Disclaimer: My life has nothing to do with the Marvel studios except to admire there marvelous work!

Two weeks. That's how long it took Tony to be able to move around, admittedly slower then any of them were used to, under his own steam. Pepper mused to herself she was lucky perhaps, since the doctors had tried to insist upon a month. Tony didn't do well with hospitals, so considering the circumstances, two weeks was perfectly normal.

Pepper was worried about Tony, he just hadn't been acting like himself lately. Was it possible that he knew? How could he? She hadn't even figured it out until the day of that stupid allergic reaction incident. She was going to have to talk to him, sooner or later. Sooner would be better, she had to admit to herself. Especially if her boyfriend was going to keep pulling stunts like he'd been recently. Tony happened to be a very perceptive person, so the way he was acting lately was starting to worry Pepper in a way like she hadn't had to before.

She looked in all of his usual haunts first, and unable to find him in any of those, simply gave up on the conventional methods and asked JARVIS. The AI informed her that Tony was currently hanging around outside a door on the thirty third floor, seemingly just standing there lost in thought. Pepper became even more worried at that. Those sets of rooms were nothing but guests rooms, and not even the ones the other Avengers used. Why on Earth was he down there?

Pepper marched to the nearest elevator and waited impatiently for the soft ding to announce her arrival, and was pleased yet still unnerved to see Tony merely hanging around in the middle of the hallway, fiddling with something in his hands. She cleared her voice, and watched as Tony whirled around, stuffing what ever had been in his hand in his pocket, and giving Pepper that grin that she knew meant that she was going to have to spend the next week soothing the public affairs once again.

Tony opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to the punch by demanding, "What are you doing down here?"

"It's a surprise," Tony shrugged, giving her another soft secret smile, "I'm glad you're home from your trip early Pep. Its been dead boring around here."

"Quite literally from what I've heard!" Pepper hissed, glad that she had been able to hold her temper in long enough to release it on the one who deserved it. "What has gotten into you Tony! You've been screwing up your sleep again, ignoring Bruce's very worried phone calls, getting drunk off your ass in public, and now you're not even paying attention when you get in your suite! If you've been feeling that guilty about that stupid allergic reaction you could have just called me Tony!"

Now did not seem to be the time to point out that she was very happy Tony had made no move to call or talk to her in the past three weeks, because quite frankly the conversation she needed to have with him didn't seem phone appropriate. Yet had she known he would be acting like this, she would have demanded it.

All while she had been yelling, Tony had been fidgeting like mad with what ever was now residing in his pocket, but his voice came out the usual cocky manner, "Sorry if you've been worried. I've been distracted by something. Something I really need to talk to you about-"

She cut him off, not in the mood for his games. "I don't care what it is Tony. It can wait until you and I have a serious talk about, well about something I should have told you already. Look, I know this-"

This time it was her boyfriend who managed to cut her off mid sentence, he seemed to blurt it out before he gave himself time to really think on his words. "Pepper, I know you're pregnant."

All of the air whooshed right out of her until she felt almost light headed. She couldn't help but stare at him, and couldn't stop until she realized, "That's why you've been so distracted? You knew? How on Earth could you have known, when I haven't even been to the hospital yet?" She didn't have to get a doctor to tell her what her body had already confirmed however. Yet how had Tony even managed to guess at this?

"Please Pepper, you really think I wouldn't notice my own girlfriend acting out of it for the past month?"

"I've hardly been here for the past month," she reminded him.

"True," he accepted, "but I still know you. Which is, yeah I admit, why I've been so distracted. Then Bruce left and started trying to call me every hour trying to tell me he'd fond a pregnancy test on one of the lower floors. You know, I'd think that was something your best friend would tell you face to face, and why he would think I wouldn't know anyway- "

I could see the beginning's of a Tony rant coming on, so I quickly cut in with, "How did you know it wasn't Natasha's?"

"Phone calls? I have caller ID sweaty. Besides, why would she even need to call me, I have been here you know." At the stern and very serious look she gave him, he gave her a real answer, "Bruce did a DNA test, but come on, both of you being pregnant at the same time! The odd's don't get me started cause I really did them. Can you imagine those two having a kid anyway? That's assuming Barton's the dad, Tasha's got the bod-" he came to a stuttering halt when he caught sight of Peppers face again and got back on track, "I had guessed by then, and went out to get you something, then I decided nah. There's no way she'd go for this, so I went and got drunk off my ass. I made Clint come, which turned out to be a good thing seeing as what happened. I admit that chick at the bar was hot, but Clint so didn't have to give me a lecture on-"

"Tony," I hissed, because he seemed determined to stay off focus, when this was the one time I really needed him to pay attention! "Right sorry, er yeah well don't you think it would also be kind of random for that girl to go for me-" but this time brought himself to a jarring halt at the look on Peppers face, so straitened his own out and continued in a more sane tone.

"You know you should probably go to a hospital though, I mean I've been doing some research, and it seems that your allergic reaction shouldn't have affected the baby, you didn't go that long without oxygen, but still better safe then sorry right? Plus, I figured we could probably put the baby's room down here, you know away form most of the noise of the rest of this place, but still close enough we could be there at once. This is probably the most secure place, since it doesn't have any windows on this floor and-" he forcibly stopped himself from continuing his ramble, again. Pepper was starting to get a creeping feeling up her spine about what had his mind so lost that it was having more trouble then usual focusing. Tony straitened his back, and then decided right there that he couldn't put this off anymore.

"Listen Pepper. I love you, and I hope that you still love me even after all I've put you threw."

He let out a huge breath, ran his hand backwards threw his hair, and then walked forwards to cover what little gap was between them and placed one hand on her stomach while using the other to wrap around her waist, securing her to him. "I think I even get why you didn't want to tell me about this, but I'm going to put all that aside for now. What I need you to know is that, I'm going to be there for you, and our child." He took the hand away from her waist, and instead moved it to the pocket he had been hiding what now appeared to be a tiny black box.

"Pepper, will you marry me?"

She looked up at an expression she never thought to appear on the playboys face. Insecurity, mingled with unrepressed hope. Her voice caught hard in her throat, and she seemed unable to answer for so long that the hope turned to fear and shame. He slowly started to put the box back in his pocket and back away from her personal space when Pepper leaped at him. Securing his lips with hers, and answering his question with a silent, but sworn from the heart yes.

Wow, that was probably the cheesiest ending I've ever done, and will ever do again hopefully. But the cheese seems appropriate for a Pepperony ending, and I hope you guys liked it. As a fun game, try to go back and spot how many clues I left.