wildlyconflicted | [Dinoplot

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[Dinoplot - Day 2]

Without a doubt, the last 24 hours have been the most miserable of Pepper's life. To think, she'd believed that time she had been trapped in an elevator with Tony, a Vegas showgirl and a chihuahua had been bad. Right now, she'd give anything to be back in that metal box with Amber and Mr. Winky.

The dinosaur that had initiated their group into this mess had eventually gone away, although the four of them had remained treed for at least another hour before daring to climb down. Determining which way to walk had been an impossibility, the sun all but completely obscured by thick, ugly cloud cover as the rain continued. It seemed hours they'd trudged along at a snail's pace, trying to keep the baby quiet and jumping at every errant twig snap, and Pepper can't say for sure they weren't just walking in circles.

The night they spent in another tree, and Pepper had assigned rotating watch duty, although the only one of them who got any real sleep at all was the toddler. They've been hiking through mud and rain since this morning, Cooper, Rachel and herself taking turns carrying the little one. Pepper's beginning to think this may be Hell.

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"Walk- Absolutely not," Tony said, opening the visor so he could take a look at her without the HUD getting in the way. "I'm not losing track of you again. I'll take the... baby?"

He turned, took in the, yes, the baby, okay, that was bad. "I'll take the baby and the kid back, then I'll come back for you."

Rachel just watches, back and forth like she's at a damn ping pong match. This is the craziest thing that has ever happened to her. Which would seem obvious, but there was this whole thing with some coke, a clown, and blowup pool once. But yeah. She's pretty sure the guy inside the robot just said he was going to fly off with the baby and she's not 100% sure about that.

"Wait, just hang on. What the hell. You fly around in that and rescue people and...fight dinosaurs?" she finishes weakly.

Now that the robot was closer, Rickon's crying was reduced to a dribbly sniffle, for his curiosity had overcome his fear of the frightening things that had just happened. "Wobot," he said, between hiccups and sniffles.

"No," Pepper insists, then cuts a look over to Rachel. "Yes, he does, but this is the last time." Turning back to Tony, she considers what tack to use that won't be immediately dismissed. He's got that look, the stubborn, purposely oblivious one.

"I'm fine. We're fine," she tries, motioning to Rachel and herself. "We can walk, it isn't that far. We just need to know which way to go." She levels him with an unflinching gaze. "I appreciate you saving the day, but I mean it, Tony. Don't come back. Go home and get out of that suit."

"Yup- Yes, I do, it's sort of... my thing-" Tony said to Rachel, at the same time Pepper was saying the same. Well, except the part where it was the opposite of what he was saying.

"It's what I do," he said, firmer this time, turning back to Pepper. "Let me do it, please? Pepper? I will tie you up if I have to." He swung around to Rachel again. "If I tie her up, will you keep an eye on her until I get back?"

He wasn't actually planning on it. Well. Not really. Maybe a little.

"I'm pretty sure I'm more afraid of her than I am of you," she says, waving her free arm around in frustration. "Look, robot guy. Thanks for mauling the dinosaur but Pepper's in charge because the rest of us are kind of useless so just take the kid back to it's mom, come get the comatose teenager and we'll be fine. Probably." Rachel would actually like to be flown home but she seriously doesn't want Pepper pissed at her.

Edited 2010-07-28 01:45 (UTC)

Rickon did not understand very much of what the grownups were talking about, but there was one bit that he could not possibly have missed. "Mum?" he asked, a little hopeful for the first time since they ate the bananas. He very much missed his mother and wanted to go back to her and Uncle Edmund and his baby sister.

One thing Pepper is certain of is that she's not getting tied up. "I'm not arguing this anymore," she says, which generally has about as much weight with Tony Stark as hitting him with a feather. Distraction is always a safe bet, though.

"Cooper might be seriously injured," she points out, casting a worried glance to the body laid out under a nearby tree. "He needs to get to the clinic now. Go. Save lives. It's what you do."

Tony shot her an aggrieved glance, but he couldn't argue with the part where he had to get the kid to a hospital, and the younger one to his mother.

"Fine. Right. I'm going," Tony said, "but I'm coming back, and the longer I have to spend looking for you again, the longer I'm in the suit."

This point made, he strode to the unconscious body, crouching down as he worked out the logistics of it. "Hey, kid," he said, directed at the kid who could still hear. "You want to go for a ride?"

Rachel looks at Pepper first before edging back towards robot guy with the baby. She has a sinking feeling Pepper's going to make them run through the jungle to prove him wrong. Frankly, Rachel doesn't give a shit at this point. She smells like death and wants to go home.

"Hey kid, robot, right? Wanna go for a ride?"

"Go home?" Rickon asked, looking at the robot man a little fearfully. There was more curiosity than fear, though, along with the hope that he might see Mother again very soon. He wondered if going for a ride meant the same thing as it had when the Lion picked him up and took him back to his bed in the big castle. That would be nice.

"Don't be scared," Pepper coos to the toddler, and runs a hand briefly over the crown of his head before shooting Tony a thoroughly disgruntled glare. "I'm walking. Don't you dare come back here. If you think you've seen me angry before, you're wrong." What does she really have to bargain with, though? Negotiating with a dying person is pointless.

"Well, then it's lucky I'm already wearing a suit of armor," Tony said, lifting his eyebrows and slanting his eyes briefly to the side before turning back to the boy.

"Go home," he confirmed. "I hope you're not afraid of heights- we might have to tie whoever this is to my back, I don't want to rely on the kid... holding on."

"Shit," Rachel mutters, handing the baby over and trying to ignore the, like, lasers or whatever on those hands. "Hold him. Do you have rope? Vines might work."

She nudges Cooper a couple of times with her boot before determining he's really not waking up.

If the robot man said he would take Rickon home, then Rickon had no reason not to believe him. He desperately wanted his own bed and his mother and his toys and not to be wet again for a very long time--the rain was like the longest bath Rickon had ever had. But he was not about to leave Wolf and Blanket behind, and he held tight to them with one arm while clutching something on the robot man's suit with the other.

"Put the baby inside Cooper's shirt," Pepper suggests, and reaches to lift the child free from Tony's arms. "We're going to go on a ride with Cooper, okay?" she tells the baby as she kneels and stretches out the neck of Cooper's t-shirt enough that the little one's head can fit through. It's a tight fit in there what with the blanket and toy, and she sincerely hopes there aren't any broken ribs she's making worse.

Still crouched beside the two, she peers up at Tony through the rain. "If you can pick Cooper up, I'll pull the shirt tight and tie it in the back."

"See, this is why I need you. This is why co-operating is... good," Tony said, picking Cooper up as gingerly as he could, exercising care that he didn't hold him so tight as to crush him.

Or the child. "Okay, kid, you ready? You seem ready."

Without actually waiting for confirmation, he looked at Pepper, said, "Keep dinner warm for me," shut the visor and launched into the air in a roar of repulsors.

Rachel watches him go for a long, quiet moment before slowly turning back to Pepper.

"What the fuck was that?" she screeches, stomping her foot and flailing her arms impressively for how tired she is.

The love of my life, Pepper thinks but doesn't say, eyes to the sky and mouth pressed in a frustrated line. In the wake of all the excitement, the sudden calm feels almost oppressive, and she turns a weary look to Rachel. "It's complicated," she allows, and swallows hard so that she doesn't lose her composure. It isn't the time.

"He only listens to me when it suits him, so we might as well just wait," she adds with a sigh, trying to sort her gratefulness from her concern so that she feels a little less like she's going to go crazy with it. "It won't be long."

There's like, fifteen entire seconds of spluttering before she manages the next question. "No, like, why does he have a flying robot suit? You realize people don't have flying robot suits where I'm from. Or, you know, dinosaurs but right now this seems weirder to me."

This has the potential to be a long explanation, so Pepper casts around for a place a little less directly in the rain. The spot they'd been in with the bananas seems good enough, and she walks back over to stand beneath the low-hanging branches.

"He has a robot suit because he had a moral epiphany and decided to become a superhero," Pepper replies, reaching back to briefly lift the damp weight of her hair from her neck. "Because he also happens to be one of the smartest people who ever lived, he can actually do things like that on a whim. Please do me a favor and never sleep with him, I'll lose all respect for you."

"Deal," she mutters, shivering under the goddamn banana tree in her stupid stripper costume, trying to get all this new information to fit somewhere in her brain.

"So what are you, then? Why do you know him?" Pepper does not look like someone who flies around punching dinosaurs.

"I used to be his personal assistant," Pepper answers, watching Rachel and wishing she had a coat or sweater to give her, but at this point they're equally miserable. "For about fifteen years before I got here. Now I'm- Well, I honestly don't know what I am, to be completely honest. Roommate and best friend, I suppose." Just now, she's entirely too worn to be anything but truthful.

Rachel lets out a bewildered, "Huh," before sliding down to sit at the base of a tree, trying to ignore the pool of Cooper's blood. "That is...really different from my reality back home."

"Knowing superheroes didn't used to be normal for me, either," Pepper replies, and looks briefly back to the dingy gray sky before turning her attention to Rachel again. "Where were you from, before?"

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