Chapter Text
She had no warning.
The light of her desk lamp was dim and warm, and the faint whir of the laptop’s fan was the only noise. Pepper had peeled off her high heels so she could tuck her feet beneath her in the desk chair, deciding what to cut from the PowerPoint presentation for the annual fundraiser. She was tapping a pen against her palm, drumming her thoughts out against skin.
The next moment, the panoramic window at her back exploded. Pepper screamed and ducked, sheltering her head between her arms.
Two bodies crashed past her, rolling across the carpet and coming to a stop in the middle of the floor. His green cape twisted and torn, Loki crawled towards the Iron Man armor. He was bleeding from a wound in his side and grunted as he heaved himself to his knees. Iron Man’s repulsors died with a hum.
Loki rolled the suit onto its back and touched shaking hands to the scratched helmet. The visor opened and Tony’s eyes unfocused, his skin pale. He was breathing too fast, and he didn’t speak, which was always a bad sign.
“Tony, talk to me. You’re safe. You’re home.” Loki’s voice was high, breaking on the words.
“What happened?” Pepper was up and running, fumbling with her cellphone.
“He was caught in an explosion. I’m not a healer.”
The right shoulder of the armor had been compressed unnaturally, dented so deeply that it would have crushed Tony’s flesh beneath.
Pepper alerted STARK medical—they were on standby whenever Iron Man was on mission. She went to her knees by Tony’s side, cell phone on speaker as she described his condition, and found the release to open up the suit.
“Don’t—” Loki began, but it was too late.
Tony screamed. The armor split down the middle with a mechanical whirr, and scrap metal was dragged from the open wound. Blood was pooling in the mangled hole in his shoulder. His arm looked barely attached.
Loki erupted into a panicked flurry of movement. He tore his cape from his shoulders and wadded it up, then pressed it into the open wound, leaning on it to staunch the bleeding. Tony groaned in pain, eyes rolling back.
“You can do this,” Loki begged softly. “Focus on me. Nothing vital has been hit, and you have done it before. This is easier to survive than the cave.”
Tony’s breath whistled, tears running down his face. His voice shook when he spoke. “Did I mention th-that Afghanistan sucked?”
“You did,” Loki assured him, a smile flickering across his face. “But your healers are on their way. You’re not alone, Tony.”
“Tony?” Pepper asked, her voice high with shock. “Tony, what happened?”
Tony turned to her, confused. His unmarred arm lifted from the ruins of his suit, and he grasped her hand. “It’s not as bad,” a pained breath, “as it looks, Honey. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” she breathed, “okay, because it looks horrible.”
Loki shot her a wet glare, then concentrated on Tony. The elevator began moving with a soft hum. Loki’s attention snapped to the door, forgotten tears trailing down his cheek.
Loki wasn’t their enemy. Not anymore. Pepper was unclear on the details, but sometime after that spaceship crashed in London, Loki had begun popping up in New York and been spotted fighting by Thor’s side. Things had shifted into an uncomfortable truce, then tenuous peace. In all ways that mattered, Tony had described Loki as their ally.
The way Loki shifted on his heels while keeping pressure on the wound, eyes trained on the door and falling into a defensive position, implied that he didn’t believe any of it.
“Relieve me,” he asked Pepper lowly. “Put your hands over mine.”
“Okay.” She did so with shaking arms, manicured hands pushing onto his large, calloused ones. Loki pulled out from beneath her, hot and slippery with Tony’s blood, let her hands settle beneath his palms, and pushed down until her finger bones creaked. Tony grunted with pain.
“You did this. Don’t be squeamish now.”
“I didn’t do that,” she said, though her doubt was bright in her voice.
“Opening the armor was idiotic.” But his anger was distracted, torn between the elevator and Tony’s pain. “Press down harder.”
She leaned down with all her weight, knees leaving the ground and balancing on tiptoes before Loki nodded. When he let go, the silk-soft cape released blood like a sponge. Iron filled her nose, and a sob clawed its way out of her chest. She held eye contact with Tony.
“Good. Don’t let up.” Loki rose, stumbled, and clutched at his side with a soft curse. Red handprints trailed his path where he steadied himself against the wall.
“Loki,” Tony muttered weakly and reached out for him with his good hand. “When did you get hurt?”
“I’ll be fine,” Loki breathed. “And you will be, too. Miss Potts is with you.”
“You’re bleeding,” Pepper snapped at Loki. “You need medical attention. And you need to tell us what happened.”
“I don’t—”
“No.” Pepper had no time for this. “You’re staying. If you’re worried about being arrested, I’ll protect you.”
Loki let out a broken laugh, as though that was a ridiculous notion. Then he looked at her face, and his smile faded. He nodded once. “I will hold you to that.”
The elevator doors pinged open, and a team of nurses and two doctors ran out, shuttling a crash cart between them.
“Be good,” Pepper told Tony. “Don’t fight the doctors, okay?”
“Why would I do that? Unless they’re—” The words turned into a pained groan when the medics took over. They packed the wound and bandaged it for transport. Tony was swiftly transferred onto the cart. A doctor explained to Pepper that they were going to close the bleeds, take an x-ray, and then get him straight into surgery. The elevator doors closed behind them within seconds.
Tony was and most of the medical team were gone, leaving behind Pepper, Loki, and Iron Man’s broken shell.
The two remaining medics lingered by the elevator doors for a second—a short, nervous woman and a gangly kid, who didn’t look old enough to drink. They exchanged a fearful whisper before approaching Loki.
The woman began, “Sir, you’re injured—”
“If you want to keep your hands, you had better not touch me,” Loki said with dangerous softness. Fresh blood was leaking between his shaking fingers, running and mingling with Tony’s. He was pale, eyes darting from the elevator to the doctor and back.
Pepper wiped her nose on the back of her iron-tinged hand and walked over to him. “Stop being difficult. Everyone here has signed an NDA. No one will mention that you were here.”
“It’s a scratch. I will take care of it myself.” He glared at the two medics, who shrank from him without much protest. Only when their attention shifted back to Pepper, he relaxed slightly.
The lanky kid shifted to Pepper, holding his phone out to her. She reached for it before she realized it was on speaker—connected to the medical team in charge of Tony—and her hand fell away, embarrassed. “It would be helpful if we knew what had happened to Mister Stark. You said he was in an explosion?”
“He was,” Loki confirmed, calming down.
“When he came down, did he hit his head?”
“It’s possible. A building collapsed around him. When I found him, exposed rebar had been compressing his shoulder.”
“You pulled him out of a collapsed building?” Pepper asked, feeling numb.
“How long was he in there for?” the medic asked.
Loki shrugged, looking pale and worried. “A few minutes.” He threw Pepper a guilty look. “On account of the path being blocked.”
“Was he coherent when you found him?” the medic asked.
“I wouldn’t call it ‘coherent,’” Loki said flippantly. At the medic’s worried glance, he rolled his eyes and amended, “Tony was perfectly fine. He stopped talking once I removed what was compressing the wound.”
“Okay. We, uh, have Mister Stark’s medical history,” the lanky kid said and turned to Pepper. “Any recent changes? New medications or injuries?”
“He was drinking last night,” Pepper said. “He probably took Advil and antacids this morning.” After a bit more back and forth, the medics packed up and left.
Pepper felt faint, and she sat down on the edge of her desk. She caught Loki staring at her.
“What?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you do need stitches.”
“I never get used to how fragile you are,” Loki said with a faraway look.
It took Pepper a moment to realize he meant humans in general, not Pepper specifically. She gave him a tight smile. “It’s less of an issue for people that don’t get thrown into buildings.” Her hands were shaking, and she folded them over her stomach, pressing down tight. Her white blouse was soaked in Tony’s blood. She nodded at Loki’s midriff. “Are you sure you don’t want that treated? It’s bleeding a lot.”
“I will take care of it myself,” Loki said tightly. “If you would excuse me—”
“I didn’t know you were part of the Avengers,” Pepper said quickly. “When did that happen?”
He blinked at her. “I’m not.”
“Then why were you—”
Before she could finish the thought, with an electric hum of magic, he vanished into thin air.
**
She hadn’t known she’d fallen asleep until Tony squeezed her hand. The moon hung in the window like a lantern. Yellow nightlights and the glow of medical equipment were casting the private hospital room into dim light.
“Hi Honey,” Tony whispered with a voice like sandpaper.
“Hi,” she said softly.
“How long—” Tony cleared his throat. “What day is it?”
“You woke up after surgery. You don’t remember that?”
Tony shook his head weakly.
Pepper smiled. “They fixed your arm and the internal bleeding around your heart. You’ve been asleep for a day, which means you missed the board meeting.”
“Told you you shouldn’t invite me.”
Pepper’s throat closed up with relief to hear him joking, no matter how weakly. She brushed hair from his forehead so she could kiss his waxy skin. Despite the circles under his eyes, he looked at her with such longing that Pepper moved to kiss his lips, too.
“You need to brush your teeth,” she whispered into his ear.
He gave her the ghost of a smile. “Is Loki okay?”
Pepper scooted closer, pressing Tony’s knuckles to her lips. They smelled like disinfectant and copper, and felt sticky. She didn’t care beyond the pulse in his wrist. “He left after being treated.” She hesitated. “He seemed fine enough to do magic. He teleported.”
“Okay.” Tony looked confused for a moment, looking down at his right arm. It was caught in a sling, and he couldn’t move it. Hopefully not feel it, either. “He can’t teleport.”
“Well, he vanished,” Pepper said.
“He turns invisible,” Tony said. “It’s kind of freaky. JARVIS can’t detect him.”
Pepper took that in. “You’re telling me he was done talking to me, so he turned invisible and, what, walked away?”
“He does that.” Tony laughed quietly.
“I’m honestly offended,” Pepper said, and began laughing too. “What? What is it?”
“He’s such a diva.” Tony said between giggles. “Jesus, how much of those pain killers am I on?”
“A lot.”
“I haven’t been this happy in a while.”
Pepper’s stomach constricted tightly. “Well, enjoy it while it lasts.”
He gave her a vacant, happy look. “Hypothetically, if I told you I had a bit of a crush on a reformed supervillain—”
Pepper snorted a laugh. “Yeah, I’d think that’s the opioids speaking.”
“You’re not mad at me?” Tony looked up at her with a crooked smile. “If I kind of wanted to kiss him?”
“Only if you acted on it.”
“Okay,” Tony said and closed his eyes. “That’s good. Because he’s very smart. Did you know he’s really smart?”
“Kind of,” she said and couldn’t help smiling.
“And pretty. And hot. I think. Is he hot?”
“Well. He’s tall,” she said, remembering the feel of his body against hers, the way she guided her to press down into the ruin of Tony’s shoulder, the pool of his blood. His hands, extraordinarily strong and gentle, slippery against hers. She shivered with nausea at the memory. “He has beautiful hands. His hair is terrible, though. It always looks so … oily.”
Eyes fluttering shut, Tony muttered, “But it smells good.”
Which gave Pepper pause. “Tony. Have you kissed Loki?”
“I told him I’m taken,” Tony said, half-asleep.
Pepper’s insides twisted up painfully. She breathed and pressed his knuckles to her cheek. Tony had never betrayed her. He would comment on a man or woman walking past to get a reaction out of her. Never anything else. It had never been more than teasing.
This felt different.
“He saved my life, didn’t he?” Tony said blearily, as though to prove her point.
“Maybe he did. I should thank him,” Pepper said softly while stroking his hand.
“I’ll ask him over,” Tony said as pain killers and exhaustion pulled him back under.
She needed to talk to Loki.