Saving Grace

Eighty Two

"Grace..." Tony starts. He'd called her down from upstairs, asked her to sit on the couch. Calmly. Quietly. Pepper, who's standing next to Tony now, his arm around her, still hasn't spoken.

"What?" Grace asks, confused, worried. "What's going on with you guys? Are you okay?"

Pepper nods. "We're fine, honey."

"Then... what?"

Tony sighs. How does he put this? "Look, sweetheart... the thing is... you're gonna have to start competing for attention in this house. Real soon."

Pepper sighs in exasperation, and Grace's brows furrow, her head tilting a little. "Huh?"

"You're gonna have to start competing for attention," Tony repeats. "We really can only focus on one thing at a time, you know, and adorableness tends to trump everything, so..."

Grace thinks for a moment, squinting a little, then shakes her head. "Yeah, I still don't get it."

Pepper finally reaches down and grabs Grace's hand, sitting on her knees to look Grace in the eyes, and Grace, paranoid, tossing all logic out the window, thinks, This is it. They found out I'm talking to Peter's picture, and they think I'm crazy. They're gonna hire some sort of robot therapist so I don't have to risk talking to real people. Or something.

"Honey..." Pepper starts. There are a few tears in her eyes, and Grace can't tell if they're happy or sad. She's not sure if Pepper can either. She takes a deep breath and continues. "Honey, what your dad is trying to say is..."

Grace waits as she pauses again, worried and curious all at the same time. What in the world are they going to say to her that's this bad?

She looks up at her dad, who's crying too. But then he smiles a little. "Sweetheart... your mom and I are having a baby."

Everything stops.

The shock hits first as the world ceases turning, seemingly no sound reaching Grace's ears as she tries to process the information, her vision tunneled, though she's not focusing on her dad's face very much at all. Pepper is still holding her hand, but she barely registers it.

A baby?

She repeats the question out loud, in a whisper. "A baby?"

Pepper nods, her heart paralyzed by fear, worried that Grace is going to be upset. They never talked about this, not once, and in her fragile state right now... "Yeah, honey. A baby."

Grace looks at her, still in shock, though it's just starting to fade. "Do... Do you know if...?"

Pepper understands and shakes her head. "No. I'm not far along enough yet to know if it's a boy or a girl."

"We just found out yesterday," Tony says. "She's been feeling a little sick lately, so Friday did a scan and..."

"We've been trying to figure out the best way to tell you," Pepper continues. She looks back at Tony. "Clearly we should've talked about it more."

Grace, her shock beginning to turn into something else, something she hasn't really felt for months, chuckles at this. "I think it was perfect. It really sounded like Dad."

Tony and Pepper start to smile.

"So... you're happy with this?" Tony says, making sure. "You're totally okay? Because, I mean, we would've asked first, but this was all really unplanned-"

"I'm very happy with this," Grace replies, beginning to smile. "I'm..." She looks back at Pepper as if it all really just hit her. "A baby," she says, amazed. "You're really... You're really gonna have a baby."