"Oh, that is beautiful!"

The Doctor's voice filters across the room to the corner where Rose and the ginger haired woman named Pepper sit. Rose has her legs tucked up on the couch and Pepper sits next to her, legs deftly crossed at the ankle with a PDA in one hand and a sandwich balanced rather precariously in the other. Rose eyes it suspiciously.

Pepper hits a button on the PDA and it makes a happy pinging sound. She sighs.

"Do you ever get tired of that?" Rose asks and rips off a bit of the pretzel in her hand. She chews thoughtfully.

Pepper looks over at her and quirks an eyebrow. "Actually, I think I'd go out of my mind without it." She pauses, looks over at the two men on the opposite side of the room and says, "I like order."

"Not me," Rose objects and swallows a rather large chunk of pretzel. She chokes, feels her eyes start to water and takes a shaky swig from the bottle at her side. "Can't stand everything all organized. I like spontaneity."

"I can see that." And Pepper almost smiles. Her lips quirk up at the corners and Rose laughs. Watches the woman's eyes dart back to the corner of the room where the Doctor stands, hands lovingly outstretched and smoothing over the surface of Mr. Stark's metal suit.

Rose takes another bite of her pretzel and says around it, "Y'know, he's always like that. Give him something shiny and even the least bit technical and he's all over it like a kid on Halloween. If it weren't so endearing it'd be ridiculous."

Rose listens to the technical jargon being rambled off across the room at light speed as Pepper darts one neat fingernail across the keypad of her PDA.

"Really, that is--that is fantastic. Simply fantastic. And just look at that coolant system blimey is that a stationary flux rotator?"

Stark's head is buried in the middle half of the suit so Rose only manages to hear half of his muffled reply. "--ing incredible isn't it?"

"Honestly, it's brilliant. Never seen anything like it. Weeell," he amends, pulling his square glasses from his pocket smoothly and slipping them onto the bridge of his nose. "Except for in my ship of course. Oh, you should see it. Go for a ride in my blue box sometime."

Stark pulls his head out and comes back with a complicated string of multi-colored wires wrapped around his neck. The blue light at his chest glows and Rose narrows her eyes at it. Wonders why the Doctor hasn't said anything about it yet. "Sorry, don't swing that way." He replies smoothly and Rose has to bite her lip hard to restrain having a laugh at the Doctor's confused expression.

Pepper sets her PDA to the side with a quiet hesitation that makes Rose nervous for her. The woman seriously needs a holiday. Like on another planet where PDA's don't get service. Rose shoves her super phone further into her pocket with what she thinks is nonchalance but is probably rather blatant.

"I know the feeling," Pepper commiserates, her voice quiet and unassuming under the low hum of machinery. Rose sets the rest of her pretzel aside and tries to rub the crumbs off her pants. Fails miserably and ends up with grease stains at the knees instead.

"So I had this mate," she starts talking because she feels it's deserved. Feels it's something needed by the way Pepper's eyes roam, almost too casually, to the smooth line of her boss's back. "She worked for this bloke, some big legal firm near Canary Wharf. Anyway, she ended up getting way too involved, had her whole life wrapped up in this relationship she'd mostly built up in her own head because she was too afraid to just go for it. And it was a waste of a life, really." She pauses, considers the weight of her words and the heavy look the redheaded woman is now giving her. Wide eyed--maybe shock. Probably closer to fear.

Rose sighs, gives in. "Cause he had one hell of an ass."

The joke almost falls flat, and would have if it hadn't been for the sheer relief that seemed to almost pour out of Pepper as she leaned forward suddenly, touched Rose's arm almost companionably, and laughed. Rather loudly, actually and with an endearing little snort at the end that wrinkles her nose.

The sound triggers a noise from across the room, something suspiciously like gas being released into the air and before she can turn her head to investigate she hears, "Right. Well, probably shouldn't have unplugged that bit then."

"You think?"

Rose and Pepper tilt their heads at exactly the same moment, just in time to see the metal suit jump six feet in the air on its own, propelled by god only knows what. Pepper swears under her breath and jumps up quickly, incredibly quickly, Rose notes, for a woman wearing six inch heels, and darts forward. Rose grabs her arm to stop her.

"Wouldn't worry about it," She placates, pulling the woman back a few paces. "Honestly, I'd just let them handle it. Things tend to--" she's interrupted by a loud banging noise like a gunshot and all four of them duck simultaneously.

"We should probably--" the Doctor's voice cuts through and Rose looks up to see him standing off to one side while Tony Stark ducks wildly to the other as the suit wings by, nearly clipping his shoulder on the way.

"UPSTAIRS, NOW!" Stark shouts and Pepper and Rose bolt without question.

Behind them the Doctor rambles, "Well, other then that faulty spring release which I may have actually set to attack instead of defend, come to think of it--I'd say it's coming along smashing." 

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