"Sweet Jane…" Tony muttered the words along with Lou Reed blasting from his stereo. The rest was unintelligible through the wrench held between his teeth. He opened the chest plate of his newest armor and stuck his head inside. It had malfunctioned when he'd ordered the suit to meet him at the jet. An alarm was going off and wouldn't stop. He'd pulled the whole damn thing apart piece by piece to try and sort it out. Half of the pieces were still on the jet.
Happy didn't pick him up at the airport. He wound up using a car service.
At least he hadn't been in the suit when it malfunctioned. From what he'd discovered, there was a backup power supply failure. There'd been just enough power inside to set an alarm off. He was surprised by some of the sloppy work he found during his dismantling.
But no more! Complacent Tony was no more.
He would no longer sacrifice quality for quantity.
Now that he saw the ghosts in his machine, he would go through them one by one, exorcizing their demons. It would take a long time. And it would occupy his thoughts from some of his own demons. On the return trip home he'd been proud of himself. But the closer he got to Malibu the less certain he was. Was it a mistake? Pepper's warning echoed in his thoughts. Was he really ready for this? He'd offered to let a stranger work on his armor!
Scarlett Damien was better than he'd expected in more ways than he could count. He didn't regret speaking with her but he was left with so many more questions that his head spun. Was he really suffering from PTSD like she suggested? She'd seemed pretty certain of it. How did she manage to calm him? Why was it that a complete stranger, with zero reason to help him, had taken the time out of her day to make sure he was alright? He'd smashed up her office and thrown his ego around from the moment they met. She could have very well let him have his fit and be rid of him.
Hell, she had every right to have security drag him out the moment he arrived. But she hadn't. She hadn't so much as even mentioned it to the press. Not his crashing through the window, not his panic attack. Scarlett kept his secrets.
Why?
He couldn't get the image of her next to him on the stairs out of his head.
Why was it that no one in his life had done that yet? Pepper knew he was struggling. She'd only looked out for herself. And yes, that was sort of how their relationship had always been. But maybe it shouldn't have been. Maybe that wasn't healthy. Rhodey tried to help but he was too busy. That and Tony had burdened Rhodey enough. Rhodey was responsible for finding him after he'd been taken captive. For that, Tony could never repay him.
Still, at least Rhodey was making an effort.
The woman he was supposedly sharing his life with didn't have the time for him. And now, late into the night, she still wasn't home. At first he thought he'd done a good job of hiding and Pepper just hadn't seen it. But after today he realized he was practically screaming for help and no one was listening.
"Don't suffer in silence." He repeated her words after setting down the wrench. Tossing the power supply from hand to hand, he reclined in his office chair. Why had it failed? Why hadn't he noticed it was failing until it was too late?
Before he began dismantling the power supply a tabloid magazine was placed in front of him on his desk with some force. He hadn't heard footsteps over the music blaring from his speakers.
"Music off." Rock and Roll Animal stopped blaring and Pepper stood scowling, face red, hands on her hips.
Tony glanced at the magazine but didn't bother with the headline. There was a picture of Scarlett leaving Refuge following after him, another of the two of them talking, and a third where he was talking to the press and she was impatiently waiting in the car. Pepper's anger was obvious but he didn't feel guilty. It was past midnight. Pepper just got home. Maybe Pepper should be the one feeling a little guilty.
That and he'd warned her. Was she surprised that he stuck to his word? He turned his attention back to the power supply and dismantled it.
"Did you have a nice night?" He decided to ignore the magazine. What was the point? Pepper would say what was on her mind no matter what he said, so why bother?
"You have nothing to say for yourself? Really?" Pepper's hands dropped to her sides in disbelief.
"Did you go to dinner? How's Hogan, by the way? I pay him to drive me around and yet I haven't had a personal driver in months because he's always busy driving you. Had to have a car pick me up from the airport. Should I hire a second driver?" Tony turned from her scrutinizing gaze and kept to his work. Half the wires were burnt to a crisp from whatever caused them to short. Now that he was looking at the power supply, he didn't think it was the cause of the problem. No, it was another side effect of a bigger problem. "What could it be? Maybe some sensor malfunction…" He muttered beneath his breath.
"How could you do that after what we discussed? I told you not to approach Refuge and you ignored me. How could you do something so incredibly foolish, Tony?" Pepper ignored the obvious dig. She looked guilty. Why did she look so guilty?
"Foolish? No, no." Tony stood and tossed the burnt wires into a pile of already discarded pieces from the suit's chest plate. "Jarvis get a read on this. If you could, map out the progression of failure and compare it to the schematics for me. Please and thank you." He then turned his attention to Pepper. She had her arms folded over her white blouse and was staring at him with a mixture of nerves and anger. "I did what I thought was best for my company. You know, the one that's named after my family. My word is final."
"Oh, now it's your company? It only seems to be when it's convenient for you."
"Bullshit." Tony scowled. "Yes, you have been working your ass off and standing in for me. You have no idea how grateful I am that you did while I took time away. But in the end, it's my company and what I say goes. And the fact that you think this is bad for our reputation is just not a good enough reason for me to ignore the opportunity. In all our arguing, you didn't come up with a good reason not to. Not a single one. Other than that you don't like her. I don't see a reason not to move forward."
"I thought we were a team, Tony! Why are you acting like we aren't anymore?" Pepper was exasperated.
"We are. And I discussed it with you before I did it. You seem to think that you're the whole team these days!" Tony shouted in frustration. He tried not to be angry but he was tired of fighting about everything except for what truly mattered. The more they avoided the obvious, the less Tony wanted to fix it. "You're running the show right now but that's not how things will stay. You had a chance to run my company and you quit, remember?"
"I'm not built to do what you do everyday! I didn't know what I was doing. And you left things in such…"
"I know. I'm not blaming you. But my opinion matters too. And I made a judgment call and it was the right one. After meeting with Scarlett today I know how capable she is and I know she can help us. You should be happy. I'm finally getting my act together, just like you wanted."
"This is not what I wanted."
"I know."
"So none of my input matters anymore? Everything I want for Stark Industries means nothing?"
"It's all about you, isn't it, Pepper?" Tony walked back to the armor while letting Jarvis do his scan. She wasn't even listening. Maybe he wasn't explaining himself well, but he wasn't sure how else to say it. Was it selfish to hope she'd be proud of him for leaving the house? For getting anything done? What more did he need to do for her to realize he was finally fighting for himself?
"Excuse me?" Pepper's voice was higher pitched the angrier she was. It was practically a mouse squeak now.
"Arguing won't get us anywhere. It's too late. I already made the decision. If you don't like it, then be angry and deal with it."
"I am angry, Tony!"
"Shocked." Tony laughed, eyebrows high on his forehead. He moistened his lips. "When aren't you mad at me? No matter what I did today you would have been mad at me. If I'd stayed home all day doing nothing? Mad. If I worked on my armor? Mad. If I run my company? Still mad. You've been pushing me to get back to it for months and now that I have it's still not good enough. So what is it, Pepper? What do you want me to do? What will make you happy? I can't figure it out. No matter what I do it's not enough." Tony snapped and his heart was suddenly racing in his ears. Every time they fought like this his body went into overdrive. Every time they got closer to the root of the problem it got worse.
The reactor in his chest was so hot it felt like it was on fire. Or maybe that was his heart. Depending on Pepper's reaction things would get better or worse. It was all up to her now. His hands were tingling and he felt sick to his stomach. But a weight had been lifted too. It'd taken strength to say all that.
"I don't know!" Pepper shouted in panic. She was dumbfounded and searching for an answer but at least she'd really listened for once. Pepper stepped back like she'd been struck but didn't shout at him. It looked like she was having a hard realization. Just like he had.
"You know what I miss?" Tony lowered his voice and turned to the data Jarvis was silently creating. He brushed his fingers over the results and rearranged them to hide the trembling in his hands. The air in the room was too thick to breathe. He'd have to check the ventilation system after Pepper left.
He heard Scarlett's voice in his head, reminding him that he was having panic attacks and to breathe. He drank some water. It helped.
"No, I don't." Pepper didn't ask either. She shifted her feet and started to talk about ten times but ended up saying nothing.
"I miss my assistant." Tony struggled to get the words out but they didn't sound forced. It hurt. But it was the truth. Rhodey encouraged him to be honest and he was finally managing to be. Unfortunately, it went poorly.
Pepper's face was now as red as her hair and her eyes welled up with tears. Dammit. He didn't want to make her cry. He hated when Pepper cried! She was such a strong woman. When she cried, he knew the cut was deep. Even though they weren't getting along, he didn't want to hurt her. He hadn't even meant it as the insult she'd probably taken it as. "Most of all, I miss my friend." He added, hoping to soften the blow. He should have probably led with that. Pepper was too angry to hear him.
"Screw you, Tony." Pepper blinked her eyes closed tight to fight tears. She took deep breaths and when she opened her eyes again the tears were gone. "You're a selfish asshole."
"Oh yeah?" Tony turned back to her. In that moment, he could see she was only thinking about how he hurt her. He looked around at the suits lining his walls, each proudly on display. She thought they stood for something completely different than what they really did. He'd built them to protect her, to protect their life- not to hide. How could she call him that when the only thing he'd focused on for months was her safety? He wasn't even scared for himself. He'd never had anything worth protecting before. "Then you really aren't listening."
"You've always been like this. I thought you'd grow up when we started dating." Pepper's voice was shaky. She searched for her phone in her bag.
"I think you should go stay with your mom tonight. If I'm so selfish, that is." Tony suggested, clenching his jaw. He was angry. Not overly so, just angry. His hands were shaking and he wanted to punch things. If he had a fit in front of Pepper, it'd only make things worse. He'd done enough damage tonight.
"Maybe I will." Pepper stuttered on her words like she was waiting for an apology. He wasn't going to apologize. He didn't want to. He hadn't said anything he didn't mean. They fought about everything all the damn time. And every fight spiraled into nonsense. His face went pale. They were looking for hope in all the wrong places, both of them.
Pepper searched him briefly with concern and he thought for a moment that she would ask if he was okay. But she didn't. Tony turned his back to her. His stomach was sick. He heard her footsteps going up the stairs. Then she was gone. Jarvis let him know that she locked the door behind her.
The tabloid magazine was still on his desk, filled with rumors. He feigned studying the data that Jarvis gave him but instead stared through it. He heard a car door slam in the distance. Pepper was gone. And his mind was still racing. Spots obscured his vision and he tried to blink them away.
"Deep breaths." Tony exhaled. Staying calm didn't feel like an option. He got up and paced, walking through Jarvis' data that disappeared as he did. The more he thought about what happened, the shorter his breath became. His lungs ached which only made things worse. It was a vicious cycle that he couldn't break. He didn't know how.
Finally, he sat back in his computer chair. His basement felt cold and uninviting. Just like it had the other day. A tomb built from fear. He had nowhere else to go. When he needed comfort, he used to go to Pepper but now she was one of his greater sources of anxiety which fed into whatever was happening in his body. His fingers were numb. They didn't feel real.
His head was swimming. If he didn't calm down, it would get worse. Everything he thought he knew was slipping out of his grasp and he was powerless to stop it. Pepper was changing. So was he. Their relationship was shifting. Despite his attempt to fix it, he couldn't.
That was the problem.
Tony couldn't fix it.
Tony fixed things.
It was what he did.
But there was nothing he could do to repair the damage done. Those parts of him felt broken beyond fixing. He couldn't even get Pepper to have a real conversation without her getting upset. She was unhappy and that was his fault. But that went both ways. For all he knew, the relationship was over already and they were both going through the motions.
Grasping the sides of his head, Tony rested his hands on his knees and tried to coach himself into taking deep breaths. He couldn't panic again, not now. He went from not even understanding what a panic attack was to having one almost everyday that week, sometimes more than once. It would kill him at this rate. Who would believe it? Tony Stark died of a panic attack! The man with no fear, no anxiety, was losing his mind in his basement after kicking out his girlfriend.
"Don't suffer in silence." He found himself whispering without realizing. That's what Scarlett told him. That if he kept it inside, it would just compound in his head until it drove him crazy. But there was no one there to share with anymore. Jarvis wouldn't understand. And even if someone was there to listen, he didn't know what to say or how to say it.
Suffering in silence felt like the only option.
Tony needed help.
For the first time in his life, he recognized that he couldn't fight this alone. He could call Rhodey and ask him to come over but it felt like too much to ask. How could he ask anyone to go through this with him? No one would understand what he was feeling anyway. They'd think it was stupid. The last thing he needed was to feel like he was a burden.
When he opened his eyes again, his vitals hung in the air before him, highlighted.
"Sir, I am concerned." The artificial intelligence spoke softly. "Should I call someone?"
"No, no, Jarvis. It's okay. I'm okay." Tony exhaled but it was a lie. Nothing was okay. No matter how many times he told himself it would be, he knew it wasn't. He wasn't. He missed the man he was. Could he even be that man again? He'd felt like himself in Boston. It was almost harder now after feeling like his old self again. Now he remembered what it was like. For awhile, he'd been stuck in a rut. He'd become comfortable feeling terrible.
"No, you're not." Even Jarvis knew something was wrong. "And I do not think it has anything to do with Miss Potts."
"Enough, Jarvis." Tony's head was spinning.
"Don't suffer in silence. You keep saying that. Take your own advice, sir."
"It wasn't my advice, actually." Tony reclined in his chair and watched his heart rate climb into the red. "It was someone else's."
"Whose?"
"A friend's." Tony was surprised he called her that. Scarlett was the only one who managed to calm him down. The only one who had seen his suffering. She hadn't pitied him or made him feel pathetic. She'd just helped. Like a friend.
"Perhaps this same friend would be willing to help you now." Jarvis suggested. Tony's heart rate jumped around erratically.
"You know what, Jarvis? Maybe she will." Tony took his phone from the desk and stared at her contact information. Something he hadn't been given. Scarlett understood what he was going through, more than he did. Maybe she could help him now.