Chapter 30

The first set of tears had not even properly dried before a second, stronger round had made its presence known. Then, the second round had been barely gone when the third round had come with even greater force as it had slowly started dawning on her that she had not meant her words to the inventor. She had not meant to break up with him. She had not meant to leave him hanging at the temple. She had not meant it when she had said that she would never forgive him for keeping that secret from her.

Repeatedly, tears had come and gone. It had been a vicious cycle that had lasted the entire night as soon as she had made it home – two hours after she had left the Makluan Temple. Two hours after she had broken the heart of the boy she loved so much. Two hours after she had shattered her own, as well.

She had not even spoken to her father about it. However, she suspected that he already knew what had taken place – given that he and the entire world had watched the damned show – and that he was simply giving her space before he tried to broach the subject. He probably was also just simply trying to process the fact that the ugly family business had been exposed to the world.

The world.

The world, which now knew what had transpired during her childhood. The world, which was also probably judging her father without mercy for not realizing sooner what had been happening at home.

The world: always jumping to conclusions based on what they believed they would have done in their shoes.

Why?

Why, oh why, did the entire world have to learn about a past she had worked so hard to forget?

Because of them, she knew. Because of whom they were.

It had been advertised to no end that Iron Man and Rescue would be guests in Breakdancing with Celebrities, so the anticipation and ratings had been through the roof. Even if a person had not seen the show, social media had finished spreading the news that Pepper Potts had been abused by her mother as a child. The lack of details had made it even worse, as it allowed people to jump to the worst-case scenarios relating to what kinda of abuse she might have experienced.

Damned if she under-shared, damned if she over-shared.

At this moment, being a legal adult who also happened to fight crime in a suit of high-tech armor sounded like the worst thing that she could have ever chosen to be. It made her a public figure – a celebrity. It made her small family everyone's family. It made her life's choices open for others to scrutinize. It made her an easy target of the boredom and bitterness of people who did not know her or cared about her, but who also felt compelled to tell her how she should be living her life.

None of this should have surprised her, though. She had known what she had signed up for when she had started dating Tony. Nevertheless, the knowledge of the consequences she had agreed to taken on with this relationship did not make it easier to cope with them. This was so much worse than hiding their dates from the paparazzi. This would follow and define her life in the eyes of others, forever.

The interview at Breakdancing with Celebrities had only been a small taste of what her life would have been like if she had not broken up with Tony Stark: always in the spotlight; her entire world always under the microscope. Everything she ever did or said – or did not do or say – always tied to how it affected the image of Anthony Edward Stark.

Everything about her would always be about him.

Michael's questions had only solidified this fact.

She had known this, but she he had not cared.

At least, not until now.

Now: when, at the first sign of trouble, she had dumped him like yesterday's trash, even after everything that they had been through for years.

Tony.

Her former genius boy, Tony.

The bitter reminder of what she had done made the ginger sob again.

Pepper turned on her bed so that she was now facing away from the windows and door. She did not feel like leaving her room or her home today… or ever again – as impossible as she knew the task would be.

She also did not want to think about what would happen to her the moment she set foot in the Tomorrow Academy. If the flood of text messages from students was any indication, she was truly going to hate the last three weeks of school. And this was not counting the fact that people at the Academy did not know she and Tony had broken up. The texts were just about what had happened during the show.

Tomorrow, she thought, the unbearable pain of a broken heart forcing her to bite down her lip to keep from loudly wailing.

Yes. Tomorrow.

Maybe tomorrow, she would feel better.

Maybe tomorrow, she would wake up to find this all being nothing but a horrid nightmare.

Maybe tomorrow, but not today.

Today, nothing good remained.

Today, her life was hell.

Tomorrow, she lied to herself. Tomorrow, I'll be OK.

xxxXXXxxx

Tony had waited for the redhead by her locker in the morning, repeatedly reciting in his mind the things he had wanted to say. An even greater apology had been making its home at the tip of his tongue since last night, dying to make itself known to the girl that he loved. Shaky hands had reminded him of the first time they had gone out as a couple, which had almost cost him his Stark Pod falling to the floor with how nervous he had been. Sweaty palms had kept staining his pants every time he had used them to try to dry them.

He had been nervous then, but he had not been this level of nervous before in his entire life. Not even when they had spent their first night together.

The inventor had been a wreck the whole time, waiting until the last possible second for his former girlfriend to show up for class.

Alas, she never did.

In the end, Pepper Potts did not attend school today.

Samantha, however, sure as hell did – with a bright, wide smile and a skip in her step that made Tony feel sick to his stomach.

Because yes: on top of everything that had already happened to him, and was yet to happen, he also had to deal with that situation – that new pebble in his shoe.

Oh, yeah: her.

Samantha Alexa Potts: the reason why the sulking genius was currently on the roof of the Academy, during his off period, with Rhodey as his only company, and Pepper nowhere to be seen.

It was all because of her.

"It's our anniversary today. Or, it would have been, I guess," Tony suddenly said, his shoulders slumped and his gaze lost in time and space.

"It's your own fault it isn't," Rhodey replied, his tone of voice holding no sympathy for his friend, at all. He did not know all the details, but he had known, long ago, where this white lie of the genius would lead him and the redhead. His hope that Tony would do the right thing sooner rather than later had been for naught.

Tony was not surprised or deterred by his friend's cold retort. "Yeah, I guess it is."

"You guess?"

Tony smiled without humor. "I take it by the twitching of your left eye that you expect me to be sure about it and not just guess."

"Huh, so you ARE smart!"

"But not smart enough to not screw up things with my girlfriend."

"Ex-girlfriend. And at least we're clear about that."

Tony exhaled loudly, closed his eyes, and rested the back of his head against the wall. "I don't know what to do, Rhodey. I hurt her, so much. The way she looked at me last night… I hurt her so, so, so much."

"You're a genius. Why don't you build a time machine, go back to a month ago and, when my past self tells your past self to let it go, how about you listen, for once?"

"Or maybe I go back in time to before her mom beat the crud out of her, and I keep it from happening. My Pep didn't deserve any of that."

"Yeah, that idea sounds better," Rhodey's sour voice had not changed the entire time they had been on the roof. "And while you're at it, keep her from meeting you so that she doesn't have to go through so much craziness for you, only for you to betray her when she needed you the most."

"Rhodey! I didn't–" Tony began, but one deadpan look from his childhood friend was all it took for the blue-eyed boy to eat his words. "OK. I did. But I didn't mean to betray her."

"Oh, really?" Rhodey crossed his arms over his bent knees. "Then what the heck did you think was happening when you asked her sister, whom she cannot stand, behind her back, at that, to tell you things that Pepper didn't want you to know, huh? What EXACTLY did you think you were doing, T?"

"I hadn't expected the secret to be that big, obviously."

"Irrelevant. The point is that Pepper told you to let it go and you didn't. And then you didn't tell her that you knew. AND you found out the issue from her SISTER."

"I know."

"And now, because of all that, you've lost her."

Tony clenched his closed eyelids. "Now, because of what I did, I've lost her."

"And if I were her," Rhodey continued his merciless rant, "I would never talk to you ever again."

"If I were her, I wouldn't talk to myself either. Man, I wouldn't even forgive myself, on top of all that. I love her, and she loved me, and I flushed it all down the toilet in a snap."

Rhodey snapped his head towards his left to stare at the deflated billionaire; eyes wide at the vulnerability displayed by the genius' words. He had never heard Tony say the L-word about Pepper, even though it had been heavily implied. It was one thing to suspect the feelings had evolved. It was a completely different thing to hear the thought confirmed.

Suddenly, Rhodey felt like crap himself.

He had simultaneously been giving Tony the silent treatment and thrown snappy comebacks at him all day. Yet, the young man had not once snapped back. He had taken in every sarcastic comment and every thinly veiled insult in stride.

Rhodey exhaled loudly through his nose.

Maybe, just maybe, Tony truly knew the extent of the damage he had caused. Maybe, the inventor truly needed a friend instead of someone who was lashing out at him for what he had done, as if the billionaire needed the constant reminder of it.

Pepper had not deserved what she had gotten, there was no doubt about that; least of all coming from Tony Stark. Yet, Tony also deserved a helping hand if there was any hope left for the two of them to patch things up.

Rhodey inwardly groaned.

He had to change his technique.

"OK, I'm trying to insult you, Tony, and you aren't making it easier."

Tony shrugged and looked down between his knees. "Sorry to ruin your fun. I'm just not in the mood. My girlfriend left me. My best friend left me."

Rhodey narrowed his eyes at his friend. "I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that last part."

Despite everything, the small joke made the inventor smile the tiniest bit.

"You know what I mean, jerk," the billionaire retorted. "You're both my best friends, but Pepper… she's…" he placed his left palm on his chest, "Pepper, you know?"

"Yes, I know. But did you? Did you just meet her?"

Tony rubbed his face with his hands. "I just thought–"

"Thought, what? That she would forgive you just because you swap saliva now? Do you remember how mad she was at you for not telling her about Gene? Or when you kept it from her that you and Whitney were dating? Do you remember how hurt she was by that? This – what you did, is a million times worse."

"I know. I really do. But what was I supposed to do? Not find out if she was still in danger?

"Do you think that if she had still been in danger, she couldn't handle it on her own? You gave her armor, Tony."

"Yeah. I did."

"And if she needed help, she would have asked us."

"Yeah, she would have."

"And if you had listened to her, I wouldn't have to listen to you throw yourself a pity party. Which, by the way, I totally don't feel sorry for you, in case you haven't noticed. Pepper is the real victim here."

"That, she is," the inventor replied, keeping to himself the knowledge that Samantha was also to blame for this drama. The brunette had said that she had things to do during their off period, but that did not mean said things did not include spying on them to hear what they said while she was gone.

He was probably being unfair to the girl, but he could no longer find it in himself to trust the younger Potts. Pepper had warned him about her, but he had, yet again, not listened to the advice of his girl.

His girl. Was he even allowed to call her that anymore?

"Think the school knows that we broke up?"

Rhodey shrugged. "I don't think so. It might be a few days until people notice that you two aren't together anymore."

"They'll probably notice when neither of us goes to Prom on Friday."

"Probably. Unless you make it up to her before then."

"If she ever talks to me again."

"That too. And you know she can talk."

The rest of the conversation escaped her, from her hiding spot behind the room that held the staircase to the roof. Her anger had left her stranded at hearing the inventor blatantly admit how he felt about her sister.

Her sister. The last person worthy of being loved, in her eyes, especially by the likes of Anthony Stark.

He loves her, she repeated over and over in her mind.

Samantha clenched her fists and ignored the sting in her eyes.

He loves her.

No. This would not stand.

She had to act.

Fast.

A/N: YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST! I'm glad you're liking the story still :) Someone asked if I was going to continue writing Pepperony, and the answer is yes, BUT only for Armored Adventures. I can't bring myself to write it for the MCU anymore :( I'm not sure what I will focus on after this story, though. The other two stories I have open are pretty complicated. I may do some one-shots or something, while I figure out how to move forward with Red Rocket and 2020 (the fic, not the year, nobody knows how to move forward with this year, amiright?). Hope you enjoy the last 7 chapters of this fic, my Faithful Readers!