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[petitehands]

THIS IS PEPPER POTTS, leave me a message. ( 008 » 005 ) call | text | action mcu ; iron man/the avengers

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( A C T I O N )

[petitehands]

[ Well, it's not exactly the conversation Pepper was expecting. She blinks, reacting a little slowly to the absence of frustration, or of Tony's own brand of sadness, the kind that was all at once dismissive and resigned to dealing with something that upset him as just an unfortunate matter of fact rather than something that actually hurt him. ]

Of course you did. [ As she closes the distance between them, her eyes stare directly at his chest, brow knit with a mild, unreadable frown. ] You took something amazing and made it into something else - something that saved your life a few times, if I remember correctly, and I do - and the possibilities are still endless. I may not understand anything of the mechanics behind this, but I know you. I know how utterly capable you are.

[ With a small movement, she raises her hand, her index finger tracing the glowing outline of his reactor, softly, finally lifting her eyes to meet his, and repeats, ]

Of course you did.

( A C T I O N )

[starked]

[ There's a part of him that's just so astonished by what happened that he can't even help how he reacts with the absence of anything close to what he normally does in relation to his father. ]

I did. And I mean you haven't even seen what I do to it in New York, Pepper. There's Stark Tower and it's half your baby. Your brain child with me and it's powered by an arc reactor just like mine. [ He pauses. ] You've known what this was for me since I made it. And yeah, I'm not sentimental, but this is the heart of things and it's the beginning of everything else. And you get it even if the mechanics of it our sometimes lost even for you and that arguably still fantastic brain of yours.

[ Tony stares at Pepper's hand for a good minute before he tries to just make her press the entire palm of her hand against the reactor with his hand on top of hers. He lets out a shaky exhale before he speaks again. ]

He said he was jealous of me. My dad was jealous of me. I— it's not an 'I'm proud of you' but it's confirmation that I'm his son. I'm so good at what I do that I make him jealous just by having this reactor and being able to do everything I do with it.

( A C T I O N )

[petitehands]

[ Somewhere in the midst of what Tony's saying, Pepper's frown smooths into a smile that is halfway between proud and a little emotional, and she purses her lips, trying to rein it in, even though she's failing. Her mind is a little scattered, trying to take in and react to everything that Tony's saying accordingly. ]

We have a tower? A tower, powered by an arc reactor. [ Completely awed, that's how she sounds. She allows Tony's hand to press against hers, spreading her palm over the reactor, not sure if the tingle under her skin she feels is the buzz of her own emotions or an electromagnet. ] See, I don't even need to be from the near future to know how much you, and I mean you specifically, not "you" in general, can do with this.

[ A helpless little laugh escapes her, and she gives a little shake of her head, touching his shoulder with her other hand. ]

I can't even pretend to be surprised! There's no way I could ever say that I understood the way you felt about your dad, only where it came from. I'm only going on what I know about you, and from that it seems so obvious that he'd be jealous, but- [ another shake of her head, and her tone softens ] -that's nothing compared to hearing it from him.