Red River Institute | Thursday Afternoon

[knife_bender]

Spending an hour in a car with someone he barely knew wasn't at the top of Diego's "fun things to do" list, but at least he could tune out Hughie's nervous rambling pretty easily.

"Remember, just here for recon," Diego said as he turned the engine off. "Any sign of acid puke or head exploding, we get out of here."

Annie would probably be irritated enough they did this without her. If it all went to shit while she wasn't here Diego would be in big trouble.

Hughie	"You got to see acid puke last time?" Hughie asked, clearly sort of envious. "Everyone always talks about the dick, but I didn't know there was acid puke." All he'd gotten was a lacerated abdomen, man. "But got it," he added, wanting to make sure he didn't piss Diego off since he was doing Hughie a huge, huge favor here. "In and out."
Diego	"Good. Hopefully this won't be a shitshow," Diego said as he got out of the car. "What is our cover story anyway?"
Hughie	"I figured I'd pretend I was looking to adopt a kid," Hughie offered, shrugging. "I just want to get a look at the records to see when Victoria -- Nadia, I mean -- was here. Maybe we're, like...just a couple of dudes who want a kid, you know?" Which would have worked great if not for the fact that they both had recently been on television. (Also, Hughie, you wish.)
Diego	"How about you're a dude who wants a kid and I'm just your friend who is there for moral support?" Because there was no way anybody would believe they were a couple.
Hughie	"Then thank you, Diego, for your moral support," Hughie replied, shooting him an incredibly dorky thumbs up (with his good arm) as they headed in. "I really appreciate you being here for me, man. We're gonna pick out, like, the best kid." Maybe that approach needed some workshopping.
Vanessa	In any case, they were quickly greeted by a friendly -- if tired-looking -- woman who introduced herself as Vanessa and led them through the building. For the most part, once you got inside, Red River looked like any elementary school -- there were crayon drawings on the brightly-colored walls, a penmanship alphabet bordered the ceiling, and posters of Starlight and A-Train encouraging reading and healthy nutrition appeared every now and then. "You said you work at the tower?" Vanessa asked, moving slowly through the hallway she was leading them down on crutches, for which she had offered no explanation. (She was, however, giving Hughie's broken arm a wary look.) "That's good. We don't get a lot of potential parents, but your background'll help." Hey, that probably wasn't worrisome at all, right?
Diego	"Why don't you get a lot of people adopting?" Diego asked. Shit, if his father knew about this place he would have cleared them out of kids.
Vanessa	"Most parents aren't prepared for the realities of a super-abled child," Vanessa replied casually as she led the way into a classroom full of...a bunch of weird little kids, yes. One girl was balancing blocks in the air in front of her face, while a boy of about two teleported blurrily next to her. "Mason, please get down from there," one aide chided, directing her attention to a small boy who was climbing up towards the ceiling. "Yeah, uh, so many tragic stories," Vanessa continued, clearly exhausted as she addressed a shell-shocked-looking Hughie and a rag doll whipped through the air by Diego. "But with the right attention, they can bounce back so quickly."
Diego	Diego dodged the doll easily, looking around at all the kids in the room. He had thought that people would be clamoring for a super-abled kid, but then thought about what his father had done in order to get Viktor under control. Yeah, he could see where it could get...messy. "Well, you're doing a good thing here, taking care of these kids."
Hughie	Hughie had honed right in on the dark side of why these kids were here, though -- especially given Vanessa's broken leg. "So uh, their parents -- "
Vanessa	"Well, uh, some of the kids discovered their gifts quite early," Vanessa said. "Before they were able to control them. But listen, I'm sure you'd be perfectly safe." Please take one of these kids home. Please. Please, please. She was so tired. Like maybe Mason the wall-climber! He was cute! Or -- That blurry little teleporter appeared in front of them now, just as a television behind Vanessa's head started playing news coverage from the Dawn of the Seven premiere. "Sorry, uh -- what is it, Teddy?"
Hughie	Oh, look, Diego was on TV! Up there, with the co-captain of The Seven herself on his arm. Little Teddy had noticed, and now Hughie had, too. Shit. "Hey, can you give us a tour of the rest of the building? Like, anything. We're so curious."
Diego	Diego did a quick double take when he saw the TV. Aw, shit. He tried to think on his feet to come up with an excuse just in case Hughie's flailing didn't distract the woman. Just...he'll come up with something in a second.
Vanessa	Well, Little Teddy there was pointing at the television, now (without looking at it and while sort of vibrating, for extra...creepy points. Weird how no one wanted to adopt this kid!) "Hey, wait, I know you," Vanessa said, turning to look at the TV and then back to Diego. "You're Starlight's fiancé." Which had her also looking more carefully at Hughie, who she'd also realized she recognized. "And you work at the bureau. This is highly irregular."
Diego	"Uh, well, we wanted to be discreet," Diego said quickly. "Because, uh, Starlight and I are looking to adopt." Yeah, sure, we'll go with that.
Hughie	"We were never here, by the way," Hughie jumped in and offered, glancing over at Diego. "They want to keep it about -- you know, love, and not publicity." That was good, right? (Annie was going to kill them both.) And Vanessa, meanwhile, was looking like she thought she'd just won the lottery.
Diego	"Yeah, exactly," Diego said, nodding. "Just want to keep it real, real low-key." Because if this got out Annie might actually kill him. "But, uh, since the cat's out of the bag, you want to tell me about the process? So I can tell Starlight later." Hopefully with Vanessa's attention on him, Hughie could do whatever super secret government spy shit he was gonna do.
Vanessa	"With a super-abled mother, fatalities should be much less likely," Vanessa told Diego happily, like that was the news he'd probably been waiting for, as she indicated he should follow her to an office. "We can start looking at paperwork -- this way."
Hughie	Which, indeed, did allow Hughie plenty of time to slip into a different office, download their whole database onto a USB drive thanks to super secret government spy shit that no one should question at all, and sneak his way back out to the car to load it up onto his laptop -- so thanks for taking one for the team there, Diego. At least, based on what Hughie had found once he'd located Nadia's file, it was definitely worth it.
Diego	Diego joined him a few minutes later, tossing some paperwork in the backseat. "That was horrifying." The lady basically insinuated that if the adopted kid was gonna kill anybody, it'd be him since he was the 'normal' person in his relationship. "Hope it was worth it."
Hughie	Probably a good thing that Diego's own eventual super-abled children would be more like him in that department than Annie, huh? Hughie would have probably offered more of an apology if he hadn't been so shaken by what was on his screen. "It was worth it," he said quietly, turning the laptop to replay the video he'd just watched for Diego. A dark-haired girl of about thirteen was seated in a chair, looking uncomfortable as a woman's voice from offscreen assured young Nadia that she hadn't done anything wrong, and she was getting everything she wanted today. "You're adopting me?" Nadia asked, turning to face a different offscreen person. "No, I can't adopt you, sport, not technically." Anyone who had ever followed Vought's corporate sector would know that deep voice instantly, even before Stan appeared on the screen, twenty years younger and kneeling at Nadia's side. "It's more complicated than you need to worry about. But you are a very rare and exceptional girl, and you're coming with me."
Diego	"Holy shit," Diego said, eyes widening. "That's Stan Edgar." You know it was obvious even when Diego knew about it. "Stan Edgar is your boss' sort-of dad." Oh, that had to be a conflict of interest.
Hughie	"Which means Vought knows Vicky's the head-popper," Hughie said quietly, clearly panicked. "He knew last year when she did it. He probably asked her to." That was nothing good. "I'm so fucking stupid." Not only that, but this also just felt sort of terrible. (Huh. Weird how it felt bad to learn that someone you'd befriended and trusted was probably using and manipulating you, Hughie.)
Diego	Yeah, it was probably best that hadn't occurred to Diego. He was more focused on starting the car and getting the hell out of there. "How the hell were you supposed to know your boss was a head-popper with ties to Vought?" Diego asked.
Hughie	"I should have seen it," Hughie insisted, putting his laptop away in obvious despair. "Like, she's my friend. I know her daughter. She surprised me in the office on my birthday." Maybe he had kind of had a crush. She kept cutely stealing his bagels!
Diego	"Yeah, she's also a politician," Diego pointed out. "AKA a professional liar." Wait, why did he care if Hughie felt bad? It was stupid to trust her.
Hughie	"Technically I am, too," Hughie pointed out, a little bit of good humor returning. "But I gotta get better at that part if I ever go back to the office." Which he was understandably kind of up in the air about, at this point.
Diego	"Uh, yeah, you need to work on that." You were a terrible liar, dude. "Cast should keep you out long enough to figure out what to do, right?" Diego wasn't even going to bring up if Hughie even considered just getting a fake cast rather than have someone actually break his arm.
Hughie	"Yeah, I keep getting texts about stuff I could still do with a broken arm," Hughie replied, frowning. "I've got a couple days, at least. We'll figure it out." And hopefully without anyone's head getting exploded. Or other body parts, since Hughie had seen that was on the table, apparently.
Diego	"Okay. I'll drop you off, and update Annie when I get back to the Tower," Diego said. "...maybe after Homelander's birthday thing, actually." Things had already looked pretty tense on stage.

[NFI, NFB, OOC is A-OK. Taken from The Boys 3x02 'The Only Man in the Sky' and preplayed with the lovely defenderofdesmoines]