It had been a pretty long night, once Annie and Diego had left for the hospital. And, ultimately, it had been a fairly uncomplicated labor in and of itself -- which, like, Annie was grateful for, but also people could stop saying that like it had been easy, thanks! -- and at the end of it all, mother and babies were all healthy and currently just sort of drowsy. (And, in Annie's case, sore in a way where she knew it was going to eventually be a lot worse, probably.)

Diego, on the other hand -- ha ha -- had an injury. That was, apparently, what supportive husbands got when their super-strong wives were busy pushing and not minding their strength, and Diego's brand-new hand fracture would apparently be healing in 4-6 weeks.

Which meant Annie was left to send out a text (along with a picture of two wrinkly little infants in little caps), once she was awake and lucid enough to think to do so.

Margaret (Maggie) and Benicio (Ben) Hargreeves, born early this morning (11/1/23). Everyone's okay, me included, just very tired. Diego's hand is also broken.

That seemed like enough for now, and Annie set aside her phone in favor of instead looking over towards the two bassinets in the room with them, and -- like, she hurt, but she'd also been on bedrest for forever, so she was tired of sitting around, and wanted to get over there to look at and hold her babies some more.

It just might, like, take a minute to get over there. She might not be pregnant anymore, sure, but Annie was not going to be moving fast again any time soon. (Which was fine. Babies, it turned out, had a pretty slow default speed.)

[feel free to say you got that text, and post is open for calls, texts, and broken-handed husbands!]

Just because Annie wasn't what you might call mobile at the moment, it did not mean she wasn't still doing her very best to partake of the capitalist hellscape offerings that had turned up! And like, bonus points -- did you know this island now had UberEats and DoorDash and Postmates and Grubhub????

(And yet, amongst all those coffee shops, not one Jitter Bean. Bullshit. Hadn't stopped her from getting a dozen Munchkins and some cake pops from Starbucks sent over, but it was bullshit.)

So once Annie had accepted her most recent delivery from Waffle House -- a chocolate-chip waffle with hashbrowns that had been capped, covered and smothered -- and trundled her way back to post up in front of the television, only then did she start to wonder whether this was really a good move for the island. Like, she herself had quite a bit of experience with this sort of thing (maybe more than the average bear, honestly!), and she could tell the island was doing a whole thing with this -- but also, like, what was she going to do about it at this point?

Maybe she didn't have to support it so hard, but also -- like, guys, she was due to give birth any day and her hashbrowns had so many accessories, get outta here with that.

[open for calls, texts, and drop-bys if you are so inclined!]

It was rare that Annie was able to beat Diego to being awake -- so rare, in fact, that on the few occasions when she did successfully sneak out of bed before him (and back when she'd had her insomnia-induced midnight Almond Joy raids), she kind of suspected he was letting her.

Today was one such day, which was good because it was Father's Day. A holiday that, right up until this year, had been kind of fraught and/or meaningless for everyone in this house. Annie hadn't seen her father in fifteen years, and Diego's was now dead -- and also, like, a manipulative asshole alien with little regard for the lives of those around him, so. You know. Not big Father's Day people, previously.

Annie had gotten it into her head that Father's Day breakfast was a thing (right? People did that?), and had thus made both her own coffee and Diego's real coffee before setting to work to do just that.

So, when Diego did emerge, he would find Annie quietly cleaning the kitchen, the lingering smell of burnt toast in the air, perhaps a cracked egg shell here and there, and a delivery person on their way with an actual edible breakfast shortly, because that had been stupid of her.

At least she'd managed to not catch the present she'd gotten him on fire or anything. It was still sitting there on the counter, looking all sparkly and gift-like.

[for the dad-to-be!]

You know, normally, when Annie had been thrown through something on the interdimensional fuckery scale like she had the past ten days (holy shit, it had not felt like that long), Summer would be her first stop just to try to make a little sense of what she'd been through with someone who got it.

But now that Annie had caught up on how much time had actually passed, and how much she'd missed, her own various issues were firmly in the backseat when she ventured across the hall with a pair of ice cream pints in a bag over one arm. She'd not only missed sangria night -- which was going to be a discussion they needed to have for multiple reasons -- but she'd missed sangria float night, which was supposed to be about Summer's breakup. Worst best friend ever, right here.

Hopefully Summer was around for a raincheck. Or the closest Annie's non-sangria-consuming self could come to one, anyway. So! Knocking, knocking -- chipper, perky, annoying-to-a-hungover-person, Annie-style knocking, la la la.

[for she whose apartment it is! and omg baby stuff is still NFB here!]

You know, Annie led a life of pretty unique experiences. But watching her husband's alternate-universe son try to dislodge the spear that had recently killed her apparently (and thankfully) immortal brother-in-law from the wall of a pretty ugly hotel suite, while the world was ending, was...definitely a new one.

"So, I think we all learned something about gun safety, and how you should never point any kind of gun at a person, right?" she offered, glancing from Stanley's efforts up to Diego. She didn't really want to cross the line into lecturing the kid herself -- it did not feel like her place, but this seemed appropriately...responsible-nearby-adultish to say. "We were really lucky this time."

Like, Stanley could have been hanging out with one of his other, much-more-killable uncles when the harpoon went off, to start.

[for the husband and the AU stepkid, and NFB for distance, obviously! ETA - also going NWS omg]

Everything involving all of this was weird, because that was just par for the course with this family, but this time around there was a lot of weirdness that was seemingly designed to make Annie uncomfortable. She got that having Stan dropped in his lap wasn't Diego's fault, and thankfully Fandom had prepared her pretty thoroughly for the idea that they lived different, separate lives in other universes, but....

But it still wasn't easy to have your husband tell you that this adolescent child was his, with a woman who was already so aggressive and confident as to make Annie vaguely uncomfortable with her.

So anyway. Annie was also lucky that it was pretty hard to miss her second-favorite Hargreeves when he was up and moving around, and when she ran into Luther on his way out for a morning run, she'd hardly hesitated before asking if she could tag along -- even if she was actually feeling a little queasy this morning. (Whatever. Probably just all the time travel and -- weirdness.)

"Does it look normal around here to you?" she asked as they made their way towards a park, Annie lengthening her stride a little more than she would normally to keep up with Luther. "Like, out here, too?"

She hadn't spent all that much time in the Unnamed City. Especially not during the daytime.

( Casual jogging where no one gets kidnapped )

( Family breakfast )

[NFI, NFB, OOC welcome! Loosely taken from TUA 3.02, "World's Biggest Ball of Twine" and preplayed with knife_bender!]

So, Annie had gotten a call a few days ago. And now that she'd had a few days to think (and to cry, and to pray, and to drink) about it, she was butting up to maybe actually being able to respond.

There was so much to say? But at the same time, so much she wasn't sure how to say. There was a prevailing feeling of lightness that had ballooned in her chest at hearing Wanda's recorded voice, even after everything -- but that lightness was also chased by something she didn't want to admit was panic that Wanda was still alive, even if she was sorry.

After this summer, and the year before, and now this -- Annie's fear responses were becoming sharper and sharper by the day. She didn't like that about herself -- she was supposed to be a dang superhero, unafraid of anything, but it was happening anyway.

On the bright side, her twitchiness and inability to relax meant that the mistletoe that had been creeping along one wall was now but a scorch mark on the wall across from her. (Which, of course, did not mean more would not be back.)

In any case, she finally willed herself to hit the send button on the text she'd been waffling on for days:

I'm glad you're okay.

And that was all there was to it, really. She was. There was more, but that part was true.

And now she was sending a much easier text to Wong, who had offered to help her find a superhero-friendly therapist, and good God was it obvious that Annie needed one of those.

[mostly establishy but totally open to neighbors, husbands, texts, calls, etc.]

Annie was falling. But was 'falling' the word to use here? Maybe 'hurtling' was better, since she wasn't falling towards the ground -- she, America, and Stephen (who seemed to have thrown himself in after them? Good.) were hurtling through star-shaped portal after star-shaped portal through...world, after world, after world.

Through space. Through a cavern of geodes. Through a city that seemed to be POPULATED BY GIANT INSECTS? Into the ocean, where Annie's lungs instantly filled, and she was gratified that both she and Stephen reached for America upon realizing they were all drowning, just for that second. Then New York -- her New York? Maybe. They were there for a half-second -- then a world with tiny robots (cute), then a much-less-cute world where there were entirely too many bones everywhere, then they passed dinosaurs, and that was awesome but also even more of a fleeting nightmare for Annie than Kamar-Taj had been.

But never fear, of course, because they weren't staying there. Annie, America and Stephen, flailing arms out towards one another to stay connected, were turned into cartoons, then cubed (and that was a lot of screaming, Stephen, but like...mood), then splashed through one dimension as paint -- PAINT! -- before hurtling (that really was the word) through several more worlds in rapid succession and landing in...a park?

A park. A park, and solid ground.

Annie was just going to lay here in the grass and stare at the sky and breathe hard for a second, thank you. America seemed to be breathing next to her, too, so that would do for right now. At some point, she'd have to thank Five for desensitizing her stomach to portaling back in 1963, because she barely even wanted to hurl right now. Barely.

( Multiverse travel makes you pukey )

( Time for exposition )

[[NFI, NFB but OOC is always wonderful! Taken from Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and preplayed with the lovely scarlet_chaos!]

It was a Christmas miracle: an even tackier, way-too-early ugly sweater party.

With way, way too much alcohol, and a kinda ridiculous number of activities.

There were, of course, the ubiquitous plastic snowmen haunting (almost) every corner of the apartment, and one out on each of the Smokers' Balconies for good measure. There were strings of lights lining the ceiling, as well as tracing the edges of each window. There were cookies to decorate (and eat, because you definitely should eat, and there were moddable snacks aplenty as well.) While there was, of course, Christmas music playing, those with keen eyes (or at least, enough wherewithal to look around an apartment before you started potentially drinking heavily in it) might spot a karaoke machine that would come out later. One particularly tinsel-y corner had an abundance of Santa hats and reindeer antlers and wearable strings of lights to wear while taking photos, and in the guest room -- of course -- there was a much-fabled craft table, where you could make an ornament that didn't have to be in an immature shape, but definitely could be.

There was also, hovering slowly through the party, a drone with mistletoe dangling from it. A Mistle Drone, one might call it, even.

And, because this was the Christmas Rager, there was alcohol. There was so, so, so much alcohol. The kegs of Christmas ale had once been reordered, there was a Make Your Own hot chocolate and coffee bar, and while Annie would never argue that Summer's shot table wasn't the star of every party...this year was a little different. Mostly because of how they'd decided to serve Annie's punch: in a freestanding bathtub, just slightly off-center from the room.

Welcome to the third annual Christmas Rager. Hope you wore a sweater, because the hostesses both have glitter cannons in case you didn't show up festive enough!

[please hold for way too many threads and we're off! open to literally every single adult on the island -- students are welcome to attempt to crash, but they'll be busted.]

Given that it had been relatively clear out tonight, with no rain or wind in the forecast, Annie and Diego had finally made good on this idea of going back over to Baltimore for a little crimefighting date. And Annie, in turn, had made good on her long-told promise of getting leather pants -- they were tight, but she couldn't deny she looked really good. And like a total badass. Maeve would be proud. (And they were warm, which wasn't especially badass, but you spend most of your adult life fighting in a tulle skirt -- warmth becomes important.)

"I need to figure out how to fly without taking out an entire breaker panel," Annie was saying as she let herself back into the apartment and flipped on the lights. She wasn't still out of breath, exactly, but she was very pink-cheeked still from how fast they'd had to run away from their last set of criminals of the night -- she and Diego had spotted a couple of guys sort of...playing with a window, and while the fight hadn't taken especially long, they still hadn't wanted to be waiting there when the cops came. But this was one of those reasons why it was good to be in shape in their line of work! "How are your knuckles?"

Annie's kind of hurt -- lots of punching, since she hadn't wanted to attract a lot of attention with blasts -- but Annie also had super-skin. (And Annie was also clearly flying on a high of remembering she could do all of that. Even without the cape.)

[for that man she married!]