Hello! Here is chapter 2. This one focuses on Tony and what I imagine could have been his past, based on what I've seen in the films, and the bits of the comics I've read. Again, reviews are lovely - I'm brand new at Iron Man fanfiction so I'm interested to know whether you all like it, and if it sounds like it makes sense. Cheers!

~ Lindsey

Also, I forgot a disclaimer on chapter 1, so. I DON'T OWN ANYTHING.

There.


Brotherly Love

Chapter 2

Within the first few weeks, Pepper had made it abundantly clear what type of Personal Assistant she was. Reliable. Trustworthy. Collected at all times. Scheduled. Clever. She had it together. Fashionable. Steadfast. And she knew better than anybody else how to get reporters off Tony Stark's back, delay board meetings, and sort of begin to run the company that Tony had been struggling to handle. As much as he hated to admit it, he was really bad a business management. Which was why Pepper was clearly a Godsend.

But Pepper also made something clear. She knew how to understand the personalities of people. That's what made her so good at her job. And unlike every single other female assistant he'd ever had, Pepper Potts seemed immune to Tony's flirting, and somehow was able to make him tow the line, instead of the opposite. Assistants were always one of three things. Boring, unreliable, or way, way, way, too interested in Tony's personal life. Tony was great with people. He could win them over in a second. But there were few people who treated him normally enough for him to actually feel like anybody knew him.

This is why Pepper surprised him. They settled into an easy sort of gait in their working relationship, like she had known him for a very long time, and he didn't have to make excuses for himself. Which is the way it should be, he thought. He wondered what made her so good at her job. She was actually a pain, most of the time. In addition to fraud, corruption, and dishonest dealings, she did not stand for a number of things, including lateness, excessive partying on nights when there was a pressing meeting the next day, cursing out diplomats, and a few other things, including his propensity to set various parts of his house on fire.

He got away with most of it. He was Tony Stark. He was the world's favorite piece of genius billionare playboy philanthropist eye-candy. And he really, really enjoyed it. His wild life enabled him to forget. To forget his lonesome past – his childhood where he was neglected by his father, and then the terrible dark days after his parents died. He'd become close to them in his later teenage years, realizing he wanted to do something, anything, to hold onto a sense of stability. They'd take him out places, and go and do things with him. He appreciated what efforts they did make. Because his parents were filthy rich. His dad was incredibly smart. And his mother was incredibly beautiful. They gave birth to a highly arrogant, and mostly desperate child. Then they died. They died and Tony was left with everything. The money, several houses, the plane, and the weapons manufacturing company. Seventeen. Emotionally unstable. Volatile. And heading for the brink of collapse.

For those few months before his parents died he thought he was ok. He thought that the summer he was seventeen was going to be the best summer of his life. They'd brought him back from boarding school, and he'd finally had the chance to feel like they cared about him. Like for once, somebody loved him. Even if they never said it.

Then there was the car accident. He remembered waking up in the middle of that rainy night to the phone ringing. He picked it up and it was a doctor. The doctor told him his parents were dead. He was an orphan. And he was alone.

He'd gone down to his father's workshop, took a monkey wrench, and smashed his wine cabinet, taking out the bottles one by one and drinking until he found something he liked. In his rage of hate, and anguish, and tears, and through his screaming at life, he somehow managed to drink himself until he didn't care anymore. Nothing mattered. The world blurred. His head started pounding. He gripped the bar and noticed some pills on the counter. He took them. He took more than he should have. His vision swam, and he collapsed. All was black. All was quiet. But his pain still continued.

He awoke in the hospital. He couldn't remember until later, all that had happened. Rhodey had found him. Rhodey was cool. He was a good friend. But he was busy. And he was going into the army. Tony didn't really have him. They said he was lucky to be alive. It had taken him a while to recover. Months of solitude in his house, and a few therapists, and a handful of lawyers and business men. They managed to get him to some sense of normalcy, to where he could at least think straight about the future of his company. Faced with a long conference table of lawyers, and other important people, he sat at the head and decided to do what any other seventeen year old would do.

Whatever he wanted.


He'd forgotten. He'd forgotten what it was like to have someone telling him what to do. He'd forgotten how he used to latch onto that sense of stability. And he'd also forgotten how good it felt to know that there would be somebody there to yell at you when you messed up. As much as he lived without them, he knew that he needed boundaries. Pepper brought those feelings back to him, but he was careful about it. He liked the stability yes, and he liked how even though as she got to know him better, she pushed him, and told him off when he needed it, but she was always cautious herself – not to cross too many lines. What he appreciated most is that he could see through her words in the times she yelled at him that perhaps there was an underlying sense of caring there that he never quite had with his mom and dad. There were lots of people that were good at yelling at Tony Stark. None could do it in a way that left him repentant, and somewhat sorry, and none could make him feel valued at the same time.

He got a sense of self-worth from Pepper Potts. She was beginning to become invaluable. And that scared him. It scared him quite a lot.