Hi everyone! Sorry that this chapter took so long to materialize! I was going to post a couple things before Age of Ultron, but now that I've seen the movie, I've got some better ideas for what Tony and Pepper were up to between Iron Man 3 and Ultron. Please also check out Nightlight for updates soon—I've been hoarding a few chapters thinking that we might all need a Pepperony fix after Ultron. :) (Also, I'm assuming that Pepper still has Extremis, since I haven't seen otherwise in the MCU.)

SPOILER ALERT! By now, most of you have seen Age of Ultron, so you know that Pepper isn't in it. It's too bad, but not very surprising, because as someone on Tumblr pointed out, if Pepper had been in Age of Ultron, she would have stopped the whole thing before it started and there would have been no movie. ("You're doing what tonight, Tony? No, take a night off from this whole Ultron project and come have dinner with me. Bruce, you too.") Thanks for your reviews, and I'll see you again soon!

Disclaimer: I own no part of the Marvel Universe: just feels, fanart, and fanfic. :)

Rebuilding

"Hey—are you finished packing?" Pepper said. She joined Tony in the bathroom where he was standing in front of the mirror, flossing before they went to bed. They'd started looking for a new place in Malibu, but for now they were living in Stark Tower. (Not that it was really Stark Tower anymore—most people called it Avengers Tower, and Tony had stopped correcting them.)

"Yeah, all set," Tony said, nodding toward a black bag sitting by the door. They were leaving the following morning: six weeks after the most stressful Christmas maybe in human history, they were finally taking a vacation. And now that the bandages had come off, Tony felt like life was finally returning to something like an even keel, in spite of the big scar at the center of his chest.

With the arc reactor gone, Tony felt like a new man. He and Pepper were both doing better, in part because no one had tried to kill either of them for several weeks, but also because they'd both cut back on work a little. In retrospect, it was sort of surprising that things hadn't gone to hell sooner, back when he'd been spending twenty hours a day building suits and she'd been pulling sixteen hour days just to get the new Stark Towers up and running. To no one's surprise, not everyone in the world was happy that Stark Industries could create plentiful clean energy with arc reactors: the oil and gas lobbies were slowing down construction of everything these days, and though neither of them were thrilled with the delays, Tony knew that he and Pepper both didn't really mind working a little less.

"Oh," Pepper said, clearly pleased that he'd actually packed. She pulled off her jacket and walked into their closet to hang it up. "You were down in the shop all day. I was just wondering what you were up to."

Tony shrugged, trying to be nonchalant. "Yeah, JARVIS and I were just fixing something."

There was a long pause, and Tony decided that she must be changing clothes, and when she was finished, he'd tell her what he'd been working on. (Otherwise, JARVIS would.)

"I see," Pepper said, returning to the bathroom wearing pale purple pajamas. She bumped his shoulder with hers as she passed him to wash her face. "This something isn't going to delay our vacation, is it?"

"It will not," Tony promised. "It's just...something I've been thinking about. You know, since Christmas."

Pepper dried her face with a towel and looked at him. "Christmas. Is this something a suit?"

"Technically, it's the suitcase I used to keep the Mark V in."

"Okay..." Pepper said slowly, watching him as he took as long as possible to throw away his used dental floss. "And what were you and JARVIS doing with it?"

Tony finally looked her in the eye. "I stripped it for parts, then started tinkering with a new design. For a modified Mark V suitcase armor."

Pepper frowned. "A new design. You haven't started building it yet?"

"No, because I wanted to talk to you about it first," Tony said. "I indicated at Christmas that I was done with suits."

"But..." Pepper said, giving him a small, knowing smile, which was a huge relief to Tony, who'd been wondering if she was going to be pissed about this.

"But, I think that we should have one. Just in case of emergencies."

"Okay," Pepper said. "That makes sense."

Tony stared at her. He hadn't expected this. "...really?"

"Tony, not wanting you to spend all your time on suits doesn't mean that I don't want you spending any time on them," Pepper said patiently. "Honestly, I'm surprised you waited this long to start tinkering."

"Six weeks," Tony objected. "That's—not a long time. Besides, we were busy with other stuff: planning a vacation, working on some health issues, reassuring the world that we aren't going to disappear again anytime soon."

"Tony, I'm not mad," Pepper said, putting her hands on his shoulders. "Is that why you waited so long to talk about this?"

"Again, only six weeks. And I thought that...I mean, you said, correctly, that the suits were a distraction."

"They were, when you had forty-two of them!" Pepper said impatiently. "But as you are very fond of saying, you're still Iron Man. And the next time you have to help save the world, I can see how you wouldn't want to have to hitch a ride with Rhodey or Thor."

"I advised Mr. Stark to share this matter with you sooner, Ms. Potts," JARVIS said loftily.

"Not helping," Tony said, glaring up at the ceiling.

"That was good advice, JARVIS," Pepper said. "Tony. I am okay with this."

"...okay," Tony said slowly. "Good. I mean...I should have said something sooner. Because I'm handling my...anxiety stuff better. And it's helping, being around you more—eating three meals a day and getting some sleep every night. But I still need to do superhero stuff sometimes. And yes, it's ironic that the thing I used to do to relieve stress now causes me stress when I'm secretive about it. I guess I still need practice at…telling you things."

"And that's okay," Pepper said, kissing him gently. "I know that tinkering helps you. And seeing you every day is really helping me too. Although yesterday, I broke a toothbrush."

"Really? And how did that transpire?" Tony said, smiling at her.

"I was going over some contracts while I was brushing my teeth, and I was annoyed, because legal was going to have to redo everything, and...yeah. I bit down a little hard and my toothbrush snapped in half. Which, as Extremis side effects go, is pretty easy to live with."

Tony shrugged and ran his hands up and down her arms. "So we both break stuff sometimes. We replace it and move on."

"We rebuild," Pepper said, leaning her forehead against his. "And we try to do better next time. Even when we're tempted to tear up contracts."

"Seriously, have legal tell our friends in the fossil fuel business that they're living on borrowed time."

"They know they are, which is why they're trying to make my life as difficult as possible," Pepper said, but then she shook her head. "Starting tomorrow though, none of that is going to matter for one whole week."

"And neither will the new suitcase armor," Tony said. "JARVIS, check my math then go to sleep."

"Yes sir," JARVIS said, and a second later, they heard the chime signaling that JARVIS was in sleep mode.

"He knows that he doesn't actually have to check my math," Tony explained, putting his arms around her. "So. We're on vacation tomorrow. That means we can sleep in, which means that tonight, we can stay up as late as we want."

"Our plane leaves at noon," Pepper said, and he felt her smile when he gently started kissing all around her lips. "So we can sleep in."

"And I'll make breakfast," Tony promised.

"We will make breakfast so you don't set anything on fire," Pepper said, pulling him toward their bed.

"It's been some time since I set anything on fire while cooking," Tony pointed out, pulling off his shirt. He glanced down at the scar on his chest, but looked up when Pepper began tracing it with her fingertips. "Thanks for not being grossed out."

"I still don't understand why you think a scar would unnerve me after the arc reactor," Pepper said wryly. "Lots of people have scars. With yours gone, zero people have arc reactors in their chests. And you burned the toast last Saturday."

"I was distracted. You were…being very distracting," Tony said, distracted by the fact that she was removing her cute pajamas. It seemed that he and Pepper were really okay: after everything that had happened in the past few weeks, rebuilding an emergency Iron Man suit would be easy. But first, he was determined to show Pepper why they should really take more vacations…