Six days. For six days Pepper had woken up to an argument regarding the dog, gone to work, and returned from work, to an argument about the dog. She was sick of it.
It didn't help that they were all still calling him 'the dog' and it seemed, no closer to finding him a more permanent name. She had left it to the Avengers to choose their new pet's name, given she did spring his appearance on them all rather suddenly and without discussion, and because they were the ones who would be looking after him mostly, given she was out at work a lot. This was a decision Pepper was beginning to regret.
The shelter of course had already given him a name-Skittles- but the name was so stupid that when they had micro-chipped the pet for her before she brought him home, on the 'Pet Name' section of the form, she had simply written "Avenger", with the thought that they could change it if they wanted to. Having mentioned this to Natasha a few days earlier, and only a few days into the name fight, Natasha had immediately rolled her eyes and said that there was no fucking way she was going to be shouting that in the park. And anyway, it was too conspicuous.
Pepper had then just stayed out of it, but she was at her wits' end and couldn't stand to hear another shouting match between Tony and the others about the stupidity of the name, 'Colin'. For the record, Pepper agreed with everyone but Tony; it was stupid.
"Hey there, doggy." Pepper said on entering the common floor and finding it unusually empty for that time in the evening, only the dog occupying it, sniffing around the area of the couch that Natasha usually occupied.
At her voice, the dog looked up, and tail wagging violently, trotted over to Pepper, and jumped onto his hind legs, demanding attention.
"Okay, okay. Get down." Pepper said, crouching down and fussing over him. "Where is everyone, eh?" she asked, standing back up. The dog looked at her blankly, it's head cocked slightly to the side. "Come on, show me where they are." Pepper encouraged, only to be met with the same blank look. "Come on, doggy. Lassie could do it."
At the lack of petting he was getting from Pepper, the dog wandered back over to the spot on the couch he had been sniffing and jumped up into Natasha's seat, knocking a book off the edge in the process. He glanced down at the book, now open on the foor.
"Well thank you, for that helpful information." Pepper said sarcastically and made her way over to the kitchen in search of some coffee, or some human company.
It was eerily quiet in the kitchen, too. Two mugs Pepper recognised as belonging to Clint and Natasha were abandoned on the kitchen table, still half filled with coffee. She picked up Natasha's mug, the cup cold. Pepper frowned, something wasn't adding up. Of all the people to leave anything around the tower, it was Clint and Natasha who did not abandon coffee, not unless there was an emergency…
"JARVIS?" she asked.
"Yes, Miss Potts?" the AI replied politely.
"Where are the Avengers?", she poured the cold coffee down the drain and placed the assassins' mugs in the sink.
"I believe the Avengers were called out by Director Fury three hours and twenty-two minutes ago." JARVIS said.
"What?!" Pepper cried. "JARVIS why didn't you tell me?"
"I just did, Miss Potts."
"Don't get smart with me!" Pepper pointed at the ceiling. "I mean why didn't you tell me as soon as I walked in the door?"
"You did not ask as soon as you walked in the door, Miss Potts."
Pepper groaned and stormed back into the living room. The dog looked up as she entered. She sat down opposite the dog and pulled out her phone, quickly dialling Tony.
It only took two rings for him to answer, but as soon as he did, Pepper's heart sank when she heard the tinny quality of the call, indicating he was talking from the suit.
"Hey, babe." He said breathlessly and an explosion sounded somewhere in the distance. "Hey, Cap, to your right!" he shouted and Pepper gasped.
"Tony, what the hell is going on?" she shouted in to the phone, rubbing a hand over her forehead.
"Well…er…Pep," another explosion, "we're pretty busy."
"Tony! Where are you?"
"Listen, Pep. I can't talk, we're like really busy- HOLY CRAP, NATASHA JUST KILLED A GUY WITH HER THIGHS!- Pepper, I got to go, we'll be back tomorrow morning, I promise."
Pepper closed her eyes and listed to the sounds of battle via her phone. "Just, please come home, Tony. Be safe, and tell the others to be safe, too."
"Hey guys!" Tony shouted. "Pepper says to 'be safe'!"
She smiled to herself. "You call me when you win!" Pepper instructed.
"Sure thing, Pep. Love you."
"Love you, too."
The phone went dead and Pepper lay her head back on the couch, taking a deep breath in an attempt to steady her nerves. She opened her eyes slowly and smiled at the vision in front of her.
"Hey, buddy." She smiled. The dog was sat at her feet, watching her with concern, his head cocked slightly. He shuffled forward and sat on her feet, resting his head on her knees. "Thanks, doggy." Pepper patted his head and he pressed into her palm. "They'll be okay." She assured the dog.
He looked up at her and sneezed, making Pepper laugh.
"Yeah. I agree." She told him, "They'll be okay."
For the rest of the evening, Pepper tried to entertain herself with various activities to take her mind off Tony and the rest of the Avengers. She cleaned every room on the common floor, the dog following her from room to room and sitting watching her from the corner of each one.
She tried watching the TV, the dog jumping up onto the couch next to her, and snuggling himself under her arm, but everything she attempted to watch was just a background noise for her thoughts of Tony and the others. After over an hour of worrying in front of the television, Pepper gave up trying. She sighed heavily and switched off the TV.
The dog sighed too, dropping his head onto her lap.
"Yeah, I know, poochie." She said, stroking the soft fur of his head. "They'll be back soon."
Pepper nudged the dog off her knees and stood up, planning on going back to her and Tony's floor and trying to get a few hours sleep. She walked over to the elevator and waited for the door to open. The dog followed, sitting and waiting patiently at her feet.
"No, you stay here, doggy." She said gently, patting his head. "Go on, in your bed. Go on." Pepper pointed to the dog bed in the corner of the living room, which Clint and Steve had bought at Natasha's insistence to train him, but the dog ignored her completely and stepped into the elevator as the door slid open. "I guess you're staying the night with me, huh?" she smiled.
The dog didn't answer, obviously, but he did lean against her leg as the elevator descended, making Pepper think that perhaps he could understand her.
Both dog and human exited the elevator on Pepper and Tony's private floor, making a beeline for the master bedroom. Pepper began to get changed from her sweats into her pyjamas and mid-way through removing her shirt glanced at the dog.
"Is this weird?" she asked him. He watched her silently. "Should I change in front of a dog, or is it like changing in front of a baby? Like it doesn't matter because they can't judge you?" again, the dog simply looked at Pepper, making no comment. "I think I'm going crazy, doggy." Pepper shook her head and pulled on one of Tony's t-shirts, featuring some band she had only vaguely heard of.
Pepper glanced around the room, eyes landing on some throw pillows that Tony must have thrown off the bed at some point after she had left for work. She picked them up and arranged them into a corner of the room, the dog watching her as she worked.
"Okay, puppy. You sleep on here, okay." Pepper gently guided the dog by his blue collar (something else Clint and Steve had bought for him) over to the makeshift bed. He obeyed and lay down on the pillows. "Good boy." She smiled, ruffling the fur on his head. "Now, you stay here and I'll be back in a few minutes."
Pepper left the dog on the pillows to go into the ensuite to get washed and brush her teeth. On re-entering the bedroom, she sighed, hands on her hips. "Oh, you think you're sleeping there do you?" she smirked.
The dog, having abandoned the bed Pepper had made for him, had decided he would much rather sleep on Pepper and Tony's bed. Not only that, but much to her amusement, the dog had chosen to sleep vertically along Tony's side, his head almost on the pillow. He didn't bother to look up at her, and made no attempt to move.
"Fine." Pepper shrugged and walked over to her side of the bed. She climbed in and reached over the dog to switch off the light. "You can stay there, but only for tonight, and only if you promise not to tell Tony."
He was warm against her side as Pepper settled down for a restless night of worrying about the Avengers. Oddly, her usual anxiety during their absence was nowhere near as crippling as it usually was. The dog snored in his sleep and Pepper had to supress a laugh.
When she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that the warmth on her thigh was coming from Tony, and that they were all safe, on their own floor, in their own beds. Well, maybe Bruce would be in the lab, and maybe Steve would be in the gym and maybe Natasha and Clint would be doing whatever it was that Natasha and Clint did at two in the morning when they weren't sleeping, but they would all be safe in the tower.
He snored again and Pepper smiled.
At some point she must have fallen asleep because it was 4:38am when the phone rang, making her sit up in bed jerkily. Pepper scrambled on the bedside table for the phone, only catching a glimpse of Tony's caller ID as she brought it to her ear.
"Hello?" she answered quickly.
"Heeeeyyyyy, or darling love of mine. Told you I'd call when we won!" Tony practically sang from the other end.
"Oh thank God, you're not dead." Pepper sank back into the pillows, relief flooding through her.
"Nope, not today. And no one else is dead either! Well, none of our guys, the bad guys are dead, and let me tell you, they did not want to die, I mean it was 'oh, that one guy is dead, oh look another thirty guys who need to not be alive', like you have no idea-,"
"Tony." Pepper interrupted him.
"What?"
"Shut up."
"Yes ma'am."
Pepper swore she could hear him saluting. She glanced to her side where the dog still lay in Tony's spot, though he was now awake and watching her intently. She smiled and petted his head.
"So you're all okay? All coming home?" Pepper asked, still petting the dog.
"Yeah, well y'know, mostly okay." He voice was slightly lower than before, the theatricality all but gone. "I've got a few bruises, Cap's fine, just tired, Bruce is exhausted, like always. Hang on, Pep." He sighed heavily and gave a small cough. "What? Oh, yeah, I'll tell her," Tony said to someone Pepper couldn't hear, "I'll tell her, for God's sake, Barton she's not stupid, I'll tell her." The phone rustled and Tony's voice became clearer. "Barton wants me to tell you to feed the dog if we aren't back by nine, and that he has to be walked before you feed him. Apparently that's important."
"Noted." Pepper laughed. "So you might not be back before nine?" she glanced at the clock again, now reading '4:43'.
"Mmm, no." Tony answered. There was a distant whooshing sound in the background and what Pepper thought could be a plane taking off. "Once we get back to SHIELD Hill says we all need to attend some pointless debrief, and," his voice lowered again slightly, "Natasha and Barton need to go to medical. They're fine." He added quickly, before Pepper could ask. "But they were in the thick of it, and...yeah. You know." he trailed off.
Pepper didn't know, and Pepper didn't ask exactly what they were in the thick of, she didn't need to know right now. She looked back at the dog and smiled.
"Okay." She said. "I'm glad you're all safe. I'm glad you're safe."
"Yeah. I love you." He said.
"I love you too, Tony."
"Feed the dog."
"Shut up."
Pepper could hear Tony's snicker as she ended the call, holding the phone to her chest. Next to her, the dog moved slightly to press further against her side before settling back down.
"Told you." She said smugly to him. "Told you they would all be safe."
