Chapter Text
Morgan had been sitting on their phone absently scrolling through the clock app for the past hour but hadn’t watched a single video. Instead, they were planning the best way to bring up a question they had for Alex. Who they had absolutely not been watching read some horror book over the top of their phone the entire time. They looked so peaceful, smiling occasionally at what Morgan could only assume were the more violent sections, those which had been written to terrify the reader. It was moments like this they forgot the S-tier villain and just saw Alex.
Morgan was a planner, and this was too important to risk any unexpected outcomes. They had their list of reasons, all the pros of accepting the offer, the paperwork sitting in their room, and now all they needed was the confidence to ask.
They sat up and looked at Alex. This was selfish.
“Will you marry me?” but Alex didn’t love them back, not like Morgan loved them, so this would have to do.
“Yes,” Alex shot back without hesitation, “Wait, why,” before seeming to remember that anything Morgan did could be a scheme and this definitely sounded like a scheme. If they hadn’t been so preoccupied with their own feelings, they might have noticed Alex’s initial enthusiasm.
“So many different reasons.” I’m in love with you being one, but they wasn’t about to say that.
“For the sake of my mental and emotional health, list all of them.”
Morgan settled into the comfortable persona of unassuming confidence they had perfected during their numerous heists. They had been anticipating Alex needing some convincing and had a whole list of reasons curated to work. Again, they were too absorbed in the con to pay attention to the meaning of Alex’s words.
“Tax benefits, so many tax benefits and in case of a medical emergency you get to, one, be in the hospital and two, make all the medical decisions if I’m unconscious, which stops my parents from making medical decisions, so like that alone is worth it. Um, three, I get half your stuff if you ever go hero again.”
Alex cut them off mid pitch, “Wait, you’d divorce me if I became a hero?”
“Instantly, yes,” that felt obvious. Despite everything they had some sense of self preservation. They’d escaped the hero life once and nothing would drag them back.
“You know what, that’s fair. Continue.”
“Your parents think we’ve been dating for like five years and they’ll finally stop nagging you to propose.”
“That is a good reason.” They watched Alex rub their chin as they considered. Alex’s parents had been persistent in their desire to “officially” add Morgan to the family. Especially after the hero incident, they felt Alex hadn’t done enough to prove they were deserving of dating Morgan. It was sweet.
“My sister will stop nagging me to propose,” that one had mostly been as a way to piss of their family.
“Wait, what?”
“What, I can’t use the fake dating thing too? Like, you’re not the only one with nosey family.” Although Chad had doubled their efforts to rescue them from Alex’s so called mind control and their parents tried to kidnap them to prevent another scandal after Diego told them.
“No, of course you can, I just wish you’d told me. A lot of the confrontations I’ve had with your sister make a lot more sense now.”
“Wait, my, my sister picked fights with you over that?” She hadn’t really said anything to them about it, but they hadn’t expected her to try to fight Alex over it. That was disappointing considering she was the only one who had respected their decisions, even if she didn’t always like it.
“Yeah, she tried really hard to kick my ass back when I was getting married to uh, what was her name again. That doesn’t matter, you know who I’m talking about.”
Morgan paused for a second taken aback. Diego tried to fight on their behalf when they thought Alex had broken up with them to go hero. She was their favorite for a reason. Although, “Do I really wanna get married to somebody who can’t even remember the name of their ex-wife?”
“You’re the one trying to convince me. Not the other way around. And I’m gonna need at least one more really good reason.”
They hadn’t been expecting them to need more reasons than that. Actually, they had expected Alex to shut them down immediately and had a whole speech planned about how it was a joke. They were running out of reasons. “We don’t have to testify against each other in court?”
Alex shifted forward in their seat, “You think I would testify against you in court?”
“You’d be under oath!”
“Okay, first off, I’ve never even made it to court. I’ve always escaped before that point so you’ll never have to testify against me and in the extremely unlikely event somebody called me as a witness to testify against you, I would just take you out of the court and no one could stop us. Or I would simply lie.”
“Ya, but you’re like a shit liar. So that wouldn’t work at all,” Morgan conveniently ignored the argument that Alex could just walk them out without issue.
“One of the reasons you want to marry me is because I’m a shit liar.”
“Well, when you put it that way it seems mean, but yes,” Morgan was getting anxious. If Alex didn’t want to marry them, they could at least have the decency to stop this conversation.
“Okay, one more reason.”
Morgan had to hold back rolling their eyes. They had really been expecting Alex to agree or shut them down immediately after hearing their first set of reasons. It didn’t make sense that they wanted to be convinced. “Um, there’s a couple life insurance scams I’ve been meaning to run, but I need a spouse to do it,” they didn’t have anything planned, but they were sure they could come up with something. Again, conveniently ignoring that it would be just as easy to forge the existence of a spouse.
“Well, you’ve made some good points, um, and they’re good enough for me. So yeah, let’s get married.” Alex sat back smiling, they seemed overly satisfied with themselves.
“Oh, cool. Perfect! Honestly, makin’ sure you’re the one in charge when I get hospitalized is gonna be a huge relief,” it was true. Morgan’s parents were sure to make their life a nightmare if they ended up in the hospital. But they couldn’t deny their real motivation, they were greedy and a thief; what could be better than stealing the S-tier villain, better yet having Alex give themselves over voluntarily. Alex wasn’t in love with them, but at least they could have this satisfaction.
“When you end up hospitalized!?” Alex shot up in their seat, “You shouldn’t be planning to be injured, especially when I’ll be there to protect you. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Morgan almost laughed at how indignant and protective Alex got over those they cared about.
“I mean, I’m a D-tier villain who’s publicly friends with you and consistently fights heroes and pulls heists above their tier. You’re the reason I haven’t had a serious issue yet,” Morgan knew the benefits of pulling Alex as a wild card when they had been in life-threatening situations.
Alex sighed, “You hardly ever let me rescue you because you, and I quote, ‘Planned for this contingency, either leave or grab a money bag and run’.” They glared at Morgan, obviously irritated at not being allowed to defend them more.
“Anyway, what was your plan here,” Alex cut off the conversation, “because I’m not sure what you were planning but my mom will kill me if we don’t have a ceremony that meets her standards. She’s also never going to let it go that you proposed to me,” They groaned.
“Oh, I figured we could just sign the papers, but I’m not gonna be the one to disappoint your parents. Well, may as well go all out, we are getting married after all,” Morgan smiled and felt their heart clench at the idea of standing at the altar, holding Alex’s hands, professing their love in front of the people who cared about them. “It would probably be best if we don’t tell anyone that we aren’t really together, except Barnaby and Ohio. Barnaby already knows we’re fake dating and he would be furious if I didn’t let him know the marriage was too.”
Alex smiled almost sadly at them, “I’ll probably ask Ohio to be my best man anyway. Maybe we should drop by their apartment to let them know. Also, we need to have an engagement dinner at my mom’s house, I’m gonna go call her and figure out what she wants to do.” Alex got up and went into their bedroom to call their mom.
As soon as the door closed, Morgan let out a silent cheer that Alex said yes; they were engaged. They pulled out their phone to call Barnaby and let him know that they would be over soon with an important announcement.