Chapter Text
Pepper wakes when there's movement beside her. She doesn't remember falling asleep.
Nor does she remember Natasha entering the room, but there Natasha is.
Pepper, exhausted from sitting up for hours with a sick child, can only blink. The child in question, on the other hand, scrambles upright through sheer force of will.
"Tony, how are you feeling?" the agent asks.
"I'm better, thank you, Miss Natasha," he says softly - primly - then adds in a rush, "I can do lessons today, I promise."
"I said nothing," she muses, "of lessons."
Small fingers flex in the sheets beside Pepper; impossibly, Tony sits up straighter.
"No, I - Miss Natasha, I can think now, I'll do lessons, I'll be good - " he insists, his voice catching. "'Msorry, I couldn't. Yesterday. Was sick."
"Stand down, soldier," Natasha says quietly, and Tony sags, just a little. "First, do you think you can keep down some soup?"
He clenches his fist this time, hangs his head, small shoulders slumping in defeat, and whispers, "No, ma'am."
Natasha sets her jaw and reaches out, lightly touching his sweat-drenched hair.
"Crackers, then," she says, "you have to eat something; Jarvis' orders."
Tony manages the ghost of a smile, fist slowly relaxing, and accepts a cracker to nibble on. In return, Natasha doesn't press him when he says he's had enough.
She's as surprised as Pepper is when he leans hesitantly into her side. She does, however awkwardly, though, slip an arm around him. Natasha's come a long way. Pepper is so proud.
"Miss Natasha," he ventures, pleading. " - I meant it, I really can do lessons. I can do math, I'm good at math - " he closes his eyes, deflates a bit. "Or I could do Latin, or anything, I - I've wasted enough time, Miss Natasha."
Natasha's face is blank, eyes hard in the moonlight filtered through the curtains. "No one doubts you can, but you need not, little one."
"But I'm behind a day already," he says - doesn't protest the epithet, and Pepper can't take this any more.
"Tony," she says, dragging herself further awake, "you don't have to do lessons, not till you're better - "
Tony starts at the sound of her voice, whips around in sudden panic. Slams his eyes shut, clamps a hand to his mouth, coughs, and Pepper reaches for him, rubbing gentle circles into his back as he shakes. He's going to start protesting again, she feels it in his breathing, and she plays the meanest trick she has: she presses a kiss to his temple. He clings.
Pepper knows firsthand how this ends. She's seen it, seen him pretend a hangover while Obie snapped and raged, seen him dazzle the press then collapse in the wings, seen him shivering in his office with his tie clutched to his eyes, and she knows, inevitably, how it ends. It ends exactly as last night began: in panic and hiding and puking and tears.
Natasha, too, knows how it ends. Immediate danger of throwing up averted, she helps ease the child down as he quiets, as Pepper sinks back against the pillows.
"Tony," the agent says, gently but firmly, "there is no shame in being unwell."
Tony's breath slows.
Natasha continues, "Nor is there any in taking rest until you're well enough to work again."
There's no reply, but they expected none. Natasha lets the subject go and settles him with a heating pad; he clutches it to his stomach with a tiny, helpless whimper, and Pepper feels her heart constrict in her chest.
Natasha strokes his hair, murmurs something to him as Pepper drifts; it sounds vaguely un-English, and he gives the slightest of sobs in reply. Pepper wants to kiss the pain lines from around his eyes, wants to kiss away this frightened child and find her own Tony in his place, to hold her own Tony in her arms and banish the frightened child within him.
She reaches out to hold his hand; he lets her. Lets her anchor herself, as she so often has, by his engineer's fingers. Lets her reassure herself he's real, that he won't slip away once her back is turned.
Lets her help, even as they both fall.
*
She wakes to a familiar weight, familiar warmth beside her, to a familiar tousled, aching head tucked firmly underneath her chin.
Tony - her Tony - starts awake when she shifts; she feels his breathing quicken, feels him clutch at her sides, and is swift to smooth her hands along his back. He gasps - presses his forehead to her neck, shivers once, and Pepper plays a hunch.
"Sei a casa, mio caro," she whispers into his hair, and Tony calms.
*
"Pep," he coughs one morning, months later, "I'm fine. I can do this, I can work."
She sits down beside him, pinning him under the covers, and says, "Hey. There's no shame in resting when you're sick."
(Then softly adds, "Tesoro," and watches him melt.)