To All Those Brave and Lovely

The Proposal

It's entirely silent.

If someone were to take a picture, they might all find it quite comical later.  They had all frozen in place, all these non fancy people sitting at a table filled with fancy food and china plates.  Bucky and Steve were halfway through a wrestling match, Clint had one kid over each shoulder, and Natasha had abandoned the fancy meal in favor of desert.  Peter was holding a glass of champagne to the light and aunt May was giggling, red faced, and Nora was trying to convince MJ that yes, the lettuce really organic, and it was safe for her to eat.

And Tony?  Tony was down on one knee beside Pepper, ring in hand, with no announcement or warning, just spontaneously did it like he couldn't wait one more moment.

"Oh."  Pepper had a hand to her mouth, and looked suspiciously close to bursting into tears.  "Oh, my God, Tony."

"Don't say no, okay?"  He looked incredibly nervous but also incredibly happy.  Nora wished he would look happy like that more often.  "Don't think of all the reasons that this is a bad idea, or not worth it, or whatever other doubts your magnificent mind might come up with.  Just think about the fact that I love you, and you love me.   More than anything in this entire world, I love you, Pepper Potts."

Nora reached out beside her, grabbing Peter by the arm and biting her lip to keep from smiling.  Everyone else seemed to have caught on and were completely silent, the only sound the clink of metal on china when the silverware was set back on the plate.

"Say yes."  He was still down on one knee, and still smiling, but now he was holding onto her hand.  They were in a roomful of people, but it was like the two of them were caught up in their own world, their own moment.  "Just say yes, and I'll make you the happiest woman on the planet."

"Oh, my god."  She said again, and then she was down on the floor too, laughing through tears and wrapping her arms around his neck in a hug.  Pepper was still in her work clothes, straight from a meeting in Tokoyo, and was the only one of them who looked like she was ready for a fancy dinner party.  Tony was in old jeans and a grease stained t-shirt, but it was perfect, somehow. and Nora counted herself lucky to be part of this little family, no matter how messed up it was sometimes.  "Yes.  Of course, yes."

"Thank God."  Tony lifted his head up and met Nora's eyes, lifted an arm, and then suddenly she was there too, part of this little family on the floor who was laughing and crying at the same time, happy that for once, something was working out in their favor.  "Thank god."

"I didn't know you were going to do that,"  Nora says, later, when its just her and Tony in the kitchen doing dishes.  The rest of their guests were out on the patio, and from the sound of it, someone had convinced FRIDAY to open up the pool.  "I can't believe you didn't tell any of us!"

"I wasn't sure if I would go through with it."  He laughed, leaning back against the counter, and Nora could see the relief written across his face, like he didn't believe until this moment that Pepper was actually going to say yes.  and maybe he hadn't.  It wouldn't have surprised her if Tony had spent that whole proposal preparing himself for the moment when she said no, telling himself its better to try and fail than never no.  "Then I thought I would just wing it."

"Well,"  Nora knelt down to pick up the cake, chocolate with buttercream frosting, which Tony hated but Pepper loved.  "It turned out pretty nice."

The whole evening did turn out pretty nice.  Tony had thrown this whole thing as a sort of morale booster, claiming that he and the team used to this sort of thing all the time before the whole Siberia fiasco.  He liked throwing parties and giving things away, and good times were easy to come by, even if it meant doing a hell of a lot of clean up in the morning.

"Are you happy?"

Peter was sitting beside her on the edge of the pool, so close that their arms pressed together and their legs brushed each other in the water.  MJ was out in the deep end with Clint's kids, because she's surprisingly good with children. 

"Am I happy?"  Nora hadn't given much thought to being happy in a while.  She had thought about other things -safety and pain, grief and danger, worry and love- but she hadn't thought about the simple joy that came from being happy, of having a smile not feel like a stranger on your face.  "I think so.  It gets hard to tell, after a while."

"I hope you are happy.  I think you are, even if it gets hard to know sometimes."  He bumps his shoulder into hers and then takes her hand, the closest thing to a gesture of affection he's ever initiated.  Sometimes, she wishes he was the type of boy to just grab her by the shoulders and kiss her, but if he was, then he wouldn't be Peter.  "I want you to be happy all the time."

"thanks, Peter."  She lays her head on his shoulder, watches the kids use MJ as a jungle gym and laughs when Natasha shoves Bucky's head down under the water.  Across from them, sitting side by side at the table and accepting Vision's congratulations, Tony and Pepper hadn't let go of each others hands.  "I think I will be."

Tony had one last announcement last night, one that he actually made a big deal of, clinking a spoon against a champagne glass to get everyone's attention like they do in the movies when they're about to make a toast.  And then he spilled the beans about the adoption being official, and how Nora's part of the family, and there was another round of cheers and tears, and the only way Nora could get through being in the spotlight for that long was grabbing onto Peter's hand and not letting go.  But by the end of it, when she had accepted a round of hugs and they all settled back into their places, she couldn't help feeling that yes, she was happy, for the first time in what felt like forever.