handing: (all i have left)
Pepper Potts ([personal profile] handing) wrote in [community profile] entrancelogs2014-04-28 11:34 am

(no subject)

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.
widows_kiss: serious, curious (Default)

[personal profile] widows_kiss 2014-04-28 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
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?"
assembles: shocked, confused, casual clothes (that wasn't in the manual)

[personal profile] assembles 2014-04-28 06:48 pm (UTC)(link)
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.
seekinghome: (Smiling)

[personal profile] seekinghome 2014-04-28 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)
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?"
anomaliiiiies: (067)

[personal profile] anomaliiiiies 2014-04-28 09:03 pm (UTC)(link)
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."
seekingbrother: (herp derp)

[personal profile] seekingbrother 2014-04-28 10:50 pm (UTC)(link)
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!"
disassembles: (considering it)

[personal profile] disassembles 2014-04-29 08:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Bucky tends to leave people well enough alone, for the most part, but when his gaze skips over the redhead in heels - well, she's definitely the kind he'd look at twice, but that's not what gives him pause. Bucky knows that look on her face intimately. She looks the way he felt his first few days here, wandering the hallways like one of the walls was just gonna open up and give him the answers.

He's not a big believer in the kindness of strangers, but people have been good to him here, and the least he can do is pay it forward.

"Hey. It's on the fifth floor."