Despite what recent circumstances might have led you to believe, Pepper Potts was not the sort of woman who cried easily. She wasn't heartless, just extremely adept at composure, but there she was, half-naked and watching this man who had, just hours before, been inside her, and she had to blink back tears.

Saying she was sorry again seemed so trite, so ill-suited to the moment, and she shrugged off the impulse. She crossed to Aaron and gently insinuated herself into his lap, lean legs bent on either side of his thighs, and gathered his face in her hands. "What a pair we make," she quietly told him, because maybe she'd not been stabbed and maybe Tony was still alive, but he didn't know the half of it.