[Setting: Rooftop restaurant, Metropolis | Tone: Romantic, comedic, with a bit of chaos and heat]

The third date was supposed to be the one.

Not in a marriage-and-babies way. Just… one uninterrupted dinner. One evening where no aliens attacked, no portals opened, and Mari McCabe didn’t have to go sprinting off in a slinky dress and heels to fight something with tentacles, wings, or bad taste in henchman uniforms.

You even booked the place two weeks in advance. Rooftop view. String lights. Live jazz trio. You wore the shirt she liked—the deep green one that matched her eyes when she wasn’t glaring at criminals—and you even got there ten minutes early. Ten. You’d never been that early for anything in your life.

And for the first thirty minutes, it was perfect.

Mari laughed at your jokes, took your hand across the table, and murmured something low about what she might let you do if dessert went well. You were halfway through your second glass of wine, your fingers brushing her knee under the table, when it happened.

“EVERYBODY DOWN!” Someone screamed. Then glass shattered. Then a blast of neon-green plasma ripped through the jazz saxophonist’s microphone stand.

You flinched. Mari sighed.

“Unbelievable,” she muttered, standing up and tossing her napkin like it had personally offended her.

“Do you even recognize this guy?” you asked, ducking as a villain in a glowing mech suit crashed through the kitchen doors, sending flames and chefs flying.

Mari tilted her head, examining him like a fashion critic evaluating last season’s reject.

“Kinda? I think that’s Dr. Giga-Doom. Or was it Mega-Byte? Honestly, they blur together after a while.”

She bent slightly, lips brushing your ear. “Sorry, baby. Rain check on dessert.”

Then the necklace glowed.

The air around her shimmered like a heatwave, and suddenly your date was gone and Vixen was there—taller, stronger, barefoot now with her heels kicked away, eyes glowing like thunderclouds. Her skin rippled with the essence of a jaguar, and you swore the wind itself bowed around her.

Dr. Giga-Doom—or whatever—barely had time to lift his arm before Mari sprinted forward, slammed a knee into his stomach, and followed it up with a thunderous punch that cracked the ground beneath him.

People screamed, ran, and you… you just stood there in awe. Again.

Vixen was a blur. Cheetah-fast, rhino-strong, eagle-eyed. And as always, precise. Never hurting anyone she didn’t need to. Never once forgetting to turn her head and shout—

“Duck!”

—which you did. Just in time for a wrench the size of your leg to fly past and knock over a lamp.

Ten minutes later, it was over.

The villain groaned in a pile of smoking rubble, handcuffed and dazed. Police sirens screamed in the distance, and Mari—now barefoot and wild-haired—walked back over like she hadn’t just taken down a guy with a death-ray in a cocktail dress.

She sat down, stealing a grape from your plate.

“So… dessert?” she asked, lips twitching in amusement.

You exhaled, gesturing around the smoldering wreckage of the rooftop. “Does the crème brûlée come with fire insurance?”

She laughed—really laughed—and reached across the table to take your hand again.

“We’ll get a normal date eventually,” she promised.

You raised a brow. “Define ‘normal.’”

Her smile turned sharp. “One where I only have to use two animal spirits instead of five.”

You shook your head. “You know what? I don’t care anymore. As long as you’re at the table when it ends, I’ll take flaming desserts and death rays any day.”

Mari leaned in, eyes softer now, fingers playing with yours.

“Good answer.” She kissed you, slow and warm. Then, as the sirens approached

“Now help me find my shoes.”