help, fandom, help!

[flamingsword]

If you want to read my fic and hate spoilers, then skip this. But if you enjoy laughing at my pain (let's be honest, my pain is funny even to me) then feel free to witness my confusion below.

Basic fic premise: just after the fall of SHIELD, Natasha finds out about Yelena Belova's reconstructive surgery to look like her in order to infiltrate SHIELD's networks. Hard on the heels of this (only very slightly unsettling) news, Pepper reveals that she's been lying by omission about having superpowers the four months they've been dating. Pepper reveals this because Natasha is pretending to be emotionally stable despite her currently less than stellar emotional state (SHIELD/Yelena/her emotional confidantes being out of the country or unavailable).

So: if I let Pepper keep Extremis (and Extremis!Pepper is one of my favorite things, solid gold kink) then I'm not sure how to work that ideologically into the story from Pepper's point of view and keep my underlying theme of vulnerability and the need for trust. Maybe I can contrast her physical invulnerability with her higher emotional vulnerability after she killed Killian? Maybe Pepper feels outclassed being a glorified personal assistant dating OMG The World's Most Dangerous Spy? What would a normal person do here? Insert answer in comments. *points at comment button*

Most of the fic is written from Natasha's headspace because I had a complicated childhood (heh) and I'm better at writing her than Pepper. But there are a couple scenes that either have to be in Pepper's perspective or omniscient third person from nobody's perspective because they have to be a surprise to Natasha later. The problem with that being: I know how to make Natasha vulnerable, but Pepper is a normal, neurotypical person, and my powers of imagination are failing to bring me enough of what that's like to model the people in the situation. And if I can't model Pepper having the feels then I can't model a Natasha responding to her and I'm kinda stuck.

Do I make Pepper really anxious about revealing her secret and invent a reason for her fear? I could do that. That would increase her feelings of vulnerability and is a thing that normal people do, I am reasonably sure. Like 75%. I've read books where it happens? Or do I make her find out about Natasha's secret freaking out and have them fight about keeping secrets and write her vulnerability as the fear of losing relationships because of lack of trust? It would be difficult to write them fighting, but I could do it, and I have not seen any examples of two emotionally astute adults having an argument in any fandom, so maybe that needs to be written.

There needs to be a fic primer on How To Argue Like An Adult, and I could write that. Or you could write that. We could all write that! There needs to be a challenge where people write grown-up relationship problems. Kinda like Take Your Fandom To Work day, but with relationship troubles. I should poke a BNF and see if it gets traction.

Comments

[havocthecat]

I'm not sure which would be the best option, but! Extremis-having Pepper is perfect and is only better when paired with Natasha.

If you go with Natasha's secret freaking out, would her secret freaking out be expressed in other ways? Like where Natasha would be sensitive about other things instead? Or could Pepper's anxiety about revealing her secret be paired with her fear of being vulnerable to those who would want to use her for the Extremis? Which is partly what Killian wanted, on top of wanting her as a trophy. (Ew, so gross. So, so gross.)

So anyway, Pepper/Natasha is my favorite MCU femslash pairing, so I'm very much looking forward to this. (Trying to remember how reasonable some of my fictional arguments have been and I cannot for the life of me remember how they went. Huh. I should go and find them. And the unfinished series that was all about arguments and emotional awareness.)

Thank you! Feedback is better than pastry.

[flamingsword]

I have it written so far so that it looks like Natasha is freaking out over Yelena for the first two thirds of the fic until we have her admitting to herself that she's just avoiding freaking out that she's hurt that Pepper lied to her. Because that would be silly! She's a spy! People are basically dishonest creatures, and she knows that!

Somebody else already gave me the normal-person fear of Pepper's so now I think I can get this done before July.
*crosses all of the fingers until can't type*

Re: Thank you! Feedback is better than pastry.

[havocthecat]

This all sounds very exciting and I can't wait until it's done! :) Especially the Natasha freaking out part. Very few people write that well. I mean, it's hard to do, so I get that, but I love Natasha freaking out.

[rens_sanctuary]

The thing about anxious Pepper is she can get OOC fast. If I were writing Pepper, I'd make her mad about Natasha lying/hiding/whatever not honest thing she's doing and hurt. Pepper in canon doesn't strike me a fearful or anxious.

So how does mad Pepper look? Does she give the silent treatment or sulk? Does she yell or whisper? Does she do anything or avoid everything?

How does hurt Pepper look? Does she cry or hold it in? Does she let it show or hide it?

Having them fight about it: not sure that would go. I don't see either Natasha or Pepper canon versions as prone to fighting. I think they handle it like a mission debrief. What went wrong, why, and how they move forward.

I vote physical invulnerability and emotional vulnerability after killing Killian. YES!

I hope I helped a little.

[flamingsword]

The thing is, I can see her being anxious in certain circumstances that we haven't seen in canon, like her being the one to mess something up in a relationship, which she is, here. Usually we see her responding to Tony, the giant fuckup. And she doesn't even get that angry at him, she's usually irritated but distantly amused when he messes something up. At worst I can see her being hurt by Natasha keeping this from her, and at how she finds it out.

Pepper is an assertive, dominant personality and Natasha is borderline assertive/avoidant Gamma personality, so their dynamic is going to be complex. There's a lot of leeway for where things could go depending on what Natasha thinks is the best play at the time, and whether or not she thinks she can get away with directness, which is not her native language like it is mine. I't the hardest thing about writing her, for me.

I think I'm going to go to the Pepper "I could have waited a week, this could have been a lot easier on you, you didn't even have to tell me what was going on, I just needed to know it was a bad time" route.

[rens_sanctuary]

That last bit about the Pepper route is what I was trying to get at. You say you don't understand Pepper, but you DO. Better than I do. :D

[flamingsword]

And yes, it helps. Every time I get to talk to someone about it, it helps.

[shorti]

This is a really interesting premise and question! I agree with rens_sanctuary that neither of these women seem to be the arguing type. Pepper has always been the consummate business woman to me and I can imagine her being able to compartmentalize a lot. Even to her own detriment. So I'm coming at this from another way I guess. That these two are too rational about things. Until Pepper's emotional turmoil, which she is suppressing,manifests itself through Extremis and then then Nat has to step in and they HAVE to have a conversation.

[flamingsword]

See, I was going to go for Pepper using Extremis to heat up her hands to the temperature of melted candle wax to do sensation play-type things with Natasha. I hadn't considered making Pepper fearful enough to have that reaction by accident. Also, part of what I've got already written hinges on Tony and Bruce having stabilized the Extremis in Pepper's system already. I don't know if I want to rewrite that. But I agree that they are both too rational about their emotions for most tropey behavior.

I have JARVIS ratting Natasha out, since I can't really get her caught any other way and have her be in character as a good spy. She doesn't really have tells. It was super frustrating until I figured out how to tattle on her.

Huh. I think I am writing Pepper as though she's a friend of mine who has insecurities about being a Dom. Gentle Doms with insecurities FTW.

[shorti]

Oooh now you're making me think that it might not have to be Jarvis who catches Nat out but Pepper's enhanced abilities because of Extremis. She's got heightened reflexes that could also mean heightened input receptors that catches Nat's smallest reactions to things. Maybe Nat's not 100% happy about this and that triggers Pepper's insecurities about her power. Sorry, this probably isn't helpful considering you've already chosen a course of action! Ignore me.

[flamingsword]

In Agents of SHIELD, there's an apparatus that is supposed to be able to tell if someone is lying and it specifically says even Agent Romanoff in the show. It has to measure skin conductivity, heart rate, breathing, pupil dilation and EEG, implying it necessarily has to use all of those to tell when she is lying.

That would be a lot of information to be taking in passively, and Pepper doesn't have PTSD. She's not hypervigilant like Natasha. She could do it, probably, if she were watching for it, with her Extremis-heightened senses, but that much information all the time is not something the brain is designed for. Pepper's brain could probably withstand it, but it's not going to be in the automatic settings. She has thirty years of experience being a baseline human to contend with.