Echoes

"What do you mean?" Tony sighed, pushing the glove he'd been working on away from him. He'd shut off emotionally again because of Pepper. For a moment he'd been excited that she had wanted to talk to him about something he was passionate about. She hadn't been able to even manage humoring him for ten minutes. Was it really that hard for her to see him happy these days? That was a selfish way to think and Tony shut it down immediately.

"I can't do this anymore! I just can't, Tony!" Pepper was exasperated.

"Really? Because you seem to be doing just fine when you're not talking to me."

"Oh, come on!" Pepper stomped her foot in annoyance and then ran her fingers through her hair. She was practically ready to pull it out at this point. "You know what I mean, Tony, I can't keep doing this… this thing that's going on between us!"

"Between us? Pretty sure there's a whole hell of a lot of nothing between us right now. Not even just being a smart ass at this point." There was more aggression in Tony's voice than he'd intended. Apparently he was far more bitter than he'd realized.

"Being passive aggressive isn't going to make this any better."

"Passive aggressive? Guess who I learned that from. Me, the passive aggressive one? Are you joking?"

"Don't do that Tony, don't turn everything into something sarcastic and…"

"You would think by now that you would know that's just how I…"

"I kissed Happy!" Pepper shouted over him and silence fell throughout the lab, minus the beeping of a project at the far end of the room. Tony stared at Pepper in disbelief and actually hunched down as if to listen better. He stuck his finger in his ear and shook it, as though something was caught in it. Then he folded his arms over his chest and ran his hand over his jaw before placing it over his mouth.

He thought for a second, began to speak and then stopped. Pepper stood nervously, brow furrowed and heart racing. She paced in front of him and watched as he basically stood stunned into place. Maybe it hadn't been the time to say something, maybe she shouldn't have ever told him. Ever since it had happened she couldn't stop feeling guilty and what had been worse was that she had wanted to do it again.

"Say something, Tony." Pepper pled, though her voice sounded fainter than she had intended.

"You… kissed Happy?" Finally he pulled his hand away from his mouth and snapped his fingers in confusion. "Is that what you just said because I can't have possibly heard that right. That sounds like you're saying you kissed someone you're not dating."

"No, Tony… that is what I said. I… I kissed Happy." Pepper repeated and the words came out too quickly, almost smooshed together from nerves.

"Are you kidding me?" Tony exhaled in frustration and then turned around and clenched his fist. Anger surged through him. Was he supposed to be mad? What had she expected him to do? To be jealous? To tell her that he was going to fight for someone who had gone behind his back? Why was he even angry in the first place? Tony had been desperate to find a way out of this relationship without losing his friendship with Pepper! He'd been fooling himself, telling himself over and over that he was crazy for thinking Pepper would do something like that.

Tony had thought, deep down, that there would be some way for them to still be friends, some way that maybe they would repair the damage done. The more Scarlett had been around the less he'd wanted it, but he'd still continuously tried to fool himself over and over.

"God damnit, Pepper, how could you do that?"

"Excuse me?"

"How could you do that to me? To us!" Tony shouted in frustration. He'd become the fool in a relationship. Never had he been in this position before, he wasn't even sure how to react. Hell, he wasn't sure if he was angry because he felt foolish or if he was actually hurt that Pepper had kissed someone that had once been a friend. Or maybe he was angry that she had basically hijacked one of his best friends. That anger had finally come to a boiling point, finally come to a place where it all bubbled up inside of him at once.

"It wasn't like I planned it Tony!" Pepper shouted back, raising her voice in defense. "What right do you have to be angry anyway? It's not like you want to spend time with me!"

"Are you seriously blaming your kissing Happy on me?"

"I didn't mean to do it! It's just that…"

"Take it from someone who knows, when you have to make excuses for your behavior you have very little excuse at all." Tony slammed his fist on the desk and then turned away. "Everyone says I'm the one that's going to destroy any serious relationship and here we are…"

"We've been talking so much and spending so much time together, Happy and I! He likes to see me, he likes to talk to me and listen to me, Tony!"

"The next time someone tells me that I'm a man-slut I'm going to have a very nice answer for them…"

"We talk! We were talking and one thing led to another and before I knew it I was kissing him and…"

"We used to talk Pepper!" Tony shouted, walking around the desk and past her.

"Used to being the key word!"

"You're the one who stopped listening! You! Not me! You stopped listening, you talked over me, you disregarded everything I said until you made it impossible to listen to you anymore either! All I ever heard was how upset you were with me, how wrong I was all the time, how I should change, how I should do this and do that! Nag, nag, nag! You can't seriously be blaming our lack of communication on me!"

"You shut off! You completely shut me out!"[br /]
"I sure as hell tried not to! You didn't care! You made it very clear how little you cared about what I was going through!"

"Going through? You? What you were going through? What about me? What about me, Tony!"

"It's always about you, Pepper! That's the damn problem!"

"You are the most selfish man I know and…"

"And you think that this can justify you fucking cheating on me?" Tony shouted, anger bubbling inside of him. It felt like someone was gripping at his chest, squeezing his heart so tight he could feel it throbbing in his temples.

"Cheating! Cheating? It was just a kiss!"

"Pretty sure that's called cheating, Pepper!"

"Is it?"

"What, when a woman does it, it's not cheating? But I do it and it's cheating? You can't have it both ways, Pepper!"

"What about Scarlett then, huh?"

"What about her, Pepper? You can't actually make this conversation about that! Just because I hired her when you didn't want me to doesn't give you the right to kiss my driver!"

"You can't honestly say that nothing has happened between the two of you! I see the way you look at her! The way she looks at you! All that time alone in here… doing whatever! You're giving me all this hell for cheating but what about you, Tony?" Pepper shrieked, her own fears bubbling into accusations. She was jealous of what Tony had with his new partner, jealous that she hadn't even been able to fake her way into making Tony that happy even for a few seconds.

"Did you come in here to confess to kissing Happy in hopes I would confess cheating on you?" Tony's voice dropped, mostly in disbelief.

"I thought if we both came clean…"

"You thought what? We could start over? Have a good laugh? Or you could go cry to Happy about how the big mean playboy Tony Stark was cheating on you so he could wrap his big strong arms around you and…"

"Tony enough!"

"I don't know how much more plainly I could say this to you Pepper." Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, racking his brain and trying to keep his heart from jumping straight out of his throat and exploding all over the floor. His hands were shaking, with anger, with anxiety. He wanted a drink, a strong drink, one that would knock him out and make this all seem like a bad dream. "Nothing is going on between me and Scarlett!"

"Don't lie to me!"

"I am not lying! You can't come in here expecting to make me into the bad guy! For once, I am not the bad guy, Pepper! You are!"

"But you…"

"Yeah, you know what? I do have something with Scarlett, but I didn't kiss her! You know why? Because I'm not single! She knows I'm not single! I have made it very clear how incredibly unavailable I am! I have absolutely gone out of my way to remain unavailable to her, to anyone! You know why? Do you know why I would do that, Pepper?"

Pepper stayed silent and stared at him, for the first time since Scarlett had come into the picture believed him.

"Because I wouldn't do that to you! You were my best friend, the only person I could trust, for years! You and Happy! I would never do that to you, break your heart like that!" Tony curled his lip in irritation. "I had fooled myself into thinking that you were too good to do something like this to me, that Pepper Potts had as much respect for me as I do for her! I guess I was wrong!"

"Tony!" Pepper gasped in awe.

"I didn't make a move on Scarlett, no matter how I felt about it because I'm not single." Tony grit his teeth. "Or at least I wasn't single."

"What are you saying?" Pepper stuttered on her words and took a step back, as though he'd struck her. She didn't know what to believe, but in that moment she had known that Tony had never cheated on her and she had actually hurt him. Part of her had hesitated to tell Tony about Happy because she was afraid he wouldn't be upset, that maybe he cared so little he'd be grateful for a reason to be away from her. Never had she expected that she would actually wound him. Pepper had never seen Tony this angry before, never in all her days and Pepper had seen Tony at some of the lowest points in his life.

"I don't know what I'm saying Pepper!" Tony gripped at his hair and turned away from her. He had to try and breathe, he had to inhale and exhale deeply and calm his shaking before he threw up or did or said something that he would regret.

"We need to talk this out, Tony! We both need to calm down and talk!"

"You mean that you want to talk and I should shut up and listen! I should just take what you're saying in and realize how you're always right even when you're wrong!"

"No! That is not what I do and you know it! You have sat around doing nothing for…"

"Nothing! Does this look like nothing? You are something else…"

"That's it, I won't sit here while you are berating me like this!"

"Berating you? You cheated on me!"

"I can't talk to you when you're like this!"

"What, you mean arguing back?"

"Don't follow me, Tony!" Pepper started toward the door and up the stairs, her hands trembling. Now she needed a drink, she needed to calm down! That hadn't gone at all how she had pictured it would. Things were so much worse now than they had ever been.

"You're not worth following, Pepper!" Tony shouted after her and when she left he slammed his fist against the wall and the cursed under his breath. "Son of a bitch! You have got to be kidding me!" He shook his hand and looked at the back of his scuffed up knuckles and grimaced. "I need a drink, I need a friggin drink!" Tony walked over to the counter and dug through the cabinets until he found a glass, knocking over several others as he did. Then he grabbed the bottle of scotch from the counter, poured it into a glass and without sniffing it, without admiring the color, the smell, he drank the whole thing.

It burned his throat, he nearly threw it right back up, but he forced himself to down the whole thing. His stomach was churning and he stared at the empty glass. That was it, this was his life. The glass wasn't half empty, it wasn't half full it was completely empty. Things were over. He would lose Pepper forever, somehow he'd have to guarantee she wasn't going to ruin him with all the personal information she took with her. Not only that he would have lost a woman who had once been his only friend. Tony had been miserably aware of how little he really had ever since his return from Afghanistan for years, but now, despite his trying he had even less than ever.

Turning he threw the glass as hard as he could. It smashed into the concrete wall and shattered into pieces every which way. He watched it for a moment, in disbelief of what he'd done. It didn't matter, nothing did, not right now. He needed another drink. Screw the glass. Tony grabbed the bottle from the counter and walked into the middle of his laboratory.

"Jarvis, music." Tony muttered and at once the stereo came to life, blasting his favorite rock and roll songs. "Louder, much, much louder." Tony shouted over the noise and Jarvis did as he was told without complaint. Even his robot knew that right now was not the time to reason with him.

Halfway into the bottle, Tony was feeling rather sorry for himself. He sat in one of his classic cars, just staring at the liquid in the bottle and brooding. His heart was still racing no matter how much he cursed, how much he told himself he didn't are. The anger was subsiding, it was melting away into something unfamiliar to Tony.

Hurt.

It wasn't something he didn't know, just never quite like this. Pepper's was a betrayal that he had never anticipated, not from someone he had always put on a pedestal. Maybe he'd done that too much. Pepper should have been at his side not above him. He didn't know what to do. Panic was taking him for a real ride on this one. Who was he supposed to call? Rhodey was out of town, besides his friend had done so much for him in the last month that he couldn't ask for more.

Rhodey would want to know what happened, he would want to talk about it and try to sort it out. Hell, Rhodey might even make him confront Pepper and bury the hatchet. When he'd told Rhodey his suspicions about Pepper he'd been the one to talk him off of the ledge. Pepper just wouldn't do something like that to him!

Yet here he was, finding out that his fears hadn't at all been irrational, worse they'd been true. Tony had never hoped to have been wrong more in his life. He'd never been cheated on before. Even if it was just a kiss, that was somehow worse than if she'd come in and said they'd slept together. He got sex, he did. It was a primal thing and sometimes it just happened. Well, for people with lesser self control than Pepper Potts. But a kiss? A kiss that she had initiated? She had to have felt something romantic, some strong desire to take a bond of friendship further along.

How many times had Tony wanted to kiss Scarlett? He'd lost count of the times he'd tried to talk himself both into and out of that situation since he'd met her. If someone like him could resist cheating to protect someone he cared about shouldn't she have been able to do the same? Maybe he just had more respect for her than she did for him.

Hours passed. Tony sat in the darkness, tormenting himself for hours! Turning over every possible ending in his mind. The bottle of liquor was still half empty now, but he'd taken a few more sips here and there. Somewhere along the line it had lost its appeal and had only made him turn down a very dark road in his mind. Sobering up hadn't felt any better and it had caused him a nasty headache all at once.

He was going to lose Pepper.

Once and for all, he would lose Pepper Potts and it had not at all happened in the way he had been worried it would. Before he'd just been worried he was going to screw up. Then again, he had screwed up, more than once. It wasn't only Pepper's fault. Now he was going to turn it around. He couldn't do that to himself, he had to keep reminding himself of that. Rhodey had said relationships were like a team but Tony hadn't quite understood that until now. He'd always rolled with the punches, had very rarely cared about what anyone around him wanted or needed. Then again, Tony had very few meaningful relationships and some of them had only lasted as long as they did because he was very lucky.

What Tony would miss the most was his friend. She really had been his best friend, that hadn't been a line designed to make her feel guilty. How pathetic would it be for him to ask her to be his friend again? There was very little chance romance would work between them now anyway. Tony found himself no longer attracted to Pepper at all in the months past even though he'd tried to be. It was hard to get in the mood with someone who nagged the way she did and made him feel stuck inside himself.

And if he lost Pepper then he would certainly lose Happy. It wasn't like he'd had much of a relationship with Happy since things got so messed up with Pepper but now there was little to no chance.

Tony would be alone.

He'd be all alone, without a soul in the world. Tony had less now than he'd ever had. What did all the money, all the power, all the knowledge mean if he had no one to share it with? There had been a time when that didn't matter but now it was all that mattered. Tony was hopelessly alone.

Closing his eyes, he felt that fear shake through him like a chill.

But he wasn't alone.

Tony opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling and then sat upright. His head spun and he blinked a few times to clear his vision.

Taking a look at the time on his watch Tony saw that it was late, very late. He hadn't realized just how long he'd sat, throwing himself a pity party. Maybe he should wait until tomorrow, but her wise words came through his mind again.

Don't suffer in silence.

There was no time that was too late in this situation. Scarlett could be back from Boston now, if she had truly been just going to clean up her secretary's mess. Before he'd realized it, he had picked up his cell phone and had dialed her. Realizing it was ringing he very quickly put it to his ear and disabled the video function. Tony didn't want her to see him, not yet.

"Hello?" Scarlett sounded oddly distant on the other line and she felt off on top of that. Time had passed enough that she had gotten to actually think about what had transpired in Manhattan today.

"…are you busy?" Tony thought she seemed annoyed that he'd called her so late and for the first moment regretted calling her.

"What? No, no… It's late, but that's all." Scarlett cleared her throat and got it together. It was not like Tony to be insecure. When he wanted someone's attention he got it and did not care what he had to interrupt in order to do so.

"Oh, okay… good." Tony wasn't sure what to say now that he'd called. Even her voice just felt nice to hear. He very quickly put it on speakerphone and told Jarvis to record it. Maybe he could listen to her until he fell asleep at night.

Nope, not creepy at all Tony.

"…are you okay?" Scarlett felt alert at once, partially afraid that MedCo had done something to him too. After all, the papers had been swimming with rumors about her involvement with him at every given opportunity. "What's wrong?" Scarlett had to calm down. Tony Stark was also Iron Man. If danger came his way he could handle it. The man was a power house, there was no way that some team of MedCo soldiers could take him out. They could, however, take out Pepper and she was sure Tony would never forgive her for that. God, why couldn't she think about something else? Why did she always have to go to the worst case scenario? Then again, Tony had really been struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder too. For all she knew he could be suffering an episode. Scarlett needed to stop over thinking and let Tony talk.

"Yeah, yeah…"

"You don't sound okay."

"Is there any chance, you could maybe… come over?" Tony looked again at his watch then at Jarvis' interface recording his conversation.

"It's pretty late, Tony…" Scarlett began and checked the status of her flight with the pilot, quietly placing her hand over her phone so it wouldn't pick up. "I've still got a few hours on the flight back, by the time I get there it's going to be like… one in the morning." Scarlett spoke cautiously and then sat back down.

"I don't care how late it's going to be." Tony tapped his fingers against the desk. "I mean, unless you're too tired." He whispered. They hadn't gotten sleep the night before either. Was it selfish of him to ask her over? Everything he did felt selfish after his fight with Pepper. "I could just… I really need a friend right now." He laughed at the sound of his own voice, but Scarlett could hear sorrow within it.

Scarlett felt her heart drop at the sound of that word. Friend. She knew what happened to her friends. They were attacked, they were made miserable, they were ruined. She didn't want that for Tony.

"I… I didn't know who else to call. It's late and I know that you're a night owl too and…" He began to make excuses for asking her over so late and after such a long day. Flying was exhausting, Tony was asking a lot of her.

"It's fine, I'll be there as soon as I can." Scarlett made sure that her voice sounded pleasant, trying to even sound like she was amused. "I mean, if you're begging or something."

"Oh, I never beg." The words came out but they didn't sound sincere. "Not unless you try much harder."

"Sure, sure." Scarlett sighed with relief. "You're sure you're all right? It's going to be a few hours before I can get there."

"Yeah, I'll be okay." Tony felt like a weight had been pulled off of his chest and exhaled deeply. "Ask me if I'll beg again, that will help."

"I don't think I remember the safe word."

"Oh, oh I like that…" Tony couldn't help but smile. What was it about her that made him smile? Relief made his hands shake and his stomach churn, but not in a bad way. He needed to survive just a few more hours with those treacherous thoughts that haunted him. There would be an end, at least for now, and he wouldn't be alone. He had Scarlett and he had Rhodey. That was better than nothing at all.

"You would, wouldn't you?" Scarlett smirked. "You going to be okay until I get there? You're sure? Should I send like… twelve different pizza guys? They could keep you company. I'll give them all very specific instructions…"

"Oh, god, no…" Tony laughed, delighted that she would do something ridiculous like that.

"I can send them with complex riddles to solve!" Scarlett snapped her fingers.

"Please don't." Tony couldn't stop smiling for just a moment.

"That's it, I'm going to do it. Not tonight, but you'll never see it coming." Scarlett insisted.

"You're a monster."

"I know, isn't it great?" Scarlett laughed and then silence fell between them.

"Thank you for this." Tony choked out and for a moment he thought he sound weaker than he meant to. "That wasn't supposed to sound so desperate, so don't take it like that. Something in my throat."

"You're welcome Tony." Scarlett didn't tease him, she didn't need to. That was the most sincere moment of gratitude she had ever heard from him and she wouldn't soon forget it.

"I promise I'm okay. Go enjoy your flight."

"Yeah, for the second time today. Enjoying is what I'll do." Scarlett rolled her eyes and looked around the cabin. It was a nice jet, assigned to Refuge and she was grateful for it but at the same moment it felt far too opulent for her, particularly after what she had just done.

"See you soon."

"See you." Scarlett hung up and turned on the camera on her phone and looked herself over. She had to do something, she looked frightful. Pale, bags under her eyes, obvious weariness, hair a mess. Scarlett would put on some makeup, hide the exhaustion that was nearly crippling her. Every bone in her body was hurting now. She had pushed herself way too far.

Scarlett looked down at her phone as it buzzed again and saw that it was from a S.H.I.E.L.D. number. They would want to know what she did, they would want an explanation for the chaos she had left in her wake. She didn't want to explain herself and quite frankly she felt she didn't need to. Not tonight. MedCo had taken a shot at her thinking she wouldn't fight back and she sure as hell wasn't going to let that fly. Scarlett had fired back and didn't regret a thing other than how exhausted she now felt.

Then a text message popped up on her screen. It was from Jinx. Natasha and Mickey had been cleared medically but were going to continue blood tests for a week to make sure nothing was lingering in their system. It seemed as though Marcia's body was designed to fall apart, as they expected.

Scarlett was relieved, but somewhere along the line she'd stopped worrying. They didn't want Natasha to die, not while they could still use her against Scarlett. MedCo wasn't that stupid, they'd proven that. Whatever biological agent they were developing, whatever it was that had been in that canister set to explode in the attic, it wasn't ready for them to share. Marcia had never expected it to be released. She'd always known Scarlett would disarm the bomb. That was why they'd used her designs in the first place. MedCo was still playing a very complicated game and for awhile Scarlett had played right into it.

Right now it didn't matter what MedCo wanted. Right now, Scarlett's friend needed her and while that thought was somewhat unsettling, it was also comforting.