While Tony was taking care of the bellhop's tip, Pepper walked through their suite to the bedroom, where she fell back onto the king-sized bed once there. From the argument she had been having with Tony, through the phone call that had led them to fly to Akron, to the hours they had stayed at the hospital visiting with the man who was so dear to their family, she was exhausted. Half a minute later she cracked her eyes open when she felt her husband flop down on the space beside her.
Although it was all but confirmed that Rhodey was fine heart wise, they had elected to spend the night in Ohio, so they could hear the results of his stress tomorrow morning in person instead of having to wait for Tanesha's call. They also decided to stay not only because they knew that their kids were in good hands with Clint and Natasha but because they were both bone tired. A two hour flight back to New York on top of everything that had already happened that day didn't sound too appealing.
"Long day, huh?" he said, his arm sprawled over his eyes. "Who knew that acid re-flux could be bad enough to mimic the symptoms of a heart attack?" When they had finally seen him, an embarrassed Rhodey had told them that Dr. Herbert had told him that the likely cause of his chest pain was in all likelihood had just been a very bad case of heartburn.
"Although we know that now, I still want us to get checked out by a doctor if either of us ever starts having chest pains because it could still be a heart attack."
"Yeah."
"I'm being serious."
"So am I."
Tony could hear the tired irritation in her voice, and moving his arm away from his eyes, he looked at her, "Let's not pick up where we left off on the fight we were having this morning please."
"Or pick a new one. Agreed. I am way too tired to fight and besides I think you already apologized for earlier. Let me just say that I'm sorry for earlier too."
"But you weren't the one who started it."
Pepper sat up, and looked at him. "No, but I said some things I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry for that. Please accept my apology?"
"Of course I do!" he replied, sitting up to kiss her.
After they pulled apart, she asked, "So do you want to order Room Service or go down to the restaurant downstairs for dinner?"
"Let's order Room Service please."
Pepper let out a relieved breath, "Thank goodness you said Room Service because I just realized that I'm too tired to even go to the restaurant."
Giving his wife a tired smile of agreement, "I'll get the menu."
AN: The title of the story is take from this quote: A friend is a brother who was once a bother. ~Author Unknown
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