Sometimes I can't stop looking at him.
He often notices my gaze, and throws a saucy "Like what you see, beautiful?" and a wink my way. I still blush, even after all these months, but force myself to shake my head in mock-annoyance – no reason to boost his already tremendous ego, even if he is my boyfriend.
I prefer when he doesn't know I'm watching. My eyes pore over every detail of his face – the angle of his jaw, the intense focus of his eyes as he works in his shop. His energy astounds me; is it something innately him that keeps him in perpetual motion, or does the new element in his arc reactor (one that he created – his ego, I suppose, is justified there) give him that superhuman joie de vivre that defines Tony Stark?
He is both an open book and a puzzle, frank on certain topics and reticent on others. I may hear his every opinion on the virtues of junk food, but I will never know what his imprisonment and torture in Afghanistan were like, or whether he still aches when he remembers his parents, or what he felt as he was slowly dying. I look for clues – offhand comments made, facial expressions, the tone of his voice. When he's Iron Man, he can hide behind that impassive mask and become a symbol instead of a person. Not so with me. I know him better than anyone, and yet, there is so much still to be known. My staring sessions are part of my education on Anthony Edward Stark.
He tells me he loves me, always looks straight into my eyes and infuses those words with such reverence and passion that my heart still skips beats, no matter how many times it's been since the first time. We are each other's great love, and that has to be enough to guarantee he will come back to me after each mission, because nothing else can ever insure it.
I commit him to memory, catalogue those details of his face, internalize the feel of his kiss and the rush of his love. I am Tony Stark's girlfriend, but I am Iron Man's, too. Who knows how many more chances I have to look?