Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or settings of the Assassin's Creed series. It is all own by Ubisoft.

Marry Me?

~ Marry Me? ~

Adaline was roused from her sleep by fingers ghosting down her bare back along her spine. It made a smile spread across her face, as it was far from the first time she had awoken in this manner; she knew exactly who the culprit was.

"Are you watching me sleep again?" Adaline asked, her eyes still closed, and her head faced away from the god of a man beside her.

"… No?" Ezio's lame answer came.

"Yes, you are, don't lie," she admonished humorously, a small chuckle escaping her. Opening her eyes, she turned to face him and was soon enraptured by those warm brown eyes of his. "Creep."

"I'm sorry," he grinned by way of answer, looking anything but. His eyes made it down her body, lingering on the swell of her breasts.

Adaline snorted loudly, and decidedly unladylike. A fondness appeared in Ezio's eyes. "No, you're not."

His grin evolved into a full-out smile. "No," he agreed. "No, I'm really, really not. I will never be sorry for looking at you, mio amore."

A blush spread across her cheeks and down her chest, as her heart fluttered beneath her ribs. The affection she felt for Ezio spread throughout her body in the form of warmth, chasing away the lingering coldness of the Tuscan night.

How had she become so lucky, as to have this man love her? How had she become so lucky, that his eyes always sought after her even when surrounded by beautiful and exotic women, even when the courtesans floundered their appeal at him? How had she become so lucky that it was her body he revelled in at night and held close, and how had she become so lucky that she could well and truly call him hers? She didn't know, and she didn't care – she was far too happy to care.

"Marry me?"

Adaline froze, her eyes stuck to Ezio's chest, and her fingers stilled over the taut muscle that was located there. Slowly, she tilted her face up to meet his eyes.

"What?" she asked in a shocked tone, not sure she had heard correctly.

Ezio took her hands in his and looked her deeply in the eyes. "Will you marry me, Adaline Warren da York?" Her heart pounded away, in an entirely different way than it had done only minutes ago. She tried to discern if he was serious: he was.

"Ezio, love…" Adaline started but trailed off into nothing. She sat up, Ezio following her move, her hands slipping out of his as she did. She was conflicted. A part of her wanted to marry him more than anything else, but there was also a not so small part of her that doubted him. It wasn't their age: if they hadn't been chased out of Firenze, she would still have had her suitors. Eighteen was more than usual for marrying. But… she looked up at Ezio. "What brought this on?"

Ezio's face fell slightly, and Adaline hated herself more than she could possible explain for causing it. "Father is dead. So are Frederico and your father. And mother will likely never be the same again." He sighed deeply, his eyes not really looking at anything. "When I couldn't find you, I was so scared. I don't think I've ever been so scared before in my life. I figured they had taken you and… and…"

Ezio's face contorted in pain, and Adaline could feel her own eyes tearing up. She moved over beside him and hugged him. "It's alright, Ezio. I miss them too. I miss them all, too. I'm so sorry."

Ezio took a deep, settling breath and looked up at her, his own eyes misty. "You have nothing to be sorry about. You had one chance to save your father, your own blood, and instead, you chose Petruccio. He is alive because your knife managed to cut his rope." Adaline didn't answer to that; she didn't want to relive that moment where her father had looked her in the eyes, and she had known she shouldn't save him. "Addie, we might die tomorrow. Someone might attack Monteriggioni. Or bandits might attack while either one of us is on patrol. Or we could fall down the stairs. We could even choke on food. There are a thousand ways we could die, but it's the million of ways that I can't think of that scare me."

Adaline's face softened. "Ezio, I love you, never doubt that. But I will never marry anyone because we're forced into it in one way or the other. And I don't care if I'm not an 'honest woman' by the church's standard, and I don't care what anyone thinks of me but you. And you are not ready to be married. You think you are, but you're not. It's not that long ago that you were whoring around with Firenze's female population."

"I haven't done that since I started courting you," Ezio defended, almost desperately.

"I know," Adaline assured him. "And I know you love me, and you know I love you, right?" He nodded. "And that all that matters. I won't marry you because we might die tomorrow. That is not a good reason. I'm sorry, Ezio, but my answer is no."

His face fell slightly, but he stopped himself. Hugging Adaline tighter, he buried his face in her neck and breathed in. "But you love me."

"I love you more than I thought I would love anybody, my love," Adaline confirmed. She took his head in her hands and brought it up to hers so that they were nose to nose. "Promise me that you will never forget that."

Ezio smiled softly. "I promise."

Adaline smiled back and kissed him on the lips. It wasn't a deep one, but it contained all her feelings for him.

"Well," Adaline breathed out as the kiss was broken up, "I got to go now. I need to cloth myself properly, as I promised to help Claudia today since I'm barred from training." She donned the nightgown Ezio had all but ripped from her body the night before and was thankful to see that there was no damage to it.

"Sorry," Ezio winced.

"It wasn't your fault," Adaline chuckled. "I could just be aware of where I'm stepping when we're sparring. Besides, it's just a sprained ankle. I'll be back in top shape in no time at all." She smiled at him and kissed him one more time, this time a little deeper. When they broke apart, they were both a little short of breath. "I'll see you later."

"Yes," Ezio said, a little distant. A small concerned frown appeared on Adaline's face, but she knew Ezio probably just needed time. Even if he knew she loved him, it couldn't have been easy for him to have a marriage proposal turned down.

"I love you," she told him before walking out of the door.

~ Marry Me? ~

"And you said no!?" Claudia all but screeched.

"Well, of course," Adaline answered, slightly defensive. "I thought you of all people would understand. You've said more than once how all of this shouldn't have happened."

"I meant what happened to our families, not what was going on between you and my brother, idiota," Claudia answered again. "Of all the insane things that have happened, the least of all is me working, that you and my brother are falling in love with each other is the most healthy and sane."

Adaline blushed. "I didn't say that we-."

"You didn't have to," Claudia grinned. "I don't think there's a single person in Monteriggioni who hasn't figured out that you and Ezio love each other."

Adaline groaned and buried her face in the book in front of her.

"But why did you say no, Adaline?" Claudia asked, in a softer tone. Adaline looked up to see all the judgement gone from her face. Her questioning look made Claudia smile. "I love my stupido brother, and I want to protect him just as much as he wants to protect me, even if he insists that he doesn't need any protecting. But you are also family and has been ever since you moved to Firenze. You are just as much family as Ezio, Petruccio, and Mario. And I will admit that more than a small part of me wants you to marry my brother, so you will be my sister in not only spirit but also law. But that is neither here nor there. So why did you say no?"

"He only wants to marry me because we might die tomorrow," Adaline told Claudia. "I love him, and he loves me, and that has been enough for a while now. And then suddenly he asks me to marry him…" Adaline sighed. "When I marry him, I want it to be because he wants to marry me just because he wants to marry me. I don't want there to be excuses or explanations or orders or threats involved."

"'When'?" Claudia grinned. "So, you do think you're going to marry my brother?"

Adaline blushed and looked down into her lap. "Of course, I do. I love him."

"Then why does it matter how you get married?" Claudia asked.

"It might not matter to you if you were in my position, but you know I've never been very ladylike-."

"That is an understatement," Claudia grinned, to which Adaline glared.

"What I mean is, before Ezio I thought that there was an excellent chance I would be a spinster in the public eye, and then just continue my father's assassin legacy, since my brother is no longer around to do it. And then I met Ezio, and he is an idiot and flirting with everything that wears a skirt and climbs into windows to have sex with girls he barely knows, and somehow I fall in love with him. And I walked around for months hiding it, and it was only when he met Christina that I figured out that I wouldn't get over him. And by some miracle of God, he also loves me, and he was trying to forget about me because he thought I couldn't possibly love him. That sort of thing just doesn't happen in real life, you know?"

"And yet it did," Claudia answered softly, her eyes filled with happiness.

"It did," Adaline smiled with affection. And it fell a bit. "I guess I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I just… I don't know."

There was a damning silence in the room for a while before Claudia spoke. "And here I thought you and Ezio were so different from each other. But it turns out you are both idioti."

"What?"

Claudia sighed exasperatedly. "You love him, he loves you – nothing else matters. How hard is it to understand that? Yes, that you might die tomorrow might have been what forced my brother to ask you to marry him in the first place, but I can assure you that he wouldn't have asked if he didn't actually want to marry you. I love my brother, but before he started courting you, I can't say that I respected him very much when it came to women. And I know that if I hadn't been his sister, I would have stayed far away from him. But he shaped up because he loves you. That's it. The end."

"I…" Adaline trailed off. "You think so?"

"Yes!" Claudia implored. "Now go tell him yes. I don't need your help anymore."

Adaline rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine, I'm going. But just so you know, I am not going to be planning a wedding."

"Of course not – I am," Claudia answered with a wicked grin."

Adaline paled. "You wouldn't." Claudia raised an eyebrow as to challenge her, making Adaline groan. "You would. You really would… Just promise that you won't make it too unbearable."

Claudia made a dismissive motion. "I don't have time. I have a wedding to plan in addition to managing a city."

Adaline groaned again but didn't disturb Claudia anymore. Grabbing her crutch, she gradually made her way out towards the sparring ring where Ezio should've been at this time. However, once she made it to the ring, he was nowhere to be found.

"Adaline, what are you doing here? You know I won't let you train with that ankle." Mario spoke.

"I'm looking for Ezio. I know he is training, and I won't take much of his time, but I really need to talk to him," Adaline answered.

"He never showed this morning," Mario answered gruffly. "I thought he were with you."

"You know he wouldn't skip training. I've been with Claudia all day," Adaline told him worriedly. Had she really screwed up with Ezio that much? "I'll go look for him."

"If you find him, tell him to hurry up. When I'm done with him, he won't be able to walk for days," Mario told her.

Adaline chuckled absentmindedly, her mind altogether being focused and worried about Ezio. So, look for him she did. And looked. And looked. And looked. The sky was beginning to darken in the late September night when she decided to check his room for the third time, in hopes that he had returned there in the time she had looked since the last time she checked. He wasn't there.

Feeling worse and worse, and beginning to tire after having walked around so long with her crutch, Adaline made her way down from his room again when she spotted something. Flowers. Lots and lots of flowers lying on the floor, in a path from her room making its way outside. She frowned heavily and began walking.

It took several minutes to follow the path of flowers, which snaked its way around the villa and the gardens around it, which had started to show signs of recovery after being neglected for so long. Of course, Adaline suspected that it might be Ezio's doing, especially when she spotted where the path was leading her: the ramparts behind the villa, where she and Ezio had sat together so many times. What she hadn't expected was the spot where they usually sat together to be surrounded by lit candles, and in the middle lying a single red rose – compared to wildflowers with the path was made up of.

She knelt – only a little awkwardly because of her ankle – and picked up the rose and smelled it. A soft smile spread across her lips.

"I love your hair," Ezio's voice spoke behind her. Adaline startled and spun around. She was stunned when she spotted him: he had cleaned up nicely, shaved and donned his finest clothing from Firenze. She hadn't seen him in anything but the uniform Mario had given him and his father's – his – assassin robes ever since they had arrived in Monteriggioni. And he was holding a piece of paper.

"Ezio, I-." Adaline began, but the young Italian cut her off.

"Those strands of silk that brings satins and silk and roses and rose-mallows to shame. I love your sea-green eyes, as vibrant and furious as Neptune, as wise and patient as Minerva, as loving and passionate as Venus," he spoke as he walked towards her. Adaline was enthralled and could do nothing but simply listen.

"I love your hands," Ezio continued, "delicate and robust, soft with an edge, and I love the loving and pleasure they give me, in bed and out. I love your smile, and I love that so many of them are mine. As bright as the sun and just as warm, when it shows it disperses my clouds of worry and sadness. I love your hair, I love your eyes, I love your hands, and I love your smile. I've loved you from the first day I saw you, though I didn't know, and I will love you until you are old and wrinkly and even then even more so."

Ezio had made it all the way over to her now and was only a hairbreadth away from touching her. She could feel the warmth of him as he hovered just that fraction of too far away from her, and she was captivated by the pure emotions that were flowing in his eyes.

"I love your whole being," Ezio continued once again, "and I ask this favour: take pity on this man. You ensnared me with your beauty and enamoured me with your spirit. Know that now that I have loved you, I will never love again. So I ask you, again, take pity on this man: take me with you on this journey called life, and let me call you my wife."

He just stood breathing there in front of her for a while, while she was stunned at what she had just heard. Ezio was educated, but he wasn't 'artsy', as he called it, like she was. He didn't like reading books or sitting still for too long. And yet he had written that, about her, she was sure of it.

"Adaline, I don't want to marry you because we might die tomorrow. I want to marry you because I love you more than life itself. I want to marry you because I want to wake up to your body next to mine every morning. I want to see that smile of yours directed at me every day of my life. I want to marry you because I want to make you as happy as you make me – if that is even possible. I don't want to marry you because of something, in spite of that, or in fear of this. I want to marry you to make you my wife and to make me your husband, and to shout out to the world that I've become the luckiest man in the whole entire world, and there can't be anyone out there who will be loved more than you or me."

Adaline's face burned from the blushing that was going on, but she didn't care. Her cheeks hurt from the unashamed smiling she did, but she didn't care. She was looking at this amazing man in front of her, and asked herself the same question she had asked this morning: how had she become so lucky?

"Adaline Warren da York. Will you give me the honour of marrying me?"

Adaline smiled.

"Yes."

~ Marry Me? ~

Author's Notes: I found this one-shot on my computer, and it must've been years since I wrote it. It is slightly cringeworthy in its fluffiness, but I thought I would share it. I hope you enjoyed it.

Synthesis