Time surely wasn't intended to pass this slowly, it was like torture, counting every second that passed and ignoring the thing clamped in her left hand. It was only to take five minutes, but these where the five minutes that could completely turn her world upside down, tear it apart and rearrange it in seconds flat. Closing her eyes she sat down, perched on the edge of the sink in one of the quietest sets of ladies toilets in the building, Pepper had discovered this place on her second day working here, and had been using it ever since, so much so that Tony had joked they should make it private, just for her personal use.

She'd never seen the point it bothering to do so, apart from right now. She didn't know what she'd do if someone did walk in, break down? No. She was above that, no matter what, she'd cope with this.

Somehow.

Peaking down at the watch on her wrist her lips didn't change from the scowl they'd been set, how had it only been two minutes? This was horrible, making her stomach curdle as she set the device down next to the mirror, not daring to glance back into it at her own refection. Pepper would have quite happily curled up and refused to exist until this was all over.

If it was true, if there was another life inside her, if this really was a baby-bump, then it had to be Starks. There was nobody else it could belong to.

Right now she'd have given anything just to have him here beside her, holding her hand and waiting with her. Lately she'd been getting sick of waiting, waiting her tony to wake up, waiting for the press to go away, and waiting for the world to come right again. It was ironic really, there was never just one thing that went wrong, and everything had to come tumbling down at once. Life had actually been sorting itself out, she felt loved, felt like someone cared about her and wanted to look after her and it had all been wrenched out from underneath her feet.

Giving the timepiece another glare her stomach turned over again, forcing the sick feeling to the surface. There was only a minute left. 60 seconds and she'd know the truth, there was only one other moment when time had made her feel this sick, waiting for the jet to touchdown when they'd brought her Tony back from that hell hole. All those months of waiting and he'd still come home to her, surely he'd just do the same for her now; maybe the news would be the key to waking him, or a sharp heel between the legs.

30, 29, 28…

Pepper seemed to have chosen exactly the wrong moment to look down, the seconds on the clock where teasing her, each one taking a lifetime to pass. Her mind began to wonder, each passing second causing another horrifying thought.

27, 26, 25…

So, it this was the case, if she was pregnant with Tony Stark, what would he have thought of her, of it?

23, 22, 21…

Would he have even wanted it? Would he have wanted to be a Father?

20, 19, 18…

Would he want it when he woke up?

17, 16, 15…

Could she cope? Could she be a mom? Be a mom to Starks child?

14, 13, 12…

But he wasn't here to ask, she couldn't ask.

11, 10…

Would he ever come back? Or was she just refusing to accept something part of her already knew?

9, 8, 7…

She'd be a single mom; that seemed more and more certain with every doctor's report, and every passing second it was starting to sink in.

6, 5, 4…

Tony was not going to come back. He'd gone. He'd left her.

3…

She might have the only still living part of Anthony Howard Stark inside her body, the child of a billionaire probably with the brains to match.

2…

Help.

ONE.

The alarm on her wrist started to bleep at her, the dim mechanical noise ringing in her ears and dragging her back from her terror. Automatically, she reached for the device, before something in her mind caught her hand, forcing it to stop mid movement.

This was supposed to be a moment of joy wasn't it? That's how all the books made it out to be, how everyone on the TV said it should be, how her friends had insisted it would be when she finally had her baby.

And what about her? What about Virginia Potts? The same woman that had stubbornly refused to even go near boys for years, terrified that she'd end up in a mess like she was right now, balanced on the edge of the sink at work waiting to find out if she'd been screwed over by her boss. For all those years she'd been good, she'd behaved, kept herself clean, worked as hard as she could and built her carer from nowhere.

All because someone had once promised her that fairy-tale ending.

Promised her someday she'd get her knight in shining armour, her dream wedding and a beautiful family somewhere quiet in the country where she could watch them grow and fall in love with the man beside her every single day.

It was all wrong, this was all wrong, but she couldn't go back. Pepper had to know, she needed to know before all these possibilities drove her insane.

Forcing herself to her feet she reached for it, glancing at herself in the mirror again, It seemed she'd already started to cry without thinking about it, tears trailing down over familiar paths on her cheeks.

"Whatever happens." Pepper told the woman in the mirror, shaking a little as her fingers closed around it: "We'll get through this, we can get through anything, you run Stark Industries and put up with Tony Stark." The fake laugh was weak, echoing a little in the abandoned room.

Finally she turned the pregnancy test over, not even daring to breathe as she let her gaze fall downwards.