A Niceish Hotel | Night

[knife_bender]

Chalk this up as one of the most emotionally exhausting days of Diego's life, and it had to have been so much worse for Annie. He was more than happy to get her out of the Believe Expo and hole up with her in a hotel on Vought's dime (not that they knew that). It was a little surreal having to be incognito by paying everything in cash while Annie was off to the side in a makeshift disguise, but he could already see it was needed. It was all over the news whenever they passed a TV.

At least they managed to not get recognized on the way up to the room. Though, really, who would imagine Starlight hanging out with a guy that looked like Diego?

"Oh thank god there's a minibar," Diego said as soon as he opened the door to their room.

[For Annie and NFB due to distance! ETA warning for description of sexual assault in the comments]

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[knife_bender]

"That works," he said, scooting off the bed. "What kind of hangover do you want tomorrow: rum, tequila or vodka?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Tequila," Annie answered, tossing her headband off...somewhere, followed by her gauntlets, and then she draped her cape over a chair as she wandered off vaguely towards the bathroom.

She returned a moment later with her face clean of tears and residual makeup, and was carrying a pair of fluffy robes. "Zipper, please?"

[knife_bender]

"I missed hearing that," he admitted, setting aside the mini bottle of tequila for her and mini of vodka for him. He wandered over, more than happy to comply with that request. "We're going to be super fancy hotel people with the robes, huh?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I am, anyway," Annie assured him, her shoulders relaxing with renewed lung capacity as usual once the zipper was down. "It's this or laying around in my underwear."

Which normally held some appeal, but maybe not during this story, you know?

"But they are really fluffy," she added, maybe a little wheedling because come on, Diego, don't you want to get drunk in a robe with her? Didn't that sound sort of fun after today's shitshow?

[knife_bender]

"Really fluffy, huh?" he asked, pretending to think about that for a moment. "Okay, you've convinced me."

To be fair, he hadn't brought any extra clothes either so even if the robes weren't fluffy he didn't have much of a choice.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"And I didn't even have to try that hard," Annie teased lightly, going onto her toes to press a kiss to his cheek before wriggling out of her uniform and tights and into the robe.

And now that that was taken care of, she could examine this little bottle of tequila a little better. Along with literally all the candy, which she grabbed from the minibar before resuming her place on the bed. "Hey, on the plus side, if I just got myself fired, I don't have to worry about Ashley would think of this," she noted, waving a hand at the pile of candy.

[knife_bender]

"Screw Ashley even if you didn't get fired," Diego said, pulling off the last of his clothes so he could shrug into the robe. "I think you've earned some candy and alcohol."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie snorted, going ahead and opening up a Kit Kat. "I mean, Maeve gets to drink as much as she wants, apparently, and the guys can eat whatever. It's all such bullshit. Like, such bullshit."

The thing about being that honest about things earlier was that it was going to be kind of hard to put the genie back in the bottle, and while Annie was a little worried for her job, she also kind of wanted to go ahead and give Ashley and Ms. Stillwell a piece of her mind while she was at it, too.

[knife_bender]

"That is pretty fucked up," Diego admitted. He hadn't realized she was the only one they were monitoring diet-wise. He grabbed his bottle of vodka and a soda out of the fridge (he wasn't Klaus when it came to drinking straight liquor, okay?) and sat on the bed next to her.

"You were right about these robes, by the way."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"You should always trust me when it comes to soft things," Annie assured him with a wise nod before sobering a little and breaking off a piece of that Kit Kat to give herself a moment to think about how to, like, start this.

"It happened on my first day," she said after a pause, looking down at her hands. "Like, right after that shareholder thing. Ms. Stillwell asked him to give me a tour."

There, that was probably a good place to begin.

[knife_bender]

Diego frowned. He knew it had happened early, since she had been acting off for awhile, but the first day? She didn't even have a chance to enjoy anything about the job.

He didn't really know what to say to that, but he did free up one of his hands so he could reach for hers.

[defenderofdesmoines]

No, she'd had the chance to enjoy literally almost nothing about it.

Annie twined her fingers through his, swallowing a little to try to keep from starting to cry just at that. Like, get ahold of yourself, January.

"So," she continued carefully, "he took me to the conference room, and I'm, like, losing my shit, fangirling all over the place. So he invited me to sit down in Homelander's chair, which is, like, a huge deal. A huge deal." She cleared her throat before continuing, "And then he asked if, like, I'd had a poster of Homelander as a kid, and...Diego, this is where I maybe fucked up, 'cause I said...no, but that I'd had one of him. Of The Deep, I mean."

She could see how he might have thought she was flirting. It didn't excuse anything, but it did make her want to go back in time and smack herself on her dumb little blonde head for thinking he'd take it innocently.

[knife_bender]

"Annie, you shared an anecdote about when you were a kid," Diego said. "You didn't fuck up at all."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie nodded, because she knew that was true, like, logically, but she was also reaching for the little bottle of tequila, too.

"Yeah, well." She gave a rueful little roll of her eyes. "I think he saw it as, like, something else. 'Cause that's when I turned around and he was --"

Okay, she could not actually bring herself to say it, right now, but she did make a very descriptive hand gesture. "Like, six inches from my fucking nose."

[knife_bender]

"Jesus." The sick feeling in his stomach was back, but it didn't stop him for reaching for the alcohol. "That's fucking gross."

Focusing on how disgusting and inappropriate it was helped him tamp down on the anger he was feeling. He didn't want her to regret opening up to him by doing something stupid like lashing out. This was supposed to be about her feelings, not his.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It was disgusting," Annie agreed, nose wrinkling up as she went ahead and took a quick sip of her tequila. (And then she was just going to help herself to some of your soda, Diego, because it had been ambitious to decide to shoot straight tequila exclusively.) "And I bolted." Like, she really needed him to know that, because she had rejected that asshole so fast, and made herself really clear in those seconds before she'd reached the conference room doors, even.

"And then, before I could leave," she said slowly, biting her lower lip, "he said it was just a matter of how bad I wanted to be on the team."

That was what made this all so, so, so gross. He hadn't just been out for a blowjob from the dumb new girl. He'd tried to make it into this transactional, blackmailing thing.

[knife_bender]

"What the fuck." Okay, well, maybe he wasn't so great at keeping the anger in. What had happened before was still gross and wrong but being rejected and resorting to blackmail was on a whole other level.

He took a breath, and set aside the little bottle of vodka in his hand because he was definitely holding on to it too hard and didn't want to break the thing. "What a fucking asshole."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie was nodding, and like, okay, she might have been tearing up just a little. Just a teeny bit. She'd been keeping this secret for weeks, and while she hadn't told Diego because she'd known he would almost certainly be downright murderous and she didn't want him to get hurt, seeing him so firmly on her side was still a little overwhelming.

"Such a fucking asshole," she agreed, her voice a little wobbly in spite of her efforts to keep it steady. "So I broke every goddamn screen in there. Made the lights flicker. The whole show. Gave him a chance to take it back, you know? And instead, he doubled down, pointed at the damage, and said he'd tell people I attacked him unless I -- unless I did what he wanted me to do."

For like three minutes, maybe.

[knife_bender]

He was feeling pretty murderous right now, and probably wasn't keeping that off his face. Honestly, if he hadn't made her a promise and she didn't look so upset right now he probably would have left immediately to find the guy.

"How did you get him to back off?" he asked. If the whole light show didn't put him off, then what did?

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I didn't." And she sounded pretty miserable about that, because she still didn't know what she would have done. (And she certainly wasn't going to tell Diego that part of her had considered going through with it. That didn't seem like it would accomplish anything but hurting him, and he already looked pretty damn upset.) "Queen Maeve came in. She told him Ms. Stillwell was looking for him, and he left."

Annie swiped a tear away from one eye, shaking her head a little as she reached over and squeezed Diego's hand. "And Maeve? Blew it all off. Shrugged. Told me to clean myself up and made herself a drink."

Never meet your heroes, indeed.

[knife_bender]

"What the fuck?" Really, it could not be said enough. To be assaulted and then have someone you looked up to just brush it off was extremely fucked up. And the fact it was her first day there made it that much worse.

"God, Annie, I am so sorry," he said. "I wish I could say something to make this better but--"

He shook his head and looked down at their joined hands. Anything he had to say involved what he wanted to do to The Deep and what he wanted to say to Queen Maeve, none of which would make her feel any better.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"You're already making it better," Annie replied softly, managing a small, slightly-watery smile. "I feel like such an asshole for not telling you sooner, because it's helping, I just -- I didn't want you to think of me differently."

Or to go try to fight The Deep, but he knew that part already.

[knife_bender]

He didn't really feel like he was making her feel better. Or maybe it was more he was so angry and didn't know how to get rid of it outside of violence and that was why he was feeling so useless right now.

"I don't think of you differently," he said, squeezing her hand. "And you're not an asshole. You have put up with way more shit these past couple weeks than anybody ever should."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It's been hard," Annie said again, quietly. "And really lonely." Which was her own fault, she knew, because there had been people willing to help her with this and she just hadn't been able to let them. "It all kind of messed with my head, for a little while."

Which might explain why she'd just had a super public breakdown, yeah. It hadn't exactly come out of nowhere, especially when paired with the new uniform and the way Vought was commoditizing the shit out of her at every turn.

[knife_bender]

Diego lifted up Annie's hand and kissed the back of it. "Thank you for telling me. And I know I already said it, but I'm so proud of you for what you did today."