Who: Tony and Pepper When: April 11, 2015 Where: Stark Industries What: The unexpected happens. Maybe. Okay, it probably shouldn't be all that surprising. Let's call it unanticipated, and nobody over-react.
Pepper didn't have time to get sick. She never got sick, in fact, couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a sick day. One time, she'd gotten lucky and both she and Tony had been sick at the same time. Then, she'd work from the safety of his couch, laptop in lap, phone in hand, getting up only to answer the door for the takeout guy.
There wasn't time for such luxuries as couches now, not with the upcoming Clean Energy Sumit just a few weeks away, and her running around like a mad woman, making all the arrangements for the event, as well as making sure that the Stark Industries presentation and installations, would be ready. The fatigue didn't surprise her, really. Pepper was always just a little bit tired, she sometimes worked eighteen hours a day. It was therefore unsurprising that her immune system had weakened enough to allow the curse of nasal congestion and a low-grade fever, that was just one more thing she had to worry about.
Even the late period was not something she worried about, by itself. Pepper sometimes skipped them altogether some months, due to high stress, and her birth control medication.
It was the bagel.
Walking through the outer office in the direction of Tony, she slowed to say good morning to one of the secretaries, who was idly picking at a breakfast that consisted of coffee, and a heavily schmeared onion bagel. The smell of the onion hit Pepper like a sandbag, and she just prayed she'd managed to murmur something in the way of 'goodbye', and then not slam Tony's door, on her way into his bathroom, where she divulged the contents of her own breakfast.
Midway through her surprising bout of nausea, Pepper had just mentally upgraded her cold status to flu - when an idea occurred to her, that, had she anything left in her stomach, would have made her throw up all over again.
Pepper looked at herself in the mirror, eyes wide with shock. The word 'impossible', seemed hyperbolic, but her thoughts were definitely headed in that direction. Going over everything she could remember about early symptoms, she found a disconcerting amount that fit the bill, and a reassuring amount that didn't.
She'd been in the bathroom ten minutes before deciding she couldn't stay in there forever, and had to actually do something. Go somewhere. There were people she could talk to, tests, and until she knew something concrete, she wouldn't have to worry about how they- they. Oh, God. Pepper had never felt Tony's presence so strongly, as on the opposite side of the bathroom door at that moment, and she had only had as much difficulty telling him one other thing.
Except there was nothing to tell. No use worrying him over something that was nothing. Better find out if there was something first, and then watch him have a nuclear meltdown. Pepper closed her eyes, her forehead thudding against the door. As she opened, it she couldn't remember whether or not he'd been sitting at his desk when she rushed in, or not.