Chapter Text
The thing about graveyards, Steve had noticed, was that few people looked at you askance if you were talking to yourself.
Sure, there were people who gave him another look as he murmured something to yet another slab of granite, but he wasn't the only one, and people didn't seem to find it appropriate to question him. A couple of times he was sure someone had recognized him, saw a flicker of understanding and a step closer, but nobody ever approached him. The news coverage had reached every corner of the country, of course, and he wasn't exactly an easy figure to forget, but graveyards were places of respect, even if in his opinion he had done much less to earn that respect than the people he visited.
It had been nice of Tony to offer him a list of where to find his old friends, though he was fairly sure the billionaire had mainly just asked his computer to look into the matter. Steve didn't care about the details; it was still a nice gesture, and certainly more than he had expected from the aggravating man. Then, it seemed clear even from their short acquaintance that there was much more to Tony Stark than one could see at a glance.
"You don't talk much," he told the grave, "but that's okay. None of the others were much for talking, either. You guys are really good at listening, though." He chuckled. "Guess you can't tell me off for boring you, now."
The second date carved into the stone had been only a few years earlier, so very close. If he'd been found just a little while earlier, maybe they could have had an actual chat. He could have caught up in person, heard about everything he had missed, about what life had been like after he lost his. Whether he was the only one desperately trying to catch up with this new century, if living through the changes had made them any easier to accept.
He glanced up as he heard distant voices, gaze sweeping the graveyard. There were two men walking down the path some ways away, middle-aged, one of them holding some flowers. Their hands were clasped together, and Steve found himself smiling. That was one change he could live with.
He wondered what his friends would have thought about that. Wondered why that question made his chest ache.
"Um, excuse me?" Startled, he spun around, finding a young woman looking at him. She couldn't have been more than twenty, if that. "Can I help you?"
"Ah, sorry." He gave her a sheepish smile. "Didn't hear you approaching."
"That's my great-grandpa's grave." She eyed him with something akin to suspicion. Of course. Someone his age shouldn't have had any reason to poke around at the grave of someone that old, certainly not someone she had never seen before. She probably thought he was a vandal or something.
"Right." And really, great-grandpa, there were two generations between his friend and this young lady, a grown woman in her own right and for him it had been just a couple of busy months. "Sorry. I was looking for a friend of mine; I must have made a wrong turn somewhere." Like the one down into the freezing ocean.
"That's all right." She gave him a smile, then, suspicion fading away as he stepped aside, allowing her to get closer and crouch down at the grave, clearing what few weeds had managed to grow upon it. "This place can get a little confusing sometimes, I know. I got lost the first few times I came here, myself."
"Do you tend the grave a lot, then?" Apparently she hadn't recognized him, which was just as well. Sure, it might have explained what he was doing here, but it could have been quite awkward in its own way.
"I'm the one who does it, mostly." There was a smile on her face, one of fond remembrance. That was good. It was good to know his old friends were still missed and cared for, and not just by him. "He's a really good listener, still. Mom keeps saying it's because I was great-grandpa's favorite."
"You two were close, then?" He hoped he didn't seem like some kind of a creep with his questions, but then she didn't seem to mind.
"Oh, yeah." She brushed her fingertips over the name on the tombstone. "He's the one who took my side when I first brought my girlfriend home and grandpa threw a fit. He told everyone else it wasn't the 20th century anymore, and he was damn sure about that, because he'd lived through most of it."
A kind of relief filled Steve, then, at an unspoken question answered. "He sounds like a good man," he said, and knew he was right. "But, ah. I shouldn't be bothering you." He turned to go, only to be brought to a halt as she spoke again.
"Steve?"
He turned around, startled. "Huh?"
"Ah, sorry." She flushed a bit. "It's just, Grandpa had this picture, a really old one, of some of his army friends. You look exactly like one of the guys in it."
"Ah. Right." He blinked. "You remember the names of everyone in his picture?" She must have been really close to him.
"Not quite." She chuckled. "Steve just, well, kind of stood out to me." At his questioning gaze, she shrugged. "Great-grandpa always told me how he didn't have much of an eye for the ladies," she said. "Only ever really looked at one, if that, and never joined in when everyone swapped their stories. Great-grandpa said he always kind of suspected him of not being much for ladies at all, but that he was a good guy nevertheless. And, well, you can guess how much that helped a mortified teenager crushing on her best friend."
"Oh, yeah." He'd never found such acceptance, not as a teenager, but he could indeed guess. It felt just as good now, that acceptance, even if from everyone else's perspective it was a few generations and a lifetime late in being delivered. "Believe me, I know the feeling." What he wouldn't have given to have had that back then.
It was a different world, he thought as he made his way to his bike, thinking about his next destination, one where the men he'd stood beside months before were fading memories to everyone else, where the dead spoke through the mouths of the young about things that for him were new. It was a different world, and one he couldn't face without sadness and longing, not yet, but he had a feeling he could maybe learn to like this world, yet.
Maybe he'd visit Gabriel and Jacques next. Tony's list said they had a nice little graveyard corner all to themselves the next state over.
*
He still wasn't sure why they had let them go just like that, why there hadn't been a debrief and probably a lock-up for him and hell why hadn't they just shot him. He'd been too freaked out to really worry about it when they'd made their way to Budapest, but now that they were heading back he was wondering why they had at no point been stopped, questioned, or just plain snatched back. Not that Natasha would have let that happen, Natasha could be incredibly protective like that and God he was lucky to have her, but he still would have expected SHIELD to try something at the very least.
"Relax." Natasha's touch was light on his arm, almost not there at all, but it did help a little. "It will be fine."
"No, it won't," he said, and they both knew he was right. "They should have already come after us."
"Maybe Fury's feeling guilty," Natasha suggested, though the idea of Fury having actual feelings felt dubious at best. "For letting Phil die."
She wasn't one to dance around things, never had been, and on moments like this he wasn't sure if he hated her or loved her for it. He settled on loved, because he would have been seriously freaked out if Natasha had started walking on eggshells around him, and very probably suspected that she was up to something terrible behind his back. Besides, it wasn't like she was overly cruel with it. If anyone, Natasha knew just how much he could take, when it was better to just stay silent and not bring it up. It was less so now, not like it had been in the beginning, when the wrong word or look would send him drowning in his memories, shaking when he finally managed to claw his way back to reality.
The ring was heavy in its chain around his neck. It wasn't until he felt Natasha's eyes on him that he realizes he's brought his hand up to feel it through his shirt. When he did realize he let his hand fall back into his lap, trying not to fidget.
"It's fine, you know." Natasha's voice was quiet as she walked to the window of their hotel room, glancing out, and for all that he knew her Clint wasn't even sure if she was avoiding looking at him or if she really just felt like taking a look at the surroundings. "To show that you're mourning."
"It won't make any difference, though." Nothing ever would. Nothing he did or said could bring Phil back, not ever again.
"It might to you." She looked at him again, now, gaze serious. "You've been hiding all these years. You should at least allow yourself to mourn for him without fear."
"Like I ever hid from you." And he never did, not when it was just the two or three of them, never worried about showing Natasha that side of his life, their life. Sure, she would huff and mock him and talk about how love was for children, a beautiful little game that only hid ugliness, but he knew she had been happy to see it, the two constants in her life finding some stability in each other.
"So what is this, then?" Natasha took on an inquiring tone. "You've recently been acting like you've been caught red-handed at a mark's body whenever I catch you obviously thinking about him. I suppose it's better than you breaking down all the time, at least you're functioning now, but I really don't like this any more."
He was quiet for a moment, trying to find the words to describe something he wasn't sure he even understood himself. "I don't deserve it," he finally said.
"We've been over this, Clint." There was a frown on her face. "It's not your fault, he wouldn't want you to blame yourself, now don't you fucking tell me you don't have the right to mourn. I may not have a high opinion of love in general, but even I could see that man was good for you, and you for him. You have the right to remember him."
"It's weakness, though." His voice was little more than a murmur, but he knew she heard him nevertheless. "He went and faced Loki without any guarantee he could even do anything, and I can't get through the damn day without whining about how I'm the one who has it hard."
"So you think he'd prefer you to forget about him? To pretend he never meant anything to you at all?"
"I didn't mean that." He sighed. "I just… all I've been doing ever since is cry and whine and cry some more. It's been long enough, I should be getting better."
"And you are." She crosses back to where he's sitting on the bed, again touching him, fingers ever so light. "You are doing much better, because you're recovering, and that's a good thing. But if you avoid thinking about him, showing that you're thinking about him, you're never going to get to the point where you can think about him and smile."
"You really think that's ever going to happen?" Because he damn well doubted that. "That I'm ever going to smile when thinking about Phil dying alone while I was doing his killer's evil bidding?"
"Of course not, dummy." She patted his head, as though a mockery of a slap. "But you'll think back to all the times he laughed at something stupid you said over the comms, all the times he told you to take a shot and you did and it was exactly what you needed to do, the way he looked so damn adorable just after waking up with a severe case of bed head. Because those things aren't going away, even though the pain will, and by telling yourself not to think about him all the time you're not letting yourself to move to that point."
"What would you know about that?" He tried not to sound bitter, but it was pretty inevitable. "When you first found out about us, you laughed at me for being so naive and stupid, because who the hell would be idiotic enough to fall in love at my age, especially in our profession. What do you know about losing someone you love?"
"Nothing." And here was her lovely bluntness again. "But I know both you and your foolishness very thoroughly, and I know you loved him too much to let him remain a painful memory forever."
He looked at her and felt hollow, in that terrible way that was the result of his heart getting carved out even if he did still have some stupid lump of muscle beating away in his chest, but he also couldn't help but feel a bit of warmth like he always had when he saw Phil's eyes crinkle just so.
He hated and loved Natasha so much, and God was he lucky to have her.
*
Her cell phone vibrated, just once, but enough to gain her attention. Clint was silent, apparently asleep, but she still took a quick glance at him before digging out her phone, looking at the message.
'Any change?'
She took a longer look at her partner — friend, ally — before quickly typing a response.
'Still sleeps a lot. Suspect Loki messed up his sleep pattern.' Less crying, too, but there was no reason for Fury to know about any of that.
There hadn't been that much Clint could tell him, not having been aware through all of it — though certainly for far too much — but at least she had managed to figure out that he hadn't had much rest during the entire time he had been under the trickster's control. It had still been hard for him to sleep at first, only managing to find rest while clinging to her and even then for only short periods of time, but he was doing better now, if only marginally. Which in this case meant sleeping half the day, but that was fine. Natasha could keep guard.
There was a pause before another question arrived.
'Anything alarming?'
Besides the fact that one of the strongest, most capable man she'd ever met was a mere shadow of himself, slowly piecing himself together on top of the trembling wreck she'd held in her arms for several nights?
'Nothing to report, Sir.' Because there were things that Fury didn't need to know.
'Will need debrief when you return.' Of course he did, that much had been understood even when they had first been let go without so much as a whisper from SHIELD. She'd never imagined they could just walk away and never look back, not without a fight.
'I won't let you lock him up.' Of course, if Fury had any sense he knew that much already, but she still felt the need to reiterate that. 'Not for something Loki did.' Clint was already beating himself up enough.
'I have no intention of doing so. He shot at me and Hill and we are both alive.' That was all the explanation Natasha needed for the otherwise uncharacteristic response. There was so much more damage that could have been done, to both the helicarrier and individual people. It was only due to Clint's struggling against Loki that it hadn't come to that.
And at the end of the day, he hadn't been able to protect the one thing he had most needed to keep safe.
'People will need a scapegoat.' Because for once, Fury was not the one she had to worry about.
'We blame Loki. Any further trouble, and there might be a slip of the tongue to the media about a certain something Stark took care of.'
Well. That was just nice and ruthless and so very much like Fury. 'Nice.'
'That's Stark, not me. Apparently for a shallow, narcissistic bastard, the man has a very deep trust in the basic humanity of Hawkeye.'
Natasha found her lips curling a bit, an almost fond smirk. Of course. Stark chose the weirdest situations to trust people, and had very strange merits to judge said people by besides. 'He's a team player even if he doesn't admit it.'
'You're telling me. Apparently he wants you all to move in, if I understood his over-caffeinated rambles correctly.'
Okay, so that was a surprise. Or maybe not. Strange solutions were also very much Stark's thing. 'He keeps the council off our backs, I'll put on pajamas for his slumber party.'
'Aren't you being accommodating, Agent.'
'We still get the news here, Sir.' Not that she was going to specify where "here" was. While she wasn't all that confident that he would keep his word not to track them, it would have been utterly amateurish of her to give him any extra help. 'It's bad enough people are blaming us for saving their lives, I'd rather not have anyone official get in on it.'
'Duly noted, Agent. Inform me if Hawkeye seems unstable.'
Natasha glanced over to where Clint was curled up on the bed, shivering, making small sounds of distress in the grip of whatever nightmare was plaguing him now. Moving over to him, she ran one hand over his hair, the other typing quickly, 'Will do, Sir,' without feeling a hint of guilt at her lie.
She then deleted all the messages, just in case, and turned her phone off before turning her attention to Clint, who had calmed down a bit at the touch but still seemed distressed.
They still had a long night ahead of them.
*
"I think," Bruce said when he first walked into his lab, "I'm in love."
"I'm flattered, I really am," Tony said from behind him, sounding amused. "However, Pepper cruelly shot down my suggestion of an open relationship, so I'm afraid you'll just have to settle for nice and platonic science love."
"I'll admit you're a great guy, Tony, but I still wouldn't go gay for you." However, Bruce found himself grinning. "I'd trade you for this lab in a heartbeat, though."
"Well, lucky you, you can get both me and the lab." Tony grinned, a wide arc of his arm indicating the entire laboratory. "All yours, baby."
"This is just too much, Tony." Bruce shook his head, walking further into the wide space. "I mean, I wasn't even sure some of this stuff existed!"
"Not outside these walls, they don't." But of course. If anyone possessed the talents and wherewithal to simply create his own scientific equipment, it was Tony Stark. "So, you like?"
"Oh, no, Tony, I'm utterly consumed by my hatred for this terrible thing you're doing for me. In fact, I think I may have to puke. All this science is going to give me nightmares."
"Good to know it wasn't all for nothing, then." Tony patted him on the shoulder. "I guess I'll leave you two to get to know each other properly. Try not to hump anything too delicate, sterilizing this stuff is a pain in the ass."
Before Bruce could even protest, Tony had vanished, leaving him alone in a lab full of incredibly expensive, top of the line scientific equipment.
Mere moments after the door closed after Tony the doubts struck him. He couldn't do this, he thought. He shouldn't have been doing this. It wasn't just all this beautiful science that he was endangering by being here, not even just himself that he was risking by staying somewhere it would be so very easy for SHIELD to track him down. No, he was also putting Tony and Pepper in danger, simply by being in the same building. In danger from him, and from anyone who might have wanted to find him. Tony might not have had the cleanest public image to begin with, but he doubted harboring a fugitive would help the matters.
Walking further into the lab, Bruce let his fingertips brush some of the delicate instruments, at last not afraid that the wrong thought, wrong stimulus might drive him into destroying them. He knew himself better than that, now, had learned that even though there were still situations where he could not will the Other Guy away, his control wasn't quite as precarious as he had thought. Tony knew that, too; he wasn't too particular about money or danger, but he wouldn't have left Bruce in such a place if he didn't trust his control.
Except unlike everyone else, unlike Bruce himself, Tony had already had that trust in him before the battle against the Chitauri. While everyone else had been walking on eggshells around him when they weren't accusing him of being a monster to his face, Tony had waltzed right into the room, congratulated him for his amazing ability to turn into a giant green rage monster, and brought all eyes to himself instead of Bruce. Whether that had been Tony's intention, Bruce didn't know, and he doubted Tony would admit anything even if he asked, but he had taken the pressure off Bruce's shoulders and at the same time accepted Bruce with open arms.
To Tony, Bruce wasn't a monster, nor was he a cage for one. He wasn't someone to be feared or given special consideration lest he wreak havoc, not someone to keep at a distance. In Tony's sharp eyes he was just a man, a smart man with the unique ability to turn into something much stronger and awe-inspiring in all the wrong ways, and holy crap Bruce my Bruce those transformations must work up one hell of an appetite, good thing I can afford to feed you. There had been no room for protests, no way to change Tony's mind as he opened his life and home to Bruce and Hulk alike.
The Other Guy had saved Tony. Bruce could never convince him there might be a risk involved after all.
"Shiny Guy friend," gave a deep rumble from the little corner of his mind where the Other Guy was never truly gone, lingering just beneath the surface of conscious thought. "Shiny Guy protect Bruce. Hulk protect Shiny Guy."
Bruce wondered how Tony would react if he knew what Hulk called him. Grin widely and demand everyone else to call him the same, probably.
He still didn't know much about the battle, not much more than he had been able to piece together from news reports and the various eyewitness accounts. There were some flashes, the strongest images from the Other Guy filtering to him even as the small details were forgotten. He hadn't been in control, not really, more like the Other Guy had finally decided to cooperate, and his memories were still a bit hazy though at the time he had been aware of everything to a point. However, he was fairly sure his monstrous side still made the connection between the Shiny Guy, Iron Man in his armor, and Tony, the strange guy who was smaller than Bruce and never seemed to be quiet for a moment.
He wasn't sure if Hulk realized the armor was a type of clothing or if he thought Tony and Iron Man were two entities like Bruce and Hulk, but as long as it meant the Other Guy saw both of Tony's identities as worth protecting, he wasn't too picky. And, well, even without the armor Tony was definitely one of the shiniest people Bruce had ever met.
"Oh, I almost forgot." Bruce looked up from the instrument he hadn't really been studying, seeing Tony poke his head back into the lab. "Chinese tonight? We should totally celebrate your newfound love with all these totally hot pieces of scientific equipment. We'll eat and drink beer and talk dirty dirty science all night long, baby."
Oh, yes, Bruce thought as he grinned in response. Definitely Shiny.
*
Confronting Tony in his workshop was really not the way she had wanted to do this.
However, Tony just loved to make her life difficult, didn't he, even the rare times he wasn't doing it on purpose, and thus the workshop was precisely where she was directed as she stepped out of the elevator and asked Jarvis where she could locate him. Hearing this announcement she almost hesitated, just for a second. Tony usually was his happiest in his workshop, even happier than he ever was in stupid parties or at high-end bars or in any other equally frustratingly Tony situation. Pepper had seen him laughing as he downed drink after drink, had seen him leering with a beautiful woman at each arm, smirking as he verbally flipped off a bunch of journalists while somehow managing to sound perfectly polite. However, she'd never seen him grin quite as freely and his eyes shine quite as brightly as when he was in his workshop, focusing on solving some engineering problem that maybe five people in the world could even understand, absolute elation taking over his face as he finally figured out whatever was puzzling him. The workshop was Tony's happy place, it was the heart of his realm, and she was about to walk right in past all his defenses and take that happiness away.
However, she had to do it, and she had to do it now. The longer she put it off, the harder it would be for both of them.
The music greeted her loud as usual as she walked into the workshop. Tony was working on some blueprints this time, his eyes focused on the intricate lines of blue light, and for a moment Pepper almost stopped short at the sight of just how beautiful he was. She steeled herself, then, walking closer. She had to do this now, as soon as possible, before either of them got too invested in all this.
Too invested. Which was exactly the problem, wasn't it.
"Pepper!" Tony's eyes lit up as he looked her, a wave of his hand turning the music down to less deafening levels, and she found herself smiling in return. "To what do I owe this visit?"
"I… there's something I need to discuss with you."
She half expected Tony to bolt at that, but instead, he just grinned. "That's great, because I've got a lot of things to say to you, too." As though Tony was ever quiet. "See, I'm finally done with the plans for Bruce's quarters, with some input from the good man himself of course, and the building team's actually already started. So next I was looking at Cap's room, need to hunt him down of course but I know he'll show up eventually, and I thought you'd give me some input on it. I mean, you've already given me some great ideas, and —"
"Tony," she said, trying to cut in, but then Tony was almost impossible to interrupt once he got going.
"You really need to help me with Natasha, or Natalie, whatever, you obviously know her better than me, I'm not just saying that because you're both women by the way because that would be sexist, but she did work for you so you must know something about her, and I'd really appreciate any extra tips you could give me because I'd also appreciate not getting stabbed with stilettos —" His eyes had shifted back to the blueprints, hands waving in an animated manner, zooming this and shifting that, and Pepper wasn't sure she had ever seen something quite as enthralling.
"Tony, I'm breaking up with you."
"— and then — what?" Tony finally looked up at her, his eyes wide with shock and a little bit of hurt. "What did you just say?"
She drew a deep breath, and somehow it was even harder to say the second time. She'd have thought it'd be the other way around, that it'd be easier once she'd got the bomb out of the way, but really it took all her strength to get the words out again. "I'm breaking up with you."
"But… why?" Still shocked and hurt, in a way she hadn't seen him in ages, had never wanted to see him, certainly not because of her. But this was for the best. "I've been on my best behavior and everything. I know I have. Jarvis has been making a spreadsheet, I can totally scientifically prove that I've been all responsible and loving boyfriend and shit."
"It's not anything you've done, Tony." She sighed. "And it's not even anything you haven't done, really, though I'd be lying if I claimed I haven't felt somewhat neglected lately with all your planning and rebuilding. It's me. I just can't — I can't take this."
"Can't take what?" The blueprints vanished without a word or a gesture, leaving just him and her and the blue glow of the reactor through his tank top. Pepper swallowed as her eyes caught it, looking back up to Tony's face, forcing herself to meet his gaze.
"I can't take being the second best thing in your heart." She shook her head as he opened his mouth, lifting a hand to silence him. "No, don't say it. Yes, I know I'm your number one woman, I know you've been so thoroughly faithful it's practically indecent for someone like you, I know all that. But that doesn't change the fact that there is something you love more than me."
"Never." He rounded the table surprisingly fast, hands grasping her shoulders, the calloused grip gentle as he looked at her with earnest eyes. "You are everything to me, Pepper. Anything in the world you wish is yours. I'll bring the moon down for you if you wish and not let anything stand in my way." The sad thing was, he probably would find a way to do just that if he had to.
"And if I told you to quit being Iron Man?"
His mouth opened again, but no sound came out. All he could do was stare at her.
"I won't," she continued, her tone quiet. "I never could. Because that would be tearing your heart out, and I could never do that to you."
"You're the one I love." She wasn't sure she'd ever heard him sound so sincere, so genuine. "If that's what it takes to make you happy, I'll do it. I'll quit."
"It'd tear you apart, though. You'd do it, because I know you and I love you and you're an idiot like that, and it'd kill you even more surely than the palladium was trying to." She lifted a hand to touch the side of his face. "You're a hero, Tony. You're supposed to be one. I'm pretty sure you've always been one, it just took you a little while to realize it."
"So what's the problem?" Tony stared at her as though hoping to glean the answer from her through sheer intensity alone. "If you don't want me to quit being Iron Man, why would you…" He trailed off, and Pepper wondered how many times she'd seen Tony Stark be unable to say something before. It wasn't a very big number.
"Because I can't take it." Her voice dropped. "I can't stand watching the TV and seeing you almost get torn apart, can't stand sitting at home like a little housewife and wondering if you'll be back or if I should be worrying about getting a black dress for your funeral. If there's going to be enough left to even bury." She shook her head. "Maybe some people can do that, God knows I thought I could, I wouldn't have let this go on so long if I hadn't thought that." Hurting Tony was never something she wanted to do. "But actually being there, watching you fight and risk yourself a hundred times… I'm not that strong, Tony. It was hard enough doing that as your assistant, as your friend. I can't do it as your partner."
"I'll always come back." He had to be desperate if he was promising things that he could offer no factual evidence for. "I promise, Pepper. No matter what, I'll always come back to you."
"Tony, I wish I could believe that." She gave him a smile, but it was a small, almost scared one. "But I know you and just how big your heart is, for all that you try to convince yourself you never had one to begin with. Whatever you may say, you'll always be risking yourself to save everyone else, because that's what you do. And I'm proud of you for that, and I love you for that, but I can't keep making that same sacrifice over and over again."
"I wouldn't do that to you." His voice was little more than a whisper. "Pepper, don't. Please don't. I can't do this without you."
"I'm not going to vanish from your life, Tony." As though she ever could. "I'll still be bugging you about the company, and reminding you to sleep and eat, and rushing in to get you out of whatever mess you manage to get yourself into. I just can't handle being in a relationship with you while you risk your life on a regular basis, and I can't in good conscience ask you to stop doing that, because then you wouldn't be the man I love."
"So, what? You love me too much to love me?"
"Basically? Yes, that's it." However ridiculous it sounded. "Tony, this isn't easy for me, either, and I'm not going to pretend I can just forget all about this just like that. But I think in the long run, it will be better for both of us. Less painful."
"How can anything be made less painful by taking away the one good thing in my life?"
She hid a wince. His voice was so sincere, she had to keep reminding herself that this was truly for the best. "Except I'm not the only good thing in it anymore, Tony," she whispered. "You have other people you can rely on, now. You have your suits and your plans, you have Bruce to work with you, you have a whole new world that is making you so very happy. And I'm glad to see you have all that, I really am. I just… need some distance from that." Distance from the worst case scenario. "Distance I can't have if we're dating."
"I never wanted to hurt you." Again a whisper. "Please, don't do this to me."
"I know I'm selfish." She swallowed. "I'm selfish and weak and all those bad things, resenting you for being a hero and saving lives. However, even though you're obviously ready to make sacrifices, I'm not. So we should go back to what we were before. It's going to hurt, I know, it's already hurting me, but we'll both get better over time and maybe you'll find someone who is strong enough, someone who is fine with not even getting a call before you rush right to your death because who needs that when she can watch you die on live TV."
Tony didn't say anything, just looked at her with wide, broken eyes, and that was more painful than any words could be.
"I'm sorry." She turned around, unable to face him any longer. "I'm so sorry I let this go on so long."
There was still nothing, and she started walking off, unable to handle this any longer. Just before she reached the door, though, she heard Tony's voice behind her, quiet but audible, and she realized that at some point Jarvis had cut off the music entirely. "I did try to call."
"What?" She froze, her hand halfway to the access pad.
"I did try to call," Tony repeated. "During the battle, when I thought I wasn't coming back. Thought the least I could do was tell you I loved you. That if I was about to have my last words, they could just as well be to you." He paused, and the silence settled upon her, heavy and suffocating. "You didn't pick it up."
And then the door opened, she'd never even punched in a code because apparently Jarvis was just that smart, and she hurried out of the workshop without a single glance behind, because she was sure if she did that she would break down.
This was for the best. This had to be.
*
Tony's heart broke into a million shiny little pieces on the workshop floor as he watched Pepper walk out, he was sure he could hear it shatter, so sure that he actually had to look down and check his chest was still as intact as it ever was. There was no sign of an escape by any internal organ, though, and his arc reactor was still shining brightly as usual, firmly lodged in its spot in the middle of his chest. Its quiet hum vibrated through his chest, demanding his attention, wanting him back in reality.
Reality, Tony decided, was overrated. Reality was where he was staring at the closed door after her, with no shattered heart at his feet, and really that was just wrong, if he was going to get dumped like that the least she could have done was give him some physical evidence that it had happened, that it mattered. Instead she had walked out like all she had done was talk, like she had just said words and those words meant things but not too big things oh no, like she hadn't just taken his life apart and deleted the blueprints and left him with no way to put it back together.
Oh yeah, broken heart on the floor was the least he deserved.
"Jarvis?" he asked, trying to tear his eyes from the door and failing once again. "Jarvis, did Pepper just break up with me?"
"I'm afraid so, sir," his AI answered, its voice gentle and almost careful, and for once he very nearly wished he hadn't programmed him with quite as much personality.
"Right." He drew a deep breath, and then another, mostly just wanting to prove to himself that he could, that he was indeed still alive no thanks to Pepper and nothing was going to keep him down for long. Even if he had just lost the most perfect wonderful miraculous thing in his life even after all the effort he'd made not to screw this one thing up, this one thing that mattered and made everything just that one bit brighter.
Of course, the next breath turned into a sob, but he supposed that could be excused under the circumstances.
Tony generally didn't drink in the workshop; when he was there, he had better things to do than self-medicating through the wonders of alcohol. However, there were times when the mood struck him while tinkering, and for any such times he had a well-stocked cabinet with all his favorite things tucked away under one of his side counters. Fighting against the urge to break down and wail like a baby, he made his way there and took out a bottle of very good scotch, one he'd started earlier and was now pretty much determined to finish. He looked around for a glass, just for a moment, before deciding against it and flopping down on the floor in front of the cabinet.
That was where Bruce found him, hours later, peering into an empty bottle as though hoping it would impart upon him some unearthly wisdom about the hearts of people. Or possibly a drop more scotch. Hey, he was too drunk to be picky.
"Tony?" he asked, and Tony turned to look at him.
"Pepper lef' me," he confided. "Said she couldn' do it." But that was ridiculous. Pepper could do absolutely anything, Tony knew that. She was amazing that way, always had been.
"I know." Bruce's voice was soft. "Jarvis told me." Of course. Jarvis was a traitor like that, sometimes.
"I was tryin'." And the sad part was, he really was. He'd been on his best behavior for ages. Sure, he hadn't been the perfect boyfriend, he was pretty sure doing that would have cracked his genetic code or something, but he had tried. He'd been caring, and faithful, and romantic, and did he mention faithful? But it hadn't been enough. "Tryin' my hardest."
"I know you were, Tony." Bruce's hands reached down, and after a moment's thought, Tony grasped them. "It's not your fault." Huh. And here he'd been thinking Bruce was smart.
"Never doin' this again," he slurred as Bruce helped him to his feet. "No' ever. I don' care who comes up, 'm never doin' it."
"Doing what?" Bruce asked, even as he very neatly helped Tony navigate the treacherous terrain of his own workshop. "Getting drunk in your workshop?"
"Nah," Tony replied, because of course he'd be doing that again, why'd Bruce think he had a liquor cabinet there anyway. "Fallin' in love. Never doin' that again."
"Right." Bruce's arm was around him, warm and solid, and much though Tony hated to admit it he probably would have collapsed without it. "I'm sure you won't."
"I mean it," he announced, infinitely grateful that there was no actual threshold at the door for him to stumble over and then doing it anyway. "Remind me, Bruce. Don' let me do it. 'S just pain in the end."
"Well," Bruce said, his tone calm, where the fuck did he get off being sober anyway, "some people do believe it's worth it."
"Then they're idiots." Tony huffed. "Ideez, all o' them. 'M never doin' it, no way, no how."
"Things will look better in the morning," Bruce said because he was Bruce, and for all his bad experiences he could be disgustingly optimistic sometimes. "You'll get back to your feet, you'll see."
"Dun' wanna." He didn't want to do anything at the moment; if it hadn't been for Bruce's quite insistent arm around his shoulders he probably would have just collapsed to the floor right then and there and curled up to sleep in the middle of the hallway. "Wan' Pepper."
Bruce didn't say anything to that, just helped him the rest of the way to his bedroom.
As he collapsed on his bed, still in his workshop clothes, Tony drunkenly swore to himself he would never, ever, love another human being again. Bruce murmured something that Tony suspected was just humoring him and pried off his shoes.
Sleep claimed him halfway through the second amendment on the possibility of purely platonic love toward science bros who hauled his drunken ass to bed.
*
He shouldn't have been awake.
He wasn't sure exactly why he knew this, wasn't sure why it was so bad and wrong for him to be awake, wasn't even sure if he was supposed to be asleep or something else instead. It was hard to think, impossible almost, his head full of conflicting images and thoughts and voices that didn't make any sense, everything flashing about with no connection or logic to it.
For a moment he tried to move, to reach out to make some sense of the world, but nothing seemed to work. He couldn't feel his body, not in a way that made any sense at least, and nothing was responding. He might have panicked at that except that would have required his mind to work faster, when at the moment all he could manage was a slow, sluggish crawl through disjointed thoughts with little clarity. There just wasn't enough energy to spare for panic.
He needed to move, though, needed to make sense of something, because there were things he had to do, had to find out. Another image flashed before him, grainy as though from a security feed, an image of blue eyes staring without awareness, and somehow that caused a flash of pain to run through him. There was always pain, all the time, but it wasn't usually this sharp, the usual ache too dull to break through the background noise.
He wanted to curl up in on himself, but couldn't move, couldn't control himself. The pain lingered, but with it came some clarity, some understanding of what he should have been doing, so he welcomed it. His mind clung to that one image, knowing its importance though not the reasons behind it, unwilling to let go.
He dragged the image, and the pain with it, back to the darkness that swallowed him, desperate to hold onto that one remaining link.