arcreact | ( savrou ) ic contact

??

[ peter's first response comes more or less purely reflexively, because what. he hasn't sent anyone a text in a - well, a few hours, and none of them make sense with that message]

delivery within region is half an hour tops & i'm never late what's the problem

[ -oh

oh wait

oh shit

uhhhhhhhhh ]

maybe??

[ Idle hands and an idle mind: two things Tony Stark always goes out of his way to avoid, and even more so when his brain is chasing itself in circles. So it's not surprise that the sound of footsteps pulls him out of the schematic he's been working on for the first time in hours.

It's honestly better not to think about anything that isn't complex mathematics right now.

He waves a holographic 3D model away as she calls into the shop and swivels around in his chair. ]

Hey.

[ It could almost be a perfectly normal day, a perfectly normal interaction, were it not for the lack of blaring music or incoming quips. He just watches her as she approaches, as the light from his work bench envelopes her when she gets close enough, and something in his chest loosens.

What would he even do, if it had been her? ]

Kinda figured you'd be asleep already.

Hey, yourself.

[ Her tone stays soft and almost hushed, even. Somehow, neither the somber mood of the house or the lateness of the hour lend themselves to speaking any louder. She steps close enough for her leg to nudge Tony's knee, tucking her hands into the pockets of her robe and mustering a small smile; but it's mostly sad and kind of a pitiful effort. ]

It was a little lonely, in there.

[ Their room, she means, little alien pig aside. But there's no judgment in her voice. She's long since accepted they rarely went to bed together, considering how little Tony slept in general. Not that she didn't give a valiant effort to get him to sleep more, but that's not the point now.

Right now, she just wants to be close to him for a while. Sympathy's written all across her expression as she tips her head a little, her loose hair swinging slightly with the motion. ] Are you okay?

[ She's thinking not so much. He'd known Elena longer than Pepper had, after all. ]

[ Is he okay? Probably not. But he doesn't feel like he has any right to it. Not when Nate's in the position he's in, and not when Pepper's right here, in arm's reach, alive and breathing and glowing with as much life as ever.

He feels a nasty twinge of guilt at that - Pepper can't be having a good time with this, either, and here he's been holed up in the shop all day. Damn.

To her second question, he offers a vague shrug, but to her first... ]

Yeah, about that...

[ He flicks his hand in the direction of the workbench and requests JARVIS wrap things up for the night, which earns a quiet and equally solemn "of course, sir." Then he stands, stretches - a few things pop, a testament to how long he's been hunched over that table - before he turns back to Pepper and slips his hand into one of those fluffy pockets, squeezing the hand hidden there. ]

Bedtime, yeah?

[ Not that he really thinks he can sleep, but some solitude with Pepper might be what he needs more than anything, right now. ]

great, perfect
think you could get a large cheese delivered sometime in the next two hours?

[ Should he call the actual pizza shop? Sure. Is he going to? Absolutely not. ]

well, he's not wrong
testing the limits of what you can do with artificial intelligence is kind of my thing

setting aside possible vs. impossible, because i don't care about that
how do you imagine your ideal setup? since sending yourself down a wire all the time clearly isn't your idea of fun

[ He moves closer - avoiding any nasty, unidentifiable liquids - and deposits himself on the ground next to her. ]

You know, "A, B, C, D..."

Unless you don't have that in dragon land, which, shit, I guess might be true. Listening to my dulcet tones might have to suffice, unfortunately for you.

[ People simply talking to him has pulled Tony through plenty of his own panic attacks in the past, and while he can't claim there's any universal tactic that guarantees success, there's no point in not trying it.

More alarming is why Hawke of all people would be in this state at all. ]

[ Pepper's not expecting him to wrap it up so compliantly, and it hadn't been her intention to oust him; she knows he tinkers to cope with things, among other reasons. But she sure isn't about to complain for a second, though she knows neither one of them is likely to sleep much tonight.

The tiny smile on her lips trembles a little when Tony squeezes her hand, moving it instantly to tangle their fingers and nodding wordlessly in agreement.

But instead of moving aside, Pepper takes half a step closer so she's pressed flush against him while bringing her free hand up to grasp his back in a lopsided hug, leaning her chin into his shoulder and gently squeezing his fingers with hers.

The simple physical contact is exactly what she's needed all day, she realizes, her throat feeling tight all of the sudden. She swallows back the lump there, as well as the three little words they still rarely speak aloud that spring to the tip of her tongue now. She just needs to take this moment before they do anything else. ]

I'll take dulcet tones. You could sing. Can you sing? Either way you could sing.

[She reaches out, awkwardly, clumsily, to grab his arm when he drops beside her, gripping it like it's the only thing keeping her from just sinking right through the ground. It's pathetic. Like a clinging child and she hates it. But the sky feels like it might swallow her up whole and it's only a funny joke that Tony is the only person next to her.]

[ She's got the right idea.

He folds into it the moment her arms go around him, arms going around her waist, tension seeping from sore muscles for the first time in two days. He wonders if this is what Pepper had felt like those months he'd been lost in Afghanistan, or after everything that happened with Stane, or after New York, or any other dumb, reckless thing he's done that by all rights should've killed him.

He suddenly feels like more of a jerk than ever, and that's a feat.

But if he holds perfectly still, he can almost feel her heart beating against his chest, warm and safe. What does he have to complain about?

He sighs and buries his face in her hair, muttering against her ear. ]

I'm one lucky asshole.

You're gonna have to pay extra for singing.

[ He shifts a little so that she can hold onto him comfortable, but otherwise doesn't point it out or make a fuss. No big deal; like this happens all the time. ]

Singing's not really my style, anyway. Could teach you some French, maybe. Or Japanese. Then again, I feel like you'd start insulting me in multiple languages, so probably not the best idea.

I'm rich.

[She reminds him but without any real demand behind it. She's slowly dropped from a crouch to just slumped on her knees. Now she looks more worn down than she does panicked and afraid.

Her hand still grips him tightly.]

Teach me something anyway. I promise to use it only for good.

[ The answer probably is yes, compounded. Pepper breathes a shuddering exhale of her own as he returns the contact, one hand slipping up to delve her fingers into his hair while the other clutches at his shoulder firmer, clinging to him a little more insistently still.

She gives the faintest hum of gentle amusement at his remark, lips curving just a hint for a moment. ]

That's probably true. [ In more ways than one. ]

[ Those little words crowd in the back of her throat again, but what she ends up murmuring quietly against the join of his shoulder and neck is something quite different; normally, she wouldn't be quite this needy, but in the light of recent events she's not quite feeling up to her usual, poised self. ]

Don't leave me alone in this place.

[ It's unfair and below the belt, even she sees it. She knows he can't really make promises like that, couldn't even back home, but right now she'll take a lie if she must. ]

Ideally? I would think the suit getting the same signal as my body to move at the same time, so they move in tandem. Like I think I'll move my arm, and the suit moves along with me. I think that would make me move faster and stronger.

That, and I want to be able to think and open the HUD menus, instead of using the eye gestures.

yeah sure

[ tony should definitely call the actual pizza shop, because peter looks weird giving them an immediate order in person, even though peter's not going to do anything about it beyond that. except maybe notice another order that's just like. ten minutes ahead. for the same thing. he might take it. it's not really the right thing, but. maybe there are impressions being made and it's only ten minutes - their guarantee won't suffer for that. they're really close already. totally.

as the spider flies, they're like basically next door neighbors, so. (look okay he does the other delivery first bc they were first but he does it really fast!!) ~~peter figures they'll be fine.~~ anyway it's like somewhere between ~~eight and thirteen~~ ten and seventeen minutes later that there's a ding-dong-faint-knock at the door. ]

Edited (i give up; i'm sorry about the edit but it makes more sense) 2017-06-19 00:56 (UTC)

[ Progress is progress. He remembers what that feels like, as the walls seem to stop closing in on you but you're still left bruised and breathless, like they crushed you anyway.

She earns a skeptically quirked eyebrow, though it may be hard to see in the semidarkness. ]

Yeah? So if I teach you the first fifty decimals of pi, you'll do only the most responsible mathematics with it?

[She does feel crushed. Like her body was put through the ringer like it often is, but with an extra layer of despair coated in there. But whatever this strategy is, it seems to be working.]

Of course. I never drink and divide. Responsible maths only.

Good. I'm holding you to that. No accidental time/space anomalies or I'm blaming you personally.

[ And then he literally just starts. Reciting numbers from memory. And fully expecting her to repeat after him. ]

[Hawke stares at him for a few seconds like he's just shouting nonsensical bullshit. Which it almost is because she has no idea what pi is and it just seems like he's saying numbers into the void. She tries to repeat after him but her brain clearly can't keep up with his unique sort of genius and she just ends up stumbling over her words until she just stops with a frown.]

Am I supposed to have a headache? Was that the goal? Because that at least did work. Very effective.

[ He actually snorts, the closest he's come to laughter in... well, weeks. Certainly not since before the Moira crashed. ]

If I had a dime for every person who's ever told me I've given them a headache. Not that I need the money.

[She starts a little bit at the noise before connecting that it was a somewhat positive sound.]

I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've heard you laugh in weeks. Or almost laugh. Not that I count laughs or almost-laughs. That would be creepy.

[She sighs like someone taking a rest in the middle of pushing a massive boulder up the hill.]

You could take them anyway. I like shiny coins.

Hey, it hasn't been weeks.

[ Until he suddenly realizes it probably has been.

He looks away, out over the alien horizon. Sometimes looking at it makes the guilt feel overwhelming (did he put them here? Would they be fine if he just hadn't meddled?), but then he thinks of the weight of Hawke's hand on his arm, and Pepper sleeping safely in their tent, and the promise of a new tomorrow in whatever greets them beyond the Ingress. ]

Well, whatever. We're alive. Everything's shitty, sure, but we can fix that - probably. Might as well lighten up a little.

[Hawke grips his arm a little tighter before she even realizes her body has been subjected to an unconscious reflex.

We're alive. It's funny how words can mean nothing and then suddenly mean everything only a few days later. Not funny haha, but funny in how Hawke's life tended to be "funny". Perhaps, it was fitting in that sense.]

Definitely. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but someone has to drop this important truth. You're really not fun when you're grumpy.

[See, this is your problem. Not hers.]

[ And here Tony thought it has been an innocuous, even optimistic statement. ]

You're mistaken if you think that's news. [ He narrows his eyes, trying to scrutinize her as well as he can given the lighting. ] You did try to squeeze my arm off for a second there, though. What's up with that?

[She glances down at her hand, gripping his arm like he's the one keeping her grounded on this earth, and then pulls away sharply like she'd just burned herself. She runs her fingertips across her palm as she makes a fist, opens it, and then repeats. She should probably tell Tony. Probably. But it's hard when she doesn't even really know how to tell herself it. It's a strange mental state of knowing something but not being able to understand it. So she starts as Hawke does, coming in from an angle that no one else could ever seem to quite understand.]

My mother and father eloped when they were quite young. It was quite a scandal, you know, the daughter of the most powerful family in Kirkwall, pregnant with the child of some lowly mage. [Her hand drops to draw a circle in the dirt.] They escaped in the middle of the night, like in some dashing novel, across the Waking Sea [A line cuts from the circle and another circle is drawn at the end] to Ferelden . To start a new life or something like that.

But, funny, it turns out that living a life on the run with a mage when you're used to luxury and servants is bit harder than my mother could have expected. Imagine that, hm? It was a cold winter that year. The coldest that Ferelden had seen in ages. And so my mother gave birth to me on the coldest, darkest day of the entire year. If my father hadn't been good at healing magic, I'm not sure she would have made it.

[There's a pause. It's funny to imagine her parents young and not made weary by the world and the hands that they were dealt. ] But when I was born I didn't cry like babies do out of the womb. I was just limp, whimpering, and ugly. Alright, all babies are ugly but perhaps I was exceptionally ugly because it makes it a better story if I am. [Everyone likes humor, right? Of course.]

Anyway, Mother didn't know if I'd survive the night. Apparently she cried and told my father she didn't want to see me in case I didn't. But I did. I survived that night. And the next. And the week and so on. A rebellion against fate or something like that. Which was fitting, my father would have been a rebel he hadn't married my mother and fucking an apostate is about the most rebellious thing Mother had ever done. They were proud. So that's how they got "Marian".

Rebellion. And I suppose I did rebel. Against everything that the Maker threw at me. Pneumonia, the Fifth Blight, the Deep Roads, enough blood mages to fill up an entire circle, murderers, Templars, a Qunari leader who stabbed me like a meat skewer. [She's not looking at him, she hasn't been looking at him, and she keeps her eyes on the dark ground.]

But here's the thing about rebellions. They either succeed. Or-[She runs her hand roughly through the dirt, destroying any trace of the drawings she had made.] are quashed. Brutally.

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