Pepper Potts (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
handing) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
entrancelogs2014-12-01 05:07 pm
handing) wrote in entrancelogs2014-12-01 05:07 pm
So tired now of paying my dues
Who: Pepper Potts + OPEN
Where: Her room, the gallery, the gym, wherever
When: Nov 26 - Dec 1
Rating: PG-13/R; talk of death/murder and the aftermath
Summary: She died. Turns out that sort of thing makes people worry.
The Story:
The days following her death have been a strange mix of keeping to her routine and avoiding those she knows would care most about it. She just doesn't have it in her at first, to be asked over and over how she's doing, how she's coping with it all. The simple truth is that Pepper has no idea how to break apart what's happened to her, turn into manageable chunks of truth that she can absorb and accept. Not when she still remembers every moment of pain and fear, the certainty of what would happen, and waking up to discover that it indeed had. Even Wonderland's way of twisting mortality has done little to ease the process, and in her heart Pepper doesn't know what to do.
Of course some things are unavoidable; people try to reach out, but she's quick to turn them away, even if she tries to be polite while she does so--until the day after Thanksgiving. A transmission from her killer inspires a brand of anger she's rarely known, and after she leaves her message to him she sends out others. She doesn't know if the circumstances of the event are what drove him to murder, and frankly, she doesn't care. Pepper wants those people who are so concerned about her to know the man's face and the man's voice, to see the way he smirks and talks about how people have reason to be thankful for their continued breathing. Yet her message isn't simply one of warning, although for certain people it will end there. In her rage, Pepper desires something so much darker than to merely protect her friends. Among their number or combined, certainly there is someone stronger than the stranger who had ended her life, the former boss who warped her humanity, the world that brought them hell and stole away the few scraps of good they might find within it.
After that, she truly does return to her routine, no longer limiting herself to solitary activities. Of particular interest is her physical training, which Pepper approaches with a far greater fervor than she's ever shown. She doesn't neglect her other self-appointed tasks, but neither does she approach them with the same passion she once showed. Her patience remains limited, especially in those first few days after, her mind too often returning to the smug broadcast, and the inhuman sharpness of wings slicing into her flesh.
Where: Her room, the gallery, the gym, wherever
When: Nov 26 - Dec 1
Rating: PG-13/R; talk of death/murder and the aftermath
Summary: She died. Turns out that sort of thing makes people worry.
The Story:
The days following her death have been a strange mix of keeping to her routine and avoiding those she knows would care most about it. She just doesn't have it in her at first, to be asked over and over how she's doing, how she's coping with it all. The simple truth is that Pepper has no idea how to break apart what's happened to her, turn into manageable chunks of truth that she can absorb and accept. Not when she still remembers every moment of pain and fear, the certainty of what would happen, and waking up to discover that it indeed had. Even Wonderland's way of twisting mortality has done little to ease the process, and in her heart Pepper doesn't know what to do.
Of course some things are unavoidable; people try to reach out, but she's quick to turn them away, even if she tries to be polite while she does so--until the day after Thanksgiving. A transmission from her killer inspires a brand of anger she's rarely known, and after she leaves her message to him she sends out others. She doesn't know if the circumstances of the event are what drove him to murder, and frankly, she doesn't care. Pepper wants those people who are so concerned about her to know the man's face and the man's voice, to see the way he smirks and talks about how people have reason to be thankful for their continued breathing. Yet her message isn't simply one of warning, although for certain people it will end there. In her rage, Pepper desires something so much darker than to merely protect her friends. Among their number or combined, certainly there is someone stronger than the stranger who had ended her life, the former boss who warped her humanity, the world that brought them hell and stole away the few scraps of good they might find within it.
After that, she truly does return to her routine, no longer limiting herself to solitary activities. Of particular interest is her physical training, which Pepper approaches with a far greater fervor than she's ever shown. She doesn't neglect her other self-appointed tasks, but neither does she approach them with the same passion she once showed. Her patience remains limited, especially in those first few days after, her mind too often returning to the smug broadcast, and the inhuman sharpness of wings slicing into her flesh.
In the gardens?
Clint had tried to explain it to him. Tried. But James still doesn't understand celebrating genocide. He really doesn't. In his time... something like thirty percent of the world's population is dead. Thirty percent killed by a rampaging robot bent on destruction and subjugation of the human race.
What's there to celebrate?
But he keeps that to himself, since no one wants to hear it anyway. Instead, he's just out, rambling around, something better than sitting inside and he can't find Toothless for some fun with playing fetch.
Then he sees orange hair. He knows that hair. He's glad she's out and about.
"Pepper?" He's tentative, not sure what to say: 'glad you're not dead?'
no subject
"James; hey." She doesn't have patience to put on a front, not for everyone she meets. But James is still so young, she's willing to at least try and put aside some of her anger. She even manages a grin, real though brief, a small attempt a lie she's never been good at telling. "How are you?"
no subject
"I'm fine." He shrugs a bit. "How are you?" Because it's her he's worried about. The whole thinking about Thanksgiving falls by the wayside. She's far more important.
no subject
Yet James isn't naive; while his Tony had sheltered him, the truth is that he comes from a world far crueler than Pepper's. He won't believe a lie, nor does she want to tell him one. With him she's forced to find some middle ground between truth and comfort, words that are so much harder to find than they've ever been.
"I'm trying my best to be okay." She just isn't at all sure how to make that happen. Everything she's thrown herself into amounts to avoidance in one form or another. Still, there's been one thing she's reached out to the others about, and with that thought in mind Pepper pulls her phone from her pocket. "Listen; I need to show you something. The man who--" Killed. Murdered. Destroyed. "--attacked me made a post over the network recently. I don't know if he's dangerous outside of the event, but you should be careful if you run into him."
It's the nicest thing she's had to say about Gabriel by far.
no subject
"It's probably better if you're not okay." James says, earnest and honest in a way that only a sheltered child can be. But his world, the destruction of the human race, he's had to realize that it's okay to not be okay.
He steps over and looks at her phone. "What's his name?" He asks. That's important to know.
no subject
And so does the man who murdered her.
"You're right. It probably is." And in truth she is so far from any sense that things are right, she can't even see where they might still exist. Yet for James, for a child she still refuses to let the worst of it show, the anger that eats at her from inside, or whatever lies waiting beyond it.
"Gabriel." That's why she's careful only to let James see Gabriel's part of the broadcast rather than her own reply. Their conversation hadn't left her with any sense of justice, but rather a deeper hatred for the man who had stolen her life. There are few people who have earned such rage, and in Wonderland he may well be the first, someone more guilty in her eyes than even Loki. "He's incredibly dangerous, and you should stay away from him."
no subject
He hadn't even promised that much when it came to Bucky and his issues, but then, no one had died then.
"Is he still threatening you?" Because if so, she's about to get herself a little mini!Cap bulldog guardian.
no subject
But in the end, it is only a claim; she has no guarantee that Gabriel's logic would hold out. Certainly other people had found reason to murder here, and the memory of Tony's dead body flashes in her mind before she looks back to the boy.
"But even if he were, I mean it James: you have to stay out of it." Although they aren't close, they're still connected. Regardless of what he's been trained for or survived in his own world, Pepper has no desire to see him brought into the battles here. "What he did is unspeakable and unforgivable, and I don't want it to happen to you."
no subject
He still wants to prove himself to them.
James finally shakes his head. "I said I'd stay away from him. That's the most I can offer, Pepper." He won't promise anything more, because it might be a lie, and he tries not to do that. "I won't go seeking him out. I'm more worried about you." Let the Avengers handle Gabriel.