tony catches a glimpse of her face as she steps forward, and was it only yesterday he’d seen the terror in her eyes when iron man had stepped into her cell? this is different but it tears at something in his chest, and then she sobs, and fuck, FUCK------

“oh, pep.” his voice is soft, breaking, gentle. UNDERSTANDING. his eyes close, guilt and anger twisting his expression, unseen. neither of those emotions are helpful right now. 

“i got you,” he murmurs, one broad hand rubbing gently up her back, the other holding her close to him. he presses a kiss to her head. “i got you.”

it's not fair. it's not fair that this is what they've had to endure just to be able to acknowledge the TRUTH that's been haunting them for years -- that pepper needs tony, that she loves him as much as it is the reverse. maybe if they had figured it out sooner, this would have ended up differently.

so when she cries, it's not just because of her fear, or her sorrow, but her tears are laced with gratitude. she's safe, she's home. and she finally has someone who will fight for her, who will give her the grace she's never bothered to give herself.

something in his heart cracks. aches, for her. he squeezes her hand gently, eyes dark and so, so sad. “i know it’s not my strong suit, but. you change your mind, you want to talk about it? i’ll listen.” he can promise that too.

he had never really talked about afghanistan with pepper. well, with anyone. there had never really been time, before iron man, not when everything had been so raw still. and after… he’d chosen to bear that burden alone, after. 

he doesn’t want pepper to be alone.

she's been putting up a front ever since he'd first found her, and though the cracks had formed a few times, pepper still really hasn't dealt with any of it the way she knows she should. she squeezes his hand back and then steps into his space, hugging him tightly, face burying into his shoulder so he can't see the tears threatening to fall.

he'd understand, she reassures herself internally, even though she LOATHES to show weakness of any kind to anyone. he's been through worse, held captive for months when she'd only been gone a day. but she can't quiet the dark thoughts in her mind, and she muffles her sob against his shirt.

"right, that could work. we're the only witnesses to the sequence of events, so if we have to change it a bit, that should be fine. we're not technically lying..." pepper is entirely too honest to be able to keep up a charade like that anyway. "as for why iron man would have been looking into AIM in the first place..." she shrugs. "someone could have tipped him off. killian wasn't exactly subtle about extremis, so i'm sure he could have told other investors."

extremis.

there's been so much going on that she'd almost been able to ignore the warmth in her veins that is a super virus and not just because of her proximity to tony.

"you can fix me, right?"

lying to SHIELD is the least of tony’s concerns------- he has lied to his friends, his colleagues, the public, so much and so often that it’s become second nature. “i don’t think they’ll ask that many questions of iron man, they know i don’t answer most of them,” he starts, but then pepper’s looking at him, her expression’s changed, and---

oh, yeah. extremis. 

tony breathes out. “i will. i PROMISE.” he’s never yet not achieved something when he’s put his head down and worked at it. miniaturising an arc reactor, inventing a new element; he’s pulled off scientific miracles before. there is nothing that will stop him doing it again. 

what he doesn’t know is how long it might take.

“are you feeling okay? physically?”

"physically, i'm fine. no bumps, no bruises -- everything heals instantly. that's what's so unnerving about all of this, honestly..." she suppresses a shudder, looking down at her unmarked arms. not a scratch even after the fight the night before.

mentally, though... she'd been kidnapped, restrained, experimented on. she remembers the searing pain as extremis had worked its way through her body, reprogramming every part of her dna to ignore the very pain it was inflicting. she knows that will be the real damage done.

"i don't want to think about it, really," she says softly.

logistics. he can do this. ( if he can just get his brain to focus on the problem and not the exact colour of pepper’s eyes. ) he’s been successfully managing his secret identity for years now, after all. he’s gotten good at this. ( too good, perhaps. ) 

“i don’t think there’s any way they’re not going to be suspicious. that is their entire M.O. but i’ll tell coulson that i was---- that iron man was investigating AIM. finding you was just coincidence.” 

it’s always a good sign when he starts talking about himself in the third person.

“and you said killian kidnapped you to get to me. me, tony stark. so having rescued you, iron man stopped by the house to warn me, but he was too late and killian attacked the house directly, and iron man saved me, too.” he tilts his head to the side, shrugs slightly, lips twisting. “i mean, assuming you don’t want to take CREDIT for saving me.”

"right, that could work. we're the only witnesses to the sequence of events, so if we have to change it a bit, that should be fine. we're not technically lying..." pepper is entirely too honest to be able to keep up a charade like that anyway. "as for why iron man would have been looking into AIM in the first place..." she shrugs. "someone could have tipped him off. killian wasn't exactly subtle about extremis, so i'm sure he could have told other investors."

extremis.

there's been so much going on that she'd almost been able to ignore the warmth in her veins that is a super virus and not just because of her proximity to tony.

"you can fix me, right?"

"are you suggesting that we wouldn't coordinate if we were dating?" tony is a national icon ( of some sort ) and he has standards to maintain.

"c'mon," he says, standing up as if he has every intention of going shopping right this second, "i'll buy you some of those shoes you like." yes, he has noticed, actually.

"tony, it's the middle of the work day..." she protests, albeit weakly. she does need a new dress, and obviously he knows she has a weakness for expensive shoes...

she KNOWS she's not going to win this argument, so with a sigh she closes her laptop and pockets her phone, rising to her feet. "fine, fine."

“seven minutes?” tony questions aloud, unnecessarily. “who’s doing what in seven minutes?”

he blinks as pepper switches back to his effortlessly efficient assistant, but it’s nothing he’s not used to------ they’ve gotten very good at dancing around that line.

“this is a wedding right?” as always, tony is focusing on the important details. “i’m going to need a new suit.” he pauses. sly. “you’re going to need a dress.”

pepper is quickly skipping forward in his calendar on her phone to see what he has in the books for the week of the wedding. nothing in stone yet, easily moveable ------

oh.

she raises her eyebrow with a faint grin. "i definitely think i should wear a dress, yes. are you going to go so far as to suggest we coordinate?"

"wow, i didn't know i was so good in bed that the universe might explode," tony says, just to be annoying, smirking. "i gotta put that on the business cards."

( why pepper would say yes to him is increasingly a mystery. )

"maybe rhodes and happy got sick of our bullshit and locked us in a closet. is that a thing people actually do? or has the hallmark channel been lying to me?"

"seven minutes in heaven. given they've got the maturity of high school students sometimes, that's actually plausible," pepper says with an arched eyebrow. both have asked pointed questions about their working relationship before -- pepper had always dismissed them.

"i'll send you the invitation. date, time, location. it's on a weekend, so i'll take care of your schedule for you if anything needs to be moved." pepper is back to business quickly enough, even though they haven't necessarily nailed down their cover story for how they got together. that will have to be a problem for future-pepper to worry about.

tony had not been worrying about the damage to the company ( he probably should have been; this is why pepper's CEO and not him. ) HIS concern had been entirely for pepper.

he hadn't stopped to think about killian finding out who he was when he'd dived headfirst into rescuing her. he'd trade his secret for pepper in a heartbeat------ but he's still glad he didn't have to.

"SHIELD will want to talk to iron man," he says, put upon. he kinda wishes he'd used any other option other than borrowing one of their jets to get home, but he'd NEEDED to get pepper safe. "and then no doubt coulson will trot round to talk to you. we should get a story straight."

he has a point. she knows he's iron man now, but obviously he's not going to unmask himself to the rest of the world. "right. coulson knows about my connection to YOU, but as far as they're concerned they shouldn't know of any connection to iron man. that's going to be harder to explain. i feel like if we make up any kind of connection between you and iron man, they're going to be suspicious."

it's frustrating, and pepper understands now more than ever why tony hadn't want her dragged into this.

it's not like tony hasn't spent time wondering that himself. he had certainly TRIED, back when pepper had first started working for him. then he'd figured that he didn't want to lose the best assistant he'd ever had, and then he'd figured that he didn't want to lose her as a friend. since he'd decided that, years ago now, it hadn't really been relevant.

he really does believe that.

"that's because saying NO to me is your superpower," he answers cheerfully.

"yes, some of us fly around in metal suits, while others prefer to just set boundaries," pepper says, only mostly joking. tony had DEFINITELY hit on her more than once when she'd first been hired. and she knew about his reputation when she'd accepted the job offer to become his personal assistant. any flirting they had ever done, and still occasionally do, was rooted in rapport more than any sincere feelings.

"so maybe you finally caught me on a day where i said yes," she suggests. "and the universe didn't explode, so we decided why the hell not?"

tony's expression slips into something less amused. "hey!"

( that he's making a mental note of what she just said is something he would never admit, not even to himself. )

"we all know poor impulse control is my superpower."

"sorry," she says sweetly, if not entirely SINCERELY. "i forget you're just a hopeless romantic at heart." she chews on her bottom lip, thinking of what would be even slightly realistic. "i mean, it doesn't need to be quite so dramatic. we spend pretty much every day, all day, together. late nights at the office, at your place... i'm sure people wonder why nothing has actually happened."

is there anything else? tony’s already forgotten how much he’s already told her in the face of those green eyes. 

“that’s, uh, the gist of it. i’ve been working with various organisations trying to clean up the loose ends----- there were more than enough people who were involved in what obie was doing, and enough who turned a blind eye. that’s the other reason why i wanted a whole new team at the top.”

his explanation makes sense, why he would want to start fresh. and pepper is still perplexed, even months into the role, that he'd chosen her. but she can't deny she's fallen in love with the job, it's right in her wheelhouse.

"that makes sense. i guess there's always the possibility that there were others willing to double deal. the snake rots from the head, as they say."

she kisses him, and that's enough of a distraction, enough to chase the shivers from his spine. he lingers, disappointed as she pulls away, uncertain how exactly he's supposed to focus on anything more serious now when he has her in his arms.

the thought of everything that needs doing now would be overwhelming if urgent, competing demands wasn't tony's everyday. "are you gonna----" he hesitates. "do you need more time? or do you want to get straight back into things?" he remembers, vaguely, pepper trying to make him go to the hospital after afghanistan. the empty house he'd gone home to. "i can handle the company stuff, if you need time."

pepper takes a moment to think about it, weighing the options laid out in front of her. she's pretty shaken up by everything that she's been through, even she can't deny that. "a bit of time," she concedes. "i can work from home -- well, the tower. we'll need to coordinate repairs. thankfully nobody knows you're iron man. i don't think killian even knew to be perfectly honest. so there shouldn't be any impact on the company despite the damage."

"but you admit i have charms." tony grins. "alright, i pursued you. i've been doing that for years, APPARENTLY. what changed now?"

"hmmm... that's the REAL question." what would prompt pepper potts to actually give tony stark a chance?

"it would need to be something just as SURPRISING to me as it would be to the world," she decides. "something sweet. thoughtful. entirely out of character for you."

tony leans forward. "the salacious story of how you finally succumbed to my charms? how you gave in when i was lying on my sickbed, dying of a broken heart?"

"excuse me? it's far more believable that YOU pursued ME, since so far i'm the only woman to ever be immune to your charms." she raises an eyebrow, a silent challenge.

if there's anything tony has and will always delight in, it's the thrill of causing chaos around him. "yeah? what are you gonna tell them?"

"um..." that's a fantastic question. "well, i guess we need to make up a BACKSTORY, right? so that if we get interrogated, we can corroborate our stories."

@rcscue // moved from here

it strikes tony that pepper’s the first person he’s talked to about this that isn’t some kind of federal agent. rhodey and happy KNOW everything of course, but they haven’t really TALKED about it. they’ve all been too busy with damage control, in their own ways. ( and tony’s been very much ignoring the looks they exchange behind his back, the way he always does. )

but pepper’s eyes meet his so earnestly----- and he SHOULDN’T believe her, because he really barely knows her. but he BELIEVES her intention. her honesty. and maybe he should find the ease of that suspicious, but more than that, it feels like relief. something easing in his chest that he hadn’t even realised was hurting.

“that’s…” it’s not often tony stark is at a loss for words. “i appreciate that.”

trust is a valuable asset. to lose someone's trust is a loss, to lose your own in someone else a BETRAYAL. she can understand now, at least in some way, why tony stark would probably feel somewhat ALONE despite being surrounded by people all the time. someone with his intelligence, his reputation, his MONEY ------ just how many people actually had his best interests at heart?

"is there anything else you think i should know?" she asks, still holding his gaze.