invasive, even when you were the only one who could see the answer.
What she did not see—what troubled her more than she ever admitted—was her own.
No matter how often she checked, her finger remained bare. No pull. No resistance. Nothing waiting on the other end.
The same absence marked her sisters too, yet the weight of that realization existed only to her.
Perhaps the strings did not account for what was made unnaturally. Nothing about her and her sisters were natural after all. Perhaps fate only recognized what entered the world the right way, in the right order. Anything altered after the fact was left blank.
A ridiculous thought crossed Buttercup’s mind. Maybe this was her role. Maybe she was meant to guide people toward the right path, to quietly nudge them away from the wrong ones, to play some unwilling matchmaker in the background of everyone else’s lives. The idea made her scoff. She had no right to meddle in something as intimate as love, no matter how clearly she could see where it would lead.
She had told herself it was balance.
That someone had to observe without being involved. That this was the cost of knowing.
Omniscience always demanded payment, didn’t it?
Or maybe this was a punishment.
To see every connection and belong to none of them.
But why didn’t none of her sisters had this sight too?
Either way, she wasn’t heartbroken. She wasn’t even disappointed. Romance or some ridiculous destiny nonsense had never interested her much. Though, she couldn’t say the same for her sisters. Especially her blonde sister.
She knew better than to believe the strings promised happiness. Even so, the absence was notable.
Life moved on.
Buttercup helped where she could. She was a child—but everyone knew who she was. The genius professor’s daughter. The girl who moved easily through clouds, the one who carried the strength in the group. She used her powers just as naturally as breathing. Stopping crimes in progress. Pulling civilians out of collapsing structures. Neutralizing threats long enough for others to finish the job. It was simply her duty to protect peace
The strings were always there, looping around people she saved, stretching between criminals and the harm they would have caused if left unchecked. Buttercup moved through them with practiced ease. She never followed them. Never let them decide her actions.
They were merely threads. Nothing more.
Then one morning, she woke up and the world had shifted.
There was a strange resistance when she moved, subtle but unmistakable. Her vision focused and her eyes snapped to her hand.
A red string.
Thin. Clear. Undeniably real.
For a long moment, Buttercup didn’t move. She touched it carefully, half-expecting it to vanish under her fingers. It didn’t. When she tugged, it is there—not pulling her forward, not dragging her anywhere. Just confirming its existence. And it dawned on her.
So it finally appeared.
She glanced over to her side to see her sisters still asleep. Now thin red threads also curled around their fingers.
She wondered why now. They couldn’t have changed overnight. They were the same as they had been yesterday, the same as they had been since forever. The sudden appearance deeply puzzled her.
She thought about it hard and decided it was enough. Then she got dressed and went about her day.
She and her sisters helped the town’s people. Assisted in evacuations. Fought giant monsters. Intervened in a street incident later that evening. The string followed her movements faithfully, never interfering, never demanding attention.
Nothing about her routine changed.
The string that suddenly appeared, bounding her to someone who is probably at the other end of the world? She doesn't have the time to think of such frivolous matters.
Though she couldn’t deny that, deep down, a small part of her wondered who destiny had chosen for her.
The answer came later the same day.
Smoke and ruin swallowed the area. Sirens screamed somewhere distant, half-drowned by collapsing concrete and the sound of power tearing through air. Buttercup moved on instinct until she felt it.
The string tightened.
Her gaze followed it through debris and fire until it landed on a figure standing amid the wreckage.
A boy.
That was all he was at first—a silhouette among rubble and bodies, hair as dark as midnight, and his fierce eyes are the color of lush evergreen. How could a color usually associated with something so calming become something so terrifying?
Power crackled violently around him. Screams pierced the air. Buildings burned. He stood at the center of it all like a disaster given human form.
She didn’t know his name or anything about him.
She only knew he’s the one at the other end of her knot.
Understanding came later—after the retreat, after the reports, after her father finally sat her down with an urgency she had only seen a handful of times before. He told her about Mojo Jojo. His former lab assistant. His friend. Someone who had once been part of their lives.
He told her about betrayal.
About stolen research. About the structure he had created—the same foundation that made Buttercup and her sisters what they were. And how Mojo had taken it further. Altered it. Used it to create not one, but three boys out of it.
The Rowdyruff Boys.
Weapons.
Children created for the sole purpose of destroying.
And most importantly, to rival them.
Butch.
It was the name her counterpart went by.
The realization settled cold and heavy in her chest.
So that’s why, she thought.
It's not because the universe was excluding her, the string had been waiting for him.
It was only fitting that someone like her, so far removed from normal, would be paired with another equally unnatural soul.
There was no poetic justice in it. Just the cruel humor of fate, tying her to something so brutal, so wrong.
So she fought him. She had to. She’s the people’s hero after all. It doesn’t matter that this ruthless monster was destined for her. She would prioritize her duty over anything.
For every encounter, the only things present between the girl and the boy were violence, savagery, and resentment. Buttercup almost laughed at the irony; of all the ways people described such meetings, hers took place among ruins and blood.
And the string? It did not interfere, did not protect either of them. It only endured, stretched between them like a silent witness.
They tried everything.
Punches.
Heat visions.
Team formations.
The boys keep getting back up. Laughing. Mocking. Getting stronger.
She doesn’t know how long this rivalry will last. The thought that someone had finally been able to stand firmly as her match truly angered her. She’s a Powerpuff for god’s sake. Every villain should cower beneath her presence.
It was until they tried a different approach. Something that she never thought would be considered as a strategy to defeat any of their enemies.
With no other choice, they made haste
Buttercup grabbed Butch before he can pull away and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. He was bewildered by the sudden action. But before he could elicit any other reaction, the Chemical X inside him destabilized, light tearing through his body in violent cracks. Their screams erupted in a blinding surge.
Explosion. The boys gone. Not defeated. Not unconscious. Gone.
She couldn’t believe the only instances where she willingly kissed someone was to kill them.
After that, the string began to fade slowly.
The town’s people roared with cheers that could be heard across the scene. Buttercup stood at the edge of it all, the fatigued finally catches up to her and she felt her whole body ached. She stared at the place where the string had been.
She didn’t feel sad. In fact, she didn't feel anything at all.
They had barely known each other. They had been enemies. And yet everything felt wrong. Like the universe had broken one of its own rules.
Both of her sisters joined the cacophony of jubilations. Blissfully unaware of what they had done.
Just like that? She thought.
What now? She asked.
Time passed.
Elsewhere, consciousness resumed.
A boy opened his eyes in a new body.
At the same moment, Buttercup slept—and a red line faded back into existence, thin at first, then whole. Anchored to her finger once more.
Waiting.