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Chapter 2, Part I
Amidst the camera flashes and gawking press is where Tony has always felt the most secure. Pre-Afghanistan Tony would chat it up on the podium, tell it like it was—or, more likely, like it was in his head—all the while flashing a well-practiced grin and making eyes at the most gorgeous reporters, wordlessly promising to buy them drinks later. Half the time he never even knew what he was saying; he'd just talk and talk about his work and the betterment of mankind and the audience would love him to death no matter what he said.
Even after he'd changed his goals and tactics, press conferences were an opportunity. This was where he broke his biggest news, called out other industries and competitors on their fair trade practices, slowly molding Stark Industries into a name worth some level of pride. The podium was a place of comfort, a place of change.
That was then. Now, as he stands in a similar position, surrounded by the clicks and light of mainstream media, his insides are wrought with nausea. He speaks with neither grin nor straying eyes, even going as far to drink the water—oh how he wished it were scotch instead—that sits beside his hand on the podium. From beside the podium Rhodey sees this and, frowning, refills the glass. These little gestures mean a whole lot more than thirst or shot nerves. It's all part of the grieving process.
Tony has been grieving for three weeks. The first week involved a gratuitous drinking binge that ended only when Rhodey showed up at the mansion in response to rumors that the billionaire had actually died, as nobody had seen him. The second week he spent almost exclusively at the hospital, dozing in the ICU or in the lobby after visiting hours. He kept a flask on him at all times, and another in his car.
Week three has been about coping with the hangover. It has been the longest week of his life.
"To wrap this up, I'd just really like to thank all the generous donors and civilian workers who have put so much time and effort into the reconstruction of the city's buildings; they should be done in about a month or so." Tony pauses for effect, waits for the end to sink in, and then the magic words: "Any questions?"
The room begins to buzz as every reporter armed with a notebook and pen tries to get a word in. Unperturbed by the clamor, Tony points to the first person he sees, who happens to be a fashionable woman in her late thirties. When it becomes clear that he has chosen someone to speak, the rest of the room drops off into silence. The woman takes a quick, haughty look around before turning back to Tony and speaking in a sugar-laced voice that doesn't much help his churning stomach.
"Mr. Stark, at your last conference three weeks ago, you confirmed that you were involved in helping clear your PA, Virginia Potts, from the rubble. But the final tally was thirty-six people injured in the course of the incident, five critically. Do you have any… speculation as to why your PA got primary attention? I was not under the impression that 'superheroes' were allowed to exhibit subjective preference."
The last word leaves the room hanging. The reporter bats her heavily-lined lashes up at him, a self-satisfied smirk unhidden on her lips. Although they have been through this type of thing before, it is much to Tony's chagrin that some people don't accept the simplest answer: pragmatics. Which is, of course, a lie.
While he would very much like to admit that he could not help many others after Pepper's tango with the brick façade due to a sudden and incapacitating panic attack, there is not much he can do but deny deny deny every little accusation of weakness. Often he comes so close to breaking down that he needs to physically bite his own tongue until the urge passes and leaves him with some suitably quirky remark. This time is one of those moments, but it is a confession that sits on his lips instead of a proclamation.
it's all my fault oh god i can't i can't deal with it
His fingers clench at his side, out of sight so as to not give away his stress. The calm expression on his face doesn't betray that his bitten nails are digging little crescent moons into his palms. Off to his side, Rhodey makes a sudden movement with his hand that means he's receiving an incoming call, and ducks out of sight through the adjacent doorway.
"As I have previously mentioned on one or six occasions," Tony begins, shooting the reporter a pointed look, "at the time of the accident, I happened to be situated directly at the scene, as witness reports can attest—you have seen them, I'm guessing? There are a number of them. I attempted to stop Venom from pulling down half a building, and when that failed, I helped the one victim who happened to be Miss Potts." He shrugs, though inside his head the scene replays in slow motion again and he forces himself to take another swig of water, lest he become ill. "So really it has very little to do with 'subjective preference' and a whole lot to do with, I don't know, her being inches away."
Next Tony points to a burly man with a notepad clenched in one fat hand and a pen in the other. He looks up at the billionaire through beady eyes and asks, "Have you any information updates on the condition of Ms. Potts?"
Rhodey takes this moment to appear in the room once more and take his place at Tony's side. He shoots Tony a sidelong glance, leans over and whispers, "Let's end it here."
Tony would very much like to do just that, but it has never been in his nature to leave an audience hanging, especially if the matter is actually of some importance to him. So he gives his head a small shake at the offer and allows the reporters and other attendees to sit in a rather tense silence for a moment or two.
"To be completely honest, I've been so wrapped up in working on the repairs that I haven't seen Miss Potts in person in several days. As of this morning, her situation is… consistent."
Tony shoots a quick, significant look at Rhodey, who answers with only a quirk of his eyebrow. Time to go, before this gets any more personal. He clears his throat. "I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she's back on—before she's back to work again. In the meantime, all we can do is wait and hope for the best. Thank you."
As Tony and Rhodey exit stage right to the sounds of scattered applause and camera clicking, the latter reaches up and places a hand on the Tony's shoulder. He leans inward so that no outsiders can eavesdrop, and whispers, "You're gonna want to hear this."
Tony rotates his shoulder and ducks through the narrow doorway, out of the SI conference room and into the crisp evening air with Rhodey right behind him. The breeze strikes his face, alleviates some of the heat around his collar.
"Can it wait? There's a bar two blocks from here with my name plastered all over it. Literally. In one of the toilet stalls, someone graffiti-ed my name all over in purple sharpie."
Right now bartime trumps business, because all he can see through his fresh new sunglasses is Pepper's pale face, Pepper with a feeding tube. Pepper's skin in a glossy ER photo, swollen and splotchy with red, black, and purple—or worse still, Pepper lying in the hot city street with a fresh eddy of blood seeping from behind her ear.
He needs it out of his mind. Now. The montage has driven him nearly mad for the last few weeks, to the point where simply going down to his workshop and tinkering with his suit no longer works as a substitute for straight liquor and a ten-hour nap. And every time he thinks the images have passed, something like a press conference makes it worse all over again. It creeps in his stomach like poison with but one remedy.
"No," says Rhodey, "I don't think it can."
When Tony ignores his friend and goes for the car's passenger door handle, Rhodey sighs in exasperation and grabs Tony's sleeve.
"While you were talking, I got a call from the hospital."
Tony hesitates, then turns. His own phone is synched up with a live feed of Pepper's vitals (totally illegal, completely necessary), but Rhodey's the only non family member with the authority to receive calls on her condition. The benefits of military rank apparently extend to patients in cross-state catastrophes and super-villain exploits.
"Tony, she's waking up."
ooo
When Pepper awakens for the first time in three weeks, she becomes immediately aware of several things, the first of which is that she is surrounded on all sides by people dressed in scrubs and white jackets, all talking all at once.
Next comes the realization that she has no idea how she got here, or what "here" even is. She feels paralyzed. When she attempts to move or lift her arms, the staff around her try to keep her still with soft but assertive whispers. Her head falls to the side and she sees the lines of clear tubing running from her wrists, affixed in place with medical tape. She moves, the needles pinch, the jabbering gets faster. One of them leans close into her blurred line of vision and shines a bright light in her eyes, nodding in satisfaction when she shrinks instinctively away.
And finally—and this revelation scares her more than the people poking and prodding at her—as she peers around in a panic, Pepper feels a vast sense of longevity and space, the feeling that a great deal of time has passed since she last opened her eyes. At the moment she doesn't know what it means, but the feeling is so overwhelming that she has only taken one good look around before she's passed out a second time. The voices quicken and subside. More time.
"Virginia? Can you hear me?"
She can, but the voice tunes in and out like rolling waves, like a radio in the fuzzy airwaves between two stations. Although her mind is buzzing at warp speed and she's desperately trying to cling to this new consciousness, there is a part of her that seems to understand more than the other. Something has happened—something bad—but she doesn't exactly remember what.
"Virginia?"
With a breath that comes out as a whimper, Pepper looks up from where she lies and sees the face of an elderly doctor swimming into focus; first the dark-rimmed glasses, the wiry gray hair, and finally a smile.
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
Pepper takes about five seconds to look. "Four." Her voice is thick cracked and it sends an eerie jolt to her gut. From lack of use, but how long has it been?
"Very good! Now tell me, how do you feel?"
She can't help but feel a tiny bit stupid as she mutters, "Confused."
"Do you hurt?" He begins to scribble on the clipboard in his hand.
Pepper shakes her head. One jerky motion to the left, right, and back to center.
"Good, I'm glad to hear you're not in any pain."
She swallows. Her tongue feels too dry and her eyelids too heavy. "Who are you?"
The other doctors and nurses are no longer in the room, save for one tired-looking blonde off to her left who has been fiddling with Pepper's IV since she woke up. Although she's more tired than she could ever remember being in her life—she notes this with a hint of irony, since she's sure she's been asleep longer than ever before, too—Pepper doesn't object when the blonde nurse rotates the bed into a sitting position with a hand remote. She squints at her and, once the nurse has backed away, looks toward the aging doctor.
"Doctor Morgan Stanley," says the doctor, holding out a hand.
Pepper shakes it, though her fingers feel more like jello than fingers, and says, "Is this a motor skills test?"
"Congratulations Virginia, you've passed." He smiles, clearly satisfied with her results, but then his smile droops as he turns back to his clipboard. "Now, I'm afraid you've been in a rather serious accident. You are lucky to be alive. Most likely you have some retrograde amnesia, but that's probably for the best…"
But even as he says it, a crazed laugh rings in her ears and she sees Tony's face flash before her memory. It takes her a few moments to recover as the image flits past, accompanied by the sound of crashing brick. "Okay," she says.
Dr. Stanley nods once, pats the hand that sits at her side, straightens up where he stands with one hand thrust deep in the pocket of his white jacket and the clipboard under his arm.
"Well," he begins, with a sigh that ages him significantly, "We're going to run some blood work and other tests, but you're more than welcome to sleep through it."
Under normal circumstances—well, Pepper has always considered a visit to the hospital abnormal, though she has carted Tony there once or twice—she'd lighten the mood by making a joke to herself, or by pausing to admire the large table of flowers, cards, and chocolates she notices off by the window, but as her eyes begin to droop again, Pepper can't think of anything funny about this situation.
Not yet, any way. This time when she closes her eyes, the sleep she drifts off into is pleasant, sound, and very much welcome.
ooo
Tony is halfway through the towering Malibu Memorial Hospital doors when he remembers that he ran right by the parking meter beside his Audi. His polished shoes slow to an abrupt halt, one foot on the indoor tile and one on the pavement outside, his upper half turning around to face the aforementioned vehicle. The air conditioned lobby teases the side of his face and tosses his hair as if demanding that he leave the unpaid meter behind, but the part of him that doesn't want to deal with more paperwork—of which there has been a large pile accumulating in his desk lately—figures that if he has two quarters, it'll do for now. Tony hesitates, then steps away from the rush of cool air and back into the blistering humidity.
He reaches into one of the pockets of his suit with an inward groan at the debilitating distraction from his latest mission and pulls out a handful of small items: a penny, some pocket lint, two screws. Carrying around a penny doesn't do a billionaire much good, so he tosses it aside. The pocket lint goes back where it came from, along with the two screws. Shaking his head, he takes off once more through the iron-wrought glass doors. The parking meter can wait. Pepper cannot.
The hospital is nothing but a blur to Tony, but he attributes this to the fact that he's running through the front lobby and up the escalator as fast as he can without being stopped by a rent-a-cop. He's been here enough to know the place like the schematics for the Iron Man, right down to the closest water fountain and the fastest route to the ICU. After the first week of popping constantly in and out of the place, he'd memorized the wing names and the important doctors. By the second, the café had his order to perfection (or at least as close to perfection as a cheap cup of coffee can be without a little Bailey's) and waiting on the counter every morning by eleven.
But this morning Tony blows right by the stand without looking back at where the little café sits, tucked in a remote corner of just one of many waiting rooms. His head is bent against whoever might try to distract him from his mission—attractive nurses, doctors, that one housekeeping lady who doesn't wear a bra. Pepper would be proud, he's certain of this much. Now he might even get to tell her that his eyes haven't wandered in almost three weeks, with a handful of urgent exceptions. These half-formed thoughts are flitting through Tony's head, each one less rational than the previous, until suddenly the only thing on his mind is where he's going: just up two more flights of stairs, through the step-down unit doors that feel a lot heavier than usual, and he's standing in a long, door-lined hallway painted an ugly shade of off-white and chrome.
He finally stops here, panting only slightly thanks to his exercise-inducing superhero routine. Save for a handful of nurses at the nurse's station and the ambient noise of machinery, the hallway is vacant and equally as silent. The mutterings of the medical staff blend in the back of his head, too faint to make into words, yet close enough to keep him from feeling as if he's been locked in solitary confinement when the door thuds behind him. Tony peers around, sees a few nurses staring, and takes this as permission to allow himself through the door halfway down the hallway, where fully expects Pepper to be waiting for him.
"What's the scoop, Stan?"
He has to stop himself from shortening Doctor Morgan Stanley's name to 'Morg', mostly because he's not on first-name terms, but also because the name is a little too morbid for even Tony. He pushes past the blonde nurse he has absolutely never ogled to get a better look at Pepper.
His body dips at the sight of her, a mockery of that feeling he gets when he misses the last step on the way down to the garage. More than anything, Tony had been hoping that she would at least be awake, if not sitting up in bed with a smile playing on her lips and maybe a "hey boss" or "What the hell happened, Tony?" for him, but no luck. The IV's are gone and the bed is propped halfway up, but Pepper sleeps.
"She looks just as unconscious as ever," says Tony, pointing pointedly at Pepper. "What's the deal?"
The aging doctor steps up beside Tony and clicks his tongue. "She came around about an hour ago, so the staff rushed in and started taking vitals and she lost consciousness. Shortly after that she was awake again, very briefly. She seems better than expected. We're phasing out the IV nutrients right away and starting her on water as soon as she can stay awake for a few minutes."
Tony makes a half-grunt to acknowledge this, but his eyes never leave Pepper's pale, freckled face. At least she's not brain-dead. It's been his biggest fear all along, worse even than the most obvious ailment—that he ruined her brilliant brain with his carelessness. Her chest rises and falls slowly beneath her blue hospital gown, her hair lying neatly (or as neatly as a bedridden woman can look) across her shoulders in small waves. Someone must have combed it. The thought is oddly grim.
His chest seems to have wandered off into his throat and pounds away there like a timpani. The worst is over, and although he can't be sure that it will last—he isn't sure of much right now, since he's not even sure he's breathing—Tony can't help but allow the tiniest beam of hope to shine through the clouds in his head.
Tony speaks again, eyes lingering on Pepper even as he turns his head. "So, how did she do? Alert? Zombie-like? Talk to me, Stan."
"Well," Doctor Stanley begins, pausing a moment to consult a clipboard when the blonde nurse hands it to him on her way out the door, "She knew who she was, a little about why she's here. The basics. As far as I could see, she seems very alert—shook my hand and everything. We'll have to do a formal psych eval at some point, but physical health comes first this time."
The man presses two gnarled fingers to his lips, runs them down the front of his chin.
"It's remarkable," he says, glancing once at Tony. "In cases like these, we almost never see so much improvement in so little time."
Tony shifts his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug, tilts his head to one side and back. "Not remarkable enough. Does she know yet?"
"No, not yet."
"Good. I want to talk to her about it myself."
It suddenly occurs to Tony that his palms are slick and sweaty, though he can't recall ever beginning to feel warm in the first place. Whether out of joy or apprehension is another issue altogether. Maybe both. The tie and jacket he'd put on early on this morning for the conference are suddenly stifling. Tony loosens the tie and pulls the jacket off, noting with a hint of annoyance that Dr. Stanley has yet to stop staring at him. The man's light eyes flicker from the clipboard to the unconscious redhead.
"Mr. Stark, I'm not sure that's advi—"
"No, I'm perfectly sure. And in the meantime—" Tony dips his knees, pulls out a small, backless chair from the underside of the bed, and sits himself down on it, "I'm going to hang out here, if you're done with all your tests."
"…Of course, Mr. Stark."
It doesn't matter what Dr. Stanley wants or what he thinks is best, because Tony Stark is, well, Tony Stark, and nothing is going to change the stubbornness that comes along with that fact. Annoyed, perhaps, by Tony's general resolve, Stanley nods once to the last remaining nurse and then he's out the door with the woman in tow. Tony doesn't look back. He hops up to walk around the edge of the bed and recline it back to a more comfortable sleeping position before sitting back down.
He scoots back and forth on the chair a number of times, until he nearly slips backwards off of it. The door snaps shut, leaving a silence in its wake almost as uncomfortable as the seat upon which he's poised. He can't rid himself of the unpleasant, nagging sensation—worry, maybe— and now that he's acknowledged it, he can feel it spreading throughout his body, inching along to the steady beat of Pepper's heart monitor.
More to distract himself than anything else, he takes out his phone and sends a quick text to Rhodey, telling him that Pepper's still asleep but that her prospects are good.
'good, ill be there as soon as i can,' comes the response. Tony slips the phone into his coat pocket, where it can't distract him anymore.
With the door closed to the hallway noise, the room is quiet. Staff can peer in through the wide window, but the sounds of the practice—sneakers on the polished floor, med carts roaming, the monitor beeping away by the nurse's station—are blocked off, leaving Tony with the semi-illusion of privacy. In his life he has gotten used to the spotlight, to long nights beneath his car or huddled over some SI tech, even to the generic conference table and all the well-dressed execs who he finds there. But none of these dwellings bear any semblance to the hospital routine; the wound dressing changes, the assisted ADL's, all the vulnerable little details that have given Tony an acute appreciation for his health. That he has become so accustomed to it is something altogether disconcerting.
Should have gone to the bar first, is the first of many fleeting, dry thoughts to punctuate his reeling mind. He's already cancelled his appointments for the rest of the day, much to the chagrin of the engineers he'd promised to meet with this afternoon. All there is to do is sit here and wait for something—anything, really, he doesn't mind—to happen.
Then again, hours could pass before Pepper wakes up again. He could always run to the convenience store and maybe the liquor store down the street for a snack, or swing by the bar for a round or two. His eyes actually dart off to the far right, where he knows the door is just out of his range of sight. But no, he wouldn't go even if he could, as much as he likes to think otherwise. Because he knows that in the hour he's gone, Pepper will open her eyes and find out the hard way, and nobody is going to take the alternative away from him.
And if the thought of missing her wake up isn't enough, he remembers the unpaid parking meter outside and decides that he doesn't want to face that particular issue for a while.
Avoid and evade, he scolds himself. Good form, Tony.
Pepper gives a small sigh in sleep and turns her face towards his. Tony picks his head up as if an alarm has gone off, only to realize that nothing has happened. Just a sigh, just a sigh. Nobody in his life has ever kept him waiting, not ever. Nobody but Pepper Potts, who never meant to keep him waiting in the first place. But here they are. A lock of hair has fallen in her face, and it reminds him of the way it had looked beneath the rubble.
He reaches across the gap and brushes the escaped hair behind her ear. Then, feeling rather as if he's in a dramatic movie, Tony crosses his arms on Pepper's bed and bends down, resting his forehead down in the crook of his arm. He moves one hand blindly outward to find hers where it sits on top of the covers. He presses his fingers into her palm to find it cold.
It's going to be a long night.
ooo
ooo
Chapter 2, Part II
Breathe.
Pepper finds herself in hazy, uncertain semiconscious with a breath caught in her chest. She can sense a number of things, all with a sort of distance, from the sterile smell of sanitizer to the comfortable warmth encompassing her hand. The breath, after a pause, unhitches in an exhale—quick, sharp—and she is vaguely aware of her head rolling to one side as her vision begins to focus.
Being very much nearsighted and without glasses, Pepper can hardly see anything ten feet away from her blue hospital gown. However, her shortcoming has no effect on the objects near to her, and thus when Pepper finally comes-to she has no trouble seeing that there is a face not five inches from her own. But instead of screaming or starting in surprise, as perhaps she ought to do in this situation, Pepper smiles serenely at the passive face of her sleeping employer.
"Tony." Her voice is more sleep-ridden than she likes to hear.
Upon further dozy inspection, Pepper discovers that the source of warmth she had originally felt is his large hand over her small one. A twinge of gratitude sweeps through her. His disheveled hair is matted and there's a thin line of drool seeping onto the coverlet. He looks paler than she remembers seeing him, less… confident, somehow. His condition might just be stemmed from the fact that he's sleeping, hunched on a backless chair with his upper half on the edge of the bed, but it just doesn't seem right. At the sound of his whispered name, the hand over hers clenches momentarily and she really does jump in surprise. A soft breath sounds in his chest like a grunt, and Tony's eyes open.
A fleeting moment of silence passes between the two groggy people, the same sort of feeling experienced after waking from a very vivid dream. Pepper stares at Tony and he stares right back, unspeaking with their faces several inches apart, until the magnitude of what has happened in the last… whatever period of time, she doesn't know—hits them full force.
Then there is a quiet, single syllable that Tony can do little more than whisper from where he sits: "Pep."
His face doesn't hold the normal air of slightly arrogant assurance for which Tony Stark is rightfully famous, and the circles under his eyes are dark and wide like bruises. She's rescued him from the cave that he calls his garage after three nights of no sleep, scooped him from the floor of his bathroom when he's so drunk that he calls her Rhodey, even dabbed Neosporin on his semi-conscious neck after a day of crime-fighting, but something is far different about this tired Tony Stark. He's not just tired or half dead or even recovering from a massive hangover—there's more emotion backed behind those features and scruffed-up dress shirt than she's ever seen, but she can't place it.
Before she has a chance to mention just how terrible he looks, Tony rolls his face into the crook of his arm with a hollow laugh.
"Good God, Pepper, I thought you were going to die on me." She can barely hear his muffled voice through his arm.
"Nice to see you too, boss," she says, and she smiles. In this unfamiliar land of scratchy sheets and pinchy instruments that probably at one point kept her alive, smiling is the only thing she can do without hurting herself.
Tony laughs at this and raises his head from his arm, releasing her hand to rub the bridge of his nose. "You have no idea."
"How long have you been waiting here?"
"Oh, just an hour." Tony glances at his wristwatch. "Or seven. It's whatever."
A small laugh leaps up in her chest, but as soon as it does a splitting pain sears out from her ribs and she stops as abruptly as she's started. Tony's smile drops as he surveys her with more than just a little dark curiosity. Just as she has begun to come to life once again, so have her wounds—fleeting at first, and then a sharp jab in her ribs leads her to reach one hand up and hold her side. In a flash, Tony is sitting upright and alert. She throws out her right arm to stop him and, as a consequence, cries aloud as a flash of pain courses down from her shoulder.
"Wait! Don't… don't get the doctor yet," she manages. "We have to talk first."
"I'm not going anywhere."
Tony is up and walking around to the other side of the bed, scooting between two machines to access the remote control that has been left upside-down on the bedside table. He retrieves it, sets the bed (and, consequently, Pepper as well) into a sitting position with the push of a button before placing the remote beside Pepper and sitting down on the edge. The mattress creaks with the combined weight of them, and yet she doesn't notice the change.
"So I'm a little fuzzy on the details," she says, only because she's at a loss for words with all the thoughts jostling around in her head. "There was a fight, I know—did Iron Man come to the rescue?"
Bad question. While Pepper is not sure what she's expecting—a small (bordering on cocky) laugh, a quirked eyebrow, even a derisive snort—she knows she's not expecting to see his face fall, and she's baffled when he shakes his head like a condemned man. Pepper almost gapes. It won't be the first time.
Tony says it so quietly that she almost misses it: "No."
And there is the missing piece to the puzzle, the "other" emotion that she's been trying to place since first seeing him: guilt. Immense, overwhelming guilt. Pepper thinks she might cry. Briefly she wonders why she hasn't yet.
"I take full blame for what happened to you, Pepper," he says, eyes locked in an intense stare only a foot away from her own. "And I promise that I'm going to fix it."
A pang of panic surges through her chest. "Tony, you—what's there to fix?"
"I've been working on the solution since the accident, and with a little help from the right people, I'm on track to making it work," he says.
Pepper's fingers curl against the itchy sheets as a small bubble of frustration grows and bursts. "Just tell me what's wrong!"
This cuts his rambling explanation to a quick end. They share a steady stare that is not wholly uncommon for them—it's a test of determination and just a little bit of mind reading, usually in regards to less serious matters—before he finally sighs.
"Look at my hand."
Pepper does, but when her eyes drop to where his hand is sitting on her knee, the answer doesn't become immediately apparent. Besides, the general motion is blurry without her glasses. She leans over and snatches her rimmed specs from the table, pushes them onto her face, and looks again at his hand. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong. She can't tell if there's any tissue damage because the sheet is draped over her legs, but the spot where his hand rests doesn't have any painful reaction to his touch. He gently squeezes the spot to the same reaction.
Nonplussed, almost a little annoyed, she tears her eyes from her leg. "So?"
He frowns. "What do you feel?"
"Nothing. I-I don't—"
And there it is. Her diaphragm catches as a most horrible thought springs into her mind. Pushing herself into a sitting position on the bed with no regard for the splitting pain in her side, she nearly knocks Tony to the floor as she pulls the sheet over. At the sight of her own pale legs and knees—scabbed knees, yes, but they're Pepper's knees and she doesn't care how they look as long as they're hers—she lets out an enormous sigh and falls back against the hospital pillows, clutching her roaring ribcage.
"You scared me half to death. I thought they were gone for a second."
To her surprise, Tony only shakes his head. "That's not a bad analogy, Pep, considering the circumstances."
"I could do without the cryptic talk, Tony," she says, though with some affection that goes unnoticed. She can't think of a thing that would be worse than not having her own legs.
Tony sighs and runs a hand over his face before he responds, "Look, Pepper, when Venom pulled that wall down on top of you, you landed at a bad angle." She detects the understatement. "Coupled with the force of I don't even know how many bricks, your spine had some serious damage. We got you into surgery fast enough to fix most of the wound, but the nerves suffered serious damage."
Pepper stares. "So I lost all the feeling in my legs?"
It's not a question, not really, and though Tony knows it, he answers nonetheless.
"Feeling, motion, basic use—yeah, it's…gone."
There's that bitterness in his voice again, the kind he usually uses when referring to Stane or weapon thieves. The parallel would make Pepper shudder, but she's too busy being overwhelmed with the idea to make any movement. Hesitating, she reaches down and flicks the bare skin of her leg. Nothing. She tries to wiggle her toes to the same effect.
She is paralyzed. No more walking, no more satisfying click of five-inch heels on tiled floors, no more literally chasing Tony down the hallway with a memo in one hand and an overfilled coffee mug in the other—
Good God, no more walking? Pepper puts her face in one hand. The wave of tears wells up, but she swallows it back down. Tony is peering at her very carefully, but she determinedly avoids his gaze, afraid what might happen if she looks at him. There must be anger, somewhere inside of her, and if it comes out now she doesn't know if she'll be able to temper it.
It takes her a few long seconds of internal wrestling before she knows she can speak without breaking down. "What am I going to do, Tony?"
"I told you I was working on it."
"What—? You mean—you can fix it?"
"I don't know yet. I think so. It's gonna take a little tinkering."
His furrowed eyebrows tell her he's been spending lots of time in his garage recently. She can't even begin to imagine what he's cooked up. It's probably dangerous, very illegal, and most likely some sort of secret project that she's not going to like the sound of (and which is most definitely not FDA approved). Yet the very prospect of being able to walk is a wonderful one—she hasn't even been awake for ten minutes and already she's lamenting the loss—and enough leverage for her to open her mind to the possibilities.
He's still got her hand. Tony holds it in one palm and presses his other on top of it. The warmth of his hands brings to attention how cold she feels, but she does not tremble until he bends down, presses his lips to the backs of her fingers, and whispers a quiet, "So help me God," against her knuckles. Although she doesn't want to meet his eyes, Pepper does. And she knows.
"Talk to me," she says, eager to return to business. "Where's the damage start?"
Tony sighs, his thumb running absently along the top of her wrist as he contemplates his plan. "They won't be able to say for sure until the testing's complete, but basically you've got no feeling from the mid-upper-thigh down. With years of therapy, there's a small chance that you can walk again. I for one don't believe it, not with the nerve damage. So we have two options here."
He squints at her and she raises her eyebrows. "One: I've been making a—well, we'll call it a booster shot for now—and from what I can tell, it should be able to heal and stimulate the damaged tissue, fixing it like new. If we couple that with therapy, then I don't see why you wouldn't be back on your feet in, oh, six months or so."
"Six months?"
"Yep. And here's the other option: if you want to be up and about before that, I can design you a customized sort of brace that would act as a pair of makeshift legs. They'd be streamline and essentially invisible under a pair of pants."
"Why wouldn't we go with the brace?" she asks.
"Because by itself it would take three months to make, postponing your actual recovery time to almost a year. They're not a permanent fix, either, and I'd be just heartbroken if you never wore a skirt again."
Pepper makes a skeptical noise at his joke. Tony doesn't crack a smile.
He goes on, "And even after that, you'd still need therapy and all that crazy stuff. So I figured maybe we'd just skip the replacement and go right for the big project. You'll be in a wheelchair for a bit, but the overall recovery time is that much less."
He's talking in that way he does when designing the Iron Man, and she's not so sure she likes the way it sounds. She doesn't much favor the idea of turning into one of his science projects, an invention to be tinkered with. Maybe it's just the way Tony always talks when in this circumstance—it wouldn't be the first time she's been affected by one of his inventions, and probably not the last time, either. Biting her lip, Pepper turns her head away from Tony and his ardent stare.
The room is bland, but there's an air of hominess that she can't help but admire. It could be the picture of flowers on the wall, or the quilted blanket somebody has left folded at the foot of her bed. When she turns towards the window, she's surprised to see a small table covered in cards and flowers and what appears to be a small mountain of chocolate. She stares.
"Is that all for me?" she asks.
Tony follows her gaze to the table. "Yup. Gifts from friends and family and… people from the organization. There may or may not be Asgardian chocolate liqueur, which may or may not taste like rainbows. And Spider-Man felt so bad about his villain attacking you that he made a vase of flowers out of webbing."
"How lovely," she deadpans, but surprisingly she means it. Another thought occurs to her then, one which actually frightens her. "How publicized was all of this?"
"Well," says Tony. "You're my PA, and I'm me. What do you think?"
The small, unpleasant jolt in her side (it could just be the injuries, but she doesn't think so) reminds her exactly who she is. Pepper Potts, the famous Personal Assistant to one of the world's biggest brains. The public was probably just surprised that he hadn't been able to wake her up sooner. Whenever sooner even was. Then it also dawns on her that Tony isn't exactly her next of kin. She feels a flash of panic, her eyes widening behind the frame of her glasses (oh how she already misses her contact lenses).
"Have you spoken with my family about any of this?" she asks.
Pepper is almost afraid to hear the answer. One of the reasons she has been so successful in her career—the very reason she shipped herself off to California in the first place—is because she took great strides in putting distance between herself and her home. Being around her basket case mother and nearly psychotic sister can give her a headache in thirty seconds flat. Tony knows this, and while he's only had to deal with them once in all their time as diligent PA and promiscuous boss, that one time was enough. The look that flashes over his face gives her enough of an answer.
"Please don't tell me they're in Malibu, Tony."
He nods in grave affirmation. "They've been here for three weeks, and I've therefore been avoiding them for three weeks. Unfortunately, they know just as well as I do that I'm to blame for all of this—"
Pepper tries to cut across his self-accusation with a gentle "Tony", but he plows right through her excuses.
"—and so they won't let me near your medical records, not even when promised they'd be put to good use. Since they're in charge of all your stuff, and will be until you're deemed 'mentally stable', neither of us is getting any of those files. If only this damn place would get with the century and host everything online, I'd be miles ahead by now."
"Meaning what, exactly?"
Oh how she hates not being in the loop, the center of things. It's going to take her months to catch up on all the work. The thought of opening her inbox is enough to make her feel faint, never mind with all this added stress and Tony's cryptic talk. And what's this about being "mentally stable"? Despite the physical pain, she feels nothing more than a nagging sense of terror. Very human, very stable terror.
"Meaning that I need to do everything from scratch." Tony leans in so that he can drop his voice to a soft murmur. "I need blood work, scans, medical history, the whole nine yards, and they're not going to give me any of it. So here's the catch. While I'm working on this whole project, it would be easier if you just crashed at my place."
This time her eyebrows nearly shoot off her face and he does grin. "You want me to live with you?"
He pauses for a split second, and she can't help but notice the subtle humor behind the seriousness of his face. "I thought you'd never ask."
Pepper gives an exasperated sigh as Tony stands from his spot on the bed. "Tony, I'm not sure that's app—"
He's not listening, but then again, he never does. By the time she's managed to get over the initial surprise, Tony's hit the call bell at her bedside and is making his way towards the door.
"I've already taken the liberty of moving your essentials over to my place," he says all too casually, grabbing the doorhandle and giving it a turn. "As soon as you've got the clear, which should be soon, we can get you home and get us started."
"Tony—"
"But seriously, Potts."
He lets the door close again and strides over to her bedside. Dropping to his previous spot on the bed, he grabs her hand again and peers into her eyes with the sort of intensity that makes her very nervous, causes her to shrink back against her white pillows. "I did this to you, and I'm going to make it right. I promise you. It won't be pleasant, but if it's the last thing I do, you'll be back to normal."
As he begins to take his leave, Pepper is struck by a thought so out of place that she can't help but mention it. "Hey, boss?"
Tony turns around in the doorway with one hand stuffed in his pocket and the other on the door handle.
"Did you make it to the meeting?"
He smiles. "No, but dear old Malcolm knows when to budge. I flew out to meet them as soon as you were out of surgery."
"Good."
Then he's gone again, out the door as quickly as if he'd just vanished on the spot. Silence falls on Pepper in the room, where she sits all alone with only half the information she'd like and a whole lot of confusion.
There's a knot in her throat, but she wills herself not to cry. Tony will take care of it, like he always does, and she'll go back to her normal life in no time. Pepper takes a deep breath, looks at her legs, and in one fluid motion pulls the sheet back over them so that she doesn't have to look any longer.
