Pepper
Pepper woke up alone. She had no idea what time it was, but as always, when she realised that Tony wasn't there, she tried to fall asleep again.
It didn't work and so she got up, way too tired, opened up the curtains and was almost blinded by the dazzling sunlight. She had overslept probably, no wonder Tony was gone.
She had work to do, so much work and Morgan needed to go kindergarten and oh god... No one was in the house.
Tony had probably driven Morgan to kindergarten, everything would be okay, hopefully. Everything will be okay, relax Pepper, she told herself.
No one was in the living room, no one in the kitchen and she had gotten no texts at all, no one had called her to explain. She sat down in front of her computer, checked her mails, nothing but business related stuff.
She sighed deeply. Not even one mail, not even one text, even though it was her birthday. But that was okay, Tony had never been able to keep track of anything, why should that be different at her birthday?
Except that she was his wife, and maybe, that changed something?
She shook her head, tried to forget about it, tried to fill the empty space inside her with teh words she was writing to all these companies that she was in correspondance with. Stark Industries was important, and that did not change at her birthday.
She didn't eat breakfast, she was not really hungry and honestly, she just could not be bothered. Pepper was not really sad, but she was not happy either. It was just such a normal day, one day after the other and she just.. She wanted to break free of that routine, even if it was just for a single day.
She heard a clock tick somewhere next to the couch, where she was sitting on. She had no idea how many hours she had spent in front of her laptop, trying to work through all the stuff she had put off for weeks.
It was exhausting and she did not even want to put up with the problems of some of the workers. The same problems, again and again. As if she knew the solution to everything. Pepper wished she did.
She was typing so fast, almost violently hitting the letters, until everything became just a huge blur of Dear Mr, Greetings Madam and Of course Sirs. Not that she was not content with the work she was doing, not that she did not like her job, she loved it, but it was just...
It was all a little too much sometimes.
She knew that from Tony, it was probably not a good sign, but she just let the words run free on the pages, until her fingers hurt, until she was crying.
She did not even know why. She had everything, the most amazing daughter in the world and the perfect husband. What else did she want?
Pepper wanted to stop holding back, she wanted to call Tony and scream at him about how he should have told her he'd leave, because... She could not shout at all these workers, at the company owners and at the managers. And if she told Tony about how she felt, about how much she sometimes hated having to think in routines and straight lines, he would worry about her.
And he was already worrying too much, he already had enough problems, Pepper did not want to add up to that list. On the other hand, she kind of wanted to be someone's problem.
She felt like she worked too much, like she was being so mean to someone she was actually totally in love with, because it was one of the only reasons she could express how scared for him she was. Tony would shrug it off, if she told him that she was scared that he would be gone one day, gone with the avengers and then found dead in a ditch or torn to pieces somewhere. He would tell her to not worry about him not returning when he left.
