AN: Thank you to all my reviewers. I know this is short, but it's just a little one shot I posted in the Pepperony100 lj community. Thought I'd share it with you while composing the final installment of the dancing one shot.

Disclaimer: I own neither Tony Stark nor Pepper Potts.

I Heard the Rain

It was like a nightmare, really. She had watched it from the beginning, when the sea had began it's slow, relentless ramming against the rocks. The wind was rough against the waves, sending the sea back again that seemed to shake her to the core. She felt it in her chest as if one could feel the unpleasant vibrations from a speaker at a rock concert. She kept no lights on when she watched storms. The dark encompassed everything, even outside, but it was not pitch black. In fact, the sky continued to light up every few moments with lightning that gave her a great panorama of the ocean view spreading out to sea, the waves roaring like unsettled souls. Storms had always scared Pepper. It was a force, an unrestrained power that you had no defense against. Shelter could be a solution, but only until that force ripped it away, and you were left standing on the brink with the wind in your hair and the sea spray on your face, and it could swallow you whole. When the storms happened at night, the sea was black and it made Pepper shudder at the thought of being lost at sea. With no protection, nothing to hold onto, there was no chance of survival. Wave after wave fell on you like a wall of iron, and it gave no mercy to those who could not rise above the swell. Whether above the surface or not, any gasp of air you tried to catch and hold onto was useless, so filled with salt and brine and water. It filled your lungs until they burst inside your chest and filled you to your finger tips.

Pepper self consciously took a gasp of air and her whole body shuddered. She crossed her arms over her chest, closing her lofty blue eyes as another strike of lightning tore across the sky and thunder cracked like an unforgiving whip of an Egyptian slave master. Pepper was sure someone could be out there in those treacherous waves, somewhere lost in the folds of black and brine that was screaming with water filled lungs for help. Pepper was not scared. She could face a storm, she could confront the sea when it roared in her face. She could find the courage to throw her arms at the furious steel sky that heated the ocean with electricity and howling.

Pepper was haunted. She could still feel the water rising in her lungs and still see the ocean's surface so many miles above her. It had been like the beginning of a symphony. There had been the introducing few bars of wind, then the music had swelled, the waves crashing like symbols, the thunder beating like the drums. The rods of lightning reminded her of a conductor's wand. The climax was coming, it was nearing and the water was choking her, clogging her throat like two hands strangling her from around the neck, pulling her under the overwhelming abyss.

Then, she felt his arms. They circled around her from behind. He was still warm from the messy sheets and the duvet on the bed. She felt his dark goatee and his lips nuzzle the soft skin of her neck, his breath warm. Her pale fingers reached up and cupped the side of his head, her fingertips curling dark locks of his hair around her fingers. He had never been so quiet as to sneak up on her and catch her completely off guard. How had he managed it? Normally, she was the one to accomplish silent steps, but it seemed he had honed on the skill himself, probably something from being around her for so long.

"Why are you awake?" his voice was a whisper, his lips at her ear now, making her shiver in remembrance of where those lips had been just hours before.

"I heard the rain," she said, turning her eyes to him that lit up like drops of light every time a flash illuminated the dark clouds outside.

"Your bedroom is not exactly quiet during thunderstorms."

"It isn't exactly quiet otherwise, either. As I recall there was no thunderstorm at the beginning of the evening," his smile was playful, but tired. She could tell how tired he was just from the way he smiled, how it wasn't completely reaching his eyes, though his dark gaze was twinkling at her. She felt his arms, steely around her waist. They wouldn't let her go if she tried to get away... relentless. A force to be reckoned with, like the water outside, except he could break through water. He could penetrate the waves.

As Tony drew her back to bed, pulling her backward across the silk sheets, she thought about the forces of Iron and Water. Water was more than a liquid. It was like shards of glass moving as one, sharp and biting. It separated and came back together, encircling you like thorns, cutting everywhere it could reach. Then there was the Iron. Iron was irrevocable, whole, and it was power. Iron was authority. You could not pass it without judgement, and it did not bend to your will. Water could bend easily, be broken easily.

Pepper laid in Tony's arms. She wanted iron.

AN: Review, please! I don't want to have to withold the dancing and the massage...