ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴏᴡᴇʀ ᴏғ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍs

Days had passed since Pepper's admission, seemingly tiny words that when strung together had shattered his whole world. Though they've remained close save for his jaunt to the Natchios manor, the current is far from smooth. He knows John has noticed, and even Harry seems uncertain now that he and Tony have pledged their sobriety together. Tony hasn't found a way to tell them yet and he can't help but feel like he's doing that fucked up 'stay together for the kids' thing that he's almost positive his own parents did for him.

Pepper is due for her check-in today and Tony is nervous; on her behalf more than his own actually. What if they see through her? Or even with their carefulness maybe they already somehow know everything? More than having to trust her is this overwhelming sense of dread that if he lets her go to SHIELD she'll never come back to him. They'll disappear her for untold horrors and that simply would not do.

In these few days he's, again, spent most of it in the workshop. And as a result has an actual working prototype for the suit. He paints it a much stealthier black and gold and plots to follow her to HQ tonight, in hopes that all will be fine anyway. He hasn't told her his plan though he knows they should share everything now, if only for strategy. Tony's fearful that SHIELD will overhear, not convinced in the least that the four bugs Pepper knows about are all that exist in the Tower. So he stays quiet, to her and to the others, and waits for the cover of night to break out in the suit.

It brings up so much for him, sense memory bursting up as surely as the wind whizzing past his helmet. He remembers Yensen in that moment, and is nearly too overtaken to continue. There's also a memory of the Hulk; of Captain America, blurry but there -- Tony caught in the wake of so much destruction. Even that SHIELD couldn't cover up, the mysterious heroes who had saved New York City from an alien invasion. But he wasn't himself, and neither were the rest. They were conditioned to be of service, their bodies used for the mission at hand. It's so frustrating to know in this context, when Tony would have gladly been conscious for the whole ride, even if he can't quite make sense of the spiraling blackness of space he's envisioning now.

Grateful that this time, the suit holds, Tony pushes everything else out of his mind and waits in the shadows for Pepper to emerge, holding far enough back so that the sensors he know surround the place won't pick him up. He flutters with an angelic sort of ease to the ground by her car, gratefulness for her wellbeing welling up again in his chest. And that she doesn't have any goofy escorts -- that does a lot to abate his fears. Before she can say anything the face plate snaps up and he smiles softly, still hovering a few inches off the ground. "Hey."