Missed Calls

Chapter 1

"Sir,shall I try Miss Potts?"

"Might as well"

As soon as the words came out, Tony began to question his decision. It wasn't the fact that he didn't want to talk to Pepper, but quite the opposite. He wanted nothing more than to hear her tell him everything was going to be okay, like she had many times before. Only this time,he wasn't sure if even Pepper's calming voice could reassure him.This time, he was going to have to say "goodbye" and Tony knew he wasn't ready for that.

How exactly did he expect the conversation to go? "Hey, Pep, it's me. Listen, I currently have a cruise missile on my back and I'm gonna fly it into outer space. I'm probably not gonna come back. You made me promise to let you know the next time I was dying. So...there."Oh, yeah, that would work. Calm her right down. Whatever he tried to say would only serve to make her cry and break her heart.Those were the two things Tony promised himself he would never do.

He looked at the Caller ID picture on his HUD. He always heard that when the end came, your life flashed in front of you. To be honest, there was a lot of his life Tony wanted to forget and some he couldn't remember. He was glad that the memories he saw now were of him and Pepper.

The day they met...

Seeing her when he got off the plane from Afghanistan...

Their first kiss on the rooftop...

Their last kiss in Stark Tower...

Going to bed with her at night...

Waking up beside her in the morning...

These scenes and a dozen more flitted through his mind like his own private DVD, This Was Your Life, Tony Stark ...or, at least, the best parts of it.

All too soon, the picture began to distort. He saw the words "CALL FAILED." One last flicker and then Pepper was gone...before he had the chance to say "goodbye." J.A.R.V.I.S. tried to inform him the call did not go through, but lost power before he could complete the sentence. The missile was gone now, headed for its new target. Away from earth. Away from New York. Away from Pepper.Tony could feel himself falling.

In front of him, the Chitari mother-ship was being reduced to a cosmic fireball, but that wasn't the last thing Tony saw before everything went black. In the moment after his eyes closed, he conjured one last image...of red hair and blue eyes and a smile that changed his world.His barely-functioning mind thought of only one word.

"Pepper." 

One chapter down...How was it? This will carry all the way through to the end of THE AVENGERS, so there's more to come. I hope you like it. Please let me know. Comments and votes are always wanted and welcomed. :)