People could say whatever they wanted, but "indecent exposure caught on camera" was the least outside-the-comfort-zone thing for a PR person that Pippa had had to deal with in the past year. Honestly, it was kind of refreshing.

Not the guy, obviously. She had only seen Hugh in passing, but she already had a feeling she was not going to enjoy working on him. Er, with him. Somehow, he managed to break the Internet by running around buck naked, fighting some invisible force. The video was everywhere despite community standards, and the memes and gifs were, honestly, quite fascinating. Unfortunately, Pippa had to deal with the fallout of the "naked crazy guy" being one of their agents.

Pippa sat in her office, dressed smartly as usual, and waited for the agent to show up in response to her summons. She felt like a principal with a kid being sent to her office. She was not even sure yet how they could best handle the situation, given that she had no earthly idea why he was running around naked in the first place. It wasn't a nervous breakdown, or SUPER doctors would not have cleared him. But everything else was still on the table.

She just hoped he'd be fully dressed when he showed up.

Now it would be folly to say that Hugh was a perfect agent. He wasn’t. He knew that. But it wasn’t the fact that he was perfect, it was the fact that he got results. Sure, sometimes it was a little unorthodox, but in his time working for S.U.P.E.R. in the AVverse, he had earned a reputation for being one of the more costly assets, but a reliable one nonetheless. That being said, trips to H.R. or P.R. were not uncommon for the Louisana-born soldier; back home.

In this universe? Where he was now stuck? This was the first time he had incurred a call from P.R. But that was fine. He hadn’t rocked the boat too hard so he doubted there was anything for him to have to explain. Probably just another brand check-in with staff to see what the internal operations thought of their image in this universe.

Which was fine with Hugh Manning. He was happy for any excuse to chat up the short and busty P.R. rep, Pippa Swan. They had only met in passing a handful of times but rarely did their paths cross (probably Sabine’s doing as she was the jealous type).

Strolling through the S.U.P.E.R. offices, Hugh sauntered with all the confidence of a gamecock. Dressed in dark gray jeans, a white shirt, and a leather jacket, he wore his badge on a silver chain around his neck, each step of his heavy boots making it bounce against his chest. Looking through the metallic, mirrored glasses, Hugh shot a grin and a smile to all those who passed him (at least the pretty and handsome ones).

It didn’t take him long to find the office of one Pippa Swan. Without knocking (he was expected, remember), Hugh opened the door and stepped inside with a brilliant smile adorning his bearded face.

”Good morning, cher!” he greeted in his thick, cajun accent. ”How is da sweetest und most buxom beauty ever to grace da halls S.U.P.E.R. doing dis day?”

The door banged open and in walked Agent Manning, with enough swagger that it woud have mareited its own theme song. Pippa looked up. He was fully dressed. Solid start.

>>”Good morning, cher! How is da sweetest und most buxom beauty ever to grace da halls S.U.P.E.R. doing dis day?”

The solid start liquefied.

"Oh good, I wanted to talk to you about inappropriate work behavior anyway" she deadpanned, motioning with one gloved hand him to take a seat. Pippa had no illusions, she knew that her breasts probably had more fame in the building that herself, but most people have already learned not to point that out. Who said buxom anyway?

"Before we get to the whole naked video thing, is there any other related issue I will have to deal with?"

Plop. Hugh planted himself in the only chair in the offer, long legs raised to hang over the side of the arm while he pulled off his sunglasses. He smirked, chewing on one of the temples, as he watched the blonde bombshell give him the most frustrated look. That didn’t take long at all. Normally these conversations were all blushes and charm but Pippa was clearly a no-nonsense type and went straight to business.

Shame. He would like a little more back and forth.

His face grew a more serious look as he nodded his head. ”Finally! I’m glad to hear dat,” he said with a firm nod. ”Get back some control in dis place.”

However the conversation eventually turned to the subject that he A.) wasn’t anticipating, and B.) wasn’t exactly surprised at either. He sighed with slight frustrated as he turned his eyes away from the busty beauty and turned his mirror glasses around in his hands. Of course they were going to bring up the videos again.

”None dat I can think of, cher.”

Sure there was that bit of inappropriate conduct in the copy room the other day, but he certainly wasn’t going to incriminate himself further. Finally he placed the sunglasses on the edge of his nose, folded his hands on his flat stomach, and peered at the P.R. representative from over the rim of his glasses.

”Lissen I've already explained what happened in my report.” He said this with practiced skill, clearly having had explained this story multiple times already. ”I had wild crazy sex all night with a stripper. I didn't know she was seeing anyone. Da mutant came home und wouldn't lissen to reason. I defended myself und somewhere along da way I lost my underwear. Really not dat much else to say.” He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly and flashed Swan another smile. ”Not my fault she didn’t appear on camera.”

Okay, so Agent Manning was the human equivalent of light beer surfing on a fast food sign. Charming. Pippa suspected he had a lot more where the videos came from, and she preferred to deal with all the crap in one pile (gardening experience). But if he was not forthcoming, she would have to work with what she knew.

>>”Lissen I've already explained what happened in my report. I had wild crazy sex all night with a stripper. I didn't know she was seeing anyone. Da mutant came home und wouldn't lissen to reason. I defended myself und somewhere along da way I lost my underwear. Really not dat much else to say. Not my fault she didn’t appear on camera.”

"Alright, I see we have a misunderstanding here" Pippa observed, folding her hands on top of the desk "I'm not Legal. Legal's down the hall. I'm Public Relations. I'm not concerned with whether your actions were justified. My job deals with how things look. And let me tell you, what I have seen in those videos so far, it looks very, very bad." People would have contested that statement on a technicality... but again, she was not Legal.

Pippa considered the grin and the glasses for a long moment.

"I don't know if you realize this, so I'll spell it out: 'I was fighting a mutant vampire stripper naked in the streets' is not an excuse that SUPER wants to have on a front page."

He continued to watch Pippa as she tutted about. He had explained everything in his report and made it quite clear that it wasn’t his fault. Sometimes these kinds of things just happen and there is little you can do. So long as he wasn’t running around with his schlong out for just everyone to see on the norm, then he didn’t know what the problem was, or why Public Relations needed to be involved.

But, even though his musings, got the jist of what she was saying. Videos made it to the internet that made the organization look back. The unfortunate truth was that he did look a little like a crazy person, fighting the open air because the vampire mutant didn’t show up on recording devices. Still, he wasn’t going to let that get him down. He waited for her to finish before he spoke up.

”First of all,” he said with a deep sigh. ”I think you're over exaggerating. It's not like I was out for a brisk stroll, helicoptering to everyone for shits und giggles. I was attacked und I did what I had to do to subdue an active threat”

Maybe there was a bit of the old S.U.P.E.R. training still circling in his actions. He came from a world where the organization had a much more active and preventative presence. To see a team of S.U.P.E.R. agents tracking a mutant out in the light of day was actually lauded because they were keeping people safe. Sadly it seemed that this revised edition of his company went a little heavy on the touchy-feely aspect that he found exhausting.

Hugh then tilted his head back and looked at her even more closely. A fox-like grin stretched his lips. ”Und second, you certainly looka legal to me,” he clicked his tongue and winked before he turned back to checking his nails.

>>”First of all, I think you're over exaggerating. It's not like I was out for a brisk stroll, helicoptering to everyone for shits und giggles. I was attacked und I did what I had to do to subdue an active threat”

Pippa winced at the mental image. Sure, it had been a fight, and they knew for a fact that he had been fighting a real mutant, and not some imaginary threat conjured up by a mental breakdown. Eye witnesses had confirmed that, but that did not stop them from also uploading the videos. Because obviously.

>>”Und second, you certainly looka legal to me,”

"Aalright" Pippa sighed "I'll just open you a tab at HR and deal with that later." she took some notes on a note pad before she looked up again. "Let me try another take: you are a SUPER agent. And at this point, most of the city would recognize you from a mile away with a bag on your head. Now, SUPER is not a clandestine organization anymore, which means, they need their recognizable faces to be trusted by the public. Do you have a sense of what you will have to deal with next time you go in the field?"

Now, there were plenty of reasons for Hugh Manning to be currently distracted -- and they all had to do with the lovely P.R. representative attempting to chew him out. The first and most obvious of them being the twin headlights she bore. They were hard to ignore. But Hugh preferred a subtlier approach -- namely her voice. Her voice was lovely, soft, a little high, but it was that which acted upon the soldier’s imagination the most powerfully.

What did her voice sound like in the throes of passion? A couple of different scenarios raced through his head, attempting to pull out the sounds from her current speech patterns and piecing them together into shouts of ecstasy. Ah but it was no match for the real thing. No matter how much he imagined.

Guess he would have to eventually work on hearing the real thing. When she wasn’t snapping at him in her adorable voice, that is.

She finally finished chastising him, to which he responded, quite casually, by pulling a pack of gum from his jacket pocket, unwrapping a piece and popping it into his mouth. As he chewed for a few moments, finger held up in a sign to her to give him a second, he finally replied when the gum had thoroughly lost it’s integrity.

”Da same thing dat’s been happening,” he said with a shrug. ”I get a couple high fives, a few giggles, some phone numbers thrust into my pockets,” he winked as he pulled such a scrap of paper with such a number on it, ”Den I get completely forgotten once da next celebrity debutant drops her guard und an upskirt picture plastered all over da news.” He clapped his hands once, offering her a smile. ”Case closed und nothing to worry about. It will blow over, Swan. Dese things always do.”

Hugh was not fazed by anything she was saying. At all. In fact, it seemed like he was going out if his way to be annoying. Pippa was not sure whether he had a particular hate for PR people, or if this was a very misguided attempt at flirting.

>>”Da same thing dat’s been happening. I get a couple high fives, a few giggles, some phone numbers thrust into my pockets,”

People were utter garbage.

>>”Den I get completely forgotten once da next celebrity debutant drops her guard und an upskirt picture plastered all over da news. Case closed und nothing to worry about. It will blow over, Swan. Dese things always do.”

"They don't, actually." she pointed it out, looking at him over her desk "They blow over because we..." don't say blow "... make them blow over. And you are not a celebrity, you are a meme at best. And you are also a SUPER agent, and your job is not to collect phone numbers on the street." she sighed "But that's not my department either, Sang can talk to you about that if she wants. My job is to salvage the alrady very bad image SUPER agents have in the eyes of the public." God help me.

Oh the twinkle in his eye when Pippa uttered that simple, beautiful, thought-provoking word - blow. He couldn’t help it. He watched her as she spoke and the second she uttered it a devilish smile pulled tightly at the corners of his lips. Pippa was a serious one but so much fun to bat around. He had yet to really make a play for her. She was his type, physically anyways, but he made it a rule to not shit where he ate, as crude as that sounded.

Still the rise and fall of her chest, the delicious curve of her outfit, and the frustrated look in her eyes was enough to cause him to consider the possibilities.

He shrugged his shoulders at her annoyance however. ”Dese days, a meme is comparable to a celebrity. I take what I can get.” He grinned broadly as he sat up a little straighter.

It was all fun and games but at the end of the day, Hugh was a good agent and an excellent soldier. Back in his original universe he earned his ranking with sweat, blood, and tears. Now it seemed he was going to have to re-earn some that trust that kept him on a long leash.

”Okay. Since it would be crying shame to keep your gorgeous face etched in frustration da rest of your born days,” he took a breath and opened his hands towards her. ”What would you like me to do to ease your suffering, cher? Business wise, dat is.” He smirked and wagged his finger at her. ”No unprofessional suggestions now, Ms. Swan.”