Chapter Twenty-one
"Sir?
The salutation is spoken right as Tony's struggling to climb over a rise made up of debris from the complex, as if one of the magic users had dragged them over to use them as projectiles. He recognizes the voice and falters in relief. Of course Peter's uncertain- Tony's half naked, half dead, and not wearing the suit anymore.
"I did my best to make sure the battle ended by bedtime, Pete, but if you're looking for a clock, I've got some bad news," Tony says, gesturing toward the piled-up, twisted metal.
"It is you," Peter says joyously. Tony wonders if he's more recognizable because of his voice or his snark. Seconds later he's being earnestly encouraged by the boy, who helps him up and over their obstacle while explaining how he 'woke up' and Strange told him they were needed.
Tony's barely holding himself upright, but as Peter keeps explaining how strange it was to 'get all dusty,' it seems like the most natural thing in the world to pull him close for a hug. Peter's energy is infectious, or maybe Tony's been holding some of his energy in reserve, only unlockable once he can prove to himself that this very important young man made it through, because once they pull away from each other, Tony's reinvigorated.
"Mr. Stark?"
"Yeah, Peter?"
"It didn't hurt. I was scared- terrified, really, but it didn't hurt."
"That's really good to know," Tony tells him. He doesn't, of course, tell Peter how much it had hurt Tony to watch, to wait, and to worry, because that wouldn't really serve any purpose but make him feel guilty.
"Was- was Aunt May upset?"
Tony curses the circumstances that have brought him to say his next words, because it's upside down that they're comforting.
"It happened to her too, Peter. She didn't get a chance to be upset."
"Oh," Peter says. He stops in his tracks. "So she just… reappeared where she had been before?"
"Ironically, I am the last useful person to ask about that," Tony says.
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Thanks to Strange's portals, almost everyone regroups at Tony's tower, which makes sense due to the number of unused apartments available for people like Wilson, Maximoff, Barnes, and everyone else who was brought back (not to mention people like Nat who had been living at the facility that's just been destroyed). Because everyone's exhausted and in dire need of a shower, food, and rest, Tony has Steve coordinate everyone's food orders, while he arranges accommodation. He has Strange take him to his tower, and they systematically go from apartment to apartment, opening portals to let each person walk directly into the living space, without having to exchange pleasantries or socialize if they don't want to.
Pepper is among them, and he can tell that she does want to socialize, at least with him. Tony plays his reticence off as businesslike efficiency, and if anyone wants to complain to him, they can speak to him after he's had to break the news to his daughter that her mother is dead.
It turns out that, of course, Ember is sleeping, because by the time he's able to head up to the penthouse, it's verging on ten PM. Tony throws himself into the shower, puts on whatever the fuck he can find, and then sleeps on the floor beside Em's bed.
He wakes up to a tickling feeling and opens his eyes to see her leaning over and trailing her hair across his forearms.
"Morning, Sunshine," he says. Leigh's nickname for Em is Love Bug, his is Sunshine. Tony wonders if he should start to alternate them, if missing one will make things worse for her. There are a million million future issues like that ahead of him, and he dreads every single one of them.
"Morning Daddy!"
Ember starts sliding off of the bed, and Tony catches her to his chest, hugging her probably too tight, given the way she starts to squirm.
"I need to tell you something sad, Em," Tony says. His throat is scratchy, as if the tears he's holding back are crystalizing into salt to etch their objection to being restrained into his vocal cords.
"You haf to go away 'gain?" she asks, sitting on his chest and looking down at him. Her big brown eyes are so trusting. He hopes they still will be in a few minutes.
"No. I hope I don't have to be gone for that long ever again," Tony tells her. "No, it's about your Mama."
Ember's face lights up. Tony imagines his usually does, too. In that moment, Tony resolves to make sure that her reaction is always to love her mother that way, no matter what that means for his own misery.
"Mama got to be a hero, Em. She saved the whole world. Did she ever tell you about her Mama and Daddy?"
Em nods. "Gone," she says.
"Yeah. Well, your Mama brought them back. She brought back a lot of people who were gone, Ember. But it meant that she had to be gone instead."
Ember's sad face freezes into fear. Tony scoots them around, leaning against the bed so he can give her his chest to lean on. He holds out his arms and Em throws herself at him. He doesn't have any illusions that she really understands what he's said, but the subject has been broached, and that's the first, hardest part.
As he strokes Ember's hair, Tony holds his own tears back, not wanting to scare her. He casts his mind around for something to distract him, and the thought that his painfully practical wife would not have left their daughter out of her plans to sacrifice herself pushes to the forefront.
"FRIDAY, what is the location of Leigh Stark's phone?" he says.
"The current location of your wife's phone is in the rubble of the Avengers Facility, Boss, but before she left with you on your mission, she uploaded the contents into my database. You should be able to access it on any of the consoles here in the tower, and at home in West Virginia."
"Thanks, honey," Tony whispers into his daughter's hair, his heart too full for any other words.
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"-how in the name of the LORD you were able to get those stones out of there, man?" Sam Wilson is asking Barnes when Tony comes down to the common area that spans the three floors of apartments currently in use. Tony's got Ember in his arms, and an iron grip on his own emotions.
"You saw when he put the shield up, it was wrapped around- but it didn't go through his arm. When he put the thing down, setting it up gave me a chance to dig my arm down underneath it," Barnes is saying to the assembled group.
It looks like hardly anyone has opted to sleep in. Tony doesn't blame them. He couldn't either. Ember has been subdued since he broke the news to her, whether or not she really understands it, so she's got her head down on his shoulder, and her favorite toy up by her mouth. He stands in the back and listens- everything Barnes did was behind Tony, so it's good to hear what he missed.
"The ground was soft thanks to all that water, but the real brilliant part was, that gauntlet was made out of the same nano shit that Stark's suit is, right? So when I got the arm close, they just fuckin' put the stones right in the correct slots, like it was designed to do that the whole time!"
"It was," Tony says. Everyone turns around, even though he hadn't said the words very loudly.
"Genius," Steve says, inclining his head to Tony just a bit.
"Laziness, more like," Tony says, swapping Ember to his other arm. He's starting to feel less weak, but his strength isn't anywhere near where it should be, and three year olds are heavy. "They're all programmed the same way, just like the suit. I designed the suit to take the stones, too, just in case. I knew I wouldn't be able to do it, not after-" He shakes his head.
"Tony- is that your daughter?" Sam asks, his voice pleased but gentle.
Ember lifts her head and regards the room. "Daddy," she says in a tone full of possessiveness. She puts her head back down and wraps an arm around his neck.
"She's beautiful," Wanda murmurs.
"Thanks," Tony says. His voice quivers ever so slightly, and he knows certain people will hear it.
"What's her name?" another woman asks. It's Pepper, and she's coming over to him.
Tony shuts his eyes. He knew he wouldn't be able to avoid some kind of confrontation with her this morning, but he'd hoped that having so many eyes would make it easier, somehow, especially if her reaction was going to be anger. Now, though, he feels like he's on display, laid out on a table for a team of developers to remark on, to observe his schematics and suggest improvements.
"Ember," he says, after clearing his throat.
"That's pretty," she says, walking closer. "Unusual." She's in casual clothes. Tony wonders if they're some of the ones he'd had carefully packed and stored, or if she'd borrowed them. He doesn't remember seeing her wearing them before.
"Her mother-" Tony breathes in, breathes out, "She's always warm, both in temperature and personality. When she was pregnant, we joked that Leigh was baking a fragment of herself inside, an Ember. It stuck."
"Is that her name? Leigh?" Pepper's eyes travel down from Tony's face to his left hand, visible against his daughter's back. He sees her take in the wedding ring there.
"Yes."
Pepper gets a look on her face that he doesn't quite follow, as if she's putting together a larger puzzle, and the piece of his wife's name has just illustrated something completely shocking. Pepper turns away, looking through the room until her eyes light on a particular person. He can't tell for sure, but Tony thinks it's Steve. She widens her eyes, and Steve nods. Pepper sucks in a breath, her eyes shining, and then she walks away from Tony without another word.
He feels like he's just missed something important.
"Tony?" Nat calls out to him. "You want me to take Em?"
"I don't think she'll go," he answers. Ember answers this in her own way, her arm pulling tighter against his neck. "Too tight, sweetie," he says softly. He looks back across the crowd of faces to find Natasha's again. "I had to try to tell her, this morning…"
"Come sit." Barnes gestures to a spot on the couch beside him that seems to have just been vacated.
"I'm not… I'm not holding court," Tony objects. "I just came down to-"
"Sit down, Stark," Doctor Strange says, frowning. "There's a- We need to talk to you."
Tony had been in the process of walking over to the spot anyway, too tired and overwhelmed to argue, but now he freezes in place. His arms tighten around Ember, and she squeaks a little in protest.
"It's about Leigh," Rocket clarifies. Tony shoots him a look, and the creature nods. "I can leave, if you want."
He waits till he's sitting, for once profoundly uncomfortable surrounded by attentive faces. "Why bother?" Tony says to Rocket.
Steve gets his attention by saying his name. "Tony, the press attention has been… intense. They want a focus point. We-" he pauses, looks around at the assemblage of Avengers and associates. Tony has a sick feeling that they're not all awake because they chose to be, but because Steve asked them to. He seems to have brought in others who had places to sleep outside of Tony's empty tower, like Strange. All of them are nodding. "We think it should be Leigh."
Ember slides down his chest to his lap, pulling out her favorite toy to fly it around. Tony suspects she's hoping someone will notice the gorgeous custom-made stuffed animal and comment on it. She's got his instincts, his charisma.
"It's a phoenix, isn't it? Her toy," Wanda asks, her voice hushed.
Tony's smile isn't even that broad, but the edges of his lips hurt when he bends them up. "Yeah. Crazy, right?" He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Too bad that myth's not real. What I wouldn't give if it was." He sighs. "Steve, you're going to have to explain like I'm five. Or, in this case, three, because that's about as much brain power I have this morning. What do you mean 'we think it should be Leigh?'"
Nat's voice is businesslike. "They want a hero to focus attention on. Steve thinks it'll be too much for any one person to deal with, but if we tell them about what Leigh did, that she sacrificed herself for one of the stones, it'll give them a-"
"A martyr. You want to turn my wife into a martyr," Tony breaks in, voice harsh. "After some of you persuaded her to step in, in the first place? Breathtaking," he says. The pain has glued his lungs together, making it impossible to expand them. He chokes on with what air he has left. "What do even you need me for?"
"Daddy," Ember says, looking worried. She pats him on the chest twice, looking up at his face for approval. It's their 'magic' way to cheer him up, and Tony has to buckle down with all his might to smile for her, because he needs her to still believe that it works.
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Meeting Chuck's husband Diggory is the only thing good about that first week, barring the whole killing-Thanos-and-saving-the-world thing.
Diggory Fisher has a British accent, Scandanavian good looks, and is built like a Greek God. All he's missing is height, which honestly, if Chuck can overlook it, who is Tony to judge? He's also sardonic, clever, and good with his hands.
The implications make Tony blush, but he's really glad for Chuck's existence in his life, and so he enjoys their dinner together.
Oh, and just for fun, every time Diggory seems engrossed in something and can't see Tony's face, Tony mouths some version of, 'holy shit, Chuck!' or 'get it!' and once, just 'DAMN.'
Chuck's face is permanently set to 'delighted and embarrassed' all evening, and it's everything Tony needed to feel better for just a few hours.
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The World is Grateful After 'Avengers' Do the Impossible- But How Can We Trust Them Without Understanding Their Secretive Technology?
Opinion: Lance Cress, Chief Science Reporter
Last Monday was a day most of us never allowed ourselves to believe could happen, until it did. The missing half of the world's population has sprung back into being, thanks to the efforts of a small group of people loosely known as the 'Avengers.' Without the cell phone camera footage of a spaceship dissolving into the horribly familiar dust we all remember from five years ago, it would be hard to trust that our loved ones' return is permanent.
Now that it has been a few days, most thoughts have turned to the 'how' of this miraculous event. Our own Michelle Constann has written an explainer on the so-called Infinity Stones after a few hours spent with a representative from the Kamar Taj community, but they're only one half of the missing puzzle. We've been told by countless spokespeople (most notably, a Mr. Fisher speaking for Tony Stark aka Iron Man, and an unnamed official from Wakanda on behalf of King T'Challa) that these stones with the power to turn half the world's population into dust, and an entire army of alien invaders into dust as well, are 'no longer available.' We've been assured that they were 'borrowed' by the Avengers -some at great personal cost, as the emerging story about Tony Stark's wife Leigh is revealing- and have since been returned. That they were, in fact, destroyed five years before, by the very alien madman who caused the Snap in the first place.
When asked whether this means the Avengers used time travel technology, every Avenger or known associate has answered 'no comment.'
Even if we were reassured by every single world leader that the technology that made this event possible has been completely destroyed, the records of its existence eradicated, and the scientists who invented it sworn to secrecy by the power of actual magic, we should still be concerned- and these events as just now described are not what has happened.
How do we regulate that which we cannot be assured does not still exist?
How can we be certain that none of the small strike team who we have been told 'borrowed' these stones from wherever they still existed will not exploit this knowledge for their own personal enrichment? There are those who argue that these people deserve such an opportunity- but at what cost?
Until we can be assured that no one has a single-use time machine in their rural basement, this publication and others like it will continue to demand accountability. If you haven't read Stephen King's 11/22/63, I recommend doing so- Captain America might be the sort to only use his hidden time machine to enjoy the good old days of unregulated food, but can we expect billionaire Tony Stark not to be perpetuating a rescue of his own personal John F. Kennedy, his wife Leigh, who died making all of this possible?
'The Girl Who Lived,' 'America's Daughter;'
These Are Just Two of the Titles Being Bestowed on Little Ember Stark After Her Mother's Brave Sacrifice
A 60 Minutes Exclusive
Transcript: Sixty Minutes
Alternately bright eyed and stoic, three year old Ember Stark and her father Tony are the ones who suffer while the rest of us rejoice. Billionaire Tony Stark granted just one interview out of over a thousand requests- with our own Lesley Stahl. Viewers know him as Iron Man, a member of the controversial Avengers, one of the few who signed the Sokovia Accords as originally framed. But what some may not know is that in his quest to bring back what the world had lost, his wife Leigh made an impossible choice. Before we show you the footage from our visit with Ember, here's some of her daddy's interview with Lesley.
Stahl:
I know this is hard, but, will you tell us about your wife? Just a little?
Stark:
She's warm, passionate, practical. She was embarrassed about how much money I have, at first. Leigh's one of the most generous people I've ever met. When I proposed-
Stahl:
With the drone display?
Stark:
Yeah. My best friend James Rhodes had proposed to his girlfriend just the week before, on Christmas. Almost as soon as Leigh realized the drones were for her, for us, she chastised me. She thought I hadn't checked with Rhodey. (Stark laughs) That's just the kind of person she is.
Stahl:
I notice you're using the present tense.
Stark:
It's been two weeks, Lesley.
Stahl:
Can I ask you about when the press first discovered that the two of you were involved, on your property in West Virginia?
Stark:
You can.
Stahl:
(laughs after a pause waiting for Stark to elaborate) Did you plan to use that invention to keep her on the property with you?
Stark:
You mean, did I plan to kidnap my gorgeous architect? No. I was already half in love with her by then, but she hadn't spoken a word to me until about five minutes before I set the thing off. We'd communicated through notes, texts, and email.
Stahl:
(shocked) You mean you didn't know she was your soulmate?
Stark:
No. I'd spoken to her the first time almost two months before.
Stahl:
That's the stuff of romance novels. (laughs)
Stark:
I had very little resistance to her, soulmate or not. I'd pulled her aside to basically demand that she speak to me. I wasn't expecting to hear those words at all.
Stahl:
And your first word to her was your name, that's pretty on-brand for you.
Stark:
In more ways than one, I guess. (smiles) We can leave that part out, if you like.
Stahl:
You're a possessive guy, you mean? You liked seeing your name on her wrist?
Stark:
Maybe not in the way that probably sounds. It felt like a talisman. If I had to have part of my heart out in the open like that, not covered by my armor, at least she had that to hold onto. And, sure, as a warning to others. Money can equal power, in various ways.
Stahl:
Your daughter is another part of your heart now, isn't she?
Stark:
Yes.
Stahl:
It's rare that we agree to have a separate interview with the parent, and another with both of you, but this is a special case.
Stark:
I wouldn't have agreed to come on, otherwise. At three, she's too young to hear those details. That's one of the reasons we're heading back to West Virginia soon.
Stahl:
You attended a historic state dinner at the White House with a record thirty world leaders, that was also a once in a lifetime event. How did your daughter handle that?
Stark:
She and Emmauel Macron got along very well, and now the only chicken nuggets she likes are the ones made by the White House chef. It's been a trying time. (both Stahl and Stark laugh)
Stahl:
Can you tell us about losing your wife? I think it's important for the country, for the world, to understand that our gain was a tragic loss for your family, but more than that, it was a choice, wasn't it?
Stark:
Yes, it was a choice. One I didn't agree with, even after it was too late. To get that particular stone, someone has to die. A soul for a soul. It's more than that, though. Leigh learned about it from a teammate who was concerned that the ones we planned to send wouldn't succeed. It has to be a sacrifice for the person left behind, or it won't work. Out of the eleven of us, she and I had the closest bond.
Stahl:
Let me make sure I understand you correctly: if I went out right now onto the street, and took a stranger with me to this place you're talking about, and one of us died, the other wouldn't end up with that stone, would they?
Stark:
No.
Stahl:
And your wife wasn't on the team at all, was she? It was ten of you, originally. She was the odd one out. She volunteered, tricked one of the other members to change the assignments, so you and she would be sent there.
Stark:
It wasn't a trick. She persuaded him.
Stahl:
He was your friend.
Stark:
Yes.
Stahl:
Is he still your friend?
Stark:
I'm working on it.
Stahl:
I don't think anyone on this planet blames you for that. So when you got there, what happened?
Stark:
I told her I didn't accept her decision.
Stahl:
Did you offer to take her place?
Stark:
Of course.
Stahl:
She didn't accept that either, did she?
Stark:
She said the team and the people who needed to be brought back needed me.
Stahl:
She was right, wasn't she? You were the one who faced off with Thanos, stalled him long enough for James Barnes to use those stones to wipe him off of the face of the Earth. In fact, you were the one who made the prosthetic arm he used to hold them! (Stark doesn't respond) So how long did you argue about it with her?
Stark:
Eight days.
Stahl:
(Lesley's jaw drops, she's completely stunned, speechless. She starts to cry. Stark closes his eyes, clearly struggling. This goes on for two minutes while both try to master their emotions)
Tell me how that is possible, Tony.
Stark:
We're both very stubborn. (laughs) I told her on day one that if she was going to try this, I was going to stop her. There was food and water on the spaceship we borrowed-
Stahl:
Which is a whole other story that we don't even have time for.
Stark:
True. She wouldn't eat during the day, but I slipped it to her at night. We slept with my Iron Man suit configured into a handcuff to keep her with me. On day eight, she got free and jumped, while I was asleep.
Stahl:
Without saying goodbye?
Stark:
We spent our days saying goodbye. I fully intended to starve to death or become so emaciated that she would give in, to avoid seeing me like that. We tried to outsmart each other, and she won.
Stahl:
(shaking her head, horrified) What happened after she jumped?
Stark:
I woke up in a pool of water with the stone. I won't- I can't describe what that felt like, but I think anyone who has ever loved someone with their whole heart can imagine.
Stahl:
Was it worth it?
Stark:
(emphatic) No.
((commercial break))
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There's only one good thing about Tony's misery: it's made him unpalatable to others.
In the month since he lost Leigh, he actually hasn't warred as much with his friends as much as he'd expected, mostly because they don't know how to handle his bitter grief. He doesn't hide it for them, doesn't soften himself to make his edges easier to navigate around, and after a while, everyone coalesces somewhere else, somewhere where he isn't. It's fine. He and Ember move back to the house in West Virginia eighteen days after her mother's loss, and the Secret Service decks it out as if he's a former President, as a way to prevent needing a constant police presence to keep the people the fuck away from them.
Leigh's message to Ember on her phone is beautiful, poignant, and perfect. Tony sets up a device that plays it for Em in her room whenever she likes. At some point it'll be too much, but that's hopefully years in the future for them. He's reached out tentatively to Leigh's family in Pennsylvania, requesting time, promising access. Their response so far has been supportive, encouraging, and uplifting, especially as regards the media.
Now that all of NYC's 'Snap Orphans' are back with their parents, Happy Hogan is technically out of his job as the head of that organization, and he offers to come stay at the house, but Tony has Plans that he's not sure Hogan will approve of. Aleshia Rhodes has offered to help him out with babysitting at the WV house while Tony clears up the rest of what he didn't want left behind at the compound. She does it by using Rhodey's suit, flying in and out as needed.
The Secret Service think it's Rhodey himself, which is why they're fine with it, but Tony expects to hear about it at some point, when they realize.
He's only really doing this because he has to get the materials that made the Quantum Tunnel out of there before someone sifts through and tries to make one of their own. As hypocritical as it may be, Tony only trusts himself and some of his associates to make proper decisions on the proper disposal of those components. The various government agencies who have sought to enjoin him from being allowed to take anything from the site have been mollified only because Tony's taking all of it to West Virginia, where he's ostensibly guarded by the Secret Service.
It's an uneasy truce, and it's not the only one Tony's engaged in.
It is perhaps fitting that the two most difficult conversations he has before moving back home to the lake house are with the two women closest to him before Leigh came into his life.
The one with Natasha comes seventeen days after losing his wife.
"So this is you now, then?" she asks him after hacking FRIDAY to let her into the penthouse at 10 PM. Tony knows her well enough to take hints from the time and place- she's here while Ember's sleeping, knowing that neither of them would ever scream at each other and give the little girl something more to stress over. Nat probably also came late because he might be more receptive, after a long day.
"Yeah, this is me. This has always been me, Nat, I just had armor on, before."
"No, fuck that, that's not true, and you know it," she says, her tone somehow friendly but with the right emphasis even so. Nat even smiles. He's a bit blinded by the juxtaposition. "You're flayed open, right now, that's the difference. Don't rewrite the past four years because you're hurt for the next fifty."
"Thank you," Tony says, meaning it. "Everyone else seems to be all gung-ho on healing. You would always be the one who understood, because you were missing Clint that whole time in between. Fifty might not even be enough."
"I can see why you might say that, Tony, but there are some pretty blatant differences there."
"Why?" Tony asks, letting vitriol tip his head to the side quizzically. "Because he was technically alive that whole time? Would you call that living? Clint wouldn't. Ask him," he challenges her.
"So Leigh's alive out there somewhere waiting to be pulled away from a violent, retributory rampage?" Nat challenges right on back.
"If only." Tony smiles, pushes it too hard, into the absurd. He's a clown for grief. "I'd take her bloodsoaked and feral, if I had to."
"I guess I'm just asking where you want your friends to land. How far do we let you lean, Tony? All the way over? Do we lose you over this?"
"Do you want to?"
In retrospect, Tony realizes that Natasha's played him. He didn't want to ask that, it's actually too far of a lean, because the possible answers from her are all bad, every single one of them. Either he loses them all because he's too selfish not to stop grieving, or he doesn't lose them, and has to work on being worthy of their continued patience, their sacrifice. Just like Leigh's, he doesn't think he's worth it. Admitting that, though, that's the step too far.
Somewhere deep down inside, he feels condemnation. The person whose opinion he values above all others thought he was worth it. Is he impugning her memory by rejecting her estimation of his worth now that she can't fight back? Is that fair?
"Of course I don't want to lose you. That's why I'm here. I'm actually here to ask you for a loose time frame. When do I hit the quick release on this misery, for you? I want to give you time. You deserve it, this chance to wallow. You earned it," she says, smiling in that way that Tony thinks only Clint really gets to see. It's a genuine smile, the kind that shows how much she actually cares, how much of herself she puts into what she does. "Six months? A year? Two years? Tell me how long, Tony. I'll set an alarm and come get you. You just gotta tell me."
"Five years."
He blurts it out. It's the estimate he'd come up with when, late two nights ago, he had come up with something ridiculous, something impossible. Something he's going to set aside with its own timer, so he can re-examine it without the thick layers of grief that have scaled over his eyes and his mind.
"You've got it, then," Natasha says, like he hasn't just told her to fuck off for as long as they'd been in exile. She unwinds herself from the chair she'd been sitting on backwards, and Tony realizes that he'd actually gotten to see more of her than he thought. Natasha has been real for him, tonight- tense, worried, relieved. She'd wrapped herself around his dining room chair like it mattered what he had to say.
Tony wants to tell her the truth he's been pushing away. He thinks she needs to hear it, but it's so black, so vile, so ugly in context, that he isn't sure she'll even accept it as honesty. It only exists in a space where there isn't an either/or, but that's the thing. There isn't an either/or. There's no 'what if.' There's just Leigh's death, the end. When he can look at it like that, when he's acting like enough of a fucking grown-up to do that, this truth is crystal clear.
"I'm-" he gasps, standing up, walking over to the couch and curling himself over it, his hands nearly digging into the wood. "Fuck."
"What, what is it? What's happened?"
"I'm going to say this, and then maybe I don't see you for a while, like we agreed, okay?" Tony says in a pained voice.
"Okay?" Nat says, sounding uneasy.
"I'm glad it wasn't you.Get out."
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Exactly a week after his interview with 60 Minutes, Tony gets a visit from Pepper. She makes an appointment with Chuck and everything.
Tony puts on his best business suit for it, because there's no point in breaking his habit of suiting up for tough battles at this point. Her hair is down and curly (+45 minutes), makeup seemingly non-existent (+30 minutes), fresh manicure (? but bonus points for making an appointment somewhere), sleek (possibly new?) clothes (+2 hours - 3 days, depending on methods of acquisition), and 4+ inch heels. Tony walks her over to the couch by the window in his office, instead of forcing her to sit across from him at his desk.
"I watched your 60 Minutes interview," Pepper says, right after they both sit down.
"I'm sorry," he says, heavily implying that watching it was a mistake for various reasons, and not just because it shows, in brilliant, high-definition, how completely in love with his wife he still is, even though she's gone.
Pepper shakes her head, her eyes closed. It reminds him of the way she used to be, before she was CEO, when she was uncertain about her place in his world. "Actually, can I start that all over? That's like, farther ahead in the conversation than I wanted to start."
"Okay."
She smiles brilliantly. "What you've done with the company, Tony-"
"That was all for you," he interrupts her. She blushes, stammers out a 'what?' and he mentally kicks himself. This woman is in love with him, and he's got to watch what he says to her. He doesn't want to be cruel. "When I got back I was mostly dead. I hated everyone and everything. The only thing that kept me going was knowing what you'd have done if it were you left behind instead of me."
"That's a really lovely compliment. I… I'd love to think I would have done those things, but I'm not sure I have the imagination."
"It was really different, Pepper. Much easier to ram through social change when everyone's too shell-shocked to stop you," he says. "We'll see how much of it sticks."
"That's one of the reasons I'm here, actually," she says, straightening her shoulders. "You're-" Pepper breaks off, her lips twisting into a sad, almost sardonic smile. "I've seen you fucked up before, but this might be a new record."
"Nice," Tony says. She hardly ever swears.
"Well, you've earned it," she adds, and Tony wonders if Steve had another one of his meetings. 'The Care and Feeding of Tony Stark,' where they all decided how much leeway he should be given. Seems like it's all of it, all the leeway, and if that's not a recognition of the impact of one person's life on another, he doesn't know what is.
Pepper gets a call, and he nods for her to take it. She smiles apologetically, gets up, and walks over to the other side of the room.
Tony spends that time indulging in a painful exercise: picturing the situation in reverse. How would Leigh, a woman on the cusp of marriage with a man she loved, react to coming back after five years to find that her fiance had been involved with someone else. Not just involved but in love, in adoration, in pure, dizzying bewitchment with someone else. So much so that there's no hope of ever reaching his heart again. What would she do?
He thinks Leigh would besiege him.
He thinks Pepper's about to let him go.
He doesn't know how to feel about those conclusions. The one thing he does know is that he would never judge either woman based on the other's metric.
"Sorry about that," Pepper says, sitting back down, settling her hands in her lap. "That was the new apartment complex contacting me to tell me they've accepted my application. There's only one catch: they want to know whether I've secured employment."
"Do you want your old job back?" Tony asks her. He hadn't even considered this possibility, but it's exactly what he needs, what she might need.
"I would, actually. I would absolutely love it. Is that- would that be a problem for you? Personally, I mean?" she asks, her voice clear and calm.
"Pepper, without you, there would be no company." It's a dodge, and she catches it easily.
"Personally, Tony."
"You watched the interview. What do you think?"
Her smile is thin, brittle, and lovely. "I think you'll be fine with it. Personally."
"It wasn't the soulmate thing," he blurts out, wishing he could tell himself to shut the fuck up, but this is Pepper, and she deserves the truth. "I've seen the articles. People whose loved ones came back to find they're with someone else, their soulmate, and that's the balm that makes it better. It wasn't that. I didn't even know she was my soulmate when I fell in love with her. I hated that she was my soulmate. I would have burned those words off of me so fast it'd make you head spin."
Her expression is full of compassion.
He never did deserve her.
"When I lost you, I had the company. I did what you would have done with it. It was a project. I'm happy to give it back, step back and consult, or whatever. You'll do great. You always did."
"So what's your project now?" Pepper asks, a little thread of the old 'handler' voice creeping in.
"Ember, I imagine. Maybe she can be the youngest engineer to ever graduate from MIT."
"Or the youngest architect. Did you know they have the best program there for that, maybe in the world?" she points out.
Tony wonders if she knows that because of Leigh, because Ember is Leigh's, because Pepper spent time thinking about his daughter, what Em might want to be like when she grows up. It was probably a self-destructive moment, for Pepper, if that's how she knows. He wishes he could spare her those, but he can't spare himself from them either, and he might be one of the richest, most respected people on the planet at the moment. If he can't, what hope does she have?
"I didn't want this to happen, Pep. Any of it. From the second I left the atmosphere."
"I know." She draws herself up, sucks in a breath, and pins him with a look. "You cannot make that child your project. Pick something else, or I'll retract my acceptance of your offer."
"What?"
Pepper actually stands up and points at him. "You're bad at this. The coping thing. When you nearly died, when Vanko and Hammer were trying to tear the company apart and destroy your reputation, you made all the wrong choices. But I could have left you if I had wanted to, and that little girl can't do that. Do not shuffle her off to her new-found family and wallow in online curriculums and summer schools. Find another project."
He wants to stand up, wants to pace, but Pepper's pointy shoe tips are actually touching his own. If he stood up now, he'd be crowding her, physically. The last time they'd stood that close, she had every right to be there, to touch him, to kiss him, to call him hers. Pepper's actually using her knowledge of him as a man who knows better than to do that to her against him, right now. It's really fucking impressive.
"Okay, I won't," he says, blinking at her. "I've got some other things-"
She holds up a hand, and he cuts himself off. "You don't have to tell me. In fact, don't. I'm going to need some time and distance." Pepper lets out her breath and backs up a little. "Wow, okay, I didn't know I was going to get all the way- you're not mad. That's good. But, yes. Distance. And time."
"I can do that," he says. "I can do that."