[Drabble]
Player LJ: timidity
Subject: Pepper Potts
Table: B
Prompt: “Hush”
When Pepper knows where he is, the silence in the house never bothers her. She rather likes it, actually. It’s soothing, and even better when she knows that she can have the evening to herself. She can sit in the quiet, flicking through a magazine without feeling like she had other things to be doing. She doesn’t have set days off, Tony just randomly gives them to her, either when he’s drunk out of his mind or when he’s been giving her media-related hell.
But today it’s neither.
Pepper sits with her hands folded on her lap, her back straight, her shoulders tense. Her Bluetooth headset lies on the table, dropped there carelessly, without so much as a second thought. Not that she has the time to have any second thoughts about anything today. She’s almost frightened to touch her laptop, lest there’s another video or maybe something worse, but- she doesn’t know what else she can do anyway.
The lack of noise is eerie. She hates it. When she doesn’t know where Tony is, when he could be anywhere, in pain, close to death, she feels a sort of fear that she didn’t feel when she was poking around in his chest and sending him into cardiac arrest. She can’t here her thoughts. The silence in her mind is deafening and god she wishes that he’d just come back right now and say it was all an elaborate, late April Fool’s joke, so she could just get mad at him and give him the silent treatment for a few days. But she knows he won’t.
She prays that this won’t be forever. She prays that it won’t be three months of agony and no leads and nothing. She wonders how she’s still here, how she didn’t get out when she could and avoid this pain, this ache of having to wait and being unable to do anything, something, just the smallest of things to help. Alone, Pepper feels powerless. She can’t do anything but hope, and will for everything to be okay in the end, even though she’s afraid and she doesn’t know what’ll happen.
She unfolds her hands for a moment, digging her nails into the fabric of her skirt. Her eyes are stinging a little at the corners and she immediately looks up at the ceiling, blinking as fast as she can to try and get rid of the tears. She doesn’t want to cry. As if she needs to feel weaker than she already is. Strength, Pepper has long since realised, does not come easily. You have to believe in yourself and believe in other people- and it’s hard. It’s so hard to do sometimes.
She prays that this god-awful hush that surrounds the house in all its entirety, sneaking through the workshop, coiling itself around laps and chair legs, consuming her thoughts, she prays that none of it will last.
Subject: Pepper Potts
Table: B
Prompt: “Hush”
When Pepper knows where he is, the silence in the house never bothers her. She rather likes it, actually. It’s soothing, and even better when she knows that she can have the evening to herself. She can sit in the quiet, flicking through a magazine without feeling like she had other things to be doing. She doesn’t have set days off, Tony just randomly gives them to her, either when he’s drunk out of his mind or when he’s been giving her media-related hell.
But today it’s neither.
Pepper sits with her hands folded on her lap, her back straight, her shoulders tense. Her Bluetooth headset lies on the table, dropped there carelessly, without so much as a second thought. Not that she has the time to have any second thoughts about anything today. She’s almost frightened to touch her laptop, lest there’s another video or maybe something worse, but- she doesn’t know what else she can do anyway.
The lack of noise is eerie. She hates it. When she doesn’t know where Tony is, when he could be anywhere, in pain, close to death, she feels a sort of fear that she didn’t feel when she was poking around in his chest and sending him into cardiac arrest. She can’t here her thoughts. The silence in her mind is deafening and god she wishes that he’d just come back right now and say it was all an elaborate, late April Fool’s joke, so she could just get mad at him and give him the silent treatment for a few days. But she knows he won’t.
She prays that this won’t be forever. She prays that it won’t be three months of agony and no leads and nothing. She wonders how she’s still here, how she didn’t get out when she could and avoid this pain, this ache of having to wait and being unable to do anything, something, just the smallest of things to help. Alone, Pepper feels powerless. She can’t do anything but hope, and will for everything to be okay in the end, even though she’s afraid and she doesn’t know what’ll happen.
She unfolds her hands for a moment, digging her nails into the fabric of her skirt. Her eyes are stinging a little at the corners and she immediately looks up at the ceiling, blinking as fast as she can to try and get rid of the tears. She doesn’t want to cry. As if she needs to feel weaker than she already is. Strength, Pepper has long since realised, does not come easily. You have to believe in yourself and believe in other people- and it’s hard. It’s so hard to do sometimes.
She prays that this god-awful hush that surrounds the house in all its entirety, sneaking through the workshop, coiling itself around laps and chair legs, consuming her thoughts, she prays that none of it will last.