What could go wrong when nothing should go wrong? For Pepper, the answer was simple: everything. The eve of Thanksgiving turned into an unexpected nightmare for the redhead. A sleepless night filled with worries about Eleanor, who was sick and suffering from fever and occasional vomiting, left her physically and emotionally exhausted. The duty of caring for her daughter throughout the night prevented her from resting, depriving her of sleep.
If that wasn't enough, upon arriving at the hospital that morning, she was confronted with the tragic news that two patients had died during the night. The pain of the loss mingled with the accumulated exhaustion from the sleepless night. Sadness enveloped her as she prepared to face another challenging day. The emergency room was crowded, and the hospital seemed even busier.
Later in the afternoon, an emergency surgery became Pepper's next ordeal. The case was already complex, and the chances of success were minimal. However, the cardiothoracic surgeon held onto hope. What kind of doctor would she be if she accepted defeat without even fighting? Unfortunately, despite all efforts, the 7-year-old patient did not survive and died on the operating table.
Seeking brief relief amid the adversities, she decided to check on the condition of the unknown patient she had been treating alongside Tony. The quiet ICU room housed the young woman, still in a coma but maintaining remarkable stability. The records indicated that a new brain MRI had been performed, revealing results as clean as the previous ones, which was both encouraging and frustrating. If everything was fine, why wasn't she waking up?
Examining the young woman, Pepper checked her vital signs, meticulously noting each detail in the records. When she was about to leave the room, her pager emitted a signal, indicating a new call. A sigh escaped her lips, but she promptly checked the received message, feeling a chill run down her spine as she noticed the message was from pediatrics.
Even though she knew the rules prohibiting running in the hospital corridors, the redhead didn't hesitate to ignore them, running through the halls and down the emergency stairs until she reached the third floor. Her heart pounded, driven not only by physical exertion but also by the worry that propelled her. Entering the indicated room, she was met with an agonizing scene: Eleanor was sitting on a gurney, a bloodied towel pressed against her forehead, while a school staff member held the compress in place. The girl cried intensely, her face red and sobbing in a way that seemed to threaten her breath at any moment. Theo, standing in the corner of the room, watched everything with a frightened expression.
"What happened?" the redhead immediately approached her daughter, maternal instinct taking over.
"She got dizzy and fell, unfortunately hitting her head on her desk," explained the staff member who was with the children.
Of course, this would happen. She shouldn't have let the girl go to school that morning; she shouldn't have been fooled by the lack of symptoms.
"It's okay, my love, Mommy's here now," she said, caressing the child's blonde hair, trying to provide as much comfort as possible.
"It hurts!" Eleanor complained through tears.
"I know, but it'll pass."
"Is Ellie going to be okay, Mommy?" Theo spoke for the first time.
"Of course she will, champ," she tried to smile at him.
"We're going to give her a small stitch on her forehead," a resident, whose name Pepper couldn't remember at that moment, explained.
"I want Stark to be called."
"But there's no need for that," the young woman tried to say. "We've already done the preliminary exam, and she's fine; it's just a few stitches."
"I want Anthony Stark in this room immediately," the redhead was emphatic, raising her voice. When had the chief surgeons stopped being obeyed and started being questioned?
The resident, named Susan, nodded and disappeared down the corridors while Pepper tried to calm Eleanor and reassure Theodore, dismissing the children's school staff member. On the other side of the hospital, Susan was trying to convince Tony about the simplicity of the case and that it definitely didn't need his attention. Initially inclined to make a joke, Tony changed his mind as soon as he learned it was about Pepper. He knew that if she was calling him, it was serious, and he needed to get there.
With hurried steps, the neurosurgeon left the other doctor he was talking to and quickly made his way to where his colleague was. The closer he got to the room in the pediatric wing, the more perceptible the sharp crying became, even though the girl was much calmer now. As soon as he entered the space, his body froze.
"Uncle, T!" Theodore ran to hug him as soon as he saw him, having to content himself with the older man's legs due to his size.
"Uncle!" Ellie was the next to call him, her face pressed against her mother's chest and her cheeks wet. The weak voice was totally different from what Tony was used to hearing.
"What happened?" Tony asked, approaching and seeking information.
"She got dizzy, lost her balance, and hit her head. She'll need stitches. Can you take a look?" Pepper asked.
Tony nodded and approached them with slow steps, with Theo in tow. The adults analyzed each other as if they could obtain all the desired information just by exchanging glances, and in a way, it was true. It only took a few seconds for Pepper to understand why her children knew Tony, where they knew him from, and, similarly, the "absence" of the twins' parents in the room made perfect sense to Tony.
"You... You are their mother?" the neurosurgeon asked as he moved around the room, gathering all the necessary instruments for the suture that needed to be performed.
"How did you two meet?" the cardiothoracic surgeon replied with another question.
"Harvey," he confirmed her suspicions.
"The cool friend… Uncle…" the woman sighed. "Of course, it would be you.
"Cool friend?" He raised an eyebrow, confused.
"That's what they also call you," she pointed to the children.
"Mama, it hurts!" Ellie's voice pulled them out of their trance.
"What happened here, sweetie?" Tony asked as he approached her, carefully removing the compress pressed just above her eyebrow. When their fingers touched, a slight electric shock ran through both of them. But if asked about it, they would deny it.
"I got hurt!" the little girl explained in her own way.
"She hasn't been well since yesterday; we didn't sleep much during the night. She had a fever, vomited a bit, but since she woke up better this morning, I let her go to school," Pepper provided more details. "She had a little party and really wanted to go. It was a mistake, I know. I was a complete idiot." As if fearing his judgment, she justified herself.
"You couldn't have known this would happen; she seemed fine," Tony said, surprising her. She hadn't expected this reaction.
"Do you think it could be something more serious?" She was still worried. It was her daughter, after all.
"All the tests are fine. She just got dizzy and lost her balance," he tried to reassure her.
"Children don't just get dizzy and lose their balance."
"Children who spent the night vomiting and with a fever do," Tony smiled slightly. "Look, you don't need to worry. Ellie is fine; we just need to give her a few stitches, and she'll be as good as new. We should only worry if the symptoms appear in the reverse order."
"Are you sure about that?"
"I'm a neurosurgeon, aren't I?" He narrowed his eyes at her.
Pepper sighed, nodding. She listened intently to every detail as she watched him prepare the suture kit. As a doctor, using her rational and purely professional side, she knew Tony was right, that there was nothing to worry about. But as a mother, letting her emotional side take over, holding her crying and pained daughter in her arms, she couldn't help but worry. She wanted to hug her even tighter and cry with her.
Sensing the commotion, Tony asked her to switch places with the resident, leaving the trainee doctor the task of assisting him with the little girl. As he prepared to anesthetize the wound and then give the necessary stitches, Ellie started crying even more, exclaiming how much it hurt. Pepper wanted to rush to them, but that role fell to Theo, who, at the first opportunity, broke away from his mother and ran to the other three present in the room.
"You're hurting her, you're hurting her!" With all his little strength, the boy tried to push the older man away from his sister. Of course, he couldn't, but the surgeon found his attitude adorable.
Trying to control the situation and calm the twins, Tony began to explain each of his steps in the most playful way he could. To dispel both children's fear, he made Theo hold Ellie's hand and encouraged him to calm her during the procedure.
"Look here, champ, you're the number one assistant now. You're going to help keep your sister calm, okay?" He was trying to divert the boy's attention to a more positive task.
Slowly, Theo started to get involved in the task, watching curiously what his uncle was doing and holding his sister's hand firmly. Quickly, the tension began to ease, and Eleanor, although still worried, started to calm down with her brother's comforting presence.
From the other side of the room, Pepper watched the scene in silence. She was moved by the interaction of the three, enchanted not only by the love and care her children had for each other but also finding the relationship between the older man and the little ones beautiful. How was it possible for two versions of that same man to exist?
"All done, sweetie," Tony said minutes later, helping her sit up and handing her a small mirror to hold in front of her face.
"Hello Kitty!" Eleanor exclaimed happily, noticing the bandage covering the stitched area.
"Do you like it? And when we take these stitches out, there won't be any mark left."
"None at all? Like magic?" Theodore was just as engrossed in the conversation as his sister.
"I'm very good at my job," Tony boasted, making both children laugh.
Under normal circumstances, Pepper would have made a joke about it, a discussion would have easily started between the adults, but at that moment she was… Well, she didn't know how to define what she was feeling.
"Thank you!" she whispered.
"You know you don't need to thank me, it's part of my job, isn't it?"
"Not for coming here, but for everything else."
"Are you really thanking me?"
"Are you really questioning my gratitude?"
The man laughed; they would always be themselves.
"Potts, why me?" He asked as she had done weeks before. He had the right to know, didn't he?
"Because yes," was the answer she gave him. And it was good enough. "Why did you come?"
"You know, I'd always come," he shrugged, as if it were nothing, but they both knew it was.