defenderofdesmoines | MHA #2 | Late, Late Wednesday Night (or Thursday Morning?)

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MHA #2 | Late, Late Wednesday Night (or Thursday Morning?)

So, the thing about being a very in-demand person back home was that you tended to be kind of...well, in-demand. So while Annie could usually count on being able to skate out of work on Wednesdays in time to change her clothes and grab a jello shot or three, tonight had kept her late at the tower.

It was...sort of nice? Because it wasn't just a lollipop meeting they'd kept her for. She, A-Train and Maeve had actually talked about strategy, the saves they'd each done that week -- Noir had been there too but, you know, not a lot of talking going on there -- and how they were supposed to move forward as a team of five for the moment. Especially when their auxiliary member, if he even counted still, hadn't shown his face in New York since last year (because he was probably scared of it being burned off, or so Annie liked to tell herself), and their supposed leader could probably lose his position to a glass of water in a cape if it was left up to public opinion at the moment.

Which was why he hadn't been there, Annie assumed. She hadn't asked. She'd actually just enjoyed kind of...feeling like a team, for once. Only took the better part of a year.

In any case, it was very late when she'd managed to fire a text off to Diego to let him know she'd be later still, and thus she was trying to be very quiet when she let her still-uniformed self into the apartment awhile later, in case he was asleep. Equal parts courtesy and imperviousness to paranoid, half-asleep knife-throwing at work here, though Annie certainly wasn't really thinking about the latter.

[for the dude!]

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"In that case I hope you pull it off one day," he murmured before kissing her again. "But since I caught you tonight I can enjoy your adorable, expected presence."

"You can go back to sleep if you want," Annie teased as she started shrugging out of her uniform, knowing that he wouldn't until she was falling asleep with him. "I got stuck in a meeting with the team -- minus Homelander, anyway -- until like an hour ago, sorry. I meant to get here a lot sooner."

"Don't apologize," he said, propping himself up on an elbow so he could enjoy the view. "It's your job. Even if it involves talking about candy promotion."

"I'm standing my ground on that, by the way," Annie assured him, standing back up so she could wriggle out of all her various layers of tulle. "There are ways to market lollipops without my having to demonstrate. But no -- the marketing guys went home awhile ago. Maeve wanted to talk, like, strategy and stuff."

It was kind of weird (in a nice way.) She'd only had like three drinks during the whole course of the conversation, too.

"Really? Like actual superhero business?" he asked. "That's great, actually. Definitely worth being late."

"I mean, I disagree just because it kept me from seeing you until now," good God, Annie, gross, "but yeah. A-Train and Noir were there and they were both, like, civil and kind of helpful, too?"

She paused halfway to her dresser to pick out something to sleep in, and snapped her fingers. "That's where I learn sneakiness. I'll ask Noir for tips."

That was the next step on the road between 'beat into nigh unconsciousness' and 'friendship,' right?

Diego laughed. "You think he'd be willing to teach you?"

He probably still held a grudge over the whole Almond Joy thing, though that hadn't technically been Annie's doing.

Well, if Annie could get over the whole thing where he'd thrown her through a concrete wall, maybe Black Noir could get over a little anaphylactic shock.

"We'll call it a team-building exercise," Annie decided, shooting Diego a playful look over her shoulder before stripping off her bra in favor of the comfy shirt she was pulling out.

You might think that living together for six months would sort of remove the inherent flirtation in getting undressed in front of Diego, for Annie. But you'd be wrong.

If you think Diego would get tired of the flirty undressing after living together for six months, you'd also be wrong.

"Bold of you to assume that shirt isn't going to come right off."

"It's the middle of the night. I figured you wanted to go back to sleep," Annie teased, raising a brow at him as she pulled the shirt on and fairly immediately moved to crawl into bed beside him, already trying to seek out his feet with hers under the covers.

She figured no such thing, no. But it would be good to have a shirt handy in case she got cold later. Thinking ahead!

"Well you already woke me up and everything..." Luckily Diego had been bracing himself for cold feet against his so he didn't yelp or anything like that. It was a close call though. "One of these days I should try sneaking up on you."

Great way to be blinded in the night, Diego.

"I don't know if that's a great idea," Annie noted, for exactly that reason. She leaned in to nuzzle lightly along his neck, sighing softly just at the sensation of being home and in bed and beside him before adding, "You're a lot sneakier than me, for one thing. You'd actually pull it off."

"Maybe I'd pull it off so well you wouldn't notice until the next morning," he said, wrapping an arm around her. "So it wouldn't be a scary surprise, it'd be a romantic surprise."

"I mean, I do like romantic surprises," Annie noted, slipping an arm around him in turn. Just all the clinginess right now, thank you. "And an unexpected Diego would probably be, like, the best surprise I could ever get, too. Think you could sneak into the tower again?"

Probably harder to do without a hand for the scanners, hmm.

Diego laughed. "I could try but I don't know if that'd end well for me. I'm surprised I'm allowed in the building at all after the hand thing."

"It helps that you have the two most popular members of The Seven vouching for you," Annie noted, pressing a little closer with another content sigh. "I could probably get, like, Butcher himself past security if I insisted upon it, at this point. But this is nicer than New York, anyway."

Even if it was more comfortable than it had been ten months ago, Annie's apartment in the tower wasn't home, and this was.

"It is," he agreed. "All of our stuff mixed together. Plants that I reluctantly take care of when you're gone..."

"You love them," Annie assured him, pressing a soft kiss just below Diego's ear. "But yeah. No matter how many pictures of us I put in that apartment, it's still lonely without you there. Maybe I should hide some knives in the couch."

Being able to walk down the hall to see if Maeve was still sober enough to hang out was really, really not the same.

"How do you know I haven't already hidden some in there?" he teased, running his hand down her back.

"I haven't found any," Annie admitted, tangling her legs a little more with his. "But I guess that doesn't mean anything."

A pause, and then, "You should put some up in that chandelier in the foyer, too." That was actually an awesome spot, because then someone could maybe swing from the chandelier if a fight broke out! Annie had always wanted to do that.

"...that would be pretty cool," Diego admitted. "That one is a good height, I could jump up there I bet. Not like the one at the mansion. Not for lack of trying."

Annie pulled back just enough to look at him. "Did you guys try to jump up on the chandelier as kids?" she asked, somewhere between fond and mildly alarmed for his tiny, breakable self. "You could definitely get up on the one in my apartment."

Whether it would support anyone's weight was a better question, but pff. Details.

"Maybe once or twice." More than that, let's be real. Way more than that.

He shifted closer to nuzzle against her neck. "Do you want me to visit you more?"

She really did most of the commuting in the relationship, which didn't seem fair.

Well, if you asked Annie, it was her fault for being the one with a job in another dimension.

But there were neck nuzzlings and that was a very sweet question, anyway. "If you wanted to. I could start meeting you in the lobby so you don't get stuck in the elevator alone with a weirdo."

Why did that keep happening?

"There are a lot of weirdos in your building," Diego said. "But as long as I avoid any cameras, I can handle the weirdos."

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