When Tony had surprised you with a trip to Europe as a far too extravagant birthday gift, you thought that maybe he was able to take a long weekend or maybe even a week away from Stark Industries and from the team to do it; you had no idea that a month later, you'd still be days away from getting back home. You had made your way through the usual tourist locations in London and Paris, spent a few days in both Florence and Rome, and enjoyed the longest stop in Monaco, where Tony spontaneously decided to buy a vacation home simply because he 'didn't have one there yet'.
When you had left on this spontaneous vacation, you certainly had no idea that one of the stops on your tour would be Bucharest. You definitely didn't think that it would lead you to be standing in the center of Bucky's old safe house there, it's walls still riddled with bullet holes and nearly every window broken out. Clearly, the caretaker for the building didn't seem to actually care about it, which made you feel sad at the idea that your friend once called this home.
"Okay, let's make this quick because it wasn't in my plans," Tony whispered, though no one was anywhere near you to hear. "Feel free to grab anything that looks like he might want it, but we're here for the book."
"Right. Steve said that he left it on the kitchen table before the fight broke out, but the table's impaled into that wall," you sighed, turning to point at the destroyed furniture. You took a few steps to where you thought that the table must have been sitting before it was thrown across the room, pantomiming how Bucky must have moved his arm so that you could try to visualize where the book could have flown off to. "Okay, so if the table was thrown from this side, the book could have slid off next to his foot, so it might have been kicked somewhere and not noticed."
Tony was nodding along as you spoke, though his attentions were elsewhere, studying the cheap snacks atop the refrigerator and trying to not touch any more than he had to. When he turned around to talk to you again only to find you crawling around on the floor, he gasped and fought the urge to lift you from it. "Ewww, sweetheart, get off of the floor."
"I think I see it under the fridge."
"Okay, great, but you're getting all dirty-"
"Why is this book so important again?" you deflected, crawling closer to your target. "I want to be sure to make a detailed request for the new jeans that Bucky gets to buy for me after this."
"Steve said it has a bunch of stuff that he wanted to remember, and he thought it would be a nice surprise."
"Not nice enough for him to do this, though, right?" Your fingers slowly slid into the dark space below the appliance, carefully feeling around as to not inadvertently hurt yourself, until they finally landed on the rough cover of the book. "There, I've got it," you smiled, pulling it out and into his view. "Wow, there's actually a lot in here. Ooooh, he has a picture of Steve!"
"Let me see that-"
"Is someone in there?"
A loud banging on the makeshift door that had covered where the old one stood jolted Tony from the conversation, putting him on immediate edge. "Shit," he snapped, taking the book from your hands and shoving it into his jacket pocket, "come on. I don't feel like getting arrested when we still have so much to do."
"But if we didn't have so much to do, it would be okay?"
"That's not what I meant," he huffed, playfully sticking out his tongue as he reached for your hand to pull you out and onto the tiny balcony. He pushed up on his toes to look over the edge and down so many stories that the distance gave him enough vertigo to make him take a step back. "I really wish I had a suit right now."
"You and your suits," you groaned, reaching into your pack, "really, Tony. You use those things so much that you've forgotten that there are other ways to work. Sure, we can't all fly like you, but we can still do cool stuff like this."
"Like what?"
With a shot from a gun that he didn't realize you were carrying, he watched with wide eyes as you landed a perfectly placed grappling hook into the cement wall. You slipped on a heavy leather glove and took the cord within it, twisting it a few times to wrap around your hand for security; sliding your open arm around Tony and gesturing for him to hold on to you, the two of you stepped out onto the ledge and took the leap towards the ground just as you were about to be caught.
"See? Cool, right?"
"Not gonna lie, I'm pretty turned on right now."
"When are you not turned on, Tony?"
Instead of giving you an answer that you knew would be a lie anyway, he simply smiled with that mischievous grin that you knew all too well and looked up, laughing to himself at the shocked look on your near-captor's face. "So much for not working during vacation, huh?"
"You might want to look down," you warned, feeling him tense under your hold in the last few seconds before he shifted and saw that his feet were about to hit the ground. Once you were secure, you released both him and the cord that had held you, leading him down the sidewalk as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. "Eh, this wasn't work. It was fun. And," you paused, pulling the book from his pocket, "we're bringing home a nice souvenir for Buck."
"Souvenir..." Tony mumbled, his brow furrowed like he was struggling to remember something forgotten, "right, souvenirs...we should probably be sure that everyone gets a little something special when we get home."
"It would be nice. I mean, it might be hard to beat the house you bought for yourself..."
"Hey! I bought that for us!"
"Us? Sorry, honey, but we're not married, so there's no us on that paperwork. That's all Stark, and I'm not helping to pay for it if that's what you're getting at."
"Well, okay, so what you're saying is...that if we were married, then I could get you to help pay for it?"
"Ha! Pocket change!" you laughed aloud at the absurdity. "I'll just crack open my piggy bank and count my pennies. Alright, where are we off to next, my handsome tour guide?"
Tony halted suddenly and didn't move, staring down at his feet and his hands now pushed far into his pants pockets; you worried that you must have said something wrong, given the questioning look on his face, but when you began to utter the words to ask, he quickly interrupted you. "Of course the house is ours, (Y/N). I wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't going to be."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."
"Oh, no! You didn't!" he hurriedly tried to reassure you, finally becoming closer to his usually animated self. He took his hands from his pockets to hold yours as he continued, but he still couldn't get his gaze to fully meet yours. "I was just trying to decide if I should give you your souvenir now or when we're not standing within twelve stories of a Hydra safe house. Of course, I'm gonna go with now because I'm such an impatient guy, and screw Hydra anyway, right? Right." Moving only one hand away from yours, he reached into his pocket once more, this time with his hand tightly closed over the gift that he had retrieved, "I picked this up for you during our quick stop in Versailles, so I really, really hope you like it because the little old lady who sold it to me didn't seem the type to ask for a refund. She was really scary, (Y/N)."
"Okay, so do I get to see it?" you asked cautiously, holding out your empty hand to take it, but rather than giving it to you outright, he instead took your hand into his, dropping his hold on the other; he wanted to hold only the left.
"I bought the house for you," he began, "because from the minute we walked inside, I could see you being there. I could see us being there together the next time we need to just get away and be us, because dammit if it isn't the hardest job in the world being on this team. I love it, don't get me wrong, but being here with you only reminds me that we aren't living enough for what we want. We were only going to be here for a week and I keep dragging it out because it's such a relief to be away."
Tony was finally looking at you, but the raw emotions in his eyes left you unable to say anything in response, leaving you to take in the moment as best as you could while you waited to see what it was that he had for you. You had to look away just to bring your mind back into focus to find your voice. "What's in your hand, Tony?"
"Oh, it's a really fancy key," he smirked, opening his hand to show you the antique ring that he had purchased only a few days before, the sunlight catching the diamond just right so that it reflected in your eyes; it left him almost speechless to see until he realized the implication of his words. "You don't need to say yes just to get the house, even though I know you never would, don't take this the wrong way. But, since you were so worried about whose name was on the paperwork, I thought this might make that a little easier if both options were...Stark."
"That would make it easier," you whispered, already feeling the lump of emotions building in your throat. He still had your left hand in his, and now he had somehow magically turned the ring in the other one without dropping it despite his nerves. He held it at the tip of your finger, patiently waiting for the moment when he would know what to do.
"Will you marry me, (Y/N)? You can say no, and that would be okay," he quickly began to ramble under the pressure of his anxiety. "We can just keep on going the way we are and I'm alright with that just so long as it doesn't make things weird between us, you know? I know that I'm a handful and I'm not always the easiest to get along with, and yeah, some might call me narcissistic-"
"Yes."
Tony stopped his diatribe at your voice, but his mind had yet to follow suit and stop the pointless train of thought. His mouth slowly closed after the shock, curling the edges of it into a smile as he realized what had just happened. "You said yes."
"I did."
"You...you sure?"
"Are you actually giving me a chance to run? Seriously? Is this trip actually a kidnapping? I thought that I was following you around the world on my own free will! Damn, Stark, I didn't know you were into Stockholm Syndrome."
"And that right there," he smiled wider, finally sliding the ring onto your finger, "that's why I love you. Smartass."