If They Knew All About You

Intent Matters

They hadn't said a lot to each other, not after their talk the night before. It was possible that she was simply mad at him. Mad that after all these years when he had always made a point of being strong and risking his neck that this was the moment he was running away.

What else could you call this? He sure had felt like a coward who was just running away when he had ushered Pepper into a car without more than a breakfast coffee, off to LaGuardia. They hadn't spoken in the car. She had been on the phone with the LA headquarter. He had been on the phone with Neil, his East Coast realtor. Not that it mattered how he felt about what he was doing. This wasn't about him.

They had been on the plane for more than an hour now. More than an hour of silence after their calls, both staring at their devices. He was reading through the files FRIDAY was still steadily adding to the heap of unsorted information on the adoption agency. He had been doing just that even before the sun had come up. Pepper was doing the same. Not that she had told him. Not that it shouldn't have been obvious that she would, but every once and again he had seen files time-stamped with her initials after she had accessed them.

She was sitting opposite him, not next to him. Too far for him to reach out to her with the wide table between them, but close enough that he could study her. A comfy blanket slung around her shoulders, she had pulled her legs up onto the seat. Her posture did carry all the body language signs that told him she was keeping her distance deliberately. She probably was mad, though there was a chance that it wasn't just that. It was just as likely that there was a tinge of guilt as well. After all, there was a very solid reason, why he had rushed them out of the city at the first available take-off slot that morning.

He cleared his throat, eyes still on her. "I don't blame you, you know. I'd never blame you for wanting to talk to him."

Her eyes shot up at him, lips pressed close.

"What?" Tony tried to shrug but to his irritation his shoulders only did a slightly uncoordinated wobble, his body still to strung up with nerves and anxiety. "You think FRIDAY wouldn't tell me? That I'm not having her monitor the boy's every move?"

"He's desperate." She dropped the tablet in her lap, eyes intensely on him. "He doesn't want to lose you."

Tony waved her off. "We already had this discussion. We agreed—"

"We didn't agree, Tony. You decided."

"Fine. I decided. I decided on the one way there is, Pepper."

"Come on, that's not—"

"Stop. Please..." He shook his head, eyes not on her but the horizon outside the plane's window. "I'll not risk him and that's the end of it."

He had assumed that shutting her down like that would set the mood for the rest of the flight. Would reaffirm how irritated she was by his decision and that they would spend the rest of their trip in silence but as so often when it came to Pepper, she surprised him.

"He knows about Siberia."

His eyes darted over to her, his mouth opened to speak but his breath was caught in his throat, stunned by the sharp turn the conversation had taken. "That... That's not—"

"He knows more than I do."

Tony swallowed hard, but still sounded breathless. "Not because I told him."

"Tony, you—"

"You think I want him to know?" He dropped his own tablet at that, stinging eyes non-withstanding. "The last thing I wanted was for the kid to be pulled into any of that mess."