Week 3
Pepper likes to believe that she's resilient. After ten years of working for the man with not that many plans, you'd expect yourself to grow a hard shell and a stricter mindset. Some'd even be relieved to get rid of that man, she knew she used to think she would be. But three weeks and no more surprise Rhodey calls and she's doubting that she ever let the thought cross her mind.
She goes to all the meetings scheduled as per usual, it's only been three weeks and she can already sense the general public forgetting about Tony. Welcome to the 21st century, where names fade faster than brands. Evidently, since Stark Industries is still at the top of the market even without their dashing icon to be there for it.
Obadiah temporarily takes over the company. Someone has to.
She's in her office one day eating a sandwich and pouring through some paperwork, sorting through sheets of paper as she has been a lot more these past few days, just something to get her mind off the fact that Tony is out there somewhere in Afghanistan. Maybe he's alive. Maybe he's dead. Maybe he's getting tortured to death. She tries her hardest to not think about any of this.
The knock on the door brings her out of her peace. "Come in," she says (weakly she notes. when did her voice get weak?)
Obadiah steps in flashing his signature smile underneath all that… hair that he calls a beard. It's incredibly distracting.
"So you were Tony's PA," he begins.
"That is correct," The last person she wants to talk to about Tony is Obi. His lack of care is as clear as his greed for the company and from the looks of it she's the only one who can tell.
"But since Tony's de— missing, how'd you like to be my PA instead? Just temporarily of course,"
Her mouth opens to say something but what can she say other than accept? The man's more dangerous than Tony was, anyone could spot it a mile away. "Sure," she says dryly with a dryer smile.
"Excellent, you'll begin work tomorrow," he leaves the room and he's taken her mind with him because the paperwork on the table's going ignored now.
He's written Tony off as dead and by now, half the company has as well. The other half is disappointed at best but Pepper's in a state of total agony. Her wobbling hands thread through her hair and her eyes squeeze shut because shock has been taken over with pain, with misery. It takes a muffled sob and the growing dampness on her cheeks to tell that she's crying.
She doesn't want to call it mourning. Because she knows no matter what Tony's out there, that Tony Stark will not go out without a bang and that this is not how he would want to die. Or that's what she tells herself at least.
Because she refuses to believe that the last time she saw him was on her birthday and the last conversation they had sparked a familiar heat in her chest that she was afraid of never feeling again. He's your boss a voice nags in the corner of her mind while she lets herself ruin her mascara.
No. she finally concludes. He's so much more than that.
Week 4
Lunch for the day was stale crackers and some funky looking tap water. The blueprints he's made for his one chance of getting out of this dump sits under the faux ones for the missile he's been ordered, tortured, whatever you'd like to call it, to make. Yinsen's in the corner letting the water boil and hopefully killing the funk that's in it. Hopefully.
The car battery strapped up to his chest has been replaced by a blue glowing circle which is without a doubt far more effective and a lot less weight to lug around. It's fresh too. He taps the little thing and barely feels it. It's one of the great things of having Yinsen in this cave with him. He probably wouldn't be alive otherwise.
In the meanwhile they begin on a board game. It passes the time and it keeps his mind off of what Pepper's thinking about. "You still haven't told me where you're from," He says instead of asking.
"I'm from a small town called Gulmira," He looks up and smiles brokenly. "It's actually a nice place,"
"Got a family?"
"Yes, and I will see them when I leave here. And you Stark?"
He restrains himself from providing him with a bitter laugh instead of an answer and takes a few seconds to think of the answer. In all honesty, he wasn't sure what could even be defined as family anymore. There was Pepper but, he knew better than to think that he honestly deserved her. While she sat in California manning the company for him no doubt, probably worrying herself crazy over him as she always did even when he was around to calm her down. A lump formed in his throat at the very thought of it. And was he ever going to see her again? He wasn't a very hopeful man.
"No," he replied dryly.
"No?" Yinsen assessed curiously. "So you're a man who has everything, and nothing,"
He forces a smile to hide the fact that the truth of that statement is close to shattering him. Pepper was his everything once upon a time. But Pepper wasn't with him in this dark, cave, in the middle of nowhere. And returning by this point seemed unlikely.