A/N: For someone who has an exam tomorrow I spent an awful lot of time going through my phone and I ended up finding another little thing. I made some minor changes and the whole thing feels kind of raw which is what I want it to feel like. Hope you enjoy! Feedback is appreciated! x
The first time he mentions it they're both lounging on the couch. She's actually managing to get some downtime to read a book for once and he's typing away on his tablet, too absorbed into whatever he's been cocking up with Peter that day to do more than absentmindedly rub his free hand over her shin.
Or at least that's what she thinks he is doing before he brings it up.
At his voice Pepper looks up from her book slowly, finger slipping between the pages to keep it from falling close as she simply raises an eyebrow at him. She's known him long enough to not question every new insane idea right away.
Sometimes it only takes eye contact with another human being for Tony to realize that its madness he's coming up with and sometimes he's only joking around anyway. Granted, there have been enough times when he has simply rambled on and on about something that she either didn't get or knew wasn't feasible or downright lunatic and dangerous.
This feels different, though.
When he meets her eyes they're completely open and sincere. The glint in them is not the mad scientist's spark that usually accompanies his spur-of-the-moment thoughts, it's a little nervous but a hundred percent earnest. This is something he has actually thought about before voicing it.
She has yet to reply and he seems to take her silence as an incentive to keep talking about it, drumming random patterns on her leg as he does so.
A raise of her hand shuts him up more effectively than any words could've and he stops mid-sentence, mouth hanging open for a good few seconds before he slams it back shut.
"That's a really cute thought", she starts gingerly, careful not to hurt his feelings. She puts her book on its face in favor of inching closer towards her fiancé.
Once she is in front of him she curls her legs up underneath her butt and reaches out to cup his cheek with her hand. She watches as he leans into the touch, eyes fluttering close involuntarily before he has to noticeably remind himself to look back up at her. The moment is so intimate that she can't help but smile, her heart close to bursting with love for this man who, despite all his issues, trusts her unconditionally.
"But I think company-wise it wouldn't be a very sound decision", she finishes finally, fingers trailing over his goatee before she lets them travel down his neck and chest until they come to rest lazily on his stomach.
He rolls his eyes in annoyance and shrugs, "Why does the company get a say in what we do in our personal lives? Shouldn't that be something that we discuss just the two of us?"
She grins fondly even as she shakes her head. "In theory, that's probably how it works. But this company runs on your name. It would take a blow and we can't afford to get the board against us again."
His pout is endearing and she leans forward to kiss it away, pressing another kiss to his forehead.
"You're wrong, though", he tells her as his arms come around her and she settles her cheek on his chest over his steadily beating heart. Right where the arch reactor used to sit. Her hand comes up to draw circles on his shirt, waiting for him to continue.
"This company is running solely on your hard work and genius brain."
She feels his chest vibrate with quiet laughter when she slaps his chest lightly. He means it, she knows that, and it might even be partly true but –
"I don't think Potts Industries has as nice a ring to it as Stark Industries," she tells him with a chuckle.
"Oh but PI sounds so much better than SI. Think about all the Pi jokes we could pull off!" Tony's getting excited again, his hands moving up and down her arms in a flurry of activity that he can never fully contain. Pepper has long since learned that it's his mind needing an outlet for all the neurons firing all at once.
She moves slightly, resting her chin on her hand and staring up at him through her eyelashes with a soft smile. "You've been spending too much time with Peter and his science puns, honey."
"Why won't you let me take your name?" he whines instead of dignifying her jab with an answer. "Isn't that the kind of emancipation everyone's always talking about?"
She blushes then because she has dreamed of becoming Mrs. Stark so many times that she really, selfishly, doesn't want to miss out on it but what she told him was true, too.
The Stark name is still a big part of the company and Tony taking her name in the wedding would undoubtedly start an uprising on the highest levels. The board members were already raising eyebrows and whispers about her position and their relationship.
Before she can say that she meets his eyes and something she finds in them that she can't quite put her finger on makes her stop. There's something else there, buried under whatever wall he's trying to build up against her. But his walls were never really built strong enough to keep her out and so she simply watches for a moment as he tries to fight it before she gives them the final shove.
"What's the real reason, Tony?" Her voice is gentle, she knows not to push too harshly when he's like that.
His sigh is admitting defeat and he slumps in on himself without ever loosening his grip on her waist.
"I just... I've always hated the Stark name and everything it stands for," he admits quietly after a couple of deep breaths, "I've hated what Tony Stark stands for ever since I can remember and just the thought of not being – of not being him anymore, I guess. It was refreshing." The confession tumbles out of his mouth fast and it's raw in its honesty.
He's embarrassed. She can feel it in the way he's clinging to her a little more tightly and refuses to meet her eyes and her heart clenches painfully for him.
"I know that changing my name won't change anything but it felt like – For a moment I felt as if it would be an opportunity to start fresh, you know?"
It's quiet for a moment after that and she's about to reply when he continues and so she lets him because he seems to need it.
"We're going to be a family," he tells her, the sincerity and the longing in his voice tugging on her heart strings, "and I was stupidly hoping that by keeping this – this curse away from our family I could be keeping it pure and – and good."
"There's so much that comes with the name that I would never wish on anyone. I don't want that for you or for our might-be kids. I want us to live a normal, happy life without the burden that comes with," he takes a breath and audibly swallows past the lump that's sitting in his throat, squeezing his eyes shut, "The burden that comes with me. But it doesn't matter. I'll still be me. I'll always be me."
Once more her heart breaks for him but more than anything, she feels pride swell in her chest.
He actually opened up about it, told her what was really going on in his mind, and she knows how hard that is for him, how much overcoming it costs him to share his insecurities with anyone. But he's strong. He's the strongest person she's ever known even when he can't see it himself. Especially when he doesn't believe it and still keeps going.
It has never been Iron-Man, it has never been the Tony Stark persona the rest of the world gets to see... it has always been a little boy who grew up too fast and too messy with too little fond memories and too many bad ones. It has always been a kid who lost everything over and over again, and then some more. It has always been the man that he grew into when the whole universe stood against him.
The boy, the kid, the man. All of them were broken by the circumstances surrounding them but none of them ever gave up. That's not how they're wired, how their DNA is coded.
Whenever Tony fell, he picked up the countless pieces with all their jagged edges and started putting them back together. They cut him and he bled for every mistake but every time he glued himself back together he made changes and adapted because in his heart Tony Stark has always been an engineer, a mechanic, a builder.
The broken pieces that used to hurt him? They became his armor.
The circumstances that used to break him? He owned them, morphed them into something that would make him stronger.
For every time he bled he made sure that he was prepared for the next time, the next assault.
He is the man that, even without the fancy red and gold armor he dons every other day, Pepper looks at and calls him her hero and calls him brave and courageous and invincible.
He's still battling his own demons. The ones that he has somehow ended up sealing away within his armor when he built it. The threat from within him is something he deals with every day and that he barely lets on. It's something no suit can protect him from and something that Tony is fighting on his own.
For Pepper, that is what the Stark name stands for.
It means unrelenting but never harsh.
It stands for a strength that's strong in its gentleness.
It stands for a heart so big and vulnerable that it had to be covered up so it wouldn't be broken beyond repair.
It stands for progress and stride without leaving anyone behind.
Long before they ever started dating, the name Tony Stark has come to stand for family and she can't wait to be a part of it.
She tells him as much and, even though he won't believe her just yet, she's certain she is getting through to him at least. That's enough for now. She'll just have to remind him every once in a while.
For the rest of her life, she swears, she's going to make him see how good the name Stark is going to be, not only for the world he keeps saving but for their future and their family.