defenderofdesmoines | MCA #9 | Tuesday Afternoon

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MCA #9 | Tuesday Afternoon

So given that Annie was supposed to start imparting all of her pageant-related wisdom on Friday - or at least the performance stuff (she wasn't sure yet whether things like putting Vasoline on one's teeth, or the many uses of hairspray would be part of this) - she had started the arduous task of writing a syllabus and lesson plans. Not that she had the first idea of what that meant, but she'd gotten ahold of her roster and spread out on her coffee table with her laptop and a bunch of hand-written notes, and that seemed like a start? (She also had highlighters. Not sure what she was going to do with them, yet, but they seemed like they should be invited to this party.)

Of course, her roster had actually caught her attention when she'd looked it over, and that was distracting her from adding to her incredibly useful, competent (maybe a week on juggling?????) notes, because not only was this going to be more annoying than she thought, but now she also had more questions.

[for the fella omg]

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Diego had been sleeping at Annie's since Sunday to avoid any more run ins with his brother. He had left the apartment to hang out at work for a bit each day so he wasn't overstaying his welcome at her place, and when he came back today it was with coffee.

So he hoped that made up for the current situation just a little bit.

"You look busy," he said, handing her a cup.

The situation didn't need making up for (although her place was a lot smaller than his. Damn it, Five, way to limit them to the tiny apartment), but it wasn't like Annie was going to turn down adorable boyfriend coffee.

"Figured I should at least try to be a real teacher about this whole thing," she told him, gratefully accepting the cup with a smile.

Hence the highlighters, which she had mostly used to draw yellow stars at the top of the first page. Look, she wasn't, like, good at this.

She was still better at it than Diego would ever be!

"I still don't understand how they can just throw this job at you." But then again he didn't understand how he got his own job since he definitely was not qualified.

"Apparently there's a moose involved," Annie shared, because you know. "I dunno, Karolina said it was normal. I'm just glad I found out - imagine if Friday morning rolled around and those poor kids showed up for class and I still had no idea."

She'd feel so bad. At least for most of those poor kids, anyway.

"I mean, I didn't have the normal schooling experience," Diego said, sitting down beside her. "But wouldn't most kids be happy they didn't have class?"

"Depends on the class," Annie decided thoughtfully. "I'm hoping I can make this fun." What with the juggling and all.

"Also, speaking of your unusual schooling," she added, because hello, perfect segue, she was just going to take advantage of you, "guess who's in my class?"

Seriously, Diego, guess.

"Somebody who isn't Five?" he tried.

"That's true for almost all of the kids in my class," Annie sighed. "No, I totally have Five."

And also Nina so like Fridays might be kind of dangerous.

Diego winced. "Sorry. That's...not gonna be great."

Anyone else and you might be able to torture them via lesson plans but Five would just cross his arms and refuse to do anything. It was a very annoying trait.

Oh, no, it was going to be terrible. In a hilarious way, at least. But still terrible.

"Probably not," Annie agreed, "but I wanted to ask you something, anyway." She rifled through her papers until she found her roster, because she wanted to make sure she was reading it right. "Yeah, his name is listed as Number Five? Why would - doesn't he have a name like the rest of you?"

She was honestly really confused, though Annie was also hip enough to the Hargreeves' way of life by now to also be pretty sure the answer wasn't, 'oh, it's a clerical error,' or anything.

"He was the only one of us who didn't want to pick a new name," Diego said, before casually taking a sip of his coffee like that was a okay thing to say.

Yeah that statement - naturally - only confused Annie further.

"'Pick a new name'?" she echoed. "What?"

Diego didn't know why he thought he could avoid this conversation. Actually, he probably could have avoided it if Five hadn't come along. Thanks, brother!

"Diego's not my real name. Neither is Klaus' or Luther's, all of us," he said. "We're Number Two, Number Four, Number One. It wasn't until Mom was built that she helped us pick out normal names. Five didn't want one."

He couldn't actually think of a normal name that would have suited Five's...Fiveness.

Annie didn't really know what she had been expecting Diego to say, but it definitely wasn't that answer. The idea that his dad had actually numbered the kids instead of naming them - like, it was bad enough that he had ranked them at all, but the fact that it was in place of their names....

"Are you serious?" Okay, obviously he was serious, but Annie was legitimately pretty horrified. "Diego, oh my God." Like, she actually did not know what to say. It also didn't help that as much as sweet as his mom sounded, she was still a machine, so even that part was - off. "That's not okay. You know that, right?"

There, that was a start.

"I know." It might have taken him a couple years to figure it out but he figured it out sooner than, say, Luther.

He shrugged a shoulder. "Just another thrilling chapter of the Sir Reginald Hargreeves parenting book."

Annie was still shaking her head. "Aren't there social workers in your world?" she asked, getting more upset the more she thought about it. "How was this asshole just allowed to adopt and rampantly abuse seven kids?"

Okay, it was probably a good thing that she didn't know how to find his dad, because Annie would be leaving right now to potentially commit a straight-up murder. She scooted a little closer, reaching her hand out to Diego's arm. "I'm sorry, I just - God. I can't imagine what it was like growing up in that house."

"It wasn't fun." He was going to keep the part on how strict their schedules were to himself. Last thing she needed to hear was that their designated recreation time was from 12 to 12:30 on Saturdays.

However that was detailed in Vanya's book.

"And to answer your first question--he's a billionaire. Nobel Prize winner, created his own company," Diego said. "You can pretty much do what you want in that case."

"You shouldn't be able to, that is so fucked." Look at that, Annie was swearing outside of the bedroom. It really was bad. "Someone should have been looking out for you."

That was what really broke her heart. Like, it was great they'd eventually had Mom, and Pogo sounded wonderful, but they were still part of that house. Someone outside should have seen and helped those poor kids.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm down because this was really, really not about her or her feelings on this. "You guys deserved to be kids."

Edited 2021-01-05 15:15 (UTC)

Diego honestly didn't know what to do in the face of Annie's concern. He had just been so used to how things were, and the fact six other kids had been going through the same thing just made it easier to downplay.

"Yeah, well, we weren't adopted to be kids. We were adopted to save the world," he said, taking Annie's hand and twining their fingers together. "That actually didn't turn out so great either now that I'm thinking about it."

Annie huffed out a humorless little laugh. "And your dad is the kind of person that I became a hero to stop," she said quietly, squeezing his hand. Though, really, the abusive billionaires of the world were a lot harder to track down than, say, obvious bank robbers, but still. "That's too much responsibility for children. It doesn't matter that you all - almost all - have powers. You were still kids. No, screw that, you're people. That's what's so messed up. He didn't recognize you as individual people, let alone children."

It had taken her a minute to get there, but yeah, that was what was really getting to her about the numbering thing. It was one thing when she thought it was just a cruel nickname, but Diego's dad had taken away the most basic form of identity from children.

Ugh, now she really kind of felt bad for Five. For all of them, but Five was the one she was resentful about feeling bad for.

"Hey, it's okay," he said, lifting up her hand so he could kiss it. "It's over. Nobody's called me Number Two in a decade. I turned out okay."

He couldn't say the same for anyone else but he thought he was doing fine.

He was wrong, but that was what he thought.

Annie had some thoughts about that, too, but she was also a lot more upset for the boy Diego has been than the man he'd become, because for the most part she agreed. It just didn't make it any better that he'd had to turn out (somewhat) okay in spite of his childhood.

But again, this was very much not about Annie or her feelings, right now. "I know, I just - you can talk to me about this stuff, you know," she said quietly, curling closer and using the hand he'd kissed to lightly touch his jaw. "This is a lot to have dealt with, even if it's over now."

"I know," he said, leaning towards her touch. "I don't think about it often. It only comes up when I see my siblings again--which is probably why we've avoided each other for the last twelve years."

"Yeah, well, looks like Five's sticking around," she pointed out, nodding lightly to her class roster.

And you know what, while they were talking about this already, she was just going to go for it. "Were you ever going to tell me about Vanya's book?" It wasn't an accusation, but that seemed like another thing that was kind of a big deal.

"I didn't think it was anything worth talking about," he said, shrugging one shoulder. "It's not like it was a bestseller and the whole world knows everything about me. She's a shit writer, actually."

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