A/N: Post IM3, Suicide/depression Trigger warnings, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark Post relationship and general sadness all round! Set about 13 months after the events of IM3. Written from a suggestion on tumblr a very long time ago and only just finished… I'm not sure if I'm going to continue this or not….
There's something wrong with my head.
It's the only logical thought in Virginia Potts head that isn't screaming at her, everything else seems to have hold of her throat and is trying to strangle her, forcing the air from her lungs and forcing her feelings to take over. Usually she has control, usually this stops, usually she isn't curled on the floor behind her office desk drenched in her own tears and generally looking like she was on the edge of falling apart. Pepper was in agony, but nobody else could see it. Years of stress, frustration and lack of sleep had suddenly come back to bite her in the ass when he'd taken her, he'd taken her and rammed fire into her heart and burnt it to pieces. She couldn't sleep for it, it wouldn't go away. Even the genius couldn't stop the agony.
Maybe that's why their relationship had come apart, maybe that's why he'd sworn he couldn't love her, he didn't love her. Or maybe that had been her fault. Maybe she'd started that screaming match.
There was probably something she should be doing right now that wasn't curling her fists in her own hair, pulling her knees up to her nose and curling around in a ball, clutching herself together. Pepper wanted to scream, it hurt, the whole world hurt and seemed to be out to get her. There was nobody to talk to, how could she tell anyone she felt like this?
Imagine the scandal if Pepper Potts suddenly confessed that she couldn't even cope with her own mind any longer? Whimpering, she slammed her body backwards into the desk, feeling the jolt cut through her body. It was nice to just feel something again, like the pain of her nails digging into the back of her hand, or her bare feet pushed against the radiator in the office. She was going to hurt herself until she could feel it and nobody was going to stop her doing it.
Why would they? There was nobody here and nobody knew. They all thought she was perfect, and she could manage it, they all thought she was some kind of heartless, emotionless monster that didn't need anyone else to make her life complete but.
Right now.
Right now she would give anything to have someone elses arms around her to stop her.
Maybe if she did scream, maybe someone would come running to her, maybe then someone would know. You can't do this job without some sort of repetitions, can you? Virginia couldn't think of anyone else who managed this, anyone else who could understand. She was completely on her own.
Tangling herself tighter in her own limbs she yanked her knees up, shuddering with the force of the tears that still weren't stopping. When had she drunk enough to cry this much? Right now she must look a mess, boundaries shattered and the walls protecting her where crumbling down and she couldn't stop them. Maybe she should be drunk, maybe that would help. Maybe that's why Tony did it so much, was being comatose the best way to kill the pain?
Somehow, but only just, she's managed to force herself to move, dragging her scolded feet away from the hot surface. She'd feel it in the morning. That was what usually happened, whenever she did anything like this she only felt it the morning after. Like whenever she let the men she picked up in clubs take her against the wall or over the back of the car, or when she fell asleep at her desk or the moment she'd pulled up the driveway near her flat. The soreness and the ache and the general disgust only surfaced when it was too late.
Biting back the swearwords surfacing in her mouth as she forced herself to stand, pepper cringed, surprised by how suddenly she could feel it. Slipping her feet into her shoes and grabbing the mirror, correcting her makeup in three movements, before throwing it back on the desk and the door open, patching back together a barrier between herself and the world as she forced herself to leave the building.
Tony stark didn't even notice as she walked past, he never did, it had been a year since it had ended and all she'd been given where a few lost glances and useless words. He was always so busy with his own life, with the new life, that she never seemed to cause any kind of concern for him anymore. Pepper supposed that he just kept on like that to keep himself safe, supposed that he must care about something, somewhere inside, she just wasn't sure what that would be.
Without a care she was outside, ignoring the crowds of tourists that pushed and jostled for a look at the building, to see what they could never have but the Starks where born into. The money, the power, the standing in the world. They barley seemed to notice her, the real reason that the company wasn't falling apart, the real reason that he coped with his own greed. Her steps continued as she finally stepped out of the gates, straight into the crowded streets of the city.
Even then she wasn't noticed, nobody cared. And suddenly the pain was real, more real than usual and her heels had lead her off the curb, dragging her steps where they shouldn't go. And still nobody noticed. She had no idea, no idea why she was doing it, the burning aches in her mind and her heart seemed to drift away with every movement,
Nobody knew until the screaming started, the sound of metal on metal and metal on flesh and she dropped, slammed into the floor. The cries echoed, bouncing off the walls and buildings and the people. And suddenly there where people around her, but she didn't know that. Right in that moment, the infamous Virginia Potts was nothing more than a crumpled heap on the floor, shattered and burnt.
Over the noise came a much louder scream, a shout, a bellow from the second most famous man in new York clad in armour and a panic: "Get back, everyone, get out of the way."
Stark why he hadn't noticed, why he hadn't realised that she was out here, but from the look of the mess and the sounds she'd just tried to kill herself. Had she forgotten what the Extremis would do? What it could do?
It didn't hurt her.
It turned her into a living bomb the moment she was in danger, the moment that her emotions became unbearable. Visor down and shields on full, Anthony wrapped her limp form in his arms, kicking from the floor with jets before anyone could argue. He had to get her away, get her away from anyone that she could hurt before he asked her what was going on.
He'd barley breached the Manhattan skyline before the explosion hit.