♡The Stark Family Oneshots♡

I Love You (Pepperony) & also a rant.

Pepper watched Tony with curious, sympathetic eyes, as he lay silently at her side. His left hand was draped over her arm, tracing absentminded patterns on her fingers with the pad of his thumb. His dark, chocolate eyes were more faded – yet darker – than usual, and Pepper noted that it wasn't just because the room was dimly lit – he was hesitant, more closed off than what was normal for the billionaire. Which of course, was normal, considering all the traumatizing things the man had endured over for a huge chunk of his life.

Really, Tony Stark had the overbearing weight of almost twelve years of trauma and life-threatening stress on his quickly weakening shoulders, that had smashed together to form just about the worst case of PTSD and anxiety Pepper had ever seen in anyone.

Although her head was tilted against the pillow so that she could gaze at him, his own head and eyes remained locked on the ceiling above them. He was lost in his endless, messy thoughts yet again, and Pepper could easily tell. The way he seemed to stare beyond the roof of their grand bedroom in the halls of the Avengers facility; it was the look that told her that he was trapped within the confines of his own mind, and something odd and unfamiliar was warning her that his thoughts were darker than normal, and that he needed to be distracted.

"Tony," she finally whispered to him, in hopes that she'd receive some sort of reaction. Nothing.

Stark was practically radiating signs of depression the second he was back on earth. The blonde figured that he'd developed the horrible disease whilst adrift in space for over twenty days, after being defeated in the biggest battle on the face of the earth and losing more than he was ready to admit. Rhodey was convinced that he had gone partially insane in his time up there, and for once Pepper couldn't find the room to disagree. He had changed, more so than she had ever seen him change before.

He didn't talk as much as he normally did, which was unusual for the otherwise non-stop chatty-Cathy that made up his bubbling personality – Tony had acted the same way for the first few months after Afghanistan, then again after New York and in a similar way after the events in Sokovia. Not to mention how horrific Siberia had been.

Only now, things were ten times worse.

"Tony," she repeated, voice inching just above a whisper. She needed him to hear, and to listen. He was a complicated man, yet Pepper was almost always able to read him like the cover of a book.

"Hm," he grunted in reply, his dark eyes refusing to leave their spot on the white ceiling. He awaited her answer patiently, as Pepper struggled with what to say next. She hadn't really thought about it, as she wasn't entirely sure he'd answer. There'd been days when he didn't seem to hear her at all, and almost seemed to forget that she was actually there.

I can't ask him if he's okay, the answer is always the same. I can't tell him that everything's going to be alright, when I can't be sure that that's the truth.

"Look at me," she spoke before she realized she had said it. When he remained frozen in place, she raised her voice. "Tony. Look at me, please."

When he finally cocked his head to the side, locking gazes with her, she recognized the all too familiar look of simply hurt, in his gentle, chestnut eyes. She also saw his attempt to hide it; the way his eyes still sparkled and shimmered, while simultaneously remaining pale and drained of life. Stark could get away with hiding his feelings from everyone else, but he couldn't hide from her. He knew that, and he knew that she knew it.

Instead of shifting the conversation towards anything that may intensify his current depression, Pepper said, "I love you."

She could tell she'd caught him off guard. Without a doubt he'd been expecting what everyone else always told him . . . "You'll be fine," or, "you'll get through this, you always do."