knife_bender | A Pawn Shop in East Flatbush

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A Pawn Shop in East Flatbush | Friday evening

To say today had been rough was quite possibly the biggest understatement ever. It had started with watching porn at way too early in the morning, went into cutting off a guy's hand to get his girlfriend out of jail and somewhere between that Annie had absolutely gotten her ass handed to her by Black Noir.

Diego was worried. He knew why Annie was playing it cool. Her mother was there, and Billy Butcher wasn't exactly someone you wanted to look weak in front of. But she had been hurt, and neither of them had gotten the chance to process that and he just really needed to make sure she was okay.

When everyone seemed to be as settled as they were going to be, he found his way to Annie's side. "Can we talk?"

[Last post for the day, I promise. For the girl! NSFW!]

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"You're sweeter." Go ahead, Diego, challenge her on that. Annie would be invoking the hand thing as the most romantic of all gestures, for the rest of their lives.

But, that being said, the adrenaline and endorphins were only going to go so far for so long, and she didn't hide her wince at all as she carefully unwound her leg from around him.

Sure, people would find that romantic when they told that story. Not weird at all. They could test the story on Danny and Steve later and see if they found it romantic.

Diego pulled away slowly, reaching out to help Annie get down from the sink. "We made a mess. Think anybody will notice?"

Look, Steve would probably think it was great.

"How could you possibly tell things are messier in here?" Annie replied, gratefully accepting his help getting down. Like, goddamn it, being injured sucked. "I can't believe they've actually been living here long-term."

It was fine for a couple nights, but honestly. This place was such a dump.

"I can't say it's the worst place I've slept in, but it's close." He tucked himself back into his pants and zipped up before leaning down to help Annie get dressed. He now was overly concerned with her being injured in order to make up for the last few minutes.

And normally, Annie would have made some kind of argument about her independence and how she had it, but between how her legs were a little wobbly (for some reason) and how stiffly she had to move to keep from yanking on something that hurt, she'd take all the help she could get.

"So, I always wondered what the threshold was for us actually getting hurt," she shared lightly, leaning a little on him for some steadiness as she stepped back into her pants, "because, like, Maeve really famously broke her arm and all, right? And now I know."

Apparently being thrown through marble and concrete would do it. Or being shot with a fifty-caliber rifle.

"Not exactly how I would have preferred you finding out," Diego said. "But I'm glad you're okay. Mostly okay."

"Okay enough," Annie replied, tilting her head to kiss his cheek once she was sure she wouldn't trip over her her own jeans in the process. "I'll get through it. I'm just glad Maeve showed up when she did." She sobered a little, one hand lightly touching her neck. "Like, I lost consciousness with his hands on my neck, and came to with her pulling him off of me."

And apparently Annie had a whole new reason to appreciate Almond Joys, which she would also be invoking forever, now.

"That was really lucky," he said, frowning at the thought of Annie losing consciousness during all of that. "How did she keep him off of you?"

He didn't think Black Noir answered to Maeve so a stern look wouldn't do much.

"She's stronger than he is, I think," Annie answered with a little half-smile, buttoning her jeans. "She had him in a headlock. But the real trick is -- okay, seriously, get this: Black Noir's allergic to nuts. She shoved an Almond Joy in his mouth and took away his EpiPen."

Of all things. Annie was still kind of in disbelief that that had worked.

"What the fuck?" That was even weirder than the hand thing, Annie, really.

"I know!" No, the hand thing was better, but this was pretty good, still. "She just had one in her belt! Like, does Maeve just keep emergency candy bars on her person?"

...Annie was going to start doing that, actually. Assuming she ever was allowed to have a uniform with pockets and pouches again, anyway.

"I asked her to come with me," she added with a slightly-sad smile. "Obviously she declined." But Annie had seen her hesitation, and that was...something.

"Maybe that's why she lasted so long in The Seven. She's always prepared like that," Diego said with a shrug. "Might also be why she's so hesitant to leave."

They were currently holing up in a dilapidated pawn shop in Brooklyn, it's not like running away with them was an appealing prospect at the moment.

What, Maeve didn't want to get her tracker taken out with industrial equipment and hide out with random hooligans for the rest of her life? Weird.

"That would make sense," she agreed. "I think she's like, the one person who kind of knows how to handle Homelander now that Ms. Stillwell's gone, too."

Well. Besides Stormfront, anyway, but Stormfront didn't handle Homelander so much as unleash him.

"That'd be a good reason to stay," he admitted. Homelander was bad even with Maeve around, he couldn't imagine how it could get worse.

"I owe her one, for coming to the rescue," he said. He looked over at the door. "We probably owe Kimiko one too."

There was just absolutely no way she hadn't heard them while guarding the door.

Annie immediately turned a fairly bright shade of red as she glanced over at the door, and then gingerly crouched to pick up the toothpaste she'd knocked over.

Like that was going to fix anything. At all.

"I'll get her...something," Annie decided. "Maybe she'll let me paint her nails for her."

She'd noticed that Kimiko had something of an interest in girly things, and Annie could girly it up with the best of them.

"Think she...heard anything?" she added, lowering her voice a touch more, as though that was going to do anything now.

Diego gave her a look. "She'd have to be really into that magazine to not have heard anything."

"At least she's probably not going to tell anyone," Annie tried, blushing a little darker. "Whatever. I think it's understandable, under the circumstances."

She would be a lot less okay with it if she realized that Kimiko was no longer alone out there.

"It's definitely understandable." And Kimiko seemed cool, she wouldn't rag on them about it. "You ready to go out and deal with the shitshow out there?"

"No," Annie said immediately, but she was smiling. "But we also can't stay in here forever. Scenic though it is."

She moved over to open the door and stuck her head out to look around the corner where she'd left Kimiko -- and then immediately ducked back in.

"Oh, God." Smooth, Annie.

"What?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

"They're all out there."

She had not exactly lingered, but she had at least spotted Frenchie and MM.

Frenchie had given her a thumbs up, because he was kind of an asshole.

"Not Butcher," she added. If Butcher had born witness to this, they would have probably heard about it already.

"Oh." Yeah, okay, that wasn't great. "Well we can't live in this bathroom. And you're right, it's understandable."

"...but we are probably going to have to deal with some teasing and looks."

Worth it.

"Fine." Annie took a deep breath, willing her face to, like, settle the fuck down, and opened the door again.

Casually. Normally. Nothing to see, here.

At least MM seemed pretty determined to pretend he hadn't heard anything, considering he didn't even look up from his laptop. Hughie, it seemed, also wanted to pretend he'd heard nothing from where he was sitting by MM, but he did a way worse job of it. "Oh, hey. Didn't even know you guys were here."

Frenchie and Kimiko were settling for smug looks, though. And Frenchie, as everyone now knew from the dick thing, tended to play the long game with stuff like this.

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A Pawn Shop in East Flatbush | Friday evening

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