Stark let his fingers fan out at her waist, dancing lightly over each seam and plate, feeling the power humming strong through the nerve-like structures of each connected, microscopic nanite. Tracing the "RESCUE" printed boldly across one aileron, and the "0049" on the opposite, he smiles faintly behind her back, bittersweet, stupid, romantic bastard.
"Sure, I can take a look." Skimming the surface tells him a lot, but it's not enough; he wants to know every detail, every line of code. Drifting his other hand to her opposite shoulder, he lets himself drift too, a cold mental plunge into the suit's processor and further, inhabiting it completely as he still stands behind Pepper.
That's it, sweetheart, tell me everything.
Normally this is quick, the work of an instant, but this is also his creation. Delving deep, poring through analytics, test runs, flight logs, video– wait– -snippets flicker past, some enormous, nameless conflict, and others still:
Happy, carrying a tearful little girl with dark hair, one small pinky wrapped around Pepper's armored one. He misses what's said, for the sudden, bizarre buzzing sensation between his ears. Back further- a week, two? Less? And the scene is different still, strange and...short? A white tent, a small pink and blue table, the hum of a child's voice as she concocts some wild adventure with herself and–
"Morgoona. Morgan H. Stark-" -his voice, this other him in this other life, cheery and warm and leaning in for a quick kiss.
The entire tableau plays out in the span of nanoseconds in the real world, as Stark goes from silence to recoil, a snap back, jolted into himself so fast he's already striding away from Pepper before he realizes what he's doing. Retreating, from a life that isn't his and now never could be, the sudden welling of heartache so sharp he staggers in its wake.
no subject
"Sure, I can take a look." Skimming the surface tells him a lot, but it's not enough; he wants to know every detail, every line of code. Drifting his other hand to her opposite shoulder, he lets himself drift too, a cold mental plunge into the suit's processor and further, inhabiting it completely as he still stands behind Pepper.
That's it, sweetheart, tell me everything.
Normally this is quick, the work of an instant, but this is also his creation. Delving deep, poring through analytics, test runs, flight logs, video– wait– -snippets flicker past, some enormous, nameless conflict, and others still:
Happy, carrying a tearful little girl with dark hair, one small pinky wrapped around Pepper's armored one. He misses what's said, for the sudden, bizarre buzzing sensation between his ears. Back further- a week, two? Less? And the scene is different still, strange and...short? A white tent, a small pink and blue table, the hum of a child's voice as she concocts some wild adventure with herself and–
"Morgoona. Morgan H. Stark-" -his voice, this other him in this other life, cheery and warm and leaning in for a quick kiss.
The entire tableau plays out in the span of nanoseconds in the real world, as Stark goes from silence to recoil, a snap back, jolted into himself so fast he's already striding away from Pepper before he realizes what he's doing. Retreating, from a life that isn't his and now never could be, the sudden welling of heartache so sharp he staggers in its wake.