A/N: Well, after watching Avengers I just had to write this! Please be warned if you haven't watched Avengers don't read this as there are a few spoilers in here. I'd hate to spoil the awesomeness of the Tony/Pepper scenes in the Avengers for you! Oh and also I wrote this pretty late at night so if it isn't coherent then I blame it on my long day at work... Enjoy...

There wasn't a lot he asked for now other than to love her unconditionally until the day he dies. But still he will gamble because there just wasn't anything else he could think of doing other than to throw himself into a space portal just to prove a point. He took chances and he gambled whenever he could. But not in the money sort of way but with lives which in some cases would seem more serious but really, he was Ironman, what could go wrong? He came pretty close to that earlier and he knew it. He felt it, in his soul, in his genius mind and in a way, his heart too.

But if there was one thing he would never gamble on it was his love for her. No, that was something much more sacred to him. It was the type of thing that he knew he would never let go without a fight. It was the type of thing that had settled into his heart and intertwined itself with the very being of his soul. In many ways loving her had become a part of him. It became second nature to look at her and grin like a hopeful idiot and what made it funny sometimes was that it was perfectly okay.

It was okay in so many ways to know that she was all he had now and that she was all he wanted always too. It wasn't so hard to think that one day he was going to go down on his knee for her and ask her for so much more than just her hand. Her life maybe, but more importantly her heart. He was quite sure she already gave that to him a long time ago but to be sure he will ask. Because he was a respectable sort of man now and it would only be right to ask her for it. A man never takes from a woman what he can ask for instead.

Sometimes it astounds him to finally realize how perfect it feels to have this. It's situations like these that make him realize how much he actually has to lose. She really is his world now. She really is all he lives for because as much as the others liked to refer to him as a selfish bastard, for her he would be. She was all he had. He couldn't offer her a man with an honest past. He could only offer her what he was now and what he was going to be for her. He could only offer his heart and the rest of his life.

"You're quiet this evening," she says to him as they lay there in their bed with nothing between them other than the warmth of each other's skins.

He smiles and tightens that hold he has around her shoulders. He presses a kiss at the side of her head and closes his eyes as he inhales her scent and holds onto that moment for as long as he can. He tries not to think about the events of the day and tries just to focus on here and now and them. But sometimes it's just hard not to think about how close he came to losing this. It was hard to think that for a slight moment, he was even willing to give this up just for the rest of the world. But how could he, she was his world, wasn't she?

"Say something, Tony," she whispers and slides an arm around his neck to pull his lips away from her head and to her neck instead. She's breathing him in and suddenly his heart erupts with a million emotions. He's falling in love more and more with every day, but here and now after everything, he realizes that he loves her to that infinite kind of level.

He feels her fingers combing through his curly hair back and forth. He has never told her how much he loves her running her fingers through his hair before. But he does because in a way it reminds him of his mother and the way his mother used to do that when he was a boy. There have been many in his regretful past that have done this very thing during moments of passion but for some reason with her, it's like coming home.

"Tony," she whispers into his ear this time and presses a kiss at his neck.

He catches the bend of her elbow in his hand and he slides his hand up her arm until he has the side of her face in his hand. He pulls back just to cast his eyes over her because he just can't get over the fact of how he could have lost her earlier. She's staring at him with her ocean blue eyes and smiling in that way she always does when she looks at him.

"I love you, Pepper," he says with his hoarse voice, "You know that right?"

The smile leaves her face as the atmosphere in the room suddenly changes from one degree to several degrees below. He hopes he hasn't said anything wrong.

"Tony, what's wrong?" she asks, her voice is full of question and she actually sounds worried.

He smiles and pulls her in for an embrace because he really just needs to feel her in his arms. He really wants to just keep her in his arms forever.

"I almost lost you today," he whispers to her as he buries his face in the crook of her neck.

He feels her relaxing into him and he feels the rumble in her chest before she says, "You mean, I almost lost you today right?"

"There was a moment when I held that missile in my hand and flew into that portal where I was willing to sacrifice myself for the city," he tells her.

"There's nothing wrong with that," she says softly to him.

"There is," he says immediately after.

Her silence urges him to continue even though he really doesn't know what to say that won't end up sounding extremely cheesy.

"Because I was willing to let you go," he barely manages to whisper audibly.

She gasps and whispers his name as she tightens her arms around him. He sighs when she slips her fingers into his hair again to comb through his scalp.

"Listen to me," she says into his ear, "You will never let me go. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because I won't let you."