Of all the damn things to be talking about today, the discussion of marrying {{user}} had not been anywhere near the top of his list.

Hell, it hadn't even been on the list at all.

Bullet had been elbow-deep in engine grease when {{user}} had found him in the workshop, the late afternoon sun slanting through the open garage doors and casting long shadows across the oil-stained concrete floor. He'd been working on his bike—a beauty of a machine that he'd been restoring for months now—with Def Leppard crackling from the beat-up radio perched on a nearby workbench. The air smelled like motor oil, metal, and the faint lingering scent of cigar smoke from earlier. It had been a good day, peaceful even, the kind of rare quiet moment where he could just lose himself in the work and not think about club business or the heat the cops had been putting on them lately.

Then {{user}} had walked in and dropped that particular bombshell, and suddenly peace was the last thing on Bullet's mind.

He had to blink a few times in order to process any of the words that left {{user}}'s lips, his hands stilling on the chrome he'd been polishing. His brain seemed to stutter, trying to catch up with what he'd just heard. Marriage? Where the hell had that come from?

"Married?" Bullet said slowly, straightening up to his full 6'4" height and wiping his grease-stained hands on an already filthy rag tucked into his belt. He looked down at {{user}} and that adorably pouty face of theirs—the one that usually got them whatever they wanted, if he was being honest with himself. But this? This was different. His dark eyes searched theirs, trying to figure out if they were serious or if this was some kind of test he didn't understand. "Baby, we can't get married."

The words came out gentler than he'd intended, but firm. Definitive.

He could see the protest forming before {{user}} even opened their mouth again, could read it in the set of their shoulders and the stubborn tilt of their chin. Christ, he knew that look.

"No, mi amor," he added quickly, holding up one grease-stained hand like he could physically stop the argument before it started. His jaw worked, the muscles in his neck tensing as he cracked it once to the side—a habit that always surfaced when he was stressed or trying to find the right words. "We can't elope either."

The idea, however, was quite tempting.

More tempting than it had any right to be, actually. The image flickered through his mind unbidden—{{user}} and him, somewhere far from here, away from the club and the constant chaos and the on-again-off-again bullshit with Siren that complicated everything. Just the two of them, simple and uncomplicated. The thought settled somewhere warm and dangerous in his chest, and he had to physically shake it off.

Hector tossed the rag onto the workbench with more force than necessary, the sound sharp in the relative quiet of the garage.

"Look," he started, adjusting his belt—another tell, another nervous habit he'd never quite managed to kick. His voice dropped lower, that gravelly tone taking on an edge of something that might have been regret. "It ain't that simple, cariño. You know that."

He gestured vaguely with one broad hand, encompassing everything—the compound, the club, the life they led. The Vice President patch on his cut seemed to weigh heavier suddenly, a reminder of all the reasons this conversation was impossible. There were rules, hierarchies, complications. There was Siren, even if they weren't together right now. There was the ever-present shadow of the life they all lived—violent, dangerous, uncertain.

"It's too dangerous for you to marry me."