Driven Mad (Book 1 in the MAD Series)(An Avengers Fan Fiction)

EPILOGUE: Tony Stark

Eight months had passed without a single need for the Avengers arising. Eight months of peace had gone by, not a single threat arising, not a single cry for help. They were the most peaceful eight months of Tony Stark’s life. Most of the Avengers had gone back to doing whatever they’d done before, but there were still a few that had remained at Stark Tower, or at least they lived there most of the time.

The X-Men had returned to their school. The Heroes for Hire went back to being mercenaries. The Fantastic Four had gone back to the BaxterBuilding. Rhodey had gone back to being just the Iron Patriot, though he still dropped by every few weeks. Thor, Jane, Loki, and Amora still lived most of the time in Asgard, though they still came back for a week each month, just because they’d all grown so fond of the other Avengers. Steve and Darcy had gotten married a couple of months after he proposed to her. Jan and Hank too. Bruce and Betty had left to the British Columbia so that Bruce could train Betty to control the beast within. Clint and Natasha had quit their jobs at S.H.I.E.L.D to be full-time Avengers and they were living in the tower, and Tony knew that Clint was going to propose soon. Ororo hadn’t given birth quite yet but she was ready to pop. The Avengers had gone on living life, and Tony, now a married man, was glad that they’d all managed to move past the torture they’d endured.

What seemed to be the best part was the fact that Tony had gained so many new friends. He kept in touch with all of them, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, even Coulson’s team! He’d not had so many people in his life that he cared about before, and he loved having it that way. Everything seemed to fall into place after he and Pepper’s wedding. Everything had just been… Perfect. His life, though he still lived with his battle scars, had been perfect. And he got to spend it all with Pepper. Pepper Stark.

Pepper Stark. That was the most gorgeous name that Tony had ever heard.

Pepper had been amazing. After their honeymoon in Venice, their relationship hadn’t changed, which was good. They were still madly in love with each other, the passion not changing. They were still living happily ever after, which had been the best thing in the world to him. He was really settling down and he was excited to spend the rest of his life with her. He wanted to grow old with her. And he was grateful to have such and amazing woman to spend his life with.

The only thing that wasn’t perfect about their life was the fact that Pepper was still infected with the Extremis virus. They hadn’t been able to find a way to get it out of her for good. It would all just lead to the same thing, the same solution. The Mandarin would still be able to reactivate it if he ever escaped. They wanted it out of her for good, not just neutralized.

But they had a solution for that.

Bruce and Tony had been working on a fix for it for the past several months. They’d been swapping information and talking over video-chat, but they’d not come up with a solution until then. Finally, after eight months of research and experiments, the science bros had managed to finish the antidote, the thing that would finally rid Pepper Stark of Extremis forever. She’d no longer have to worry about hurting someone because of her lack of training with the deadly force. She no longer had to be afraid of herself, and that was all that Tony could ask for.

Of course, there were still some small flaws with Tony’s plan. It was an incredibly slow, painful process, and Bruce and Tony had figured that it would take days for it to complete. Tony hated that it had to take so long and she had to be in that much agony for that long, but Pepper had agreed to do whatever it took. So Tony was going to start up this process as soon as possible.

Tony and Bruce had originally planned to wait until he and Betty came back to New York, but they wouldn’t be flying in for another three days and Tony didn’t want to wait any longer. Neither did Pepper. She wanted Extremis out of her system more than anybody. At first she’d tried to use it as a power for good, but it didn’t always quite work the way she wanted it to. She’d caught a couple of rooms in StarkTower on fire by accident. So Tony had managed to use a neutralizer until they got a permanent solution, just to keep her cool.