Story: Quiet Still Moments
Author: saichick
Challenge: Pepperony 100
Theme: 047 Still
Rating: PG-13

Timeline: between IM1 and IM2

Preview: At reader request, a continuation of the story line started in Pepper Florence Nightingale and continued in Goddess of Healing. Pepper's viewpoint this time.

It was the slight tug of Tony's hand in her hair when she shifted her head which woke her. Sometime during the night he'd reached over and tangled his fingers in her long hair. She, in turn, had rested her head in exhaustion onto his forearm, one hand curled in his, the other touching his injured shoulder. The intimacy of their positions struck her. Somehow, in the stillness of sleep, the two of them had quietly gravitated towards each other in a manner neither would allow when awake.

It was tempting to drift back to sleep and wallow in the affection of that one, small gesture, but her back hurt. She was also afraid he'd misconstrue her concern as a green light to resume the constant sexual overtures he had thankfully recently abandoned. For 10 years Tony had tried to seduce her. After Aghanistan, his efforts had almost become laughably childish as he hinted he wanted more from her and pulled out all the stops. Then, without explanation, all efforts to seduce her had suddenly stopped.

He still wanted, needed her, at his side as much as possible, if anything more so than before, but the blatant sexuality of his overtures had changed. She had no idea what was going on in that genius mind of his, but she had to admit part of her missed the fact he no longer found her physically attractive. Still … for the first time in his employ, she was beginning to relax in his presence. Occasionally he made a halfhearted pass as a joke more than anything serious, but she could tell his heart just wasn't into it anymore. Without Tony constantly trying to get her into his bed, the only prurient impulses she had to control these days were her own which, ironically, were more powerful than ever.

So as not to wake him, Pepper gently extricated her hair from his grasp. He murmured when she did so, unconsciously reaching for her as she slid away. She ended up slipping her small hand into his, intertwining her slim fingers between his large, strong ones to replace the hair he only reluctantly gave up. Holding his hand while he slept denied her the mobility to go about and begin her day, but she found she didn't mind. Until he awoke and reassured her his head injury had done no lasting damage, she didn't want to leave.

It also gave her a legitimate excuse to stay at his side and gaze at his features, highlighted by the eerie silver-blue light of his arc reactor. Even injured and exhausted, he was a beautiful man. The sheet had slipped down at some point during the night and his chest was exposed, or at least that part of it that wasn't wrapped in gauze and ace bandages to stabilize the broken ribs and collarbone. She absent-mindedly ran her finger from his injured collarbone down to his arc reactor, gently feeling the bumpy scar tissue surrounding the socket housing the device which kept him alive. She noted that the tissue looked discolored, inflamed, as though his body was fighting off a low-grade infection. She traced one of the thin angry red-blue lines emanating from his arc reactor to his chest. He had been burning the candle at both ends again. He was run down. She made a mental note to ask the doctor for antibiotics.

Pepper loved these quiet, still moments that she was able to steal with increasing frequency. She hated the fact the suit took him away from her, put him in danger, could get him killed. But a larger part of her relished how vulnerable he was when he got back. As much as she loathed the suit, the part of him she was hopelessly in love with, the new Tony Stark which 3 months in a cave had unearthed from beneath decades of muck, was as integrally tied to the technology and its mission to save the innocent as his shattered heart was kept beating by the arc reactor. Without one, she understood, she would not have the other.

Tony's moods were tied to his missions. If a mission went badly, if he didn't make it there in time, if he wasn't able to save everyone, he would not speak about what had gone wrong. He would quietly remove his armor and retreat into his workshop to tinker, refusing to eat and speaking to no one. She wished he would talk about it, or at least talk to Rhodey, but he refused. Rhodey called it his "lone gun-slinger act" and reassured her it was just a man's way of dealing with things, but Pepper was not convinced. She feared Tony would self-destruct, return to old habits if he kept it all bottled up inside. The best she could do was quietly try to get his mind off things.

She knew he felt responsible for the part his weapons often had in causing the harm he was trying to rectify. All she could do was refocus his attention on the here and now, what needed to be done that day. Redirect his thoughts back into the land of the living. It annoyed him to focus on the mundane when he had enormous earth-shattering problems on his mind, but she knew that pulling his mind back into this reality, nudging him back into the here and now, was necessary to prevent him from becoming overwhelmed and imploding.

If a mission was completely successful, if he defeated the bad guys, saved the innocent, and totally escaped serious injury, his joy was far more addictive than the most potent drug. Tony would animatedly strut around his workshop, simultaneously prattling on like an elementary school child about how the mission went and tinkering with the robotics on his suit as he had JARVIS compile a long list of improvements he wished to make before the next mission. He was beautiful when he was happy, his face afire with happiness, and his joy at the fact he had made a difference in the world was highly contagious. A victorious Tony Stark was her heroin, her drug of choice, and she was his addict.

Then there were nights like last night, nights when he came home injured. She hated the fact she could have lost him, he could have died, that he was in pain. But another part of her stole what little bit he had to give her, his soul lay bare to her patient ministrations as she patched up his battered body and gave comfort to his injured soul. What she was too terrified to approach under normal circumstances lest she fall prey to his overwhelming sexual magnetism, she could touch freely without fear when he was injured. It was a strange sensation to feel both sorrow at his pain, yet joy at running her fingers along his skin, his muscles rippling beneath her touch, and know she was the only person in the world he trusted to do this. She willed herself to focus the unrequited love in her heart as she tended him out her hands and into his wounds to speed his healing. It was a silly thought, she realized, that her simple touch could make a difference, but it made her feel better, less helpless.

Tony stirred, bringing her back to the here and now. His grip tightened on her hand, as if he realized even in sleep that she had awoken and was attempting to flee. He grimaced and murmured her name. She knew if she left, he would immediately wake up and get out of bed, against doctors orders, further injuring himself in the process. There were things she needed to get done, but it was still early. They could wait. He was more important.

"Shhhh…." she whispered, reaching up her free hand to sooth his brow. "I'm here. Sleep."

He shifted slightly in his sleep, murmured something incomprehensible, and settled down. She didn't dare speak to him now, not the way she had last night, because she knew he only barely walked the world of sleep. One move, one word, and her quiet, still moment would be over. They would be forced to resume their rigid employer/employee roles and she would have to raise her guard. Stolen moments such as this were the only time she had to convey her feelings in the language she knew he understood, touch. Tony was a purely physical creature, craving connection in the only way he knew how to receive it. Pepper dared not touch him while awake as she feared her baser impulses would gain the better of her, but now, now she could let her hands say what words had failed to convey, what she dared not say, that she loved him. She gently stroked the forearm she had fallen asleep on earlier.

She was exhausted. She hadn't gotten any sleep either. At some point she dozed off again. She awoke to find her traitorous head had reclaimed its comfortable pillow on his arm, his dark eyes open and intently staring at her as she slept, his fingers still intertwined with hers.

"Good morning," he murmured.

"Good morning, Tony," she said, sitting up suddenly. "How are you feeling?" She tried to extricate her hand from his, but he kept her firmly in his grasp. He reached his other hand over to the one he held captive and stroked the inside of her forearm, sending warm little shivers up her arm.

"Thank you for taking such good care of me," he said quietly, avoiding her question.

"Just doing my job, Mr. Stark," she said, trying to nudge the intimate moment back into their waking employee/employer roles.

"We both know that is not your job, Pepper," he said, his intense gaze causing her heart to race and a pleasant warmth to spread throughout her body. He shifted his grip to more tightly intertwine their fingers and increased his ministrations to the sensitive skin on the underside of her forearm. Smiling a sad little smile, he continued, "I don't know how I'd survive without you."

Had he pulled her towards him right then, wrapped his arms around her and tried to kiss her, she probably would have succumbed, but he did not. Raising her hand to his lips, he gently kissed her hand and then released it, loosening his grip on her fingers so she could escape, but he did not pull his own hand away from hers. As he had been doing so often lately, it seemed, he was offering her the choice. She momentarily froze, not sure whether to escape or lean in to kiss him. She desperately wanted the former, but 10 years of habit made her do the latter. He was injured. Making love to him would exacerbate his injuries, she justified to herself in her own mind, and ruin the fragile new accommodation they seemed to have come to lately.

"I'm glad you're okay," she said, feeling stupid and disappointed even as the words left her mouth. "I'll go get you some breakfast."

"Thank you, Miss Potts," he said, his expression sad as he said the words he knew would put their relationship back on the professional footing he knew she found comfortable.

Pepper scurried out of there as quickly as she could to prevent herself from doing something she knew she would later regret. Her quiet still moment was over.