extremis Pepper

[fiveforsilver]

I saw this on tumblr recently and nobody there seemed to know what the fic being referenced is, so (assuming it is a real fic), maybe you amazing people can help:

#but in one fic i read recently #bucky keeps questioning why tony talks about his girlfriend like she can breathe fire #because they’ll be fighting a monster and tony legit thinks the next level up is getting pepper #and bucky’s like #NO DUDE YOU’RE THE SUPERHERO #but then it turns out no pepper really does breathe fire sometimes tony was right (tags via ifeelbetterer)

Thanks!

Comments

[larawander5.livejournal.com]

I think it is this fic
http://archiveofourown.org/works/1762843

Specifically, this section
"He does like you, you know," Pepper felt compelled to add. "It isn't that."

"Well, he's not wrong," Bucky said. "I'm dangerous."

"So am I."

The look he shot her was brief, the blatant skepticism just short of rude.

Pepper sighed; she understood everyone's disbelief, but it was annoying to have to prove it every time. She picked up a scrap of plastic and extended herself very carefully, unleashing a yellow tongue of flame. The plastic curled, melted, turned black and bubbled away on her fingertips.

She raised her eyes fast enough to catch Bucky's skeptical look fade to open wonder before he managed to veil it behind worldly cynicism.

"I take it no one's told you about me and Extremis yet," she said, and he shook his head.

So she told him, as the morning sun turned the world around them to molten gold, while they worked side by side with their hands in the rich dark soil. She told him the story of a woman who was unmade, taken apart and put back together differently -- a woman who died, falling into fire, and came back not quite the same.

"I didn't know that," Bucky said softly. "About you."

"They found a way to stabilize it so that it won't kill me, but they're not sure if they can take it out of me. I know Bruce is still working on that, but ... I don't know if I want it gone. It's complicated. There's a part of me that really wants to be me again, and then there's a part of me that says this is me, and taking it away would ..." She hesitated, combing her fingers through the dirt. "I was going to say make me less, but I don't think it's even that, exactly. It's more that it feels like this is mine, all the terrible parts and the good parts, and sometimes I'm as angry at the idea of having it taken away from me as I am that they did it to me in the first place."

The only other person she'd ever explained it out loud to before was her therapist. Somehow it was different saying it to someone who wasn't paid to listen, someone she saw more often than once a week for an hour in a controlled setting.

"Yeah," Bucky said. He sank his metal hand into the soil up to the knuckles and closed it slowly, dragging the dark loamy dirt between his fingers. "That's what it's like."

[fiveforsilver]

That sounds like it might be it. Thank you!

[fiveforsilver]

You know, I don't know if it's the one that was being referred to. Tony and Bucky don't talk to each other at all, there are no monster/villain fights, and no real mention of fire-breathing.

But regardless, that was a great fic and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it!