This isn't supposed to have a plot, or go in any particular order. Just read it and please, please review. There will be one more chapter, with Tony's view of Pepper.
Pepper
She never would tell him, but she didn't mind the grease. She always told him to look nice, be presentable, you have a company to run, but she somehow loved the grease on his fingers and in his hair, she loved the singed eyebrows and unquenchable gleam in his coffee-stained eyes. They were his passion and fierce dedication written down.
She loved the way he held her tight and made her anger evaporate even as she wanted to strangle him. Tony Stark had a heart, and Pepper knew its rhythm; her fingertips had it memorized. She knew his nightmares and his insecurities and had them all mapped out, and she knew how to comfort him. He was different around her than he was with anyone else, she saw it so clearly. He'd shown her his arc reactor, shown her his greatest weakness, and trust. He built trust on her shoulders, and she wasn't sure she could hold him up, but she was going to try.
He always blamed himself.
She wondered if he knew how he looked when he was working, brows drawn together, jaw tight and a faint smirk dancing on his lips, clever words waiting to dance out, hands sure. She never told him, because she thought he knew. He'd catch her watching, and his eyes would soften. He didn't laugh at her when this happened.
She hated his suits and loved them. They were beautiful and incredibly crafted and Tony's obsession. He spent all night down in his lab building them while she slept alone. There were few sights more precious to her, though, than the red and gold flash of Tony out flying on a sunny morning just because he could. He treated her with the same care and precision and attention as he did his work, but with her his eyes were tender and mischievous and he made fun of her, he said and did stupid things because that was him, and she hated him and held him and consoled him. He was hers, after all, and that was her job. She was terrified for him every time he fought, frightened that someone else would come back instead of him and tell her what she never wanted to hear and shatter her.
She loved the calluses on his fingers and hands, knew them as well as she knew her own. She loved the warm brown brightness of his eyes and the ridged scars on his chest and the tiny smirk he had on his face when he actually managed to sleep. Sometimes she even loved the way he frightened her when he fought and her heartbeat pounded until it was all she could hear. She didn't know how she'd come to love his cockiness and smirking and swearing and grease stains, but she had, and she didn't know what she'd do if he changed, if he left. If he died. So she hated his suits and made him coffee in the morning when he came upstairs, eyes bloodshot from working on them night. That's the funny thing about love. It's not always a simple thing. And loving Tony Stark was the most complicated thing Pepper had ever done. Not that she minded.