Burger King and Extra Olives, Please
"Why did he die?"
The innocence behind that question, behind his chocolate eyes… it nearly killed her. He was a child, and while she might have been a few years younger than him and while he might have been one of the most successful minds of his generation, Pepper had to remind herself constantly that this was a man in need of someone to hold him.
"He was sick." It seemed too simple. But that was the truth.
Her boss seemed to agree with that nagging voice in her head. "That's bullshit. You get sick, I get sick… you don't see me being lowered six feet under."
A chill scurried down Pepper's spine at the thought. "Don't even joke about that, Tony."
Brooke Shields was speaking, trying to hold some shred of composure as she stood at the podium, and for a moment, Pepper identified with her.
"Michael was one of a kind," the brown-haired actress remarked. "Whenever we were out together and there would be a picture taken, there would be caption of some kind, and the caption usually said something like, 'an odd couple' or 'an unlikely pair.'"
An odd couple. With a quick glance at the man sipping his bottle of beer beside her, the redhead wondered what it would have been like to know an existence as a half of an odd couple.
They sure as hell would have fit the description.
"Pepper, everyone's dying now."
He rested his head on her shoulder, and she couldn't help but release one melancholy smile at the scent of booze on his breath. "People die every day. The past few days have just been… concentrated with celebrity deaths."
"It's like… fucking dying season over here."
She could resist running her hands through his hair, but only barely. He was… so close…
The image of Brooke Shields crying over Michael Jackson kept her grounded.
That was another thing they shared: a deep love for Michael's music. And he was gone, and that was really fucking scary. It was unbelievable, how someone who had always been there could suddenly just… vanish.
And with that thought, she allowed her fingers to rest on Tony Stark's shoulder as he wept into her neck.
'Don't vanish,' she thought as a tear slid down her pale cheek and into his messy hair.
A/N: Just because I figured they'd be fans.