Short Drabble. I own nothing. Just pretty things...
Silent Lucidity
The man behind the mask, so hidden from the unrelenting view. No one saw the side that she did, no one knew the true Tony. Beneath her fingers lay the broken and battered skin of a man torn apart. The bruises and the scars were soft under her touch. He tried to remain strong, did not want her to see him cry, but it did not mean that she hadn't. She knew that with each stab of the needle, with every drop peroxide on his wounds, a single tear would drift down those tanned cheeks. And when she was finished, he would lean against her and that is how he would spend his night, tucked into the crook of her arm.
That was heaven to Pepper, how she wanted to spend each and everyday. Though she could have lived without the tears or the bruises, she loved having Tony in her embrace. Though him holding her was something she enjoyed, having him in her arms gave her a rush that she couldn't explain. It gave her a sense of completion and she would not have it any other way. But that's why she hated the same suit that saved her life time and time again. The red and gold coloration taunted her as she stared upon their heroic gleam. One wrong move and that suit could kill him. One wrong move and she'd be alone.
"Pep?" He looked up at her, his face stained with grease from the engine he was currently buried in. She smiled to him, as she always did, and said it was nothing but no one could deny that Virginia Pepper Potts' biggest fear was that Tony Stark would leave her, forever.