Who: Tony Stark, Pepper Potts What: Calling it quits, round two. When: following Nurse Steve and Good Cop(/Bad Cop) Bucky taking care of fugitive Tony, here. Rating: Green, even though it's a giant vat of angst we've poured for ourselves.
Tony Stark was known for many things. Many things such as being persistent, obnoxious, brilliant, extravagant, eccentric, and most of all? Over-dramatic. That was why being laid up in bed was a form of torture, and being out of communication with the one person he wanted to protect the most in the entire world? Unbearable. He swore that a festering ulcer was about to burst in his stomach if he went another hour without hearing from Pepper. The longer she was quiet, the more he was starting to worry about why.
Maybe the FBI was tailing her, and she couldn't get away long enough to respond. Sure, she had a network connected phone that he sent the calls and messages to. He wasn't dumb enough to call or text her regular phone. It was possibly she had the network one hidden away so the authorities wouldn't find it. What if they sequestered her? Oh, he had to get that suit working pronto, if they did. Steve and Bucky would have to hold him down to keep him from flying out with only three working RTs for propulsion.
It was almost time for his regularly scheduled pain meds, leaving him feeling less sleepy and more restless. He turned his head just enough to eye his network phone on the table near the bed. Without rolling, he tried to reach out with his hand to grab it, managing to grasp it between his fingers on the second or third try. After entering in his code and thumbprint, he scrolled through until Pepper's face was on the screen and he tapped on the number below to put the call through. She was probably feeling angry and anxious, and it was up to him to put her at ease. He could do that. No problem. He hoped.
Tony wasn’t easy to ignore. Impossible, usually. In person, anyway. When he wasn’t physically present it was at least marginally possible. Though he had way of somehow making even a default ring tone a little more annoyingly strident. She had to ask him some time how he did that.
She’d been quite successfully ignoring him for a while, though. She told herself it was so she could lie successfully to the authorities when they asked if she’d spoken to him. But the real truth was she was so angry at him that she didn’t really know what was going to come out of her mouth.
But now she was halfway through a very good bottle of Pinot Grigio and relaxed enough that she thought she could speak to him. She wanted to talk to him, of course. She loved him. If she didn’t love him so much she wouldn’t put up with his shit, and she damn well wouldn’t care so much when he went and got himself in a mess.
Like he always did, no matter how many times he promised he wouldn’t.
Oh, it wasn’t that he lied to her, though she was quite sure he was capable of it. He meant well. He always meant well. I mean, look at Ultron. That started with the best of intentions. Peace in our time. Didn’t work out so well though.
So after the approximately 10 billionth ring, she finally answered.
“Give me three good reasons I shouldn’t hang this phone up now. Oh, you know what? I’ll settle for one.”
If there was one thing in the universe that scrambled his brain into a state of panic - besides the fear of what could come from outer space - it was Pep getting really truly angry at him. And by the sound of it? Yep. Pepper was pissed. As well she should be, when the guy she was engaged to was in a high speed pursuit with the U.S. Air Force, shot down, and dragged off for interrogation in a floating prison.
Whew. Life got weirder by the second.
Quickly, Tony tried to get his brain to unscramble itself and form something coherent.
"Ok, I mean...I...uhh...you know," Tony started to say, his mouth trying to catch up with his brain. The only thing missing from this conversation was a spinny desk thing. Now he couldn't even blame a spinny desk thing for distracting him from forming words. "You see, I was gonna...uhh? Sharknado happened. You know I really like Sharknado because you told me to shut up about Sharknado for, like, forty-eight hours after I saw the first one. Remember? I do. And...no, hold up. The one good reason is that I love you. And want to make sure no one's harassing you, and that you're ok. As ok as you can possibly be, when someone like me loves someone like you?"
Smoooooooooooooooooth.
Tony was staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes, expecting to hear the BLOOP noise that meant she had hung up on his ass.
Pepper was more than accustomed to Tony’s verbal diarrhea but this was more incoherent than usual, and that was saying a lot. She paused while she ran the words through what she liked to call--internally, of course, Tony would have a field day--her Tony translator, and came up with nothing.
“Really? You called all those times and that’s all you got? I think you have to try a little harder, Tony. You have a brain the size of a planet, as you love to remind absolutely everyone. Try to use it.”
She knew she was being harsh with him but goddamnit he had defied the accords, got himself arrested, and then just for fun got his Super Friends to break him out, making them all accomplices. It was a wonder she wasn’t sitting in a jail cell right now making friends with a woman that looked like the Hulk on a bad day. Harsh was called for.
All the little blinking lights on her office phone were lit up but she ignored them. They could wait.
"My planet sized brain is on painkillers," he said, by way of offering an excuse on a silver platter up to the Goddess of Holding Shit Together that was Pepper. "Did you miss the part where I gave you the best reason ever, which was I love you? I think you missed that. Wait. Don't hang up!"
Great way to butter up the hopefully still future missus. Even if sarcastic bickering was pretty much their default state. Ok, it was his, and then yelling that giant bunnies were not a big deal and other people should get over it, following up with demanding she tell him if she liked it or not. Which she didn't. And after he had a wall knocked out to drag it inside. Eeesh.
"I need a do-over," he suddenly said, "and for you to realize that I was worried the FBI took you and was interrogating you by...I don't know? Scary FBI stuff. Dropped you into a snake pit like Raiders of the Lost Ark. Which, hi, I don't want that to happen to you maybe? While I was out trying to save people from sharks in tornadoes? God, I hate this. I can't even make you an omelette to apologize properly."
That was probably a good thing, considering Tony Stark could engineer or science a lot of things. But he could not cook. If he tried, he somehow managed to make things that were half raw and half burnt.
Pepper forced herself to take several deep cleansing breaths before replying. She wanted to run her hands through her hair or put her face in her hands but it had taken forever to get her hair and makeup right this morning with the trembling things her hands had become since Tony had disappeared.
“The FBI did take me. In one of those lovely black SUVs they like to destroy the planet with. It was a convoy of about five of them, actually. They clearly don’t care about their carbon footprint.” She realized she was rambling and there was only enough room in this conversation for one rambler and Tony was the Ultimate Rambler ™. “Anyway. They asked me questions which I actually couldn’t answer, gave me coffee that should be classified as a war crime, and then let me go. They’re watching me of course. But not listening, at least not in this office.”
“And I don’t even like omelettes.” She’d been around Tony too long. She could actually follow his thoughts on occasion. She knew he was trying to apologize in the only way he knew how, which was badly. The fact that he was trying at all was significant, though, instead of his default, this is the way I am, accept it, MO.
He was about to say 'This is the way I am' but he was too busy getting pissed off that they harassed his girlfriend. For someone as obsessive as he was about keeping Pepper safe, the thought that he wasn't there to kick those SUV's onto their sides and protect her really was like a swift kick to the junk.
"I'm a fugitive already, so I don't think it's gonna matter if I spend the next week fixing my suit and kicking some ass." Teeth were gnashed when he said it, because how dare they give her war crime coffee? She deserved Kona or handpicked Columbian, not freakin' Folgers Instant. "Before I deal with that...I thought you loved my omelettes. Is this like the bunny? You seemed to like it at first, but then oh no, guess what? You don't. Why don't you just tell me. Then I won't have to flail around like an idiot, doing stuff you don't like."
Tony froze in bed, his mouth open and shaped like a perfect o. Because yeah, that was going to get thrown back in his face any second now.
The ache behind her right temple that she liked to call her “Tony Headache”--which never went completely away, because Tony--had intensified to heretofore uncharted levels. She considered and discarded several million responses before going with a deadpan, “Great apology so far, honey. You’re getting so good at this.” It wasn’t worth responding about the damn bunny. That was never going away but she didn’t have to fuel the fire.
She did love Tony. She did. It was just that sometimes she hated him too. It was possible to do both, when Tony was involved. The adage, ‘can’t live with him, can’t live without him’ was clearly coined with Tony Stark in mind.
“Where are you? No, don’t tell me. I don’t need to know. Just tell me you’re being taken care of.”
He was well aware that he needed her more than she needed him. Sure, he'd survive if they did break up, somehow, but that would be it. Merely surviving. Probably making even worse decisions than he ever did when he was with her. He knew that all too well, since it was nagging at the back of his mind constantly. It wasn't that he wanted to make her miserable, even if Pepper yelling at him was one of the hottest things in existence. It was that he did it without even trying.
"Gee, thanks," he said, followed by an exhale that would have been huge and puffy, if only he possessed a ribcage capable of expanding. "I'd love to tell you. I want to more than anything. I'd like to see you. But yeah, I'm safe and I'm not alone. I have a really hot nurse. Hope you're not super jealous. You should be, though. Just sayin'."
If all else fails when trying to apologize? Apply generous amounts of sarcasm and rub it in.
Pepper wasn’t the jealous type. She couldn’t be. Generally, it wasn’t actual people she had occasion to be jealous of stealing Tony’s attention, unless you counted the entire world. Usually it was projects Tony had affairs with, most often his suits and other tech that he was obsessed with. She knew he loved her. In his own way. Which, granted, tended to be a lot more extravagant and over the top than the average person, and when it was good it was so very good, but… the question was, was it enough? That was what she had to decide, and though she was very good at decisions, this one was evading her.
“I’m glad to hear you’re not alone. Was there anything else?” It killed her to be so cold to him, but she suspected he kind of liked it. That wasn’t why she was doing it, though. It was for her own sanity.
Considering he probably slept with half of California? Most of whom Pepper was tasked with removing 'the trash' in the morning? Yep. Tony knew from experience that she wasn't the jealous type. Even when he was tweaking his A.I. to be more flirty, he still wanted Pepper. He wanted Pepper the way someone who was drowning wanted air.
Being him was a blessing and a curse, because he was smart enough to know he had it good but also knew when he was going to wreck it. Again. He had the feeling of creeping dread that he was about to teeter and fall off whatever fine line he was treading upon, the precise moment he opened his mouth and words fell out.
"Nope. Nothing else." His words were getting clipped, which usually heralded him going into a defensive stance. "Other than maybe it sounds like the switch has been flipped from on to off. I mean, I'd like to be wrong about that? I'm guessing...wild guess, by the way...that you're twelve-percent done with my ass trying to save all the things again. Tack on another twelve-percent for having a fugitive for a boyfriend, which I'm sorry for. I don't know how to make it up to you. Ok? I don't know. Look at that! There's something I actually don't have a clue how to fix. Alert the press. Or don't, because I'd hate for my rep to get some more tarnish on it."
Really needed to dial back the sarcasm, since it probably wasn't doing him any favors or landing him back in her good graces. In all honesty though, he really was grasping at straws whenever he apologized. He didn't even know where to begin to try to make things better. It would've been easier if he saw her, since he really wanted to see her and hug her and just relax. But instead of hitting the brakes on the impending trainwreck he saw coming, he went full speed ahead right at it. The knowledge of which was a crushing weight, to the point that he wanted to push his entire body down into the bed until it engulfed him. He settled for holding his breath and smushing his head back until the ultra fluffed pillow squished up around his ears, and he swore he could hear a pin drop in Pepper's office.
Pepper waited for the influx of words to stop, her breath quite literally taken away. To contemplate it was one thing. To hear him say it was another. She was momentarily speechless, mind at war with her heart over what to do. Her heart was screaming at her to take the apology, forgive him for the umpteenth time, go back to what passed as normal for them. But her brain, still clicking along in five inch stilettos, took a hard pass, shutting the heart away in a vibranium box.
So when she finally spoke, it was in her calmest, most corporate voice.
“Are you breaking up with me, Tony?” The ease of the words belied the screaming inside, as her heart tried to reason with her brain. But look where her heart had gotten her so far.
"I don't know, Pepper. Am I?"
The words all but shot out of his mouth like sniper's bullets, purely in response to her using her business-like CEO voice at him. This wasn't their playful bickering back and forth, or even a heated exchange. It was a cold shut down that left a strange twisting ache where his heart used to be, before it sunk down into his gut for an extended stay.
She would be better off. The FBI wouldn't bother her and make her drink criminally bad coffee. She'd be free. Just run the company if she decided not to step down, and maybe go find someone normal instead. He'd have to talk to Happy, who knew everything anyway, to see if Pepper would sneak him enough money to survive in the meantime, and fund the network system under the table, using what he had set up. Legal was already rolling. That wasn't going to take care of the love and affection department, which he desperately craved but seemed adept at pushing away at. Everything in him was screaming not to do it, which caused his face to screw up into an unseen wince of massive proportions. He was already in pain, so this was going to hurt even more.
"Remember that one time with Rhodey? After the senate hearing? Where he said spending time with me was bad for our friendship? Wondering if we're there. So if you feel like you're hitting that wall," and he paused to draw in a shaky breath to continue speaking, "not gonna blame you for hitting reverse."
That left the ball in her court. Which was a full on terrifying thought, when she was the one who grabbed the wheel sometimes to help keep him on course.
Part of her wanted him to beg. Scream. Cry. Plead with her to give him one more chance. And she would. Oh god she would. But he wasn’t going to do that. He was Tony Stark and he didn’t need anyone. Least of all her. She just held him back. She was pretty sure he’d said that to her once. Or maybe that had just been in her head.
Another part of her wanted to scream herself hoarse, remind him that they were damn well MEANTTOBE, and what had happened to that? Remind him of every time he’d said he couldn’t live without her.
But no. Because he clearly could. They’d broken up before and he’d survived it. He always survived. He was a goddamn cockroach. And he didn’t need Pepper.
All of that she pushed right back down, because hell if she was going to be a girl about the whole thing.
She couldn’t resist one more jab, though.
“I wouldn’t know. That would actually require us to spend time together.”
Which was unfair. Because Tony was saving the bloody world, after all. But a small voice that she couldn’t entirely silence wondered when it would be her turn.
That was a stab in the gut, right where his heart had the current misfortune of residing.
So much for his sniper's bullets taking pot shots at her. Pepper landed a kill shot.
Rather, he wished it would kill him, because that would be a merciful blessing compared to the way he felt at that moment.
There were about a million things he wanted to say, but nothing was flying out of his open mouth at the moment. Everything was a clusterfuck on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to say he was going to fly out right after Sharknado and visit her, that he had been so excited that he wanted her to yell at him to shut up about Sharknado because he was gushing about it, that he wanted to hug onto her afterward and kiss her all over her face to make up for being late on date night, that he missed her all of the time...and wanted to protect her more than anyone else.
Tony said none of those things. In fact, he felt like the hint was more than taken. It left him feeling cold and empty and just as abandoned as he felt when he lost friends because of the Accords. Or when Thor hadn't come back. Or when Bruce was gone without a clue where he went off to. Or when his parents died.
Instead of saying any of that, Tony felt his jaw painfully tighten, and he managed to grit out a tense sounding, "Yep. It probably would. Since you think that's not gonna happen? I'm just going to do what I seem to do best, and take off."
He ended the call before she could. Because pushing away in self-defense had always been a better, cheaper, and safer option. Letting her go would make things better for her, even if his life was lesser for it.
At least that was what he was telling himself, as he stared at the phone like he was wondering what just happened...or why he let it happen.
She’d known it was going to happen. She’d been practically asking for it. But now that it had happened—she and Tony had broken up and oh god she couldn’t even think it—she was devastated. She’d thought she’d been prepared. She’d thought Tony had already hurt her so much that making it official wouldn’t make it worse.
She’d been wrong. So wrong. It was an order of magnitude worse and her finger actually hovered over the button that would call him back for a long moment. A fantasy of her begging him for another chance, telling him he was the love of her life and always would be no matter what stupid shit he pulled and how mad she could sometimes get at him. And Tony would gush about how much he loved her and how they would live happily ever after and everything would be right in the world once again.
But no. That wouldn’t happen. Tony didn’t want her any more. At least not in any way she could live with. He’d tell her that, say hurtful things she’d play over and over in her mind for the next twenty years and it would be worse.
So she set the phone down, wiped away the one tear that had dared to escape her brimming eyes and looked out the window for a long moment.