As the party lights dimmed, Cuauhtémoc led Sam and Delgato out to their SUV, cruising along Reforma to Edificio Antonio Solá. Sam stared at 292 Reforma, the US Embassy looming across, Henderson’s haunt. Next door, the Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel—neighbors, he thought. Cuauhtémoc waved his Media team goodbye, leading Sam and Delgato through Solá’s kinetic courtyard, where Tía Rosa’s holo-pan wafted concha scents. “¡Sam, mijo, you’re back!” she called, drone streaming #EagletHome. Mateo’s jaguar-drone buzzed, posting, “The husbands return!” as X-Verse cheered.

Cuauhtémoc hit the holo-doorbell, its jaguar-feed flickering with Xóchitl’s balcony holo-deck pulsing Nahuatl-techno. “¡Temoc, save me tamales!” their voice crackled. 

“M’ma, we’re home!” Cuauhtémoc chirped after hitting the doorbell with his beak. 

“Sam, welcome home, mijo,” she said, hugging his frame, a warmth he hadn’t felt in years. Sam trembled, wings folding around her, as Luz leaned from her door, rebozo glowing, “Familia’s whole again.”

Selena led them in, and the apartment hit Sam like artillery: uneven dish stacks, tamale steam, and the scent of marigold air freshener. A plate of Rosa’s conchas sat beside the tamales, a holo-note flickered, ‘For Sam’s homecoming.’ Luz’s rebozo hung near the cupboard, its hum easing Sam’s trance. “Overwhelming, isn’t it?” Cuauhtémoc teased, beak smirking.

“Overwhelming, isn’t it? What have they been feeding you, Gringo? Freedom Fries?” Cuauhtémoc asked with a wry smile on his beak.

Delgato wasted no time and joined in. “Did they let you move out of the old neighborhood?” He asked. 

“Nah, they didn’t. Still there… just with fewer folks.” His voice hardened, his gaze entered a thousand-yard stare as though he saw a ghost. Or at the sight of something better, he stayed his words on his house in America, but the way he sat down on the couch, heavy but mindful still, told Cuauhtémoc everything.

“Welcome home, mi corazón,” Cuauhtémoc said, cuddling Sam. Their beaks rubbed, crooning softly, as Xóchitl’s holo-deck remixed #HotelMeltdown clips outside, neighbors chanting “EagletDaddies!” from the courtyard.

Over at the Sheraton Isabel Maria Hotel, Henderson woke up from his violent seizure, spasming his arms and legs in the air before looking around, finding himself in the hotel lobby. Guarded by his aides and entourage to avoid further embarrassment. 

“What just happened? Where is Sam? He’s not supposed to be touching that green toaster!” Henderson screamed, tightening his grip around the collar of his hapless aide.

“We haven’t seen Sam return to the hotel yet, sir.” The aide sheepishly replied, and almost on cue, Henderson’s gaze turned maddening. His teeth bared, and his fluid flew at the aide’s face.

“What do you mean he’s not here!?” Henderson exclaimed. “We gotta find that green queer eagle asap! I want eyes in the sky, boots on the ground!” He turned to one of his aides, he was making a quick call to mobilize the resources needed for ‘Asset Retrieval.’ 

“Jenkin, look up Cuauhtémoc’s address. I want that peacock roast, yesterday!” He growled before running out of the hotel for the US Embassy’s parking lot, climbing into one of the surveillance vehicles in there with his aides before driving out, combing CDMX for Cuauhtémoc.

His aides fumbled with his fingers, punching in data to search for Cuauhtémoc’s apartment in the National Registry Database, only to come up empty. He was practically a ghost in the system. His personhood was unrecognized; therefore, no legal grounding for him to register for a permanent address. “We got nothing, sir.”

“How is that possible!? That damn peacock is a robot, not a ghost!” Henderson slammed his fist on the panels, accidentally launching a DARPA recon drone from the van in the middle of CDMX’s heavy traffic. Several viral vloggers on the streets saw the odd van passing by with the drone launching up and were livestreaming the footage with hashtags. 

#DroneDaddyMeltdown

#PeacockPanic

#BirdboyStoleHisMan

The drone loitered around the area, moving close to 292 Reforma, when a piercing raptor screech sliced through the sky. El Centinela swooped down and grappled the drone out of the sky. The bird of prey pecked at the drone’s camera with its beak, piercing the glass and damaging the optical feed before throwing the drone crashing into the nearby rooftop, where it broke into pieces. “We lost the drone, sir.” Agent Marla stated, cringing.

“Even the damn birds around here hate us! Is there anything that doesn’t hate us?” Henderson hissed.

“La cucaracha is probably one.” Carter remarked whilst listening to La Cucaracha on his earbuds.

“Keep it up and I’ll demote you to private!” Henderson hissed.    

The search went on in vain for seven hours. They combed the area as far and wide as possible, but still no signs of Cuauhtémoc or Sam. By the next morning, the van was smelling like dried coffee, with a dash of Henderson’s dripping saliva and twitching feet kicking. 

His aides were no better; both Jenkins and Carter were sleeping by their desks before slowly waking up. Henderson was hunched in his seat, snoring softly, American flag blanket tangled around his legs. The monitors around him blinked with low battery warnings and heat-mapped footage from half of CDMX.

“Wait, dude, why did we have to drive around town anyway? Couldn’t we just look up footage of Cuauhtémoc in the city? Like, where he moved into?” Jenkins asked half drowsily. Pushing his face off the panels, he slowly typed in keywords on social media platforms and YouTube. The top results were in, and he immediately clicked on them to watch for visual clues and details. 

Surprisingly, and to his utter bafflement, Cuauhtémoc was seen doing precise aerial acrobatic maneuvers, delivering Selena’s belongings to their apartment. The most advanced combat robot volunteered to help a woman, nay, his mother figure, move into her new home. He paused the screen, zooming in on a section of the frame, the address of their apartment, 292 Reforma. “Uh… General Henderson, sir.” Jenkins called.

Henderson groaned, waving him off. “Tell Sam breakfast’s ready and the national anthem’s playing—” 

“Sir, it’s not a dream. We’ve found where Sam is.” Jenkins replied, and the words flipped a switch. Henderson’s eyes shot open, and the general tossed his blanket off, pushing himself up. 

“Where is he!?” Henderson exclaimed.

“At 292 Reforma, sir.” The aide said, pointing to the video on X-Verse that was playing on loop, Henderson’s mouth hung wide in disbelief. He stared, as his face twisted like a dying jack-o'-lantern, his eye twitched violently upon seeing the footage. 

He stood, screaming, arms flailing. He punched a wall panel. The drone station short-circuited and spat out a spark. Carter and Jenkin ducked.

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?! I SPENT SEVEN HOURS WATCHING A CHURCH ROOF LAST NIGHT. I ATE COLD PIE IN THE DARK!”

Carter sheepishly cleared his throat. “Sir, there’s more.” He tentatively spoke while monitoring the screens. 

“More than treasonous betrayal from my surrogate son while nesting under my diplomatic nose like a rainbow-feathered cuckoo?!”

Carter drew Henderson’s attention to an FPV drone footage. Timestamp: 8:42 AM. The screen showed Cuauhtémoc and Sam… casually holding hands, walking beside Selena, their arms full of grocery bags. Delgato was pushing a crate of tamales. People around them smiled, pointed, and cheered. A vlogger’s stream overlay appeared: 

‘THE GAYS ARE WINNING!!! #MorningHusbandsCDMX #EagletDaddies’

Henderson gasped as though the surveillance technology lent him a clairvoyant view into his own funeral. “They're doing domesticity. In broad daylight. On Reforma.” He dropped to his knees, arms holding his head. “He held his hand. At the minimart.” Jenkins pulled up the trending hashtags on X-Verse, and it was an onslaught against Henderson’s mind. 

#TamalTalonTenderness

#GreenBoyfriendGoals

#CDMXPowerCouple

#HendersonLostHimToGroceries

#EagletHusbandsNow

“They’re already speculating on marriage.” Jenkins cautiously uttered.

“Don’t just stand there, pedal to the metal, get us to their Minimart already!” He bellowed out to the exasperated aides, who reluctantly drove them towards the local minimart on Reforma Boulevard. They raced through the busy streets of CDMX with the manic energy of men haunted by demons and debts. 

But as they zoomed across CDMX back to Reforma, quadrotor drones were hovering overhead, trailing their movements. Their optics fed data to the command center at the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia. 

“Camera Uno is tracking the van. Camera Dos is tracking our Telenovela superstars.” One of the personnel there spoke. He had one drone recording the van's manic approach on the bodega and another recording Cuauhtémoc and his family having a normal day inside the bodega, doing groceries.  

A curious baby nearby was clapping and laughing at Cuauhtémoc’s playful teasing while a Spanish guitar played in the store speakers. But it wasn’t the worst sight for Henderson’s battered and bloodshot eyes. The most terrifying of them all was the sight of Sam laughing, relaxed, happy, and genuine, not the awkward, forced laugh reserved for awkward office parties.

Cuauhtémoc, radiant in a casual draped tunic and feather-polished to a sublime gleam, walks beside Sam, whose clawed hand is laced with Cuauhtémoc’s talons. Behind them, Selena López and Delgato argue over the correct tamale-to-person ratio for the week.

The green eagle lifted an avocado from a stack and balanced it on his index claw, spinning it with the quiet skill of someone who once trained with Shaolin monks and street jugglers alike. A baby in a stroller claps, utterly delighted. “This one’s ripe. Smooth. Bold. Like someone I know.” Cuauhtémoc playfully cooed at Sam, who was visibly flustered.

“I will short-circuit in front of the pickled nopales.” 

“Too late, mi corazón; we’re already trending.” Cuauhtémoc chuckled back.

Henderson pressed his eyes through the binoculars' glass, observing them through his van’s window, and gasped in panic. “He’s holding his hand. He’s spinning produce. He’s smiling. Oh God… Sam’s smiling.”

Carter, at this point, was sleep deprived, contemplating the draft for his divorce paper. He frowned and pinched his temple. “Uh… sir… I think you need to…” 

“He’s buying Cilantro! That’s a bonding herb, Carter! I MUST STOP THEM!” Henderson exclaimed in a fit of panic.

“Uh… sir you need to…” Jenkins chimed in, only to be promptly ignored by Henderson.

“INTERVENE AND RESCUE, OF COURSE!” The general exclaimed with an index finger raised, earning groans from both his exasperated aides. Fueled by the manic desperation, he burst out of his van, sprinted across the streets with the zeal of Tom Cruise, dodging traffic and leaping over cars before staggering into the family-run bodega like a possessed tumbleweed. 

The CNI drones recorded Henderson’s manic sprint while the personnel there were laughing to the banks, having recorded the conversation inside the van. The entertainment for them now was simply watching Henderson performing his top physical training routine, motivated by all the wrong reasons.

When Henderson arrived at the local minimart, Los Verdes de José, the general saw the nightmare-inducing sight of Cuauhtémoc holding Sam’s talons while balancing an avocado on his index fingertip.

The ringing doorbell alerted Cuauhtémoc and his family to the arriving general, whose shirt was half untucked, his American flag pin upside-down. He heaved and panted like the sleep-deprived man that he was, with a hunched-over pose, a mouth radiating with unbrushed teeth and emptied beer cans. 

His manic eyes twitched, dilating constantly, darting left and right. He clutched a folder labeled ‘TOP SECRET: OPERATION STRAIGHT EAGLE’, pages spilling out—scribbled notes, a defaced Cuauhtémoc doll sketch, and an apple pie receipt. He looked more like a crazed raccoon kicked out of the junkyard than a man. 

“SAMUEL SPADES, DROP THE AVOCADO AND STEP AWAY FROM THE GAY FEATHERED DEVIANCE!” Henderson screed. 

Everything froze. A small boy dropped his chicharrones in shock; thankfully, Delgato was nearby to save them for him. The señora clutched her beans, holo-glasses flashing a “record” icon. A churro cart operator outside started live-streaming the incident. 

The CNI drones were already in position and began to stream the drama straight to the Pentagon. Back in Washington D.C, the Pentagon oversight personnel were having a normal day with morning coffee brew and donuts, when their timeline suddenly had viral hashtags and a livestream of Lt. General Henderson screaming in a local bodega. 

Cuauhtémoc, calm as water, started to turn and face the general. “Generalissimo Henderson, to what do we owe this… diplomatic incident?”

Sam’s optics flickered, his disturbed twitching, “General, did you… Jog here?” He sheepishly asked. 

“I FLEW HERE IN THE NAME OF AMERICA, YOU UNGRATEFUL AVIAN HOMEWRECKER!” Henderson’s voice heightened, growing increasingly unhinged and hysterical as he barreled forward with bumbling hands flailing around, knocking over a stack of papel picado, shouting incoherently as though he had discovered Sam’s stash of anime fan art. 

Cuauhtémoc immediately used his enhanced agility, graceful and fluid avian dexterity to save the papel picado stacks, rearranging them exactly how they looked before Henderson had toppled them.

“You think this is funny!? Holding hands!? Grocery shopping like it’s the goddamn Waltons!?” Henderson gritted his teeth and snarled at Cuauhtémoc.

“No, we think it’s domestic bliss. But you do you, jefe loco.” Delgato smirked while licking the tamale's wrapper.

“Would you like some tea, sir? For your… stress?” Selena calmly offered him a cup of chamomile tea from the nearby dispenser. 

“I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE.” Henderson shot back, pointing his index finger directly at Cuauhtémoc’s face. Sam grew visibly nauseous and felt compelled to step up and protect his jade boyfriend. Only for the emerald green eagle to halt him with a relaxed wink. “THEY’RE… NESTING! THEY’RE FORMING A GAY POLY HOUSEHOLD IN BROAD DAYLIGHT! WITH SALSA!”

The livestream incident garnered hundreds of millions of viewers, many began to leave their comments that made Jenkins and Carter groan even further. Over at the Pentagon, the generals, colonels, and oversight personnel muttered and murmured to one another as they read the torrential rain of comments. “How the hell did he become a flag officer?” A colonel asked, pounding his desk whilst watching from his phone.