i know i won't be leaving here with you ✫

[cheeseburgerfirst]

She's known for a long time now that the feelings she has for Pepper far exceed any feelings she's ever had for a man. Not that she's really bothered to spend much time with men outside of a very specific setting. Namely the bedroom. It's the addressing that that's hanging her up. She knows Pepper mourned her while she was gone, pined maybe even. Rhodey told her it wasn't pretty whatever it was. And now she's dying all over again and it's really not the time...

But all she can think about is that night, up on the rooftop, after they'd danced in front of everyone. Toni knows that wouldn't have happened if she didn't have a chance. And even without knowing 100% what it would be like to be with another woman -- she doesn't care, because it's Pepper. It's someone she's loved for ten years almost already. She was just too fucking stupid and self-absorbed to realize it.

She's sitting across from her now, in Pepper's office. The office that used to be hers, but she's looking around it like she's never seen the inside of it before. Mostly because she was so seldom here. There's a basket of strawberries between them and she can't stand this fucking perpetually moving polygon thing on the desk. Like, what the fuck. She has vertigo even trying to follow it around... and around again. It's completely nonsensical.

"Come on. Pepper, I knew there was -- a connection. Between you and this." She gestures wildly to the strawberries. "That's progress. Right?" It sounds desperate. She's been trying so hard to tell Pepper the truth, but what's the use. She's going to die alone with nothing just like Yinsen said.