2404/Place of Care

Place of Care
Date of Scene:	10 July 2020
Location:	Avengers Mansion - Medical
Synopsis:	Pepper fusses over injured Tony.
Cast of Characters:	Pepper Potts, Tony Stark

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Pepper Potts has posed:
It's never easy, watching 'them' take away another and knowing you can't be with them on the ride, however short, to the Infirmary. Pepper ends up following, driven by the ever faithful Happy, and once out and at the Mansion, finds her way down to the Infirmary. The doctor is in with the patient, and technically, as she's //not// family (or next of kin), she's kept outside until the tests are done, blood drawn, x-rays.. and all matters of necessity are completed before the door is opened, and Pepper is allowed entrance. It's a serious affair here, and only the most trusted docs are allowed to practice here, and they take that very seriously.

"How is he, doctor?" Pepper still wants to know, but the answer is pretty stock in trade,

"We'll know when the tests come back. But right now, he'll need rest."

Pepper nods and dips her head as she passes through, closing the door behind her. She didn't even bother getting changed; and she looks a mess. Doesn't matter, though. Not when green eyes alight on the lone figure in the Medbay.

"Tony?" The questioning is from across the room, as she watches to see chest rise and fall, the lines tracing across the screen showing rate and rhythm of heart, breathing.. and she lets out a breath she wasn't aware she was holding.

Tony Stark has posed:
Tony looked asleep, but he wasn't; he was just resting, and certainly not going over the events of the day with a fine-tooth comb inside his head. Then again, with the IV in his arm, he's not suffering all that much at the moment. Things are relatively pleasant.

"Hi," Tony says, with some odd cheer, coming from someone that just got mashed by a laser-spitting robotic monstrosity.

"Nobody else got hurt, did they? I know it's not a competition; but I did win it," Tony observes, turning his head on the pillow, eyes flaring open a little wide, then relaxing, reacting to the painkillers.

Pepper Potts has posed:
Certainly NOT going over the events in his head, nope.. not Tony.

Pepper is still standing across the room, her hands in front of her, fingers entwined, green eyes a little moist but nothing falls. She barks a soft laugh at the question, the second one and shakes her head as if to answer both at the same time. "No, no one got hurt. JARVIS and your big drone made sure of that." She stops at bedside, glances at the monitor again, and back to the figure on the bed. Lips press together, and she rolls her head back slightly, "Oh, I think you nailed it this time, Tony."

There's that moment in the balance, happy that he's here, he's alive, and anger that he'd been working on such a project, a dangerous project, and she didn't know about it! "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

Tony Stark has posed:
"What would you have said, if I'd told you about it?" Tony parries, without any real hint of shame about the situation. "Also, I should say you /did/ know I was working on defenses related to what I could learn from it's code language. This is rather targeted to that. The test is more where the problem came in, but it had to be tested: we're running out of time. I had to come up with //something//," Tony explains. And there's the core of it: that requirement, that need to prove that he is everything the world is looking to him to be. He looks up at the ceiling instead of her, dark eyes distant, brows slightly down. There's a lot of weight he pretends not to carry, and it results in evenings like this one. When risks get taken.

"You didn't happen to bring anything to eat, did you? I was hungry /before/ I had to hide in the floor," Tony wonders.

Pepper Potts has posed:
"You didn't say you were building a drone with a laser beam that targets..." and instead of mentioning the bit by name, taps on the blue light in the center of his chest. Still, now that she's really looking at him, she can see all those bumps, bruises, contusions.. and the pain. The worry.

There are some places Dilaudid can't touch.

"Oh, Tony... and no, I didn't. I can get something in a little bit. When the doc tells me you can eat." There's a hint of a smile, a ghost, when she finishes, "And this is why you need to eat when you're working." Just in case his project goes nuts and starts shooting up the place? Precisely.

"There should be something upstairs. I'll get that later. I just want to make sure you're okay."

Tony Stark has posed:
Tony isn't going to be using his left arm much, there's a suggestion by how it's wrapped that it may be fractured from impact, though it's hard to tell with all of the bandaging all over that side of his body. He does have his right free, though it drags the IV along with it as he tracks her hand that tries to rap on the arc reactor and moves his own hand to intercept, to stop her from rapping on it.

He curls her fingers closed with his, and draws her hand down to rest it on the side of his chest, instead of on the arc reactor. He knows it upsets her, that it's there; there's a softened recognition of it from Tony, and a gentle quality to the thumb resting against her wrist.

"Turkey sandwich?" is what Tony says verbally.

Pepper Potts has posed:
When her hand is captured, there's a soft smile that rises in the face of the injuries that he'd gotten. Still, the warmth, the gentleness is there, and it's something that she treasures, she holds it for her own. No one in her world knows.. and has no reason to.

She barks out soft laugh at the request and shakes her head, lowering it a little before, "Mayo?" She's not going to leave to make it, not yet. Instead, she lifts her head slightly to look into those brown eyes of his. "I worry about you. I can't help it."

Tony Stark has posed:
"That's not really the goal, you know," Tony reminds her, rotating his hand to tap the back of her hand with one index finger in a pointed way, as if to punctuate his point home with the tiny, somewhat weak little motion. He's proving he's fine, in this strange little way of showing that he can still act, still move.

Still save the day.

"You should worry that I'd choke on dry turkey, with no mayo," Tony retorts, but the smile slides in, only edged with a slight wince because he shifted his other hand some. Point taken, don't do that right now. "Bring one for yourself, too; we'll make a picnic of it."

Pepper Potts has posed:
"Oh, I bet it is." It's easier ground, to take that softly combative tone. "You probably work in your lab and ask yourself what will make me go grey before I'm 35." The motion is noted, and nothing is truly expected because, well, drugs. The really good stuff.

"To get even, I might stick a slice of tomato in there. Or, god forbid, a lettuce leaf."

Ouch.. and Pepper's eyes move to the spot of wincing, brows rising, "What? Are you okay?" As in, less okay than first thought!

"I'm not sure I'm hungry right now. The hotdog I had earlier isn't sitting too well." Okay, she's worried and really can't eat, as much as she'd like to. "But I'll stay awhile anyway." Wild horses couldn't drag her away.

Tony Stark has posed:
"Of course; I'm great," Tony says, with a surprised tone to her question about if he's okay. Of course he's great; he's always great. At least, that's his default reply. Getting through that mask of eternal awesome takes some time.

"I'll accept it on a sandwich, just don't be bringing me a whole salad. I'm clearly dying, take pity," Tony says, which is rather an abrupt pivot from being great.

"Not eating? Ah well, suit yourself. And least you're bringing good looking scenery to the picnic." Was that a flirt? Sort of, and yet also sort of disconnected. Because good stuff. Or did that just reduce the filters?

Pepper Potts has posed:
"Clearly great when dying, right," Pepper teases. Tony on drugs might be a sight to behold, but it only confirms that there is potential for a lot of tricks to be played on the man, and she should make sure that doesn't happen. Right? As a proper personal assistant?

To a point.

Drug induced flirting? Pepper exhales in a sigh and laughs softly, shaking her head, though there's a little pinking on her cheeks. "Sounds like the drugs are really kicking in."

Shifting her position now, she is ready to take that step back in order to get that sandwich for him. "I'll get you some water, too." With a straw.

Tony Stark has posed:
Tony observes that he still has her hand, and looks at it. He turns his hand over and opens the fingers in a slow spread, palm up. He just releases her fingers, but doesn't really move otherwise: it's on her to lift her hand away, the fingertips off of his warm palm, if she wants to do that. His dark eyes, even on fun painkillers, are still intelligent and aware.

Tony's always been highly functional even when drunk or otherwise. It just makes his personality even bigger, which isn't always a positive effect! "Water in the form of ice floating in whiskey?" Tony floats. He knows full well it's a no; he's being tiredly playful: a slight disconnect from the words.

"Oh, you're leaving?" Tony asks. "No kiss?"

Pepper Potts has posed:
Pepper is reluctant and slow to break the contact, to lift her hand from his, now the second time he's taken her hand. She does raise it, slowly, green eyes on his face as she smiles at him, only to answer his question, "No." The word helps her, anyway, break the touch of awkwardness.

Taking a deep breath, Pepper straightens a little and her head cants as brows rise and her nose scrunches slightly. There's so much that goes on behind those eyes, though.. the flicker of hope, doubt, landing on awkward and moving back to safe ground, though through all this, the underlying notes of affection play, "I won't be gone long. It's only a sandwich."

Tony Stark has posed:
"I know," Tony laughs softly as she tells him no. He doesn't think anything of the refusal, not really. He's just being more fiesty than usual, due to feeling relaxed. But it wasn't meant to be mean; he wouldn't realize it might have been rough for her to hear. If he took in the flicks of emotion, he doesn't register it.

"You have the best ideas; a sandwich is perfect," Tony tells her, lifting the hand to chef-kiss at her. From the doorway, the doctor looks over his glasses at Pepper a little bit, checking in it appears, but doesn't make any comment about any of it.

Pepper Potts has posed:
Pepper turns around to walk out, and pausing a moment at the door with the doctor, she just checks if it's okay to get him something to eat. Once assured that surgery may not be necessary, at least immediately, she nods and heads up the stairs to make the sandwich. As promised, turkey, with lettuce and tomato. Though, it may take a couple of minutes longer for the bacon to be cooked and set on top. It's cut carefully and with a glass of ice water, with a straw poking from the top, Pepper heads back down, a little more composed than when she'd gone up. Her own head is clearer, and she at least got a chance to clean her face and pull her hair up from her shoulders and into a pony tail.

The quick primp isn't just for her, however. While making the sandwich, Pepper is fielding calls, emails and texts that had blown up her silenced phone. Now she gets the chance to answer or rather, put out a quick one line announcement concerning Stark Industries: Announcement forthcoming.

Once back down, Pepper slows her path as she heads towards the door once more. She's not going home tonight.. she'll have to give Amanda a call.. unless she'd heard the news.

Now, coming through the door, she seems more composed, more poised. More... Pepper. "All they had was wheat bread."

Tony Stark has posed:
Pepper finds, once she returns, that Tony seems to be asleep. His head is turned away just a little bit, but the rise and slow fall of his chest, with the bright arc-reactor's glow from the center, is relaxed and comfortable. He's let go of the need to prove to her how great and amazing he is, and for the moment, is just quietly human.

All those gods and insane things going on, and what Tony is capable of, can certainly make it easy to forget that physically, he is a human man, and his big life isn't always so easily contained in this body. The fractures, the cuts on face and right hand, all the bandages prove it.

While asleep, there's that other side there: that definitely does need time to heal, and support to make sure that does happen before he's off flying in the clouds again, fighting things that are, in fact, way bigger than he is.

Pepper Potts has posed:
Pepper catches sight of the sleeping form that is her boss.. her, well.. her world, essentially, and there is nothing that could convince her to wake him now that he's finding rest. The monitor's readings all look normal; the beating of his heart, breathing.. everything looks right.

Once she's at his side again, Pepper sets the sandwich plate down, and the glass of water onto a side table before pulling a chair up. She doesn't drag it, even if it looks as if Tony is out. She's not going to risk it.

For a long moment, she watches him sleep; she's never shared his bed, never watched him before, and the feeling of wanting to watch over him, to guard his sleep is almost overwhelming. He's been through so much, and there have been days when he'd said he'd slept, but the dark circles under his eyes had said otherwise. Now?

Pepper reaches to run her fingers through his hair, unmatting some that are crusted a bit from dried blood. Once done, she gently reaches for his hand to hold before leaning over to lightly press lips against his forehead and whispers against it, "Sleep well, Tony" before sitting down and getting as comfortable as she can to guard his sleep. And maybe get a little rest herself.