defenderofdesmoines | MHA #2

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MHA #2 | Tuesday Morning

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!]

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"It was Maeve's idea to check the air vents," Annie confirmed, hanging onto him tight and probably not making it any easier to watch his step, seeing as how she'd moved on to kissing along his neck. "So yeah. No one else knows, though."

Aside from everyone on the island, since it had made radio on Sunday.

"We can tell everyone else tomorrow." Though, again, thanks to radio the whole island would have been told twice by tomorrow.

He had to sidestep a couple piles of clothes, but he did make it to the edge of the bed without tripping and falling. Which would have sucked, no matter how good the story would be to tell later.

"Have the feeling once you tell your work you're gonna be bombarded."

"We'll need to talk about how we want to handle that," Annie told him, leaning up for another kiss to signal that she didn't mean right now. "'Cause it's also -- ours. I don't know how much I want to share with the whole world yet."

Probably very little, but she was also planning to leave a lot of that up to her husband-to-be. (Sigh.)

Diego kissed her again, relieved to hear those words. He had accepted the fact that they would need to be made public because of this, but it was nice to hear that she immediately wanted to put up some boundaries.

He gently moved to lie her down on the bed, grateful that the entirety of their closets hadn't been thrown on top of it while Annie was searching for her ring.

Annie already had a few ideas about how she could temper the publicity of it all -- or at least shoulder the vast majority of the burden, since she was used to it, anyway -- but they were fairly far from her mind right now in light of the kissing and the bed and the still-overwhelming feelings that were making it too hard for her to concentrate on much of anything but Diego himself at the moment.

She hoped she made herself clear with the way she was trying to pull him down with her -- as though he wouldn't be following of his own accord -- just as gently, even if she knew she didn't have to.

He was definitely following her down, without or without the hint. He did pause for a second to pull off his shirt, namely because he knew it would happen anyway, and also because he needed to feel her against him more closely as soon as possible.

They had done this a million times before, but now it was because they were getting married. That called for a sense of celebration.

This was special, yes, and not just in an arbitrary way because this was the day that they got engaged, but because of what this all meant. Annie felt sort of like she did when one of them got hurt, except the intense need she felt to be close to Diego didn't stem from a place of fear and near-loss -- it came from the magnitude of the decision they'd just made together, and how dizzyingly in love with Diego she felt.

They could definitely wait to tell relatives and stuff tomorrow. Today was just for them.

She wriggled out of her own shirt, too, pushing it up over her head and wasting no time in reaching for Diego to splay her hands across his back. She needed to be close to him. Like, it might actually hurt to be apart right now.

Diego pressed himself against Annie as much as he could, moaning softly as he settled himself against her. He ducked his head down to mouth at Annie's neck, having no real goal other than to be close to her right now.

They were very good at this sappy thing.

They were really outstanding at the sappy thing. It helped that it was kind of everyone's favorite.

Annie gave an answering little sigh, immediately twining her leg along the backs of Diego's just to tangle herself up with him a little more, and arched her neck. "You're amazing," she murmured, pressing a kiss to the side of his head.

"We're both amazing," he murmured, kissing his way down her neck. "We're going to be the most amazing husband and wife ever."

Annie flushed with pleasure at hearing both those words -- more vocabulary she didn't know she'd love hearing, but there it was. Her hand found its way up into his hair, just idle and affectionate for now (but ready to play a little rougher at a moment's notice.) "We're going to have the most amazing marriage," she agreed, thrilling at the words. "I'm so happy, Diego."

Like, he made her happy on pretty much every day ending in Y, and now she was just sort of buzzing with love and excitement and the promise that they'd be continuing that trend for another half-century or so.

"Me too," he said, sitting up on an elbow so he could look at her. "Pretty sure this is the happiest I've ever been."

"Yeah," Annie agreed softly, moving to trace her fingertip along his cheekbone like the absolute goner she was. "I'm so lucky."

And in the process of that sappy little touch, she caught sight of her ring again, and that just had her thinking of how sweet it was that Diego had gone out and picked out a ring that was so personal and her, and how that was a part of all of this that had snuck up on her and really caught her off-guard.

"My ring fits perfectly," she added quietly, and turned her hand so she could very, very gently graze Diego's cheek with said ring. "I should learn to punch with my left hand so I can leave stars on people."

Mentioning punching people while in bed? Just because it was a special day didn't mean she didn't know what he liked to hear.

Diego's face broke out into a grin. "That would be very on brand."

He turned his head a little to nip at her hand. "And pretty hot, too. Well, for me."

Not so much for the guy she punched.

"Oh yeah?" Annie replied, feigning surprise (poorly) and lightly moving her hand in response to that nipping. (And that was pretty hot for Annie. No surprises there.) "You'd like seeing that? I had no idea."

She wasn't even trying to seem like that was the truth.

"I am very subtle, I know," he joked, leaning down to kiss her again. "You have to read between the lines with me."

Annie hummed happily into the kiss, arching up to meet him eagerly. "I love how unsubtle you are," she admitted, nipping lightly at his lower lip. Which was both something she'd just say today -- she loved everything about Diego today, full stop -- and also how she'd always sincerely felt. "It's just always been easy."

Everything had pretty much just always been out there, for both of them. Which, Annie knew, made them kind of gross as a couple, but it was also kind of the best.

"It has," he agreed, reaching up to cup her cheek. "Like, things haven't always been easy, but this part of it has."

"And we're so good at the not-easy parts," Annie agreed softly, tilting her head to press a kiss to that hand. "But this has always been really...solid. The you and me stuff."

For the record, she didn't just mean sex (though they had also always been very good at that, too, barring one minor trauma-related blip last spring.) But she had never, ever had to wonder where she stood with Diego. Even when things had been new, she'd always been pretty confident of how he felt. From, 'I think that dude I just threw into a wall is flirting with me?' all the way up to bringing up marriage eight months before actually proposing. The honesty in their relationship was kind of Annie's favorite thing about it (in a long, long list of favorite things.)

Diego knew exactly what she meant. From the start this was the one relationship in his life where he knew where he was standing the entire time. Even when things were rough last spring, she had made it clear he hadn't done anything wrong.

He didn't really know how to express how he felt about that more than he already had. So he kissed her again, feeling overwhelmed by everything right now.

He was definitely going to be one of those grooms who cried when he saw the bride for the first time.

That was okay -- Annie was also entirely overwhelmed, and as was often the case, it was feeling increasingly easier to express herself physically. Especially given how much she needed to be touching Diego right now.

Besides, she had to save something for her actual vows. (Everyone would probably cry during those.)

She arched up into the kiss and slid her hand up into Diego's hair, tangling her fingers and finding a light grip at the back of his head.

Oh right, vows. That was a thing Diego would have to think about later.

Right now though he was settling himself over Annie again, grinding his hips against hers. The time for sweetness was...well, it was still here. But they could be sweet and dirty at the same time!

Combined sweetness and dirtiness was, like, exactly their speed. Annie had zero objections. Especially since -- like, it was still early in the day. They had all day to talk and daydream about their wedding and be gross at each other and do this several more times.

Annie arched her back to bring her hips up against Diego's -- but also so she could slip her own hand behind her back to undo her bra, since there needed to be way fewer clothes involved in this. Granted, she was a little distracted by the resulting friction to work on their mutual pants problem -- even if that would, you know, feel even better -- but she'd get there.

That was an amazing move, Annie. Just an amazing idea. More nudity was completely called for right now. He sat back enough to help her get her bra off, though "helping" in this case was running his fingers along her chest as she did most of the work pulling the clothing in question off.

And look at how she was managing it without having to get up or break apart at all, really! (The pants would be a different story, but they always were.) She tossed her offensive bra off...somewhere -- the room was already a wreck, who cared -- and reached up to mirror Diego's touch and run her own fingertips along his chest, too, though she was also very interested in running her hands along his arms.

Everyone was allowed to have shallow favorites, even when they loved the whole package completely. And Annie was fond of his arms. (And, now, his hair.)

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