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It started way before Tony and Pepper committed into a relationship, two years before.
It was a loud evening, a few weeks after Tony had returned from being held captive in Afghanistan, which had changed him completely. He hadn’t left his house in a while because they thought he’d gone cray but that’s a story for a different time.
It started when he walked into that room with every person that works for him and more. An agent started talking to him and only a few sentences later Tony forgot what he was talking about because he saw her.
Pepper Potts, wonderful as ever, wearing a midnight blue backless dress that makes her look so stunning Tony forgets how to breathe. He looks at her and for the first time, he sees her. Not the dress she’s wearing, not her strawberry hair falling in soft curls, he sees her. He sees his personal assistant, the person that brings him coffee every morning and reminds him about his meetings and that somehow managed to stay for years even though she is working with him and God knows how complicated he is. He sees a woman who probably knows him better than anyone else and still stays.
The moment is over when he says something to the agent, his eyes never leaving her as if they’re trying to catch that moment, as if he wouldn’t forget it if he just stares at it long enough.
They dance. Tony doesn’t know how he got here and he doesn’t care because God, he’s so lucky to have Pepper out of all women to be his PA and God, how could he have been so blind all the time?
And when he sees how uncomfortable she is he offers to catch some air and she follows him outside. She talks about their dance and why it’s problematic and when she says she’s okay with how his relationships to women are he knows she’s not and he wonders why she stayed for so long with him being so careless and he’s thankful. Tony knows that’s an unusual feeling for him and he knows it might only last a few seconds but he doesn’t care about that either.
When Pepper leans in for a kiss his heart trembles and when she pulls back it aches. When he rushes off to get her a drink, deep down he knows this is some scary new feeling, tied to a moment he’ll probably never forget.
There’s a thought in the back of his mind, something he can’t quite grasp but he know’s it’s important.
—
A lot of things happen before Tony Stark has time to think about that dance again. And whenever he thinks about it now, he’s scared. He’s terribly scared, more scared than when he hung on that roof, knowing he probably wouldn’t make it out alive.
He caused a lot of trouble when he revealed that he is Iron Man and he dealt with all that trouble and it did nothing to him, not really. But this, this feeling, it does things to him and they scare him because it’s new and it makes him vulnerable in a way not even an armor of iron could save him from.
So he does what he always does when he has problems he can’t fix with duct tape and a screwdriver.
The music is loud, the drinks are strong and Tony sighs in relief when his mind starts to stop screaming after the fifth. There are half-naked women around him and for once he doesn’t care. His mind is calm, it leads him to one specific woman. God, he’ll never forget the way her eyes were sparkling when she was wearing that dress. It hits him like a punch but it’s a punch he expected because he already knew it. Pepper Potts is the woman he’d marry one day. And if he was about to marry her he’d need a ring and he wouldn’t get one in a bar and that’s one of the few things he still knows at the moment, even when he can’t remember his own name right now.
He stumbles out of the bar into the cold air of the night which feels like the second punch this evening. A ring, he needs a ring.
“Jarvis” He hiccups into his phone, “tell me the fastest way to get an engagement ring.” Jarvis doesn’t answer.
“Jarvis!” He tries again, without success.
He stops a man who’s walking by.
“Where can I get an” Tony gulps “an engagement ring?” The man stars at him weirdly but Tony can’t process it, the only thing he knows is that he needs a ring.
“Sir, you’re drunk” Says the man.
“Thank you, how do I get there?”
A sigh followed by an eye roll are the answer before the stranger decides to describe him the way to a place where he could get an engagement ring.
Tony giggles as he walks through the city, his mind circling around Pepper and the fact that he’ll marry her and how beautiful she looked in that blue dress. It makes him happy.
How long is he walking until he arrives at a jewelry store? Tony doesn’t know. He can’t feel his legs but he doesn’t care. He still needs a ring.
The doors jingle as he enters, or maybe not the doors but the bell above them, but that’s unnecessary because the bells aren’t rings and he’s here to get a ring, not a bell.
The man behind the glass counter examines him in surprise when Tony drags himself to the glass and leans all his weight on the counter. It feels too much to bear at the moment.
“I need a ring,” he informs the jeweler who still stares at him.
“What kind of ring?” The man eventually asks.
Tony stares into the air. “A pretty one, sparkling like her eyes. Must make her happy.”
“Sir, are you drunk?”
“Dunno, am I?”
“You probably are, it would be best if you leave my store now!” Why is the man so rude? Tony was trying to give him money, wasn’t he?
“Please, I need an engagement ring, it’s urgent.” It isn’t urgent but Tony’s mind isn’t able to make a difference to that right now.
“You are Iron Man, I’m sure you find a way, sir!”
“But I need it know!” Tony insists and the man sighs.
He mutters something along the lines of “Why the hell does Tony Stark need an engagement ring in the middle of the night?” but Tony’s pretty sure it isn’t that late because which store would be open in the middle of the night?
The man displays a few rings and Tony looks at them. He tries to remember Pepper and how her hand would look with a ring on it. It has to be the right one. And then he spots the right one, silver with a big blue diamond on it. Not as blue as Pepper’s dress that night but blue enough, he decides.
He points at it. “That one.”
“Are you sure?”
”Yes, sure. Here’s money!” Tony shoves a few thousand dollars across the counter, the man staring at it, surprised, of course, it seems like he isn’t able to express any other emotion tonight. But none of this matters because Tony has a ring now.
With the ring in his hand he leaves the store, the coldness of the air hitting him again. Aren’t it enough punches already?
It’s time to call Happy, he decides, because Happy would just sigh and come get him and tell him to not puke in the car. Rhodey was still super stressed because of his whole Iron Man revelation so Happy was definitely the better choice.
After a quick phone call and Tony going back into the store to ask where exactly he is, Happy’s on his way to get him.
Tony stares at the ring while he waits and another punch hits him, completely unexpected this time.
What had he just done?
He isn’t even in a relationship with Pepper so why the hell had he just bought an engagement ring?
The answer was clear: because he would marry her sooner or later.
When a black car with Happy on the driver’s seat arrives beside him, Tony has decided that he would have to wait before he would propose to Pepper.
“Hap!” He blurts as he gets into the car. The chauffeur looks tired and done but why? “I need you to carry this!” Tony holds out the ring to him and now Happy’s expression changes into very surprised.
“Is that an engagement-“
“I’m gonna marry her, Happy” Tony sighs happily, “One day I’m gonna marry Pepper!”
Happy shakes his head and puts the ring in his pocket before he starts the car again.
“Just promise me to always carry the ring with you, ‘lright?”
The man sighs before he nods his head, thinking that this must be some of the drunk bullshit his boss always comes up with when he had a drink more than necessary.
“I promise” And a promise is a promise and luckily this ring isn’t weighting much so he would be able to keep it.
As they’re heading home Happy can’t quite repress a slight laughter. “Tony Stark marrying Pepper Potts,” he mutters to himself, “what a crazy world we live in.”
—
Now it’s nine years later and a lot of things had happened again, the most important one being the fact that Tony just lost his new avengers member and he couldn’t be more proud. He really raised that kid well.
Although there’s now still the issue that there’s a room filled with reporters and he has no big news to tell them.
That’s also what Pepper tells him and Happy when she comes out of said room. He really needs to fix that.
“What am I gonna tell them?” Pepper’s freaking out again, he needs to do something.
“Think of something, how about, uhm,” A brief memory of one of his drunken nights flashes in his mind’s eye. A ring. That’s it!
“Hey Hap, you still got that ring?”
Happy seems to be caught off guard by that question as he starts to stutter and search his blazer.
“The engage-“
“Are you kidding? I’ve been carrying this since 2008!”
Has it really been this long?
Tony stares at the ring, maybe even more surprised than Pepper next to him.
“Okay” Is the only thing Tony can think of because well, shit, he’s already been lost to that woman before he had realized it.
“I think I can think of something better than that!” Pepper announces and as Tony tries to protest (he really wants to marry her, and besides, messing with reporters is fun) Pepper shuts him up with a kiss and Tony’s mind goes blank instantly.
“I can’t believe you’ve got that thing in your pocket!” Pepper complains as she walks away and Tony can’t help but think that there are many more things about the ring she won’t believe but that can wait. He might not propose to her today but he would still do it and she was still the woman he knows he would marry someday. He knows it since 2008.