Part One: Home

Summary: It's Tony's birthday and Pepper has a surprise for him.

He had never handled things in a particularly healthy manner. By the time that Pepper had fallen into the job as his personal assistant, Tony had been well on his way to partying and drinking his life away. His avoidance climbed to new heights with each passing year right up until he was attacked and taken prisoner in Afghanistan. They'd gotten him back, but Pepper had watched in horror as her playboy boss' recklessness shifted and that laser focus of his that he usually reserved for Stark Industry designs focused on a new project: keeping those designs out of the hands of terrorists. He'd called her on it when she'd tried to stop him, and Pepper had found herself on a roller coaster of a ride as he tried to navigate all new depths of chaos in the life that no one - least of all her - could have predicted.

There had been at least one thing that had remained constant through it all. Tony had always thrown himself into his work to avoid focusing on the pain. He used it to push forward, but when it came to processing it, that's where he hit a snag. The closer they had grown, the more he'd let her see the internal turmoil that he faced the deeper he got into all of this, and Pepper had learned when to push and when not to. For the most part. Every situation was a little different, because how could you compare terrorists to aliens to a killer robot of your own design?

But he had always fought through it. Always forced himself to move forward. Until now.

Tony slept more these past few days than she had ever known him to sleep before. The doctors said he was recuperating. Over twenty days in space with barely any food or water - and all of it gone by the time they'd been found - low oxygen, and injured on top of all of it… it was no wonder he wasn't bouncing back immediately. She shouldn't expect it they had told her, and she didn't. The problem was that she knew him, and while yes, he was recuperating, Pepper could see the weight crushing the man she loved. He thought he'd failed. He'd traveled light years away to face the demon that had haunted him for the last six years and Thanos had won. Tony could - and would - rail against Steve Rogers until his legs gave out under him and he crashed to the floor, but in the end he blamed himself for what happened. Somewhere along the way he had become one of the most responsible people she knew, even when it wasn't his responsibility to shoulder, and it was stealing him away from her all over again.

A soft sound escaped him and drew Pepper's attention. He was curled up on his side, eyes squeezed shut and fighting the sheets he had managed to tangle himself up in. He tossed and turned, wrapping himself up tighter, and she started across the space of their bedroom to stop him before he managed to hurt himself.

"Hey," she called quietly. "Tony? Babe? You need to wake up."

She'd made the mistake of simply reaching out before. One time she'd found herself face to face with one of his suits and, more recently, he'd lashed out in his sleep. He hadn't hurt her. He hadn't had the strength to at that point, but the horrified look in those dark eyes had broken her heart. She'd held onto him for the rest of the night as he curled into her, shaking and broken.

Carefully she reached forward, speaking in low and gentle tones as she did. His eyes snapped open before her fingers brushed against his shoulder. He looked up at her, his expression haunted for just a moment, and she wondered if he had been stuck back on that alien planet with Peter Parker melting away in his arms. His eyes were glassed over and he blinked rapidly as if fighting the tears. "Hey, Pep," he managed, voice rough.

"Hey."

He shifted and seemed to realized just how tangled he'd become in the sheets. She helped him find his way out so that he could move over and give her room to sit with him. Pepper reached forward and ran her fingers through sweat-dampened hair, hovering just a moment over the flecks of grey starting to show. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his temple.

Tony sighed and reached up to grope blindly for her hand. "What time is it?" he manage.

"Just past noon."

He made a small sound of acknowledgment and settled a little deeper into his pillows. Pepper felt the frown tug at her lips as continued to run her hand through his hair in a soothing fashion. "You want some lunch?"

"Not hungry," he huffed, eyes slipping shut.

"You didn't eat breakfast either." He didn't answer and Pepper finally stopped the motion. There was being patient and there was letting him continue to waste away into nothing.

That drew his attention. "Hey, hey? Don't stop. Feels good."

"You need to get up."

"Doctor told me to rest."

"This isn't rest, Tony. This is you refusing to face the world."

He snorted, but didn't bother to look up. "I'm tired, Pep."

"Fine," she grumbled and pulled away. She was halfway to standing when his hand snapped out, snatching her wrist and she found a set of dark eyes fixed on her.

"Don't go. Just… lay down with me for a little bit?"

She watched him watching her. He was in a bad place, and she didn't want to make it worse. Either by pushing too far too fast or by not pushing at all. She pulled in a steadying breath. "On two conditions." She watched his dark brows draw together in question. "First, you'll eat some lunch in another hour or so."

"I think I can manage that." His look turned skeptical. "Second?"

"You know what tomorrow is?"

"Hon, I don't know what today is."

She found herself smiling very slightly at that. "May 29th."

"Is it?"

"It is."

"Does that mean I get to pick what we do tomorrow?"

That pulled a soft laugh from her and she inched down on the bed, half lying next to him. "Second condition."

"Here it comes."

"You get out of bed tomorrow. We have breakfast, maybe even get out of the house."

He cringed at that. "I don't know…"

Pepper sighed, starting to get up, but he pulled her back down. "Wait, wait wait. Okay. You win."

"Do I?"

"Yeah. Lunch in an hour and I'll… we'll do something. Your call."

"Really?" she asked sweetly, leaning over him and trying to pull a smile out of him. Pepper felt a small spark of triumph when she saw the corners of his lips twitch up and she leaned down, pressing a kiss to them.

"Really," he promised against her.

"I'm holding you to that," she warned him as she settled in next to him, curled into his side. A soft, tired chuckle escaped him, but he didn't argue with her. It was something, and she'd take every little win she could hold onto.

Pepper didn't cook often, but when she did it was to die for. He hadn't even known she was capable of cooking until a couple years earlier and she'd teased him saying that if he'd known all along he would have added it to the list of her duties when she'd worked for him. Not that she'd been wrong about that.

She didn't particularly like to cook, so the fact that Tony woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs the next morning was enough to pique his curiosity. He sat up slowly, and when the usual wave of dizziness was replaced by a rare pang of hunger, he remembered his promise he'd made to her the afternoon before. He'd made good on lunch and it looked like he might even manage to make it down to breakfast. Well, she'd been worried that he wasn't putting weight back on. This was how you fixed it.

He moved slowly, careful to hover close enough to solid objects that he could use to keep himself from falling over. The real trick was going to be navigating the stairs. Steep and narrow, at least there was a railing from their bedroom down to the living room below. Tony held on, taking them one at a time, and inched his way down until he reached the bottom one, finally loosing a breath as he rounded down the hall and towards the kitchen.

Pepper had her back to him, still dressed in a pair of sleeping shorts and one of his t-shirts, socks covering her feet for the cool May morning. She had two skillets going - bacon sizzling in one and he could only assume eggs in the other - and she moved to flip pancakes on the grill she had to the side. Tony leaned a shoulder against the wide door frame leading into the kitchen and quietly watched her cook. For the first time since he'd been brought back to Earth, he let himself revel in the fact that she was still here. He'd lost a lot. They'd all lost a lot, but she was there waiting for him to come home. He didn't think he would have made it this far without her.

She turned, jumping a little when she caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye. "Hey. Look at you up and moving."

"Promised you, didn't I?"

Pepper echoed the small smile he'd managed for her and started dishing some of the food onto two plates. "You also promised me no more surprises before jumping on an alien spaceship."

"Yeah, well…" A rough chuckle left him and he found himself sliding down the door frame, taking a fairly controlled seat on the wood floor beneath him. His fiancée turned, a worried expression flashing across her face, and he waved her off as he braced his back against the frame. "I never realized how comfortable our floor is… Let's eat here."

He watched as the worried melted away into amusement and she shook her head, rolling her eyes a little as she turned to get the plates. "You're really not getting up, are you?"

"Nope. It's my birthday and I'm claiming at least one choice today."

"Pretty sure gravity got you there first."

"Shh. My choice."

"Sure it is." Pepper handed him his plate and he balanced it on his bent knees. At least he wasn't shaking as badly as he had been lately. That seemed like a step in the right direction.

She joined him on the floor and started in. The more he ate, the sturdier he felt, and finally he risked a look over at her. "So what do you have planned today?"

"I thought maybe we could look at dates."

"Dates?"

He received a longsuffering look for the question. "Wedding dates."

"Right. Right…" He shoveled a half fork of eggs into his mouth.

"Are you rethinking it?"

His gaze snapped up and he nearly dropped the plate. "What? No. I just…" He pulled in what he hoped would be a steadying breath, trying to catch hold of all the thoughts and emotions that were slamming around inside of him like they'd been caught in a cyclone. "I wanna marry you, Pep, more than anything but I just… " he managed, wincing as the words left him. "It's too soon. Maybe in a couple months…."

"Okay." Her voice was gentle and he felt her fingers brush his hand, taking the precarious plate from it and setting it down along with hers. "That's okay."

"No it's not."

She squeezed his hand. "It is. People we thought would be there won't be. It's okay that that's hard. It is hard."

He looked up and turned his hand over in hers so that their fingers laced together.

"We're just going to need to push it back more than a couple months."

Tony blinked hard. "Why would we need to -?" A smile had broken through, despite the heaviness of the conversation, and there was a glint of mischief in her eyes. He was missing something that she thought should be really obvious. Maybe it should be. "What?"

"You are so smart to be so oblivious sometimes," she teased and shifted her weight, rocking forward on her knees and kissing him. "We're pregnant."

"Huh?" Pepper's laugh cut through everything and Tony reached up, a hand against her face. "Pregnant? We're going to…?"

"I've been trying to find the right time to tell you."

"When did you find out?"

"When you were gone," she said softly, and there was an edge of pain to her voice that reminded him that while he'd been suffering worlds away, she had been left here wondering if he'd ever come home to her. He'd been gone, possibly dead. Even when he'd come back he'd been a ghost of the man she'd known. He'd been drowning under his own pain and hadn't stopped to think about hers. She had needed him and he'd been selfish, even if that had never been his intention. He knew it now. There wasn't any excuse. It was time to get out of his own head. He couldn't bring the people they'd lost back, but he could be there for the ones he still had. For Pepper, and for their kid. He would be there for them.

Tony pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it, a lopsided smile tugging at him. "Told you I had that dream."

"I knew you were going to bring that up!" she laughed, swatting at him.

"I did. You didn't believe me, but I was right."

"You're never going to drop that, are you?"

"Nope." He squeezed her hand before releasing it, reaching for his plate to start back in. He could almost feel Pepper's approval at the choice. "So," he said around a piece of bacon, "I can't promise I'll make it very far and Happy won't have to come pick us up in his golf cart, but what do you say to Central Park?"

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"That sounds like a good day. We could use one of those."

"Yep. Maybe a few more on the way."

She nudged his foot with hers. "Happy birthday, Tony. It's good to have you home."

Notes: There were two things I desperately needed after seeing Endgame: One was for Tony to live and the other was those five years we were so cruelly robbed of. I just wrapped a short fic called Always Been You that brings Tony back (check it out if you haven't read it!), and since I don't have any real faith that Disney will add Pepperony to their Disney+ lineup of (utterly amazing looking) shows, I'm doing the thing.

Do I have time? No, but I can't stop myself.

I have no idea how often I'll update this little series. I have several ideas and there may be long breaks while I work on my original writing, but I couldn't shake this idea any more than I could my Tony lives AU. That's what I do. That's my jam. I bring back my favs.

I can't promise that the muse will strike, but I will definitely take requests for this series. I have a list of ideas started. Just drop me a line if you have something you'd like to see and I'll see what I can do :)