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Who: Pepper Potts and Natasha Romanoff; Pepper Potts and OPEN
Where: The mansion starting on the seventh floor, potentially anywhere.
When: April 28
Rating: PG?
Summary: Pepper wakes up in Wonderland.
The Story:

Part One:  Locked to Natasha
She’s never needed long to wake up; too many days with more to-dos than hours have made Pepper both an early and a quick riser.  Granted, coffee usually also plays a role in that, but panic serves as a good substitute.  Her mind is quick to recall those last moments of awareness before she’d blacked out: the tightness of Killian’s fingers around her throat, leaving her unable to breathe or to scream.  The frustration in Maya’s voice where there should have been fear, except she wasn’t a friend after all.  The realization that they were going to use her to lure Tony into a trap, and that she was absolutely helpless to stop them.

Pepper pushes herself upright with a gasp, eyes wide as she looks around the darkened room.  She can’t see much, but she’s been lying on something soft—a sofa, maybe.  It’s kinder than she would have expected Killian to be, and Pepper moves a hand to her neck, still able to feel the way he’d gripped her.  She can’t see anyone else, and precious seconds, maybe minutes tick by, marked only by the too-loud sound of her own breathing as Pepper tried to piece together where Killian or his henchmen are.  Why would they leave her alone?

She’s so preoccupied with looking for some sign of her kidnappers that it takes Pepper too long to realize something vital:  she can move.  Not only her hands, but her entire body.  She stares down at herself in wonder as she stands, scarcely able to believe she hasn’t been tied up.  Then again, Killian had been the picture of confidence when they’d met in her office.  Maybe arrogance isn’t that far of a leap for him.

Or maybe he doesn’t think she’ll be able to make it out of the room regardless; Pepper’s gaze turns toward the opposite wall, and the closed door that presumably leads outside.  Would she need to be restrained if there’s a guard in the hall?  If Killian hadn’t thought so, that will be his mistake.  She isn’t a superhero, but Pepper also isn’t a damsel in distress.  There’s a statuette on a nearby table, something solid and heavy she can use to knock out whoever is waiting for her.  Maybe if they haven’t realized she is awake, maybe if they aren’t paying close attention…

Maybe she’ll get herself killed.  But in her mind, she can hear Tony’s screaming at her to just go, and Pepper knows she has to try regardless of the risk.  She can’t let herself freeze again.

She creeps over to the door with her makeshift weapon in hand, leaning as close to it as she dares to try and listen for some sound of movement beyond.  It’s hard to convince herself that they won’t hear her the way her heart pounds in her chest, ruining her plan before it even starts.  But if there is someone waiting she can’t tell, and Pepper worked up enough to open the door.  No reaction from outside, no rush to restrain her.  With no sign of anyone around, she carefully makes her way into the hall.

Part Two:  Open to All
So this is Wonderland.  It’s…well, frankly, it’s impossible to believe.  Pepper makes her way through the mansion almost in a daze, feeling like she has to remind herself with every other step of what Natasha’s said.  It’s not that the Agent wouldn’t lie; their first introduction had been comprised entirely of falsehoods, after all.  But she’s fairly sure Natasha isn’t insane.

So she wanders the halls, trying to get her bearings and maybe find someone to give her answers.  Despite how deeply unsettling this is, she does her best to keep those emotions in check.  She hates when things feel out of control, and right now she’s been put in a situation where the only thing she can keep a handle on is herself.  Regardless of the utter impossibility of it all, Pepper refuses to break down or to let panic grip her.  It won’t accomplish anything if she does.  Of course that doesn’t mean she doesn’t look as lost as she is; Pepper’s never been a good liar.  That mixed with what she’s been through the past couple of days has left her more frayed than she cares to admit.

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Natasha had been just leaving her room to head downstairs for lunch when she heard footsteps not that far away, subtle ones, as if someone was trying to move around unnoticed. Curiosity understandably piqued by this, she altered her course, moving to peer down the adjoining corridor for the source.

Only to spot a familiar redhead creeping along, wielding a statue like a club.

Not what she'd anticipated, but that was becoming the norm these days and after a blink, she stepped out into full view, her hands held up where the woman could see them, just in case she startled her.

"Ms. Potts?"

She tightened her grip on the statuette, swallowed as she crept further from the room she’d been held in. Anyone could appear, Killian or some henchmen, maybe that man that Happy had so mistrusted, and she kept her eyes ahead for that reason. But as it turned out, the shock would come from behind, forcing Pepper to turn sharply when Natasha called her name.

“Stay away from me!” The words were out of her mouth before she got a good look at the speaker, the makeshift weapon raised threateningly. But fear gave way to confusion when Pepper recognized the other person in the hall, someone who she hadn’t expected to see there.

“Agent Romanoff?" That got Pepper to lower the statuette, though she didn't drop it completely. "What--what are you doing here?"

Well, at least she didn't have to worry about dodging ceramics just yet.

Natasha let her hands lower to her sides, although she remained where she was, standing at the end of the corridor and letting Pepper calm before making any move towards her.

"I could ask you the same thing. I didn't realize you were... here." Unless she'd just arrived, which might explain the statue. Unless Pepper just had a thing against ugly, half-naked statues.

"Ms. Potts, do you know where you are?"

Relief at seeing the agent was slow coming; after being betrayed by Maya Hansen, Pepper was wary even of a familiar face. But Natasha had fought beside Tony in New York, both against Ivan Vanko and the alien invasion. That the woman would be undercover now made sense, enough for Pepper to cross the hall herself after another wary glance around.

"Believe me, this is the last place I want to be." Somehow it seemed her shout hadn't managed to attract unwanted attention. Not yet anyway, because Pepper knew their luck couldn't hold out for long. Her voice lowered now, Pepper shook her head. "I don't have a clue. Killian brought me here."

The memory earned another fearful look around the hall, and Pepper couldn't stop herself from touching her throat for a brief moment before she went on. "He wants to use me as bait for Tony."

"Killian," Natasha echoes, going still, because of course she knows that name, she's been keeping tabs on her teammates, even if she'd been too far out of reach to make it back in time to help much with the disaster involving the Mandarin.

"Aldrich Killian?"

Was Natasha missing something or was this Wonderland playing with them again?

"Ms. Potts, would you mind telling me the date? Humor me, please."

There was something immediately wrong with Natasha’s reaction, although Pepper couldn’t place her finger on just what until the woman echoed Killian’s name for the second time. It wasn’t the recognition, but the surprise; wouldn’t Natasha have been told who her target was if she were there on assignment? But then again, maybe SHIELD was after the Mandarin and somehow didn’t know all the players. Killian wasn’t the one Maya called the Master, after all.

“Yes, Aldrich Killian. He works for the Mandarin.” But whatever she may have expected to come next, what Natasha asked wasn’t it. Pepper frowned, shaking her head slowly as she tried to figure out why on earth the other woman would be asking what day it was. “You want to know the date? While we’re standing in the hall of a terrorist’s house, or at least the house of one of his followers.”

As difficult a time as Pepper was having wrapping her head around the situation, it would probably be good to make sure she and Natasha really were on the same page.

Edited 2014-04-28 18:49 (UTC)

Since that unfortunate conversation (if it could even be called that) with Loki, Steve's been trying to keep to himself. Which isn't all that easy when he's got friends of his next door and across the hall from him, but he and Bucky have both gotten pretty tired of singing duets at this point.

Granted, Steve's still trying to wrap his head around Bucky being here at all, but it's been nearly a week since he arrived in this place and his best friend is still present, acting like himself, and Natasha's been around to confirm it all on top of it.

So he's going to have to take it as a good thing for now—you know, beyond the whole being-trapped-in-a-place-from-a-children's-book thing.

Steve's wandering the halls, thinking about making his way down to the kitchen, when he turns the corner and almost runs right into someone. It's his unnatural reflexes that allow him to step back before they collide, but he takes a moment to recover and apologize before he realizes that he recognizes this woman.

They've never met face-to-face, but he's seen plenty of her on television. She's CEO of Stark Industries, after all. Steve blinks, stares for a few more seconds, and then just goes ahead and asks. "You're... Pepper Potts, aren't you?" First Loki, now this, it seems like everyone's streaming in. Tony's assistant turned company CEO turned other half is hardly who Steve would have expected, though.

When she reaches the door to the dining room in her wanderings, Ed's at the table nearest the door. When he sees her, he takes a moment to finish what's in his mouth before talking. "Hey. I don't think I've seen you before. Learning your way around?"

Like Steve, Pepper stops to make apologies for the near collision; she’d been too wrapped up in her thoughts to even realize someone else had been around. Honestly, she’s a little surprised they didn’t run into each other—at least until she has her own moment of recognition. No, they’ve never met, but she doubts there’s a person alive who wouldn’t recognize Captain America.

“As a matter of fact, I am.” She manages a grin, amused that he actually knows who she is. Sure, she’s rather closely connected to Iron Man, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Steve Rogers would know her name. “And you’re Steve Rogers.”

She offers her hand since they’re doing introductions of sorts. Circumstances aside, this much at least is normal for her, a small touch that she finds comforting in its own way.

Edited 2014-04-28 19:19 (UTC)

She may be more than a little relieved to come across the dining room; the smell of food reminds Pepper of just how long it’s been since she’s eaten. She doesn’t make it too far in before someone calls out to her, although that might not be a bad thing. The reasons why she hasn’t had anything to eat in so long are more than enough to make her lose her appetite if she dwells on them. Conversation hopefully can prevent that.

“Hello.” A young man Pepper’s never seen before, and she offers a polite smile. It’s quickly followed by a laugh when he almost immediately figures out what she’s up to. “I’m trying to. Is it that obvious that I’m new?”

Ed shrugs before eating another bite of food. "Like I said, I don't remember seeing you around. For all I knew, you could have been here for a bit and I just hadn't met you yet. I'm at least familiar with those that occupy either the bar or the library by sight, if not name."

"Just... Pepper. Trust me," Natasha answers, meeting and holding the woman's gaze for a moment, taking a step closer. "I'm not here to hurt you, you know that, you know me at least, and despite us not exactly meeting under the best of circumstances, I'm not a threat to you. Besides, if anyone here means you harm, they've gotta go through me first and that's not happening. I promise I will explain everything I can to you but yes, before I start, I'd like you to give me the date. It's relevant, I promise."

Jane's orientating herself to her new location, and she's also scribbling in her notebook, all the while muttering words like 'wormholes' and dimensions.

Jane really not paying attention to her surroundings until a flash of red catches her eyes and she looks up,

"Thor? Oh wait, never mind, I'm sorry. Ms. Potts? Hi, I'm Jane, and I saw red and thought it was Thor for some reason."

She tilted her head downward at that, looking away from Natasha as she tried to reign in her fears. She still couldn't see how the date was relevant, but she knew she had to trust Natasha. There was no one else there she could rely on, and with her abilities the agent was their best chance at getting away from Killian alive, or maybe even putting a stop to his plans. With a huffed breath she met Natasha's gaze again, her confusion still so evident even as she finally gave the woman her answer.

"December 23, 2013. Or maybe Christmas Eve by now." Who knew just how long Pepper had been out for? Now it was Natasha's turn, and Pepper waited for the promised explanation.

"I suppose that's true." Especially given how large the building they're in seems to be. Pepper's had to walk down several flights of stairs to get here, and she gets the feeling that she isn't quite done yet.

"My name is Pepper Potts; it's nice to meet you." For whatever definition of nice best fits under the circumstances, anyway. She takes a glance at Edward's plate, then looks around the room for some sort of serving area or kitchen. "Would you mind telling me where I need to go to get something to eat? I'm not sure where the food is actually served from."

"You are new. Name's Edward Elric. All you gotta do is think about what you want and the dining room gives it to you." Ed eats another bite. "There is a kitchen for those of us that are any good at it. It's separate from the dining room though. How much of the run-down on this place did you get?"

Muttering isn't at all unusual in Pepper's world; living with Tony means silence tends to stand out more than mumbled calculations or blaring music. She's about to leave the other woman to whatever she's working on, not wanting to interrupt, when suddenly she's addressed by two names: one hers, and one that's still interesting regardless.

"No, not quite." Pepper grins, wondering just how much her hair could remind anyone of Thor's rather bold cape. Regardless, Pepper's recognized as herself a moment later, and she nods at the correction. "That's right. It's nice to meet you, Jane. Are you a fan of Thor's, or...?"

Who's to say? Given that people have recognized her, there's no telling just how Jane may know or know of the Asgardian.

Al runs into Pepper coming out of the library, loaded down with almost more books than he can see over. Luckily that 'almost' is there, or he might have actually ran right into her as she passes by the door.

He makes a startled sound and backs up just before a collision can happen, reshuffling his grip on the stack--quite a few of which are rather advanced textbooks of several branches of science, if she notices. "Oh! Sorry, Miss, I didn't see you there!"

Natasha exhaled, the sound almost a sigh, and tucked her hair behind one ear as she pursed her lips together and stepped closer, closing the distance between them.

"Christmas. Wonderful. Alright, this is going to sound strange, but trust me, I can prove it - sort of. Mostly. You're not in California, Ms. Potts. Or New York. Or even on earth, as far as I can tell. You're..."

Gosh she hated being the one to do this part because honestly how ridiculous was this explanation?

"We're in Wonderland. Yes, like the book, movie, whatever source material you're most familiar with. No I swear I'm not crazy, we are literally down a rabbit hole right now."

Steve's definitely heard her mentioned by Stark himself, though only in passing. Between that and the news coverage, Miss Potts is hardly an unknown. Steve had also heard about her kidnapping by the likes of Aldrich Killian, and while that's all been settled for some time, it's not easily forgotten.

That grin, her easy recognition, and the offered hand seem to indicate that Pepper's moved past all that, but Steve isn't about to assume anything either. He gives her hand a firm shake, though takes care not to squeeze too hard. Thankfully, he's gotten good at knowing his own strength, so those sorts of mistakes are in the distant past.

"Got it in one," he says, returning her smile. "Can't say I expected you to show up here." She's a civilian, whereas he, Bucky, and Natasha—they're all soldiers. Even Loki's presence here makes more sense than this. "Are you all right?"

Pepper raised her eyebrows; strange wasn't an entirely unexpected thing when she considered the way her life had gone recently, or over the past few years. But even limiting it to the past several days, wherein the high point might have actually been coming home to find a ten-foot giant stuffed rabbit at the end of her driveway, Pepper thought she was ready for whatever version of strange Natasha was about to throw at her.

She was mistaken, of course. Not in California, not in New York, that was reasonable enough. But not on earth? She was about to ask if she'd heard that right, because she couldn't have heard that right, there was no way, when Natasha said they were in Wonderland.

Wonderland.

"Wonderland? As in Alice and the white rabbit and running late?" Pepper's jaw had actually dropped a little, enough for her lips to part as she tried to wrap her head around that. For everything that had come to light about their world over the past year, which included aliens, mythological beings, long-lost superheroes and the Hulk, that was pushing it. But as unbelievable as it was, Pepper didn't want to think Natasha had lost her mind, or set off a woman so dangerous as the Black Widow. So she swallowed in an effort to restrain her shock, silently thankful that she still had the statuette in hand. "And--and you said you can prove it?"

Her celebrity is still a new enough thing that, despite making magazine covers, Pepper doesn't always expect to be recognized in her own right. It's probably from too many years standing in the background while Tony reveled in the spotlight, but she's gotten a little more used to the recognition. It's something she suspects Steve has had to adjust to as well, given his particularly spectacular story.

"Oh, well. How does it go: I can't say I expected to be here." Maybe she's teasing Steve a little; just who can predict anything in the frame of these circumstances. Still, he asks something of a loaded question next, though Pepper understands Steve really has no way knowing just how complicated that answer is in her own regard.

"Am I all right." She lets out a slow breath, almost a sigh, though the hint of a grin still remains on her lips. "Well, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been better. But considering the last thing I remember from home, it's something of a relief to be here." Not in Wonderland specifically, but generally out of of Killian's reach.

"What about you? Did you just get here too?"

"Fresh out of the package." Pepper makes a note of the name; thankfully she's good at remembering who people are, because the shocker than comes after might have made her forget otherwise.

"You just...think about it." She repeats that bit carefully. It just can't be as simple as Edward makes it sound. Pepper moves her hand to an empty space, eyes lowering to the spot as she shakes her head. "So if I were to think about--oh, I don't know, a turkey sandwich?"

Poof. Or, not quite. But there's still a sandwich, and Pepper doesn't quite remember to answer the rest of Edward's question as she stares at the impossible food.

Nearly runs into, anyway. Pepper just barely manages to catch herself at the same time as Al, hurriedly stepping to the side to avoid a near collision. "Oh, careful." She's a little startled but not upset, instinctively reaching out to try and keep any books from falling off Al's tower.

"It's alright. That's quite a stack you've got there." Full of subjects she recognizes from working with Tony, and fairly advanced for a boy who looks so young. "I'm guessing you're a science fan?"

"And there's your lunch," Ed observes as he eats another bite of food. While he may have hated being stuck in Germany--or on Earth, really--, he's certainly assimilated to the food pretty well. Mmm, bratwurst.

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