The Keeper of Infinity

A Proposition

July 25, 2025; 10 am; Stark Lake House

The ring of the doorbell had Pepper nearly bolting out of the chair, abandoning her phone on the small wooden table they sometimes used as the dining table and the woman seated at the opposite end of the table along with it.

'Hello. My name is Atheileisia Morgenstern. You may call me however you wish," was how the woman who was currently inside her house, looking for all intents and purposes completely at home sitting at the dining table, had introduced herself to Pepper half-an-hour ago which was when she had knocked on her door.

Pepper didn't know what it was about the woman that had spooked her to the bottom of her stomach but there was just something...raw about her.

It felt like Pepper knew her but at the same time didn't?

Confusion and intense admiration, two of the emotions that Pepper rarely felt and did not do well with when she did experience them. Also the same two emotions that the woman had inspired in her the moment she had laid gaze on her.

Morgenstern was just so...odd. She had swept in like she owned the house, spoke like she was royalty, walked like she had a rod up her spine, and her eyes: so vividly violet, Pepper had never seen anybody with such an eye colour.

Yet, for all the confidence and power that she oozed of, there was something undeniably sad in her eyes, like the entire weight of the world was weighing on her shoulders and was slowly but surely killing her. Pepper had seen a similar look in Tony, especially during the five years after the Blip.

Pepper tried really hard to not let that expression affect her but she had a feeling she wasn't being very successful at it.

Just as she wasn't succeeding at keeping down the shiver that crept up her spine at the constant stare that was digging into the back of her skull.

Pulling the door open as wide as possible, she allowed a deep warmth of relief to spread through her at the presence of Rhodey. "Finally!"

He raised an eyebrow, lips pressed into a thin line. "What's going on? Are you okay? Morgan?" He raked his gaze over her, worry evident in those black orbs. "I came as soon as I could."

Pepper shook her head. "Morgan's fine. But..." She resisted the urge to glance at the woman whose stares she could still feel. "We have a guest."

That pushed his second brow up to his hairline as well. "A guest?" he repeated slowly, like he was racking his brain to come up with a possible name. They rarely had people visit them anymore. "Who?"

She stepped aside, silently gesturing him to enter and letting him see for himself; revelling in the absolute bewilderment that took over him. At last, she wasn't the only clueless person there.

"Hello?"

Morgenstern's lips did a little movement. Pepper thought it was supposed to be a smile but she wasn't sure.

"I'm—"

"James Rupert Rhodes," Morgenstern interrupted him, "aka Rhodey. I know."

"Right." Rhodey nodded, his body wound tight with visible tension. "Guess I am at an advantage then. I have no idea who you are."

"Atheileisia Morgenstern," the woman readily answered, gracefully rising from the chair, almost making it seem like it wasn't a wooden furniture but a royal throne. "You may call me however you wish."

Pepper had no idea why she liked to include that line in her introduction.

"Miss Morgenstern, with all due respect, what do you want?" Rhodey asked in that no-nonsense tone he liked to use on the Air Force's brass. Tony had a similar one of his own.