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Pepper shut the front door to the lakehouse with a soft sigh, dropping her purse and keys on the counter and pulling out her phone to let Tony know she was home.
Just got back, she typed. When will you be here?
Tony replied almost immediately. Soon. But Peter’s still there.
Pepper sent back a heart emoji and slid off her heels with a relieved huff. Board meetings were exhausting, especially after the chaos that was Thanos. There was so much to be done, after all. Families needed housing, children to be reunited with parents, the general public had to be reassured there was a plan of action for next time. Pepper pressed her lips together at the thought. She prayed to dear God that the next time wouldn’t involve her family. Never mind that now, though. They were all alright now, something she reminded herself of daily. Soon she would be able to handle all SI work without public appearances, but until then, she had moments like this.
Glancing up at the ceiling, she asked, “FRI? Where are my kids?”
“Peter and Morgan are in Morgan’s bedroom.” There was a pause. “I believe Peter is in mild distress.”
“What?” Pepper slid out of her jacket and started running up the stairs in one fluid motion, leaving the garment discarded on the entryway floor. Having Morgan’s bedroom on the top floor of their home gave her a fantastic view of the stars, but it also meant that at times like these, Pepper wished halfheartedly for an elevator. No matter, however. She was perfectly happy to leave the bustling ways of the metal city behind.
She knocked once on the bedroom door before pushing it open and stepping inside. Peter was leaning against Morgan’s bed frame, eyes squeezed shut and looking white as a sheet. A fine sheen of sweat was covering his face. Morgan was beside him, clutching a stuffed whale and using a toy stethoscope to listen to Peter’s heartbeat. She caught sight of her mother and jumped up.
“Mama!”
Pepper bent to plant a kiss on Morgan’s forehead, then knelt in front of Peter.
“Peter got sick, Mama,” Morgan said, nodding gravely as she spoke. “He has a temp’ture.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. How about you go and pick out a good movie to watch while Mom helps Peter?”
“Okay!” The beaming five-year-old dashed out of the room. Pepper turned her attention back towards Peter, who was sitting up straighter and trying to flash a grim smile at her.
“Hey.” he said tiredly. “How’d the meeting go?”
“You sound horrible,” Pepper replied, ignoring the question and pressing the back of her hand to Peter’s forehead. The teen was practically radiating heat. “But it went well,” Pepper went on, talking more loudly as she grabbed a washcloth from the adjoining bathroom and wet it with cold water. “As well as I could’ve expected, anyway.” she draped it over Peter’s forehead and he gave her a grateful sigh. “But that’s not important right now. When I asked you to babysit Morgan, I didn’t mean you had to come with a fever.”
“It didn’t seem so bad this morning.” Peter said.
“And now?” Pepper raised an eyebrow.
“Now I feel like shit.” Peter relented, laughing.
“I figured. How you kept Morgan entertained like that, I don’t know. But how about I make you some soup and let you rest for a bit? Can you stay the night?”
Peter considered. May was working the late shift all week, and it would be nice to get some pampering from Pepper….
“Sure, thanks.”
Pepper smiled warmly. “Perfect. Do you need help getting up?”
“Nah, just gimme a minute.” Peter grunted and heaved himself to his feet. He straightened himself up, froze in place, and then swayed abruptly. Pepper cried out and steadied him, leading him to sit on the edge of Morgan’s bed. “You with me?” she asked, as Peter blinked rapidly a few times.
“Woah.”
“Yeah, Tony’s gotten that more than once before. How about you sit here for a minute while I get you some water.” It was said like a statement, not a question, and Peter wasn’t about to argue either way. But before Pepper could say anything else, his stomach lurched horribly, and he was up and stumbling blindly into the bathroom. He hunched over, face twisted in misery as his stomach turned once, twice...he gagged and his face screwed up in misery as he retched. Pepper was crouched behind him, rubbing his back soothingly and murmuring encouragements. A few painful minutes, and then he was dry heaving, trying miserably to bring in air only to choke all over again. Pepper wiped his brow and the back of his neck gently with a cool washcloth, and handed him a glass of water once it finally passed.
Peter took it gratefully and wiped his mouth with a groan. He drained the glass in one go.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Pepper said, helping him to his feet. “This isn’t my first time with a sick kid.”
“Yeah, but Morgan..."
“Is queuing up a Disney movie as we speak." She brushed a hand through his damp curls. "You should sleep. When you get better, I can tell you about the Great Christmas Fiasco of 2010. If you think this is bad, you should’ve seen Tony and I with double food poisoning.”
“Wait, seriously?” Peter grinned as the two made their way to his guest bedroom.
“Mm-hmm. Worst vacation ever.” Peter was deposited on the bed. All he really wanted to do was pass out for a few hours, but a bottle of Gatorade was shoved in his hand first. He pulled a face.
“You have to drink that before I can give you anti-nausea meds,” Pepper said. “And if you do, I’ll tell you the whole story.” she tilted her head expectantly.
Peter cracked open the bottle as Pepper smiled and began.
“We went to this nice restaurant for Christmas Eve. It had the worst shrimp I’d ever tasted, and we’d both find out why that night…”
Soon, drowsiness, paired with a ridiculously comfortable bed and Pepper’s low, calming voice washing over him (no matter what story it was telling), had Peter drifting off to sleep.
***
“My God, he did outdo himself, didn’t he?”
Peter awoke groggily, blinking a few times to make out the two blurry figures hovering near his bed. His head felt like it was made of fuzz, his throat felt as though he had spent the past two years screaming, and he thought maybe falling back asleep for an indefinite amount of time would be quite nice, really.
The figures at the side of the bed stopped warping before his eyes and he grinned sluggishly. “Hey, M’ser Stark.”
Tony raised both eyebrows. “Why, hello there, Mr. Parker. You seem to be in a prime condition for taking care of a child.”
Peter groaned. “It was only for a few hours. And I was feeling okay.”
Tony looked like he was about to say more, but Pepper was giving him one of her looks.
“It’s almost eight, sweetie,” she said. “How does soup sound?”
“It sounds great.” Peter said. As Pepper went to heat some up, he turned to Tony, who had plopped himself in the cushy armchair in the corner of the room. His feet were propped up on Peter’s bed. “Um, hey,” Peter started. Tony looked up from his phone. “I didn’t get Morgan sick, did I?”
“Oh, she’s in the ER now for pneumonia.” Tony said flippantly. Peter’s face went white just as Pepper shouted from downstairs.
“Tony!”
Tony gave a huff of laughter. “I swear, she can hear everything. But seriously, Pete. Morgan’s fine, just put her to bed. I think the only thing that can take her down at this point is a sugar crash. And besides,” he continued, smiling encouragingly. “Even if you did happen to give her a bug, I would still let you babysit her. As long as you’ve got a clean bill of health, that is.”
Peter gave a sheepish smile and nodded.
Pepper came back then, a tray full of tissues, cough syrup, and hot soup in hand. She and Tony helped prop Peter up on extra pillows and he nearly devoured the meal. The nausea from earlier was gone, replaced with raging hunger. He, Tony, and Pepper chatted amiably about school and MJ and the Hawaii trip Pepper had took upon herself to plan as he ate. (“If Tony had it his way, we’d go right now as we are and buy everything we need there.”)
Peter was hit with a wave of exhaustion soon after, and suddenly that whole “sleeping” thing seemed wholly satisfying. The tray was slipped away from his clumsy grasp and he fell against the stack of pillows. Just before he dozed off, he saw Pepper turn to Tony and whisper underneath her breath.
“I told you we'd be alright.”
Peter faintly registered Tony’s lips moving in response, but he couldn’t catch what he said as he slipped away.