There is steel in her spine and ice in her eyes, and in the firelight it grows only colder. It flickers beneath her caress as she smiles into the dancing blaze, the red of her lips dark and dripping.
She has been through hell and back, and the stains that splash her smile are not from lipstick alone. Bruises bloom like flowers along her face, a sharp contrast to the freckles that dust her pale cheeks, sand flecked lashes brushing against ash.
There is fire running like a river through her veins, into fierce strawberry blond hair, out into sparking fingers. It blazes in her eyes, cold and promising of retribution. It sits in her heart like a furnace, stoked by rage and vengeance.
From these descriptions, these truths warped to fit one central theme, you would imagine her to be a monster, with teeth bared in a splintered smile like frostbite.
And she was. She can be, and she will.
Yet she is but a woman.
He said (promised) he would catch her.
She fell.
Before the fall into fire, she was still as formidable. Her voice, pleasant in its cadences, ran an undercurrent of cool iron. Impossibly blue eyes were glacial in its gaze, and her ponytail swung like a whip behind her as she strode through the halls, every clacking step exuding power.
But now....
Gone are the razor edged suits and dresses. Gone are the knife sharp heels, the whip of hair, the ice of her stare.
Now, there is only her. Her, and the fire.
And you.
You've seen her, before. Before the fall. Before the flames. You'd think such trauma would take it away, leave her spineless, lukewarm. It did, for a while.
But this is now.
And as your screams fade into smoke, she is alone once more.
Tony promised he would catch her.
Pepper fell.