Being one of the world’s smartest, successful, and eligible bachelors usually has its perks. And other times? Not so much.
One moment Tony Stark is demonstrating his newest missile for the nation’s finest military brass, with an air of arrogance that would’ve even made Howard Stark proud, and the next he’s watching those very same people get riddled with bullets as explosions ring in his ears. His survival instinct kicks into overdrive as he desperately tries to make it out of the Humvee alive. For the first time in a decade, Tony Stark prays to a god that he stopped believing in at the young age of thirteen.
He makes it, but barely, and just in time to see one of the men he’d been traveling with collapse to the ground in a spray of automatic fire. His face and hands are covered in small cuts from the blowout of glass and his two-thousand-dollar suit is covered in dirt and blood—too much blood—that he knows doesn’t all belong to him. His ears are ringing so badly that he tries flexing his jaw as he scrambles for his phone to call for help, but it does nothing to aid his hearing.
And then he sees the missile, gray and sleek and marked with a white Stark Industries logo on the body. It’s the very missile he’d worked months on, the one he fine-tuned and crafted with his own hands, and before he even has a chance to blink and move away, out of the line of fire, it detonates, throwing him backward across the hot sand and rocks. He feels the sting where his head connects with the ground and he swears he can feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins as he tries to sit up, though he fails to even do that. It’s as if he’s been punched in the stomach but no matter how hard he tries to suck in a breath, his lungs scream out in protest and his chest feels like it’s been lit on fire. There’s the distinct taste of metal in his mouth and it’s not until he’s clawing desperately at his shirt, hoping that if he can just get the top buttons undone he’ll be able to breathe again, that he realizes the metallic taste isn’t going away and instead continues to fill his mouth.
It’s his own blood, and he’s going to choke on it.
...
He comes to in a semi-conscious state in a dark, damp cave. His chest is still on fire, as if someone has cracked it open and toyed with his insides, and the pain is nearly unbearable. He doesn’t remember much after the explosion except for the taste of blood. He can still taste it and he wonders if it will ever leave his mouth. He tries to sit but it makes him dizzy, so he takes a moment longer before forcing his body upright as his bloodied fingers rip at the plastic tubing that’s been inserted through his nose. There’s another man with him, though he’s much older than Tony. He can see the wisps of gray in his hair and the deep-set lines across his face.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the man says as Tony reaches for a jug of water on a nearby table. Something pulls in his chest when he stretches and he realizes there’s a wire tucked underneath the bandages, the other end fastened to a car battery. There’s a look of surprise and horror on Tony’s face when he pulls away the bandages, his hands shaky as he does so.
It’s how he learns he almost died. It’s how he learns that there’s still shrapnel in his chest, eagerly waiting for the electromagnet to fail so it can rush toward his heart and finish the job.
The men who’ve captured him want a Jericho missile and they want him to build it in subpar conditions and they don’t give two shits about the amount of pain Tony is in.
He refuses, not taking into consideration what that may cost him. Arrogance has always been one of Tony’s downfalls, and even now, when he’s face-to-face with terrorists, he doesn’t know to rein himself in.
It’s not the answer they want and Tony’s arrogance and blatant disregard for respect earns him nothing but more physical pain and torture. There’s a brief moment, right before his head is forced under water that he thinks it might not be so bad to go out in such a way.
But then he hears it. It’s Pepper’s voice, loud and demanding in his ear and he realizes how much he’s misses her already. She would’ve scolded him for thinking he could argue with a terrorist organization, would’ve insisted that he ride with Rhodey because his safety is more important than pushing all of Rhodey’s buttons just for the hell of it.
Pepper never would’ve let this happen.
He’s yanked upward, sputtering and gasping for air as he drips water all down his front and on the dirt floor. There’s a fire burning in his lungs and just as he thinks he can breathe again, he’s forced back under the water. Forced to comply with the demands of an angry terrorist organization.
He’ll build the missile for them, he decides when he’s pulled up a second time. His voice is hoarse as he speaks, the gulps of cool, damp air of the cave stinging his lungs.
“I... I’ll do it. I’ll do it,” he says, holding a hand up in surrender as he doubles over in pain. Not because he values his life—that much anyone could tell—but because of Pepper. Because he can’t stop hearing her voice, can’t stop hearing her telling him to be safe before he stepped on the plane to leave, because he doesn’t want her to be forced out of a job by his own egotism. Pepper, his wonderful and ever dutiful assistant, has always been the one to pull him from the dark recesses of whatever bottle he’s tried to drown himself in, her voice always soft and soothing. This may not be a bottle of scotch he’s trying to drown himself in, but her voice in his head helps keep him sane.
As he’s lying on the sorry excuse for a bed he’s been given, Tony realizes that he doesn’t quite remember Pepper’s voice the way he wants to—needs to. That need fuels the fire that rages through him each day, fuels his intent to make it out of Afghanistan alive and without building the missile the terrorists want.
So he comes up with a plan and creates something that will save his life because Tony Stark does not give up without a fight. He smashes his fingers between hammers and burns his hands when he gets too close to the fire, refusing sleep as he continues to build something to get him home. Yinsen helps too, the man hellbent on getting himself and Tony out of there. He’s going to be with his family, he tells Tony one late night as they work.
Tony doesn’t have family. But he has two best friends, Rhodey and Happy, and Obadiah is like his second and more attentive father. He’s doing this for them too. But also for Pepper, the one person not afraid to call him out on his bullshit, the one person who makes sure he’s still functioning as a decent contributor to society, the only person who’s kept him grounded while being stuck in a god forsaken cave. People look at her as ‘Tony Stark’s assistant’ and nothing more, but god, Pepper Potts is so much more than that. He wants to hear her voice and thank her for saving his life, so he builds and fights his way out until he can do just that.
Dying is hard.
Dying is especially hard when you’re doing it on your own. Tony doesn’t have to die alone and he knows this, he has friends that he trusts. And there’s Pepper, always Pepper, with her go get ‘em attitude and work ethic that often rivals his own. But he can’t tell Rhodey or Happy that he’s dying, and he certainly can’t tell Pepper, not when he’s just signed over his company to her. He can’t bear the thought of putting the image of him slowly dying into any of their heads and he certainly doesn’t want Pepper to look at him with pity. The only thing he wants is for her to be happy and if she’s going to be happy, she can’t know that the one thing that’s supposed to be keeping him alive is actually killing him.
He wants to do right by Pepper, by his friends, by his company, but there’s only so much someone can do when they’re looking death directly in the face. He gives her his company because he thinks—knows—it’s the right thing to do, but at the same time, he’s also becoming more selfish, more reckless. He mouths off at the Senate Armed Services Committee meeting and makes a last-minute decision to get in a race car that he truly has no business driving.
It's like he’s tempting fate, tempting death to come for him sooner, but he’s Iron Man. Death can’t take Earth’s best defender, he tells himself. And then Ivan Vanko happens and Tony nearly gets himself killed, along with Pepper and Happy.
But it doesn’t matter because Iron Man always has and always will win but Tony’s not entirely sure at what cost.
Actually, he knows the cost, knows the risk. JARVIS keeps reminding him that the increased use of his suits, the things first came to be in the middle of an Afghani cave and saved his life, are speeding up the process, leading him quicker and quicker to death.
He doesn’t like the way Pepper looks at him anymore. She always looks so sad and disappointed and wracked with stress. He knows he’s the cause of it all and if he could, he’d reach over and take the burden from her because this is all him and none of her and it’s something else that she doesn’t deserve to have to deal with. But he can’t take it from her, only add to it, and that’s the last thing he wants to do. But Pepper is smart, so very smart, and she knows there’s something going on and that he’s not being honest with her, so he opts to try and make her an omelet and tell her the truth for once.
Telling the truth is easier said than done, he realizes, so he does what he knows, and that’s to deflect. He decides he wants Pepper to relax, to rest up a bit, even if it is only for a few days. He recommends Venice, she’s always liked it there. And maybe, after a few days of recharging, the words won’t be so jumbled and stuck in his throat. Maybe in a few days he’ll better and ready to tell her that he’s dying and he’ll be prepared to see the devastation cross her face when she comprehends what he’s saying.
But she says no, of course she does. Because Pepper Potts is not one to back away from a fight, no matter what the press wants to say about her or her leadership abilities, or the fact that even after a decade, she still hasn’t learned how to rein Tony in.
“Not everyone runs on batteries, Tony.” And she’s right.
The palladium poisoning his bloodstream is getting worse and he realizes as he preps for his birthday party that it’ll be the last one. Dying is harder when there are people who care, but alcohol always dulls the pain, something he learned quickly from his father. So he drinks himself into oblivion and upsets Pepper because he doesn’t know how to otherwise cope and he tries blasting Rhodey through a wall because anything is better than admitting that he’s scared and that there’s a problem he can’t fix.
It's not until he’s given a second chance that he considers actually telling Pepper this time. He’s going to apologize and tell her everything and he even buys her strawberries as a small gesture, asking for her forgiveness. It's not much, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.
It’s not hard to bypass her assistant, one who is too uptight and rigid for Tony’s liking. The first thing he hears when he bursts into her office is Pepper’s one-sided conversation and the low rumble of the television as more news reporters attack Pepper’s credibility. It makes him grit his teeth because to question her credibility is to question his and there is no question who he feels is the best fit for the job. She’s doing a hell of a lot better than he had been in recent months; the stocks are back up, she’s just launched a new project that was entirely her own idea, and she’s putting out his PR fires like a pro when that isn’t even part of her job description.
Pepper is shooting daggers at him as he wanders around, waiting for her to finish up her call. He’s muted the television because it was getting on his nerves and when Pepper finally hangs up the phone, the look she gives him has him second guessing whether or not he should’ve shown up at all. But he’s here now and he’s going to do right by her because he misses how happy Pepper looked before he went and messed everything up. He wants her to smile, to see the tension melt out of her shoulders. He owes her that much, he wants to make it right.
But he can’t because life can’t be that easy for Tony Stark. He blunders through what he wants to say, partially because Pepper looks annoyed all to hell that he’s still at her desk, partially because he’s afraid to show emotion. It turns out Pepper is allergic to strawberries (which he would’ve known if he would just listen to her) and she’s still upset with him, so it really comes as no surprise when she tells him to leave.
So he does because if that’s what it’s going to take to make her happy, so be it. He’s backed himself into this corner, not her. If he could wish for one thing in the world to come true, it wouldn’t even be for him to live, it would be for Pepper to look at him and be happy again, to see her radiant smile and the laugh lines that crinkle around her eyes. That’s his favorite Pepper, the one who looks at him like he has a soul and deserves to be loved and cherished, the one who looks at him and knows that he cares about the people around him even when he’s being an ass. He would give anything to see that look one more time.
He doesn’t want to die. He wants to keep creating, to shape ordinary materials with his hands until he’s made something great and worthy of his legacy, not bombs and guns and weapons of mass destruction; that’s Howard’s legacy, Tony wants more, to be more. And even more than that, he wants to hold Pepper close, keep her safe, to remind her of how strong she is and how well she’s handling the mounting pressure of CEO.
One day he’s dying, his blood toxicity so high that he’s being forced to change the palladium cores every two hours. He swears he can feel it, his body giving up a little more with each change of the core. But then it’s like magic. Pieces of a long, drawn out puzzle crafted by Howard Stark start to fall into place and Tony is able to create what may be his greatest invention yet, better than his AI systems and his suits. He creates a new element, suitable to replace the palladium cores that have been slowly killing him.
But palladium isn’t the only threat to his safety; Ivan Vanko is still out for blood and doesn’t plan to stop until he sees to it that Tony is dead. It’s hard to keep up a fight when all you want to do is sleep, to recoup from months of staring down the barrel of a loaded gun and waiting for someone to pull the trigger. But that’s not the Tony Stark way, so he fights until it hurts, his body running on fumes and coffee, ready to collapse from exhaustion. There’s one more thing to take care of before he can collapse and sleep for three days, and that’s getting Pepper to safety. He grabs her around the waist so tightly that he’s sure she’ll bruise and rockets them both into the sky until they’re safe.
He drops them onto a rooftop and tries to apologize while Pepper gives him the lecture of his lifetime.
He wants her to shut up so badly, so he kisses her and it’s not bad, so he does it again.
He thinks he loves her.
“Stark, you know that’s a one way trip.”
Steve is right and Tony knows it. It’s not a trip he wants to be taking, but all of Manhattan is at risk if he doesn’t get the nuke as far away from them as possible.
He watches as he nears the entrance to the wormhole, JARVIS trying and failing to reach Pepper so Tony can speak with her so he can exchange his goodbyes.
He releases the nuke when he knows it’s safe and watches as it explodes, finding the scene to be an odd expression of poetic justice. JARVIS cuts out as he falls backward toward the wormhole that’s suddenly getting smaller much too fast. Steve was right, it’s a one way trip.
He closes his eyes and thinks of Pepper.
He remembers her backless blue dress and strappy silver heels that she wore to the Firefighters Family Fund and how the fabric clung to her curves in all the right places as they danced. It was one of the first moments Tony realized he needed Pepper more than she would probably ever realize.
He remembers the old arc reactor she saved, even after he told her not to, and the message engraved into a thick band of flattened metal that’d been placed around it. It saved his life a few days later, thanks to a little help from Dum-E. He remembers thanking the robot afterward, but he’s not sure if he ever properly thanked Pepper.
He remembers the look on her face when he introduced himself as Iron Man to an obscene amount of news reporters, a mix of annoyance and exhaustion on her face as she undoubtedly started thinking of the PR nightmare he’d just caused. They were both so young then, their relationship barely anything more than boss and personal assistant.
He thinks of the time he kissed her on a rooftop and she kissed him back, him in his beat-all-to-hell armor and her teetering on the edge of a stress-induced breakdown. She tasted sweet, like cherries. She always tastes like cherries, delicious and sweet and addicting all at once.
He remembers her smile and her ocean blue eyes. He remembers how her skin feels under his fingertips, always so soft and smooth, how her hands would push through his hair when he was stressed. And he remembers the first time they fell into bed together on a normal, unassuming Thursday. Clothes littered the floor as they melted together, the silk of his bedsheets tangling around their bodies. She kissed him hard on the mouth afterward, all of the thoughts and feelings she didn’t know how to put into words coming out in her simple actions and gentle touches.
He’s in a free fall, wishing that he could feel the air whipping through his hair one last time, the sun warming his face. He wishes he could touch Pepper one more time, make her feel that electric spark as his fingers trail down her sides and come to rest on her hips. He wants to hold her against his chest and bury his face in the crook of her neck, her red hair tickling his nose and smelling of vanilla.
Physical touch is something Tony craves, always wanting to hold Pepper’s hand even when they’re just sitting on the couch watching the nightly news or wrapping his arms around her middle while she attempts to make breakfast. There’s something soothing about when Pepper is nearby and never far from reach, she anchors him to the ground. He may not always be the best at putting his feelings into words, but what he can’t say, he shows through his hands. There are small reminders all over the mansion they share together of how much he adores her, from something as small as the wine rack he made her to the old desk he stripped and refinished for her home office. He likes to see her eyes light up when she realizes the concerning amount of time he’s just spent in the workshop was all for her and not spent on some suit. She always kisses him when he finally presents her with something he’s taken the time to make and it makes his heart swell knowing how much she loves it, loves him.
It makes his chest ache to know he may never have those moments with her again.
He regrets the hasty kiss he gave her seconds before she left to go to DC, as if there would be thousands more in the future. It was reminiscent of their mornings when neither of them has time to eat breakfast so they rush out of the house with a quick kiss goodbye and their coffee in hand.
If he could redo one thing in his life, it wouldn’t be deciding to do his weapons demonstration in Nevada instead of Afghanistan. No, it would be going back and redoing that kiss. He’d make it memorable, remind her how much she means to him. He’d whisper ‘I love you’ and ‘be safe, call me when you land’ before making a comment about how she has legs that go all the way to Heaven. She would pretend to hate it, but the slight upward tug of her lips and twinkle in her eyes would tell him differently.
He wishes she would’ve answered her phone.
Falling back to Earth, Pepper is the only thing he thinks of.
“I got you something.”
Pepper looks up from her desk, skepticism written all over her face as she leans back in her chair and cocks an eyebrow at the man standing across from her.
“What? Don’t look at me like that! I seriously got you something.”
“And what’s the occasion?”
Tony’s jaw drops and he leans across her desk, squinting at her as he does so.
“Are you serious? It’s your birthday. Don’t tell me you forgot your own birthday. Usually that’s my job.”
Pepper hasn’t forgotten, she just didn’t feel like bringing it up. Both she and Tony were so busy that neither one of them had time for trivial little things like birthdays. She’s another year older, it’s nothing special, and nothing is riding on her celebrating her birthday—not like these safety reports that are riding on her ability to get them submitted before the end of the work week.
Still, it’s sweet that Tony has remembered without any prompting, and before she can clear a space on her paper covered desk, Tony sets two small packages down directly in front of her, his face bright with excitement.
“You’re going to love them, Potts. I just know it.”
The skepticism that had been on Pepper’s face fades and she smiles up at him, gesturing to the two packages in front of her.
“Which one do I open first?”
“The one with the blue paper,” he instructs, watching as she slides one manicured nail under the paper to pop off the tape.
With the paper gone, Pepper now realizes that it’s a box from her favorite bakery located all the way back in California, and she just stares at it, prompting Tony to hurry her along to open the box. Inside are four of the prettiest cupcakes she’s ever seen and she looks up with a happy, yet confused smile on her face.
He explains to her that he wanted to do something special for her birthday, that he’s been slacking for so many years and felt that it was time for him to step it up, especially now that they were in an official relationship—something he likes to remind her of often.
Pepper is always talking about these cupcakes and it didn’t take him long to discover her favorite flavors—lemon, death by chocolate, raspberry, and pumpkin—so he made a few calls and had them baked and shipped overnight. He was so relieved to see they’d arrived looking just as beautiful as if he’d picked them directly out of the store case.
“Open the other one,” he says, though his smile is uncertain and his voice isn’t nearly as strong. He’s stopped bouncing on the balls of his feet too, Pepper notices, and she’s almost afraid to open the other package in front of her.
She closes the lid of the cupcakes and gingerly moves them out of her way before reaching for the smaller of the two boxes that’s wrapped in shimmery peach colored paper. At first she thinks it’s a ring box and she starts to panic because they aren’t ready for that step in their relationship, not by a long shot, but she realizes that Tony is still on his feet and not down on one knee, so she can breathe a little easier, at least.
She’s expecting a pair of earrings, maybe a small tennis bracelet, but that’s not at all what’s inside the box.
It’s a key with her initials engraved on either side and a small keychain in the shape of the arc reactor attached to it. She carefully lifts it from the box as if it might break, and she turns it over in her palm.
“Tony I...”
Pepper isn’t sure where the tears came from, but suddenly her eyes are stinging and tears are running down her cheeks, but she smiles, one of her great big, genuinely happy Pepper smiles that she usually reserves for special occasions and when Tony does something great. He can breathe easier as her expression alone tells him that she’s beyond happy with it.
“I’m taking that as a yes then?” He asks, the nervousness no longer in his voice. Pepper nods and clutches the key in her hand as if he may change his mind and take it back.
“C’mon, Potts, you’re moving in. You already have a toothbrush at my place. No need to make a big deal about it. Now, finish up whatever it is that you’re in the middle of and come on, I made us dinner reservations at your favorite New York restaurant and I have a few more presents for you at home.”
Pepper doesn’t even consider telling him no. She shuts the lid to her laptop and slides the key into her bag before meeting Tony on the other side of her desk where she kisses him long and hard.
Outside of her office, Tony wraps an arm around her waist and leads her toward the elevators, telling anyone—rather loudly—on their way out that Pepper has agreed to move in with him. Her cheeks pink up and she tries to hide her embarrassment as Tony laughs, thrilled beyond words that she actually said yes.
He's going to marry this woman one day.
There is one job Tony puts above all others and that is ensuring that Pepper is safe. There will never be enough security or enough suits or enough protocols for him to feel like Pepper is safe when he’s not around.
He tries to sleep, but it tends to evade him. If he’s lucky enough to catch an hour or two, he’s usually woken up by some night terror that seems so real he wakes, drenched in a cold sweat and shaking. It’s in those early morning hours that he seems to come up with new ways to improve on his already elaborate security plan, creating suit after suit just to make sure he’s covered all of his bases.
The suits… they bother Pepper. Not because their garage is an arsenal of wearable weapons, but because they take up all of Tony’s attention.
They’re a distraction, she tells him. And for once, he somewhat agrees with her—but only to an extent. He makes them to keep them safe, to be ready at a moment's notice should something otherworldly decide to attack Earth again. Pepper wants him to quit with the suits, wants him to focus on his blatant PTSD that stems from the New York attack that’s caused his near inability to sleep. She worries about him daily and it shows in her face anytime she looks at him after he’s been on a workshop binge.
He tries to explain to her that it’s more than that, but at least he admits there’s something wrong. But he can’t allow that to get in the way of his overall goal. He thinks he’s doing a good job of keeping her safe, until one day he isn’t. He’s acting foolishly again and in the heat of the moment, announces his home address and threatens a terrorist in front of no less than two dozen camera crews as a blatant fuck you toward the Mandarin for putting his best friend in the hospital. He doesn’t think before he acts and his actions nearly get Pepper killed in the crossfire.
It’s a miracle he escapes with a few cuts and bruises and a busted-up suit, but he winds up in the middle of Tennessee and nowhere near Pepper and has no real way of getting back to her while the suit is out of commission. He leaves her a message that’s not nearly long enough and doesn’t contain nearly the number of apologies he owes her, but he does his best with what limited time he has and assures her he’ll be home, just as soon as he finds the Mandarin and returns their lives to normal.
Or so he thinks.
He should know by now that things are never that easy, not when he’s involved, and by the time he figures out all of the details, he learns that Pepper is being held hostage by a madman he snubbed years before at a New Years Eve party and he can’t get to her, can’t make sure that she’s safe.
She’s hurting, and that’s on Tony and he knows he’s going to have to come up with a way to make it up to her. It doesn’t matter who or what gets in his way, he’s going to get to her, he has to get to her, because if he doesn’t and something happens, he’ll never be able to forgive himself for what he’s done. For once, his suits aren’t enough and it’s just the two of them, Tony teetering dangerously on a metal railing as Pepper dangles from a crane rig that’s swaying dangerously in the wind. He can hear metal scraping against metal as he reaches desperately for Pepper, knowing if he can grab onto her, he can pull her to safety. Their hands are close to touching, fingertips barely brushing as they reach for each other.
“Honey, I can’t reach any further and you can’t stay there, all right? You’ve got to let go. You’ve got to let go! I’ll catch you, I promise,” he says, his hand outstretched and ready to catch her.
But he doesn’t. The rig collapses before he can get to her and she falls, so quick, so fast into the hungry flames below. Tony barely has time to take a breath and register what’s happened as she slips through his fingers, as he scrambles and grabs at the open air. His chest constricts so tightly that he can’t breathe and he nearly slips from the railing he’s standing on.
She was right there, he was supposed to catch her. He’s supposed to keep her safe, keep her out of harms way, and he’s failed. There’s no turning back from that.
He’ll kill Aldrich Killian if it’s the last thing he does, he thinks, ignoring how his legs are so shaky he doesn’t think he can stand much longer. He wants to ruin him, to break Killian, to make the man feel the pain he’s feeling. Pepper deserves that at least. Failure is not an option.
Mark 42 blows with Killian inside and for a moment, Tony can breathe a sigh of relief before he’s swallowed up by a dark hole of grief and sadness. He almost had her. He isn’t sure how he’s supposed to walk away from this, how he’s supposed to go on like nothing is wrong and that there isn’t a gaping hole in his chest that Pepper used to fill.
Tony has no fight left, he’s broken and defenseless as Aldrich comes staggering toward him, the Extremis virus working in overdrive to repair his broken body. Tony doesn’t think he’ll fight back, not this time.
What a hell of a way to go out, Tony thinks right before Pepper re-emerges from somewhere out of the corner of his eye, killing Killian in a rage and ensuring he won’t return.
He’s stunned and it’s suddenly so hard to breathe because he can’t believe what he’s seeing. She fell. He watched her as she slipped through his fingers like water, watched as he failed her for what must’ve been the millionth time. But Pepper is alive, seemingly unscathed, though there’s an orange glow radiating from her chest and inching its way up her neck as a result of her body working with the Extremis virus. He scrambles to his feet, cautiously making his way toward her.
He wants nothing more than to hold her tight against his chest and never let go. He’s careful as he approaches and she’s so afraid if he touches her that he’ll get hurt. She won’t hurt him, he assures her, gently placing his hands on her arms.
“I can figure this out, yeah. I almost had this twenty years ago when I was drunk. I think I can get you better. That's what I do. I fix stuff,” Tony says. Pepper looks at him skeptically and she looks so afraid and relieved and tired all at once and Tony pulls her to him.
It’s nearly euphoric when she wraps her arms around his neck and he does the only thing he can think of to start making it up to her. His suits start to self-destruct where they are, lighting the sky up like fireworks as Pepper squeezes him tighter.
He kisses her temple and falls in love with her all over again.
“Is Pepper here? I didn’t see her,” Steve says, glancing over his shoulder as if Pepper may appear behind him just by mentioning her name.
“We are kinda… well, not kinda…” Tony starts, unsure of how to put it into words.
“Pregnant?” Steve looks beyond thrilled for just a second at the brief idea that Tony and Pepper are expecting, but his expression changes almost immediately when Tony’s expression doesn’t match his own excitement.
“No, ha, definitely not. We’re taking a break. It’s nobody’s fault.”
That’s a lie. It’s his fault and he knows it, regardless of how many times Pepper tried to make him understand that it wasn’t his fault, that they were just at a place in their relationship that required them to take a break, to step back and reevaluate where they were.
So he signed the Accords because maybe, just maybe, if there’s something in place to keep him in check, to keep the others in check, Tony can get Pepper back. He can show her that he’s doing so much better, that he values her and their relationship and that he’s going to do better. It hasn’t been easy, fighting for something half the people he cares about hates, but if it means they can all make the world a safer place and he can get Pepper back, he’s going to power through it.
It’s been hard without Pepper there, keeping him grounded and focused, reminding him to sleep and that he can’t survive on Red Bull and coffee alone. He’s logged more consecutive hours in R&D than he ever has before, he’s skipping meals, and he’s refusing to sleep. Great things have resulted in his workshop binges, like security upgrades and new suits, but everything feels empty without Pepper. Sadder.
He should’ve tried harder, showed her how much he really did care about her and her feelings. He misses waking up next to her in the morning, pressing kisses to her face until she wakes and pushes him away with a grunt. He misses dancing barefoot with her in the living room and playing with her hair as she rests her head in his lap while they binge watch their favorite shows.
He misses cooking with her on Friday nights because they’re too tired to go out and don’t want to deal with the mob of press that is sure to assemble outside of whatever restaurant they choose. He wants to kiss her, to tell her how much he loves her and apologize a million times over. She deserves that and then some.
He wants to hold her again. To have things back to the way they used to be before he royally fucked everything up because he doesn’t know how to handle his demons unless he’s trying to drown them in a bottle of expensive scotch. And because he promised Pepper years ago that he was going to do better when it came to his drinking, he can’t even bring himself to have more than one or two drinks because if he fucks this up too, he knows she’ll look at him and sigh her disappointed sigh and he can’t bear for that to happen.
The Accords don’t go over well with the others as much as he hoped and things get blown out of proportion and spiral out of control too fast for Tony to stop it from happening. What in the hell did I do to get to this point, he thinks as he turns his repulsor beams to stun, stopping Sam before he can get any closer to him or Rhodey as he waits for help to arrive.
Tony Stark isn’t one to usually apologize, but he learns that he was wrong about Barnes, learns that he was being framed, and Tony decides in that moment that he’s going to be the bigger man for once and extend a proverbial olive branch to Rogers and Barnes both. He’s going to fix things, for Barnes and for Steve and Rhodey and everyone else he’s hurt, so he goes to Siberia to start making amends.
He’s already hanging on by dangerously frayed threads when he reaches Siberia and then they snap without warning when he learns that Steve, someone he’s considered a friend for years, has been hiding information from him regarding the death of his parents. It’s like he’s being held underwater and no matter how hard he fights, he can never reach the surface.
First Pepper, then the Avengers, and then Steve. And now he’s being forced to relive the death of his parents over and over and over and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get those images from the video out of his head––of Barnes’ hand around his mother’s neck, of him aiming a gun at the security camera to shoot out the lens.
He’s filled with rage.
He doesn’t sleep for weeks after, not because he doesn’t want to, but because he can’t.
He closes his eyes each night and he’s greeted by images of Steve inches away from killing him, images of Pepper’s hurt expression when she left and of Rhodey lying in a hospital bed without the ability to move his legs. He can’t sleep and he’s trying not to drink, but it’s becoming so much harder not to, especially without Pepper there to talk him away from the ledge, so he moves to the workshop to start another three day bender.
Nothing is working, the scotch and sleep deprivation mix is taking a much harder toll on his body at his age and he has to remind himself that he’s no longer 23 with a chip on his shoulder.
It takes him a few months without Pepper, without Steve or Sam or Clint to realize that he can’t keep doing this. He needs them back, needs something to keep him tethered to reality.
He’ll start with Pepper because she’s the one he owes the most to. Even if he never reconciles with the others, he will still have Pepper, the only person he trusts with his life, and that will be enough for him. He doesn’t need the suits or his high tech security or some stupid piece of legislation to make him happy.
He needs Pepper and all of the love she has to give him.
He needs to kiss her and touch her and remind her that he loves her with every fiber of his being and if he’s going to do that, he has to start making changes.
He starts with the suits. They get locked away and his plans for new ones are scrapped, minus potential tech upgrades. He cleans up the workshop and finishes his half-completed projects around the house, catches up on the laundry and does the dishes by hand to help keep his mind preoccupied more often than not. He even makes it a point to dump any open bottles of alcohol down the kitchen sink because he knows he’s better than what kind of solace they can offer him.
For the first time in weeks, Tony steps into his home office, pristine as always thanks to Pepper’s meticulous organization skills, and sits down at his desk, the dark cherry wood cool beneath his touch. His hands are shaky and his breath hitches in his throat as he reaches over to open the top left hand drawer, but he knows it’s for the best. If he’s going to get better for not only Pepper, but also for himself, he has to be the one to make the first move.
There’s a business card right where Pepper left it, a phone number scribbled on the back of it, and he takes out his phone and dials it. It takes him two minutes to press the call button, but when he first hears the ringing on the other end, he knows he’s doing the right thing, no matter how scary it is or uncertain he feels.
Pepper’s been trying to get him to try therapy for years and he’s never been ready. But now, things are different. Tony’s ready for a lot of things, ready to make a lot of big life changes, the first one starting with getting himself the help he needs.
The second, getting Pepper to love him again.
He proposes in front of a massive crowd of reporters who absolutely lose their minds when Tony drops to one knee, clearly expecting something related to Stark Industries and not a proposal. Pepper looks like she could kill him, clearly not wanting this to be how he proposes, but Tony starts a speech that Pepper knows he’s probably been practicing for months and she can’t help the tears that start pooling in the corners of her eyes when she says yes.
She kisses him hard, harder than she has in what seems like forever, and Tony slides the perfectly sized ring onto her finger as cameras continue to flash in front of them.
...
“Let’s get married tomorrow. I can pull a few strings with the judge to get us in, first thing in the morning, and then we can start a three month honeymoon to all of your favorite places.”
Pepper tells him no—not surprising—but she does promise him a celebratory dinner that ends just the way he hoped it would.
They both wake the next morning in a tangle of sheets and limbs to their phones chirping, news notifications with their names in the headlines clogging their lock screens. Pepper is grinning as she sits up, the sheet pressed to her chest, and Tony reaches up to play with her ruffled hair.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she announces after a moment, shifting so she can get out of bed.
“Can I join you?”
“No.”
He does anyway and she doesn’t even care, complaining only when they’ve been under the water for so long that it starts to turn cold. Pepper is drying off when she catches the end of one Tony’s smartass comments about keeping her warm and she rolls her eyes, though it’s done with affection.
The official announcement comes out in the paper three weeks later, a short blurb paired with Pepper’s favorite photo of the two of them. He’s letting her take the reins on wedding planning, only helping when she asks him for ideas and opinions on things like white or off-white invitations—he had no idea there was such a thing—as to not screw up the day that’s supposed to be her happiest one.
They haven’t set an official date yet, but she’s thinking August and Tony likes the idea of getting married in the late summer before all of the leaves start falling off the trees. It doesn’t take much persuading and two weeks later, they’ve set the date for August 27th.
Tony has always liked holding Pepper’s hand, whether they’re out in public or at home or driving in the car. It makes him feel connected to her, reminds him that he’s there and in the moment with the one person he loves more than anything in the entire world. But now that they’re engaged, he insists on holding her left hand, showing off her ring to anyone with a camera who tries to take their picture because he doesn’t want anyone to forget that he’s finally snagged the woman of his dreams.
He doesn’t even complain when Pepper drags him along to fundraisers and he spends most of his time introducing her to most people as his fiancée as if people were unaware that they were engaged, and he always makes sure she’s within arm’s reach so he can pull her close and press a kiss to her cheek just for the hell of it.
He’s so wildly in love with her that he can’t stop thinking about their future together. He wants to start a family, to have at least two, but preferably three kids. He wants a dog because every good childhood is centered around a furry, four-legged friend (but not a cat, they make him sneeze), and he wants to buy Pepper her dream home in the suburbs because they tend to have bigger back yards and lower crime rates and better school districts, which he’s pretty sure is something Pepper would be concerned about.
He tries telling her all of this one day when they’re out running, though it’s more Pepper running and Tony complaining that it’s too hot and that there’s too many people and bugs around for him to be running outside. She ignores him for the most part because he’s always complaining about things like this, but the bad analogy he’s trying to explain to her about dreams makes her stop and place her hands on his shoulders, telling him to slow down and start from the beginning.
He thinks they’re expecting.
But they’re not, and Pepper assures him of this because she doesn’t want him getting ahead of himself. He had the surgery to remove the arc reactor a few years prior, yes, but he can’t shake the feeling that there’s something else out there, waiting to strike. He laughs it off, promises her no more secrets, and tries to convince her that the new tech is only a housing unit. It hurts a little to know they’re not expecting when his dream had been so real the night before, but he’s okay with it because it’s going to happen eventually. He’s going to prove to her that he’s ready to be a dad, just like he’s ready to be her husband, and that he is more than capable of separating Iron Man from fatherhood and being a good husband.
He kisses her then, in the middle of a crowd of people, and he doesn’t even care. His hands cup her cheeks and when he pulls back, he drops his hands to her arms and gives her and affectionate squeeze.
He likes looking at her, taking in every little thing about her, from her the way the sun hits her hair and turns it almost gold, to the freckles that are sprinkled across her cheeks and nose that are so faint you have to be inches away from her to see them, to the way she scrunches her nose up at him when he says something ridiculous. He wants to memorize everything about her, to remember each curve of her jaw and the way her skin feels under his hands. He’s looked at her every day for years and he still finds something new and beautiful about her to study almost every single day.
Everything seems right in the world. He’s going to take her out tonight, show off her ring a little more, and make sure she knows just how much he loves her. She’s been so busy these last few weeks that he wants to make tonight special, to let her relax and enjoy herself.
Of course, when everything is going right, something goes wrong.
There’s no room for argument. Tony sends Pepper back to the Tower with Happy, promising that he’ll keep in touch and be home soon. He needs to take care of a few things first, to talk with Bruce and the man with the strange cape. What he learns causes his pulse to quicken and a lump to form in his throat that he has to swallow hard over to force it back down.
Thankfully he’s good at hiding his emotions because no one would take him seriously if he wasn’t. He wants to see Pepper, to tell her what’s happening and to make sure he can get her somewhere safe because protecting her is still, and always will be, the most important thing above all else. He’s come too close to losing her over the years that he doesn’t dare put her in that kind of situation again; he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he did.
…
Pepper is going to be so, so, so mad. He can already hear the disapproving sigh, the one that makes him cringe every time it’s directed at him, and the pain and desperation in her voice. It’s not going to be a fun conversation, but he has to make it. He has to hear her voice one more time and tell her that he’ll be home soon.
“Tell me you’re not on that ship.”
There’s a beat of silence and the next word to come out of Tony’s mouth is strangled and so hard to say and he nearly has to force the word through his teeth.
“Yeah.”
“God, no, please tell me you’re not on the ship—“
“Honey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.”
“Come back here, Tony. I swear to God. Come back here right now. Come back.”
“Pep—.”
FRIDAY cuts out, along with the angry and frightened voice that belongs to Pepper. Tony can feel his stomach drop to his feet and he considers turning around and heading back to Pepper, but the consideration is brief, too brief, because he knows that’s the last thing he can do right now.
This is the highest the stakes have ever been, the fate of humanity resting squarely on Tony’s shoulders. He wishes he wouldn’t have dropped the burner phone Steve had sent him after Siberia. He could use a friendly voice, a friendly face—even if they were still somewhat at each other’s throats.
Instead, he’s stuck on some alien spacecraft with a guy who refuses to destroy an Infinity Stone to help stop Thanos, and the Parker kid who is nothing but a walking pop culture reference. It makes Tony’s head hurt as he tries wrapping his mind around what’s happening and as much as he regrets not jumping off the ship before it broke the Earth’s atmosphere, he knows this is the place he’s meant to be.
…
Fourteen million, six hundred and five alternate futures.
They survive one.
It's a sobering fact that has Tony wishing he were at home and with a bottle of scotch. He wracks his brain trying to figure out how they will ever defeat Thanos and win that one in nearly fifteen million chance at saving the world and Tony isn’t sure that they will.
He keeps those thoughts to himself.
Tony is a meticulous planner, a genius, someone who is always six steps ahead of the closest guy behind him. So he sets aside his differences with the Guardians and they work together to devise a plan, one that if successful, will stop Thanos from wiping out half the universe.
They’re so close, he and the kid nearly have the gauntlet off of Thanos’ hand, they just need Mantis and Strange to hold on a little bit longer.
But a darkened shadow of realization crosses Quill’s face when he realizes Gamora—whoever in the hell that is—was sacrificed for the Soul Stone. Tony will learn much later who Gamora is, or was, and Tony will kind of understand the rage and pain that overtook Quill because if it would’ve been Pepper in the other woman’s place instead? Tony isn’t sure what he would’ve done, but he knows it wouldn’t have been to their advantage.
…
Tony and the suit are good, but Thanos is better. The nanites in his suit aren’t able to keep up with each of Thanos’ blows, the damage too intense for them to bind together fast enough to encase Tony in safety. In a last-ditch effort to ward off Thanos and his fists, Tony raises his arms to block him as the right glove of his suit morphs into a short sword.
He hears the snapping of the titanium alloy first, followed by a searing pain in his left side. He knows what’s happened before he even looks down, Thanos’ hand resting almost comfortingly on his head.
“I hope they remember you.”
There’s blood, god, there’s so much blood, and when he coughs, he can taste it—metallic and warm and hard to swallow. It reminds him of being in Afghanistan, of how blood bloomed through his white dress shirt and filled his mouth after being too close to a detonating Jericho missile.
He thinks of Pepper, how he promised her he’d come home and how it was all a lie, how he won’t come home like he had so many times before, even after she’d begged him not to go. He won’t make it home, won’t tell her he loves her, won’t start a family with her. He’s going to die alone, surrounded by strangers he’s just met, because Iron Man and Tony Stark are not infallible against bloodthirsty Titan gods.
He's going to die on this rust colored planet with blood in his mouth and Pepper’s name on his lips.
Always, always Pepper.
He wants to think that what Strange did on Titan, saving his life in exchange for the Time Stone, was the right move, but Tony doesn’t think it was.
Strange handed over the stone, saved Tony’s life, and it didn’t do a damn thing. He was still forced to watch as people disappeared to ash around him, still had to hold Peter in his arms and promise him that he was going to be okay when Tony knew that was the farthest thing from the truth. He had to sit there on the hard, rocky ground, cradling a sixteen-year-old kid in his arms, all just to watch him disappear into a pile of ash that he can’t get off his hands because if he tries to wipe them off, he’ll be wiping away part of Peter too.
…
Time seems to move all too fast and all too slow now that Tony is maybe, possibly, on his way back to an Earth he probably doesn’t want to be on. He thinks longingly of Pepper and Happy, the other Avengers. Their fates all unknown to Tony.
It’s hard to wrap his mind around being one of the few to survive who were on Titan. He shouldn’t be here, doesn’t deserve to be here, but Death makes no mistakes in who is or isn’t taken; Tony has learned that lesson many times over the years.
Time on Earth and time in space move differently. He wonders how long it’s been since he last held Pepper, kissed her, made her laugh. Too long, he decides, not needing a specific number of days since he last saw her. He doesn’t even remember the sound of her voice, just knows that it was soft and sweet and could be demanding when necessary.
As he continues to float through space on another alien spacecraft, he thinks about how he wished he would’ve stayed with Pepper. She’s no doubt been wracked with worry, wondering if he was alive or dead or if he’d ever come home to her again. He did that to her once, when he went to Afghanistan, before he became Iron Man and a superhero, and he promised her he’d never leave her like that again, would never make her wonder if he was going to be okay. He’s terrible at keeping promises and he only promises things to the people he loves the most.
…
Food and water are nearly depleted and the oxygen is going to go next. The reality has set in that he’s never going to see Pepper again and that hurts worse than the semi-healed wound in his side, courtesy of Thanos.
It’s going to be hard for Pepper to grapple with his loss and he wants to somehow take away all of her pain, to leave her laughing and not at all upset. He prays that she’ll find peace when she realizes he’s gone, prays that she’ll one day come to know and understand why he did it and why he had to. No one has ever understood him like Pepper Potts. He hopes she doesn’t stop now.
…
After scrounging up a few things Tony believes will help him get the helmet of his suit working again, Tony gets to work. He hasn’t had food or water in four days and it hurts anytime he shifts too fast or needs to take a deep breath, but he powers through because this is for Pepper.
It takes a few hours, but he’s able to get the helmet somewhat working. The visuals in the HUD have been shot all to hell, but he can still record and send audio messages, which is exactly what he wants to do before it’s too late.
“Is this thing on? Hey, Ms. Potts. If you find this recording, don’t feel bad about this. Part of the journey is the end. Just for the record, being adrift in space with zero promise of rescue is more fun than it sounds. Food and water ran out four days ago. Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning. And that’ll be it. When I drift off, I will dream about you. It’s always you.”
His hands easily find the switch inside the helmet to switch it off and he leans back, exhausted and reeling from the headache that’s been growing in intensity for days.
He doesn’t sleep though, he’s too anxious, but he can tell time is going by faster than he wants it to. He balls his hands into fists and presses them hard against his eyes until he sees stars, but that doesn’t keep the tears from falling. He’s been holding them back since that last night on Titan and now that he’s started, he can’t stop.
He cries for Peter and for May who will never know what happened to her sweet, sweet nephew, will never know what sacrifices he’s made. He cries a little for Nebula who has lost a sister and for Happy and Rhodey, if they’re still around, knowing they’ll be looking for Tony, hoping he’ll come home sooner rather than later.
He cries a little for himself too, because he’s failed. He's failed himself, his friends, the world, and that hurts.
But he cries the most for Pepper and the life he’d promised her. He cries for their future that will never happen, all because he put the safety of the world and being a superhero before their relationship. Out of all the times in his life that he could’ve been selfish and get away with it, Tony decided to be a hero and it’s gotten him nowhere.
Maybe it won’t be all bad, at least not like he thinks. He knows he hasn’t been the poster boy for good behavior, but Tony’s done some good in his life. Maybe if there really is a god out there, he’ll realize that, despite Tony’s faults, he’s a kind and caring person who has loved and lost. Maybe his mother and father will be there to greet him. He’s not sure if he believes in that kind of thing, but it’s something to hold onto, the idea of seeing their faces again.
He doesn’t bother wiping his tears as he leans his head back against the headrest of the chair he’s sitting in. He’s not ashamed.
He speaks Pepper’s name out loud, one last time, to hear how it sounds, how it feels on his lips and how it makes his heart flutter, even after all these years. It’s the perfect name for the perfect woman, he thinks.
He closes his eyes and with a smile on his face, he dreams of Pepper.