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“Mrs. Boss?”
Pepper stirs in her sleep. Had someone called out for her? “Hm?” She’s about to drift back to sleep again when FRIDAY calls her name again.
“Mrs. Boss, there’s a matter that requires your attention.”
Pepper frowns and opens her eyes. She’s lying in bed on her back, book open on her chest where she’d fallen asleep reading it. It takes her mind a few moments to register what FRIDAY said, but when she figures it out, her heart starts beating rapidly, and she’s instantly awake.
“What is it? Is Tony ok?”
“There’s an incoming call for Boss from Peter Parker, but Boss is out of communication due to his current mission.”
“Peter?” she questions, and sits up, setting her book aside. Tony and Happy usually take care of Spider Man related things, but Happy is on vacation. With him and Tony both gone, there’s no one to deal with whatever it is that Peter needs help with. She’s not qualified to help him, especially if he’s in trouble with some sort of criminal. Her mind flits for a few moments to the Rescue suit Tony built her, but aside from getting into it one time upon completion so he could give her a rundown of how it all works, she’s never been out in it, and hopes she never has to use it.
She knows she probably can’t help, but she can at least answer the phone. “I’ll take the call FRIDAY.”
It’s only a moment before Peter’s shaky voice comes over the speakers in the bedroom. “Mr- Mr. Stark?”
“This is Pepper,” she says, reaching up to rub sleep out of her left eye.
There’s a beat of silence and then, “Miss Potts?” Everything Pepper knows about Peter Parker boils down to what Tony and Happy have said about him, both to her and in passing. She’s watched for the last nine months as Happy has gone from annoyed with and complaining about him, to giving a soft smile whenever his name is mentioned. She’s watched and listened as Tony has tried to keep his distance, and Peter has slowly broken down his barriers, going from just some kid Tony feels responsible for, to working in the lab with him, and more recently to spending some free time together. Last week Tony took him out to get donuts on a Saturday, and two weeks ago she’d come home from work and found them sitting together in the penthouse watching Mythbusters and picking apart everything that was said on the show. She’s heard about Peter’s antics as Spider Man, about how smart he is, his good grades, and in general about how he’s a good kid. She’s only met him in person a handful of times though, and hasn’t had a lot of opportunity to gather information on her own. But the way his voice shakes as he speaks- she knows that’s not right, not like him at all.
“Tony is out of communication on a mission. What’s going on? Are you in trouble?”
“I’m-” she can hear Peter pull in a shaky breath. “I didn’t mean to- to bother you this late, I- I was trying to get Mr. Stark.”
“It’s ok,” she says. He’s just a kid… just 16, and despite not knowing how to fight bad guys and do what Tony does on a regular basis, she thinks, just maybe, she’s willing to put on the Rescue suit for Peter, because he means something to Tony, and because he sounds scared. “Peter, what’s going on?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “My aunt is out of town with Happy and- and I meant to get- to get Mr. Stark.”
She holds in a sigh. He’s a good kid and the few times she’s talked to him face to face, he’s always been polite to the extreme. It’s no different now, not even when he’s in trouble. She doesn’t ask again, and after a moment he decides to answer her question.
“I’m at the hospital.”
Her heart starts beating fast again and she pulls the covers back and slides out of bed. “The hospital? Peter honey, what happened? Are you ok?”
“I’m- I’m ok. I’m ok,” he says again, but it sounds to her more like he’s trying to reassure himself instead of her. “I’m- I’m good, I’m-”
“Which hospital are you at?” Tony is gone, Happy is on vacation, apparently with Peter’s aunt, and he has no one else to call, or he would have called them. He’s not in need of Iron Man or Rescue, but he does need an adult. That’s something she can do, she thinks as she goes to the closet and starts pulling out clothes.
“New York Presbyterian Queens.”
“What happened?” she asks again.
“I’m-” he trails off and doesn’t answer.
“Peter?”
He still doesn’t answer and she wonders if he’d ended the call, or if FRIDAY has for some reason.
“I’ll be right there,” she says, not knowing if he’s on the line anymore.
He is. “Are you sure? It’s late and- I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“I’m sure. I’ll be right there. Hang tight ok?”
“Ok.” His voice is quiet… uncertain, and as she tells him goodbye and hangs up the phone, she hurries to pull on shoes and a hoodie. She normally wouldn’t go out like this, just in sweatpants, a T-shirt and a hoodie, but it’s late, after eleven PM, and Tony’s kid needs her.
She pauses for a moment, hand reaching for her purse and car keys. She’s not sure when her brain decided that Peter is Tony’s kid, but apparently it has. She wonders if Tony has figured that out yet or if it’s only her.
She grabs her purse and heads out into the rest of the penthouse and to the elevator. It’s a two minute ride down to the private parking garage under the tower, and it’s just enough time for her to think about all the things Tony has been saying and doing lately when it comes to Peter. He’s spent a few hundred dollars buying Peter new sneakers, a warm winter coat, and a couple hoodies. It’s nothing in the grand scheme of things… a drop in the bucket for a man that once spent three hundred dollars on a hamburger at an upscale restaurant in LA just because he could. But it’s the thought that counts, she thinks. Tony keeps people at arms length for a reason (not any reason Pepper agrees with, but still), yet here Peter is inside that wall her fiancé keeps up around himself. Few people are inside that wall… her, Rhodey, and Happy. Peter apparently now too. For the people Tony does let in, he often goes out of his way to make sure they have what they need.
She doesn’t know how she hadn’t realized sooner how close Peter and Tony have gotten.
As soon as she’s in the car and headed towards the hospital, she forces herself to focus on the road… forces her mind to stay on task despite that it keeps drifting back to how sweet and caring Tony is to the people he loves. Whether Tony realizes it or not (and she really thinks he doesn’t), he cares about Peter and wants to make sure he’s taken care of. He would want to be there now, on his way to the hospital, but he won’t be back from his mission for days still. That’s ok, she thinks, because she’s on her way, and she can handle this, whatever this is that Peter has gotten himself into.
* * *
Peter can’t stop hugging himself. He runs his hands up and down his arms like he’s cold even though he’s not. He wishes May were here… or Mr. Stark. He’d even take Happy right now if he were available. He’s not. Happy and May are out of town in Vermont on a weekend getaway… their first. They’ve been dating for a few months now, and while Peter can’t say he’s exactly happy with it, he is happy that May seems happy. She’s happier than she’s been in a long time. He doesn’t mind that they took a romantic trip up to some cabin. He does mind that he’s completely alone in a hospital room and there’s no one to hug.
Pull yourself together, you’re fine, you’re good, he chastises himself, but as soon as the thought comes, it’s pulled away from him, completely out of his control. He’s still loopy despite that things are starting to even out a bit. It’s like a fog is slowly clearing, revealing things he hadn’t realized were right in front of him or around him. The problem is, he’s not entirely sure what to make of what’s around him. He wants May to hug him and tell him it will be ok. He wants Mr. Stark there to keep him safe and to take care of everything, to answer the questions he keeps being asked but doesn’t know the answers to. Hell, he even wants Happy there to stand guard at the door… to glare at the nurses that keep coming in to take his blood and give him shots of drugs he knows won’t work for him because of his ultra fast metabolism.
A nurse comes in and checks his vitals. They’ve been checking on him a lot, but he wishes they wouldn’t. He wishes they would just leave him alone. It’s bad enough that he’s dizzy and nauseous… that he keeps trying to hold onto his thoughts and they keep slipping through his fingers, like they don’t belong to him at all.
That thought too slips from his mind. He’s confused, because time is moving strangely, and he thinks it really shouldn’t. He feels simultaneously like he’s been there for hours and minutes, and he’s not sure which is true. He’d had the presence of mind to call Mr. Stark, but it had been Miss Pepper who had answered… Miss Pepper who had promised to come to the hospital. He thinks that was hours ago, seconds ago, days ago. He doesn’t know, and before he can really dial in on that uncertainty… really think about it and figure out what it all means, the thought is gone and his mind is drifting to something else… to loud music and Flash and Ned who isn’t here, because Ned is out of town too, visiting a sick grandparent in New Jersey.
The door opens again, and he’s expecting a nurse to come in to steal more of his blood, but it’s not a nurse, it’s Miss Pepper. She smells slightly of lavender, like she always does… like the penthouse does whenever he goes to hang out with Mr. Stark. The scent settles his nerves despite that he’s nervous to see her there. He doesn’t know her very well, but Mr. Stark loves her, and Happy likes her. Peter likes her too. She’s nice to him. The last time he’d been to the penthouse, she’d invited him to stay for dinner and then had listened to him ramble about a science project at school as they ate Chinese food.
She’s not May, or Mr. Stark, or Happy, but she’s here, and Peter breathes a sigh of relief. He lets his shoulders hunch forward. He’s confident she’ll know how to tell time and to keep his thoughts on track. She’s the CEO of the biggest tech company in the world… she has to be good at organizing thoughts.
“Peter,” she breathes. Her face morphs from concern, to horror, to anger, to sadness so fast that Peter can’t keep track of it all. Her expressions are slipping away faster than his thoughts. Sand through an hourglass, water through a sieve. Peter is pretty sure he’s high, and he doesn’t know if it’s the drugs the nurses gave him, or something else, because he doesn’t do drugs.
“Honey,” she says, and her voice is soft, concerned. She comes over to him, crossing the little sterile white room slowly. When she makes it to his side, her eyes travel over his face, up to his hair, and then finally to his eyes. “What happened? This didn’t happen as Spider Man did it?” She whispers the last part. He looks down at his arms and then his legs. He’s wearing a gray hoodie and jeans. His hoodie has red on it, but he’s definitely not in his spidey suit, so no, it didn’t happen as Spider Man.
He stares at the red splotch on the right arm of his hoodie. “Is that blood?” he asks. He feels stupid, because some part of him knows it’s blood… knows that something bad happened to him, it must have, he’s in a hospital for crying out loud! But the bigger part of his mind, the one that has thoughts slipping over one another like they’re covered in oil, has no idea if it’s blood, and has no idea what happened to him.
“It’s blood,” she confirms, and he’s surprised when she reaches out and touches his other arm and leaves her hand there. It’s warm and comforting. May would hug him, and Happy would stand guard, and Mr. Stark wouldn’t touch him at all but he’d take care of everything. This is nice too though, he decides. Miss Pepper came for him, even though he’s not sure why she would.
Her question from when she walked in finally catches up to him and his brain speeds up, but only for a moment. “What happened?”
He blinks several times, trying to clear away the fog, hold onto memories that aren’t quite within his grasp. “I- I don’t know… what happened.” He feels bad. He knows that’s not helpful. “The nurses… they keep coming in and taking blood.” Then he laughs, and he doesn’t even know why. “They’re gonna take it all Miss Pepper.”
“They won’t take it all,” she reassures him, and Peter thinks it’s because she’s there… that she won’t let them take all of his blood. Maybe she won’t let them poke him with needles anymore either. While he’s thinking about it, trying hard to hold onto that one thought, the door opens again and a nurse appears. He leans away from her and towards Miss Pepper.
The nurse looks up and catches sight of Pepper. She looks relieved. “Thank goodness,” she says. “I’m glad someone was able to come for him. Are you his mother?”
“A family friend,” Pepper says. Her hand is still on Peter’s forearm, grounding him… keeping him there in the room and in the conversation. He blinks hard and then squints, as though doing so will focus his hearing, or his vision, or his understanding of the situation. “Can you tell me what happened to him? What’s going on?”
“He didn’t tell you?” the nurse asks, and Pepper shakes her head. “He said he doesn’t know what happened. He seems confused.” She looks at Peter’s eyes again, and Peter wonders if she has super powers… if she can somehow look straight through to his soul. He doesn’t feel like she’s searching his soul. That would feel tingly, he thinks, and he doesn’t feel tingly. He’s not really sure what he feels.
“Peter?” the nurse asks. “Do I have your permission to tell her about your injuries?”
“Huh? Yeah, yeah,” he waves with his free hand… the arm covered in blood. It’s his blood, he realizes, and for the first time that night since waking up in the hospital room surrounded by upset nurses and an angry doctor, he’s certain of something. “This is- she’s nice. She’s- I like Miss Pepper.”
The nurse gives him a sad look and then nods. She turns to Pepper and says, “He was at a party and his drink was spiked. Several boys dragged him out of the house the party was at in Forest Hills and beat him up. Thankfully a neighbor saw what was happening and stopped them before-” she trails away, grimaces and says, “anything else could happen. The police were called. There’s an officer here, he’s been in twice to ask, but Peter hasn’t been able to give many details. Right now all we know is what the neighbor reported to the police when they came.”
Peter turns to Miss Pepper to see what she can make of all of this. Peter remembers a party at Flash’s house… remembers going uninvited and by himself, but that’s all he remembers. He doesn’t know anything else. As he looks at her, Miss Pepper’s face is morphing between sad and angry. Her hand stays on his arm the entire time though, and he looks down to stare at it.
“Either he wasn’t dosed with very much of the drug, or he’s got a remarkably fast metabolism because it’s been clearing out of his system fast. We’ve been running blood every twenty minutes. As you can see, he’s still a little out of it, but he’s improved a lot since he came in an hour and a half ago.”
“Is anything broken?” Pepper asks, and her voice is- something, Peter notes, but he doesn’t know what that something is. Hard… unlike her at all. It’s like she’s talking through her teeth, but he doesn’t know how she can do that when her mouth is open, her teeth clearly not clenched together. He doesn’t like it. It’s scary to hear from her. He wonders for a moment if it’s actually not Pepper standing next to him, but Happy or Mr. Stark, because it sounds far more like the way they would say something when angry.
“No. He’s bruised, as you can see. He has some scrapes on his face, arms, and side. We’ve taken care of all of that. He didn’t require stitches thankfully.” The nurse points up at Peter’s forehead. He reaches up to touch his face, wondering what she’s pointing at, but Pepper’s hand stops him, and he doesn’t fight her. “The cut on his forehead wasn’t deep enough to need stitches, but he’ll need to keep that steri-strip on until it’s healed. He had a bloody nose but that stopped bleeding on its own.”
Miss Pepper looks at his face again, assessing the damage. It’s not until she’s really looking at him again that he realizes his face hurts. How had he not known that his face was injured? He looks down at the blood on his sleeve again.
“Is that mine?” he asks.
“Yes,” the nurse says.
He looks back up at her. “What happened?” She’d told him… he knows she said he was beat up, but it’s slipping away, albeit slower than things were slipping away from him minutes before.
“You went to a party. You were drugged and beat up. You’re ok.” The nurse tells him slowly, facing him so he can watch her lips form the words. It’s like she’s done this with him before… broken it down to its simplest terms. You were hurt, but you’ll be ok. Maybe she’s told Peter a hundred times already, or five times, or two. He doesn’t know, but he’s grateful, and he’s also grateful she doesn’t have a needle waiting to take more blood.
“What was he given?” Pepper asks.
The nurse hands over the chart she’s been holding and using to mark Peter’s vitals down on. She points at something and as soon as Pepper sees it, the anger and upset flash back across her face.
“Did they get whoever did this? You said the police are involved?” She hands the chart back to the nurse, like it’s hot and she can’t hold onto it anymore… can’t wait to get it out of her hands.
“Not that I’m aware of. The officer that’s here has just been waiting for the drugs to clear from his system a little more so he can ask him what he remembers. Memory loss isn’t uncommon with this sort of thing though.”
“When will Peter be released? Does he need to stay overnight?”
“He can be released right now. There’s not much more we can do for him here. His injuries have already been cleaned and treated. Right now it’s just a waiting game trying to get the drugs out of his system. He needs fluids and rest.” The nurse glances at Peter briefly and then looks back at Pepper. “And a hug. A few nurses have asked him if they can give him a hug, but he won’t let anyone touch him.” She eyes Pepper’s hand on Peter’s arm again and looks like she approves.
“So I can take him?”
“We can release him to you. We were really worried no one would come for him.” The nurse sounds grateful again that Pepper is there. Peter is grateful she’s there too. “Will you be taking him now? If so, the officer will want to talk to him again before you go.”
Pepper nods, but then she pauses and looks at Peter. “Peter honey, are you ok talking to the officer again?”
“I don’t- I don’t really- remember anything.”
She runs her hand up and down his arm gently for a moment. “That’s ok. Do you want to talk to the officer now, or wait until tomorrow?”
He frowns. What does he want to do? He looks to Pepper for help, and she seems to know what he needs without him having to say it.
“Whatever you want to do is fine honey. If you want to talk to the officer now and get it over with, I’ll take you home after. If you want to wait, that’s fine too and I’ll take you home right away. If you wait, the officer will probably call you into the station to ask you questions tomorrow.”
It’s a lot of words… a lot of explanation, and he struggles to understand it all. “I’ll talk to them now.”
The nurse nods and leaves the room.
“I can’t keep track of time,” Peter tells Pepper as soon as they’re alone. “Minutes, n’ hours and-” he trails off. She pats his arm gently.
“I’ll help you keep track,” she says, and he relaxes a little.
When the door opens again and an officer comes in, Pepper says quietly, “It’s been three minutes since the nurse left.”
Peter stares at her, mouth hanging open a little in awe. How does she know he can’t tell time?
The officer steps forward and holds out his hand to Pepper to shake. “Can I get your name for the report so I know who’s taking him home?”
“Pepper Potts.” The officer is looking at his notepad, pen in hand, waiting to write her name down, but he freezes as soon as she says it. He looks up at her, takes in her face and hair, nods and says, “And your relationship to Peter?”
“Family friend,” she says. The officers eyes dart between Pepper and Peter a couple times, and then he writes the information down in his notebook. He ignores Pepper after that, focused on Peter.
“Hi Peter, we’ve talked a few times tonight already. I know you’re ready to go home, but I need you to answer a few questions for me. Since you’ve been here, we’ve had some new information come in.”
Pepper shifts next to Peter, like she’s uncomfortable, or anxious, but she stays quiet, and Peter tries hard to keep his eyes on the officer. He can feel that this is important, even if he doesn’t quite understand why. Anything involving the police is important.
“Do you remember going to the party at 106 Rockrose Place in Forest Hills?”
Peter frowns, trying to think. “Flash’s house.”
The officer looks down and consults his notes, flipping back a page. “Eugene Thompson,” the officer says, and Peter mumbles, “Flash,” again.
“Do you know Eugene Thompson?”
“From- we go to- to school together.”
“At Midtown.” It’s not a question. Peter nods.
“Peter, I asked you this before, and you said Eugene Thompson gave you the drink. You said he bullies you at school.”
“Yeah.”
“Both of those?”
“He’s a- he’s not nice.”
“And he gave you the drink?”
“I-” Peter reaches back for the memory, but it’s not there. “I dunno.”
“That’s all right. Peter, was he acting strangely? Do you remember? Was he already intoxicated?”
All Peter can remember when he closes his eyes is a dark house, loud music, and a lot of people… some he knows from school, others he doesn’t. He thinks until his brain hurts, and it does hurt, and comes up with an image of Flash stumbling towards him, laughing, and pressing a red plastic cup into his hands.
“Lighten up Parker,” Peter says under his breath, remembering what Flash had told him.
“Is that what he said to you?”
Peter frowns up at the officer. “He was- somethin’ wasn’ right. He was… stumbling.”
The officer nods.
“Did you see anyone giving him a hard time at the party? Was anyone harassing Eugene or handing him drinks?”
He shakes his head. The more he thinks about it… is questioned by the officer, the more the dark room and the thumping music comes back to him. Eugene had stumbled into the crowd and disappeared. Peter had sipped at the drink for a few moments, and then thrown caution to the wind and taken a large drink, and then another. He’d never drank before… never had a desire to consume alcohol, but in that moment, he had a desire to find out if he could get drunk and to see what alcohol would do to him with his enhanced metabolism. He’d figured nothing would happen at all and had drank what was left in the cup, which hadn’t been much.
“Cup was half gone,” he says. “I think- I think it was Flash’s drink and- I drank what was left. It was almost gone.”
The officer nods, like it makes sense, though Peter isn’t sure how it makes sense. The man questions Peter on what else he remembers, if he remembers being harassed by three boys from another highschool that were at the party. He’s asked if he remembers being shoved outside and then beaten up, and what the boys that did it said to him while they hit him. He can’t remember any of it.
Pepper removes her hand from his arm and speaks. Peter looks down at his arm, which is cold now where her hand should be but isn’t, and then up at her. She has her arms wrapped around herself. “Tell me you found who did this.” Her voice is hard again… angry.
“We’re still looking. We don’t think Peter was the target. Someone said they saw someone put something in Eugene’s drink. We thought at first multiple people were drugged, but it’s only Eugene and Peter. From what Peter’s told us throughout the night, we think Eugene was already starting to feel the effects of the drug someone had slipped into his drink when he handed the drink off to Peter. Peter finished the drink off, accidentally bumped into a boy, and then that boy and his friends took Peter outside and started hitting him, but were stopped quickly by a neighbor, who had already called 911 to report the loud party.”
“What about the other boy, Eugene,” Pepper asks. “Is he ok?”
“The officers cleared the party out after they came for Peter. They found Eugene passed out in a corner of the living room. It looked like nothing had happened to him. He’s here too, with his parents,” the officer says. “He hasn’t woken up yet, but the doctors are confident he’ll be fine once the drug leaves his system. The family has security cameras inside and outside the house. A detective is reviewing all the footage as we speak.”
Pepper and the officer talk, and Peter tries to keep up, but he’s struggling. He hugs himself again, running his hands up and down his arms, trying to find some of the warmth he’d felt when Pepper had her hand on his arm. Then he blinks and the officer is gone. He blinks again and he’s in the passenger seat of a nice car. He looks around, confused, and finds that Pepper is driving. It’s dark, and she’s driving him through the city.
“Where are we going?” he asks. He feels like he’s asked this before.
“I’m taking you back to the tower sweetheart. You’re safe. I’ll get you some ice for your face and something to eat and drink, and then you can go to sleep. I tried to get ahold of Happy and your aunt, but I think they must not have service up in the mountains. I left a message for Tony too.”
“Mr. Stark,” Peter says, but he doesn’t know what he’d been planning on saying after that, so he leaves it there.
“Yes?” she asks, wanting to know the rest of that sentence.
Peter frowns and searches his mind for something to say. “Mr. Stark will take care of it. I like him, he’s- Mr. Stark is nice. He’ll take care of it.”
She glances at him, gives him a soft look and then focuses on the road again.
“Miss Pepper?”
“Yes?”
“Why are we goin’ to the tower?”
“I don’t want you staying home alone right now and your aunt isn’t at home. You can stay with me until she and Happy get back. They’re coming back Monday right?” Tony isn’t due back for days, but she’s hoping he’ll be able to check the message she had FRIDAY send to his suit and that he’ll be home sooner.
“Mmm, Monday,” Peter confirms. It’s only Friday night now, this Peter knows for sure, though he’s not sure why this is one of the details that’s stuck with him throughout the night.
They’re quiet as they make it to the tower. Peter feels weak and shaky and his head is still pounding, but he follows Pepper to the private elevator in the parking garage, hoping she meant what she said about food and something to drink. He feels like he’s starving and like food will fix everything, just like it does when he’s hurt and needs some extra energy to heal. He and Mr. Stark had tested that hypothesis one night when Peter had been sliced by a mugger across the arm. He ate a big meal, (two boxes of pizza), and the slice had healed way faster than it normally would. Ever since then, Mr. Stark insists on feeding Peter extra food when he comes to the tower hurt, and every other time he comes to the tower just because.
The elevator door opens and Miss Pepper leads him to the living room and tells him gently to sit on the couch. “Why don’t I find you a fresh sweater to change into?” she asks. “Would that be ok?”
He nods and she disappears into the master bedroom. She comes back out a few minutes later with one of Mr. Stark’s hoodies. He knows it belongs to Mr. Stark because it smells like him. Peter struggles to get out of his hoodie, and then Miss Pepper helps him pull Mr. Stark’s hoodie on. It’s warm, and it smells nice, and he feels suddenly as though Mr. Stark is there and is hugging him, even though he doesn’t know what that feels like because he’s never been hugged by the man before.
“S’ like being hugged,” Peter says, and Pepper pauses and looks down at him. “Smells like Mr. Stark.”
“Has Tony hugged you before?” she asks.
He shakes his head and wraps his arms around himself.
She pulls a soft fuzzy gray blanket off the arm of the couch and drapes it around Peter, who nuzzles his face into it.
“I’ll get you something to eat.”
He perks up at that. “Can I have a lot to eat? A lot? Mr. Stark- when m’ hurt he gives me a lot t’ eat.”
“I’ll bring you something. Do you want water or hot coco? Tea?”
“Coco. Two packets?”
She nods and leaves him in the living room, glad the kitchen and living room are open to each other so she can keep an eye on him. He seems to zone out as she heats up leftover Indian food she’d ordered for dinner. She also makes him a sandwich and brings that and a steaming mug of hot chocolate back to him. He reaches for the hot chocolate first.
“Careful, it’s hot,” she warns, but he seems happy just to have his hands wrapped around it, and stares down into the mug happily for a few moments before taking a sip.
“Two packs. Mr. Stark makes it like this,” he says with a little smile.
“He does?” she questions, and Peter nods. He takes another long sip of the hot drink and then starts in on his food. She sits beside him and waits for him to finish. It’s almost one in the morning, but she’s not going anywhere.
While she waits for him to finish his meal, she thinks about Peter’s night. She can’t even contemplate him being drugged at a party. She knows that sort of thing happens… has a feeling it has happened to Tony with how he used to party in his twenties and early thirties, but she’s never asked him and he’s never volunteered the information. He’ll be livid when he comes home and finds out it’s happened to Peter… and to the other boy at the party, Eugene. She wants to take comfort in the fact that it wasn’t Peter that was targeted, but she can’t, because even if Peter was an unintended victim, it still means that Eugene was the target… that someone slipped drugs into his drink on purpose. She’s glad both boys are ok. The officer had said Eugene would be fine, that nothing had happened to him, but it could have. It could have happened to Peter too if a watchful neighbor hadn’t already been on the phone to the police complaining about the party next door. And besides that, Peter was hurt. He wasn’t able to protect himself because he had been drugged.
It makes her so upset that she wants to yell, or throw something across the room. People are cruel and selfish, and despite that she barely knows Peter, she wants to protect him from all of the cruel and selfish people in the world… the people that slip drugs into drinks at parties and beat up one of the sweetest, most innocent kids she’s ever met. It’s not fair and she hates it.
She looks at him and realizes that he’s finished eating and is just staring at the empty plate. “Did you get enough?”
He nods. “I think-” he pulls in a deep breath. “My head is clearing. Food helps.”
“Yeah,” she says. She holds out her hand for the plate and he gives it to her. She takes it to the kitchen, and when she comes back she brings with her a bottle of water. Peter finishes his hot chocolate and then hurries through the water. He’s right. Somehow eating helps, she thinks, because as he finishes the coco, his eyes become a little less glassy, and as he finishes the water, he seems to come back to himself a little more.
He blinks several times and turns to her. His cheeks heat up like he’s embarrassed. “Um… sorry. For bothering you. It’s late. I’m feeling better. I can- I can go.”
“You’re staying here for the night,” she says. “You can stay until your aunt gets home.”
He looks down, cheeks still red, and nods. “Thanks,” he mumbles.
“Do you need more food? Will that help?”
He shakes his head. “I have a headache still… and I’m nauseous, but- my head is clear. I can think again. I’m ok.”
She’s relieved that the drug seems to be clearing out of his system a little more. She’s not sure how he’ll take the question she has to ask him given what the nurse at the hospital had told her.
“Do you want a hug? Can I hug you?”
Peter’s eyes flit up to hers, and seem to become glassy again for a few moments, but he blinks and it clears away. “Uh… no, I’m, you don’t have to do that Miss Pepper. I’m- I’m good. I’m really good. Yeah, I’m- I’m fine.”
He’s just like Tony, she thinks. Tony doesn’t like other people to know when he’s struggling either, not even her. It’s taken some time (years) for her to convince Tony that it’s ok to lean on others when you’re struggling. She still has to remind him of that sometimes. Maybe Peter just needs to hear it too.
“It’s okay, just to say, ‘I’m not okay’,” she tells him, voice gentle. She doesn’t want to spook him… not ever, but especially not after the night he’s had. They don’t know each other well, and she knows he probably feels awkward and embarrassed, but she wants him to know that he’s safe… that nothing will happen to him here.
“I’m-” Peter clears his throat. “I’m not ok,” he says, voice quiet.
She knows he’s not, but her heart still breaks to hear him admit it. It breaks every time she hears Tony admit it too after a bad nightmare, or a panic attack, or a mission gone wrong.
“Can I hug you?” she asks again. She used to ask if Tony wanted a hug, but he always said no when he was feeling vulnerable. When she’d switched to asking if she could give him a hug, he’d started accepting the comfort he needed.
It seems to work with Peter too, because he nods, and she wraps her arms around him. He presses himself into her side and sits rigid and tense for long moments.
“You’re safe,” she says. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“How am I gonna explain all of this to May and-” he swallows, “and to- to Mr. Stark?”
“I can help.” He nods, like he wants her help. “I’ll take care of it,” she tells him, and he finally relaxes in her arms.
She’s got a lot to do. She needs to set up the guest room for him, and in the morning she’ll have to take him to Queens to get some of his clothes. She has to ask FRIDAY if there’s any way she can force a message through to Tony’s suit. She has to see if Peter or FRIDAY know exactly where May and Happy are staying so she can somehow get a message to them. There’s a lot to do, but right now, she’s doing the most important thing she can be doing, which is sitting with Tony’s kid, for what little comfort it’s worth given she’s practically a stranger to him.
In her arms, Peter closes his eyes. She smells like lavender, which is comforting, because the penthouse always smells faintly of lavender. And he’s wearing Mr. Stark’s hoodie, so he feels like Mr. Stark is there too, even though he’s away on a mission. The penthouse is familiar and safe, especially because Miss Pepper is there.
She’s not May, but he’s still comforted by her arms wrapped around him. She’s not Happy, but he’s confident she’ll keep him safe. She’s not Mr. Stark, but she took care of things at the hospital and with the police, and she fed him and helped him keep track of time and clear his head.
As Peter drifts off to sleep, he’s glad that Miss Pepper was there to answer his call. He doesn’t know her all that well, but he thinks that he likes her an awful lot. Like May, and Mr. Stark and Happy. When they’re gone, she’ll be there, and even though he’s not ok right at the moment, he knows he will be, because she’ll be there waiting for him when he wakes up.