MHA # 2 | Saturday Afternoon

[knife_bender]

After work Diego had rushed home to enact his plan. He had promised (or warned?) Annie, that the only thing stopping him from buying an engagement ring was that he needed to deal with the whole lost siblings thing first. Well, they have now been found and Diego was wasting no time. He had taken Klaus and Allison out to Baltimore that very week and bought a ring.

Along with about ten empty ring boxes. Because he was going to have fun with this. Allison thought it was a bad idea but what did she know, she was divorced and her second husband was 60 years in the past.

[For the girl!]

Comments

[knife_bender]

"I mean, thinking like me shouldn't be too difficult," Diego joked, walking over to the counter so he could place a hand on either side of her hips. "Oh man, what if you don't find it by the time you have to go back to work?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I'll have to call out, I guess," Annie decided, and Diego doing that was not going to make it any easier for her to think of good hiding spots. (Which was why this was going to end with her just trashing their apartment.) She set the empty ring box aside in favor of playing with his shirtfront a little. "Or...I'll try."

She would not be allowed to call out, of course. She'd just spent ten days AWOL, for god's sake.

[knife_bender]

"It'll still be in the same hiding spot if you have to leave," Diego assured her. "Moving it to someplace you already looked would be really mean."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"That would be unfair," Annie agreed, reaching a hand up to play with his hair. You know, while it was there within touching distance and all. "How long have you been planning this?"

[knife_bender]

"What, planning to ask you to marry me?" Diego asked, knowing full well that wasn't what she meant. "For, like, a year."

"But as for the scavenger hunt, that I kind of came up with on the fly while at the jewelry store."

Maybe it had helped he had been around two of his siblings so his mind was in 'how can I be the most annoying' mode.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie felt another jolt of nerves at hearing it laid out there, teasing though he may have been -- the game aspect was doing a really good job of keeping her focused on something besides freaking out (in a great way.) She leaned forward to kiss him. "I'm impressed. And I'm going to destroy our apartment."

But in an organized, slow way, where every drawer in the place was going to be left pulled out for days just in case she needed to retrace her steps.

[knife_bender]

"I had a feeling," Diego murmured before kissing her. "I'll do my best not to get in your way."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I would imagine that you being in my way is part of the challenge," Annie replied, breathing out a happy little sigh. "If I can't find it, will you still want to marry me?"

She was determined to find this ring if it meant she had to take one of his knives to everything they owned with a lining. But she just wanted to hear it, anyway.

[knife_bender]

"Of course," he said, smiling. "But I know you, and that you're going to find it no matter how long it takes or how much of our stuff you have to take apart."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"That is exactly right," Annie replied, matter-of-fact as she leaned forward and kissed him again (and felt her heart do a little flutter.) "Is that a hint? Did you put it inside something?"

Pretty broad hint, if so.

[knife_bender]

"I believe I said no hints," Diego teased. "But it's safe to say it's not just sitting somewhere out in the open."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"And the ring is in a box?" she checked, because that would be sort of unfair if the decoys were all boxes but the ring itself was loose. "And it looks like the others?"

She was going to start writing this down pretty soon.

[knife_bender]

"Exactly," he said, placing his hands on Annie's thighs. "So you already know what it looks like. That's, like, half the battle."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I think you made it a different fraction when you added a bunch of decoys to the mix," Annie decided, sliding her arms around his neck. "Oh my god, do we have to preserve all that time math for, like, eternity? Because that's gonna be the scavenger hunt board now, if not."

And then the wedding planning board. Assuming she did, in fact, eventually find this ring and they could move on to the next part.

[knife_bender]

"Pfft, you can totally erase that stuff." What were the odds they'd need to travel through time again, really? "About time we took our guest room back anyway."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Damn right it is," Annie replied, threading her fingers through his hair affectionately. "I deserve bonus points or recognition for finding two of these decoys right away, I feel like."

Sure, she said that now. Wait until she was on her sixth one.

[knife_bender]

"I am very impressed," Diego said, kissing her again. "I don't know how bonus points would work. I propose even harder?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"As much as I love the idea of seeing that in practice, I will take kisses," Annie decided, because she was still grossly affectionate even if she was also overwhelmed with feelings and nerves and ideas about where he might have put the ring. (For all she knew, it was under her right now! She needed to check!) "Are you gonna be able to watch me look without giving it away?"

Look, if their positions had been reversed, Annie would have insisted on watching, and would have had a very hard time not giving any hints. But she had faith in Diego.

[knife_bender]

"I think so," he said. "I can't promise that I won't laugh if you really start tearing the place apart, however."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I may not have a choice," Annie replied, leaning in to give him one last kiss before hopping down from the counter and grabbing that ring box so she could start making notes on that whiteboard. She had work to do. "I love you so much. Just, like...you could've done the thing where you just put the ring in a glass of champagne or whatever."

From another woman, that might have been a criticism. From Annie, it was pure admiration. They were not really 'just put the ring in a glass of champagne or whatever' people.

[knife_bender]

"I wanted to do something fun. Memorable," he said with a shrug. "Also? Ring in a champagne glass screams choking hazard."

Though you'd have to try really hard to choke on the ring he got her.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It would have always been memorable, no matter what," Annie told him, breathing out another little bolt of nerves and covering it by going to grab the other decoy box so she could keep track of them both. Nothing worse than losing track of her decoys and then getting her hopes up over seeing one again. "But this is unique. And, yeah, keeps me from choking, which I appreciate."

No, instead it was going to drive her just this side of crazy.

[knife_bender]

Diego, meanwhile, was just slowly following behind, enjoying watching her thought process. "It would have really killed the mood."

Though a good story if she survived!

"I immediately nixed anything public too," he said. "Figured we're going to have enough of that soon."

Yes, he realized this meant he'd have to come out of hiding for the sake of her job.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie paused, now with an empty ring box in either hand, and bit her lower lip. "Not right away," she promised, but it was kind of again-meltingly touching that he was acknowledging that it was going to be inevitable. Secret boyfriends, Vought could hang with. But secret fiancés and secret marriages -- particularly when they could exploit Starlight and Diego's Journey to the Altar, tee-em, for clicks -- would not fly.

Especially, again, considering this particular ring.

She led the way into the guest room, immediately tossing both rings onto the bed where she would be able to see them, and set to work erasing the board. (At least she'd taken a lot of pictures of it before now? You know, for the inevitable scrapbook.)

[knife_bender]

Somewhere, Five suddenly clutched his chest in pain.

"Good, more time for Allison to give me PR training." Which he didn't think he needed but for some reason she was insisting upon it. For all of them. She had your back, Annie.