outer_divide | [Audio: Filtered] Tying Loose Ends: (Friday, Week 19)

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[Audio: Filtered] Tying Loose Ends: (Friday, Week 19)

[Filtered to Tosh, Lyall and the three Avengers still above ground and breathing:]

I'm a little concerned with how the second stage is hitting me. I don't want to worry people generally, but I know all of you can keep on top of things.

[Pepper honestly sounds more dead level than concerned, voice a colourless murmur and the video kept off.]

Just in case I'm too out of it: if we get samples, or a dose of vaccine. Anything. Let people know to talk to Captain Silene. She has a communicator, she's a contact at the port town. Knows me. She might know where manufacturing facilities are.

[Filtered to Tony:]

I... Tony. I would really like you here right now.

[This, spoken privately, is where the concern has gotten to. Beyond that, there's a thread of naked fear that's been missing from Pepper's previous determined sulking her way through Stage One.]

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It's not impossible, but it's not likely, either.

[Pepper's breathing rate is high, and the pauses between phrases are a little choppier as a result.]

The Authorities seem to act on perceived threats to the dome. She's not one of them.

[she files that away, along with the sound of Pepper's breathing, the inconsistencies in the cadence of her voice]

And her relationship with us, does that make us a threat to the dome? [moreso than they all ready are, at any rate]

So far, our business with the port town has been for medical supplies. Our business with Silene has been to exchange tech for grain.

There's a facility. She gave us the location. [The phrases are getting shorter, and the pauses longer, but Pepper's tone grows more determined as she remembers new information to share.] Weeks' trip on foot, faster by air. I have a map. Tell Tony?

[assuming Tony will want to leave Pepper's side, considering she's sounding worse and worse. but Nat won't say that]

I'll tell him. I'm sure we'll figure out a way to get there soon as possible.

So much to do, so little time.

[As jokes go, it's a weak and wistful one, but Pepper attempts it anyway. There's a little rustling noise, like someone sliding down a wall, but it's a controlled sound rather than an alarming thumping tumble.]

And how are you doing? Clint worried, while you were away.

[Pepper worried too.]

[the joke, weak though it is, still makes her smile a little. the rustling she pins on Pepper sitting down, and honestly, that's not such a bad idea. Natasha takes a seat on her own bed, the creak of mattress springs loud enough to make it through the communicator

there's really no point in lying, is there? it's not like Pepper is going to tell anyone]

I've been better. It came back about a day before we returned to the city. I can still move around, though, and that's all that matters.

Shame the people responsible have been dead for decades.

[Despite the quiet of her voice, there's still a flicker of sharp displeasure in it, soon extinguished.]

This... I don't know how to process this. [The admission is a hard one to make but Natasha knows secrets and their keeping.] After Bruce... if something happens, Tony won't take it well.

I would certainly like a word with a few of them.

[she takes a long, slow breath, laying out across her bed because her head swims otherwise, listening as Pepper speaks, focusing on the cadence and inflection because it tells as much as the words]

Then we'll just have to make sure nothing happens. [she isn't an optimist. she doesn't have any flowery plans and she doesn't cling to hope. Natasha is a pragmatist, but she's also a survivalist, and she'd rather not see anyone else die on her watch, no matter how inevitable it might seem] We've handled worse.

We had a few more resources at our disposal.

[Pragmatic Pepper, curator of the hospital's inventory lists, knows this all too well. Still, she takes a long breath, shallow and unsteady and leading to a few pants in its wake as her body tries to catch up, and there's an almost tangible sense of her squaring her shoulders.]

Plans are already underway, it's just a matter of hanging on. You should come by.

[Pepper sounds decisive on this point.] Not now, not necessary, but there's heat and hot water here. I could never get Bruce to take me up on it...

[A hot shower may not do much against genemod hantavirus, but Pepper, it seems, has gotten an idea for Something She Can Do To Help. That she herself has had to give up on her attempt to make it down the hallway to said shower... well, Natasha needn't know that.]

[Nat laughs faintly] I'm good at hanging on. Better than most, it seems.

[the prospect of a warm shower is tempting, and Nat is tired and sore, but she's not quick to accept an open hand, even from someone she considers a friend. not when it isn't life and death, at any rate]

You need it more than I do. I'm sure he thought that, too.

Showers are not a zero-sum game.

[Pepper is bone tired, and thus her observation comes across warmly amused rather than briskly teasing.]

Pretty sure I'm not standing up for the next while anyway. Someone should benefit from the hot water if I can't.

When you put it that way, it's a little more difficult to decline, Ms. Potts.

Take care of yourself. Try to keep the boys from doing anything too disastrous.

If possible.

I'm... going to try and get some more rest now.

[Normally, a wryly exaggerated 'go try not to die now' would be more fitting. This? This is not normal, and the joke would have a little too much truth to it. Pepper ends the call and rests her had agains tthe wall for a long moment, eyes closed as she gathers some limited strength.]

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[Audio: Filtered] Tying Loose Ends: (Friday, Week 19)

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