Short one shot I came up with in five minutes flat...I regret nothing.
Disclaimer; I do not own the Avengers
She did her best not to watch the news on a regular basis. Any information she needed to know about the outside world she usually found out about first hand. Even when it came to Tony and his heroics she tried her best to avoid the media world. Relying on Jarvis to let her know if anything to bad was going on. None of that stopped her from worrying her brains out though. Her teeth skinned her lip again as she scanned the star filled sky. Eight hours, without any kind of contact. She kept playing those last words over again in her mind "Don't fret Pep, I'll be back in time for dinner, promise."
He had broken that promise. Now she was stupidly clinging to another promise he had made, years ago. Why would he keep that one, when he couldn't even keep this one. Casting one more longing look to the empty sky, she turned on her heel and began walking back inside, determined to get some work done. It didn't help much, but she needed a good distraction. Then she saw it in the reflection of the glass. For a moment she was going to just keep walking, telling her mind off for playing tricks on her, but against her better judgment she turned around, and let her mouth fall open as Iron Man stumbled into a landing. The face plate popped up at once, so that he could look her in the eye and say "Sorry I missed dinner."
"You came back!" Pepper cried, diving into his arms, unabashed tears leaking onto the armor that was cradling her.
"Of course, I promised I would always come home."
AAA
"I came back" Steve gasped, on his knees in front of the pearl white stone "I promised I would come back for one last dance. Sorry I was to late, but I did come back."
The words felt as empty and lost as the man who said them.
AAA
The room was empty now, not one person in the world could prove, or disprove for that matter, that anything had taken place in such a barren old place.
She stood there, red hair framing an emotionless face, staring into a wall sized mirror that reflected back exactly what she felt inside.
"I always swore I would come back." She whispered, but there was no response. There never would be again.
AAA
After Loki, he kind of took a hiatus off of SHIELD. Most of the crew seemed thankful for this, like they thought the blue light was going to suddenly return to his eyes and he was going to spin and start shooting people on the spot again. For a long time, he had feared the same thing.
Time had been irrelevant to him for so long, he doesn't know when it actually happened. He simply looked in the mirror one day, saw the brown instead of the blue he feared, then he made a promise to himself. A solid vow, that he would never allow anyone to control him again. Later, when coming across a mind controlling mutant, he kept that promise.
AAA
It was the first time he had come back since his last departure. Considering the havoc his last visit had they were all honestly surprised he even could make a reappearance. Then of course Tony had to make some kind of snippy comment about it, to which Thor's responce was
"Of course I came back, Midgard is my home."
AAA
And the broken promise...
There was a long time he hated the Hulk. How could he not? He was a killing machine with no remorse, no one could possibly redeam such a beast.
Then he met the other Avengers, and he discovered that he could actually do some good to the world. He broke his promise, the one he had made after the first time he woke up. He didn't want to get ride of the Hulk. He was in fact, happy to have the big green guy around.