So I wasn't going to do another chapter, but the combination of people's reviews, Iron Man 3, other people's stories and an overwhelming amount of feels made me cave in. Have some Pepperony fluff (with a tiny smidgeon of Clintasha at the end).

Love you lovely people :) Please review!

I don't own Avengers and all mistakes are mine, all mine and no you can't have any.

When Pepper woke up, she was on her own.

She rolled over onto her side, arm outstretched, searching for the warm body that had been next to her when she'd fallen asleep, but she came up with nothing and the space was cold.

Pepper sat up, panicking suddenly. Had she dreamt it all? Was Tony dead? Had he not come out of the portal?

'JARVIS, where's Tony?' Pepper said, voice shaking.

'He is in the workshop, Ms Potts,' the AI responded softly, reacting to the anxiety in her voice.

Pepper jumped out of bed and was just about to leave the room when she remembered that there were four other men that may not be impressed by their teammate's girlfriend wandering around the tower in her underwear. Grabbing her robe from the back of the door, Pepper snuck out into the corridor.

She bumped into a pyjama clad (if boxers and a t-shirt really counts as pyjamas) Avenger sat on the sofa in the living room, watching Doctor Who on silent with the subtitles on, the dark New York skyline twinkling in the darkness, the sight ruined by a space whale draped across a building and several dead alien corpses in the street below. The clean-up effort was on-going, especially since the Avengers had spent the majority of the day before either being debriefed by Fury, sleeping, or beating the shit out of each other in the gym.

'Morning,' the Avenger said, looking up at her as she walked in.

'It's the morning?' Pepper asked.

'3am,' Agent Barton responded, checking the watch. 'Is this early for you or are you looking for Tony?'

'Looking for Tony,' Pepper said sighing.

There was a twinkle in Clint's eye as he jerked his head towards the shop. 'Went down there a couple of hours ago after cracking a few bird jokes and walking into the coffee table a couple of times.'

'Thanks,' Pepper said, sighing. 'He's not very co-ordinated when he's just woken up.'

'I could tell,' Clint said laughing.

XxXxXxX

Tony was buried face first in the Iron Man suit when Pepper tapped in her code and silently slipped into the room. There was no obnoxiously loud music playing for once and the usually loud workshop was eerily quiet. There was only the occasionally clang of metal on metal as Tony reattached wires and tightened screws.

Tony was dressed only in the pyjama bottoms he'd gone to bed in, and his top half was covered in bruises. One bruise in particular caught Pepper's eye, it started at his midriff and trailed round to the base of his spine. Pepper padded softly barefoot over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, making him jump so high he banged his head on the metal insides of the suit.

'Sorry,' Pepper said, wincing in sympathy.

'Hey baby,' Tony said, rubbing the sore spot on his head.

'Why weren't you in bed?' Pepper asked softly, running her fingers through his hair and gently massaging the spot he'd banged.

'Couldn't sleep,' he responded, resting his forehead against her shoulder, wrapping one arm around her waist and closing his eyes.

'I thought I'd lost you,' Pepper said, cradling the back of his head and holding him tightly.

'Hmm,' Tony mumbled into her skin. 'You're not getting rid of me that easily.'

'Easily? If it was anyone else flying into a portal to the other end of space, holding a nuclear missile, running out of oxygen, then dropping hundreds of feet, that would have done the trick,' Pepper said dryly.

'Getting caught by the Hulk wasn't that great either,' Tony pointed out.

'I can see that,' Pepper said, tracing the black bruised skin around his stomach. 'I'm just glad he did.'

'Do you remember what I said to you when you told me to be careful the morning I left for Afghanistan?' Tony asked, pulling back so he could see her face and playing with the loose strands of her hair.

'You told me you wouldn't leave me widowed so young,' Pepper said, placing both hands on either side of his face.

'I wasn't joking then, I'm not joking now,' Tony told her, closing his eyes and pressing his lips against hers.

'You flew into a portal, I nearly lost you,' Pepper choked out, pushing him back, tears threatening on the corner of her eyes.

'No, no tears,' Tony said, frowning at her. 'I don't want you to cry.'

'I thought you were dead,' Pepper said, and her eyes were full of sadness. 'And now you're different, you jump at everything, you're constantly in your lab, and you keep forgetting to eat.'

There wasn't much Tony could say to that, so he pressed his body against hers and pressed their foreheads together. 'I'm not ready to leave you,' he said. 'But those things could come back, not just them either, something nastier and more dangerous than them. There are all kinds of monsters in Norse Mythology; Loki has three monster children to start with, lots of creatures seem to have a grudge against Earth, and Thor, and I can't… I don't want you to be in the middle of this… I'll do whatever I have to in order to keep you safe, Peps, I can't live without you.'

'Ssh, calm down,' Pepper said softly when Tony started to go into full-tilt panic-mode. She wrapped one hand in his hair and traced the bare skin of his bicep with the other. 'I'm not going anywhere; it's just me and you.'

Tony wrapped both arms around her waist and pulled her against him, kissing her fiercely. 'I love you baby,' he mumbled against her lips.

'I love you too,' Pepper said, pushing him against the table and straddling his hips, kissing him hard, pulling back guiltily when he made a small whimpering sound as one of the many bruised parts of his body came into contact with the hard edge of the table.

'No,' Tony mumbled, pulling her back to him and kissing her again, slower this time and more like their infamous first kiss on the rooftop, like he was determined to learn every curve of her body and pull every moan from her mouth.

Eventually, they broke apart and leant against each other, using the softness of each other's skin as pillows. Tony nuzzled against the soft skin of her neck and Pepper could feel him becoming a dead weight against her as he started to fall asleep.

'Back to bed,' she murmured in his ear, gathering him up in her arms.

'Hmmm,' was the response as Tony allowed himself to be led up the stairs.

There was no sign of the archer in the living room, though Pepper thought she spied movement in the air duct above their heads. She put it down to one of the cleaning robots clearing the dust; after all, Barton couldn't have gotten up there, right?

Once inside their bedroom, Tony flopped down onto the soft mattress and stopped moving, mouth half open, already drooling onto the pillows. Pepper shed her robe and curled around him, tucking the sheets up under their chins and keeping her arms tucked securely around him, breathing in his familiar, safe (and slightly tinged with motor oil) scent and listening to the soft sound of his breathing, the Arc pressed against her breasts, the soothing blue a welcoming light in the dark.

Like that, tucked against each other, they fell asleep to the sounds of the city below and Tony's soft snoring.

XxXxXxX

Two floors down, Clint Barton dropped lightly into Natasha Romanoff's room and made himself comfortable on her duvet, where the spy was watching Die Another Day and pointing out everything wrong that James Bond was doing.

'How's Tony?' she asked, budging over a little so her partner could have some (barely any) of her blanket.

'Pepper dragged him to bed; he looked like he would face-plant the floor if she wasn't holding him upright.'

'Sounds about right.'

'Why are you still awake?'

'Couldn't sleep.'

'Sounds about right.'

'Shut up, Clint.'

'Yes, Natasha.'

'You must be truly desperate, to come to me for help.'

'You should know that when you betray me, I will kill you.'

'When do we start?'

And on that bombshell...