All of a sudden he heard the sound of the door opening behind him. He didn't turn around to see who it was. He didn't care. All he cared about was that someone had missed him. That someone had been happy to know he was going to be okay. When there wasn't any movement from behind him he turned around slowly, regretfully removing his eyes from the screen.
His breath caught in his throat when he saw who was standing there. There was Pepper Potts clad in her usual work outfit. He looked her over realizing just then that she always wore the same thing. He started at her feet and worked his way up to her face. But when he looked at her eyes they weren't looking at him. They were looking at the screen behind him that held the frozen picture of her on her knees, crying.
"Pepper…" he said softly. She turned to him with a look of sadness in her eyes. "You really missed me." He said a small smile caressing his face, making her heart flutter.
She slowly nodded as her face flushed from embarrassment. She looked down at her shoes and tried to think of something to say. "I just- I…" she tried to say something to excuse the way she looked in the picture. "Tony, listen I wasn't feeling very good and I'd had a pretty bad day already and-"
"You really missed me." He interrupted her. And then in one swift motion, he moved across the room and had his arms around her small waist, smiling blissfully. At first Pepper froze and then tentatively moved her arms to wrap around his neck.
He pulled back and looked at her.
"God, Tony." She whispered. "How many times do I have to tell you? Of course I missed you." She concluded more for herself then for him. It was the first time she'd aloud herself to think about how much she cared for the man standing in front of her.
He just stared at her. She really was beautiful he thought. He didn't know how to respond to that so he did what felt right to him. He wrapped her in a hug again. This time they stayed in that position longer than they had the first time.
When they finally pulled back, she smiled up at him and in that moment everything was perfect. Everything was forgotten. All the emails she had yet to read all the stuff she had to do, because for the first time in a long time Pepper Potts had something to live for, or rather, someone.
Pepper was more content then she had been in years and she realized with a start that she could really get used to the feeling.