The Fairytale

She woke up immediately – it was hard to sleep when another mind took up residence in your own. Sometimes he woke her up this way. He thought it was interesting what the lightest of touches could do.

Despite the momentary lapse of mental control, it was still a familiar rush of memories and emotions that woke her. Tony touched her long, and often. She already knew all that there was to know about his past. That meant that the only thoughts flowing through their contact were the ones he was experiencing in that exact moment, like a live stream of the way he felt when he ran his hand along the exposed skin of her naked side.

Due to some terrific fluke, she couldn't absorb his strength or life force, just his memories. But if she wasn't careful she could lose herself in that consciousness. As it was, she found herself incredibly turned on by the sight and feel of her own body. She wasn't sure how healthy that was.

His hand dipped to the slight curve of her belly and she moaned while she concentrated on dimming his thoughts to focus on her own. The professor always helped her build psychic barriers against those she touched whenever she made accidental contact with someone or she absorbed someone in the heat of battle. All she had to do was ask. But so far she hadn't gone to the professor about Tony.

She wanted to exist in a world where he was always inside her.

It wasn't for lack of trying that the professor hadn't erased tony from her. After a mission had gone seriously wrong and she'd had to absorb three of her teammates, the professor noticed Tony there. It would be hard not to, he took up so much of her mind these days. She refused the professor's help and he backed down, but it didn't take Tony's shrewd observational skills to see the pity and concern in the professor's eyes.

But it's not like she was hurting anybody. Except maybe herself, because sometimes he thought about Pepper.

Rogue wasn't sure whether Tony even knew the extent of her powers or how fully she's taken him in. Even when he didn't have a thought, sometimes there would be a feeling, a sensation of longing or an ache. And he didn't have to think Pepper's name for Rogue to know that part of his heart wasn't for her. But she had it anyway.

Sometimes Rogue slipped up and found herself mourning the blonde's absence before she could recall she never even knew the woman. These emotions evoked hate in Rogue...but also a sick sense of gratitude. She'd never been able to get close enough to experience that kind of paralyzing love. But in a way, their story was hers now. If she could only be content to be a placeholder, a mirror of what was lost.

But she would never mimic the way Pepper demanded all of him. She wouldn't ask him to choose between them and the world. She couldn't afford to make that mistake or lose the one person she'd found in the world who didn't wither at her touch.

All that she could do was lay in bed while he touched her and beg him to never stop.

The Tragedy

No, she never asked him to choose. She was too terrified - too convinced he wouldn't pick her, just like he hadn't picked Pepper. And he died defending them all.

The Funeral

At the funeral, she tried to take Pepper's hand in her black-gloved one. But the woman ripped away from Rogue, even slapped her, her bare hand leaving behind an impression of hate as it made contact with her cheek. Not that Rogue needed the help of her powers to read that moment.

If it weren't for Rogue maybe Tony would have gone back to her. Maybe Pepper could have convinced him to give up his life as an avenger. Maybe he wouldn't have sacrificed himself while in a ridiculous red suit. Rogue wished she hadn't received the brief what-ifs from Pepper. Those thoughts hadn't needed reinforcement.

What was far worse was the love Rogue felt. She hadn't known what it was like for Pepper all this time. Tony's love was strong, but nothing like Pepper's. How could Rogue ever have been envious of this pain? To love someone so much you left them. It was awful. Pepper lived her life terrified for Tony. And now her worst nightmare had become reality.

She watched his the blonde stagger away, weak from the quick yet potent power drain.

Rogue turned and placed a red rose on Tony's coffin. Her powers hadn't done him in. But maybe her actions had.

The Solitude

Rogue went home. Her home, or Tony's home. She wasn't sure anymore. Was it ever their home? She knew Tony would have been okay with her staying there for a while. Her teammates would say she belonged in the mansion with them. They wouldn't get that she wanted to remind herself of him and the part of her that was him wanted to be home.

She hesitantly walked over to the elevator and pressed in a special sequence on the panel of buttons – Pepper's birthday. It took her to a floor not on the schematics. It was only one of the secret entrances to his lab. Not that she couldn't have found the others, but she tried to respect what secrets of his she could ignore.

Sometimes he brought her down there to help him with his projects. He said it was helpful to bounce ideas off of himself. She tried not to think about the sex they usually had afterwards. He certainly didn't think about it as if it were strange.

She wasn't sure she should be there without him.

She'd stashed the remains of the suit after his autopsy. Now, she found herself pulling them out carefully. Most of the damage was blast or collision-related. Easy fixes. The smaller parts, the computer pieces, they'd be a little more challenging to fix, but still very doable. She even had a few ideas on how she could improve the sensors as well as the density-durability conundrum.

"Jarvis?" she asked.

The computer had been in sleep mode, but it flared to life at her voice. "Yes, Rogue?"

"Let's get to work."