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Pepper had sat by Tony in the hospital too many times, but she'd never had to say good-bye before. Normally, Tony never made it to the hospital before the crisis was over, one way or the other. Logically, she knew that there's a first time for everything. She just wished it wasn't going to be the last time too.
He'd been hooked up to tubes and wires and monitors since the moment he'd been checked in, making it almost impossible to separate him from the machines keeping him alive. Usually technology would bring Tony alive, even after multiple surgeries and a near-death experience, but there wass no doubt that he was dead, or close enough to it that it didn't make a difference. The only things keeping him going were the machines, and even those wouldn't last long. Extremis made sure of that.
A cough from the door made Pepper look up, and instantly see red. How dare he? How dare he?
Steve Rogers, freshly back from the dead, hovered in the doorway of Tony's private room. He was still dressed in his uniform, probably just back from giving another speech on how good it was to be alive and how evil Registration had been. At least he'd taken off his mask. Pepper didn't think she could have kept her temper if he'd come as Captain America in all his patriot Back From The Dead glory.
"I didn't think you'd be here." His eyes stayed fixed on Tony, horror widening them. It made her feel good—she wanted him to get a good eyeful of what he'd done.
"Where else would I be?" Pepper's hands started to tremble in anger, so she wrapped them around one of Tony's. She could almost imagine his fingers curling around hers. But that would never happen again. "What do you want? Come to see your handiwork?"
He started, and something rustled behind his back. "I never—"
"You did." Her voice rose; she didn't need to keep her voice low. It wasn't not like a little yelling would wake Tony up. "If you're not here to gloat, then what is it?"
"I— I just wanted..." He looked lost, like he didn't understand why she was upset. "Why is he on a ventilator?"
A stone lodged in Pepper's throat. "It turns out that the brain controls little things like breathing. Who would have thought?" She couldn't even stand to look at him for more than a few moments at a time. If she wasn't careful, she knew she'd try to hit him, and the press would never let it go. Former Stark Secretary Attacks Captain America. The headlines might have been worth it, but not just then. "The heart should be next. Then it'll be over."
Comprehension dawned in his eyes, and Pepper couldn't help but feel a little smug. If he'd bothered to visit at all before then, he would have known. But no, Captain America had better things to do than to visit a dying friend. "I didn't know."
"You should have. This is your fault."
"I wasn't even—"
"Don't you dare! Don't—" Manicured nails left little pale crescents in Tony's hand. He didn't even twitch. "It is! If you had just listened or not flown off the handle or taken any one of a thousand chances he gave you, he wouldn't be here right now!" He stood there, all injured innocence and confusion and Pepper couldn't stop shaking. All the hell she'd been through, Tony had been through, and the other half of the coin was going to walk away smelling of roses. "You claimed to be his friend, but the second something starts going wrong, you vanish into a puff of smoke! You all do it—you leave him to shoulder the world while you sit up on your moral high horses and tsk when he can't do it well enough to suit you. And now he's killed himself to protect you, and you're going to say it's not your fault?" She glared at him, and he actually flinched back a step.
"It wasn't like that." Pale yellow petals floated to the ground behind his back. Yellow roses for friendship. Pepper would have laughed at the irony, if she didn't think it would turn hysterical. "You don't know what he did."
"I know that he was obeying the law— the will of the American people."
"The law was wrong—"
"Then you damn well should have fought it the right way!" She knew she had to calm down. Flying off the handle wasn't going to do Tony any good, and Steve Rogers had shown how well he handled being opposed. But yelling felt so good, after keeping it in and being strong for so long...
"He was making a grab for power! It was Extremis!" Steve had the classic expression Captain America was known for—firm jawed and stubborn gaze. There was no doubt that he was being honest.
Disgust made her look away. "If you believe that, then you were never really his friend." The silence from the doorway was telling, and it broke her heart for Tony's sake. "You have what you wanted. Registration is out, and Captain America is the darling of the world again. I hope you choke on your victory." Pepper's eyes traced the tubes running down Tony's throat. If she were braver, she would have let him go, but she selfishly wanted even these last few hours. "He's choking on his."
Something crunched, and when she looked up there was no sign of Steve Rogers except the crushed flowers resting on one of the tables. Pepper sighed and dismissed him from her mind. The heart monitor's beeping had started to get erratic. It was a faint difference—it would take someone who had been listening to it for days to notice. Someone like her.
Just a few hours.
By the time Steve pulled himself together, it would be over. She'd deal with the fall-out then. Tony's last moments weren't going to be witnessed by the man who killed him.