Pepper Potts's Secret Journal

Here is a bit of her journal. Writen by some fans on a site:

Voice Mail
Hi, you've reached Pepper Potts. If this is Tony, I'll call you back when I have time. Stop spamming my inbox. If it's anyone else, I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

*beep*

Waking up had been a lot harder than she thought. It was made even worse by the fact that she wasn't even in her own bed, but instead was laying on the floor of her kitchen and instead of waking up on her own, it was the door slamming shut that disturbed her sleep.

Groaning, Pepper managed to lift herself off the floor, and immediately put her hand on the island in an attempt to steady herself. She could hear Rachel muttering away, coffees in one hand, a type of newspaper in the other. Without asking, Pepper grabbed one of the coffees -- snatched was a more appropriate description -- and proceeded to try to drink the cobwebs in her head away.

Rachel was just going on about something, but try as she could, Pepper did not understand a word of it.

"Okay, I have serious doubts that you are speaking English right now," she managed to say. "Repeat what you said again."

Instead, Rachel threw the paper down and Pepper looked down. Page 7. The gossip section. New York Tattler. Oh Lord. Quickly scanning the article, she groaned again. Tony was going to have a field day when he saw this.

"Well, at least we look cute in that picture. We haven't had a recent picture in months. Too bad its black and white. I really like the colour of that dress." It was far too early for pessimism.

She'd been in California for a few months and even though she knew it was unhealthy, she'd tried very hard to repress all feelings of grief and sadness. After the funeral, with Tony and Rachel by her side, she'd cried harder than she'd ever cried in her life and she'd promised herself she'd never break down that way again. Pepper Potts did not break down. Ever. Death was an unfortunate part of life and that was that.

Naturally, both Tony and Rachel were concerned for her. She refused all counselling, all grief support, anything that would remind her of death and, when Tony offered her the position with the Order, she'd jumped for it. Instantly, she put her home on the market and even though Rachel was convinced she'd regret it, Pepper never gave it a second thought. She packed up their house, shipped it off to storage, told Rachel to take whatever offer that came, and headed to California with only her purse, a change of clothes and her wedding ring. She wasn't callous enough to get rid of that.

The west coast was so much different than the east coast, and Pepper found herself so busy with work, the new environment, and basically starting a new life that she didn't have any time to really think about her personal life, or even have one for that matter. Her days were filled with missions, briefings, research and the odd nap or two.

After about four months, the entire team had taken off for whatever reason, and had left her behind. Suddenly, the Demeter seemed so large and stifling that she'd had to get out. Hopping into her car, she just drove until she reached a town she'd never been in before, randomly decided to get a hotel room and walked into the nearest bar. Three shots of Tequila, two beers and a random drink later, Pepper had long ago stopped feeling like herself and had reverted into what Rachel had always called “Peppy”.

Back in college, Pepper had had no problem doing whatever it took to make herself feel good, random guys included, and with how she was feeling, she went back to that. She took her pick of the crowd, young college boys weren't picky, and brought him back to the hotel.

It'd started out fine. She'd forgotten what a hard body and mischievous hands could do to a person and it wasn't too long before she found herself naked in some nameless man's embrace. It probably could've ended fine, she reflected afterwards, if she hadn't been so drunk; though to be fair, it wouldn't have happened at all if she'd been sober.

And the kid was good, she had to give him that. But unfortunately too good and as she reached her climax, she couldn't help but blurt out, “Oh, god... Happy...”. The kid, to his benefit, didn't blink an eye, but Pepper couldn't help herself: she'd pushed herself away from him, and grabbed a sheet to wrap herself.

“Go,” she said to him, looking away. He began to protest, and in all fairness she didn't blame him, but when she raised her face back to him, streaked with tears, he'd quickly put his clothes back on and left.

When she heard the door closed, her carefully constructed wall came shattering down. Rolling herself up into a ball, she clutched her sheets tightly and just cried and cried and cried until she thought she would just die from the pain inside. Somehow, she managed to cry herself to sleep and in the morning, she carefully washed her face, packed up her things and drove back to the Demeter, crying on and off during the drive. Later on, when Henry and Kate asked her what she'd done while they were gone, she'd smiled, said something about a museum she wanted to check out and left it at that.

She never told anyone.

What a weekend . Pepper had had every intention of spending some quality time in her comfy bed, which she'd hardly seen of late, and it was so true: a plan is just a list of things that never happened. First Tony had invited her to join him and Steve to the baseball game, and even though she hated baseball, she had to admit that she'd missed Tony so she'd gone. Her mother then called her, reminding her that it'd been at least three weeks since she'd moved back to the East Coast and how was it that she STILL hadn't called her own mother?

It didn't help that Rachel was coming in from Gotham, and Pepper had been determined to finally spend some quality time with her best friend, but looks like things didn't work that way. She'd received no less than 20 texts messages from a bored Rachel wondering when she'd be back and it had gotten to the point where her mother had just raised her arms in defeat.

"Oh for goodness sake, Virginia, just go. You obviously don't love your own mother enough to turn your phone off. Tell Rachel she needs to learn some patience."

Her mother loved Rachel. Grinning, she gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek and quickly got into her own car. Dialing the familiar numbers, she waited for Rachel to answer.

“That bastard would come back right after I’ve decided what I want of his, wouldn’t he, Rhodes,” she teased into the phone, wiping away the tears from her face.

“That he would, Ms. Potts, that he would.”

Since she’d received Rhodes’ first phone call (and the subsequent ones notifying her that they still had no idea where Tony was), she’d managed to somehow keep it together and continue helping Obidiah run Stark Industries. After all, Tony’d be coming back any day now, and wouldn’t he be so annoyed (or maybe proud of her) that the minute he wasn’t around she let the place fall?

For two months and twenty-nine days, she’d kept up her façade. At press conferences, she responded quite nicely (if a bit rudely) that of course Mr. Stark is alive, the best in the world is looking for him, and no, Stark Industries is not failing without Mr. Stark’s wonderful leadership, thank you very much. When she attended fundraisers, she always made sure that she referred to him in the present tense and, since she believed so fervently, she knew she was instrumental in keeping the people’s optimism high. And when she received job offers, of which there were plenty, she sent back a polite email thanking them for their consideration but no, she wasn’t looking for another job.

On that one day, or more specifically night, where she’d finally lost faith, it was all because of Obidiah. He’d come into her office, as she was finishing a proposal and sat himself down, without so much as a how-do-you-do and proceeded to shatter her heart.

“You know, you should just give it up.”

Without looking up, Pepper continued typing. “Give what up, sir?”

“This foolishness that Stark’s alive. He’s dead Pepper. And I’m planning on having a press conference tomorrow saying we’re going for an exception to that whole, ‘a missing person has to be missing for over six months before they’re legally dead’ clause. And you’re going to be the one to say it.”

Pepper froze. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. No one else could do it quite like you, Pep. You’ll do Tony justice. I think you’re the only one that liked him for himself. Except for me, of course,” he quickly added.

That should’ve been her cue, and later on she would think back to that conversation and just shake her head. Instead, she had been in so much shock, she said nothing and watched him get up and leave her office.

Maybe it was the finality in how he said it, or just the rudeness factor, but something finally clicked. Pepper closed the blinds to her office, turned the lights off, and proceeded to cry for the first time since Tony had been declared missing.

If it hadn’t been for Happy, who was in the office late getting some insurance papers, she probably would’ve stayed there all night, but he somehow managed to coax her to the car, and took her to the Malibu mansion. She hadn’t set foot in the house since his disappearance, and seeing the house, untouched for three months, just made her cry harder. To their credit, both Happy and JARVIS left her alone, as she dealt with emotions she’d been concealing for so long.

Somehow she'd managed to fall asleep, and it was the phone ringing at 3:00 in the morning that woke her up. Disoriented, she fumbled for the phone. "Pepper Potts."

"Pepper?" The connection was terrible, and she could hear the wind. "Pepper, it's me, Rhodes. We found him. We got him."

She bolted upright, and turned the night table lamp on. "This better not be a joke."

He laughed. "It's not."

He filled her in, she listened, and immediately after hanging up, she started a list on the things she'd have to tackle in the morning. Arrange an ambulance, change the press conference from one announcing Tony's death to one announcing his return, notify Obidiah. Her head was spinning but she was focused. Tony was back and that's all that mattered.