This is a short drabble piece from Pepper's POV. Please read and review. Sadly, and much to my regret, I do not own the Avengers.
Pepper Potts loved Anthony Stark with all her heart.
She'd known that for a very long time - and no doubt, with his expansive mind and ego, he knew it too and reciprocated.
But he had a reputation he was supposed to uphold - not that he cared one iota about that.
He thoroughly destroyed it on a semi-regular basis and ripped apart all of the expectations that were put on him whilst somehow still retaining his fragile reputation.
Pepper didn't know how he managed it. It was a talent of his - something almost unnatural, particularly in comparison to his usual non-existent people skills elsewhere.
But all of them who called him self-obsessed, egotistical, selfish, arrogant, self-centred, the Merchant of Death, none of them saw the real him - not even his team; Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov least of all. He didn't trust them not to betray him - the latest in a very long line of betrayals. But Pepper knew him - truly knew him - and knew that the selfishness had been an act for a long time, and whilst the arrogance was mostly real, it was built on years of contradictory advice from his parents about his worth.
Tony was so convinced he wasn't worth anything and she hated it with all her heart. Couldn't he see how many lives he'd changed? How many people he'd saved? Of course he couldn't - they only thing he could see was the blood on his hands and on his suit, reminding him of how much he had to make up for, how much he needed to make up for. He wasn't a superhero - not now, not ever. He thought he was a murderer masquerading as a hero, hiding behind the gold-titanium alloy mask.
She'd tried to change his mind but even she could only do so much, and the second Howard Stark was mentioned - at all - Tony automatically closed up like a clam. Since Afghanistan, and Iron Man, he'd started to let her closer. Before she'd been allowed to tell him when to come into the office (or when he should've turned up) and throw out women in the morning. Now she could tell him what to do with his emotions as well, because for the first time he was showing her them.
She was so proud of him.
And that pride never really went away, even when he got himself shot doing something stupid.
And wasn't that love? Loving someone no matter what stupid things they did - Tony's ideas admittedly more stupid than most.
She just wished that Tony hadn't paid the prices he had. He didn't deserve that - no one had the right to tell him what he did wrong anymore, not when he was trying so hard to fix it.
Pepper only hoped it would be enough.