Collapse: 3/?
Title: Collapse
Author: backporchpoet
Pairing: Pepper/Tony
Rating: PG-13 just to be safe.
Length: 2,414 words - Part III in a series. (You can find Part I and Part II here.)
Summary: AU. Tony quite literally drags Pepper along for the Jericho demonstration in Afghanistan. For Pepper, things just keep getting worse.
Note: Not beta'd. Still looking for one. I know, I know. Volunteers welcome. All errors are my own. Catch one? Let me know. Also, I apologize for the delay. I was on holiday, and was greeted by being swamped at work. No further interruptions I hope.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not own the rights to Iron Man or any of it's characters. A girl can dream though, right?
Trailing behind Tony, Pepper stumbles at the force of his arm tugging her down, dust stinging her eyes as they narrowly miss another explosion. Desperately blinking her irritated eyes she tries to regain some of her vision, and it takes a moment before she realizes that it isn’t her vision that’s impaired. There’s a thick screen of dust clouding the air which currently curtains the area nicely, making it impossible to see more than several feet in front of them on any side.
Tony lets go of Peppers hand and starts to dig through his pockets. Upon obtaining her hand once more, she attempts to right herself, lifting her shoulder off of Tony, her elbow pushing her body off of the ground. The weight of her body shifts to her legs and she winces immediately, an unexpected pain shooting up her right leg, the sensation born from the very base of her ankle. Wincing soundlessly, Pepper coughs regretfully after sucking in a deep breath, sputtering a little while her eyes water at the corners of her mouth, carefully manicured fingers clenching her ankle tightly. It doesn’t really help with the throbbing sensation underneath her hand but she pretends it does as she watches Tony out of the corner of her eye.
He’s looking around, seemingly planning their next jaunt through this makeshift war zone, palming his breast pocket with annoyance.
Blue eyes staring at her ankle with interest, Pepper notes to herself that this is an easy thing to figure out. The mystery of the swollen ankle is not quite as tumultuous as it might seem. Somewhere between the humvee and their current place behind a particularly large boulder, Pepper sprained her ankle.
While she had been running, heels sinking into loose ground, there wasn’t a reason to notice the way her ankle gave out completely, twisting unnaturally to the side and causing her whole body to collide with Tony’s shoulder as they ran. The only thing that had been important enough to notice in that span of time that seemed like seconds but was so much longer was the way Tony’s body weaved between rocks and ducked through gunfire, zigzagging erratically. His thick fingers pressed against the inside of her wrist and the explosions rocking through her body had been ample distraction- equal parts soothing and mind-numbing enough that she’d made it to where they currently stood, crouched down low.
Sitting there, her ears becoming more used to the sound of gunfire, and the rumble of explosions permeating from the ground and up her spine, she felt a little more like Pepper, and less like the victim in a strange situation.
Of course it had crossed her mind that she shouldn’t have been there at all. The truth of the matter was staggering, but Pepper didn’t feel like playing the victim while they both risked life and limb. She was there to do her job, and Tony hadn’t done anything wrong by bringing her there. He couldn’t have possibly known this was going to happen.
Nothing could have predicted this.
The dust has begun to settle and the hot air burns her lungs but at least it’s clearer and does the job without making her feel like she’s trying to gulp down sandpaper. When she looks up, it startles her to find him with his phone in his hands and his eyes looking at her ankle.
“We should keep moving,” Pepper interjects before he can say anything, and Tony presses his lips together and looks like he wants to say something.
He doesn’t.
For the first time since she was dragged out of the humvee, Pepper scans the surrounding area and tries to figure out where it is exactly that Tony has navigated them to. Over Pepper’s right shoulder are billowing clouds of black smoke, coming from a fire that is consuming the remains of the first explosion- the humvee that had been driving in front of them, is actually accompanied by the truck they’d been riding in. It resembles a can crushed between someone’s fingers more than it looks like a vehicle of any kind.
That’s when it clicks. It makes sense now as to why Tony's been so quick to get them out as soon as possible even though they’d been told to stay put. His mind had probably deducted that they were going to be picked off one by one. The force of the blast that had thrown her forward and onto her ankle had probably been their humvee flipping several times in the air before landing in a heap, fire enveloping it and black clouds billowing overhead.
Rhodey was riding behind them, but she can’t be sure how many cars had been distanced between them as the convoy barreled through the desert. The vehicles all seem to be abandoned now, holes shot through them and metal bent in unnatural shapes.
There had been a small part of her that had hoped to see Rhodey emerge from the distance victoriously with a rifle in hand, but she realizes that there is no way for him to find them now. Assuming Rhodey had gone to search for them, he’d find their humvee consumed by flames, assuming the worst and hoping for the best.
It was then that Pepper realized that they were alone.
Tony must have noticed it too because he’d thrown his phone against the ground in frustration. Likely he’d attempted to phone for help, maybe calling Jim Rhodes, or anyone before realizing that there wasn’t a phone number in the world that he could dial to have helicopters magically appear to shuttle them out of there. He looks at her as if he’s just heard her interjection, nodding along, muttering something about not staying in one place too long before hauling himself to his feet. Crouching low, Tony shuffles forward ten feet or so before a line of fire kicks up a patch of sand he was about to step on and Pepper lets out a panicked scream.
Shuffling to the right, Tony swerves around another round of shots, only this time they seem to be trailing his movements, hitting the ground he steps over moments after he’s left it. Pepper gets the sinking feeling they’re after Tony, and she’s sure he’s realized it too, sure that his leaping out into the open was to test that theory, and Pepper would love to strangle him just then but decides not to.
What triggers her next rush of adrenaline is Tony missing a mine by about six feet. Something triggers it, probably a shower of bullets, and he’s thrown off balance, skittering a few feet sideways.
It’s a blur again, just as it had been when they’d first began running, but she clamors to her feet and chases after him, the urgency hitting her suddenly and she leans all of her weight against him, essentially body-checking Tony and sending them both toppling to the ground. She notices for the first time how covered in dirt they are but doesn’t care as she looks at Tony lividly, pinned underneath her elbow, the sharp angle of it jabbing into his forearm. He winces as if she were stabbing him with a knife.
“What the hell was that?”
She looks furious, not panicked. “You can’t just, just b-line head first into gunfire. What the hell is the matter with you?”
Tony blinks at her and she realizes he doesn’t have a real answer to that. He tugs at the knot in his tie and yanks it off of his neck, avoiding her incredulous eyes as he wraps the designer silk tightly around her ankle. If he knows he’s bleeding he is eerily calm about it, the gash on his cheek trailing fresh blood down towards his jaw, the wound still seconds fresh.
He ties a perfect knot and she watches his hands as he does it, wondering how amiss this complete and utter chaos Tony can manage to gift her this tiny gesture that is so out-of-this-world that it’s normal. “You are aware we have better odds of surviving if we split up, right?”
Don’t give me that bullshit. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.
That’s what she wants to tell him but instead she simply runs a few fingers over the dark silk and looks him in the face. “I don’t care, Tony.”
She presses the cuff of her shirt against his face to soak up the blood and the deep crimson sticks to her wrist. Now is really not the time to be concerned with stains on expensive silk. That and Pepper doesn’t even remember liking the shirt all that much anyway.
There’s a moment where their eyes lock and Tony almost smiles. His lips never actually upturn but his eyes soften a little and he licks his lips before nodding over behind him. “Come on, then.”
They’ve lasted longer than she thought they would. Pepper is sure she’d have been picked off yards ago, and if they’ve lasted this long it’s because she’s with Tony. She’ll be damned if he brushes her off in a desert after six years of her on his ass. She’s never been that easy to shake and it’s going to take more than flesh wounds and friendly fire to get her gone for good.
There’s a fleeting moment as they both crouch down low with their hands pressed into the hot dirt beneath them, eyes staring across the clearing that lies ahead, where Pepper thinks that they might actually make it. It overtakes her for a second, a false rush of hope pouring up from the center of her chest and through her whole body right down to her fingers and straight through the earth and she’s sure of it.
Inside her mind Pepper can visualize their return to Malibu the impassive tone of Jarvis’s voice in her ears once they step foot into the mansion. She can imagine them sitting against the plush fabric of Tony’s couch and can hear the way he’s retelling the story to Rhodey-busting his balls for not being there to witness Tony Stark in rare form, glorifying every moment with an expert tongue. Laughter echoes in her ears, the three of them there and the only other sound is the occasional clink of ice against Tony’s glass. It feels nice, the way Rhodey glares at Tony but laughs it off, and the way Tony smiles sideways at Pepper- just long enough to make the back of her neck feel warm. The way the three of them are so inexplicably bound together that it feels like family, and it surprises her that she realizes this now in the middle of nowhere.
Surprising because she wasn’t sure she remembered what family felt like.
These things are as real to her then as the Armani tie around her ankle, the scrapes on her knees, the taste of destruction that is stuck to the roof of her mouth and the back of her throat, and Tony’s hand suddenly on her shoulder.
“It’s too dangerous for you to hobble across that much ground with no cover- and don’t try to argue with me about it, you know I’m right.”
Pepper looks at him like he’s speaking Latin.
“Just stay here.” His hand squeezes her shoulder firmly, and the sensation takes a second to register with her brain. “We’re practically at the end of the convoy, and it’s stupid to have you do something risky when there might not be a reason for you to.”
The implication here is that there will be nothing on the other side of the billowing smoke. The implication is that Tony and Pepper have a pretty high chance of being on their own. She’s not sure why she hasn’t really grasped the ramifications before that instant.
It’s probably the same reason that she hasn’t noticed that besides dodging rocks, they’d also been avoiding dead bodies.
“So it’s okay if you do something risky and incredibly stupid, why?”
“Because both my legs work,” he counters. “And I always do incredibly stupid things.”
There’s nothing she can counter that with and Tony knows it. She can tell by the way he’s almost smirking.
“I’ll be right back.”
He becomes a blur, a dark trail over toast colored dirt that zips to and fro, feet shuffling, kicking up a hell of a lot of dust behind him, making it impossible to see him as anything besides a silhouette. He crouches down on his haunches and the smoke settles enough that she can make out the side of his face and what looks like blood trickling down across his temple. It’s a wonder she didn’t see it before but she worries that it might be deep, wonders if he got it just a moment ago.
It’s only yards away but for Pepper it might as well be miles and oceans apart. Watching him only makes her want to stand up and close the distance between them but her feet listen to his command to stay, unsure what it was he was protecting her from when all she can see for miles is death and destruction. He must be humoring her with the notion that behind this rock, crouched down low, is safey. The only safe place, apparently. Safe enough for Tony to leave her as he scans the scene for their next movement, like pieces on a chessboard.
Glancing down she frowns at her ankle. Pepper is about to take off her shoes, something she should have done ages ago, but has only kept them on because she can feel the heat radiating off the ground through the soles of her Lououtins. Pulling her blue eyes back to focus on Tony, she’s just in time to watch as an explosion knocked him off his feet, the flames extending outwards in all directions. It happens too fast for Pepper to see where Tony lands, just a glimpse of his entire body being launched from his position backwards somewhere off to the left.
The last thing Pepper does is scream his name over the noise as the blast propels her back against the very rock she’d been using to shield herself, her head colliding against it with a thudding sound that she can feel shake through her entire body as she feels herself bouncing from the rock before landing against the ground, something warm and wet sliding down the back of her neck.
Part II | TBC
Author: backporchpoet
Pairing: Pepper/Tony
Rating: PG-13 just to be safe.
Length: 2,414 words - Part III in a series. (You can find Part I and Part II here.)
Summary: AU. Tony quite literally drags Pepper along for the Jericho demonstration in Afghanistan. For Pepper, things just keep getting worse.
Note: Not beta'd. Still looking for one. I know, I know. Volunteers welcome. All errors are my own. Catch one? Let me know. Also, I apologize for the delay. I was on holiday, and was greeted by being swamped at work. No further interruptions I hope.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not own the rights to Iron Man or any of it's characters. A girl can dream though, right?
Trailing behind Tony, Pepper stumbles at the force of his arm tugging her down, dust stinging her eyes as they narrowly miss another explosion. Desperately blinking her irritated eyes she tries to regain some of her vision, and it takes a moment before she realizes that it isn’t her vision that’s impaired. There’s a thick screen of dust clouding the air which currently curtains the area nicely, making it impossible to see more than several feet in front of them on any side.
Tony lets go of Peppers hand and starts to dig through his pockets. Upon obtaining her hand once more, she attempts to right herself, lifting her shoulder off of Tony, her elbow pushing her body off of the ground. The weight of her body shifts to her legs and she winces immediately, an unexpected pain shooting up her right leg, the sensation born from the very base of her ankle. Wincing soundlessly, Pepper coughs regretfully after sucking in a deep breath, sputtering a little while her eyes water at the corners of her mouth, carefully manicured fingers clenching her ankle tightly. It doesn’t really help with the throbbing sensation underneath her hand but she pretends it does as she watches Tony out of the corner of her eye.
He’s looking around, seemingly planning their next jaunt through this makeshift war zone, palming his breast pocket with annoyance.
Blue eyes staring at her ankle with interest, Pepper notes to herself that this is an easy thing to figure out. The mystery of the swollen ankle is not quite as tumultuous as it might seem. Somewhere between the humvee and their current place behind a particularly large boulder, Pepper sprained her ankle.
While she had been running, heels sinking into loose ground, there wasn’t a reason to notice the way her ankle gave out completely, twisting unnaturally to the side and causing her whole body to collide with Tony’s shoulder as they ran. The only thing that had been important enough to notice in that span of time that seemed like seconds but was so much longer was the way Tony’s body weaved between rocks and ducked through gunfire, zigzagging erratically. His thick fingers pressed against the inside of her wrist and the explosions rocking through her body had been ample distraction- equal parts soothing and mind-numbing enough that she’d made it to where they currently stood, crouched down low.
Sitting there, her ears becoming more used to the sound of gunfire, and the rumble of explosions permeating from the ground and up her spine, she felt a little more like Pepper, and less like the victim in a strange situation.
Of course it had crossed her mind that she shouldn’t have been there at all. The truth of the matter was staggering, but Pepper didn’t feel like playing the victim while they both risked life and limb. She was there to do her job, and Tony hadn’t done anything wrong by bringing her there. He couldn’t have possibly known this was going to happen.
Nothing could have predicted this.
The dust has begun to settle and the hot air burns her lungs but at least it’s clearer and does the job without making her feel like she’s trying to gulp down sandpaper. When she looks up, it startles her to find him with his phone in his hands and his eyes looking at her ankle.
“We should keep moving,” Pepper interjects before he can say anything, and Tony presses his lips together and looks like he wants to say something.
He doesn’t.
For the first time since she was dragged out of the humvee, Pepper scans the surrounding area and tries to figure out where it is exactly that Tony has navigated them to. Over Pepper’s right shoulder are billowing clouds of black smoke, coming from a fire that is consuming the remains of the first explosion- the humvee that had been driving in front of them, is actually accompanied by the truck they’d been riding in. It resembles a can crushed between someone’s fingers more than it looks like a vehicle of any kind.
That’s when it clicks. It makes sense now as to why Tony's been so quick to get them out as soon as possible even though they’d been told to stay put. His mind had probably deducted that they were going to be picked off one by one. The force of the blast that had thrown her forward and onto her ankle had probably been their humvee flipping several times in the air before landing in a heap, fire enveloping it and black clouds billowing overhead.
Rhodey was riding behind them, but she can’t be sure how many cars had been distanced between them as the convoy barreled through the desert. The vehicles all seem to be abandoned now, holes shot through them and metal bent in unnatural shapes.
There had been a small part of her that had hoped to see Rhodey emerge from the distance victoriously with a rifle in hand, but she realizes that there is no way for him to find them now. Assuming Rhodey had gone to search for them, he’d find their humvee consumed by flames, assuming the worst and hoping for the best.
It was then that Pepper realized that they were alone.
Tony must have noticed it too because he’d thrown his phone against the ground in frustration. Likely he’d attempted to phone for help, maybe calling Jim Rhodes, or anyone before realizing that there wasn’t a phone number in the world that he could dial to have helicopters magically appear to shuttle them out of there. He looks at her as if he’s just heard her interjection, nodding along, muttering something about not staying in one place too long before hauling himself to his feet. Crouching low, Tony shuffles forward ten feet or so before a line of fire kicks up a patch of sand he was about to step on and Pepper lets out a panicked scream.
Shuffling to the right, Tony swerves around another round of shots, only this time they seem to be trailing his movements, hitting the ground he steps over moments after he’s left it. Pepper gets the sinking feeling they’re after Tony, and she’s sure he’s realized it too, sure that his leaping out into the open was to test that theory, and Pepper would love to strangle him just then but decides not to.
What triggers her next rush of adrenaline is Tony missing a mine by about six feet. Something triggers it, probably a shower of bullets, and he’s thrown off balance, skittering a few feet sideways.
It’s a blur again, just as it had been when they’d first began running, but she clamors to her feet and chases after him, the urgency hitting her suddenly and she leans all of her weight against him, essentially body-checking Tony and sending them both toppling to the ground. She notices for the first time how covered in dirt they are but doesn’t care as she looks at Tony lividly, pinned underneath her elbow, the sharp angle of it jabbing into his forearm. He winces as if she were stabbing him with a knife.
“What the hell was that?”
She looks furious, not panicked. “You can’t just, just b-line head first into gunfire. What the hell is the matter with you?”
Tony blinks at her and she realizes he doesn’t have a real answer to that. He tugs at the knot in his tie and yanks it off of his neck, avoiding her incredulous eyes as he wraps the designer silk tightly around her ankle. If he knows he’s bleeding he is eerily calm about it, the gash on his cheek trailing fresh blood down towards his jaw, the wound still seconds fresh.
He ties a perfect knot and she watches his hands as he does it, wondering how amiss this complete and utter chaos Tony can manage to gift her this tiny gesture that is so out-of-this-world that it’s normal. “You are aware we have better odds of surviving if we split up, right?”
Don’t give me that bullshit. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.
That’s what she wants to tell him but instead she simply runs a few fingers over the dark silk and looks him in the face. “I don’t care, Tony.”
She presses the cuff of her shirt against his face to soak up the blood and the deep crimson sticks to her wrist. Now is really not the time to be concerned with stains on expensive silk. That and Pepper doesn’t even remember liking the shirt all that much anyway.
There’s a moment where their eyes lock and Tony almost smiles. His lips never actually upturn but his eyes soften a little and he licks his lips before nodding over behind him. “Come on, then.”
They’ve lasted longer than she thought they would. Pepper is sure she’d have been picked off yards ago, and if they’ve lasted this long it’s because she’s with Tony. She’ll be damned if he brushes her off in a desert after six years of her on his ass. She’s never been that easy to shake and it’s going to take more than flesh wounds and friendly fire to get her gone for good.
There’s a fleeting moment as they both crouch down low with their hands pressed into the hot dirt beneath them, eyes staring across the clearing that lies ahead, where Pepper thinks that they might actually make it. It overtakes her for a second, a false rush of hope pouring up from the center of her chest and through her whole body right down to her fingers and straight through the earth and she’s sure of it.
Inside her mind Pepper can visualize their return to Malibu the impassive tone of Jarvis’s voice in her ears once they step foot into the mansion. She can imagine them sitting against the plush fabric of Tony’s couch and can hear the way he’s retelling the story to Rhodey-busting his balls for not being there to witness Tony Stark in rare form, glorifying every moment with an expert tongue. Laughter echoes in her ears, the three of them there and the only other sound is the occasional clink of ice against Tony’s glass. It feels nice, the way Rhodey glares at Tony but laughs it off, and the way Tony smiles sideways at Pepper- just long enough to make the back of her neck feel warm. The way the three of them are so inexplicably bound together that it feels like family, and it surprises her that she realizes this now in the middle of nowhere.
Surprising because she wasn’t sure she remembered what family felt like.
These things are as real to her then as the Armani tie around her ankle, the scrapes on her knees, the taste of destruction that is stuck to the roof of her mouth and the back of her throat, and Tony’s hand suddenly on her shoulder.
“It’s too dangerous for you to hobble across that much ground with no cover- and don’t try to argue with me about it, you know I’m right.”
Pepper looks at him like he’s speaking Latin.
“Just stay here.” His hand squeezes her shoulder firmly, and the sensation takes a second to register with her brain. “We’re practically at the end of the convoy, and it’s stupid to have you do something risky when there might not be a reason for you to.”
The implication here is that there will be nothing on the other side of the billowing smoke. The implication is that Tony and Pepper have a pretty high chance of being on their own. She’s not sure why she hasn’t really grasped the ramifications before that instant.
It’s probably the same reason that she hasn’t noticed that besides dodging rocks, they’d also been avoiding dead bodies.
“So it’s okay if you do something risky and incredibly stupid, why?”
“Because both my legs work,” he counters. “And I always do incredibly stupid things.”
There’s nothing she can counter that with and Tony knows it. She can tell by the way he’s almost smirking.
“I’ll be right back.”
He becomes a blur, a dark trail over toast colored dirt that zips to and fro, feet shuffling, kicking up a hell of a lot of dust behind him, making it impossible to see him as anything besides a silhouette. He crouches down on his haunches and the smoke settles enough that she can make out the side of his face and what looks like blood trickling down across his temple. It’s a wonder she didn’t see it before but she worries that it might be deep, wonders if he got it just a moment ago.
It’s only yards away but for Pepper it might as well be miles and oceans apart. Watching him only makes her want to stand up and close the distance between them but her feet listen to his command to stay, unsure what it was he was protecting her from when all she can see for miles is death and destruction. He must be humoring her with the notion that behind this rock, crouched down low, is safey. The only safe place, apparently. Safe enough for Tony to leave her as he scans the scene for their next movement, like pieces on a chessboard.
Glancing down she frowns at her ankle. Pepper is about to take off her shoes, something she should have done ages ago, but has only kept them on because she can feel the heat radiating off the ground through the soles of her Lououtins. Pulling her blue eyes back to focus on Tony, she’s just in time to watch as an explosion knocked him off his feet, the flames extending outwards in all directions. It happens too fast for Pepper to see where Tony lands, just a glimpse of his entire body being launched from his position backwards somewhere off to the left.
The last thing Pepper does is scream his name over the noise as the blast propels her back against the very rock she’d been using to shield herself, her head colliding against it with a thudding sound that she can feel shake through her entire body as she feels herself bouncing from the rock before landing against the ground, something warm and wet sliding down the back of her neck.
Part II | TBC