Chapter Text
The Sun is such a lonely star. Whenever he comes out to see his friends, they all disappear.
- Joseph Gordon Levitt
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The thing is, it’s easier to be in love with Tony than it is to love Tony. Tony’s attention and affection are like a focused sunbeam – it warms you first and then burns you. It is ineffably easy to be in love with him. His smile is blinding, his eyes twinkling, his heart beating beating beating for you… There are surprise gifts that cost an average man’s yearly salary, and surprise vacations to exotic locations you’ve never heard of. There are expensive dresses, and more expensive shoes, and even more expensive jewellery. There are exquisite dinners in luxurious hotels. There are tickle fights, beard burns at interesting places, trying not to get caught in the company’s conference room, hiding hickeys with make-up before walking into a meeting. There are sweet kisses, shower sex, date nights, and drinking champagne, as they dream up of new things to do, new directions to take the company to, new dreams to dream, new empires to create… they are a king and a queen birthing a new future solely with their minds. It’s an adrenaline rush, a giddiness… blood pumping through your veins as you create and create and create.
But to love Tony is not.
It is mundane, monotonous and laborious work. It is repeating “no comment” again and again and again, as Tony does something Tony-ish and the stocks of the company plummet. It is waking up in the morning to realise Tony is in his labs in the company of his suits, rather than with her. It is being stood up date after date, because Tony has no concept of time, and is probably caught up in his latest idea. It is watching the pitying looks of restaurant staff and not letting it affect you. It is ordering dinner alone and eating it with relish. It is having magazine after magazine declaring that they broke up or that Tony was cheating on her. It is ignoring the mollifying looks of her own staff each time there is a photoshopped picture of Tony with his pants around his waist bending over some woman. It is half the board directors thinking she’s the CEO only because she is a great lay. It is half the public thinking she’s sleeping with a super-villain. It is sex tape after sex tape, scandal after scandal, market-scare after market-scare, security breach after security breach… And through it all, coaxing Tony to come out of his lab occasionally, coaxing Tony to eat at least once a day, and sleep at least once in two days. It is coaxing Tony to design technological products that the public wants and not what he wants. It is coaxing Tony to meetings, to galas, to lectures, to court hearings. It is coaxing and cajoling and threatening and arguing, and it is not… fun. There is no rush, nor giddiness. There is just exhaustion, irritation, and a tiredness that clings to her bones. It is tedious and nothing she ever wanted.
Though, it is not just her. Rhodey, Happy, Bruce, they are all pulled into the immense gravity that a personality like Tony exudes. As if Tony is the sun, and they are all caught in his orbit; either unwilling or unable to escape. And so, they keep revolving and revolving in a tedious little circle. Despite all their efforts, it is hard to reign in Tony. It is even unfair to try. After all, it is in the nature of sun to burn – both itself and all those who wind up too close to it. It should be a joke. Pepper has a better relationship with Tony’s best friends than her own.
It should be a joke, but it isn’t.