A/N: How's that for a fast update? Thanks for all the wonderful feedback you're giving me, it really inspires me to keep going 3 No story lives unless someone wants to listen! (J.K. Rowling) Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Oh, also, I'd like to remind you that since this is a somewhat AU fanfiction, I CAN kill off characters. Just thought I'd remind you of my evilness C:
His fever... It scared her.
She hasn't known that a person could reach such a high temperature. He was burning, almost literally burning, she couldn't keep her hand on his forehead for long before having to snatch it away again.
He was so ill, too. He tossed and turned in his bed, squirming and moaning, it was like the plague, in fact, it might as well have been for the pain and discomfort it caused him.
Pepper didn't know why he had contracted the illness first (if it even was an illness). Perhaps it was due to his body being weak in the first place. Perhaps it was because he depended on the metal implant in his chest to keep him alive.
She was terrified. Absolutely panic-stricken. She couldn't lose him. Those few months when he had been in captivity... That had been hell. And that was with the desperate hope that he was still alive.
But if she failed this time, if he left her... He wouldn't come back.
And she couldn't deal with that.
Yes, she was scared to death. But she never showed it.
Pepper was never given much credit for bravery. She had an incredible skill, one that let her simply grin and bear it. This skill had been strengthened during Tony's many missions as Iron Man. She'd never let him see how horrified she'd been when he came home, battered and bruised. She just patched him up and tucked him in to bed.
He didn't know how she cried afterwards.
Pepper didn't show the children how worried she was. What was the point in panicking them, she asked herself, in telling them how serious it is? Better to tell them that Tony had a simple case of the flu. But, in a determined effort not to spiral into depression, she convinced herself that this was a golden opportunity. She shot dark hints at Loki whenever she could, trying to let him know that it was imperative that he told them all he knew.
Tony was getting worse every day. His skin grew waxy and yellow and his cheeks lost the rosy plumpness of youth. He became thin and pale and mumbled deliriously under his breath, sweat dripping off of his body and soaking his sheets. The arc appeared too small for his chest now and rattled ominously in its cavity.
Pepper hadn't a clue how to help him. How did one go about curing a snap-back in time and space? The only solution was to keep him comfortable whilst gently urging Loki to open up.
But gentle encouragement wasn't going to help for long.
Pepper was so focused on helping Tony that she didn't notice Natasha was growing unwell, too. It wasn't until she collapsed while playing with Clint that Pepper realised that something was seriously wrong.
She rushed the feebly stirring Natasha to bed while Clint looked on anxiously.
"Is Natasha okay?" he asked her urgently.
Pepper shook her head miserably. "I don't know, Clint, I really don't," she rasped.
Natasha suddenly cried out, "No, no!" She thrashed around violently, eyes tightly shut against horrors that only she could see.
Clint's eyes were wide and worried. "Please make her okay," he pleaded, and Pepper nodded blankly, her throat dry.
Tony stirred from where he lay, mumbling, "Stop, make it stop." Pepper narrowed her eyes, her eyebrows creased. She didn't know any way to protect them from their own minds.
Fury visited regularly to track her progress and check on the children. All Pepper could do was shake her head.
Bruce was the next one to succumb. He started going a little green at dinner one day, and Pepper was momentarily worried that he was going to Hulk out.
Then he threw up and fell, twitching, to the floor.
The other four children gasped and started muttering, alarmed, amongst themselves. Pepper, eyes wide, snapped into action and carried Bruce to bed.
"Brucie? You okay?" she asked gently, mopping his forehead with a moist towel.
Bruce shuddered. "It hurts," he whimpered, his eyes still closed and his face slightly scrunched up. "Make it go away, please make it go away."
They had all three of them been saying things like that, and none of them had been properly awake since they had fallen victim to the sickness. They were delirious, no doubt, and in a lot of pain. Pepper had tried to wake them, shaking them, pressing ice cubes to their skin, shouting... nothing had worked. She daren't try something drastic in the fear that it would harm them more.
Steve, Clint and Thor approached her one evening while she was tending the sick children. They looked nervous, and Clint nudged Steve, who was apparently the spokesperson.
"Pepper," he said quietly. "They don't just have the flu, do they?"
Pepper looked up at them properly. With a start, she realised that they must have been around nine years old. She was so shocked by their rapid growth that she didn't properly take in their question. "What?"
"What's really wrong with them?" Steve pressed.
Pepper swallowed. "I... I don't know what you mean. They're just a little sick, everything's okay..."
"Pepper," Clint interjected. "We aren't stupid. Please tell us what's going on."
"All of it," Steve added.
Pepper bit her lip. "I can't." She had already discussed this with Fury and they had agreed that the less the children knew about the situation, the better.
"Please," Clint said, so quietly she had to strain to hear him, and his eyes darted momentarily towards Natasha.
Pepper couldn't help it. She started to cry.
Steve, Thor and Clint looked at each other, aghast, as tears flowed steadily from Pepper's eyes. A drop landed on Tony's leg, and he mumbled, "Water... No... Stop... Can't breathe..."
Pepper soothed him, still sniffing and wiping away tears. "Shh, shh... It's okay, everything's- Everything's going to be okay."
"Okay," she said to the other three, who still looked uncomfortable. "Sit down. I'll... I'll try and tell you what I know."
And she told them everything.
She told them how she had been called in to hear that Earth's Mightiest Heroes had been turned into toddlers, and that she had to babysit. She told them how Fury suspected that Loki was responsible. She told them how he had told her to look after him and gain his trust. She told him how Fury had told her that if it wasn't fixed soon, the children would die.
Tears still glistened in her eyes as she finished her tale. The three children stared at her, their own eyes wide in disbelief.
"I know it's a lot to take in," she murmured.
Clint spoke up first. "Does that mean that Nat is..." He didn't finish, instead giving the sick girl such an anguished look that Pepper thought her heart was going to break.
"Loki, responsible for this?" Thor mumbled, pain in his eyes. "I... I didn't know..."
"It's okay, Thor," Pepper said quietly.
"No, it's not!" Thor cried, so that Loki turned suspiciously from the corner where he sat, brooding. "It's not okay," he repeated, more quietly. "Don't you see? Loki is many things, but he is not stupid. In performing the spell, Loki would have known the outcome. He would have known that it would inevitably kill us all."
"It's not the first time he's tried," Steve muttered.
Thor looked up at him, his expression tortured. "But he had to turn himself as well," he whispered. "He hates us- me- so much that to destroy us, he would even be willing to sacrifice himself. As long as I was gone." He broke down and sobbed.
Pepper's heart contorted at the suffering of the two children. She couldn't stand it, and yet, she couldn't do anything.
Steve looked up at her, a hard, determined glint in his eye. "Well, we know where we go from here," he declared. "From now on, our number one priority is making Loki trust us."
Thor looked up hopelessly. "What's the point? He'll never forgive us," he said in a flat voice.
Steve grabbed Thor's shoulders and shook him hard. "Have heart," he urged. "There's four of us. Between me, you, Clint and Pepper, we can do anything."
But he spoke too soon. Clint's sadness had weakened him, and he turned to face them. "I'm sorry," he said, "you'll have to do this one without me." He smiled weakly and curled up on the floor.
Steve and Thor stared, horrified, as Pepper scooped Clint up and put him to bed as well, dread spreading through her body.
"O-okay, three of us, then," Steve said worriedly, with an anxious glance at his unwell friends.
Loki turned and glared at them, and even Steve began to doubt success.