"Well, I think I can count the Rescue armor as birthday present for at least a year, so another couple months doesn't really matter," she says to Tony. Pepper is busy retrieving plates and forks to eat the cake with, so she misses Gene's physical reaction.

"It is too important," she counters airily, grabbing a knife to start slicing. "It means more cake. Oh! Wait, we need the candles."

She takes a moment trying to locate them, and makes a triumphant noise when she does.

"The confectioner's shop where they make the psuedo-chocolate was willing to try making Earth birthday birthday cake," she adds cheerfully, by which she means intense vanilla funfetti batter (the kind that ice cream flavors get named after) and begins to apply a fire hazard to Tony's cake.