Anonymous: Margot finds the ring Robin was going to use to propose to Alice.

This idea was inspired by an Anon originally commenting "Imagine if Robin was planning to propose before the curse." Which, of course, brought out all sorts of ideas from me and others.

Before this I just added ideas and headcanons to other peoples comments and this was the first prompt I wrote up as an actual short story. It was just meant to be two or three paragraphs long (like seriously short!) and it is still short, just not as short as I had planned it to be, lol.


"Thanks for helping out," Margot said, blushing as she watched Tilly unroll a poster of Hayley Atwell she used to have pinned above her bed. "Uh, you can toss that." She said quickly.

"Sure?" Tilly grinned. "You drew a little love heart in the corner here."

Still blushing, Margot shrugged and tried to play it off. "What can I say. Seeing her punch a guy off his feet in Captain America was kind of hot."

Giggling Tilly rolled the poster up and set it in the 'Maybe' pile they had created. Since Margot's mother had returned back to Chicago while Margot had stayed in the Heights, Kelly had taken the honour of sending up all of Margot's old things that she left at the house. It was a surprise that wasn't entirely welcome. She hadn't lived with her mother for some years and a lot of what was sent over was either dated or just embarrassing. When Tilly had offered to help her sort through it, Margot had only thought of spending time with Tilly and not the things Tilly might see as she did.

Now she was regretting it.

"You have so much stuff!" Tilly said enthusiastically.

"I have so much junk." Margot corrected, turning and lifting a box labelled with a question mark, meaning a whole lot of random. "Why did she even send half of this? I think she just wanted to clear the house and this was her excuse to load it all on me."

"Maybe she thought you'd appreciate the memories." Tilly offered, lifting up a thick green winter coat that looked like it had seen better days from being over worn.

"But it's all junk! Half of it doesn't even have any memories," She turned and raised an eyebrow. "Like said coat which, I wore a lot sure but only because it was comfortable. I have new coats and better memories in them ones than that thing. Toss it."

While Tilly obeyed, throwing the coat into the toss pile which was considerably smaller than the 'maybe' pile (which was very confusing because Margot hadn't agreed on a 'maybe' pile), Margot turned to the question mark box. She opened it up and dug in, pulling out a series of small objects, half of which look like they'd broken off of something else.

Yeah, Margot thought. Mum's definitely just using me to clear out rubbish.

She pushed aside a couple boxes that held stickers and pretty stones she collected once on the beach and was getting ready to chuck the whole box. It really was a bunch of crap. Some were old boxes she made in school when she was six, others were things she got from discount stores that she used when she couldn't find anything else for her hair bobbles and clips. And some were fancy ones that were either damaged or too small to be of any use.

And then she caught sight of something in the very bottom corner. Margot didn't know what made it stand out. But after a moment she reached in and pulled it out, pinching it between her thumb and forefinger.

It was a ring. A beautiful one too. Silver with an incredibly small diamond on its centre and three even smaller diamonds trailing down the ring on either side. On the inside, the word "Freedom" had been inscribed in an italic font and it shined and reflected off the light bulb overhead.

"What's that?" Tilly asked, glancing over.

Margot's mouth felt dry. "I don't know," She mumbled, frowning and shaking her head to clear her thoughts. She forced herself to swallow and wet her gums, dragging her eyes away from the beautiful ring and ignoring the lump that was gathering in her throat for whatever reason. She shrugged, forcing a smile. "I think it must be mums. She must have dropped it in the box by accident."

Tilly hesitated. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Margot grinned, tucking the ring into her pocket. "I'll send it back to her later today." Taking a breath she looked around the mess that was her room. "You know what, I need a break. Wanna go get lunch and try again later?"

"Sure," Tilly nodded slowly. Then, as they began walking down the stairs and out into the street, she asked again. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm good," Margot lied, stroking her hip where the ring was sat. "I think I just need something to eat."

Later that day Margot realised she forgot to send the ring back to her mother… It was in that moment that she realised she also didn't want to. Though she couldn't explain, even to herself, why.