Once he knew Pepper was okay with him pursuing going to the others to make an attempt to bring back everyone Thanos murdered, he had FRIDAY to make travel arrangements so he could leave in the morning for the Avengers compound. When that was done, he put his phone aside and looked at his wife, “Soooo, what should we do now?”
As she kept looking over the book in front of her, Pepper could hear what she knew was hint in his voice even as she felt his eyes caressing her form. She let a few seconds pass, “I guess maybe you should head onto bed now? It’s getting late and I know you want to get an early start right?” Her words did exactly as she wanted them to do as a few seconds later, she hear could practically hear his mouth open and close before he stammered out, “Pep!”
She giggled, hearing his frustration in the uttering of her name as he stretched out the single syllable. She peeked up at him, and could see he was indeed flushed with frustration. She gave it another moment, then she marked her place in the book, and got up,
“I’m going to check on Morgan and make sure she’s asleep… if you want to go get ready for bed?” She had to fight to keep from laughing again as her husband nodded while getting to his feet, heading in the direction of their room while she went up to see about their little girl.
Sometime later, when they laid with limbs and in tangled up sheets, Pepper was in that place found in between sleep and awake. She was closer to sleep than still being awake when she felt movement in the bed again. It was was enough movement to make her open her eyes since her sleep addled brain registered that her husband was leaving their bed.
“Tony?” she asked, feeling cold from the sudden absence of his warmth.
He had just pulled ona t-shirt over his head, and was weaving the arms through the holes when he looked down at her, “Did I wake you, honey? Sorry I tried not to.”
“Where are you going?”
“Morgan’s room.”
He disappeared from their room before their daughter’s name and the location of where he was going could penetrate through the fog of sleepiness, but when it did, she was sitting up in a flash. She thought she knew what Tony was about to do, and had just placed one foot on the floor when he reappeared.
She was right!
“Tony!” she whispered, loudly, once her mouth could do something besides hang open.
He didn’t respond or really look at her until after he had deposited the precious little bundle in his arms down into the center of their bed, before he then got back into the bed himself. He pulled the blankets up, so his little baby girl wouldn’t get cold, before he finally brought his eyes up to look at his wife. He gave her an unabashed smile, while his eyes begged her not to say he needed to return their daughter back to her own bed. As if those eyes of his weren’t enough, he just had to verbally added the plea too.
“Please Pep? I just… just need her a little closer to us tonight.”
I need her to be closer to me.
She looked into his eyes, those big beautiful brown eyes, the same eyes their little girl had, eyes she ultimately had never been able to say no to, and finally she gave him a nod.
Morgan had slept the first year of her life in their room, Pepper knew after that if she didn’t put her foot down, their daughter would not only be sleeping in their room but she would also be sleeping in the bed with them. When she had gotten a little older, and they were both more used to caring for her, she had been insistent that Morgan begin sleeping in her own bed in her own room. The insistence had come not because she didn’t love her little girl as much as Tony but rather because she knew it would be better for the three of them in the long run because they’d all get more sleep that way. But that’s not to say there wasn’t an occasional night that Morgan didn’t find her way into their bed like when a bad dream scared her, and she immediately came to find her Daddy. But for the most part, on most nights, their little girl slept lovingly tucked away in her own bed.
“Okay, okay, but just for tonight. Okay?” she said, acquiescing to his request.
“Just for tonight,” Tony agreed with a nod, laying down beside their little girl.
Pepper watched him wrap an arm around his daughter, and gently press a kiss to her dark locks.
“I love you, baby.”
His voice was so soft, so full of love for the little person between them, that Pepper had to fight back tears.
He must have felt her eyes still watching them because after a minute, his eyes opened, and he looked over at her.
“I just needed both of my girls with me tonight.”
He closed his eyes again, but her own stayed opened the rest of the night.