fandomhigh | Summer Shenanigans- Wednesday, August 11

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Summer Shenanigans- Wednesday, August 11

Oh hey, Anakin and Beaker weren't here today! Instead there was a short brunette with a megaphone. She didn't need it, she just liked it.

"Welcome to today's Shenanigans. Grandfather's not here. I'm Jaina and I'm going to be your drill instructor today," she announced. "Today you're going to be doing a mud run. You will get dirty, you won't like it, and I won't care."

Jaina hadn't realized it was Truth Day, that was just how she talked to people.

"We have five obstacles for you to get through to make it to the end, where you will win absolutely nothing. Maybe my grudging respect. No teams today, it's every being for themselves. And I don't know hardly anyone's names so whoever I point to has to come down here and participate, and I know who I'm pointing to so don't think you're getting away with anything."

EVERY BEING FOR THEMSELVES
Annie
Astrid
Belle
Din (and Grogu)
Dwight
Faye
Harry
Sakaki
Stark
Troy
Wanda

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Annie had kind of accepted that if she was in town, she was going to be doing this.

And God, this was kind of an awful shirt. She'd totally wear it to sleep in (and Diego would probably think it was great) but this was the last time anyone would see it in the light of day, gross.

And really, as far as activities went, this could have been a whole lot worse. This was just like normal training, but...gross and dirty.

"This is actually almost normal this week," Wanda said as she approached Annie.

"It's like a real activity," Annie agreed, pulling her shirt on with a little face. "I mean, people sign up to do these on purpose and everything."

Instead of something insane that Anakin had probably seen on Facebook and thought was funny, or whatever his normal selection process was.

"Do you have to do this kind of stuff for work?" Wanda asked.

"Pff, no. Back before I made the team, sure, but mostly I stand around and look cute for work," Annie said, before looking a little puzzled because normally she might have softened that a little. "Do you?"

This seemed like the kind of athletic, team-building sort of thing Captain America might like, and all.

"The Avengers Compound has a gym and stuff," she said with a nod. "It's not used too much anymore because we're all scattered. But we used it for teamwork a lot--I spent a lot of time practicing lifting Steve up with my powers so he could do a cool guy roll through a third story window."

"Does the cool guy roll actually help?" Annie wondered, while also looking impressed. "My team barely does anything like that. We don't work together great."

Though Annie sometimes entertained dreams of Maeve throwing her around while she shot blasts at enemies.

(They'd need, you know, real enemies. But someday!)

"It looks cool," Wanda said with a shrug. Whether or not it helped was up in the air. "My team has its moments of not working great. We all had a big fight once. I was locked up in a straight jacket in a high security prison for a bit afterward."

"...it's weird I shared that." Though to be fair to Wanda, it wasn't like that had been a secret to anyone in her timeline.

"Why?" Annie asked, concerned. "I mean, not why did you share that -- you can share whatever you want, I'm a really good listener and you're super cool -- but that sounds horrible."

Annie hadn't liked not being able to use her powers when she'd been locked up, but she'd at least had, like, mobility.

"Steve broke me out eventually. But this Steve here doesn't know that yet so I try to keep it to myself." Try being the key word, unless it was days like these. "Don't want to mess up the timeline or whatever."

Even though her current timeline was shit. But from what she understood from Dr. Strange it had been the best case scenario.

"My boyfriend's brother time travels, so I get it," Annie assured her with a confidence that was honest if not fully accurate, because Annie really did not get it. At least, not as well as she would eventually. "So wow, that's weird. How far back is Steve from you? It must be hard, like, not talking about...major stuff."

Because that sounded pretty major, all of that.

"It's so hard. I think I'm eight-ish years ahead of him?" Calendar-wise, anyway. Wanda herself had missed five years of her own life, and that made it very confusing.

"It's enough of a gap where I feel like I'm a completely different person from the Wanda he knows." Wanda groaned and covered her face with her hands. "I'm so sorry, I don't know where this is coming from, and I haven't had the chance to talk to anybody like this in a long time, I'm babbling."

"It's okay," Annie said reassuringly, holding a hand out. "It's totally okay to babble. I don't mind. Eight years is huge. You probably are a completely different person." Eight years ago, Annie had been a lot more like the scared, nervous teenage girl who'd shown up last November than who she was now.

"But, like, does he know you're from the future?" she added curiously. "Because that would probably help." At least in terms of navigating the minefield of what was okay to tell him versus...not, timeline-wise.

She nodded. "Yeah he knows, but knowing and knowing are two different things. You have no idea what's happened. Even explaining the fact I had a husband and kids would be a whole thing."

Lot of italics there, but they were necessary.

"I noticed you used the past tense but I don't want to ask about it because it sounds sad," Annie replied before she could stop herself. "Oh my God, sorry. I don't know what's happening. But like -- Wanda."

She was going to resolutely just stop talking for a second here, but she looked both curious and fairly concerned.

"Oh, god, it's a mess. A sad mess," she confirmed with a nod. "And it's entirely my fault that it happened, which is why I'm afraid to talk to anybody about it."

"We all make mistakes," Annie offered, and the very fact that that came out of her mouth today probably showed that all that earnestness and optimism was the real deal. "It's part of being human. Even superhumans fuck up."

Trust her. She knew several fucked-up superhumans who had things for which they were atoning.

"I know. I do know that," she said with a small smile. "I'm trying to come to terms with it still. I want to be able to truly say I would never do it again before telling Steve about it."

But if she had the chance to get her kids back...she'd probably be willing to do a lot still.

"If you ever want to talk about it, my door is open and I have a heavy hand," Annie said with an equally small smile, miming pouring a glass. "I want to ask questions about your husband and kids, but I also don't want to make you talk about something that hurts."

Maybe a little more forthright about that than she'd be normally, sure.

"I appreciate that," she said, her smile going wider. "It does hurt, but it's not something I want to completely forget. I will need to take you up on that when, you know, the island isn't making me spill my guts unsolicited."

"Yeah, it's not like...fair, right now," Annie agreed sympathetically. "I didn't know the island did this. No one's ever warned me about, like, spill-your-guts day. Just about volcanoes and possible kids and maybe waking up as a dude."

Annie worried a lot about waking up as a dude, ever since she'd heard about that one.

"I would prefer all of the above to this," she said. "Wait, no, I prefer this to the kids."

She already had issues there.

"Mine were kind of adorable and I think about them all the time," Annie shared, and you know what, maybe better to get that out here with a gal pal than with her boyfriend, their theoretical father, 'cause yikes. "We had twins that showed up for a weekend. A boy and a girl."

Edited 2021-08-11 18:32 (UTC)

"I had twins too--both boys," Wanda said with a sad little smile. "I'm a twin myself, too. Seems to be popular."

"I'm sorry," Annie said, with utter sincerity -- she didn't have a choice today, after all. "For whatever happened."

She fidgeted a little shyly before adding, "I want to offer you a hug, but I don't know you that well so it's cool if you don't want one." And then she just kind of held her hands out helplessly, like, what the hell, island? because normally she was a lot smoother about this kind of thing.

Summer Shenanigans- Wednesday, August 11

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