defenderofdesmoines | MHA #2 | Thursday Evening

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MHA #2 | Thursday Evening

Annie had been back in Fandom since last night. She'd gone to the bar, and slept, and been to the gym, and gotten coffee, and anxiety-bought and watered another plant, and anxiety-shopped online, and answered emails, and Diego still wasn't home.

But hey, there was no reason to be worried, right? Like, just because his incredibly dangerous and unstable sister had been locked in the freakin' basement very much against her will when Annie had left, and she was still a little (reluctantly) concerned about Five's whereabouts -- that meant nothing. Annie was just kind of prone to worrying sometimes, obviously. They'd figure it out.

Besides -- the apocalypse had been solved. So this was probably just family stuff that she, admittedly, didn't really understand. She'd just be patient.

Patient and totally unable to concentrate on anything. She'd been 'watching' the TV Guide Channel for the better part of a half-hour while mindlessly scrolling on her phone, wishing for a better distraction.

[for one!]

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So because the situation looked pretty dire, and Luther had run off after Allison, Diego figured he had the time to make what might be the most difficult phone call of his life. Still, he didn't want to go face the apocalypse without saying anything to Annie.

So he locked himself in the bathroom at the bowling alley and called Annie from his cell phone.

Annie picked up on the tail end of the first ring -- considering she'd been looking at her phone all night and hoping he'd call, it was a close thing that she didn't actually fumble and drop the darn thing when he finally did.

"Hey!" She was smiling and it probably sounded like it -- even if he was calling with bad news, maybe she'd be able to help. It was just good to hear from him at all.

Diego was unsurprised that Annie had picked up so fast. If the situations had been reversed he would have been hanging onto his phone too.

"Hey," he said, trying to sound as normal as possible and like he wasn't about to give terrible news. "Are you okay?"

"Totally fine. Things with the hostage kids went fine and I got there pretty quick," Annie assured him, assuming that that was where he was going with that, since she'd been pulled away pretty abruptly. "Been back in Fandom since last night. How are things there?"

She could probably book a portal while on the phone with him. She'd never tried, but say the word and she'd get there if he needed her.

"Not good," he replied. "It's actually really bad here, Annie."

Understatement.

"Vanya got out," he said. "Killed Pogo and pulled the house down, taking Mom down with it."

Annie was quiet for a moment, because it felt like the wind had been knocked out of her.

"She pulled the house down?" she asked, her voice hushed. "Oh my God -- are you safe now?"

She would be sad about Pogo later. And sad about his mom, all over again. They'd just gotten her back.

"For now. We're hiding out in a bowling alley," he said. "But we're not staying here. Five was wrong--the apocalypse is still happening. It's not Harold Jenkins that causes it, it's Vanya."

"But -- no, Five can't be wrong." It was so irrational, and part of Annie knew that. But she'd been told that the apocalypse -- and everything that went with it -- had been resolved. You couldn't just take something like that back, Five, that wasn't fair. "I -- no. Is Vanya with you now? Do you know where she is?"

Annie pulled the phone away from her ear for the briefest second to open up the Portalocity app. She'd been unprepared for Vanya before, but maybe she could do more with a second chance and less hesitation about potentially killing her boyfriend's sister.

Edited 2021-09-09 13:23 (UTC)

"We know where she's going to be," he said. "We're leaving soon--that's why I called. I wanted you to know what happened."

You know, in case he was destroyed with the rest of the world.

Annie didn't like that at all, no. There was a weird sort of disconnect happening, where she knew on some level what was going on here, and yet was absolutely denying the reality of it.

"You're not...Diego, no," she said softly, clearing her throat. This was going to be okay. Okay? It was. "Give me like, twenty minutes, I can be there. I'll go with you."

Again, irrational. But she wasn't really thinking rationally at the moment. She was doing everything she could to think about how they were going to fix this, and not about how Five had told Diego they all died in the apocalypse.

"There isn't any time," he said, closing his eyes. "I don't even know what we're going to do to stop her."

"Luther did that hugging thing," Annie insisted wildly, her words spilling out as soon as she thought of them. Of course, Luther had done that hugging thing when Vanya hadn't been prepared for it, and she'd still sent the walls shaking before he'd gotten her knocked out. "She's still just human. You could knock her out. Break her concentration --"

She stopped herself, because these were all such obvious thoughts that they had to have already considered them, and moreover, the logical part of her brain -- the part of her that was trained to stay calm in emergency situations -- had caught up and put the brakes on what was undeniably mounting panic.

"You can stop her," she concluded, her voice small and quiet, now. They had to. They had to.

"I hope so," he said quietly. "We're going to do everything we can. I'm going to do everything I can to get back to you."

In the back of his head it had been tempting to offer to take everybody back to the island and leave the city to its fate. But that wasn't what a hero did, and Vanya was their sister. Their responsibility.

In a way, that promise kind of solidified what Annie already knew: that he was calling to say goodbye.

This was an inevitability in their line of work, and something she should have always been prepared for. It was what heroes did: they made sacrifices. Annie would, in his position.

But Annie didn't care about the billions of lives at stake right now; she was entirely preoccupied with just one.

"You're going to." She swallowed thickly, but it didn't steady her voice as much as she wanted to. "Isn't -- like, anything is possible, right? Just -- it doesn't matter what Five says."

"He's been wrong before." Like about the apocalypse not happening, for instance. "I'm so sorry, Annie."

"You don't have anything to be sorry about." This was so fucking unfair, and now Annie was blinking through tears. "Don't say that. It's -- Diego, it's going to be fine?"

It came out as a question, because she knew it wasn't going to be fine, as much as she wanted to reassure him. She'd never felt this helpless, not even when she'd been stripped of her powers and locked up.

Goddammit, and the last time she'd seen him, they'd argued, and -- this wasn't how it was supposed to go.

"It might not be fine." Vanya had taken down a house big enough to take up an entire city block like it was nothing. He hadn't wanted to believe it before, but they were really out of their league here.

"I love you," he said, voice catching a little. "I need you to know that. I love you so much."

"Diego." Her voice broke on his name, and Annie actually squeezed her eyes shut to block out how bad she wanted to just fall apart right now.

"I love you too," she replied unsteadily, the tears flowing without much resistance now. "So much. Forever."

And when he came back, safe and sound, she would spend every day of the rest of her life showing him how much she loved him. When he came back.

She had to think like that, or she wasn't going to be able to get through this conversation.

Diego took in a shaky breath, trying to keep it together for a little longer. Hearing her cry on the other end was making it more than a little difficult.

"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me," he said. "I was--am planning to spend the rest of my life with you. If you were okay with that."

He had the feeling she would be.

It was exactly what she had wanted to hear, at exactly the worst possible time to hear it. The rest of his life was potentially perilously short.

"Yes." And now she was really crying in earnest. They had so much ahead of them. They were just getting started. This was so incredibly, incredibly unfair. "I'm more than okay with that."

For the record, she would expect a real proposal someday if -- when -- he got through this.

"You make me better in every single way," she said, getting a grip on herself because it was so important that she make the most of this. In case. Just in case. "I love you so much, Diego. I'm never going to stop."

Not even if he didn't come back.

Oh yeah, this definitely did not count as a real proposal and if Diego lived through this he would definitely do it right. Or at least better than this.

"Me either." Now he was actively crying. Not just because of her (though that was a big part of it), but this whole situation. He had just gotten his family back and now it looked like he was losing them again and Annie along with it.

"I wish we had more time."

And as much as Annie wanted to argue that they still might -- that maybe this would be just fine -- she couldn't waste their time on that kind of senseless hope when they potentially had so, so little time left.

Either he'd get through this, or he wouldn't. Either they would have an entire lifetime, or they had the next few minutes.

"Me too," she said softly, miserably. "I wish we'd made more of it." She was regretting every misunderstanding they'd ever had, every time one of them had gotten out of bed to work out in the morning instead of lingering, every choice she'd ever made that had resulted in spending less time in the moment with Diego.

"This isn't fair." It was childish, but it was also true.

"It's really, really not." He thought about Allison for a moment and how she couldn't even speak to say goodbye to her daughter right now. He knew he had been on the phone for too long, and his siblings were probably waiting for him, but he really didn't want to hang up.

"Who knows, maybe I'll get to save the world," he said lightly. "That'd be cool, right?"

Annie managed a humorless little laugh, more of an exhale than anything with an actual smile behind it. "I really hope you do." For so many reasons. Selfish, wanting-him-to-live reasons, of course, but also -- this was what they did. This was what she, herself, would do.

And sometimes, it didn't all go right, but...this was what they did. She had fallen in love with another hero. She knew the risks. "I'm so proud of you. No matter what happens."

She knew they probably didn't have a lot of time, but she was desperate to keep him on the phone.

"I know you are." She had always made that clear in their relationship, which was something he had never had before.

He let out a shaky sigh. "They're probably waiting for me."

Five had disappeared--again--no need for them to think they were two siblings down, no matter how much he wanted to stay on the phone.

As much as Annie wanted to stay strong for him -- the absolute last thing he needed to worry about right now was how fucking devastated she was -- she couldn't quite muffle the sob she let out at that.

But she rallied quickly. They were professionals. She had been trained for this. And he had work to do.

"I love you," she said again. "I'll see you after you -- after you save the world, okay?"

"I love you too," he said, tearing up again. He hated hearing her like that, and that he was the cause of it. "I'll see you soon."

Which was impossible to know, and they both were aware of that, but at least it felt nice to hold on to that sort of optimism.

Honestly, Annie loved hearing that kind of optimism from him. It was one thing for her to hold out idealistically, but hearing it from him she could almost believe it.

"You've got this," she said, not just hoping but believing it. She believed wholeheartedly in Diego the rest of the time; why should this be any different?

(Because this seemed hopeless. Because Five had already told them this was a doomed effort. Because she wasn't there to see for herself.)

"I love you. Go save the world. I love you." And before she could lose her nerve, Annie did one of the hardest things she'd ever done in her life: she hung up the phone.

Then she immediately threw it away from herself, somewhere across the room, before she could undo it and call him right back.

And now she could really cry.

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MHA #2 | Thursday Evening

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