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We’re going to be okay. You can rest now.
It takes all of Pepper’s strength to not go back on her words or doubt its authenticity. She couldn’t even allow herself to cry in front Tony as the light she grew too familiar with began to flicker into a fade. In these moments, after everything he has done, everything he has given, and sacrificed, he needs to know that he can rest. He needs to be assured that Morgan and she will be just fine — even if Pepper doubts she will be.
Yet as she prepares herself to get used to the dimming of his light, Steve Rogers, still ever ready to fight, gives orders that force her out of the dark.
Call Doctor Helen Cho, he commands
Tell her to get the Regeneration Cradle started up, he calls.
Get urgent care staff on standby too. Rhodey, — Rhodey, help me get him out of the suit.
Tony’s vacant eyes focus on Steve — the flicker of his heart struggles, but it stays lit. In the same air Tony used to whisper a quiet “Pep…”, he breathes Steve’s name as well. Gently, carefully. An ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘we won’ all at once.
“It’s alright, Tony,” Steve promises this time around. “You’ll be okay.”
A wave of regret and shame washes over Pepper.
How could she think her husband didn’t have any more fight in him?
***
Pepper was usually on top of multitasking — that was all she ever did for her job. Yet she couldn’t help herself from solely focusing on Tony, Tony, Tony, and, of course, Morgan.
It seems that the rest of the Avengers were also in between worrying for her husband and child ( caught in between worrying if they should get used to being a widow or wife, she joked ). If the Avengers weren’t asking about Tony, about how is or when he’ll wake up, they were looking after Morgan.
Happy was practically buying out every Burger King in New York.
Peter’s internship duties went from Spider-man-ing to Spider-man-ing and having tea parties with Morgan.
Thor opened his lap up to playing video games with the little Stark, and Rhodey made sure they kept it G rated
On days where news was on the verge of being good or bad when Morgan had too many questions about daddy for Pepper, Steve had taken to sitting with her outside the hospital room. They sit at the edge of their seats, first in silence, and then with stories. Morgan asks many questions about Captain America ( Tony, while ingenious about his suits, was less creative with his bedtime stories ) and Steve patiently answers. They play a game of real or not real, and her daughter is left satisfied that all the heroic parts of Cap — all the parts her husband could not bear to erase despite the hurt and betrayal — were true.
When Pepper watches them from the crack of the hospital door a second time, she finds Morgan rubbing her eyes, sleepy. Her tiny body burrows into Steve’s side and the Captain has no chance to say no. His big arms — still bruised and battered from the last battle — cushions her head as she power naps. How lucky was she, Pepper thinks, that so many people loved her husband so much to the point that their love overflowed to their daughter.
Morgan let out a small yawn before settling into her human bed. “I miss daddy...” she whispers under her breath.
Steve pauses— Pepper noticed. Lips press together and eyebrows furrow in deep concentration at the child’s words. He knows that feeling all too well.
He runs his fingers through her hair — gently, carefully. “Me too, kid...” he replies. “Me too...”
***
When Tony wakes up, he doesn’t ask for a cheeseburger.
Instead, he cradles Pepper’s face in his hands, running a thumb over a scar on her cheek left behind by the Rescue suit. He asks her if she is okay and it takes her 30 ‘I’m alright’s to convince him she is. After he asks if she’s okay, Tony does a headcount and asks about everyone else.
How’s Peter — is he okay?
What about Rhodey? Nebula?
And Morgan — god, where is she?
Pepper laughs and presses her lips onto his cut ones. She then fills him in on everything he missed — saving him, saving the world, and repairing it after they’ve all come back from the edge. It’s messy, she says, but easier...now that Tony has saved everyone.
“And Steve?” Tony inquires almost immediately after her story. “How is he?”
Pepper tucks a hair behind his ear and smiles. “Fixing the timelines or something. He’ll be back in a minute.” It takes Morgan and actual cheeseburgers to calm his anxieties and stop asking.
Later, she makes rounds to tell every Avenger ( so many, many Avengers ) that Tony is alive and awake. When she comes to knock on Sam and Bucky’s door, she catches Steve and Bucky in a deep embrace.
It almost looks like it’s only Bucky who is holding Steve together, yet there is a peace to Steve, an acceptance. Pepper catches three words that come out of the Captain’s mouth — "Peggy, she — I" —all before they catch her leaning by the doorframe. They all look at her watch.
She clears her throat. “Tony’s awake— just thought I’d let you guys know.” And then she adds something she hasn’t told anyone just yet: “You can go see him — he’s already annoying Morgan, so I’m sure he’s doing fine.”
Steve’s shoulders suddenly relax. That peace and acceptance on his face magnified a thousandfold. It takes all the strength and control in his body to not rush in, and Pepper knows that feeling all too well. Steve exhales before taking a step towards Tony, but before he is completely gone, he stops and turns to Pepper.
“Thank you,” he breathes.
Pepper smiles — truly, genuinely— and commands: “Go.”
***
Steve jokes that the 40s are finally catching up to him.
He says that his bones ache, the wrinkles on his forehead are getting more and more pronounced, and complains that Captain America is a role for someone much younger. Morgan violently disagrees, playing monkey bars on Uncle Steve’s still strong arms. Tony, on the other hand, says that he and Uncle Steve are long overdue a vacation — perhaps even retirement.
Pepper watches how passing on a mantle isn’t as easy as Steve or Tony hoped it would be. It isn’t simply handing the shield over to Sam or claiming there will no longer be an Iron Man. No, SHIELD is more persistent than that. They wanted to make sure that the next generation of Avengers was in good shape and in good hands, which meant constructing training regimens, supplying super suits, and trying to get Thor or Quill to give some sort of a contact number so Fury can sleep easy. After the fact, SHIELD tries to be generous and offer Steve a stipend for his contribution to the saving the world fiasco ( “the least they can damn do!” Tony, who has too much money, cries ). Yet with the wreckage of the Avengers HQ and SHIELD, the stipend is postponed and postponed and postponed, and Steve doesn’t have the heart to rush them.
“What will you do with the retirement money?” Her husband jokes one night. Steve is over for dinner and Morgan is starry-eyed at all of her heroes, even when they are passing her vegetables.
Steve shrugs. “Get an apartment in Brooklyn? Maybe then I could actually afford it. Get a home and try some of that quiet life you keep telling me to get.”
“So Captain Hardhead actually listens,” Tony quips — a smirk-smile growing on his face as he fondly looks at the other. Pepper shoots him a look, warning him not to make fun of the sentimentality for Brooklyn, a quiet life, and a home. Everything Tony needed and now had. Everything Tony Stark can offer once more.
She turns to the Captain. “Well, you’re welcomed to stay with us until that Brooklyn apartment is set up.”
“Can Uncle Steve stay with me? He can sleep next to my dolls — I promise I’ll clean up, mommy.”
“That’s kind of you, sweetie, but I think Uncle Steve needs more room than that. Plus, it gives your father an excuse to finally clean out that workshop and make room.”
***
Pepper doesn’t know whether it would be easier if her husband had just suddenly fallen out of love with her. He already gifted her with a daughter and 5 full years of undisrupted marriage, and that was more than she could ever ask of Tony. If his affections had shifted and were now directed towards Captain America, so be it. It would hurt, but so be it. Pepper has already been given more than enough.
But when Tony comes home after a day of wrangling up the new recruits with Steve in tow, he still rushes to her at the front door. He stills kisses her tenderly and holds her tight in her sleep as if he was too afraid to let go. Tony never gave her reason to doubt his love, and so why was she wondering this now?
Was it the sound of laughter and banter that followed her husband and his Captain when they came home?
Was it the way the smile lines on Tony’s face seem to be emphasized when he’s with him?
Was it the way Steve Rogers’ own expression softens when he looks at her husband?
Should she then blame Steve and his attraction ( which, by the way, is blatantly obvious, like a heart worn on a sleeve or a puppy waiting on his owner )? Pepper cannot bring herself to do so.
One, he is Captain America.
Two, Morgan worships him as much as she worships her father.
Three, Tony is at peace — rest — when they are alone, and that’s all Pepper could ask.
Four, Pepper just doesn’t hate Steve.
***
“Do you love Steve?” She asks her husband after she asks about what’s new with aluminum alloys. No tact, no segue at all.
( Pepper whispers — careful to make sure Steve doesn’t hear, not yet at least. He’s on bedtime duty. This is what he gets now he’s become Morgan’s new favorite storyteller. “Uncle Steve has pictures!” She claims and Tony feigns hurt. His shoulders, however, relax and there is a soft fondness in his eyes as he watches over the scene — his captain and daughter with a sketchpad on their laps. They design their version of Iron Man suits — the Morgan 5, she names, and Steve shades for lighting and dimension. )
Pepper’s heart pounds in her chest, yet oddly enough no anxiety settles over her. She simply looks at her husband and waits for an answer. Answers, Pepper decides, were a thousand times better than her many questions.
Tony, on the other hand, is caught unaware. His eyes are wide and his mouth hangs open. When something does come out, it’s an all too defensive “No”, and Pepper doubts that.
( He also turns red — an extremely ‘embarrassed teenager’ sort of red. )
“Tony, it’s alright. There’s nothing to be ashamed about.”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed about because it’s not true.”
“Tony.”
Her husband shrinks under the tone of her voice. That ‘don’t lie to me’ voice— that ‘I’ve known you for so long, of course, I can tell’ voice. Pepper’s hand falls on top of his, and she rubs comforting circles on his knuckles before giving them a tight squeeze. An ‘I’m here’ squeeze.
“It’s okay, Tony — I know.”
“But…” Tony tries to counter, “I love you.”
Pepper smiles before giving his hand another squeeze — tighter this time. “I know that too.”
At that acknowledgment, Tony sits back on his seat and began to sink. He crosses his arms in front of his chest — first in defense then later in defeat. In the ‘you’re right Pepper’ kind of defeat. Under his breath, Pepper could make out the faintest sound of the word ‘shit’ when he finally came face to face with the truth. Of course, she was right. She was always right.
Suddenly, there was a light in Tony’s eyes — excitement at the prospect of following his heart all over again. Pepper wondered whether this was the look her husband had on his face when he first handed Happy an engagement ring in 2008. It was certainly the look when he said they should name their daughter ‘Morgan’.
“But…isn't this selfish though? Unfair to you? T-to Morgan?” Tony tries to counter again, and Pepper tells him the truth she’s always known as well as the truth she’s come to realize:
“I also know that…the man I married has too much love in his heart to give to just one person.”
After bedtime duty, Steve comes down and Pepper pours out a bottle of wine. “For the adults,” she says as she hands one to the Captain. Steve begins to talk about Morgan's blooming talent and how it takes 10 sketches of Iron Man to get her to sleep. He mentions his experience in art school and the prospect of getting back to it now that he’s got time. Now that he can get that quiet life he thought he lost. Tony helplessly leans in and hangs on to every word. “You should,” he encourages with the hopes he can give him just that.
That night, Pepper falls asleep with Tony spooning her close, pressing kisses on her neck. At that moment there is only him and her, and that’s all she asks of him. That they still have moments like this amidst all the love he can give.
There is peace in her husband.
***
“Do you love Tony?”
There is panic in her husband when Steve announces that SHIELD has finally given his stipend. Thus, the hunt for the long-awaited Brooklyn apartment begins.
Tony accompanies Steve to supposedly find the best deal, but in the in-between, he finds himself panicking about how to ask Steve to move in with them instead. Maybe, Pepper suggests, he probably should ask Steve on a date first, but that only brought about a new set of anxieties. Tony hasn’t asked anyone on a date in a long, long time.
What was equally frustrating was the way the captain was also responding to all of this. While he was excited for his own place, his new life, he moves with a sluggish agency. He lingers on everything he packed as if it was the last time he’d ever see it — like he’d never see Morgan and her smile again, or the sunrise sitting on the lake outside when he went on his morning jog, or Tony’s long lower lashes, his oil-stained hands, and the crow's feet by his eyes.
“Do you love Tony, Steve…?” Pepper asks again.
Steve at least had the decency not to pretend that Pepper was making up things and that the attraction wasn’t real. Instead, Captain America blushes and bows his head down, averting his eyes from hers as if he’s done something wrong. He looked incredibly small.
“Pep…I don’t plan to cause trouble. I—I’ll leave as soon as I get a lease —“
“I didn’t say you were causing trouble or that I wanted you gone.”
“I don’t get—“
“Steve, he needs you. He needs more people who can say no to his face and love him all the same.” She says. “He needs someone to argue with and still call him home. He needs someone with shared life experience. But more importantly, Steve, he wants you.”
Steve’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. They sit alone in silence for a while as he tries to sort out what Pepper means and was trying to say. Every time he comes close to understanding the truth, Steve’s eyebrows furrow in deeper — more confused at what he should do and what Pepper was asking him to do.
Pepper caves. “You want him too,” she supplies, “and I’m not going to get in the way of you finding that quiet life — of you finding rest. If you find it in each other, then so be it. God knows you two deserve it. Just do me a favor and ask him now, Steve. It’ll save the three of us a lot of anxiety. Trust me.”
As if right on cue, a ruckus rocks the house. Morgan’s feet stomp on the ground, rushing to the refrigerator to frame her latest masterpiece. Tony’s quiet and tired laughter follows her to the kitchen as he assists his daughter in hanging her piece in the prime spot. This was the quiet life, Pepper thought. This was rest.
They sit alone in silence for a while again and let the scene and the ruckus play. When it dies down, Steves sits up, ready to take a stand, ready to make a move.
“Thank you,” he breathes.
Pepper smiles — truly, genuinely— then commands: “Go.”
And Steve, ever the good soldier, follows.
***
After the first date, Tony comes home and Pepper cuddles up to him. Her head on his chest, his arms around her. They talk about the date, they talk about Steve.
They talk like old friends about a clueless boy — a handsome boy with blue eyes, great manners, and a jawline that can cut.
They talk about the dinner table bickering that was forgiven when Steve finally took his hand in his.
They talk about how there is surely a second date and how Steve would be a fool to say no.
But more importantly, they talk as husband and wife with the same trust and love they vowed to give each other.
After the first date, Pepper falls asleep with no trouble and Tony falls asleep dreaming of Captain America.
***
It was inevitable that Steve would eventually move (back) in with them.
Pepper finally makes Tony clean out of his workshop ( or at least half of it ) to make room for Steve’s easels and paint sets. They also opt to buy a bigger bed that can hold both Captain America’s body and Tony’s sheet-stealing habits. Perhaps even house a Morgan who runs to their rooms when she has a nightmare or even a tired SI CEO who was ready to collapse on the bed and just go to sleep.
The house is loud, full, and overflowing with nothing but love.
This, Pepper firmly decides, is family. This is home. And they were going to be okay. They can rest now.