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hell ain't a bad place to be (tag pepper)
Aug. 13th, 2012 01:44 pmIt got weird after New York, so they took some time.
That left Tony chasing after Bruce and dragging his teammates clear across the country just to keep himself amused. It led to building EDI and not saying something when Clint stole a kid. It led to building a suit JARVIS could use and building a casino...there was a lot of building. Stuff to do, things to work on, it kept his head out of the wrong places. The ones that led to him drinking and blowing things up and generally doing the sort of stuff that had nearly cost him everything when he thought he was dying.
He really, really thought he wasn't ever going to have to do that again. That was the point of it all, wasn't it? Build a particle accelerator in his house, rip his workshop to shreds, save his own life...no more dying.
So now he was building something else, namely a body for EDI, so he didn't have to think about all the fights that came after New York, how Pepper wasn't there when he nearly died, how she hadn't picked up her phone...how things started going wrong again, and next thing he knew they were circling each other the way they used to: both of them scared, angry, wanting, and neither of them with the guts to just move forward and do something about it.
So they took some time. Pepper managed things off-site with EDI's help, and Tony built a lot of things. He built things so he wouldn't tear himself apart, brick by damaged brick.
EDI's new physical frame was nearly done, he just needed to work out the kinks with hair and skintone. With the empty body stretched out on a table in the middle of his workshop on his floor of Stark Tower, he was struggling to ignore the fact that Pepper was in town and getting stuff done and generally just being amazing again because he wasn't sure if this meant she'd had enough time. He didn't know if she could cope with what he was doing, what he'd become with the rest of this team...he didn't know if they, Pepper and Tony, could survive another nuke in space without a phone call.
So he didn't ask, he didn't speak up. Instead, he tried to figure out a way to alter the layer of fiberoptic silicon over EDI's frame that would utilize light to mimic the appearance of human skin, and the micro-mesh that would form a solid, woven helmet to protect her positronic brain and still disengage to simulate human hair, allowing her to pass for normal.
He built so he wouldn't tear himself apart, brick by damaged brick...wondering if he still had a Pepper to his name.
That left Tony chasing after Bruce and dragging his teammates clear across the country just to keep himself amused. It led to building EDI and not saying something when Clint stole a kid. It led to building a suit JARVIS could use and building a casino...there was a lot of building. Stuff to do, things to work on, it kept his head out of the wrong places. The ones that led to him drinking and blowing things up and generally doing the sort of stuff that had nearly cost him everything when he thought he was dying.
He really, really thought he wasn't ever going to have to do that again. That was the point of it all, wasn't it? Build a particle accelerator in his house, rip his workshop to shreds, save his own life...no more dying.
So now he was building something else, namely a body for EDI, so he didn't have to think about all the fights that came after New York, how Pepper wasn't there when he nearly died, how she hadn't picked up her phone...how things started going wrong again, and next thing he knew they were circling each other the way they used to: both of them scared, angry, wanting, and neither of them with the guts to just move forward and do something about it.
So they took some time. Pepper managed things off-site with EDI's help, and Tony built a lot of things. He built things so he wouldn't tear himself apart, brick by damaged brick.
EDI's new physical frame was nearly done, he just needed to work out the kinks with hair and skintone. With the empty body stretched out on a table in the middle of his workshop on his floor of Stark Tower, he was struggling to ignore the fact that Pepper was in town and getting stuff done and generally just being amazing again because he wasn't sure if this meant she'd had enough time. He didn't know if she could cope with what he was doing, what he'd become with the rest of this team...he didn't know if they, Pepper and Tony, could survive another nuke in space without a phone call.
So he didn't ask, he didn't speak up. Instead, he tried to figure out a way to alter the layer of fiberoptic silicon over EDI's frame that would utilize light to mimic the appearance of human skin, and the micro-mesh that would form a solid, woven helmet to protect her positronic brain and still disengage to simulate human hair, allowing her to pass for normal.
He built so he wouldn't tear himself apart, brick by damaged brick...wondering if he still had a Pepper to his name.
