Pepper was sitting in front of the TV watching Mad Money on CNBC.

"Stark Industries!" Jim Cramer shouted on the TV. "I've got only one recommendation-you ready? You ready?" He shrieked."Abandon ship! Doesn't the Hindenburg ring any bells?!"

Pepper groaned and rolled his eyes, knowing full well he'd be left to deal with the fallout.

"Let me show you the new Stark Industries business plan!" Cramer then picked up a baseball bat and smashed up his coffee mug right off his table. "Look!" He shouted. "That's a weapons company that doesn't make weapons!"

"Pepper?" Toni called out over the intercom. "Can you help me with something?"

"What is it, Toni?" He asked.

"I'll tell you, but only if you come down here." Toni said smugly.

Pepper sighed as he stood up, leaving the TV on as he made his way down into Toni's garage/lab.

In the lab, Toni was sitting in an office chair with just sweatpants and her bra on with wires attached to her chest, leading to heart monitors.

Pepper simply looked at her confused. "Toni, are you gonna tell me what's going on?"

"I just need you to do me a small favor."

"Why are you just wearing just a bra and and why do you look like you're gonna do something with the thing that's literally keeping you alive?" Pepper asked, pointing at the arc reactor embedded in Toni's chest.

"Because now it's an antique." Toni held up a brighter and more advanced looking arc reactor for Pepper to see. "This is what will be keeping me alive for the foreseeable future. I was swapping it up for an upgraded unit and then I ran into a little speed bump."

"Speed bump?" Pepper questioned.

"It's nothing actually. Just a little snag." Toni chuckled as she slowly pulled the old arc reactor from her chest. "You see, there's an exposed wire under this device, it's actually just the socket wall and causing a little bit of a short..." She paused."You know what? It's fine, it's fine." She said quickly, handing the old arc reactor to Pepper.

"Why are you-this is your-I don't want this!" Pepper held the arc reactor and looked at it.

"No, but I want you to do something for me. That's if you can" Toni shrugged. "I mean, if you can't, that's totally fine. After all, I'm an independent woman, Pepper, not some damsel in distress."

"Well your vital signs beg to differ." Pepper pointed to one of the heart monitors, which showed Toni's irregular heartbeat.

"Alright, then you'd better get started then." Toni pointed at the cluttered table opposite them both. "Put that on the table over there."

Uncertainly, Pepper put the arc reactor on the table, pushing some things out of his way.

"Great, that is now trash."

"Oh my god!" Pepper whispered loudly.

"Now for the helping." Toni said. "I need you to come here."

Pepper shuffled over nervously. "You want me to do something worse than touching your... thing?"

"My thing!" Toni cackled. "It's an arc reactor. Not a 'thing'."

"God, just tell me what you want me to do."

"Reach in there," Toni pointed to the empty space in her chest, "and you're gonna come across a wire. What I want you to do is just gently lift the wire out."

"Is it safe?" Pepper asked nervously.

"Yeah, totally. Should be fine." Toni shrugged. "Just like… Operation. You don't let it touch the socket wall or it goes 'beep'..."

"What do you mean, 'Operation'?" Pepper asked urgently.

"The board game Operation. The guy and the tweezers and you gotta take out his weird body parts..." Toni sighed. "Never mind. Just the wire. Gently lift it. You got this. You got this."

Pepper began to put his hand into Toni's chest cavity, but quickly pulled it out. "Toni, I really don't think I'm qualified to do this." He said panicked.

"You're totally fine, Pepper." Toni inhaled deeply. "You're the most capable, qualified, trustworthy person I've ever met. You're gonna do great." She said with a smile.

"All that may be true, Toni, but can't you do it yourself?"

"I actually can't do it myself because I can't see into my chest... hole." Toni said urgently. "Do it, Pepper, do it now!"

"Okay! Okay!" Pepper winced as he put his hand back inside Toni's chest cavity. "God, Toni! I just put my hand in pus!"

"That's not pus." Toni said calmly. "It's just... Pepper, it's plasmic discharge. From the, uh, arc reactor, not from... my body. Inorganic, obviously, since it's not from me. And totally harmless."

"It's stinks!" Pepper shouted.

Toni chuckled. "Yeah, it does!"

"Toni, I'm not a surgeon or the Mafia and I've got my hand inside your body-this is not the time for jokes!" Pepper said desperately.

"Okay, fine." Toni said. "The wire-the copper wire. Have you got it?"

"Yeah, I got it! I got it." Pepper began to slowly pull the wire out.

"Okay, good. Just don't let it touch the sides-" Toni loudly gasped in pain and glared at Pepper, "when you're coming out."

"I'm so sorry. So sorry..." Pepper said sheepishly.

"It's fine." Toni shook her head. "But you should learn to listen more since that's what I was trying to tell you before."

"Sorry."

"Okay, now make sure that when you pull it out, you don't-there's a magnet at the end of it-" Toni stopped and sighed loudly when she saw that Pepper had pulled the magnet out. "That was it." She said tonelessly. "You just pulled it out."

"Oh my god!" Pepper shrieked.

"What are you? A little girl?" Toni sighed again. "I didn't expect-" She saw Pepper trying to put the magnet back. "For god's sake! Don't put it back in!"

"Don't-what do I do, then?"

"You need to-" Toni was interrupted by the warning alarms from her heart monitors.

"What's wrong?" Pepper looked visibly panicked.

"Oh nothing." Toni said innocently. "It's just warning me that I'm going into cardiac arrest 'cause you yanked out the magnet-"

"What?!" Pepper shouted angrily. "This isn't on me! This is your fault! You said it was safe!"

"Tell you what, we'll argue about this later, when I'm not dead, but you need to hurry, or I will be dead." Toni picked up the new arc reactor and pushed it into Pepper's hands. "Take this. And shove it in there," she pointed to her chest cavity, "carefully this time-but quickly. Don't go carefully, I'll die. Go too slow, I'll die."

"Okay." Pepper began to put the arc reactor into Toni's chest, before looking up at her. "Toni? It's' going to be okay." He said reassuringly. "It's' gonna be okay. I'm gonna make this okay."

"Well, we can only hope." Toni deadpanned. "What you're gonna do is attach that to the base plate. Make sure you-" She stopped giving instructions when the heart monitors resumed their normal beeping. "There you go." They both smiled with relief. "You see? Was that so hard? That was fun, right?"

"Are you okay?" Pepper asked in concern.

Toni began to laugh. "Yeah, I feel great-never better. You okay?"

"Don't ever, ever even so much as think to dare ask me to do anything like that ever again." Pepper wiped his hands on a nearby towel and Toni's face fell.

"I don't have anyone but you."

"That's a lie, Toni." Pepper said. "You have Rhodey. You have Happy. You have... Mrs Arbogast-"

"The fact that you struggled to name three other people should tell you a lot." Toni said.

"What do you want me to do with this?" Pepper asked, holding the old arc reactor.

"Oh, that? Destroy it. Incinerate it." Toni shrugged.

"You don't want to keep it?"

"Pepper, I've been called many things. ''Nostalgic'' isn't one of them." Toni stood up. "And neither is 'crazy hoarder lady'."

"Will that be all, Ms. Stark?"

"That will be all, Mr. Potts." Toni said.

As Pepper walked out of the room, Toni picked up her blouse before turning to the robot arm next to her. "Hey, Butterfingers, come here. What's all this stuff doing on top of my desk? That's my phone, that's a picture of me and my dad. Right there. In the garbage. All that stuff." She said, tapping her new arc reactor.