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Chapter 5

The last thing Tony remembered was Peter swinging across the holographic screen.

Then the white light swallowed everything.

He was back in the void.

There was no chair beneath him, no floor, no sense of direction. He hung motionless in the familiar darkness, the silence settling around him as completely as it had during every previous jump.

“That doesn’t make it irrelevant,” Nun said.

“It makes it unpredictable,” Professor replied.

“Most worthwhile things are,” Tinker observed.

“That is not a useful criterion.”

“It is to me.”

Tony listened, trying to make sense of the exchange. Unpredictable. That much he could agree with. Five jumps, and he still couldn’t tell where he was going or why.

Before he could demand an explanation, the darkness loosened its hold.

For an instant, he felt the peculiar sensation of occupying two places at once, suspended in the void and seated somewhere solid. Then the darkness fell away, and the sharp smell of expensive espresso, roasted tobacco, and leather upholstery filled his senses.

Tony found himself behind a glass-topped executive desk in a corner office overlooking the Los Angeles skyline.

He pressed his palms flat against the polished glass.

He looked down at his hands. Smooth skin, clean knuckles, trimmed nails. No calluses from wielding a blowtorch in a cave in Afghanistan. No scars from the Mark LXXXV nanotech interface. No silver arc reactor housing beneath his shirt.

He reached up to his chest. His heart was beating with an even, natural rhythm.

He pulled open the top drawer of the desk and grabbed a leather-bound day planner. The brass emblem on the cover read Stark Industries – Executive Management.

The page opened to a printed calendar:

Friday, July 16, 1999.

Twenty-nine years old.

“Twenty-nine,” Tony murmured. His voice had the resonant, effortless clarity of his late twenties, untarnished by years of sleeplessness and chest trauma. “Five jumps in. Eight, sixteen, forty-seven, forty-six, twenty-nine. No order. No logic.”

He leaned back in the Italian leather chair, running a hand through his thick, dark hair, completely free of gray. He still had no idea what mechanism was driving the phenomenon. No temporal device in his lab in 2023 could account for this kind of erratic, non-chronological displacement. Whatever was pulling his adult mind through his past, it was operating outside any law of quantum mechanics he had ever derived.

A soft chime sounded on the intercom.

“Mr. Stark?”

The voice came through the desktop speaker. It was light, precise, and trying very hard to sound composed, though a faint tremor ran beneath the formal delivery.

Virginia Potts.

Tony froze.

He hadn’t heard her speak in that tone in twenty-four years. She was twenty-six or twenty-seven, three years into her tenure as his executive assistant, long before she had become CEO, long before Malibu, long before the cabin by the lake.

“Pepper,” Tony said, hitting the button. His voice softened involuntarily. “Come in.”

The heavy frosted glass door clicked and swung open.

Pepper stepped into the office holding a thick leather clipboard stacked with flight manifests and departmental budget reports. She wore a tailored charcoal blazer that looked slightly too formal for her, her red hair pinned back in a neat, sensible twist. Her eyes were rimmed with faint red, her lower lip tight as she avoided looking directly at him.

“I have the revised flight itinerary for the Monaco conference,” Pepper said, her voice clipped as she walked toward the desk. “The board of directors needs your signature on the discretionary expenditure authorization before noon, and Mr. Stane called twice regarding the procurement contract in Ohio.”

Tony didn’t look at the clipboard. He looked at her face.

She was trying to stand straight, adjusting her posture with the rigid self-discipline he knew so well, but her fingers were trembling against the edge of the leather folder.

“Set the papers down, Pep,” Tony said, keeping his voice soft.

Pepper blinked, her defensive mask slipping for a fraction of a second before she caught herself. “Mr. Stark, the Monaco flight leaves at four. If you don’t sign the authorization now, the finance committee…”

“Pepper.” Tony stood up from behind the desk and stepped around it. “Look at me.”

She hesitated, holding the clipboard like a shield between them. When she finally met his eyes, the composure she had been holding together gave way.

“My uncle…” She swallowed hard, her voice cracking as she looked down at the carpet. “My uncle Morgan passed away this morning. In Hartford.”

The name hit Tony in the chest like a physical blow.

Morgan.

His mind flashed instantly to a wooden house in the Hudson Valley. A little girl with dark eyes wearing an oversized helmet, holding up three fingers. I love you three thousand.

When Uncle Morgan died, Pepper’s voice echoed in his memory, pulling a fragment of an argument from a lifetime away. You arranged everything. The plane, the flowers, the trip. You even came to the funeral. For three days, I didn’t have to ask you for anything. You simply knew what I needed.

He remembered going.

He remembered the funeral.

He remembered sitting beside Pepper and handling the endless practical details that came with someone dying.

What had baffled him was why she considered it remarkable.

The memory had never stood out. It had been three ordinary days buried somewhere among thousands of others. He’d shown up, done what needed doing, and gone home again. There hadn’t been a grand gesture, a life-changing speech, or some dramatic moment of emotional insight.

Just a funeral.

Just Pepper.

At least, that was how he’d always categorized it.

Looking back now, with fifty-three years of perspective, he had the uncomfortable realization that it hadn’t been twenty-nine-year-old Tony Stark who did those things.

It was him. Right now.

“I’m sorry,” Pepper said quickly, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand, mortified. “I shouldn’t… I’m sorry. I’ve already arranged for a temporary substitute from the secretarial pool for next week. I just need to request three days of personal leave…”

Tony reached out and took the clipboard out of her hands, setting it on the edge of the desk without looking at it.

“Cancel Monaco,” Tony said.

Pepper stared at him. “What?”

“Cancel the flight. Cancel the board meeting. Tell Obadiah he can handle Ohio himself.”

“Mr. Stark, you requested the Monaco presentation personally…”

“JARVIS,” Tony called out toward the ceiling.

“Yes, sir?” the artificial intelligence replied instantly from the room’s speakers, his British cadence crisp and attentive.

“Clear my schedule through Sunday,” Tony commanded. “I need a flight to Connecticut, flowers, transportation. Everything.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Several windows immediately appeared across the monitors.

“The nearest executive air-charter service is twenty-three minutes from your current location. Contact information has been displayed.”

Another window opened.

“The highest-rated florist in Hartford, Connecticut, has also been identified.”

A third followed.

“Driving directions from Bradley International Airport to the Potts residence are available.”

“Estimated travel time from departure to arrival is four hours and twelve minutes,” JARVIS continued. “A proposed itinerary has been prepared.”

Pepper stood motionless, her mouth slightly open, staring at him as if he had suddenly started speaking fluent ancient Greek.

“Tony… what are you doing?”

“Going to Connecticut.”

“You can’t go to Connecticut,” Pepper said, her voice rising in sheer bewilderment. “You have three product rollouts this week! You have a dinner with the Undersecretary of Defense on Saturday!”

“Then we’ll move them.”

“We?”

“You and me.”

“Tony, that’s not how schedules work.”

“Sure it is. Watch.”

Tony reached for the phone.

“Sir,” JARVIS interjected, “might I suggest arranging transportation before contacting the florist?”

Tony paused.

“Good point.”

Pepper was still staring at him.

“You’re going to Connecticut?”

“I’m going with you,” Tony said.

Tony looked down at her face, seeing every year of loyalty, friendship, and devotion she hadn’t even given him yet. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a clean linen handkerchief, and pressed it into her hand.

“Where else would I be?” Tony asked softly.

Pepper stared at the handkerchief, then up at his face. The phrase seemed to hang between them, carrying a weight she couldn’t possibly comprehend, but the sheer, undeniable sincerity in his eyes left her completely speechless.

“I… I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to,” Tony said, offering her a small, reassuring smile. “Go pack a bag, Pep. We’re leaving in an hour.”

The funeral home in Hartford was motionless and somber, smelling of carnations, polished oak, and damp wool from the afternoon rain outside.

From the moment they arrived, Tony didn’t leave her side.

He sat in the back corner of the viewing room in a dark suit, handling every phone call that tried to breach her peace. When her relatives arrived, confused by the presence of a famous billionaire standing near the guest book, Tony managed them with effortless courtesy, ordering catering, ensuring her aunt had a chair, settling accounts with the funeral director before Pepper could even reach for her purse.

On Saturday evening, after the service had ended and the house in Hartford had finally gone silent, Pepper found him standing on the back porch, watching the rain drip off the roof overhang into the garden.

She stepped out, wearing a simple black dress, carrying two mugs of tea. She handed one to him.

“My aunt thinks you’re my boyfriend,” Pepper said softly, leaning her elbow against the wooden railing beside him.

Tony took a sip of the tea. “She has exceptional taste in men.”

Pepper let out a small, breathless laugh, the first real laugh he had heard from her since arriving in Hartford. “She asked if you were always this attentive.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her I didn’t know,” Pepper said, looking at him sideways over the rim of her cup. “Because honestly, Tony… I didn’t.”

Tony looked out at the dark trees in the yard. “Didn’t know what?”

“That you cared about things like this,” she said gently. “I thought you only cared about things you could build with a blowtorch or drive at two hundred miles an hour.”

Tony turned to face her. In the dim porch light, her red hair caught the golden glow from the kitchen window. She looked so young, so untouched by the burdens he knew were coming, the arc reactor in his chest, the destruction of Malibu, the nightmare of New York.

“I care about what matters, Pep,” Tony said. “Sometimes it just takes me a while to show it.”

Pepper watched him for a long moment, a subtle, thoughtful expression settling over her features. “You’re different this week.”

“Am I?”

“You look at me like… like you already know everything about me,” she said, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. 

Tony felt a tight, painful knot form in his throat. He thought of the cabin. He thought of Morgan. He thought of the mornings in the Hudson Valley that she hadn’t lived yet.

“Maybe I just know a good thing when I see it,” Tony said lightly, covering the ache with a gentle smile.

Pepper looked down at her tea, a small, genuine smile touching her lips. “Thank you, Tony. For being here. I don’t think I could have done this alone.”

“You’re never going to have to,” Tony said.

He reached out and took her hand, squeezing her fingers gently.

And then, deep in his chest, the familiar, terrifying pull began.

It started with a sudden weightlessness, as though the porch had dropped away beneath him. The railing was still there, the rain still falling, but Tony could no longer feel the solid boards beneath his feet.

Pepper was still looking at him, her smile warm and steady, her hand resting in his.

Hold on, Tony thought desperately, tightening his grip on her fingers. Just five more minutes. Just let me stay five more minutes.

A Matter of Time – Chapter 6 – IamJenifer

Project File: A Matter of Time – IamJenifer