Chapter 2
One day Tony is attacked and kidnapped by terrorists in a desert.
They do not know he is kidnapped, at first; merely that there was an attack.
Pepper knows that he is not dead.
Her upbringing and who she is and what she experiences would lead to her covering her mouth with her hand and crying at the news. It is awful that this has happened to anyone, but Tony—
Tony is special to her and--
And.
She has not always been Pepper Potts.
Pepper knows that he is not dead.
(The knowledge sings in her bones, only deeper.)
He is probably hurt. It’s awful to think of Tony in the desert, probably captured—and then, confirmed captured—and it hurts her to consider.
Once upon a time she—her, she is the same—could kill in ways no humans around her know about or could hope to imagine.
She had the strength of one thousand men.
More importantly, she could hold the lives of one thousand shinobi in her hands.
Pepper stands from where she is given the news and those telling her back away; they see a woman with red eyes and obvious distress pulling on some semblance of control and excusing herself to grieve in peace.
JARVIS greets her quietly when she walks into the elevator.
“I’d like the gym, please.” She says. Her voice shakes, but doesn’t falter.
She has long since grown out of being the kind of woman who does.