Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Sunday, December 29
“Do you want to call Lockheed and tell them that we can’t finalize the numbers today because you’d rather I take the day off so that I can…do what exactly?” Tony asks from the kitchen table with his usual sarcasm.
Pepper puts the sponge in her hand down on the kitchen island and sighs. “Be with your family, Tony. It’s Sunday!”
“I’m with my family right now,” he argues, but he turns to wink and smile at Peter, who takes in another spoonful of Cheerios and smiles as he chews.
This isn’t the first time Peter’s witnessed this exact conversation, and he’s sure it won’t be the last.
“I’m just saying that it would be nice if you could let work go for a little while and relax. I swear, it’s like the word isn’t even in your vocabulary!”
“I did relax that one time, when I nearly had a psychotic breakdown? After New York?”
“What, you mean when you admitted you were a piping hot mess and later told me I’d find something to complain about even without the tinkering and the suits because I’d somehow convinced myself that being with you was the best option?”
Peter lifts his eyebrows and makes a mental note to never get on Pepper’s bad side. “I’m just gonna…” he says, gesturing to the living room before placing his empty bowl and spoon in the sink.
“Ooh, right in the heart with that one,” Tony says, rubbing his chest as he rises from his stool and goes to Pepper to make amends. He waits for Peter to be clear of the room before he says, “Hey,” in the softest tone he can manage and brushes her hair so that a lock is secured behind her ear. “You know I have to work today because of Peter’s appointment tomorrow morning.”
“I just wish you’d let yourself rest.” She tries to get her eyes to meet his, but he won’t let her. “And you know what happens when you get like this.”
“Like what?” he comments with a quick laugh, but Pepper knows that tone, squeezes his shoulder in reassurance that it’s okay for him to open up.
“You’ve gotta let me in, Tony. You were in your lab until three in the morning. FRIDAY says you’ve downed two full pots of coffee in the last 24 hours alone. You promised me no more suits until 2020.”
“It’s not a suit,” he says, shaking his head, and Pepper can see in his eyes as they meet that he’s being honest with her.
“Then what on earth are you working on?!”
Tony looks toward the living room for a moment and rubs his chin, sniffles to keep the tears from building, and forces a small smile that fails. “I keep seeing that look on his face, begging me to fix it and help him breathe, and I don’t think I can handle...” he admits, his face twisting as a lone tear slides down his cheek. He wipes it away and sniffles. “I’m scared we’re gonna lose him, again, Pep. If he has another attack like that last one… I can’t bear to lose him again.”
“Hey, you said yourself last night that Peter’s going to be just fine,” she reminds him, her arms suddenly around his neck, forehead and nose against his.
“You heard me?” he asks, sniffling.
She nods. “I’m worried about him too, Tony, so is May, but he’s doing infinitely better than he was a week ago. We’ve got this. Peter’s got this.”
Tony nods, as if persuading himself that Peter will be just fine. “Wanna keep him safe, you know?”
“Is this the part where you give your ‘threat is imminent’ speech?” she jokes quietly, and Tony grins. She wipes his tears and kisses his forehead, fixes the collar on his dress shirt and straightens his tie. “I know it’s not easy being away from him right now. I’m sure May’s feeling the same thing.”
“He needs me, Pep.”
“And you need him. I know.”
Tony nods, rubbing his face.
“Go wash your face and head to your meeting,” she whispers, kissing him by the ear. “Just make sure you’re back for lunch, okay? Gotta take care of all my boys, even if some of them are all grown up.”
He nods, wiping his face and exhaling slowly as he buttons his jacket.
x
Ned texts Peter that he’s woken up with a cold, apologizes about having to cancel their plans to work on a new Lego project, and promises to come by after school sometime soon to get started on it.
Peter stares at the text and falls back from his sitting position on the living room couch. He sighs, his now cancelled plans only deepening his anxiety about his appointment with Bruce and Dr. Cho tomorrow.
Peter wants good news, but he knows his body, feels just about as far away from the type of good news he’s been wishing for as one can get. He’ll have to skip his morning meds for the pulmonary function tests, which means he’s going to feel like he’s half-breathing until his appointment is over. That, and he’ll probably be forced to discuss the dreaded Nucala injections. Even the thought of weaning down his oxygen use isn’t enough to keep his stomach from doing somersaults
Ned has a cold, he texts to MJ. No plans and super bored.
Still stressing about tomorrow?
Yup.
Need a distraction?
Please.
She sends a picture of a four-quadrant graph with two snakes graphed and the caption Snakes on a plane. Peter smiles for the first time all day, watches as a bubble and three dots appear below her last text. If I were an enzyme, I'd be DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes. ;)
Thanks. Needed that last one for sure. ;)
They spend the mid-morning sending punny texts back and forth as a distraction, and Peter’s glad that he took the time and effort to shower right after getting up, because MJ shows up unexpectedly with a movie and a box of Insomnia Cookies around eleven thirty.
“I thought you had that thing with your dad?” Peter asks, taking the cookies from her.
She shrugs as she enters the residence. “He got called into work.”
“The Day After Tomorrow?” he says when he sees the movie in her hand. “Really?”
“I know the science is kind of shitty,” she says, looking at the cover. “But I love Jake Gyllenhaal too much to let it go.”
Peter laughs and lifts up the cookies. “We better hide these; Pepper’s busy making lunch. Did you wanna stay to eat?”
She smiles. “Sure.”
He calls out to Pepper in the kitchen, who okays MJ staying for lunch, and they start the movie in the living room. A half an hour in, they’re snuggling on the living room couch, secretly munching on cookies.
“No oxygen today?”
“I’m supposed to go back on after lunch, but I feel good today. Kind of hoping Tony will let me stay off longer.”
“I’m glad you’re feeling good today.”
“Me too.”
They stay like that until Pepper calls out that lunch is ready. They spend a moment untangling from each other before getting comfortable at the kitchen island, where they help themselves to the plates and spread of cold cuts and salads before them.
Tony appears, pulling off his suit jacket and leaving it on the back of a dining room chair. Pepper places the last of the water glasses out and gives him a kiss.
“Hey, do you know what Sin City is?” MJ asks Peter as she builds a cheese sandwich on rye bread.
“Vegas? he answers, filling his plate with macaroni salad.
She nods. “Good. Do you know what Den City is?”
“No?”
“Mass over volume.”
Peter laughs and shakes his head.
“Wow,” Tony comments, eyebrows lifting, his tie hanging around his shoulders as he unbuttons his shirt. “That was nerdy, even for me.” He grabs a pack of cold cuts from the fridge and brings it over to the table.
“Oh, this is just the beginning. I have more,” MJ offers as she scoops fruit salad onto her plate.
“Oh yeah?” Tony asks, playing along as he takes a plate. He points as he asks, “MJ, right?”
She nods.
“Tony,” he introduces, putting a hand out. She shakes it, looks like she’s forgotten to breathe, and Peter can see her confident shell waver for a brief moment before she brushes her hair out of her face and picks up where she left off in filling her plate. He gets it; he used to get starstruck in the beginning of his internship, back when Tony was more of a boss than a mentor. Peter watches as Tony piles turkey and cheese onto a brioche bun already covered with greens while he details his morning to Pepper, thinking nothing of it until Tony places the sandwich on Peter’s plate. “Gotta get your weight up, kiddo.”
He goes to argue but remembers that MJ is over. “Did you put extra cheese on it?” he asks, lifting the bun to check.
“Yup. As you like it. And I took some of the greens off, but shh, don’t tell Pepper,” he explains quietly, winking.
“I heard that!” Pepper yells from inside of the fridge where she’s grabbing a jar of mayonnaise.
Tony turns to face MJ. “So, you spend a lot of time making horrible science puns?”
MJ grins. “I share them periodically.”
Tony laughs; he can’t deny a good retort.
“I’m really in my element with these chemistry puns,” MJ continues, and the water Peter’s just sipped comes out of his nose, spraying into his cup and on the counter. “Shoot! I’m sorry, Peter!” She goes to pat him down with a napkin, and he goes to answer, but starts to cough, has to turn away while he waits for the fit to die down. She grimaces at how painful it sounds.
“I’m good,” Peter finally says, his voice hoarse and breathing wheezy as he grabs a napkin to wipe the table and then his nose.
“I always seem to mess everything up,” MJ says, rubbing her forehead in embarrassment. “I’m really sorry. I’m like a walking Murphy’s Law; anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. And before you say anything,” she says, putting a hand up, “it’s usually attributed to correlation rather than actual science, but it does have a basis in science, like the theory of unmeasurable uncertainty?” She sounds unsure, and it’s not because her information is wrong, but because she knows she’s doing that thing, the rambling that her parents always warn her not to do. Peter gives her a smile and nod to continue. “H-heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle comes to mind.”
“Props for citing an actual scientific theory.” Tony gives an impressed nod.
“T-thanks,” she stammers shyly, blushing.
“MJ’s really smart,” Peter adds, lighting up. “She’s the captain of the decathlon team.”
“There’s, um, a mathematical proof for Murphy’s Law involving statistics?” MJ continues, picking nervously at the food on her plate with her fork. “It’s all based in probability, is basically risk-management, but it’s real. An absence of proof is not proof of an absence, which NASA learned the hard way with the tiles on the space shuttle missions, but....I’m rambling. I should…stop rambling.”
“Well, if the adage for Murphy’s Law suits anyone, it’s Peter,” Tony jokes as he constructs a bologna sandwich for himself.
“Oh really?” Pepper asks, her back facing the island as she stirs sugar into her coffee. “Says the man in a can who makes a suit of armor meant to be lifesaving that often tries to do the opposite. How many times have I had to save your butt?”
“Going there, are we?” Tony asks playfully, cocking his head.
“Can we…not have a repeat of this morning?” Peter asks, scrunching his face in response to the tension.
“Only if we lay off the bad science jokes for a little bit,” Tony adds before biting into his own sandwich.
“Sorry, I only make bad jokes because all of the good ones argon,” MJ says, covering her mouth the moment the words come out. “Sorry!” she mumbles between her fingers. “I am so sorry! I’m not usually like this, I promise, I’m just really nervous!”
“It’s okay, kiddo,” Tony says with a chuckle between bites. He wipes his mouth with a napkin and takes a sip of his water. “Just didn’t want Murphy’s Law over here to choke on water again.” He nods toward Peter.
“Hey!” Peter protests.
“You know I love you,” Tony says, laughing.
“Is that a bologna sandwich?” Pepper asks when she’s finally settled on a stool. “I go and buy premium cuts and you’re eating bologna? Is that Oscar Mayer?!”
“Maybe,” he says while chewing, shrugging, reaching to grab and hide the packaging.
“Was that in the fridge?”
“Maybe.”
“I swear, Tony, sometimes you really outdo yourself,” she says, shaking her head.
Tony rolls his eyes. “So, MJ, I wanna hear more about Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle,” he prompts before taking another bite of his sandwich.
“I’m, uh, a little more well-versed in chaos theory?”
“You mean deterministic chaos,” Tony tries.
“We’re using the scientific names. Got it,” MJ notes as means of humor, but her palms are sweaty and her heart is beating hard in her chest because Iron Man is staging his own little quiz bowl while eating a bologna sandwich and she knows she needs to measure up. “So, most people know chaos theory as the Butterfly Effect, which meteorologist Edward Lorenz coined. But it’s interdisciplinary, as it applies to many fields of study.”
He wipes his face with a napkin again. “How does deterministic chaos work in a pinball machine?”
“Tony,” Pepper warns, glaring at him.
“A pinball machine,” MJ repeats, her mind completely blanking as she tries to ignore Pepper. She takes a deep breath. Gravity, she thinks. “T-the final outcome is unpredictable, since the launching of the ball and the subsequent collisions are randomized?” She pauses, takes another breath. “People assume it’s predictable, but the very things that make it seem predictable make the outcome variable.”
Pepper’s jaw nearly hits the quartz of the island countertop.
“Keep a lock on this one, kid,” Tony comments with a grin to Peter; he had a sense that MJ was brighter than she’d been letting on. “Have you applied for any internships?”
“L-like the Stark Internship?”
“Exactly like the Stark Internship.”
“I thought there was only room for one student? From Midtown. With…a 4.0 GPA…” she trails, confused.
“Seems like there might be two now,” he says, putting his hand out to shake hers.
“You’re not…serious.” MJ’s breathless, feels like she might fall from her stool. “He’s serious, right?” she asks Peter, who is beyond confused and trying to figure out what, exactly, is happening. She struggles to swallow, has to gulp to keep herself from choking.
“I know you applied for the internship,” Tony says. “I went through your application. Impressive personal statement you had there.”
She takes his hand, lets him shake her hand because she’s too stunned to speak. “T-thank you?” she says. “I mean,” she corrects, sitting up straighter. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.”
“Tony, please,” he says, getting up from his stool.
“Won’t people think…with me hanging out with Peter…that…”
“I’ll handle it,” Tony promises, and she wants to believe he will, has to.
“But what if we…break up…” she trails, and Peter’s eyebrows knit.
“That’s what you’re worried about?!” Peter asks.
“No, I just…what if we…what if I can’t…keep up? I-I’m not exactly…I ramble, like a lot?” she says, and she’s sure her hands are shaking. The Stark Internship.
“Don’t kid yourself, kid. You know your stuff. Gotta trust yourself,” he says with a smile, pointing at her as he grabs his jacket.
“Yes…sir,” she replies, eyes wide as she looks at Peter.
“I have to spend some time in the lab,” Tony says to Pepper as he throws his plate away. He plants a quick kiss on her cheek. “Thanks for lunch. Don’t count on me for dinner. It was lovely meeting you, MJ.”
Before she can respond, Tony’s already down the hallway.
“Love you too, honey,” Pepper yells after him, laughing to herself. “I swear, he drives me crazy. It’s a good thing I love him, right?”
“What just happened?” Peter asks.
“When you figure it out, let me know,” MJ replies, still in shock.
Pepper starts to clean up the salads and re-wrap the cold cuts, MJ and Peter pitching in. When the kitchen is finally clean, Pepper drops five pills and a glass of water in front of Peter. He groans. “Oh,” she says, tossing the yellow Oscar Mayer packaging into the trash. “And I know about the cookies.”