Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Annie slips into the circular boardroom a few minutes late, easing the heavy door shut as quietly as she can. Homelander has already begun debriefing the rest of The Seven with their weekly crime analytics, pausing in the middle of his sentence just long enough for his eyes to flick toward her. His mouth flattens for a fraction of a second before he turns back to the holographic monitor in front of them.

“—up twelve percent in Midtown alone,” he continues smoothly, like the interruption never happened.

The others are already spread around the conference table. Ashley makes herself small, overseeing everything from the back of the room with her brand new assistant hanging awkwardly at her side. Light pours in from the massive windows, only deepening the shadows across their faces as they silently watch their captain, arms draping and adjusting over the glass. Annie mutters a quick apology as she rushes into her seat, smoothing her cape before she settles into place. 

“Now, obviously the media’s gonna focus on those ‘subway incidents,’ but statistically speaking,” Homelander gestures lazily toward the screen as another map appears behind him, sections of the city glowing red and yellow, “armed robberies are still our biggest problem area and well… Maeve and I can’t be everywhere.” He lets the words hang for half a beat, expression softening into something faintly condescending, as if the point shouldn’t need explaining. 

These meetings are never discussions, no room for questions or complaints. They’re about being talked at in the pursuit of alignment and control—polling numbers, sponsorships, projected response times, all the ins and outs of the Vought-approved patrol routes. And yet, for all of it, Annie finds herself absorbed in a way she never gets to feel anywhere else in the tower. Her attention isn’t drawn to the control, or the branding, or the way everything is filtered through soulless corporate jargon—but to the moments where something concrete finally slips through. Being told where she can go, who she might help, what she can actually do. 

It gives her small flashes of the life she thought she was signing up for. Something about it makes her feel useful. Like a hero, if only in pieces.

At the back of the room, Ashley reaches absently for her coffee, cupping it along with a stylus gripped carefully in her other hand. She takes a sip and recoils, hissing faintly through her teeth.

Homelander stops talking. Not for a brief second this time, either. 

The room falls silent as he turns his head from the presentation screen toward the two women wedged away in the corner. His body is perfectly still. 

“Too hot?”

Ashley’s eyes widen. Her jaw clenches tight as her gaze darts rapidly between the mug and the young assistant standing beside her chair. Her lips pop open, empty, before snapping shut again.

“That’s not acceptable, is it?” Homelander asks mildly, leaning slightly toward the table. The fabric of his suit gives a soft squeak as he shifts. “I mean… just how hard is it to do your job the correct way, hm? Ashley here could’ve been scalded.” 

 “No, no, it’s—,” Ashley shakes her head immediately. “It’s perfect, really, it’s fine—”

“The coffee is fine?” 

The assistant stiffens. Her knuckles go white around the notebook in her arms. 

“I prefer it this way actually,” Ashley cuts in, too fast. “I’d much rathe—”

“She’s a big girl, Ashley. She can speak for herself.” 

The temp stammers. “Y-yes, sir… it’s fine.”

“Then have a sip.” 

Annie’s heart rises into her throat. The version of heroism she was holding onto a moment ago drains out of the room.

The assistant hesitates. Then she takes the mug from Ashley and offers a small, careful sip, fighting hard not to react. 

“Oh come on now,” Homelander scoffs. “That was nothing! Surely you know how much damage high heat can do to soft tissue. I want you to prove to me you wouldn’t actually be so careless.” 

Everyone tenses. It’s like a video of some unspeakable event, knowing there’s nothing you can do to reach out and change it. It’s just something that happened. It was always going to happen. 

The temp’s hands are shaking hard enough now that dark drops spill over the rim onto the carpet. Tears well up in her eyes as she forces another drink. Annie sees it now, in the light; the steam rolling off of it. This poor girl’s mouth must be scorched. 

“Well?” 

“It’s fine,” she chokes out, nearly crying. 

Homelander leans back again in his chair. He lets out a tiny scoff. 

Red beams lance across the conference room and strike the mug still clutched between the assistant’s hands. She jerks instinctively as the ceramic heats up at the edge of her fingers. Steam, far more violent now, starts curling upward in thick white ribbons. Tiny bubbles begin to rise. A sharp cracking sound splits through the room as the coffee rolls into a boil.

Homelander’s lasers vanish.

“Take another.”

The assistant cries down at the mug. Heat pours onto her face.

“Sir… Please, I— I can’t…”

“Sure you can.”

Nobody speaks, not even Maeve, and you can hear it, the unbearable terror in the young woman’s throat before she lifts the cup back to her lips. The second it nears her mouth her entire body flinches— hard enough to splash coffee across her wrist, a terrible hiss of burning flesh that Annie can only pray she imagined. The noises coming from the woman are awful now— choking, swallowing, sharp little breaths pulled through her nose. Her face looks swollen and pink the second she pulls back. Mascara streams down onto her collar.

Annie can’t watch anymore. She stares at Homelander, terrified and angry, wishing she was more powerful. She wishes she could push him back, could crush his skull with her mind. 

His eyes glow red again. Annie’s breath hitches in her chest, just waiting for him to laser the woman in half. Instead it’s worse. Just another threat, before he smiles politely and says, “All of it.” 

After it’s over, and the mug is empty, and the assistant is inaudibly wailing down on her knees with the rest of the room blank and catatonic, Homelander turns his attention back onto his presentation. 

“Guess I was wrong,” he shrugs one of his shoulders. “Wasn’t too hot at all. Anyway… the Queens numbers are still salvageable—”

Annie waits for the door to latch. She barely even makes it three steps into her suite before it all comes pouring out of her. 

“I hate him! God, I fucking hate him!”

Hughie is already there, sitting on the edge of the sofa with his computer draped over his lap. He jolts up immediately, hands half-raised like he’s not sure whether to catch her or calm her.

“Hey— hey, shhhh… keep your voice down,” he says, voice low, urgent. “What if he hears you?”

“He’s not listening to me,” she snaps, pacing. “He’s too busy— I don’t know— doing that thing where he just decides someone’s life is over.”

She stops, breath shaking.

“I mean, why is he even like this? You know? He’s just… broken. I don’t understand how someone can be this evil. Not even just self-serving. Genuinely and truly… evil.”

Hughie exhales slowly through his nose, like he’s choosing his words carefully.

Annie continues, “I just don’t know how long I can keep doing this. Every day, it’s like a knife at my throat… what he did today, in that meeting… and that was tame, for him… It never ends…” 

“It’s Vought.” Hughie practically blurts. “I mean… not anymore, he’s a grown ass man, but— see, the way Butcher tells it— it’s like this. You have a bear. A baby one. And it can fly and… shoot lasers out of its eyes. And when it’s little it’s hopeful. It loves you, because it has to… it needs something to love it back. Only, you don't- ever love it back. You keep it in a cage and you poke it with a cattle prod every single day, and then when it’s old enough you just set it free.” 

“He’s not an animal though, Hughie… He’s a person. He chooses to do this, every single day.” 

“I know,” he says quickly. Softer now. “And believe me, I’m not trying to sound overly-empathetic here. He’s clearly psychotic, and a murderer, and a rapist, and he...” Hughie trails off, probably wanting to add that Homelander needs to be killed; that they’re working on figuring out how to do it, but he bites his tongue instead. “I’m just saying… you do that— to a person.. the way those scientists did… they were always going to make a monster. Vought gave someone this unstoppable power, and this thirst to be sadistic— and then they just unleashed him. Like that Jurassic Park movie, the one with Chris Pratt. Those guys made that fucked up, invisible dinosaur thing and then they just didn’t expect anything bad to ever happen.” 

Annie’s shoulders drop a little. “I see what you’re saying, and I get it, I do… I’m sure that whatever Vought put him through, it…” She rubs a hand over the back of her neck, looking down at the floor for a moment. “But lots of people suffer through abuse… They confront it, they work through their issues, and they move on with their lives. There are so many people who go through unimaginable things, people who constantly need saving…” She closes her eyes, swears she can still smell the coffee. “They don’t turn out like Homelander.” 

Hughie nods. When Annie looks up again he takes her into his arms, breaking away to quickly add, “I don’t think it’s an excuse. Please don’t.. ever think that— I just think that… until Vought gets taken down, they’re just going to keep making more of him. I know it’s hard, I mean… I can’t even imagine… But we can’t give up yet. We have to figure out a way to stop it… We have to see it through.” 

“Yeah,” she says aloud, swallowing. Then inwardly, but it’s easier when you’re not the one who has to face it alone, every single time that it happens. 

Hughie doesn’t say anything for a while after that. His arms stay around her, but looser now, like he’s letting her come back to herself instead of holding her in place.

Annie exhales slowly, looking out through the high window of her suite, keeping her eyes trained on the sky. 

Chapter Text

Later that night, when Annie falls asleep, she dreams of the Polk County county fair. She dreams fondly of idling through a maze of flimsy metal barriers with acres of trimmed, dying grass crunching beneath her worn-out running shoes. Dreams of her old friends, and their bubbling laughter, and the air whooshing out of their lungs at the crest of the loud, bright rides that rattle against the sky. 

She wakes up murmuring about it aloud, asking Hughie if they can stay just a little while longer. Blinking against the light bleeding through the shades, Annie finds herself disoriented for a moment in that soft, suspended space between reality and wherever she’d been before— already losing it, already forgetting. The smell of frying butter pulls her the rest of the way out from it, down from the empty bed and off into the hallway. 

Hughie is there at the stove, scraping a batch of somewhat anemic-looking eggs onto a plate. There’s a glass of orange juice already waiting for her on the counter, its condensation dripping onto the granite. He greets her the moment he notices her watching him.

“Hey there sleepyhead. Look who’s finally up.”

Annie leans against the tiny kitchen island, the two of their bodies now taking up nearly all of the space carved out for it in her suite. “Smells good.”

“Yeah?” He gives a small, relieved laugh. “I was going for ‘edible,’ so I’ll take it. I definitely need a win right now.’”

For a moment it’s easy. It’s okay, like it usually is. She doesn’t brush her hair, doesn’t need to. Doesn’t step away, doesn’t want to. She’s exactly where she wants to be, warm in every facet of her humanity and the light that Hughie brings into the tower. 

“So uh… Listen,” he glances over his shoulder, voice as soft as he can make it. “I feel like I left things kind of weird last night.”

Annie shakes her head immediately. “No. No, it wasn’t— it was me. I had a hard time dealing with things yesterday… and I was short with you. I got in my head.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says quickly, then exhales. “I mean, I shouldn’t have been so— I don’t know. Pedantic? That whole dinosaur-bear analogy was kind of a mess.”

Annie quirks her head, huffing out a hesitant laugh. “Yeah, it was a little….”

“I was trying to help,” Hughie adds, his face pulling together in that softly endearing way. “Keeping us both motivated with the bigger picture, I mean. I mean I guess. I definitely didn’t do it the right way.” 

She watches then as he turns back to the stove, finishing whatever he’s been working on with a few quick flips of his spatula. 

“Well anyway! Breakfast is now officially served. By which I mean I’m just calling it a day before I really fuck up and burn something. Or worse.”

He slides a plate toward Annie before moving in to plant a soft, welcome kiss on her forehead. Then he settles himself down into one of the barstools, all elbows and knees and utensils scraping against the stoneware. For just a little while, there’s only the sound of him. Comforting and familiar, like an anchor that keeps her from drifting away. 

“So I was thinking,” she says after a moment, lighter now, “that maybe today, when you and I go to the—”

Hughie pauses. Then he straightens slowly, joints iron-tight, like he already regrets what he’s about to do next. 

“Oh, Hughie…” Annie’s shoulders drop. She flashes him an exasperated look, slumping her head to the side. “Tell me you didn’t.” 

“I am so.. unbelievably..  unimaginably sorry… god, I just… I completely forgot to tell you...” Hughie winces. He’s already continuing, trying to fill the space before it turns into something worse. “But hey! It’s not even a full day thing! I just— we have this big committee briefing, and Neuman really needs me in the office. I can’t get out of it. Believe me, I tried. And I know I should’ve said something sooner, I just— last night was so… yeah.”

Annie goes still for a while, calling on her acting skills to keep her face as blank as she can. She swallows the disappointment, fighting the urge to stop eating. 

“I understand,” she assures him at last, her throat aching as she speaks. 

Hughie looks relieved anyway. Guilty, but relieved. He reaches across the counter, squeezing her hand once with both of his.

“And speaking of which,” he announces, glancing down at his watch, “I’m gonna be late if I don’t get dressed in— oh wow okay— like literally right now.”

Annie snorts playfully through her nose. “Romantic.”

“I know, I know. Boyfriend of the year.” He scoops up their dishes and drops them down into the sink. “But I’ll make it up to you later, I promise. Okay? Pizza? Takeout? I’ll bring back literally anything you want. And tomorrow we’ll have the whole day.”

He disappears briefly into the bedroom area while he talks, voice carrying through the suite.

“We can couch rot,” he calls. “Finish that show we started. The one with the cult?”

“The one about the family who poisoned each other? Or the one about that lady who was poisoning herself?” 

“The fact that I don’t know is honestly kind of concerning.”

Despite herself, she smiles faintly. She hears drawers opening and shutting, the rustling of fabric, and Hughie muttering to himself while he searches for something. A minute later he reappears, shrugging into his jacket and fixing the strap of his messenger bag. He crosses the suite without hesitating, leaning down to press a firm kiss against her lips.

“I love you,” he murmurs.

Annie closes her eyes for half a second at the contact. “Love you too.”

“I’ll text you when I’m done, okay?”

“Okay.”

Then he’s gone. Annie stands there longer than she means to, staring at the closed door with her arms folded loosely across herself. The suite falls quiet within seconds. The warmth he left behind fades, sucked out through the air vents of the most evil structure in the city.

Even though it wounds her to admit, these stray pangs of isolation are steadily getting worse. It makes her feel absurdly needy for those fragments of normalcy, so uncharacteristically weak when she has to go without. All these evenings spent alone in this tower with so little on her docket; these long stretches of silence broken only by Vought handlers, rehearsals, and cameras. 

And then, in those still, quiet moments when she’s especially unlucky: Homelander. She knows she can’t leave, certainly not yet before Butcher has solidified a plan to depower, destroy, and usurp him from the inside. Until that day comes, she’s trapped. Each room in this building is an expensive cage, for Annie. Every hallway loaded with steel-toothed traps to step on. 

Annie exhales sharply through her nose and grabs her jacket from the back of the chair before she can think too deeply about it. She knows, rationally, that she just needs to get outside for a while— out from her head and into the world again. 

Down through the tower, past the well-polished glass and tightened security that pretends not to watch her too closely, the brisk spring air hits harder than she expects. She closes her eyes for a moment, breathing it all in, before quickly pulling her hood down tighter over her head. Alone, she walks. 

She doesn’t have a destination in mind. She just wants to feel some semblance of distance, far enough from the tower to stop thinking about it for a little while. Stepping over the pavement she finds herself wishing it was grass instead, that her pricey running shoes were a little more broken in. 

It’s cruel how unrelenting it is, the ever-present threat that makes its way under her skin like a splinter— or better, the tiny silver tracker buried deep in her arm. Impossible to outrun. At some point she ends up in a quieter stretch of street — older buildings, broken sidewalks, half-shadowed alleys scattered between them. 

That’s when she hears it.

At first she thinks it’s just another shard of the bustling city noise. Something small and meaningless, almost imperceptible to her ears. Then it happens again. A thin, broken sound piercing out from somewhere low to the ground. 

Annie slows. It comes again — closer this time, near a cluster of trash bags tucked beside a long row of bright orange barrier mesh. 

“Oh my god,” Annie crouches, her voice going soft and high-pitched. 

It’s a kitten, a young tabby with light ginger stripes, and it looks smaller than it probably should be. Dirty fur, shaking limbs, barely more than a shape at first until it moves again. Annie stares for a second like she’s not sure if she’s allowed to touch it.

“Look at you. You’re so little… How’d you get all the way out here?”

It mews again, softer this time. 

Annie sighs. “Okay,” she murmurs. “Okay… I’ve got you.”

She reaches out, gently, and feels relieved that the kitten doesn’t move away. Its tiny body shivers against her jacket as she cups it in toward her chest. The warmth in its tiny body is immediate, filling her with a tentative surge of comfort and emotion. Annie glances around anxiously, peeking over the hazardous zone, scanning the walkways for more. The alley is empty, silent except for the sounds of nearby construction and the whirring hum of traffic in the distance. 

“I can’t just leave you here,” she mutters. Her voice is almost a whisper, swallowed by the sound of honking and drilling in the distance. She knows she’s out of her element, the only cats she ever grew up near were looked after by her mother— outside and irresponsibly— the memory filling her with a small sting of resentment. Carefully she adjusts her grip, one hand supporting the kitten while the other pulls her phone out from her pocket. 

Annie taps through three different shelter websites before she even reaches the end of the block. Every single one of them says the same thing in slightly different fonts: 

OVER CAPACITY. 

FOSTERS NEEDED. 

INTAKE CURRENTLY LIMITED.

Still, she doesn’t give up. The city is massive, surely there must be something. 

Soon the kitten squirms weakly against her chest while she walks, tiny claws snagging against the sleeve of her jacket. Annie adjusts her grip automatically, curling her hand more securely around its body.

“Okay, okay,” she murmurs. “I’m trying.”

At last she finds one with no stipulations printed on their home page, its location only a few streets over, tucked beneath an old brick building and wedged between a laundromat and convenience store. A sign hangs crookedly above the entrance, its lights flickering almost imperceptibly.

The lobby is louder than Annie expects. Inside smells strongly of bleach and wet dog. Puppies bark somewhere deeper in the building while a chorus of cats meow intermittently from the far wall. Most of the cages are occupied. Some of them are doubled up.

A tired-looking woman behind the desk glances up as Annie approaches.

“Hi there,” Annie says softly. “So I um… I found this kitten outside.”

The woman’s expression changes immediately, exhaustion folding into something sympathetic. “How old?”

“I don’t know. A few weeks maybe?” Annie carefully shifts the kitten into view. “I can’t tell if he’s just tiny or really young.”

The employee stands and walks around the desk to take a closer look. “Poor baby,” she mutters, scratching lightly beneath the kitten’s chin. “You check for a mother nearby?”

Annie nods. “I did, I did... I stayed for a little first. I think it was alone.” 

“It’s just…” The woman offers an apologetic smile. “Kitten season’s been rough this year.”

Annie’s stomach sinks a little.

“Unfortunately we’re just completely over capacity right now,” the employee continues, glancing back toward the crowded rows of carriers lining the wall. “Especially with the younger cats. This time of year we get absolutely flooded. But,” the woman adds quickly, “we do have a surrogate foster program.”

Annie blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s basically temporary at-home fostering. A lot of people find kittens like this and keep them for a few weeks until they’re old enough for adoption.” She gestures toward the kitten tucking itself back into Annie’s jacket. “Honestly, younger ones usually do better in a quiet home environment anyway. Lot less stress. Even less risk of them getting sick.”

“I see.” Annie rubs the animal instinctively in her grasp, fingertips smoothing over its tiny back. “So… what does that involve, exactly?”

“Well… If you’re willing to house her, we provide most of the essentials.” The woman steps back toward the desk, rifling briefly through a stack of pamphlets. “Food, litter, formula if she needs it— which, well, I don’t think we have to worry about here— and then basic medical care through our partner clinic. Oh, and vaccines once she’s old enough. Stuff like that.”

“And then what would happen?” Annie asks, curious but polite. 

“We list her through the shelter once she’s healthy and old enough to adopt out. Usually around eight to ten weeks minimum depending on her weight and development.” She shrugs one shoulder. “Some fosters keep them longer. Some…” Her mouth twitches, glancing up. “Fail spectacularly, and end up just adopting them themselves.”

Annie snorts before she can stop herself, “That wouldn’t happen with me.”

“…Annie,” Hughie says carefully, freezing halfway through shrugging off his satchel. “What did you do?”

Slowly, Annie unzips her hoodie just enough for a tiny orange head to poke out.

“Oh my God,” Hughie breathes. His entire face changes so fast Annie almost laughs.

“I know,” she says immediately, putting a hand out in defense. “But listen, it’s temporary. It’s— this is just a foster situation… Just until we can get her adopted.”

Hughie drops to a crouch in front of her, staring at the kitten like he’s witnessing a religious experience.

“This is the cutest cat I’ve ever seen.”

“She was in an alley.”

“She?”

Annie hesitates for a second. “…Her name is Miso.”

Hughie looks up at her flatly. “Annie.”

“What?”

“Every white woman names her cat Miso.”

“That is not true!”

“It is absolutely true.” 

Hughie laughs quietly under his breath, digressing, reaching a careful finger toward the kitten. Miso sniffs him suspiciously before immediately headbutting his hand. 

“Oh my god, she likes me,” he says, full of wonder.

“Please. She likes everyone,” Annie teases. “The lady at the shelter even said so.” 

“You happy?” he asks softly. 

The question catches her a off guard.

“I know you’ve been… I don’t know, having an insanely rough time lately. If doing this helps at all with that, especially with how I’m gone so much these days…” 

Annie looks down at the kitten curled against her chest. At the tiny paws kneading absently in her arms.

“…Yeah,” she admits quietly. “I think maybe it does.”

A sharp knock interrupts them. Three quick taps against the suite door.

Hughie glances over first. “Were you expecting somebody?”

Annie’s stomach tightens. “No...”

Another knock. Miso startles upright at the sound, eyes wide and ears twitching back and forth.

Annie carefully lifts the kitten off her chest before standing. “Hopefully it’s just Ashley.”

Which, thankfully, is exactly who it is.

Ashley slips inside the moment Annie cracks open the door, tablet already tucked against her chest and bluetooth earpiece flashing faintly in the warm lighting of the suite.

“Oh thank God,” Ashley mutters distractedly. “Okay, listen, Thursday’s press schedule got moved up because some idiot at Vought+ approved a—” She stops mid-sentence. Her eyes land directly on the kitten now peering around Annie’s ankle. “…What the fuck is that?”

“Ah—” Annie flounders a little. “It’s just— it’s temporary,” she assures her. 

Ashley stares at the two of them like she’s watching a hostage situation unfold in real time.

“Absolutely not,” she says instantly. “No. No, no, no, no, no.” 

Almost on cue, Miso darts directly between Ashley’s heels and disappears deeper into the suite.

Ashley gasps sharply and jumps. “Oh my God— okay, no. Nope. I’m serious. No more fucking pets. I have seen what happened when Black Noir had that emotional support hamster thing and I am not doing this again.”

“There was a hamster?” Hughie asks.

Ashley glares at him like she’s shocked to even see him in here. “You never bring that hamster up to anyone, ever, you hear me?” 

Annie bites the inside of her cheek hard enough to stop herself from laughing.

Ashley points at her warningly. “This isn’t funny.”

Miso reappears a second later carrying one of Hughie’s shoelaces triumphantly in her mouth.

“I’m getting a fucking ulcer.”

“She’ll only be here for a little while,” Annie promises, almost whining. “And besides! Think of the PR campaigns. The marketing team will love it… our own personal, rescued, sponsored spokescat…” 

“Another facet of your wholesome, everyday hero,” Hughie adds in support. 

Ashley looks down at the kitten again. “Oh goddamn it…” She presses her fingers into her temples. “What’s its name?”

Hughie leaves earlier than he’d promised. 

And Annie hates it, how it feels like a step backwards. How every happy moment they’ve just shared feels nullified the moment that heavy door swings shut and beeps. Even just the sound of it chiming is enough to bring her back down here, again, to this feeling. Annie stands in the kitchen a moment after the door shuts. Only this time Miso is already winding around her ankles, clearly unimpressed by the concept of abandonment as a recurring theme.

“I know,” Annie murmurs, pulled out of her funk almost instantly, as if she’d forgotten she had something far more pressing to fixate on. “I know, I’m still here.”

She checks the little stack of supplies strung over the counters again. Food: fine. Litter: fine. Toys: fine. Then she pauses. No litter liners. 

“…Of course,” she mutters.

Miso meows once, sharp and judgmental, and Annie exhales like she’s been accused of negligence. 

“They’re not even necessary,” Annie argues. 

The kitten stares. Unconvinced. 

Annie opens Instacart anyway. 

A polite knock at the door snaps her awake. She must have dozed off at some point, collapsing down onto the sofa with her screen still unlocked in her hand. Miso’s head raises up from her lap, slowly blinking away her short nap. 

Annie looks down at her, fondly. She knew kittens could be affectionate, even clingy, but nothing had prepared her for this. Her heart swells in her chest. 

The knock comes again.

“Just a second,” Annie calls automatically, still half-disoriented. 

Miso stretches out across the cushion, tiny paws extended, then rolls onto her side like she’s testing the stability of the sofa— higher up than Annie had remembered it being. For a moment she worries about whether the kitten can even make it down on her own when she needs it. She’ll have to figure something out. 

Annie flicks her attention back onto the door. She pushes herself up from the sofa and walks toward the handle, pressing it down. The second it clicks Miso, who only a second ago seemed to be settling down to sleep again, moves. 

A sudden, precise burst of motion. Miso drops from the sofa, hits the floor mid-room, and bolts toward the door as it cracks open.

“Hey—no, no, no—Miso!” Annie snaps, whipping around.

Too late. The kitten slips forward through the narrowing gap in a flash of orange fur before Annie can react.

The door swings wider against her own volition. Annie lunges straight into the hallway, dropping instinctively into a crouch as she scans the floor.

“Miso!” she calls again, sharper now. 

A blur darts ahead—too fast, too small, already past the bag of liners left outside and halfway down the corridor. Annie moves quickly. She catches the kitten mid-sprint, scooping her up cleanly against her chest in one smooth motion.

“Gotcha,” she breathes, more startled than anything.

She straightens— and only then notices the blood red boots as she rises back up.

It always feels like this, seeing him, like watching a fin gliding through deep, dark water. Annie tightens her grip on the kitten without meaning to, without thinking. 

Homelander looks at them like he’s stumbled across a gift. 

“Oh?” He quirks his head, full of amusement and malice, stepping in closer. “And who do we have here?” 

The elevator doors slide open behind him. A man in a Vought lanyard steps halfway out, sees Homelander standing near Annie’s door, and immediately presses the close button without a word.

“It’s not mine,” Annie blurts. Her heart pounds heavily behind her ribcage, and she knows he can hear it, can probably smell the blood roaring in her ears. 

Homelander doesn’t look at her, doesn’t seem to care about what she has to say or what she’s doing. He’s too busy looking at Miso.

He takes another step forward. Miso shifts in Annie’s arms, fully alert now, ears flicking toward him as he approaches. Nothing about Homelander is ever soft or casual, but he does his best at making himself seem so. He looks like a man. Walks and talks like a man, only he isn’t. He’s a bullet. A weapon capable of moving slowly, easily, as if he has all the time in the world. 

“May I?” he asks.

Annie doesn’t move. Her face is as pale as Miso’s teeth as she yawns, oblivious to the danger, perfectly content in Annie’s arms again. Before she can even dare to respond, he’s already lifting a hand anyway— glacially enough to make Annie’s stomach drop, suddenly hating herself, regretting the belief that she could ever have anything good here without Homelander using it against her, or taking it away. 

Miso flinches at his touch, then stills. Annie’s entire body tenses, practically jumping at the contact as he works to get a hand underneath her. Homelander smiles like it’s fine, like it means something good. 

“Oh, relax,” he adds, almost teasing. “I’m great with animals.” His gloved fingers move again— unable to feel her, all for show, stroking under Miso’s chin in a way that’s too precise, too deliberate; still half-held in Annie’s arms. “She’s very soft,” he observes. “Did you pick her up downstairs?”

“No,” Annie says quickly. “She’s a foster.”

“A foster,” he repeats, as if testing the word.

Miso shifts again, trying to angle away from his hand. Homelander adjusts with her, never letting her fully escape the contact.

“She’s blonde,” Homelander comments, smiling softly as his fingers scratch at the sides of Miso’s neck. “Like me,” he chirps. His eyes stay on the kitten a moment longer, his smile vanishing into something more callous as they flick back up to Annie. “And like you— I guess.”

Homelander lifts her up, gingerly un-snagging one of her claws from Annie’s sleeve and raising her up into the air in front of his face. 

“You know, they gave me a cat once… When I was a boy. I’d begged for it. Every day just… asking and asking over and over again… and I guess at some point they got tired of me asking and decided… ‘well, who fucking cares? It’s a cat.’” He pauses, the rings of his pupils suddenly so small against the whites of his eyes. “I don’t even remember killing it. If I lasered it, if I squeezed it somehow. I just remember its…”

Annie feels her face twist up as he trails off, horrified at the implication, fighting not to reach for the kitten— not to let him know how badly she wants her back right now.

“Anyway they gave me a new one. Later, when I was older. I guess they’d… shot it up with something, some experimental compound to make it sturdier. I actually even remember naming it.” He smiles with his mouth practically open, almost boyish, almost handsome in his own disgusting way. Then it fades, almost wistful. Almost sighing. “Killed that one too.” 

Homelander’s jaw tenses, something indescribably resentful rolling up through his body, nearly shrugging by the end of it.

“But I mean…” he adds, almost conversational again, “what can you expect from someone who was locked in a cage and poked with a cattle prod every day?”

Annie’s brain fractions into competing impulses, breaking down inside of her as she forces herself to stay upright. The seconds seem to stretch, as if hours have passed with Miso held hostage in his grasp. 

He looks at her. At Annie.

“That is what Hughie said, right?” Homelander feigns curiosity. “Last night? When you were talking about me in your room?”

Annie swallows, forcing herself to speak. “He didn’t—” she blinks, hard, as if she might vomit. “We were just—”

“Don’t you fucking lie to me,” he snaps, nearly growling before steadying himself. “I mean— why even try it? Hm?” 

Miso squirms in his hand again, a small offended wriggle at being held too still for too long. Homelander adjusts his grip almost absently, like correcting a minor inconvenience.

“You were very passionate,” he continues, seeming lighter again. “A little pacing. Some… swearing.” His eyes flick back to her. “You even called me ‘broken.’ Which is funny, considering the wormy little fucker you keep as a pet.” Homelander looks at the kitten, addressing her in a way that’s meant to sound apologetic. “Oh no, not you… I’m talking about Starlight’s boyfriend. I’m sure you’ve both met.”

Something in Annie’s expression shifts—anger and electricity trying desperately to surface, immediately buried under the awareness that anger is exactly what he wants to see. Her hands tighten around empty air where Miso was a moment ago.

Homelander notices instantly.

“Oh,” he says, almost amused. “That’s cute. You doing the whole ‘protective’ thing….”

He lifts Miso slightly, turning her just enough that Annie can see her better again. The kitten mews once, confused more than distressed, paws flexing against the backs of his palms.

“Homelander, please,” Annie’s voice sharpens. 

“You know it’s funny… today it’s a kitten, and you’re trying. I mean actually trying… A little pressure, a little voice, a little courage…” His eyes lift to Annie. “When it was a person?” He clucks his tongue. “You just sat there… burning holes into my head.” 

Homelander watches her rage like it confirms something he already knew about her. 

Miso lets out a small, confused sound, as if snapping him out of whatever he’s thinking. He softens instantly, stroking her one last time before shoving her back off to Annie— overstimulated, but safe. 

Annie feels her muscles turning to Jell-O as Homelander leaves, pulling the kitten up to her face and planting a relieved kiss firmly to the side of her head as hot tears well up in her eyes. Her chest is heaving, gripping Miso like she can’t even believe she still has her; stopping only in her affection when she sees the supe turning back to glance at her. 

“And if I ever hear that pathetic little shit stain talk about my time in that lab again,” Homelander assures her, “I’ll fry both of them.” His arms fold behind himself. Just before he gets onto the elevator, “Well maybe just one of them. You and that cat would be better off anyway.” 

Chapter Text

The suite is shrouded in darkness, no light except for the slivers of color bleeding in from the city. Annie waits in the spacious living room that Stillwell had once meticulously assigned, curled into the corner of the sofa beneath the comforter she'd dragged from the bedroom. It was something she and her mom used to do when she was little; camping out in front of the television on holidays and stormy nights. It’s been years since she’s felt the need to do it again, but here in the uncomfortable, exposed pitch, it makes her feel just a little more safe. 

Snuggled into the curve of Annie’s belly as she lies over on her side is Miso. Annie runs her thumb slowly over the top of her tiny head, comforted by the softness beneath her fingertips. Every so often a paw will knead and flex against the blanket, purring loudly. Perfectly content. Oblivious to the fate that easily could have met her only a few short hours ago. 

Annie’s face aches. Her eyes flick to her phone again, almost obsessively, counting the minutes on the screen. She catches a glimpse of her reflection in the pale light as she locks it, sees her eyes swollen red and her cheeks painfully tight. She hadn’t realized just how hard she’d been crying. 

The images keep replaying anyway.

Homelander lingering in the hallway, taking his time in all of his sadistic delight— another perverse display of dominance and power. His gloves wrapped around Miso, hands that Annie could have done nothing to dissuade, let alone stop. That awful story about those cats. The way he’d looked at her when he'd admitted he'd been listening, invading her life even when she was certain he wasn’t there. 

Annie squeezes her eyes shut and presses her nose into Miso’s fur. It smells faintly of dust, fresh bread, and whatever detergent the shelter had used on the kittens’ blankets. The scent is comforting in a way Annie hadn't expected, entirely disconnected from the sterility of Vought and the unyielding cameras and the threats that can see through the walls. Despite everything, Annie lets out a weak laugh; relieved that everything is still relatively okay. It nearly turns into another sob.

Hughie should be home. Hours ago, Hughie should have been home. She knows he's working. Knows he's probably buried under paperwork and assignments and whatever Neuman has decided she needs. She knows he’s probably forgetting to eat, knows he must be wrought with exhaustion and stress from the enormous pressure weighing him down. She also knows that rationalizing it does nothing to stop the resentment from settling in her chest.

The lock clicks. Annie goes still. 

She can see the outline of him as the door pushes open, a wave of relief crashing through her so suddenly that it almost physically hurts. Hughie steps inside looking completely drained; his tie gone, his sleeves rolled unevenly over his forearms. The strap of his messenger bag hangs crookedly over the slump of one of his shoulders as he closes the door behind him.

His eyes find her in the dark. His entire demeanor changes.

"Annie?"

Something twists in her chest. She wants everything to suddenly be good again, because he’s here. Only, it’s always like this now— the fact that he’s only ever here after everything is already over. 

Hughie drops his bag by the door. The sound makes Miso lift her head, but Annie still doesn't move.

"Hey," Hughie whispers again. "What's wrong? What happened?” 

Annie looks down at the kitten curled against her stomach. The color drains from his face.

“Is she okay?” 

Annie nods. Then, after a moment, with a feeling like glass caught in her throat, she forces out, “I am here… all day.” She swallows it down. “Every day.” 

Hughie doesn’t interrupt. He just stands there, watching her in the dark. 

"I wake up here. I go to sleep here. I get into elevators wondering if—” she mouths the word ‘he,’ acutely aware of the fact that there’s no way to know when he’s listening, “— is going to be in there, waiting to do something to me. I go to meetings dreading who’s going to get hurt next… And now I can’t even… talk to you… in my own room… when you’re actually here.. without worrying about…” The tears come back immediately, cutting her off before she can finish the thought. “I’m just so, so tired…” 

Hughie looks devastated. Finally he crosses the rest of the room, slinks down at the other end of the sofa and says, "I know."

"No, you don't." The words slip out before she can stop them.

A long silence follows. Hughie stares at the floor. When he finally speaks his voice is quiet, nearly imperceptible over the sound of Annie crying. 

"You’re right." He shrugs helplessly. "I don't know what that's like… what you must be feeling, how isolating and scary it is… and I know I’ve been gone a lot—”

"You have."

"I know. I’m trying, Annie...and I know you know how important all of this is, that I’d obviously be here way way more if I could help it— but I just… I can't… I can’t be in two places at once."

The statement lands between them. Annie wipes her eye with the back of her hand. 

“I just…” She swallows. “I keep thinking if I can just make it through the day, if I can just get to when you’re home, then it’ll feel like I’m not doing it all alone.” Her voice tightens; she hates how much it feels like being choked. “And then you’re not here.”

Hughie flinches slightly at that, but doesn’t interrupt.

“And I know why,” she adds quickly, through the tears. “I do. I know you’re working. I know you’re trying to fix things... I understand all of that. But I can’t keep doing this without you, Hughie. I mean— it’s like earlier. I can’t help thinking that maybe if you’d actually been here—”

“That’s not fair.” He leans forward, forearms on his knees. “Look, Annie, I don’t know what happened tonight… because you won’t just tell me… but you know that isn’t fair.” 

“Isn’t it?” 

Hughie looks exasperated. His head is cradled in his hands, his voice rough from lack of sleep. 

“I know you’re feeling overwhelmed. We both are. But honestly? Annie?” He dips his head toward the kitten sleeping on the couch. “I really didn’t expect you to do this today. I wasn’t able to just drop everything I was doing to stay home and help you out.” 

Annie opens her mouth, but nothing leaves it.

“I get why you got her. I do. You saw something that needed saving and you saved it. That’s… that’s you. That’s one of the things I love about you.” A pause. “But you can’t blame me for not being here when you randomly decided to take something else on by yourself, without even talking about it with me first.”

Hughie stops as soon as it’s out, like he hears how it sounds. He exhales, shaking his head slightly.

“I’m not saying it to be cruel. I’m not. I’m just—Annie, I keep walking in and you’re in pieces, and I don’t even know when you’re at that point until I open the door.”

Annie stares at him. Her grip on Miso tightens without meaning to. The kitten shifts, makes a small protesting sound, then settles again.

Hughie notices immediately.

“Hey,” he says softer, easing back a little. “She’s okay.”

Annie’s throat works like she’s trying to swallow something too large. “You’re making it sound like I did this on purpose,” she says finally. “Like I’m irresponsible for it, just adding more weight onto you.” 

“I’m not,” Hughie replies, immediate. “I’m saying I just didn’t know. Like, I didn’t expect it. And I didn’t expect to come home and feel like I’m somehow part of why tonight got this bad when I wasn’t even—” He stops himself, breath catching. He looks down at his hands. “That’s what I mean,” he says more carefully. “I feel it too— like I’m always arriving after the damage is already done. And then I’m supposed to… what? Fix it? Or understand it? Or just be here with you and hope I don’t make it worse?”

Annie’s voice is smaller when it comes back. “I wasn’t trying to make things harder on us… or on you. I just— I needed—” She swallows hard, eyes glossy again. “I couldn’t leave her.”

“I know,” he says again. “I really do know that.”

The silence stretches. Seconds turn to minutes, suspended in the empty quiet of the living room. 

“I think I’m just tired too,” he admits. “And I don’t know how to be what you need from me right now while still doing what I’m doing. And I don’t know how to say that without it sounding like I’m choosing something else over you.”

Annie lets out a shaky breath. “So then why make me feel like I’m doing something wrong just for needing you?” 

Hughie looks up at her again, and this time there’s no defensiveness left—just pure, hopeless enervation.

“I’m not trying to do that,” he says quietly. “I— Look, Annie… I don’t think this is getting us anywhere. We’re both exhausted, we’re talking in circles…” He nods once, like he’s decided something before he can lose his nerve. “You think maybe I should go to my dad’s? Just for tonight? And we can talk about this more after we’ve had some time to rest?” 

Annie’s expression tightens—but she doesn’t argue.

“…Yeah,” she says softly. “That might be best.”

“Okay.”

He stands slowly, like if he moves too fast something might break.

“I love you,” he tells her, earnestly, more gently than anything he’d said just before it.

Annie looks down at Miso. “I love you too,” she murmurs. Then, barely audible: “Text me when you make it home.” 

“Of course. I will.” 

Hughie hesitates at the door, like he expects her to say something else. He adjusts the strap of his bag, then stops again.

“I’m not mad about the cat. Just… in case that got lost in everything else.”

“I know,” Annie replies. “I’m not mad at you either. Not really.”

Hughie smiles in resignation, like that’s all he needed to hear.

He opens the door. The hallway light spills in for a second, cutting across the dark of the suite.

Then he pauses one last time, looking back at her. “I’ll be back tomorrow?”

Annie doesn’t look up right away. “…Okay,” she says again.

The latch clicks as he closes it. Annie finally exhales.

The suite feels massive now without him in it. The city still hums beyond the windows. Miso still purrs against her stomach. The refrigerator still whirrs somewhere in the kitchen—but all of it feels emptier now. Some small part of her, one that starts in the pit of her stomach and climbs its way up into the back of her head, wonders if she’s just made a mistake, if she should call Hughie and tell him to just come back in and sleep in the bed beside her. She knows it would feel better, even this upset, even this disappointed at the hands they’ve both been dealt; but she also knows that this is probably for the best. At least for now. 

So she tells herself she’s going to the room. In just a few minutes she’ll painstakingly drag the comforter back to its proper place and sleep all of this off, but then those few minutes begin to pass and she doesn’t. 

Annie picks up her phone more than once, hesitantly pressing Hughie’s name. ‘Hey’ she types, before quickly deleting it. ‘Is it too late to head back?’ Again, she taps it all away. 

Miso falls asleep again, curled into a crescent beneath Annie's hand as she locks her phone and put it aside. Annie, crammed uncomfortably against the backrest of the sofa, finds it nearly impossible to do the same. 

Eventually she reaches for the remote. The television flickers to life, flooding the living room with shifting blue light. She flips through the channels without really watching, letting fragments of nature documentaries, sitcom laughter, and polished news anchors blur together into background noise. Some low-budget movie. Some cooking competition. Something narrated in a voice so soothing she begins to feel her head drop. 

Her elbow nudges the remote between the couch cushions and it vanishes from reach, pressing one final button on its way down. 

The TV settles on a flashy tabloid channel. Bright graphics pulse through the plasma, the scrolling ticker full of gossip, scandal, and celebrity interviews. Annie, nearly fully asleep now, barely notices. Just as she begins to drift off Hughie slips back into her mind, uninvited, his crooked smile when he’s caught off guard. The way his hands always look like they’re thinking before he is, the soft relief of him simply existing in the room.

“…and we are joined tonight by one of Vought’s brightest stars,” the host says, her authoritative voice impossibly chipper as the screen shifts.

Annie jolts awake at the sight of Homelander, his face fills the glass in high definition. Terribly composed, horrifyingly present as he stands at the forefront of some red carpet interview and for one terrible, irrational heartbeat she almost thinks that he’s actually here— or rather that she’s there, anchored next to him, putting on a front for the cameras as her heart hammers in her chest. 

“One thing about Starlight, that I think people don’t always appreciate, is that she really just has this… genuine… selflessness,” he lauds, the flashing of cameras lighting up his eyes as he speaks. 

Annie’s hands fumble desperately for the remote, searching without looking, as if those same blue eyes might laser her the moment she tears her attention away. 

“And it’s the kind of moral instinct you can’t really teach. You either have it or you don’t. And she does. Completely.”

“Incredible.” The host nods, almost breathless— the way people always act when they don’t know him, when they haven’t a clue as to how he truly behaves when he believes the world isn’t watching. “That’s high praise.”

Annie watches as the recording invades the sanctity of her living room, filling it with that put-on voice—and it’s infuriating, how sincere it sounds. He’s a natural at this, always has been. Annie can still remember watching him in the background of every family-owned restaurant, every blockbuster; back when she believed it, when it was real. And now, fleetingly, looking up at the shape of him in the darkness of her suite, she thinks of how much she used to live in that, in believing that he actually saved people. That he did it just because. 

“I’ve seen her put herself in uncomfortable situations more times than I can count— simply because she refused to stand by and watch someone else get hurt. That’s just who she is.”

His wide, piercing gaze seems focused somewhere beyond the camera, his thin lips caught between a straight line and a sharp, toothy smile. The lights in the suite begin to pulse and flicker overhead as Annie thinks of all the times he’s made her stand still and watch. All of the times he’s contradicted the beliefs that she holds onto, crushing her endless desire to do good with the threat of absolute death. 

And then, even though she doesn’t want to— doesn’t mean to— she thinks of how he’d given Miso back, unharmed, after holding her gently between his hands. The same hands he has folded neatly in front of his chest, crossed as effortlessly as he lies to the reporter— to the audience, to the world. 

“She’s exceptional… Truly exceptional. She makes us all want to be better… and I appreciate that. I appreciate her. More than I can really say here.”

The television answers with a sudden pop. The screen fractures inward with a blinding burst of light, sharp and violent, before collapsing into dead glass and faint electrical crackle. 

Miso flattens in her seat and then skitters from the room, hiding somewhere beneath the furniture as Annie’s irises dim from their brief flare. The searing heat of her anger ebbs into regret, the silence of the living room rushing back in like the gray smoke that hovers over the shattered TV. 

Flooded with a sudden wave of nausea, Annie puts her face in her hands, silently praying her little outburst doesn’t trigger the alarm the same way it did last time. 

It’s her third one this year.