A/N So, something has bothered me every time I see The Avengers (and I've seen it enough times to randomly spout out quotes and confuse my friends). I've always thought that Tony should have at least left Pepper a message as he was flying with the nuke toward the wormhole. That's where this fic comes in. I thought, well what would happen if he did? What would he say? How would Pepper respond? This came out of those questions and some encouragement from donnag76 (who is a great Pepperoney writer if y'all haven't read any of her fanfics, you really should!).
So the plan I have for this story is for the prologue and the epilogue to take place after the events of the main story, so all of the real chapters are a sort of flashback. The whole thing is in Pepper's POV. I will try to update often, but I'm not sure how well that will work out.
A Promise Made
Prologue
Pepper sighed and snuggled closer to Tony's chest. By now she'd perfected sleeping without waking up with marks on her skin from Tony's arc reactor. It had made the first few mornings awkward (well, more awkward) when she'd wake up with semicircles on her forehead or neck.
But now she could ask for nothing more than to wake in Tony's arms every morning and fall asleep in them every night. She had liked to think that she had appreciated him before, but she hadn't known how much he meant until he was gone. It made her rethink some things.
Tony murmured in his sleep and pressed a kiss into her hair before dropping off once more. What was going to happen now? Everything is going to change. Tony might try to act the same, for her sake, but New York changed them both. Tony definitely isn't the same, and Pepper doesn't think she is, either.
She lifted her hand up to brush some stray hair from her eyes, marveling at the unfamiliar weight. She let her hand fall, gently resting on the smooth face of the arc reactor next to her face, her lips quirking into a small smile. She remembered how long it had taken her to reach the level of intimacy with Tony that she could bring herself to purposely touch the reactor, let alone casually touch it like this. No, maybe it wasn't New York that changed her; maybe it was Tony and their evolving relationship.
Pepper had never even dreamed of this level of intimacy with anyone, especially Tony Stark. But here she was, pressed up against him, completely secure in the knowledge that she was different than the others who'd been there before, that she'd get to be here tomorrow and the next day and the next. She couldn't ask for anything more, but it made her want to contemplate and figure out what exactly brought her to this state of bliss, what changed everything. So was it the Battle, or what came after?
A/N Did that make any sense? I'm trying to follow Pepper's train of thought, but I realized it might not be clear. Please let me know if you have any questions or didn't understand anything, so I can make it better. I've already started on Ch 1, so it should be up soon. Like I said, it will be a flashback in Pepper's POV. Please review and tell me what you think! Thanks for reading!