A/N- Here's part two of the last chapter. Enjoy the return of a bit of fluff!

I apologize if any of you with alerts for this story got two notifications for the updates - I posted them without editing, realized it, deleted them, edited them, and posted them again. They're better off for it.

This part is dedicated to a certain friend of mine who admitted she's been reading this without reviewing, then had the gall to tell me I'd better update it soon - because I still love her to bits and pieces anyway (and because I said "I'll have it up by Saturday!" and yet it's been twelve days since then…)

The Thirteenth Step

The reaction to his revelation is immediate and varied. Over the Christmas holidays, the average TV viewer may sit down with his cup of eggnog and watch as half the pundits rip Tony Stark to shreds and the other half tout him as a model of courage. The tabloids, naturally, focus on his relationship with Pepper - they haunt the entrance to her condo and note with sadistic glee that she no longer goes over to the Stark mansion and on the other page run testimonies from women who claim to have slept with Tony when he was an alcoholic like it's some badge of honor, the same as saying that they once fought in the Great War, something to tell the grandkids about.

Three things in particular from these media disturb him: a picture of Pepper having coffee with Nate, subtitled as a sign of new romance, that he doesn't remember many of the women who reputedly slept with him, but he can't say definitively that they're lying, and the article which muses on whether or not his admission is proof that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, which shows the last picture taken of him and his father together before that car accident.

When he sees the picture, he's surprised he hadn't wondered about it before. Nate did a perfectly adequate job as an assistant, because he already knew Pepper's system. Where had Pepper found him anyway? Was it possible that she'd moved on so soon after leaving him? Or was Nate an old romance waiting to be rekindled?

He doesn't have much time to worry about it, because promptly at 7:30am on January 2nd, Pepper is sitting in her office with her laptop informing him that he has an impressive array of specials on his recent revelations to choose from.

"Hell no to Oprah. Maybe to 20/20. Barbara Walters only if she promises not to try and make me cry, because it ain't gonna happen. And Leno for sure, I'd love nothing more than to make fun of myself for a while."

"Pick between 20/20 and Ms. Walters and I'll think about Leno after we see how the board meeting goes."

"Do we have to do that board meeting?"

"I must do nothing. You, on the other hand, need to face the music. Hopefully their vacations in Fiji will soften the blow."

"Only if their wives didn't go along."

"What do you keep me around for if not to make sure that the board members and their wives spend as little time together as possible?"

He is filled with a surge of warmth at her smile, but it feels forbidden to be warming to something that might no longer be his. "How did you know Nate, Potts?" He asks. Her smile fades a little in confusion.

"He was a good friend of mine in college. He recently asked me to be his best man when he and his partner got married after it became legal. Don't you remember?"

Suddenly it clicks into place - Pepper waking him up early one morning to kiss him good-bye, already wearing her tux. Later, he'd been too intent on peeling it off of her to listen to the name of the place she went to - he forgot, at the moment, why he hadn't gone with her. He should've. He should've enjoyed every moment he had with her more than he had. And as he walks away, trusting her to keep everything running, he feels the need for something to drink already swelling up in him. It's either that or kiss her, the way he wanted to on the balcony of the Ritz. Either action would quell his confusion.

That's just the problem, of course - he's always seeking to drown himself. Pepper, alcohol, Iron Man, it's all the same urge. She doesn't deserve to be on that list, he realizes. It should be her and her alone. Can he really handle such a thing? It's true that if he gave up Iron Man, handed the suit over to Rhodey, his life would be a lot less complicated. He'd feel that urge to drown himself a lot less. But he spent most of his life making things simple and shutting off all the background noise, and he knows he can never do so again. He has so much to atone for - twelve steps will never be enough. He'll never deserve her.

He goes down to the garage after that and sits there tinkering with the Mark II with the TV on in the background to help him tune out the world, and he's been there for a couple of hours when he hears the Dateline special come on and he hears his father's voice for the first time in twenty years.

"Anthony, are you going to show the camera what you're doing? Come over here and show them." And when he turns around he sees the black and white footage of him with his first circuit board, beaming happily next to his dad.

"He's a chip off the old block, isn't he?" The cameraman asks.

"Yessir, that he is." Howard Stark smiles, putting his arm around his son's shoulders.

Then color blooms across the screen and he's back in the present as a trained broadcast voice asks the listener just how much of a 'chip off the old block' Anthony Stark is, given his recent revelations. The voice goes on to remind the listener of speculations that had always circulated Howard Stark's death and whether or not he'd been drinking when the car crashed.

He doesn't have a chance to hear more, because that's when Pepper bursts into the garage, nearly tripping over her three inch heels in an effort to reach him.

"Don't listen to them Tony - we can sue them for slander any time of the week, you just name the day." She says breathlessly when she reaches him. He feels himself shaking his head as if from a great distance.

"Pepper, they're right. My father was an alcoholic."

He reaches out and turns off the TV, and there's silence in the garage, except for Pepper's breathing and his own. After a moment of this silence, he speaks again.

"Call Happy, Ms. Potts, and tell him he's to take us to the cemetery."

He doesn't need to say which, because there's only one for Tony Stark. They're there within two hours and when Happy turns off the engine and Tony gets out, Pepper hesitates, uncertain of whether her presence is wanted or not.

"I'm expecting a call from Barbara Walter's producer," She stammers a bit. "I could just let it go to voice mail, if you - "

"Go ahead and stay here. I need to speak to my father." She still looks a little forlorn, so he reaches out and squeezes her hand briefly before he exits the car. The forbidden contact steels him for what he has realized he must do.

The graveyard is even more grey than it was before, as if the January sun is even weaker than the September sun had been. He never visits his parents more than once a year and somehow everything seems different today. When he reaches the grassy knoll and the two weeping angels, their faces seem to bear a different expression. It is no longer one of disbelief or mourning: it is one of shame. He stands silently before them for a moment or so before he realizes what he wants to say.

"You were sort of a jerk, Dad. I didn't want to admit it before because I was still a kid when you died and I still thought you were the epitome of all that's good, which is probably why I turned out the way I did, but I've grown up a lot since then, and it's not like I'm not saying you were a horrible person or anything, but you weren't exactly the greatest person either. And I don't have to spend all my time trying to grow up and fill your shoes anymore because it turns out we wear the same size."

He scuffs his toe against the grass at the foot of their graves, feeling twelve years old all over again. "Look, you did what you thought was best for mom and I. You gave us everything that money could buy and did what you thought would make the world safe for us. Maybe that was the strain that got to you the way it started getting to me. I'm not going to let that happen anymore. I'm going to be the best I can be for Pepper."

He stares up into the face of the stone angel, as if expecting it to raise its hand in benevolence and bless him, offer its understanding. But his father has been dead for twenty years, and stone doesn't understand forgiveness. Still, he feels lighter, because he knows that somehow, somewhere, Howard Stark does.

"See you in September," He says, and then adds after a hesitation: "I love you."

Step eleven.

When he gets back to the car, Pepper appears to be on pins and needles waiting for him. Her eyes search his face immediately when he sits down and something inside her seems to crumple when she's done. Before he can ask her what's wrong, she makes a little sound and launches herself across the distance between them, takes hold of him by the shoulders, and kisses him so hard he forgets his own name.

And for thirty seconds, everything is right again in the world, but he has to push her away so he can look her in the eye and try to understand what's happening. She only lets him get a few inches of space and a few moments of clarity before she's kissing him again, holding him so tight he can barely breathe, and he no longer has the strength to stop her. He missed her more than he ever thought, he realizes, and his hands shake as he pulls her onto his lap and then runs his fingers through her hair. He missed her the way a drowning man misses oxygen, the way a prisoner misses the sun. He feels like he's been on sensory depravation for an entire month now and doesn't know where to begin reacquainting himself with the world: through the touch of her hands on his face, through the scent of her skin, through the sound of her soft moans, through the taste of her lips. He knows it's more than animal lust that has him so overwrought. It is love, in its purest, most painful form.

He knows he should pull away again, ask her what's going on, try and determine what he's feeling, but he's a damned man being offered salvation, and only an idiot would push that away with both hands. Of course, while he's a genius, he's had his moments of pure insanity before too.

"Happy, we're going to take Ms. Potts home," He croaks out when he manages to pull himself away. "And take the toll road, will you? I want to get there as soon as possible."

Stunned, she withdraws from his lap and tries to smooth her hair back into some semblance of order. "What's going on?" She asks, her voice as shaky as he feels.

"I might well ask you the same thing."

She looks crushed again, which isn't what he'd expected. "Isn't it - don't you - you don't understand?"

"I think I do, and that's why Happy is going to take you home."

The confusion dissipates and the Pepper he knows, whose hair fits her all too well, is sitting before him in all her cold fury.

"But I want you."

He'd be lying if he said the words didn't make his slacks seem even less comfortable than before. As before, when she kissed him, he knows she doesn't just mean in the sense of lust, but after a month apart it's what they've been reduced to - two animals clawing each other out of impatience and need and confusion, and it's the last thing he wants.

"We're going to do this right, Pepper, just like we did before." He says.

Diffused, she sits back against the leather seats and stares straight ahead. He reaches across the seats and offers his hand as if in apology. After a moment or so, she takes it, and they maintain that connection alone for the rest of the drive. When they reach her condo, he walks out with her, still hand in hand, and like two high schoolers at the end of their first date they stop at the door and just look each other in the eye, not knowing what happens next. Tony then bends down and plants the softest of kisses on her cheek, and whispers on her ear:

"Be ready by six."

There's a jauntiness in his step as he goes back to the car and gets in. He knows what step twelve is now.

At six o'clock on the dot, Tony is knocking on Pepper's door. She exits to find a bouquet of flowers that nearly obscures his grin.

"Hi," She stammers as he hands them to her, and then kisses the back of her other hand.

"Shall we?" Is all he says in reply, as he walks down the steps and opens the door to a car she's never seen before.

"Is this one new?"

"Yup. I bought it and refurbished it while you were recovering."

She can't help but flinch at his choice of words. When he showed up on her doorstep looking the way he did, she'd hoped she could go back to pretending that nothing had happened, that the last month was just a bad, bad dream. Now there's no hope of pretending, and that fear that has possessed her all day bubbles up again. She has forgiven him for what happened, but she's not sure she can forget.

"Hey there," his voice recalls her to the present, as does his hand on hers. "Don't let it get to you, Potts. Tonight is going to be great."

He's about to withdraw his hand but she clutches it tightly instead, because in the last weeks she's needed the simple touch of his hand the way he used to need alcohol.

"You know, this baby ain't automatic. I kinda need that hand if we're gonna get this show on the road."

"What, you're a modern Da Vinci and you still haven't found a way to drive one-handed?"

"Well, Da Vinci had a thing for little boys. Now seriously, I need my hand." But just before he pries it loose he looks her in the eye. "I'm not going anywhere if you're not, Pepper."

And there it is again - that sweet clench in her chest that is equal parts pain and love. How will they ever sort through these pieces when she can't even stand to start looking? She loves him and he loves her but he's done her wrong and she's done him wrong and it may just be too big a mess for Pepper Potts to handle.

But every time they reach a stop sign that Tony doesn't deign to roll right through, his hand drifts over to touch the back of hers, and everything just feels so damn right.

They park the car in the garage, and after he opens her door and helps her out, he leads her over to one of the many worktables, which is miraculously clean. On it are several brightly wrapped packages, one of which appears to be the signature blue bag of Tiffany's.

"All for you, my dear. You'll know what to do once you've opened them." He says, and leaves before she can ask any questions. There was nothing to do but open them, and what she finds leaves her speechless: a black, backless Vera Wang dress, strappy black Prada heels, a shawl from Saks Fifth Avenue, and, last but not least, a pearl necklace and matching earrings. Taped to the top of their box is a note that reads:

Meet me fully attired on the balcony in fifteen minutes. The rest of my apology awaits.

T

Apology? Strangely, she feels like the one that should be apologizing to him, as she strips down in the place where she left him. She's already utterly humbled by his gestures - which is why she had to leave. Pepper Potts, who is possibly the only person in the world that frightens the board of directors, has a weakness for Tony Stark. If she had stayed after that mission to Afghanistan, he would have found a way to make it up to her by morning. He would've kept making it up to her every day and nearly killing himself by night, until they were both trapped in a cycle they were helpless to break free of.

I had to do it. I had to. But it doesn't comfort her anymore than it did when she first left.

It's been ten minutes by the time she reapplies her hair and make-up, and then she carefully ascends the stairs from the garage towards the rest of the mansion. She is greeted by the sound of a light sonata, played on the piano, and she rounds a corner to see Tony sitting at the piano bench in his nicest tux, so enveloped in his music that he doesn't even notice her for a moment. She approves of what she sees - he looks much healthier than he did before, much more at peace. But he notices her before she has time to make any other observations, and when his eyes meet hers again, she's ashamed to say her heart misses a beat. His must have too, because he wait's a moment before he goes to her side.

"Words fail, Pepper." He says in lieu of a more traditional compliment, and leads her out onto the balcony.

There she is greeted by the sight of an elegant table for two, complete with candles and a single rose. Their plates are already waiting, although they're covered for now. He leads her to one chair and after she is seated, reveals an ice bucket underneath the tablecloth, from which he withdraws a bottle of Moet and two champagne flutes. After a satisfying pop, he fills both and hands her one.

"This is my first drink in a month, and my last one, too." He says, raising his flute so that the setting sun catches its every facet. "Here's looking at you, kid."

She doesn't like the allusion. Ilsa and Rick are separated at the movie's end. But she still raises her glass and drinks to him, and then at his invitation uncovers her plate, where she finds a chicken breast in a rich white sauce, broccoli, and rice pilaf waiting for her. Her moans at the first bite are positively embarrassing.

"My God - who catered this?"

He grins like the cat that ate the canary. "Actually, no one. I cooked it myself."

"I don't believe you."

"Well, you'd better. Some whack jobs actually call me a genius, you know. I'm not entirely incapable of learning something new."

"Really? Prove me wrong and remember that the shipping orders are due at the same time every week."

"I know. Three o'clock Thursday for international, three o'clock Friday for domestic. Nate was absolutely unhelpful, by the way."

"He was supposed to be. I couldn't have you realizing that there might be other assistants out there who could do the same thing I do."

"Believe me, Potts, no one can do the same thing you do. Who could possibly know whether I'm craving a cheeseburger or Mexican or Italian based on what kind of a day I've had?" He pushes himself back from the table and tilts his head, the classic sign of a coming fight.

"I'd be more impressed with someone who could convince you that those aren't the three main food groups." She says, crossing her arms.

"Hey, I made broccoli tonight, didn't I?"

"Yea, and I see all of five pieces of it on your plate."

"Oh, really? Well find me one other assistant who could memorize all of Jarvis's protocols? Hell, another assistant who could actually treat Jarvis like a person!"

"There are some really brainy girls down in tech who're in to stuff like that."

"You hear that Jarvis? Pepper thinks she can get you laid!"

"I'm sure it'd be an enlightening experience, sir," He says dryly.

"Besides, I'd get jealous. You know I expect my assistant's life to revolve around me, self-centered jerk that I am. Oh, and half of them would break their necks walking down the stairs to the garage in their heels balancing eight different color-coded files…"

And somehow, without either of them noticing, things get back to normal. It's dark by the time the conversation winds down, and then Tony thinks to light the candles. As another afterthought, he reaches out and takes her hand and sits there, contemplating her, rubbing her knuckles.

"Let's dance." He says.

"There's no music." She reminds him.

"Doesn't matter."

Of course it doesn't matter, because he's Tony Stark and he does things his way, the rest of the world be damned. So they rise and he takes her in his arms and they dance across the balcony and all the while he keeps looking at her, really looking at her, searching for something.

"I'm sorry." He says finally. "I'm sorry that I was a complete and total ass for far too long. I'm sorry that after I thought I'd stopped being a complete and total ass for far too long, I was still a complete and total ass. Have I mentioned the part where I was a complete and total ass who didn't deserve you at all? Because I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for leaving you on that rooftop at the benefit and I'm sorry for making things so bad that you had to leave me after the mission to Afghanistan. There aren't enough Vera Wangs and Pradas and Tiffany's necklaces and nice dinners in the world to express how sorry I am for every way I've ever hurt you."

She feels like the wind has been knocked out of her, and in the best of ways. "I never really left, you know."

And as she watches him add it up in his head - the groceries, the constant calls to Nate, Rhodey's preparation - she is reminded that while he is a genius, he is also consummately clueless, and it makes her think of one of her first nights working for him, when he called her frantically into his den to show her something on TV (which she had assumed was nothing short of a nuclear holocaust based on his tone of voice). In the end, he'd just wanted to show her that he'd never noticed that the Disney symbol was in fact a very fancy D. That's when she realizes that although she might never forget what happened, it doesn't matter much. She'd never want to forget a single thing about him.

"Pepper Potts, you do realize that all of the reasons you make a great assistant are also reasons you'd make a great wife, don't you?"

Her heart doesn't skip a beat so much as it trips over itself, because it's beating so fast.

"That depends on what kind of a wife you'd be looking for. Assuming you're in the market for a wife. I could start compiling the profiles of possible candidates tomorrow morning if you'd like."

"You'd be wasting your time. I know what I want."

Her mouth is suddenly dry, and she has to swallow twice before she can speak. "Is that me?"

"Yes." He murmurs, and then again, with more emphasis: "Yes."

And rather than answer, because she's choked by tears this time, she leans forward and kisses him. She doesn't think she breaks that kiss for a solid hour, even when they stumble upstairs and make love, even afterwards, when they're lying side by side listening to the forgiving rush of the ocean below them. It ends, of course, and she thinks he's fallen asleep, but then she hears him mutter something that sounds strangely like 'twelve'.

"What was that, sweetheart?" She asks. He just smiles and pulls her close and kisses her once more, like he'll never let her go. And that, he decides later, when she's fallen asleep, is step thirteen on his road to a new life: never letting her go.

fin

A/N- At last! It is done! It was a labor of love, but a long one. I hope you have all enjoyed this fic, as I know I have enjoyed writing it. As it stands for now, this is the end, but that might change abruptly, as rumor has it we're being treated to a special screening of Iron Man on my first night of Orientation, which is the 28th, and I might just be inspired to write some more afterwards. For now: good night and good luck! Thanks for your support!

Verona