[stark expo]

[lichfield]

Well isn't this just a fine fucking day. Finishing Tony's new arc reactor in the nick of time... so they can crash the damn Expo. To deal with actual supervillainy. Sure. Okay. Getting stuck dealing with Potts and Happy Meal and that damn liar. Well at least the latter two take off to do... something. Scaring the shit out of Hammer is a delight, though. Caroline could happily do that all day. Maybe break a couple nonessential bones. You know.

Potts looks like she's not sure whether to be viciously amused or terrified. Caroline's okay with either. Or both. Both is good. Watching Hammer get dragged off by the cops is a goddamn delight. Four for you, Potts. Caroline might almost completely forgive her, just for that. Too bad being in Potts's semi-good graces lasts all of a few minutes, because it becomes readily apparent that they need to evacuate due to, oh, evil robots. (You know. No big deal. Just some evil robots.) Potts wants to stay until everyone else leaves but Caroline's having none of that. This isn't a damn ship. No one's going down with the Expo. It takes dragging, yelling, and threats of actual violence to get her into the damn car. Caroline's almost disappointed she doesn't actually get to shove Pepper Potts in the trunk of a car. Oh well. Maybe next crisis.

...Wait, she's still due to be fired. Shit. Anyway. One montage full of maniac stunt driving later, they're pulling back up to the Expo. Now that the robots aren't going to explode. Since that was a fucking thing apparently. Caroline tries not to look to smug when Pepper goes kind of grey in the face at that. Now it's time to... uh. Pick up the pieces, she supposes. Mostly Caroline wants to know if Tony's all right.

Comments

[anthony_e_stark]

The new reactor's gonna take some getting used to. A lot of getting used too, actually. Tony can still taste it in his mouth; he's hoping that'll fade... soon. The suit's running good. And so is, uh, Tony. He's not dead yet at least.

Crashing his own Expo wasn't really something he's happy about, but he'd be lying to himself if he didn't admit that ruining Hammer's day sounds great. And then the Angriest Russian in the Universe goes and ruin's everyone's day. It's ok though. It's fine. He and Rhodey have that covered, more or less. There's a lot of shooting and explosions. It's a Thing. They break a lot of the Hammerbots and then get to deal with Ivan in a big dumb suit; that goes as well as could be expected until Ivan blows himself up and also, uh. Everything else. Tony supposes he should have seen that kamikazee coming. It's a classic evil guy move. Every Hammeroid bot in the garden beeps ominously.

"Caroline? Pepper?" Stark's eyes dart around his HUD frantically. He rockets straight out of the dome so fast he feels the Gs even through the suit. Rhodey's not far behind.

Caroline responds prompty; they're fine, Caroline got them both out of there. Tony can briefly here Pepper in the background, yelling but muffled. He wonders briefly if Caroline got Pepper out by shoving her in the trunk.

Tony circles the Expo while it all gets spectacularly blown all to hell. It's... it's a lot. Eventually, a car comes back around and parks in an area of the Expo that is less still immediately On Fire. Tony lands by the sedan and takes his helmet off.

Pepper comes boiling out of the back seat of the sedan, yelling. Tony catches only around 50% of it. "--can't do this anymore! My body literally cannot handle the stress!"

"Can't do what?" Tony asks, while Pepper continues unabated.

"This!" She gestures wildly. "All of this! I can't do this, Tony! I never know if you're going to die, or explode, or tank the company. I quit!"

"Wait, you - you quit?" He repeats, in surprise though not as much bewilderment.

"I hereby resign as CEO," Pepper manages in between very deep breaths. "I'm done. I'm - I'm -" She waves Tony away as she steps back towards the car. "I need to sit down."

It takes Tony a moment to re-calibrate. "Okay," He starts, then continues louder; Pepper gesticulates back at him and shuts the sedan door behind her. "Okay. But, uh, no golden parachute."

It occurs then to Tony that Lichfield's been sitting still in the car - well, mostly in the car. The driver's side door is open, and she has one foot out. Tony sighs and walks over. "Are you okay? Are we - are we good? Are you also gonna quit, or..." He trails off. "I'm not actually going to fire you."

[lichfield]

Everything's probably mostly done exploding, so Caroline figures it's safe to drive them back to the Expo. There's gonna be a lot of... stuff that needs doing. She continues to pay as little attention to Pepper as possible, though she's honestly been pretty quiet for the last several minutes. They pull up, and Tony lands, and Pepper throws herself out of the car to yell some more.

Caroline pops the car door open and sticks one foot out, but she gets sidetracked. Pepper yelling is sometimes a little mesmerizing in a way Caroline can't quite describe. And she's... quitting? That's... huh. She blinks as Pepper flops back down into the backseat. And then shuts the door kind of at Tony. Huh.

She blinks again at Tony's sudden-only-to-her appearance by her door. Yeah okay. A lot has been happening today and also all the time. "Uh yeah, no, I--" Grimacing at herself, Caroline finally clambers up out of her ugly rental car. "Yeah, I'm good. After all that science I helped you do, you better not fire me," eventually pops out of her mouth. Yeah, that'll do.