"I come with…" She paused, tilting her head in consideration. "Baggage. And that baggage is named Tony Stark." It made her feel a bit bad referring to Tony as baggage, like something to be rid of, but she couldn't deny that he was a burden in his myriad ways even now, albeit a tolerable one.

Pepper shifted, turned to lean back against the railing so that she could watch Aaron better, bare toes curling under against the worn planks of the porch. "I worked for Tony for fifteen years before showing up here, and another year after that. For a very long time, he was the only person I really had in my life who was mine. Neither of us had any family, we just had each other, and as I'm sure you can imagine, that makes things between us kind of complicated."