Stark's Weakness

Chapter 17

The entire room is as silent as the grave and half the people in the room are staring up at Pepper on the monitor who's still chuckling and the other half is staring at Tony gauging his reactions and making sure that they won't need to call in any help, especially after the massive mental, physical, and emotional strain that he's just been through. "Why?" Tony manages to growl before Thor walks up behind him and places a hand on his shoulder as a gesture that everyone in that room is standing behind him in one way or another.

Pepper outright starts laughing at Tony as though his question is one of the funniest things she's ever heard in her life. She continues to laugh for several minutes before she finally calms down and wipes the tears from her eyes and says, "Oh Tony, I needed that laugh and I thank you for it. But I can see that you actually are struggling to comprehend all of this so let me take you back to the begin of our time together and lay it all out chronologically for you shall I?"

"Back in early 2008, you went to the Middle East along with Obadiah Stane to show off your newest toy, the Jericho missile. While you were over there, you partied, you drank, you smoked, oh and you also got abducted by a group of fucking terrorists called the Ten Rings and held for ransom only to escape by having another captive help you build a suit of armor that you then crashed in the middle of the desert whilst trying to make a get away leading to Rhodey finding you and bringing you home. A few weeks later, it was discovered that Obadiah was selling the arms that your father had helped manufacture all those years to terrorists and that he planned to take over the company by way of having you legally declared insane. Oh but instead of you taking care of the mess that you and your family made what was it you did? You went to a fucking party! You went to a party and you had me sneak into Stane's office and download all of his secret files because if you were caught in there then you'd have to deal with him face to face!" She takes a deep breath after her five-minute-long rant then smiles sweetly.

"But I found it in myself to forgive you for that, Stark. I told myself that after we got through all of that we could simply go back to how things were and it would all be as if nothing had ever happened. But I was proven so very wrong when in the middle of a press conference with reporters from all around the world broadcasting your face live to every single country on this planet...you admitted to being Iron Man. And I knew then and there that we would not be having anything that resembled a normal life because you were so enamored, so...greedy for the limelight, that you'd put everyone around you in life-threatening danger. And that's exactly what happened, didn't it?"

"Because while you were out parading around the fact that you were Iron Man and having everyone bow down and kiss your ass, a man rotting away prison just so happened to see that very same broadcast and plotted to do the same thing to you that Obadiah had tried to do only he got much closer to succeeding than Obadiah did, didn't he? I still to this day don't understand why you had to compete in that stupid Monaco Grand Prix...oh wait I think I may have figured it out!" She sneers as she glares down at him. "Because you're Tony Stark. You. Are. IRON MAN! And you do what you please!" Everyone who is currently in the room can tell two things at the current moment and that is one, she's venting for all the hell that Tony put her through over the years and honestly, no one can really blame her and two, she's stalling for some reason.

"And what exactly was it that happened in Monaco? Oh, that's right. We were attacked by none other than Anton Vanko himself. Why? Oh, probably because your father had his father arrested and expedited back to Russia where he was tried and sentenced to life in prison. So that could be placed solely upon your ignorant father's head!" She growls and suddenly the picture goes from Pepper's sneering face to that of complete static which causes many people to jump and look around only to find Steve standing beside the giant monitor with many cables in his hand. "Steve? What's going on?" Wanda asks softly as she approaches him and he shushes her as his eyes dart from one corner of the ceiling to the other and suddenly a faint whistling could be heard and Steve cusses quite impressively.

"Damn Capsicle, I never would've thought you had it in you to use that kind of language!" Sam says as a few people crack up laughing and Steve looks over at Tony and says, "We have about three minutes tops to get everyone out of this building before whatever whoever Pepper is working for levels this entire building with us in it." Tony freezes as he stares at Steve then finally croaks, "Do what?!"