This takes place after Tony and Pepper's break up, before Spider-Man: Homecoming
Pepper
"This just... Happy, please, it drives me mad", she whispered into her phone, it was in the middle of the night and she was exhausted from crying so much. Her voice was broken and raspy and she hated it.
"I'm sorry, Pepper, I can't help you."
"I don't want you to help me, I just want someone to listen to me. He's killing himself with that! I don't care if its the right thing, I don't care if he's saving the whole world. I don't care about the world, about all the evil. And I can't believe he would choose that, over me! His stupid hero complex, so he can prove himself he is not a monster. And he said he loved me, can you believe that? Well, clearly he never did, because if he ever loved me, he would not... He would not destroy himself like that, he would not jump into danger everytime he gets the opportunity to do so."
"Pepper, he did love you, of course he, he loved you more than anyone else, but you can't just force him to give up all of that, he is iron man, he has a duty..."
"And he also had a duty towards me, but apparently that does not count. It does not seem to mean anything to him that I have to sit here and watch him destroy himself. There will always be evil and the war against it will never stop, but while evil is immortal, heroes are not. One day, there will be someone he cannot beat. I am not asking him to give it up, I just... I don't want him to throw his life away that easily, that is all I wanted."
"I thought that was why you broke up with him, because you needed distance, because you could not watch all of that happening", Happy said, he was deep in thought and desperately trying to calm Pepper down.
But Pepper Potts was a hurricane and nothing in the world could stop her from raging. In fact, there had been one person, but that man was currently throwing himself into the arms of some monster or villain.
"The thing is, he is iron man. Tere is no place in the world where I won't see his face when I turn on the TV or look at the news. And every time I do, I will know that I am responsible for all the danger he puts himself in."
"No, you're not. It's his own fault"
"If I was still in a relationship with him, I could try to keep him from doing that, I could try at least."
"That would hurt you, we talked about this a hundred times already. You would just end up crying even more than you are now. You're going to get over it."
"It's been such a long time already, I should be over it, shouldn't I?"
"Statistics say it takes at least three months until the average person can date someone new after a break up."
"Thanks for that information, maybe I'm actually not average", she tried to fake a smile.
"Know, it is not your fault at all, it is Tony's bad decisions that get him into those bad situations. You will be able to move on, I promise you", Happy said and there was a desperate tone in his voice, as if he was feeling the same pain as her. Happy was a true friend and honestly everything that kept her going at the moment.
"He promised me many things too, you know. For example that he would never leave me, that I was the only one for him, but oh well, here we are. I should have listened to my brain, once in my life I listen to my heart, this mess happens."
A moment of silence from Happy's side, until he sighed and then said:
"I'll be with you in a few minutes.", he said and then hung up.
Pepper was left confused. What was Happy's plan? She was still wearing her blazer from the day before, luckily. She had not been able to sleep and it sometimes relaxed her to get up again and work a little, answer some e-mails in the middle of the night, or better: make drafts and send them at appropriate times.
