Wow it feels good to be back! It's been far too long and I've missed you all!

All the usual disclaimers of course, I don't own any characters etc...but I do love to borrow them from time to time.

So this piece is once again based on The Extremis...only because it's still, to this day, my favorite of the Iron Man comics. So it's a little mix of the few Iron Man comics I've read recently, most recent being The Dark Reign series.

Let me know how you all find it, and please be gentle, haven't been back for a long time :P

Tony Stark sucked in a deep breath and looked at the woman standing before him.

Her crystal eyes glistened with unshed tears as she looked at him silently, patiently, waiting for anything but the lie which he was about to tell.

'I'm ok,' he murmured taking her hands into his.

Pepper knew he was lying but she nodded just the same willing herself to believe it because what else did she have?

'I'll be home soon,' he added planting a kiss on her forehead, 'don't wait up.'

And with that he assembled the suit around himself and took off through the window leading up and outside into the cold, dark night leaving Pepper to her thoughts.

'Jarvis?' Pepper called with a heavy heart, she sat down on the edge of their bed and averted her gaze from the tiny droplets of crimson which she had definitely noticed.

'Yes Miss Potts.' He replied as he always had.

She swallowed hard and looked down at the floor, 'is…is Tony ok?'

The reply didn't come quickly and that was almost all she needed, she knew Jarvis wouldn't say anything Tony had instructed him not to.

'Mr Stark is currently experiencing some complications, but he is on the road to recovery.' Jarvis finally said.

'Thank you,' she breathed still unconvinced.

Two Days Later

'I know you think that taking this virus was a good idea, but Tony, it really wasn't,' she all but shouted.

Tony stood maybe four or five feet away from her but she could still make out the dark circles under his eyes and the red rims surrounding his irises.

'You saw what it did to me Tony, you saw the pain and instability, what were you thinking?' Now she was shouting and Tony stood back at a safe distance.

He didn't need to be a genius to know that the instability of the virus was the deadliest part and that the warmth slowly building under his skin and creeping in through his eyes was a warning sign. But he was a genius and now even more so.

Everything was heightened, beyond his comprehension, almost to a point where he himself didn't understand what he was going through, what he was capable of.

He swallowed hard and took a step toward her.

'You need to trust me,' he began softly to which Pepper replied by angrily slapping him.

'Don't you dare,' she hissed, 'you did the one thing that you know almost killed me, killed us!'

Damn. She was right. One point to Pepper.

'I needed to,' he simply said.

Pepper almost choked on a cough, 'seriously?'

He remained silent. He knew when he needed to keep his mouth shut.

'That's all you've got, seriously?' She shrieked, 'because you needed to, why Tony, to be smarter, better? Why?'

'Pep please….' He tried to take her hand into his to no avail.

She was definitely pissed. Shit.

'You are insane,' she finally bit stepping away from him.

The red glow burning deep within his eyes, somewhere deep in the darkness of his core, was so unfamiliar it frightened her. He frightened her.

He quickly looked away and muttered an almost inaudible apology before turning away and leaving her in almost a single stride.

Later that day

Pepper leaned on the edge of her desk and looked across the room at Maria Hill. The two women, at the present time were responsible for running two of the most important organizations in the world headed by the most brilliant man in the world. At this present time both Maria Hill and Pepper Potts were completely and utterly devoted to representing the best interests of Tony Stark.

'Did you know?' Pepper asked finally, knowing without any doubt she had much more clearance over Hill than she did of her, especially when it came to Tony and Stark Industries.

Before she replied she looked at her with the same fierceness in her eyes. 'Yes, I did.'

'And you thought it best to hide this why?' Pepper asked suddenly not caring about formalities.

'Because he requested it be kept that way,' she replied.

'Even if it meant going against your job to keep him safe?' Pepper asked incredulously.

This time Hill stepped toward her, 'yes, because now he is safe.'

Pepper stood her ground and thought about the words which just came out of her mouth.

'What do you mean "now" he's safe?' She narrowed her eyes.

'That is something I can't discuss, I'm sorry Miss Potts.' She added finally, 'excuse me, I have work to do.'

'Maria,' Pepper called, quickly getting to her feet, 'please.'

A moment of silence fell between the women and the energy in the room shifted dramatically. No longer was Pepper the angry CEO and Hill the defensive Agent of SHIELD, they were both just women looking after the same man, on two completely different levels.

'Please, I need to know, what's happening to him?' Pepper asked so quietly she surprised herself, she'd never been one to plead to anyone, but this was different. This was about Tony and he always managed to bring out this Pepper Potts. He always had that effect.

'Pepper…' Maria turned to look back at her, 'I can't.'

'You can, please,' she whispered, 'this affects both of us.'

'I'm not sure how he'd-'

Pepper cut her off, 'if anything happened to him and I didn't know about it, Maria, I don't know how I'd be able to fix that, I need to know if there's anything affecting him which could affect the company.' That was a low blow. She hated herself for making this out to be the sole reason she wanted to know Tony's deepest secret.

Maria stood with her arms folded tightly across her chest, watching and reading Pepper and her demeanour. She was one of the best Agents SHIELD had to offer and a lot of that now was used to run SHIELD under Stark's lead. She knew she would be betraying him, but the other side to that coin was that if she didn't tell, she would be betraying her job to protect his best interests, and his best interests were his health, his company and Pepper. And Pepper needed to know.

'You should sit down.' She said to Pepper doing the same.

A quick nod was all Pepper replied with as she sat down in her chair and motioned for Hill to speak.

'Tony didn't take the Extremis because he wanted to,' she began, already feeling guilty for doing this. 'He took it because he needed to, you have to understand that before I continue.'

Pepper looked on quizzically but nodded.

'A few months ago, after the threat to you was neutralised we kept the virus in a safe location as requested by Tony, he knew that destroying it would be a mistake as would keeping it. So he neutralised it, de-weaponized it and stored it.'

Dozens of scenarios raced through Pepper's head, why would he need the Extremis, what on earth would he possibly use it for? She knew he wouldn't use it as a weapon, they were done with that. He said so himself, after Afghanistan after Iron Man, all of that had changed. So why would he keep it?

'At first he didn't want anything to do with it, especially after what Maya and Killian did to you, but he decided he needed it, he wanted to work on it, extract the regenerative sequencing it provided and fix himself…' Hill paused waiting for Pepper to catch up.

'Go on.' Pepper nodded.

'So he found a way to implement the healing properties enough so that it would allow him a safe way to remove the arc reactor.'

'That's why he was able to remove it, after so many years…' Pepper whispered to herself, finally piecing everything together in her head.

Hill nodded and got up, she began to pace around the office looking out across the crystalline blue skies.

'A few weeks after that we got word that someone else, someone more dangerous had access to the same virus and was activated after Maya and all of her research was destroyed,' she paused to look at Pepper who had turned two shades whiter than what she usually was.

'He was another soldier, Rick Snow, another experiment…' she trailed off looking at Pepper.

'Needless to say we were unprepared,' Hill choked back a sarcastic laugh, 'hilariously unprepared.'

Pepper swallowed hard and looked on waiting for her to finish, suddenly not certain she wanted to know what she was telling her.

'The reports were alarming, soon we knew enough to track him, once we did we were faced with a decision, go in and probably die but stop him, or wait and let Snow destroy half the city. Tony decided then and there that we couldn't risk any more lives, so he, Natasha and Steve went in, again, we were completely unprepared.'

Hill stopped and closed her eyes recalling the images of that day.

'Tony ordered them out, pretty much had them forcefully removed by the Iron Legion and he stayed taking him on,' she opened her eyes and let out a sigh. 'He was successful, he killed Snow and stopped the threat, but not without a huge sacrifice.'

'What happened?' Pepper whispered almost wishing she didn't.

'Snow was strong, he did a lot of damage to the suit and to Tony, once we finally got released from his Iron Legion we weren't prepared for what we saw, he was hanging on to life by a thread, Jarvis had of course medicated him with morphine as soon as it happened but the extent of the damage wasn't known until we flew him back to base.'

Pepper's heart was racing and through tears she motioned for Hill to go on.

'Snow had broken Tony's back, shattered his spine in four separate locations as well as his right arm and leg, the doctors told us that if he made it, he would be paralysed from the chest down, if the damage didn't spread during the surgery.'

A shaky sigh left Pepper's lips to which she quickly responded by covering her mouth with her hands, as if that would stop the emotions from pouring out.

Hill sat down and looked Pepper in the eyes, 'he pulled through, barely,' she shook her head looking away, 'he refused to speak to any of us, not even the doctors, so I did the only thing I knew, I gave him work, research, anything to get his mind off what had happened.'

'You gave him the Extremis…' Pepper knew the answer without Hill needing to say anything at all.

She nodded, 'I hoped that he would be able to do what he had done with the reactor, mend it, or at least if nothing more, his mind would be off…everything else.'

Pepper quietly got to her feet and walked across the room to the window and just took the world in. All that beauty on the surface with all those ignorant people living their lives down on the streets below. Did they even know the darkness which bubbled just beneath the surface?

She did. She saw the darkness and experienced it every time Tony came home bloodied and bruised with pain and sorrow looming behind his dark brown eyes.

She turned to look at Hill.

'At what cost?' She finally asked.

Hill looked down at her hands in response, 'I don't know.'

'Thank you,' Pepper murmured deciding that she had no energy left to hear any more. Her heart was heavy and darkness was on the forefront on her mind.

She poised herself and quietly made her way into elevator and down to the ground floor. 'Oh Tony,' she shook her head looking up to the skies.

The Next Day

Tony walked into the work shop slightly limping, slightly dragging his left leg all whilst trying desperately to ignore the pulsing headache which raged in his skull and the chastising look Pepper was throwing his way. He threw down the malfunctioning gauntlets and winced as the loud crashing sound irritated his already bad headache.

'J, scans, now.' He hissed dropping less than gracefully into his work chair.

Pepper kept a cautious distance, silently watching trying to work out the extent of his injuries and if she could notice any difference in him, in the Extremis. Nothing. He looked normal and definitely acted normal.

'Sir, it seems that you have sustained a hair line fracture to the left ankle, preliminary scans are promising, the Extremis is rapidly repairing the damage.' Jarvis announced.

Tony glanced up at pepper before popping off the top of his canteen and taking a swig of chlorophyll, 'not rapidly enough.' He muttered.

'This is still much faster than if you were to heal on your own,' Jarvis explained to which Tony rolled his eyes and nodded.

'Don't look at me like that, Pep.' He said without making eye contact.

Pepper sighed and slowly made her way over to him eager to see for herself that the damage wasn't severe, slowly she knelt down before him and gingerly lifted the cuff of his pants and examined the violent bruises splashing against his creamy skin.

'I'll get an ice-pack,' she said getting to her feet.

'It's ok,' he replied taking hold of her hand, 'I'm ok, see,' he gingerly applied pressure on the injured foot with no apparent pain.

Pepper shook her head taking her hand back and instead placing it on her hip.

A few moments later Tony got up and stepped toward her, closing the gap between them.

'I know you don't like this,' he whispered gently brushing her cheek with the back of his hand before wrapping his arms around her, he needed to be close to her he needed her to know how much he needed her.

As always his presence intoxicated her and she found herself barely able to breathe without breaking down.

'I'll be upstairs,' she said softly pushing him away still avoiding his eyes. She couldn't help the anguish she felt or the fear or what could have been and even more so, he lied to her. He kept all this hidden from her.

'Pep, wait.' He called after her, he took a few steps forward and nearly choked on a scream, 'shit!' he yelled out, 'I thought this was healing!' he yelled up at the ceiling.

Jarvis brought up more scans, 'it is, Sir, but this still takes time.'

'Too much time,' he shouted again.

Once he finally made it up the stairs very, very slowly he came to a stop at the kitchen where he spotted a very frustrated and emotional Pepper Potts.

She was scrubbing an extremely large pot with an extraordinarily large amount of water and detergent.

'You know we have people who do that,' Tony remarked softly taking a seat at the bench, 'or at least the dishwasher.'

Pepper didn't turn to face him, 'yeah, well, I wanted to clean it.'

'You clean when you're stressed,' Tony added matter of factly.

Pepper only replied with a shrug, he really did know her too well.

She hoped that her momentary lapse in composure didn't give away too much but then again Tony was the most perceptive person when it came to these things, and right she was. Not a moment later he was standing behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist gently turning her to face him.

Water from the sink dripped haphazardly off her hands but Tony didn't care. He pulled her against him not giving her a chance to pull back this time.

'What's going on?' He asked burying his face in the nape of her neck, he knew this always got her and if it bought him some time with her he was going to play all of his cards.

He gently pushed her backwards until they were pressed up against the counter behind her while he continued to trail kisses along her neck gently pushing her hair out of the way.

Her breath hitched every time his lips made contact.

'Are you going to talk to me, or do I need to pry it out of you?' He whispered in her ear drawing another shaky breath from her lips.

'Tony stop,' she breathed already hating the words that came out of her mouth.

Secretly she thanked him for doing exactly the opposite, he gently snaked his arm to her lower back and the other weaved his fingers through her hair, 'no can do Potts, at least not until you tell me what's bothering you.'

Of course he wouldn't just give in, just like she secretly didn't want him to.

She replied by knotting her fingers through his hair and pulling him down against her, she kissed him fiercely and passionately and he replied with the same enthusiasm.

Yes she was angry that he hid this from her, but God, she didn't know what she would have done if she had known, if she'd seen him after the battle with Snow.

She needed to get that out of her mind, she held onto him with no intention of ever letting go.

His arms explored her body as they paused for a few seconds to catch their breath until Tony stopped himself abruptly noticing the stream of tears pouring from Pepper's eyes.

She tried to hide them and return to the moment but she knew as soon as he saw that, there was no more pretending, now she would have to talk, now she had no choice.

'Pepper, talk to me,' Tony said firmly taking her wrists in his hands desperately trying to get her attention.

Pepper had other ideas; she completely averted her gaze from his and focussed on keeping her composure which of course was completely impossible when her proximity to Tony was the way it was. She felt his breath so close to her she felt his eyes trying to read her, everything about him made her completely breathless.

'Pep…talk to me,' he whispered again which much more desperation in his voice now.

Finally she managed to look up and meet his eyes, worry was written all over his face but his eyes were warm, 'talk to me.' He repeated.

'You were really not going to tell me?' She whispered back.

And when the question finally made sense to Tony the warmth in his eyes was immediately replaced by darkness, he dropped his hold on her swiftly turned away.

'Tony, wait!' She called out once she found her words and her feet.

She quickly ran after him determined to resolve this.

'Tony wait!' She shouted again, this time a lot louder and this time on the main floor of their tower which also happened to be occupied by three confused Avengers.

He continued to storm down the stairs ignoring her, hurriedly walking toward his office which was ultimately Maria Hill's office.

Steve, Natasha and Bruce quickly glanced at Pepper before nodding to each other to follow.

Once he reached the door he had an audience, 'get out,' he barked at the intern who was standing beside Maria's desk working on something with her, the young man quickly gathered his things and all but ran out of the office.

Pepper swallowed hard, she had never seen such anger or darkness from Tony at least not since Aldrich. His name alone made her shudder.

Maria looked about as shocked as Pepper, the intern and the Avengers.

Tony slammed the door behind him leaving only he and Maria in the room.

'What the hell gives you the right to discuss my business with anyone?' He wasn't yelling but he wasn't keeping his voice down either. Pepper heard every word and she was certain the others had too.

In Hill's defence, she was not prepared for this but she handled it perfectly. Pepper almost smiled to herself but had to remind herself why all of this was actually happening.

'You left me no choice Tony,' she said firmly.

'I trusted you,' Tony said right back, 'to keep this kind of information safe.'

'And Miss Potts trusts you not to destroy the company you've entrusted her to look after,' she didn't back down.

Pepper could picture Tony's expression change, she definitely crossed the line.

'You had no right.' He said with the darkest undertone Pepper had ever heard from him.

'Maybe, your best interests are my job, and Miss Potts knowing, is a part of that.'

Pepper held her breath not daring to look back at the others.

Moments later the door was open and Tony stormed out leaving the five of them reeling.

She quickly remembered that Steve and Natasha knew but Bruce had no idea, she definitely didn't want to have that conversation with him.

And she knew Tony needed time. So she would leave it, at least for tonight.

The Day After

Pepper awoke to an empty bed, she couldn't say she was surprised but it still hurt.

She knew he wasn't mad at her, but he couldn't face her knowing that she'd still ask the same questions and he'd have to give her the answers.

'Jarvis, where is he?' She asked swinging her legs out of bed.

'Mr Stark is currently in the workshop,' Jarvis responded.

Pepper nodded, of course he was, 'is he alone?'

'Yes Miss Potts, he's asked me to request his privacy,' he explained.

A pang of hurt shot through her, 'even from me?'

'Yes Miss Potts, but that has never stopped us before,' He said and Pepper swore he was being mischievous.

'Thank you Jarvis.' She smiled to herself.

'You're welcome Miss Potts.'

Half an hour later Pepper was showered and dressed and ready to face him, she confirmed with Jarvis that he was still there and made her way down to his work shop. True to Jarvis' word, the whole floor was empty save for the billionaire tinkering away in the corner, not even Bruce was allowed to set foot in here today.

'Thought I said not to let anyone in J,' Tony muttered keeping his eyes focussed on the screens in front of him and the broken gauntlet in his hand.

'Tony please stop this,' she said in the gentlest voice she could while walking over to him.

He actually laughed, a short, sharp sarcastic laugh. It sounded so wrong coming from him.

'Why are you taking this out on me?' Pepper finally asked dragging a stool over to him.

'No idea what you're talking about,' he muttered closing his eyes with a deep breath.

The screens in front of him instantly brought up the blueprints for the gauntlet he had in his hands and just like that endless data raced across the screen and as soon as Tony opened his eyes it stopped.

Silently he continued working; he picked up a screw driver to his left and began screwing together a loose part of the gauntlet back onto the damaged side.

'Tony,' Pepper said softly placing her hand on top of his, 'stop.'

He dropped the screw driver and pulled away from her getting to his feet.

Pepper refused to leave him, no matter what he said or how he behaved toward her. He needed her, now more than ever.

So she sat patiently watching him pace impatiently around the room until he finally stopped and leaned heavily against a bench.

He ran his hands through his hair letting out a heavy sigh.

'I'm sorry,' he started, 'I didn't mean for you to find out like that.'

'You meant for me to never find out, remember?' She reminded him gently.

'Yeah,' he smiled weakly, 'sorry about that.'

Pepper shook her head, 'I don't want an apology Tony, I just want to know why.'

She wasn't angry either, she couldn't be, especially not after everything he'd gone through, she couldn't imagine the fear and uncertainty he would have felt.

'Why I didn't tell you?' He asked, 'or why I did what I did with the Extremis?' He clarified.

Pepper shrugged, 'both.'

Tony sucked in a deep breath, 'ok…' he sighed and made his way across the room and sat back down in front of her.

'I didn't want you to talk me out of my decision…' he said finally and Pepper saw the honesty in his words.

She remained quiet; she had learned long ago that when Tony Stark needed to talk, however long it took it was something worth waiting for, being patient for.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and then took her hands in his, she could tell he was struggling with forming his explanation, after all he never thought there'd be a need to bring it up with her.

'I knew that what I was facing was a life of pain, medication, hospitals…a wheelchair…' he choked on the last word, 'and I knew that the Extremis was a possible and viable option with a very slim chance of actually working.'

Pepper swallowed the words she wanted to speak and instead squeezed his hands trying to give him strength.

'I knew that if I told you the odds you'd try to talk me out of it,' he said finally.

'Of course I would have,' Pepper agreed.

'Exactly,' he nodded, 'because you would want me alive and broken even though that's not what I want, and I know you would be the one person who would be able to talk me out of it, and I couldn't do that Pep…' he let out in almost a single breath.

Pepper finally understood and it broke her heart, 'oh Tony…' she squeezed his hands, 'I would be by your side no matter what.'

Tony nodded, 'I know, you would… maybe for the first few months, maybe years even, you'd take me to appointments, you'd sit by my side and clap while they try to rehabilitate me and maybe we'd even think we're getting somewhere…but then you wouldn't, and you'd hate yourself for thinking that and then you'd resent me, and that is what I was afraid of the most.'

Pepper's jaw dropped, this was the most raw and honest thing that had ever come between them.

'It's ok Pep, doesn't make you a bad person, no one deserves a life like that, especially not you.' He got to his feet sighing.

Pepper was dumbfounded. She couldn't speak, not a word.

'That is why I did what I did,' he added smiling weakly, 'because I couldn't bear the thought of you hating yourself because of me.'

He picked up the other gauntlet and tossed it up and down in the air, clearly distracting himself from the suddenly dense air in the workshop.

A few moments passed before Pepper regained her composure and shook herself out of the shocked state she was in.

She got up and in three quick strides she had reached Tony and pulled him against her, 'I love you Tony.'

'I love you too Pep,' he murmured softly burying his face in her hair.

I hope the descriptions of the timing isn't too weird...I'm just trying something a little different!

This will be a multi-chapter story, nothing too long, but something I felt I needed to write :)

See you soon!

Excelsior -SV-