Tony Stark didn't get nervous. What did he have to ever be nervous about? He was Tony Stark.

Okay, so, maybe he did get nervous a few times. Like, once or twice. But that hardly counted.

One of the times he'd been nervous in specific was a few months after he and Pepper had started dating. As much as he knew she was as tough as nails and could defend herself if the situation called for it, Tony still had a tendency to worry about his girlfriend. If there was ever a reason that made him regret, even in the slightest, that he'd told the world he was Iron Man, it was the danger it put the people he cared about in. Especially Pepper. After all; if you want kick the man in the suit where it hurts most, who better to target than his pretty little girlfriend?

None of them had seen it coming. It had started off as a simple day. Pepper had meetings with the board, and Tony was at home, working on the suit. It was around 2:00 p.m. that he got the frantic call informing him that there had been a shooting at SI. The person calling informed him all too slowly that there hadn't been any casualties. In fact, no one else had even been harmed; no one but one person.

The woman had barely finished saying, "Miss Virginia Potts," before he was out the door.

As it turned out, a certain Angelica Bonquise had been discharged a few weeks beforehand from the mental institution she'd been in for years ever since she picked the lock to Tony's Malibu home and he found her waiting in his bed. It wouldn't have been such an awful thing to find, had he not had a date with him whom he'd been planning to take there. Not to mention, she tried to kill the girl after with a screw driver. Apparently, she'd been stalking Tony for months. Whereas most women who were obsessed with him did it from a reasonable distance, she'd gotten a bit… too close for comfort.

How she got discharged, he still didn't know to this day. All he knew was that she'd snuck into Stark Industries and gone straight after the one thing he couldn't live without.

She'd gotten arrested promptly afterward, and Pepper was rushed to the hospital where Tony anxiously waited for news. That was the first time Tony Stark was ever really, really nervous.

The only other time happened around five years later, while he and Pepper were vacationing in Venice. It had come to his realization that he wasn't the only man in the world with his eye on Virginia Potts. Of course, he'd known that years beforehand, but he'd never really known what to do about it until now.

Oddly enough, it was Steve Rogers who helped him figure it out.

"You're in a bad mood," he'd observed one day when he'd stopped by Stark Tower to see if Tony had finished the changes to the shield yet.

"No duh, Captain Obvious," Tony had replied as he furiously pounded away at a sheet of metal with a sledge-hammer. Steve wasn't entirely sure what the blazes he was doing when he'd first walked it; the metal somewhat resembled a cracked, bent ball.

"Care to explain why, Tony Snark?"

Rolling his eyes at the term, Tony had dropped the hammer on the table and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Wouldn't you be in a shit mood if all you saw on a regular basis were assholes feeling up your girlfriend?"

Furrowing his brow, Steve had taken a few moments to answer. Tony and Pepper had been living together for nearly six and a half years. The solution to his "problem" seemed rather simple, in the Captain's eyes.

"Call me old-fashioned," he started, and Tony automatically scoffed.

"When aren't you old-fashioned? You still can hardly work your iPhone."

Ignoring the snarky remark, Steve started again. "Call me old-fashioned, but why don't you just… marry her? Then no one in their right mind would try to pull anything on her."

"Marry her?" Tony asked, his eyes widening slightly. "Are you out of your mind? I can't marry Pepper. She's… Pepper."

Steve's brow had furrowed with confusion at his response. "Well, what's that supposed to mean? You love her, don't you?"

"Yes," Tony had responded without hesitation, leaning back against the metal table.

"And you want her to be happy, don't you? Happy with you?"

"Well… yeah," Tony stated with a nod, and Steve made a gesture at him that was one of clear exasperation and obviously screamed "then what are you waiting for?"

"So, marry her," he urged, turning his back to search for his shield.

Normally Tony would have told him not to touch his stuff, but not then. He was too distracted with everything he'd just been told. He did love Pepper, and he did want to be with her. There was nothing he wanted more. So… what was he waiting for?

He put it off for another solid six months while he contemplated everything from commitment to whether he would even know how to be a husband. But finally, the moment came.

Tony Stark had never been more nervous in his life.

Everything was perfect, the way he had planned it to be. She was standing out on the balcony of the rather enormous Italian mansion he owned, gazing out at the ocean as the waves crashed against the rocks below, the moon shining down on the water. She looked content, and utterly peaceful; for once in her life. He'd never seen her so… relaxed. Maybe it was because they were so far away that she couldn't be bothered with the affairs of Stark Industries. Maybe it was because he hadn't been called away to fight some villain with an attitude problem worse than his lately. But she just seemed…

…perfect.

"Pepper," he'd said, making his presence known to her. To his horror, his voice cracked from nerves, and he quickly cleared his throat as she turned. "Pepper," he'd said again, normally this time, "We… need to talk."

"Talk?" she'd asked, arching an elegant eyebrow and crossing her arms over the front of her silky silver top. "Talk about what?"

"Talk about you," he'd informed her, and she leaned back against the polished balcony railing.

"Me? Why are we talking about me?"

"Why wouldn't we talk about you? You're fascinating."

"Oh really?"

He didn't know what to say next. She was just standing there, her hair pulled back in its usual high ponytail. How could she make a simple ponytail so gorgeous?

"Gorgeous," he said abruptly, seeing as it was the first thing that came to mind. "You're gorgeous. Stunning, beautiful, breathtaking, mindboggling…"

"Mindboggling?"

"…ly perfect," he quickly finished, and she thought she saw his cheeks turn red. A playful grin tugged at her lips at that, and she strolled forward toward him.

"Anthony Stark," she'd said, grabbing his blue-gray tie and pulling him a bit closer. "Are you blushing?"

"Uh… no?" he'd said hopefully, clearing his throat again. He had to get it out before he burned up from embarrassment at something else foolish he was bound to do or say that could ruin everything. "Look, Pep; as gorgeous as you are, that's not actually what I'm trying to get at here."

"No?" she asked, leaning forward to playfully nuzzle the tip of her nose against his goatee. "You know, if it's sex you're after, you really don't have to go to all this trouble…"

Shit. She was doing that little thing where she pressed kisses down his neck, and made it impossible to think straight. Did she have to do that now?

"Pep… er… Pepper," he finally managed to get out, certain his face was flushed now as he gently pushed her away and held her shoulders, looking down into her eyes. Those beautiful, sparkling blue eyes…

Focus, moron!

"Sex isn't what I want," he said quickly, his voice cracking again, and he nearly groaned with humiliation. A small frown pulled at her lips, and she furrowed her brow with clear confusion and, of all things, nervousness.

"Then what is it?" she asked, letting go of his tie and taking a small step back.

"I… well, you see, I… um… it's… commitment. Yeah, commitment! That's what I wanna talk about."

Frowning deeply, Pepper crossed her arms again, her cheeks and nose turning pink in that way he loved that made her freckles stand out. Although she wasn't blushing over something adorable he'd done or some sexual comment he'd made; she looked… angry?

"Tony Stark, I think I've been fairly lenient with you since we've been together," she snapped, and his brown eyes widened.

"Wait, what?"

"I put up with hundreds of women every day fawning all over you! I got shot for being your girlfriend, for crying out loud! And now you want to lecture me about commitment? Are you out of your mind?"

"No!" he shouted in response, his frown now mirroring hers, "And you think that's bad? Try watching a dozen guys a minute stare at your ass! I've even caught some of them in the bathroom ja-!"

"Oh, God, don't go there. Don't go there!" she snapped, shuddering with disgust as a few loose strands of red hair fell into her eyes. "And who gives a shit about that? It's not like I've slept with them all! You've slept with half the female population of Los Angeles and New York city!"

"I have not!" he shouted back, and she laughed sarcastically.

"Oh, please! Yes you have! I of all people should know; I took out your damn trash for twelve years!"

"That was over six years ago! I've changed!" he yelled in response, and she resisted the urge to stomp on his foot.

"No, you haven't!" she screamed, "You're just as terrified of a committed relationship as you were back then! Frankly, I'm not going to stand for it!"

Whirling on her heel, she made to stalk off into the house, freezing in her tracks at what he shouted at her next.

"Marry me!"

It took a few moments before she slowly turned around to face him again, finding him breathing heavily from their dispute, his brown eyes flashing with an emotion she wasn't certain of.

"You've got to be kidding," she'd said shakily. "Tony, unless you're serious…"

"I am, dammit! That's what I've tried to ask you since I came out here!"

She stared at him with disbelief, and a small, almost strangled sound escaped her when he fished around in his jacket pocket, pulling out a black velvet box and crouching down, pulling it open to show a diamond ring that had to have cost him a small fortune. It was placed on a simple, thin silver band, and the diamonds themselves were positioned in the shape of an elegant snowflake, with a large diamond in the middle and many smaller ones on the outside. It was gorgeous, and perfect. Pepper thought she might faint just looking at it.

"Virginia Potts," he said intensely when he was able to speak calmly again, staring up at her with the most serious expression she'd ever seen him pull. "Will you marry me?"

She was frozen. All she could do was stand there and gape at him. Tony swore it was the longest she'd ever been in a room with him without speaking to or scolding him. He'd actually made Pepper Potts speechless.

"Unless, of course, you'd rather I go give this to some of that trash you took out?" he asked with an arched eyebrow, finally bringing her back to reality. Choking on a sob, she flung herself into his arms, making hysterical noises of shock and glee.

"Oh, shut up, you asshole!" she cried, crashing kiss after kiss to his lips. "Yes! Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!"

Chuckling with surprise at her reaction as he struggled to sit up again beneath her, he lifted the ring from the box and took her left hand, slipping the ring on her finger.

For once, Cap had been right, because damn, he loved the way it felt to see that ring on her finger. To know, once and for all, she really was his. Only his; no one else would ever have her but him.

Yet, out of both those times Tony Stark had been nervous, neither of them had quite compared to this nervousness. It wasn't the kind of nervousness you got when you didn't know if you would ever see someone you loved more than anything again, and it wasn't the type you got when you were in the midst of fearing rejection. No, this nervousness was something entirely foreign to Anthony Edward Stark.

It was the nervousness that came with waiting. Not just any waiting, either; it was waiting for the result that would evidently shift his life entirely, forever. No looking back. He'd never be Tony Stark the genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist ever again.

He would be Tony Stark, the father.

He was growing more and more anxious with each passing second. His palms were sweating. His mouth was dry. He felt like he might throw up. How long did a damn pregnancy test take? It felt like an endless eternity that he'd just been sitting there on their bed in the tower, waiting for her to return from the bathroom. It had to have been more than three minutes ago that she left. It had to have been at least an hour. Or two. Maybe even a day. He'd lost track the second he realized it was possible that, in nine months, he could be a father.

Never in his life before today had he considered it. It was likely because of how his father had treated him when he was a child. After being neglected, insulted and shunned for most of his life by his father, Tony had sworn he would never have kids. Maybe that's why he'd been so scared of a committed relationship. Maybe that's why it took him six years to ask Pepper to marry him. Eighteen, if you counted the years she'd worked for him, because a part of him knew he'd been in love with her back then, too. He'd always known. It had always just been Pepper who held a claim over his heart.

With marriage came children. He didn't want kids. Not because he didn't like them; the very opposite was true. He loved kids. He loved it when they would come up to him on the street and get excited because he was Iron Man. He loved being their hero. He loved being someone who young people idolized for more than his looks and weapons history.

No, Tony not wanting kids had nothing to do with kids in general. It was him. He was terrified of being a father. He'd heard so many times that "the apple doesn't fall from the tree" and "oh, Tony, you're so much like your father." Well, if he was like Howard in the way he thought and acted, why should raising a child be any different? He didn't want to be his father. He didn't want a child to look back on their life and think, "Why didn't he love me? Why was he never proud? Didn't I do well?" No; he would hate himself for it, even more than he already secretly hated himself. Not to mention, he couldn't put the burden of raising a child solely on Pepper the way his father had on Maria.

Tony Stark wasn't just nervous. Tony Stark was absolutely terrified.

He figured Pepper wanted kids; she'd been hinting around at it since their honeymoon in Honolulu seven months ago. She'd even gone so far as to stop taking birth control. He'd never once considered that she might actually get pregnant, though. He figured because he didn't want kids so passionately, he'd never really be bestowed with one.

He guessed he was about to find out.

Finally, he found himself jumping as the sound of JARVIS' automated voice sounded above him. "Sir," he said, "Mrs. Stark requires your presence. She requested that you come quickly."

Taking a breath, he slowly looked up. "Did she say what the results were?"

"No, sir. I suspect she hasn't looked yet. She likely wants you to be there."

Getting to his feet, Tony slowly exited the bedroom and walked down the hall toward the bathroom. There was no point in arguing with a computer program, or making Pepper wait. That wasn't fair. Even if she wanted this as badly as he thought she did, he knew she had to be just as nervous and scared about it as he was.

Well, maybe not as much.

"Pep?" he asked as he stepped into the polished room, moving forward to place his hands on her hips. "Did you look?"

"No," she answered quietly, and he heard her take a harsh swallow of saliva. "Tony… what if it's positive? We haven't even really talked about it yet…"

Kissing her shoulder, he brought a hand up to run his fingers through her hair.

"It doesn't matter," he said quietly, and he knew he meant it. It really didn't matter. Even if he was going to be a father, he'd have to get over his petty fears. He loved Pepper more than anything, and he couldn't risk ever losing her. Not over this. "We'll work it out. Making things work is sort of our specialty."

A faint smile pulled at her lips at that, and she took a deep breath before lifting up the small pink and white stick lying on the counter before them. She was silent for a long moment before slowly lifting it up for him to see. Hesitating, he plucked it from her fingers and brought his eyes down to look at the results. A lump caught in his throat.

"Positive," she announced as he read it, and he nodded slowly.

"I'm gonna be a dad?"

"Looks like it."

"You're going to be a mom?"

"Evidently so."

"You… really want this?"

Pepper was quiet for a while before she answered, her voice soft yet ringing with certainty. "Yes, Tony," she stated, touching his arm, "I do."

He swallowed the growing lump in his throat. "We're going to be parents?"

"Mmhm."

Not speaking, he took a long time before he finally just ended up repeating his first question yet again as his head swam.

"I'm gonna be a dad?"

"Yes, Tony."

He didn't say anything. He didn't say anything for so long that Pepper was beginning to get scared. Finally, a soft mixture of a groan and a whimper escaped him as he muttered, "Diapers…"

Then he promptly passed out cold on the tile floor.