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There are moments in life where you make a mistake, knowing it’s going to cause you a world of grief, but hoping the payoff is worth it.
Alarm bells rattled her head when she was hired as Tony’s PA and an even stronger sense of trepidation loomed over her when they started dating. But none of that mattered, because she knew that in the long run they’d be something great — for herself, for Tony, for the world even.
Unfortunately, she didn’t account for the impossible when making investments.
Pepper remembered feeling a bone deep weariness when Tony told her Captain America was found alive. Perhaps that was the first sign. The next warning came with a wave of exhaustion sweeping through her when she walked in on Tony’s almost manic gaze, lit up by the holographic lights, frozen in pure awe as he watched battle footage from SHIELD. The pitch black darkness of the room was only disrupted by the screen Tony gripped tightly with both hands, his eyes glued to Captain America’s form the entire time she watched him from the doorway.
She was hit with the awareness that this was it . The one person in existence who could disrupt everything she had built for a decade with Tony came back from the dead and was already breaking the carefully constructed lines of her life with no effort at all.
An awful, nasty thought entered her head in a flash - Why did they find him now? - before she inwardly recoiled from it. There wasn’t a reason to stress over that yet. Tony loved her. Tony was in love with her and nothing was going to change that.