Tony always wore an expression that resembled confusion, but rarely was he as spaced out as what Pepper was witnessing. If she didn’t know him as well as she did, she would give him a pass because of the events that had unfolded. However, because she was basically his keeper in all things, it would be doing him a disservice not to make note of it.

She felt pressure on her hand from his grip tightening around her, which resulted in her giving him a gentle squeeze in return. She rolled her eyes in a playful manner before mumbling the words ‘yeah, okay’ under her breath as he made his authority known.

“I’m not sure that would be in your best interest, Mr. Stark. If you couldn’t even tie your shoes without me before, what makes you think that you are capable now?”

A brow lifted in curiosity, but her expression soon returned to normal when he was honest about how he was really feeling.

“You look much better than I pictured, oddly enough.”

That was said partially all for jokes in a cheap attempt to keep the conversation as light as possible, but there was a hint of seriousness in her statement. She expected him to come home like he had been at war, but to her dismay, the markings that she had imagined seemed to be missing except very few.

A stray hair was brushed out of her sight with her free hand as her lips rested in a parted position. A breathy chuckle left her body at his last statement.

“Okay, Mr. Hale and Hearty. Mind telling me your birthday? I want the month, day, and year.”

She couldn’t be too harsh on him with that, because he had been unsure about most of the details pertaining to himself from the beginning. Cell number? No. Social security number? Forget it. The list goes on.

Her eyes left his for the first time since they had opened, only to trail down his body to where their hands met. She carefully rotated his hand, using the light to her advantage as she carefully observed with that pinched expression that he had referred to earlier. The hands that were once so calloused and worn suddenly didn’t have that same story. Her eyes broke from that equation, only to focus on what was beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. Curiosity fully took over as she used the fingers on her free hand to gently tug at his collar, only enough to where she could slip her hand inside comfortably. She whispered her apologies as she placed her palm flat on his chest, knowing that her slim hands were cold and uncomfortable to the touch. She was puzzled to find that her suspicions that she herself couldn’t even make sense of yet held true, and the skin beneath her touch was smooth. The perfectly imperfect scars of one of his most remarkable creations always stood out, but to her dismay, it was like the raised marks had never existed. Having all of the answers that she needed for the time being, she slowly slipped her hand out and returned it to the railing of the bed.

Who was she kidding with trying to hide her findings? Even if half of his brain went missing, Tony would still be able to pick up on things that didn’t align way before anyone else. She could sit there and worry about the best thing that she had in the world, or she could accept the fact that Tony would figure it out; he always figured it out.

She lifted the hand that was still in hers, bending his arm at the elbow. She placed her free hand on top of his while her eyes found home in his again. She cradled his hand like it was something fragile, but that was nothing new; he was her most prized possession.

As if to answer all of the questions before she was even sure he had them, she deemed a statement as necessary.

“We’ll be okay. You know that.”

“No,” the Winter Soldier said, her voice faint and scratchy with pain and exhaustion. “He has a few bruises and a couple cuts. That’s all.”

She’d taken the question literally, because she couldn’t remember the particular formula that Tony’s question fell into, for all that Bucky Barnes had exchanged it with Steve Rogers dozens of times.

You look like Hell, Steve.

You should see the other guy, Buck.

“He’s better than I am,” she continued. “And I’m no amateur. I was the best knife fighter in Department X. Even better than–”

Abruptly, she broke off, her brow furrowing. There had been something there in her head for a moment, just the briefest snatch of recollection, but it had been fleeting, here and gone in an instant.

“I don’t remember her name,” she mumbled, after trying and failing to grasp the memory. “She had red hair. She was a prodigy – the Department’s most skilled covert operative.”

Yuri, who had been changing out the saline bag on the Winter Soldier’s IV, shot her a sharp, concerned look. «When did you start remembering that, soldier?» he asked, switching to Russian in an effort to keep the conversation private from Tony. Like most of the agents there, he hadn’t yet caught on to the fact that Tony could now understand quite a lot of Russian.

The Winter Soldier wasn’t supposed to remember anything about Natalia Romanova. Those memories had been excised with prejudice decades ago, on the direct orders of General Karpov. Yuri knew that. After all, he’d been there; he’d witnessed the whole sorry affair that had occurred between the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow. He’d seen the two women ripped apart, and had seen the soldier’s mind wiped as punishment before she was placed back into cryofreeze.

She shouldn’t remember any women with red hair.

«Just now,» she answered, confused and a little anxious. Had she slipped up? Would she be sent back to the chair? Would Tony’s sabotage be discovered? Would he be killed? She didn’t want any of those things to happen.

«Don’t talk about that with anyone else,» Yuri instructed. «Forget that you ever remembered it. Do you understand me, soldier?»

Wide-eyed, she nodded, recognizing that this was an unusual order.

«Good,» Yuri said. He checked the needle on her IV one last time and then turned to go. His hand brushed over hers briefly, in a movement so swift that it was barely noticeable, and she felt four pills pressed into her palm. Oxycodone, probably. That was what he usually gave her when he disobeyed the colonel. A missing dose of an intravenous medication would be noticed, but a few missing pills could be hidden in the inventory numbers.

Yuri always gave her painkillers when she was badly hurt, even though he wasn’t supposed to. Like the rest of her team, he watched out for her.

Closing her fist around the tablets, she turned her attention back to Tony and her damaged prosthesis. “Is it very bad?” she asked. “It felt like Josef was trying to tear it off of me.”

Wanda had to struggle to listen to Pepper and process what she was saying. Passively gleaning the stress and worry that was pouring off the woman in thick waves, Wanda simply sat and let her speak, feeling a headache coming on. She had barely - very barely - begun processing her brother’s death, what had happened in Sokovia, what had almost happened in Sokovia, and a giant move halfway across the world to America. The last thing she needed right now was to play psychologist to a man who had ruined her life.

The only things stopping Wanda from rudely and pointedly refusing Pepper’s request to attempt to evaluate and possibly aid Stark in his currently jumbled mental state was the emotion involved… and what she had seen in his mind in Sokovia. Clearly this woman loved him, Wanda could sense that right away, and in light of losing Pietro, she was more inclined to help people keep their loved ones close than to abandon them to whatever fate might befall them. And… what she’d seen in Stark’s mind when she’d evoked the nightmarish premonition in his mind that set off the events of creating Ultron like an unstoppable mental chain reaction had been anything but expected…

Of all the Avengers, Wanda expected Stark’s worst nightmare to be something selfish. Losing all his money, perhaps, or… some public scandal or embarrassment. Defamation of character in tabloid reporting? Losing all his material possessions? Well… Wanda didn’t know exactly what she had been expecting, but whatever it was… she was certain it would be selfish. Instead, Stark’s worst nightmare was about his friends dying in an invasion of the world he could neither prevent nor fend off. It was about… not being good enough. Not doing enough. The pain and fear she felt from him as she stood there in his nightmare alongside him had been the exact opposite of what she expected from a man she understood to be self-centered, egotistical, privileged, entitled, and entirely disconnected from the plights and suffering of others.

That… had really made her stop and think. Was she wrong about him? Was there more to him than she ever thought possible? Was there more to the story of her parents’ death and those shells that had fallen right onto her world nearly eight years ago? At the time she had done everything she could to shrug it all off. No, he was a disgraceful man who deserved to be punished, certainly, if not outright killed. There was no turning back now, she’d thought. Well now here she was, alone in the world with everyone she loved dead and all her bills being paid for by Stark himself. Life was funny sometimes. Funny… and agonizingly ironic.

It was for the blonde woman who loved him so much and the seeds of altruistic heroism she’d seen buried inside the man that she’d agreed to try and help Stark, who was apparently living in the past. Or rather, living in the present with a mind stuck in the past. Wanda agreed to be taken from the new Avengers training compound to the Avengers tower, also known as Stark Tower, to meet the man directly. Nervous, fearful, and sleep-deprived, Wanda wasn’t sure she was up to the task. Her eyes were red from crying and nightmare-haunted attempts at sleep, and she had an immense amount of difficulty focusing on anything other than Pietro. She agreed to try and help Stark, that’s all. if she couldn’t help him, then she couldn’t. That was the out she gave herself, at least.

Slowly approaching the man as he immersed himself in paperwork of some kind, Wanda observed from a distance before trying to engage him in conversation. Unfortunately, he noticed her there anyway and spoke first, predictably pushing her away before she’d even said or done anything. “We can order pizza, if that’s what you want, but the presence or absence of pizza doesn’t change what I’m here to do,” she said cautiously, hating how exhausted and tremulous her voice sounded. “Something appears to have happened to you. Your mind has fractured for some reason. I might be able to help, but… you need to let me, first.”

breathing against your lover’s back as you rest after a long hike up the mountain to watch the sunset; impromptu car rides in the middle of the night that lead you to nowhere and everywhere at once; leaping over fences and gates to hold each other in your arms. you attract adventure. you’re the type to say yes before thinking of it. you have a look in your eyes that people find themselves nodding along to, if only to hold onto your attention for a little longer. you hate having to wait, and yearning brings you to almost a state of frustration for you have so much to give. you want to love now, for if you don’t love, you feel a sort of emptiness that no adventure can fill. hold on tight, my dear, for your love is waiting for you, too.

When he turned into her side to create a more hug like gesture, she held him close and gave his shoulder a small squeeze. Picking up her pace just slightly to get them both out of the cold, she still took time to take in her surroundings. Not a whole lot had changed since the last time she woke up but her best guess was that only a handful of months had passed since then. When Tony went to sleep or passed out, she’d have to do some digging of her own to figure out when she was and all that she would need to fit in. Based solely on how Tony was dressed, she didn’t think what was saved for her would work anymore.

“You’ll be surprised at what all I can tolerate.” His statement sounded like a challenge, a warning, and was there some disappointment in there as well? “Besides, I’m not going anywhere. You can count on that.” 

Peggy always stayed true to her word. If it was Tony who woke her up, she could almost guarantee that SHIELD didn’t know about her status. She wondered briefly if Howard had even found someone to pass along the knowledge to. She had no desire to go back to being an agent right away anyways.

She took the keys and sat for a moment to refamiliarize herself with a car after she started it up. She fiddled around until she found the lights, turning them on and just as she was about to put the car in drive, Tony mentioned government conspiracies. She paused for a moment wondering if she was about to have to clean up yet another one of Howard’s messes. But that couldn’t be right, could it?

“You better be talking about me when it comes to government conspiracies.” She said as she pulled away from the curb to head back to the Stark residence. 

Although Pepper was much more comfortable in her shoes than the years prior, she still felt a sense of dread when she received a phone call. Whether the incident ranged from minor to major, both her heart and mind raced just the same. She had trained herself to be much more open to Tony’s lifestyle to accommodate his daring ways, but she couldn’t change the fact that, deep within her, she would always have that lingering worry.

That proved to be no different when she saw Tony’s body, lying still and oblivious. It didn’t take much searching to find the patches of dirt and wounds that overtook much of his body, but he looked no different than on most days where he came to the rescue. That time in particular, though, he seemed to have taken quite blow to the head. Pepper had to remain realistic and calm for his sake and hers, meaning that things would most likely be okay and back to normal with a short amount of healing time. She had learned plenty of patience through dealing with Tony himself, so she would have to apply that to the best of her ability as she watched the events unfold.

Throughout all of the obstacles, whether they were to her liking or not, she remained by Tony’s side. His stories often left her on edge, even though she knew that he found a way around the most critical parts. He remained all that she had, so she found herself treating him so delicate and fragile most of the time, even when he had physically proven to be anything but.

Her heels were the only thing that could be heard throughout the compound as she ascended the stairs. The sound of miscellaneous technology rang in her ears, but that was only because she was used to Tony providing those noises, not because they were actually happening. She took a deep breath as she placed her hand on the metal handle, which would lead her into the room where Tony rested. Her lungs deflated as she stepped inside, releasing the stream of air through her mouth. She was relieved to find a set of open eyes, which resulted in a soft whisper of thanks to her lucky stars. She slowly approached his bedside, where the blankets were slightly untucked. She could only assume that he had been getting restless, but that was nothing new.

The tops of her legs rested against the side of the bed as she approached him as far as she could. A hand lowered onto his white sheet that covered his body before slowly trailing down to where his hand rested. She carefully slipped her hand inside of his and gave him a soft squeeze.

“Welcome to the year three thousand.”

She joked, soon displaying a small smirk. She was unsure of the extent of his injury, but in case he knew just as much as he did before, she didn’t want to freak him out by seeming abnormal and too careful around him.

She lowered herself onto the chair next to his bed, her arm resting on the railing while her hand remained securely in his.

“How are you feeling?”