Guest Review Responses

Stark13: Great chapter again. Really gold writing and yes Tony is cute with children. As always, we can't wait to read next chapter. Bye – Thank you. Here's the next one ^_^

Guest: Giving up on this story. The chapters are to long and there's to much filler crap in them – I agree. It's been tough writing this story. Thanks for giving it a chance, though :)

A/N: The story is coming to an end. We have two cities left to visit and a lot of flashbacks to go over that answer a lot of the questions everyone has had so far (they're actually the focus of the next few chapters). I hope to convey the clusterfuck of emotions a woman endures during and after a miscarriage so that it's easier to understand why Pepper made this decision. It is not something I want to experience again but that I had to channel my own to write this. Hope it makes sense.

Chapter 14: Sidney

A panic attack. That was what she had told Happy and Bambi she was having when she had been unable to hold back another scream of pain. It was not lying, not entirely – she was panicking, to say the least, but panic was not the only thing that had sent her to the ER.

She was cramping. She was bleeding. She had possibly lost the love of her life, and had also possibly lost the baby she knew she had been carrying of his. She was no doctor, however, so she was not sure of the last one. She had read that spotting and bleeding was common in some women doing the first weeks of being pregnant, but she had a horrible suspicion that this was not of the normal kind given the pain that had come with the bleeding.

The Iron Man app was no longer of any help to her. The newscast had stopped the moment the city had evaporated into pieces. As soon as the notification had appeared that Tony's heart was no longer traceable, the app had stopped working all together. She had tried rebooting the app and the phone, calling Tony and JARVIS again to no avail, but the mocking message that Iron Man had no vital signs – no life – refused to go away. It was as if the universe was giving her a heads-up of what was to come so that she could come to terms with it: you cannot will someone's life to come back to them, no matter how much one restarted one's phone.

The redhead breathed deeply and scanned her surroundings from the corners of her eyes, finding them to be as cold and unwanted as her current situation was. She was not even sure when and how she had ended up inside an ambulance while the entire world was in pandemonium, but she was pretty sure that she had been the one to ask for one. She had not told anyone about the baby yet, and she doubted that anyone suspected it either, seeing how long she and Tony had been a couple without having children, and given how Tony had made it clear he was not interested in having any. As morbid as it was, the timing of the mission heading south, quite literally, in Sokovia, had been a great way to disguise the real reason for her physical discomfort and ache. Everyone who had helped her so far, probably thought that she was simply a woman who had just watched her partner die in battle. And maybe she was – but she was also one that was almost certain she was in the process of losing their child, too.

"Ms. Potts? Ms. Potts? Virginia!"

Pepper lifted her head and searched for the owner of the voice. It was Dr. Adler, who had rushed to the hospital where Pepper had been taken as soon as she had been able to drive through the crazier-than-usual traffic of NYC. Pepper was sure that she had not called her, and if she had, she did not remember. Everything was jumbled in her mind. She felt lost and confused; undoubtedly the result of so much stress befalling her at the same time. The same stress that Dr. Adler had told her she needed to get under control or else.

She had not wanted Bambi or Happy to be here with her, because she was afraid that they would find out about the baby, so it was a good thing that the doctor was present, even if she did not recall contacting her in the first place. It was possible, since the woman was listed as her PCP, that the medical staff had called her in to oversee Pepper's care. She was the partner of genius billionaire Tony Stark. Mistreating her in any way would surely land them in a courtroom. She was sure the hospital staff wanted to avoid that.

Everyone wants to avoid the thing they dread.

"Is Tony alive?" the redhead pressed her right palm against her chest, the mental fog she currently felt not being strong enough to make her forget what was happening outside these walls. "Have they said anything about him? They don't have a TV here and they took away my phone…"

Dr. Alder walked towards Pepper's bed and sat next to her, her shoulders slumped.

"I really don't know, Ms. Potts. The reports stopped when…" she gulped and then simply made a gesture with her hand that Pepper understood to imply: You know. "They're slowly coming back, but they're not obvious as to what's happened other than showing the explosion did occur."

Pepper covered her face with her shaking hands and breathed deeply, trying to find her bearings amidst the many directions her brain was taking her. She wanted to find a phone and call everyone and anyone she knew until she found out if Tony was alright. She also wanted the best doctors in here to check on her about the pain she still felt but was dulled now, probably due to whatever she was being pumped with via the IV line in her arm. She wanted to find out if the world had gone to shit and if there was something she could do to help. She wanted to close her eyes and open them again and find out that this was just some fucked up nightmare she was having, because there was no way in hell that she was destined to lose father and child, at the same time.

In the end, however, she knew that this was not a nightmare. She knew that no one would know about Tony's whereabouts for a while – that had been the case during the battle of New York. She knew that, in her state, no one would tell her the truth about the fight or let her do anything to help. Which left her with one choice only: focusing on finding out how to get her good health back.

Once her face was clear of obstructions once again, she locked eyes with her doctor and bit her lower lip.

"What's wrong with it… with me? I… I started bleeding on the way here. Not a lot, but… the cramps."

Dr. Adler's pursed her lips and sighed.

"I called ahead and asked them to draw blood," the doctor pointed to Pepper's inner elbow, where a gauze covered the puncture wound the nurse had made. "They just gave me the results a few minutes ago and… your HCG levels… they're lower than what they were last time we spoke."

Pepper swallowed hard and stared at her belly for an instant before she returned her full focus to the doctor again.

"What does that mean?"

"HCG is called the pregnancy hormone. The body produces it only in case of pregnancy – it's the first indicator of it, actually. What the at-home pregnancy tests check for. It also helps us determine if a pregnancy is moving along as it should. The levels sometimes fluctuate for many reasons during a normal pregnancy, so we don't use it as the sole indicator of a healthy gestation. We typically don't worry if the numbers sometimes go down by 2 or 3 points from one day to the next, as long as they go back higher than what they were before. That's normal. Sometimes even five points is OK. Anything more that, though…"

Pepper took in a deep breath, understanding what the doctor was trying to relay to her, but not wanting it to be true.

"How… how much difference did you find on mine just now?"

"Twenty. Twenty points."

"Oh," Pepper breathed and closed her eyes, the room becoming silent for nearly a minute until she spoke once more. "So, what happens now?"

"We… we let nature take its course. There's nothing we can do to stop it."

"How long?"

"It varies. It could be a few hours. A week or two. Every woman's body is different. Every woman's experience with this is different."

"But the result is the same," Pepper could not hold back the bitterness in her voice.

"I'm sorry."

Pepper swallowed hard, breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. She repeated the exercise several times, all in the hopes of finding her center once again. The news the doctor had just relayed to her was devastating – more than she had expected it would be, given how unsure she had been about being pregnant. The fear, the uncertainty, and the anxiety that had coated her days as she got closer and closer to telling Tony the news seemed like child's play now. Unjustified. Irrelevant. Nothing in comparison to what she felt right now.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to yell at Dr. Adler for giving her the bad news. Blame the doctor for being unable to stop what was happening to her. But she knew better than that. Better than to lash out at the one person who had warned her this could happen if she did not take extreme measures to improve the quality of her life. Better than to let this keep her from taking action on what she probably still had something to do about.

Finding Tony. That was all she could do now.

"So," Pepper cleared her throat. "I just need to let this move along? No down time? Special considerations?"

The stoic tone and look on Pepper's face took the doctor by surprise for an instant, but she then remembered who she was speaking with. This was Pepper Potts, the CEO of Stark Industries – the girlfriend of the most complex, high-maintenance, intelligent inventor in the world, who also happened to save the world from time to time. She was used to carrying on during troubled times. She had experience with acting as if nothing bothered her, brought her down, or sidetracked her from the task at hand as long as there was something important to do.

The doctor admired that, even if this was not the best of times for the redhead to put on an act. Nevertheless, it was best that she allowed Pepper to do what she needed to do. What she felt she needed to do. It would, at the very least, be a distraction from reality. It would delay facing the difficult road she had ahead of herself, especially if she would also have to deal with the death of her loved one. The doctor did not agree with the plan. She did not want her patient to think that she had to be brave at a time when this was not the best decision. But she also understood that everyone dealt with tragedy differently. Everyone needed different things to close horrible chapters in their lives before they could move on. Her job then, at this point, was to just make sure that Pepper had what she needed to fight this obstacle and make it to the other side.

In this case, facts and information were the only things that Pepper Potts would pay attention to.

"You'll be tired," the doctor began. "Irritated. Hormonal. Extremely sensitive and prone to mood swings. You will continue bleeding and cramping. You may be extremely hungry or not hungry at all. You may not want to be around people for a while. Hate them, actually. You will judge everyone harshly for anything they say or do. You will take your anger on them. You will mourn. But, as long as you don't pass out from pain or loss of blood, you'll make it through. Drink plenty of fluids. Snack here and there. Make sure your body has energy reserves to pull from. It's going to need it if you want it to keep you on your feet while you do what you have to do."

Pepper nodded along as the doctor explained additional items to look for while her body finished discarding the 'products of conception' and she then cleared her throat when everything had been said and done.

"OK. So, can you bail me out of here?"

The doctor answered with a single nod.

xxxXXXxxx

The office was pristine. In fact, the entire building they were walking inside of looked more like what they would expect the CDC would resemble rather than the headquarters of a law firm business. People around them were walking with what appeared to be bags around their feet, thin, see-through gloves wrapped around their hands, and hairnets. Rather than business people, every employee – including the security guards – looked as if they had just come out of a high-risk surgery than from home.

"I'm guessing Mr. Brown still hates being Australian?" Tony said between clenched teeth to keep his voice from carrying over as they approached the security guards by the gate, wondering if they too would have to be dressed up as would-be doctors.

"Greg doesn't hate to be Australian," Pepper said. "He just… well… he-he…"

"He-e-e-e-e?" Tony asked, a smug smile on his face, knowing that the description he had just used for their Australian investor was accurate, when it came down to it.

"Fine," Pepper snapped. "He would rather live somewhere else! Like, inside a sterilized and pressurized container on the Moon, probably."

Tony raised his eyebrows in agreement and nodded, not looking forward to what their day would probably be like. It was not that they did not liked Greg; he was very professional, dedicated to his work, and an overall nice guy. However, he was also very peculiar about his surroundings in a way that almost made him seem paranoid about everything that stirred or could cause even slightest amount of pain or harm. Why the man had not moved out of the one place in the world that offered the most opportunities for encountering danger, was beyond him. It just did not seem like Australia was the place for someone who hated spiders, snakes, bats, kangaroos, koalas, sharks, whales, dolphins, crocodiles, all birds and insects, amphibians, poisonous plants, the ocean, heat and sand, and really anything and everything that was not one-hundred percent clean, decontaminated and restrained. Or human. And even that last one was up in the air.

"Well, if we're playing doctor and nurse while we're here, Nurse Stark, I believe you're due for a physical and I am happy to provide one free-of-charge."

"Who said you were the doctor?"

"You can be the doctor. I'll be the patient. And I need a sponge bath."

"That's what a nurse would do."

"Fine, then! Be the nurse. I was trying to be progressive."

"Ugh!"

"Do you need a pap smear or a mammogram?"

"Keep it up and I'll give you a prostate exam."

"You promise? Before or after the sponge bath?"

The clearing of the security guard's throat made them realize they were bantering right in front of an audience, and said audience did not look amused. Not being the first time that this had ever happened to them, however, both the genius and the ginger simply shrugged and smiled at the man who was probably not having a good day already, judging by the sour look on his face.

"Good morning, lassie!" Tony said with a smile.

"That's for a girl," Pepper interjected.

"Uhm… lad?"

"Yeah. But that's Irish, not Australian."

"Oh, yeah! Uhm… Mate! How ya doin', mate?"

"Do you have an appointment?" the security guarded asked, his voice confirming how thrilled he was to be at work to listen to them dirty talk.

Tony cleared his throat. "Kinda, yeah. I'm Tony Stark. This is my wife, Pepper Potts. We're here to see Mr. Greg Brown."

The man pulled out an electronic tablet from the desk behind him, scrolled down the screen a few times, and then sighed.

"Please place any loose or metal items in here and then walk through the metal detector."

"Sure thing."

As instructed, both he and Pepper deposited all their possessions inside a tiny plastic basket and then joined the second security guard on the other side of the metal frame. After a quick pat down and collecting their personal effects, the couple found themselves being escorted to a small room by a woman who also looked like she did not like working there.

"Mr. Brown is expecting you," the woman began. "But first, we need you to put on these."

Pepper grabbed the bag that the woman was handing them and then looked inside of it, confirming her suspicions of what the items inside were. There were two of each, one for her and for her Tony, no doubt: hairnets, plastic gloves, hand sanitizer, and bags to put around their feet.

"The plastic items are latex-free, environmental-friendly and recyclable," the woman informed them. "The sanitizer is alcohol-free, natural and hypoallergenic. Please come out into the hall when you're ready. I'll be taking you to Mr. Brown as soon as you're ready."

Without bothering to wait for a response, the brunette exited the room and closed the door behind her, leaving Tony and Pepper to wonder what they had gotten themselves into.

It could not be any worse than what they had already been through, right?

Right?

xxxXXXxxx

"Tony! Pepper! Welcome! Sit, sit!"

It was difficult, but Tony and Pepper were able to keep a straight face at seeing Greg Brown wearing a hazmat suit. It was surprising that he was not slipping from the leather chair he was sitting in, but then again, it was probably an art the man had mastered over the years.

The office was even more clean-looking than the rest of the building appeared to be. The guest chairs were covered in transparent plastic – latex-free, no doubt. The wooden floors were so shiny that they could see their reflections on them clearer than they could see in a regular mirror. The windows had a ridiculous amount of sealant on the joins between the glass and the frames, so as to ensure that nothing was able to crawl inside. It would have not shocked either of them if there were motion detectors near the floor to alert of any intruder of the animal kind, or if they were to find a sanitation station hidden inside the ceiling or walls.

Anyone that did not know Greg would have thought him to be a germaphobe. Maybe even someone who had OCD. However, the truth was that he was neither of those things. What Greg Brown really suffered from was an extreme form of PTSD that had been the result of a camping trip gone wrong with his family when he had been just a kid.

Greg's father was the stereotypical Australian. One who loved the outback and who had perhaps been raised by wild animals, if that were such a thing. The elder man had been bitten by all kinds of venomous animals and his skin rubbed by many different types of poisonous plants, but he had proudly survived every instance of it. Greg's old man was someone who loved spending a night in the most dangerous parts of Australia, armed with nothing more than the thrill of facing and overcoming danger, a pocket knife, a bag of beef jerky, and a lighter.

One fateful day, during what would become Greg's last family vacation in the wild, a much younger investor had become lost for three days. He had gone off camp to relieve himself, and had not been able to find his way back in the dark. Long story short, by the time he had been found, he had been chased by a kangaroo, scratched by a koala, almost bitten by a snake, had wiped his ass with a noxious weed, had had to eat raw lizard and other small animals he had been able to catch and, if that had not been enough, a spider had snuck into his clothes, and had bit him on the way to the hospital.

Ever since that day, Greg's obsession with preventing a similar fate had driven him to become more and more wary of the place he grew up in, to the point that he rarely left his home. During the rare times he came to the office – mostly when he absolutely had to meet with his business partners in person – he went to extreme measures to avoid coming in contact with anything that could hurt him; a feat that was nearly impossible while living in the land Down Under.

Nevertheless, the man made it work. Somewhat. Although, neither Tony nor Pepper could imagine calling what Greg had to do making it work. They could not even call it living. But it was also not their place to tell the man how to live his life, anyway; no matter how briefly inconvenienced they were by it, sometimes. They only had to live with it for a few hours. He had his entire life ahead of him.

"Hey, Greg," Tony said as he held Pepper by one arm to help her balance herself on high heels that were wrapped in plastic while walking on a freshly-waxed floor.

"So nice to see you," Pepper added with a smile and a curt nod that preceded a barely contained sigh of relief when her bottom finally rested against the chair. Tony did not have such a difficult time making himself comfortable, but he did almost sit on his testicles while trying to gracefully stick the landing in the chair.

Maybe he would need that prostate exam after all.

"Congratulations on your wedding," Greg began, his voiced muffled by the suit. "It was about time you two got hitched. I was starting to think that Tony was probably really just secretly batting for my team with how long it was taking him to settle. Especially with someone like you, Pepper."

Tony shifted in his seat, the plastic making it hard to sit still. "Yeah, no. But thanks for thinking of me."

"To be honest, I was starting to think the same," Pepper went along with Greg's joke, earning her a mock look of indignation from Tony.

"Really, Pep?"

A chuckle was all the response he got from her.

"Now, you don't have to sound so offended by it, Tony," Greg rolled his eyes. Or at least that was what it had looked like.

"I'm not. I'm flattered, really. Though, I thought you weren't available. Didn't you already have someone?"

Despite the hazmat suit covering most of his face, the look of happiness on Greg's face was clear as day.

"I do. And, I don't know if you've heard, but I'm following your example."

"How?" Tony furrowed his brow, trying to decipher Greg's words, but Pepper beat him to the punch.

"You're getting married?" Pepper asked. "Oh, my God! You're getting married!"

"Yes!" Greg replied. "I asked Mike last month and he said yes."

"Congratulations!" Pepper and Tony said in unison, the chairs squeaking loudly with the sudden quick friction of their clothes against the plastic.

"When's the big day?" Tony asked as he tried to rest his elbow on the armrest of the chair, but it ended up slipping off it.

"Next month," Greg replied, paused, and then his eyes told the couple that whatever was going to come out of his mouth next, was probably going to be something that they would not like. "And it must be fate that you two are here right now."

"Oh, yeah?" Tony's voice wavered a little bit, his left eye already twitching in anticipation. "And why is that?"

"Well… and this involves both of you, OK? I… I want to ask you for a huge favor. And I will totally repay you for it, by tripling the investment amount for the renewal."

Pepper cleared her throat and forced a polite smile on her face, the familiar phrasing making her insides churn.

"You know, Greg, I'm sure that we can come to an agreement. But… last time that a similar opportunity was presented to us," her eyes spared Tony a glance, "Tony ended up in a hospital in Moscow."

"Oh," Greg's shoulders slumped. "I see… I mean: I understand. But… but this is not really anything like it."

"Then what is it like?" Tony asked.

"Well. What did you guys do in Moscow with Anton?"

Tony jumped in. "We camped on a mountain in the middle of a snowstorm."

"Huh…" Greg cleared his throat. "Well, uhm, there IS camping involved."

"OK."

"But no snowstorm."

"OK."

"And no mountain."

"All right."

"But, I do want to stay at the same location I camped last. The one I went to when I was a kid. You… you guys know the story. I want to spend the night there."

Tony and Pepper exchanged knowing looks, silently accepting that the decision had pretty much already been made for them the moment they had walked through those doors. The rest of the details about the proposal suddenly became irrelevant, yet they would still ask about them. They would still allow Greg to make his case in any way that he had planned to do so, even though they had already agreed to help him – in their minds and with a simple glance. They knew the man well enough to know that asking whatever he was about to ask of them was not easy for him. They knew that what he was asking help with was much more than just a night in the wild. He was asking for a chance at recovery. A chance to undo even if just a little bit of the trauma he had carried with him since the day he had been lost in the Australian outback.

And he was trusting them to help him get there. They could not simply just turn their backs on that.

"OK," Pepper exhaled, her hands turning into fists on her knees. "So, you want to stay there for a night. And you want what from us? Our company?"

"Yes. I… Look, you know why I am the way I am, right? And… this has worked well for me," Greg said as he pointed to his surroundings. "And even though Mike has been so understanding of my needs all these years, I want to get over it, you know? I don't want to be afraid anymore. I… I-I'm getting married and I want to build a real life with Mike and I know I can't do that if every time I see a spider I pass out."

Any other time, Tony would have laughed at the image of a grown man fainting at the sight of a spider. However, said man lived in Australia, and the spiders here were the size of his face. He too would lose his shit if a fucking spider crawled up the sewage system and decide to nest in his toilet bowl. He had seen the pictures of said scenario online. He had nothing but respect for anyone who continued living in a place where everything wanted to kill you, even in the comfort of your own home.

"So," Tony began, "You want to do this as a first step? Camp where everything started?"

"Yes. And, well, I want this to be a surprise for Mike. I haven't told him where we're spending our honeymoon. We're going camping in some safer woods in Europe, but I don't think I can go through with it if I don't try to at least stay one night at that place here. I figured, since you're here, and you're Iron Man…"

"What better protection from dingoes than that?" Tony smiled.

"He IS a genius," Greg said to Pepper with a wink. "Congrats."

xxxXXXxxx

As it turned out, the wild was not as treacherous and overwhelming as he remembered it to be. Maybe it was because he was an adult now. Maybe it was because he had Iron Man as his bodyguard. Maybe it was because he had spent a lot of years learning about the details of what had been the worst day of his life as a child, and he now had the advantage of there not being an unknown. Perhaps that had been his true undoing: not knowing if he would ever be found; not knowing if anyone was even looking for him; not knowing if he would make it through another night without being bit, stung, chased, or eaten alive.

He had been a kid, after all. There had been much he had not known yet.

Greg used a metal stick to stoke the fire that was keeping them warm. It had been a rather calm day and night so far. He was not sure if it was just pure luck, the fact that he had good company, or if he had just been making things worse than they really were, all these years. The mind was a compelling tool, he knew; one that could render you vulnerable at the worst of times – or make you practically invincible at others, despite the odds. If the mind set itself to make you believe something, no matter how ridiculous it was, there was no way a million people sharing a different opinion and providing evidence for it would make you change your own.

Perhaps, he had held the power to heal from this trauma, all this time, and he had just not known it until now. Perhaps, it had been his own doing that he was as damaged as he was. Nevertheless, this seemed to be a step in the right direction, as small as the action itself was. Perhaps, he would be able to slightly improve himself before his honeymoon and offer Mike some of the happiness he had received from his fiancé.

"Are you going to sleep at all?" Tony's voice was barely audible, purposefully keeping his volume low to not wake Pepper up. She had been the first to call it quits, an hour ago, practically falling asleep in his arms as he had picked up her drowsy form from the ground and had taken her inside their tent.

"Not tired yet. Thinking."

Tony hummed and briefly scanned his surroundings, instinctively looking for threats before speaking again.

"Is this helping at all? Being here?"

"Yeah," Greg nodded. "I thought it would be worse. I thought I was gonna have a heart attack when we got here but… I'm fine. I feel fine."

"Well, why wouldn't you be?" Tony smirked and patted the Iron Man's suit on the shoulder, having activated sentry mode on it a while ago.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" Greg snorted.

It was odd, to say the least, seeing the suit and Tony Stark sitting right next to each other, as if the armor was their fourth camping companion. It gave the suit an appearance of having its own life, as dumb as it sounded, but that was exactly what the scene spoke of. Greg had not expected Tony to be inside the suit the whole time, but he had definitely not expected to see the suit behave as if it had its own agenda and job. Then again, this was Tony Stark he was talking about. Of course the technology he built would be almost lifelike!

Feeling satisfied that he had done enough so that the fire would burn for a little bit longer, Greg dropped the metal stick and sighed. The silence of the night was comforting, broken only by the random sounds of nature doing its thing and the crackle of the fire. He would not admit it aloud just yet, so that he would not jinx it, but he had missed being out here. He had never really hated it until his less-than-ideal experience. In fact, before that he had looked forward to spending time with his family out in the wild like this.

But then, he had let that one time ruin it for him. He had allowed ONE bad thing define how he lived the rest of his life. His father had tried to get him to go camping again a few months after he had recovered, but Greg had done everything he had been able to do to keep himself at home. He had gone as far as committing a crime in his teenage years that he knew would land him in juvenile jail for a little while, if just to avoid being in these lands again. That stint had cost him the trust of his family, for many years. Back then, though, it had seemed like a small price to pay that kept him in the city at all hours of the day.

The whole thing had been stupid. A waste of his parents' money, time and of his life. He had been lucky that he had been so young when had broken the law that the courts had agreed to give him community service and expunge the charge and penance from his records, or he would have had a hard time getting into college, finding a job and building his law firm. What the fuck had he been thinking? What the hell had crossed his mind? Who the hell would have hired him as a lawyer if he himself had willingly broken the law once? And all for what? So that he was not forced to go camping with his family? What a nut job!

The thought made a chuckle escape his lips, which forced a curious look out of the billionaire sitting before him. Greg debated on whether or not to share his thoughts – and he almost chose not to – but he figured that, if he was doing this to heal, he might as well go all out.

"I had a really nice neighbor when growing up. She was an old lady. A widower. She used to bake me cookies all the time. Then, one day, after what happened here, I broke into her house and thrashed it. I broke a lot of her things. Didn't even pay attention to what they were. I just knew it would get me in trouble. Big trouble. I'd seen it before with other kids in school. I knew the police would take me away. And I didn't care. I just didn't want to be brought here anymore."

Greg paused, stared into the night as if reliving the moment, and then continued.

"You know who my first visitor was while in jail? My neighbor. She brought me cookies, but I couldn't keep them, so the officers ate them. She told me that she wasn't mad at me. That she knew I was a good boy and that I'd just made a mistake. She told me that she would have more cookies for me when I got out. And I… I got up and screamed at her to leave me alone. Called her an old bat. Told her to mind her own business and then left."

Tony hung his head, shamelessly understanding why Greg had said those horrible things to the one person that had shown him mercy and forgiveness. He knew it because he had done that more times he could count: to his parents, to Rhodey, to Happy. He had even done it to Pepper, too, the day they had broken up. Granted, he had apologized almost immediately afterwards, but he knew that the damage had already been done.

"When I finally got released and went back home, my parents kept me in house arrest. I was grounded for months. I couldn't go out other than to go school. I spent my workweeks doing homework and my weekends doing chores. None of my friends were allowed to talk to me, and some stopped hanging out with me. Apparently, their parents didn't want them to hang out with the criminal. It didn't matter that I was just twelve. Some people who knew me then still don't like to associate with me now. Shit! I even had one bitter old man tell me once that the crime had made me gay!"

Tony scoffed and rolled his eyes. Some things just never changed. Ignorance and hate just seemed to get worse with time.

"Did you ever get to thank that old lady? The one with the cookies?"

At this, the sour look on Greg's face told Tony that the story did not have a happy ending. Stories of people making stupid mistakes typically never did.

"One weekend, I was cutting the grass out front. I saw a moving truck parked in front of my neighbor's house, but I didn't think much of it. I thought she was probably just moving away from the asshole that had told her off. I was wrong. She… her daughter – one of her daughters, saw me while I was there and walked up to me. She was mad. So mad at me. She blamed me for it. She said it was my fault that her mother was gone. That I didn't deserve the cookies she had made me all these years, and that she couldn't believe how ungrateful I was. She got so loud that my mom came outside to help me. She tried calming her down, but she couldn't. The woman just yelled some more and then went back to the moving truck to finish up. I never saw her again."

"So, the lady died?"

"Yup. She did. The same day she had gone to see me in jail with the cookies."

Tony's eyes opened wide and his jaw slacked. "Oh."

Greg sighed. "Turns out, one of the things I had broken in her house was an urn with her husband's ashes. They ended up all over the place. Some stuck in fabric and some just too scattered to gather up. She… she never told me. No one told me. At least not until her daughter had almost beat the shit out of me that day."

"Well, that's… that sucks."

It was an overly simplified observation and reaction to the facts, but Tony did not know what else to say. Even though he had foreseen the story having some sort of bitter ending, he had not imagined this particular one. He had expected the lady to have never made cookies for Greg again, or perhaps suing him in court for his actions and then moving out. But this… this was so much worse than he had ever thought.

Whomever that lady had been, she had a bigger heart than he did. If Pepper had died on him and he had kept her ashes at home, and then some random asshole kid he had helped – Peter Parker or Harley Keener, perhaps – had broken in and had destroyed what was left of his redhead just to get out of a camping trip with his family…

That would have been it for him.

"That was very shitty of you," Tony finally said, knowing exactly what he had to tell this man. Knowing that he would have wanted someone to tell him the truth back when he had royally fucked up. He knew that it would have saved him some trouble and grief and, hopefully, it would do the same for Greg right now.

"Even if you didn't mean it," Tony continued. "You're gonna have to live with it. It's not going away, no matter what you do. And it's going to eat at you forever. You can move out of your building and forever live in this camp site, but no amount of Inland Taipans biting your ass is going to make up for it. You were selfish and you destroyed the only thing that woman had left to live for. That's your mistake. You're gonna have to own it and move on."

Greg's immediate reaction was to drown in fury at Tony's words. Perhaps even hit him upside the head with the metal stick he had been using the keep the fire alive. How dared this man tell him this as if he did not already know it? As if he had not figured out, in all these years, that this was it? What the hell did Tony think Greg had been doing all these years? Did he not see that he had been depriving his life from normalcy because of a mistake he had made when he had been young? Yes, the animals chasing him had started his fear of the world around him, but it had been realizing what he had done to the old lady that had finished putting the nail in the coffin of his life. Who was Tony Stark to judge him for this? Who did this man think he was?

But then, once the cloud of instinctive anger dissipated, he saw the look of understanding on Tony's face, and Greg realized that Tony had not said those things out of spite or a sense of feeling holier-than-thou. He had said them because he needed to hear them. Because Tony had done similar things. Because it took a selfish asshole to know a selfish asshole. He did not know what or why or when, but it was clear in the way that Tony was carrying himself right now that he spoke from experience. He too had done something stupid, and someone else had paid dearly for his fuck up.

And Greg suddenly had an idea of who that had been.

The man looked behind, over his right shoulder, towards the tent the unsuspecting redhead slept in, and silently stared for a few seconds. Then, once he returned his attention to Tony, the genius gave him a simple nod to confirm the man's unspoken question. It made sense, in some way, that it was easier to always hurt the ones you loved first because they were already there for you. That did not mean, however, that they deserved it more than anyone else did. And it certainly did not mean that their forgiveness and understanding absolved you from your crimes.

"Does it ever get easier? Living with what you did?" Greg asked.

"No," Tony immediately said, no need for hesitation on his part.

"Got a long life of regret ahead of me, then?"

Tony gave Greg a bittersweet smile before replying; for a moment remembering the conversation with his parents – or whatever that vision had been – while he had been conked out in Moscow.

"And afterlife, too."

Greg nodded curtly, unnecessarily stoked the fire again, and then chuckled bitterly.

"I guess I should've had this talk with Pepper instead, huh? You're just harsh!"

Tony shook his head. "What makes you think she's not worse than me? If you had told her all this, you'd be begging for forgiveness for things you haven't even done."

Greg threw his head back in laughter. "Sure, Tony. Whatever you say."

"I'm serious. She's tougher than she looks. I swear, if she had heard your story, right now you'd be apologizing to that rock you tripped on earlier today!"

"How about if you just apologize for waking me up! It's 3:00 in the morning, for God's sake!" Pepper said from inside the tent, making both men freeze where they sat.

"Sorry!" Greg said immediately, his body hunched as if expecting a shoe to be throat at his back, and Tony gave him an I-told-you-so look.

"I forgive you," Pepper said, her voice sounding sleepy again. "And go apologize to that rock!"

This time, even the redhead reluctantly laughed.

They did not need to know that she had heard every word they had said.

xxxXXXxxx

"Would you like to schedule an appointment for this?"

Did she?

The redhead exhaled and inhaled deeply yet as quietly as possible. She did not want to give the doctor any indication that she was not certain about her decision – even if she was not completely convinced about it herself yet. She had merely called the doctor to follow up on the results of the exams she had taken after finding out she had lost the baby. Now, she was talking about undergoing self-sterilization in the foreseeable future… without discussing it with Tony first.

What was the right answer to the question? What was the right thing to do or say? Should she just tell her to book her up for tomorrow or for next week? Or perhaps, to clear up her afternoon so she could see her right now? And what about Tony's role in all of this? Or lack thereof? He had not even brought up the topic of marriage for them. And, as disappointing as it was, bonding with Harley was looking more and more to not be the sign that she had thought it had been. The more she analyzed it, the more she convinced herself that it had not been an indication of him wanting to be a father. That it had been, instead, a way to somehow make up for his own father's mistakes.

Nothing had ever been easy for Pepper Potts. And it appeared as if simple biology liked to fuck with her, too.

"I know your number," Pepper said after an extensive pause instead of asking the million questions that were going through her mind, unsure that she was ready to face the cruel answers to them all.

"That you do," the doctor replied in a similarly knowing tone, not all disguising the fact that she was aware of the redhead's hesitation.

"Thank you for your time, Dr. Adler."

"No problem."

After hanging up, Pepper stared at the set of keys she had been avoiding for weeks, her gaze reflecting the conflict she felt inside. The office was empty save for herself, and quiet as it could be given how late it was. She had been working harder and longer than usual, with the pretense that there were just too many projects becoming due soon. It was not a complete lie, as she had had a lot to do since the battle against Ultron had ended, but she knew that she could have delegated a lot of her responsibilities to other people to do as good as she would have done them herself. She had just chosen not to do that.

If she was busy with work, she was not thinking about her miscarriage and how difficult it had been to go through with it while trying to find out if Tony was still alive. If she was busy with work, she had no time to call Dr. Adler about the results of the many medical tests she had undergone after the miscarriage was over, until just now. If she was too engrossed with her responsibilities as CEO of Stark Industries, she did not have the chance to unlock the bottom drawer of her desk and take out the gift bag that she had shoved in there in a rush, weeks ago.

She also had no reason to have the gift bag in there anymore, or keep it there for later, just in case, based on what Dr. Adler had just relayed to her over the phone about her likelihood of becoming pregnant or even carrying a pregnancy to term. But she also had not been able to force herself to look at the bag either. The band-aid was not ready to be ripped off.

Denial was a powerful thing. Strong enough to push people to do anything and everything in their hands to keep them from doing what they had to do.

It was seven at night, but the sun was still up behind her, even if just barely, providing her with enough illumination to keep the lights dimmed. This made it feel as if she was in a dream rather than living life in the real world. And dreams could be pushed to be what one wanted them to be. Sometimes. If they were dreams.

This was not a dream, however. This was very much real.

Seconds turned into minutes. Minutes into hours. And after two of them, Pepper Potts decided that enough was enough.

With shaky limbs she held the keys in her hand, the trembling only getting worse as she pushed the key inside the lock and turned it to free the bag from its long confinement. She slowly pulled out the drawer, the bag standing out like a sore thumb, but she did not reach for it. She simply focused on it, eyed every little detail of it, and wondered if this was enough for one day. Maybe, she did not have to take it out today. Maybe, this first step was enough: unlocking the drawer, opening it, and then just staring at the bag until her eyes fell out of their sockets.

Pepper bitterly laughed at her momentary naivety. There was no way she could leave the bag there. Someone could find it. Tony could find it. And then she would have to explain why it was there to start. One thing would lead to another. One explanation would lead to more questions and confessions. And sooner rather than later, Tony Stark would finally know that he had caused his girlfriend to lose would-be children of his, twice. He would know that he had caused, albeit inadvertently, for her body to demand extreme measures to ever conceive again, let alone give birth.

No. She had to do this; dispose of the bag. And she had to do it now.

Not wanting to allow herself to hesitate anymore, Pepper pulled the bag out of the drawer and slammed shut the drawer. She threw the keys on the desk, stood up, and all but power-walked towards the corner trashcan. Cleaning services would be here soon to do their job, and she knew that once they did, the last evidence of her lost pregnancy would be gone from prying eyes. All she had to do was tear apart the note that had the reminder of her would-have-been first prenatal appointment with Dr. Adler, and then shove the bag deep inside the tall trash container. She trusted the janitorial staff to not search through the trash to look for hidden treasures. They had no reason to. Their pay was good enough to not seek additional income by sharing SI's dirty secrets under the table. The one individual that was allowed into their main office to tidy up the place had been with SI since Howard was around. If she had wanted to tarnish the reputation of the Stark family or of the company itself, she would have done so a long time ago. Being this close to retirement with the good pension SI offered, it would be stupid to throw that away after so many years of hard work to earn it.

Pepper held the bag with one hand while she took out the note with the other. She then tore the paper apart, dumped it inside the container, and then shoved the bag right after it. Then, just to make sure that the bag did not stand out, she walked around the office, picking up whatever items she could find that could be thrown away, and she used them to drown the infernal item with them. The actions she was taking were not exhausting at all, but her heart was racing nonetheless. It was very likely more the result of the adrenaline that had been triggered with the meaning of what she was doing that was causing her to shake and breathe hard than anything else. Ripping an old band-aid on a deep wound could do that to you.

Once the lid was closed and the task was done, Pepper could not make herself move from where she was. Part of her wanted to punch herself in the face and dig into the trash to recover the item. Another part also wanted to punch herself in the face, but for thinking about taking the bag out. Then, another part of her, wanted to take the bag out, punch herself in the face for throwing it away, and then call up Tony and tell him to come to the office ASAP to talk. No part was strong enough to make her do anything, though. No part of her was able to make her move until a knock on the door from cleaning services made her jump.

The fake smile immediately appeared on her face. She dried the tears that had been collecting in her eyes. She straightened out herself and her clothes and cleared her throat.

And then, as if she had not just given up on a crucial part of her life, Pepper Potts happily greeted Ms. Kowalski and invited her to come inside to take away the one thing she would never have.