Vought Tower | Wednesday Afternoon

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie's enormous gold-and-white apartment was almost quiet for the first time in over two hours, now that she was gently all but pushing Ashley, Seth and Evan out the door. Her face hurt from smiling, her brain was tired from answering questions and leaping swiftly though conversational hoops before someone said something that could bite either of them in the ass later, and she wanted to get the fuck out of this uniform and take stock of how her fiancé was feeling, please.

But Vought was Vought, so. "I think this is going to turn out, like, so fucking great, Starlight," Ashley was saying, consulting the VoughtPad she was carrying with the rough coverage of the interview on it. "Spread looks great, you both look hot as hell, interview was perf -- this is going to be so good with, like, women between 15 and 45."

"Romance of the century," Evan added, glancing over Annie's shoulder at Diego with an assuring wave of his hand.

"So down-to-Earth," Seth added, looking from Annie to Diego and back again. "The girl next door with superpowers bringing her man home to meet her fans." He actually clasped a hand to his heart.

That was Annie's cue to actually give these people a physical push now, one hand on Seth's back as she steered them out the door and thanked them for coming before Ashley could say something racist to Diego again. (Annie was trying to nip that in the bud, but there had been a few times where all she'd been able to do was direct the interviewer not to use that comment and shoot Diego an apologetic look.)

And as soon as the door was shut and it was silent again, Annie leaned back against the door and closed her eyes for a moment before looking over towards Diego. "That...went okay?"

It had gone shockingly okay, by her standards, but if he disagreed then she'd make sure it went different next time.

[for the other person who's gonna be on the cover of People next Tuesday.]

Comments

[knife_bender]

"Your assignment in this was way easier than mine," Diego teased as he managed to push the tulle down.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"You can get me back by wearing your tactical gear next time," Annie returned, shifting so she could kiss his neck while she gave a much more intentional wiggle of her hips to send the tulle to the floor.

Also, because she liked his tactical gear a lot, even if it was a lot harder to get off of him than people clothes.

[knife_bender]

"It has been awhile since we've done that," he murmured, sliding his hands over Annie's ass. Just assessing the tights, really.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Oh, sure. Annie was also doing a little assessing as she went ahead and pushed Diego's pants down, simultaneously giving his collarbone a bite.

Not anywhere that would be immediately visible, today. For once, she actually kind of cared about keeping it discreet when she marked him up.

[knife_bender]

There was another little grunt of pleasure at the bite. He hooked his fingers into her tights, pushing them down impatiently.

This must be a record for how quickly they managed to get clothes off.

[defenderofdesmoines]

It only took about a million tries before they managed to be vaguely efficient about it.

And it was still only vaguely, considering Annie was much more occupied with sucking a bruise into the skin she'd just bitten than she was with gracefully getting out of her tights. She did manage to shove them down further, between one impatient hand and an even more impatient foot, and like...there just wasn't really a sexy way to take off a pair of tights, unfortunately, even under the best and most focused of circumstances.

(Maybe she needed to consider a version of the uniform with stockings. That would have a lot of perks, actually.)

[knife_bender]

Hey, ripping them off was hot and efficient, but they could only go through so many pairs of tights.

"Need some help?" he teased lightly.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Almost got it," Annie promised, moving a hand up to Diego's shoulder so she could balance on one foot and kick off her tangled ball of tights. "This thing really does come off best with teamwork."

Much like with the zipper, the tights were occasionally an even clumsier production when she did this solo.

[knife_bender]

"Well we do excel at teamwork." Now was him leaning over to nip at the hand she had on his shoulder teamwork? Probably not.

[defenderofdesmoines]

It was close enough to teamwork. Or at least, Annie could have probably found an argument for it being teamwork-adjacent if she wasn't so busy responding to that little nip to her hand with a soft, pleased noise in her throat.

She leaned up to kiss Diego, a bit more aggressive about it now that they were both a little less encumbered by clothing, and wound her opposite hand up into his hair to immediately tangle her fingers there.

[knife_bender]

He was never going to get tired of her hands in his hair. Diego pulled her closer, wrapping one of his arms around her hips as he kissed her.

Look at how close they were to being naked, and they were still standing! A miracle indeed.

[defenderofdesmoines]

It probably helped that they could be pressed close while nearly-naked, all things considered. Unlike when they attempted to undress midstream while lying down, they could actually multitask this way.

Annie bit playfully at his lower lip as she arched up against him, going up on her toes to better knot her hand in his hair.

[knife_bender]

“You know,” Diego started, “if every interview we do ends like this I will do a couple a day, just say the word.”

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I mean, I feel pretty comfortable saying that that seems likely," Annie admitted, smiling as she kissed him again. "Just knowing us."

Everything from beating up criminals to attempting to cook a frozen pizza tended to end up like this, for them.

[knife_bender]

“We do have our habits,” he admitted, moving to shuffle them over towards the bed. “Which are the best habits, by the way.”

There were way worse coping mechanisms out there!

[defenderofdesmoines]

"They are. I was kinda hoping they'd be lifelong habits," Annie admitted, allowing herself to be shuffled until the backs of her knees hit the bed.

Look, they hadn't left the honeymoon phase yet. It seemed unlikely to happen...like, for awhile. Maybe not until one of them was somehow hindered by age, at least?

[knife_bender]

Oh, they'd be in the honeymoon phase forever. Perhaps even worse about it once they were on their actual honeymoon.

"I'm all for making them lifelong habits," he said, leaning in to kiss her again even as he was working to get his shorts off. They might make it to full nudity before getting on the bed. They were so close!

[defenderofdesmoines]

At least people would probably think it was cute if they were (somehow?) even worse on their actual honeymoon.

Annie could help with actually achieving this naked-before-bed goal, too, as evidenced by her bra going flying vaguely towards the door a second later. The glitter was still a thing -- the glitter was going to be a thing, Diego, you were essentially marrying walking glitter -- but as she shimmied out of her underwear and started to crawl back on the bed, Annie super did not care about the glitter that was going to get on her sheets.

She was way, way more focused on reaching out to pull Diego onto the bed with her, and what did it say about them that this was roughly the billionth time they'd done this and she was still eagerly taking in the view of naked Diego like she'd never see anything so hot? (Probably boded well for the whole extended honeymoon phase thing, really.)

[knife_bender]

It helped they both looked really good naked. How could they not stare, like, all of the time?

He crawled up the bed, leaning down to kiss Annie as soon as he was close enough. He was so going to be covered with glitter by the end of this but that was sort of what you signed up for when you wanted to marry a superhero called Starlight.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Everyone made concessions in this relationship. Glitter everywhere. Knives everywhere. Frequent nudity. (Maybe less of a concession than a...well, a perk, 'cause yeah, they both looked great naked. Annie even believed that about herself these days!)

Annie sighed happily, stretching out her legs long on the bed and arching up to kiss Diego as one hand fairly immediately found its way up one of his arms to appreciatively slide along his bicep.

[knife_bender]

Diego settled himself against Annie, one of his hands sliding against her thigh as he kissed her. There was no real intent behind anything, aside from just enjoying the feeling of her skin against his. They had nowhere to be for the rest of the day so they could take it as slow as they wanted.

[defenderofdesmoines]

They had nowhere to be, and in a way, this almost felt sort of...restorative and necessary, after the whirlwind of the morning's interview and all the people who'd been in this apartment earlier. For Annie, being able to reconnect privately with Diego (and yes, they had their predictable methods of finding and reforging that connection, shh) was exactly what she needed right now.

Not that she was thinking about any of this on, like, that conscious a level right now. But she was more than happy to take her time with him, luxuriating a bit in how good he felt against her and how she could lazily wind her hand up along his back and into his hair as she leaned up to deepen the kiss.

[knife_bender]

Diego let out a pleased sigh at the feeling of her hand in his hair. He slid his hand around to Annie's back, lightly scratching his nails down. Just because this was slow did not necessarily mean it'd be sweet and gentle.

[defenderofdesmoines]

On the contrary -- Annie was kind of in the mood for less-gentle, given the soft, pathetic little noise she made into the kiss at the feeling of his nails.

"Do that again," she murmured, sliding a hand of her own around to his back and raking her nails down his spine just a touch harder in demonstration.

[knife_bender]

"Like this?" he murmured, repeating the movement. It was a little harder this time, probably harder than he would do to any non-powered woman he'd ever been in bed with.