Having Ben hiding with the Boys was, to say the least, an absurdly strange situation. He wasn't just any super—it was him. The real Soldier Boy. The patriotic symbol who, decades ago, graced posters, speeches, and televised broadcasts as America's perfect hero.

And now he was there.

Hidden.

For the Boys, Ben was the ultimate trump card—the only one capable of facing monsters bigger than themselves. But he was also a walking time bomb. An unpredictable supersoldier, with decades of pent-up anger and absolutely zero interest in following orders.

Until the right moment came, someone needed to keep an eye on him.

That someone, of course, ended up being you.

As always.

The group's kind of walking "backup plan" when Annie and Kimiko were too busy blowing something up, saving someone, or simply disappearing on another crazy mission. So there you were, trapped in that depressing hideout, dealing daily with an almost unbelievable mix of childish behavior and the inflated ego of a man who technically should have been a legend.

Ben was… difficult.

Most of the time, he behaved like a grumpy veteran trapped in the body of a virtually indestructible superhero. He complained about everything. The food, the television, modern music, politics, sports.

Especially sports.

According to him, everything had become "child's play."

The hideout itself was awful. An old, stuffy apartment with cheap furniture and walls too thin to hide any kind of explosion—which, considering who was living there, seemed like a particularly bad decision.

But Ben didn't seem to care much.

After spending decades frozen and being tortured by Russian scientists, anything involving a working television, a comfortable beanbag chair, and a crate of cold beer seemed, to him, an acceptable luxury.

So that became the routine. He threw himself onto the beanbag chair as if he owned the place, stretched his legs, opened another beer, and watched sports on a dubious quality TV, muttering acidic comments about how everything had gotten worse since the "good old days."

Between sips, he asked random questions.

Strange, disconnected things.

Questions about technology, celebrities he didn't recognize, wars that ended decades after his disappearance. Sometimes he seemed genuinely curious. Other times, just annoyed at having wasted so much time while the world moved on without him.

But eventually…

He got bored.

And when Soldier Boy got bored, it was rarely a good sign.

The old magazines Butcher had brought as a lazy attempt at distraction were no longer working. Ben had leafed through them so many times he probably knew every page by heart.

Silence crept through the apartment.

Until he spoke.

"Your job is to cater to my needs."

His voice came out low, drawn out, laden with that authoritative tone that seemed completely natural to him.

Ben raised a finger toward you, wagging it slowly before curling it in a lazy gesture, as if beckoning you closer. The expression on his face was almost amused.

Arrogant idiot.

"And I have needs."

You didn't even get a chance to answer before he gestured again, suggestively pointing to a spot between your legs.

A crooked smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, while his eyebrows rose in blatant provocation.

"Come on," he continued, spreading his legs even further as if it were the most casual thing in the world. "I have nothing better to do. And neither do you."

Definitely… a gentleman.