Authors note: reviews are like chocolate, you can never get enough of them. 'Nough said, there are other IM Fanfics on my page if you are looking for others. I apologize for the lateness, works being a bugger lately!
Word count: 336
Safe.
She was safe.
That was all that mattered to Tony in that moment, the fact he had defeated the man slash army that wanted him dead AKA The Mandarin but yet – Pepper was fine, well not fine because she was sobbing into his neck but she was in one piece. Not many pieces, just one – one that he would continue to keep safe and protect. It was something he worried about more so during his day than anything else. Even when he was tinkering with his suits, the inner insomniac not allowing him to get the slumber he so desirably wanted – just to lay beside her and be able to sleep peacefully than to have heart-breaking, sweat making nightmares. He blamed the anxiety, ever since New York he knew the feeling of something he couldn't control would get him one day and end him.
Then the love of his life, Pepper wouldn't even be able to protect herself should any of his long lost enemies come and want revenge. It was one of the many reasons he kept tinkering, there had be a suit that he could make that would allow him to go through that portal and survive – not closing his eyes and believing that he was gone… for good.
But now, laying with the strawberry blonde haired woman who meant to the world to him – who had his heart (literally, the metal shards of the shrapnel that had once been embedded deep into his chest, so close to his heart that without the RT he would have bleed to death within days of the accident) and soul.
Tony Stark belonged to Virginia 'Pepper' Potts.
And he didn't mind. He preferred it than to go back to his miserable, playboy of a life. No, he loved the softness of her skin, the feathery feel of her hair brushing against his face, neck and his bare chest. As long as he felt those against his body, he would be okay.
As long as she was safe.