Chapter 10

His presence in the back of the room was the first thing her eyes landed on when they opened again, and had it not been for his hunched yet rigid sitting posture in a chair, his laced hands covering the bottom half his face, and the glare she was currently receiving from him, she would have been that much happier to see him again after she had thought she was definitely going to die.

Did he see me? Yeah, he saw me. Their eyes found each other's instantly after she blinked a few times to focus her eyes on his form, and she did not even pretend she was not aware he knew she had finally woken up.

It had only taken her six hours to recover consciousness since he had found her passed out on the southwestern shores of Angel Island – little over five miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. However, with the way Tony was yet to move an inch other than his slow blinking, Pepper almost wished she had remained unconscious much longer than whatever time she did not know had passed.

She finally looked away from him and cleared her throat, which felt as if it was filled with as much sand as her undergarments had been. She slowly scanned her surroundings and confirmed her suspicions that she was in a hospital, and the wiggling of her exposed toes at the end of the bed told her she had neither lost her legs nor her ability to walk.

Her eyes fell on him again, and she swore that if his shoulders were not slightly rising to show he was breathing, she would have thought she was staring at a very well-made wax statue of her boyfriend.

He was still her boyfriend, right?

"I…" she tried to speak but her mouth was dry. "I'm…thirsty," she said with a lot of effort spent for those two simple words.

Still speechless, Tony stood up from the chair and walked over to a small table by the only window in the room. He poured enough water in a glass to fill it up and then turned around and walked toward the redhead. He pressed a button on the edge of the bed and the upper portion of the mattress began lifting until Pepper was almost sitting up. He then held the glass to her lips and helped her chug down every single drop of the liquid inside.

A small trail of water slid down her lips, so he took out a handkerchief from his back pocket and used it to carefully wipe her chin. The movement caused his fingertips to brush against her face, and for an instant his cold eyes were replaced by ones of yearning. The brief window of opportunity did not last long, however, and his eyes returned to their unreadable look when he closed his hand and pulled away from her. Pepper gave him a slow nod, cleared her throat once more, and spoke up. "Thank you."

The inventor just stood there, arms at his sides, and eyes staring directly at her as she became uncomfortable with the silence. She could not think of one time in the past when Tony had been stunned silent by the anger she could see pouring out of him – at least not anger directed toward her.

Now that she was slowly starting to feel more aware of herself, she stared down at herself and counted two legs and two arms, ten fingers and ten toes. She touched her face with her fingertips, and then pulled on the front of her hospital gown to look down into it. Other than some minor scrapes and bruises here and there, she looked healthy enough so far. She then pulled the covers off herself and flinched when she saw her left shin was all bandaged up. Throughout her quick inspection, the inventor was yet to say a word or remove his eyes from her; a fact that did not escape the uncomfortable ginger.

"So, did it work?" she asked him, her eyes still on her leg. When Tony did not respond she looked up at him, her patience running thin with his attitude toward her. She gave the inventor a few more seconds to respond but when he did not, she shook her head at him and sighed. "You would've done the same thing, you know?"

The ginger would have thought that she had just insulted his late grandmother with the look he gave her. He crossed his arms over his chest, took in a deep breath, and tilted his head forward.

Here we go, she thought, covering her body with the blanket again, and she looked down at her hands on her lap.

"Did I just hear you assume what I would've done in your place?"

"No," she said as calmly as possible. "I've simply extrapolated from your previous actions as Iron Man and arrived at a reasonable conclusion based on the facts."

"Really?" he spat back with obvious incredulity in his tone of voice even though he knew she was right. This was not about who was right or wrong; it was about Pepper putting herself in what he considered to be unnecessary danger and not listening to what his more experienced ass had to say. "I don't think you understand the facts enough to extrapolate them like that, Potts."

"Sure, because making it out alive from a situation and not making it out alive from a situation are very difficult to differentiate. You would've done the same thing, Tony. You've taken as many risks as needed in order to save lives."

"I took risks, Pepper, so other people didn't have to. Particularly not those people I care about," he said with barely controlled rage. "And most especially, not my girlfriend."

"Well, what were you thinking giving me and Rhodey suits? Surely you knew that we were bound to be faced with a difficult situation at some point, right? Don't tell me that your smart mind didn't tell you that putting us inside a suit of armor would make us want to do the right thing; the same things you do every day."

"It's not the same."

"Oh, really?" she asked, the volume of her voice slowly rising. "How do you figure, huh? Because from where I'm standing, I did what I should've done. How many times did we tell you not to push yourself and you didn't listen? How many times did you almost die on us? How many times did we…did I have to watch you run off to certain doom?"

Tony lowered his arms to his sides, and his hands turned into fists. He then walked up to the redhead and towered over her sitting form. "It's different, Pepper! The world depended on me doing my job!"

"And the people on that bridge depended on me keeping the damage to a minimum! Are you saying that just because I didn't save the entire world, my actions are not justified?"

"No, I'm not saying that. You saved a lot of people today. In fact, the only one that didn't make it was the idiot who caused it all."

"Really?" Pepper smiled. "It worked, then? Everyone was saved?"

"Yes," Tony reluctantly agreed. "Yes, it worked. But that's not the point. You could've killed yourself, Pepper! And for what? For a man that wanted to die anyway?"

"Of course not! For the other hundreds that got caught in the middle. Did you not see all of those people? Why are you making a big deal out of this, anyway?"

"What?" he almost choked on his words and leaned over by the side of the bed. "Did you seriously just ask me what the big deal is? You disobeyed me and let a bomb – no, wait – bombs explode in your face, and you don't know what the fucking big deal is?" His face ended up inches from hers.

She swallowed hard but kept eye contact with him, pained to see how much fury was present in his gaze – all of it directed at her. "I don't have to listen to you, Tony."

"Yes, you do! You absolutely HAVE to listen to me, especially when I'm trying to save your life! As long as that suit is in your possession, you have to respond to what I say!"

"I did respond to what you said by telling you I wasn't listening to you."

"Dammit, Pepper!" He threw his hands in the air. "Don't you care about yourself? About me? About us? Do you have any idea what it was like to watch you get blown to pieces on TV? Any idea at all?!"

"Yes, I actually do have an idea, Anthony Edward Stark," she pointed at him. "It was the same feeling I got when you told Gene to kick us out of the Makluan ship and you stayed behind. It was the same feeling I had when I saw that damned ship explode with you still inside!"

Tony opened his mouth to deny her claims, but when he realized he could not, he did the only other thing he could think to do: shout at her some more. "So is this payback, Pepper?" He pulled away from her and walked over to the wall the chair he had been sitting in was. "Did you do this just to get revenge on me, or something?"

"Oh, my God!" She rolled her eyes. "You know, you were making more sense when you weren't talking."

"Sense? I'm not making sense? Pepper, I thought you were dead! I thought I'd lost you!"

"Yes, I get that, and I'm sorry that I scared you, but I didn't die and you didn't lose me. So there, move on."

"M-move on?" He blinked in disbelief. "Move on? Look at you, for fuck's sake! You have second degree burns on your leg, you almost drowned on me, and you nearly ended up scattered all over the Pacific, and you expect me to just 'move on' from that?"

"I expect you to be happy that I'm alive and not chew my head off when I did the job I'm expected to do when I put on that suit!"

"And you think that I'm not relieved that I found you alive? Pepper, I was…beyond myself…I…the thought of you gone…I…just couldn't imagine…" He covered his face with his hands and inhaled, trying to keep his emotions in check, believing that anger was the only way to make her understand. "I couldn't believe how stupid you acted! How stupid your decision was!"

"You know, when the person you claim to love is in the hospital, it is typical to bring them flowers, not insult them."

"This is not a joke, Pepper. You don't just put on the suit and take on anything just because you feel protected by it."

"That's what you do!"

"I made the damned thing! I know its limits!"

"Do you, now?"

"Yes, I do!"

"Oh, you mean the same limits you pushed every time you went on a mission? The ones that made you inject yourself with Extremis?"

The inventor again was left speechless. He shook his head and stared at the window as he spoke. "I should've never made you that suit."

"You can't take it back now."

"I don't have to," he shrugged. "Fucking thing is nothing but scrap now. I had to peel it off your back."

"Then you're making me a new one."

Tony scoffed. "Let me think about that. Uhm …no."

"Why not?" She yelled and threw the cover off her. She then slid her legs to the side of the bed and forced herself to stand up, flinching when the bandages on the burned skin on her leg pulled on the injury. "Because…because you want to be the only one that takes risks? Are you taking Rhodey's suit, too?"

"What the hell are you doing getting up?" He walked over to her and tried to push her back to bed by cupping her shoulders. "You need to rest."

"And you need to get off my case and trust me," she pushed his arms away from her shoulders.

"Oh, I trust you, Pepper. I trust that you're going to kill yourself the next time you think it's OK to take on a wannabe terrorist all by yourself. Why didn't you call me?"

"I didn't think I needed you. Besides, the pod said your phone was offline."

The teen pursed his lips, refusing to let the ginger know of his own stupid mistake. He then rested his hands on his hips and stared at the nothingness over Pepper's head. "You're not getting another suit and that's final."

"Why?"

"Why? You want to know why?"

"I just asked, didn't I? Are you going deaf on me, now?"

The scientist glared at her for an instant before he walked away. Pepper was almost certain he was simply going to just leave the room, but he surprised her when he walked over to a door in the corner of the room. He opened the door and left it open, walked back to her, picked her up in his arms, and then took her through the door with him. The ginger yelped and tried to force him to let her go, but he did not do so until he planted her feet on the floor in front of a mirror. The small room he had taken her to was the private bathroom of the hospital suite, which told Pepper they were not in any old regular hospital.

"This is why," he said and pointed to her reflection in the mirror, particularly of a small – almost insignificant – bruise by her left temple. The redhead leaned closer to the mirror and rubbed the almost imperceptible blemish she knew she could cover with her bangs and shrugged.

"What am I looking at?"

"That," he began as he continued to stare at her through her reflection, standing closely behind the girl. "That is the mark of what almost killed you. One of the metal sticks holding the bombs together flew at your head. The piece of metal embedded itself into the helmet, and if it had pushed inside just 1/2 of an inch more, it would've pierced your skull."

The redhead rubbed the same spot again with her left hand and her lost glance told the inventor she was picturing the scene in her head. She then sighed loudly and turned around to face Tony whose posture denoted he was still unyielding about his decision, but his eyes showed how tired he was of their fight. She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against his chest, and her hands rested on his fisted ones.

"I'm not apologizing for going on that mission."

"And you shouldn't," he agreed despite the danger she had been in. "Rescue kicked ass. I'm very proud of what she did today…well, except the bomb part. Although," he added in a whisper and unclenched his hands to lace his fingers with hers, "I'm still not happy you risked your life like that. Your life is my life, Pepper."

Pepper bit her lower lip to calm her rapidly beating heart before her muffled voice was heard. "Couldn't be helped."

"Sure it could," he whispered and looked down at the top of her face that hardly made it to his upper chest. "You could've used the repulsors to shoot the trigger out of his hand."

Pepper's entire body snapped back and he looked up at Tony's half-smirking face. "Huh…yeah…that would've been…easier…" she smiled in slight embarrassment.

"Safer, too."

The ginger sighed and looked to the side. "Yeah, alright. I screwed up on that, I'll give you that. That was my bad."

The inventor's right hand slid from her hand to the left side of her face, and he forced her to look at him, his thumb lightly stroking her cheek. "You scared me, Pepper."

The redhead closed her eyes, leaned her face closer to his hand and placed a chaste kiss on his thumb. She then opened her eyes again to look up at him while his thumb caressed her lips for a brief moment before he leaned down and kissed her.

The girl hardly had any time to readjust her arms to rest her hands on his chest before his arms surrounded her completely, pulling her closer into his tight embrace. He slowly turned them around in place so that she was no longer resting against the sink but the wall. He then broke the kiss for a moment and dug his face in her neck, and his hands moved down to rest on her waist.

"I didn't think I'd be able to do this again," he whispered to her and kissed down her neck to her shoulder, giving the redhead goosebumps every time his lips brushed against her skin. He then returned to her lips and the kiss that had started out soft and slow was quickly becoming more passionate until Tony's leg brushed against her burned shin.

"Oh, crap!" Pepper exclaimed and bent over in pain.

"Ugh! I'm sorry!" He said to her, kneeled down in front of her to check up on her leg and it was then that Howard Stark and Virgil Potts walked inside the restroom. The ginger was biting down on her right thumb to keep her from screaming in pain, and Tony was down on one knee partially lifting her gown to make sure the bandages had not come off. While the move was innocent enough, to the two newcomers the posture was not above suspicion.

"I thought you said he was going to yell at her for the both of us, Howard," Virgil stated, causing Tony to immediately release the gown and crash down on his butt on the floor.

"The nurses called me because they heard that there was a lot of yelling coming from here," Howard shrugged. "But now I wonder if it was argument yelling and not something else."

"Dad, please!" Tony yelled and picked himself up from the floor. "I bumped into her leg and was checking it was still OK, that's all."

"Oh," Virgil said. "And how did you bump into it? Did you hit my daughter?" the man asked and narrowed his eyes at the blue-eyed boy.

"What? No! I was kissing her!"

"TONY!" Pepper yelled, already blushing to her toes and covering her face.

"What? Oh! Uhm…I mean…" Tony stared between his father and Virgil and then groaned. "Never mind," he finally said and picked up the ginger again as he had done before to return her to bed, walking in between the two adults who could barely contained their knowing smirks.

"I think she's alright," Virgil said as soon as Tony and Pepper left the restroom. "Thanks for bringing her over here, Howard."

"It's no problem," Stark Sr. said. "Thanks for not killing my son."

The two men snickered and then returned to the main hospital room to watch Tony covering Pepper with the blanket, and saw the redhead nod at whatever the inventor had just whispered to her. Tony then kissed her hand and silently left the room. Howard followed his son outside to deal with the cover story to keep Rescue's identity a secret, and Pepper was left with her father to hear another round of kudos and scowling combined.