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creative-caramel-coffee · 1 month

Text

Actually Asthmatic

Summary: Reader comes to work despite being sick and pepper makes sure you’re ok.

TW: asthma, fever, overworking, sickness lol

Pairing: pepper x Platonic!Reader

Words: 2.5K

A/n Part two coming soon (part two will have natty and wands >:). Also, so much has happened since I posted last and I’m so sorry it’s taken this long. I’ve been super busy with uni. But… I got a girlfriend :) I also have a ton of uni work I have to keep up with and I have like no time for anything now. But I will do my best to keep writing. So expect my updates to be a bit more spaced but I’m NOT giving up on this account :)

Living in a dorm was an interesting thing. You had a room, kitchen and bathroom to yourself, but it was lonely.

You knew you were in for a rough time when your lab partner came to a lecture sick. Not only that, but they were coughing … a lot. You knew no matter how hard you tried you were bound to get sick and mentally you resigned yourself to your new fate.

Lo and behold the next day your throat hurt, but it was manageable. Another day passes and your head had begun to feel like it was stuffed with cotton. A truely lovely experience. To make matters even better, you had three classes and work today. Your shift at stark industries was something you couldn’t miss even if you wanted to.

Pepper was coming to check on your branch of the company and you needed to be able to show her the numbers at the meeting you were both attending. You needed to prove it hasn’t been a mistake to hire a collage student with crippling debt and insomnia to run a branch of what was probably the most successful company in New York if not the world.

You flipped the page on your textbook and bit back a sigh. There was still an hour left of class and the world seemed to be against you, time was moving slower, and it felt rather personal.

You rested your head on the table and tried to block out the droning of your collage professor, he was a great guy, but your head felt like it was being run over by a bus and your cheeks were warm and your fingers cold.

You must have drifted off at some point because before you knew it someone was nudging you. You groggily sat up and squinted into the light, a frown marring your face.

“Y/n/n, get up. Class is over.” It was one of your friends, you gave a half grunt and looked around.

The lecture hall was quickly emptying out and so you grabbed your bag and textbook and stood, swaying slightly.

“Whoa. You good?” Your friend asked and you nodded mumbling something about standing up too fast before beelining for the door.

You bid goodbye to your friend at the train station and boarded the tube that would take you to work.

It was about a five-minute walk from the train to stark industries, but the cold weather that threatened your lungs working in tandem with your asthma and what you were now beginning to think was the start of a nasty chest infection, made it seem like hours of hiking through the amazon after dark.

You adjusted the backpack on your shoulder and waited for the train to slow, the next stop was yours and despite it being the quiet carriage there was still the loud sound of train tracks passing under making your head feel like a drum being beaten by a tone-deaf monkey on steroids.

The train almost had pity on you as it slowed just as you thought the monkey had found an amp to make his music ‘better.’

You stumbled off the platform and hurried up the steps to the footpath. The crowd jostled you and you felt more than desire to just let the ocean of people sweep you out with the tide.

But you forged on. So did the monkey.

You must have looked like death incarnate by the time you arrived at the lobby. You were flushed at the very least and you could hear the wheezing in your breath as you took in air by the lungful.

You scanned your keycard once you had located it in the mess that was your backpack. Stepping into the clean white walls of stark industries made you feel like a racoon in an upper-class neighbourhood.

You made your way to the elevator that would take you to the board room and finally paused to catch your breath which was now just a string of wheezes. You knew that because the look the lady at the reception shot you was one that was a mix of concern, confusion and pity.

Your throat was raw, and your face was congested as well as your chest. You sounded like you swallowed a frog, and the frog was also now sick and subsequently congested.

When the lift arrived you thanked Stark, who was your own personal god that there was nobody else in it. You stepped in and lent against the railing after thumbing the button for your floor with what was probably more force than necessary.

You sat back against the cool metal bar and watched the numbers climb higher and higher as you approached the master board room which was also the same floor as peppers office. A place you rarely visited except when you had the quarterly board meeting like today.

As the lift pinged and the doors slide open smoothly you stepped off and gathered your bearings.

You caught sight of a door at the end of the hall with peppers name on it and smiled. She was also one of your own personal heroes. She worked like a horse and kicked ass like an avenger all while wearing heels and a smile that said, ‘don’t fuck with me before I’ve had my coffee’.

You navigated your way to the board room and cracked the door a bit. So far there were a few people in there and it was still early. You smiled at the unfamiliar faces and sat down.

You didn’t know any of them yet and so you kept to yourself as you and the others waited for pepper and the rest of the companies branch managers and board members to come in.

After a bit pepper entered looking as swauve and elegant as ever. She took her seat at the head of the table and took note of the empty chairs with a small frown.

“It seems some people are still absent, so we’ll wait for a bit until the numbers are more … concrete.” She said with a smile drawing a few laughs from around the room.

You kept your head down, but your eyes kept straying back to pepper.

After a few minutes of you being sat there doodling in your notepad, the meeting started.

You paid attention to most things but once you had presented your numbers you had more or less zoned out. At one point you caught pepper looking at you closely and decided to try and pay attention again.

But the meeting droned on and soon your chest felt tighter and tighter. Your face flushed with the effort of suppressing a cough. The wheeze that had left you in the elevator had seemingly returned and you were doing your best to keep it quiet.

Your eyes looked around the room for an escape and you caught pepper looking at you again. She looked worried.

‘Are you ok?’ She mouthed and you nodded but she looked unsure.

You decided to leave, just to step out for a moment to get some air and let your lungs do their thing.

You waited until all eyes were back on the man presenting before slipping out the door.

You beelined for the bathroom which were luckily empty with everyone currently on the floor in the meeting.

You braced yourself by placing your hands either side of the sink and let out a string of deep chesty coughs. The wheeze got worse, and you cursed yourself for leaving your asthma inhaler in your backpack in the board room.

The coughing still hadn’t ceased, and it seemed the attack was making it harder to catch your breath than normal.

You barely registered the door to the bathrooms being opened and the sound of high heels click across the floor in hurried steps.

You felt a hand press between your shoulder blades as someone drew slow circles on your back. Someone was telling you to breathe and you recognised the voice.

Pepper.

You felt something being pressed into your hands and looked down to find a glass of water.

You gratefully took a sip and found it soothed your throat pretty well.

After a second, the fit ended and you just had the wheeze to worry about.

“Are you alright?” Pepper asked looking worried and trying not to fuss over you.

You shot her a weak smile.

“I’m ok.” You grinned unconvincingly. She gave you a look you assumed tony often received and caved. “I’m sick.” You rasped.

“I’d have never guessed.” Pepper joked rolling her eyes and guided you by the shoulders out the door.

“Where are we going?” You asked still holding the water.

“Well, you need to rest, and the board can handle the rest of the meeting. I want you to get that cough looked at and i have some emails to check. So, we are going to my office, you are going to lie down and I’m going to get some work done.” Pepper said with a smile, and you looked at her like she had hung the stars in the sky.

“Thank you.” You mumbled.

“That’s quite alright honey.” She smiled and then her brow crinkled as if she just noticed your wheezing. Which spoiler alert… she had.

You avoided her eyes as she scrutinised you closely. After a second her pace slowed and yours matched it before she stepped in front of you and placed a hand on your chin. She tilted your head back to look at her and met your gaze with a motherly worried expression.

“You’re wheezing.” She noted.

“And you’re pepper potts.” You said back looking nervous.

“Yes.” She deadpanned in response. “Y/n, are you … asthmatic?” She asked and you looked away.

That was enough of a response for her as she sighed. “Wheres your puffer sweetie?”

“Back in my backpack in the meeting room.” You mumbled.

“Alright here’s what we are going to do. I’m going to get you set up in my office and then go and get your bag for you.” She said and resumed her pace to her office.

When she arrived, she scanned her keycard and opened the door. It was an amazing office. Floor to ceiling windows in a corner room made the whole space perfectly lit with natural light.

You stepped inside in awe, and she guided you over to an expensive looking blue couch with a fond smile.

“You stay here, I’ll be right back.” She said and you grinned and nodded still star struck.

You could see the New York skyline from up here, the city bustling below.

You had barely blinked by the time pepper had returned.

She handed you your bag which you took and thanked her again.

“Now take whatever you need to and try to get some rest, I’ll be at my desk just there if you need anything.” She said with a smile, lingering to make sure you took your inhaler.

After you had uncapped the small blue device and administered the medicine, she gave you a curt nod and headed to her desk.

Almost as soon as your head hit the soft fluffy throw pillows on the couch you were out.

The next few hours were spent toeing the line between sleep and wakefulness. At one point as you dozed you heard pepper talking to someone on the phone before you returned to sleep.

Pepper had sat down to get some work done but had barely typed out one email before her eyes were back on you. You seemed so small in this moment. Just a young adult, you reminded her of peter. She wanted to make sure you were ok and the small wheeze coming from your lips made her worried.

Your face was slightly flushed, and pepper was sure nobody had been messing with the room temperature controls. Feeling maternal, she picked up her phone and punched in the number for Bruce’s lab. Better safe than sorry.

After a short conversation with Bruce in which she relayed your symptoms, he decided he wanted to see you to run further tests and rule out pneumonia. Pepper had looked over at you and agreed, you had been sleeping for nearly four hours now and seemingly weren’t doing much better, and including your asthma she didn’t want to risk anything.

Bruce and pepper agreed to bring you to the avengers' tower to check your lungs and maybe put you on a nebuliser to be safe as the wheeze was still lingering.

When the phone call ended pepper stood from her desk and walked over to the couch, gently she sat down beside you and nudged your shoulder. You groaned and rolled over trying to escape.

Stifling a giggle pepper placed her hand on your arm, frowning when she felt heat radiating off you. She paused and then lifted her hand to your face, laying the backside of her palm to your forehead and feeling for a fever.

Finding what she was looking for, pepper gently rubbed your arm again.

“Y/n? Honey, you have to get up. We’re going to the doctor sweetie.” She said softly and you whined and buried your face in the couch.

“Tired and don’t wanna move.” You mumbled into the cushions.

“You can lean on me the whole way to the car, alright?” Pepper said carding her hands through your hair.

“Okay.” You mumbled and blinked your eyes open to look at her. The haze of fever was settled in and the pink hue of your cheeks made you look both dazed and cute.

With peppers help you stand up and lean into her side. She had already called happy to bring the car around and he was going to meet you both out front.

With your bag slung over one shoulder and you curled into her other side, pepper slowly began the trek back to the lift. The board meeting had ended hours ago so it was just the two of you left on the whole floor.

After a slow and sleepy trip down to the car pepper got settled into the backseat with you so she could keep an eye on how you were fairing.

Your cheeks had darkened slightly, and she felt your forehead again as happy peeled out of the car park. Your fever had definitely risen, and she frowned as the glossy look in your eyes was increased ten-fold.

Part two coming soon :)

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starpirateee · 29 days

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Drabble request (there are two because theyre extremely similar so pick whichever you fancy, i just need more Clivesdale content lmao)

Either:

The Nerdy Prudes decide to go on a daytrip to Clivesdale to try to vandalise the cherry festival, but a musical apocalypse causes them to rase the nantucket bridge, stranding them there

Or:

The Nerdy Prudes go undercover in Clivesdale’s High School to try to screw over the Chemists so they can win the big game

I love your writing, cant wait to see what you do with this :D

First of all, thank you! That means a lot! Second of all: Clivesdale prompt???? Hello???

The leaves were starting to fall, and the last breaths of summer were hanging in the air. Hatchetfield's honey festival was right around the corner, but that wasn't what was on Ruth's mind. She proposed to the others a huge, very ambitious plan to spend the last few days of summer… Somewhere else. for her, this was a really interesting idea, but of course, she couldn't do it without the help of her friends.

"Are you crazy?" Richie asked, as if he hadn't heard her correctly and needed clarification that he was, in fact, hearing the plan right. "You want us to take the week in Clivesdale?"

"Just the weekend!" Ruth clarified, a bright yet oblivious grin on her face. They all saw the honey festival year after year, and she was looking for something slightly different. She'd heard people complaining about Clivesdale's cherry festival for a while now, and yet she'd never been to explore the place herself. There was that insatiable part of her mind that really wanted to find out whether it was really as stupid as her friends and neighbours let on. "We'll go to the cherry festival, and see what's going on! And… Well, while we're there, we might as well show em just how much nobody wants to go to their stupid cherry festival…"

"Are you suggesting we sabotage the festival?" Pete raised an eyebrow, sceptical of their abilities as three people who had barely scraped sixteen. Ruth gave him an eager nod and his brow furrowed. "How the hell are we gonna do that? We're kids!"

"I dunno! But we aren't gonna be able to figure it out till we go over there and see what we're messing with! Then after that… Well, we'll see, won't we!"

She was so confident in this idea of hers that it was almost compelling.

"You really think it's that easy?"

"Sure! How bad can it be?"

That was the thing abouot Ruth. She was really convincing when she wanted to be. Once she'd tided them over, it was enough of an argument just to see what the hell everyone hated so much. None of them had ever so much as been to Clivesdale, so really, it was a matter of seeing what all the fuss was about.

While the final preparations were being made for the honey festival, and while the women of the town were signing themselves up for the honey queen pageant, three teenagers crossed the Nantucket bridge and headed for Clivesdale. None of them knew what they were setting themselves up for here, but if all went according to plan, then they would manage to successfully sabotage the cherry festival and then return home before anyone was the wiser.

That was the plan, anyway, and Richie and Pete had been so won over by Ruth's blatant confidence that they'd agreed without thinking about what it was going to entail, and how the people of Clivesdale would see them. Maybe they would be seen in the same vein that they would be seen if they came to Hatchetfield. Maybe it would be obvious that they were from out of town, and they would be driven back before anything happened. Once a nighthawk, always a nighthawk, after all…

Pete wondered whether the cherry festival was the same as the honey festival. That perhaps there was a chance that this rivalry was no more than a petty squabble between towns, and in fact, they were remarkably similar. He imagined one of those stages people set out in the middle of fields, filled with live music and speakers large enough that you could hear what was going on from miles away. He imagined stalls filled with baked goods, as many different shades of red as could be thought of… Hell, maybe people actually put heart into this festival thing.

Richie thought about how weird it would be to set foot in a different place. He'd heard things about Clivesdale, for sure… Everyone had, that was the standard for rumour being spread around Hatchetfield High. All the footballers talked about what happened when they went there, and how fucked up Clivesdale was as a place. They all talked so passionately, but Richie was willing to bet that Clivesdale didn't have people disappearing on the regular, or strange ghost stories that only seemed to take place on the far east of the town or in the woods.

For Ruth, this was a chance at seeing something new. There was still a huge part of her that wanted to travel with a theatre company, going all over the country and maybe even the world someday… That was her dream, elaborate as it was, and this was a good start. She wasn't privy to a lot of the comversations that happened in the football locker room, and Richie didn't often talk about it, so she didn't really know why the Nighthawks talked so much shit about the Chemists… That was one huge mystery that she couldn't wait to unravel, and getting to see the cherry festival firsthand would be a bonus too, there was never anything wrong with cherries, after all.

While they walked across the bridge, they talked about these possibilities, as well as the strange happenings of the night before.

"My brother said he drove home in some freak storm last night… Full thunder and lightning…" Pete hummed. "Lotta people said the same thing, apparently."

"Oh yeah, I heard the thunder for a while…" Richie shivered at the thought of it, drawing himself in a little closer. "Nobody saw it coming either, the weather reports apparently said it was gonna be clear all night."

"Really? Huh…."

"That's not the best part about the storm, you guys!" Ruth interjected, to which Richie hummed.

"Oh, you're talking about the meteor, right? The one that crashed through the Starlight?"

"Course I am! What're the chances of a meteor's crash course being that precise that it manages to land right in the middle of the stage?"

"How d'you know it landed in the middle of the stage?" Pete asked, raising an eyebrow. He'd heard reports of this meteor, as had everyone, but there was nothing on the news that suggested that people had known where it landed. "Wait, Ruth.. Did you go check on the meteor? Have you been to see it?"

"Sure i have! Heard it crashed through the theatre and I wanted to take a look!" Ruth answered like it was obvious, shooting Pete a pointed glance. "It was huge, broke the stage floor and messed up the first few rows of seats! I mean, I'm not entirely sure I should've been there, but… Y'know, it was cool!"

"You weren't worried at all about being caught?"

"Uh… No, nobody else was daring to go in there…"

On one hand, it was a good thing when Ruth had a brave streak. Her anxiety meant that often, that just didn't exist as an option for her, so when she was flooded with adrenaline and decided to make a rash decision or two, it was always a show of her combatting the worst of her thoughts. On the other, she was impulsive, and whichever decisions those tended to be were often not the type to be thought of as admirable. She had no fear, only a crippling nervousness that came before.

But, nonetheless, she had seen the meteor. And that was, undeniably, quite cool. "Well, did you get a picture of it?"

"I'll let you see when we make it to Clivesdale!"

Most of the traffic on the Nantucket tended to head one way, out of Hatchetfield. They were following much the same path, leading themselves away from their home town and out into the wider unknown. They kneew they were nearing Clivesdale when they started seeing posters and banners, decorated in a red overlay, and dotted with the world's most generic images of cherries. Both festivals tended to run in tandem, and that had started when Clivesdale picked up on the popularity of the honey festival and fancied making one of their own.

Of course, it felt all wrong. First of all, it was three weeks before the honey festival, and nobody could figure out why that was the case. Second, it seemed like a place that was way too busy, way too disorganised. Pete knew he wasn't a fan of such chaos, though he'd never quite seen the extent to which the cherry festival fell into their disorganised mess. It genuinely didn't seem like thhey knew order, that they were able to lay their stalls out in the most haphazard way possible and call it a day.

Once they were certain they'd arrived in the town, the three of them took a seat on a bench and the boys eagerly watched Ruth pull out her phone and try and locate the picture of the meteor. What she showed them was a rather bland looking rock, which would've been completely so if not for the fact that it was pretty much the size of the stage itself, and oozing some kind of strange, blue substance from the most visible crater. Richie gasped when he saw it, and leaned in as close as he could to get a better look at it.

"Good god, that's bigger than I thought! You sure that didn't hit anyone?"

"If it did, I don't think they'd know, they'd be pretty much crushed underneath, wouldn't they?"

"What if it was like the Wizard of Oz?"

"You mean… We could still see their legs enough to take off their ruby slippers? I don't think so…" Pete hummed. "A meteor of that size is gonna be hard to even try and get away from."

"You never know… Maybe they were at an unfortunate angle," Ruth returned, with twice the gusto that Pete had given his entire statement in. "But no, there was nobody there. Not that I could see, anyway."

"That's kinda cool, Richie's right… But a hell of a lot of a bill to rebuild the place once they get rid of it, huh?"

"Oh yeah, it's gonna be out of commission for months now!"

Weren't they saying something about a busy season not too long ago? Richie thought about what would happen to the shows now they didn't exactly have a theatre to perform them in. There were always other places they could rent out, but god only knows the theatre department in Hatchetfield didn't get the funding enough as it was. They wouldn't be able to just rent out some other place, not even for a few days!

"So, what's the plan here? Or did you really just wanna take a trip into Clivesdale..?"

"Well, kinda, yeah. But I guess it hasn't really changed since the last time I tried to pitch it. We're gonna go in there and see what this cherry festival is all about, then maybe we'll make a few attempts to sabotage it, just to really get things going. But, we can't make it really obvious, y'know?"

That afternoon, the three of them spent the time scoping out the slowly assembling stalls and see what the deal was with this cherry festival. There were all sorts of vendors, selling all kinds that managed to take them by surprise. Richie found an old man selling nothing but crystals in more forms than he had ever thought to use crystals for. Pete spent a while looking at a bunch of old books that the couple selling them had repurposed into keepsake boxes. Ruth was originally drawn in by the smell of fresk baking, but was taken by this stand that had a large barrel of wrapped gifts in various sizes, evidently some kind of luck game with fake gifts and real ones.

This to say, it looked like fun, and by the time the evening came, the three of them had reconvened with a plan. For a while, they were just gonna try and fit in together. Clearly, they got visitors from all throughout the neighbouring towns for this festival, and they were going to be just like those visitors. They would blend in as best as they could, try their hand at a few of the stalls and peruse the various wares… And then they would strike. Richie had pitched an elaborate plan that involved pretending to be involved with the backstage acts, and then cutting off the audio signal to the stage. Originally, this planhad been a little more complicated, but Pete made him promise he wouldn't actively mess with the soundboard.

The last of the daylight hours wound out, and the festival became more of a festival. People began arriving en masse, and soon the stalls were bustling with various different crowds, all looking for something different. Ruth gave the signal when the coast was clear, and the three of them started pushing through the crowd to check out the main stage. According to the poster on one of the streetlights, there were going to be three acts on one after the other in quick succession. If they couldn't figure out their issue with the sound, then none of them were going to be heard properly when the time came to perform.

"Did you hear what was happening in Hatchetfield?"

"Mhm, that meteor is causing a hell of a lot of damage, and I heard there was some kinda ruptured gas line?"

"That'd be the one. It's killing people off, apparently."

The three of them didn't make it to the stage. When they passed the open bar, they overheard a conversation that sent them into a vague panic. When someone mentioned that people were dying, it sent a violent shiver down Pete's spine. To think, whatever it was could've affected them too, if they were still there. They had chosen the right day to leave town, that was for sure. But, there was the hope that the people were just being dramatic, and that people weren't actually dying in Hatchetfield as soon as the three of them had left.

"What the fuck was that?" Richie whispered hurriedly, as the three of them tried to force their way through the crowd towards somewhere more private. Once they were alone, they silently decided that the best course of action was to go back to Hatchetfield, and try and explain the situation for themselves. They refused to believe that so much could happen in the space of only a few hours, especially since they had left close to noon, and nothing seemed to be happening then…

"I dunno, something about a gas leak?" Pete bit his lip. "Do you really believe that?"

"Nah, I'm not buying it." Ruth's voice was decidedly stern. She was trying to force herself to believe that it couldn't be the case that everyone was dying in Hatchetfield. "This is Clivesdale, how do we know they aren't just a bunch of dirty fuckin' liars?"

"If they were lying, they'd be saying something like 'everyone in Hatchetfield is dying from some musical apocalypse that's infecting them like a plague'… Gas line sounds too plausible, especially since we don't know what that goddamn meteor hit…"

"A musical apocalypse?"

Pete threw up his hands. "I dunno! something like that, something that'd obviously be a lie! Y'know, I don't think they're just lying for the sake of trying to poke fun at us in Hatchetfield… I think something might be happening."

They wandered away from the festival, against the grain of the crowd. If there truly was nothing to worry about, then this was a weekend-long event, they could always come back and enact their plan on the stage at a later date. Not a word was spoken between them on the way beck to the bridge, and when they saw what they did, all of them froze at once.

Someone- some raging idiot- had raised the Nantucket bridge. Hatchetfield was completely sealed off from the rest of the world. If something was happening, then they would just be left to die out there, and nobody would be the wiser. Hatchetfield was a tiny island, a small town where near enough everyone knew everyone else. In a community that tight knit, something was bound to go wrong, and then what? When more communities banded together, more of them would die.

"Oh fuck."

"Jesus Christ."

"What are we supposed to do now?"

Three teenagers were stranded in Clivesdale, of all places. And none of them had the energy to try their hand at their sabotage plan, not when they didn't know what was going on in their town and there was no way of finding out. By the end of the day, the three of them were the only ones who hadn't been near an infected person in the slightest. If he knew what was actually happening on the island, Pete would have known that he was near enough spot on with his bullshit claim.

By the stroke of midnight, once the three of them had pooled whatever money they had and found some hotel room for the night, there were only five survivors left of the Hatchetfield tragedy. The three of them, a woman by the name of Emma Perkins, and one pocket sized squirrel that the military found buried in the chest of a local woodworker.

Once the bridge was lowered and they found someone who gave them answers, going back to Hatchetfield didn't seem like something they wanted to do. It had been completely wiped off the map, and there was no point in going back if there was nothing to go back to in the first place.

#starkid #peter spankoffski #richie lipschitz #ruth fleming #nerdy prudes must die #void offering #star mail #nova's tags →#fucking.... clivesdale 😒#nah fr this is an interesting request #an interesting pair of requests actually! thank you so much for these!#huh? what do you mean pete got infected in tgwdlm?#shhhhh #shhhhhhhh #no he didn't. not here. i'm not seeing any infection

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