Tony stared up at the darkened ceiling, unable to stop his brain from ticking over. This was a common problem for him, but usually his head was filled with design ideas and problems he was trying to solve in the lab. Tonight there were darker thoughts he was having trouble escaping. The words of Justin Hammer and Happy kept playing over and over in his head, both wrestling for control of his thoughts. It was impossible to shut either one up. Tony glanced over at Pepper as she lay beside him, quietly sleeping and Justin's words came back to haunt him. He could feel Pepper's soft warmth beside him and smell her sweet scent and to have those simply joys taken away from him now, Tony's brain simply couldn't fathom it. He moved restlessly on the bed, trying his best not to disturb Pepper. Tony rolled onto his left side and then his right, hoping the simple movements would distract him from his thoughts.
"Would you just pick a side and stick with it," came the mumbled complaint from the woman lying next to him.
Tony rolled onto his back and turned his head to look at her. "Sorry, did I wake you?"
"I haven't been asleep," said Pepper tiredly, her eyes still closed as she lay on her side. "It's like trying to fall asleep inside a clothes dryer."
Tony grimaced. "Sorry," he said again.
Pepper opened her eyes and looked at him in exasperation. "Why don't you go down to your lab and tinker like you normally do?"
Tony pouted. "I don't tinker. I'm designing a brave new world down there."
"Well, can you go and do that and let this tired, old world sleep?" she countered.
Tony rolled on his side so they were face to face, noses almost touching. "I thought you might like to have me close by tonight after what happened yesterday."
"Tony, I'm fine," said Pepper quietly. "I don't need a nursemaid."
"You could have been killed," he said unevenly. "I could be organising your funeral right now if Cap had been even a minute later than he was."
"You're nursemaid skills are a bit unsettling," said Pepper wryly. "How exactly is this meant to make me feel better?"
Tony scowled. "Sorry."
"And stop saying sorry. You've used it more times in this one conversation than you have the entire time I've known you. It's weird and I don't like it. Why can't you say sorry when you blow off a multi-million dollar benefit I spent six months organising and after you gave me your word you'd be there and instead you end up on the late news driving a vintage Mustang down Hollywood Boulevard, completely naked."
Tony grimaced. "You're still not over that, are you?"
She gave him a dark look. "Take a wild guess. My point is, if you didn't feel the need to apologise for something that was absolutely within your control, I don't know why you're apologising for something that has nothing to do with you."
Tony's lips thinned. "Are you saying the attack on you wasn't about me?"
Pepper rolled her eyes. "Not everything is about you, Tony. I know you've heard those words before, just try and understand what they mean this time."
"Justin Hammer hates me and was looking for revenge," said Tony darkly. He could feel the anger building inside of him at just the thought of what the other man had done. Justin Hammer had always been an annoyance to Tony, a gnat to bat away, but he'd taken things to a whole new level with what he'd tried to pull with Pepper.
"But I was ultimately the one who got him thrown in prison," she countered. "The last thing he said to me was that he was going to make me pay for what I did."
Tony's eyes widened. "What? Why is this the first I'm hearing about this?"
Pepper moved a little on the bed. "It didn't seem important at the time, what with all the exploding robots and general destruction going on around us."
Tony sat up in bed and glared down at her. "If someone is threatening your life, I want to know about it, Pepper. You're my, ah, my-" Tony hesitated, stumbling over the word girlfriend. It seemed a ridiculously juvenile word for what they shared. Pepper was the first woman he'd let in this deeply and he struggled to find a word to describe what she'd come to mean to him. "You know," he finished off lamely. "I need to know these things."
"You know?" Pepper repeated in disbelief. "That's how you describe our relationship, you know?" She sat up and grimaced, putting a protective arm around her broken rib as the simple action obviously caused her pain. Pepper glared at him. "Even Siegfried gets a partner status from Roy."
Tony put a solicitous hand out to Pepper, wincing as he saw her pain. "Careful, don't move around so much."
"What am I to you, Tony?" she asked in frustration, ignoring his concern. "Because right now I feel like I'm some sort of problem you have to solve."
"I want to know you're safe, always," he said, feeling his own frustration rising to the fore. "How is that a bad thing?"
"I want to know you're always safe too, Tony," she countered. "This isn't a one way street here."
He looked at her in surprise.
Pepper groaned. "Oh God, but you're the most vexing person on earth sometimes. How can you not know that how you're feeling now is exactly how I feel every time you put on that Iron Man suit?"
Tony was stunned. "It can't be," he argued, "there is no way you could survive feeling like this every day."
Pepper shook her head and sighed. "Don't let the bangs and freckles fool you, Tony, I'm as tough as I need to be to get through this. You've got the protection of your armoured suit, the rest of us just have to make do."
Not for the first time, Tony had a somewhat revelatory moment when it came to Pepper. Was she really living every day with this kind of fear clawing at her insides? It seemed impossible to Tony. "Good God woman, you're an Amazon!"
"I know," said Pepper calmly, "I have to be. Loving you is no easy road to take."
Tony made a pained face. "You make loving me sound like a horrible ordeal."
Pepper tilted her head and regarded him steadily. "Sometimes it is. When you put that suit on I die a little inside, because I know if something crazy and dangerous needs to be done, you're going to be the guy doing it."
Tony's heart sank at hearing that.
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‼️🎈hello everyone thank you so much for reading this chapter! 🙏 If you'd like to read the full novel "The Price of Legacy", you can find it on my Ko-fi page: ko-fi.com in the store section in PDF format. This fanfic will consist of 30 chapters .
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