Tony was already in bed when Pepper got there.

"Well, this is certainly a first," she remarked as she got under the covers, snuggling in beside him and holding him tightly. She breathed him in, his unique scent filling her nostrils and calming her.

"You told me I needed more rest," he answered her, squeezing her shoulders as he lay a kiss on the top of her head.

"I don't think you've ever listened to me before."

He laid her down on the pillow, his warm brown eyes drinking in her face as he gently brushed her hair back.

"Hey. I'm a genius. I know when to listen to people who are smarter than me."

She smiled at him, nuzzling into his side and holding him all night long.

She's still holding him the next morning, grateful to have him here, in her arms.

There's a knock on the door.

Tony turns toward the noise, but Pepper ignores it, pulling him close to her, preventing him from getting up.

"What if it's Morgan?" Tony asks, kissing her good morning as she keeps her arms wrapped around him, pressing him to her side again.

"Happy said he'd help with Morgan today," she argues, burying her nose in his neck and disregarding the chattering now going on outside their safe haven.

She manages to convince him to stay in bed all day, holding one another close and remembering their life together in peace and quiet.

They fall asleep wrapped around each other that night too, Tony once again stroking her hair as they gaze at one another in love and gratitude.

The knocking comes more insistently the next morning, and when Tony mentions it Pepper merely asks him to tell her about traveling through time and where he would go if he could do it again.

"I'd go back to the beginning," he smiles, holding her close to himself, "and live our story all over again."

"All of it?" she asks sceptically, raising an eyebrow and reminding him of their… delayed start.

"Hey," he argues back stubbornly, so like him. "I got the girl eventually."

At her incredulous expression, he shrugged, leaning forward and pulling her hand to his cheek to brush against it softly.

"And she got me. It's always been you for me, Pep. That's always how we were going to end up."

"You really believe that?"

He pointed to his head.

"Genius."

He tells her about how impressed he was the first time he saw her, and she tells him about all the moments she knew she was falling in love with him. They pour their hearts out to one another all day, and she keeps pulling his attention back to her any time he turns at the sound of the door.

The third day, the knock is softer, tentative almost.

Tony turns toward the door. Pepper grabs his waist and burrows her head in his chest.

"You have to go get that. You have things to get done."

She groans, holding him tightly in her arms.

"Nooo. You're here," she argues.

He lifts her chin gently, staring at her with such sadness with his familiar loving expression and gives her a heartbroken smile.

"No, I'm not, Pep." He holds her chin firmly as she tries to look away.

"I'm not here. But you are. And you can't stay stop living just because it's easier."

She feels her eyes filling with tears, a ghost of a kiss on her forehead as he moves away from her.

"I can't do this," she confides with a hard shake of her head, squeezing her eyes shut as more tears spill out.

"I don't believe that," he tells her in that confident, don't-argue-with me tone she loved so much. "And I'll keep believing in you until you realise it, too."

"I can't say goodbye," she tells him.

"No, you don't want to say goodbye," he argues. "And that's okay. I was pretty amazing. It's okay to hurt. And grieve. And cry your eyes out. Even curl up in a ball next to my pillow and remember all the foolish choices I made that you forgave. But I'm gone, Pepper. I'm dead."

She shakes her head again, not wanting to believe it. Not wanting to acknowledge it.

"You can't bring me back. It sucks and I'll miss you and you'll miss me, but it is what it is."

He bends down, meeting her eyes again.

"I'm dead." He repeats. "But you, my amazing Pepper. You're still so wonderfully, beautifully alive. So, I need you to do something for me again, Ms. Potts. I need you to live. For me. For our daughter. For you." She keeps shaking her head, trying to pull him back into bed with her.

He stands up, giving her that cocky grin again, but moving further out of her reach.

"I loved you. I loved your life, your smile, your laugh. The way you are so competent and vulnerable and cool and funny and unsure and silly. I love the way you take care of our daughter and the way you love and care for everyone around you. I love all the things that make you, you. And I love that you get to keep doing them. You get to stay here, getting out of bed every morning and making the world better for it. Even when it's hard. Even when you don' t think you can."

He caresses his face, and she cries harder when she can't feel even the ghost of his touch anymore.

"I know you can. And I know you will. And it's going to hurt. And one day, it won't hurt as much and you'll feel bad about that, too. Don't. I want you to be alive, Pepper. I need you to keep living. Live so much. For the both of us. I know you can. And I'm genius, so you can't argue with that."

He backed up, further and further towards the door, smiling a bittersweet smile, even as she shook with rage and grief and heartache.

Then he stops, staring at her.

"I loved you, Pepper Stark."

"I love you, Tony," she cries, barely even seeing him through the tears spilling out of her eyes.

"Yeah," he cleared his throat. "I knew that, too."

She smiled, a sad, heartbroken, grief-stricken smile, clutching his pillow tightly to her chest as she watched him disappear.

The hesitant knock came again.

She squeezed Tony's pillow, laying a tender kiss on it and breathing in the scent that still lingered there.

Then, she turned toward the tissue by the bed, grabbing some and wiping her eyes.

She took a deep breath, stood up, and answered the door.

A/N: A loved one of mine died recently. This was an attempt of my mind to try to start processing, and I wrote the whole thing through tears.
It didn't work. Title from Casting Crown's "Praise You in This Storm."