How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?

Chapter 2

The hospital staff had been wary to let him out so early after waking up but he was persistent. Eventually they had consented, letting him go with a wheelchair and the braces that Toni had made before she had left to go to Siberia and also a promise that he would come back if he had any pain and that he would go to physical therapy, which he complied with. He couldn't stay in that dreary place and could understand now why Toni hated hospitals with every fiber of her being. They were too sterile, so much white and no hint of personality. He couldn't stand to stay in a place like that. He didn't want to live without his genius best friend, much less in a place she had hated.

Not that she didn't have a right to hate hospitals, oh no, quite the opposite. Having grown up with a physically abusive alcoholic father like Howard, she had been in the hospital more times than any one cared to acknowledge. Not only that, she had been surgically worked on during captivity in Afghanistan and from then on, didn't trust doctors, besides Bruce, within an inch of her life.

A life that had been ended by the man she loved.

He pushed that thought away. He couldn't deal with that now, not when he needed to focus on getting Toni's last wishes accomplished. The new Accords were to be presented at the next UN meeting, the same meeting where T'Challa and Pietro would present the evidence Toni had collected against Thaddeus Ross. The request for a pardon for the Team Cap would also be discussed for the first time. There was also discussions needed on what was happening with all of the organizations and companies Toni had.

This is why he was at the Avengers Compound in the first place.

He didn't want to be here, not this soon when everything reminded him of her. In fact, if he had it his way, he never wanted to walk through the doors again. However, Toni's stuff was still here and he needed to be there for the reading of her will. He needed to finish what she had started and make sure everything she asked for was done.

That didn't explain why he was torturing himself by coming into her lab. He had wanted some peace before the meeting began and had wandered the halls, trying to not focus on the memories of the wild brunette that haunted the building and his every step as well. Of course he had walked to the one room that screamed her name.

Papers were piled up around her desk and pieces of machinery lay around on her work table, unmoving and unused. Legal documents that she had been using to rewrite the Accords lay on a small table that sat next to the glass screen that she had projected her work on. The entire room was situated with the controlled chaos that Toni's very essence had been.

He walked to the small table and started quickly scanning through the different papers, mostly notes she had taken through meeting with some of her allies in the UN. Every document she could get her hands on she had sitting there.

When he reached to pull a packet of notes that he knew came from Charles Hudson, a long plastic object fell to the floor. In curiosity he reached down only to drop it once he turned it over in his hand.

A pregnancy test.

A positive pregnancy test.

He felt his eyes widen and he started to feel sick. Putting a hand to his mouth, he shot over to Toni's desk where the trash can was and emptied the contents over his stomach as the news sunk in.

Toni had been pregnant. Toni had died, knowing she had been pregnant. Toni had gone to Siberia knowing she was pregnant.

He heard shuffling footsteps enter the room quietly. When they stopped he could almost feel the person's gaze on him and the stick clenched tightly in his hand.

"She knew." Bruce's voice was soft as he moved to pick up the papers Rhodey's hasty retreat had knocked off the table.

"No shit Sherlock. How did you know?" he said, with a little more bite than he probably should have had, considering Bruce was one of the only people he could be around right now without screaming.