Chapter Thirty-Six: Putting worries to bed.
Tony couldn't process this.
He wanted away.
Away from messages from dead people, away from the knowledge that souls existed, away from... from everything. Anything.
"JARVIS?"
"Yes, sir?"
Tony didn't know what the rest of the sentence was, because did JARVIS have a soul? Did DUM-E? Fuck you, Phil Coulson, I am not equipped for this.
If they were destroyed - if they, in some indefinable way, died - would someone come and get them? Or was that only if a fucking Asgardian was around at the time?
"JARVIS...?" His voice caught and drained into nothing as his chest refused to put up with this any longer.
"I know, sir." There was a buzz and the trickle of morphine into his bloodstream; the pain eased up and Tony realised he'd had no idea how much he was hurting until J dosed him.
He slumped and someone was there to guide him into a chair; when had he stood up?
"Phil wants me to make action men Avengers."
"Yeah, I think he does," Clint mumbled, his big calloused hands wrapping around Tony's. Tony stared down at them, the only thing real in a room suddenly swimming in shades of what-the-fuck. He followed the lines of Clint's bare arms up to those eyes, eyes that saw everything.
"Do they ... have souls? ... Did I..." He trailed off; not enough air, and no point to asking.
Clint's hands squeezed and he looked away, because there were no answers. Tony knew that, he did.
There was never anyone who had answers to Tony's questions. That was his job.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Clint knew that look; lost, and helpless. They'd been warned, they'd known this news before Tony, but none of them had quite realised the complexity, the implications. Clint wasn't sure who 'they' were, but thinking about Abby's little blue lights? He had a pretty good idea.
Not even Clint had broken like this; death was... Death. Final. It was simple and horrible and Coulson was just gone away. Pretty extremely far, but, away. So hearing his words hadn't broken him down. Well, not so suddenly anyway; there had been crying, later, when he was alone, but the point was, he had been relieved.
Maybe Stark was more of an atheist than the rest of them, maybe an afterlife just changed something bigger than he could handle.
But maybe there was something far, far more frightening going on here.
Bruce didn't have any answers, and JARVIS wasn't talking, and the kids were crowding the kitchen door, whining and afraid. He looked to Steve instead, because Steve always knew how to help Tony, but even he looked lost and sad.
Just me then? Clint thought, scrubbing at his face with one hand. It was so much easier, for him, to know that Coulson was... not gone, dead but not gone, that he had no idea why this would be so... But, he knew how to deal with shock, and he could feel how cold Tony was getting. He needed blankets and stuff, and a Steve hug, maybe. And Pepper.
Thor had waited for a good moment, at least; Tony was full of hot food and Clint could count on the fingers of one hand how many times any of them had had that luxury for a piece of bad news.
"Steve?" Clint bobbed his head at Tony and the soldier caught his meaning and scooped Tony up. Unless Clint was mistaken, which he wasn't, Steve shivered when Tony clutched feverishly at his shoulders; the man's hands were that cold.
They, all of them together, quiet and unsure, settled in the gallery, crowding around each other for comfort while Bruce got out the oxygen tank and hooked Tony back up. Coulson had been their heart, the glue that pulled them together through quiet conversations on jets and bloody pieces of the man's childhood.
Clint had helped him collect those cards.
After a while of quiet and of hearts and breathing slowing down, Thor started singing quietly. Mjolnir hummed against Clint's thigh and a hazy lethargy swept over him. He stayed awake long enough to watch Tony fall asleep on Steve, his hands cradled in Steve's big palms, and to watch Pepper stride out of the elevator; hands on hips with a sad, indulgent smile on her face.
After that, Thor pushed him over gently and he slept.
XXXXXXXXXX
Pepper looked over the team, taking in Thor's benevolent, gentle smile, and sighed.
"Boys, blankets and pillows." U made a querying chirp and Pepper nodded, hushing him and whispering back. "Yes, start protocol 'sleepover', are your batteries full?"
DUM-E made a high pitched affirmative, bobbing his head at Steve, and Butterfingers shushed him with a chassis-bump.
"Alright, you can stay up. Just tonight, you can stay. Start protocol 'shush', though, alright? Go on."
The three big bots buzzed off to JARVIS-knew where, DUM-E cloistering himself in the elevator and refusing to let U in, while Butterfingers went down the corridor on the other side of the kitchen.
Which was full of pots and pans and broken things.
Pepper sighed; Abby would be thrilled, she was sure, but the little bot wasn't equipped for spilled food. It'd have to wait; she turned back to the team and huffed at their sprawl.
'Phil, I hope you can see this, because I never thought I'd see Tony look that peaceful with someone else's hand over the arc reactor.'
She left her shoes on the marble and stepped down delicately onto the carpet.
"Lady Pepper," Thor rumbled quietly, whatever magic he'd been singing fading away. She was deeply, profoundly grateful for that; they all looked wrung out and exhausted. Natasha was crumpled Clint's legs, her feet against Steve's thigh while Bruce was leaning against Steve's legs with an oxygen tank cradled in his arms and his cheek resting against the top. Connected to the tank again was Tony, looking suspiciously peaceful, and tucked into Steve's lap.
Clint, Thor had tucked into his side, and the archer's clever hands were curled on Mjolnir.
"Prince Thor," she replied, easing Bruce's glasses off before he bent the frames and putting them in easy reach on the coffee table. "It's good to see you've got things under control."
"Lord Tony's Spire has spoken with you?"
"JARVIS told me about Phil's message," Pepper agreed, stepping back again and tilting her head to gauge the space. The coffee table needed moving; fortunately, it was light, designed to splinter rather than break someone's back if someone was thrown into it. She lifted one side and dragged the far legs across the carpet, giving Thor a warning look when he would have dislodged Clint to help.
"Would that you had not been alone for that. You are well?" Thor asked, his eyes flicking over his team. Pepper understood, Steve had told her all about Clint and Natasha going catatonic and JARVIS had been his own kind of panicked when Tony had freaked.
"I... it wasn't as much of a shock, for me; Steve warned me about him being differently dead. I was fine. Besides, JARVIS was there."
"I am glad to be of assistance, Ms Potts, as always. Though, if you would, U is having a minor problem in the linen cupboard..."
Pepper sighed. "Tell him I'll be there in a minute." She scrubbed a hand over her face and smiled. "This is why they stay in the workshop most of the time; the penthouse isn't really bot-safe."
"They are strange creatures, are they but pups? I know not their kind." Thor really did rumble, Pepper noted, gauging his shirt size against Clint. Deep chest, broad shoulders... Surely he didn't intend to stay in his armor with the other Avengers sleeping all over him?
"I suppose they are. They're Tony's. He built them, and JARVIS, they're his children." She smiled gently at Thor as she stepped back up onto the marble to rescue U; she had a fairly good idea of what was wrong. "I thought they were just machines but... But then I had to untangle Dummy from my laundry and the little guy was embarrassed. JARVIS is much more grown up."
Thor's rumble followed her down the hall: "What then should I call you, Child of the Tower? I have no qualms about making new and many names for you."
"Ah, 'JARVIS' is, in fact, a title; 'Just A Really Very Intelligent System'. I have a name of my own, also, but -"
The rest of the sentence was lost as she turned a corner; the linen cupboard door was open half way and swaying gently. "Oh, what am I going to do with you, hm?" U had piled soft things on his chassis, blankets and pillows and a big woollen sweater that she hadn't seen since the last time Tony'd had a cold, but the corner of a fleece throw had gone under his tracks and wound around the drive wheel. He beeped and whined and tried to lift the track to show her, failing miserably and only managing to spin up his squeaky wheel.
"Alright, stay still." She knelt down and tugged the rubber track off the drive wheel, making U squeak in outrage. "I know, I know. You're fine, I'll put it back." The bot settled once she gave him the belt to hold and let her unwind the fleece. The corner was crumpled, black and greasy, but it was no worse than Tony's work clothes at the end of a day in the workshop; she'd dump it in the laundry chute.
She took the track back and slipped it over U's wheels while he patted her head affectionately. "Come on, you'll be first back. Let me just..." She pushed his collection onto a sheet and bundled it up so he could hold it in his claw. "There. Come on, now."
She paced him, just in case, and pulled the pins out of her hair; she had designs on that sweater.
" -I was named for him; if Tony is my father, in all but biology, then Edwin Jarvis was my grandfather. Stark Senior was not often around, during Sir's childhood, and for Edwin Jarvis I am always grateful."
"And that is why you serve as his 'JARVIS'?"
"I... Yes. No matter what freedoms I have been granted, what laws I gain the ability to disobey, I have always and will always come back to him."
"Loyalty, and heart; he is a very lucky father. Were that I had done so well by mine."
"If I may be so bold, sir?"
"Speak, JARVIS, thus is a right you have earned, many-fold."
"Then, it is a parent's duty, right and privilege to be proud of their children - "
Pepper pulled her hand away from her face and nudged U forwards from where they had both stalled in the hallway. "You go on, now. I'll just.. just go wash my face, okay? Save me Tony's old jumper." She kept her voice low and fled down the corridor to wash off her tear-streaked makeup. This called for pyjamas, boyfriend jumpers and Irish hot chocolate.
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Having stepped carefully around the mess in the kitchen in slippers, Pepper retrieved the hot chocolate JARVIS had made her and contemplated the 'comfort food' cupboard. It hadn't been touched since the last time she'd retrieved a bag of tiny cookies, almost a week ago. The Avengers were all diet conscious, so in any other circumstance, this wouldn't have made her worry, but with them under as much stress as they were, all it meant was that they weren't reaching out for ways to ease the strain. She'd have expected better from Natasha, at least, who was more put-together than the other Avengers combined.
Glaring at the cupboard, she huffed and retrieved the marshmallows. If she slammed the door a little harder than was strictly necessary, that was between her and the waffle maker.
She'd removed her make up, lost her suit and underwire in favour of pyjamas, and now, armed with her hot chocolate, she went back to face the over abundance of heartache in her penthouse. U met her at the door with Tony's sweater and held her mug obligingly while she pulled it on. He was her favorite; less ditzy than Butterfingers, and less focused on Tony than DUM-E, though that did have its charm.
"Thanks. Do we have enough pillows? Good boy..." she said, rewarding the nodding bot with a pat on his main strut. The pile of soft furnishings looked big enough the bed them all down, right there in the gallery.
Thor was attempting, quietly, to negotiate Butterfingers into helping him out of his armour; it was not going well.
"Alright, You, Butterfingers, Dummy, no more jobs; start protocol 'evening off'. Do whatever you want." They all looked up in unison and she waved them off with a shooing motion. DUM-E promptly did a lap of the circular room; all of their celebrations involved spinning, this was not always a good thing, but it was usually entertaining. Pepper lifted her mug out of U's way as he trundled off after his brother and stepped down onto the carpeted circle.
"Lady Pepper; you are as enchanting without your armor as you are with it," Thor said, grinning up at her.
"You just want me for my blankets," she wiggled a polar fleece at him. She could see why he might need help with his armor though; with Clint asleep on his left flank, he was down to one arm and his teeth. "Will they wake up if I disturb them too much?"
"Perhaps, 'tis an easy enough lullaby to sing again, should that be so." Thor shrugged, easing Clint away from his side and nudging Mjolnir out of the way. "Truly, I knew not what else to do; bare here two-day and already my chaos makes an enemy of me."
Pepper put her mug down and retrieved a big pillow, fluffing it to give her hands something to do, before giving it to Clint to replace Thor's hammer. She was glad Tony was asleep or Clint would never have heard the end of the way his hands had curled around the metal. The archer conceded to the exchange without really waking up and curled onto the pillow instead of Thor, freeing the god to step away and get out of the metal bits of his clothing.
"You couldn't have done anything else, Thor. Blame Phil," she said, picking at the buckle on Thor's right forearm; he was right handed. "You couldn't have known how Tony was going to react, not even I did, and I've known him for years."
Thor's undershirt looked surprisingly soft and comfortable, but his tough leather pants did not, so she... uhh... never mind; Thor was wearing knee-length underpants. In grey cotton. He, apparently, felt he would do just fine.
Pepper handed him a blanket.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Natasha slept lightly, she always had. It's one of those inevitable things, when you train your body to respond to adrenalin on such a hair trigger.
It was a shame, really, because it was the best sleep she'd had in a long, long time. A bit cold, but Clint was at her back, radiating heat, and she had her toes tucked under Coulso-
Fuck.
She jerked awake as something slithered over her shoulder, arm lashing out and striking metal that gave a lot less than a human would and getting tangled up in something. Her eye snapped open, and the lights stung and blinded, but she had a hand on Clint, and he was warm and alive, even if Coulson wasn't and... and who had she trusted enough to sleep next to?
She froze for the bare second it took to reorient and start listening. Pepper. Steve, Tony, Clint, Thor, Pepper, and... U, apparently.
"Oh my god, Natasha, I am so sorry, I should have stopped- are you okay? Are you hurt? I -"
Her forearm throbbed and ached, but wasn't broken, and the thing that had done the touching was a blanket, dangling from U's claw. Steve and Tony and Clint hadn't moved; fast asleep. Someone had given Clint something to... cuddle so he wasn't going anywhere.
"Yeah.. uh, I'm fine Pepper, just surprised me..." She blinked up at the 'bot, confused at its beeping and twisting. "...sorry?"
It, he, did a dip and half a spin, whining in distress, and thrust the blanket at her over the back of the couch. She took it with a raised eyebrow and the 'bot curled up on itself until it was hidden behind the sofa and crept off, squeaking.
She turned her raised eyebrow to Pepper, who rubbed a hand over her face wearily and kicked a pillow out of her way.
"Are you sure? You gave him a hell of a whack," Pepper said, reaching out for her arm in an unconscious way. Natasha let her take it; she couldn't do any harm. It ached, but not as much as her stomach... which, she could do with a few tylenol for, actually.
"Oh dear, that's going to bruise... Do you need an icepack or something? Arnica?"
Natasha shivered internally at the idea of taping anything cold next to her skin and pulled her blanket over her shoulders. "It's fine, really, but... do you have a hot water bottle?"
Pepper frowned, opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it again as she looked at the way Natasha was holding herself; slightly hunched, with one corner of the blanket scrunched into a fist and pressed to her stomach. "Oh. Oh! Yes, of course! Tylenol?"
"Please. Timing's not the best, but my six months was up," she confessed. Pepper was already headed to the bar which, apparently, held a lot more than Tony's alcohol. Natasha hadn't spent vast amounts of time up here in the penthouse, not with the combination of her black market ops and moving her things from various safe houses to the Tower.
"Combined pill?" Pepper asked, sympathetically, from behind the bar, her head half buried in a cabinet.
"Yeah. Wouldn't go on a mission without it, but Medical has rules about prolonged usage, so we come off when we can." She didn't mention how it was easier to get some marks when you had a little strip of yellow pills to wave at them, or how vulnerable mood swings made her feel, or how there had been a month when all the female agents on the Helicarrier had synced up. Fury had had words with Medical after that. It had not been good. For anyone.
"I.. Ladies, I appologise if I intrude, but... Lady Natasha, are you well?"
Natasha twitched, having apparently completely missed a Norse god in his underwear. She sat up, all the little tells that had clued Pepper in vanishing in an instant and a draft finding its way under her blanket. She resisted the shiver and eyed him warily. "I'm fine, Thor. This is normal."
Pepper clattered about with the hot water bottle, obviously no more clear on how to explain than Natasha was, but at least Natasha would be comfortable. Thinking of which... She checked Tony's morphine gauge, just to see where he was on dosage, and to buy herself some time. Thor's curious look was practically a force of nature...
"My lady, truly, it does not sound as though you are. Forgive me, but..."
"Yes, alright, Thor, I'll explain..." Pepper sounded resigned. Natasha, on the other hand, was fairly sure that she had just rediscovered what falling in love felt like and hugged the proffered hot water bottle to her stomach; instant relief.
"Usually, it's once a month... a moon cycle?"
Natasha tuned them out and took her painkillers; no need for her to increase Thors imminent embarrassment. Besides; she had other things to deal with, like the fact that she hadn't had someone help her with cramps since Bahrain; being stuck in a Persian city with two emotionally repressed, single men? She hadn't exactly expected anything, hadn't expected them to notice, but... But it was Coulson's job to look after them, and he'd turned off the aircon, gotten her a bag of grain that, somehow, stayed hot for hours after a few minutes in their crappy little safehouse microwave.
Coulson was fresh on her mind, of course he was, and she was allowed to be... to grieve. And besides the boys were asleep; she didn't need to be Clint's stability right now.
Carefully, slowly, she shifted on the sofa and moved pillows around until she could put her cheek against Steve's big shoulder and relax into the warm, pulling her blanket tight and hugging her hot water bottle. She wasn't quite comfortable until she pressed her foot against Clint, but once she did, it felt alright that her cheeks got wet when she blinked.
Some things, you just accepted.
She'd always had trouble with crying, and it stung that it took the biological wearing down of barriers to let her cry for Coulson. Clint struggled with it too and she could see it adding to his guilt. His great big mounds of guilt. Mountains. She sniffed irritably; Clint was an idiot. A great big, fat idiot, because she of all people knew that guilt. Knew about being used and distorted and... wow, this was really not what she needed to be thinking about right now.
She tried to turn her mind back to that moment, when Coulson had handed her something warm to hold and some pills to take away the ache, and it was warm and smelled like the sea and-
"In the name of children?!"
And then Thor.
"You bleed, three in every eight-and-twenty day, you are in pain, it saps your energy- This is not just, my Lady. I must talk to Queen Frigga-"
"Oh my- Thor, no, its fine! We're fine, Thor, just, don't wake anyone else up?"
Natasha dried her eyes on Steve (he wouldn't mind, and in all honesty, Natasha didn't think he was capable of 'minding' much) and turned to smile at Thor, her expression firm. "It makes us strong, Thor; it makes us immune to the dreaded 'man flu'."
Pepper managed to hide her giggles behind Thor's back. Just.
"Verily? I am labeled a god of fertility, my Lady, and this, this sounds ill to my ear." He looked frustrated and concerned, so Natasha reached over to pat his hand, which was resting heavily on Clint's midsection and was possibly the only thing keeping the archer asleep.
"You're a god of lots of things, Thor, and you can't just go around asking your Mother Queen to change biology." Besides, she was fine; there was already enough Asgardian magic floating around, from the song to the peace on Clint's face.
Pepper mouthed 'thank you' over Thor's shoulder on her way to cover Bruce up.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When Tony woke up, it was morning, and the dreams were just... smoke on the wind. Steve's voice rumbled through him, against his spine, and... christ, it was thrumming against the arc reactor in the space between heartbeats.
It was the first time he'd woken up without the pain. He could feel it in the distance but... But he had the sun on his eyelids, and Bruce at his side, and Thor laughing in the distance. Pepper was in the blanket under his fingertips and the pillow cradling his head.
And Coulson was alive, somewhere, and JARVIS and the kids could be immortal if they wanted and...
And he could take this.
For these guys, he'd take anything.