The Perk, Sunday Morning

[hatesparadise]

Oh, if anyone thought Danny would be out jogging like a crazy person with all those stairs this early in the morning, they clearly had never met him.

Instead, he was enjoying a coffee that didn't contain a single hint of pumpkin spice.

With a slice of pumpkin bread. But that wasn't important. Also, Grace had gotten him liking that particular item from a certain chain coffee shop. So sue him.

[open!]

Comments

[defenderofdesmoines]

See, since yesterday had been a cardio day, today Annie was also abstaining from any stair-related extracurriculars. She was walking a little stiffly, between yesterday's stairs, this morning's workout, and still kind of feeling the effects of Vanya's treatment earlier in the week -- but like that was gonna stop her from heading into the Perk and getting a PSL for the second day in a row, psh. Or from saying hi to Danny.

"Morning," she greeted him, just going ahead and taking a seat at his table. Don't mind if she did, Danny.

[hatesparadise]

"Morning. You okay there?" Danny asked over his cup of coffee.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It was stair day yesterday," Annie explained, though there was of course more to it. "And kind of a long week. How're you?"

[hatesparadise]

"Can't complain at this very moment." Which was as positive as he could be, really. "Long week?" he asked, gesturing to the chair across from him.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Yeah, that was like, sunny for Danny, honestly. "Diego's dad passed away a couple weeks ago, I don't know if you heard," she offered as she took a sip of her coffee, which was really sugarcoating things quite a bit now that all the truth had come out, but you know, deep ends and throwing people into them. "There's been a lot of -- family stuff. And he has a really big family."

[hatesparadise]

Could be getting laid. Maybe.

"Bunch of siblings, he's mentioned that." And that one creepy kid on island.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Six," Annie supplied. "And they don't really hang out regularly so there's a lot of, like, tension. I had to break up a fight at the funeral and ended up in the middle of another one earlier this week."

And she had ultimately had to save one of Diego's sister's lives after the other tried to kill them both. Normal things!

[hatesparadise]

Totally normal!

"Funerals," Danny said with a sympathetic little grimace for her.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"This one was especially bad," Annie replied, shaking her head. Not that she'd been to a ton of funerals -- the last one she'd attended prior to this, she'd had to sing a power ballad while wearing a bodysuit unzipped to her navel -- but even she knew this had been exceptionally awful from the jump. "Like, they got into it over the eulogy."

And honestly, for while there, she'd been really proud of Diego for standing up against false praise of Reginald. Things had gotten out of hand, but she admired the impulse.

[hatesparadise]

"He okay?" Did Danny need to bring a mourning lasagna over?

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Not really," Annie replied honestly. "We also lost his mom earlier this week, and a...family friend." She would elaborate if prompted, but she also didn't want to take away from Pogo's loss by making a thing out of the novelty that had been his existence. "And his siblings are all missing right now, other than the one who lives here."

So Diego was kind of going through it and a lasagna would be great, yeah.

[hatesparadise]

"...I'll bring over some food," he promised. Because that was a method of showing affection that Diego wouldn't stab him over. Right?

[defenderofdesmoines]

At the very least, it was a method that Annie would support and she would intervene if stabbings were threatened. They probably needed to eat things that weren't takeout and protein shakes, anyway.

"That would be nice," Annie said with a little smile, taking a casual sip of her coffee. "Oh, and his sister threw me through a wall. So I dunno how good an impression I made on the family."

Just to circle back to whether she was okay or not, since it wasn't just the stairs, no.

(And Annie was also sort of more concerned about the impression she'd made with the Klaus situation in the ca -- oh shit, it had actually been a Klaus-and-Ben situation, hadn't it? Mortifying.)

[hatesparadise]

"She what?" Annie, go back to that now. Right now. This was Danny's concerned dad face.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I'm fine," she assured him in response to that face. "But yeah. They all have powers, except Vanya didn't know about hers until like a week ago. And, like, that stuff can be really hard to get control of, at first."

That was the thing -- Vanya had scared the hell out of her, and Vanya had hurt her, and Vanya had needed to be stopped. But Annie still had so much sympathy for her. None of that had been malicious, it seemed like, just a product of confusion and a lifetime of receiving what seemed like the worst treatment in a household of abused children.

[hatesparadise]

"But they're all... good now?" Hopefully. Since Diego was back and all.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Missing," Annie repeated, shrugging a shoulder as she took another sip of her coffee. "Like, in time. Five was trying to time-travel everyone out of danger and messed it up. So I don't know. Diego's all right, though."

Aside from a bump on the head and a whole lot of grief and worry right now, but Annie also knew that Diego was also probably going to seem pretty normal (if maybe a little grumpier than usual) to most people who weren't her.

[hatesparadise]

Danny nodded like that made sense and wasn't kinda nuts still. "Well, it's good to have him back at least."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Apparently he should be ready to time travel at any moment, though," Annie replied, a little dry about that. "So who knows how long he's back for."

For the record: this was really weird for Annie, too. And Annie had superpowered super-dicks in her world.

[hatesparadise]

"You... okay?" Because he could give you a hug until it was better.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I'm fine," Annie said again, though how believable she might have been was up for grabs. She was definitely better than she'd been Thursday night, at least, and her relief at Diego being alive, full-stop, had kept her buoyant through the rest of it. "But like I would have much rather, you know. Gone home for Thanksgiving or something to meet everyone."

Probably wouldn't have gone through a wall. The Diego-Luther tussle would have probably been a thing regardless, though. At least, as long as Luther wasn't on the moon.

Again: this was all real weird even by Annie's standards.

[hatesparadise]

"Uh, remind me to tell you about meeting Steve's mom and that awful weekend with his dad showing up," Danny suggested with a wry look.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I mean, I had to be forcibly teleported away from Diego's dad that weekend," Annie reminded him. And again, in hindsight, they were all so dumb for not realizing Reginald was dead at the time. "And it sounded like his dad wasn't exactly...cuddly. But Steve's mom sounds like a real piece of work."

Annie was one of those people who swore infrequently enough that a term like that sounded real insulting coming from her.

[hatesparadise]

"Those two could start a club," Danny agreed with a sigh. "I'll be by tomorrow with some food, okay?"

Let him mother you both in his own weird way.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Okay, but pretend it's about me," Annie said, reaching out to tap the tabletop in an entreating gesture. "Like, he's gonna see through it, but you know."