#pepperonyfic

-

Pepper was exhausted. She was in pain. Most of all, she was sick of Steve telling her that everything was going to be okay, because clearly it wasn’t.

“You don’t know for sure that he’s dead, Pepper,” the captain said for the fifth time. “This is Tony we’re talking about.”

“He didn’t have the suit,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “He had nothing to protect him, and he still… he still…”

“Shh,” Steve soothed her, taking her hand. She yanked it out of his grip, nearly tearing the IV out of her hand in the process.

“Just go, Steve,” she mumbled thickly.

“I don’t think I should leave you-”

“Go.”

He stood, squeezed her uninjured shoulder once, and left the room without a word. A nurse came in to check the drip in her hand and to rearrange her pillows for her.

“If there’s anything I can get you, let me know,” the woman said, before leaving Pepper to the silence of her sterile hospital room.

Tony, she thought. You can get me Tony.

This was all so wrong, terribly, terribly wrong. They had just been on a trip, driving down the coast for the day. She didn’t remember all of it, but there had been a huge noise, and the car- the car had crashed somehow. She remembered trying to talk to Tony, but he had just been lying there, not moving. Then people had been there, and she had thought they were being rescued. But Tony was yanked out of the wreck and dragged off to another car. Then he was gone, and Pepper was left for dead.

She had been lucky enough to get to hospital before too long, and her injuries weren’t life-threatening. But Tony was gone, and no one knew where he was. The paramedics had assumed she had been driving alone.

She closed her eyes and thought of him. There was nothing else she could do, really.  He popped into her head whether she liked it or not.

Hours passed. She just lay there, wondering what was happening in the outside world, wondering what might have happened if she hadn’t insisted that they drive down the coast, that they take the day off. Tony wouldn’t be gone.

She slept a while.

She woke to a voice. It was echoing, almost ghostly.

Don’t tell me what I can’t… I demand… let me through… damn it, I’m not asking…

She closed her eyes again, willing it away. Tony was gone, his voice couldn’t be real.

Pepper?

She opened them again, frowning at the ceiling. When the door burst open she jumped, and struggled to sit upright. A bedraggled man caked in dirt and blood barged through the door and came straight for her bed, but she didn’t care, because-

“Tony!” she exclaimed, dragging him into a tight hug. He buried his face in her neck.

“What happened?” she asked. “How did you-”

He shook his head, hushing her. “It’s okay, don’t worry about me.”

“Don’t worry about you?” she repeated dumbly, staring at the blood all over him.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, and his voice sounded so relieved that she couldn’t help but believe him.

“I was so worried,” she whispered. “I thought you were dead.”

He kissed her on the forehead. “I couldn’t leave you, now could I?”

She smiled weakly. “Promise me we’ll never take a day off again?”