#caring!tony

Author:  rebelmeg Rating:  gen Word Count: <2k Genre(s): fluff Film-specific: no Tropes: caring!tony, tired!pepper, domesticity

Summary:  Pepper is up late working, and Tony has to coax her back to bed. Which is not how things usually go at all.

Surprisingly, I took this the soft way :P Thank you so much for the prompt!! <33

“I don’t know how many more times I can say that it won’t work -” Steve’s jaw snapped closed as Hill cut him off yet again.

“But, Cap, we haven’t considered all the angles.”

Tony watched Steve ratchet tighter. It was like every one of his gears was rusting before Tony’s eyes, clenching and catching and creaking. Creases that Steve’s perfect face usually didn’t display appeared at the corner of his eyes. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, then released, then clenched again.

Every time Steve spoke, Hill or Fury or Rumblow would interrupt, and Tony had given up on trying to interject on his behalf, besides, this meeting had gone on way past Tony’s expertise and solidly into military strategy. He wished, not for the first time, that Rhodey were here.

But more, he wished that there was something he could do for Steve.

He didn’t know Steve that well, not yet. They’d been working together for a while, but Steve was hard to get close to. He was closed off and quiet - always polite, but Tony could see more and more the toll that playing everything close to his chest was taking on him. And he didn’t seem to have someone, like Tony’s Pepper and Rhodey, to vent to, to be himself with, to leach some comfort from.

Instead, Steve wound tighter and tighter, and Tony was an engineer; he knew what came next.

Captain America breaking wouldn’t be pretty, might not be something he could come back from. But what could Tony do? He didn’t have anything to give. He didn’t have the answers, and he didn’t have the right words of comfort. He could hardly relate to being frozen for seventy years and waking up in a new world where everything was different and everyone was gone.

Steve slapped a palm flat on the table to punctuate his words, legs tensing like he was going to stand, but he sunk back down, his other hand clenching and releasing again by his side. Hill, Fury, and Rumlow were getting more and more visibly frustrated, and none of them seemed to notice that Steve’s rope was stretched extremely thin.

Tony shifted in his chair beside Steve, itching to - something. Fix it. Tony was a fixer, the mechanic. He wanted to fix Steve, but this wasn’t his strong suit - hurting, angry, lonely people. He was good at being one of them, and if he knew how to fix it, he’d probably have started with himself. As it was, he cycled through everything Jarvis had ever said to him when he was angry. None of it seemed to apply. Steve had the right to be angry; he should be furious.

Tony’s eyes flicked around the room again, the tension a heavy weight in the air. He sighed heavily, but no one seemed to notice. Steve’s legs had tensed up again - whether to fling himself across the table and punch Rumlow or to turn tail and flee for Mexico, Tony wasn’t sure.

Pepper would hug him. Pepper would just take Steve by the shoulder and tug him in and hug him. But Tony couldn’t do that in the middle of a meeting, and he wasn’t sure Steve was going to make it til the end. He also wasn’t sure he’d make it through that unpunched, considering how wound up Steve was right now.

Yet still… Tony’s fingers itched…

Eyes fixed under the table, between them, Tony slid his hand out across his thigh and wrapped his fingers around Steve’s fist. Steve startled, his hand opening out of sheer surprise, and Tony took the chance to thread their fingers together. He squeezed, heart at a standstill in his chest.

Steve turned and stared at him, wide-eyed, the others so distracted by their yelling that they didn’t seem to notice the two Avengers suddenly blinking at one another.

Tony squeezed again, trying to pour into it everything that he could. His cheeks heated under Steve’s startled gaze. Then Steve’s eyes softened, his shoulders drooped, and he let out a shaky exhale.

He squeezed back.

Author:  akasharpiegirl Rating: teen Word Count: 5-10k Genre(s): fluff Film-specific: no Tropes: 5+1, five times, hangover, caring!tony, protective!tony, anniversary, massages, endgame fix it

Summary:  +1 time Pepper showed Tony she cares.

Author:  graveltotempo Rating: gen Word Count:  10-20k Genre(s): drama Film-specific: post endgame Tropes:  endgame fix it, resurrection, caring!tony, the avengers

Summary: 

Heroes always get remembered, but you know legends never die. And Tony Stark has always been a phoenix of tales untold.

Author:  fallenstar88 Rating: teen Word Count: <2k Genre(s): fluff Film-specific: post endgame Tropes: endgame fix it, nightmares, caring!tony

Summary:  Pepper has nightmares about Tony's death. But is he really dead?

Author: FriendLey Rating: teen Word Count: 10-20k Genre(s): romance Film-specific:  pre iron man, mid iron man Tropes: friends to lovers, caring!tony, getting together, sick fic, overprotective!rhodey, au, slow burn, pepper's family, pre relationship

Summary: This was all Rhodey's fault.

He told Tony not to think about his sister and now, all Tony could think about was his best friend's sister—a sister he didn't even know was his very capable Personal Assistant, by the way.

AU wherein Rhodey and Pepper are adoptive siblings.

Author:  ifwednesdaywasaflowerchild Rating:  teen Word Count: <2k Genre(s): hurt/comfort Film-specific:  post iron man 3 Tropes: ptsd, protective!tony, caring!tony, missing scene, extremis, nightmares

Summary:  Oh, God, how he didn't want to do this. Not to her. Not like this. She's not giving him much choice in the matter, though, and while he knows that it is for her own good, he can still hate doing it. She's trapped somewhere, stuck in a vicious cycle, and her mind is fighting like hell to save itself.

Author: hitlikehammers Rating: teen Word Count:2-5k Genre(s): hurt/comfort Film-specific: post iron  man Tropes: pre relationship, caring!tony, sad!pepper

Summary:  He finds her doubled over, sobbing into her newly manicured hands, and it hurts, because she really is all he has, and the only thing he truly knows is that this doesn’t work.