defenderofdesmoines | MCA #9 | Thursday Evening

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MCA #9 | Thursday Evening

Okay, not to be too - whatever about it, but this whole sangria night was one of those things that Annie felt like she'd kind of missed out on doing before because she hadn't had a lot of girlfriends growing up. (Not that she would have had, like, little gal pals over for sangria sleepovers in high school or whatever, but just the whole thing seemed like one of those rites of passage that Annie kept coming up against.)

So, in any case, she had made a big ol' pitcher of sangria (and in typical Annie fashion, she had poured pretty heavy so, like, bad news for her class tomorrow!), and she'd dug out a little tub of a foot mask she'd gotten for Christmas, because while her mani-pedi she'd gotten with Rey a couple weeks back was still holding up, winter was here and dry skin was a whole thing. She also lit a few of her big jarred scented candles, and you bet your ass she double-checked all her cute little similar-looking jars just to make sure there wasn't anything she'd forgotten to retrieve. (Not that having Summer find a stash like that would be nearly as embarrassing as it had been when Danny had, but you know, Annie felt like she couldn't be too careful now.)

[for she who is narratively mentioned, of course!]

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And, wouldn't you know it? Summer, too, had made a big ol' pitcher of sangria to bring with her, because, look, you didn't just piss off to space for a day or two just to blow up asteroids. Sometimes, you pissed off to space for a day or two to blow up asteroids and pick up weird-ass space fruit to make space sangria, as well.

She definitely did not envy you your class tomorrow, Annie! But it was, like, a rite of passage to teach at least one class regretting so many things about the night before, right? And there were reasons why Summer had several back-up lesson plans and a ton of her fellow teachers on speed-dial to cover for her when needed.

But that was all for later! For now, she was arriving at Annie's, knocking on the door, and taking a moment to soak in subtle differences between this apartment building and her own, and think about how she used to spend a lot of time on the floor below this one, and...wait a second, wasn't that technically Barry's apartment next door?

(Sometimes she just forgot that he did technically have an apartment...)

Oh yeah, Annie was going to do her very first movie day tomorrow. Total rite of passage!

"Hey!" Annie was like, right at the door, stepping aside preemptively to let Summer in. And of course she was immediately giggling at the fact that everyone had made sangria, of course. "Come on in, welcome to my tiny apartment. And ell-oh-ell, I also made a pitcher, but yours looks like it has exotic shit in it."

Space fruit was totally going to win over, like, the out-of-season blueberries Annie had managed to find, no contest.

"I may have picked up a few things when I was off-planet earlier this week," Summer admitted, almost sounding a little modest about that, but, yeah, right, like she wasn't flexing at least a little bit when you got right down to it. "And I figured, you really can't have too much sangria for a sangria night."

Actually, you really, really could, but good luck telling Summer that!

And now she was totally scoping out Annie's apartment a little and not even being too subtle about it. It was pretty much expected, right?

"It's not tiny," she countered. "It's cozy. And it's also really nice to see an apartment not covered in chalk for a change."

SO MUCH CHALK, ANNIE. SO. MUCH.

"So like the chalk is a magic thing, right?" Annie checked, leading the way to the kitchen (it really wasn't far, given how very cozy her apartment was.) "'Cause I don't think Nina used chalk the one time she showed me her magic but maybe it's like a whole thing with scale? Also it's super nice that you're letting her do that to your place."

Like, Annie considered herself a very nice person, and she wasn't totally sure she'd let Nina turn her apartment into a pool.

"I mean," said Summer, following easily because it wasn't like she could get lost, "how many people around here are going to say they were able to have a pool party in their apartment? I just hope it all, you know, works out, because I have made a lot of claims about this party, and I still have no idea how it's going to work out in the end. But, yeah, it's a magic thing. And honestly? If it doesn't work out, it's a goddamn shame because Nina has been working, like, non-stop on this thing, it's pretty wild."

"It'll work out," Annie assured her as she grabbed the glasses she'd already laid out, "if only because Nina's involved and I swear I think that girl can make things happen through sheer force of will."

Like, not in a magic way, just in a Nina way.

"So what's in this?" she added, peering at Summer's pitcher. "Space fruit, seriously?"

You know what Annie's first trip to space had really lacked? Space fruit.

"Space fruit," Summer confirmed proudly, "seriously. The meilooruns aren't anything big, I carry them pretty regularly at the store, but we've also got..." And she rattled off a decent sized list of ridiculous sounding things while pointing out the odd shapes floating in the pitcher. "Basically, like, space melon and strawberry and raspberry, with a sort of space papaya-kiwi and citrus hybrid thrown in for good measure. It tends to be a little sweeter with a touch of, like, spice underneath, so good for, like, winter, y'know?"

"You're a better bartender than I am," Annie decided, peering in at the fruit, "like, seriously. You like, get flavors in a way I don't."

Considering Annie could barely follow a recipe and had helped set a pizza fire yesterday, this was probably not surprising information.

"Good space trip, fruit-gathering aside?" she added, because while the fruit was very intriguing, it was also not the only impetus for both Summer's space trip and this sangria night, here.

"I've also been doing it for longer, too," Summer pointed out, because at least a little bit of encouragement needed to be squeezed in there, even if, yeah, Annie did have a point, Summer was pretty damn good at it. But that's just what happened, when some of the first strains of approval and validation from the strong male role models you'd pretty much spent your whole life craving showed up in the form of doing interesting things with food: you latched on and you did not let go.

"But yeah," she added, with a faint sort of smile and a nod. "Good space trip. I think I really just needed to get something like that out of my system, you know? Try to put some things into perspective. Really evaluated some stuff. Blow up a few asteroids while I was out there, too..."

"That sounds...cathartic?" Annie offered with an understanding smile, pouring them each a glass of this amazing space sangria and offering one to Summer. "Like, good for practice, like we've talked about, but also - like, I dunno, sometimes it just feels really good to blow shit up."

She tilted her head thoughtfully before adding, "Especially - hm. At least in my experience, it can help with...perspective." There was something kind of mind-clearing about destroying or punching things, Annie usually found, though asteroids certainly sounded like appealingly larger targets than she was used to.

Summer had definitely been through enough spirals to know that she was pretty much teetering on the edge of one that definitely required asteroid-sized targets. "Thanks," she said, taking the glass from Annie and swirling it around a little before having a sip, because that just seemed like the thing you did, and it was a long, thoughtful kind of sip, because this had come up because Summer did want to talk to someone, and she knew that Annie was probably the best person for it, and she'd played out the conversation a few times in her head, even, but now that they were actually doing it, she almost felt like she didn't know where to start.

"Let's go sit down," she suggested, followed by a small laugh. "It's kind of weird not having a cat to watch out for underfoot, though."

"I keep thinking I should get one. I've never had a pet," Annie replied easily, ushering them both towards her couch. (Again: a matter of feet.) "Or maybe a cute robot. Like, between BB-8 this weekend - who, like, killed me, I'm still recovering - and then Stark told me about little robots on the ship he used to live on...like, maybe a robot pet is the answer, here."

At the very least, she was going to probably end up with a Roomba or something.

As Summer settled on the couch, tucking one leg under her, she had brief little flashbacks of all of Butter Robot's tiny little exestential crises, and assured herself that a robot pet would be different, that served a purpose way beyond passing butter.

"Barry could probably make you one," Summer noted, because 1) true and 2) she knew a good potential segue when she saw one, dammit. Then she snorted, rolling her eyes a little. "I almost feel bad, though, with how much I pimp his genius out to other people as potential solutions, but, I mean, I've also never not seen him stoked about new projects, sooooo..."

"He seems like the kind of guy who needs to keep his hands and brain busy, anyway," Annie offered, taking a sip of her sangria and nodding in approval. (RIP class tomorrow.) "Like, the way I need to work out or I get all restless, and you need to take space trips...."

Maybe not exactly the same, though, and given that Annie had a pretty good idea that this all had something to do with Barry (and maybe his restless brain?), she allowed that sentence to trail off, looking a little expectant.

"Yeaaahhhh," Summer swirled her glass again, looking down into the sangria waiting for her once she was done talking, "apparently, his brain, like, literally does not stop. It was this huge revelation during homecoming when people lost or gained powers and he wound up with actual normal human intelligence for a weekend." Well, a bit below that, in Summer's opinion, but she was being nice. "Like, he barely even sleeps. I don't know if you noticed that, on the trip last weekend..."

Because Summer sure had! Obviously, she knew this, and wasn't surprised by it, but good luck telling that to the schmoopy part of her brain that may have had these silly romantic notions of substantially more spaceship snuggling that didn't involve her getting covered in hydraulic fluid so he could show of some super-cleaner...

Aaaand there went the drinking.

"I think he's mentioned it before but yeah, he's like the Energizer Bunny except it's like, his mind," Annie noted, watching Summer as she took a sip from her own glass. "I'm not a huge proponent of, like, self-medicating, but I know he doesn't drink - usually, anyway, the Santa thing seemed special - so like, I assume there's no knocking him out with substances if he needs to just chill? But I don't know how you function without sleeping. I'd go nuts."

Of course, Annie was well aware of another pretty surefire way to knock a guy out (and it didn't involve punching anyone, even!), but she was going to need to drink just a bit more of this sangria before she'd suggest it.

And Summer did have a few tricks up her ~~nonexistant~~ sleeves that could stop Barry's brain dead in its tracks pretty effectively, but that had gotten increasingly more awkward...and frustrating, because exactly how much longer could one of the smartest people ever really effectively lean on ignorance, anyway?...ever since he found out the meaning of three very specific letters and a question mark.

God. Summer had never felt more unbridled loathing for a plant ever before in her life.

But for now, Summer just sort of scoffed and rolled her eyes with another drink. "Yeah," she said, "for someone who's all about science or whatever, he sure seems to be breaking a few basic facts of human biology with that one, huh? Like, I'm pretty sure science points out that people need to sleep to even remotely function, but okay, Barry."

And, okay, she didn't really expect this to devolve into her just kind of dunking on her boyfriend, and she was going to try not to, but it was feeling kind of good to actually say some of this stuff outloud for a change.

While also making remarkable progress with that sangria. Summer's cup was already empty. She was reaching for one of the pitchers. This was not her first sangrodeo.

Annie finished her own, smiling a little to herself. "He's not a Supe, right?" she teased. "I've never met someone with a super brain but we do tend to defy certain biological constructs."

The whole invulnerable skin thing, the fact that Annie could lift roughly ten times her own body weight....

But, given that she was pretty sure that wasn't the case, she added, "He never gets sleepy? Never?"

And there was a little emphasis on never there, along with an arch of her brows, because - look, there was biology and there was biology, and Annie had never been with a guy who didn't at least want a nap afterwards. (And, like, superpowers did not seem to make a difference, either.) So, like, she was prepared to be very impressed, if that was the case.

After what Annie? Af. Ter. What?

The fact that that didn't even cross Summer's mind just then probably said a lot as she blithely shrugged. "I mean, he does," she said, "eventually, but it's like he's on an entirely different circadian rhythm or something, I don't know.

"Yeah, but." Annie frowned a little, getting herself some more sangria as she considered how to phrase this. "Like sex doesn't even slow him down? I thought every dude just went to sleep after."

There, that was a way to phrase it. So much for delicacy. Though now Annie was wondering if she'd just been with guys who were more prone to this behavior. (She didn't think it was her, at least.)

And that's when Summer just sort of stared at Annie for a moment, blinked, and thought well, fuck.

She did say she couldn't turn down a good segue, right? And that basically came on a silver platter, but she was thinking she'd be working up to it a lot more than this...

She sucked in a breath.

"Iiiiii," she said, slowly, eyes drifting off to one side for a moment before finding her glass, which could be very well get emptied in the next few seconds again, "wouldn't know."

"...what?"

Okay, that was sooooo not what Annie had expected to hear. Though wow did a lot of things sort of make more sense in that light, even through the beginnings of a sangria fog.

Though, really, so many more things didn't. "Wait, like - you guys have been together since the summer, haven't you?"

SUMMER. ANNIE WOULD HAVE DIED BY NOW.

And that was exactly why you were the only person this conversation could happen with, Annie. Because you so got it!

Summer was suddenly thinking they should have made more sangria.

"We started dating in the summer," she confirmed. "We didn't, like, become 'official' or whatever until September 11th."

SHE COULD LITERALLY NEVER FORGET.

"But..." She was clearly just being pedantic as if that could somehow make this better, which it did not. ".....yeah. Pretty much..."

And she was going to leave it at that, but, hey, now that it was out there, she might as well get the real issue out there, too, right?

Summer leaned forward, lowering her voice, as if it wasn't just them and maybe a squirrel or two in the room.

"And it's driving me fucking insane, Annie."

"Of course it is," Annie agreed, wide-eyed as she quickly counted the months between September and February, and - Jesus, "Five months? Summer. Summer."

Look, Annie considered herself a little on the conservative side when it came to these things, compared to her peers, and she'd only managed to hold off for a month with Diego. (And they hadn't even made things 'official' until a week or two later!) Five months was basically an eternity. Annie legitimately might have died. (Diego almost certainly would have.)

"Like - why? Sorry, that's nosy, but like, seriously, is he saving himself for marriage or something?"

Seemed unlikely, but Annie had known several people like that. Honestly, Annie had been a person like that into her late teens, until she'd learned how much harder it was to keep a promise like that when one had a cute boyfriend.

Holy crap, they were coming up on half a year. And here it didn't even seem that long ago when Summer was beinga total nerd about it having been a month.

She shook her head slowly.

"Honestly?" she said. "I don't think he ever really even thinks about it."

Which was...a lot. There was a lot to unpack there. At least on Summer's side of things, anyway. Barry got the benefit of being oblivious to it more often than not.

And even that sucked. Like she could really begrudge the guy constantly thinking about everything one less thing on his stupid brilliant mind...

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