MHA #2 | Tuesday Morning

[defenderofdesmoines]

For those of you playing at home: no, Annie had not yet found her engagement ring.

To be fair to her, she had found nine of the decoy boxes by now, which she thought was pretty damn impressive, thank you. She had them neatly lined up in the guest room, next to the previously well-organized white board that now boasted an increasingly untidy list of the found decoys' locations and of crossed-out rooms she'd searched. Organizing her thoughts had been a good idea, but as the search had worn on, Annie's patience with keeping things neat had frayed a bit.

That was also true in a more literal sense, as their apartment was a disaster by now. She'd pulled bookshelves out from walls, and books off of those shelves. Half of her and Diego's drawers were pulled out of their dressers and counters and sitting on the floor. She'd emptied the bathroom's medicine cabinet and left everything from her backup bottles of conditioner to the first aid kit sitting out, just so she didn't mistakenly retrace her steps.

It didn't help that she'd had pause her search to work yesterday for Memorial Day -- though on the bright side, she'd managed to confer with Maeve (read: whisper frantically at Maeve while they both made wistful faces next to various monuments in DC), and that had led to some untapped ground at her teammate's suggestion.

"Oh my God, I see a box!" Annie yelled from on top of a stepladder in their bedroom, shining an illuminated hand into an air vent. Nine decoys in, and you'd think the excitement would have worn off. And it had a little, in the sense that Annie didn't feel like she might faint every time she found one, at least. (The minute she found a box that made a noise when she shook it, though? Different story.)

[for the guy!]

Comments

[knife_bender]

It was okay; he was probably going to cry too. Tell no one.

Diego got down on one knee--he knew that was a must--and opened up the box. The ring was in no way to everyone's taste--it was huge for one thing, and more than a little gaudy. But as soon as he saw it he knew Annie would love it.

"Annie January," Diego started. "will you marry me?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

The ring nearly did her in.

Not the size or the diamonds -- like, it was beautiful and perfect and maybe honestly kind of deadly between how big it was and how sharp it looked. But just the fact that it was gold and white and a star was just....

It felt like being seen, just like when he'd had that action figure made for her, well before every toy manufacturer in her own universe was pouring gold plastic into injection molds.

"Of course I will, Diego," Annie murmured, swallowing hard and blinking away tears that were already making it hard to talk in spite of how hard she was smiling. And maybe she actually needed to say the word? "Yes."

[knife_bender]

Diego immediately broke out into a grin, standing up to put his arms around her. Like, he knew the answer would be yes but hearing it was still a relief.

He'd put the ring on her finger in a second, first he needed to just hold her for a moment.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I love you. I love you so much." It felt like that needed to be said -- even if, you know, it totally went without saying -- as Annie slipped her arms around him.

She was also kind of crying for real now, too. Unmistakably happy tears, yes, but between the anticipation of the last couple days paying off and being completely overwhelmed with her feelings for Diego, they were also unmistakably necessary tears at the moment.

[knife_bender]

"I love you too," Diego murmured, burying his face against her neck. There were tears happening here, too. "Worth the wait?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Yes." Annie would have told him he -- and the proposal, and the ring -- was worth waiting much, much, much longer for, but she was not at her most poetic at the moment. "So worth it. You actually got down on one knee!"

Somehow that had been surprising. Maybe because she'd been hunting for her engagement ring for two days and hadn't expected him to veer back into charming tradition once she'd found it.

[knife_bender]

"Well, yeah, it's what I was supposed to do." He didn't want to mess anything up! "Can I see your hand?"

He didn't think he needed to specify which one.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Oh my God," Annie murmured, mostly just incredulous this was even happening, still. But she obediently held out her left hand, splaying her fingers so it would be easy to get the ring on.

Hopefully it fit. She hadn't put on any of her usual half-dozen rings in the hopes that she'd have a new one to accessorize with, and that assumption was paying off.

[knife_bender]

Man, he hoped it fit. Or at least was just slightly too big. Anything but too small, since he had a mighty need to see it on her hand.

He took the ring out of the box and gently slid it onto her left finger. This also felt like A Big Deal.

[defenderofdesmoines]

It fit beautifully. Like, miraculously so. Annie gave her fingers an experimental little wiggle, breathing out a happy little sigh as she swiped at her eyes with her other hand. "Diego, it's gorgeous. It's perfect. A star."

Like, subtle, it was not. But it was her.

[knife_bender]

"I thought you'd like it," Diego said, pleased with himself. "Allison was trying to get me to go for subtle, but I know you better than that."

Klaus, of course, thought it could be bigger.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Allison hasn't seen me in uniform." Once she did, it would probably make a lot more sense. "And the first aid kit was the perfect spot to hide it -- oh my God, I'm so dumb, I don't know how you didn't tell me when I was in here hours ago and just ignored it." Annie was still mostly addressing her ring, holding her hand out so she could admire it through the occasional stray tear, but she tilted her head up to beam at Diego. "You're amazing. I'm so lucky to be marrying you."

Saying it out loud! Probably going to say it out loud a lot for awhile, just for the novelty of hearing each other say it.

[knife_bender]

That was something he wasn't going to get tired of any time soon. Actually hearing her say it was kind of making him blush, shh.

"Guess we have a new use for that whiteboard, huh?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

Oh, God, that blush was so cute Annie might actually just collapse from it.

"Yeah." Realization dawned over Annie's face as she murmured, "We're going to have to plan a wedding. Oh, God, it's going to be so fun."

And now she was going up on her toes to kiss him again, both hands coming up to cup his face. Everything was overwhelming right now, but she didn't need to worry about planning a wedding or getting a dress or even considering the press ramifications of all of this. Right now, she just needed to kiss her fiancé.

[knife_bender]

Diego was going to definitely blush again when he heard fiancé out loud, so be ready for that.

Right now though, he was going to enjoy kissing his fiancée, reaching for her left hand so he could feel the ring there. That novelty was also going to take awhile to wear off.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I actually get to marry you," Annie murmured between kisses, gently twining her fingers with his and enjoying how he was clearly so pleased to see (and feel) the ring on her hand. "This is so surreal. I've been thinking about it forever."

Like, seriously. They'd started talking about this in September, and that was just when everyone started saying the scary words out loud. They'd both been thinking about this for...a year? (Maybe longer, if Annie was really honest with herself.)

[knife_bender]

"Me too," he said, laughing softly. "Thank god you found that ring today, I wasn't sure how much more waiting I could take."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Well, whose fault is that?" Annie teased fondly, still honestly really proud of all his various hiding spots. She leaned up to press a kiss to his jaw, because this was one of those times where it was just going to be hard for her to conceive of a moment when she'd want to stop touching him. "Most creative proposal ever."

Sure, sure, Maeve had used the words, 'fucking insane,' but all her other friends were going to be so jealous, probably.

[knife_bender]

"I'm glad you didn't want to kill me towards the end," he joked. "You had every right to after the fourth or fifth empty box."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"There could have been fifty empty boxes," Annie assured him, smiling softly. "Though I'm gonna spend like, our entire engagement and probably the first year of our marriage trying to figure out how to get you back."

Just transparently using all of the blush-inducing vocabulary, yes. It was making her really happy.

[knife_bender]

"Might take you longer than our first year of marriage," he said, his cheeks indeed turning a little red. "I'm gonna be on the lookout now."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"And I just gained four new allies in getting one up on you," Annie pointed out with a grin -- she was not immune at all to the vocabulary -- and leaning up for another kiss, lingering for a bit this time.

Like Klaus wouldn't help her. Hell, they would all probably help her, but Klaus would probably have the best ideas.

[knife_bender]

Luther would be no help, even if he wanted to be. So three new allies, and one big guy looking on.

"I look forward to whatever you come up with," he murmured before kissing her again. "...we don't have to clean up the apartment right away, do we?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Not really my highest priority at the moment," Annie replied softly, sneaking a peek at her ring before kissing him again and twining her right hand up into his hair.

Her left hand was finding its way to holding Diego's again.

(Also, she was probably going to insist on trying to clean their apartment up all by herself, considering she'd made the mess all by herself.)

[knife_bender]

He was definitely going to help. It was his fault she wrecked it in the first place.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Diego said, bending his knees so he could lift her up.