The Devil With The Face of an Angel | Irondad, pepperony

Chapter 73

There was silence. Nobody knew what to say. Pepper couldn't believe what Tony had just told her. Without a word, she got up and went to the kitchen to get herself a glass of cold water. Natasha and Tony exchanged glances, but neither one of them decided to follow Pepper yet. They decided she needed some space.

Pepper put her hands on the kitchen counter and took a deep breath to calm herself, but the thoughts in her head changed incredibly fast. She tried to understand why Peter would think something like that about her. She understood that she had left, but that did not immediately mean that she had anyone else. Did she ever give him a reason to think so badly about her?

"Damn it!" she swore, leaning her back against the counter. Her gaze immediately fell on the photo of sleeping Peter that Tony had left for her in the office when she returned from Malibu. She inadvertently remembered meeting with Mary, and her heart rate had accelerated considerably.

"I hate her. I hate her. I hate her," she muttered, moving from one end of the kitchen to the other. She had never felt such anger in her life. She wanted to grab something and throw it against the wall. "I HATE HER!" she cried in frustration.

Tony jumped to his feet in the living room and was ready to follow her into the kitchen. Before he could do so, Pepper rushed through the living room like a hurricane and disappeared into another room, apparently in her bedroom. He looked at Natasha with a question in his eyes, but she just shrugged. "I'm going after her," he sighed, walking carefully to the door where she had disappeared. It was a well-known fact that he was sometimes afraid of her. And right now he was really scared.

"I should have sent Nat," he muttered under his nose as he entered the room and found Pepper standing there only in her underwear, rummaging through the closet. He closed his eyes for a moment to concentrate and held on to why he was here in the first place. "Pep, love? What are you doing?" he asked in a relatively quiet voice. He was afraid that when he spoke louder, her anger would pass to him, and he certainly didn't want that.

"I have to go to work," she replied, dressing in a black dress.

"Honey, I don't think you should go to work. You should still rest," Tony expressed his feelings and walked over to her in small steps. One small extra step was enough for everything to be lost. Pepper was a time bomb at the moment, and he had to figure out what had turned her so hard. Unless he counts the fact that he accused her of cheating.

"Yeah? Really? But I don't care what you think. I'm going to work, whether you like it or not," she snapped. She needed access to her computer and Friday. She needed to end up with Mary once and for all. She must have been the one who told Peter the nonsense of her kissing a stranger.

"What happened, Pepper?"

"What happened? What happened?! I'll tell you what happened! Your ex-girlfriend has dug her own grave because I'll crush her like a cockroach. Because that what she is," she replied in a dangerously icy voice.

Tony wasted no time in changing tactics. He took a few quick steps to cover the distance between them and gripped her wrist tightly. "Pepper, forget about her, okay? Now just focus on me."

"Let me go, Tony!" she protested, trying to free herself from his grip.

Tony quickly realized that this was not the way to go, so he switched to a solution that always worked. He kissed her and the effect was almost instantaneous. Pepper relaxed. He couldn't help but smile. "Isn't that better?" he asked with a smaller smile as he pulled away from her.

"If you think you're going to stop me with this, you're wrong."

"It used to work... Remember what Peter always said when I did something you didn't like? That I should give you a kiss and everything will be fine," he said, and his smile widened over the memory.

Pepper also had to smile, which disappeared quickly when she inadvertently remembered Mary's visit to her office. "Tony, why did you break up with Mary?" she asked before she could lose her courage.

The question startled him, and a smile disappeared from his face too. "Why are you asking?"

"You never talked about it, and Mary said you didn't break up because you would stop loving each other. That's why it scared me so much. That's why I left," she explained. If they wanted to get rid of Mary from their lives forever, she had to find out everything she could about her. And this was a good start because even today she remembered exactly the day Tony returned home drunk and told her he had told Mary to leave.

"I went to check on Jarvis before dinner because I found him a little weird. I was very surprised by what I found then. She broke the coding so she could gather information, and I didn't find out. From the beginning, I was her goal to have an easier path to everything. And then she told everything to Osborn," he finally told her after all the years. When it was fresh, he didn't want to talk about it, and over time it didn't seem important to him. Mary was gone and he had a family he was happy with.

"Oh, Tony. But you know I love you because of who you are and not because of your name, do you?"

"I love you too," he smiled, not resisting another kiss.

"I really have to go to work," she insisted.

Tony nodded with a sigh. He probably didn't expect anything else. With less apprehension, he watched Pepper disappear through the door.

"Where did she go?" Natasha asked as he stepped into the living room.

"To work."

"And you left her?!" she wondered.

"Have you seen her?! If she wanted to, she could kill me with a look," Tony said in his defense.

Natasha chuckled at his statement. But then she looked worried. "I'm sorry, Tony. I barely knew it for a few days."

Tony rubbed his temples. He will have to absorb the information that they were for a moment expecting their second child together.

•••

Natasha crawled into bed and hugged Bruce, who was reading a book. This surprised him a little, and without hesitation, he set the book down on the table beside the bed. He hugged Natasha tightly and kissed her hair.

"What happened?" he asked in a whisper.

"Pepper lost the baby," she said, tightening her embrace. She was so happy for them. She looked forward to seeing Peter and his younger sibling. When both of Stark's children visit their aunt Nat and Uncle Bruce. God, how could she be so stupid and believe Pepper that everything was fine? She had to go through it all on her own.

"I'm sorry," Bruce breathed, startled by the news. "To improve the situation at least a little, I think Peter will be fine soon. He told me he was better at school, but then he got uneasy again shortly after he got home. It will probably be because of everything that is happening now. His body just responds to stress."

"At least one good news," she muttered, closing her eyes. Today, she didn't want to think about anything and just wanted to fall asleep in Bruce's arms.