“Alright, alright. Whatever you say.” Allan raised his hands, palms facing outwards in a surrendering gesture. “But all I gotta say is this: search your feelings, you know it to be true.” Clearly, he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Marian without any backup. And so, he resolved to put together a grand scheme for getting the two of them together. Since he wasn’t able to have a successful relationship on his own, he’d be damned if he let these two down. Maybe he could even rope Aria into collaborating with him. He was pretty sure that she knew about Marian’s crush, and it couldn’t hurt to have one more person on board with the plan. For the millionth time, Allan thought that this ‘secret identity’ thing the Merry Men practiced was more of a hindrance than benefit; all it did was get in the way of their personal lives. Sure, it threw off the cops that were after them, but why they even needed an alias in the first place was beyond him. Historically, robbers and thieves weren’t exactly known to have fancy nicknames.

So engrossed in this train of thought, Allan didn’t even notice Aria’s presence until she sidled up next to him with his long-awaited cup of coffee. He’d say something about her awfully close proximity, but to be honest, he was just glad his coffee was here. Mumbling a quick thanks to Aria, he dumped a diabetes-inducing amount of sugar into the coffee. He was going to need the sugar-rush if he was going to survive the day. It was still early in the morning and he’d already used up a good chunk of his energy. Taking a sip of the piping hot beverage, he listened to Marian talk about some fancy ball she was invited to. Allan really didn’t pay much attention to it at first, mostly because these events weren’t really this thing, but his eyes lit right up when he realised what this could mean for the Merry Men. It being masquerade-themed was only an added bonus, they didn’t even have to risk their covers getting blown. A surreptitious sideways glance at Aria, and he was sure that she was thinking the same thing as well.

“Aw, hey. Aren’t you gonna invite little ol’ me?” Allan said to Marian with a pout. Heaving an exaggerated sigh, he leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms and shaking his head. His expression was forlorn, as if he were utterly devastated at being abandoned. Of course, he wasn’t all that upset that she didn’t ask him to go, but he really didn’t want to have to pull a Mission Impossible style break-in when he could just walk right in through the front door.