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

[pepperspray]

[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.]

Comments

voice, private;

[pepperspray]

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.

voice, private;

[redledgerdays]

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.

voice, private;

[pepperspray]

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.]

voice, private;

[redledgerdays]

[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.

Re: voice, private;

[pepperspray]

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.

voice, private;

[redledgerdays]

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

voice, private;

[pepperspray]

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.]