The Famous Pepper Potts (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wildlyconflicted) wrote2010-10-31 04:36 pm
wildlyconflicted) wrote2010-10-31 04:36 pm
[For Jason] Halloween
There was a Halloween party going on, but Pepper simply couldn't summon up the will to go. Since Peter had developed the stop-gap to give Tony a little more time, Tony had thrown himself with renewed enthusiasm back into finding a replacement for palladium. That was what he was doing that evening, and Pepper thought it just as well that she pick up something for them to eat from the Compound and then simply spend a quiet night at home with a book.
Lulled into a false sense of security by the silly but ultimately harmless events of the last Halloween, she'd walked right into the cloud without thinking anything of it. They didn't get fog that often on the island but it wasn't unheard of. Almost instantly she realized her mistake.
The island was gone. Being someplace familiar, someplace so obviously home should have been a relief, but Pepper's heart immediately dropped into her stomach. Every muscle in her body gone tense with dread, she did the only thing she knew to do. She didn't hesitate, she ran.
Heels clattering against the metal catwalk, she sprinted from the building and to the parking lot outside without looking back. She'd been here too many times, had relived this far too frequently to wait around for Obediah to peer out at her from the gloomy depths of the laboratory's shadows. Any relief she found outside was short lived, however, as the asphalt began to almost immediately buckle beneath her feet and there was absolutely no place to go.
"TONY!" she screamed, the sound wrenching from her throat entirely on instinct as the ground opened up with a crack.
Lulled into a false sense of security by the silly but ultimately harmless events of the last Halloween, she'd walked right into the cloud without thinking anything of it. They didn't get fog that often on the island but it wasn't unheard of. Almost instantly she realized her mistake.
The island was gone. Being someplace familiar, someplace so obviously home should have been a relief, but Pepper's heart immediately dropped into her stomach. Every muscle in her body gone tense with dread, she did the only thing she knew to do. She didn't hesitate, she ran.
Heels clattering against the metal catwalk, she sprinted from the building and to the parking lot outside without looking back. She'd been here too many times, had relived this far too frequently to wait around for Obediah to peer out at her from the gloomy depths of the laboratory's shadows. Any relief she found outside was short lived, however, as the asphalt began to almost immediately buckle beneath her feet and there was absolutely no place to go.
"TONY!" she screamed, the sound wrenching from her throat entirely on instinct as the ground opened up with a crack.
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"It's a who, not a what," she hastily replies beside the hooligan's ear. "That's a robotic suit, there's a man inside, just a normal man, middle-aged—" Cut off again by Obediah's rapid approach, Pepper begins frantically shaking the cyclist's arm. "GO! Go, go, go!"
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Behind him he can feel her clinging, smacking at his arm. Well, at least she isn't crying. "Can you drive a motorcycle?" he shouts.
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"If I have to," she answered, the best she can offer under the circumstances. If it means they're less likely to die in a fiery heap, she was willing to try just about anything.
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The blast knocks the bot onto a knee and the motorcycle sideways. "Two," grunts Jason and tugs her hand onto the handlebar, getting his feet beneath him in what little room is left on the seat. He fires another cable just as the bot gets up again and leaps, hurtling towards the bit of armor that's come loose at the robot's shoulder. "Three!"
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Breathlessly, she arched forward to steady herself, the motorcycle wobbling partially from her awkward position so far back on the seat and partially simply because she was so inept at driving it. Regaining control of the cycle afforded her no time to look back, and Pepper wasn't stupid: Her would-be savior was either successful or not, and further endangering herself wouldn't help anyone. She kept her eyes ahead.
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"Pardon my reach," he says, grabbing the loose bit of armor at the bot's chest and tugging hard. It doesn't give easy, but Jason gets a good enough grip that he leaps to the ground again, pulling the entire chest plate with him. "Oh hello, beer gut."
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It was his fault. All of it. If he'd not tried to have Tony killed, Tony would still just be a genius playboy lush and not a dying superhero. It horrified her to realize that if she had a gun just then, she would have walked right up to Obediah and shot him in the head without a second thought. Peter would be appalled, she was sure.
As it was, she found herself yelling encouragement to the man from the bike, hands cupped around her mouth, eyes blazing over her fingers. Whatever he did to Obediah, she hoped it hurt. She really, really did.
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"Now, now," he says, pulling another exploding pellet from his gauntlet and tossing it right into the the metal suit. "Why don't you come say hi?"
The blast pushes him backwards, but Jason keeps his feet, smelling hot metal and singed flesh as he reaches inside the gaping bits of metal to tug the man out.
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