knife_bender | Totally Fancy Restaurant | Annie's Baltimore | Sunday Night

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Totally Fancy Restaurant | Annie's Baltimore | Sunday Night | NFB

This had been the first time Diego had a girlfriend on Valentine's Day and he wasn't going to let any lingering awkwardness from last week prevent him from going all out for it. The restaurant had items on the menu Diego couldn't pronounce which is how he knew it was fancy. Luckily it was a place that just required you to look nice but not force a tie on you. That was just one thing he refused to do after being forced to wear one for seventeen years.

"You know, it wasn't as complicated as I thought it would be to get a reservation in a specific restaurant in a specific universe," Diego said as he tried to find something in English on the menu.

Honestly it was easy to check to make sure it was the correct one if you dropped a 'Hey, was the latest Homelander movie any good?' to the person you were talking to on the phone and if they responded in kind you knew you got it right.

[For the girl! And now NSFW]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"As it should have," Diego said, because it was all really weird. "It's kind of surreal. Like, it's the same but not the same."

"Which, like, I have been experiencing in reverse since September, anyway, with everything being just a little different," Annie pointed out. "You're the only person who ever gets my references still and it's only because I keep inflicting Seven stuff on you."

The Homelander movies remained untouched. There'd need to be, like, a drinking game involved to get through those.

"It's not so bad." Let's see if he'd still be saying that in a few months. "But you said this city doesn't have a superhero, right? So is it just like a crime free for all?"

"I mean," Annie said slowly, "there's cops, but yeah, they don't have a hero in residence right now, so their crime rate isn't...great. And if something really devastating happened, Homelander and Queen Maeve might come down from New York. Or they'd send someone from DC."

Or, more likely, lower-level heroes. A-Train could get here pretty fast if he needed to and/or wasn't busy getting super high.

"Huh." He would never understand the whole corporate aspect of superheroing that went on around here. "Speaking of people with superpowers, Five did not actually drink himself to death last night so good work on the water thing."

"Good." Annie actually looked pretty pleased by that. It helped that drunk Five had been a lot more...mellow than usual. Almost sort of sweet. He'd at least allowed Annie to carry him home, anyway. "Did you know he has a girlfriend? He told me about her last night when I was trying to get him to drink water at the bar."

"You mean Dolores?" he checked. "Yeah he brought her up. I can't believe anybody would date him."

God, were they going to look silly when they found out she was a mannequin.

"I'm kind of still unclear on how old she is," Annie admitted. "Like, he said he's looking for her in this time, but if they're the same age, does that mean if we eventually find her, we're going to end up on a double date with like, Five and some thirty year-old lady?"

Yes, she had teed up a double date, of course she had.

Also it was so much weirder than that.

"You want to go on a double date," Diego said. "With Five and his girlfriend."

"I already suggested it to him." So yes, definitely. "I think it'd be fun! I'm really curious about her."

Annie would regret all of this once she learned the truth about Dolores, yes.

Diego sighed. "The things I do for you."

"Yeah." And cue Annie's smile turning all fond and dorky and maybe a little shy as she reached one of her feet out under the table to nudge his. "You do a lot for me as it is. I really like my flowers."

And how he'd totally adhered to her whole brand, what with the yellow and white thing. And the note, with its promise of more romantic things in person.

"I liked mine too. Even more because I don't have to water them," he said with a smile. "Sorry I couldn't come up with, like, poetry or anything for the card."

Annie shook her head, reaching over for his hand. "It's perfect." She was going to save the card forever as it was, anyway, probably along with a couple of the roses themselves once they started wilting and she could dry them out. "And, like, there's kind of something I wanted to talk to you about, actually."

Because this was totally, totally the perfect moment Annie had been waiting for. It was a romantic holiday, he looked, like, impossibly handsome, they were in a super-romantic setting...though, if Annie had only been a touch more paranoid, she might have noticed the suspicious-looking guys who were definitely not waitstaff coming out from the back.

You know who was paranoid? Diego. He was all in with what Annie was saying at first because, yes, this was the moment and if she didn't say it he certainly would. But then he noticed the guys coming from the back. They certainly looked out of place and it only took a few seconds of staring for Diego to fully understand their situation. It was a big holiday, fancy restaurant, filled with people dressed up wearing nice jewelry and possibly with expensive gifts for their significant others on hand.

Kind of a perfect set up if you were into robbing people.

"Annie."

Annie was at first kind of mildly annoyed, because Diego, hello, she was clearly about to pour her heart out here and he wasn't even looking at her.

But she frowned, turning to follow his gaze, and it only took a second for it to click for her, too. "...those guys have guns."

They weren't even trying to be subtle about it, either. And Annie wasn't exactly super familiar with Maryland's firearm carry laws, but it probably didn't really matter since those guys didn't seem like they cared a ton about the law.

"Yeah, they do." Diego reached into the inner pocket of the jacket he was wearing, frowning because he thought it was a six knife kind of night.

As if to confirm what they already knew one of the guys (who had obviously seen one too many movies) shot up in the air to get everyone's attention. And, you know, alert everybody within a city block of a crime happening.

At least stupid bad guys were easier to take out.

Well, shit.

Everyone who wasn't a superhero just trying to enjoy their damn Valentine's Day reacted appropriately -- shrieks and gasps went up from the tables, the bartender dropped the bottle he was holding, and a waiter immediately fell to the floor with his hands on his head.

"Are you kidding me?" Annie murmured as the other several guys with guns took to the edges of the restaurant, waving their weapons menacingly as the ringleader started yelling the typical bad guy stuff about how no one had to get hurt. She was significantly less worried than the various civilians and more just sort of annoyed that this was happening right now, but, like...honestly, this was also sort of exciting. (Just a little. It felt a touch inappropriate to be excited when people were scared, but Annie had made her peace with that a long time ago.)

"If you can get the guy shooting the stupid ceiling, I've got him," Annie suggested in an undertone to Diego, nodding to the goon closest to them.

Diego nodded, hoping this would end up better than the last time this had happened to him. At least he trusted Annie not to go completely feral, unlike Five.

He brandished a knife, throwing it at the goon's wrist to get him to drop the gun. Any other situation he would have thrown more to incapacitate him but in this case he had to make the most of what he had.

Annie, meanwhile, was fairly happy to use the element of surprise here as long as she could -- which was not going to be longer than a few seconds, honestly. She moved quickly enough that the guy barely had time to register that some slender blonde chick was up out of her seat and in his face before she'd kicked him hard in the ribs and he'd doubled over in pain.

"What --" And that was all he got out before Annie neatly snapped his wrist and the rest morphed into a howl of pain. But at least he dropped the gun!

That really had no business being so hot, but Diego only allowed himself a couple seconds to enjoy it. The other guys definitely heard their buddy screaming in pain and now their attention was focused entirely on Diego and Annie. Hopefully one of these rich people were calling the cops now that guns weren't pointed at them.

Diego threw off two more knives at the next guy closest to them, still working on just disarming everybody. While he knew Annie could take a bullet he'd just prefer to lower the risk of it happening at all.

Great, that was half his ammo gone and there were still three guys left.

Of course, once the cops showed up, there would be a whole different issue to worry about, considering Annie really didn't want to deal with the press tonight.

Which was also why when one of those pissed-off, injured guys came charging at her while she was taking roughly two seconds to admire that stupidly hot knife-throwing action, Annie didn't just blast him right away. She grabbed him by the neck, threw him head-first into a light fixture, and then shoved her hand into his midsection to blast him into the wall. There was just the briefest flicker of the lights in response, and she'd take it. Not like, great for her secret identity, but not too obvious, either.

And with that taken care of, she could help one of these screaming couples a little bit. She offered a quiet, "It's all right, stay calm," as she distractedly pulled their table over as a barricade and looked over to Diego. "Good?"

"Yeah," Diego said with a nod. "I'm gonna be out of knives soon, but it's what--two more left?"

He could make do with a butter knife though, and it had the added benefit of just being humiliating to the person that got stabbed with it.

"Yeah," Annie agreed a little breathlessly, clearly considering something for a moment. She crossed back over towards Diego, swiftly picking up a chair in her path to throw it at her friend with the broken wrist, since he looked like he might try to get back up. "Here, hang on."

And like -- damn it, there had been a whole sexy plan here, and it was a little embarrassing out of context, now. But as soon as Annie was back by Diego's side, she planted her foot up on a chair and tugged her skirt up a little to reveal the surprisingly cute garter she had attached to her stocking.

Of course, it wasn't just a normal, surprisingly cute garter. It had three of his knives tucked into a holster attached to it. Annie had scoured the internet and special-ordered it weeks ago. "It was supposed to be a surprise," she told him, a little bit shy.

...it probably still was a surprise. Just not the way she'd intended.

Yeah, it was a surprise. A great surprise and it was almost like they weren't two seconds away from being shot at with the way Diego took a moment to just look. Like, it was hot, but thoughtful, and he really shouldn't be focusing on this right now while this whole thing was happening around them but oh well.

"Oh my god," he murmured, tearing his gaze away from Annie's leg to look up at her face. "I love you."

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