Who: Tony Stark tony & Shuri usisi What: Discovery Day: There are Pod People among us. When: Thursday, August 15, late evening Where: Pepper and Ryder's Home Rating: Reader Discretion is Advised Warnings: Discussion of Pod People, fear and anxiety, likely Bad Science Fiction, and plenty of emotional trauma for all characters involved. Note:: This log is also open to The Doctor (11) and Jemma Simmons who can chime in at any time as Tony would welcome reaching out to as many people as possible to try to figure things out. Feel free to start new subthreads so we can get a solution together to save Pepper! Status: Closed/Incomplete
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Talking to Pepper on the phone every night before bed wasn't the same as being with Pepper every night at bedtime, but it was the best they could manage at the moment. There were reasons for them to be apart which had to be taken into consideration; the younger members of their family deserved to be given time to adapt to the changes they were making to bring the Stark family back together again. Some people probably had differing ideas on how Tony and Pepper should handle things---but they were doing what was best for them.
Tony could feel it when he and Pepper checked in with each other every day: they were doing things right.
Tony could also feel it when he spoke with Pepper on the phone that evening: something was wrong with his wife.
A cold chill had settled over him as Pepper had talked with him without any of her usual warmth, humor, or love resounding in her voice. Tony couldn't say why he knew it wasn't just a cold or Pepper being distracted or worried or upset. He just knew something was very, very wrong and he needed to find out what before the fear had him imagining radical possibilities which could result in his designing a new threat to the safety of Madison Valley just because he thought it was a good idea at the time.
Leaving Morgan with people he trusted, Tony went over to the house Pepper was still sharing with Ryder. The boy didn't answer the door when Tony knocked and neither did Pepper. The place seemed empty in a much more sinister way an unoccupied house typically did. It was as if something bad had happened there only Tony knew he would have heard if something had happened to Pepper and Ryder at home.
Madison wasn't the kind of place where people could easily keep secrets.
The hide-a-key was in the same spot it'd been in when Pepper had shown it to him on a different visit to the house. Tony let himself in and started to check for signs of anything out of the ordinary. Everything was in its place as far as he could tell. There were no signs of a struggle, nothing was broken in the front room, no debris littered the floors. It was just a nice, average home which felt as if no one had drawn breath in it for weeks instead of one afternoon.
A need to see for himself drove Tony toward the bedroom Pepper stayed in. He didn't let himself think about how she'd lived in this house with another man, been another man's wife, shared her bed with another man, mothered another child than their own---Tony stopped himself from thinking about the life Pepper had lived in Madison Valley by reminding himself they were working on them again. Things would settle back into the rhythm they'd found at home. They loved each other. They loved Morgan and Ryder and Peter. They were a family. They were going to be a family. Everything else was just details.
Tony lost his breath when he opened the bedroom door to see the strange pod inside. The thing was alive somehow. He could tell because it was almost as if the thing was breathing. It had an odor to it which put him in mind of old earth and the air felt colder as if it was leaching the heat from the room to warm itself. Nothing stopped him from walking in, approaching it. Tony was curious more than afraid until he was right on top of the damn thing and looking down into his wife's face.
Pepper was inside the thing. She was alive. Tony could tell she was alive. Was she okay in there though? Had it hurt her? Infected her? Damaged her brain? Could he get her out of there without killing her?
Too many questions ran through his brain until Tony sank down on the edge of the bed, taking out his phone and starting to send messages to the scientific community of Madison to see if he could get some help. It was Shuri he found himself messaging privately to ask: 'Can you get to Pepper and Ryder's house at [address] as soon as you can with whatever equipment you can manage to bring for a diagnostic on something organic of an unknown origin?'
Tony watched the pod until a chill had settled into his bones enough to make him ache then he went back to the living room to pace in front of the door, hoping he had messaged the right person to help him make some sense out of the situation.