callmeshellhead (callmeshellhead) wrote in multifariousic, @ 2015-06-29 02:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | !thread, pepper potts (ofamoment), tony stark (callmeshellhead) |
Who: Tony Stark and Pepper Potts
What: Reunion
When: After this.
Where: Free apartments in NYC
Rating/Warnings: Feels.
Status: Closed/Complete
Tony Stark didn’t believe in faith. In fact, faith was everything that he stood against. It was illogical, it went against every moral and scientific rule that he lived his life by, and, to Tony, faith was blind. He didn’t have faith in his father because his father did nothing but disappoint, and he didn’t have faith in himself because Tony had a too real track record of fucking up. And he didn’t have faith in this place, because all it did, all any of them did, was take things away. But he had faith in Pepper. It was illogical, and dangerous, and poisonous, and Tony knew all of that. It kept him awake at night staring at the ceiling, in the bed that they were supposed to share, chastising himself for being so foolish. There was no way that Pepper could somehow realize what happened to him, that he had been sucked into another world and taken away from her. And even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to follow him, because it wasn’t scientifically possible for her to do so, and yet Tony still find himself hoping, a little ray of light deep in the dark mechanics of his mind, that she would find her way to him. He had faith in Pepper, because Pepper had never disappointed him. Howard was a disappointment. Tony was a disappointment, but Pepper was the other side of that coin, and it was only then that he realized just how much he relied on her. It was that hope that kept him working on the portal to try and get back home, but it was swallowed by this place, these places. It was drowned by heartbreak and liquor, and maybe it was because if Tony convinced himself that he would be nothing but a wasted effort in her eyes, she would have left him anyway. It was easier to think that Pepper would fall out of love with him than it was to think that she was out there somewhere just beyond his reach. The point was, he let go. And Tony had undeniable evidence that faith was, indeed, a silly and non existent thing. Until now. It took him almost ten minutes to pull himself together after seeing Pepper on camera, because it was different than just shooting out a message or two on the network, it was her face. Her eyes, that he thought he would have forgotten after two years of mind numbing loneliness, were still haunting to him, and their image was burned into his mind. A part of him said that he would show up at the apartments and they would be empty, and all of this would be an elaborate hallucination from a lack of sleep, and yet he was still in his suit, still flying from the tower, and still landing in front of the apartment complex that he hadn’t been to in over six months. The Mark V easily disassembled into a suitcase at his feet and Tony bent down to pick it up, standing before the building for a full three minutes before taking a step forward and crossing the threshold into the lobby. His heart was pounding painfully and Tony was almost positive that he was in the verge of another panic attack, but he concentrated on the numbers of the elevator, watching himself move up to her apparent floor, and when the doors opened he didn’t move until they almost closed him in again. His walk down the hall was a daze, staring at the numbers on passing doors, and when he finally reached 1203 he stopped, staring at the knob before lifting his hand to knock. It fell before he did. He reached for the doorknob and stopped himself once more before his hand fell weakly to his side, and Tony leaned forward to rest his forehead against the cool wood directly below the metal numbers nailed into the door. She said she loved him. Did she love him? Did she love the man he was? Did that man even exist, anymore? His eyes closed and he wet his lips, sucking air into his lungs, and he counted to three in his head before abruptly standing straight and knocking firmly, doing it before he could stop himself once again. It felt like ages until it opened, and for the first time in quite a while he was stunned, jaw slack and unmoving. There she was, standing there and looking at him with that concerned hesitance that she usually wore when she didn’t know what was going on, and it felt as if she had been resurrected right before his eyes. “Hi.” He leaned down slowly to place his suit on the floor in the hall, his eyes still trained on her, and when he stood back up Tony stepped forward and finally reached out for her. It wasn’t until his hand found her waist, and he felt how real she was, that the threat of tears burned in his eyes, and he moved into her with a sudden swiftness to close the space between them and pull her into a deep kiss. The hand on her waist shifted so his arm could wrap around her, and his other fingers twisted into the back of her hair to hold her into him. She felt the same. Her perfume smelled the same, everything was her, and Tony felt a lump in his throat thick with emotion when he finally parted from her and let his forehead rest against her own. “...I haven’t vacuumed our floor in at least six months.” Pepper had seen a lot of crazy in the past few years of her life. More crazy than she knew could even exist, really. Today though, today was a level of insanity she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around. To wake up in some strange apartment, find out your life was fictional, everyone you knew was fictional. It was a lot to take in. So it had just been easier to believe that it was all some elaborate hoax. A joke. The alternative was beyond her comprehension upon arrival and so she clung to what was clearly the more logical explanation than the truth. Her own imminent freak out over her situation however was halted when Natasha dropped two words on her. Two years. Tony had been away from home for two years, not necessarily alone, but without her. Pepper didn’t think so highly of herself to believe that Tony would cease to function without her. She knew him though, and she knew enough to know that they were always better together. She wasn’t one of the many random conquests Tony had made over the years - Pepper knew that at the end of the day despite how far he had come, Tony was a broken man in so many ways that might not ever be fixed. She didn’t love him in spite of that - or worse, because she saw some kind of project - she just loved him. Every flaw that drove her nuts and every good thing that made her heart soar. She’d never been the kind to believe in fairy tales or some silly notion of soulmates and love at first sight, happily ever afters. She did believe in her and Tony though - that they fit in some way that was sometimes impossible to explain. They were friends, partners, a team. So the idea of him without her - it cut deep. It made her irrationally angry at a world she had just arrived in and didn’t even understand yet. It made her worry, a deep seated heavy thing that gripped her heart and soul. She knew Tony had a great capacity for pushing through that maybe he himself didn’t even realize - but that didn’t mean she wanted him to have to. Two years was a very long time. Two years was longer than they had even been officially a couple and there was a small nagging thought - one that Pepper hated - that two years was enough time for someone to change their mind. She waited, all but holding her breath as she did, for the knock on the door and moved quickly to open it when it came. “Hi,” she managed to get out back before he had her in his arms. That small, nagging thought in the back of her mind was instantly gone. She slid her arms around him as she kissed him back - a shiver running up her spine at the intensity of it all. She let out a small huff of a laugh at the proclamation, but it was a hollow effort at best. “What am I going to do with you, Tony,” she bantered back but the heaviness of the situation kept it from being her usual tone. She brought her hands up to cup his face and pulled back a little, pressed her lips together in worry as she took a good hard look at him. He looked worn, in a way she hadn’t ever really seen before even with the nightmares that had begun to plague him after the battle of New York. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. Her question tugged at his heart more than it probably should, because she was Pepper, and she was joking, but hearing her silly little comment just drove home the point that this was real, and she was here in his arms. Feeling her was so much better than watching her face on a screen, and hearing her was so much better than falling asleep in the workshop with recordings of her - or even the woman who wore her face - talking through the headphones that covered his ears. Tony had missed his parents when they had passed, and he missed Jarvis when he died, but Tony had never missed anybody the way that he missed Pepper. He tilted his head into her hand and shook it when she apologized, but he couldn't bring himself to speak in fear that his words would crack and everything, all of it that he had kept welled up for over 24 months, would pour out onto a woman who was already disoriented as it was. So instead his arms tightened around her in an embrace and Tony let his forehead rest against her shoulder, staying there for only a second before giving in and burying his head into the side of her neck. He took a deep breath to try and contain himself, but Tony knew that it was a losing battle the moment she opened the door. Two years. Two years of hellish creatures crawling into his room at night if he forgot to shut the windows, two years of trying to build portals, teleporters, communication devices that might be able to reach beyond dimensions. Two years of pouring himself into his work, building suit upon suit, system upon system and program upon program to try and convince himself that he was still capable, and he wasn't a failure because he couldn't get back the one thing he truly needed. He could build a tower. He could make a superhero team out of metal and wires, but he couldn't bring her back to him, and in the end, that proved just how useless he really was. Tony's grip tightened as if he was afraid that she was going to melt away through his fingers, and the first crack spidered it's way through his composure. Shoulders trembled in a quiet sob, barely noticeable at first, but once it began Tony finally accepted that he couldn't reel himself back in. He felt weak, the exhaustion of hope and disappointment and heartbreak over two years crashing over him in a suffocating wave, and silent tears came to him as he held her like she was the only thing he had, because she was. Hollowness was starting to give way to a force of turmoil and emotional angst that he had kept at bay for so long, and now he couldn't. Because now, his faith wasn't unfounded; she had found him. He was the genius, the smartest man of his age, of the next age, but he couldn't find her. And she had still managed to make her way to him, just like he always wanted to believe she would. He took a deep breath and it shuddered into his lungs as he stood straight, cheeks stained in tears that he didn't want her to see, but he allowed himself the luxury of taking her face in his hands and staring at her with an expression that could only be explained as sorrowful, because he had given up. And now he felt as if he had failed her twice because of it. One hand slipped to the back of her head and the other arm wrapped around her to pull her into him, hugging her tightly and pressing a soft kiss against the side of her head. "I love you." He finally managed to say it in return to her message on the network, and Tony's eyes closed tightly as he allowed himself to soak in a moment he never believed he'd ever have again. "Let's go home, baby. Let me take you home." |