MM's Apartment | Friday Morning

[knife_bender]

It had been a long night. It had been a long couple days. He was almost jealous MM got to have a long, drug-induced nap, because it felt like he hadn't slept in a week.

"How's your head, man?" Diego asked, handing MM a cup of coffee.

MM	"Like the worst hangover of my life and I didn't even get a face tattoo out of it," MM answered, gratefully taking the coffee with ginger, careful movements. "Butcher didn't fuck around. I'm real glad I thought to call y'all."
Annie	Well, especially considering how they'd gotten him out of there. If the image of Butcher gently laying MM down to the ground had been sort of out-of-context hilarious, it didn't have anything on how Annie had looked carrying him back to their car. "Me too," Annie understated, sipping her own coffee as she examined one of the...several cannisters of halothane that MM had in his apartment. Normal, sure. As were the guns. At least they were used to this from last year? "I can't believe them." She sort of could a little more, now in the light of day, but that belief came at the price of thinking very, very little of both Butcher and Hughie. And she had not started from a great place with either of them, honestly.
Diego	"I guess this is what whatever it takes looks like," Diego said, sitting down. "Not a fan."
MM	"Nope," MM commented, popping the P for emphasis as he set his coffee aside in favor of reaching to check his guns (again.) "We gotta get out ahead of them. Countess wasn't strong enough to fuck Soldier Boy over on her own. She had help. He's going after the rest of the team." He gestured to a small photograph on the table, featuring Payback in all their 80s glory. "Those shady-ass TNT Twins got an address in Vermont. We can start there."
Annie	Annie watched MM handling his guns before shooting a slightly concerned look over to Diego. "I think Soldier Boy is bulletproof," she offered carefully. And everyone remembered how well shooting Stormfront had gone, right? That was what had gotten all of you guys thrown with lightning.
Diego	"Explosion-proof, too," Diego noted. "Didn't even seem to slow him down."
MM	"This ain't for Soldier Boy," MM commented, glancing up at them. Lines had been crossed yesterday. There wasn't a whole lot of coming back from your closest comrade drugging you to prevent interference.
Annie	"MM." Okay, it was one thing to lightly fantasize about repeatedly punching Hughie -- something Annie had done a lot of since yesterday -- and another entirely to be preparing to kill him and Butcher. "Look, I'm pissed, too, but we have to keep our heads on." The whole reason they were here was because no one could stomach straight-up murder.
Diego	"It's not like it's gonna hurt them if they're still pumping themselves full of Compound V," Diego pointed out. "Would slow them down though."
MM	MM gave Diego a little nod of agreement. "And their V wears off, eventually." He gave Diego a little appraising look before addressing Annie directly, gentle but firm. "You don't get it, Annie. When white folks get mad, y'all motherfuckers go berserk, but I gotta turn the other cheek? Soldier Boy killed my family and Butcher knows it." That was new information! Probably explained a whole lot about why MM wasn't really interested in non-lethal plans, and why he was acting -- you know. A little sketch, perhaps. He shook his head, setting the gun down. "Fuck the high road, fuck Butcher, and fuck Hughie."
Annie	Annie stayed quiet for a moment, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of her cheek. The fact that this was personal for MM on multiple levels made her want to insist that he was compromised and too close to this. But then -- they were all too close to this, weren't they? That was why they were in it at all. She and Diego were here in this living room because for better or worse, they were both deeply, personally intwined in this mess at this point. "I'm so sorry," she finally said, clearly truly meaning it. That also explained why he'd been drugged, probably. "We have to stop them all, you're right. We're past negotiating." Though she still didn't especially like the idea of just killing Butcher or Hughie unprovoked. They were no better than Soldier Boy or Homelander if they did that.
Diego	"Okay, so, Soldier Boy is gonna be after these two weirdos, right?" Diego asked, pointing at the TNT twins. "I say we go to Vermont, take out--incapacitate--Butcher and Hughie, and then maybe we can work with the weirdos to take down Soldier Boy?" "You two could get Butcher," Diego said. "I could take Hughie on my own. He doesn't know everything about me so he'll underestimate me."
MM	MM looked very gratified to have someone already working ahead on a plan, thank you, Diego. "Butcher's got eyes like Homelander's," MM shared, nodding along. "Annie, you've probably got a shot but he's right -- you're gonna need backup." Look at this guy, just openly acknowledging that one-man bands generally did not work against the toughest Supes out there. "But I dunno about Hughie," he added to Diego, clearly hating having to acknowledge this. "He's slippery with this teleporting shit, man. I know you're a good fighter, but all it's gonna take is for that motherfucker to blink and he'll be twenty feet away again." And while Diego had been very impressive and had generated some questions that MM had just left unasked last year at Sage Grove, even going so far as to save MM himself from a giant prehensile dick with a thrown knife, he didn't know how that was gonna measure up against a teleporter who could just nakedly surprise you at any turn.
Annie	Meanwhile, Annie thought that sounded kind of honestly perfect for Diego's particular set of skills. Trajectory manipulation worked even with targets in motion -- maybe it didn't matter whether the target also intermittently disappeared. "Babe," she said, looking over to Diego with a tiny smile. "I think it's time to show MM what you can do." A stark contrast to this time last year, when she'd insisted up and down and sideways that she was dating a man who was a great fighter but that was all, only that, don't even look at him.
Diego	Not to mention the whole Five aspect of it all. "Here," Diego said, pulling a knife and tossing it to MM. "Throw this at my face." Normal.
MM	At least Five had the decency to keep his kneesocks and shorts on when he teleported. MM caught the knife, giving Diego a very skeptical look before turning to Annie and giving her one, too, and just receiving a cryptic little smile in return. If you all got blood on his couch, so help him. He flicked his wrist to throw the knife overhand at Diego's face as instructed, though he couldn't bring himself to throw it especially hard, just in case.
Diego	Diego held out one of his hands, stopping the blade in mid-air before it could hit him. He allowed it to twirl in the air a couple times before changing the trajectory to catch it in his other hand. "My whole family has powers. Let's say I have a lot of experience with little shits that can teleport."
MM	MM watched this display with a look of total amazement -- if nothing else, he simply had never seen powers like Diego's before. "How the fuck has Vought not tapped you yet?" he asked softly, clearly impressed. "'Specially if it's your whole family?" God. Imagine Vought getting ahold of Allison.
Annie	"Vought doesn't know," Annie told him, absolutely beaming with pride at Diego -- despite her exhaustion and the emotional turmoil of the last few days, she would always find that impressive. (And pretty hot.) "And I meant some of what I said last year -- he really isn't bulletproof. It's different. Diego doesn't get his powers from V." She held up a hand, cutting off any further questions there. "Different universe. Don't worry about it." (Spoiler: MM was gonna worry about that a lot, once they were done worrying about all of this current shit.)
Diego	"Best not to think about it too hard," Diego agreed. "I can stop bullets though. So not totally helpless there." Just FYI in case MM decided to let bullets fly.
MM	"...so you can get after Hughie, then," MM decided, belatedly agreeing with that idea now that he knew exactly what sort of things Hughie did not know about Diego. "Jesus. Okay." Not thinking about other universes. Not thinking about how an alien or whatever (?) from another universe was sitting in his living room, drinking his coffee. Nope. Not thinking about any of that at all. "Still not sure we're enough to stop Soldier Boy," he admitted. But Diego did really help their odds.
Annie	"Well." Annie blew out a breath. "Kimiko is in the hospital. She lost her powers. You said Frenchie isn't answering. Alex is dead, and Maeve...." She trailed off, unwilling to give voice to what she thought had happened to Maeve. "We're all we've got," she said, shrugging a shoulder. "It's up to us."
Diego	Diego nodded in agreement. "Might as well give it a shot." If Soldier Boy didn't kill them then it'd be Homelander. Diego would rather not give Homelander the satisfaction.
Annie	Before anyone could contribute any further doubts or confirmations that this was the only plan they actually had, Annie's phone started ringing. "Shit," she murmured when she saw who it was, before clearing her throat to answer in a much more official tone. "This is Starlight. Yeah, of course, Ashley. I'll be right there." And apparently content to hang up on the CEO without a goodbye (though to be fair -- Ashley probably had hung up first), Annie turned to Diego and MM. "I gotta go up to the tower for a little bit." Great timing, she knew.
MM	"Now?" MM asked incredulously, gesturing to the -- again -- many, many, many cannisters of halothane and the many handguns on his coffee table.
Diego	"She has to go. Homelander has been up our asses." Honestly, the only reason he didn't notice they were gone now was probably because of the mess Soldier Boy had made. "He'll get suspicious if she doesn't show."
Annie	"They'll know something's up," Annie agreed, smiling softly at being backed up as she pulled her sunglasses out of her bag. "I think...you should probably stay? I'm only going to be an hour." And right now, Homelander didn't know where Diego actually was. Putting him back on Vought's camera feeds sounded like a terrible idea now that they had an out. Plus, frankly, she was kind of worried about MM and didn't want to leave him alone. She didn't know the guy well, but he was being kind of -- more intense than usual. (Probably for very good reason, but still.)
Diego	"I'll stay here," he said with a nod. Diego would rather not go back to the tower, and he also gathered that MM was going through...something. "Be careful."

[This is taken from The Boys 3x06 'Herogasm' and despite the name is safe for work. Preplayed with defenderofdesmoines and can be open for texts/calls if you'd like]