Pepper sprinted down the hall, sliding her feet out of the soft-soled slippers so her bare feet would grip the floor better. She looked ahead of her for any refuge or barricade that might provide some time for a plan, and her eyes fell upon the fire alarm. As she ran toward it, there was a soft but noticeable popping sound, and the lights in the hallway went out.
It's not going to work, she thought as she smacked her hand against the fire alarm and yanked down. It didn't work.
No, because Loki used some stupid Asgard technology to magically shut everything down, she thought. Because Asgard stuff is so good and so smart that it does anything you want and there's nothing us dumb little humans can do. It's like the sonic screwdriver. I HATE DOCTOR WHO!
Despite Bruce's many invitations, Pepper had never been able to like his favorite nerd show. She had always hated shows like that, where the wise, all-knowing alien led the simple, short-lived human around like a pet. Just once, why couldn't the aliens be dumb as posts? And there was one other thing, one other thing so relevant and frustrating. The most damning reason Pepper had never been able to stomach Doctor Who was that she hated English accents.
Stairs!
Loki had every advantage imaginable in this situation, but one weapon immediately came to Pepper's mind. While Loki might be stronger, and faster, and probably smarter, he was also ridiculously vain. While he could tolerate running down a hallway, he would surely balk at the idea of scuttling madly down the stairs like a tap dancer. He would slow to a majestic walk, giving her time to put some distance between them.
Pepper stopped so suddenly she almost fell forward when she reached the stairs. She grabbed the door handle and yanked.
Motherf….
She'd warned Tony not to wire the doors to the mainframe. "Then you can do this!" he'd said, showing how the doors opened when he clapped his hands. "It's like Star Trek!"
"What if there's a fire?" she'd asked.
"There's a manual fallback, of course," he'd said.
"Those never work," she'd said, wondering if he'd ever even seen The Towering Inferno.
Those never work, Tony!
Pepper abandoned the door, knowing that even though there was likely a way to coax it open, she simply didn't have the time. Sure enough, as she resumed running down the hall, she saw Loki's tall frame pass the doorway and his head turn toward her.
"Shy, Miss Potts? Clearly not, if you're Stark's woman," he said. To her horror, he ran lightly instead of walking after her.
Pepper tamped down the panic, telling herself to slow down and think. Things looked bad, but she had some options. She knew every room of this building, including Tony's little idiosyncrasies and in-jokes he built in. She knew which rooms were dead ends and which led to other rooms she could escape out of. If she stayed ahead of Loki for long enough and got to somewhere she had a few minutes, she could find a way to make a signal. Stark Tower was in New York, after all, not the middle of nowhere. Someone would see it.
Someone already has seen it.
Loki didn't arrive subtly. He smashed through a window. There weren't any alarms, since he turned them off somehow, but surely Tony would be alerted if his entire building lost power. He was probably already on his way. She just needed to buy time.
Unlike the heavy double doors that led to the stairs, the conference room door was an ornate faux-wood specimen with a glass window so people could see if a meeting was in progress. Pepper grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall as she ran. When she reached the door, she smashed it through the glass, reaching through to unlock and open the door.
The conference room held nothing but a fancy long table and the accompanying chairs. However, it was ideal for Pepper's purposes. Tucked into one corner was a printing room with office machines and whatnot so conference members could print materials or whatever boring business people needed. Only people as trusted as Pepper knew that set into the walls, there was another door. This one led to a tiny wine closet, so Tony could excuse himself from a boring meeting to "grab some materials" and take a minute to make a drink and read some memes on his cell phone.
Inside the printing room, there were the normal scanners and printers and such. Close to the door, there was a table-sized receiver for some new transmitting system that had been all the rage a few years ago but never took off. Pepper crouched behind it, knowing exactly how stupid a hiding place it was and counting on Loki to overestimate her and think she'd gone to the much more secluded wine cellar. She clutched the fire extinguisher she'd never thought to put down, waiting for Loki to arrive.
She saw his shadow first. Around the edge of the machine, she could barely see a long leg step into the room. While the handle to the liquor cellar was subtle and the door matched the room's paint, it didn't escape Loki's sharp eyes. He strode across the room in three long steps, wrapping his hand around the handle and pulling the door open.
"Looking for somewhere private, my dove?" he asked, not knowing he addressed an empty room. "Strange, so am I." Pepper's mind turned away from what she knew Loki intended.
Pepper slowly stood, her legs burning with the awkward movement. She crept toward the door, intending to sneak out as Loki rifled through the small room, hopefully knocking some bottles around and disguising her noise.
Loki leaned back suddenly, shutting the door and turning toward her. The crack, she thought sickly, noting too late the door's tiny giveaway. Her mouth went dry and her heart shuddered as Loki's eyes stopped on her. He smiled, his angular face looking even more elfin when he did. He opened his mouth to say something. Pepper snapped up her arm, pointed the fire extinguisher nozzle at him, and pulled the trigger.