You beat the 100 reviews and the 10.000 views thank you soo much! I love you all and it means so much to me. So here's the next chapter.
I wish I would own them. But Belle and Chris belong to me! They're all mine.
Chris
"Hello Ginny. How are you? You're looking great!" His voice was soft as always, but there was an undertone in it that caught Peppers senses and alerted her. Tony was kidnapped and out of nowhere her ex appeared at her door, while Tony was captive his own ex. There was something wrong, utterly wrong!
"Where is Tony and why are you here?" Pepper backed away as he made a step towards her, panic rose in her chest and she wished Happy would have waited, but since she gave him the rest of the day off she couldn't blame him that he had left already.
"I'm so sorry Virginia, but he has left you. He's returned to his ex slash now again girlfriend. He said he never loved you and his heart always belonged to her."
Pepper knew he lied, but saying those words, which were always her greatest fears in her relationship, totally hit a nerve and tears welled up in her eyes. "You're a liar, Chris. As always!" She said through clenched teeth.
Five years ago Christopher had left Pepper after 4 years of relationship. He had always said he loved her, but his career and the fact that Pepper had more success than he'd ever have were more important than their relationship. He had even proposed to her, but a few days before their wedding, he found a check from her employer Tony Stark and had just told her either she would quit her job or he would blow the wedding. It had ended in a huge fight between them and Pepper told him to leave and ended the engagement, because it was insane that she wasn't allowed to earn more money than he did. He left and had tried to reach her and apologize. Eventually she had given him a second chance, but he cheated on her and finally left her, telling her he loved her but he couldn't cope with her boss and their attraction towards each other. Useless to say that Pepper was always honest towards Chris and had never one thought for Tony at that time.
But now out of the blue after five years he appeared again and told her Tony went back to his ex? 'NO WAY!' was all Pepper thought.
"Gin, he's gone. I saw it with my own eyes. He kissed her and told her he loved her. And I'm here to apologize to you too. I want you back Ginny." Chris bent down on one knee and pulled out a velvet box. "Do you recognize it? It's the ring I gave you the first time I proposed and I still want to marry you. I've never stopped loving you."
Pepper was shouting now and tears streamed down her cheeks. "No! You are lying! You're a liar, he hadn't left me! You kidnapped him! Why?! I never wanted you. Don't you dare touch me or tell me you love me! Give Tony back to me, please!"
Christopher made a step towards her again and she was sandwiched between him and the gate now and his voice was strong and deep now. Dangerous. "No. He will never return to you and you don't belong to him. He has Belle and you have me. Look at this pictures – " He shows her pictures of Tony, laying on the ground, bleeding and Belle stood above him, caressing his head. " – You can't save him and you couldn't protect him and it's your fault he's laying there. He doesn't belong to you. And he was wrong for you. If you love him, let him go, because if you don't marry me I will personally make you kill him! And then I will kill you. And now take his ring off and put mine on!"
"No." She said through clenched teeth. "I will not take his ring off. Jarvis?"
"Honey, your system is off. I shut it. Now put it on or I'll kill him. He has a pill with poison in his body and I and you are the only living people who know about it. One false word or action from you and I'll activate it, he will be dead in less than two minutes."
Tears streamed down her cheeks and she knew if Tony would die her life would end, too. She couldn't risk harming him further and though her heart seemed to die in her chest and splattered in thousand pieces she took the ring from him and put in on her finger. "I'm so sorry Tony. I love you more than everything, but I can't risk hurting you. I hope you'll understand it. You once told me I'm your reason and motivation and I'm all you have. You are mine. It's more than love, you are my life and I don't know how I can survive without you, but if my inner-death mean you can live I'll do it. I love you more than everything." She murmured against Tony's ring and kissed it. She then looked at Chris.
"I accept your proposal, if it means Tony will live."
"That's the deal Ginny." He grinned and leaned in to kiss her but Pepper stopped him as she put her finger against his lips and moved to get away.
She looked at him, tears still in her eyes, but anger and fear, too. "Where do we go from here? Since you shut Jarvis I can't get inside. So what do you want?"
"We will leave this state and move to Nevada. Anything you want?"
"I want you to know, you can force me to anything, I will marry you and do what you want, but you will never change my feelings for Tony and you just created a lifeless zombie. You just killed me.
And I just have one last plea. I want to see him one last time, just to talk to him. I want him to understand."
She felt deaf and stiff, like every bit of life had left her body. She was a zombie, a shadow of herself. She felt as if she would collapse every minute, but she didn't want to give this satisfaction to him.
"We will see, honey. You have to deserve the right to see him. You will learn to love me and you will forget him."
"Never." She mumbled under her breath.
"What?" He growled at her, looking as if he was going to hit her.
"Nothing." She said immediately.
He turned and gripped her elbow shoving her towards his car. "Leave your phone and PDA! I don't want Shield to track you. One trick and he is dead and you'll get to know how I am when I'm angry. Understand?"
Pepper nodded.
"Ok, now show me what I missed the last five years. Kiss me!" I wasn't a question it was a command.
So Pepper shut her eyes and a single tear streamed down her cheek. Her mind was with Tony and she tried to keep her mouth shut while he pressed his lips to hers. He felt her effort to keep her mouth shut and bit her lower lip. She tried to fight the urge to gasp, but it hurt and she felt blood ran down her chin. As he bit her again to open her mouth for him, he pressed her body against him and forced her to open her mouth for him. His tongue slid into her mouth, but she didn't reply. Like she said she was a zombie and now more than ever she felt lifeless and dead. She just stood there and let it happen, begging to god that he would end it.
After what felt and eternity he finally pulled away. "If you continue it this way, you will never see him again!"
Pepper continued crying and through sobs she managed to tell him. "I told you, you created a walking dead. This is all I can give you." Her voice was broken and barely more than a whisper.
"Well you better recover soon or he will pay. Now I take you away from here. You won't need anything I have everything for you. Walk. Sit."
They entered the car and he drove away. Pepper continued crying softly and as she looked one last time at the mansion, she knew she wouldn't see it in a very long time again. As it was out of sight a heavy sob escaped her lips and all her thoughts was with Tony again.
Chris who heard her sob looked angry at her. "Stop crying or I'll give you a reason to cry."
"Shit, we lost Pepper's signal, too. And Jarvis is still down!" Natasha shouted.
"How could that happen? She had her BlackBerry with her and her PDA. We had a track on that!" Fury called out.
Natasha turned around and faced him. "Nick, I guess it's time to call them together."
"Steve isn't ready, yet. He just woke up and is not used to … well today."
"What about Banner and Barton? We'll need everyone to find them."
Fur furrowed his eyebrows and looked at her. "No not Banner. He's too dangerous. We don't know where they are and who captive them. Neither do we know what happened. He would cause more chaos than give us an advantage. Call Barton. A second spy is enough for the beginning. If we need Banner we will bring him."
Natasha nodded and went to call Barton. He agreed to help and would come over as fast as he could.
"What is my next instruction, Sir?" She asked as she returned.
"We need to find any- and everything we could find about this Isabella Degarés and her relationship to Tony Stark. And research Pepper's past too and find parallels."
Hours went by, Clint appeared and helped Natasha. Rhodey came over too, after he couldn't reach Pepper and offered to help, too. He was shocked as he heard Pepper was gone, too. All computers at Shield were occupied with researches.
They agreed to take a nap while Rhodey would stay awake and monitored the screens. Suddenly a loud beep appeared and all screens went black.
"What happened?!" Fury's angry voice appeared behind them. But he was silenced by a video that appeared on all screens. It was a man with dark brown hair and a woman with dark curls and they were talking.
"Put it on the speakers." Fury commanded. The speakers turned on and the woman spoke.
" – have Anthony Stark. He's mine now. Finally again! Don't try to find him, you won't succeed. I love him and I don't want to hurt him, but one false step from you and he's dead. I want his suit and his money too so we can build our own life. He will never reappear as Iron Man again, but I need the suit to build my army. So we will send a list with our claims and you better follow them or we will blow your building. There is an atomic bomb in your building and you can't escape it. So if one of you leaves this building we blow your whole place." She turned her gaze to the man next to her. "Chris? Your turn."
Now the man next to her spoke. "Well I just wanted to tell you that Virginia left Tony, 'cause she realized he belongs to Belle. She is finally happy again with me and loves me. So I want to invite you all to our wedding. Follow our rules and no-one will be harmed and we can celebrate all together. She's fine. Don't worry about her."
The screens went black and everybody sat in silence.
Eventually Rhodey spoke. "I recognize him. It's Christopher Benter, Pepper's ex-boyfriend." He told the story of the two of them and everybody understood, but Natasha told what everybody thought.
"She would never voluntarily leave Tony. She loves him more than everything and nothing would ever change that. And after what you just told, Rhodey I think it's very obvious that he forces her to leave with him. The question is what scared her that much that she would do that to Tony?"
"Tony himself." Clint said.
"What?" Everybody asked.
"Yeah she loves nothing more than him, right?" Everybody nodded in agreement. "So she was feared with his life. This Chris will kill him if she doesn't do what he wants her to do. She's trying to protect the one thing she loves the most. I can't even imagine how much it must hurt her."
"We need to find her, or he will kill her. She can't exist without him and the other way round." Rhodey explained.
"Like I said love is for kids. I just cause problems. So what do we do? We can't leave or we all will die too." Natasha said.
"Isn't you attitude a bit too hard?" Clint asked one eyebrow arched.
"We won't discuss it now." Fury finally demands. "We need to save them without blowing us up. We wait till their claims arrive. And we'll see if there's a loophole."
Thanks for reading. After Friday I hope I can update faster, cause I'm finished with my exams then!
12 Day's till IM3 here in Germany! I'm so excited!
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xoxox PP-S