If They Knew All About You

The Sun Sets

There were very few occasions when Tony would find himself in bed at dusk. He couldn't deny the exhaustion that was seated in his very bones though. Still he had argued, had fought against Pepper's insistence that he needed rest. He did. At some point, but first, well... that would have to wait now. At least till morning. His mind was drifting, jumping from one topic to the next like a cat distracted by a hundred light spots reflected off a glass crystal in the sun. Rest would help with that. And it also helped that Pepper was there, right next to him.

Her breathing was slow but deep. She was so close, lying right next to him, he could feel the rhythm of her breath more than he heard it. Her head snug against his chest, his right arm was curled around her, holding her next to him. Right away his hand had crept underneath the hem of her shirt with only his fingertips touching the warm soft skin on her waist, unmoving. Just relishing in the contact. She had her fingers entangled with his other hand, resting on his stomach. They had fallen back into this close familiarity just like that. Like they had never stopped.

"Rhodey's been trying to reach you." Her voice was low, treading carefully.

Tony turned his head towards her, but she wasn't even looking at him, just had her own head cushioned on his chest, her fingers lightly tracing the back of his hand. There wasn't really anything he could say to that. He tilted his face into her hair instead, eyes closed, trying to think of anything but that enormous shit show they were trying to get out of.

"Honey, we can't... We can't keep this from him. I can't lie to him and I know you don't want to either." She tried to control her breathing and with that the trembling of her voice. "I understand that you are trying to protect Addy, but Rhodey would never—"

"He can't know, Pep. It's impossible." Her body positively shook, she swallowed her frustration so hard. "Ross is just waiting for something he could use against us and Rhodey has the strictest rules of all of us and he needs to stick to them. If I tell him about Aiden, I'd have to tell him about Peter and if Ross sniffs out even just the tiniest hint of this, he'd court-martial Rhodey faster than I could supersonic fly myself to D.C. and it's just... No. No, he can't know."

She stayed quiet for a couple of breaths, fingers still running back and forth on his skin. "Just tell him he's alive then. That you... that you found him and that he's okay but you can't say anything else."

"Right." Tony huffed out a dry laugh, his voice muffled by her hair. "That's so much better and he's totally not gonna press both of us for however long it takes till one of us just tells him everything."

"Tony, please. He would never do anything to risk Addy. He wouldn't hesitate to do whatever it takes to keep him safe. There's a reason why you picked him to be his godfather, please, just—"

"I know that." Tony blew out a breath and turned his eyes back on the sky outside of their window, hoping to calm his mind. "And it would put everything on the line for him, Pep. Everything." His teeth grazed his bottom lip, still careful enough not to break skin. "He's at peace with how things were. No point in risking him like that."

She shuffled even closer to him as if the argument was threatening to tear them apart again. "That's not fair. He loves Addy. He knows something is up."

That was likely true. He'd had a few missed calls from Rhodey that he hadn't returned over the last couple of days and it hadn't just been that with all the craziness going down, that Tony simply hadn't had the time to return the call. He just didn't know what to tell Rhodey about what was happening. Partially, it had been a matter of Tony being in the middle of figuring out what was going on himself. The risk the truth posted for Rhodey because of his career and worst-case his freedom wasn't lost on Tony though.