MHA #2 | Wednesday Evening

[defenderofdesmoines]

Twenty-four days.

Invitations were out. The alterations of Annie's wedding dress were nearly done. Their song list had been chosen and vetted and drafted and eventually turned in.

But today, they were working on making one last, incredibly important wedding-related choice, and while Annie was fairly sure which direction they were going, it still required further research -- which was why she was perched up on her kitchen counter next to the box of cake samples she and Diego had brought home with them, idly picking at a very rich, chocolate cube of cake. Had they just spent a couple hours trying cake already? Yes. Didn't mean Annie was, like, done yet.

"I feel like I'm gonna need a bib no matter what we go with," she commented.

But she was still gonna eat the hell out of this chocolate sample, even if she was kind of thinking no thanks on chocolate for the actual thing. Something lighter. Maybe layers of something lighter.

[for the fiancé! and on that note -- invitations have totally handwavily gone out, and if you think you were invited to this wedding, you totally were.]

Comments

[knife_bender]

"That's so weird," Diego said. "But if it's for good luck, why not? We could always use more of that."

"I'm not eating it though." It would be kind of funny to get someone else to eat it though.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Oh, dude, there's so much stuff that's for good luck that we're supposed to do," Annie told him, shaking her head. "But I think actually eating year-old -- or older -- cake would probably bring straight-up bad luck our way."

Though, yeah, she might see if someone else wanted some. (Summer could make year-old cake shots, maybe. That was her speed.)

[knife_bender]

Oh yeah that'd be fun for their first anniversary, poison the people at Caritas with old ass cake shots.

"What are you leaning towards?" Diego asked, gesturing to the cake. "I'm just vetoing almond, anything else I'm good with."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"One of these lighter ones with the fruit," Annie suggested, prodding a sample of white cake (it wasn't vanilla -- it was something much more complicated than that, but Annie still thought it seemed like normal white cake to her) with a reddish-pink filling. "I liked both the raspberry and the passionfruit? The orange one was okay but reminded me too much of marmalade."

[knife_bender]

And what was wrong with marmalade...Diego would ask if he were Paddington.

"I like the passionfruit one a lot," Diego agreed. "And it's kind of unique without being super out there. I've never heard of anyone dying from passionfruit either, which is a plus."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Look, Annie should be so lucky as to be marrying Paddington.

"Let's hope you didn't just jinx us into having a friend with an unknown-until-now passionfruit allergy," Annie noted, grinning at him. "Plus, it's romantic. Passionfruit."

And they were, generally speaking, pretty passionate. Passionate enough that there was a non-zero chance that the happy couple would be hard to locate for a few minutes at some point during their own reception.

[knife_bender]

"That's a good point," Diego said, leaning in for another kiss. "That was a pretty easy decision."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It's all coming together," Annie murmured, reaching a hand up to hold onto Diego's shirtfront so she could keep him where he was for a moment. "Nervous yet?"

She, still, was not. She was nervous about plenty of other things -- her mother and other relatives meeting the Hargreeves, potentially spilling on a very expensive white outfit, the uncertain-but-probable-double-digits number of dicks and dick-shaped things she'd see at her bachelorette party, et cetera -- but marrying Diego? She'd never been so sure about anything.

[knife_bender]

"Nope," he said with a smile. "You?"

He wasn't even nervous about what Klaus was going to say, that's how un-nervous he was.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Not about the us part," Annie replied, smiling softly in return. "Never about the us part."

But yeah -- Klaus' control of the ceremony could go on her list, actually, now that you mention it.

"And honestly, not really about the rest of it, either." Did it really matter if the wedding went awry as long as they ended up married? That was the part she really cared about.

[knife_bender]

"It's probably because we're so good at handling whatever disasters come our way," he joked. "No need to be worried about anything anymore."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Doesn't seem to be a lot of point in trying to anticipate those disasters, either," Annie pointed out. "We're super good at thinking on our feet. I just hope nothing happens during the wedding 'cause my dress is definitely not a fighting dress."

Enjoy that hint, Diego. It could mean anything, considering Annie had spent the better part of her superheroing career fighting in tulle and feeling fine about it.

[knife_bender]

"So you're saying it's tight?" he asked. "Or short?"

"Tight and short?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Wouldn't that be fun?" Annie asked, totally not answering the question. "Summer had me try on one like that. Or, well, it wasn't really short so much as cut up to like...."

She indicated a spot on her upper, upper thigh. "Here. But that wasn't the one I went with, ultimately."

Actually, that dress might have been a great one to fight in, thinking about it.

[knife_bender]

"You're teasing me," Diego said, putting his arms around her waist. "You're teasing your future husband."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I'm gonna tease you when it's official and I'm actually your wife, too," Annie pointed out, sliding an arm around his neck (and privately delighting in hearing husband and saying wife, as she had been since May and would continue doing for a little while longer.) "You signed up for this."

[knife_bender]

"I did. No regrets," Diego said, leaning in for another kiss. "I love you that much."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie smiled into the kiss, lightly threading her hand up into his hair with a happy little sigh. "And I love you so much that I might be convinced to share a picture of the rejected sexy dress at some point, since you're so nice about my teasing."

Especially considering she had set an appointment to take other photos in a couple weeks, for her new husband to enjoy.

[knife_bender]

"At some point?" Diego repeated, amused. "You saving them to cheer me up after a bad day or something?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Well, now I feel like I should save it," Annie said, lifting a brow. Though hopefully there wouldn't be many of those in the next few weeks, between bachelor/ette parties and birthdays and a wedding and a honeymoon. (And again, she had other sexy, day-cheering-up photos forthcoming soon.) "But if you're curious, you can see them any time. I don't think it's going to give you any hints as to what my actual dress looks like or anything."

Though they might a little bit, given that the rejected dresses -- aside from that slitted one -- were on the A-line, poofy side, and the one she'd actually gone with was not.

[knife_bender]

"I've already guessed it's white," he joked. "Even before you told me."

He knew Annie well enough she'd keep with tradition there.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It's mostly white," Annie countered, waggling her brows at him.

Though that was actually fairly generous as hints went, considering that -- well. A lot of Annie's stuff (less than a month or so ago, but still a lot) was mostly white.

"But," she continued, reaching over to where she'd left her phone on the counter and quickly swiping though it, "it's also not this."

(Annie, for the record, had not looked quite as amazing as the model, since the dress was pinned in around her rather than tailored, but she still stood by what she'd thought almost two months ago: maybe a different dress with a slit, for a different occasion, because damn.)

[knife_bender]

"...that's a lot of leg," Diego said after a couple moments of staring. "And a lot of chest, for that matter."

It was pretty obvious he approved, but Annie's mother probably would have keeled over.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It's a lot all the way around," Annie noted, flushing slightly. "More of me than I'd rather have on display for, like, literally every person we know."

But his reaction was also kind of exactly what she'd wanted to see and why she'd shown him, and thus she was leaning up for another kiss over her phone. "Maybe I'll get a non-wedding dress like that to wear for when you actually have a bad day."

Much better than a picture, anyway.

[knife_bender]

"That would definitely make my day better," Diego said, leaning in for a kiss. "And even if we didn't go anywhere--it'd be fun to dress up and just hang in the apartment."

Wearing a gown and a suit to settle down and watch American Ninja Warrior would be fun!