Written to: Bubbly - Colbie Caillat, crosspost from AO3.
Dormiveglia: The space that stretches between sleeping and waking.
Tony wakes up to a little jolt against his hand. He starts, patting, feeling blindly in the midnight darkness, his fingers stroking across the smooth swell of Pepper's belly where their baby, their daughter as of one ultrasound visit ago, lies. Pepper is fast asleep, and does not wake to his stirring.
Tony looks over her furtively, checking to make sure that her vital signs are all okay, that her heart rate, breathing, blood pressure all seem to be in order. Her breathing is soft and even, one hand resting against the side of her face, cradling it against the pillow. Unable to find the source of the movement, Tony shifts over, grabs his phone from the nightstand, checks the news for any earthquakes or natural disasters that had just occurred. He finds it unlikely, and the news only confirms this, headlines about riots in far-off distant countries passing over his bleary eyes and not really sticking in his mind. Those are jobs for Iron Man, not for Tony Stark, and he is all Stark at the present moment.
He sighs, replaces his phone on the bedside table, and lies back down, resting a hand protectively on Pepper's stomach.
Just as he is settling down into the pillows, his eyes drifting closed again, just as he is beginning to fall asleep, he feels the jolt again. He starts, watches his left hand tentatively and the swell of the baby underneath it.
"It's been you this whole time, hasn't it?" Tony whispers to the bump. He feels a little kick against his palm, affirmative.
"Go to sleep," he murmurs, leaning over a pressing a little kiss to the top of Pepper's belly. "Sleeping is very good for you. And for Daddy, too."
A tiny kick, and then stillness. Tony smiles, tugs up the blankets more firmly around Pepper, and goes to sleep.