"We're gonna be okay," her words slipped out; a breath, if that.
His eyes dulled but he focused on her, and she didn't know what to do other than brush his messy hair from his face so it didn't catch in those gorgeous brown orbs. She felt her lips twitch up, but it was involuntary. Her heart ached, but when did not not anymore?
As his jaw went slack and his head turned, she watched the light flicker out in his chest, slowly but surely. And the light in his eyes, the soul buried within the burnt body in front of her, followed suit.
"You can rest now," she promised, but when she realized that was it, and maybe he had heard her, maybe he hadn't, she collapsed.
Her tears let loose. Her head fell, and her lips graced his cheek, knowing it was the last warmth she'd feel from him. It was the last time she'd get to touch him while he might have still briefly heard or felt her, and she cursed this stupid, bulky armor that covered her hands. It didn't retract like his. She couldn't even find words to demand Friday remove the glove. She could've held his hand, or felt his face with her own palm, but no, she...fucked up.
Part of her wondered how long he held on. If he felt her kiss. If he could see her cry. She wondered if he was at peace, because she tried so desperately to let him know they won. She prayed she helped him feel safe. She prayed he wasn't scared. Maybe Natasha found him. Was he alone, after he stopped hearing and feeling her, or did he find his old friend?
Minutes passed, maybe more, as she sobbed on his shoulder, hugging the cold metal suit that enclosed most of his body still. No one interrupted, and she didn't care that they had an audience; she forgot everything else except Tony.
"I love you," she whispered into his ear, though her voice was raw and broken and she could hardly breathe correctly. "I'm so sorry..."
She breathed in, inhaling what was left of the scent of his aftershave, though it was mostly stale because it had been a very, very long day, and once the suit deteriorated, he was left vulnerable to all of the elements and debris. It was there, though, and she needed to savor it now while she could.
So it didn't sit well when someone finally had to speak up.
"Pepper..." Rhodey attempted, his own metal glove on her suit's shoulder.
She just flipped the wings up, hoping they didn't catch in her hair, managing to push him off dramatically without saying anything back.
"We should move him," the blond, Carol, decided; she was blunt and to the point and obviously didn't understand Earth emotions.
"Banner, what if-" Cap began, yet it infuriated Pepper further; Tony was not a test subject.
At least Bruce agreed.
"This is nanotech, not...like before..." he muttered awkwardly, knowing they were praying he could come up with some miracle to revive Stark, but the arc was different, it didn't control him like the original one did.
"Pepper," Rhodey tried again, so she finally snapped, yelling at the top of her lungs to shut them up.
"No!" she hissed, and again, silence. "No one touches him. Not a single one of you!"
She could hear the kid, Parker, audibly swallow behind them, his nerves making him panic. And then she heard footsteps, and when she finally whipped her head back and confronted whoever it was, she was met face to face with the wizard who started all of this shit.
"There was only one way," he reiterated.
She had heard it before She had heard it over Friday's system from when Tony was talking to Strange on Titan; she went over the footage they could salvage from his time off of Earth while he was in his coma recovering.
Regardless, it still chilled her. Not because he was trying to convince her this was right. But because everything she had done, her whole life, her whole existence, was wrong. She could've stopped this. She could've prevented this.
"One in-" he continued on, not reading the tension.
Her palm lifted, the repulsor blasted, and it satisfied her.
I'm doing good, I'm on some new shit, been saying "yes" instead of "no"
I thought I saw you at the bus stop, I didn't though
I hit the ground running each night, I hit the Sunday matinée
You know the greatest films of all time were never made
I guess you never know, never know...and if you wanted me, you really should've showed
And if you never bleed, you're never gonna grow
And it's alright now
"Ginny?"
God, it was a name she hardly ever heard anymore. But her mind settled on the last time she heard something other than 'Pepper'. All she was getting from every one of the super friends right now was 'Pepper' and it was about to push her past her limits, as if the day after hadn't.
She squeezed her eyes shut, realizing her mind was playing tricks on her to distract her. It happened a lot with stress. Not really hallucinations, but...mental breaks that forced her to focus on something else until she remembered to breathe.
She remembered the last time she heard her real name, though. Only once from Tony. But at home...no one called her Pepper.
"Hey," a female's voice beckoned again, and then a nudge from her side as a car ran through a puddle, and all of a sudden, she was jumping and resetting. "Are you crazy? You're going to get soaked walking that close to the road!"
They were outside. In town, window shopping. Her cousin had insisted they go for coffee, but it had rained while they were inside a small café, so they waited it out before the walked back to the car. She was staying with family, far away from New York and Malibu. Far away from anything that could remind her of Tony.
She had left for a reason. Ultron...was her last straw. He had promised. He promised to give up Iron Man after she nearly died, and he didn't. It broke her heart in two, because she loved the man more than she loved anyone else before, but he just didn't care for her the same. At least, he didn't show that she mattered more than the other things he worked on, so she felt like nothing but a project that he had completed and tossed aside now that it didn't interest him anymore. Even further, she felt like she had forced him to choose her over the suits, so she finally walked out, and had ran away to ignore his begging to stay.
Stark could be a decent man. He was a teddy bear at times. But he was...erratic and a child and she couldn't babysit him anymore. She thought it would change when they got together, that maybe that part of him would grow up, but it...didn't.
She also thought leaving the cities would mean she'd move on, but here they were, walking along the street, and the stupid car that splashed a puddle up at the bus stop sign near their feet crushed her. It was a silver Audi, just like he had in California. Just a coincidence, she hoped, but...
Tony wouldn't have followed her home, would he? Surely not after months of silence from her end...
She had finally started to feel okay when she had her space from him. She was doing great, but then...he wheeled her back in. She cared, and she cared that he was hurting when the Avengers broke up, and she slipped one night when he tried calling, and...
"Gin?"
"Yeah," she whispered, finally squeezing her eyes shut to reset as she had promised her cousin she was okay. "Sorry, I just...thought I...sorry."
This time she wasn't hallucinating. What would she do now? How does she get past this? This time she can't run back to him. He...doesn't exist anymore.
Maybe she'd take Morgan and go back home.
But we were something, don't you think so?
Roaring 20s, tossing pennies in the pool
And if my wishes came true
It would've been you
In my defense, I have none
For never leaving well enough alone
But it would've been fun
If you would've been the one
Sure, Strange probably could have avoided her blast with all of his magical powers and other shit, but he took it. It was only enough to make him stumble on his feet, but her anger was not to be caged. It wasn't with him, it wasn't with anyone. It was with the world. It was with herself. It was partly with Tony.
Pepper could keep blaming herself, but the doctor said it himself. That one way was the only way they'd win. So, what? If she had changed her mind on things before, would it matter? Or was their whole history based on only one path if they wanted to be together?
Maybe someday she'd ask. But all she could do was stare at his lifeless eyes, not wanting to walk way from their dark depths for the last time. She'd see them again at home, with Morgan, when she had to tell Happy and their daughter what happened. She wasn't ready yet.
I have this dream you're doing cool shit, having adventures on your own
You meet some woman on the internet and take her home
We never painted by the numbers, baby, but we were making it count
You know the greatest loves of all time are over now
I guess you never know, never know...and it's another day waking up alone
As she knelt there over Tony's lifeless form, she repeated that stupid question in her head as each tear streamed down her cheek. As she looked at his cold lips, his dark eyelashes, his wrinkles on his forehead that were finally softened now that there was no weight on his shoulders...she just hated herself.
'One way' seemed too dramatic. She could've chosen differently. She could've gone back to him sooner and never had that gap in their relationship after Ultron. Maybe he would've left the Avengers sooner. Maybe they would've married sooner, and had a kid sooner, and then he would have never went up with that ship the first time Thanos arrived. But no...she had to be the bitch who wouldn't be patient with him and blamed him for their problems. She just left.
His broken body reminded her a lot of back when he was suffering at the Stark Expo. He'd begged her then, too. Begged her not to go home. Begged her to...do anything but be Iron Man or Tony Stark. He didn't want to die that way.
And she chose the one way that he had to use the suit.
"I don't want to go home," he'd told her in a moment of sincerity back on that jet. "At all. Let's cancel my birthday party and... We're in Europe. Let's go to Venice, Cipriani. Remember?
"Oh, yes." She did remember a trip they took there, but it had ended in...Tony, a couple other girls, and Pepper basically standing guard while he got his way in the bedroom.
So she argued him. She didn't listen, she argued.
"It's a great place to...be healthy," he tried, sad eyes looking out the window.
"I don't think this is the right time. We're in kind of a mess."
She made the decision not to go. And now he was gone.
If Pepper had said okay, again...what would be different? Would he had died anyway, from the poisoning? Or would he have told her? Would he have shown her, asked for her help, solved it without figuring out how to keep that ridiculous arc in his chest? Would he have done the surgery sooner? Would they have gotten together on that trip, instead of after the attack?
"Well, I'm just saying, to recharge our batteries and figure it all out," he offered again, literally begging her, and she said no.
"Not everybody runs on batteries Tony."
But we were something, don't you think so?
Roaring 20s, tossing pennies in the pool
And if my wishes came true
It would've been you
In my defense, I have none
For never leaving well enough alone
But it would've been fun
If you would've been the one
Maybe he only had 'one way' that his life would've gone. He would've died any of those times, right? But he was supposed to be hers. She never agreed to sacrifice him.
She ached, feeling the sobs come back, because as he laid, defeated and sprawled out on the ground, he didn't look at all like the man she knew back then.
Pepper had watched him grow. She had watched him adapt his life to suit both of their needs, not just his. She had fallen for him, she had trusted him, and he had trusted her. He trusted her to stick with him, because that was it. She was the one. She had always been his one.
"It's you, Pep," he told her so many times. "It's always been you."
If it was always her, how the hell was there such a thing as only one path they could take? There had to be someone else...something else, that could have been done. It didn't have to be her Tony.
I persist and resist the temptation to ask you
If one thing had been different
Would everything be different today?
As she kissed his forehead again, despite the push to remove his body and start clean up, her eyes closed and she cried softly, leaving her lips there.
"You wanted to stay home," she whispered, realizing why she really blamed herself...and it stemmed further back than any of this. "I made you take that jet, I'm the reason you were kidnapped, and..."
She coughed, her gloves running through his hair as she rested her forehead to his. He was cold now, but she couldn't let go.
"...if I let you stay home instead of worrying about going home early for my damn birthday, Iron Man wouldn't exist..."
She didn't even actually had plans. She had plans with a bottle of, wine, some Chinese food, and a bath. She just wanted a quiet night, off call, not having to watch his every move. She figured Obie would've handled it if Rhodey couldn't. She never imagined waking up to that phone call in the middle of the night, alerting her of their accident.
"Why are you trying to hustle me out of here?" she remembered him accusing, that fluffy hair of his back then all a mess in his eyes, sweat on his forehead and grease from the car he was working on on his hands.
Lord, how she wished the grease on his hands would ever be just car fluids again...but it wouldn't be.
"Your flight was scheduled to leave an hour and a half ago," she informed him, assuming it would be a safe trip.
"That's funny, I thought with it being my plane and all, that it would just wait for me to get there."
At least he waited for her to get here before he left. He waited to see her again before he said goodbye.
But if she could go back, and change that one day, would it be different? With no Iron Man? Maybe he wouldn't have admitted he loved her, but he would've been alive. And she would've loved him from afar if she had to if it meant that there was a path where he was safe.
We were something, don't you think so?
Rosé flowing with your chosen family
And it would've been sweet
If it could've been me
But even if she changed their path, would it change the rest of the world? Would it change the portal and the nuke, and Killian, and Ultron? Would it change Thanos and his plan?
Yet surrounded by their team...his friends, the only other people on the planet who actually knew him for him...they were alone. They knew him now, but they didn't know what she knew. None of them knew his whole story. None of them watched him grow or knew his potential, or how much he loved his daughter that he'd never get to see grow up. None of them wanted to trade places.
Except her.
"It should've been me," she decided finally, gasping out in frustration. "This thing is the same tech. It should've been me, not you. I could've handled it..."
In my defense, I have none
For digging up the grave another time
But it would've been fun
If you would've been the one
He was always destined to be the one who sacrificed himself, though, wasn't he?