Look, chapter! Fancy that.

Warnings: there is a reference to sexual harassment in this chapter, as in Tony remembers such accusations coming up at SI years ago. He is thinking about things he is actually proud of from his somewhat spotty past, and taking the victim's side in that situation makes the list. (I figured a huge corporation like Stark Industries was bound to have had such issues at some point in the past, and I've always seen Tony Stark as the kind of man who would take the victim's side in a heartbeat. He's the kind to be a good-natured ass at times, but never an actual asshole.)

Also, there's a reference to Pepper having changed her sexualliy: Tony isn't unaware of the existence of bisexuality (heh, at all), he is just - as usual - so uncaring about non-essentials that it is almost aggressive: he even forgets the very word. Basically, he really doesn't care what she is or isn't as long as she's happy and his kid doesn't get another dude like himself for a stepdad... (He might have a point, there.)

I don't own Marvel.

TapTap

Overall, Peggy Carter had no regrets. As in, she thought she was lucky in how her life had turned out, in the end. Beyond that, she did have regrets, and plenty of them, too. There was a lot of good in her life, but before that, there had been a large amount of bad, as well.

She felt lucky to have had the chance to meet Steve again - she had missed him - but she was an old woman now. She was widowed, a mother and a grandmother, but she had not gotten to spend her life with Steve, like she had once wished to. She was glad of how it had finally turned out, but the regrets were still there.

For herself, Peggy would want to keep Steve near for the rest of the limited time they had left, but despite all the things which had happened since they'd once been together, and her essentially having moved on, she did still love him. In a way.

He deserved better: he deserved more than being kept in the past by her. She was an old woman now, and he needed to finally get the chance to live his life. Yes, she did have regrets, but she refused for one of them to be to steal Steve's life now, when he'd gotten a second chance to have one.

No matter how much she had missed him.

Or would again.

Bruce was amused. Most other doctors would have been annoyed at this point, but - luckily - Bruce did not really do upset in any way. Until he got angry, finally, anyway, and all hell broke loose. Almost literally.

Clint was an even worse patient than Tony, which was almost impressive, if he was honest. Right now, Bruce was doing yet another checkup of the archer, who had been seriously injured a few months ago on an assignment.

Silently, as he let Clint go - and he basically ran from him, which Bruce could only find amusing (he could only love, after all, how some of his team-mates seemed to find him way scarier than they ever did the Hulk) - he thanked his lucky star, not for the first time, for Claire's appearance in their life.

Clint, as well as Bucky, he was sure of it, had been struggling pretty badly not six months ago, but the appearance of the charming, goofy young engineer had soundly distracted all of them. Bruce did not pretend to have no regrets, not in any way, but he did think that they were lucky in how things had turned out. He was happy, and he was grateful that he had been given that chance. There was a time when he would have never thought it would ever be possible.

Tony was cleaning up his workshop. He fully expected that childproofing the tower and all his various workspaces within would take years, and so, naturally, he had begun it first chance he got.

Pepper was only weeks away from her due-date now, and while she generally handled all the preparations either on her own or with the help of Natasha, (or, in some cases, with Bucky and Steve, the honorary super-uncles) this much he could do.

Tony did not pretend to have no regrets; he regretted wasting time, most of all, before his perspective had shifted and he had realised so many things. Some of them at the very nick of time.

He regretted not being a better boyfriend to Pepper, too, and he regretted getting so drunk that afternoon after them breaking up that he did not even remember conceiving the only (biological) daughter he'd ever have.

What he did not regret, was, well... everything else.

He did not regret what all those wasted years had finally ended up making him. Silly as he knew he could be, he had never actually needed to regret his morals. Which probably meant he had firmly misunderstood that word, as most people used it, but he didn't give a damn about sleeping with too many people or buying too many cars. That hurt nobody.

As for his past, he might have had very few responsibilities, but he had never really shunned any of the truly important ones. For years he had barely run his company, but he had always been there to help and support the people who depended on him. Infuriating as he knew he had been (especially for Pepper), and unreliable as he might still be when it came to picking up awards and attending meetings, there had been other issues, and he had never once shrunk from that.

There was the time where a SI board member had been harassing a secretary, and he had found her crying in the broom closet by happenstance. Naturally, he had helped her out, and though he realised nowadays that he could have been much more sensitive about it, the years had also granted him the insight that the woman in question had not really cared.

After what that man had put her through, she had not needed Tony to handle her with cotton-gloves. She just needed him to believe her, and that he had done, without question. (Jarvis had tapes, once they started to look, for goodness sake. And he had implemented an auto-search for certain things after that, because such a scenario was plainly unacceptable.) He had been approached twice more after that in very similar situations, and irresponsible as he was at all other times, he had been able to spot something important, even back then.

He had been lazy and useless, for years, but he was never once an actual asshole. He was proud of himself for that.

He was happy, too, about how things had finally turned out. He knew himself better, now, and much as he loved Pepper, he was not cut out for what she had needed. It was not her fault at all, nor, he was starting to believe, was it his.

She had Natasha now, and little baby Potts-Stark-Romanow (Man, they needed to talk about that, too. Poor baby couldn't be burdened with all of that) and Tony, for one, liked their odds. He was sure he would have been a rubbish husband, but he believed Claire when she said she thought he'd make a nice dad. She, after all, would know better than anybody else.

He was not his father - good or bad (you could say bad things about Howard Stark, but he had not been a playboy in any sense of the word) - and he had grown up. Pepper would be happier with Natasha, but it took a village to raise a kid, didn't they say? He'd always be there for his child, and he was grateful more than anything for the chance to realise what was important in his life, before the child was there to be forgotten.

He had his flaws, as they all did (maybe Pepper excluded; not counting her taste in men. Hell, he was relieved for his kid's sake she was a lesbian now, or whatever. Who would she have picked next, Bruce Wayne? Gawd), but they had all been so lucky. In finding each other, in forming their own unique family, and he honestly wouldn't have it any other way.