Pepper remains silent for a long while, expression inscrutable save for a faint flicker of... pity, perhaps, at his summation. Exhaling a soft breath, she shakes her head slightly and turns away, taking a few steps closer to the edge of the platform, staring out at the gleaming city without really seeing it. She turns her head just a little to be heard when she finally speaks, even if her gaze never leaves the glimmering cityscape.

"I'm sorry you've been here for so long, alone." Without anybody from home, she means. "I'm sorry for what this place has done to you. I really am." Made you into might be more accurate, but it sounds so harsh. But it's evident to her even outside of the fact that he's not her Tony that there's an edge, a hardness to him she finds difficult to reconcile with any iteration of Tony Stark. Maybe she's just being naive. Maybe it's denial. She doesn't know. Her shoulders jump visibly as she inhales and exhales deeply, battling a sudden wave of despair.

"But I can't just-- I can't give up right out of the gate. I can't fail my family like that." That's the one thing she does know. And that she really, really abhors this place already.