Tony had a rat to catch.

He was on his merry way to one Thaddeus Ross' house.

As per usual, he was interrupted.

"Tony, you come home right now!" Was what Pepper first yelled to him when he answered the call from inside his Audi.

"Pep—"

"No!" She cut across him, voice reaching hysteria. "Please, Tony, can't you just listen to me for once in your life?"

He fell silent, staring at the screen that displayed the call with a mixture of concern and guilt. He hated hearing his fiancé worried – it killed him. And, God forbid, he'd made her so worried, especially in the last week. She didn't deserve this.

(But neither did Peter—)

"Just come home," she told him, voice softer but still with a tone of finality. "You haven't slept in ages, and I'm worried about you."

"I know," He said quietly, looking at his hands clenched around the wheel. "I'm sorry, honey, but I have things to do—"

"No, you need to come back to me, okay? I'm sick of..." she trailed off, and Tony heard her struggle for her next words, "I'm sick of this self-deprecating, distant man that you've become. I want-I need Anthony back."

Tony smiled through (not) wet eyes, patting down on the wheel a few times, not knowing how to answer. He wanted to see her again, badly, but he didn't have the time. He needed to get to the bottom of this. He didn't have all day—

Wait. He did have all day.

In fact, he had all of eternity.

And so did Peter. They were just in different places.

"Okay...okay, I'll-I'll come home, but—"

"No buts. You're coming home and you're sleeping with me, not in the sexual way." She replied shortly, and he knew this conversation was coming to an end.

"Damn, 'kay. Be there in five." He grinned, before hanging up without further ado.

And, he began the short drive back to the tower.

When he arrived, the lights were off.

He'd taken the elevator up to the penthouse, fidgeting slightly with his jacket. When the doors had opened, the apartment was just as black as the rest of the tower. It was almost eerie.

"Pep?" He called out in a soft voice, as he wandered through the open-plan living room, looking curiously at the stacks of papers on the coffee table.

He walked quietly to their bedroom, being careful not to make too much noise, just in case she was already sleeping. The door didn't creak as it was opened – as it should, because Tony had paid a dirty amount of money for the highest quality doors in America – but Pepper rolled over under the white sheets of their bed with a sigh.

"Tony?" She asked, reaching over the side of the bed so she could flick on the lamp. When the warm light cast the room into a soft glow, enough for Tony to see his fiancé's face, he smiled sadly at her.

A small "Hey," was all he managed, before he broke down.

Pepper was out of her bed in an instant, just as Tony's legs gave out from underneath him, and he crumpled to the floor. She was making hushes, sympathetic noises as she dropped to the floor next to him.

The tears were falling before he could even think to stop them, and he dissolved into a sobbing mess on their bedroom floor.

He wasn't even sure what triggered the sudden meltdown that was consuming him. Was it the sight of someone he loved in this time of absolutely-no-love? His encounter with May? His suspicious toward Ross? The screw-up at the funeral? Peter?

All of the above, probably.

But that didn't stop the tears. They ran down his cheeks, his shoulder racking, his heart falling into a black abyss that had been swirling underneath him for days. All of his worries and fears and guilt and grief flowed out of him through those tears coming from his eyes. The pain of everything, and I mean everything, that had happened to him now overflowed it's confines inside of his own head. Afghanistan, New York, finding a dead Peter all those months ago in Toomes' warehouse, the Civil War, his father, the battle with Thanos, the feeling of utter hopelessness and helplessness he'd felt most of his life. It all left his body. For now.

He barley ever cried, at least in front of someone else, but the feeling of Pepper's arms around his shoulder reminded him that maybe it wasn't as degrading as it felt. Her hand were gripping the back of his shirt, and he buried his face into her neck, cries escaping his mouth. He knew his ears were red with humiliation, but he didn't care. He just wanted to be real for once in his life.

"Shh, it's okay," Pepper whispered into his hair, "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry." She murmured over and over, rubbing her palm in circles over his back.

He pulled in a long, shaky breath, tasting his own salty tears on his lips. With one last heave, he finally managed to clear his thoughts and pull one from the other, so his brain wasn't overrun with all the reasons as to why he should be crying and dying.

His eyes were still wet, but he was no longer sobbing. He pressed his closed eyes against Pepper's shoulder, breathing in deep breaths and relishing the feeling of her warm skin against his aching eyes. He managed to gain feeling in his arms, and he placed his left hand on her other shoulder in a sort of half-hug, and his right on her upper-arm, holding her to him.

"Thanks." He muttered thickly against her chest, sniffing hastily.

"Yeah, we're gonna talk about this," she said, pulling away from his grasp and looking him pointedly in the eyes. He grimaced.

"Now?" Tony asked wearily, blinking against the redness in his eyes.

Pepper nodded, getting to her feet calmly and holding out a hand to him. He took it, and she helped him haul himself to his feet. He swayed for a moment, knees still feeling weak, but she was gripping his shoulder, steadying.

She lead him to the bed, letting him lower himself onto the soft mattress with a great sigh. Pepper sat next to him, and he could almost feel her gaze burning a hole in the side of his head. He didn't mind though, as long as it was her that was staring.

"'Kay, so tell me what's been bothering you." She prompted, nudging his shoulder.

He buried his face his hands, rubbing his eyes tiredly. His hair was a mess and he could already feel the sting of the tears in the creases of the skin around his eyes. He held his hands there for a moment, before letting them drop down to his lap.

"Peter's dead, May's an alcoholic, Ross is up to something, Peter's dead, his friends are bugging me, I can't sleep, Peter's dead, his funeral was a mess, Peter's dead – would you like me to go back further than the past few days?" He asked, but immediately regretted it. He shouldn't be short with Pepper of all people. Right now, she was the only person here for him, and he didn't fricking care if it was a coping mechanism, he wasn't going to push her away.

"Tony..." she mumbled, reaching out a hand to lay on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Pep, I'm being—I'm being..." He couldn't find the words.

"Human?" She finished for him, and his head snapped to the side to look at her, "Tony, we've barely talked since you came back form space, okay? I need too know what's going on with you, so maybe I can help!" She exclaimed, eyes sympathetic, but tone on the verge of being harsh.

"I...the-the war, you mean?" Tony gulped.

"Yes."

"Uh...what a—what about it?" He asked innocently. He knew he needed to talk about it, but it doesn't mean he wanted to.

She glared playfully but not joyfully, "I know there's something you're not telling me. I can see it, in the way you act now, in the way you acted with...with Peter. There's something wrong, despite the obvious."

"Why're you so smart?"

"Just get on with it, Stark."

"Okay, Stark," Tony winked. Damn you, he cursed himself. He always hid his emotion behind humour. And it never worked out well for anyone, and it was a habit Peter had told him to ditch. It's all gone to crap, now that he's gone.

But hey, here goes nothing.

"Well, I'm pretty sure Peter hated me, because I was going to kill him. Yeah," he continued, when Pepper's eyebrows furrowed in confusion and surprise, "and I lost most of his trust in that small amount of time. He got hurt, very, very badly. Thanos did it himself. All broken bones and split skin and-and...well, he was gonna die. So, I had to cauterize pretty much his entire torso, so he wouldn't bleed out—"

Pepper gasped.

"—and then sent him to intense medical care, to see if he could still be saved. We killed Thanos, retrieved the stones, everything was la-di-da. Then we started flying home, yada-yada..." He trailed off at that, eyes locking on something in the middle distance.

"Tony?" Pepper asked carefully. "You said...you said you were going to k-kill him. What did you—what did you mean?" Her tone was filled with an unestablished horror. Tony felt like a monster.

"He was in so much pain," he said, voice cracking. "Cho had told us that he was going to die one way or another, no matter what they did for him. Injuries were too severe, mental trauma, all that crap. All that cauterization did for the kid was give him a few more hours to live. And I knew he was in agony, he kept s-screaming and crying and...it was not good.

"Anyway, he kept telling us how he wanted to go home. Us, being Strange and I. He kept begging us to take him home. He was past gone at that point. It took a while, but Strange finally suggested what we all were thinking at that point in time."

"Tony, the kid's not going to survive. You're only letting him suffer."

Tony shivered at the memory. The dread and the understanding – the worst mix – he had felt when he heard the Doctor say those words was one of the worst feelings he'd ever experienced. He had been the reason for Peter's suffering, and it was just one, simple thing to do.

Just one needle, on injection, and he could've saved Peter from a lifetime of trauma. A lifetime that, little did he know at the time, would end in mere months anyway.

Maybe if he'd known that, he would've had the guts to end it then.

He didn't realise he was crying again. "Everyone, Strange, Cho, all the medical team...they wanted to put 'an end to his suffering'. They wanted to kill my kid. And the worst part was that either way I chose, it would still hurt somebody somewhere.

"If I'd just let Cho inject him like an animal, then he wouldn't have had to suffer through this much pain. But if I didn't, then maybe there was still a chance that Peter would survive. And if I'd have ended it there, then there would've been zero chance, and I would've killed myself to learn that he would actually survive.

"So, I forced him to live through the pain. Forced him to stay alive, because I was too selfish to let him go. But now, it doesn't even matter, because he's dead anyway. I just managed to add another few months of agony onto his short life." He finished bitterly.

There was a long, awfully drawn-out silence.

Maybe he'd horrified Pepper. Maybe she thought he was a monster for thinking of doing it, or not doing it. Who knew, because she didn't say one, single word. He sat there, still staring at that invisible spot in front of his eyes, silently praying that she start screaming, if anything.

After minutes of that wrong quiet, she finally moved.

All she did was reach back across the bed and switch off the lamp on the bedside dresser.

"Come get some sleep, Tony." She whispered, hands on her fiance's shoulders and forcing him to lay down beside her. He welcomed the relief to his aching back.

And as his mind drifted into sleep, he heard a warm "I love you" from the woman sleeping next to him.

It was the first night in months that he didn't have nightmares.

...

Many, many metres below, Aaron Davis watched as the last light flickered off in Stark Tower.

Now, was his chance.

--

wooo, hiya peoples! how was that depressing chapter for y'all? explain a little bit about what happened in my version of IW's events? hope so.

anyway, I left y'all on a bit of a plot twister/cliff hanger, so please don't hate me. i don't really have much to say this time round, but if you have anything to ask or request, then please leave it in the comments section or dmn me :) love hearing from ya, always makes my day 100000 times better.

love ya, see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya! (jk)

LuvForStydia xx