Notes: no profit garnered, not mine. Title and opening quote from Weston Cutter's How to be ready for everything. For the trope bingo squares: MATCHMAKER, AMNESIA. Also for the gwyo setting bingo spot seen below. Thanks to A for beta help. More notes below.
How
to be ready for everything is to know
you've got one name though
nobody knows what it is,
even you, and so there's treebranch
and rocksalt, there's shaved ice
and trampled grass, there's a season
whose secrets haven't been disclosed
but look at the sky, look what's on its way.
"So this is nice," Tony says.
He looks like Tony to Pepper, the one she saw on TV and in the videos Happy kept sending, but to Pepper, he doesn't look like himself. He looks cheerful. When did that become not Tony, she wonders.
Pepper says, "Natasha loves to play matchmaker."
"She didn't tell you it was me? That's mean of her," Tony says, smiling. "I didn't ask, by the way. I'm all up to date on the situation, the break up, whatever you prefer to call it. The new Jarvis, Friday, there was a lot of footage of me."
"Isn't that weird? Now that you don't remember?" Pepper had really hoped to avoid talking Tony's current situation, whatever he prefers to call it. Amnesia, she knows. Someone did something to him, she only heard third hand through Maria.
"It's a little strange. Though some of it, I have to say, it turns out I went nuts, huh?"
"I don't think that's accurate," Pepper says. "I think you had a semi official diagnosis that was not nuts, but something more precise. You shouldn't call yourself nuts."
"What would you say?"
"I'd say you had some very difficult things happen to you and you happened to and you were dealing with it," Pepper says.
"Not good enough for you, apparently," Tony says, still smiling and cheerful, no malice at all. Surely there's malice, she thinks.
"That's not true at all," she says.
"Right, sorry," Tony says. "No, genuinely, I'm sorry. I'm still reconstructing. Last thing I actually remember was dying. Nuclear weapon delivered, darkness everywhere. This is a very odd construction of heaven."
"You're so sure you'd get into heaven," Pepper says.
"Well, I died saving the planet basically, so yes, heaven. That has to balance everything else out," Tony says. "I'm wrong, of course, this is our earthly plane and I didn't die up there, in space, came home, went into a state you won't let me call nuts, got a little better, created a murderbot, defeated him, got into a bad fight with Cap. But everything's okay now except we broke up and Rhodey can only walk with prosthetics. And I can't remember anything but apparently Wanda can't fix it and you're making a face. You don't like Wanda?"
"She's fine," Pepper says. "You don't, you didn't hold it against her, maybe I shouldn't. But she was the one who screwed with your head, and sent Bruce into that city. It makes me, I find it frustrating that you will, that you would shoulder the blame for everything bad and it wasn't all you. You made choices but so did she."
"That's a different perspective than I've heard so far," Tony says.
"Well, it's my perspective," Pepper says. "They don't know what happened to you? Who did it?"
"They just found me," Tony says, smiling serenely. Pepper wonders if he's on drugs. "The only thing I sort of remember is this blob yellow substance coming into me through my eyes -"
"That's gross," Pepper says. "Stop it."
"It's this porn story I read except it wasn't the eyes," Tony says.
"Why are you so calm about this? It's weird. It's weird you're calm."
"I wasn't so calm at first, but you weren't there," Tony says. "Your choice, no malice here."
Pepper frowns. "You keep telling me no malice, Tony."
"Sorry," Tony said. "This was good, let's go somewhere where there isn't food. Be friends or whatever we are now."
"I would like that," she said.
They were at the Met, a new exhibit on the shape of the city in art. It was an inspired collection of paintings and sculptures from the medieval period to a painting done just that year. She could have spent hours considering the juxtapositions. "Who was the curator on this exhibit, does it say? I love it."
Tony said, "They have some of our pieces, the ones you made me take back from the Boy Scouts."
"I didn't make you take them back, you agreed with me after you weren't dying," Pepper said. "And we only took back three quarters of it."
"And you've replaced all those pieces by now, I bet," Tony said.
"No, I haven't," Pepper said. "We split the art collection, didn't Friday tell you?"
"I've been told a lot of things," Tony said. He came up behind her, put his hand on the small of her back. "Did you see this one?"
He steered her to a more abstract piece, with a collage of city maps layered over bright shifting yellow. She said, "Are you going to talk about that blob yellow substance that took your memory again?"
"You brought it up," Tony said, smiling. "Right through the eyes." He cackled.
She turned to look at him and then back at the painting. It moved. She tried to back away but Tony held her as the substance overflowed the painting. It was coming right through her eyes.
Pepper woke up with a start. She gasped, rubbing at her eyes. Tony said, "You had a nightmare?" He was standing in the bathroom, shaving. They were in Tony's new LA house. It was a kind of open floor plan, something Pepper hated in offices. She didn't mind as much in Tony's house but she was not making this their majority-of-the-time place. It had more windows than she liked, too.
She focused on her hands in front of her. She said, "I did have a nightmare, it was awful. You, you had amnesia and Nat set us up, trying to get us back together except you were mean and then you fed me to some painting that was actually an alien that went into your eyes."
Tony blanched. "Through the eyeballs, that's disgusting."
"I know," Pepper said. "Also you were mean. You had amnesia and you were bitter about the break up. You'd been watching tapes you had of us, our fights, apparently."
"I don't have tapes, though it's not a bad idea," Tony said.
"There are too many tapes of you having sex and none of those will be with me," Pepper said.
"No, I was think amnesia is probably something we should be anticipating. We all get banged around so much and only a few of us are demigods or basically immortal super serum soldiers. Memory loss could happen, easily, I'm surprised it hasn't already. Some approved surveillance might be a good idea," Tony said. "I've had a lot of concussions."
"I know," Pepper said. "But you get super high tech brain scans and hopefully Helen could fix any incipient CTE."
"That's a cheerful thought," Tony said.
"It's cheerful to think you won't get memory loss from all those hits to the head," Pepper said. She got out of bed and turned around. "When did we get this yellow bedspread? I bet that's why I dreamed of a yellow alien."
"You bought it, you picked it. We went to that place in Milan where they have nuns doing all the weaving from sheep who only eat some kind of rare grass. It was a long, involved, overly complicated process that smart people have automated," Tony said. He came up behind her and held her by the waist. "Remember? Do you need to go to the tape?"
She leaned back in his warm, strong arms. They went to Milan when they got back together. They'd done a lot of shopping. Tony loved shopping, even if he pretended he put up with it for Pepper. "I don't remember it being that yellow."
"You said to get the yellow, it's like sunlight and baby chickens."
"I never said baby chickens," Pepper said.
"You did pick the yellow," Tony said.
She turned in his arms and they were kissing. She loved kissing Tony, she loved his lips and the scratch of his goatee. She loved his strong arms and all the tiny little scars on his hands from the way he constantly worked and built things. Solid things.
He lifted her up and placed her on the baby chicken colored bedspread. He was on top of her, his legs pushing hers apart. She loved that, too. "I love your pert ass," she said.
"I love all of you," he said.
Everything hurt. She was screaming in pain and that hurt, everything was pain and she didn't know how it would end if it would end, even if she died, she would be still be in this agony. Every vein in her body was leaping out of her skin.
She didn't want to breathe, she wanted everything to stop. Instead the pain started to ebb. She saw Tony. Tony? They'd broken up months ago, and she was still alive. "I'm here to save you," he said. "Sorry about all that, I had to get that blob out of you."
"Yellow alien?" Her voice sounded she'd been smoking 3 packs of Marlboro Reds a day for 50 years.
"Actually," Tony said, pulling her off something and sitting her on the floor. "Actually, it was a semi-sentient gelatinous substance that was supposed to be some kind of weapon - mad scientists out there."
"Were you the bad scientist?"
"I said mad, not bad." Tony momentarily retracted the suit and took off his shirt. Then he did the same with his track pants. "You're naked, honey. Have some clothes." She put on the clothes gingerly. They didn't fit and they smelled like sweat and the suits. The clothes hurt her skin.
She loved that smell. She said, "How bad do I look? Tell me the truth."
"I always think you're beautiful," Tony said. "You don't look great. Your skin will be better in a few days. But your hair -"
"I have to shave my head," Pepper said.
Tony said, "Probably the best idea." He picked her up. "We're going straight to the hospital, honey. They've got all these high tech wigs and masks now, I'll get you one those until your hair grows out the way you want."
"Why was the jello after me? Was it because of you?"
"Maybe," Tony said. The rush of air as he flew her somewhere hurt her skin. It hurt her scalp. She probably had bald patches. She never wanted to see a picture of this.
"Don't show me any pictures," she said. She closed her eyes.
She woke up and she was fuzzy. She was on painkillers. Tony was sitting next to her. He said, "Hey sweetheart, you're awake now. Don't worry, no mirrors."
"Why was the blob after me? Why did it make me think you had amnesia and we were back together?" She wondered if she said those words clearly.
"Chemicals going off in your brain to deal with the pain," Tony said.
"Yay, brain chemicals," she said.
"What's the last thing you remember?"
"I was at work," Pepper said. She blinked. That wasn't Tony's voice. She looked over and saw Maria. She'd never ever seen Maria look that upset. Pepper must look awful if Maria was feeling that guilty. "I was at work. I got in the elevator, and I was on the phone with my stupid ex-boyfriend. The recent one, not you," she said. She waved at Tony.
"You broke up with that guy?" Tony was smiling.
"Last week," Pepper said. "Nat was right, he was an asshole. Why do I date assholes?"
"I don't know, but I'm glad you did with me," Tony said.
"No, he was an asshole, not broken like you," Pepper said. "Sorry."
"That's okay, I'll take it," Tony said. "You got on the elevator."
"Then the yellow thing started leaking through the elevator doors," Pepper said. "Why me? Was there anyone else?"
"No, just you," Maria said. "You are a famous and accomplished woman."
"That's nice of you to say," Pepper said. "Probably because of Tony, though."
"Probably," Tony said. He was holding her hand. He'd been holding her hand for a long time. She didn't want him to let go.
"You can stay though," she said. She squeezed Tony's hand. "Please."
"That was actually my plan," Tony said.
"I love you," she said. "That's not just the painkillers."
"I know," Tony said. "We're still going to talk about it more when you're sober and in your new pretty wig."
"Okay," Pepper said. "Good plan."
Notes: Additional trope bingo spot: trapped in a dream.