Hooray! My first Avenger's Fic! WHOO! So my love of the Avengers goes to my sister and my love of Iron Man and all related topics is thanks to Apple and the fact that it was the only movie I could afford when I was bored in my dorm one weekend. So I have read a bunch of fics that try to address Pepper and Tony after the movie concerning the events of the movie, but I'm picky and wanted to see how well I could do. So here is that attempt. Thanks to my sister for helping me with this, the people who made the Shawarma I tried for the first time today which inspired me to finish this, my boyfriend for tolerating my major obsession with Iron Man that he will never understand, and to those who review to tell me what to work on. I want to write more Avengers fics but won't unless I hear from you.

To the Avengers: I do not own you. I do not wish to own you… okay, I wish to own an arc reactor. OTHERWISE I'll just leave the heroics to you.

Pepper took a deep breath as she walked up to Stark Tower, or at least what was left of it. She had seen the news footage. It was hard not to have seen the tapes to be honest. They were everywhere really. She had of course silently prayed that Tony was okay, that the suit did as it was supposed to and that it kept him safe. And it had worked… that is until she saw the missed call. He only ever called her when he was Iron Man if something was wrong… or could go wrong. But she had talked herself down. Again, she was fine and kept telling herself that he was alive and well.

Then she saw the footage of him going through the portal and her heart had stopped. He had talked about equipping the suit for in space flight, but she was under the impression that he hadn't quite figured it out yet. She had tried to tell herself that it was possible he had done it really recently and maybe her knowledge was incomplete or something.

But then she saw him falling from the sky. Pepper could feel her heart breaking as she watched his unresponsive body fall through the air. She closed her eyes and tried to block it all out, until she heard a flight attendant yell "oh thank god". Pepper had opened her eyes and saw him on the ground. The reporters were shouting "he made it" into their microphones as their emotions took the best of them.

She had called him of course as soon as she got off of the plane.

"Pepper, I'm okay." He had answered the phone.

"How badly are you scratched up?" she asked, cutting right to it. "There's no way you are perfectly fine after that adventure."

"I'm going to be sore tomorrow. And the suit needs a ton of repairs. But other than some cuts and bruises I'm fine."

"Will you be okay without me for a couple of days? I'll come home as soon as I can. But you're okay for a couple of days, right?"

"Yeah, I'll manage," he had said. She could practically hear the snarky smile on his face. That helped her to breathe easier. He really was okay.

"Would that be all Mr. Stark?"

"Technically you called me so I'm not sure why you are asking me. But yes, that would be all Ms. Potts"

The week went by painfully slowly. He had called her daily with some excuse "Where do you keep the Clorox wipes?" or "what is the best dry cleaner close by?". She knew that he was using it as an excuse to make sure she was okay but also to help her feel better about not being there to make sure he was okay.

But now that she was standing in front of the tower, she was shocked. The place still appeared as if it hadn't been touched in terms of repairs. She shouldn't have been shocked, if the suit had needed as many repairs as it seemed it needed, then it was likely he had been focused on that and nothing else.

Pepper walked through the building to the elevator. She got on and punched in the number for the pent house. The elevator started to move and the automated voice came on "Welcome home, Ms. Potts."

"Thank you JARVIS," she replied as the elevator beeped, announcing her arrival on the penthouse floor.

She walked out and saw him across the room. He was standing at the bar, in all of its now chipped and cracked glory, with a coffee cup and tablet in his hand. His back was to her but she could tell from his hunched stance that he was tired. Probably from lack of sleep again, or perhaps another mission she didn't know about yet.

Pepper decided that there was no need to rush into conversation. Besides, what was she supposed to say to him? "Glad to see you didn't kill yourself this time"? To allow herself time to think about how best to proceed, she walked over to the couch and piled her bags by the end of it. She turned around and was not surprised to see that the multi-millionaire didn't seem bothered by her arrival at all.

She walked over to him by the bar, her heels clicking on the floor as she went. Pepper walked around the bar so that she could see what was holding the man's attention. It looked to Pepper as if it was blue prints for some new building design, but she could never be sure with him.

"I assure you, this isn't that interesting" Tony Stark finally said.

"Looking to fix this place up I hope," she asked knowing fully well that that wasn't the case.

"More like looking for plans for that place in DC we were talking about before you left" answered Tony as he closed the program. "We can't go putting things off now can we? Seize the day…and… what not"

"Why? Suddenly concerned with getting things accomplished before you end up dead again?" Pepper shot with a raise of an eyebrow. Then her eyes grew wide as she remembered what had caused the last spell of random heroics and situations that were more than slightly dangerous. "You aren't dy-"

Mr. Stark interrupted her, "No! No, I'm not dying… well, not more than anyone else I guess."

"Well, you do seem to find yourself in more life threatening situations than the average person."

"Goes with the territory. You know, of being a hero and all…"

"I thought you had denied the whole 'hero' thing."

"I think after flying through a portal with a nuke on my back I might have a right to…"

"You mean after you almost died! AGAIN! Dying isn't heroism Tony!"

Silence filled the room. His snarky comments had been squelched by her frustration. She glared at him, upset that he didn't seem to understand it. She needed him as much as he needed her. Maybe she even needed him more. It was hard to tell.

"Pep, I never said it was…" Tony tried to reason as he walked around the bar to her side.

"Why did you call?" Pepper turned, "Why did you call me?"

"You know why." Tony said as he tried to get a read on the woman. "I wanted to tell you I cared about you and I was sorry that things were… are hard for you. I wanted to tell you that it was my call and no matter what happened I was okay with it."

Pepper began to tear up and worked hard to hold them back, "You called to tell me that you wanted to die? Is that it? Are you suicidal?"

"No, no, no," back peddled Tony, "That's not what I meant. I meant that I had wanted to be happy…"

"Happy? So you called me to help you feel at peace with what you were doing? So help me, I need… "

"Pepper!" Tony Stark grabbed her arms, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "Can I finish a thought here?" Pepper nodded in agreement, shocked by the sudden contact. "I called, because I wanted you to be there. You are always there when I need you and I had just wanted to hear your voice.

"You have every right to be mad at me. Flying through a portal into space with an armed nuclear missile was a risky move and no one could help me out of that."

Pepper pushed back against him, breaking away. She looked at his face and could see the truth from his words in his brown, tired eyes. She turned away from him, trying to keep her tears from getting the best of her. He stood there and just watched her, not wanting to make the wrong move and upset her even more.

"I left for DC thinking that it would ultimately be the best way to keep you safe. I thought that that way I wouldn't distract you once you decided to get involved," Pepper said. "I should have been the last thing on your mind while you were fighting those… things."

"Now that, my Dear Pepper Potts, doesn't make sense."

She turned again to confront him only to find him leaning lazily up against the bar, "I don't understand…"

Tony jokingly rolled his eyes, "Well think about it. If you had been here, then you would have been able to prevent me from going on that mission, so to speak."

"Okay" Pepper responded slowly, not sure where the genius was taking this train of thought.

"But of course, if I hadn't gone, then the entire city of Manhattan would be demolished, but at least I wouldn't have been a part of the fight. You could take pride in that. Well, for the fraction of a second you were still alive that is."

"I…"

"Then I would be dead anyway. But hey, at least it wouldn't have been from my own 'stupidity' as you called it. Oh, and a million people would be dead too, can't forget them." He looked down towards the floor, looking at the arc reactor's glow through his shirt. Pepper knew he was thinking something that she knew he didn't want to share openly but she had no idea what. Tony mumbled something so that Pepper could just barely hear it. She played it back a few times in her head until she finally found out what he had said: "You'd be dead in that scenario too."

Pepper stood there and looked at her feet, not quite sure how to respond. He was right of course. She had learned that over time, the great Tony Stark always had reasons for the choices he made, even though they were not always obvious to other people at the time. She was no exception. True, over the years she had learned much about the man: he liked late nights and early morning. He took his coffee black and his other drinks alcoholic. He believed that the world was full of answers, if only you knew where to look. And even though she understood him better than most, she still couldn't read his mind.

Tony grabbed her by the waist and pulled her in to him. He wrapped his arms around her and just stood there giving her a hug. Pepper relaxed into him, returning the embrace. "Welcome home."

Pepper responded with a small smile, "It's good to be back."

"Things have been a mess since you haven't been here," Tony smiled.

"Like what?"

"Well, I don't know if you have noticed, but someone has completely trashed this place."

"I have noticed," Pepper said. "I figured you can tell me in the morning what all needs to be fixed and I'll get people on it. It shouldn't take too terribly long to fix it all up to new again."

"Sounds like a plan," Tony said.

Pepper thought about how she had left things and that lead to thought about Phil. She hadn't heard from him since she had last seen him when he dropped her off at the airport. "So how is Agent Coulson? Did he enjoy your little performance?"

Tony grew silent and Pepper felt his body tense up for a minute as he pulled her in tighter for a moment. He then pulled back and brown eyes met green. She realized his eyes were full of regret, a look she hadn't seen in a long time. "We can talk about that later. What's important is that you are home."

"Sir," JARVIS beeped in. "Doctor Banner requests your presence downstairs in lab 7. He says that he needs help with getting through SHEILD's firewall."

"Doctor Banner?" Pepper asked.

"Yeah, tell him I am on my way," Tony said as he pulled away from Pepper.

"Who is Doctor Banner? And why does he want to get through a fire wall? That's illegal isn't it?"

"You would know him as The Hulk," Tony answered. "He's a friend."

Pepper looked doubtfully "Friend? You have a friend…"

"Yes,!" Tony teased. "Even though the Star-Spangled Tight-Wearing Grandpa might say otherwise, I can make friends."

"I don't know who you are talking about and that's okay for right now." Pepper said with a smile. "How about I make some early-morning-waffles and bring them down to you two?"

Tony beamed and kissed Pepper on the head as he passed her to grab two new cups of coffee, "That sounds wonderful."

Pepper turned and watched as the brilliant inventor walked to the elevator, a new spring in his step it seemed. She smiled, glad to see that he was very much okay after all of that chaos.

Before she could stop herself, she asked "Will that be all Mr. Stark?"

The elevator opened and Tony walked into it. He turned around and gave her a dazzling smile that had caused thousands of women to fall for the man, "That would be all Ms. Potts."

Ta-da! That's all there is so don't go sending me a request to write more of this fic. HOWEVER, feel free and encouraged to write to me to say that I should write more Avengers (and if you have ideas let me know). Please REVIEW and tell me how I did. I love you all!... although not as much as I like Tony Stark… but he's with Pepper so its okay.

EDIT: so after I posted this, it was suggested that i turn this into a fic where Pepper meets all of the Avengers... and that sounds like too much fun for me to pass up. So I shall work on it! I LOVE YOU UNIVERSE!