Guest Review Responses

Pepperonylove: I cried a bucket of tears. This chapter is so intenseeeee! I need the epilogue now! Thanks for this btw. It was such a roller coaster of emotions reading through this fanfic. I want a new story from you! You write so good! Pepperony love! :) – Thank you so much! Sorry about the tears. There might be more here, but all of happiness :D

Guest: Oh come on! That's after you promised to bring our pepperony back together is fanfic world if they were not able to be together in the MCU! Ya I sooo remember the author's note on the first chapter! It's like you're playing with our hearts! Okay my rant aside, the chapter was really well written, even though it turned out to be one hell of an emotional rollercoaster ride. But that's the point of great stories right? As long as you don't forget the happy ending part :) really enjoyed reading – I remember, I swear! Here it is ^_^

A/N: There is a final chapter before this that takes place in New York. If you're just seeing this notification before reading the first one, please make sure you've read the previous chapter first!

All right, my Faithful Readers, this is it. The final countdown to zero. The last lap. The final answer to holy-fuck-is-this-woman-gonna-fix-this-shit-or-what? It's all here, in a brief chapter (compared to the others), for your reading pleasure. I was gonna wait for the guest reviews to come, but I feel bad for inflicting the last chapter's cruel and unusual punishment upon your patient souls.

Breath easy, my friends. The harbor is safe.

Epilogue

Who would have thought that supporting someone's hero journey could be so exhausting? Tony Star definitely had not.

He should have seen it coming, however, seeing how, after so many years on this Earth and so many years being a superhero, he was just now feeling comfortable in his own skin – enough so that he had taken it upon himself to coach others who would walk the same path he had.

That boy from Queens was a handful, though. Always calling, e-mailing and texting him and Happy. Always getting into kid-related trouble, but always because he had a good heart. A good soul. And a good head on his shoulders. Most of the time.

Tony Stark was no sidekick, but he was certain that being the sidekick was probably easier and a lot less exhausting than being the coach. The cheerleader. The sounding board. The fucking voice of reason. He had a new respect for his friends, particularly for Pepper, seeing as she had done all of this for him for many years; making it look flawless while wearing high heels.

Pepper.

He let out a shuddering breath.

It was so hard being without her.

The billionaire exhaled as his gaze focused yet again on the unopened manila envelope that had been laying on his desk for weeks. It had been sent overnight to his office by Pepper, six weeks after he had sent her the marriage documents to her new home, in case she changed her mind, which had been done one day after she had refused to sign the papers and had walked out the door and his life. He had been stalling – avoiding, really – opening the damned thing because he had already known what he would find there. The deadline for sending in the documents had passed, and he knew from Happy that the final signed paper had not been filed with the court.

He and Pepper were no longer married. No longer spoke, except via a quick text message or by proxy, that was. She had even changed her personal phone number and he did not have it. Had not asked for it, either, and he had no intention of hacking the phone company to find out what it was. They were, for all intents and purposes, no longer in each other's lives. Yet, as the idiot he felt he was, he was still wearing his wedding band every day. He never took it off.

Nevertheless, the evidence before him told him that it was probably time to move on. To let go of hope. To take off the fucking ring from his hand. It had been two months since they had had that difficult conversation. Two months since they had both spilled out their truths to one another and had closed a painful chapter of their lives. They had needed the break. They had needed the trip. And they had needed to heal. Now he needed to accept that she was gone.

Two months.

A lot of things can happen in two months.

And they had.

For one, Tony had been working with Peter Parker on his hero training. That alone had kept him pretty busy, as well as him overseeing the execution of the September Foundation grants. He had been spending a lot of time at MIT, whenever he was not guiding Spider-Man, talking to the students and providing feedback on their projects. It was a lot of work and sometimes he did not sleep for days, but it was what he loved – what he had hoped to do one day, so he was happy with that. Even if the one thing he loved more than science was no longer in his life.

Speaking of which, and another thing that had happened in the last two months, Piero Abbiati had passed away, two weeks ago. Pepper had sent him a text message to his personal phone, in the middle of the night, telling him that she had gotten the call from the widow herself, and that she was getting on a plane immediately to fly to Venice to help the devastated woman handle everything. Tony had offered his help, but Pepper had instantly declined it. He had not fought back. It was not as if the redhead needed his help – she could manage an international company on her own. She could definitely handle a funeral, a business transition, and the honoring of the one thing that they had told Piero they would do for his legacy and for his wife once he passed.

They had promised it to the dying man. And Pepper had assured the inventor that she would deliver.

So she did.

She still was, in fact. She was still in Venice, and she would be for a few more weeks until everything that had been promised was delivered to perfection. He had no doubt that it would be done.

That was what Pepper did for everything in the end. She made sure that everything that was done, was done right. Even if hurt like hell to do the right thing.

Most of the time, it did.

It had.

Tony's right hand surrounded his left one, his fingers playing with the wedding band for nearly half a minute. He then pulled it off a quarter of the way, and then returned it to the base of his finger. Afterwards, he pulled it off halfway, and then pushed it back down once more. He did so a third time; this time stopping at the last knuckle of his finger before pushing it back down again. Then finally, on the fourth try, he took it off completely. The ring was now in the palm of his right hand, leaving his left hand feeling as naked and as empty as his heart felt.

His right hand closed on the piece of jewelry for a second before he unceremoniously dropped it on the desk and pulled his upper body away from the counter. The sound the ring made upon contact with the tabletop was as loud as the sound of his soul being ripped to pieces. His ears followed the repetitive noise the ring made while the decline of the kinetic energy within it caused the gradual reduction of its wobbly movements until it finally settled flat on the desk. The object became still and unmoving. The life it had pretended to have while gravity fought to bring it to a halt now gone.

Gone. Just like his hope was.

He might as well open the damn envelope and wrap this up.

He did not bother to be careful when he opened it, knowing that whatever was inside was no longer important. Nevertheless, Pepper being Pepper, she would be professional enough to return the documents to their rightful owner, even if they had no value anymore. His carelessness while handling the envelope yielded the expected results, however, and instead of the papers landing on the desk in a neat pile, the envelope tore at an odd angle and everything inside exploded like confetti before showering the area near him with its contents; all scattered and now needing to be collected one-by-one.

Yeah, sure. Why not?

He stared at the mess he had made and realized that this would take a couple of minutes to clean up. He might as well get started on it. He had nothing but time until noon.

With a loud groan and a slow-as-snail pace, Tony began walking around his office, collecting the papers one by one.

Just as he expected, his scavenger hunt of the documents began putting together the marriage documents he had sent to Pepper. They were all over the place at the moment, some on the floor and some on the desk, but as he counted the marked pages, he knew that they were all here – including the unsigned one that he had prayed she would sign and send. Even the pre-paid overnight envelope that was addressed to the courthouse was here, as well as a small, sealed plastic bag that held her engagement and wedding rings.

At the sight of the plastic bag in his left hand, he collapsed on the floor, his back against the front of the sturdy desk, and he hung his head between his bent legs. It was one thing to suspect what the envelope had contained, but it was another to see that he had been right about it all along. While the envelope had been sealed, he had been able to hold on to hope that things would turn out OK for them. While there was no actual evidence to the contrary, he could dream and pretend that everything was going to go the way he had wanted it to go. Yet now, as the stack of voided papers lay by his feet, her rings hung in a bag in his left hand, and a white envelope with his name written on it rested against the leg of the guest chair to his right, he had to accept that it was all done and gone.

Wait, his head did a double-take, An envelope with my name on it?

That was new. He did not recall sending that with the papers.

As opposed as to what he had done with the manila envelope, he was careful when tearing the smaller one. It was the size of a greeting card, but it did not contain one. Instead, it held a yellow piece of paper – the same type that Pepper used to write notes during important meetings, and it was addressed to him.

It was an honest-to-God, handwritten letter. By Pepper. For him.

He wasted no time. He had to read it. Her voice inside his mind read it along with him.

Tony,

I don't know when you will see this, but I hope it's during this lifetime, even if it just so that you know why I did what I did. I can't blame you if you never read this, or if you do and don't care. I've hurt you so much. Done things to you that you didn't deserve, and I'll take the guilt and regret to my grave. I'll never be able to ask you for enough forgiveness, and I'll never be able to make it up to you. That's how much I've done you wrong.

I have no expectations of receiving forgiveness from you. I don't even expect you to want to see me ever again. All I can hope is that the time I've given you has allowed your heart to heal. That it has given you time to think things over and see them how I saw them. I hope that the time you've had on your own since I left will help you understand what I did. What I'll explain to you right now.

You were right. Just like I said when I left: you were right. If you had told me about the papers during the trip, I would've signed then, no questions asked. I would've done anything and everything you needed me to do to make that marriage real, even if it wasn't. And that was the problem: the marriage wasn't real. It was the product of a mistake, and it was carried by the need we have to help each other. It was not real. None of it was. And that's why I couldn't let it be just that. That's why I walked away from it. From you. From us.

In that moment, when you told me how sure you were that I would've signed the papers and why, I knew I couldn't go through with it. Not because I didn't love you, because I do – I STILL do. But because it wasn't right. Because I had just told you everything that I had done, and I had told you what I have to live with for the rest of my life, and I realized that keeping you tied to the marriage that way was no different than the situation you had spared me from by not telling me about the issue while on the trip. You had wanted me to have a choice – a real choice. And I realized I also wanted you to have one.

If I'd signed the papers, I would've forced you into the lie. And I don't want any more lies. I want truths. I want you to be with me because you want it as much as I want it, too.

I want to do things right.

And if you want that too, even after all this time, ring me up. If you still want to do things right, let me know. If you still want there to be an us, the right way, let's work on that.

Together.

I want to do things right.

Do you?

I'll be waiting. My whole life.

Love,

Pepper

That was it. That was all. He had suspected it – he had hoped for it – and he had been right.

Now, she wanted to know if he wanted to be right, to do things right, yet again.

Did he?

Damn right, he did.

He did not even have to think about it. He knew he did.

The bottom of the letter contained what he assumed was her new personal cell phone number, but he knew he would not need it. He was not calling her for this. A phone call was not the way.

Instead, Tony stood up from the floor and pressed the single button on the intercom, his heart beating fast and the letter shaking in his hand.

"Bambi, do you happen to know where Pepper is right now?"

"I do, sir. I have her itinerary for Venice. Would you like me to bring a copy for you?"

"Yes. Yes, I would. And I need you to get the jet ready for me to go to wherever she is right now."

"Immediately, sir."

With that, a wide smile spread across his face.

She wanted to do things right.

He wanted to do things right.

He would.

So he did.

And then, much later, after the wedding and the reception and the honeymoon were over, while they had been opening gifts and had been making jokes about the weird ones they had received, a single pink envelope would catch their eye. It would be addressed to the both of them, from Dr. Adler's office at that, and it would make the laughter stop.

But only for an instant.

Only until they pieced together what they were looking at.

There had been yet another clerical error. One more thing that had been done wrong with her surgery. Yet, this time, the error was in their favor.

The error was just fine.

The medical bill was cryptic, but the letter of explanation from Dr. Adler was not. Her eggs had not been destroyed after their removal from her body during the surgery; they had been harvested. They had been frozen and stored, and the renewal bill for the service was due – which was how Dr. Adler had found out this had happened. They were available for use during surrogacy, if they so desired. And the doctor was one-hundred percent sure that they were hers.

The tears in their eyes were real. The opportunity presented to them a miracle. The chance to bring a new life into the world together dreamlike. And while the method would be unconventional, what difference did it make? Their entire life was unconventional. Who the fuck cared if this was unconventional as well?

No one did.

All that mattered was that they could have this together. That they could work on this together. That they could get the family that they had wanted to raise.

They could do it right, for them.

So they did.

THE END

A/N: Just like Pepper said, there isn't enough time in the world for me to thank you all for your support, kind words of encouragement, and for the overall awesome way you guys helped me work through my personal issues through this fic. This chapter is dedicated to all of you; my hubby, Teen Tyrant (who is my beta); and two special people that don't even know this chapter is for them. The first one is my sister. She has no clue that I'm a nerd that writes fanfics, but she's pregnant right now with her first child, after years of infertility problems, and things are not OK with her. A couple of days ago, I found out that her pregnancy has taken some bad turns, and she may have the baby way too early. She is at risk, too, and while the doctors are monitoring her closely, it's a waiting game right now. I don't pray, but I know some of you do, so I hope you keep her in your prayers for me. The second person is someone I've spoken to only once in my entire life: a former colleague of my mom's. When I was in high school, this woman was already an elementary teacher, married and all that. She was pregnant with her first child, and towards the end of the pregnancy, she had complications. Long story short, the C-section was done by a shitty-as-fuck doctor, and not only did she lose the baby, but the operation was done so poorly that she was left sterile. The doctor cut more than he should have, and she can no longer bear children of her own. They ended up taking everything out because of his error, and last I heard, she got a divorce because of it. I can't do anything for her, or for my sister. All I can do is wait, hope for the best and provide support when I can. Just like all of you did for me. You've taught me that this is more than enough. Knowing that you're not alone is enough. That other people think of you and pray for you, even when you yourself suck at matters of faith is enough. Maybe one day I won't suck at them. But right now, I do. Thankfully, and gratefully, you helped me carry it all.

Not sure what else to say to wrap this up other than: THANK YOU. I wish you all the best end of the year, and the best start of the new one. Until next time, my Faithful Readers!