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Tony doesn't like hospitals; they tend to make a fuss and nothing moves as quickly as he wants it to.
Pepper knows this.
She is used to him coming straight home, some times just right after the battle. She has watched him peel his armor off like serpent skin, she has watched him discard whole suits, totaled in the battle, and start from scratch. They are replaceable, unlike what is inside.
Pepper never knows in what state Tony will be when he crosses the door, when he is returned to her.
Now he sits on the floor of one of the bathrooms, the tiles smeared with blood. Pepper can tell he is in pain because he is not immediately making a joke about it.
`Here, take this,´ she gives him some painkillers.
`Yeah,´ Tony takes them hurriedly and Pepper notices his hand shakes a bit.
Pepper has an excellent memory but she doesn't want to keep record, she doesn't want to see a catalog of injures and close calls when she looks at him, is this time better or worse than the previous battle, is there more or less blood, more or less pain.
She crouches by his side, and she starts with the cut in his palm.
`Do you remember when I started working at Stark Industries and you made me take that First Aid safety training? I never thought I'd get to use any of it.´
(to be honest, for a time in those early days, she thought Tony Stark's most probable cause of death in the future would be autoerotic asphyxiation, rather than a mission to save the world)
Tony smiles. `It wasn't – I was just messing with you then. You were new. You were adorable. And capable. I was just trying to annoy you.´
`Well, it worked. It always works when you try to annoy me.´
`Also when I don't – try.´
Pepper doesn't remember much from that First Aid lesson so long ago but she has learned a lot of tricks in the last couple of years.
It's become almost methodical, the way she stocks up on bandages and gauze pads when they are about to run out, the way she learned to clean wounds and apply butterfly stitches, the memory of her first tries (rushed, improved, practically under fire) improved by the comfort of her own perfectionism.
(there are limits to this methodical, logical approach; there are concessions Pepper will never make, not even for her own sanity – she does not mop the blood off floors without thinking how precious it is; but it has to be cleaned, dry blood is very hard to get out of a surface, and she shouldn't need to know this)
Pepper has the kind of mind that sees possible problems everywhere, but also the kind of mind that sees solutions to go with them. A question always has an answer. She sees a cut and applies a bandage. She sees pain and calculates the dose. This is logical. The trick is to see it as body first, rather than a loved body. Pepper likes her own ability to be rational, to cut through the superficial into the bone of the matter. In the early days it angered her, the fog of panic wrapped around her head when she saw him like this, when she saw him hurt and coming back to her first, only coming back to her.
She protested, sometimes walked away from him.
These days she is apt and efficient, cleaning the mess and patching him up with impressive speed.
`Now you have to kiss it better,´ Tony says and has some trouble reaching his usual cocky grin, but he gets there.
Pepper rolls her eyes. She takes his arm and kisses the inside of his wrist. The curve of his shoulder. The bruise on his chin.
She doesn't mind it so much anymore. It's more than a habit, it's a ritual: it's part of the welcome back, it's part of the you are alive. She doesn't say I worried about you, she steadies her hands.
It's not that she doesn't care – she never chooses to be numb to it. It's just that Tony trusts her with his weakness so she thinks it's only fair that she should be trusted with his strength as well. Pepper knows he is not so easily broken. She knows wounds will heal, and the pain will go away eventually.
This doesn't mean she doesn't keep on trying to coax Tony into seeking appropriate attention.
`If you were to go to a proper professional –´
`I don't want to...´ Tony shakes his head, child-like.
`A proper medical professional instead of leaving this in my inexpert hands –´
`But they are such nice hands...´
`Then...this wouldn't leave a scar.´
`I don't mind the scars.´
`Well, I do mind the scars.´
He gives her a doubtful look. `Miss Potts, that's just shallow.´
`I don't like seeing you get hurt. I don't like the memory of it either.´
That stops him. He runs one blood-stained hand through her hair. Her face looks calm but the hair behind her ear is damp, betrays her.
`It's not fair, is it?´ Tony says, voice full of undiluted self-reproach.
Pepper knows he is no idiot: he realizes he shouldn't be putting her in this position.
He kisses her face, his whole body tensing up. This, too, is something of a habit: the mix of pain and adrenaline and worry and arousal. Pepper feels it as well, the rush of it is part of their relationship now, they are drawn to each other because they understand how fragile it is. Pepper thinks of it as a wonderful curse, this awareness.
She wraps her fingers around Tony's wrist and lets herself be pulled against his body for a moment.
`I don't like hospitals,´ he mutters, brushing his lips across her cheek. `I like you. ´
Pepper sighs.
`But...´ Tony takes her by the shoulders, pushes gently until he can look at her. `I will go to a hospital if that's what you want.´
`No, you won't,´ she tells him, but it's not an accusation, it's almost said with fondness. Tony normally does what he wants, and this, this right now works for him and Pepper knows how few things do.
`I would. It's just that... I'd rather come back here, if you know what I – not here this bathroom, it's not geographical, I'm trying to...´
Pepper shakes her head; Tony would like to be mysterious and tough, but he is so transparent.
`You are a horrible patient,´ she says, chuckling. Because. `Of course you would be.´
Tony tries to look offended. `And you. Are not a real doctor.´
`I see. Then maybe you can finish dressing that wound yourself.´
Tony tilts his head, tries to look adequately apologetic as he holds out his hand like a frightened animal. She sits by his side and lets him rest his arm on her knee as she ties his bandage. She can feel his gaze dart over her well-learned gestures, her proficient amateurism, and then drift and find her face.
Thanks he says in a tiny voice and he puts his mouth to her shoulder and rests his head against her.
It doesn't break Pepper's concentration and she can feel the warmth of a proud smile as Tony watches her.
This is their ritual, and perhaps Pepper has come to love part of it. This is the transition, even if it is bloody, it divides the world for Tony between outside (danger, death, hurt) and here (safe, alive, Pepper). A rite of passage before they can go back to being careless and ordinary, with ordinary problems and ordinary mornings in bed, with ordinary arguments and fights, and pet names and plans for the future and grocery shopping and taxes and ordinary kisses, not life-and-death kisses, not hey-I-saved-the-world kisses, definitely not thought-I-had-lost-you kisses.
This is the threshold.