A/N: So I got a prompt on my rp the other day and this is what happened. Short little drabble for you all. It hurts like hell. Hurt to write too. But I do hope you enjoy it! Dedicated to my partner and based loosely on our thread. Love you!

Tony/Pepper movieverse. Takes place just after the Avengers.

Disclaimers: Nothing recognizable belongs to me.

No.

No. No.

She can't be dead. I just saw her this morning. She was just there, sitting next to me at breakfast, giving me a hard time for not finishing any paperwork last night. Teasing me for falling asleep on the couch even though I distinctly remember waking up with my head in her lap and her hands in my hair. Calling me an asshole with that good-natured smile that kills me every time. I went up behind her just a few hours ago and placed my hands on her stomach even though she isn't even showing yet. I just kissed her. Just told her I loved her. It was only hours ago, right before work. She can't be dead.

The officers have it wrong. It's not her. I call her cell phone to confirm this, but there's no answer, just her voicemail message: "Hello. You have reached the cell phone of Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries. Please leave a message after the tone and I will get back to you." My stomach drops. She'll get back to me, I tell myself. Then why do I hang up? Why don't I leave a message?

They want me to go down and identify her. How can I identify her? She's not there. They have someone else that looks like her, that is impersonating her. But I go. I go because there's a part of me that has to know, has to see that they're wrong. Or worse, that they're right. I do not cry on the ride there, telling myself the entire time that it's just a grave misunderstanding.

They take me to a room. I don't even notice what color it is, or what all is in it. All I notice is the table in the center where something covered in a long sheet rests. A man pulls back the sheet. And I can no longer keep up the façade. I feel my knees make contact with the ground and the cold of the tiles seep through my pants. I can't breathe, can't see anything but her strawberry curls, still framing her face as perfectly as ever. Her eyes are closed but there's blood covering her, the only indication that she is dead, not sleeping. I go completely numb.

I think I answered the man's question. I tell him yes, she is Pepper Potts. My fiancé. My friend. My love. They tell me the cause of death was a car accident. A car accident. What a way for her to pass on. We always imagined it would be something big, something I did. Something she had to save me from. Well, we were half-right. She took the car today, not a cab. She was looking at a text from me. She made me more important than her safety yet again and never saw the truck.

It's my fault.

It wasn't even life or death. I just wanted to know if she wanted to go out tonight. I should have known better. Ever since the space incident, she never keeps her phone on vibrate and never disregards a message from me for any length of time, no matter how trivial it is. It's my fault. I don't let myself cry, not here in front of these people. They apologize for my loss. I don't answer. I barely hear them. They offer their condolences and say they need to run a few more tests on her body just to be sure. I don't understand why. But I do not ask. I have to leave before my emotions come spilling out of me.

I can't go home. I never want to go back there again. It will never be the same without her there. We were supposed to wed. She was supposed to know how much I loved her, I was supposed to hold her in my arms and call her my wife at least once before she died. We were supposed to have a baby, start a family together. And now all of it was taken away from me, from us, in the same dramatic manner it had come. I'll never get to kiss those lips again. I'll never be able to hold her in my arms or caress her hair. She'll never tease me for falling asleep on the couch, never put my head in her lap, never call me an asshole with that goofy grin on her face ever again.

Because she is dead. And she isn't coming back to me.

And it's my fault. All my fault.

The tears taste like blood as they fall from everywhere.

I'm sorry, Pep. I'm so sorry.

I love you, Pepper.

A/N: I am so sorry. As always, feel free to let me know what you thought. Thanks!

~PG22