That Same Niceish Hotel in New York | Sunday Morning

[defenderofdesmoines]

So, it turned out that you couldn't just deliver a big, dramatic, speech and end it with a mic drop about your own sexual assault without -- weirdly! -- most of your friends wanting to check that you were okay.

Sounds fake, right?

In any case, Annie had received a text from Rey today that she hadn't headed back to Fandom just yet, and thus, she'd made a few arrangements.

First and foremost, she had called down to the front desk with some basic sizing information, and within an hour, a discreet employee had appeared at the door with clothes for both herself and Diego (and then had left with an absolutely massive tip, since Annie had added to it when he'd given her a second look, just to be safe.)

With that taken care of, Diego had headed out on a run just to get out of the room for a little while (since he wasn't the one with the famous face running around dropping truth bombs on television), and Annie ordered basically half of the room service menu for brunch while waiting for Rey.

Clearly the cure for her hangover, amongst her other less physical ailments, was pancakes.

[for she who is mentioned, but also open for phone calls or boyfriend or whatever, too! eta: warning for discussion of sexual assault in the Rey thread!]

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[thatwaslucky]

"You did nothing wrong," Rey told her. "You didn't ask for it, you didn't have control over your reaction, no one worth talking to is going to blame you for it."

Other people would, of course, but those were the people not worth talking to.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"That helps," Annie admitted. "And like, I'm probably going to get in trouble for all that, but -- like, Rey, there is no way I'm the first woman he's done that to, so at least...it's like, out there, you know?"

[thatwaslucky]

"I know. At the very least you may have put an outright stop to it." At least everyone would know going in now.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It wasn't just --" Again, Annie was sort of at a loss to how to not put things crudely, but she soldiered on. "It wasn't just, like, he propositioned me. Like, he did, and I rejected him, and then he turned it into a threat instead."

So hey, guess what: the guy who you already knew was a scumbag? Was even scummier.

[thatwaslucky]

"What kind of threat?" Rey asked slowly.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Getting me kicked off the team," Annie replied, "and then, when I broke all the screens around us and gave him a chance to explain himself, he changed it to, 'I'll tell people you attacked me if you don't.'"

[thatwaslucky]

"So he really has done this to a lot of people before," Rey realized. "I can't blame you for breaking the screens either."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie quirked a little half-smile at her. "Yeah, it was supposed to freak him out, but all it did was give him like, the idea, I think. But that's where I froze."

She blew out a little breath. "But then Queen Maeve -- like, my idol since I was, like, thirteen -- walked in on us, and he left, so...she kinda saved me."

So Annie hadn't had to make a decision at all, which had actually sort of made the following weeks after even messier for her, in terms of feelings and certainty about what she would have done if Maeve hadn't shown up then.

[thatwaslucky]

Yeah, Rey could see where freezing would happen, when you thought you had one up on a person and they just used that.

"Did she see what was happening?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Yep." The Deep had had his hand on her face and Annie had been crying by then, so while Maeve wouldn't have known explicitly, like -- there was no way she hadn't had an idea. "And she told me to clean myself up and acted like it was no big deal."

And then had gone on to tell her to pretend she didn't have a boyfriend, which was like, a whole other confusion that Annie hadn't quite sorted out.

[thatwaslucky]

"I'm sorry, what?"

It'd be easy to think that Rey always saw the best in people, but she actually recognized that sometimes people were just going to do horrible things. But when someone could step in and help and didn't, she... well, she didn't think it was worse, but it felt more personally offensive.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie nodded slowly, pursing her lips. "It's why I'm so sure he's done it before."

Because the only other woman on the team had treated it like it was something she, Annie, probably should have expected.

[thatwaslucky]

This really just made the whole situation more gross. She had more to say on Maeve- again, she was supposed to be a hero- but was this something she'd had to deal with personally? Then maybe she shouldn't rant.

"I can see why adjusting was so hard," she said.

[defenderofdesmoines]

The thing about Maeve was that she had had to deal with this, personally, but she had a way, way worse guy to deal with.

Didn't make it right, but at least The Deep wasn't going to laser anyone in half if he didn't get his way.

"It's been like, impossible," Annie sighed, rubbing her temple. "Have you seen, like...any of the advertisements with me around, too? Because they changed my uniform right after this, too."

[thatwaslucky]

"I did wonder about that," Rey admitted. She also hadn't realized how many times she'd see ads with The Seven around here. "Was it related?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"No, it was mostly because I beat the shit out of some frat boy rapists and they had to revamp my image pretty quick, because, like, that is not a very Starlight-y thing to do," Annie replied with a little laugh.

Though now that she was thinking about it, it did seem sort of related in that it was yet another facet of her life having to deal with creepy dudes. Almost like a narrative arc, or something.

"On the bright side, though, I saved a girl?" Only one so far! One save. Exactly one.

[thatwaslucky]

"Congratulations," Rey smiled, but she had to ask, "How is that not a Starlight-y thing to do when you're Starlight?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Vought has this, like, idea of what Starlight stands for, and it doesn't entirely line up with...me," Annie admitted. And wasn't that a whole other punch to the gut? Like, just go ahead and appropriate her own image and explain it back to her, Vought. "Like, that speech I was supposed to give last night was real different from what I actually said."

And again, this was why she wasn't a hundred percent sure she wasn't going to be walking into the tower to get fired tomorrow.

[thatwaslucky]

"You did the right thing, you know," Rey told her, since she kind of figured she could predict what the speech was supposed to be.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Well, you kind of got me thinking earlier in the day," Annie shared with a slight smile. "And then the teen thing was bad, and -- like, a lot of kids look up to me. I hope people remember the stuff I said that wasn't about anyone's dick."

Because like, that had been kind of the bombshell, yes, but she also said a lot of other stuff!

[thatwaslucky]

"I think they will." Okay, that may have been Rey's earnest optimism showing through. "What happened at the teen thing?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Oh, jeez. I had to answer a bunch of questions from kids, and they all wanted to talk about dating." Well, one of them had wanted to talk about whether her Hindu friend was going to Hell, so there was that. "One of them straight up asked if I'd ever had sex, and I was right in the middle of giving like, an honest but appropriate answer when the pastor I was working with gave me this look. So I said I was saving myself for my husband."

Annie at least had the grace to look pretty embarrassed, but that also probably explained where a portion of her impromptu speech had come from.

[thatwaslucky]

Rey paused.

"Probably for the best they don't have access to the radio broadcasts," she said lightly.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Well, hey, that got the first real genuine laugh out of Annie in, like, a solid twenty-four hours at least.

"I don't think anyone believed me," Annie said when she had herself under control, shaking her head. "Like, Diego was there and there was this snort from the back when I said it. But like, it's also just sort of messed up to tell kids that, and I felt so bad about it."

[thatwaslucky]

"I don't understand why anyone would care," Rey admitted. She might not be the most open about it, but what anyone did wasn't anybody else's business.