Yeah, I probably did. He works for the FBI; we live in New York City. It's just been the two of us since I was six. We make a pretty good team. [She sounds fond, and tries to keep the sadness out of her tone. Pepper misses him so much it makes her chest hurt.] He's the reason I wanted to be a SHIELD agent and fight crime and everything. I've been trying to help him on cases since I was little, but there's this whole 'needing to be an adult' rule that he keeps bringing up.

[There's a small smile now. Pepper knows that legally she's not entitled to arrest people and do half the things she's done, including hack into the FBI servers repeatedly (but they made it so easy), but legality has never really stopped her from fighting for justice.]

He was here for a little while, last April, when we had that big influx of Foreigners. I was kinda distracted by him, so I didn't get to meet all the other people that came. [Like Hopeless, and Rover. She'd met Ghastly, though.] It was cool getting to introduce him to a few people I never thought he'd get to meet. Weird, but cool. He and Rhodey are probably the only reasons I want to go back home; I'd be okay staying here permanently, if they were here, too. There's people here I'd miss just as much if I were home.