MOVED.

hank wraps his arms around her, hugging her close to him, seeking her warmth and wanting more comfort. a hand comes up, gently threading his fingers in her soft hair.

‘ maybe. ’ he murmurs, not wanting to dwell any further, and closes his eyes. ‘ i love you, pep. you always know what to say. ’

one of her legs hooks over his under the covers, tangling their bodies together completely. she kisses the line of his jaw before replacing her head in its spot at the crook of his neck.

‘ it’s easier said than done, baby. ’ he says softly. ‘ it’s hard because it was my fault. but it’s okay, i’ll forget about it in a few weeks. ’ at least he’ll try to.

he turns, laying on his back so he can look at her. ‘ i don’t want you to worry about me. ’ he mutters, a hand reaching up to caress her cheek.

she shifts to accomodate the change in how they’re arranged; she drapes her long body up against his side, tucking her head under his chin.

‘  though i have to admit, i make one mean lasagna. ’

       “ i’ve got a whole list of fake names. we’ll be fine. don’t worry about it. “

❛   i’ve never had the opportunity to personally see anything stark industries has produced until just recently.   you’ve done a good job staying ahead.   as i said, i’m impressed.   ❜

he laughs. ‘ really? not even because of my pretty face?  ’

i was talking to sam last night on skype about how i really don’t get much of a chance to write about pepper’s ptsd following what happened to her in iron man 3. i mean, in the grand scheme of things, pepper is an ordinary person. she’s a civilian. she’s an ordinary person who is surrounded by extraordinary people and situations and she’s always been able to adapt, but not without her own worries and reluctances. i’m sure it’s been four years and she STILL gets nervous when tony flies off for a mission.

but then she’s the one that’s targeted. she’s put through an incredible amount of pain, taunted by her captor, and faced with the risk that if she’s not perfect, she will DIE. think about that -- extremis was highly unstable, and i’m sure maya would have told her some of what their experiments had shown. 

extremis is supposed to make her perfect, so it erases every scar she’s had on her body since she was a little kid. it heals the papercut on her thumb from last week when she’d been doing paperwork. hell, it probably dulls the constant headache she lives with day to day from the stress of everything in her life.

pepper’s life isn’t perfect. PEPPER isn’t perfect. but her life, and her body, are her own.

so when someone calls her perfect, her immediate response isn’t to say ‘oh, stop’ or wave them off.

she just tells them she isn’t, and she doesn’t WANT to be.

ever again.

because she still wakes up screaming from nightmares where the world is on fire, where she’s on fire. and even with extremis removed from her, with tony ‘fixing’ her, it doesn’t get rid of the damage it’s already done to her.

Send me a url and I’ll write some positivity for it. – accepting

‘ as much as i hate to admit it. ’ he mutters, barely audibly, even though it’s true. joseph palmer hadn’t been the greatest father, but it still hurt. it still hurt like it happened yesterday. he died right in front of him, from cancer, right after getting out of prison (from which hank failed to save him from).

he snuggles closer to her, exhaling through his nose before he speaks. ‘ his death anniversary is next week, ’ hank admits quietly. ‘ and i’ve been having the same dream these past few days. ’ 

she presses her lips to the nape of his neck, just holding there as she listens to him talk. she can hear the pain in his voice, even now. they’ve been together for this long and she still doesn’t know the entire story, about what happened with hank’s father. she only knows he died before hank moved to new york, and that they hadn’t been particularly close. really, the puzzle pieces are pretty obvious.

“you tell dummy that, he mutters, sighs in a put upon manner and trudges off towards the bathroom, taking the chance to change into a cleaner shirt as well before he returns. 

any other time he would have snuck up behind pepper, putting his arms around her, pulling her close. but instead he simply lingers in the doorway for a moment, refusing to let himself get disheartened and spoil their evening. “so where is this pizza i was promised?”

pepper waves a hand towards the open pizza box on the counter, wiping sauce off of the corner of her mouth. she’s still getting her appetite back, but there’s something about greasy pizza that calms her. probably because she associates it so closely with late nights with him, curled up watching a movie eating gourmet pizza and laughing at the same jokes they’ve heard a hundred times.

she misses that.

pepper pushes herself away from the counter, chewing the last piece of crust from her first slice.