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Half the world is gone.
Finished. Finito. Dead and smoking.
Where does he start?
He's Tony Stark, dammit. World famous playboy, world famous drunk, world famous Iron Man. He can build anything given enough time and materials, repurposing things on the fly, in a battlesuit, under fire if necessary.
He's Mr Fixit.
So where the hell do you start after something like that?
~ + ~
What do you do on the day after doomsday?
That phrase keeps running through Pepper's head as she walks through the remains of Stark Tower. Something she read as a child, stuck in the back of her head for years, and of course, picking this moment to jump out of her subconscious.
To be fair, it's not a question she ever expected to get answered.
As it turns out, the day after doomsday is wet. There's a slight drizzle, wind blowing in from the north-west and it's cold. She notices these things automatically now ever since Tony invented that damn suit. It's more tempermental than you'd think, and now without the ability and labspace to keep it constantly tuned to perfection, even minor things like wind speed and direction are so important.
Though watching Tony veer off straight into a wall had provided her and Rhodey with their only laugh since it all ended.
She comes to a partially blocked door, and manages to clear most of the debris away before forcing it open, shoving as hard as she can with her body. The room inside seems fairly intact, with damage only to some of the machinery. Quickly, expertly now, she notes down what's left, how badly broken and which would be suitable only as components now.
She misses her old PDA, but she started out using pen, paper and shorthand, so this is nothing.
Tony Stark's going to save the world again, dammit.
He may not know how yet, but she's going to be there kicking and pushing him all the way.
And when he does, when he needs these parts, she'll be there, ready and waiting to provide him which whatever he needs.
It's what a good PA does.
~ + ~
Tony's refusing to let himself think about certain things.
It's his ability to focus in the first place that got him into the whole inventor thing. That losing yourself in one glorious problem, diving into a knotty conundrum and emerging victorious at the end clutching your trophy type thing.
Only way you can do that is by refusing to admit anything else exists.
This, here and now, is all that matters. Fix this, then move on to the next problem.
Half the world population dead, ninety percent of the world infrastructure destroyed? Too big, reprioritize.
Stark Tower destroyed, all lab machinery and Iron Man support tech probably gone? Better, but still unsolvable at the moment. Reprioritize.
Food, shelter, power, looking after Pepper and Rhodey? Ding. We have a winner.
The exo-skeleton in the suit's helped clear most of the large debris away from the western side of Stark Industries. It was the least damaged area (most of Stark Tower fell southeast) and it's more easily defended in the event that anyone else manages to rebuild as fast as them.
So shelter? Tick.
Food? Rhodey's taking care of that.
Power? Gonna have to fall back on the classics for the moment. He's already disassembled the solar converters out of his suit and spread them out as far as he can. The weather's worrying him though. It's overcast today which is not unusual he admits, but if the world's ecosystem has been messed up, fully recharging the suit is gonna be tricky.
He may have to move building the waterwheel generator a few notches up the list.
Not enough information at the moment, reprioritize.
You know, if you take some of that piping from over there, some of the supplies from there, it would only take him ten minutes to build a fully functioning still.
Pepper would kill him.
But still, only ten minutes....
~ + ~
Focus on the mission, Rhodey.
Tony needs food. Tony needs supplies. Tony Stark's gonna pick up all the pieces and build 'em something bright and shiny that'll fix everything.
Tony needs parts. That's why Rhodey's back in the War Machine suit again, this far out from the new Stark Industries base. He's wasting valuable power by the second just standing here.
Focus on the mission.
He can hear a woman's voice screaming. "No! No! Not my daughters, please! Don't!!" It's only two streets away from his current location. Infra-red's picking up three or four men about to do very bad things to the women.
Focus on the mission.
There's an AIM lab hidden directly under his feet. Tony needs those convertors. Add them to the top of the new Stark Tower, and maximise the solar intake, leading to more power and longer, later field trips.
Focus on the mission.
He's a soldier. The mission is all. Smash in, get the AIM tech, get home. He'll be back another time. His commander has given him his orders.
She screams again.
A small smile crosses his face. "Lock and load, suit."
Fuck the mission.
~ + ~
Two months after the end of the world, Starkville is growing by the day.
Rhodey keeps on bringing in people he finds on his foraging runs. Some are surviving Stark Industries employees (and Tony falls on the trained techs with unrestrained glee and relief), and some just came to help out.
She doesn't know who started calling it Starkville but suspects Tony would cheerfully strangle them if he found out. "What do people take me for? A glorified ego-maniac like Doom? The man re-named the capital of Latveria Doomstadt for gods sake!"
No matter how Pepper phrases and re-phrases it, he can't seem to get it through his thick head that they're proud of it. They chose to name their new home in honour to him. They can see the hours he works, the way Tony's throwing himself into every project with 100% abandon.
But then, Tony Stark has always been his own worst enemy. And together, they're going to save him from himself.
She's just a PA, but if there's one thing she can do, it's organising. Slowly, under her direction, Starkville gets built. That building over there will be tech storage, that one with the easy access to the roads will be the gatehouse (better start arranging patrols, etc), over there will be the new farming area (need to ask Tony about better fencing methods), etc.
Tony's building the future. She's just building the present so he can do it.
With her hair swept back in its now customary untidy ponytail, her forever present notepad and pen, she moves around Starkville building a better world one brick at a time.
The world's broken and they're gonna fix it.
Together.
~Fin~