Pepper was typing furiously on her laptop, trying to get as much work done as she could when tony walked into the living room at 8 in the morning.
Pepper turned her head when she heard him enter the room and a tired smile took over her face when she noticed tony carrying a small boy in his arms.
Peter looked half-sleep and dazed as he held onto his dad's shirt with one hand and hugged his plushie to his chest with the other one. So cute that Pepper's heart melted at the sight.
Her son looked so small in his oversized nightshirt and the nasal cannula inserted in his nose did not make it any better but the boy himself just looked unfazed.
Tony walked over to the couch and placed his sleepy son on it before setting two throw pillows on his side and set the oxygen capsule right by the sofa on the floor before making his way to the kitchen, not forgetting to kiss pepper on his way.
"Do you want some mashed bananas or do you want some apple today buddy?"
"a-apple?"
Pepper couldn’t help but smile at her son's adorable way of talking. She walked up to him, coffee mug still in hand, and bent down to press a kiss to his head and poke his small nose with her finger before walking down the hallway to her older son's room.
"wake up sleepy head!! Sun is up!"
Harley let out a groan, not ready to let go of his comforter but still managed to open one sleepy eye when he felt his mom sitting on the bed right by his side. with a groan, Harley rolled around and got up from his bed and tried to make a run for the washroom only to be stopped by his mother's arm around him.
"morning to you too honey!"
"Hmm...Morning, Mom"
pepper smiled gently and pushed back harley's hair with her free hand and leaned in to plant a kiss on his cheek.
"hurry up, your dad is making you eggs."
"scrambled???"
"just the way you like it!"
Harley jumped in his spot and ran to the washroom.
........
That morning in the Stark household was as domestic as it could get. Tony and pepper getting ready for another busy day ahead and Harley running around with a couple of his star wars Lego pieces in hand, trying to get Peter to play with him. Tony often wondered just how his older son can have so much energy in his tiny body that early in the morning but then again his son was a Stark so go figure.
Peter watched his brother with an amused look and at some point tried to copy what Harley doing but got tired in a couple of minutes and settled with watching him instead.
Pepper and Tony shared a look at that, the heavy feeling in their hearts got too overwhelming to bear sometimes.
Peter's always been a weak child, born premature and underweight he's had a variety of issues to deal with. He was Forced to stay in the hospital for weeks at a time before he was even one year old.
You'd think Tony Stark with all his money could at least do something for his own kid but even adding a hospital wing to the Stark tower and summoning the best specialists on the planet could only get them so far.
they knew it was only a matter of time.
One doctor after the other had let them down but this was Tony Stark so of course he would spend as much time, money, and effort as it takes to at least make it bearable for his child. Really, all they could do was give it their best and help peter live his short life as happily as he could.
Not that it would be short if they had any say in it but as much as they both denied it even the seven years old Harley could register his brother's health declining over time.
They had good days and bad days, on good days like this one, things went by smoothly and they looked like a picture-perfect family. On bad days tony or pepper spent their night by peter's hospital bed as the other one kept Harley company.
That year marked one of their worst ones so far, they've had way more bad days than good ones so when they had a good day they really treasured it.
they took comfort in watching peter giggle softly at Harley's failing attempts at voicing his characters.
……………
Pepper is a woman of iron. She's had her fair share of hard days.She is no ironman but she sure as hell can be just as strong if not stronger.
From the days she followed Tony's every step and cleaned up after the millionaire,playboy, philanthropist to the day she became a stark herself. By then She knew what she was getting herself into and boy was she ready for it. she loved every second of being with tony even if it got really hard sometimes.
Having Harley was what people would call a lucky accident, they did not except it nor were they ready for it but they welcomed it.
As anxious as tony was and as hard as it was for him to picture himself as a father to another human being, pepper was somehow ready for that too. They worked through it together, tony tried his best to get his act together and pepper was right there by his side to help him when he slipped up.
Having peter was another story altogether. They didn’t plan it but they were a hell of a lot more ready for it.so when they were told that peter’s condition was far from ideal the parents felt even more lost and anxious than they had when they were expecting Harley.
But Pepper braved her way through that too but cfor the first time she actually understood Tony when the man's guilt complex got the better of him and he blamed himself for everything because every time pepper helped peter through an asthma attack all she could think of was 'it's on me', 'I should've been stronger', 'I should've known better' , ‘if I was better than this...’ not that it mattered anymore. Nothing she could do would be able help her son get better.
Getting disappointed by the doctors and knowing that her son might not grow up to become the greatest scientist of all times like he sometimes said he wanted to be was a hard hit and pepper felt like it can't get any worse than that. Spending day after day trying to give her son the best she could not knowing if there'll be a tomorrow or not was not easy on her either.
But Peter didn’t know that. his young mind was unable to process what it meant to be sick and to have the doctors put a deadline on his life, to him as painful as it was, every day was just another day that he had to go through and pepper hated how her son thought of this as normal but then again the cold hard fact was that as long as Peter could remember this has been his normal even if sometimes he wanted to wake up and not feel the ache in his chest.
.............
When she got the news of tony getting kidnapped it was like a nightmare she didn’t know could happen had come to life, days and weeks of not knowing where her husband was while taking care of two kids and handling the company and Obie and media took a toll out of her and the moment she had tony back with her she felt like she's made it through the hardest time of her life and all she wanted to do was sit down and take a deep breath, god knows she needed it. That eventually turned into an inside joke for them. A couple of weeks after tony returned, while they were sitting by peter's bed after what felt like the worst asthma attack ever, tony took her hand in his and in his nonchalant sarcastic way said " hey, we got through all that getting kidnapped and betrayed on and iron man crap, we'll get through this too. "
Pepper never felt more relieved because yeah, they got through the worst of it, as long as they're together, they'll get through this too. They could do this for their family.
going through all of that was what made people call her a woman of iron because even without the suit she had strong-armed her way through life like no one before.
Going through all that and coming out the other end with a smile on her face was what gave tony a strong will to try harder, to become a better person for her and for their kids, going through all that was what made Harley look up to her more than his dad and what made peter look at her like she hung the moon and that was also what made her believe whatever life throws at her she's going to get through it and come out the other side a survivor.
But All those hard days and nights never prepared her for the day she received the worst news she'd ever receive in her life.
Peter was gone, happy said.
Pepper and Tony were in the middle of a heated argument on whether or not to partner with Osborn Corp on the new health monitoring device that Norman had the idea for when happy barged in the empty conference room, hair and suit disheveled and out of breath.
Peter is gone, he said.
And pepper felt her heart stop. She could swear she heard tony's heart stop too.
"We don’t know where he is. They were in the penthouse. Harley has went to the washroom and came back to their babysitter unconscious on the floor and now Peter is nowhere to be found."
Happy caught on their expression and added quickly.
"what do you mean nowhere to be found? Jarvis?"
Tony was quick to respond, already opening his laptop to check the cameras only to see the footage from the only camera in their private living quarters that was located by the balcony’s entrance had been wiped clean.
"Jarvis?"
Tony repeated with a sense of dread.
" My apologies sir, my system has been compromised I seem unable to connect to the penthouse, system reboot is in process."
For all the time pepper has prepared herself for a day that she hears peter is gone she never thought something like this would happen. She was ashamed to admit that when she heard the sentence peter is gone her first thought was that her little boy is finally free from all the pain he's been going through his entire life.
But to hear this, No, this is another nightmare she didn’t know could happen that just came to life.
"H-Harley?"
That was her second thought and the only word she could speak.
"he's fine. A little bit shaken but fine. He's with Rhody. Rhody's already got FBI involved. We're gonna find him."
Happy said as they started to walk their way back to the elevator and up to the penthouse.
"the hell we are."
Tony muttered under his breath as he typed on his laptop trying to check Jarvis's progress on rebooting the system.
"tony I'm sorry, there was a security breach downstairs in the lobby and I went to check on it and next thing I kno-"
"did they take his oxygen tank?"
Pepper cut through his word, not really able to care for any of that at the moment.
"yeah-yeah they did."
Happy was stunned for a moment but he managed to answer.
Pepper let out a sigh as she leaned on the elevator wall, it took her a few more seconds before she finally said
"it's not your fault happy. You-you couldn’t have known an- and who would've thought…in our own home…"
None of them said a word after that. The elevator door opened to reveal a distressed Harley clinging to Rhody for dear life only to let go and completely forget the man in favor of running to pepper and hugging her waist tightly, face pushed into her abdomen.
It was a minute before Pepper finally managed to loosen the hug and bent down to hug her son and let him cry his eyes out silently as she patted his back.
The first hours were excruciating for them but if anyone ever asks pepper they were not half as bad as when it finally dawned on her that her son was gone, that was months later.
Someone had managed to sneak into their tower and snatch their son right from under their nose and they didn’t even know about it until happy told them.
The babysitter didn’t remember anything, one second she was in the kitchen getting some snacks ready for the boys, and the next she woke up on tony stark's couch with FBI and Shield agents swarming the place, taking samples and a couple of agents questioning her on the whereabouts of the younger kid she was supposed to look after.
The first night when pepper finally managed to put Harley to sleep in her and Tony's bed she walked down the hallway to Tony's lab where the man was still on his computer, trying to find something, anything about their son's whereabouts. Normally she would scold him, saying that just because he's had a few cups of coffee doesn’t mean he can stay awake for 30 hours with no sleep but this was different.
Wordlessly she made him a new pot of coffee and started sorting through the papers scattered on the table.
................
It went on like that for a while. The grieving parents searched every corner of the country- no the planet for their son with FBI, Sheild, police, and volunteers by their side.
Tony checked every single tip they received as pepper held campaigns and news conferences.
The Public's reaction warmed pepper's heart. She knew as iron man's family they are dear to the public and people respect and loved them but to see how passionate they were as they helped look for the youngest stark in any way they could, was really something else.
No one could come up with a solid idea as to why anyone would want to kidnap peter. Sure as iron man's son he was considered to be very valuable but the detectives denied that idea as the reason behind it, saying if anyone was looking for ransom money they wouldn’t risk taking a sick child that could die any moment without the proper care and medicine. if they lost the kid they couldn’t get their hands on the ransom money and even if they had decided to kidnap peter in hopes to get a fast reaction out of tony there would have been a call but as days passed by without a call or message asking for money in exchange for the child, that idea was ultimately let go of by the detectives.
People had their own ideas on what had happened. Some thought peter had indeed passed away in stark's care either because of his health issues or by neglect and the powerful family was trying to cover it up by reporting him missing. Some went as far as saying that maybe the ever so busy parents finally got tired of the child that needed so much care and attention and by accident or on purpose got rid of the kid and this was their way of covering their own ass and was why FBI got involved from the beginning of the investigation. Reading those theories broke her heart in a way that she felt she couldn’t breathe, how could anyone even think of that when all pepper could think of was how she wished she could at least give the kidnappers the medication peter would need and god if that wasn't the most ridiculous idea ever.
As days and weeks went by the number of volunteers started declining and the government’s limited funding prevented the police and FBI to spent manhours on a missing person's case.
Of course, tony did cover the fundings not only for the forces but also for private detectives and any organization that could help them but as weeks turned into months everyone eventually stopped trying to find the child, focusing on finding the body to at least bring the family closure.
Tony and pepper could never do that, they could never stop hoping their little boy is somewhere out there even if deep in their heart they knew that especially considering peter's condition it was near to impossible for him to be alive.
.................
Sitting in peter's room late at night, three months after they last saw peter, pepper finally broke in tears.
All the times she experienced sadness and grief in her life didn’t prepare her for the heartache that came with not knowing where her son was.
She didn’t cry when she saw tony with a different woman every night, she didn’t cry when she thought she wasn’t ready to have Harley, she didn’t cry when they were told their youngest son would be born far from healthy, she didn’t cry when tony was gone, she was too busy taking care of the chaos around her, she had two kids to look after and care for, no time for her own grief and before she knew it tony was back in her arms, safe and alive.
But this was too much. They didn’t deserve this, Harley didn’t deserve to lose his brother so young, tony didn’t deserve to lose a son after all the time he had tried to be a good and worthy father, she didn’t deserve to lose yet again another family member to kidnappers, and more than all of them, peter didn’t deserve this. Her sweet and innocent kid didn’t deserve to live a life so painful only to meet his end in some worthless idiots hand instead of with his parents who were longing to have him back.
So they never gave up. Tony never stopped checking the tips or sightings and pepper never stopped funding campaigns and going live on broadcasts.
They were not alone in this though because before they knew it they were surrounded by people who cared enough to still keep an eye out for a kid most of them never even met in person.
Before they knew it Steve started to join tony to check on the tips, Natasha kept trying to get in touch with her contacts to get any info she could, Clint would bring lucky over to distract Harley, Thor even if he wasn't around much still would make sure to be present on the anniversary of peter's disappearance, Rhody kept peter's picture in his wallet just in case he said and happy always took a double look when he saw a curly-haired boy pass by him.
................
So Pepper and tony never really stopped looking for their missing son but seven years after his disappearance, sitting on his bedroom floor, the parents had to make the hardest decision of their life. They would never stop hoping for their boy to come back to them but they had to move on, they had people to protect, they had a company to run, they had themselves to look after, and the most important of all, they had another son to take care of and because if there is a day that Peter finds his way back home then he is gonna need his family there, not a broken shell of what it used to be.
It took them seven years to realize they have other things in their life that desperately need their attention. Seven years for them to get to a place where they can finally wake up in the morning and have breakfast and talk to Harley about his school and go on about their days with a see you later and try to believe that yes they’re gonna see each other later and no one is kidnapping another member of their family.
The fear, the dread, the anxiety, and the pain would never go away. Their family will always miss its final piece with peter gone, but after seven years they are more or less ready to deal with life as it is.
So when Pepper wakes up on the day that peter would turn 10, she gets out of the bed and takes a shower and puts on her makeup, slips on her stilettoes, and gets ready to go out there and make it through another day, because if peter is ever going to come home she's going to make sure her son has a strong family waiting there for him and if that wasn’t going to happen well pepper couldn’t afford to think of that.
Not now and probably not ever.