Resilience | ✔

Chapter Thirty-Six

It turned out Tony didn't have a long-range sensor system in place to detect ships as far out in space as she wanted, so Marley had to write her own program and send it to the satellites he had in orbit. It didn't take her very long—she just used Tony's code as a guide and made a few applicable tweaks. While that was setting up, she fired up the guns on Tony's satellites (he claimed there were none, but she'd seen the specs once while looking for some compound blueprints, and there was definitely firepower) and transferred control to the computer in the sun lab. Once F.R.I.D.A.Y. reported the long-range sensors were up and running, she set compound-wide, sound-on notifications for it and headed to her room. She wasn't about to sit around waiting to be attacked if she could be doing other things. Like unpacking.

(Okay, maybe unpacking wasn't the best thing to be doing, but she needed to focus one something else.)

She tossed her pillowcase and dirty clothes in the hamper, put her laptop back on her desk and plugged it in. She chucked her backpack in the closet and folded her blanket at the end of her bed. She loaded the contents of her hamper into the washing machine in the laundry room down the hall, then brought her water bottle out to the kitchen and filled it up. She texted Ned and Charlie while she waited for some coffee to brew and told them to both stay inside, to not go out if at all possible. Ned texted her back: I think Peter's on that flying space donut thing, and she replied Yeah he is, don't worry tho it's under control. It wasn't, really, but Ned tended to stress a lot over things he couldn't control, and she always tried to help ease that. She didn't think it'd work. Not this time.

A few quick texts with Rhodey, and she'd been patched into their comm system. She fitted the comm into her ear, pushing her jaw from side to side to settle it. She poured herself a generous mug of coffee and stirred in some sugar and half and half, leaning against the counter. It had only been forty-five minutes since the others had left, and she couldn't think of anything else to occupy herself with. Now what?

"Hello?"

Pepper's voice rang through the house. "Hello? Is anyone home? Rhodey? Marley?"

"Pepper!" Marley practically threw her mug on the counter and sprinted out of the kitchen. Pepper was standing in the sun lab, dressed in exercise clothes, clutching her car keys and a duffel bag.

"Marley, oh my God!" She dropped the bag and met Marley in the middle of the room, pulling her into a fierce hug. "Are you okay? What's going on? Where's Rhodey?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Marley rubbed Pepper's back. "Rhodey's on his way to Wakanda with—" She broke off. This was going to take a lot of explaining.

"With whom?" Pepper pulled away, blue eyes sharp. "Why is Rhodey going to Wakanda?"

Marley smiled weakly. "You might want to sit down."

Pepper stared at her, then slowly tugged a chair out and sat.

"Just give me one sec," Marley said, "I need my coffee." She hurried into the kitchen. Her phone buzzed: Rhodey, texting her to let her know they'd arrived in Wakanda. She told him Pepper was back and brought her coffee out, settling into the chair across from Pepper. Speaking calmly, she told Pepper everything about what was going on. Thanos, the Infinity Stones, taking Vision to Wakanda. How Bruce had come back, how Bruce had called Steve, how Vision and Wanda had been attacked by people who were also with those who had attacked Tony. The current plan of attack.

When she was done, Pepper was silent for a long time. Marley's phone buzzed again, this time Charlie asking if everything was okay and if he should be on the lookout for any world conflicts. No, things are not ok, just please don't go anywhere, she replied. A nonanswer to the question he was subtly trying to ask—what the hell is going on—but he'd have to live with it.