A scene from "I will see your nation cast down"

[innitmarvelous_og]

The seconds it took for the final gate to open wide enough for him to pass through felt like an eternity. By the time they opened, Tony was bouncing on his feet, his patience all spent getting through the other nine doors between him and Pepper.

“Come on, come on! Open up already!” he growled at the door as though that’d make it move any faster, his eyes never leaving his wife’s shiny blue ones.

Pepper stood watching him with her hands covering her mouth, tears trailing down her face in an endless stream. On the outside she appeared more calm than her husband but inside she was no less impatience than he was for the barriers between them to be removed. These final seconds of separation were almost as physically painful as the months of separation they’d already endured. She knew that the only thing that would bring relief she longed for was being able to touch and be touched by Tony again, so she willed for the gate to move faster with every fiber of her being. She found relief for the all the agony the last few months had caused when exactly one microsecond after the gate finally widened enough for him to squeeze through, Tony’s lips crashed against hers.

They kissed until the need to take another breathe forced them to separate.

When they finally pulled apart, Tony wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to him. He was hanging on as though his life depended on it, and he murmured into her ear, “Oh, Pepper baby, I’ve missed you so much! Not being able to see, touch, or hold you or our kids whenever I wanted to hurt more than anything they did to me in that cave in Afghanistan!”

"I'm going to take you home away from this awful place," Pepper whispered, stroking his hair with her fingers, "And when we get there, I plan on keeping you close to me for a long, long time."

“Believe me, there’s nowhere else in the world where I’m gonna want to be more than with you and our kids. Not for a very long, long, long time.”

“I love you.”

Tony buried his face in neck and just held onto her for a long minute. His voice was still soft when he asked, “Can we get out of here now? Please?”

She pulled back, and looked at him, nodding, “Happy is waiting for us just outside.”

Tony intertwined his hand with hers, “Good. Let’s go.”

She nodded, and she began to lead the way towards the entrance/exit she had used earlier when she entered the prison. As they walked, Pepper couldn’t help the number of times she looked at him or squeezed his hand with each being a way of her confirming that she wasn’t dreaming, that he was walking out of prison with her a free, living, breathing man.

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Author's Notes: In this scene Tony is being released from prison where he's spent three or four months on Death Row and at one point he was nearly executed by lethal injection. It's been a few weeks since his almost execution. He's been in isolation for most of the time that he's been in prison. He's lost weight during this time as he often didn't feel like eating and the food wasn't the greatest when he did eat.

Pepper brought some clothes to the prison for him when she got the call he was being released in the middle of the night. The clothes consist of a t-shirt of his that she's been sleeping with at the rental house and one of his leather jackets that looks bigger on him than the last time he wore it. Given I want a drawing of their kiss, I don't think pants matter much in this scene but they're jeans (his and again somewhat bigger on him due to some weight loss).