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If Pepper had known at the time that joining the Avengers would have been one of the worst things to happen to Tony after getting his adult life together, she would have advised against it.
Instead she encouraged him to join them, to do his homework and then come back to her. In her defense, she had been under the impression that he would be getting to do more science than actual ‘avenging,’ and she knew that he loved nothing more than to be a total dork about scarcely studied scientific subjects. Another scientist he admired, Bruce Banner, was even working on the case alongside him; she thought that it would be enjoyable for him.
But no. In contrast, he nearly died, grew attached to way too many people who she knew for a fact wouldn’t feel as attached to him, and came back with more trauma than he had ever had before.
The thing about Tony was that he was an all or nothing type of person. He worked too much, played too hard, came on headstrong and cared just as hard as he played. And the Avengers? They would never understand that. They saw Tony as an ally, maybe, or an asset, but that was just it; they saw a mutual partnership where Tony saw friendship.
And Pepper already knew that that would destroy him, if his work and his armors and his company didn’t do that before they did. It wasn’t necessarily the Avengers’ fault, though she also knew that this relationship between him and them would end very poorly. After all, while he was labouring away making new tools and gadgets and costumes for a team he didn’t even know if he would see again, where was that team to check up on him as he crashed and burned?
It was clear that Tony was trying to kid it, Pepper knew that much. But his smiles didn’t meet his eyes, his hands wouldn’t stay still, and he spent more time checking up on the wellbeing and safety of his company than he knew he reasonably had to. He didn’t have that same cocky confidence that he used to have, just a blueprint of the steps and a mask to fake it.
Honestly, Pepper couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him wear sunglasses so often. And if there was one thing that close friends of Tony Stark knew, it was that his sunglasses were rarely just for style or blocking the sun; no, they were for blocking the world from seeing him as well.
Her love for him was undeniable. That didn’t mean that she knew how to stop him from destroying himself. He was going to hit a breaking point and there was nothing she could do about it, no matter how hard she tried.
That breaking point came almost earlier than she expected and later than it should have had to. That meant that it had been worse than she, or Rhodey, or Happy, or any of them had thought.
“Honey, I can’t sleep!” he finally cried out one day, the same day that she had met with Aldrich Killian in her office. He had shown her the inside of his brain; right now, all Pepper wanted was to get inside of Tony’s brain.
They would figure something out, it was what they did. They had a problem, and then they fixed it. Tony was shaking, though— not just his hands, but his whole body this time. She hadn’t forgotten the conversation that they had had in the lab, even if she used their shower to distract him while she tried to think about what she could do to help him.
A young Virginia Potts had gone to school for business, and computer programming, and for every other thing that hadn’t been able to help her in this situation. The closest thing that she had taken in school that could help her was Business Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, and she would admit that that had helped her in her career and her understanding of Tony so far, but now?
Dealing with trauma was not something that Pepper knew how to do.
It wasn’t until after their shower that Tony really broke down, tremors passing through his body. Pepper wondered if they were from sleep deprivation, caffeine, the strange mania that had overtaken him, or something else.
“Tony?” she asked hesitantly.
“I can’t do this anymore!” he exploded. Not at her, just at the world in general. He was gripping his left wrist, the way he did when he was stressed and in pain and seeking comfort that he didn’t know how to get from anywhere else. “I can’t keep— I can’t keep doing this! I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t drink— you know I can’t, I haven’t been.” Pepper was proud of that. He was in one of the worst times of Tony’s life, and he was still abstaining.
In front of her, Tony collapsed, clinging to her. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me!” he cried. “Everything I do is wrong! And every time I close my eyes—”
His shuttering breath shook against her and rocked his whole body. He was clinging to her, his entire weight pulling down on her, but she refused to let him fall.
“Every time I close my eyes, I see New York. And you’re not there. No one is. Just space. Openness. And I’m— I’m not here. Or there. I’m nowhere. None of this— None of it’s real, and I don’t know what’s going on!”
“It’s okay,” she tried to soothe him, her arms wrapped around his head. His face was pressed against her body, making shuddering breaths that warmed and tickled her skin. She wondered if he was trying to take in her scent to soothe himself or not. “I’m here.”
“But I’m not,” he wailed. “Hold me?”
“Of course, Tony. Always.”
Ultimately they ended up on the floor, Pepper gently rocking Tony as he cried. Pepper didn’t see Tony cry often, but when he did it was a loud, snotty, depressing mess. His eyes were bloodshot when he finally looked back up at her.
“Will we be okay?”
“We will,” she decided. She was willing them to be. Sometimes love had to be enough, even if that wasn’t always the case.
“Sleep with me?” He asked. She knew what he was asking for; he wanted comfort as he lay in bed, his exhaustion winning out against his demons and letting himself succumb to sleep. Pepper wouldn’t let him have to go through that alone.
“Come on,” she murmured. “Let’s go to bed. I can’t carry you just yet.”
Together the two of them got up and slid under their warm, comforting covers.
“Thank you,” Tony whispered.
“I love you, Tony Stark,” she told him, softly tucking a stray hair behind his ear and then gently kissing his forehead. “Now get some rest.”