IV - Date Night

As she was getting ready for her date with Max, Tatiana's cell phone rang.

"Hello Baby Sister, how are you?"

"Phoebe! How are you?" Tatiana replied excitedly, breaking into her native language.

"I'm well, and you?"

"Really well thanks!"

"How's America? Are you all settled in?"

"Not quite, but getting there. And it's good so far, everyone I've talked to so far has been really friendly."

"Good, good. Glad to hear it."

"Oh Phoebs, I wish I had more time to talk, but I'm afraid I'm going out soon."

"Going out?"

"Yes, for dinner."

"With someone?"

Tatiana rolled her eyes at the growing excitement in her sister's voice. Even from across the world she could tell Phoebe liked where this was going. "Yes, with someone."

"On a date?"

"Yeah, we're kind of calling it that."

Phoebe gave an unnecessary squeal, making Tatiana jump. "Oh Ana that's so wonderful! I'm so happy for you!"

"It's nothing big, don't get too excited. We work together, and I thought it would be nice to make some connections here."

"Do you like him?"

"Well, yeah. As a friend though."

"Well, I hope it all goes well! I'm so excited!"

The fact that her sister was more excited about her date than she was made her feel a little guilty. "Like I said, don't make a big deal about it, it may not go anywhere. I'm not even sure I'm ready for another relationship right now."

"Ana, not every man is going to - oh, Adrian, Adrian, guess what?! Tatiana has a date tonight!" Tatiana could hear her sister shouting to her husband. She sighed, knowing she shouldn't have said anything because her family would just blow it out of proportion.

"What I was saying was that not every man is going to be like your last boyfriend." The sisters had long ago resolved never to speak his name.

"Yeah, but not every man is going to be as perfect as Adrian."

"Yes, he is quite perfect."

Tatiana heard a wet kissing sound from the other end of the phone line, and made a face, holding the phone away from her ear and hearing her sister giggling.

It was no question that their family favoured Phoebe's career and life choices. It wasn't that they didn't support Tatiana, only that they were unsure about her building her life upon a supposed legend, and they made sure they made that clear. Phoebe was a successful business woman, very happily married, and had a young child. Tatiana was single and had moved across the world to chase a myth. She was always all over the place. Her parents had told her countless times that with such a rich history, Greece was the perfect place for an archaeologist to work, and didn't like her moving around so much all the time.

"But I hope that one relationship that ended badly didn't scare you off from dating completely."

"Not, 'scared me off', just made me more wary." Glancing at the clock, Tatiana saw that she would have to wrap up this conversation. "Phoebe, I have to go now, thank you for calling though it was really nice to talk to you! Say hello to everyone for me and send them my love!"

"Oh I will! And call me tomorrow and tell me how it all went!"

"Have fun, Ana!" called Adrian.

"Love you, Ana!"

"Thank you, love you too, Phoebs."

The line went dead. She was never going to hear the end of this.

Are there Atlanteans living among us?

Tatiana's eyes were glued to the restaurant's TV screen, the news full of coverage on Atlantis and the supposed Atlantean activity that had been going on in the area as of late, including the 'Aquaman'.

"You sure picked the right time to come here." Max's voice snapped her from her trance and she realized she had been paying more attention to the screen than to him.

She blushed. "Sorry?"

"You picked a good time to come here, with all the 'Atlantean' stuff going on." He set down his fish taco in order to make air quotes around 'Atlantean'.

"Yeah, I sure did. It's perfect really, it's like this is all happening for me. I know it's not but it all just seems to be working out. Sorry, I'm distracted by my work once again."

"No, that's okay, you're passionate about what you do is all. I like that. I can see the passion in your eyes. This all means a lot to you, doesn't it?"

She nodded. "It does."

"Like how the salvaging company means a lot to me. I've always thought it's important to like what you do."

"Exactly! Why do it otherwise?"

"Yeah!" They shared a chuckle at their mutual excitement.

"So, how are the fish tacos? As amazing as they were said to be?" she asked.

"Yeah, I would say so." His plate was empty and clean, if that said anything.

"I'm full, I think I'll take the rest of mine to go." She nodded to her sandwich.

"Sounds good, I'll get the bill."

After leaving the restaurant he walked with her back to her house.

"Thanks Max. This was nice. And thanks for walking me back."

"Yeah, no problem. And yeah, it was nice. Thanks for joining me."

There was a pause, where they just stood smiling at each other. But what could have been an awkward moment wasn't.

"Well, have a nice weekend. I'll see you on Monday," she said, breaking the almost strangely comfortable silence.

"Yeah, thanks, you too."

Before going to bed she saw a text from him thanking her again for the nice evening. Smiling, she texted him back thanking him again too.

It turned out that they would see each other sooner than Monday. The next day in fact.

Tatiana was having her morning tea and was cutting a small article on Atlantis from the morning newspaper when her cell phone rang.

She expected it to be Phoebe ready to interrogate her about her date, but found that it was Max.

"Morning! Sorry, I know you thought you'd be free of me until Monday." She chuckled, and so did he. "And I know it's the weekend so we both technically shouldn't be working, but one of our teams made a pretty cool find last night that I think you'd be really interested in."

That was enough to have her out the door fifteen minutes later and speed-walking to the company's small warehouse where they stored their boats and equipment and whatever they salvaged to be sorted.

Max was dressed more casually than usual, but still professionally. She found it difficult to picture him wearing casual clothes like a T-shirt and shorts.

"How was the rest of your night?" he asked her when she arrived, face flushed and a little breathless from her hurried trek over.

"Good, I pretty much just went to bed. Yours?"

"Yeah, me too. Here it is."

Her jaw dropped when she saw what it was.

A long trident was laying on a table in the storeroom. It was a dark silver that seemed to glow in the light. The detailing was beautiful.

"Oh my God-"

"I take it judging by your reaction that I was right, you do find it interesting."

"Yes, oh yes! It's amazing!" She walked over so that she stood right before the table, beaming and eyes glowing. "It's in incredible condition."

"Never seen someone so excited about a giant fork before," he joked, a flirty edge to his voice.

She decided it wouldn't hurt to joke-flirt back. She raised her eyebrows. "This, Mr. Preston, is no giant fork, but a trident, a special weapon. Some records say it's the chosen weapon of Atlanteans."

"Perfect for you, then."

"Yes, perfect!" She reached out and touched it. "This may sound weird, but could I take this home? I'd love to examine it further."

"Yeah, sure. Go for it. I have my truck here, so we can drive it over. You might get some funny looks carrying that thing-"

"A trident."

"Trident, apologies. You might get some looks carrying it through town back to your house."

"Thanks, that would be great."

She cleaned any excess seaweed and water off the beautiful item before they loaded it into Max's truck and drove it home. The whole drive she was squirming in her seat with excitement.

So sorry for the lack of action lately with this story - with 'Avengers: Endgame' being released my Marvel stories have taken priority!

But finally here's another chapter! Thank you so much for reading and your patience and I hope you enjoyed! :)