A/N: My own take on the reason behind Pepper's efforts to distance herself at the end of the movie.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own them outside of wildly vivid fantasies...
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Each and every year, Pepper Potts takes her one day off on December 12.
After all, that had been the day he'd gone, hadn't it?
That day, she does not wake up at 5:30 am to her alarm clock beeping blearily, nor does she frantically open her eyes an hour or two earlier because her hyperactive boss wants to discuss his latest invention with her and then beg for her to pick up the blueberry crumb muffins from that bakery downtown he likes. That day, Pepper will roll out of bed at precisely 7:00 am, to the gentle melody of Blackbird thrumming through her apartment. After sitting in bed for approximately three minutes, she will shuffle to the kitchen and make French toast to the indignant quacks of Daffy and the insatiable humor of Bugs.
Though outside the Malibu sun shines as brightly as ever, the inside of her house will be just under seventy degrees, just cool enough that she can wrap the old, tattered Boston University sweatshirt at the bottom of her bed around her body and breathe in the faded scent of pine and ocean breeze and the barest hint of aftershave. Her feet will slap sharply on the wooden floor, sending chills up her legs, and she will pretend that outside the snow blows harshly against the windows, sending groans through creaking floorboards.
At precisely 9:00, Pepper Potts will change into the silk-soft, rosy ballet slippers she hasn't touched in years and she will wear the cerulean sundress embroidered with daisies, the one that reminds her of the indigo sundress she once wore to the beach, cotton fluttering around freckly, pale legs to her father's deep rumbles of laughter. For the first time since she danced in a backless dress with Tony Stark, she will let her hair down in soft waves, allowing the strawberry curls to frame her face, and she will not let any hint of makeup cover her skin, leaving her brittle and bare against the world.
Without her usual barriers, Pepper Potts will listen to the melodic hum of the Beatles as she sits at the edge of her bed, looking through photographs of a booming, omnipresent man with unruly scarlet curls and a small, fragile girl whose strawberry waves have been forced into braids, crimson wisps already fighting free to frame her face. Her fingers will trace long-worn trails over their faces, curving along much-traveled paths and imprinting images already seared into her mind. When she reaches the end of the book, she will wipe away the hot, damp tears that have made their way down her face, journeying through the crevices and ridges of her skin with old familiarity.
As the clock chimes 3:00 pm, Pepper Potts will arrive at the beach and make her way through the jagged rocks littering the sand to the shore, and once she is there, she will sit at the water's edge. The ballet slippers will slide off her feet and go into her bag, and she will let the water stream through her toes, sending chills up her spine and the scent of brine to her nose. There, she will pretend the man from the pictures sits beside her, that her hair has been tied back in braids, and that her freckly, pale legs have not grown so long since last.
Then, for the only time in the past year, Pepper Potts will talk about all that has happened to her, and she will pretend her father is there to listen.
"Hey daddy," she will whisper, voice small against the shatter of waves on the shore. "I miss you."
Her eyes will close and the words will flow, flow from her lips to the cry of the seagulls and the distant roars of water crashing against the cliff.
"Mr. Stark – you remember my boss? He – he disappeared a few months ago, when he went to go present his new missile system. I know you don't like guns, and you probably wouldn't like him very much, but – but he's a good person some of the time and he's been trying since he got back to, well, to make up for it and I'm so, so proud of him now, but I'm scared – I'm so scared too."
The tears will start then, hot and fast and relentlessly pouring down her face with enough force to send her words into choked sobs.
"When – when he was gone, I though he was dead, that he'd died, and I don't know what happened but he broke something, and I don't think it'll ever be fixed. And when he came back, he started talking about how he knows what he's supposed to do now and how he has to fix his mistakes, but he's fixing them by flying off in an iron suit to get shot at and blown up and he nearly got killed again and – and I'm so, so scared he'll be hurt again, or he really will die and that I'll break. And I want to be strong, I want to be strong and be proud and be worried for him all together, but I can't – I can't and it terrifies me."
Her hand will drop to the ground, trying to crush sand beneath her fingers and hold onto grains that slip away, back into the water. The cotton of her dress will bunch together in her fist, her only solid grip on the world, and she will swipe away at her tears, at her fears and her worries, batter them back down to the abyss she tries to bury them in, but fails at each time.
Crumbling, her words will choke in her throat, a strangled gasp even she can barely understand.
"Mom – mom's still broken, still broken and I can't be like her, I can't break like that and I will, I will break just like mom if I'm not careful because it hurts so much when he's gone, and I can't breathe, I can't breathe and my heart feels like it's stopped beating, like – like his heart."
"His heart's broken, did I tell you that?" she will whisper, "It's running on a battery and he nearly died because Obadiah took it, he took it and if I hadn't saved the first one, he'd be dead and I'd be broken and I can't, damn it, I can't."
Her sobs will be buried underneath the crash of the waves and her tears will blend with the salt waters of the ocean. There, she will hide away her heart, her worries and her fears, and she will try to draw strength from worn memories and faded handprints. For a few hours, she will release all of her emotions to the winds, pour out the overflowing river that has become her heart, and she will pierce together the will to keep going, to fight harder, to not break; to fix herself before the only way she can be put back together is through the deftly working fingers of Tony Stark trying to repair her jumbled, battered sanity.
At 8:03 pm, Pepper Potts will slip back on her worn ballet slippers and she will dance to the slap of the water crashing on rocks and the anguished cries of gulls off the coast. Her body will twist through forgotten turns and she will loose herself in a melody she has not heard for far too long, the notes soothing old aches and giving back strength to her depleted stores. When the song has drawn to a close, the last rays of the sun sinking over the horizon, she will draw in one, deep, shuttering breathe before traveling the path back to her car, to her house, to her life.
She will return to an empty house, renewed and mourning and heavy with the weight of the world all at once. The dress and the ballet slippers will return to the dregs of her closet, the sweater will slide over her skin once again. After closing the curtains, she will dim the lights and curl up in her bed, breathing in the scent of pine and ocean breeze and the barest hint of aftershave, the soothing notes of Blackbird echoing through the chill air.
By 10:13 pm, Pepper Potts will have fallen asleep, and in her dreams, she will see a booming man with unruly crimson hair whose laughter lasts long after he's stopped and a broken little girl trying to find the will to stay strong and whole through the times to come.
On December 13, she will wake up to her boss calling her on the phone and life as she has come to know it will begin anew. A new day will dawn, and she will do all she can to keep her battered, broken body from being crushed underneath the weight of it all.