[For Jason] Halloween
There was a Halloween party going on, but Pepper simply couldn't summon up the will to go. Since Peter had developed the stop-gap to give Tony a little more time, Tony had thrown himself with renewed enthusiasm back into finding a replacement for palladium. That was what he was doing that evening, and Pepper thought it just as well that she pick up something for them to eat from the Compound and then simply spend a quiet night at home with a book.
Lulled into a false sense of security by the silly but ultimately harmless events of the last Halloween, she'd walked right into the cloud without thinking anything of it. They didn't get fog that often on the island but it wasn't unheard of. Almost instantly she realized her mistake.
The island was gone. Being someplace familiar, someplace so obviously home should have been a relief, but Pepper's heart immediately dropped into her stomach. Every muscle in her body gone tense with dread, she did the only thing she knew to do. She didn't hesitate, she ran.
Heels clattering against the metal catwalk, she sprinted from the building and to the parking lot outside without looking back. She'd been here too many times, had relived this far too frequently to wait around for Obediah to peer out at her from the gloomy depths of the laboratory's shadows. Any relief she found outside was short lived, however, as the asphalt began to almost immediately buckle beneath her feet and there was absolutely no place to go.
"TONY!" she screamed, the sound wrenching from her throat entirely on instinct as the ground opened up with a crack.
Lulled into a false sense of security by the silly but ultimately harmless events of the last Halloween, she'd walked right into the cloud without thinking anything of it. They didn't get fog that often on the island but it wasn't unheard of. Almost instantly she realized her mistake.
The island was gone. Being someplace familiar, someplace so obviously home should have been a relief, but Pepper's heart immediately dropped into her stomach. Every muscle in her body gone tense with dread, she did the only thing she knew to do. She didn't hesitate, she ran.
Heels clattering against the metal catwalk, she sprinted from the building and to the parking lot outside without looking back. She'd been here too many times, had relived this far too frequently to wait around for Obediah to peer out at her from the gloomy depths of the laboratory's shadows. Any relief she found outside was short lived, however, as the asphalt began to almost immediately buckle beneath her feet and there was absolutely no place to go.
"TONY!" she screamed, the sound wrenching from her throat entirely on instinct as the ground opened up with a crack.