Pepper gave the most imperceptible smile as she glanced up at him and breathed a low "Your welcome" in response.
The room was quiet now as Pepper settled in a bit more comfortably against the mattress, her legs crossed and hanging just over the side as her hip brushed right against his own. Her hand continued to move over his stomach, taking great care to make her touch as tender as possible on those sore muscles as she made small circular patterns with her fingers. She didn't say anything, only sat patiently by as she watched his body beginning to steadily relax more and more with each passing minute. His face, which had been riddled with lines as he scrunched it up against the pain was now beginning to smooth again as he eased himself into her touch. She concentrated all of her energy on removing the negative vibes from his body, mentally imagining each ache and pain being rubbed out of him through her touch.
For several long minutes she simply sat there, quiet and still as she watched over him. After a time she heard his breath beginning to even even out, deepening and becoming steady now in contrast to his earlier gasps and whimpers. She watched his face carefully, wondering if he'd perhaps managed to go to sleep. It would be good for him to get some rest now. According to Jarvis, he'd been up practically all night long and his body needed the chance to recuperate.
But she didn't leave him.
Instead she very carefully leaned forward, her hand leaving him for a moment. She slipped the cloth off of his forehead that had now gone warm and placed it back into the water. She sloshed it around inside before drawing it out again and repeating the same process as she had before, folding it up and then lightly setting it down against his forehead.
"Tony," she breathed quietly, worried that she might awaken him...but finding herself simply in need of saying a few things as she sat there caring for him. "I'm...sorry about yesterday."
She felt a burden of guilt riding against her heart as she sat back again and her hand returned once more to ease along his stomach in the same massaging motion.
"I shouldn't have said some of those things. Oh, some of them I meant!...but some of them..." She turned her eyes upward and looked away with a sigh, out across the City she saw through the window. "You just...I was so angry. And I was hurt. And I guess in return...I wanted to make you hurt." She shook her head. "I should have never said that I wasn't proud of you. You know that I am. More than ever. And...I shouldn't have hit you. Though you did have it coming."
She gave a wry smirk, glancing back down at him. Her hand had stopped moving across his stomach and was now simply resting against his hip furthest from her. She swallowed a breath, tracing her fingers carefully up towards the blue glow of the arc reactor that was locked deep within his chest.
"I was just scared," she admitted in little more than a whisper. "For the past several months, it's just been me and you. A team. Out to save the world, or whatever. But then I saw that video and...I don't know. I guess I was just afraid that you might leave me or not really need me anymore. That it would be like the 'old days' - when you'd push me aside the second a new girl walked through the doors. When I wasn't your partner anymore but...well, just the assistant that got your other girls champagne or waited outside to 'cue the fireworks'. I think that maybe I just didn't want for you to walk out on me...so I had to walk out on you."