A/N: Wow. Hi. I'm alive. Like that's meant to be a joke but also I am actually alive (a lot of BS went down in Pittsburgh this weekend if you haven't heard). Anyway, here's a random thing I came up with after seeing the leaked photo of Gwyn as Rescue. Also: already made the torso to the Rescue suit, so don't worry, that's coming up soon! Ummmm what else...oh, I'll share a photo at the bottom here of my finished IW suit, cause that's fun (or you can see on my IG). Uh...the Duckling Fan Project is going very, very well! If you haven't participated in that, you can go to to see how you can donate and let RDJ know that you're part of the fan gift - trust me, if you love RDJ, you're probably gonna want to get in on this one! ;) That's about it, though. I've just been lacking inspiration cause my friend 'borrowed' my Iron Man set...and that was two months ago almost now soooo... *Sigh*

Disclaimer: I do not own anything Marvel or Iron Man related.


"Are you sure you don't want anything? Coffee?" the voice of Steve Rogers interrupted, making Tony jump slightly in his seat.

Four hours. Four hours he'd been back on Earth, and the only people he'd recognized so far had been Rogers and Rhodey. Some kind of talking raccoon walked by earlier, but he was pretty sure it was a figment of his very tired imagination at this point.

"No," he grumbled into his hands, folded on the table top in front of him.

"A shower?" Rogers offered instead, but Tony just shook his head.

"I'm fine. I just need someone to get Nebula back in here and listen to us, or this will be irreversible," he growled next. "Okay, as in not fixable, not going back."

"I know what irreversible means," Steve stated slowly and carefully, tone flat to not agitate him further.

"Do you?" Tony snapped back. "I had a kid just...disappear from my arms, Cap. Just gone, turn to dust, just like everyone else around him. And I told him to stay home, I...he didn't listen, and then he was there, and he just..."

And with that, Tony trailed off, rubbing his hands over his face again to try and dissolve the panic attack before it hit him. It'd been years. Five years, they were gone, trying to get back to Earth. They'd fixed up the ship, fixed up the suit...tried to navigate back, with little success at first. And when they finally made it back, they picked up the signal of Rhodey's suit and it lead them to Wakanda, somewhere in Africa. Some place he'd heard of but hadn't had a chance to visit before...well, before he was pulled of the planet.

"It's not your fault, Tony," Steve tried to reassure, but he wasn't hearing it.

And after their short reunion, he was told to sit tight, and since then, Steve had been pushing things on him to freshen up, to adjust to being back on Earth, but Tony wasn't about to let that happen. His head was still full of formulas and ideas and ways to find Thanos an reverse everything. He didn't care about what had changed in the last five years, or who wanted to tell him to let it go. He would bring Parker back. He would bring everyone else back. He'd bring...

"Pepper," he finally whispered, voice raspy again. "None of you will tell me, I get it...but I need to know. I...need to know, Steve," he begged, flashing his dark eyes up at the other man, their differences completely forgotten at this point. "I need to know."

Steve stared at him with a hard expression. He'd never seen Tony beg like this, but then again, he hadn't been on Titan to see him crumble and change, either. This...this shell, this mess..it wasn't the Tony Rogers knew before, and it just didn't seem healthy to give him any more information to adjust to, good or bad.

"Steve."

The voice was familiar, finally. Something he'd recognized...but not his fiance's.

Spinning around in his chair, Tony's eyes fell on Nat, doing a double take at her hair. Blond. Long, and blond. In a ponytail. Weird.

"You're uh...you're a blond now," he commented, the only thing he could force himself to say, and she smirked back, moving around the room delicately, just as she always used to, her arms folding across her chest.

"Stark," she greeted. "I heard a rumor you might be back."

"Rumor's actually a fact," he quipped back, staring. "How about you, wanna give me some info that the super soldier over here won't tell me?"

"Still a pain in our ass," she comments, "even five years later."

"Oh, so just bad cop, bad cap. Is anyone gonna be the good cop or..." he answered, waving his hand around and sitting back in his chair with a sigh. "I just want to know where my wife is."

"She's not your wife yet," Romanoff replied with a cool tone, but that was enough for him.

"She's? Like she isn't. Not she wasn't," Stark repeated, now interested.

With that, Nat and Rogers shared a glance and it basically confirmed it for him. That, and...well, the clicking of heels that followed. That hollow noise, when they hit the tiles on the floor and echo off the room. The one he listened to for nearly twenty years of his life.

Nothing else overcame that noise except the scraping of his chair as he spun around, his breath catching and his eyes wide.

There she was. Still taller than him in heels. Hair pulled back, draping down her back. It's still long. Still blonder than it used to be, but with a warm tint. Five years past, yet not a day older. Not a day different than what he remembered. The same frozen facial expression, the same blue eyes staring at him with the relief they carried all the way back after Afghanistan.

"Tony," she whispered on a breath, not sure what to say, or how to react.

And his gaze danced across her face, taking everything in as he pushed himself up out of the chair, slower than anything he had ever done before. "Pepper..."

"Is it really you?"

Exhaling, his eyes briefly dropped to the floor before taking a step forward, but it only made her take one back.

"Don't," she begged, her hands shaking as she held them up. "Don't...I can't..."

But he didn't care; he had been waiting for this for years. He feet took him toward her anyway, and taking a final look at her when he made it in front of her, he quickly engulfed her in a hug, his arms searching her back and feeling her and making sure she was real.

"It's me. It's me, Pep, I'm here..." he spoke into her hair as he cupped the back of her head.

Her hands found their way around him, still trembling, and he could hear her breath catch as she laughed...but she was sad. He could hear that, too. Hear the relief and the pain of losing him yet again slipping out. And then she was squeezing him so hard it hurt, but he let it happen, just happy to be able to touch her again. Happy to smell her perfume, feel her soft hair under his lips when he kissed her, feel the warmth of her lips when he finally pulled back to kiss her properly.

"I missed you so much..." she whispered when he finally let her go, her fingers twisting in the hair at the base of his neck. "Tony, I...I-"

"I know," he answered quickly, not needing to hear that she thought he was dead. "I know, I messed up, I..."

"It's okay," she tried to assure, lips pressing together with her brow as she let a hand drop to his cheek, feeling the unshaven beard that had grown in.

But the cool metal of the band on her finger caught his attention, and he pulled her hand back with his own, noting the ring and kissing it gingerly before saying anything else.

"You're still wearing it..." he sighed.

"Never stopped..." she promised. "You're it, Stark. No one else."

"I love you."

That's all he could say, all he could let out before hugging her tightly again. Yeah, he was being sappy as hell, but a lot of shit had happened since they last saw each other. So he wanted to hold her, not caring about Nat or Rogers in the room...or...someone else?

"Morgan, over here," he heard Nat say in a hush, and his face immediately scrunched up with a deer in the headlights look.

He released Pepper slightly, looking over his shoulder as a small, probably...close to five year old girl wandered over to Nat's side as she crouched down to receive her. She had fiery red hair and...dark brown eyes when she glanced at the couple, and...

And his head whipped back to Pepper with alarm, questioning, curiosity...

"She's..." he started, pointing at the girl.

"Yeah," Pepper answered, biting her lip. "She's...your daughter..."

Taking a breath with his eyes squeezed shut, Tony let out a slight whistle as he took the hit of the news. Pepper. Daughter. His.

"But you said you weren't..." he tried, desperately wracking his brain to remember their last talk in the park.

"I...I wasn't sure at the time, but..." she answered hesitantly. "And then...you didn't come back and Friday couldn't locate you and..."

"So I'm..." he swallowed, blinking heavily. "I'm a father?"

"Mommy?" the little girl spoke, and God, did it sound like Pepper.

Tony shuddered, not sure how to process this. Yeah, he had wanted this, but now... Is he even capable of being a father now? He'd failed the kid, Peter. Failed half the world's population... And what if they fixed things? What if they reset things and she just...didn't exist. What if this was the only way Morgan existed?

Taking the hint that he was panicking, Pepper squeezed his hand briefly before leaving him to go to the girl, leaning down to take her hands in her own.

"Hey baby...everything's okay. I just had to come get aunt Nat and uncle Steve for a meeting. So you're gonna go hang out with uncle Happy for the day, okay?"

She nodded, but her focus was on Tony, solely. "Who's that?"

"That...that is something we'll talk about when I get back, okay?" Pepper answered softly, not wanting to dive into it now; understandable.

But Pepper was quickly back on her feet, looking serious, and then Nat scooped up Morgan, disappearing with her as Tony's eyes followed.

Steve cleared his throat, grabbing the attention of the room. "What's the word?"

"Rocket said we can trust her," Pepper informed him. "And now that I know Tony was with her..."

"All right," Rogers agreed, nodding at her. "Suit up, let's get this done."

"Wait, what?" Tony interrupted, suddenly being brought back to the present. "Suit up? Who suit up? You?!" he asked with a stunned stare at Pepper.

"Nebula told Rhodey your plan. We had to validate it and now we're going to execute it."

"No," he rushed to say. "No, no!"

"Tony!" she scolded, back to their usual pattern, but he didn't wait for her to explain.

"Not when I know we have a...kid!" he protested, the last word nearly making him cringe. "This could change things, this could-"

"We're just bringing them back, Tony," she tried to quickly explain, following Cap into the hallway, which lured him to follow in a frenzy. "Not resetting the timeline."

"Okay," he heaved, brain not following properly. "But I suit up, you don't suit up. You stay here, with her. You don't even...you don't even have a suit! Are you using my suits?!"

"Sort of," she answered with a smirk before pushing into a room down the hall.

On the end was a display, all of his suits. All of his pre nano tech suits, waiting for his return. And...

"Is that my suit?" he asked when she slowed to a stop in front of one.

"You mean my suit that you made for me?" she quipped. "Yes."

"You built the suit?!"

"Shuri built the suit," she commented, punching in a code to open the case.

"Shuri? Who's Shuri?" And then he took a glance at it when it opened, noting the color change. "It's...purple..."

"It's...modified," she settled on. "Your design, their tech."

"Huh."

He couldn't find anything else to say other than watch as she sighed and punched in another code, something to start a suit up process.

"What, didn't think I'd take your place?"

"Not really," he admitted. "Is it bad if this is kinda hot?"

"That's the five years in space talking," Pepper teased. "Don't be jealous."

"I'm not jealous..." he muttered, then tapped the arc still on his chest, initiating his suit up process. "Mine's still cooler..."

"What was that?"

"Nothing," he covered quickly as the face plate closed over him. "Just be careful."