The disease was one that had run in her family for many years. Or it had as long as she could remember, at least.
There had been telltale signs all throughout the last couple of years, so it wasn't as if Pepper hadn't been expecting it to happen to her as well.
When her mother had been diagnosed, Pepper was thirteen. The doctor, a kind man, had told her and her father a lot of information, almost too much for a young teenager to process. Pepper had always been ahead for her age, however, and was able to understand most of it, and the things she didn't understand she had gotten the basic gist of them.
Unfortunately, she didn't have all the time in the world to ask her beloved mother questions, since her mother passed away the next year due to a surgery malfunction.
When Pepper had gone to her doctor two years ago, she was told she had a high risk of wet AMD, or Age-Related Macular Degeneration. She was approaching her forties – it was bound to happen sooner or later. She was told it was dependent on family history, so she knew it could happen before she reached seniority based partly on her genetics, partly by bad luck.
But she certainly wasn't prepared for it to happen now, three weeks before her 38th birthday.
Her eyes had grown weaker, more quickly as of late due to the dry AMD prerequisite, although when she awoke on Thursday morning she found that she couldn't see a thing. Blackness. It terrified her.
Pepper, after several deep breaths, squeezed her eyes shut and thought about possibilities, trying her best not to panic. She'd washed all of her eye makeup off the previous night – plus, she felt herself actually open her eyes, so all assumptions of her eyelashes being stuck together went out the window, so to speak.
Rain pattered heavily on her bedroom window, the curtains drawn tight. Her alarm had gone off and woke her up, so she knew it was five o'clock in the morning and still very much dark outside.
Am I just overreacting? I didn't even give my eyes time to adjust.
Cautiously, Pepper allowed her eyes to flit open.
She waited thirty seconds. Sixty seconds. Panic started to sink in, a horrible churning feeling in her gut that told her this isn't normal.
After counting sixty seconds five times – five minutes – Pepper discerned that something was up. And she didn't like it one bit.
The light from her digital clock was…gone. Unless there was a power outage –
Pepper sighed, and felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. Her eyes. What was wrong?
She smacked herself in the head in an attempt to pull herself together. She had to stop kidding herself. She knew.
It happened to her grandfather, it happened to her mother and now it was happening to her, too.
Pepper leaned back against her pillows, willing herself not to break down. It proved very difficult not to do so, especially because she had just discovered the loss of something so trivial as her eyesight. She had always known that total vision loss was at stake, and was a very high risk at that.
No more books. She could deal with that, as she could easily learn braille.
No more work. This one was a little harder to grasp. For years, Pepper's life was centered on her job. It was stability, it was routine. This…this was not routine.
But she was going to have to adapt.
She let the panic and defeat swallow her up as she cried, soaking her pillow in her ample tears. Pepper surmised that she was allowed at least one moment of weakness.
The time was unknown to her as she dried her now useless eyes. Her very prompt internal clock, however, was still intact and told her that she should be driving to Tony's place by now in order to begin the day.
Speaking of Tony…how was she supposed to let him know? In a twisted sort of way, she would rather he didn't find out. She couldn't explain it, other than the fact that she didn't want or need any pity. No, she wanted to take care of herself.
But deep down, she knew it didn't – couldn't – work that way. When a person was…blind – and she had yet to grow accustomed to the word – they needed some kind of help. And who would be more willing than Tony?
Pepper knew he'd never leave her, especially now when she needed him most. He'd proven that over the last couple months, the last year even. She only hoped it wouldn't be a burden on him. That she wouldn't be a burden.
And besides, she could always get a dog to help her walk around. Just so she wouldn't look completely helpless and vulnerable clinging to Tony's arm everywhere they went.
Something panged like the sharp and hollow ringing of a knell deep in Pepper's chest. How was her predicament going to affect her and Tony's relationship? As she asked herself this, she couldn't help but note that she had so many questions and so little answers. Cliché, but true. Her mind reeled as she turned back to her original question –
No. Don't be stupid, Pepper. Tony loves you and has for a long time now. That won't change. But that didn't mean that nothing would change, she acknowledged. It would change some things, namely her ability to do…well, everything they did as a couple. As for the press…
Pepper groaned. There was no way she was going out in public…yet. Albeit embarrassing to admit this to the world, it would most likely be necessary.
She sighed. Right. Time to call Tony. If she could even locate her phone.
Her hands roamed around her as she pushed the sheets off her body, trying to find something she could poke around with. Luckily, she didn't need to find anything of the sort, since her phone lay on the bedside table beside her.
Her pointer hit speed dial one almost automatically, and she listened to the methodical buzz of the rings. Tony picked up on the third one.
"Pepper? Where in the world are you? I haven't been nagged all morning, one tends to realize the absence of that sort of thing," he joked.
Pepper sat against her headboard and pinched the bridge of her nose, exhaling. "Tony…I need you to listen carefully to me and not freak out, okay?"
When Tony heard her say those words, he immediately went tense. There was a blatantly audible silence before he answered, "Okay."
"I woke up this morning and…I – I realized that I couldn't…couldn't see."
The words didn't quite register. Tony breathed a laugh. "Wait, what?"
"It's part of a disease, it's been in my family for abo –."
"You can't see? How does – how does that work? What happened?"
"Tony. Let me explain. You said okay, remember?" Pepper told him firmly, yet he could hear the shakiness in her voice even through the crackle of the phone line. He nodded, dumbstruck, before realizing that she couldn't exactly see him.
"Uh huh. You were saying?" Tony could tell just by the tone in which Pepper was speaking that he wasn't going to particularly like what he was about to hear.
Then something hit him, hard.
"When you said you couldn't see…you don't mean that you're…that you've gone…blind, do you?"
The silence was confirmation enough.
His eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he tried to process and understand this shocking, new information. No, this couldn't happen. Not to Pepper. His Pepper.
Pepper's shaky voice over the phone brought him out of his reverie.
"Are…are you angry?"
Tony was taken aback by her comment. "Why would I be angry? It's not your fault. Not at all."
"Oh. Right, good then." She exhaled loudly.
Something told Tony that Pepper was even more uncomfortable with this rather unsettling knowledge than he himself was.
"Pepper…hold on, I'm coming to your place. Okay?" he said softly, already grabbing his keys and sunglasses.
"Mmhmm…I'll be here," Pepper replied, forcing a laugh.
Tony clicked the end button and snapped his phone shut, and was out the door faster than he could blink.
To be continued.
Just a couple of things to note:
This should be about 10 – 20 chapters long. Vague, I know. I do hope I get that far.
I did research, by the way – Wikipedia said that a very small number of people have total vision loss from wet AMD…and I made it so for the purpose of this story (I used multiple other websites as well). I will continue to research as accurately as I'm able to for the whole fanfiction.
I'll try to update regularly. I have other chapters written so we'll see what real life has to say about that. It may take longer for the second chapter because I'm sick right now, and therefore don't feel like doing much of anything right now except healing. :P
More things will be revealed as we go along. I hope you're enjoying it so far and you'll stick with me!
And I should mention that one of the genres is angst for a reason. These chapters are mostly angsty, in my opinion - so be forewarned! (Although there will be fluff when I deem it/it is deemed, in my opinion, appropriate, in order for the fic to progress, when they need some cheering up, etc.)
Disclaimer: I do not own the Iron Man franchise, its characters, scenarios, etc. They belong to their respective owners. I do not intend harm to others and others' feelings with this fic. I own my plot and that's it. (Oh, and I really hope it's not OOC!)
Please review? Thank you in advance!