"…thanks,

" Christian said lamely.

"I'll pass on your message to Frostine too! I see her a lot since our powers are so similar. Take care of yourself, Mercury. And congratulations in advance. Whoever your fiancée is, she's a lucky woman to end up with a dependable guy like you,

" Delta said with a smile.

He smiled back genuinely. No, they hadn't been friends in a traditional sense, but they had a good run knowing each other. He thought Delta was dependable too.

"I appreciate it. Take care of yourself, Delta.

"

"Oh, I will! Frostine will make sure of it whether I like it or not. She has my back whenever she's around…even if she does give me a hard time for it afterward. Who knows? Maybe I'll join you in retirement sooner or later. I feel like I still have a few good years left in me. I don't have a reason to quit like you do either but a guy can hope! Have a good life, Mercury!

"

Delta jumped off the bridge and used water to slow his fall on the way down, making a splash in the ocean below before propelling himself to his next task. Heroes never rested.

Christian hoped he had a good life too. That all of the heroes he knew did. That they lived long enough to retire and take it easy.

Being a hero was rough. Having a spotlight constantly shining on you and having to keep up your hero persona whenever you had the mask on no matter how tired or injured you were…dealing with villains…dealing with crazy fans…

There was no money in it. A lot of the time it felt thankless though there were always people who did appreciate you. They were what made it feel worthwhile but all of the other headaches didn't quite make up for it. At least not for him. It had been obligation more than anything.

Christian had only one obligation now. The one to Avery and their future family.

He was going to make her happy. Doing that would make him happy. They could both put their pasts behind them and be happy together.

She had dealt with a lot of heartache. He had dealt with a lot of other people's crap. Together they had found solace in each other and he thought that was beautiful. He wouldn't trade her for anything in the world.

When Christian arrived home he took his mask off before looking around to be sure Avery didn't see him entering through the window. He checked on her and she was fast asleep in bed where he had left her. He went to go shower and when he was done he wrapped his arms around her from behind and sighed contentedly.

Life had gotten so much better than he ever thought it would be for him. His mundane, repetitive existence had changed into something warm and bright.

He felt warm all over the next day as he watched Avery scramble around putting on makeup and doing her hair for the engagement pictures. She was so cute.

He loved her bare face but she never showed it in public. The first time he had seen it was after he had stayed the night at her place and she washed it off before going to bed. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were as white as her hair and she was self-conscious about them but he had thought she looked beautiful and told her so. Then a tinge of pink colored her cheeks.

Avery thought she looked weird without makeup on but he thought she looked an other-worldly sort of gorgeous. Like an angel. She would always be the most beautiful woman in the world to him no matter what she was wearing.

For the pictures she had picked out their outfits. She was wearing a cream colored sweater with blue jeans and tan boots while he was supposed to wear a green and blue flannel shirt with his.

They were taking their pictures in a park surrounded by fall leaves and she wanted to look autumn-y. Her words.

Christian sat back and let her do what she wanted. Posing for pictures was such a small thing but she was so excited about it. She had already pored over announcement ideas with Vanessa and his mom and had come up with a list of people to send them to.

Once the pictures were in all they had to do was pick their favorite one to put on the announcement and send it off. He was certain that would be easier said than done but that didn't matter to him. Trying to decide would allow him to spend more time with Avery when she was excited. He always enjoyed that.

She was a master of makeup. She explained to him once as he watched her apply it curiously. How she needed to do things a certain way so it looked more natural.

Foundation in her pale shade was incredibly hard to come by and she did a ridiculous amount of trial and error when she was a teenager before finding something that worked. She had to be very careful with her blush so it wasn't too much but still made her look a bit more lively. She also couldn't make her eyebrows or eyelashes too dark so she used an eyebrow pencil meant for blondes and light brown mascara instead of black. She tended to stick to light, subtle eyeshadows as well.

When she told him all of this she shuddered at the horror of the pictures file that existed from back when she was still practicing. Her dad had wanted to document it because he thought it was cute and she thought she looked like a clown.

Christian was dying to see those pictures but he knew Avery would never show him. He even offered to show some embarrassing ones from when he was a kid in exchange and she still refused.

He wondered if Angelo had seen them. It seemed more likely that he had seen some of those early makeup attempts in person. Maybe he could ask sometime. Most siblings liked to embarrass each other; he should be willing to cooperate under the right circumstances.

Avery finished her makeup and beamed radiantly. Christian was fairly certain he forgot to breathe for a moment.

"How do I look?

"

"Stunning,

" he said honestly.

That made her smile wider.

"Picture worthy then?

"

"Absolutely. Are you ready?

"

"Yep! Let's go,

" she said as she grabbed her purse.

They were driving instead of taking the subway because she didn't want to risk messing up her hair and makeup. He couldn't blame her with how long it had taken. She didn't always do a full face of makeup before leaving the house. On workdays she typically stuck to her eyebrows and eyelashes alone so that took a lot less time.

When they arrived at the park it wasn't hard to find the photographer. They had to drive outside of the city if they wanted to avoid having people in the background. That was the problem with New York. There weren't many people there to begin with and she was the only one with a camera bag. She flagged them down and set to work immediately talking to Avery about certain areas of the park she thought would look nice and the types of poses she wanted them to do.

Christian listened to what she said and followed her lead. When the photographer told him to rearrange his hands or turn his head he did it without question.

His face hurt after smiling so much about halfway through their session but he couldn't stop. And not only because he wasn't allowed to. Avery was having so much fun with this that he couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm.

Most of them were supposed to look nice but they did some silly ones too. He thought his favorite might be from when he was already giving her a piggyback ride for a different picture and she had the idea of both of them being overly dramatic and gesturing off into the distance while pulling dramatic faces.

She cracked up so hard by the silliness of it that she had to lean forward onto his shoulder and that made him laugh too. The photographer got a shot of that as well.

The photographer emailed them the engagement photos less than a week later and he loved those two back to back shots so much he printed them out and stuck them in a two-fold picture frame in his office.

Looking at how happy Avery was and how much they were having helped him get through an awful lot of long, boring days after that. The time before the wedding was ticking far too slowly in a haze of color schemes, looking at venues, and figuring out where to go on their honeymoon.

That might be what Christian was looking forward to most about all of this. Since it would be in January they wanted to go somewhere warm even if it did mean Avery had to wear a gallon of sunblock.