It is Wong, who finds her eventually. She just sat there and stared into the room until he entered the library. Cautiously, he crouches down and taps her shoulder.
"He is in love with him..." she murmurs.
"Who?"
"Strange. He's in love with Tony."
"I know." Wong bows his head. "How much did he tell you?"
"Pretty much everything, I guess."
He nods. "Listen, I know that all a is a lot for you to wrap your head around, but we have no time for that now. So, why don't you come to the kitchen with me? I'll brew a nice cup of tea for you, and afterward, we continue our training?"
Hesitantly, she nods.
-–-
The rest of the day they spend practicing some basic spells, and when Pepper finally manages to open a portal in the evening, Wong looks at her proudly.
"I think, that's enough for today. You should rest now."
She wants to hand him the sling ring, but he pushes it back into her hand.
"No, keep it. It is yours now. You never know when it will come in handy." He winks at her. "Tomorrow you will begin learning the healing spell with Stephen."
"Not with you?" she asks, bewildered.
"No. He insists."
That surprises Pepper. Since their conversation in the morning, she has been under the impression that Strange was actively avoiding her. The man drifts through the Sanctum like a ghost and every time she entered a room he's in, he has left.
Wong notices her confusion. "Don't ask me why. I don't know what's going on in this head of his anymore. I barely recognize the man who came back from Titan." With sad eyes, he takes a stack of books and leaves. "Good night, Pepper."
-–-
In the morning, a soft nudge wakes Pepper up. When she opens her eyes, waves of red fabric fill her field of view.
"Morning," she mumbles, patting the cloak.
It hugs her, and floats out of the room, while she gazes after it. "What a weird alarm clock."
On her way to the bathroom, she meets Strange. His generally meticulous styled hair is an unruly mob of black and white curls. Besides a pair of soft looking blue pajama bottoms, he wears a threadbare gray t-shirt inside out, and his bare feet make slapping sounds on the old hardwood floors. She can't help but think he's adorable like this, so wonderfully human without his usual armor made from the mysteries that surround him.
He looks at her and makes the futile attempt to put his hair in order. "Morning."
"Morning," she answers.
With shaking fingers, he points to the end of the corridor. "Bathroom's that way."
"I know, Wong told me."
"Oh, good ...good. I think he's making breakfast... so, just come to the kitchen, when you're done."
"Yes, sure. That's nice," she replies.
"Yeah, you're special. He never makes breakfast for me!" he exclaims, pretending to pout.
That makes her laugh.
With a big grin, he looks at her. After a moment, the cloak comes flying and wraps itself around Strange.
"My services are needed. See you in a few minutes."
Without waiting for her response, the cloak carries him away, leaving her to stare after them.
-–-
It takes them three days of practice until Pepper gets the spell right.
While she tries her best to concentrate on the task at hand, she still notices how Stephen grows more tired from day to day. He does his best to hide it from her, but the shadows under his eyes, that are constantly getting darker, tell a different story.
The more Pepper learns about Strange, the more he grows on her. The brief glimpses she can catch behind his mask of the Sorcerer Supreme intrigue her: He's witty, funny, sarcastic, with razor-sharp intellect but also selfless like no one else she met before. Well, maybe with one exception.
When he tells her she is ready, she asks him if they go to Tony right away, but he shakes his head.
"You'll need a lot of strength for this. You should rest first – and eat."
She wants to protest, but he doesn't let her.
"Listen, I know you want to save him as fast as possible. I get that. I really do. But you won't help him when you run out of energy while performing this spell. Yes, his condition is critical, but it is stable, I'm taking care of that. You should take the evening off, rest, maybe visit your family, and in the morning we go to Tony, understood?"
Pepper nods slowly. The thought of visiting Morgan and Rhodey is indeed lovely. She misses her little girl so much, so she accepts Stephen's offer to portal her to them.
-–-
Only when she arrives at Rhodey's place, she realizes how late it is – way past Morgan's bedtime. The stay in the Sanctum had blurred her sense of time more than she expected.
"Hey, you! How's it going?" Rhodey greets her.
Pepper tells him about the last few days and their plans for the next morning.
"So tomorrow, hu?" He had gotten them a drink, which Pepper refused. (Alcohol probably wasn't a good idea right now.)
"Yes." She runs her hands through her hair and props up her elbows on her thighs.
"...and this plan, it'll work?"
She shrugs. "Either it does, or we'll lose Tony forever."
He hesitates. "Do you want me to be there, tomorrow?"
"Maybe not there in the hospital room, but it would be great if you could wait nearby. I might need someone."
"So the little princess and I will take our breakfast in the hospital cafeteria and wait for your call." He smiles.
"Thank you."
After that, she bids her farewell and opens a portal to the Sanctum with her new sling ring.
"Woah!" Rhodey cries. "And you can keep that thing?"
She nods.
"That's almost worth this whole mess!"
She knows, of course, he's joking, she has known him long enough, so she just rolls her eyes and leaves.
-–-
When she steps through the portal, Stephen, who sits on his desk in the library, looks up from his book.
"Oh. You're back already?"
"Yes, It's late. I let them sleep. I mean, I'll see them tomorrow, won't I?"
"Sure." He nods.
"I'll head to bed, then." She moves to the exit.
"Did you eat something?" he calls after her.
She stops. "Not really."
"Are you hungry?"
"Yes, I am."
Hastily, he puts his book aside and joins her. "Shall we see what we can find in the kitchen?"
"Yeah, sounds like a good idea."
What they find is sobering: "There is a packet of Italian breadsticks, a glass nacho cheese sauce and two packs of instant ramen noodles."
Disappointed, Stephen holds up his miserable findings after frisking the kitchen cabinets. "Looks like Wong forgot to do the shopping. Or was it my turn?"
Pepper sits on the table in the middle of the kitchen and beams at him. "Sounds like an absolute feast."
"Back in the day, when I was a poor medical student, this would have been a feast, indeed," he jokes.
-–-
A couple of minutes later they sit together on the bench on the roof terrace of the Sanctum and gaze into the New York night. Each of them has a bowl of noodle soup and the breadsticks between them.
In a corner, the Cloak of Levitation floats and watches them.
"So, why don't you try performing the spell? You love him," Pepper asks eventually.
"But he doesn't love me. Remember, that part's important, too. I might have been in love with him for nearly seven thousand years, but from his perspective, we've known each other for a day. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if he still harbors some resentment against me for giving up the stone on Titan."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that – I mean, you're right, he hated you after Titan, but five years is a long time to hold a grudge." She empties her bowl with a slurp.
"But I'm not a sorcerer. Let's face it: I'm the weakest point of your plan."
"That's not how I would describe you."
"Then how would you describe me?" she asks, grabbing a breadstick and dipping it into the cheese sauce.
He looks at her, thinks for a moment. "You are an incredibly strong person, but most people don't see that. You are always organized, a harbor of calm and order in the middle of the storm. You are as pragmatic as you are compassionate. You do what needs to be done – like putting on an Iron Man armor and throwing yourself into a battle without knowing you'll make it back, to guarantee your daughter will have a future." His smile gets watery. "You are the perfect person for him. You are perfect, period."
She puts down the breadstick and moves closer to him.
Confused, he looks at her. "What are you...?"
Before he can finish the question, she pulls him in into a hug. "...doing what needs to be done."
It takes a moment until he reciprocates the embrace, but when he does, she can hear him snivel softly. Gently, she strokes his back and tightens her grip around him.
"Shhh... let go," she whispers in his ear. "Let go; I've got you. It's going to be okay. I promise."
Finally, he starts sobbing without restraint. She holds him all the time and rocks him gently.
When he eventually breaks the contact, he looks drained, but relieved.
"Thank you," he says sheepishly.
"You're welcome." She caresses his cheek and enjoys the way he leans into the touch.
Hesitant, he puts his hand over hers. "We should go to bed – get some sleep. Tomorrow is an important day."
Reluctantly, he tears himself away from her and stands up. She does the same, and the cloak shoots out of its corner, to wrap itself around her shoulders.
Stephen accompanies her to her room, where they part. The cloak floats back to him and waves at Pepper.
While she closes the door behind her, she can sense the longing look of the sorcerer and has to fight the impulse to run to him to pull him into her arms again.