Chapter Text
Starks are truly made of iron.
They have to be, Pepper thinks for one crazy second, as she watches Tony’s reactor flickering back to life and everyone around her rushing to help and making sure that the light keeps shining this time.
Pepper stays frozen to her spot, unable to move, too terrified, too hopeful. She feels like a too sudden movement could destroy this precious moment when Tony is alive, is breathing again and maybe, just maybe he can stay this way.
Someone helps her to her feet; she thinks it might be Peter. Someone else tells her that Strange is opening a portal, a little bit of gold shine appears somewhere to her left.
She reacts only when Rhodey tries to lift Tony.
“No!” she might have screamed judging by others’ reactions but she doesn’t care, not right now, not when it comes to her husband. “Let me, it should be me.”
Even in a suit it’s not easy to lift Tony from the ground, not when he’s so lifeless, when she tries so hard not to further damage the burnt flesh.
“Let me help,” Peter appears next to her and for a moment she wants to protest, but he’s already holding Tony’s legs, so gently as if he could break into million pieces so Pepper gives up, and they cross the portal together, with Rhodey just a step behind them.
They put Tony on a bed, the three of them; Pepper, Peter and Rhodey. She forces herself to pry her fingers off Tony's body, and lets more qualified people to help him.
Strange gently, but decisively throws them out of the room, so she sits on the floor right next to its doors, too tired and worried to move anywhere else.
She needs to be close. Her comfort is really not important at this moment.
“Pepper,” Rhodey’s voice is gentle as he leans toward her. “We need to at least get you out from this suit.”
Pepper isn’t sure why it matters. As far as she is concerned she can stay in the suit or wear a ball gown, or even be naked; it just makes no difference.
Rhodey insists though and it’s simply easier to follow his lead rather than argue. She ends up on an overgrown armchair with a mug full of tea that Peter forced into her hand and Pepper realizes she doesn’t know how much time has passed since…
The image of Tony’s broken body flashes through her mind and the mug falls from her hand, crashing on the wooden floor, hot tea spilling on her shoes.
“Miss Potts?” Peter’s voice is so quiet and hesitant. “Your heart is doing some crazy stuff right now, do you want to lay down?”
It might be a good idea, Pepper realizes but laying down would mean moving even further away from Tony and that’s absolutely out of question.
“It’s Mrs. Stark now,” words spill from her mouth before she is aware of that. “But I told you a million times to call me Pepper.”
It’s a nonsensical request to make in such a situation but it’s getting harder and harder to think straight.
She might be crying; her cheeks are wet and when Peter leans toward her the only thing she can do is accepting his hug.
“We got him,” he whispers in her ear. “Doctor Strange is like a regular wizard, he can fix him, Miss… I mean Mrs. Stark, he can do this totally crazy stuff, Tony will be fine, he needs to be, right?”
A sob escapes Pepper. She wishes she could confirm that, wishes she could be certain that the miracle that happened today will last.
But she’s not, how could she?
Tony’s whole life was leading to this very moment. Every decision he has made, starting in the cave in a secluded part of Afghanistan, ending with the decision to run all the possible models for time travel. All of this could have ended in only one way - wielding the Gauntlet.
A part of Pepper knew it from the moment he had kissed her and Morgan goodbye and went back to the compound. Believing that his story might have another chapter sounds like a fantasy of a madman.
Pepper wishes so badly to be mad.
Peter is now crying in her arms, shaking slightly and she strokes his hair out of motherly instinct. Tony has missed him so much during those five years and she knows Peter always has shared the sentiment.
“Morgan?” She catches eye contact with Rhodey who smiles reassuringly in an answer.
“We’ve got her. She was a little scared for a moment but auntie Carol fixed this problem.”
Pepper nods her head, still stroking the sobbing kid. She cannot imagine how it is to be back after all those years but it seems to be catching on him, and Pepper cannot force herself to break the strong grip this boy is keeping her in.
“How long…?”
Rhodey stands up. He’s anxious as well, she can now see it in his eyes, the way he keeps changing his position. He’s out of the suit as well, a plain black shirt and jeans out of place in the classical old interior.
“Three hours.”
Already? Pepper doesn’t know when it happened, it feels like three minutes ago she was kneeling in the ashes and debris, almost certain that the love of her life won’t come back to her, not this time.
A portal opening mere half a meter from her startles her. Strange has blood on his hands and he looks exhausted beyond recognition but the small smile he gives her makes the hope blossom in her chest.
“Mrs. Stark,” he bows slightly. “If you could follow me.”
He takes a look at Peter, who’s still folded into himself on the floor, the traces of tears drying on his cheeks and Rhodey, who looks as if he was struck by lightning.
“He’s too tired for a greater number of visitors at this moment,” he explains, his voice soft. “I would appreciate it if you two could inform the rest of my guests that at that moment Tony Stark is in a critical yet stable condition and that all that can be done in the world is being done.”
The room Pepper enters through the portal smells of a burnt body, blood and has the indescribable odor of sickness. It looks differently than the previous rooms; it belongs to a modern hospital and, as far as Pepper is aware, it can as well.
Tony looks impossibly pale and small on the bed, the right side of his face, the skin of his neck and arm covered with dressings. The heartbeat exposed on one of the monitors is too slow, barely there, the blood pressure also below the norm, but he’s breathing on his own and Pepper has never seen a thing of more beauty.
He looks so frail that she hesitates before taking his left hand into hers, afraid she might break him further with a single touch.
“We aren’t sure what to expect,” Strange explains in a low voice. “The radiation is mostly a gamma one but there are other factors we need to take into consideration as well. What is important is that we were able to stabilize him. Banner is working on possible solutions as we speak. Mrs. Stark…” he hesitates for a moment. “I’m unable to make any promises, neither I know the possible outcomes, but please believe me when I say we’re doing all we can.”
Pepper swallows, not taking her eyes from Tony, her vulnerable, beautiful Tony, who risked everything for the living creatures all around the universe.
She doesn’t know when he wakes up, but she’ll be here, waiting.