The ruin fed upon you

For sixty-three days Tony doesn't take a break.

On sixty-fourth day he and Pepper, after having checked if everything is okay about ten times, start the experiment and it only takes two hours of hardly-breathing to get a confirmation that thanks to the Tony's vaccine the Extremis is Pepper's system is stabilized and it will not make her a human bomb, a human weapon, at any time.

After that, Tony takes a few days off. He spends most of them sleeping and cuddling with Pepper. Three nights of uninterrupted eight-hour-long sleep later the feeling of walking through a haze is gone and the world gain a sharp quality for the first time in months.

It takes him a month to decide that injecting himself with the slightly changed and stabilized version of Extremis to fix his heart is a good idea.

After that, the doctors are finally able to take out the shrapnel without doing additional damage – and to remove the arc reactor. They don't even have to replace the hole in Tony's chest. As soon as the virus recognizes something is missing, it's fixed.

To be honest it's scary how easy that happens.

Tony spends most of the next day – usually recovery would take longer, but not now, not in his case – staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. There is no arc reactor, no indication; even the scars are all gone as if it has never happened.

Tony comes back home soon. Home is now a place he owns near San Francisco, since New York is not a good idea and Malibu house is being slowly rebuilt; it's not quick and easy to fix a mansion that was half-hanging from a cliff, even with Tony's resources. The place where they are staying is calm and modern and has a small workshop equipped well enough to enable Tony working on the bots.

He keeps telling them he is sorry every second of every hour until they fixed – as much as possible – that they had to wait so long. Even though he's had valid reasons, it feels a bit like betrayal.

They can't reply. He wishes they could, but he doesn't want to change them.

Pepper is doing her CEO-ing via teleconferences for now; she has enough capable assistants and deputies to take care of the business. She and Tony decide together that they just need some time for themselves.

For some time it works.

Then Tony wakes up with a start in the middle of a night, sweaty and cold, breathing quickly, but he can't remember why. He can't remember any nightmare and he hasn't had any anxiety problems for a few months now so –

– but then he realizes what it is.

It's too dark. He can hardly make out Pepper's body on his right and she's right there, calmly asleep. There is nothing illuminating the blackness, nothing at all, and of course it's normal, but it feels as if there was something creeping up on them, hiding in the darkness.

Tony tries to slow his breathing down to match Pepper's but it's not working, so after a few moments he pulls himself together enough to sneak out of the room onto the terrace. There he breathes in fresher, cooler air.

The reactor has been gone for weeks, so – why now? Why would he suddenly miss it? It doesn't really make sense.

And he doesn't want to tell Pepper because it will be him, fucking everything up again.

Eventually he has to, though; after the experience with post-New York panic attacks, she notices something is off quite soon and Tony has promised himself not to lie to her ever again so he just states the truth.

'I thought you are all right now,' she says, embracing him softly.

'I thought I was,' he replies.

'Why?'

'I don't know,' he says truthfully. He really doesn't. The light thing doesn't seem to be the real reason and – it honestly doesn't feel like it's possible of him to miss a thing that meant constant ache, trouble breathing, vulnerability; that almost killed his several times. 'I feel safe with you,' he adds. It mean more than just those five words: there is Extremis in the background. They are both superhuman by some standards. It's not like any of them is at risk.

'We'll figure it out this time, too,' Pepper assures him. Tony believes her soft voice.

The first time it was concern for Pepper that helped Tony recover. He was working on the Extremis-stabilizer and just couldn't let her down. So, by a sheer force of will, a day passed without a panic attack, then another and another and suddenly Tony realized that it's been two months since the last time.

But no matter what they try now, Tony can't sleep and then he is too tired and too mentally exhausted to function normally. Extremis doesn't really help and one hand it's a disappointment, but on the other Tony is glad that there isn't anything alien controlling his mind.

This time, Tony goes to see a therapist. It doesn't help either, neither do meds that he is prescribed. He tries to spend more time with Pepper but it only makes them both impatient and snappish, and ends in arguments.

There are no suits to tinker with at night; everything Tony starts to work on down in the workshop just bores him. It's not nice anymore. It's not pleasant. Making things for Stark Industries makes Tony feel sick because it seems so pointless.

More nights than not he falls asleep but it always ends in waking up with hands unnecessarily clutching his chest where the reactor used to be.

Sometimes Pepper wakes up, too, and tries to comfort him, but it's almost impossible.

Tony can't figure out the reason to it all and he knows that if he knew why, he would be able to – try something. But he is missing something and he doesn't know what; he doesn't understand himself anymore.

When the Malibu house is ready, they move as soon as possible and for a few days Tony feels a bit better and Pepper smiles more; they laugh, make love, eat together, take walks. It seems almost perfect, but there is always some underlying tension that Tony can't let go of.

They can't fix it this way – by being closer – they both realize. Tony keep silent because it's his fault. It takes Pepper a few weeks to verbally acknowledge that.

'It's not working,' she says, her voice tight, playing with Tony's hair. His head is in her lap. They have been on the sofa for hours.

'No, it's not,' Tony admits. No lying.

'I think I should go back to New York for some time,' she adds a moment later quietly, as if shyly. Tony is not surprised, he has expected her to say that for a few days. He just nods. 'I think it might to us both good. Maybe everything will be… fresher. After.'

'Sure,' Tony just says. Maybe it will.

When she leaves, Tony spends a week without moving out of the bed for longer than three minutes to use the bathroom. JARVIS makes one of the bots bring him food every few hours and then talks Tony into eating it, sounding like he wished he had his own arms to wrap around Tony, and his own hands to feed him.

'You are showing all classical symptoms of major depressive disorder, sir' JARVIS tells him one morning after Tony spent the night and the dawn staring out of the window, observing the changing sky.

'That's just another thing to add to my personal fuckup list,' Tony says humorlessly. 'Don't worry. It will pass, J. We'll figure it out.'

'I hope so,' JARVIS replies.

Apathy does lessen, but then comes anger: Tony wants to rip himself apart for fucking up the only thing that he has now, the most beautiful and the most incredible thing that he's ever had. He and Pepper do love each other insanely, strongly, purely, but – it changes nothing. The anger doesn't help Tony with fixing himself at all.

Eventually Tony goes to New York, too. By that time he's learned to drag himself out of the bed no matter how he feels, the city's name doesn't make him panic anymore, and Pepper has been working efficiently and made a few really great deals that mean lot of funds for SI's R&D. Avengers go on, Iron Patriot helps them out sometimes but that's it.

Tony finds out that acting in front of others it easy. There are combinations and variations of you are not the same person and you have changed accompanying him all the time and he knows they all mean it in the best possible way because he acts grown-up and responsible; but it feels like an insult.

Pepper leaves early, comes back late, and keeps apologizing. Tony doesn't mind because being together doesn't mean anything else than being apart.

He misses having a reason to go on, a motivation to push himself forward, a goal to reach. Pepper is not enough, his work is not enough, other people are not enough… He has never felt so empty before and it's terrifying; he misses the fire that used to burn in every single cell of his body, urging him to create, to exercise his brain, to try endlessly, even if there wasn't anything as serious as his or Pepper's life at stake; he misses it so much that it makes him physically sick.

He and Pepper are drifting apart and they both know it.

It's about a year and a half after that Christmas when Tony lets himself think for the first time that what he did was a mistake: leaving everything behind for himself and Pepper. It's not her fault, it was his choice, it was something he believed in more than anything else. He was absolutely sure he's making the right decision back then.

There is no Iron Man.

Before, Tony kept reminding people that he and the suit were one, but it was him that created it and made the suit work; that's exactly what Harley meant when he called Tony a mechanic. When the suits were destroyed and the reactor was removed, Tony was sure he was going to be the Tony Stark he has always wanted to be. A whole.

He didn't realize how much Iron Man became him.

Tony keeps the thought to himself because he wants so desperately to be able to say that he's moved on. That he's grown up. That he's a new person. Otherwise it would mean that he was so, so wrong. He understands that it's not the darkness that scares him, but the lack of light that meant a part of him that is missing.

He tells himself that it's all a lie, that it's his crazy mind's imagination and that not telling Pepper the lie is not lying.

When she comes back from a delegation in Asia, she finds him curled up on the sofa and having a mental battle with himself because rationally he should get up and move. He is losing, as always.

'I made some soup,' he tells Pepper as soon as she enters the room. She presses her lips together in a tight line and looks around scrutinizingly, her eyes warming when she locks her gaze on Tony. He knows he must look bad.

'I'm sorry,' she whispers, leaving her bag on the floor just where she's standing and coming up to sit next to him. 'God, Tony, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize it was… that you… you don't have to push yourself so hard, you know,' she murmurs into his hair. Tony shivers slightly.

'It's okay, I'm just, you know, I'm not feeling that great. No, scratch that, I am feeling like crap, Pep. I am sorry. Everything was supposed to be okay now. We were supposed to work and it's just – we don't. Work.'

'Tony, I know – I know you've been feeling depressed and –'

'I don't know how to fix it,' Tony admits, looking down at his hands.

'This is all because of me, right? Because I made you give up being a superhero and – god, I am the cruelest and most selfish person alive, I – I didn't realize it was difficult like this for you, and you kept –'

'Nothing is your fault, Pep,' Tony interrupts firmly. 'Nothing. All decisions I made were mine and I don't regret them because – hell, I was hoping madly that we'll make it work. I believed in something I though was real, but it turned out to be an illusion. There is no one's fault in that,' he tells her softly. The words find themselves.

'I am sorry, Tony,' she whispers. Tony just holds her.

'I will build a suit,' he tells her some time later, when they've both calmed down a bit. 'It's just something…'

'But it won't make anything between us different,' Pepper says. Tony nods. It's not about him being or not being a superhero anymore, it's not about him being involved in dangerous situations anymore. Pepper has been through all that herself by now; she understands it better.

'No, it won't,' Tony admits. 'I'm sorry,' he adds and then, after a short pause, he laughs and it takes Pepper only a moment to join in.

'We're ridiculous, aren't we?' she asks when they finally calm down. Tony's cheeks are hurting from laughing.

'That we are,' he admits, they so are. All humans are.

'We are still friends, right?'

'We'd be idiots not to, after everything we've been through,' Tony tells her. She grins.

'I'll stay and help you get better,' Pepper says, moving closer, wrapping her arms around him. 'I'll do everything to help you because I can't help you,' she adds, tightening her grip around his shoulders. 'I don't know how but I will help you,' she whispers into his hair. 'God, you really deserve to be happy, Tony.'

'We both do – will you be okay? With the Extremis and everything?'

'Of course I will.'

Pepper's voice is full of conviction and if she says so, Tony can trust in it. She's one of the strongest people Tony knows, so if anyone can deal with that, it's her.

'Let's go and eat something,' Tony proposes a few minutes later. He's not hungry, he never feels hungry these days, but otherwise JARVIS will nag him endlessly. Pepper nods.

'So, regarding us – will that be all, Mister Stark?' she asks, standing up with a smile that doesn't look happy at all, and offers Tony a hand.

'That will be all, Miss Potts,' he replies easily.

It feels bittersweet.

'JARVIS, show me the specs for a Mark that would be most versatile and adjust it to a power source external of my body,' Tony tells the A.I. when he finally musters up the courage to try – that takes him a few days.

'Analyzing, sir,' JARVIS. replies instantly, ready to work as always. He sounds suspiciously content.

After Tony has had a look at the new promising specs proposed by JARIVIS, he finds himself with his hands instinctively collecting the pieces he needs to make a new Arc Reactor, because that's where everything started – and now it has all come to a full circle – and he realizes that he is smiling.

A few weeks later, when he is welding pieces of alloy for a helmet, Tony notices this: it might be still difficult to drag himself out of the bed, he might wake up panicking more often than not, he might be too tired to work sometimes – but he genuinely can't wait to be flying again.

It's not much, he thinks, but it's a start.

A/N: I don't know if anyone here shares my point of view, but it was pretty awful to just say 'I fixed her' and 'I got rid of the reactor' in thirty seconds and leave everything else a question. But then, there have been very few epilogue-y moments that I actually liked... Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this piece, feedback is always very welcome! :)