Love is patient.

People think he's the hard one to live with. They see the crazy—and there's definitely a lot of that. But they don't understand that sometimes, the ones who are the least crazy on the outside have the most pain on the inside.

He's always loved her. Hopelessly he thinks, deeply he knows, endlessly he can't help.

She's Pepper. That's all there is to it. No matter how long it takes, he will wait for her.

Love is kind.

He used to think it was the grand gestures. Sometimes, he still does. He can't really understand why, but he's started to see something else, something different.

Pepper doesn't care about the diamonds or the houses. She cares—well, he's not sure what it is. He doesn't understand why the lightest touch of his hand earns him a kiss, or why, when it's late at night and he has machine oil streaked across his face, she wants nothing more than to wrap her arms around him.

She cares about the little things, he finally realizes.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

Tony Stark has an ego the size of New York. Everybody knows that. There's only one person he never fools.

People think he's addicted to the adulation, but really, there's only one addiction he can't shake. He's hooked on a pair of bright eyes and long legs and a voice that says no more times than he can count.

She knows him. That's the thing. You can't be proud around the one person who sees everything.

It does not dishonor others.

Promoting Pepper was the easiest decision he ever made. It was obvious, almost too obvious. He felt silly.

That's why he did it in his offhand, childish way. He couldn't bear to look—really look in her eyes and see amazement and gratitude. She didn't owe him anything.

He owed her everything.

It is not self-seeking.

He gives no thought to which of them he's going to protect. A thousand people might argue that he should have saved himself first, and Tony Stark would disagree with them a thousand times.

Love, when it's a love of years, is like instinct.

It is not easily angered.

Pepper Potts isn't a shy woman. Being told off by her—well, he's so used to it it's almost like breathing.

Sometimes people ask him why he doesn't put a stop to it. The woman works for him, after all. Doesn't she have a place to be, an office to stay in, a boundary she can't cross with him?

Tony Stark just blinks. You can't contain Pepper Potts any more than you can contain a hurricane. And why would you want to?

It keeps no record of wrongs.

Everyone sees his mistakes. He's always been one for the grand gestures, whether good or bad. His misdeeds make headlines.

Nobody sees how many times she's broken his heart. No one knows how hard he's tried to win her, to prove to her that the love he promises is more than words. They don't see the subtle refusal in her eyes.

Tony is glad. He wants the world to see Pepper Potts as a tower of strength. That's how he sees her. The rest—that will come in time. Every day is a new day, and Tony Stark never gives up.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

He sees through her as clearly as she sees through him. It's their unspoken agreement.

Their truth is a truth forged by years that contain two lonely lives that somehow intersected and knotted together, tighter and tighter, until neither can imagine pulling the strands apart.

She needs him as much as he needs her. He will never show her that he knows.

It always protects.

Tony Stark was never willing to die for anyone until he met Pepper Potts, but somehow, knowing her and loving her has changed him so much he hardly recognizes himself. Now, he risks his life without so much as a hesitation, because he knows how many things there are in this world worth dying for.

Through Pepper's eyes, he sees good as he never saw it before. If that's dangerous, so be it. He's ready.

Always trusts.

There's something Tony hasn't told anyone, not even Jarvis.

When the suit—the tinkering metal casing that stands between him and death—when it flies to his body, melds itself with him, he only ever has one thought.

Pepper Potts.

Pepper is the armor that shields him from the world. Her arms are the things that hold him up when he can't stand any more. Her face is the vision that fills his days with life. Metal is inanimate, cold, unfeeling., but she—she is armor made of love.

Always hopes.

Tony Stark is sure about things. Business empires rise and fall on his hunches. Careers flourish and perish on his opinions. But the one thing he never knew for sure was the one thing he wanted most.

Hope became reality. It was the best day of his life.

Always perseveres.

There is nothing he will not do for her, nowhere he will not go. That's why he puts on the most spectacular fireworks show in history, just for her.

After all, she saved him, and he's never one to be outdone.

Sometimes it's the grand gestures after all.