To be honest and fair, the near constant dialysis wasn't horrible. Hell, after the time I spent under Vought's thumb, it was pretty much my new norm. What was trying was the need for secrecy to the point that I couldn't do the work I'd done before. Billy's work participation was being curtailed as well, since he'd drove off WITH me.
While Billy and I worked from 'home' so to speak, Mallory assured us that Congresswoman Neuman and MM were managing to keep the Office running smoothly with quiet virtual assistance from us and Frenchie and Kimiko doing the fieldwork as necessary.
The first 'breakthrough' came a few days into the first round of testing that ran alongside the dialysis. Dr. Alison Denton, she reminded me as she came to tell me her findings, was pleased to inform both me and a tense Billy Butcher that in order to separate the tiny vial that she'd shown us before of what she was terming "Anti-V", it would take around ten hours of non-stop cleansing.
The next test would be to see how long it took for Homelander's unwelcome additions to my genetic makeup to multiply and restart the process. Since supe natures, and their metabolic structures ran somewhat differently than your average human, this would take a bit of time to decipher, especially since Vought had been willing to have SOME files freely to our office, but others were deemed unnecessary to our particular focus. While we could know WHERE the genetic offshoot went, we couldn't know the full makeup of that material. It was two steps forward, five steps back, at least where Vought's forthrightness was concerned.
Perhaps it was the holding pattern that was the hardest for me to deal with. With work trickling in, or at least the part that we could participate in, but I started to get more paranoid. More frightened, more fearful.
Vought alone was scary. They'd been willing to fake helping me to let me malinger and die at a time they felt most convenient. They were planning on using my death for whatever purpose that they felt most suited their needs. To them, I wasn't a person that had worth, but a pawn in a game of their choosing.
Then there was this vendetta that Homelander seemed to have against Billy that spilled over onto me, which I only helped fuel with my need to poke him with my own cleverness. Overpowered, to the point of invulnerability, he had even managed to make me doubt Billy's love for me. But it was his other strengths, aside from his psychological games that had me pacing more and more often to Billy's chagrin.
"Not only is he strong physically," I'd rant, irritated at the very knowledge of how strong he was, "but he can SMELL things from a distance that would have bloodhounds envious. His invulnerability," I groaned, thinking about how impervious the jackass was to damage to his very being. "Did Vought honestly need to make a person so fucking indestructable? And before you say it," I held up a hand as Billy opened his mouth, "I highly doubt that you can shove a load of C-4 up his ass, no matter how much I'd enjoy seeing you try." I'd sigh, gaining speed in my rant. "He's fast, even if A-Train is the speedster of the Seven, he is incredibly fast. Then there's the heat vision, the fact that he has X-ray vision ON TOP of the heat vision is just fucking WONDERFUL. I mean, it's how he PEEPED on us." I'd look at Billy's smirk, proud at his prowess and shake my head. "Yes, I know, I'm quite impressed by the fact that he survived the shame of your abilities too." He'd pull me onto his lap, careful of my ever present hoses and leads. "He can see us, hear us, smell us." My fingers would trace Billy's face, memorizing every inch of him, fearful that something would happen that would take him from me. "What if he finds us and-"
"He won't." Billy would lean his face forward, letting our foreheads touch, knowing that this one simple gesture would calm me down faster than most. "The caped, overpowered, twat won't find us. We told you, Ronnie, the building is zinc reinforced. Walls, roof, ceilings, there's been added barriers." He'd kiss me gently, letting me calm down further before adding to the list of protections. "Frenchie, he put together a little surprise, should the red, white, and blue cunt get too close, one he won't soon forget." Sonic boom surprises that he'd updated past what they'd attempted the first time.
Mallory sensed that I needed a distraction. Something to keep my mind busy. Something to help me with Homelander, with the issues that I had about his strengths and seemingly lack of weaknesses. That's how I ended up with the videos. It went back to the issues with Vought's forthrightness. How they were willing to share SOMETHINGS, but not all. So Mallory dug, and dug, and she called in favors that I knew I was better off staying ignorant about.
As a psychologist, one of the first things I feel is important in case is to start at the beginning. And for this particular issue, the beginning was Homelander's childhood. Billy and I were situated around a laptop that was encoded with enough tech that I felt pretty certain that no one could trace it, me with a notepad and him with those eagle eyes of his. As the videos played, one after another, I felt the urge to scream build.
Homelander's childhood, if that's what Vought wanted to call this horrific science experiment was nothing short of terrible. A tow headed infant that went from excited toddler to bored, disdain filled in a matter of months would be enough to make any rational human scream. I watched as he accidentally hugged his caretaker, a maternal scientist, too hard and literally destroyed her spine, killing her. I watched as the look of shock left him, and acceptance replaced it. How he was conditioned through the stock image viewings that would be associated with his 'brand' set against the darker set.
Flash forward and I felt Billy tense up, as we watched videos that both of us were more exposed to, the holiday party at Vought that he'd attended with Becca. I studied her, tall and dark haired, so different from me. How Homelander charmed husband AND wife and how that meeting led to AFTER. The office, three hours of nothing, her leaving looking the worse for it, shoes in hand, eyes haunted.
"She never told me-" Billy's voice broke the silence, since most of the videos had no sound, or at least we chose not to listen to the audio. "Not until-" I didn't say a word. This was his trauma, not mine. His pain, his need to move past. "Not a word. No letter. Just gone." I knew this, all of it, but he hadn't really told me about it. Not even when he declared his love for me. "She told me it was cause I expected her to save me from myself, that I put her on a pedestal. And I did put her on one, cause that's what you do to the person you love, right?" I didn't answer, he didn't expect me to. "But save me? We were supposed to save each other. Me AND her. Tit for tat. I got a temper, and I fly off the handle." His eyes were on mine now, and I knew he was seeing me, just me. "Like when I had Dr. de Sade up against the fucking wall." His hand cupped my cheek. "Like when your entire fucking body was steaming. We save each other, Veronica. Me and you." I nodded, knowing that Becca would always hold a piece of Billy, but maybe, just maybe he was seeing her in a tiny bit of harsher light.
The next files were harder to watch, simply because they were all of the years that Becca was away from him raising Ryan. As I watched, Billy held my hand and I waited for his tension to rebuild, for his anger to build at seeing the woman he'd loved beyond reason live a life without him raising a child he hadn't known existed. It didn't, and it nearly kept me from my note taking. Almost.
I realized the vast differences between how Becca raised Ryan versus how Homelander spent his formative years. Not only did Ryan have a true maternal figure, he had a homelife. One where meal times, learning, playtime, and even affection was nurtured easily. Whereas Homelander's entire purpose from birth had been to be a poster child for Compound V and Vought, Ryan had been an accidental 'miracle' brought on by a horrific victimization. Without the genetic boost Ryan received from Homelander's DNA, he would have been a regular human child without powers. Boring and normal. And Becca had given up so much to give that to him.
Once the video died, after Homelander and Stormfront took Ryan from Becca, I sat back. I knew what happened next. Mallory had made sure that Billy and his team, including Ryan, had been debriefed. I had to read through them, so I knew how Becca had sought out Billy, asking him for his help. And how everything had rushed forward and how she'd fallen, in the end, and how Ryan was safe thanks to her insistence, and Billy's adoration.
I was processing, glancing at my notes, one in particular popping out at me brighter than any other that I'd made even if it wouldn't help us at all against Homelander, when he asked me if I'd found anything.
"Ryan's last name is Butcher." Quiet, my voice was always so hushed when I told him things like this. Things that I was unsure about his reaction to, not because I feared him, but because I never wanted to hurt him. "Becca left you behind, she walked away without a word or letter, she left so much unsaid, but when push came to shove she gave him your name."
"Ronnie-" I heard it, the pain I wanted so badly to keep from him. I swallowed my own down and sighed.
"I won't say I agree with what she did, or the path she took." I didn't. Even if I had tried to push Billy away, I had done it to his face, not behind his back. "I can't do that, but I can't deny that she loved you. She loved Ryan, Billy." I knew he was staring at me, even if my eyes were still locked on my notepad. "It's clear on the videos. No matter who Ryan's biological father is, he bears your last name because that's who she wanted him to be."
"Never wanted to be a dad," his voice was harsh sounding, and it forced my eyes up to see his pinched with a different pain. "Don't got the temperament for it." His fingers moved to touch the back of my hand. "When that doctor in the ER told me you were pregnant?" I nodded, feeling the same lurch I'd felt when he told me that day. "All I could think of was you and me, and if a kid was in the mix, then I'd figure it the fuck out. Cause I will fucking burn it all down before I lose you."
"You're in luck," I smiled, linking our fingers. "Cause I think baby making is out of our wheelhouse forever, Mr. Butcher. Guess we're just stuck with a lifetime of practice."
He was laughing as he leaned over to kiss me, proving to me that he understood my point about Becca, but reminding me that I was here, and she wasn't.
What had I learned from our video viewing? That we had our work cut out for us.