Tony wiped his stained hands on a rag laying on the bench and a shot a question at his AI.
"Estimated finish time, JARVIS?"
"Approximately 2 and a half hour till construction work is finished on the Mark VI, sir."
"Right, put in X-Men: First Class. Lock up shop, JARVIS, I'm turning in tonight."
Bounding up the staircase, Tony stopped short to view the sunset illuminate Malibu and then slip below the horizon. Just before all light vanished from the shores of the ocean, he could still see a lone woman walking along the shoreline.
"JARVIS, who's the lady just on the shore."
"I believe that would be your assistant."
It took Tony some seconds before seemingly arriving at a decision.
"Right, cancel the movie I'll be down at the shore if anything comes up."
"And should I be prepared by any chance for Ms Potts quitting in the morning?"
"Shut up JARVIS."
Tony had skipped five meetings scheduled today, and even he had to ruefully acknowledge, that it may have been a record. Even if it wasn't, Pepper wasn't entirely ready to forgive him yet. It wasn't as if the meetings were that long.
"Still not over that?" Tony's question poked a hole in the middle of the calm.
Pepper jumped, splashing water from the shore. She must have thought out loud.
"Gods, Tony! Don't ever, ever do that again."
"But seriously, Potts, the meetings weren't important, were they?" The last two words tacked on carefully.
"No, meeting the US Secretary of Defense wasn't important as re-painting the Hot Rod, for about the fiftieth time."
"Is it the guy with a nervous twitch every time he sees me? Or the guy who tried to flirt with you the last time? Either way, I don't like him. Come on Pep, yo-"
"Sometimes I don't like you, does that mean I'm entitled to walk away from my job whenever I feel like it?"
Before Tony could think of a reasonable response, the audience he received was just Pepper's silhouette.
"Hey!"
This time, Tony's voice was no longer playful.
"Do you really sometimes hate me?"
"I don't know, Tony. You unload all this crap I have to deal with, and today of all days, but- "
Tony frowned. "What's up with today?"
"-sometimes you're-. Never mind. "
"No really, Potts, what's up with today?"
"Leave it, Stark."
"Come on, it's making you nasty, I can't have a personal assistant who's not pulling her energy into scheduling my life."
"That's it! Everything is about you, isn't it? You want to save the world, be the hero in a cape, but you don't really give a damn about anyone else do you?"
"Pep-"
"No, Tony, you don't get to know why I'm upset. I've been with you for the entire working day, and you haven't noticed a thing."
"Yeah, but in my defence, I was working on the Hot Rod."
There was a silence, as Tony tried to work out what went wrong, and as Pepper stared at him in anger.
"Forget it, you don't get it." Pepper started to jog further along the beach. Tony caught up in a few moments; Iron Man came with a few benefits.
He pulled on Pepper's wrist.
"Get off, Tony!"
"Not until I've finished. Look, I'm not the best at keeping appointments, I probably get too involved in the shop, but I kill myself if I didn't know what you're worth to me, Pep."
"Let go."
"I want to find out about you, every inch of you, wait, don't comment on that. I know next to nothing about you, and it tears me apart, because you think I don't care. I care, Pepper. When I forget your birthday, and you tell me it doesn't matter, but I know it should. I should be able to remember a little date, and every damn time, I tell JARVIS to keep the date, Rhodey to remind me, until he falls on his ass laughing. But it hurts every time I forget, because I care."
Tony didn't dare to look into the wide, blue eyes, but he knew he owed it to Pepper. The tears that ran down her cheeks, scared him.
"Don't cry, Pepper."
"Dan, my brother, called to say that mum had died straight after lunch. He told me she'd died peacefully, so I didn't need to worry."
"Pepper, if you don't want to tell me, please don't." Pepper ignored him, and the tears kept soaking Tony's shirt.
"It wasn't that, it was that I wasn't there to help her, to do anything for her, and I can't do it for her again. That's the second person I've left alone when they needed me. Her and you, Tony."
"Hey, don't blame yourself."
"But I did, because I'd been with you for years, but during those three months, you needed me more than when you had hangovers, and I wasn't there. When Rhodey called at 3 am, I finally realised I needed you more than you need me."
The sun had truly set by then, but the stars glowed just as bright and fiercer just to prove they were alive.
"I'll never leave you." Tony whispered it, and was never sure if she heard him as there was no answer.
So Tony pulled her in his arms and just sat there, where the waves kept coming to kiss their feet.
She might not be his yet, but the moment was theirs.