Story of the Century
Tony snuck through the side door into the press room, following closely behind Pepper and wondering how the hell he was going to pull this off.
The kid had done it; he'd redeemed himself in Tony's eyes and made the mature choice to stay in the little league for the time being. But as noble as it was to reject a state of the art suit and the possibilities of fame and fortune, it still left Tony with a room full of journalists and broadcasters wondering why they were spontaneously summoned upstate for the so-called "story of the year". He was going to need something big, something even more enticing than the prospect of another Avenger, to appease these vultures (ha! He made a pun!) Luckily, he had just the thing.
Well, more like his former driver/head of security had just the thing.
The ring felt heavy in his pocket. He could not believe Happy had been holding onto it since 2008. The ring had been in his family for generations; the last person to wear it was his mother. The next person to wear it would be his wife, and she was standing right across from him, blue-green eyes staring expectantly, waiting for him to get this show on the road.
Damn, she was beautiful.
"Thank you," Tony said as he approached the podium, a hand raised in greeting. "Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I hope you've enjoyed touring the new and improved Avengers facility. I sure as hell enjoyed designing it."
That got a rise out of the crowd, a chuckle working its way through the room.
"I know you're all busy so I'll make this quick," he started, taking a breath before continuing. "I'm not a sentimental guy. I don't cry at home movies or look wistfully at old photographs. But, in all this building and upgrading, I've had cause to look back - to remember how we all got here, to this compound we're standing in which houses a team of international heroes that no one ever thought could work together, yet here we are. And in that reminiscing, through the ten years I've been Iron Man, I found one common factor: my lovely Stark Industries CEO, Pepper Potts."
Polite applause filled the space, though Tony could tell by the bored, pinched looks that some members of the audience weren't getting the point. They would just have to suck it up for a little bit longer…and maybe get a tissue. Things were about to get sappy.
He invited Pepper to step forward to join him at the front of the stage, admiring her confidence as she approached. And to think, he'd almost let her slip away a few months ago over some stupid argument. Worst mistake of his life, and that was saying something given that his mistakes included creating a killer AI set on annihilating humanity.
"You were the one waiting for me at the airport when I got pulled out of that cave in Afghanistan. You were the one who stuck a hand through the hole in my chest when my reactor wouldn't work. You were there when I put on my first suit, and you were the reason I blew them all up. You've seen my good days and my not so good days. The victories and defeats. You believed in what I was doing when everyone else thought I was crazy. You've been by my side in this mess since the very beginning, and you're the one I want by my side until the end."
This was it. If they didn't get it then, they sure as hell would get it now as he took Pepper by the hands and got down on one knee, brandishing the ring.
"So whaddya say Miss Potts? Will you marry me?"
There was no reaction, no smile, no waterworks, nothing. Pepper hadn't so much as batted an eyelash throughout the entire thing. Honestly, Tony was a little disappointed. He had worked really hard on that speech in the thirty seconds he had before it happened. Pepper was just staring blankly at him, and for a second, Tony thought she was going to say no.
Then, the fog lifted and Pepper was nodding her head so quickly he thought it might fall off her shoulders.
"Yes," she said as if she couldn't quite believe what was happening even though she had already made her decision five minutes ago in the hall. "Yes, Tony, I will marry you."
"Oh thank God," he replied, relieved. "That could have been awkward."
He stood up and slipped the ring on her left hand, unable to ignore that it was a perfect fit. Some things, it seemed, were just meant to be. That, or Happy had gone behind his back and gotten it sized, that sneaky bastard.
"Are we really doing this?" she asked, still dazed.
"We are really doing this," Tony confirmed, freaking out just as much as she was under his veneer of overconfidence. He held her close by the waist, pointed at the crowd and said with excessive enthusiasm, "Smile for the camera!"
Flashes popped all around them, surrounding the couple in a sea of lights. There was hardly room to think around all the shouting and questions hurled their way. Everyone wanted the inside scoop, the first exclusive interview. And she used to think policing the tabloids back when she was his assistant was bad; if this was their future - their every move splattered across every news outlet in the country - it was almost enough to reconsider.
Almost.
"I hate you," she muttered so that only he could hear.
"No you don't," he corrected, smiling into the awaiting cameras. "You love me."
Her gaze softened and her smile became genuine, the annoyance slipping away. In that moment, he imagined that it was just she and him in some restaurant half way across the world and he'd just proposed but there were no cameras in their face, no one demanding a statement or answer, just the two of them, a bottle of wine, and the lights of the city. Maybe he'd do that: whisk her away on a spontaneous trip to do this all over again with all the bells and whistles she deserved. But then again, nothing about their relationship was orthodox. It was fitting that things happened this way, that their engagement happened as a back-up plan. Deep down, he knew he wouldn't have it any other way, and neither would she.
"I do."
She leaned in for a kiss, and the crowd went wild.
They would make a much better headline than Spider-Man. Story of the year his ass. More like story of the century.