Something's wrong. Like, probably, actually, maybe wrong. The longer she watches him, she's really not sure what exactly to think. As far as she knows, nothing had happened recently enough to warrant this strange behavior. Okay, she admits that he's usually seriously strange, but this kinda tops the cake in unexpected mood changes. Normally, Darcy Lewis is a pretty go-with-the-flow type of girl. Hello, survivor of two alien invasions, the Taser of Gods, and the one who gets to claim the resident former playboy, philanthropist, billionaire, genius, as her one here, thank you very fucking much. Anyways, yeah. Usually, not much phases her anymore, but this is definitely Worry! worthy. After all, she's pretty sure that of all the unpredictable emotions less than likely to happen to him, this one is at like, the top of the top of that long list.
Even after months of dating, he still surprises her. At least it'll never be boring…?
Still, the scene in front of her both confuses her and slightly worries her.
Standing in the kitchen, pretty much butt-naked except for the brightly patterned apron on and his front and a pair of boxers around his goods, is Anthony "Tony" Edward "Oh, god, yes!" Stark, whistling like he's high on…something. With a quick glance at the Starktech phone in her hand, she checks the time. She nods to herself when she sees it's only 10:45 in the morning, confirming her thought that it is definitely way too early for enough shit to have gone down that it would force him to drink, so he's not intoxicated. Besides, while practically no one at all knows it, Tony gets seriously affectionate and touchy-feely around people he loves. So, nope, not drunk or even buzzed. Plus, he's kinda given up booze as his go-to thing for coping with shit. '
He's not drunk…and the longer she watches him, she's really not sure what to think. As far as she knows, he'd only been SCIENCE! crazed for a couple of days, and he'd even had actual naps that she'd forced him to take during the mini bender (and, yes, it was only a mini, baby bender compared to the real ones) in between. When she'd walked down to retrieve him from his little Man Care of Man Caves/Lab of Geniusness, nothing had been very World Ending worthy, and it hadn't looked like anything ingestible was around. (Besides, his category of SCIENCE! deals more with engineering, inventing machinery type SCIENCE! than it does with the bubbling, colorful liquid stuff that your average movie Evil Genius does.) In fact, somehow, in some astounding way, his lab had been mostly clean and tidy, which had honestly surprised her so much that she hadn't even wanted to try questioning such a miracle. Instead, she had mentally sent a prayer of thanks to whoever was listening and was in the godly wish making business way that her boyfriend hadn't burned down the labs (again for Christ's sake). Then, she'd herded him out of the SCIENCE! room, shut down any remaining experiments for the night, and locked down the lab.
After making him take a nice, long shower and find clothing that wasn't speckled in grease and sweat, they'd set out on a date, which ended up being at a simple (yes, Tony Stark can do simple), hole-in-the-wall restaurant with orgasmic food. Of course, Tony being, well, a Stark, Iron Man, and a celebrity company owner to boot, he had paid ahead of time to have the place cleared for the night. Despite the little place being only a locally run spot that wasn't at all famous—even though it totally should be, the paparazzi seemed to have a special sensor specifically wired for hunting down the great Tony Stark because they were hovering outside the blinded window nearly all night like annoying bees. Even with the pap clamoring from the outside for a single, juicy picture of Tony Stark and his hot, young girlfriend, it was a nice night, hence the empty seats all around them. He'd actually planned it nearly two weeks ago, all by himself and not even T.A.D.A.S.H.I.'s help. (He'd told her so with pride radiating from his satisfied smirk.)
It wasn't usually a fancy place—just casual, but totally fucking amazing Thai cuisine—but he'd even put on a pair of nicer, sleek dark jeans and a plain deep blue t-shirt without even the tiniest logo anywhere on it. He'd also requested she slip on a slightly fancier than casual outfit herself, which ended up being a purple blouse and one of her none-holy jeans and heels. Neither of them liked fancy schmancy shit, and they mostly did normal, laidback stuff together, but every once in a while, he'd surprise her with something like this. It was nice. He'd ordered the drunken noodles while she'd gotten the spicy basil chicken with rice, but they ended splitting the two dishes between them. After finishing their meal, they'd slipped out the back way, successfully missing any flashing cameras. Then they'd just walked and enjoyed each other's company.
While Darcy never expects to be wined and dined just because he has the dough and the connections, it's always nice when he unexpectedly puts more effort that burgers into dates just because he wants to for his sake, not because he thinks it's what she's expecting from him. Last night wasn't some extravagant date with the Tony Stark. It never is with them. It's always just Tony and Darcy. Simple. Sometimes it's easier than other times, but it's them, just like their entire relationship has always been.
When they finally meandered back to the Tower, it was past midnight. Together, they went through their nightly rituals before hopping in bed. Still somehow riding the very last tendrils of adrenaline from being on a bender (no matter how tiny) for a couple days, Tony hadn't been ready to fall asleep immediately after hitting the pillow, so Darcy had agreed to a movie. Another little factoid that she's learned during her relationship with him is that, despite his many sexcapades written about in articles all over and him practically being a walking innuendo, he isn't actually that into the whole "Sexy Time Is All the Time" thing that everyone thinks he is. Since it was up to her to choose the film, How to Train Your Dragon was the one nominated, and Tony had agreed right away. Once the screen was lowered from the ceiling (yep, perks of dating a billionaire, bitches) and they had found their most comfortable cuddling position, the film started. Of course, being the man he is, he'd tinkered with something he'd pulled out from his bedside table until he passes out around the scene where Hiccup was being picked to kill his first dragon, Darcy following him to dreamland soon after.
All that leads to her current predicament: a mostly naked, whistling boyfriend in the kitchen who is apparently oblivious to everything around him but his current task of cooking…something. She has to blink a couple times, both to get the last few sleepies from her eyes and to reassure herself that she's not still dreaming. What was in that chicken last night? she asks herself. Then, aloud this time, she declares "What the hell…actually…nope. I haven't had enough anything to deal with it yet."
He whips his head around to stare at her like a deer in the headlights. Then he's grinning at her with a megawatt smile. "Honeybunny, you're up! I didn't expect you to be awake for a couple more hours!" he tells her. It's true. While Tony tends to be the "early riser" (like 10:30ish) of the pair, unless something, like work or the world ending, requires her to be up before then, Darcy Lewis is practically dead to the world until at least noon.
"Yeah, me too, buddy, me too," she grumbles nearly unintelligibly as she passes him, pressing a soft kiss to his should absently on her way to the cabinet devoted solely to her chair addiction. It only takes her a moment to prepare her beautiful beverage, and then she's gulping down like it's a drug and her its addict, which is kinda true. Once she's finished the first cup, she starts making a second one right away. Second cup in hand, she moves over to lean against his side and watch him finish the last bit of food.
Once everything is done baking—cooking, whatever—and Tony has taken off his apron, they fill their plates up and head over to the couch. Flipping on some morning cartoons, Darcy cuddles against his side as they begin to eat. Another thing-apparently there's a lot?—about her Tony that she's learned after dating him for a while is that, when he wants to be, he's a damn good chef. This meal in her lap is no different. He's made a bacon and cheese omelet, some strips of bacon (because why the hell not?), and cinnamon walnut waffles. As she inhales her goddamn awesome food (seriously, where the fuck did he learn to cook like this?), Darcy makes sure to keep an eye one the man next to her. It's not that she thinks he accidentally poisoned the good or anything like that. No, that would make sense since he tends to get sidetracked easily. What doesn't make sense, at all, not even one iota, is that every couple of bites, he'll pause his eating just to smile down at her adoringly. Okay, so the whole smiling bit isn't bad or anything, but it's strange. Yes, he'll do the whole "stop, stare, and smile" thing when she's around on a pretty normal basis, but it's never this much.
After practically licking her plate clean of the tastiness and her chai has gone, she decides she kinda, just really needs to know. "Alright, that's it, Mr. Sunshine! What's got you so high on rainbows and butterflies?" she demands. It's not that bad, really. It's kinda cute, to be honest. However, he keeps looking at her like she's hung the sun, the moon, and damn stars, and she's not sure exactly what she's done to deserve such unveiled adoration. He doesn't answer, just shakes his head and smiles more before turning his head back to the screen. She rolls her eyes but lets her head fall back to resting on his shoulder, letting him evade answering her question for now. Besides, at least he's being cheerful and not depressed.
And the rest of the day is the same.
It's like he's been given a gallon and a half of Happy Espresso Juice for Good Feelings. By the time dinner time has rolled around, he'd even paused his SCIENCE! just to kiss her on the cheek and lips when she had brought him food. He'd paused SCIENCE! of all the things for her! Yep, something's definitely not normal about her boyfriend today.
She's in his Man Cave/Lab to shut down the sciencing for the night. When he sees her, he stops whatever it is that he's working on, even going so far as to throw down his towel from his shoulder. Then he crosses his arms over his chest and leans his hip against the table to watch her as she greets his bots. Once the bots have greeted her affectionately and thoroughly enough to their satisfaction, she goes over to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. He returns the gesture by putting his arms around her shoulders. Popping up onto her tiptoes, she plants one on him, starting a round of tongue-tennis that lasts for a good, long minute.
When they finally pull apart for air, heaving for breath, he's smirking at her. She returns it with an arched eyebrow. "So, I was thinking autumn. You know, the colors and weather are absolutely beautiful that time of year," he suggests.
"Cool. Sounds like fun," she agrees…before realizing that she's just done something super, uber, very dangerous. She's said "yes" to him without know exactly what she's actually agreed to. "Wait a minute. What exactly are we talking about?"
"You know, honeybunny, the wedding," he says in a tone that clearly shows that he thought the answer was obvious.
"Uh huh, the wedding! Yeah, um, who's wedding exactly? I don't remember getting an invite or being asked to help plan one."
"Don't be silly, Darce. I'm talking about ours obviously."
"WHAT? What do you mean 'our wedding'?" She even glances down at her left hand to check for a ring. Nope. Nothing.
"What do you mean?" He's all confused now too if the furrowing of his eyebrows is anything to go by.
"Look, Tony, I'm almost positive I'd remember saying yes to marriage. The only exception being maybe like if we were totally smashed in like…Vegas or on Asgardian mead. That shit's awesome, but like…damn the hangovers that come with it."
"Really? I was positive I remember proposing, and you saying 'yes'…" he trails off before dashing over to another table, searching madly for something. "Dum-E! U! Damnit, guys, where the hell did I put it?" She watches with wide eyes as Dum-E (yeah, kinda surprised now) rolls over, a small, familiar velvet box in his claw. Tony grabs the box with an "aha!" and waltzes back over to her.
Then he's kneeling in front of her, and she can feel tears gathering in her eyes.
"Darcy, honeybunny, I had this whole spiel-speech thing prepared—yeah, I know, kinda lame but hey, you know me—but I don't think it's right for us. It sounded too…overly romantic and fake and prepared. I mean, of course, it wasn't fake—I wrote it after all—but it definitely didn't fit…well…us. You know us. We're not this elaborate love story. We're just Darcy and Tony, taking on the world and all of its shit together." He lets out a long release of breath, running his empty hand through his dark hair.
Then he opens the little box, revealing the contents inside. The ring is both simple and yet has an intricacy about it. The band is comprised of two golden vines intertwined with tiny leaves popping out. As for centerpiece, instead of a diamond, there's a gleaming red sapphire blinking back at her from where it's nestled by golden leaves.
"Fuck, I'm not good with words, darling, but I'm gonna try. So, here goes nothing. I love you, Darcy Lewis. You're my everything. You've seen me at my absolute worse, after Sokovia, and it didn't scare you for some reason. You've seen me in the middle of a SCIENCE! bender. You've even seen me drunk off my ass, and you still haven't been scared away. You don't even give a flying fuck that I'm a multi-billionaire and an ex-Avenger.
"I'm not good with feelings, and I'm definitely not good with talking about them. Honestly, I'm pretty sure I've jacked this up anyways, but, god, Darce, I love you. I love you, and I want to wake up each morning knowing I can call you my wife until I die. Darcy Adeola Lewis, will you marry me?" He's standing now, a hesitant but very hopeful smile on his lips. Tears are beginning to slip down her cheeks.
"Yes! Yes, of course, my silly scientist." She's laughing as she lets him take her hand in his, slipping the special jewelry on her finger. He laughs lightly at her enthusiasm, pulling her back into his embrace. Then, amidst the shine in his eyes, a gleam of mischief appears. With a flourish, he dips her with a searing kiss. Somewhere in the background, they can hear the bots beeping and whirring with glee in the way on the bots can.
Coming back up for air, he raises a questioning eyebrow. "So…autumn?"
"Okay, but don't expect me to be wearing white, hotshot. It makes me look too pasty."
"Okay! Okay, whatever you want, sweetheart, whatever the fuck you want."
"Agent is officiating."
"Really? Huh. Okay. Fine. He can officiate."
