♡The Stark Family Oneshots♡

To Balk Sterility (Pepperony)

An endgame alternate universe with no spoilers. Slight angst warning.

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"What are you saying?"

The young doctor pushed her glasses further up her nose, attempting to conceal the obvious saddened glint in her crystal eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was low and laced with sorrow. "Unfortunately, because Mr. Stark has had multiple sexual relations with many different women, it has affected his reproductive organs significantly." She took in a deep breath before continuing. "Although he's contracted only a minor STD, the damage has already been made."

"Which means . . ."

She looked the couple in the eyes as she spoke the next few sentences, and it became painfully apparent that the delivering news was far from good. "Because the cells are depleting at such a quick rate, the chance of successful fertilization is very low. I'm sorry."

Tony's head instantly fell into his hands and sighed sadly, his eyes locked to the tiled floor simply because he couldn't bear to look at Pepper for the time being. Although having a baby had initially been his own idea, the Stark knew that his wife was equally as excited as he had been, though she hid her enthusiasm well. Either way, the revelation was enough to send Tony into an already inevitable downward spiral, a path he'd already started on in the aftermath of the purple titan. They'd been trying to get pregnant for a few months now, and after many arguments about the subject, they'd finally decided to see a doctor about it. Needless to say, they hadn't been expecting this.

In truth, Tony's world had been slowly falling apart since the Battle of New York all those years ago, and even with people like Pepper and Rhodey at his side, Tony knew that his futile, pathetic life would be doomed somewhere along the line. Though, he hadn't expected the final straw to steal away quite possibly the only thing Tony had lived his entire life for - to rid him of his chance at raising a family with his lover was simply more than he could bear; yet, he was too drained and emotionally scarred to even bother crying about it.

"Of course, there are other options . . ." the doctor started, but was quickly cut off. Stark heard his wife asking for some privacy, and in the seconds following their brunette doctor had exited the room, leaving the couple to themselves. The billionaire felt a hand on his right shoulder, rubbing slow circles into his shoulder blade before a pair of soft, tender lips reached the waves of his chocolate hair. While he appreciated Pepper's comfort, reassurance was the last thing he wanted at the moment. Nothing was going to help him, and he'd learnt to accept the fact that he'd live out the rest of his life in misery, despite anyone who was stupid enough to help him.

His body was tense, his eyes unblinking as he failed to find the courage to lift his stare from the ground. His hands dug into his scalp, fingers resting within his hair as he sucked in several deep breathes. The quicker he realized that this too, was his fault, the better.

After all, what kind of horrible man was he? He was an egotistical jerk, one that had refused to take the blame for any of his grand mistakes; he created monsters strong enough to destroy the world and covered his sorry ass by insisting that it was supposed to have been "a suit of armor around the world"; he'd lost the biggest battle of them all; stolen the life away from a teenager with his entire future ahead of him; split up the team that was supposed to be protecting the people of the world; mentally and emotionally tortured the only person that seemed to understand him more than he did, and failed to provide that someone with a child, all because he'd spent years in his conquest of bedding hundreds of women to wash away his misplaced grief. And through it all he'd taken the route of wallowing in his own self-pity, and the thought made him want to collapse. His selfishness dug him into an even deeper hole, one that was far too deep to climb out of and one that left him alone and screaming for help - help that he was to stubborn to accept.