knife_bender | Vought Tower | Thursday Afternoon

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Vought Tower | Thursday Afternoon

What was supposed to be a twenty-four hour visit had somehow turned into a "I guess I'm staying here until the portals start working again" visit. Diego was happy to have the extra time with Annie, even if there was some obvious distance between them at the moment. If anything spending more time with her was the only way to figure out what the issue was.

The bad thing was that he had only packed for a twenty-four hour visit. After much grousing, where Diego tried to convince Annie he could just spend the rest of time in sheets or towels while his one outfit was being washed, he gave in and wore The Seven merchandise that she had managed to get for him.

He refused to go out in public wearing this stuff, but he was fine hanging around Annie's apartment wearing Queen Maeve merch. The colors suited him, at least.

[Open to the gf and calls/texts. NFB due to distance! And NWS]

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"Homelander said he's gonna look," Annie told him, wandering over to curl up next to him. (At least cuddling was still easy, even if anything that went beyond that made Annie feel like a weirdo who forgot how her body worked.) "Which, you know, actually means something. The guy's got X-ray vision."

"Yeah, I guess that helps," he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. "Gotta say, I wouldn't be too upset if he went missing for good."

"I mean, he's gross, but he's not the worst," Annie said reflexively, before realizing she might have to elaborate. "I hope he's all right."

Though if she remembered right, Translucent might be even tougher than the rest of them? His skin was made of, like, carbon or something. She saw him talking about it on Jimmy Fallon once.

"How is he not the worst?" Diego asked. Dude hung around the women's bathroom naked, that was disgusting.

"He's gross," Annie repeated, "but I think he's harmless, at least."

Unlike some other teammates she could name, and he was the actual worst -- but she also had enough experience beating the shit out of creepy, lurking dudes to know the difference just based on Translucent's behavior.

"Not that it's right," she added. "But honestly, it doesn't even surprise me that the invisible guy uses his powers to be a pervert."

Maybe it should surprise her more, but it had been a long couple of weeks, and Annie wasn't all that surprised by a lot of bad behavior, anymore.

Diego frowned, because that didn't sound like Annie at all. As much as he teased her about it, he liked that she was optimistic and wanted to see the best in people. Her just accepting someone being gross was new.

"It's not very The Seven-like though." He saw the movies, he knew what their branding was geared towards.

Annie took a moment to answer, burrowing a little into Diego's side and nestling her head against his shoulder. Having Diego here was like having a security blanket or a teddy bear, almost -- he was a familiar source of comfort in this weird, somewhat-painful place, but she still didn't know if she could actually bring herself tell him how bad it all was for her, here.

But Annie also felt selfish, taking comfort in him without actually telling him anything of substance?

But then, maybe she was making it all a bigger deal than it really was. "And it's not like anyone but me and Queen Maeve knows about it," she noted softly. "So he's still pretty Seven-like."

A pause, and then she added, even more quietly, "Or at least, his image is."

That answer didn't make Diego feel any better at all. There was something wrong, and she had to know that he knew it. Things were awkward between them, and he knew himself enough to know that he didn't have the patience to wait for her to open up to him.

He sighed, hoping he didn't start a fight with this, but it had been three days of constant tension and it was driving him out of his mind. "I don't--you can tell me to fuck off if you want, but I'm worried about you."

For all that Annie was fond of reminding Diego that this was a partnership and he was half of it, she hadn't really done a great job of acting like it, recently. You were supposed to lean on your partner for stuff like this, right? Like, sure, their relationship up until now had mostly been sexy fun and the occasional foray into reading someone's intrusive biography, but -- she wasn't being fair to him by keeping all of this to herself, and Annie knew it.

Maybe she could let him in a bit. Not -- she wasn't going to rule it out, but she was still having trouble coming up with the words to talk about what had happened with The Deep. (Especially since she blamed herself a bit, still, and maybe it was cowardly, but Annie wasn't ready to see whether Diego blamed her, too.)

So, not that.

She pulled back enough to look at him, hesitantly tracing her hand along his arm to take his hand. "I'm never, ever going to tell you to fuck off." Part of her was, even in the midst of the rest of it, all melty and warm at how well he knew her, and that he was worried. "But I know I've been acting super weird, and I'm sorry."

That was kind of a start, right?

Edited 2021-04-29 12:28 (UTC)

Her admitting it out loud did make him feel a little better at least. He didn't know what he would have done if she denied it. He knew Annie would never think he was stupid, but the last couple days and not seeing her while she was in town last week hit his confidence about that a little.

Being co-labeled as the dumb one in the family still haunted him a bit.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

Annie blew out a little breath, immediately starting to shake her head before she stopped herself.

Like, no, she did not want to talk about it. She wanted to pretend none of this had ever happened, and that everything was fine. And she already knew, from trying to talk about it with Rey, that if she ventured too far into the thing with The Deep she actually might start crying.

"Kind of," she said carefully. It was so weird, because normally she could tell him anything and he'd be receptive -- like, literally anything. There was no way Diego had wanted to see the BB-8 video that many times, you know? -- but this was...hard. "Um, it's just -- nothing has been like I thought it would be. In a bad way."

In a really, really bad way.

"I kind of got that feeling." Look, he had been sitting around here for three days and not once had heard about Annie doing anything heroic. Just...a lot of press and meetings. "What's going on?"

Annie thought about how to start this -- like, okay, avoiding the thing about that asshole, but she could talk about...the other stuff.

"I don't think Vought actually wants us to be heroes, or cares if we're not," she said hesitantly. "I think they just want us to...look like it. No one's -- no one in The Seven seems like a decent person. Maybe Homelander."

She just didn't know him well enough yet.

"Well, my elevator ride with Translucent kind of gave that away," he said. He looked down at his shirt. "What about Queen Maeve?"

"She," Annie said, reaching over to lightly run her fingers over the Queen Maeve emblem on his chest, "just drank most of a decanter of bourbon during that meeting, all by herself. I don't think I've ever seen her sober."

And she had basically shrugged when she'd walked in on the thing with --

Like, that was worse, to Annie. But she'd start with the drinking.

"Holy shit." Vought really must have kept a tight grip on everyone's images if Queen Maeve was hammered all the time and no one noticed. "So everyone is an asshole and Vought wants you to stand there and look pretty?"

That was compressing it all in one sentence, but he knew it must have been a huge blow to her.

"Yup."

Annie filled that one syllable with a lot of regret.

"Homelander's okay," she added. "He might be the real deal. And who knows what's up with Black Noir, but he wouldn't even shake my hand when I introduced myself."

Which was such a silly, little thing, but it had hurt her feelings, anyway.

"I'm sorry," he said, kissing the top of her head. "You're probably handling it a lot better than I would."

He would have picked a couple fights by now.

"I'm really not," she said with a humorless little laugh, shaking her head, though she did relax a little bit. "I think Queen Maeve might actually hate me."

Annie just hadn't learned that Queen Maeve sort of hated everyone.

She hesitated, knowing that while all of this might help explain her behavior, she actually wanted to let him in a little more than that.

Not all the way. She wasn't ready. But he deserved something that was more like the real, full explanation, and so she added, "Something really -- bad happened, last week. And Maeve was there for it, and I just...."

Diego held her a little closer to him. The fact that she hadn't elaborated on what the really bad thing was told him a lot. Mostly that she didn't want him asking her for specifics. Which was frustrating, but the fact she was opening up about it at all was enough.

"You've had a shitty couple of weeks," Diego said, feeling a little useless at the moment. What could he do other than commiserate with her, really? "I appreciate you telling me about it."

At least he now had some understanding of the weird mood now.

"I'm sorry I didn't say anything sooner," Annie told him, sighing a little. "I thought I was doing better with it than I actually am, I guess?"

That was the thing -- she could put on a brave, cheerful face for most people, and could find the bright side in most things enough to get through a day, but it turned out that actually being traumatized wasn't something that you could just smile your way out of. Pretending you were fine only went so far, it seemed.

"Do you want to get out of here?" he asked lightly. "I know you've got a contract and everything, but we could get new identities and leave the country."

He was only kind of kidding.

Did you want to get kissed, Diego?

Because that was how you got kissed.

Things were weird, still, but that had been exactly the right response, and even if she wasn't ready to talk about all of it, something in Annie had uncoiled and relaxed a bit at talking about some of it.

Diego hadn't been looking for a kiss, but he would never complain about getting one. He did feel like a weight had been lifted off his chest, even if he knew this wasn't going to magically fix everything.

He kissed her back, suddenly even more glad that he had gotten stuck here this week. He didn't think they'd make it this far if he had gone home.

"I'm gonna stick it out for now," Annie said after a moment, pulling back a little but staying close. That claustrophobia she'd struggled with earlier this week had dissipated some, and while things weren't fixed, they felt...better. Easier. Less like she was hiding her entire life from him. "But I love you so, so much for suggesting that."

Like, bookmark that idea, Diego. Might be worth revisiting down the line.

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