“Fuck, why is the table looking like that, I fixed it 15 times already. Natasha’s going to be home any minute now,” Maria grumbled as she rearranged the table for the 16th time of the night.
Her plan to propose to Natasha had been in works for months. It was a fairly simple plan: buy the ring, talk to Clint to make sure she comes home early tonight, ignore the fact that he would pester her asking for details, make sure the home would look extra pretty when Natasha would arrive home under the pretense of an extra nice date night, and then pop the question after a smooth dinner. There was just one question lingering in the back of her mind, would she say yes?
Maria was sure Natasha loved her, there was no doubt that she didn’t. Natasha might not be the type to say ‘I love you’ often but she showed it by her late-night cuddles, making two coffees instead of one in the mornings, bringing lunch for her when Natasha knew she hasn’t eaten yet, and most importantly: letting her guard down in front of her. However, Natasha was also infamously known for being scared of commitment. There was the time Clint asked her to go with her to some place a few months ahead and she freaked out and avoided him for a full day before he snuck up on her before he accidentally scared her leading to a broken nose, Coulson asking Natasha about their relationship and where they’re headed leading to Natasha ignoring Maria’s calls and texts for a week and getting lucky that they were in different cities at the time, and Natasha keeping her bags packed for a month after they moved in together for ‘just being prepared’ reasons.
Maria wasn’t sure she would say yes. It wasn’t her intention to keep Natasha trapped in their relationship, she just wanted some stability in their lives, something normal in their otherwise outlandish lives. Natasha wasn’t one for planning or stability, and just like that Maria had the mind to end up not proposing. Unfortunately for her, before she reached the table, Natasha had chosen that moment to walk through the door and into the dining area.
“Maria? There you are, what’s all this for?”
Crap.
Maria stared at her blankly for a second before pulling herself together.
“I just wanted to surprise you with a nice dinner, it’s been a while since we’ve had a proper date night.”
Natasha stared at her suspiciously for a second before sitting down at the table. She knew Maria planned to propose to her, she knew it two months ago when she accidentally discovered the ring. She went down to the gym and beat a punching bag until her knuckles turned blue that. Eventually, she stopped and sat on the floor wondering why she wasn’t running yet. Two years ago, she would have went running for the hills if someone brought this up to her. It was then that she realized just how much she fell for Maria Hill. She wouldn’t trade the lazy mornings and breakfast in bed, sneaking kisses from her while at work, stealing Maria’s old West Point hoodies to sleep in while she was away, and her corny jokes that no one finds funny for the world. She gathered herself before going home and joining Maria in bed and did her best to not freak out around her the next morning. If Maria noticed that she had been acting strange after that night, she certainly never brought it up. She knew the way her idiot of a best friend has been grinning all day and pestering her to go home early that today would be the day. She sat in her car for thirty minutes staring blankly wondering if this was right, she would marry Maria in a heartbeat but the consequences of putting her in danger scared her. Maria was an angel and she had too much red in her ledger. She didn’t think she would ever be good enough for Maria but if Maria thought she was, she would gladly accept it.
Dinner went smoother than expected and Natasha started to think she was wrong about her suspicions of the proposal. She swallowed down the strange feeling in her stomach that occurred at that thought. On the other hand, Maria was trembling on the inside. She couldn’t postpone the proposal any further, she knew that, but she also couldn’t bare to face the disappointment that would come if, when Natasha turned her down.
“Natasha, I have loved you since the day I first laid eyes on you albeit the whole assassin thing,”
Fuck, here goes nothing.
She’s finally doing it.
“You’ve had my whole heart for as long as I’ve met you and there isn’t a thing in the world I wouldn’t do for you because I am utterly and completely in love with you. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of how lucky I am to be with you and I never will stop. I am so in love with you and I would spend the rest of my days telling you if you’d let me. I know you’re happy where we are right now, I am too, but part of me craves for the part where this becomes something a more permanent. A small sense of security in our lives were everything else is unknown. I would never want to trap you in our relationship, and you’re not obligated to say yes so feel free to walk a way from this at any time, but the fact that you aren’t running out the door yet gives me a small chance of hope that maybe you do too. What I’m trying to say is, Natasha Romanoff, will you marry me?”
If Natasha had tears streaming down her face at the end of her speech, it wasn’t anyone’s business. Her heart broke a little that Maria thought she wouldn’t say yes though she hasn’t shown her the best responses in the past. Her mind was blank and for the first time in her life, she didn’t know what to say. So, she did the one thing she could do best, and kiss Maria, her fiancée hard.
“Is that a yes?”
Natasha couldn’t help but laugh a little at that and stared at her fondly before softly replying, “yes,” and kissing her again a little softer and longer that time, trying to convey her emotions into it. And lucky for her, Maria knew exactly what she meant.
-
“I have most of the forms filled out Tasha, I just need to write out the names and if there’s a name change.”
“Yeah, I was thinking about just going by Hill, if that’s okay with you?”
Maria looked at her dumbfounded and quite honestly didn’t know what to say.
“It would be more than okay, but you know you don’t have to right? You can keep your last name or we could do hyphenated last names if you would prefer it?”
Natasha fiddled with her fingers a little before explaining. She knew she had nothing to be embarrassed about but she was still getting over the fact that what they shared isn’t a weakness and didn’t want Maria thinking any less of her for her reason, not that she would.
“Mia, I want to take your last name I’m sure of that. I’m more sure of it then any other aspect of this wedding. This proposal, our entire relationship, has been the first time that I have felt like I was a part of a family, that I felt like I was home. I didn’t have a family before I came to SHIELD so Romanova never felt comforting to me, and while Romanoff was nice to pretend that I was making amends; it was never real. But becoming Natasha Hill, joining your life and your family, is more than I could have ever asked for.”
Maria couldn’t find the words to respond to that, and she’s sure that even if she did it wouldn’t do what she was thinking justice, so she simply wrapped her arm around Natasha and pulled her closer, letting her lean her head against her. Kissing her forehead softly, she finished filling out the paperwork before putting them all away into an envelope that could be submitted in tomorrow. For today, she’d spend time with Natasha taking her out for lunch and giving her whatever she wanted, because that’s what she deserved.