Hi everyone! Since I couldn't resist, here's another chapter about Tony and Pepper. This one takes place at the end of "Avengers," and it's extremely cute, if I do say so myself. Thanks for your reviews, and I'm betting that I'll add another chapter to "Nightlight" at some point (hmm, I should probably go see Iron Man 3 again for inspiration…:))

Disclaimer: I own no part of the Marvel Universe; only my Pepperony feels are my own. :)

Nightlight 2

Pepper took a while to wake up that morning. She'd been dreaming about the day before, the image she'd seen on the news of Tony flying into a hole in the sky with a missile on his back…only in the dream, he hadn't come out again. Pepper lay in bed with her eyes closed, stuck in that horrible place between sleep and wakefulness where she wasn't sure what was real and what was a dream—was Tony alive, or was he gone for good? Then her arm brushed against him, and her eyes flew open.

Suddenly, she felt weak with relief. It was a dream, just a bad dream, she thought frantically, and when she rolled over and saw his face, relaxed in sleep, she smiled and hoped that she wasn't about to start crying again. Gently, she traced the bruise on the side of his face—he was so tired that he barely stirred, even when she put an arm around him and burrowed close to him under the blankets. The only light in the room came from the arc reactor, and in the dim glow it generated, Pepper could see other bruises too, evidence of blows that the suit hadn't completely protected him from.

Pepper shuddered when she thought about how close she'd come to losing him. Closing her eyes again, she snuggled closer, then gasped when he reached out and wrapped his arms around her.

"Oh! Are you awake?"

"Mmm," he murmured noncommittally.

Pepper sighed happily. It wasn't quite dawn yet—she'd at least let him sleep until the sun came up.

"Are you watching me sleep?" he said suddenly, his eyes still closed and his voice heavy with sleep.

Pepper smiled. "Are you asleep? I can't tell."

"I was, but then I felt you watching me. Anyway, don't do that, it's creepy. Or…sweet. I can't decide."

"I think that it's sweet when women do it but creepy when men do it," Pepper said, kissing the corner of his mouth. He smiled and opened his eyes.

"Really? That's the distinction? Seems unfair..."

"Well, it's not," Pepper said, closing her eyes and hugging him close. I could have lost him, I could have lost him, she thought, inhaling the scent of him, enjoying the feel of him, grateful that he was too sleepy to notice how worried she was, even now, when they were safe in bed together. After taking a few moments to calm down, Pepper opened her eyes and grinned—he had actually fallen asleep again.

In addition to making her feel frantic, thinking about the previous day made Pepper blush a little. When she'd finally managed to get from the airport to Stark Tower, Tony hadn't been there. After calling him about a hundred times (maddeningly, his phone wasn't working), he'd strolled into what was left of the living room on the main floor like nothing had happened.

"Hey. We went out for schwarma—sorry if I missed you calling or texting, but I think my phone's broken."

Pepper had seriously considered punching him. She'd actually stormed up to him, unsure of what she was going to do or say, since she'd basically been incoherent with a strange mix of relief and rage. But when she was finally standing in front of him, she'd completely forgotten about her plan to tell him off, and instead she'd grabbed him and kissed him full on the mouth. Tony had gone along with that idea enthusiastically, and they'd continued kissing until someone cleared their throat.

"Get a room you two, please," Agent Romanoff had said.

Pepper had jumped about a foot in the air when she'd looked over Tony's shoulder to see Agent Romanoff and four other people watching them, looking amused.

"Since this building has my name on it, technically, every room is our room," Tony had pointed out.

"Actually most of the letters fell off, so that argument doesn't really work right now," a guy with (of all things) a bow had said—Tony had later introduced him as Agent Barton.

"Excuse us," Pepper said quickly, giving Tony a look before turning to stare at Agent Romanoff, then wincing when she noticed the dried blood in her hair. "Oh my God, are you okay?"

"Fine, all things considered," Agent Romanoff had said. "I could use a shower though."

"Right this way," Pepper said. "There are guest rooms right down here."

"Hey, I'm okay too, thanks," Tony said, trying and failing to sound wounded.

"I'll talk to you later," she'd promised darkly. And she had—sort of. Well, she'd kissed him and said goodnight. After he and Thor had checked on the God of Thunder's brother (who they'd earlier locked in one of the building's larger safes—apparently, even the God of Mischief couldn't escape something like that in his current state), Tony had gone straight to bed. Pepper had shown his new friends to their rooms, and while she'd kept relatively calm on the outside, she couldn't stop herself from thinking: I made out with Tony in front of a bunch of superheroes. Superheroes!

Somehow though, she was so relieved that Tony was okay that even though she was embarrassed, she wasn't nearly as mortified as she would have been under ordinary circumstances...or whatever constituted "ordinary" when you were dating Tony Stark.

"Um," Dr. Banner had said hesitantly when she'd shown him to a guest room. "Sorry, but, I can't help but notice that you seem oddly unfazed by all this."

Pepper had smiled. "I've known Tony for a long time, Dr. Banner. My weirdness threshold is pretty high at this point."

Now, laying next to Tony in the darkness, Pepper sighed again. Yes, she was getting used to weirdness, but she still loved moments like this best, when he was just a man, safe beside her, and not Iron Man, who might be on the other side of the world one day and fighting aliens in Manhattan the next. Watching him sleep though, she knew she didn't love him in spite of the risks he took, but because he was brave enough to do phenomenally stupid things, like flying a nuclear missile into a mysterious space portal to save lives. Who knew how many people he'd protected, doing what he'd done yesterday.

Yes, it drove her crazy that he could be so reckless, and he was probably going to give her an ulcer one day...but she loved him more than she'd ever loved anyone, and it was sort of hard to stay mad at him when he was so exhausted. Asleep, he looked surprisingly similar to the little kid version of Tony Stark she'd seen a thousand times in old photos and retrospectives about the Stark family. In those old pictures, Tony didn't seem innocent exactly (his eyes, Pepper thought, always looked a little mischievous), but there was something sweet about him, something that had always been there, even during the worst of his selfish, immature playboy days. That, Pepper thought, was part of the reason she'd stuck by him all these years: because underneath it all, Tony really was a good person, and he could be a great person, when he put his mind to it.

Smiling, Pepper traced the lines of his face with her hand, being careful to avoid the dark bruise beside his eye. He stirred a little at her touch, and even smiled in his sleep, but then he settled into his pillow again, clearly determined to sleep for at least a little while longer. Pepper sighed and closed her eyes again. She knew that soon, Nick Fury would call and roust everyone currently sleeping in Stark Tower. They all had other jobs to do, places to be (Thor and his brother being the most obvious examples of people who needed to be somewhere else), and of course, the Tower would have to be rebuilt in the days and weeks to come. Actually, most of Manhattan would need to be rebuilt after yesterday, and there was no question that Tony's involvement in the battle was going to turn into a P.R. circus for the company. Pepper was sure that if she checked her phone now, she'd find several messages indicating that damage control was already underway...

Pepper leaned forward and kissed him gently until she felt him start to kiss her back; apparently, he was awake enough for that.

"We need to get up soon," she whispered.

The light of the arc reactor shifted suddenly, and then Tony was hugging her close, the light trapped between them, sinking the rest of the room into deeper darkness.

"Not yet," he said, his voice still muffled by sleep. "Let's just—let's just stay here a little longer. Have a few more minutes of peace before—you know, before everything gets crazy again."

Pepper hugged him tight—she could feel the tension in his muscles, and she realized that yesterday's close call had scared him too, even more than it had scared her. Someday, she would have to ask him what it had been like up there, on the other side of space, but she knew now wasn't the time. With a pang, she remembered seeing that she'd missed a call from him as he'd been flying toward the portal. If she'd answered then, what would they have said to each other?

"Sorry again that I missed your call yesterday," she whispered. "You know, I was wondering..."

Tony chuckled grimly. "Before you ask, I have absolutely no idea what I was going to say. I didn't have a speech planned or anything. I think that—I think I just wanted to hear your voice."

Pepper sniffled and wiped her eyes quickly. "Sorry."

"Hey, hey," Tony said quickly, sitting up. "Don't worry, okay? Don't apologize for not watching your phone every second on a day when aliens were attacking New York. I didn't even think about it until JARVIS suggested calling you, and since I was trying to carry a nuke at the time, I probably wouldn't have been able to say much anyway."

Pepper smiled faintly. "Well, next time you call me, I'll pick up, even if we are in the middle of an alien invasion."

"Next time, I'll think about calling you a few minutes before I do something really stupid instead of trying to call with only a few seconds to spare," Tony murmured, running a hand through his hair and down his face, wincing when his palm grazed the bruise on his cheek. "Ow. Yeah, sleeping for a few more minutes really seems like a great idea. Also, and maybe this goes without saying, but…I love you, more than anything. So, I'm glad I helped save the world from aliens, but mostly, I'm just glad that I saved you."

Pepper stared at him, trying to decide if she was going to kiss him or start crying again.

"Thank you," she whispered at last.

Tony shook his head. "I know. That was cheesy as hell."

"No—well, it was, but still, thank you. And I love you too," she said, smiling more easily now as she pulled him down for another kiss.