Fifty Lifetimes.
Jul. 2nd, 2008 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quigonejinnSistren of the Hivemind have seen 95% of this already. It's basically the same as in the document, but with a little extra self-indulgent wanking by yours truly.
Tony wakes at dawn. He throws off the blanket, rolls up the windows, finds a bottle of water that he hasn't finished yet, rinses out his mouth, rolls down the driver-side window, and spits. The sky is pink at the edges, but shades to blue, then black, further up. He starts the engine, checks his blind spot, then takes the truck onto blacktop.
A few miles down the road, he pulls over to make a call.
...
Sharon, Kansas: broken trailer hitch on a VW bug.
Boone, Colorado: air conditioning system at a restaurant. Tony offers to take a look on the hottest day of the year, not only fixes it, but makes it work 120% as well as before, so he gets all the coffee and cake and waitress compliments he can take. The youngest, prettiest one invites him home with her that night, and Tony accepts.
...
The last time Tony wears a suit is when he's coming out of the lawyer's office and expecting to get hit in the face by the sun. Pepper, out of habit, even has his sunglasses ready. And then he remembers that they're in New York, and it's March. The sun is watery compared to what he's used to, and as they're coming down the steps, Tony absently rubs the fingers of his right hand. Pepper expects a joke about masturbation at any moment, but Tony says nothing, just sort of squints at the park across the street.
"Happy probably has some ice in the car," she offers.
"Nah. I'll get over it." Tony actually looks at her, and even though he isn't wearing sunglasses, Pepper can't quite read his expression.
Down at the bottom of the steps -- they've come out the back way to avoid the media at the front because since when has Tony Stark ever come out the back entrance of anything? -- Happy has the Phantom, and he's standing there with the door open, waiting for Tony to go and get into the car, but Tony goes on looking at Pepper for one more moment, then leans over close. She's still trying to read his face, but what expression do you expect to find in the face of a man who's just spent all morning signing away every share of stock he owns in his father's company? He had been the eighth-richest guy in America; with the way the common shares rebounded after the judgment, maybe back to seven. Hell, even six.
"I'll call, OK?" Tony says. He reaches over and takes the sunglasses from Pepper's hand, then goes trotting down the steps.
"Hey," he says to Happy, who holds the Rolls door with a confused expression on his face. Tony strides past him, crosses the street, and disappears into over into the park.
That's the last time Tony wears a suit. He'd sent Pepper to look for the shipping manifestos and the ghost drive, but Obadiah didn't put them on the network. They were separate. Well-protected. Pepper found nothing, and the injunction -- well.
...
Strictly speaking, it wasn't the last time he wears something with lapels and matching trousers and a tie. It was, however, the last time that he wore a suit like what he used to wear. Hand-stitched. Made to measure. Super-premium ultra-virgin wool, lined with Italian silk. The next time Tony is in a jacket with lapels and matching trousers and a tie, it's Jim's dad's funeral out in Oregon. Tony is the last guy he expects to see there, and Jim will admit to getting a little choked up when he sees Tony standing there in the room. Jim's dad was one of six kids, though -- Depression era family -- and it's also his dad's funeral, so Jim is, understandably, a little distracted.
"Hey," Tony says, right in Jim's ear. Jim will admit to jumping a little. It's strange to think about someone so much, then suddenly see him. Then, suddenly hear him.
"Hey," Jim says. He'd turn around, but Tony is standing so close to him that their shoulders would bump if he did. And it's a tightly packed roo, but after a moment of thought, Jim decides, fuck it, he's going turn around anyway. "I didn't expect to see you here."
Tony wears tinted sunglasses, which, given that they're standing inside Aunt May's house in October, is completely ridiculous. And Tony had only met Rhodey's dad once, during the course of a weekend when they came to visit him down in LA. Tony invited himself and spent the entirety of Sunday afternoon playing chess with Rhodey's dad, cheating right back as hard as the old man had. And, at one point, Tony figured out how to make the chess pieces seem to move themselves over the board. Rhodey's father loved it.
"Yeah, well, I kind of had to," Tony says. "He was a good man, your dad. I'd travel halfway around the world to go to his funeral."
Jim nods. He feels a little choked up and surprised, too, that Tony would remember. He struggles for words, and then Tony grins.
"Your funeral, on the other hand -- "
Rhodey stares. Tony's grin gets even broader, and Rhodey can't remember, afterwards, whether Tony actually clapped him on the shoulder, or if that was somebody bumping into him. It wasn't a big house, and his dad had, on top of having a big family, been a popular man in the community.
"Excuse me, Jim. I'm going to go tell your Aunt May that she makes astounding egg salad and suggest what a beautifully-preserved eighty-four year old woman she is."
...
As for the other suit, Tony still carries the helmet and the hand-repulsors, but the rest is locked away in about a ton of concrete that makes up the new west patio in the Malibu house. It's not exactly portable in the back of a truck, and what is he going to use it for? Flying around the country, blowing up factories that he used to own?
...
Pepper gets a call from outside Portland -- Tony decides that it would be really funny to make her figure out which city he's in by giving hints like, Over seven thousand plants, representing five hundred and fifty cultivars, are planted in a public park in this city or Hugh O'Bryant was the city's first mayor, so the conversation runs longer than Tony usually likes it to, but it sounds like he's in a good mood, relatively speaking.
"I dropped by Rhodey's dad's funeral," he informs her, after she figures out that he's in the City of Roses.
"How did you find out? I didn't know until yesterday." Pepper pauses, bites her lip. "Did you talk to Rhodey?"
"Yeah, a little bit."
There's an edge in Tony's voice that Pepper doesn't know whether she likes, and she tries to think of what to say to him about about, but can't, and eventually, Tony makes a impatient sound. It's coupled with a scraping noise, and she doesn't want to think of what kind of park property he's destroying.
"You can talk to Rhodey if you want, Pepper. That's fine with me. I don't care."
"He left me a voice message. He does that, you know. Once in a while." Pepper doesn't pick the phone up, and Rhodey, at this point, has gotten used to it. "I just listen to them."
There's another scraping noise from Tony's end, but it's a little deeper and goes on for longer. Pepper closes her eyes and tells herself the foundation is going to make a generous donation to the city of Portland's Parks and Recreation Department. A very generous donation, and after a little more silence, Tony tells her that he's fine for money right now. He'll check back in later. Don't worry if she doesn't hear from him for a while.
Pepper doesn't get a voice mail from Rhodey for a long time after that, either. She sees a picture every once in a while because from the bad old days, they're on similar sets of public relations Rolodexes. Pepper is slowly building a new one -- strange how twenty billion dollars does the trick, but Rhodey in front of a podium and introducing a new Stark Industries project. Rhodey taking a photograph, standing behind Obadiah shaking hands with a four-star general. Saving the lives of American men and women. Protecting our soldiers. When he does leave a voicemail message, Pepper pretends that she listens to it for information purposes, to know the enemy, and not because she can read how much he distrusts Obadiah, how much he hates having to do it.
It shows in every line of his body.
...
Schulenberg, Texas: not as easy to catch a ride on a freight train these days as you might expect.
Humboldt, Nebraska: easier if you talk to the engineer beforehand and tell him how to fix a thunking noise that you know he's been hearing whenever the old engine gets up to twenty, twenty-five miles an hour, but disappears once she goes over forty.
...
Tony gets off the train and follows the largest road he can find into a town that actually has a couple of traffic lights and a couple of buildings in the center. He sits down at a greasy spoon, and the waitress brings him a cup of coffee.
"What state is this?" he asks, taking a sip.
"Ohio." The waitress lifts her eyebrows at him.
"Ohio." Tony grins and salutes her with his coffee cup.
...
Pepper remembers preparing to testify more than she remembers actually testifying. The law firm had, in fact, a mocked-up version of the actual courtroom where the hearing would take place. There was even a stand where an actor played the judge and more actors to fill in the other side. Like a movie set. The whole place swarmed with people. It was that kind of litigation, and Pepper was surprised, in fact, when the courtroom wardrobe stylist showed up and started talking to Tony about what he should wear and shouldn't wear, and Tony actually seemed to be paying attention. Listening. The woman actually guides him out of the room, gesturing with Tony bowing his head low to pay attention. They're going to try on outfits in front of a camera to test how various shirts play, apparently.
"I had Sue come in just now for a reason, Pepper. I don't want you looking over at Tony when you testify," the lawyer right in front of Pepper says, after touching Pepper's arm to get her attention.
He's a fatherly-looking guy with white hair and a kind face, blue eyes, a reassuring manner. Pepper has a hard time believing that he has the reputation that he does, but Tony's regular lawyers swear he's the best white-collar defense attorney in America. Most aggressive. Most experienced. Legend in his own time. Like Johnny Cochran, but for guys even richer than -- the joke broke off there. They'd temporarily forgotten that even if Tony wasn't there, Pepper was.
"The judge might think you're looking for his approval, that you're lying to cover for him."
...
In all the phone calls Tony makes to Pepper, neither of them ever, ever mentions Obadiah's name.
...
The first time Tony calls Pepper from a Greyhound, she freaks out. Seeing the strange number, the area code she's never seen before, doesn't disturb her; she's used to that. It's a sure sign of Tony. He doesn't keep the same cell phone for more than a few weeks; he knows the kinds of chips that go into regular phones, he told her once when she was asking why he wouldn't keep one that she could call. So different area code. Every few weeks, and what surprises her first is the clarity of his voice. Tony calls from cell phones in remote places. Static and crackle distort his voice. Pepper hears the voice she remembers, and it startles her.
And then, there's the second suprise: Tony? Tony Stark? Riding Greyhound? Is he in trouble? Does he need more money? Tell her where he is, and she can probably find a courier service to get him money within hours. She still has her old contacts, and she remembers the time that they had to courier a three ton power plant turbine three hundred and twelve miles on two hours notice. Also, Pepper doesn't actually say the words, nor does she think them, but they're right there in the way her heart starts thudding inside her the 50% cotton, 50% cashmere suit shell: I could fly out right now and drive the money to you, if you want.
Tony Stark drives everywhere thirty miles over the speed limit.
"No," he says. He's actually calling at a stop along the way. It's noisy in the background, and Tony has to repeat things a couple times. Pepper doesn't know why he's not calling her from his cell phone. "The truck broke down," Tony says, and he sounds exhausted. "I couldn't fix it. I'll be fine. Talk to you later."
...
The only hotel within walking distance of the Greyhound station is something that might have been a Motel 6 in a better day and time. Tony checks into a $45 room, locks the door, draws the curtains as tight as he can get them, and turns on the television, which has been bolted to the dresser. He isn't hungry.
Tony lies down on the bed, turns to face the wall and stays in that position until he falls asleep.
...
As said before, Pepper remembers preparing to testify more than actually testifying. She has clear recollection of working through what she was planning to say with their lead attorney, and she remembers the practice cross-examinations and re-directs that they did. "I'm used to this kind of thing," Pepper said. She did deal with the media a lot. Her job title was personal assistant, but with the way that Tony was, it meant she was his corporate secretary and personal public relations liaison, too.
The attorney -- dark green cufflinks shot through with blue specks today -- shook his head. "Not like this. After what Tony himself says, you and Jim are going to be the most important people."
His voice didn't even hint at it, but Pepper remembers thinking: what is Jim going to say on the stand? He's going to tell the truth, isn't he? And what is Tony going to say? Is he going to get angry? They're relying on me and the psychologist they hired. Pepper remembers getting out of the witness box on the actual day she testified; four hours, then lunch. Then, another four. She'd given up trying to figure out who was direct and was cross, and the room swam from her tiredness. She remembers trying to see Tony's face through the blur.
At any point following Mr. Stark's return from Afghanistan, did you accompany him to the hospital?
What about a therapist?
...
They're in the lawyer's office afterwards. Tony's regular lawyers, not the special white-collar defense guy that they'd been working with. Pepper doesn't know what that guy is up to, but Tony's regular lawyer looks like he's going to have a nervous breakdown. Tony should probably have given him a little more advance notice, and Pepper is pretty sure that if she weren't so shocked, she'd be having a nervous breakdown, too.
"What kinds of things do you want me to fund? It's an enormous amount of money, Tony."
Somebody drew the blinds, so the office is dark, and Tony is sitting in the other chair. He's playing with a paperweight that he took off the lawyer's desk. It's a big brass coin with a seashell etched on it. Tony looks up from it at Pepper, and for a moment, his eyes are suddenly the only thing she can see.
And then Tony looks away and shrugs. He turns the coin over in his palm and can't meet her eyes again.
...
Pepper knew that he was going to take off after signing the divestment and power of attorney documents; she just hadn't been expecting him to walk out like that. He'd done it before, though. Obadiah had told her -- and Rhodey confirmed, or Pepper might not have believed it after the hearing -- that Tony had done something similar for two years after his parents died.
Different kind of dying. Same kind of reaction.
...
Elida, New Mexico: the transmission on a Buick.
Wilcox, Arizona: a sprinkler system for a lawn.
...
It isn't all gloom and pain, though. It's Tony. He finds consolations: he jokes about being so lonely that he's going to get a dog, but one afternoon, Pepper calls his latest cell phone number, and a woman picks up. She sounds young. Pretty. The phone is good enough so that Pepper can hear Tony rambling in the background, so she asks to be put through to him, and there's a rustle, a creaking noise, and Tony comes on the line.
"Hey, Pepper," he says. He sounds happy; Pepper didn't tell the girl her name, but she's the only person who ever calls him, so there's no reason why he'd think it was anybody else.
They talk a little while about various things. Pepper tells him about some of the projects the foundation is working on, like land reclamation in Haiti and a possible partnership with the Gates Foundation . She also makes sure the kinds of investments they're putting the proceeds from the divested stock proceeds are OK with Tony, and they are. He doesn't care as long as they don't go back into anything making weapons for the military. Tobacco. Cigarettes. He suggests these as other things that might generate a similar yield as investing in the Walmart of Death. Tony makes the joke; Pepper isn't sure what he's referring to, but Tony is, in fact, happy enough to ask her about what she's done to various pieces of personal property. Dummy and Butterfingers are with her at the Foundation offices; Sotheby's auctioned some of the cars and furniture and most of the art, but she's kept the Roadster and the Indian and his Audi and the Jasper Johns from the shop. They haven't found a way to transfer Jarvis, what with significant portaions of his hardware being built into the walls and nobody around who can quite figure it out, but she visits Jarvis at the Malibu house once a week to keep him company.
"We could set it up for you could call and check in with him," Pepper says. "I think he misses you."
She's half-joking, and Tony says something that is three-quarters of a joke, but Pepper understands. He sounds happy now, but he's not that happy, and at that point, the girl says something in the background that Pepper can't quite catch, and Tony turns away from the phone. Pepper can't hear what he says back to her, either.
He comes back to the phone; they talk a little more about old times and new logistics. The girl giggles in the backgrouns, and Pepper frowns.
"What state are you in?"
Tony turns his head away from the phone, but this time, Pepper catches what he says. "What state are we in, honey?"
Laughter. The creaking of springs.
...
Pepper is pretty sure that she's being ungrateful whenever she gets angry at having all this dumped on her, at Tony walking away from everything and leaving it with her: she never asked for this much responsibility, but at the same time, it's sixteen billion dollars -- ten billion actually liquidated at the depressed price resulting from Tony dumping a 43% stake in a Fortune 100 company onto the market within a week -- plus another hundred million or so in personal assets to spend on whatever she thinks is worth it. Charitable. Not charitable. Pepper choose charitable, of course, and they have offices in Century City. Sometimes, she even has good conversations. Tony calls her from the road and tells her stories about what he's seen, places he's gone. Funny people he's met. The time that Tony called when he was watching the sun come up over the Grand Canyon. All the places he'd gone, all the private islands and yachts and luxury retreats, and he'd never been to the Grand Canyon.
It was six AM on the West Coast and Arizona, but Pepper was in New York to talk to UNICEF, and she held the phone against her ear. Tony hadn't even intended to watch the sun rise. It just got bright, and he woke up, and he was talking to her about the way the light looked on geological strata -- she didn't even know he could tell mountains from hills, and Pepper took the call while on the forty-fifth floor of a glass building. It made her smile for days afterwards.
Tony is mostly self-sufficient, but whenever he asks and whenever he calls, she asks whether she should, Pepper takes $300 or $500 or $1000 from the Foundation petty cash, loads it onto a Visa check card, and sends it via Fedex to the address Tony gives her. Consultant fees. No questions asked.
...
Tony stays in Leoti in the west of Kansas for almost two and a half months. He unpacks. He lives with her, explains a little about the light in his chest, and he fixes everything in the trailer park that can be fixed. He talks about getting a job being a mechanic or something; they're planning a move into an apartment complex soon, and Tony is talking to the people in California to get them to send him a check for the deposit and first month's rent.
One afternoon, while he's working on his truck she comes up to Tony and puts her arms around him. Leans her head against his shoulder and laces her fingers over the arc reactor in front.
That night, while she's sleeping, Tony puts everything back into his duffle bag and walks out the door.
...
Three years into Tony's absence, Pepper gets a phone call in the middle of the night. It was a long day; she's only into her second hour of sleep, but somewhere, from an alternate universe, maybe, Pepper gets the physical energy to worry. Her chest tightens; her stomach clenches, and Pepper knows her heart rate shoots up into regions where it doesn't go even when she's working out. Pepper's relief doesn't go away even when it turns out not to be Tony on the phone. It could be someone else, finding him injured or dead or unconscious by the side of the road, calling the only number that Tony keeps on his phone, but it's none of that. A girl. Young. Crying. Through sobs, the girl explains: she's a runaway. She met this guy in the parking lot. What did he look like? You know. A guy. He was old.
He bought her a plate of fries and a coke, then said, "Look, kid, I can't help you. But here's my phone -- keep it. Dial the only number on there. She'll help you, OK?"
Pepper asks the girl where she is.
"Mendota? Is that in Arizona?"
And Pepper's heart lurches: Mendota is near Fresno. Fresno is in the Central Valley. Tony had only been three and a half hours away.
"Is he still around?"
The girl starts to cry again, and after making sure the girl isn't in any kind of immediate danger or pain, Pepper sends Happy out to get the girl and is there, on the steps, when Happy brings the town car back around. A fourteen year old girl, seven months pregnant, hesitantly climbs out the back because she doesn't realize Happy will come and hold the door for her.
...
" -- don't even know what you look like these days."
"Miss Potts, did you just ask me what I'm wearing?"
...
What is Pepper supposed to do with a fourteen year old girl who runs away because she was being sexually abused by her foster father? The girl is pretty sure that the baby is the twenty-one year old boyfriend's. Pretty sure.
....
Pepper is pretty sure that Rhodey keeps calling and leaving voicemails because there's nobody else he can talk to about it. She stops mentioning them to Tony because it only gets him angry, but she doesn't stop listening.
" -- don't trust him. I don't. That's a fact, Pepper. They're going to move me out to DC soon, I think, Pepper. I've been trying to get it into the thick head of this new kid I'm training to take my job, but he doesn't get it. I keep telling him. He cannot trust that son of a bitch."
...
Tony left the truck behind in Rails, Texas and had to take the Greyhound out of Lubbock; for a while, he's in a 1976 El Dorado, which is good for a lot of laughs and blowing past teenagers at intersections faster than they can stop laughing. For a while after that, he rides on things like the BNSF CW44-9 4656 eastbound out of Kingman or the CSX ES44AC 713 and 852 westbound from Boulder. Tony eventually stays in a place long enough to put together another car out of parts from the junk yard. He sells the El Dorado, and what he ends up driving is Truck 2.0 into the gravel lot in front of the all-night gas station west of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Half-past four AM or so.
He goes inside to buy some coffee and to use the restroom, and when he comes out, Obadiah is standing there.
The dust from the helicopter blades hasn't even settled.
...
"Tony, I don't even know what you look like these days.
...
Four AM in June is close enough to dawn for the sky to shade towards blue around the edges, but in the sky is still black in the midd , and there is no lighting in the parking lot. It's just a gravel lot off a four lane highway through dry hills. All the light comes from the storefront and the inside of the convenience store; as usual, Tony has two layers of shirts to hide the glow from the arc reactor, and it's just possible to see the outline of Obadiah's gray suit. The dust from the helicopter blades settles over both of their shoes.
"Hey, Tony," Obadiah says.
"Fuck you." Tony looks over Obadiah's shoulders at the position and navigation lights on the helicopter, set down on the road. It's probably a MD-600 with the NOTAR tail boom. And this time of the night, there isn't anything coming from either direction even though this is supposed to be an Interestate. "What are you doing here?"
"You're skinnier than you used to be."
There's a glitter of something near Obadiah's hand, and Tony thinks it might be a gun. Another half-second, and it turns out to be a cufflink with some kind of flat, polished surface.
"The exercise date on the last set of non-transferable options is this week. You going to come back after Pepper sells them?"
Tony lifts his chin and squares his shoulders. It's a little cool out in the night, and he hears the headset on the pilot in the helicopter crackle. Inside, the store clerk has to be wondering what the fuck is going on, and Tony's idea of provisions.
"How'd you know where to find me?"
...
"Tony, what state are you in this week?"
...
At some point, Stane replies -- something like, Pepper told me she sent you some money in Salt Lake City last week, and I worked it out from there, and Tony punches him in the mouth. The two bodyguards in the helicopter move, but Stane puts his hand up and stops them halfway out of the helicopter. He wipes his mouth on the back of his suit, then nods at Tony and turns around and goes.
The sky is just light enough for Tony to watch the helicopter disappear over the hills.
...
It was a lie, of course. Obadiah has had Pepper's incoming calls logged two days after Tony left; he knows where the Fedex packages with the check cards are going before the company does. Nevertheless, Tony doesn't call Pepper for weeks after that. Weeks. Longer than he's ever gone before, when he finally does, it's from a new phone. Pepper scrambles for the phone when it flashes what it identifies as a South Dakota area cell phone code.
"Hey," Tony says.
Through the whole conversation, he doesn't say very much. It makes Pepper nervous, and when she's nervous with Tony, she rambles. She tends to repeat herself, like she did at the benefit all those years ago, and after telling him about how the last option exercise went and what the analysts say they should be investing the money in, for the first time in years, she brings Obadiah up. She tells him about the appearance that he made on Larry King Live, where he talked about the new missile system they had clearance to sell to the select US allies, and Pepper asks Tony three times how Obadiah knows that Tony is fine and just taking some time off. Did you call him? He didn't find you, did he? Are you OK, Tony?
Pepper is nervous. Worried. That comes through clearly even though cell phone reception in the area isn't very good, and still, Tony still doesn't say anything. Doesn't answer. He's in the truck, pulled off to the side of the road; there are mountains in front of him and a road that dips down. He keeps the cell phone cradled to his cheek. Pepper keeps talking; Tony's eyes drift closed. His breathing slows until he almost seems asleep, and he stays in the driver's seat and listens and listens to the sound of her voice.
"Tony?" Pepper says, at last. Her voice has a note in it that he hasn't heard in a long time.
And Tony hits the END button.
...
Half an hour passes, and then Tony starts the truck up and drives the rest of the way into Paradise, Utah.
...
That could run your heart for fifty lifetimes.
Yeah. Or something big for fifteen minutes.
Tony wakes at dawn. He throws off the blanket, rolls up the windows, finds a bottle of water that he hasn't finished yet, rinses out his mouth, rolls down the driver-side window, and spits. The sky is pink at the edges, but shades to blue, then black, further up. He starts the engine, checks his blind spot, then takes the truck onto blacktop.
A few miles down the road, he pulls over to make a call.
...
Sharon, Kansas: broken trailer hitch on a VW bug.
Boone, Colorado: air conditioning system at a restaurant. Tony offers to take a look on the hottest day of the year, not only fixes it, but makes it work 120% as well as before, so he gets all the coffee and cake and waitress compliments he can take. The youngest, prettiest one invites him home with her that night, and Tony accepts.
...
The last time Tony wears a suit is when he's coming out of the lawyer's office and expecting to get hit in the face by the sun. Pepper, out of habit, even has his sunglasses ready. And then he remembers that they're in New York, and it's March. The sun is watery compared to what he's used to, and as they're coming down the steps, Tony absently rubs the fingers of his right hand. Pepper expects a joke about masturbation at any moment, but Tony says nothing, just sort of squints at the park across the street.
"Happy probably has some ice in the car," she offers.
"Nah. I'll get over it." Tony actually looks at her, and even though he isn't wearing sunglasses, Pepper can't quite read his expression.
Down at the bottom of the steps -- they've come out the back way to avoid the media at the front because since when has Tony Stark ever come out the back entrance of anything? -- Happy has the Phantom, and he's standing there with the door open, waiting for Tony to go and get into the car, but Tony goes on looking at Pepper for one more moment, then leans over close. She's still trying to read his face, but what expression do you expect to find in the face of a man who's just spent all morning signing away every share of stock he owns in his father's company? He had been the eighth-richest guy in America; with the way the common shares rebounded after the judgment, maybe back to seven. Hell, even six.
"I'll call, OK?" Tony says. He reaches over and takes the sunglasses from Pepper's hand, then goes trotting down the steps.
"Hey," he says to Happy, who holds the Rolls door with a confused expression on his face. Tony strides past him, crosses the street, and disappears into over into the park.
That's the last time Tony wears a suit. He'd sent Pepper to look for the shipping manifestos and the ghost drive, but Obadiah didn't put them on the network. They were separate. Well-protected. Pepper found nothing, and the injunction -- well.
...
Strictly speaking, it wasn't the last time he wears something with lapels and matching trousers and a tie. It was, however, the last time that he wore a suit like what he used to wear. Hand-stitched. Made to measure. Super-premium ultra-virgin wool, lined with Italian silk. The next time Tony is in a jacket with lapels and matching trousers and a tie, it's Jim's dad's funeral out in Oregon. Tony is the last guy he expects to see there, and Jim will admit to getting a little choked up when he sees Tony standing there in the room. Jim's dad was one of six kids, though -- Depression era family -- and it's also his dad's funeral, so Jim is, understandably, a little distracted.
"Hey," Tony says, right in Jim's ear. Jim will admit to jumping a little. It's strange to think about someone so much, then suddenly see him. Then, suddenly hear him.
"Hey," Jim says. He'd turn around, but Tony is standing so close to him that their shoulders would bump if he did. And it's a tightly packed roo, but after a moment of thought, Jim decides, fuck it, he's going turn around anyway. "I didn't expect to see you here."
Tony wears tinted sunglasses, which, given that they're standing inside Aunt May's house in October, is completely ridiculous. And Tony had only met Rhodey's dad once, during the course of a weekend when they came to visit him down in LA. Tony invited himself and spent the entirety of Sunday afternoon playing chess with Rhodey's dad, cheating right back as hard as the old man had. And, at one point, Tony figured out how to make the chess pieces seem to move themselves over the board. Rhodey's father loved it.
"Yeah, well, I kind of had to," Tony says. "He was a good man, your dad. I'd travel halfway around the world to go to his funeral."
Jim nods. He feels a little choked up and surprised, too, that Tony would remember. He struggles for words, and then Tony grins.
"Your funeral, on the other hand -- "
Rhodey stares. Tony's grin gets even broader, and Rhodey can't remember, afterwards, whether Tony actually clapped him on the shoulder, or if that was somebody bumping into him. It wasn't a big house, and his dad had, on top of having a big family, been a popular man in the community.
"Excuse me, Jim. I'm going to go tell your Aunt May that she makes astounding egg salad and suggest what a beautifully-preserved eighty-four year old woman she is."
...
As for the other suit, Tony still carries the helmet and the hand-repulsors, but the rest is locked away in about a ton of concrete that makes up the new west patio in the Malibu house. It's not exactly portable in the back of a truck, and what is he going to use it for? Flying around the country, blowing up factories that he used to own?
...
Pepper gets a call from outside Portland -- Tony decides that it would be really funny to make her figure out which city he's in by giving hints like, Over seven thousand plants, representing five hundred and fifty cultivars, are planted in a public park in this city or Hugh O'Bryant was the city's first mayor, so the conversation runs longer than Tony usually likes it to, but it sounds like he's in a good mood, relatively speaking.
"I dropped by Rhodey's dad's funeral," he informs her, after she figures out that he's in the City of Roses.
"How did you find out? I didn't know until yesterday." Pepper pauses, bites her lip. "Did you talk to Rhodey?"
"Yeah, a little bit."
There's an edge in Tony's voice that Pepper doesn't know whether she likes, and she tries to think of what to say to him about about, but can't, and eventually, Tony makes a impatient sound. It's coupled with a scraping noise, and she doesn't want to think of what kind of park property he's destroying.
"You can talk to Rhodey if you want, Pepper. That's fine with me. I don't care."
"He left me a voice message. He does that, you know. Once in a while." Pepper doesn't pick the phone up, and Rhodey, at this point, has gotten used to it. "I just listen to them."
There's another scraping noise from Tony's end, but it's a little deeper and goes on for longer. Pepper closes her eyes and tells herself the foundation is going to make a generous donation to the city of Portland's Parks and Recreation Department. A very generous donation, and after a little more silence, Tony tells her that he's fine for money right now. He'll check back in later. Don't worry if she doesn't hear from him for a while.
Pepper doesn't get a voice mail from Rhodey for a long time after that, either. She sees a picture every once in a while because from the bad old days, they're on similar sets of public relations Rolodexes. Pepper is slowly building a new one -- strange how twenty billion dollars does the trick, but Rhodey in front of a podium and introducing a new Stark Industries project. Rhodey taking a photograph, standing behind Obadiah shaking hands with a four-star general. Saving the lives of American men and women. Protecting our soldiers. When he does leave a voicemail message, Pepper pretends that she listens to it for information purposes, to know the enemy, and not because she can read how much he distrusts Obadiah, how much he hates having to do it.
It shows in every line of his body.
...
Schulenberg, Texas: not as easy to catch a ride on a freight train these days as you might expect.
Humboldt, Nebraska: easier if you talk to the engineer beforehand and tell him how to fix a thunking noise that you know he's been hearing whenever the old engine gets up to twenty, twenty-five miles an hour, but disappears once she goes over forty.
...
Tony gets off the train and follows the largest road he can find into a town that actually has a couple of traffic lights and a couple of buildings in the center. He sits down at a greasy spoon, and the waitress brings him a cup of coffee.
"What state is this?" he asks, taking a sip.
"Ohio." The waitress lifts her eyebrows at him.
"Ohio." Tony grins and salutes her with his coffee cup.
...
Pepper remembers preparing to testify more than she remembers actually testifying. The law firm had, in fact, a mocked-up version of the actual courtroom where the hearing would take place. There was even a stand where an actor played the judge and more actors to fill in the other side. Like a movie set. The whole place swarmed with people. It was that kind of litigation, and Pepper was surprised, in fact, when the courtroom wardrobe stylist showed up and started talking to Tony about what he should wear and shouldn't wear, and Tony actually seemed to be paying attention. Listening. The woman actually guides him out of the room, gesturing with Tony bowing his head low to pay attention. They're going to try on outfits in front of a camera to test how various shirts play, apparently.
"I had Sue come in just now for a reason, Pepper. I don't want you looking over at Tony when you testify," the lawyer right in front of Pepper says, after touching Pepper's arm to get her attention.
He's a fatherly-looking guy with white hair and a kind face, blue eyes, a reassuring manner. Pepper has a hard time believing that he has the reputation that he does, but Tony's regular lawyers swear he's the best white-collar defense attorney in America. Most aggressive. Most experienced. Legend in his own time. Like Johnny Cochran, but for guys even richer than -- the joke broke off there. They'd temporarily forgotten that even if Tony wasn't there, Pepper was.
"The judge might think you're looking for his approval, that you're lying to cover for him."
...
In all the phone calls Tony makes to Pepper, neither of them ever, ever mentions Obadiah's name.
...
The first time Tony calls Pepper from a Greyhound, she freaks out. Seeing the strange number, the area code she's never seen before, doesn't disturb her; she's used to that. It's a sure sign of Tony. He doesn't keep the same cell phone for more than a few weeks; he knows the kinds of chips that go into regular phones, he told her once when she was asking why he wouldn't keep one that she could call. So different area code. Every few weeks, and what surprises her first is the clarity of his voice. Tony calls from cell phones in remote places. Static and crackle distort his voice. Pepper hears the voice she remembers, and it startles her.
And then, there's the second suprise: Tony? Tony Stark? Riding Greyhound? Is he in trouble? Does he need more money? Tell her where he is, and she can probably find a courier service to get him money within hours. She still has her old contacts, and she remembers the time that they had to courier a three ton power plant turbine three hundred and twelve miles on two hours notice. Also, Pepper doesn't actually say the words, nor does she think them, but they're right there in the way her heart starts thudding inside her the 50% cotton, 50% cashmere suit shell: I could fly out right now and drive the money to you, if you want.
Tony Stark drives everywhere thirty miles over the speed limit.
"No," he says. He's actually calling at a stop along the way. It's noisy in the background, and Tony has to repeat things a couple times. Pepper doesn't know why he's not calling her from his cell phone. "The truck broke down," Tony says, and he sounds exhausted. "I couldn't fix it. I'll be fine. Talk to you later."
...
The only hotel within walking distance of the Greyhound station is something that might have been a Motel 6 in a better day and time. Tony checks into a $45 room, locks the door, draws the curtains as tight as he can get them, and turns on the television, which has been bolted to the dresser. He isn't hungry.
Tony lies down on the bed, turns to face the wall and stays in that position until he falls asleep.
...
As said before, Pepper remembers preparing to testify more than actually testifying. She has clear recollection of working through what she was planning to say with their lead attorney, and she remembers the practice cross-examinations and re-directs that they did. "I'm used to this kind of thing," Pepper said. She did deal with the media a lot. Her job title was personal assistant, but with the way that Tony was, it meant she was his corporate secretary and personal public relations liaison, too.
The attorney -- dark green cufflinks shot through with blue specks today -- shook his head. "Not like this. After what Tony himself says, you and Jim are going to be the most important people."
His voice didn't even hint at it, but Pepper remembers thinking: what is Jim going to say on the stand? He's going to tell the truth, isn't he? And what is Tony going to say? Is he going to get angry? They're relying on me and the psychologist they hired. Pepper remembers getting out of the witness box on the actual day she testified; four hours, then lunch. Then, another four. She'd given up trying to figure out who was direct and was cross, and the room swam from her tiredness. She remembers trying to see Tony's face through the blur.
At any point following Mr. Stark's return from Afghanistan, did you accompany him to the hospital?
What about a therapist?
...
They're in the lawyer's office afterwards. Tony's regular lawyers, not the special white-collar defense guy that they'd been working with. Pepper doesn't know what that guy is up to, but Tony's regular lawyer looks like he's going to have a nervous breakdown. Tony should probably have given him a little more advance notice, and Pepper is pretty sure that if she weren't so shocked, she'd be having a nervous breakdown, too.
"What kinds of things do you want me to fund? It's an enormous amount of money, Tony."
Somebody drew the blinds, so the office is dark, and Tony is sitting in the other chair. He's playing with a paperweight that he took off the lawyer's desk. It's a big brass coin with a seashell etched on it. Tony looks up from it at Pepper, and for a moment, his eyes are suddenly the only thing she can see.
And then Tony looks away and shrugs. He turns the coin over in his palm and can't meet her eyes again.
...
Pepper knew that he was going to take off after signing the divestment and power of attorney documents; she just hadn't been expecting him to walk out like that. He'd done it before, though. Obadiah had told her -- and Rhodey confirmed, or Pepper might not have believed it after the hearing -- that Tony had done something similar for two years after his parents died.
Different kind of dying. Same kind of reaction.
...
Elida, New Mexico: the transmission on a Buick.
Wilcox, Arizona: a sprinkler system for a lawn.
...
It isn't all gloom and pain, though. It's Tony. He finds consolations: he jokes about being so lonely that he's going to get a dog, but one afternoon, Pepper calls his latest cell phone number, and a woman picks up. She sounds young. Pretty. The phone is good enough so that Pepper can hear Tony rambling in the background, so she asks to be put through to him, and there's a rustle, a creaking noise, and Tony comes on the line.
"Hey, Pepper," he says. He sounds happy; Pepper didn't tell the girl her name, but she's the only person who ever calls him, so there's no reason why he'd think it was anybody else.
They talk a little while about various things. Pepper tells him about some of the projects the foundation is working on, like land reclamation in Haiti and a possible partnership with the Gates Foundation . She also makes sure the kinds of investments they're putting the proceeds from the divested stock proceeds are OK with Tony, and they are. He doesn't care as long as they don't go back into anything making weapons for the military. Tobacco. Cigarettes. He suggests these as other things that might generate a similar yield as investing in the Walmart of Death. Tony makes the joke; Pepper isn't sure what he's referring to, but Tony is, in fact, happy enough to ask her about what she's done to various pieces of personal property. Dummy and Butterfingers are with her at the Foundation offices; Sotheby's auctioned some of the cars and furniture and most of the art, but she's kept the Roadster and the Indian and his Audi and the Jasper Johns from the shop. They haven't found a way to transfer Jarvis, what with significant portaions of his hardware being built into the walls and nobody around who can quite figure it out, but she visits Jarvis at the Malibu house once a week to keep him company.
"We could set it up for you could call and check in with him," Pepper says. "I think he misses you."
She's half-joking, and Tony says something that is three-quarters of a joke, but Pepper understands. He sounds happy now, but he's not that happy, and at that point, the girl says something in the background that Pepper can't quite catch, and Tony turns away from the phone. Pepper can't hear what he says back to her, either.
He comes back to the phone; they talk a little more about old times and new logistics. The girl giggles in the backgrouns, and Pepper frowns.
"What state are you in?"
Tony turns his head away from the phone, but this time, Pepper catches what he says. "What state are we in, honey?"
Laughter. The creaking of springs.
...
Pepper is pretty sure that she's being ungrateful whenever she gets angry at having all this dumped on her, at Tony walking away from everything and leaving it with her: she never asked for this much responsibility, but at the same time, it's sixteen billion dollars -- ten billion actually liquidated at the depressed price resulting from Tony dumping a 43% stake in a Fortune 100 company onto the market within a week -- plus another hundred million or so in personal assets to spend on whatever she thinks is worth it. Charitable. Not charitable. Pepper choose charitable, of course, and they have offices in Century City. Sometimes, she even has good conversations. Tony calls her from the road and tells her stories about what he's seen, places he's gone. Funny people he's met. The time that Tony called when he was watching the sun come up over the Grand Canyon. All the places he'd gone, all the private islands and yachts and luxury retreats, and he'd never been to the Grand Canyon.
It was six AM on the West Coast and Arizona, but Pepper was in New York to talk to UNICEF, and she held the phone against her ear. Tony hadn't even intended to watch the sun rise. It just got bright, and he woke up, and he was talking to her about the way the light looked on geological strata -- she didn't even know he could tell mountains from hills, and Pepper took the call while on the forty-fifth floor of a glass building. It made her smile for days afterwards.
Tony is mostly self-sufficient, but whenever he asks and whenever he calls, she asks whether she should, Pepper takes $300 or $500 or $1000 from the Foundation petty cash, loads it onto a Visa check card, and sends it via Fedex to the address Tony gives her. Consultant fees. No questions asked.
...
Tony stays in Leoti in the west of Kansas for almost two and a half months. He unpacks. He lives with her, explains a little about the light in his chest, and he fixes everything in the trailer park that can be fixed. He talks about getting a job being a mechanic or something; they're planning a move into an apartment complex soon, and Tony is talking to the people in California to get them to send him a check for the deposit and first month's rent.
One afternoon, while he's working on his truck she comes up to Tony and puts her arms around him. Leans her head against his shoulder and laces her fingers over the arc reactor in front.
That night, while she's sleeping, Tony puts everything back into his duffle bag and walks out the door.
...
Three years into Tony's absence, Pepper gets a phone call in the middle of the night. It was a long day; she's only into her second hour of sleep, but somewhere, from an alternate universe, maybe, Pepper gets the physical energy to worry. Her chest tightens; her stomach clenches, and Pepper knows her heart rate shoots up into regions where it doesn't go even when she's working out. Pepper's relief doesn't go away even when it turns out not to be Tony on the phone. It could be someone else, finding him injured or dead or unconscious by the side of the road, calling the only number that Tony keeps on his phone, but it's none of that. A girl. Young. Crying. Through sobs, the girl explains: she's a runaway. She met this guy in the parking lot. What did he look like? You know. A guy. He was old.
He bought her a plate of fries and a coke, then said, "Look, kid, I can't help you. But here's my phone -- keep it. Dial the only number on there. She'll help you, OK?"
Pepper asks the girl where she is.
"Mendota? Is that in Arizona?"
And Pepper's heart lurches: Mendota is near Fresno. Fresno is in the Central Valley. Tony had only been three and a half hours away.
"Is he still around?"
The girl starts to cry again, and after making sure the girl isn't in any kind of immediate danger or pain, Pepper sends Happy out to get the girl and is there, on the steps, when Happy brings the town car back around. A fourteen year old girl, seven months pregnant, hesitantly climbs out the back because she doesn't realize Happy will come and hold the door for her.
...
" -- don't even know what you look like these days."
"Miss Potts, did you just ask me what I'm wearing?"
...
What is Pepper supposed to do with a fourteen year old girl who runs away because she was being sexually abused by her foster father? The girl is pretty sure that the baby is the twenty-one year old boyfriend's. Pretty sure.
....
Pepper is pretty sure that Rhodey keeps calling and leaving voicemails because there's nobody else he can talk to about it. She stops mentioning them to Tony because it only gets him angry, but she doesn't stop listening.
" -- don't trust him. I don't. That's a fact, Pepper. They're going to move me out to DC soon, I think, Pepper. I've been trying to get it into the thick head of this new kid I'm training to take my job, but he doesn't get it. I keep telling him. He cannot trust that son of a bitch."
...
Tony left the truck behind in Rails, Texas and had to take the Greyhound out of Lubbock; for a while, he's in a 1976 El Dorado, which is good for a lot of laughs and blowing past teenagers at intersections faster than they can stop laughing. For a while after that, he rides on things like the BNSF CW44-9 4656 eastbound out of Kingman or the CSX ES44AC 713 and 852 westbound from Boulder. Tony eventually stays in a place long enough to put together another car out of parts from the junk yard. He sells the El Dorado, and what he ends up driving is Truck 2.0 into the gravel lot in front of the all-night gas station west of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Half-past four AM or so.
He goes inside to buy some coffee and to use the restroom, and when he comes out, Obadiah is standing there.
The dust from the helicopter blades hasn't even settled.
...
"Tony, I don't even know what you look like these days.
...
Four AM in June is close enough to dawn for the sky to shade towards blue around the edges, but in the sky is still black in the midd , and there is no lighting in the parking lot. It's just a gravel lot off a four lane highway through dry hills. All the light comes from the storefront and the inside of the convenience store; as usual, Tony has two layers of shirts to hide the glow from the arc reactor, and it's just possible to see the outline of Obadiah's gray suit. The dust from the helicopter blades settles over both of their shoes.
"Hey, Tony," Obadiah says.
"Fuck you." Tony looks over Obadiah's shoulders at the position and navigation lights on the helicopter, set down on the road. It's probably a MD-600 with the NOTAR tail boom. And this time of the night, there isn't anything coming from either direction even though this is supposed to be an Interestate. "What are you doing here?"
"You're skinnier than you used to be."
There's a glitter of something near Obadiah's hand, and Tony thinks it might be a gun. Another half-second, and it turns out to be a cufflink with some kind of flat, polished surface.
"The exercise date on the last set of non-transferable options is this week. You going to come back after Pepper sells them?"
Tony lifts his chin and squares his shoulders. It's a little cool out in the night, and he hears the headset on the pilot in the helicopter crackle. Inside, the store clerk has to be wondering what the fuck is going on, and Tony's idea of provisions.
"How'd you know where to find me?"
...
"Tony, what state are you in this week?"
...
At some point, Stane replies -- something like, Pepper told me she sent you some money in Salt Lake City last week, and I worked it out from there, and Tony punches him in the mouth. The two bodyguards in the helicopter move, but Stane puts his hand up and stops them halfway out of the helicopter. He wipes his mouth on the back of his suit, then nods at Tony and turns around and goes.
The sky is just light enough for Tony to watch the helicopter disappear over the hills.
...
It was a lie, of course. Obadiah has had Pepper's incoming calls logged two days after Tony left; he knows where the Fedex packages with the check cards are going before the company does. Nevertheless, Tony doesn't call Pepper for weeks after that. Weeks. Longer than he's ever gone before, when he finally does, it's from a new phone. Pepper scrambles for the phone when it flashes what it identifies as a South Dakota area cell phone code.
"Hey," Tony says.
Through the whole conversation, he doesn't say very much. It makes Pepper nervous, and when she's nervous with Tony, she rambles. She tends to repeat herself, like she did at the benefit all those years ago, and after telling him about how the last option exercise went and what the analysts say they should be investing the money in, for the first time in years, she brings Obadiah up. She tells him about the appearance that he made on Larry King Live, where he talked about the new missile system they had clearance to sell to the select US allies, and Pepper asks Tony three times how Obadiah knows that Tony is fine and just taking some time off. Did you call him? He didn't find you, did he? Are you OK, Tony?
Pepper is nervous. Worried. That comes through clearly even though cell phone reception in the area isn't very good, and still, Tony still doesn't say anything. Doesn't answer. He's in the truck, pulled off to the side of the road; there are mountains in front of him and a road that dips down. He keeps the cell phone cradled to his cheek. Pepper keeps talking; Tony's eyes drift closed. His breathing slows until he almost seems asleep, and he stays in the driver's seat and listens and listens to the sound of her voice.
"Tony?" Pepper says, at last. Her voice has a note in it that he hasn't heard in a long time.
And Tony hits the END button.
...
Half an hour passes, and then Tony starts the truck up and drives the rest of the way into Paradise, Utah.
...
That could run your heart for fifty lifetimes.
Yeah. Or something big for fifteen minutes.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-03 12:26 am (UTC)"Tony?" Pepper says, at last. Her voice has a note in it that he hasn't heard in a long time.
I hate you dude, I'm about to cry at work. FUCK.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-03 12:28 am (UTC)Thank you for the proofreading, by the way.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-03 01:05 am (UTC)Wow.
(If I become more articulate, may I join the hivemind?)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-03 03:06 am (UTC)Which is to say. Thanks. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-03 01:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-04 02:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-03 01:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-04 05:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-03 01:37 am (UTC)Uh, you know that I think this is pretty much the most heartbreaking, best thing in the world. I hope you know that. You're kind of the best at this. This writing stuff. This heartbreak stuff. How are you so freaking good at this. I want to make out with your BRAINS. I want to find skinny Tony and HUG HIM SO HARD but he'd just fix my car radio and wave goodbye and I'd be by the side of the road, crying for the whole world.
RHODDDDDDD
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-04 05:26 am (UTC)Though, OK. I have a little more difficulty thinking about skinny Tony seriously now that I read the Esquire article about how RDJ was on creatine to make his body plump and smooth as the body of a man ten years younger? And I just keep thinking about the little smooth apple baby bottom really, you know. Being a baby bottom.
Speaking of this, did you see the speech thingy he did for Warren Beatty? Oh my God.
(no subject)
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Date: 2008-07-03 01:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-04 05:39 am (UTC)I HEAR BY THE WAY THAT YOU AND
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Date: 2008-07-03 04:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-04 03:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-07-03 04:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-04 03:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-03 09:37 am (UTC)But that also means: I'm missing a key betrayal and I don't know what it is.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-04 03:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-03 11:48 am (UTC)As for the other suit, Tony still carries the helmet and the hand-repulsors, but the rest is locked away in about a ton of concrete that makes up the new west patio in the Malibu house. It's not exactly portable in the back of a truck, and what is he going to use it for? Flying around the country, blowing up factories that he used to own?
which made me totally giggle and feel sort of bereft at the same time. Because I can picture an alternate to this where he does just that. And goes even more on the run.
but somehow, him *not* doing it is so much more poignant.
This might be my favorite of all your stuff.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-04 06:25 pm (UTC). . . omg, why, yes, there is.
(no subject)
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From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-03 06:49 pm (UTC)This whole bit makes my chest hurt in a good kind of way (and also a sad kind of way, but that's good, too):
It just got bright, and he woke up, and he was talking to her about the way the light looked on geological strata -- she didn't even know he could tell mountains from hills, and Pepper took the call while on the forty-fifth floor of a glass building. It made her smile for days afterwards.
And the bit with Obie. Jesus. I could see the whole thing playing out in my head like an alternate scene in the movie or something, you know, blacks and orange fading to yellow-gold with the sunrise and a long slow shot of the dust being kicked up by the thrup thrup of the helicopter blades- I don't know, I'm not making sense, but you get what I mean.
I just. Man. There are those fics you read once, and there are those fics you go back to again and again, and I think this is the second type. Thank you, honeybear.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-05 03:10 am (UTC)And yeah. I kinda want fic inside Obadiah's head during this period. His double-dealing, the new contracts, his relationship or lack thereof with Rhodey. The way he monitors Pepper to make sure she's not going to cause trouble. The morning report on Tony and the strange pleasure he gets from the weekly report he gets on where Tony is.
"We could fit him with a GPS relay."
And Obadiah thinks about it, then opens the report to look at a photo of Tony at a diner, cflirting with the waitress.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-04 12:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-05 03:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-04 12:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-05 03:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-05 07:15 am (UTC)Oh, except for the bit with the Grand Canyon. That was more of a sad smiley. OH GOD why is everything about this story so achingly sad? Even the little snippets of happy moments and good deeds done made me even more sad because it was TONY and I knew it was either a mere distraction from his awesome manpain, or a moment that would only be followed by MORE MANPAIN.
Hence, I loved it. And despaired.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-05 04:55 pm (UTC):D Glad you liked it. And awww, Tony. Finally finding room in his life for the things that everybody else loves, y'know?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-11 01:37 pm (UTC)HEY I AM LATE AT RESPONDING TO COMMENTS>
Date: 2008-08-10 12:50 am (UTC)Anyways, glad you liked this.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 02:44 pm (UTC)I have no words. It was so intensely heartbreaking and am I the only person who just wanted him to go home?
Beautiful.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-10 12:41 am (UTC)Alas! Not to be. :D
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Date: 2008-08-17 04:48 pm (UTC)*misery*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-27 05:40 am (UTC)Different kind of dying. Same kind of reaction.
and then the ending had my heart in pieces. You always make Obie so damn creepy that I get goosebumps. Fucking Obie and him blurring the trust Tony had in Pepper.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-22 12:11 am (UTC)