Fic: Just To Know You're Alive
Title: Just To Know You're Alive
Author: kousuke_blade
Fandom: Iron Man
Characters: Tony, Pepper, bits of Rhodey and Stane
Summary: He’s alive for her and she’s alive for him and that’s the way it will always be.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own it. Would be terrified if I did.
Notes: Un-betaed so please forgive any mistakes. I realize the story is terribly angsty but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. I have another little one-shot planned that's much less angsty and rather cute.
When Rhodey calls, Pepper’s applying her make-up for the big night. At the abrupt and obnoxiously loud interruption, a trail of pink lipstick marks itself on her chin. She lets out a frustrated groan but doesn’t bother to fix it and instead shuffles out to her bedroom and hastily picks up the phone.
Rhodey doesn’t beat around the bush. Pepper tells him to slow down as she maneuvers herself back to the bathroom. As she picks up a cotton pad and moves to wipe away the lipstick, Rhodey finally begins speaking slowly, only to sound warbled once more and Pepper would come to realize only later that it was her mind playing tricks on her to drown out Rhodey’s words.
“Pepper!”
The strawberry blonde snaps out of the daze when she hears her named being exclaimed by Rhodey. “Y-Yes?” She had always been so good when keeping her tone void of emotion when need be. How had her walls crumbled so quickly?
“I’ll keep you updated.”
And with that, the conversation is over. But Pepper’s night is not over. She cancels her plans, making up excuses as to why and when she returns to the bathroom, she gasps at how ashen her face is even through the make-up. When she grasps the knob of the faucet, the shaking of her hand is steadied. She didn’t even realize she had been shaking. In a flurry of movement, she’s furiously scrubbing at her face, feeling as if she can erase enough, she can erase what happened.
The task is to no avail and when she looks up once more, a droplet of water trickling down the bridge of her nose, she realizes what she’s wearing. The cobalt blue fabric clings to her body in all the right places and the back dips precariously downwards. He would have liked it, she thinks to herself with a sigh.
Clad in her birthday gown, Pepper Potts, after learning her boss has been kidnapped, heads to the grocery store.
There’s no reason as to why and even as she grabs a new toothbrush (though she doesn’t need it) and tries to come up with a reason, she can’t. She gains odd looks, tromping around in the cereal aisle, and her gaze falls upon the dress that’s completely incongruous for the location. She brushes past the little boy and his mother without a second glace, though she can hear the worried whispers.
Her face is hollow and it vividly shows up when she grabs some cream cheese (though there are no bagels in the basket or at home) and her appearance is reflected in cold metal surface. She jumps at first, not recognizing the face, and soon she turns, disgusted.
“Miss? This is your Chevron card.”
Pepper’s not quite sure how she ended up at the cash register or why she handed the man the wrong card. She takes it back, fearful at first that its weight might bring her down because she feels no stronger than a piece of paper. She hands the young, acne-prone cashier the correct card and soon she is driving home. It’s dark out and she knows the sun should never rise again.
The bags are dumped unceremoniously onto her kitchen table and as she trudges back to her room, the kitchen light remains on. During her fall, her shin hits the frame of the bed and she does something very unlike her. She curses with a clear bitterness and it’s the first time since the news arrived that she’s shown emotion. She lays like a rag doll, broken and angled awkwardly. Within minutes, she’s asleep.
It’s at 2:43 AM that she wakes up to a damp pillow. Her dress is crumpled around her body, the hem riding up her thigh. She groggily glances to the clock and pulls herself off the bed. Still in her stilettos and messy hair-do, she swipes the keys off the dresser and leaves her house. Not home, she thinks to herself, just her house.
When she pulls into Tony’s driveway, her heart skips a beat for a moment. The light of his room is on and she can’t help but think that it’s all been a bad dream. Though she would deny it later, she ran frantically to the door and throughout the many hallways before flinging open the door of his room. Only to find it empty. The only thing she wonders is why Jarvis didn’t turn it off.
Her breathing is ragged and shallow and she turns off the light herself, enveloped in darkness. Despite herself and her common sense, she’s soon curled up in his bed, deeply inhaling the pillows that smell like grease and oranges. For the first time since she’s learned what has happened to Tony, she cries. She hugs the pillow to herself and sobs into it.
Four days and two hundred and thirty-three phone calls later, Pepper realizes why she went to the grocery store that night. It symbolized what she’d be doing for three months straight: everything. She never takes a break, busies herself with work, as if Tony had never been kidnapped. No one stops her because they never see her exterior crack. Keeping busy is what’s keeping her sane and no one wants to jeopardize that. Every phone call, canceling appointments, interviews, and meetings all turn into an array of condolences thrown her way. She says his name several times a day and she knows people wonder why she doesn’t cry every time.
An intern, not up to date on social policies, asks her why she doesn’t take a couple of days off. She leaves the break room without so much as a second glance.
If she doesn’t hear from Rhodey daily, she calls him, voice sturdy and bitter. He avoids her calls the first couple of times but after her sixth call, he realizes he can’t put anything off anymore. She hears honesty in his words but her heart nearly wishes he’d lie to her and tell her that Tony is on his way home.
Three months later, her hope that he’d lie turns into truth. Tony’s coming home and she realizes after several moments that he’s not lying just to spare her.
On the way to the airport, Pepper cries for the second time and finds herself extremely grateful to Happy for not saying anything and instead supplying her with endless tissues.
“Your eyes are red,” is the first thing he says to her and she nearly falls into his arms at hearing his voice again. “A few tears for your long-lost boss?”
“Tears of joy,” she replies a little too quickly. “I hate job hunting.” Neither of them expands on that. Pepper knows that Tony can tell she’s lying but it’s not explored. It never is and that’s the way it should be.
When he smirks at her, all she can think is that he’s alive.
-
“Too bad you had to get Pepper involved,” he hisses into Tony’s ear. “I would have preferred she lived.”
At the echoing footsteps, Tony flings himself off the couch with a single name repeating in his head: Pepper. She couldn’t be dead - he’d know it. He could pictures her mangled body in a heap on the floor, Stane standing victoriously over her. Tony’s blood boiled as he slammed into the elevator wall, the ding of the elevator doors closing resounding in his eardrums. He had to save her - he would not let her die. They had been through too much together and he wasn’t about to lose her now.
With every drag of his body against the cold concrete floor, he could hear another nail being hammered into her coffin. His eyes fall upon the arc reactor. There’s something morbidly ironic about him needing to use the arc reactor that he planned on throwing out. Pepper would save his life. But could he save hers?
His breaths become sporadic and raspy; he can feel his muscles tightening up. Every movement was agonizing and if eardrums could wince, they just did as the glass shattered against the floor. In rushed movements, the new arc reactor is once more halting the shrapnel from entering his heart. With that, he succumbs to darkness.
“She’s safe. She’s with five Feds and they’re going to arrest Stane.”
“That’s not going to be enough.” Relief washed over his body and his primary concern turned to the man he had once considered a father-figure. Yet a part of him-his heart?-couldn’t help but worry about Pepper still. If Stane had harmed a hair on her head, Tony wouldn’t be able to live with himself. After all, Stane was right. He had gotten Pepper involved so if she was in danger, he could only blame himself.
As he hurtles through the air, adrenaline coursing once more through his veins, he can only picture Pepper in his mind. Once he sees her, everything would be possible.
“Tony!”
Or hear her.
When her voice screeches in his helmet, voice full of fear, he pushes the suit to its limit of speed. “Duck!” He feels a tangle in his stomach form when she does just that without questioning it. When she does it with complete trust. He cannot let her down. And when he flies over her, eyes keeping on her trembling body for as long as possible, he knows this is for her.
Because she’s alive and he can’t allow that to change.
-
It’s when he makes her coffee instead of the other way around, and their fingers brush, each pulsating heat, as he hands her the mug, that they connect their gazes and can only think that they’re alive. He’s alive for her and she’s alive for him and that’s the way it will always be.
When he leaves the room, Pepper lets out the breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. Now, every moment he’s not in her sight, she’s terrified something will happen to him and it drives her insane.
Neither of them realizes that Tony feels the same.
Whoo. Hope you all enjoyed that. My first go at an Iron Man fic.
Author: kousuke_blade
Fandom: Iron Man
Characters: Tony, Pepper, bits of Rhodey and Stane
Summary: He’s alive for her and she’s alive for him and that’s the way it will always be.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don't own it. Would be terrified if I did.
Notes: Un-betaed so please forgive any mistakes. I realize the story is terribly angsty but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. I have another little one-shot planned that's much less angsty and rather cute.
When Rhodey calls, Pepper’s applying her make-up for the big night. At the abrupt and obnoxiously loud interruption, a trail of pink lipstick marks itself on her chin. She lets out a frustrated groan but doesn’t bother to fix it and instead shuffles out to her bedroom and hastily picks up the phone.
Rhodey doesn’t beat around the bush. Pepper tells him to slow down as she maneuvers herself back to the bathroom. As she picks up a cotton pad and moves to wipe away the lipstick, Rhodey finally begins speaking slowly, only to sound warbled once more and Pepper would come to realize only later that it was her mind playing tricks on her to drown out Rhodey’s words.
“Pepper!”
The strawberry blonde snaps out of the daze when she hears her named being exclaimed by Rhodey. “Y-Yes?” She had always been so good when keeping her tone void of emotion when need be. How had her walls crumbled so quickly?
“I’ll keep you updated.”
And with that, the conversation is over. But Pepper’s night is not over. She cancels her plans, making up excuses as to why and when she returns to the bathroom, she gasps at how ashen her face is even through the make-up. When she grasps the knob of the faucet, the shaking of her hand is steadied. She didn’t even realize she had been shaking. In a flurry of movement, she’s furiously scrubbing at her face, feeling as if she can erase enough, she can erase what happened.
The task is to no avail and when she looks up once more, a droplet of water trickling down the bridge of her nose, she realizes what she’s wearing. The cobalt blue fabric clings to her body in all the right places and the back dips precariously downwards. He would have liked it, she thinks to herself with a sigh.
Clad in her birthday gown, Pepper Potts, after learning her boss has been kidnapped, heads to the grocery store.
There’s no reason as to why and even as she grabs a new toothbrush (though she doesn’t need it) and tries to come up with a reason, she can’t. She gains odd looks, tromping around in the cereal aisle, and her gaze falls upon the dress that’s completely incongruous for the location. She brushes past the little boy and his mother without a second glace, though she can hear the worried whispers.
Her face is hollow and it vividly shows up when she grabs some cream cheese (though there are no bagels in the basket or at home) and her appearance is reflected in cold metal surface. She jumps at first, not recognizing the face, and soon she turns, disgusted.
“Miss? This is your Chevron card.”
Pepper’s not quite sure how she ended up at the cash register or why she handed the man the wrong card. She takes it back, fearful at first that its weight might bring her down because she feels no stronger than a piece of paper. She hands the young, acne-prone cashier the correct card and soon she is driving home. It’s dark out and she knows the sun should never rise again.
The bags are dumped unceremoniously onto her kitchen table and as she trudges back to her room, the kitchen light remains on. During her fall, her shin hits the frame of the bed and she does something very unlike her. She curses with a clear bitterness and it’s the first time since the news arrived that she’s shown emotion. She lays like a rag doll, broken and angled awkwardly. Within minutes, she’s asleep.
It’s at 2:43 AM that she wakes up to a damp pillow. Her dress is crumpled around her body, the hem riding up her thigh. She groggily glances to the clock and pulls herself off the bed. Still in her stilettos and messy hair-do, she swipes the keys off the dresser and leaves her house. Not home, she thinks to herself, just her house.
When she pulls into Tony’s driveway, her heart skips a beat for a moment. The light of his room is on and she can’t help but think that it’s all been a bad dream. Though she would deny it later, she ran frantically to the door and throughout the many hallways before flinging open the door of his room. Only to find it empty. The only thing she wonders is why Jarvis didn’t turn it off.
Her breathing is ragged and shallow and she turns off the light herself, enveloped in darkness. Despite herself and her common sense, she’s soon curled up in his bed, deeply inhaling the pillows that smell like grease and oranges. For the first time since she’s learned what has happened to Tony, she cries. She hugs the pillow to herself and sobs into it.
Four days and two hundred and thirty-three phone calls later, Pepper realizes why she went to the grocery store that night. It symbolized what she’d be doing for three months straight: everything. She never takes a break, busies herself with work, as if Tony had never been kidnapped. No one stops her because they never see her exterior crack. Keeping busy is what’s keeping her sane and no one wants to jeopardize that. Every phone call, canceling appointments, interviews, and meetings all turn into an array of condolences thrown her way. She says his name several times a day and she knows people wonder why she doesn’t cry every time.
An intern, not up to date on social policies, asks her why she doesn’t take a couple of days off. She leaves the break room without so much as a second glance.
If she doesn’t hear from Rhodey daily, she calls him, voice sturdy and bitter. He avoids her calls the first couple of times but after her sixth call, he realizes he can’t put anything off anymore. She hears honesty in his words but her heart nearly wishes he’d lie to her and tell her that Tony is on his way home.
Three months later, her hope that he’d lie turns into truth. Tony’s coming home and she realizes after several moments that he’s not lying just to spare her.
On the way to the airport, Pepper cries for the second time and finds herself extremely grateful to Happy for not saying anything and instead supplying her with endless tissues.
“Your eyes are red,” is the first thing he says to her and she nearly falls into his arms at hearing his voice again. “A few tears for your long-lost boss?”
“Tears of joy,” she replies a little too quickly. “I hate job hunting.” Neither of them expands on that. Pepper knows that Tony can tell she’s lying but it’s not explored. It never is and that’s the way it should be.
When he smirks at her, all she can think is that he’s alive.
-
“Too bad you had to get Pepper involved,” he hisses into Tony’s ear. “I would have preferred she lived.”
At the echoing footsteps, Tony flings himself off the couch with a single name repeating in his head: Pepper. She couldn’t be dead - he’d know it. He could pictures her mangled body in a heap on the floor, Stane standing victoriously over her. Tony’s blood boiled as he slammed into the elevator wall, the ding of the elevator doors closing resounding in his eardrums. He had to save her - he would not let her die. They had been through too much together and he wasn’t about to lose her now.
With every drag of his body against the cold concrete floor, he could hear another nail being hammered into her coffin. His eyes fall upon the arc reactor. There’s something morbidly ironic about him needing to use the arc reactor that he planned on throwing out. Pepper would save his life. But could he save hers?
His breaths become sporadic and raspy; he can feel his muscles tightening up. Every movement was agonizing and if eardrums could wince, they just did as the glass shattered against the floor. In rushed movements, the new arc reactor is once more halting the shrapnel from entering his heart. With that, he succumbs to darkness.
“She’s safe. She’s with five Feds and they’re going to arrest Stane.”
“That’s not going to be enough.” Relief washed over his body and his primary concern turned to the man he had once considered a father-figure. Yet a part of him-his heart?-couldn’t help but worry about Pepper still. If Stane had harmed a hair on her head, Tony wouldn’t be able to live with himself. After all, Stane was right. He had gotten Pepper involved so if she was in danger, he could only blame himself.
As he hurtles through the air, adrenaline coursing once more through his veins, he can only picture Pepper in his mind. Once he sees her, everything would be possible.
“Tony!”
Or hear her.
When her voice screeches in his helmet, voice full of fear, he pushes the suit to its limit of speed. “Duck!” He feels a tangle in his stomach form when she does just that without questioning it. When she does it with complete trust. He cannot let her down. And when he flies over her, eyes keeping on her trembling body for as long as possible, he knows this is for her.
Because she’s alive and he can’t allow that to change.
-
It’s when he makes her coffee instead of the other way around, and their fingers brush, each pulsating heat, as he hands her the mug, that they connect their gazes and can only think that they’re alive. He’s alive for her and she’s alive for him and that’s the way it will always be.
When he leaves the room, Pepper lets out the breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. Now, every moment he’s not in her sight, she’s terrified something will happen to him and it drives her insane.
Neither of them realizes that Tony feels the same.
Whoo. Hope you all enjoyed that. My first go at an Iron Man fic.