He had been told that there was a certain order of things, as well as a certain way of doing things. You decided you wanted to marry someone, you chose the ring, perhaps a fancy box if you bothered with that sort of thing, and then delivered it up with the question of the hour with some sort of suave presentation. You did not, as Torque had, discover a ringbox first by mostly accident while searching for a Christmas gift for your mate and then while holding said ringbox, decide that you really did want to marry your gorgeous mate, pick out a ring sometime after, and deliver it up while you were both naked and rumpled.
All of which (save the naked and rumpled bit) had been told to him by Henri when he had dragged his partner into helping him pick out the ring. Particular attention had been paid in that lecture to the fact that Torque had spent more time goggling over the small ringbox than he had in picking out the ring to go inside. Not that he had chosen quickly or, to his mind, poorly, but he had gone without the traditional diamond in favor of what he decided suited her better and, really, what better cut stone for the finger of a water nymph than an aquamarine?
The way she had lit up at the first sight of the box made him immediately want to go and point out to his partner that he had been completely wrong, that the Muppets was the perfect gift and that anyone who claimed to have outgrown them had grown into a sad, sad person. Instead he watched a mirror image of his own enthusiasm upon first seeing it on Iona's face and kept his tongue for once in order to savor that unadorned happiness there in her expression and in her movements and in the animation to her as she inspected it.
There was a moment, when he saw tears well up in her eyes and there was an immediate rise of irrational panic in his chest. Despite knowing she had agreed to be his mate months before. Despite nowhere near doubting that she loved him as fiercely as he loved her. But there was that moment, as he thought he might have miscalculated somewhere in ignoring his partner's word and choosing to go instead with muppets and hand puppets and laser tag. As he and Iona had talked about the forever of their future, as they had talked about having children together and even what little monsters they were bound to have but they had never actually discussed anything like weddings and certificates and legal registers.
And then she smiled. And he was grinning practically from ear to ear as he watched her continue to stare in wonder at the ring and its box before crawling over to him, into the welcoming circle of his arms as he wrapped them around her and held her in close. He grinned at her between kisses, lifting a hand to brush her hair back and over one shoulder again. "Could you say I blinded you with science?"