#I am working on a longer Irondad thing and this drabble happened in between so

[xxx-cat-xxx]

Fixed It

Ten years after Endgame, Pepper gets a surprise.

Thanks to @whumphoarder for beta reading!

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Pepper Potts prided herself in the fact that she had never once fainted in her life. And not for lack of opportunity - working at SI, hell, just being with Tony Stark, had often stretched her body to its limits. Over the years, she’d worked through the flu on multiple occasions, stayed awake for nights on end, and combated the worst forms of jet lag and hellish temperature changes. She’d lived through more than her fair share of kidnappings and even saved the company from a stock market crash while nine months pregnant. But not once had her body let her down.

(The same couldn’t be said for anyone else she worked with. Three months ago, Happy had suffered his second heart attack, resulting in a pacemaker and early retirement. Her longstanding PA had fainted when the AC at their hotel gave out during their last trip in India, leaving Pepper with the task of getting her to a hospital in the hellish Mumbai traffic. Morgan had the habit of skipping meals whenever her anxieties got out of hand, and more than once the school had called Pepper to pick her up after a fainting spell. 

And, of course, Pepper had seen Tony take swan dives in the oddest places and from a vast array of reasons, only some of them related to his superhero part-time job. Apart from that one time he’d swooned in front of SI Korea’s complete workforce from a cocaine OD, the most memorable time had probably been when he’d passed out during sex after a week without sleep).

All considered, Pepper was proud of her steadfastness.

That’s why, upon seeing her husband walk through the front door, one hand buried in their daughter’s horrible green hair, the other resting on Peter Parker’s back, ten years and ninety-two days after his death (she wasn’t counting, of course she wasn’t), the first emotion she had when she felt her knees buckle beneath her was anger at her own loss of control.

“You were dead,” she exhaled, and then she had to grab onto the wall for balance while Peter attempted to push a chair underneath her. “Goddammit, Tony, tell me I’m not dreaming, please, tell me I’m not -”

“It’s okay, Pep,” he said, taking a step towards her. “It’s real. I swear, I’m real. Pinch me and see for yourself.” 

Something in her gave way. She felt herself sway on spot. Then the world tilted in front of Pepper’s eyes and she went down.

She came to with her legs propped up on a mountain of couch pillows and Tony’s face just inches from hers. And for a while, that’s all there was. Because his eyes were just like she remembered and so much brighter at the same time, so much more alive, and his smile was soft and warm and flowing over with love. 

Pepper had barely cried during the first few months after his death. She had tried to be the steady and reliable presence Morgan needed, the strong and independent mother and widow and CEO everyone expected her to be. She’d known that if she allowed herself to crack even once, her breakdown would follow unstoppably. The only way to get through this had been to take the pain head-on and never once come up for air.

But now she saw Tony’s eyes glistening wet and a sob rose up from somewhere deep inside her. She blinked and felt her cheeks go wet. 

Ten years and every single day had cut her heart a little deeper. Ten years and she’d become so cold and closed off to the outside world that some claimed that she couldn’t feel anything at all. 

(They were wrong, they were so wrong, because it still hurt just as much as it had when she’d held his hand on the battlefield, telling him they’d be okay, and what a lie that had been.) 

Ten years and it had never gotten easier. That was just another lie people told, because time isn’t a healer at all. All it does is make you grow so used to the pain that you start to forget how it is to feel otherwise. 

Now, with Tony’s fingers caressing her cheek and his lips just inches from hers, she remembered. 

Behind his back, Pepper could see Morgan exchange a smile with Peter. She didn’t know the full story yet, but somehow she could tell that her irredeemable, rebellious teenage daughter had played a role in it. Something warm unfolded in Pepper’s chest, something she hadn’t felt in a long time, and it took her a moment to realise that she was proud of her child.

“We’re okay,” Tony whispered, pressing a playful kiss onto her nose and pulling her upright. “It’s all good now, Pep. We fixed it.”

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(This is part of a longer story that might or might not be written in the next 5000 years depending on whether I can get my shit together, so I thought I’d be a bad narrator and already share the ending with you.)

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