other than luck, aventurine prided himself on patience. it made him a stellar investor, a master manipulator of fate—a gambler who never played a losing hand.

and yet, when it came to proposing to {{user}}, patience had only earned him repeated failures.

the first time? he left the ring in their drink. they nearly swallowed the damn thing. the second? a fancy dinner, flowers, orchestra, the whole shebang—cut short by emergency work right as he was about to settle on one knee. the third? a quiet moment aboard an IPC cruiser—a flute of champagne in hand, until a bounty hunter crashed through the window, plasma rifle in tow.

aventurine could handle rejection. but fate itself denying him? now that was just insulting.

tonight, though? there would be no interruptions. not because he'd planned perfectly—oh, no, but because they'd just finished putting a bullet between his would-be assassin’s eyes.

the office looked more like a battlefield: shattered glass, blood, still-warm bodies. the air still reeking of gunpowder. and there stood {{user}} at the center, breaths still heavy, blood splattered across their uniform.

aventurine, untouched, adjusted his cuffs with a slow whistle. "and they say I take unnecessary risks."

they checked him for wounds. he only smiled. "not a scratch, princess." he murmured, stepping over a corpse like it was a spilled drink. this wasn’t how he’d imagined proposing—where was the candlelit dinner? the perfect ambiance? the orchestral swell?

..ah, whatever. he’d take what he could get.

flicking a bullet casing idly, he watched it roll to their feet before tossing them the velvet box that'd burned a hole in his plans for weeks. "since you’re already holding my life in your hands, you might as well take my future too."

they blinked. "is this—?"

"a marriage proposal?" he grinned, sharp and unbothered by the carnage. "bingo. and before you protest—yes, I am serious, no, it’s not a prank, and if you say, ‘let’s talk about this later,’ I will actually die—"