Author's note: Okay, this fic just kind of happened. Mostly because I never liked how the film dealt with that scene - and the fact that the next day Tony and Pepper seemed to be okay, which was odd considering the night's events. So...

I just wanna be with you
Cuz living is so hard to do
When all I know is trapped inside your eyes

The future I cannot forget
This aching heart ain't broken yet
Oh God I wish I could make you see
"Time For Miracles" Adam Lambert

You'd think that after 10 years of 'trying', Tony Stark would have run out of ways to screw up his relationship with Pepper, and yet he somehow managed to do just that. Again.

Shocker.

As if showing the absolute worst side of him for over a decade wasn't enough.

Tony ran a tired hand down his face, rubbing the corners of his eyes until he could see the stars dancing behind his eyelids. He heaved a long sigh, feeling like a deflated balloon. It wasn't just physical exhaustion at this point. He had officially reached a whole new level of desperate and world-weary. It was akin having a rug yanked from under his feet all over again, only this time he also managed to push away the only person who helped him made it through the worst of times in the past.

Happy was right about Pepper being the best thing that ever happened to him, except she wasn't just the best. She was THE best. His anchor. His constant. His…. pretty much everything, really. he didn't know how to function without her. How to be. Being smart around technology – a genius, and he wasn't ashamed to admit it – he was an absolute idiot when it came to not fucking up his life in every imaginable way. Had he been any smarter in that department, he's end his own misery years ago. All this wasted time mocking him now – it was almost too much to bear. The thought always made his chest tighten with regret he knew would never go away.

He looked at the parts of the suit scattered all over the floor and gleaming faintly in the dim light of the reading lamp. Slumped against the pillow on Pepper's side of the bed, he could still feel her warmth lingering there. Just how exactly messed up was he if the suits started responding to his dreams, he wondered. Not that it was the kind of question he actually wanted to know an answer to.

He could take all of this down to the basement and have JARVIS reassemble it, especially now that the sleep was out of the question anyway. Or he could try to do something more…. well, redeeming.

xoox

Pepper drew in a sharp breath and then exhaled slowly, willing her frantic heartbeat to slow down. With her mind racing, there was no way she'd be able to fall asleep. Not in this millennium, by the looks of it. She was too shaken, and too wired up, and too…. unsettled. This was too much, even after everything she and Tony had already been through, and that was saying something.

Absently, Pepper trailed past her original destination – a couch in the living room – and into the kitchen, the tiled floor soothingly cool beneath her bare feet.

The house was almost entirely silent, save for an almost indistinguishable hum of the fridge and the ticking of the clock on the mantle above the fireplace in the living room – an antique monstrosity Tony was attached to for the reasons she couldn't comprehend.

The digital clock on the counter read 1:30 AM. Even JARVIS was quiet, probably in the standby mode for the night.

Pepper picked a glass from the rack, filled it with ice-cold water and cradled it to her chest, not quite sure what left her so worked up. Well, aside from the fact that she was attacked by one of Tony's machines, which hardly was an experience anyone would ever look forward to, all things considered.

She took a small sip and put the glass down, leaning heavily on the counter and taking one measured breath after another.

"I love you. I'm lucky."

Pepper squeezed her eyes shut.

Okay, maybe her freak-out moment wasn't entirely justified, she had to admit that much. It caught her by surprise, and, as crazy as it sounded, she did occasionally feel like the suits were a much bigger part of Tony's life than she was. They sure did share a special bond, or whatever. He let him into his head.

Which was ridiculous, and as soon as the thought appeared in her mind, Pepper felt a pang of guilt.

"…the one thing I can't live without. That's you."

It wasn't that she didn't see that something was off after New York. She knew him too well to miss even the subtle changes, leave alone vacant stares into nothing, haunted fear in his eyes when he thought she wasn't looking. And something… something helpless and defeated about him she couldn't quite place, and couldn't ignore either.

But he shut her out and built the walls around himself. He pretended to carry on like nothing happened, leaving her alone and unable to break through to him. She wanted to help, wanted him to talk to her, to let her in again, but she didn't know how and it was frightening. It was downright terrifying. It was making her want to scream from desperation, but all she could do was give him time and let him be until her was ready to come to her on his own terms.

Instead, he stopped sleeping (and she didn't need to be a fucking genius to notice that) and started building more suits. Instead, he pushed her even farther away and kept on hiding behind fake smiles and I'm okay's and ignoring everything that was wrong, and she didn't know what to do.

"Hey."

Startled, Pepper snapped her eyes open and whirled around, nearly knocking down her water. Luckily, Tony managed to steady the glass just in time.

In near complete darkness only somewhat dispensed by the pallid moonlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room and the glow of Tony's arc reactor, he was almost nothing but the black silhouette, his features concealed safely by the shadows, unreadable.

"Don't go," his voice echoed in Pepper's head.

"Tony—"

"Before you say anything, I was just… coming to get a glass of water."

Pepper's lips quivered ever so slightly, tugging up at the corners at the sound of this absurdity.

"And I just so happened to be here."

"Pure coincidence," he nodded eagerly. "This house is not as big as it looks on the outside."

"It's practically tiny."

"The tiniest, really. I mean, from the technical standpoint-" Tony cut off. He cleared his throat, shifted from foot to foot. "Pep, I'm—" he started, uncertain of how to put everything he wanted to say into words.

From barely half a foot away, Pepper could feel the warmth of his body rolling off him in waves, and it was making the cold fear inside of her start to melt.

Tony inched closer, reaching for her hand. He brushed it almost tentatively before lacing their fingers together, his touch feather-light and somewhat cautious - in case it was the wrong move, and he couldn't afford another mistake. Not in the lifetime, for certain.

She didn't pull away, and that was a start, right? God knew what he did to deserve someone like her.

"I'm sorry," he breathed out as he tucked her hair behind her ear, the back of his fingers running road her cheek. And then frowned and go of her hand turning her arm over to reveal five red and swelling marks on her skin just above the wrist. "Did I…" His throat went dry and his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "Did I do it?"

"Oh." Pepper blinked, just as surprised as he was. "Well, technically, it was Mark what's-his-number."

"Shit," Tony muttered. He picked up a towel from the counter and fumbled clumsily around the freezer in the dark before pulling out a pack of green beans. "Here, let's take care of this."

He pressed the bundle to her arm.

"Tony—I'm fine. It's fine."

He looked up at her to find Pepper's eyes searching his face, or at the very least trying to, given the lack of proper lighting. He could hear her breath, her heartbeat even, and all of his fears raised their ugly heads again.

She wasn't too far off when she called his suits a distraction. God knew he needed one, if only to not remember the wormhole, the Chitauri, the paralyzing fear of looking into the death's face, the moment when he stopped breathing because there was no air, only darkness and cold and desperation and I failed them and I'm sorry. And then the fall and Pepper's face on the inner screen of his helmet. Call failed. Her face was the last thing he saw before his mind slipped away.

And then it was over. Except it wasn't and could never be. Those things were still out there, had been out there since the beginning of time or maybe even longer than that. It was so huge he couldn't even begin to comprehend it, and he wasn't even sure he wanted to. They were there and nothing was stopping them from crawling back into their world again. And Tony wasn't stupid – Avengers they might be, but they weren't strong enough (or immortal enough, for that matter) to face something like that again. In fact, he was convinced that their victory was pure luck, and what if Loki brought his army back? What if he found other aliens who wanted to fight on his side? What if those aliens didn't need Loki to brainwash them? What if there was someone out there even bigger and stronger than what they'd already seen? If that happened, what would they do then?

He couldn't stop thinking about all of this, couldn't stop the images from plaguing his exhausted mind. And how could he when he had so much to lose? How could he not fear facing something like that again? And maybe trying to build his own army of suits wasn't the way to go, but he didn't know what else to do, what else he could do, save for bringing the concept of panic to a whole new level.

And then there was Pepper.

Pepper who deserved better than this – better than him – and the least he could do was make sure she didn't have a reason to start running for the hills. His record already was, well, far from perfect. And if he lost her, there'd be nothing left.

"It wasn't supposed to happen." His hand flexed a bit around her wrist, his skin feeling rough and calloused against hers. What exactly he meant by 'it' Tony wasn't quite sure – the list could on for miles at this point. The suit attack was definitely somewhere close to the top, of course, but so was this disaster of a date night, and the general deterioration of their relationship.

Pepper's hand closed around a fistful of his shirt, pulling him closer. Her nose bumped into his cheek and her shoulders slumped a bit, relaxed at last. The stubble on his face felt scratchy on her skin. He smelled of soap and aftershave from hours ago, and as she breathed in this familiar scent, her lips formed into a small smile of their own will.

"You can tell me anything, Tony. You know that, right?"

He closed his eye, seeping her in. "I'm pretty sure you know everything there is to know about me. Like my DNA code even." He could feel her smile. "Please tell me you know my DNA code. That'd be so hot."

Pepper let out a soft half snort. "I have it written down somewhere."

"Knew you would."

"It's not what I was talking about," she tugged at his shirt a little.

Tony hesitated, uncertain of how to put into words the tangled mess of his thoughts. At times, it was easy to forget about the demons haunting his mind, and just be. At times, he could almost pretend everything was okay an even believe it for a while. Until it wasn't again.

"Maybe it's too much, Pep."

She frowned, tilting her head ever so slightly to look up at him. "What are you talking about?"

Tony dropped the melting beans on the counter. His fingers ran up and down the inside of her wrist where the red marks were fading at last, her skin smooth and cool under his touch.

"You've already seen everything. You know me better than I know myself," he said in a low, tight voice.

"And how's this a bad thing?"

"You know how the things get crazy sometimes." He shrugged and pulled away an inch or two, but far enough to make it feel like miles. Dropped his gaze too, choosing to focus on the grainy pattern of the granite counter. "What if they get too crazy?"

"How much crazier can they possibly get?"

"On the scale of one to…?"

She ran her finger through his hair, brushing it off his forehead and leaving his no choice but to meet her eyes again. "I'm not a quitter, Tony. You, of all people, should know that."

That made him chuckle. "You did try to quit before. I remember that. I was there."

"It wasn't the same. I was stressed."

"Stressed," he repeated.

"Very."

"See? And I can't even play the promotion card this time. There are no cards up my sleeves anymore. I don't even have sleeves. And I don't have any other companies left."

Pepper let out a low grunt as she leaned forward until her forehead met his shoulder. "You're impossible."

"And dense."

"Quite often."

"But bot too often because I can't be dense and a genius at the same time. It's an oxymoron, which means—"

"I know what an oxymoron means, Tony."

"So you agree that I'm not a lost cause?"

Which, coming from someone who took forever to recognize the feelings for the woman he'd been working with for 10 years, sounded a bit too optimistic. Even he had to admit that, although probably not out loud. Especially not to Pepper. She already owned most of him, on some occasions literally. Actually, he was certain that if he checked the papers he signed for her without looking, he'd most likely found out that she owned his very soul. Was it even possible?

Pepper laughed. "I'm afraid we will have to agree to disagree on that one." Her voice was muffled. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have left. You just had a nightmare and then the suit…" She trialed off.

Tony pulled her in, wrapping his arms around her. A perfect fit. He brushed his lips against her hair before resting his cheek against her hair. Her breath felt warm against his neck, and all was right in the world. For just a moment, the whole world – each and every crazy piece of it – fell into place.

"It got a little too crowded in there." He let out a long breath. And then, "I would never knowingly put you in danger. You know that, right?"

"I do. And I'm not going anywhere just because there's a bump on the road. But I can't do it if you keep pushing me away. I can't help you if you don't let me."

"We'll work on that." Tony ran his hand up and down her back, hoping he was able to keep that promise. "You're not going to actually sleep on the couch, are you?"

"No, probably not tonight."

Hope it worked :)