Sleep, Pepper realised, was something that she had come to appreciate. Before her relationship with Tony – something that still seemed slightly astronomical in possibilities – sleep had been something she had never valued. Sure, it was nice to curl up bed with the blankets wrapped around her shoulders and drift off to a calm sense of unconsciousness, but there was something about it that had never appealed to her in the first place. As a child, her parents had thought little of soothing her to sleep when she was scared – her mum attempted too but her father insisted she needed to learn the ways of in-dependency he did, by being left alone at a young age.

This may have been one of the reasons why she was scared of the dark. Not the general darkness itself, but the knowledge that there may be things in it. It was a silly notion to believe as most days she seemed to be sat in twilight, waiting for Tony to get back from a mission, knowing deep in the pit of her stomach that there would be some type of cut or abrasion to tend to.

When Tony Stark first attained the Iron Man suit, the wounds he had received were extensive and looked unbelievably painful. It turned out after her poking, prodding and attending too - they were vicious, stinging ones that ached like a bitch. Afterwards, she would go home, curl up in bed and wish heavily that she could be there for him for the nightmares that plagued his mind night after night like a wasp drawn to a jam jar. It seemed that Tony didn't appreciate the sentiment of sleep either – she would often find him passed out on his desk in the workshop with pupils so dark and exhausted they could have beaten Sylvester Stilone's heavily set eyes. Frequently, he would often murmur something incomprehensible as she gently shook him awake, a sign of a restless night. Once, he woke up still in the nightmare, eyes as wide as a child's and full of all the fright one associates with a night terror.

That morning she sat with him in her arms, soothing him back into sleep before passing out herself.

Now, she supposed she valued sleep so much because she simply had someone to share it with. As clichéd as it sounded, sharing the essential need of slumber was something she'd never thought would help her relax herself. But this someone was not just anyone. This someone was Tony. Sure, she'd slept with men before, but each and every time it felt awkward and stiff, like they were not meant to be together.

However, the first time she and Tony had slept together it had been purely unintentional. Having invited Rhodey round for a movie night, both Pepper and Tony had fallen asleep before they'd reached the middle of the film and Rhodey, being the lovely chum he was, had snapped a picture. As she looked back at it, she could realise how much of an effect Tony had just had on her unconscious body language – when he slept he needed to be reassured, something picked up from his ordeal in Afghanistan. Being in a cave for three months with someone eventually had its effect on you. Whether it just be someone in the room or even in the house, he liked to know that someone familiar was within walking distance so that he could talk to them. Pepper had been the polar opposite, preferring to sleep by herself to wallow in the coolness of the sheets. She'd never been a big fan of heat.

And yet there she had been, curled around Tony like a cat to a radiator. Seeming as the arc reactor generated enough energy to power Tony for seventeen lifetimes since the new element had been put in; it also gave off lots of excess heat into the genius's body. This was why in the middle of a cold spell in New York, he could be seen walking around in jeans and a short sleeved t-shirt. Pepper was almost instinctively drawn to this warmth, like a moth to a light source although she didn't know why.

But now, curled up to Tony Stark and breathing in his undeniably masculine scent of male pheromones, sandalwood shampoo and that spicy scent that she can't quite pinpoint, she agrees wholeheartedly that sleep is certainly a necessity she can't afford to miss from now own. The fear of the dark is vanquished, purely by the soft blue light of the arc reactor; her own personal nightlight Tony had once joked. Splaying her hand over the gentle source of warmth and energy, Pepper glanced up at Tony who seemed to be half awake and half asleep, staring at her bathed in the glow of one of his most wonderful creations. With disheveled hair, dark, sleepy brown eyes and a smile that made shivers run up and down her spine he seemed to study her.

"You're thinking," he murmurs slowly, voice rough and low. She smiled and wiggled her left leg that was currently trapped underneath Tony's – he'd thrown one heavy leg over hers to stop her from moving. It's both limiting and yet adorable – his need for human contact quenched by the skin-to-skin time with his girlfriend.

"Mm,"

"Nightlight?" he asked curiously, twitching one eyebrow up. He's ready to fall asleep again but stays awake for her sake. She reached up and ran a hand over his cheek, the familiar roughness of the facial hair oddly reassuring to her fingertips.

"Don't worry. Just go back to sleep," she advises. His face moulds into that of a pout, a face she's come to both love and hate because of its cuteness.

"But-"

"Tony," Pepper warns, fixing him with a stare he knows all too well. He sighed, buried his head into his pillow and closed his eyes again, smiling as Pepper rolled over and wriggled backwards to spoon into him. Wrapping one arm around her waist he fell back asleep, not knowing that it's because of him that Pepper is able to sleep at night.

She smiles as she feels him relax behind her and shifts further into his warm, softly scented embrace. Sleep is good, Pepper decides.

Sleep is wonderful.

Kermit:

Wow. I actually gave you something that was completed. Urm. I'm just gonna leave this here and hope you like it ...

All mistakes are my own.

PEPPERONY WOOT.

x