Hello...
First I want to thank all those people who read my story; It is amazing the support I have had. Thank you very much indeed, means a lot to me that they like my story. I really thank all who have encouraged me to continue this story.
I had to divide this chapter in two. The first part focuses on what you read, and the following is a conversation between Tony and Pepper.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think.
A big hug. Kisses, blessings and good vibes for everyone.
Thanks to Hayleyj9 yo have been a sun. Thanks for your help.
No beta.
This chapter is dedicated to oneiroitane, Elisabpshady, Caroline-Angel and sambayar. Thanks for commenting, your words were very sweet.
Disclaimer: I don´t own Marvel or Iron man.
"You can forget what happened but not how you felt."
Someone said forgetting was a blessing.
She believed it for a long time.
She used to beg the deities of the world to let her forget.
To grow up and forget everything.
When loss touches her whilst she was being so young, that unbearable pain was forcing her to leave the past behind and she just wanted to forget everything.
Forget them.
Forget herself in the process.
But it never happened.
She was jealous of how easy it was for some people to keep the past away, to keep the memories at bay. To keep the pain aside.
Now she cursed her fate. Her wish had been fulfilled, but the pain has not gone away. It was worse, was a kind of half-blessing. A curse. One where she had forgotten who she is, but not her past. The painful memories still accompanied her, clung to her. Took her root.
She could remember all those moments and people who are no longer with her.
"Virginia, my child" the voice started…
It was a knock on the door and a sudden entrance to the room that woke her up. Her eyes widened in surprise and panic, evaporating rapidly as she saw the silhouette of the nurse beside her bed.
The woman with warm eyes checked her vital signs, and the proportion of the drugs that ran through her veins, then she was gone.
Like everyone else.
It was a cloudy night. The rain threatened to fall on the streets, Pepper noted while she looked at the horizon from her window.
The voices had stopped, she realized. That was good. She was able to remove auditory hallucinations from the list of things that seem to affect her.
However, her head was still spinning, millions of unanswered stagnant questions clinging to her chest. What had happened? Why did not she remember anything yet?
She opened her eyes, regretfully beginning to catalogue the bruises she could feel. There were plenty of them, hips, and arms and legs, but none that looked too serious.
Collision by scope is the biomechanical explanation to her accident. This usually occurs when a vehicle is stopped and is hit from behind by another vehicle. The body tends to go forward by transmission of the energy of the colliding vehicle to the occupants of the vehicle hit. The thorax is accelerated forward along with the seat back, however, the head responds to this movement with respect to the neck (not accelerated with the rest of the body) producing backward hyperextension if the back of the head has not been raised properly. That would explain the headache, and the bruises scattered on her body.
She remembered seeing that explanation at some point in her childhood.
But it by no means explains what happened to Megan. Nobody spoke about Megan Phillips. Not even a simple explanation about her.
Its existence also pretended her with another problem. She hesitated.
As far as she knew… she was with Megan at the party.
Pepper frowned.
And Killian.
She shook herself, trying to refocus her thoughts.
She needed to know what had happened. And the answer was not within the four walls of a hospital room.
Megan had been her friend since uni, her support in many difficult times. Life had reunited them since, and fate led them to work together.
Pepper needed to know the truth.
It took her fifteen minutes to find her own purse, and another fifteen to get dressed. A cotton skirt and a lilac blouse would do the job.
She did not take into account the paradigms that were raised about her. Although her mind did not seem to remember the hospital, her body knew how to move through the aisles and away from the curious glances.
Remarkable. Very remarkable indeed.
But she did not stop. Not until her feet touched the firm ground and her skin felt the cold air.
Her mind was still a mess. Even the taxi driver noticed her condition, but he was kind enough to refrain from commenting.
She thanked him for it. She did not answer questions for which she had no answer.
Seven minutes later she managed to pay and get away from the man's gaze.
Unfortunately, what she found alone made her heart beat louder.
Clearly it was no longer Megan´s property. This place was different.
A house in the middle of a vacant lot greeted her.
It was not until her eyes roamed the place, that the parts of the puzzle come together.
Goodbye to all the memories of pajama parties, and planting of wildflowers in her huge garden.
No. All that was replaced with the remains of the house, black walls and ashes clinging to what used to be a beautiful garden.
A burnt house. A fire.
She could not go one step further.
Her body tried, with all its might, to stop her. Her heart seemed to stutter in her chest, attempting to keep up with the pure terror she felt. Pepper hadn't encountered more fear than the average person in her life but she could imagine that getting in a car crash, or speeding into a head-on collision was on par with the absolute horror of putting her heart on the line.
"A real waste". His voice was strong behind her. "It used to be the most beautiful house in the neighborhood. Such a tragedy".
She felt a pang in her chest as the words left the old man's lips and reached her ears.
"What..." Her voice stammered. "What happened?"
He could not have been over 65 years old. His hair was gray and his appearance somewhat rocky. But he in no way meant danger. He watched her carefully as he began to speak.
"Nine years ago, A terrible accident happened. A gas leak."
Pepper's heart was beating far too fast.
The man lowered his head, a sigh escaped from his lips. "She was such a nice young woman, a secretary who worked not far from here." His next words were serious. "They found her dead the morning of the twenty-eighth of February, 2008. The house burned the day before. That's the official story"
She swallowed hard, her eyes glimmering. Nine years ago. But that didn't make it easier to hear.
This couldn´t be happening. She had to be dreaming.
The only person she remembers to have been with lately, had died years ago.
Sordid pain. Nails crashing into the skin. That would leave a bruise.
"Are you alright?"
Her breathing came to a stop. However, she did not show it.
A mask covered her face as she smiled. A perfect smile.
"Everything is perfect." She stressed the final word and batted her long eyelashes.
He gave her a curious look but said nothing more. His footsteps echoed as he walked away leaving her deeply affected.
Her body felt heavy, and a pain settled all over her chest at the thought of Megan, nice, gorgeous Megan. Her only friend for years.
She was sitting on the sidewalk, when the rain began. Ironically, the state of the climate coincided with her present state. Pepper felt broken, fragmented like the raindrops that ran down her skin.
And then she became aware of his presence.
It was Tony... Tony with a worried look on his face.
He seemed to be debating with himself the moment he stood up, and walked towards her. "And who in their right mind would not?" Pepper repeated in her mind.
They looked at each other for what seemed an eternity. His heart was pounding at the same time, wondering when she was going to throw the bomb on him. There was something very wrong in her vibrant eyes - tonight they were dark and sad. Seeing her like this was agonizing. He wanted to touch her, hold her, and calm her down. But she looked fragile, as if the slightest touch would break her in a million fragments.
"You have to control yourself. You haven't even started yet and you are already overdriving". He said to himself. He was her protector. But he felt like her executioner.
After several minutes he found himself standing in silence, near Pepper who was sitting on the sidewalk, her gaze turned to him once more, the painful tears forming in her eyes, giving them a terrible moisture.
"Can I sit with you?" he asked.
He did not receive a response from her. She simply looked at him from under her lashes, her eyes sad and tired, she looked so different than usual that the vision caused immense pain to Tony.
"Can I sit with you?" he asked again. As if he really needed her permission to do anything. When Pepper motioned for him to do it, he did it very quickly, looking at her for a long moment.
There were warm tears running down her cheeks, she could feel them, although she hadn't realised that she'd started crying. Embarrassed, she wiped her face dry with the backs of her hands.
"What are… She had to stop and swallow several times. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you, Potts, what else?" His voice sounded strange, a mixture of deep agony and desperation trying to be contained, waiting to be released.
"I'm fine, I just need some air." She responded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Tony nodded, watching her closely.
"You need to get back to the hospital," he said, sounding calmer but very grim. Pepper blinked her eyes clear and squinted up at him.
"I don´t want to go to the hospital. "
He stared at her for a moment, looking utterly helpless. "Pepper…"
She looked so frightened, so alone, so individual, so hurt. As if she was broken. In addition, her eyes poured tears. She looked so in need of physical closeness that it was suddenly unbearable for him. And although he did not understand it, he himself had to enjoy it, just to keep the demons at bay a bit longer.
He moves forward and cups her face in his hands, trying to sound both commanding and comforting as he says, "Shh, Pepper, look at me."
He did not know what to do. He really wanted to be there for her, he was really trying. But to comfort someone else? Who would have thought that he, Tony Stark would ever be comforting someone?
The answer came to him as Pepper let out a choked sob. And in an instant the man's arms clung gently to her.
She did not run away, she did not retreat, she simply stared at those disconsolate brown eyes, knowing that the time had come. A tear ran down her cheek as he hugged her and held her small body in his arms, caressing her hair as more tears came.
"Shh," he whispered, calming her with soft touches as his hands ran down her back. "It´s alright, everything will be fine," he assured her.
His fingers came to frame her face once more, and his thumbs gently ran over her cheekbones before one of his hands moved to her jaw, her neck. It vaguely occured to him that he's subconsciously doing what she used to do to soothe him, long before all that madness happened to them. "Just breathe," he whispered. "Breathe."
She whispered through tears. "Just... don't go."
"I will not," he whispered again as he pushed the strand of hair away from her eyes. "I'm here, sweetheart"
"I just…" were the words of Pepper drowning. There was heat spreading in the heart of Tony, one that joined the existing pain. His grip on Pepper tightened as he tried to hold onto both of them.
Tony gave her a look full of so many emotions that Pepper did not know how to handle it.
Flashes of past memories continued to invade her mind and a sea of emotions threatened to escape from her eyes. She swallowed and moved forward, pulling her arm around her as she pressed her face to his chest, inhaling the scent of his cologne. As if by instinct, his other arm wrapped around her to embrace her completely. There was something about him that smelled of comfort, home, security, being in his arms and wrapped in his heat is a fact that brought her to the edge, silent tears started staining his shirt. Tony looked at her, feeling the dampness of the burning through the tissue of his skin.
He stopped as Pepper buried her face in his chest. "I'm sorry" was the only answer Tony could manage to provide.
Pepper looked into his eyes, wondering if his eyes were a mirror image of her own. He was different, too. He was broken like her.
Renounced, she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him as if there were no tomorrow, because it felt like there was not.
Eventually, her breathing finally slowed down, and Tony felt her relax. He was so relieved he felt like an actual weight had been lifted off his chest.
"Pepper?"
A few seconds passed, and then she finally opened her eyes, the incredible baby blue looking up at him.
"Hey there," he chuckled.
"Hi." She weakly smiled, too, and he had never wanted to kiss her more than in that moment.
"Are you okay?"
She nodded, her eyes remaining on the floor.
He pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly against him once more. She felt the press of his lips against her hair before he whispered so quietly she could hardly hear him. "You'll be fine, Pepper Potts,"
And at that moment, it was when he finally realized something he had known all along. He had never admitted it before, at least not until the night before.
He truly loved Pepper.
TBC...
If you take time to read, you please take the time to comment. Let me know what you think.
I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter.
I invite you to read my others stories.
In the next chapter:
"You're everything to me, Pepper." He wanted to say. "I've never been so afraid of losing something as much as that night. You are the last piece of humanity that I have left in this world. If I lost you, I do not know what I would do." But he knew she was not ready to listen to his open heart. So he just shook his head and gave her a grimace very close to a smile.
"I was a little worried about you, that´s all".
