Love at First Sight
Title: Love at First Sight
Author: mae_stark
Paring: Tony/Pepper
Rating: PG
Word Count: 413
Spoliers: IM2
Disclaimer: I don't own Iron Man. 'Nuff said.
Author's Note 1: This is a last-second entry for the third challenge at it's_always_been, written in a letter format. I used prompt 36.
Author's Note 2: Many thanks to the wonderful Katy Faraday for beta-ing. She's the best!
Do you believe in love at first sight, Pepper?
I didn’t used to. Before all this, before us, before Iron Man, I never believed in love. I was careless and selfish, a broken, lost man and no one knew that better than you. For almost a decade, you tolerated my reckless ways, cleaning up my messes and rarely criticizing my actions. But I could see the disgust expressed clearly in your deep blue eyes. You pitied me, as wretched as I was. I saw this, but I still continued to carelessly use women, money, and drinking to escape from my problems.
If only I had known then that you are the best solution to those problems. I am far from perfect, Pepper, even now. Yet you still stay. Sometimes I wonder how in the world I got a woman like you. I definitely don’t deserve you, not with all the terrible things I have done in the past. Even after Afghanistan and the changes it brought, echoes of my history still resurface from time to time.
Before Afghanistan, I had been attracted to you. I admit it was merely a physical attraction, and I was only after sex. But you’re a beautiful woman, Pepper. How could I have ignored that immediate attraction, that natural instinct?
When I returned, something had changed. I was not the man I had been when I had left home. And there you were, waiting for me as I stepped off of the plane, eyes dark with worry and skin red from crying, but a glorious smile spread across your face. Right then, something in my battered heart clicked into place as I looked at you. Suddenly, for the first time since the arc reactor had been installed, my chest didn’t feel so tight and hollow. I didn’t realize it then, but I had fallen in love with you. I had had my eyes opened in Afghanistan and I was seeing you clearly for the first time. I had known you for a long time before that, yes, but now I was really seeing you. And I liked what I saw, both inside and out.
It took a while to convince you, but I’m glad I persisted. You are the best thing that has happened to me, better than being saved and becoming Iron Man. I just want you to know that I am helplessly in love with you. And it’s you, and no one else.
Love Always,
Tony