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Splendid rescues Giggles again, and it goes just as well as anyone would expect. No, really. He saves Giggles as successfully as successful can get. He saves the girl this time, at the right time and in the right place, and he saves her so well that he leaves her at the doorstep of her house in one piece, without a single missing eye.
He saves Giggles so well that she's swooning over him, twirling a lock of her long pink hair round and round her finger, her thick pink eyelashes fluttering as she looks up at him expectantly, waiting for... something.
"I... uh..." Splendid stumbles on his words even though he had rehearsed this in his head exactly thirty three times, working out the best way to say the words and still look suave, before coming to Giggles' rescue. "I have a gift for you." Giggles' ears perk up at the sound of the word gift, and really, if it were anyone else it would have seemed materialistic, but it's Giggles. It's her. He can't hold it against such a sweet girl to want to receive gifts. Girls should be spoiled. His mother had taught him that when he was growing up, before she passed. "It's nothing really. Just a little something."
Splendid's nose scrunches, doing a full-body cringe, and Giggles can't help but, well, giggle at him. "Oh, Splendid," she says softly as she reaches out to hug him. He backs away just a little, still feeling a little dazed. "You don't have to be so nervous. It's just me."
"No hugs," Splendid says, laughing nervously. "I'm all sweaty." Giggles pouts at him. "And anyway, I got you a gift, didn't I? What do you say let's open it right now?"
"Okay!" Giggles says, her eyes shining. Splendid's heart aches at just how cute she is. "I'm ready when you are."
Splendid holds out the box in front of him, the tips of his ears and the back of his neck bright red, as he watches Giggles tear the gift wrap open to reveal the present he had managed to get her from a shop down the street of his summer home even with how busy he can get from his missions. He gets flustered so easily when he's around her. He gets so flustered with her.
"Oh," Giggles says. She doesn't sound too disappointed at the gift he had gotten for her. Splendid has been worrying for the longest time that she might not like it, or that he might have put too little effort in acquiring an appropriate gift for her, but now that it seems like she might actually like his gift somehow, he feels more at ease. It's her birthday. He just has to make it special. She just has to like his present best. "Oh, Splendid."
Splendid looks away. He can see Giggles' eyes watering as she holds up the gift, and he knows exactly what she is thinking. First, he comes to her rescue and saves her from a pair of robbers. He swoops in to save her without getting any blood on his hands, and he does so successfully. He graces her with his presence first, and then he grants her a skein of pretty pink yarn, silky smooth, falling off the white tube with such elegance. It's exquisite, so pearly, so excellently made. The same kind she had been staring at through the shop window. She had wanted it for so long, but could never get it for herself because she had Mittens the cat at home, who would rip open any ball of yarn she gets her hands on. But now Splendid had gotten it for her, and it's just so lovely and perfect in her hands, and he's just so lovely.
"Oh. Splendid," Giggles says again, and Splendid feels some kind of longing. I don't know what to say," she says after a while, sounding so soft, so sweet that Splendid aches. “I can’t believe you would remember.”
Splendid scratches the back of his neck, looking more sheepish than he should. “Of course I did," he says, braver this time than he had been before. "I remember everything about you." He smiles softly. "I know a lot of things about you. More than I would care to admit.”
Giggles smiles back. "This is everything," she says. "This really is everything to me. I can't believe... I can't believe you would do something so nice for me. Oh, Splendid."