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Sequel to Situational Analysis, continuing the Creation-Connection series. Thematically, we're circling back around to Deus Ex. Now with added (or rather, remembered) Pepper. Fear, trust and courage.
Title: Hand Under Sword
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Pepper, JARVIS, Tony, Bruce, little Dummy. Discussing Nick, Clint, Natasha. Ensemble. Pepper/Tony, Tony & JARVIS & Bruce, Pepper & JARVIS
Summary: Pepper Potts arrives back from L.A. in time to catch the fallout of JARVIS' actions
Wordcount: 3140
Warnings/Notes: Trust, fear, spies, protectiveness, pain
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Hand Under Sword
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Pepper, JARVIS, Tony, Bruce, little Dummy. Discussing Nick, Clint, Natasha. Ensemble. Pepper/Tony, Tony & JARVIS & Bruce, Pepper & JARVIS
Summary: Pepper Potts arrives back from L.A. in time to catch the fallout of JARVIS' actions
Wordcount: 3140
Warnings/Notes: Trust, fear, spies, protectiveness, pain
Disclaimer: Not mine
Hand Under Sword
"Exactly what part of 'let the nice spies be paranoid in peace' did you interpret as 'lets invite Nick Fury over and have an honest and frank discussion with him'? No, really. I want to know. Explain to me this logic."
Pepper paused just before the doorway, blinking a little, as Tony's voice echoed out of the test lab. She paused, and peered cautiously around the door frame. Dignity be damned. Sometimes, especially with Tony, you needed to have an idea where you were walking before you went and stepped in it.
Coming home to Tony standing in the middle of a lab floor ranting at JARVIS was not particularly unusual. (Neither, it must be said, was coming home to a building that had been recently assaulted, again. Not anymore, at least. She was beginning to realise that this was genuinely just her life now). Tony was usually more patient with JARVIS than he was with ... well, just about anyone else. But there had been moments, over the years.
It wasn't usually because of something JARVIS had done, though. Tony mostly ranted at JARVIS because of things JARVIS was refusing to do.
Add in Bruce standing off to one side, his arms crossed protectively in front of him and an expression somewhere between amusement and real worry, and Dummy, bent as low as he could possibly go, whirring gently in concern from his hiding place behind Bruce, and it was not, in fact, the usual picture.
"It seemed the most prudent thing to do, sir," JARVIS said, coolly. Cool as in, 'I am resisting the urge to verbally eviscerate you for being an idiot, sir'. Not so much an explanation as an ultimatum. Pepper blinked a little more.
Honestly. She left them alone for four days to take care of business in LA. Four. And she came back to a Tower undergoing clean-up, SHIELD agents wandering around the place looking weirdly nervous, and Tony actually having a stand-up fight with JARVIS in the lab.
Rhodey was right. You took your eyes off Tony for five minutes ...
"... JARVIS." Tony stopped, wiped a hand over his mouth, glaring absently at the ceiling. Tony, Pepper knew, unlike everyone else, actually was looking directly at JARVIS' hidden cameras. "JARVIS, you know who Fury is. You know what he is. How ... Prudent? Seriously? How did that seem prudent to you?"
"It is precisely because of that knowledge that it seemed so, sir," JARVIS answered. Less snittily, now. Gently, like he was trying to coax Tony around. Like logic would prevail, if only he was persistent enough. "Sir. Dealing with entities like myself is quite literally Director Fury's duty. And judging by his track record ... he has not been particularly heavy-handed in the execution of that duty. Otherwise, I suspect Master Bruce would not be standing here listening to us."
Oh. Oh.
Silently, still in the corridor, Pepper lifted a hand to her mouth. Feeling the whisper of fear settle in her stomach. She had an idea, now, what was happening. She had an idea, with that, why Tony looked to be hovering just on the edge of panic.
Not, she thought distantly, without reason. Oh, JARVIS. What did you do?
Tony shook his head, flinching a little from the sight of Bruce out of the corner of his eye. From the placid, contemplative look on Bruce's face. Noncommittal. Bruce didn't visibly make decisions until he had to. But contemplative. As though JARVIS might, possibly, we're not sure yet, have a point. Thoughtful, considering.
Tony, not so much. Desperate, more like. Panicky.
"JARVIS. Buddy. Okay, so Fury doesn't swing the hammer until he's pushed. Fine. We can give him that much. But. If he doesn't know the facts, then he can't swing it. I mean, Clint, reporting, yes, fine, but ... We're giving interviews, now? We're answering questions, now? We're inviting Fury around, now? Really? We're really doing this?"
JARVIS hesitated, a little. "Suspicions, left unchecked, tend to breed more alarm than all the facts in the world," he said, quietly. "I thought, sir, that since Fury has proven a pragmatic man, giving him a concrete idea of what he was dealing with would work more in our favour. He is not an incautious man. Nor one prone to rash action. I do not believe he could earn or keep the trust of such individuals as Agents Barton and Romanov, were that not the case."
... Point, Pepper thought, watching them silently. Letting it play out. From what she had seen, and what Phil had told her, neither Natasha nor Clint were much prone to trusting anyone. Yet they trusted Fury. Or at least obeyed him, but given the people in question ... that amounted, she thought, to much the same thing. There wasn't a single person attached to the Initiative that would follow any damned orders from someone they didn't believe had the right to give them. Someone they didn't trust, at the end of the day, to give the right ones.
Natasha would take an order from Fury. Steve would take an order from Fury. Tony, much though he might grumble about it, would take an order from Fury. Tony, who cheerfully spit on every military general who got up in his face, who gave Rhodey regular fits over his attitude to authority, would, when push came to shove, sign on when Fury asked, and point his weapons where Fury believed they needed to be pointed. Not without argument, not without question. But he would.
Pepper wondered, sometimes, if Tony realised how much trust he, let alone the agents, seemed to show Fury. All his arguments were about methods. Very, very few of them, were about goals.
Although, even still. Trusting Fury with JARVIS was a different thing entirely. One she, never mind Tony, was not particularly easy with.
SHIELD had cost her Phil. Almost Tony, yet again. And she knew why, and she believed they'd had the right to choose, and chosen right, too. But. Dammit, she was allowed to keep someone, wasn't she?
Inside the lab, JARVIS paused. Heavily, hesitantly. And then added, very gently, the same voice of sorrow and pragmatism he had always been, in times of pain: "Sir. My capabilities were exposed the moment I chose to act in Agent Barton's presence. I do not regret that choice, but the fact remains. It seems to me that the best we can do now ... is attempt to control the fallout, and steer it to our best advantage."
Pepper sucked in a breath. Pressed her hand to her mouth, felt the pressure against her teeth, tucking herself into the wall beside the door. She pressed her hand to her mouth, against the sudden surge of feeling. Not fear. Not that, for all it was justified. Pride. God, so much pride.
JARVIS. All these years, helping her stand between Tony and the world, helping her steer one crisis after another into something resembling opportunities, watching her and Tony spin some of the most offensive, dangerous, reckless moves into passable initiatives. After all these years. JARVIS had learned. He had watched, and he had helped, and he had learned.
She remembered this feeling. This exact feeling. Watching Tony sit down in front of a podium, carry a whole room down with him, and spin pain and grief, torture and regret, into a vision for the future that brooked no argument. Tony, straight out of the gate, after three months of torture, sitting down with his arm in a sling and regret in his eyes, ready to change the world. She remembered.
Fear, sitting like a ball in her stomach. God, what if it didn't work? Panic. How dare he, could he not at least warn her first? Grief. What did they do to him, to cause this? And pride. So much. Raw pride. Then, and now. Tony, and JARVIS.
Because JARVIS would, wouldn't he? Because he'd learned from Tony, and he'd learned from her, and JARVIS wasn't ever going to let something sit, when he could do something about it first. Not after almost losing Tony to a vow of silence. Not after watching Tony, time and again, almost die. Not after acting, and fighting, and helping defend their home.
JARVIS ... had never intended to let this fall as it would. Of course not. JARVIS had always, sooner or later, intended to fight. His way. All along.
And Tony. Looking at him now, seeing him standing lost and a little helpless in the center of the lab, listening to JARVIS so gently lay it out. Tony, she thought. What did you think would happen?
He knew. She saw it, looking back around the door. He had that expression, the one he wore when he wasn't fighting anymore because he disagreed, but because he didn't want to admit just yet that he thought you were right. The mulish, stubborn, vaguely fearful expression, just before he admitted he was wrong. Or that you were right, at least, but it was the same thing. In his head. It was the same.
"You could have asked," Tony said, a little desperately, and around a bleed of genuine hurt. "JARVIS, buddy. You could at least have asked. Told me. Fuck. At least let me know. Before you invited him home. You know?"
JARVIS hesitated. "I apologise, sir. I thought you might ... over-react." Pepper bit back a snort. Saw Bruce, across the lab, do the same. And then. Gaining back a touch of gentle righteousness, a certain pointed archness. "Not, it appears, without justification."
God. Oh god. She had taught him so well, hadn't see? She grinned, a little, behind her hand.
Tony spluttered. Casting a fulminating glare in Bruce's direction, too, for good measure. She'd have gotten one too, if JARVIS had thought to warn Tony she was there.
"Over-react," he repeated, flatly. "You sneak around behind my back, hack SHIELD, and invite a man who might actually try to kill you around for a chat. And I'm over-reacting?"
And there, that there, that was where Pepper lost it. She had to, couldn't help it at all. She burst out laughing, hard and a little desperate, tinged with just a touch of old pain, old hysteria. She climbed around the door frame, swung herself into the lab, and just ... had to laugh. Right into Tony's shocked, bewildered glare, as he turned to face her in stunned surprise.
"Pepper?" Blinking rapidly, staring at her in confusion. "What ...?"
"JARVIS," she breathed, holding up a hand in Tony's direction to hold him off for a second. Meeting Bruce's eyes briefly, catching the flash of pained, gentle humour in them. "JARVIS, tell me you recorded that? Please ... tell me you have that on tape."
JARVIS was as shocked as Tony, she thought. He'd known she was there. He'd had some warning. But he wasn't quite sure, just yet, what he was dealing with. "... Yes, Miss Potts? That is, certainly. Ah. Why?"
She grinned. Wobbly, helpless. She grinned at them. But, most of all, at Tony. "Because," she said, soft, and precise, and with rueful, desperate glee. "I want a record. Tony Stark, lecturing someone else about risking his life on a reckless stunt. Without telling anyone." She laughed, just a little, as offended comprehension flickered over Tony's face. "I think that should be recorded for posterity, don't you?"
Soft, and so pointed. Old hurt, and old love, and a rueful, desperately humorous acceptance. What else had they?
And there was hurt in Tony's eyes, there was pain and there was fear, and she couldn't help herself. She couldn't. Moving to him, brushing his cheek in her hand. Smiling soft and pained for him.
"Welcome to how the other half lives," she told him, as gently as she could, only letting the faint bite of vindication slip in. Cupping his face, shaking her head softly. "You've only yourself to blame, you know. Where do you think he learned it?"
Tony blinked at her. His hands gripping her wrists, lightly, holding her raised arms as though they would stabilise him. He blinked, and he grinned, a small, tentative smile. So uncertain. God, she loved him.
"I'm not that bad," he tried, grinning faintly. Ruefully. "I never invited them, at least. People just follow me. I don't invite them."
"No," she agreed. Smiling faintly. "You don't invite them back, to a place where you have back-up and a home ground advantage. You go to them, instead. Walk right into their lair, and punch them in the nose. Because that's better."
He grinned, and he was going to answer, she could tell, there was sarcasm right there, on its way, when a soft voice spoke up quietly from behind them.
"Technically?" Bruce noted, smiling softly at them. "You kinda do, Tony. Invite them, I mean. Or doesn't the Hulk count?" He grinned, wide and rueful into the twin looks of denial she knew were rising on their faces. "Because he should. If Nick Fury counts. The Other Guy should count too."
"Bruce ..." Tony started, stepping out of her arms a little to venture towards the other man. Sarcasm slipping away behind concern, and open-armed faith. Pepper, who had almost literally held Tony's heart in her hands, felt her own jump. Just once. And spill, silently, with love.
Bruce smiled. Flinched, a little, in the face of it. But he smiled, and held up a hand, holding Tony back for the moment. For some reason, Dummy, behind him, was chirping soft approval, and butting softly against the back of Bruce's legs.
"You made a decision," Bruce said, gently. "To trust me. To trust the Other Guy. You made a choice, to invite me into your home, your life, when you knew for a fact that I could kill you. I could kill Pepper. I could ... I could destroy every last person here. Everyone you love. I could have been startled at the wrong moment, I could have lost control, and I could have destroyed everything that you loved. Everything you had left."
"You wouldn't," Tony said, fiercely. Vehemently. With utter faith, with angry certainty, because Tony did that. Because he put his heart in your hand, and dared you silently to drop it, and he just ... did that.
Bruce smiled. Heartbroken, she thought. Just a little. "No," he said, very softly. "I'd walk into the harbour, and keep walking, before I willingly let myself do that." She flinched. Tony flinched. Every one of them. Bruce smiled, flickering, and went on. "But I had the power to. I have the power to. And ... it was your choice, knowing that, to trust me anyway, and invite me here." He paused, looking heavily into Tony's eyes, into the angry terror there. "JARVIS ... made a similar choice, don't you think?"
Tony flinched. Growled, faintly. "It's not the same," he snapped. Brittle, while she watched, and JARVIS held a cautious silence, and Bruce looked steadily, calmly back. "This is Fury. This is the master spy. His fucking secrets have secrets!"
Bruce nodded, calmly imperturbable. "Yes, he is," he said, quietly. "He's a dangerous man. A secretive man. A man with the power to destroy all of us, if he wanted to. But ..." He paused, let his eyes grow distant, a little. Let the thoughts slip forward, now that he'd made his decision. "Clint trusted him. Enough to challenge us for his sake. Natasha trusted him. Enough to stay, when I think her only other reason was gone. She stayed with Fury, even though Clint was lost." His eyes sharpened, challenged. Met Tony's head on. "There are people who found something in him to trust. Even when he was the last person they should. I can't speak for them. Or for JARVIS. But ... maybe he thought that was enough reason to risk it, and extend a little faith of his own?"
There was silence, for a second. So heavy, Pepper felt it like hands pressing down on her shoulders, while Tony stared straight ahead, mulish and fearful, defiant, and Bruce looked gently, so damn gently, back. And then:
"I do not act without thought, sir," JARVIS offered, very quietly. "I do not trust him blindly. I know the risk he poses. The risk ... all of them pose. But ... Agent Barton held out his hand to us. Despite my, ah, my actions immediately previously. Director Fury came, personally, to meet me, even after I might have ... threatened him a little." Pepper blinked, a little, at that one. Tony. All Tony's fault. "I am not ... I'm not blindly hoping, sir. Or at least ... no more than they are, in trusting us."
Tony stood perfectly, utterly still. Pepper watched him, watched the tense vibrating of his spine, the slow, gentle curl of his fingers, flexing as though around a repulsor. She watched him. Bruce watched him. Dummy, hovering nervously on the edge of their circle, watched him.
And JARVIS, quiet and invisible and vast about them, watched him too.
"And," Tony said, at last. His eyes dark, so dark, pitch black. The way they'd been in the dark days while he built the second Iron Man, and clawed his way back from Afghanistan. "And if he isn't worth it? If he betrays us? If he tries to ... to hurt you?"
There was silence, heavy and shining, and then JARVIS answered. Then JARVIS dropped words into that waiting silence, and Pepper felt her heart clench savagely in her chest. Watched Bruce, across from her, let pain and determination flinch across his calm. Watched Tony curve under the blow, watched him flinch, and watched him stand, dark and shining, in its wake. She watched, and felt her chest compress. Sick fear, desperate pride, and such a hard, vicious love that she almost flinched with it.
"Then, sir," JARVIS said, with heavy, implacable finality, "We shall answer him. As we answered Obadiah."
God. Four days, she thought. In days, in hours, in moments, every time. Every time she looked away. They changed, and they hurt, and someone closed their hand about them. Every time. No-one warned her, and no-one told her, and all she could do, every time she looked back, was catch up, was keep up, and hope to hell they were strong enough.
Hope. Trust. Fear. Every time. All the time. And in the end ... all the same.
"Yes," she said. Her voice falling strangely into the silence, catching them unaware. They looked at her in shock, but she didn't flinch. These days, she didn't dare flinch. Not anymore.
"Yes," she said, remembering Tony's heart in her hand, and the video in Obie's office, and the soft faith in Tony's eyes when he introduced her to Bruce. While they looked at her, and smiled slowly, darkly, warily for her. "Yes, we will."
Every damn time, she thought. Every damn time.
"Exactly what part of 'let the nice spies be paranoid in peace' did you interpret as 'lets invite Nick Fury over and have an honest and frank discussion with him'? No, really. I want to know. Explain to me this logic."
Pepper paused just before the doorway, blinking a little, as Tony's voice echoed out of the test lab. She paused, and peered cautiously around the door frame. Dignity be damned. Sometimes, especially with Tony, you needed to have an idea where you were walking before you went and stepped in it.
Coming home to Tony standing in the middle of a lab floor ranting at JARVIS was not particularly unusual. (Neither, it must be said, was coming home to a building that had been recently assaulted, again. Not anymore, at least. She was beginning to realise that this was genuinely just her life now). Tony was usually more patient with JARVIS than he was with ... well, just about anyone else. But there had been moments, over the years.
It wasn't usually because of something JARVIS had done, though. Tony mostly ranted at JARVIS because of things JARVIS was refusing to do.
Add in Bruce standing off to one side, his arms crossed protectively in front of him and an expression somewhere between amusement and real worry, and Dummy, bent as low as he could possibly go, whirring gently in concern from his hiding place behind Bruce, and it was not, in fact, the usual picture.
"It seemed the most prudent thing to do, sir," JARVIS said, coolly. Cool as in, 'I am resisting the urge to verbally eviscerate you for being an idiot, sir'. Not so much an explanation as an ultimatum. Pepper blinked a little more.
Honestly. She left them alone for four days to take care of business in LA. Four. And she came back to a Tower undergoing clean-up, SHIELD agents wandering around the place looking weirdly nervous, and Tony actually having a stand-up fight with JARVIS in the lab.
Rhodey was right. You took your eyes off Tony for five minutes ...
"... JARVIS." Tony stopped, wiped a hand over his mouth, glaring absently at the ceiling. Tony, Pepper knew, unlike everyone else, actually was looking directly at JARVIS' hidden cameras. "JARVIS, you know who Fury is. You know what he is. How ... Prudent? Seriously? How did that seem prudent to you?"
"It is precisely because of that knowledge that it seemed so, sir," JARVIS answered. Less snittily, now. Gently, like he was trying to coax Tony around. Like logic would prevail, if only he was persistent enough. "Sir. Dealing with entities like myself is quite literally Director Fury's duty. And judging by his track record ... he has not been particularly heavy-handed in the execution of that duty. Otherwise, I suspect Master Bruce would not be standing here listening to us."
Oh. Oh.
Silently, still in the corridor, Pepper lifted a hand to her mouth. Feeling the whisper of fear settle in her stomach. She had an idea, now, what was happening. She had an idea, with that, why Tony looked to be hovering just on the edge of panic.
Not, she thought distantly, without reason. Oh, JARVIS. What did you do?
Tony shook his head, flinching a little from the sight of Bruce out of the corner of his eye. From the placid, contemplative look on Bruce's face. Noncommittal. Bruce didn't visibly make decisions until he had to. But contemplative. As though JARVIS might, possibly, we're not sure yet, have a point. Thoughtful, considering.
Tony, not so much. Desperate, more like. Panicky.
"JARVIS. Buddy. Okay, so Fury doesn't swing the hammer until he's pushed. Fine. We can give him that much. But. If he doesn't know the facts, then he can't swing it. I mean, Clint, reporting, yes, fine, but ... We're giving interviews, now? We're answering questions, now? We're inviting Fury around, now? Really? We're really doing this?"
JARVIS hesitated, a little. "Suspicions, left unchecked, tend to breed more alarm than all the facts in the world," he said, quietly. "I thought, sir, that since Fury has proven a pragmatic man, giving him a concrete idea of what he was dealing with would work more in our favour. He is not an incautious man. Nor one prone to rash action. I do not believe he could earn or keep the trust of such individuals as Agents Barton and Romanov, were that not the case."
... Point, Pepper thought, watching them silently. Letting it play out. From what she had seen, and what Phil had told her, neither Natasha nor Clint were much prone to trusting anyone. Yet they trusted Fury. Or at least obeyed him, but given the people in question ... that amounted, she thought, to much the same thing. There wasn't a single person attached to the Initiative that would follow any damned orders from someone they didn't believe had the right to give them. Someone they didn't trust, at the end of the day, to give the right ones.
Natasha would take an order from Fury. Steve would take an order from Fury. Tony, much though he might grumble about it, would take an order from Fury. Tony, who cheerfully spit on every military general who got up in his face, who gave Rhodey regular fits over his attitude to authority, would, when push came to shove, sign on when Fury asked, and point his weapons where Fury believed they needed to be pointed. Not without argument, not without question. But he would.
Pepper wondered, sometimes, if Tony realised how much trust he, let alone the agents, seemed to show Fury. All his arguments were about methods. Very, very few of them, were about goals.
Although, even still. Trusting Fury with JARVIS was a different thing entirely. One she, never mind Tony, was not particularly easy with.
SHIELD had cost her Phil. Almost Tony, yet again. And she knew why, and she believed they'd had the right to choose, and chosen right, too. But. Dammit, she was allowed to keep someone, wasn't she?
Inside the lab, JARVIS paused. Heavily, hesitantly. And then added, very gently, the same voice of sorrow and pragmatism he had always been, in times of pain: "Sir. My capabilities were exposed the moment I chose to act in Agent Barton's presence. I do not regret that choice, but the fact remains. It seems to me that the best we can do now ... is attempt to control the fallout, and steer it to our best advantage."
Pepper sucked in a breath. Pressed her hand to her mouth, felt the pressure against her teeth, tucking herself into the wall beside the door. She pressed her hand to her mouth, against the sudden surge of feeling. Not fear. Not that, for all it was justified. Pride. God, so much pride.
JARVIS. All these years, helping her stand between Tony and the world, helping her steer one crisis after another into something resembling opportunities, watching her and Tony spin some of the most offensive, dangerous, reckless moves into passable initiatives. After all these years. JARVIS had learned. He had watched, and he had helped, and he had learned.
She remembered this feeling. This exact feeling. Watching Tony sit down in front of a podium, carry a whole room down with him, and spin pain and grief, torture and regret, into a vision for the future that brooked no argument. Tony, straight out of the gate, after three months of torture, sitting down with his arm in a sling and regret in his eyes, ready to change the world. She remembered.
Fear, sitting like a ball in her stomach. God, what if it didn't work? Panic. How dare he, could he not at least warn her first? Grief. What did they do to him, to cause this? And pride. So much. Raw pride. Then, and now. Tony, and JARVIS.
Because JARVIS would, wouldn't he? Because he'd learned from Tony, and he'd learned from her, and JARVIS wasn't ever going to let something sit, when he could do something about it first. Not after almost losing Tony to a vow of silence. Not after watching Tony, time and again, almost die. Not after acting, and fighting, and helping defend their home.
JARVIS ... had never intended to let this fall as it would. Of course not. JARVIS had always, sooner or later, intended to fight. His way. All along.
And Tony. Looking at him now, seeing him standing lost and a little helpless in the center of the lab, listening to JARVIS so gently lay it out. Tony, she thought. What did you think would happen?
He knew. She saw it, looking back around the door. He had that expression, the one he wore when he wasn't fighting anymore because he disagreed, but because he didn't want to admit just yet that he thought you were right. The mulish, stubborn, vaguely fearful expression, just before he admitted he was wrong. Or that you were right, at least, but it was the same thing. In his head. It was the same.
"You could have asked," Tony said, a little desperately, and around a bleed of genuine hurt. "JARVIS, buddy. You could at least have asked. Told me. Fuck. At least let me know. Before you invited him home. You know?"
JARVIS hesitated. "I apologise, sir. I thought you might ... over-react." Pepper bit back a snort. Saw Bruce, across the lab, do the same. And then. Gaining back a touch of gentle righteousness, a certain pointed archness. "Not, it appears, without justification."
God. Oh god. She had taught him so well, hadn't see? She grinned, a little, behind her hand.
Tony spluttered. Casting a fulminating glare in Bruce's direction, too, for good measure. She'd have gotten one too, if JARVIS had thought to warn Tony she was there.
"Over-react," he repeated, flatly. "You sneak around behind my back, hack SHIELD, and invite a man who might actually try to kill you around for a chat. And I'm over-reacting?"
And there, that there, that was where Pepper lost it. She had to, couldn't help it at all. She burst out laughing, hard and a little desperate, tinged with just a touch of old pain, old hysteria. She climbed around the door frame, swung herself into the lab, and just ... had to laugh. Right into Tony's shocked, bewildered glare, as he turned to face her in stunned surprise.
"Pepper?" Blinking rapidly, staring at her in confusion. "What ...?"
"JARVIS," she breathed, holding up a hand in Tony's direction to hold him off for a second. Meeting Bruce's eyes briefly, catching the flash of pained, gentle humour in them. "JARVIS, tell me you recorded that? Please ... tell me you have that on tape."
JARVIS was as shocked as Tony, she thought. He'd known she was there. He'd had some warning. But he wasn't quite sure, just yet, what he was dealing with. "... Yes, Miss Potts? That is, certainly. Ah. Why?"
She grinned. Wobbly, helpless. She grinned at them. But, most of all, at Tony. "Because," she said, soft, and precise, and with rueful, desperate glee. "I want a record. Tony Stark, lecturing someone else about risking his life on a reckless stunt. Without telling anyone." She laughed, just a little, as offended comprehension flickered over Tony's face. "I think that should be recorded for posterity, don't you?"
Soft, and so pointed. Old hurt, and old love, and a rueful, desperately humorous acceptance. What else had they?
And there was hurt in Tony's eyes, there was pain and there was fear, and she couldn't help herself. She couldn't. Moving to him, brushing his cheek in her hand. Smiling soft and pained for him.
"Welcome to how the other half lives," she told him, as gently as she could, only letting the faint bite of vindication slip in. Cupping his face, shaking her head softly. "You've only yourself to blame, you know. Where do you think he learned it?"
Tony blinked at her. His hands gripping her wrists, lightly, holding her raised arms as though they would stabilise him. He blinked, and he grinned, a small, tentative smile. So uncertain. God, she loved him.
"I'm not that bad," he tried, grinning faintly. Ruefully. "I never invited them, at least. People just follow me. I don't invite them."
"No," she agreed. Smiling faintly. "You don't invite them back, to a place where you have back-up and a home ground advantage. You go to them, instead. Walk right into their lair, and punch them in the nose. Because that's better."
He grinned, and he was going to answer, she could tell, there was sarcasm right there, on its way, when a soft voice spoke up quietly from behind them.
"Technically?" Bruce noted, smiling softly at them. "You kinda do, Tony. Invite them, I mean. Or doesn't the Hulk count?" He grinned, wide and rueful into the twin looks of denial she knew were rising on their faces. "Because he should. If Nick Fury counts. The Other Guy should count too."
"Bruce ..." Tony started, stepping out of her arms a little to venture towards the other man. Sarcasm slipping away behind concern, and open-armed faith. Pepper, who had almost literally held Tony's heart in her hands, felt her own jump. Just once. And spill, silently, with love.
Bruce smiled. Flinched, a little, in the face of it. But he smiled, and held up a hand, holding Tony back for the moment. For some reason, Dummy, behind him, was chirping soft approval, and butting softly against the back of Bruce's legs.
"You made a decision," Bruce said, gently. "To trust me. To trust the Other Guy. You made a choice, to invite me into your home, your life, when you knew for a fact that I could kill you. I could kill Pepper. I could ... I could destroy every last person here. Everyone you love. I could have been startled at the wrong moment, I could have lost control, and I could have destroyed everything that you loved. Everything you had left."
"You wouldn't," Tony said, fiercely. Vehemently. With utter faith, with angry certainty, because Tony did that. Because he put his heart in your hand, and dared you silently to drop it, and he just ... did that.
Bruce smiled. Heartbroken, she thought. Just a little. "No," he said, very softly. "I'd walk into the harbour, and keep walking, before I willingly let myself do that." She flinched. Tony flinched. Every one of them. Bruce smiled, flickering, and went on. "But I had the power to. I have the power to. And ... it was your choice, knowing that, to trust me anyway, and invite me here." He paused, looking heavily into Tony's eyes, into the angry terror there. "JARVIS ... made a similar choice, don't you think?"
Tony flinched. Growled, faintly. "It's not the same," he snapped. Brittle, while she watched, and JARVIS held a cautious silence, and Bruce looked steadily, calmly back. "This is Fury. This is the master spy. His fucking secrets have secrets!"
Bruce nodded, calmly imperturbable. "Yes, he is," he said, quietly. "He's a dangerous man. A secretive man. A man with the power to destroy all of us, if he wanted to. But ..." He paused, let his eyes grow distant, a little. Let the thoughts slip forward, now that he'd made his decision. "Clint trusted him. Enough to challenge us for his sake. Natasha trusted him. Enough to stay, when I think her only other reason was gone. She stayed with Fury, even though Clint was lost." His eyes sharpened, challenged. Met Tony's head on. "There are people who found something in him to trust. Even when he was the last person they should. I can't speak for them. Or for JARVIS. But ... maybe he thought that was enough reason to risk it, and extend a little faith of his own?"
There was silence, for a second. So heavy, Pepper felt it like hands pressing down on her shoulders, while Tony stared straight ahead, mulish and fearful, defiant, and Bruce looked gently, so damn gently, back. And then:
"I do not act without thought, sir," JARVIS offered, very quietly. "I do not trust him blindly. I know the risk he poses. The risk ... all of them pose. But ... Agent Barton held out his hand to us. Despite my, ah, my actions immediately previously. Director Fury came, personally, to meet me, even after I might have ... threatened him a little." Pepper blinked, a little, at that one. Tony. All Tony's fault. "I am not ... I'm not blindly hoping, sir. Or at least ... no more than they are, in trusting us."
Tony stood perfectly, utterly still. Pepper watched him, watched the tense vibrating of his spine, the slow, gentle curl of his fingers, flexing as though around a repulsor. She watched him. Bruce watched him. Dummy, hovering nervously on the edge of their circle, watched him.
And JARVIS, quiet and invisible and vast about them, watched him too.
"And," Tony said, at last. His eyes dark, so dark, pitch black. The way they'd been in the dark days while he built the second Iron Man, and clawed his way back from Afghanistan. "And if he isn't worth it? If he betrays us? If he tries to ... to hurt you?"
There was silence, heavy and shining, and then JARVIS answered. Then JARVIS dropped words into that waiting silence, and Pepper felt her heart clench savagely in her chest. Watched Bruce, across from her, let pain and determination flinch across his calm. Watched Tony curve under the blow, watched him flinch, and watched him stand, dark and shining, in its wake. She watched, and felt her chest compress. Sick fear, desperate pride, and such a hard, vicious love that she almost flinched with it.
"Then, sir," JARVIS said, with heavy, implacable finality, "We shall answer him. As we answered Obadiah."
God. Four days, she thought. In days, in hours, in moments, every time. Every time she looked away. They changed, and they hurt, and someone closed their hand about them. Every time. No-one warned her, and no-one told her, and all she could do, every time she looked back, was catch up, was keep up, and hope to hell they were strong enough.
Hope. Trust. Fear. Every time. All the time. And in the end ... all the same.
"Yes," she said. Her voice falling strangely into the silence, catching them unaware. They looked at her in shock, but she didn't flinch. These days, she didn't dare flinch. Not anymore.
"Yes," she said, remembering Tony's heart in her hand, and the video in Obie's office, and the soft faith in Tony's eyes when he introduced her to Bruce. While they looked at her, and smiled slowly, darkly, warily for her. "Yes, we will."
Every damn time, she thought. Every damn time.
