I almost feel like crying, did you know that? You are so lovely my readers! The story just continues picking up followers and favorites even though it's been going on for a while, I am so much more than greatful, I didn't really think it would get this good, I just thought okay, a few reviews maybe and then a follower here and a favorite there. THANK YOU! I especially have to thank LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books, I laughed so hard at that review I almost fell of my chair, seriously. And Jimenush, you are one faithful reader aren't you? And of course everyone else who has reviewed and favorited and followed. Ok, I'm gonna shut up now... READ!
"Three minutes" That was what Tony woke up to, someone saying those two words.
What was it supposed to mean? Three minutes, it didn't tell him anything. "That was how long you slept, three minutes" Now he understood a little bit more, but at the same time a lot less.
How was it possible to sleep for three minutes only when he was so exhausted and tired? Why the hell did he close his eyes and sleep at all? Three minutes was a short time to press in a hundred and forty six pictures of bad memories, but in some way his mind had succeeded to do so. Tony felt as if someone tried to squeeze his heart together to it was as small as a marble when he remembered what had happened and he winced. Oh God she must be angry, sad... I've destroyed her life! She knew very well that her job was to take care of Tony, and he blowing up the whole workshop and himself had to make her feel like a failure. He had been a wimp for long enough, he had ran away from his fears and trouble, it was time to be that man he was supposed to be, a man of iron...
"Are you mad?" He turned around to face her, but he quickly understood he shouldn't have. His expression and voice broke so that he seemed awfully pitiful and scared.
"Tony, as I said, I can't get mad at you" She said calmly and thought of what she had just seen, a Tony who was scared the hell out of because of those damn nightmares.
"Yes, you are. You're mad at me. You hate me" Now he sounded even more scared which also made Pepper scared.
"No, Tony, I do not... You need help, I can't be mad at you or hate you because of that" She quickly took his hand again. She'd been in shock when he said what he had done before he fell asleep and let go of him, now she regretted it.
"You can be mad, and you are, it's all my fault" Again Tony started feeling dizzy and his whole body ached, he couldn't deal with the guilt he felt.
What was wrong with him? Why did he have these delusions, why wouldn't he listen to her? She had to take him to see someone, a shrink, this couldn't go on. She placed a hand at his cheek and carefully turned his head in her direction so that his distant, tired and unfocused eyes met hers.
"No, listen... listen to me" She said strictly as she saw his eyes wander across the room. "I am not, but I will be if you keep saying so. I love you Tony and even though you do a lot of stupid things all the time I will always love you and never ever hate you" Pepper was a bit taken a back that he would actually say something like that, she could never, not in a thousand million years, hate him.
Tony didn't say anything more, he just fell asleep again and did so for about half an hour before he started to make weird sounds which freaked Pepper out. She sat in the brown stress less she had always been sitting in next to the bed and held his hand when he suddenly let go of it and started clenching to his pillow. He continued making weird sound while his whole body twitched under the duvet. The weird sounds started to make sense after a couple of minutes and Pepper understood that he was talking. Shit, he's having a nightmare!
"N-n... no. Everything, I'll give... every..." Pepper tried to calm him down and wake him up, but he just continued. "Mmph, ah, don't... lock up. Pepper!" She continued to try and wake him up, now even more frantically while she yelled his name.
He never got to that part when his eyes opened, but he stopped twitching and saying things, and his hand let go of the pillow, he just fell silent all of a sudden. The weird thing was that this just made Pepper worry even more, was he unconscious now? He had pulse, he was even breathing, but he just... he just slept. Pepper, he's actually sleeping, let him. And then she sat by his side for three more hours before she stood up and was about to leave to make herself something to eat when she saw that he started to twitch slightly and his hand clenched to the pillow again, but that was it. He let go of the pillow and continued breathing heavily. Pepper didn't mind about it and left the room to get to the kitchen. He had been sleeping uninterrupted for three hours now, she knew that three hours of real sleep and not unconsciousness over five days was way too little, so she could only beg for him to continue the peaceful sleep for a few more hours, if not minutes. She knew that at some point she had to get back to the Stark Tower to inform everyone about what was happening and get someone to fix the building, but travelling back and forth from East Hampton to Manhattan didn't just take a few minutes, and she couldn't leave Tony alone. When the CEO of Stark Industries was so sick that he couldn't even stand on his own, someone else had to get on top of the situation, that someone was her. She found out very quickly that there weren't any food or coffee in the house and that she had to go and buy some for both her and Tony. When had he been eating? She couldn't remember him eating since the night he came home. No wonder he looked a bit worse than he should. Well, since there was nothing more to do about it right now, she went back to the bedroom only to find that Tony had tossed the covers off of him and lay sweating in the bed in nothing more than his boxers and the bandages. He was still having a high fever and it had probably become too much for him even though Pepper had made sure the room was a bit chilly leaving the window ajar. She carefully laid the duvet over him again and he didn't move as much as a finger, he just kept sleeping on his back, slung across the whole bed. Pepper decided to let him sleep there alone, so she locked the door and sat down in the white leather sofa in the living room and turned on the TV. She looked at the clock which showed 4 am, but she didn't feel the slightest tired, she had to be awake when Tony woke up.
"All we can ask ourselves is what has happened, why did it happen and where has Iron Man been for the last month?" Pepper watched a recap from the news and her hand quickly covered her mouth as she almost let out a squeal.
For the first time Pepper unlocked the screen on her "Paparazzi phone" that Happy had gave her and saw the incredible amount of unanswered calls and messages. In a couple of hours they would start calling again and she would have to have the story straight. She tried to put herself in someone else's position, someone who hadn't been involved with Tony over the last month and the recent event. No one knew anything about what had happened because they hadn't got any chance to. When there had been about two weeks of silence from Iron Man the press had started calling, but for some reason they settled down with the fact that it was none of their business. Pepper thought he had quitted for forever, but she had understood over the last days that he had planned to just take a break. She should've probably understood that when he picked up some of the still repairable scraps from the Malibu Mansion, but he was a mechanic and his passion laid in tinkering, of course quitting that wasn't an option even though it didn't include the suits. He must've been really good at hiding it though, since not even Fury had understood he was going back...
Pepper searched through the news on her smart phone, all of them were interesting at the same time as none of them was. A whole lot of speculations and false facts about what happened at the Stark Tower and where Tony and she were, was written everywhere on the internet. Pepper couldn't stand reading all the crap that those cunning journalists wrote about, so she put the phone away and decided to go check on Tony. She shuffled tiredly over the floor from the sofa to the bedroom and tried to open the door carefully, but it really creaked a lot. Tony was snapped out of sleep and he was fully awake in an instant. Pepper took a step backwards when she saw the intense eyes that followed her. Was he going to go completely nuts and delusional again? Slowly a big grin spread on Tony's face. There were no more bouncing head ache, nothing squeezing his heart, no more fever and no more nausea. He felt completely rested, and with that in his mind he jumped quickly out of bed. Pepper hurried over to him as she saw that he was about to fall over and she supported him while he bent over and vomited all over the wooden floor.
"Guess I'm still a bit dizzy" He mumbled and laid his head heavily on Peppers shoulder. He's just way too cute, she thought.
"But you look much better Tony, let's get you in the shower" He nodded tiredly, pushed himself away from her and started shuffling out in the corridor and towards the bathroom. "Tony, the bandages, we need to take them off first" Tony stopped and winced at the thought, but fell back into Pepper's arms who helped him back on the bed.
He sat on the edge of the bed, still just in his boxer. The arc reactor made that low humming sound which made him sway a bit, the sound was actually sort of pleasant listening to when you were tired. Pepper quickly supported him when she saw that he almost laid down on the bed to sleep again. She took hold of the loose end of the bandage around his stomach and started loosening it.
"Ow! ow ow ow ow ow!" Tony jerked away from her and suddenly he felt a lot more awake.
Pepper just sighed and moved after him, continuing to rip of the bandage as if Tony was just a dog that didn't like her taking it off. She rolled the bandage further and further off untill she started to see the red spots on it and she hesitated a bit. Did she really want to see this? What if it hadn't healed anything at all, and everything were just pus and bruises and... No, she had to take it off. When she came to that part were the bandage were fastened to the skin, Tony started clenching to her upper arm and gritting his teeth.
"I may take the part about the big shard being the most painful thing I've ever experienced back... this is'nt bearable" Pepper tried to shake herself loose from the grasp he had around her arm, that might be the most painful thing she'd ever been put through, but he didn't let her go, and it was okay, they were even then.
The loose skin around the wound sticked to the bandage and Tony lent forward to try and ease the pain, didn't work... In an instant the bandage let go so that Pepper almost fell of the bed, but she managed to stay. The wound looked great, it didn't bleed anymore, there weren't pus at all and it had actually started to heal. She looked at it, pleased with herself and how she'd managed to actually fix something by herself, before she continued with the hands that were also looking good. When they were finished, Pepper helped Tony up from the bed and he shuffled out in the corridor again. He walked right beside of the wall, stopping every now and then when he gagged, and held on to the wall to support himself. Pepper just stood in the doorway with her hands crossed and rolling her eyes, watching Tony try to be the superhero he was supposed to be. He looked so vulnerable, with the wounds all visible and the way he just shuffled dow the hall half-naked. When he finally reached the bathroom door he stopped and looked over his shoulder.
"How long?" He asked with a hoarse voice.
"Nine hours" She smiled at him to show that she was kind of proud that he managed to sleep for such a long time, he just nodded in response. "Now, don't do anything stupid in there!" Her tone was sarcastic, but a frown was starting to show between her eyebrows and revealed that she was serious. Once again he didn't say anything, he just smiled reassuringly and shuffled ahead into the bathroom.
"Sir, we've managed to track them down, do you want me to send someone over there?" The man looked up at his boss from the computer that showed a blinking, red dot placed at East Hampton.
"No, I think we'll just do it on our own" A cheeky smile appeared on his face.
"What do you suggest that we tell them?" Pepper sat in the sofa with Tony's head in her lap, he was back in his jeans, but he was shirtless as there was nothing in the house, in terms of clothing, that would fit him. He was neatly tucked in in a woolblanket though, just to keep warm.
"I was working on one of my suits when it suddenly over killed and blew up" He replied simply.
"That's a big explosion for a little over kill, Tony..." She said to him, imitating the nosy Christine Everhart.
"Well, considering the fact that the suit is full of highly explosive weapons, it could've actually been even greater. Sort of backfired a bit, right?" He looked challenging at her.
"There's been a lot of... weird... incidents lately, like the fact that you were dumped outside the Stark Tower with your hands tied up and that Iron Man just disappeared for a month before being spotted by some witnesses flying towards Kings Point. Also, now you're just gone, all of a sudden, after what happened with the tower and no one have heard from you before now, you have a lot to explain my dear Mr. Stark" She continued the teasing tone, writing down what he said and other possible stories on a notepad.
"For your record, miss, I had a little vacation. I know that I privatized world peace and all that jazz, but seriously, can't the US military save the world without me just once? I'm just like you... no, wait, I'm not, but I deserve a break every now and then too without it getting the hottest news on the planet. Unless I go to Hawaii and walk shirtless around on the beach, then I would understand... Anyways, what happened that night I was dumped outside the tower is something I would like not to talk about as it is a subject that makes me edgy. I am just fine now, but I am trying to recover after the explosion, and you'll never get to know where because I'm not a particular fan of being around you, or you being around me. Thank you" Tony closed his eyes and smiled triumphantly.
"Wow, did you plan for this all along or did you just make it all up right now? Because then I might have to start calling you the king of improvisation!" She regretted the last sentence as soon as she'd said it, because Tony suddenly sat up and looked at her with that "So you're finally admitting that I am awesome?" look. "Okay, I've ignored these conversations for long enough, time to start answering, don't leave this sofa, stay with me" She pleaded and Tony nodded fast and encouraged.
After a while Tony could hear that Pepper didn't need his help, she did perfectly great, and it was incredibly boring to listen to it. The TV had been on all the time, with news of Iron Man, Tony Stark and the Stark Tower flashing all over it, and he turned up the volume just a bit more to irritate her. He decided to lie down on the couch again and just follow her by his gaze so that eventually she'd be so stressed out by it she'd just hang up. He wasn't wrong.
"Sorry, that's all the information I can give for the moment, thank you for understanding" She hung up the phone and stared at it for a few seconds before her flaming eyes shoot against Tony. "What is wrong with you? I'm trying to clean up your mess here, would you let me?" Oh this is something else, this is fun! Tony thought. "Is there something you want to talk about?" Suddenly her eyes softened and she sat down next to Tony who had quickly sat up when she hung up the phone.
"No, not really. I just thought this was very boring, and I'm hungry, and I don't want you to talk to all of those shitty persons. They have enough now, they can exchange information if they don't think they've got enough. Soon they're going to want a press conference and then interviews, which I am not going to attend to, just as you know!" Tony pointed a finger against her and Pepper laughed softly.
"Okay, okay, I'll leave them for an hour or so. Happy can get us some food, he's still in New York, so it'll take a while though. Poor Happy, he's been through a lot lately... I think we own him an apology" Tony nodded thoughtfully at the suggestion.
He had been through a lot, the bombing... or extremisgoingwrong thing that made him fall into a coma, being head of security, picking up a destroyed Tony from a house with a dead man in it and the fact that they hadn't explained a shit to him after he drove them to Pepper's house, he had just left. The worst part was that he had taken it incredibly good, he might not be the best boxer, but he had a mind of steel, Tony felt like a wimp when he thought of how he had dealt with all that had happened. Yes, they owned him an apology. Pepper must've seen the hard look on Tony's face as he was thinking his mind off, because suddenly her hand was on his shoulder.
"Are you sure there's nothing you want to talk about?" She had that understanding, motherly look on her face.
"Except from the fact that I am terrified of the thought that I can get one of these panic attacks again, and that every time I close my eyes I see pictures and I get the feeling of being trapped and locked up, and that I can't get over the fact that I was thinking of hurting myself but that deep down it might've been a death wish? I knew I was a bit self destructive, people tell me that all the time, but this much?" He said real fast, almost whispering as concern rose in his body. What met him next was really confusing.
"Tony, there's nothing wrong with you at all, it's called being claustrophobic, there's a whole load of people out there who is. When I was a little girl I remember not daring to stand in an elevator together with other people, it gave me a bad feeling, knowing that I couldn't run away or fight it if someone would attack me or something" She almost laughed as she said the whole thing, but then she saw the confused look at Tony's face. "It's good news Tony, it-" Suddenly Peppers expression hardened and her throat pursed together.
Her eyes fastened at something behind Tony's back and he quickly forgot everything they had talked about and turned around as fast as he could.
"Thought this was the place you were hiding Stark, guess I was right"
Yeaaah, he's officialy out of bed, yay! He's even doing good, he's rude as hell and the humour is back. Now, if we could just find a way to get rid of those anxiety attacks, the nightmares are better at least, but we need to get rid of those too. Work has started again and I'm working 8 hours a day + it's one hour each way to work + I have my horses to train + I'm training myself too... I'll try and put in some writing when I've got time for it. Now REVIEW and tell me what you think, if there is anything, just a little irritating thing that should be improved, TELL MEEEEH, I want to get a better writer. Thank you for reading ;D