Author's note: I'm really sorry for not updating this faster it's just 1) I'm a major procrastinator 2) I just got back to school. boo.
I've been asked whether I'll continue this past the 12 weeks and I'm heavily considering it (maybe even a sequel ooo) so give me feedback whether you'd like it!
I don't own Iron Man bla bla you know the drill.
Week 7
Pepper never had acquired the taste for coffee. Until now.
A good half a year ago she would've refused a mug when Tony offered her one, and then downed a good two and a half of what was offered in less than fifteen minutes, something that she'd both marvel at and regard with a cool sense of distaste.
Half a year later sitting with her chin in her palm, resting atop of her briefcase, she's come to appreciate what a good cup of steaming hot caffeine can do, even if it means she has to smear just a tad more concealer over her already pretty dark bags.
She finishes a tall cup of coffee and orders another one to go. One thing about loneliness, you don't choose when you wake up. And usually it's at a completely unreasonable time. Try, three hours before you have to show up for work, before the sun's even risen and you want to sleep but it's a fight your tired mind won't let you win.
She figures that loneliness is probably what made Tony drink coffee as much as alcohol. She realizes that's also a pretty terrible reason, and maybe that's just the tired in her bones talking. Loneliness means coffee? Pepper, please.
No one in Stark Industries ever sees Pepper slouching with a cup of joe in her hand, and some aren't so keen to notice the small things like that. Like when Obadiah sashays into the room, his loud, arrogant voice filling the space and something along the lines of
"Pepper! You even got me a cup of coffee, Tony didn't know how lucky he was to have you,"
Before the cup basically gets snatched from her. For the slightest second she thinks she may crack, lose the facade, go a little crazy and scream the man down. Yes, scream him back into giving her her coffee. Scream him into conviction that Tony is lucky to have her because he hasn't even been confirmed dead and a little hope would do them all some good. Not that he needs hope, all he could've asked for is ripe for the taking in his case.
Instead she smiles - almost sarcastically - and walks off to her office, her heels clicking a little louder than usual as if they're as annoyed as her.
For once the first thing she does isn't work. She talks to JARVIS. It's odd, she realizes, talking to the AI yet strangely comforting, and she's thankful that Tony hardwired him into her bluetooth. She asks questions about him like
"Do you think we'll find him JARVIS?"
"He has a habit of making himself found, not to worry, Miss Potts,"
"Do you think he's alright?"
"I can't say for sure, but confidence is optimal in your circumstance,"
"No JARVIS, what do you think?" She asks because she's tired of relying solely on her own beliefs. It's driven her kind of mad.
"I believe that he'll fix the situation, it is, after all, what he's exceptional at, is he not?"
Once, Pepper Potts would've never thought an AI would make her smile. Not today though. Not today.
Week 8
He wonders for the billionth time in months whether he's going to see real sunlight while welding a piece of metal across another. It's sloppy, and not nearly as polished as the weapons he'd construct back at home but this isn't home and his fancy toys aren't surrounding him. No, he's surrounded by scary men with guns who speak a different language, lots of gravel, and some deconstructed bits of weapon. So it's sort of like home just a little downgraded he guesses.
He nearly settles into it like it's home, even if he hasn't had a proper shave in ages and his hair is greasy and matted, or that his stomach has sunken to the point where he can make out the lines of his ribcage.
"What are you so eager to get back to?" Yinsen asks one day over the sparks flying off the metal arm shell Tony's nearly done with. "Your fortune?"
Tony's scared of a lot of things. He's scared of dying faceless and nameless. He's scared of Obadiah taking over the company because while he's like a father figure, he's just not right for that job. He's scared of dying in this damn cave.
He's scared of admitting that he's more than just a little in love with his redhead assistant.
"I guess you could say that,"
Yinsen regards him with a calculated look, reading his expression to judge if anything's amiss. "Are we talking about the same fortune?"
"Sure we are,"
He doesn't push the topic any longer and goes back to helping him cut metal and do measurements while mulling over the little he'd revealed behind his mock truth, unaware to the fact that, that's what Tony was doing too. Mulling over the little admittance to himself, that Pepper's worth more to him than his money, his fame, his glory.
And he kicks himself so hard for realizing all this now.
The torturous part of the cave isn't the death surrounding them, the smell of it all over the walls, or the death threat that carries.
The torture is the feeling that if he stayed in there forever, he'd forget her slowly day by day.