defenderofdesmoines | MHA #2 | Wednesday Morning

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MHA #2 | Wednesday Morning

Annie, Diego and Five -- along with the other four living Hargreeves -- may have arrived back in 2022 yesterday, but Annie anticipated that it was going to be a long, long while before everything actually felt settled. For one thing, it was a hell of a thing to find a four-bedroom house in Baltimore to rent on a moment's notice -- but thankfully, Annie's salary made things a little easier. (A little. She didn't have enough influence in this universe to do more than throw money at the problem, but she'd still found them a pretty decent house in like, an afternoon, anyway. Magic at work, right there.)

But for another thing, America's Super-Sweetheart had gone completely fucking AWOL for ten days, and thus had spent the better part of her first cup of coffee this morning getting screamed at over the phone by Ashley.

One promise of extra rehearsals with her choreographer and an assurance that she'd be there Friday afternoon for a hair appointment (she wasn't prepared to ask yet, but Ashley had mentioned that this was what she got for insisting on never wearing a wig again, so...there was that) later, and Annie was finally off the phone. She poured herself a soothing second cup of coffee, blew out a sigh in the hopes that some of that yelled-at tension left her shoulders, and sat down at the kitchen table to try to go through the paperwork involved in renting this house and transferring utilities to her own name.

It was fairly slow going, considering she was still pretty much exhausted despite sleeping hard last night, but at least it was a happy, relieved kind of exhaustion? This had been going on for almost a full year, and having everyone back and in one piece (and maybe even with some extra pieces, in fact!) was almost surreal. Surrealism didn't help her scan through real estate legalese any easier, but at least she didn't have much else to do at the moment.

[open for the dude who lives there, his brother who hates doors, or anyone who'd like to check in on these newly-returned time travelers]

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It was all feeling very surreal to Diego too. For one thing, this was the first time he had been in his own home in the last three months. For another, he could just, like, see his siblings whenever he wanted now. And once the whole cell phone thing could be explained, then he could be texted by them obnoxiously all hours of the day.

It was very weird.

"Done being yelled at?"

"I have to go back on Friday to get my hair dyed," Annie replied, actually turning her phone face-down on top of the page she'd been trying to read through. Her brain needed a break on all counts, anyway. "As far as punishments go, I'll take it."

"What, like a different color?" he asked.

"She didn't say," Annie said, frowning. "There was a lot of -- you know how Ashley gets. There was just a lot there, in general."

Maybe even some worry? Maybe Ashley had worried that Annie had disappeared for ten days? Aside from having to scramble to cover her TV appearances and stuff, maybe she had -- nahhhhh.

"But I bet it's just another shade of blonde." They wouldn't make her a brunette with her branding, and Maeve had the redhead thing cornered.

"Better than the wig, I guess," he said. "Sorry I got you in trouble."

"Oh, yeah, you should definitely apologize for that," Annie replied, getting up to go press an affectionate kiss to his cheek. "All of this was totally your fault and something you could control. How's it feel to be back in the present?"

Everyone else -- very possibly Diego himself??? -- seemed to have forgotten he'd been stabbed this time last week, even aside from the time travel of it all.

You get stabbed and shot enough eventually you just learn to brush it off.

"It's weird," he admitted. "Didn't think I'd be back here again."

"Or that you'd have your siblings living on the mainland?" Annie prompted, slightly more serious as she wound an arm around his back. "I'm kind of still waiting for another shoe to drop."

For Lila to pop out from behind their couch, or Herb to knock on the door and say -- actually, you fucked the timeline, here's how we fix it, grab your jacket.

It was kind of hard to trust the quiet after the last week and a half, for Annie.

"Me too," he said, leaning against her. "It doesn't really feel real. I'm just hoping that we don't have another apocalypse to deal with for...at least a week."

"We had almost a year between them this time," Annie pointed out, half-smiling. "Or...like, over fifty, technically."

Time travel was so confusing.

"Hopefully we get a little bit of a break. Let them get settled in a bit," she added, unable to keep from looking kind of thrilled at the very idea his brothers and sisters were on the mainland right now.

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "Have to introduce them to cell phones and things like that. I feel kind of bad for them. I got to go back home but they're in a new place all over again."

"Yeah, and it seemed like they were all there longer than you were, even." Allison had had time to meet a guy and marry him (not to mention how long it had likely taken her vocal chords to heal.) Klaus had had time to create and lead a cult (which was something Annie kind of felt like they should watch for in the present, too.) "Well. I'm trying to get everything I can together for them to help -- I think I'm gonna send all this stuff over to my lawyer to look over, so they'll have somewhere to live sooner than later. And I can get them like...hooked up with anything you'd think they'd want."

Phones to start, for sure. Maybe some modern clothes that didn't even have any members of her team on them.

"Thank you," he said, pressing a kiss against her cheek. "You're really saving the day, here."

"It's literally the least I can do," Annie assured him, reaching up to play with his hair a little. In a soothing way, not a sexy way. (Not an intentionally sexy way, anyway.) "I'm just thankful they're here. And I can like...actually get to know them a little, maybe."

Rather than try to form relationships with her eventual in-laws under constant stress and threat of apocalypse.

"Yeah, there hasn't really been time for that, has there?" Not with the apocalypses and all. "Shit, I feel like I need to get to know them again. It's not like we've been able to have a family dinner or anything."

"Well. Except for the one with Dad."

"That super doesn't count," Annie assured him, her eyes narrowing slightly at the reminder. "Like, let's maybe plan on no insults or exploding fruit at the next one? But that can be a priority, once they're moved in and stuff. We can just...like, do normal family shit and hang out with them. Order some pizzas. Play Monopoly or something."

Annie, no, that would probably guarantee bloodshed.

Edited 2022-05-25 13:24 (UTC)

"Maybe we hold off on the board games for a bit." Because, yeah, he knew exactly how that would go. "Because that would lead to insults and possibly exploding fruit."

"Fair." Even if there was totally Seven Monopoly coming. Annie herself was a gamepiece! "Honestly, I'm thrilled to be able to get to know your siblings who aren't Five. Not that Five isn't great, but like...I had so much fun that one afternoon with Klaus and Allison and Vanya."

A little social lubrication helped things a whole lot. The dancing, too.

"Okay, Five isn't great, you don't have to lie about that," Diego joked. "But I get what you're saying."

"Five's Five." Annie had more of an appreciation for what that meant than ever before, considering she'd been stuck with him for awhile there and...even if she hadn't really helped at the time, she could also appreciate how annoying it must be to wrangle six opinionated adults who all wanted to argue with you all the time. (She would appreciate it even more soon, actually.) "But yeah. They're...more fun than I expected."

More normal, really. Diego's siblings had existed as ideas and types for so long that she was already really enjoying getting to know them as actual people.

"And I love seeing you around them," she added, offering up a shy smile. "You're all good for each other."

Despite the potential for insults and exploding fruit.

"Yeah, we are," Diego admitted. "Guess Dad was right about that one singular thing."

"Not the way he probably meant," Annie corrected, shaking her head. "I mean you clearly like being around each other."

Even when they were bickering. Annie had never had siblings, of course, but watching the Hargreeves together was the first time she'd ever gotten a real sense of what she was missing by being an only child.

"But also that, yeah," she added, agreeing. "You are literally stronger together. Like -- did you know you could do that? With the bullets?"

"Uh, no, not really," Diego said. "It was like one of those things where I felt like I could do it, but there was also a big chance I was about to be shot a hundred times."

It hadn't been the smartest move. Luckily it all worked out.

"I'm really glad you weren't shot a hundred times," Annie said, much lighter than she felt, as she went up onto her toes to give him a grateful kiss. "That was actually the second time I got to see you do something like that."

Look at Annie protecting the timeline! It was probably okay to talk about it now, though, right?

"The future Five and I saw at first was -- interesting."

"Oh yeah, you saw the apocalypse." So much had happened in the last two weeks, it was easy to forget. "What was that like?"

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