A/N: Trigger Warnings: Death.
My friend, QueenSkellington gave me the idea for this a few days ago. Apparently, I can't write anything fluffy hahaha. If any of my normal followers are here waiting for my DP fics, updates are coming soon.
Read this fic at your own risk.
Tony was many things, but if there was one thing he wasn't, it was a doctor. Bruce was a doctor. One of the only men Tony trusted to give him a straight answer when it came to all that medical business. Except needles. No one was to give him a needle.
But right now he was pacing as Pepper lay in bed with a sick stomach, and wishing he was a doctor. Because damn it he was worried. Pepper had been sick for about a week now with nausea and vomiting, and he wasn't sure what was wrong. She said it was just the flu, but as far as he knew, the flu didn't last a week. At least, his never did. But he hadn't really had the flu since he was young, so that wasn't anything to compare to.
But he was worried, and now Bruce was here, talking to Pepper quietly, giving her slight tests. Tony heard him mutter something about a test and wondered briefly what academics had to do with Pepper's stomach before his mind doubled around and supplied blood test. He felt stupid and wanted to slap himself, but he held on, soberly looking over Bruce's shoulder.
A needle came out and Bruce tapped Peppers arm, getting the blood flowing before the sharp tip penetrated her arm, drawing blood out. Pepper was so calm about all this, while Tony breathed in sharply through his teeth. Bruce got up with the syringe, carefully stowing it away in a plastic baggy before putting it in his briefcase. Three to four days, he mentioned as he walked out, and he'd have the results.
In three days, Tony and Pepper got the call. Pepper broke down into tears and Tony dropped the phone in shock.
They were going to be parents.
Four months. Pepper had started to swell and so had Tony's heart. He'd started buying baby things. A baby book here, a crib there—nothing big. The press had had a field day. They'd bombarded the couple with questions, demanding answers that the two didn't know themselves. Tony and Pepper were overjoyed to think that they had a baby coming, even if the baby was unexpected.
Pepper sighed happily and rubbed her belly, a habit she'd developed since she had started growing and Tony came up behind her, kissing her neck and lowering her onto the bed. His touches were gentle, and he caressed her, running his hands along her small bump and then up to her hair. He rain his fingers through it, relishing the way the silken threads felt under his digits. Pepper giggled, curling up and pressing herself to him. Tony held her secure in his arms, his smile never leaving his face as the two of them drifted to sleep.
Pepper woke up in the dead of night. She was cramping horribly and her legs felt slick with her own blood. Tony started as Pepper whimpered, and he sat up, concern and confusion passing across his face before he commanded JARVIS to turn on the lights to half power.
The amount of blood on the bed was terrifying. Tony hurriedly got JARVIS to call for an ambulance, trying to calm the both of them down as he holds Pepper, carrying her down the stairs where the paramedics meet them.
Several hours later, Tony sat on one of the uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room, waiting for information about his girlfriend and his unborn child. The doctor came out, clipboard tucked under one arm and a sombre expression on his face.
"How is she?"
"Miss Potts is fine, Mr. Stark, but unfortunately—" Tony's ears started ringing and he could barely hear the doctors next words. "—she had a miscarriage. I'm so, so sorry. Would you like to go see her?"
Dumbly, Tony nodded, following the doctor to Pepper's room. She looked haunted, hollow and broken. Tony's heart twisted and he sat on the bed next to her and pulled her close. She rarely cried; at least not around him. But now she let go, sobbing into his chest and grasping at his shirt like her life depended on it. Tony sighed, rubbing her back and murmuring that it'd be okay. That they could try again later.
Eventually she calmed down and was discharged from the hospital. He carried her into the house once he'd driven her home, laying her on their bed, making sure she fell asleep before he went down to the kitchen and took a long drink from his Scotch.
Pepper rebound quickly to the untrained eye. They held their press conference, which nearly broke her resolve when they had to relay the news to the press. She battled through it with a few loose tears, and a few days later had a nearly perfect mask on to fool the general public.
Tony knew better, and he watched her carefully. He knew she blamed herself for the loss of their child; he didn't blame her at all. He knew it was a cruel act of nature, and hoped that if he gave her space, she'd want to try again. Or maybe be a little more lenient on sex, since that was killing him right now.
A few months and some more sleepless nights later, Pepper finally dropped her no sex rule, letting Tony do what he wanted with her, though he took it slow. The miscarriage had been pushed to the back of their minds, but it hadn't faded completely. It was a sad reminder of what could happen.
Another few months and Tony was sent away on a mission for the Avengers. Pepper carried on as usual, though the house did feel a lot emptier; and a lot lonelier this time around. Tony was gone for longer than normal. He returned late one night and bypassed the landing stations, opting instead to crash into the wall where his armor fell off in harsh clumps. The noise woke Pepper, and she rushed out to find him badly bruised and scraped, but not seriously injured.
Her relief and Tony's pure adrenaline from the fight kept the couple up the rest of the night. It was the first time either of them put their minds at rest and just enjoyed being together.
Nine months ago, and Tony Stark never would have thought that he'd be standing here, holding his baby boy in his arms. Pepper was out of it, exhausted from pushing a seven pound baby out of her, and Tony was too overjoyed to acknowledge the fact that she might want to hold him, too.
She still smiled up at them, her eyes glowing with joy that they'd done it. They'd made a baby and kept it.
Baby Jason came home a few days later. Pepper wasted no time in getting back to work, choosing to work from her home office so she could keep an eye on him while she worked. The press clamored for a photo of the new family, and finally they broke down and took him out in public, letting the press get their fill. The newsstands were filled with magazines and tabloids praising and welcoming little Jason Stark.
Jason was a happy boy, and he was very inquisitive and loving. He loved the soft glow of his father's arc reactor, and cooed when his mother sung him bed time songs. He wasn't very fussy, and his wide brown eyes were always alight with joy and wonder. Pepper and Tony often stood beside his crib after he'd gone down for a nap or to bed for the night, watching him and wondering just what they'd done to get such a perfect son.
Before everyone knew it, Jason was four months old and just starting to crawl. Tony and Pepper put him down for the night, smiling and holding each other's hands, watching him sleep peacefully before leaving the room, quietly going back to their bed and falling asleep in each-other's arms. They both knew their life couldn't get any better.
Tony woke up to a scream and he sat bolt upright. JARVIS hadn't alerted him of an intruder, so it had to be someone JARVIS knew and recognized. Once the sleep fled from his brain, Tony recognized the scream as Pepper's. Something was terribly wrong.
Springing out of bed, he raced to find her. Her screams hadn't ceased, but the urgency had increased, and Tony's heart threatened to burst through the arc reactor. Throwing open the door to the nursery, Tony stared in shock when he spotted Pepper, holding Jason in her arms, sobbing and begging for him to wake up.
Tony didn't know what to do, so he dumbly stood there as Pepper turned to him, holding the lifeless body of their son in her arms. "He's not waking up!" Her cry was choked with sobs, her tears leaving heavy wet trails along her face. He didn't know what to do. He wasn't a doctor.
He wished he was a doctor.
The hospital they brought him to yielded no results. "I'm sorry," the doctor said quietly, standing outside of their son's room, where a sheet had been pulled over his body. "It was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. There's no known cause, and no way to prevent it." Pepper buried her face in Tony's chest and he held her. He wanted to punch this doctor in his blasted face and demand to see someone competent, but deep down he knew there was nothing they could do.
Jason Stark was buried in a small coffin. It was a size that never should have been made. It was too small to house anyone who had had the grace to live life through. His coffin was mahogany, and an engraved and painted arc reactor was placed in the middle, since both Tony and Pepper knew how the glow had soothed him.
They hoped it'd help him wherever he was now.
The night of the funeral, Tony downed three bottles of Scotch and a flask of Bourbon. He spent the night in his lab, drinking and sobbing and breaking anything he could get his hands on.
It took almost two years for Pepper to regain her spunk. Those two years created a drift between the two of them that Tony was scared he'd be unable to mend. They both missed Jason terribly, though his pictures had soon stopped opening the raw wounds and instead reminded them of the good times they'd had.
Briefly, Pepper and Tony had discussed adoption, but they didn't feel it was right for them, so the topic was soon dropped. If they couldn't have a child naturally, they'd open the topic up again, but for now they wanted to try. The brief four months they'd had with Jason had given them more joy than they could have imagined, and now Pepper was debating trying again.
Tony wouldn't say no, though they both knew that there would always be a certain amount of doubt.
The more they tried, the less likely it seemed they'd be getting a child. Pepper suffered two more miscarriages, before carrying a child to term, only to lose it in childbirth. Tony's heart slowly closed off, and his relationship with Pepper took a drastic hit. The two of them barely exchanged words in their personal time.
When they found the motivation and will to have sex, it was basic release and relief from the world. It was no longer anything meaningful, and their lovers' play had long since been stripped out of them.
Tony holed himself up in his lab, the darkness that he'd kept at bay since returning from Afghanistan slowly creeping over his mind again, making him doubt everything he'd ever done. Long nights fueled by alcohol resulted in some drastic projects down in his lab.
He found that when his soldering iron burned his skin, or some sharp metal sheared through his flesh, the pain distracted him. Kept him from remembering what they'd been through. And while he had no doubts that Pepper was going through something ten times worse than he was, he couldn't bring himself to remember it.
For now, all he wanted was to work on his projects. The first one was almost complete. He knew Pepper would love it. It might even bridge the gap between them. It might bring back the closeness he had with her, and maybe he'd even feel the love radiating off of her again.
He hoped he could get that love back with this project.
Dummy held his alcohol while he made the final adjustments, closing the casing and sitting back. The artificial intelligence he'd programmed should kick in soon, if his calculations were right—and they always were.
As the minutes passed and nothing happened, Tony emptied the Jack Daniels he had next to him, wiping his mouth with one greasy hand. And then suddenly the AI on the table twitched and made a noise and Tony knew he'd made a break through.
He had to get Pepper.
"What do you want to show me, Tony?" His giddiness was a refreshing change from his usual somber attitude, but Pepper wasn't in the mood for games. He'd blindfolded her, leading her carefully down the steps to the lab, and she wasn't sure she wanted to come down here.
She heard him input the code and heard the lock release, stepping forward before she heard a sound that shouldn't belong in the lab: a baby's cry.
A gasp came out of her mouth just as Tony undid the blindfold and she stared at the baby laying on his lab table, surrounded by his dangerous equipment. The child could have been seriously injured laying there, or it could have rolled right off the table. She felt a little sick.
A million things were going through her mind. Thoughts like why would Tony steal a baby, and where did he get it? Whose is it? But when her arms closed around it and she brought it close to her chest Pepper knew something else was very, very wrong.
The baby was cold like metal, and its movements were jerky. "It still needs some upgrades," Tony's voice was excited and Pepper couldn't tear her own gaze away from the excited glow in his eyes. "But—look, I brought him back. I brought back Jason."
Tony had made a baby—by himself, out of wires and circuitry and extreme detailing that Pepper hadn't thought him capable of. Where he'd gotten the skin-like material was beyond her. "You…built this?" She asked quietly, holding the baby away from herself. She couldn't bring herself to think of it as Jason, because it wasn't.
Even if the eyes were right, and the dimples were right, and the size was right… this wasn't Jason.
"I did!" His joy was slowly melting at the look on her face and he seemed to deflate a little. "You… don't like him?"
Pepper didn't know what to say, so she forced a smile and nodded. "He…he's….nice." She forced out, and Tony came over, taking Jason from her. His look was so dark she was almost afraid for herself.
"Please leave, Pepper… Jason and I have some things to do." Pepper swallowed dryly and nodded, backing towards the lab. She'd never been afraid of Tony before, but he just seemed so different now. The loss of their children had taken its toll on her as well, but she had never thought the hurt went so deep in Tony's heart.
Pepper left him in his lab, listening to the strange noises he made to his mechanical baby he held in his arms.
The rift Tony had been hoping to mend with Jason was ripped further apart. Not that he really cared anymore. No, he had his son now, and that was what he needed. He spent his time perfecting the code and interface, making sure that the movements were smooth and clean, and that the AI could grow and function correctly.
He'd made an algorithm that allowed the AI to learn like a normal child would, and he tried to implant as many memories as he could into his son. He hoped it'd be enough and that Pepper would come to see that this was the best thing for the both of them.
No one would even have to know that this was an AI.
Jason gurgled and babbled to Tony, sitting up beside him as he worked on some circuit boards. Of course, Tony would have to create a new body for him every year or so for the next eighteen years give or take, but he didn't mind so much. His son would be perfect, and that was that.
Tony hadn't gone upstairs in a few days, choosing instead to sleep on the couch in his lab. He'd turned JARVIS off, preferring not to hear any sort of snide comments about his newest habit—also known as spending all his time in the lab working on a baby that wasn't even real. –so he had no idea what was happening up there. What was going on and who was trying to contact him.
It was about time he found out.
He stood up, wincing from his popping joints and aching back. Muttering to himself to get a more comfortable chair down here, he picked up Jason, setting him in the little pen he'd built to keep him safe before double timing it up the stairs.
"Pepper?" He hadn't spoken to her in a while, and he missed her. Even if their relationship had been rocky, she'd been a constant in his world. Something he needed and craved. She was something that kept the nightmares and the stresses at bay. "Pep?"
Tony brought his left hand up, the fingers tapping nervously against the arc reactor in his chest. It was a habit he'd gotten into after the whole Obadiah Stane incident. Something that kept him grounded and reminded him his reactor was still there. His heart was still bleeding.
"JARVIS," Tony called, effectively taking off the mute command. "Where's Pepper?"
"Miss Potts left the premises exactly thirty hours ago, sir." Tony's stomach turned into a clump of ice and he turned his head, wanting to have misheard that begging to have misheard that. It took him a minute, but he managed to squeak out an order to have JARVIS repeat his last statement, hoping his ears were wrong.
Pepper had left more than a day ago and he hadn't noticed. If she had called, he hadn't gotten the message. She could be dead. "JARVIS, did she… did she leave any messages? Did she call?"
"She left one message, sir. Shall I display it for you?" A virtual message. Text. Not even a voice message. Tony's stomach tried to reject its contents, but with nothing in there, he simply heaved. His world was ending.
"Please do." JARVIS brought up the message and Tony skimmed it, his eyes jumping and trying to read ahead. She left him. Packed her stuff and moved out of the tower. She quit as his PA. Quit her job and she was leaving. If Tony's heart wasn't powered by his arc reactor, it would have stopped beating. Pepper Potts, his PA, his girlfriend, one of his best friends, had up and left.
Tony Stark was now truly and utterly, alone.
"Sir, I don't think—"
"Th-tha's RIGHT! You don't think!"
There was a loud crash and the wailing of a mechanical baby started up. The lab was a mess, alcohol bottle scattered and smashed. "You—you should've—should've told me, JAR! She—she couldn't just leave..."
"Sir, I was not told to keep Miss Potts on the premises; she was still free to go."
JARVIS's voice was annoying and calm and all around the center of his world right now. He had nothing else to base life on, so he clung to JARVIS, keeping the bot talking helped him work things out. "She…she lef' me an'…" Tony bent double, his stomach protesting the abuse of alcohol, chucking it out of his body and all over the floor.
Dummy came over with a mop, effectively spreading the mess around more than cleaning it, and Tony found this absolutely hilarious. He dropped onto his butt, laughing hysterically.
"Should I call for an ambulance, sir?" JARVIS asked, and Tony shook his head, wiping away tears from his hysteria.
"No—no, its fine, I'm fine. Everything's. Fucking. Fine." He picked up the nearest bottle of alcohol, brushing off the specks of vomit from the splatter, and chugged the contents, washing out the taste of bile.
"Was my fault, anyway." He muttered around the neck of the bottle. "Always was. Jason…Jason didn' stand a snowball's chance in hell comin' from my loins." He cursed when he found the bottle empty and threw it against the wall, the shatter giving him a small ounce of satisfaction.
"Fuck her." He muttered, and then broke down in tears. He couldn't hate her. He couldn't, even if he tried. She was doing what was right, and he wasn't. He wallowed in grief and self-pity, building a machine—.
A machine.
Tony's sobs slowed and his head came up, listening. He could hear Jason's cries. The abomination. Those cries were what drove Pepper away.
Tony used the back of the couch to brace himself as he got to his feet. His motor skills weren't quite working, but he managed. He managed to get over to the pen where he'd put Jason. He looked down, eyes narrowing in disgust and hate. The baby was crying, hugging one of the stuffed animals to it and hiccupping, face red from the LED lights he'd planted under its skin.
"Shut up," Tony hissed at it, leaning over and glaring down at the bot. When Jason refused to co-operate, Tony snarled. "Shut up!"
The bot only cried louder and Tony picked it up, trembling in anger. "It's YOUR fault!" He started to shake the bot, anger and frustration coming out in waves, enhanced by his inebriation. "All. Your. Fault."
He threw the bot on the ground and the baby's cries ceased, whether or not he'd damaged the internal circuits, didn't really matter right now. He'd worry about that later, when he was sober. He picked Jason up again. "So now—now you're quiet!?" He snarled, shaking the bot, trying to get it to respond.
"Silent! Just like—just like the real Jason!" He chucked the mechanical baby across the room with all his strength, the metal making a dreadful cracking noise as it crumpled, breaking the delicate wiring and all the hard work he'd poured into it. "Jason's—dead!" He hissed, glaring at the broken robot, his anger almost rocking him off his feet.
How did he ever expect to replace his son with some hard wiring? Could he have been that stupid? Could he have been that grief stricken that he couldn't see that he was the one pushing away Pepper? Nothing could bring his son or Pepper back. Nothing. He knew that now.
With a disgusted glance in the bot's direction, Tony staggered over to his Iron Man suits. They gleamed in their display cases and he felt a rush of anger. Iron Man was also a waste of time. Something that made Pepper worry. Made her worry and made her rush into his arms whenever he got home. No more. Never again.
She was gone. And because she was gone, Iron Man was gone, too. "JARVIS, protocol EMR-49-delta."
"Sir?"
"Do it, JARVIS."
"As you wish, sir. Emergency destruction of Iron Man initiated. Time till completion: 3 minutes, 42 seconds."
Tony turned away from the suits, not wanting to watch all that wasted alloy, and all that wasted time, be destroyed. It was being done, and no one would ever have access to his stuff again. "JARVIS?"
"Sir?"
"After that, execute EMR-60-delta."
"As you wish, sir."
Tony grinned to himself, going over and giving Dummy a pat on the head. "See ya, buddy." He mumbled, the alcohol leaving his words a little muddled, and a little more wobbly than he'd like. But it had to be done. JARVIS would destroy the suits, all info Tony had in his computers about the suits, and set fire to the lab, destroying any documentation.
If he couldn't be Iron Man, no one could be Iron Man.
He turned from his bots, turned from his life's work, and made his way up the stairs. He almost fell down several times, but finally managed to get to the floor above. Oh, this wouldn't do. He thought to himself, looking around. This place was far too neat and orderly.
Reaching into a cupboard, he pulled out another bottle of alcohol, popping the lid off with his teeth he chugged. When the bottle was half finished, he threw it at a wall, watching in satisfaction as the bottle broke and the contents spilled down and pooled on the floor.
He'd trash this place and eliminate any traces that Pepper had ever lived here.
It took him a while, but he finally managed to break the mansion to his satisfaction.
Tony woke up in the middle of the living room and in a pile of his own vomit. Not an unusual way to wake up, and the pounding headache certainly wasn't anything new. He pulled himself up and looked around, gulping as he took in exactly what he did last night. "JARVIS?"
There was no answer. Not even a hum of recognition. Tony's stomach bottomed out for the millionth time in days, and he looked around. "JARVIS, that's not funny, answer me, buddy." He staggered to his feet, looking around.
He remembered that Pepper had left him—and that thought was almost enough to send him right back to the bottle—and that he'd taken to drinking, but after that everything was black. He hated being black out drunk, but he did it oh so often.
He staggered to the stairs, carefully treading down and gasping when he sees the state of his workshop. It was blackened by a fire which was now put out. His Iron Man suits were crushed and shredded in their displays, and Dummy lay as little more than a sad pile of melted metal.
He'd done this. He'd executed emergency protocols and wiped out his lab. Any trace of his genius was gone, and oddly, he was okay with that. He must have turned off JARVIS sometime, too. Deleted his programming and gotten rid of him.
He entered a state where he wasn't quite in control of his body.
He turned, walking back upstairs and heading for his room, digging through Pepper's beside table to the one thing he knew she kept there.
All his electricity and gadgets and gizmos didn't let her feel as safe when he was gone as he'd liked. So she insisted on bringing this in. He didn't think she'd taken it with her, and he smiled when he felt his fingers brush the cold handle.
He didn't want to leave any trace of himself here.
He couldn't. He couldn't live here without Pepper. He'd destroyed decades of work in his lab. This was the last, and final thing he had to do.
Anthony Edward Stark pulled out Pepper's hand gun and stared at it, his eyes somber as he checked for rounds, clicked off the safety, and pushed the barrel into his mouth.
Steven Rogers wrinkled his nose at the stench emanating from Tony's mansion. It smelled like week-old vomit, and he wasn't very surprised when it was confirmed.
Clint stepped into the mansion, the other Avengers following. "Christ it smells awful in here."
Steve glanced over his shoulder, frowning. He knew there was something wrong with Tony. SHIELD hadn't been able to contact JARVIS, and Tony wasn't answering any of his phones. Rhodey didn't know anything, and Pepper was nowhere to be found. So it was up to them.
And Steve, as team leader, led the expedition into Tony's home.
"Tony?" Steve called, stepping carefully over the vomit and debris on the floor. Natasha broke away from the group to check the lab, while Clint checked the rooms upstairs. Steve and Bruce stayed together, checking the main floor.
Thor wasn't there, but they didn't need to involve him in this. Later, they'd catch him up, but for now they just had to find Tony.
Natasha came racing up the stairs just as they heard a loud thump and a very unmanly shriek. The three exchanged glances before bolting up the stairs towards the sound.
Clint turned to face them as they approached. His face was drawn and his mouth set in a thin line as he nodded his head to the side.
Bruce looked in and gasped, brushing past Clint to whatever was in there, and Steve and Natasha exchanged looks before stepping forward together and peering in.
There, laying on the floor, was Tony Stark. His head was blown open and a gun lay in his limp hand on his chest, his other limbs were splayed at unnatural and sickening angles, and Steve felt vomit in the back of his throat.
Tony had chosen to die rather than continue to live alone with his demons.