"Tony came to see me. He took this out of a cabinet especially for me."
Pepper pointed at the item on the table. It was an Arc Reactor that was nearly out of power, placed inside a beautiful crystal case with the words "Tony Has a Heart" written on it. At this point, Potts sniffled again, as if recalling the past. After struggling to compose herself, she said:
"He said he was leaving this heart with me and told me not to lose it. He said he was going on vacation to rest for a while and think about his life, then he turned and left. Should I not have let him go? Should I have dropped my work and gone with him?"
As she spoke, her voice became choked with tears again.
"Wherever he intended to go, he definitely didn't plan on taking you with him." Su Ming gestured for Pepper to calm down, then looked at Coulson and raised an eyebrow. "Agent, have you looked into his supposed vacation?"
"His plane has no flight records, none of his vehicles are missing, and neither the Air Force nor S.W.O.R.D. detected his armor taking off. So unless he went on vacation in the sewers, there's no way we could have missed him."
The balding agent answered with a smile, his words brimming with confidence.
"This isn't a sewer issue, Coulson." Su Ming reached out and picked up the display case from the table, examining the somewhat worn reactor inside. "Last night, I had Professor X and Phoenix scan the entire Earth with their Mental Power. They found no trace of Tony's brainwaves."
"Then he..."
Potts abruptly rose to her feet and covered her mouth, terrified of hearing the news she least wanted to hear. In her mind, only dead people