Wildly Conflicted

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Typically, Pepper opted to take the Compound stairs. She seldom (if ever) had reason to venture into the lower levels beyond the basement, and unless she was wielding a particularly large basket of laundry, she left the elevator for the people who might legitimately need it.

Back when she'd first been injured, however, people who legitimately needed it had expanded to include herself. Making it even halfway down the basement stairs without getting winded had been an impossibility. She had been lectured about the danger of falling and overexerting herself by half the people she knew, and gotten more comfortable with using the elevator as a matter of necessity.

Today she had planned on the stairs, but when the elevator doors swung open just as she happened by, she'd instinctively stepped that way and inside, mind occupied with the laundry she needed to fold and supplies she needed to pick up from the store room.

The closer they edged toward the end of January, the more Pepper couldn't help but hope that this year they'd get through the month unscathed. She'd never been a superstitious woman, didn't put the flimsiest stock even in horoscopes, and she knew very firmly and very logically that the timing of past disasters had been coincidental. Hadn't there been other altercations in other months? There shouldn't have been anything inherently imposing about the first month of the year. She was born in January, for god's sake, and objectively she knew better. But even so, the feeling of anxiety was pervasive, and didn't seem likely to wane until they'd crossed into February.

Part of that feeling, she thought, could very well be due to Peter having moved out of the mansion. That he was fully capable of taking care of himself, Pepper had little doubt. It made her feel better, though, to keep an eye on him. Especially now, with the threat of something awful looming over the three of them. She turned up on his doorstep with frightening regularity these days, and about two weeks ago had stopped making excuses for why she was there. They both knew the truth of it.

Contrary to popular belief, Pepper Potts did not spring out of bed every morning wide awake and immediately ready to face the world. Early risers and morning people aren't necessarily the one and the same, and like many of us, Pepper was often a bit groggy and dazed until she'd had her first cup of coffee.

It wasn't completely surprising, then, that she didn't notice anything was amiss until she'd reached the kitchen. One moment her hand was there, solid as could be against the handle of the carafe, the next it wasn't.

She was gone. Every bit of her was gone, stylish designer pajamas hanging over nothing. Needless to say, it was a little difficult to take that in stride.

The carafe was dropped to the counter with a clank and Pepper sprinted back to her bedroom, but if she had thought to find reassurance within, she was mistaken. Tony was still stretched out across the bed where she'd left him—Literally. In fact, he looked disconcertingly like taffy, a leg and arm looped down over the side of the mattress and piled on the floor.

"TONY?"

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More than anything else right now, Pepper just feels stupid.

Pepper is and always has been one of those people who knows which way the wind is blowing. While she's certainly not a Stark-level genius, she pays close attention. She jealously hordes information, and being too close to this particular situation isn't an excuse for missing the obvious; if anything, she should have been more aware from the start.

God, how could she be such an idiot to think she and Tony could ever work?

It's been a couple of days since the nuclear reactor and discovery of the space station. It's been just as long since the last conversation she had with Tony wherein she said more than one word. He's been gone most of the time, the station a good excuse to focus on something other than the way she's freezing him out, but as always, Pepper can't escape the way Tony can. She lives in a home he designed, attended by the AI he programmed. The whole damned island is abuzz about his celestial discovery, and she can't leave the house without someone asking her about it. She wishes she weren't so damned bitter; with as difficult as it is to be objective, even she can acknowledge that discovering a space station is incredibly cool.

All of this is why she's going to see Peter, who doesn't know Tony the way she does but knows him well enough. Peter, who will pull no punches and give it to her straight when she can't sort through the tangle of her own emotions to see what the hell she should do. Sympathy would be nice, but more than anything she needs a sounding board, a confidant, and there isn't anyone else better qualified. Never mind that she's 38 today, forgotten again, and feels justified in having a good rant (or at least a good drink).

Getting out of bed this morning had been a difficulty. It's amazing how 24 hours worth of sleeplessness and stress can wear a person, and despite having slept quite a long time (By general standards, not simply her own), Pepper had been reluctant to face the day. Ultimately it was the knowledge that routine could be comforting that got her moving, and she was beginning to feel more like herself by the time Tony had attempted to make amends by bringing her breakfast in bed. It had been burnt and delivered several hours after she'd gotten up, but she's trying to tell herself it's the thought that counts and leave it at that.

Just now she paints a familiar figure in the Compound kitchen, systematically taking the coffee maker apart, rinsing it out and preparing a fresh pot. She needs to visit Cooper while she's down here, but now more than ever it's important that Tony dedicate as much time and energy to solving the paladium problem as possible. Silly as it may seem, coffee is important to that process.

Without a doubt, the last 24 hours have been the most miserable of Pepper's life. To think, she'd believed that time she had been trapped in an elevator with Tony, a Vegas showgirl and a chihuahua had been bad. Right now, she'd give anything to be back in that metal box with Amber and Mr. Winky.

The dinosaur that had initiated their group into this mess had eventually gone away, although the four of them had remained treed for at least another hour before daring to climb down. Determining which way to walk had been an impossibility, the sun all but completely obscured by thick, ugly cloud cover as the rain continued. It seemed hours they'd trudged along at a snail's pace, trying to keep the baby quiet and jumping at every errant twig snap, and Pepper can't say for sure they weren't just walking in circles.

The night they spent in another tree, and Pepper had assigned rotating watch duty, although the only one of them who got any real sleep at all was the toddler. They've been hiking through mud and rain since this morning, Cooper, Rachel and herself taking turns carrying the little one. Pepper's beginning to think this may be Hell.

To suggest it's been a trying few weeks would certainly be an understatement. Fighting with Aaron was nothing like fighting with Tony by any stretch of the imagination, partially because even when being maddeningly stubborn, Aaron still manages to be sensible. It's very difficult to feel self-righteous when you're up against someone so reasonable, even if you're certain you're in the right.

Aaron may be over-compensating a little now, insisting on dress-up dates with flowers and wine, but Pepper is letting him do it. That she's enjoying the benefit of it is undeniable, but there's a degree of catharsis in recompense, she thinks. If he needs to take her out and make her feel special to feel better about everything that happened, the least she can do is accept the attention.

The night is just a little warm, but there's a breeze blowing in off the lagoon that more than makes up for it, skimming over the bare skin of Pepper's back as the two of them make their way to Aaron's hut. Her shoes are off, dangling from easy fingertips, and she feels sincerely good and unworried for the first time in quite awhile.

It was a little known fact about Pepper Potts that she was every bit as adept as Tony at slipping off unnoticed the morning after a tryst. One might even say that, while having considerably less experience in doing it, she was better at it, the sort to leave a note with a fond but unattainable air that roughly translated to, "Thank you for the lovely sex, I'm not leaving you my number." For years this had been the way of it, and while it could all be blamed easily enough on Tony, the truth was that most men simply could neither keep up with Pepper's lifestyle nor abide sharing her with another man. She didn't have much patience for melodrama, and staying unattached had always just seemed easier.

Having a proper morning after of waking up together was a novelty Pepper hadn't allowed herself in at least ten years (His name had been Ben, and Tony had interrupted their breakfast). Maybe it was the strangeness of it that made her so careless, or maybe she was simply suffering from infatuation and caring very little about anything else. She and Aaron had walked back to the Compound together, both in the clothes from the night before and had parted at the front door.

Pepper really ought to have just gone back to the house. Had it been any other day, she would have, but for once in her life she wasn't thinking about Tony Stark, or that he was staying in the clinic instead of at home, or that things were more complicated and difficult between them than they'd ever been before.

She wasn't thinking at all.

Barefoot, hair a mess, swinging her heels from the fingertips of one hand, she ducked into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee so that she could decide how to go about the rest of her day.