Author's Note: Forgive me, internet; I'm writing a common pairing. And it's a het one, which is unusual for me because I usually like the most dysfunctional pairing humanly possible and gayngst makes any story better. But in a spirit of annoyance sublime darkness, I find myself wanting to put the movie's plot into IMAA verse, and that means Pepperony. So forgive me if there's some awkwardness in my first attempts to write this pairing, as I'm a bit new to pairings that aren't horrifically dysfunctional. Also, Pepper being alarmed at the end of the chapter over a rather mundane thing has logic behind it; very rambling, disjointed Pepper-logic that will be unveiled next chapter. Trust me, it's not as much of a pointless romantic cliche as it looks like at a glance. And the villain gets properly introduced next chapter, but I didn't want the first chapter to be overloaded with plot elements aside from Tony's problems. This is more about establishing his issues than anything else.

Kindly beta-read by Soap Lady.

Set before the season one finale, so no need to be afraid of spoilers.

I suppose I'll let this go and find a reason I'll hold onto; I'm so ashamed of defeat. And I'm out of reasons to believe in me, I'm done with trying to get by. I'm so afraid of the love you give me, I don't belong here and I'm not well. I'm so ashamed of the lie I'm living, right on the wrong side of it all… - The Gift, by Seether

What would you do if you knew your days were numbered?

You don't know what the number is, just that it's dwindling and soon death is coming, slowly and painfully. It won't be pretty. It will be excruciatingly painful. And there is no force on Earth that can stop it, no matter what you pay or how hard you try. What do you do?

Tony Stark didn't know what to do, so he did what he always did, putting on a fake smile and a flippant air, a mask that he wore well. He didn't know what to say or who to tell it to. He didn't know how to put into words what was going to happen, what was coming at him like a heat seeking missile, and he didn't try. Everything would be easier for them if he just vanished one day or went down heroically or came up with some kind of miracle cure afterwards. Nobody could know that it was all his fault and he was only in this situation because of his own faulty technology. No one could know that Tony Stark was an idiot, an uppity kid with a bad attitude, a jerk with no real genius to his name. He put on his best oblivious-to-the-world look and set his iPod on shuffle, and walked to school with no intention of ever letting anyone know he was dying.

He was like one of those faulty batteries in a Nintendo DS, the ones that started off great and slowly lost their capacity to be recharged at all. Bit by bit he was losing power faster, and one day he was going to plug in his heart charger and die curled up by the wall. It took so long now to just try to pull himself together, to recover after a fight, and it was only getting worse. He knew that the end was near. Somehow it didn't scare him like it should have. He'd always assumed he'd be afraid of death. Instead, he felt defeated, tired, like he'd just gotten out of the longest fight of his life. He wasn't scared to die. Tony was… frustrated, sort of, angry, pissed off, indignant, sick of things going wrong, tired of every day being a sea of problems and worries he was drowning under while everyone else got to live normal lives. But he wasn't scared.

He had been, for a little over two weeks, working every spare second on fixing the problem. He'd looked at all his research and schematics and tried to figure out what to do next. The arc reactor had never been perfected before the accident. There hadn't been time to think of the ramifications of using what was in essence an untested prototype. Once it was inside him, however, it had become more or less unremovable. Maybe if he knew a surgeon – a very, very good surgeon – and he could correct the flaws in the design, he might have been able to stay alive. There were several holes in this only solution. Firstly, the arc reactor itself had no design flaws; it was failing from him pushing himself too hard and the strain on his heart from all the stress and physical exertion was what had created this problem in the first place. Tony knew, after hours of schematics and virtual reality simulations and theoreticals, that the arc reactor itself simply could not be salvaged. His second biggest error in his thinking was that removing it and putting in a new one, even if were possible, would only buy him six months or so assuming he didn't die on the operating table. Heart surgery had never been a risk free science, after all.

Sometimes he thought he wasn't the genius people thought he was. His father would've figured something out. If only he had access to Stark International and all the scientists there, maybe one of them might be able to salvage the situation. He doubted it, but he'd feel a lot less helpless about everything with an actual doctor to give him some input. He considered flying over to one in Iron Man form and taking money out of one of his stashes for a private consultation. Unfortunately, he knew what the recommendation would be: stop this stressful lifestyle and thus stop needing to recharge so long. That wasn't an option. He had to protect his family, his city, his world, and he couldn't just set that aside because he wasn't feeling well. There were people dying out these even as he sat in his lab trying to come up with a solution. Ultimately there was nothing he could do. Helplessness was nothing new to Tony Stark, but that didn't mean he liked it or dealt well with it.

So, his days were numbered. What now, he asked himself. What was he supposed to do now that he knew that he was going to die? Was everything supposed to feel like this? It was like the floor had fallen out from under him and everything he was working towards no longer mattered. He tried to keep himself from thinking of it by working, organizing all his research into the Rings for Gene to continue after he was gone. The Rings were a part of history, a part of Chinese history and therefore Gene's heritage. The other boy deserved a chance to look into it and explore his culture's past, even if Iron Man couldn't be there to fight off the lava monsters anymore. Tony moved all his access codes and IDs that could get him into his private funds of cash in a box for Rhodey. After all his friend had done for him over the years, it seemed a stupid, shallow gift, but he wanted to have something he could give to him, some way of saying Rhodey was important to him. He was like the brother Tony had never had. That was why he couldn't tell him about the arc reactor failing; Tony had never been good at talking about his feelings to people close to him. He kind of wanted, this time. He just didn't know what to say or where to start.

Recharging was taking longer and longer. He felt weak both emotionally and physically, like this was all his own fault. It was hard not to feel hopeless in the face of everything. There was so much he hadn't accomplished, so much he'd never set right, all those mistakes he didn't know how to apologize for. Tony wasn't sure how things fell apart this quickly. One day he'd been managing just fine and the next thing he knew he had a month or less to live depending on his exertion level. How was he supposed to take that? Everything suddenly felt hollow, meaningless, and he rarely felt like he was a person. It was an irrational thought, but he couldn't shake the lingering feeling that this wasn't real, that he wasn't real. This feeling had always been there, in the back of his mind, yet it had never been this overwhelming before. The arc reactor's failure was somehow amplifying all his issues, and he didn't like it. Some times he felt like all he was, was a body to cart around the armor with. Iron Man was worth saving. Tony Stark was secondary. He had to find some way to keep the armor alive and going after he was gone. He had to keep everyone safe. Rhodey, Pepper, Gene, all the people who made life worth living long after everything had gone wrong… Tony wanted them to stay safe. It was too late for him and he'd tried his hardest; now it was time to focus on the things he could do rather than the ones he couldn't. He was irrelevant, falling apart at the seams, barely keeping it together, but Pepper…

He closed his glaucous eyes for a moment, trying to clear his thoughts. No, no, he wasn't going there. It didn't matter who he cared about. Soon he was going to be gone and she could find someone better, someone who wasn't a weak, exhausted, run down husk of a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He always ended up getting her hurt or hurting her emotionally. Whatever he wanted, he wasn't right for her and he knew it. Maybe she'd marry Rhodey or Gene. They'd be able to do everything he couldn't; they could care for her completely, where he was always attached to the armor and the job first and foremost. She didn't understand that it was the only thing that made him get out of bed each morning. She didn't want to hear that and she could never understand if she did, because her body was real, not metal and nanites and wiring. Pepper would get to grow up, age, have children, live life. Her life was just beginning, and she was a born optimist. His life was over already, and he was never very good at this whole 'maturity' thing, so he really shouldn't think about any of the things that he used to before he realized that his heart's arc reactor was failing. Those doors were closed to him now, no matter what he felt, if he could really be described as feeling love at all. Emotions were confusing. There was no manual to explain it to him, and with Tony Stark, that tended to be a very big drawback indeed. Pepper understood emotions for him. Rhodey explained the social world to him. Without them he wouldn't be here today.

Somehow the thought of never being able to see them again, the uncertainty of what existed after life, was what really hurt him. Tony had never given half a thought to the paranormal. He had never thought about religion, about spirituality, about Heaven or Hell, because it took everything he had to survive day to day. He was sure that his father was in Heaven, somewhere up there where science and technology couldn't reach him, with his mother again at long last. When his mother had died, Tony remembered his father sobbing brokenly for over a week, stumbling through the motions of day to day life. He wondered if that was what was going to happen to his friends when he was gone. He didn't want to hurt them like that, but there was nothing he could do to make this right. Soon they were going to be alone, with each other, several suits of armor and a video diary he'd made late at night when Rhodey was sleeping.

There were sets of armor in the lab for Rhodey and Pepper. If, and only if they wanted it, they could take up this job, save people, be the heroes to the public that they already were in private. He could think of no better people for the jobs. Rhodey's calm, controlled nature would balance out Pepper's hyperactivity and constant need to do things. At the same time, Pepper's energy and drive would be good for Rhodey, push him to be more decisive and active. But if they didn't want the jobs, they were to hand over the suits to SHIELD. For all Tony's issues with Nick Fury and the man's viewpoints on weapons, he was sure that he could find some kind of positive use for the armor, and it was better than Stane getting ahold of it.

He tried to push away his emotions in a sea of work and planning. He tried not to think about death and life and all the things he wouldn't get to do. Inevitably, though, thoughts of Pepper would come back to him. If he were healthy and whole, he would walk up to her one day and hand her a bundle of her favorite flowers (pink alstroemeria blooms; he remembered her mentioning it once in her constant stream of chatter, though she liked white orchids too) and then he'd tell her everything. He'd tell her how she was the only thing that seemed real anymore, that he didn't know what he was feeling, but it was more intense a bond than he'd ever had before. He'd tell her it scared him and yet he still wanted to know what it meant, he wanted to be with her and-

But he couldn't. He couldn't tell her, now, especially. It wouldn't be fair to tell her when he could tell she didn't feel that way for him. Why would she? Why would she ever notice the dying cybernetic man who failed at everything when Gene Khan was nearby? And contrary to popular belief, Tony was not a jealous person. He was glad Gene was there; when the arc reactor failed forever, Gene would be there to keep Pepper safe and happy. She deserved that. She was so full of life, so vivid and incredible. He used to know what it was like to feel like that before he became this inhuman being he was stuck as now. She deserved Gene Khan and everything he could offer her; Gene was cultured, trilingual, he was funny and sharp tongued, everything Tony could never be. Gene was a real person, with a future and potential. He would make her happy in ways Iron Man couldn't. Tony didn't know how to love her. He knew he did, but he didn't know how to do all those things that romantic, cool people did. Gene was better for her. It was better this way, for her and for Gene Khan, if those words remained unspoken. What kind of jerk told a woman he loved her when he had maybe two weeks left to live? That wasn't right, and it wasn't fair.

Tony was tired of making things worse for everyone. What he wanted more than anything was to make up for all his mistakes, make things right for his 'family' – Pepper, Rhodey, Roberta, and Gene. The best way he knew to do that was to protect them. Somehow he thought maybe that might make up for how hard it was to find words for what he felt, that maybe it might be enough in the end. Without them he wouldn't be here. That was why he had to hide the arc reactor's failure from them; the panic and pain would be too much for any of them to bear. He couldn't do that to him after everything they'd done for him.

He could tell that day from the way his chest was pounding that the arc reactor was failing, in half the time it had before, even though it had been recharged last night. Ditching Rhodey in the New York crowds wasn't hard. Neither was the choice when he saw something attacking the poorer part of this part of Manhattan. He was racing towards the area clad in his armor before he was even aware he'd made the decision. Tony Stark's life meant nothing when real people were at stake. Up ahead he heard someone scream for their life and heard a gunshot silence them, and he knew that any amount of pain in his chest was worth this fight. He flew up above, a red and gold blur of motion, and prepared for what he damn well knew could be his final fight. There was something satisfying about the idea of going out helping someone, instead of just sitting there in his room dying slowly. These people needed him. Say what you would about New York, but it was his city and he loved it. Anyone trying to pull this here needed to make hospital reservations beforehand. At least he'd gotten Pepper a parting gift, even if it had been anonymous and rather simplistic. So sue him; crime fighters were never renowned for their romantic charms. He powered up his blasters, feeling cold spikes of pain grow in his chest, and fired. In that moment, for the first time since he'd realized he was dying, he was truly scared for the future as his vision blurred dangerously, white stars of light dancing in his line of sight.

Across town, in her locker, Pepper Potts found a single white orchid tied to a pink and gold alstromeria, and felt her blood run cold.