MHA #2 | Saturday Evening

[knife_bender]

Diego's usual Tuesday evenings were nothing glamorous. He was almost always alone (Five puttering around the guest room didn't count), and he fell into a sort of routine on the days Annie was in New York working. He'd work out, come home, shower, make a sandwich for dinner and then settle down with a book or TV until he felt like going to sleep.

Tonight was no different. He was currently post-sandwich, and well on his way to picking a channel to veg out to.

[3 for 3 today. For the girl!]

Comments

[defenderofdesmoines]

Most of the time, when Annie had a day off, it was something she'd negotiated and begged for and possibly earned by doing something unpleasant, like The Today Show.

But sometimes, logistics just worked out in her favor, too, and tomorrow was some kind of huge corporate meeting about the summer programming -- Dawn of the Seven was in the last stages of post-production, and there were rumors of a new reality show this summer maybe being the answer to filling out the empty spots on the team. Which, knowing Annie's life, was probably going to eventually be something she had to deal with. But for now, it meant she was out of work by early Tuesday evening, with enough time to wipe the glitter off her face and change into jeans before hopping a portal.

"Surprise," she called softly, ducking in the door with a bright smile. Because it really was -- she'd considered texting ahead, but she was actually early enough to be a real surprise for once. Opportunities like that didn't present themselves often.

[knife_bender]

Diego sat up on the couch, breaking out into a smile when he saw Annie. "Hey! What are you doing here?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"They don't need me tomorrow," Annie told him, widening her eyes like she couldn't believe such a thing, either. "Probably going to bite me in the ass 'cause they're planning my summer in my absence, but whatever."

This explanation was delivered while Annie was tossing her purse and shoes off and...somewhere (she'd tidy things later, probably), leaving her ample time to go over and take care of the important things: joining Diego on the couch with a kiss hello.

[knife_bender]

"Lucky for me," he said, leaning in to kiss her. "I missed you."

He always missed her so this was not shocking.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I missed you." Good thing everyone was sitting down for that one. Especially considering she'd just taken a couple of interdimensional portals to get here, which sure would be a choice if she hadn't missed him.

"I'm not interrupting anything?" she checked, immediately snuggling close on the couch. "I don't want to like, throw off your whole Tuesday night with my presence."

[knife_bender]

"What is it do you think I do with my Tuesday nights?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I mean, I've imagined tons of stuff," Annie replied with a returned lift of her own brow, reaching to play with one of his hands just because she was here and she could. "Maybe you have a super intense self-care ritual. Maybe I'm stomping all over your sacred privacy."

She didn't really believe that, but that did actually sound a lot like how Annie spent her own Sunday evenings every week after arriving at the tower.

[knife_bender]

"I grew up with six siblings, I never expect privacy," he said, curling his fingers around hers. "Only thing you are interrupting is TV watching."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I mean, you still deserve privacy," Annie assured him, leaning up to press a kiss to his cheek and giving his hand an affirming little squeeze. "Even if you didn't get nearly enough of it growing up. I still can't even imagine what that house was like when you guys were all teenagers."

Like, the years between Five's disappearance and Ben's death were probably rough for about a dozen reasons, not the least of which being rampant hormones and teenage dispositions.

[knife_bender]

"It was a lot of fighting and competition," he said. "And most of it was sanctioned by Dad."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I mean, that much I can relate to," Annie replied, since her teenage years had also been very competitive, even if that competition wasn't within her own family. "And apparently no privacy. At least you had your own room. Seven kids -- most families would have doubled you up with at least one of your brothers."

At least they'd had all the room of a city block to spread out away from each other when they'd needed to.

[knife_bender]

"Dude, the mansion had forty-three bedrooms." Weird number. Almost like whoever built it was planning on housing forty-two kids plus himself. "I could have had six bedrooms to myself."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Well, now I'm disappointed you didn't commandeer extra rooms," Annie sighed, stretching contentedly and nestling her head against his shoulder. "You could sleep in a different room every day of the week. Keep a whole extra bedroom just full of like, sharp throwable things. Knives and throwing stars or whatever."

[knife_bender]

"Well we had an armory." Of course they did.

"Are you hungry?" Diego asked. "I had a pretty good PB&J for dinner. Could make another one."

[defenderofdesmoines]

As tempting as it was to offer further commentary on the armory -- of course they'd had an armory -- Annie was powerless in the face of cute offers of food.

"I had a smoothie while I was waiting for my portal," she admitted, her expression turning, like, stupidly fond considering it was a cute offer of food that a small child could also make, "but look how sweet you are to even think of making me one." She nodded to the TV, shifting to get even more comfortable. "What're we watching?"

Part of her kind of just wanted to sit on the couch and stare at him and see what he did while she was gone, because she was a weirdo who was pretty much obsessed with her boyfriend, but she also felt like she was getting a pretty good picture (and it wasn't all that different from what she'd generally pictured.)

[knife_bender]

"Haven't actually decided yet," he said. "I was thinking either the murder channel or see if there's any boxing going on."

So murder or near-murder. Such diverse picks.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Do you think TV boxing is legit?" she wondered, scooting to drape her legs across his lap, genuinely curious about his take on this. "Or is it rigged like TV wrestling?"

For the record: Annie did not really enjoy how wrestling in this universe (and universes beyond her own, generally) seemed to really share a lot of DNA with how supes were promoted in her world. Like -- capes, intro music, posturing on microphones....

[knife_bender]

"The hits look real enough. Maybe the outcome is rigged though." What with the seedy betting world. "I used to box for money, after I left home. I never had some mafia guy offering money for me to take a fall though."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Did you win a lot of matches?" Annie asked, with all the confidence of knowing he probably had. "I think it's kind of cool that you did something that didn't directly use your powers like that."

He could have probably made a killing betting on his own skill at any aim-based game.

[knife_bender]

"I won a decent amount." Look at him, being so humble. "I guess I could have gotten money throwing darts or whatever but it wouldn't be much of a challenge. And not as fun as punching people."

Apparently getting a normal job had been out of the question after he flunked out of the police academy.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I think a lot of people would have opted for the easier side hustle instead of wanting to be challenged," Annie replied affectionately, trailing her fingertips along his arm. Off the top of her head, she could think of at least three super-abled people she knew who used their powers to make money in a non-Vought-sanctioned fashion. "Do you ever miss it?"

[knife_bender]

"Boxing? Not really," he said. "Punching people? Kind of. I do miss the vigilante thing sometimes. Unfortunately I don't have the same cop connections in Baltimore than I did in the old city."

So if someone caught him punching strangers in the street on a regular basis they'd probably put him in jail rather than shaking their head at him and letting him go.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie frowned thoughtfully. "It's been awhile since we've gone out and fought criminals together," she agreed, tapping her finger on his arm as she thought. "I mean. I have cop connections in New York. But I'd have to find a cop who wouldn't tell the paparazzi. Or, like -- we could go do the vigilante thing in any city in my universe and if we get busted, I could probably smooth it out after the fact."

Which -- that could certainly be a way to for Starlight's boyfriend to finally meet the public, if a plan like that went south.

[knife_bender]

Diego smiled. "Am I legally allowed to fight crime in a city without Vought's permission?"

Not that he cared if it was legal or not, he was genuinely curious.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I mean, technically, no. But realistically -- I'm pretty sure I can do anything I want, and you can by association," Annie decided, shrugging a shoulder. "Shy of, like, killing an innocent civilian, because someone might catch us on camera and that's really bad optics. Just ask Homelander."

Homelander, who had been strangely subdued and sort of absent from the tower -- and most press briefings -- in the months after that video had leaked.