A/N ATTENTION: ALL YOU PEOPLES WHO HAVE EVER COMMENTED ON, FAVED, OR EVEN SIMPLY VIEWED THIS STORY ARE COMPLETELY, IRREVERSIBLY AWESOME!

Thaaaank yooooou! Sooooo muuuuuch! XD

Any-who, thanks silverpedals1402(THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU! *hugs* Ahem... But seriously, thanks! BTW, I started reading Fighting Til The End, and I'm gonna fav and review as soon as I finish! ;) ), Carpetbakr(Haha, me too! I'm not really a death writer... And also, thanks for all of the awesome advice and encouragement in your PMs! It helps a lot! :) ), Maddi Paige(Yup, she is. ;) And thanks!), Kiue Jin(Wow, thanks! And I've actually never seen the Saw movies-is that weird? ;) ), Espera Por Principe(Thanks, and it's totally fine! I do that sometimes, don't realize a story has been updated and then I have a ton of awesomeness to read! ;) And I'm planning to write another story soon. XD), TurkeyHead987(Haha, thanks! And I'm glad you don't have to attack me! ;) ), and vampireanna'dancer(Thanks, I am glad you like! :) )

This chapter contains Pepperony! If some of you don't like that pairing, I might make an alternate ending without any. /: I don't want to force anyone into reading something they don't support, but I also don't want to leave it without an ending for those of y'all who don't ship TXP. :)

Nooo, I don't want it to end!

I procrastinated putting up this chapter for a while, because... I don't want the story to have to end. :( But I have another plan in mind, so...yay! Just have to find a computer to use... I was saving for one, but I gave the money to a friend 'cause she needed it more than I did. But hopefully soon! In the meantime, all updates are coming from my phone. /:

Geez, there was something else I was gonna say-actually, a bunch of things-but I always forget as soon as I start writing. Um...uh...well, shoot.

I hope everyone has enjoyed this story to the end! I try to make it as fun to read as it is for me to write. :)

I'mma go back and edit all of the chapters later

IMAA doesn't belong to me.

Chapter Twenty

A day passed, and then another. Despite constant badgering from Pepper, the doctors were relentless in their decision that no one could see Tony while he was in recovery. She and Rhodey eventually went home for just long enough to shower and freshen up, but then they were back in the waiting room again, eagerly awaiting any news about Tony's condition.

Pepper was following around one of the doctors again, pressing him to let her see her friend. He was much younger than the others, and the redhead got the vibe that he was fresh out of college, so she hoped that he would be easier to bend.

"Please, please, please, please let me see him! I swear I'm not going to break him or anything, and I'll be so quiet no one will know I'm there! C'mon, please let me see him! Please, please, please, please!"

The doctor sighed, turning around to face her as he squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. She was really beginning to give him a headache, and she wouldn't stop talking.

"Okay, okay, just be quiet!" the doctor begged, opening his eyes and staring at her. "You can see your friend."

Pepper squealed in delight, turning on her heel. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'll go get Rhod-"

"Hold on," the doctor, whose nametag she now read said "Blake", said, catching her arm. "Only one person at a time can go."

"But…"

"It's okay," Rhodey said, limping up behind her on his crutches and clapping a hand on her shoulder. "You need to see him more than me after what you went through."

Pepper squealed, turning and crushing him in a hug. "Oh, thank you Rhodey!" She turned to the doctor in expectation, and he sighed and started down the hall, Pepper close behind, grinning in triumph.

Blake led her to a hospital room with a wide window showing inside, and her heart skipped a beat when she saw Tony inside, laying on a hospital bed with his arm lazily laying over his stomach, his eyes closed and body relaxed.

"Please wait a moment," Blake said, opening the door and peeking inside. "Anthony? You awake?"

Tony's eyes opened, and he raised his bandaged hand to sleepily rub at his eyes. "Yeah…"

"Good. Well, there's someone here who really wants to see you."

Blake stepped back and let Pepper step inside the door before quietly closing it behind her. Tony's mouth dropped open in surprise as his eyes sparkled with delight. "Pep!"

"Tony!" Pepper ran over to the bed, jumping up beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders in a hug, being careful to avoid his injuries. "Ooh, I've been so worried about you! Oh, yeah, and Rhodey too, but I thought I lost you! I mean, you were shot, and everybody thought you were dead, but I-"

"Nice seeing you, too, Pep," Tony interrupted with a smirk as Pepper sat back and allowed him room to push himself to a sitting position. He winced as he pushed himself up, being as he was still sore from the surgeries. "Is your head okay?"

"It's fine, I just had a minor concussion, unlike you. How is your head? Ooh, and your heart? And your leg? And-you know what, just how are you in general?" She noticed how each time he moved, he moved slowly and cautiously, as though every movement caused him excruciating pain. His breathing was even slowed, as each time his lungs inflated with air, his broken ribs screamed in protest.

"I'm fine, just tired and sore." Tony sighed, closing his eyes as he tensed. "The doctor said he expects me to recover, but I'm going to have the scars forever."

Pepper's eyes widened, and she gently stroked her hand across the cuts on his cheekbones and neck, Tony relaxing at the touch of her soft, cool skin. Deep cuts lined his face, neck and arms, some of them stitched and some simply left alone to heal. The deepest cuts were on his throat, under his eyes across his cheekbone, and a few on his chest from knives and such weaponry. Pepper tried to pinpoint her feelings about Tony having so many scars forever, but she found she didn't care.

"That doesn't change anything for me," Pepper said, smiling. "I don't care how many scars you have, you're still my best friend, and a few stupid cuts aren't going to ruin that." Trying to ignore the way Tony had turned crimson at her statement, she looked around the plain white room, saying, "So what have you been doing in here the last few days?" There wasn't much to the room, with only the bed, a trash can, and a small television set hooked up in the corner.

"Sleeping and seeing how many crumpled sheets of paper I can throw in the trash can without missing." Tony gestured at the tin trash can by the door, overflowing with crumpled papers. "And I sketched a few schematics, but I tossed them all, they were all idiotic ideas." He wanted to ask if SHIELD had found the armor in the building, but he was too afraid someone else might be listening in on their conversation. Maybe it was the size of the room, making him claustrophobic and feel like the walls would close in on him at any moment, or the peculiar smells of different disinfectants that lingered throughout the hospital, but he always felt uneasy and on guard in hospitals, as though he was under constant observation and nothing he did or said would go unnoticed.

Pepper gasped, her eyes widening as she tore her side-pouch open and feverishly searched through it, finally pulling out a red iPod touch with blue earphones wrapped around the screen. "I totally forgot, I brought you my iPod so you would have music to listen to! We already like a lot of the same music, and I filled it with other bands you like, too." She rolled her brown eyes, saying, "They had to sterilize it first, so I'm sorry for the funky smell. Stupid doctor."

Tony took the iPod, grinning. "This is great, Pep. Thanks." He set it beside him on the bedspread, his free hand rising involuntarily to rub the scarlet spots over his gauze from the gunshots. Pepper noticed, frowning in worry.

"Does it hurt?" she asked, pointing at the wounds. Tony glanced down at his hand as though just noticing what he was doing and dropped his arms to the bed.

"No, I mean, not as much as it did. They have me on all sorts of painkillers, so half the time I don't feel it."

Pepper nodded and smiled at him before looking around. She wasn't sure what to talk about, and she was trying to keep the conversation away from what happened to them. Her eyes landed on the trash can, and she smirked, her competitive side taking over as she glanced at him. "So, how many wadded papers can you throw in the trash can without missing?"

"More than you," Tony challenged, grinning lopsidedly at her as he leaned over the side of the bed and picked up a stack of papers and set them on the bedspread. "Ladies first."

Pepper stuck her tongue out at him, grabbing a sheet of paper and wadding it up in her hands before taking aim at the trash can and sending it flying, landing neatly atop the other papers in the trash. Tony pretended to yawn, acting unimpressed by her feat as he crumpled another piece of paper in his hands. However, his wad was thrown with much less precision, crashing into the window with a thud and startling a doctor that was passing by. As Pepper burst into giggles, covering her mouth with her hands so that she wouldn't bother anyone outside of the room, Tony pouted, laying a hand over his heart.

"That hurts. Right here," Tony said, invoking more hushed laughter from the redhead. "I am an injured man, and yet you mock me."

Pepper rolled her eyes at his dramatic actions, taking aim once more with a newly crumpled piece of paper. The inventor, feeling himself about to be upstaged, went into action, lurching forward and tickling her sides just as the wad was about to leave her hand. It hit far from its mark, hitting the wall opposite the trash can and rolling to the floor.

"Jerk!" Pepper cried as she laughed hysterically, trying to cover her sides with her arms, but Tony merely laughed, happy at having found her secret weakness.

"You're ticklish!" he laughed, dropping his hands for a moment to allow his friend to catch her breath. She gasped for oxygen, her face flushed with heat as she tried to breathe and keep from giggling simultaneously.

"V-v-very! If you tell anyone else, you're dead!"

"Why would I tell anyone else? I have a secret weapon!" Tony wiggled his fingers threateningly in the air, and Pepper launched into laughter again, pushing his arms back.

"No!" she cried, attempting to glare at him, but it seemed too faked because of her wide smile for Tony to take seriously. The teen smiled, shaking his head as he thought about how good it was to hear her laughter again and see her smile. It somehow made the last few days seem not to matter, and it erased all of the pain he had had to endure.

He caught her gaze, drinking in the sight of her. Her hair was a mess, seeming like it hadn't been brushed in a while, she didn't have a smudge of makeup on, the clothes she was wearing were too large for her, and she had dark circles under her eyes, and yet…when she laughed she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She always managed to take his breath away, no matter what she looked like or what she was wearing; she always appeared gorgeous inside and out to the scientist.

"You're so beautiful," Tony mumbled, and a red tinge creeped up Pepper's neck.

"Wh-what?"

Did I just say that aloud? Oh man, I did, didn't I?

"Uh, I, uh, just meant that, uh-uh…" His face was burning with embarrassment, and the way she was staring at him with her wide brown eyes made stringing together words next to impossible. "S-sorry, I-I didn't… I didn't mean to…"

Was that disappointment in her eyes? He hadn't meant to upset her; he just didn't want to make things awkward between them.

Stark, you idiot…

An uncomfortable silence passed between them for a few minutes, Tony mentally chiding himself for his stupidity. He chewed on his busted lower lip anxiously, contemplating what he wanted to say next. There were things he wanted to tell her that he had realized during the last few days, but did he want to do this here? Now? He made up his mind when he concluded he might not get another chance.

"P-Pepper? Uh, ca-can I ask you something? Well, tell you something?"

Pepper looked up at him curiously. "What?"

He fervently hoped she didn't notice the way the arc reactor was going crazy in his chest, the humming erratic and sharp. Don't mess this up. Don't mess this up. Don't mess this up. "There is so much that I've been putting off because of everything that has been going on, but I realized that if I died tomorrow, I would never have the chance to say to you what I need to say."

"Which is?"

"You-gosh-you mean the world to me! Being with you is becoming an awful lot like-like breathing; totally necessary. And-and I-"

"What? You what?" Hope shined in Pepper's eyes as she waited for him to finish what he was trying to say.

"Pep, I-I'm crazy about you, and I'm hoping you feel the same way, because-"

Pepper lurched forward, the two teens' lips meeting as she fastened her arms behind his neck and pulled him close. Tony's legs and arms melted into mush, and his mind went blank with bliss as he melted into the kiss.

It was as if everything else in the world had vanished, including gravity. He felt like he was soaring, and free-falling, and leaping, all at the same time, and the only thing to hold him back was the feeling of Pepper's lips against his own. Pepper's arms found their way around his shoulders, her hands wrapping into his messy dark brown hair as he cupped her cheek with his right hand and tilted her face to his with his left hand's index finger and thumb.

When they finally pulled apart, they were both blushing like mad, and their eyes were practically glued to each other. Tony's heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest at the rate it was going, and his mind was numb, as though he was still unable to comprehend what had just happened. He tried to calm his rapid breathing, to no avail.

I just kissed Pepper. No, she kissed me. And I kissed back.

No matter how many times he turned the words in his head, he couldn't get used to them.

"That-that was-"

"You were the one talking too much for a change," Pepper smirked, trying to refrain from laughing as Tony was unable to stop grinning like an idiot.

"If I talk some more will you do that again?"

Pepper giggled, slipping her hand into Tony's and lying against his chest, careful of his wounds. Outside the window, softly chuckling to himself, Blake thought, No wonder she wanted to see him so badly.

The End