Worlds Apart

Chapter 16

In the days following, things seemed to go back to normal, at least on Max's end. She knew that things were still tense on Pepper's end (if not because she'd seen the movies than because Pepper had barely messaged her in the last two days), but unfortunately there wasn't much that she could do to help her friend.

So when she clocked off from her shift and saw Pepper's caller ID light up her phone's screen, she was happier than usual to hear from her. Maybe things had finally started dying down for her and she wanted to do something together that night. When Max answered the call, she smiled as she pressed her phone up to her ear and exited the building through its large front doors.

"Hey, Pepper!" she greeted. "How's it going?"

"Hey, Max," she heard Pepper's voice say. From the way her tone sounded, Max could tell that she was exhausted and trying to hide it. "How was your shift?"

"It was fine," Max answered honestly. "Nothing super crazy happened today; just a normal, mundane day filled with upkeeping firewalls and answering emails. What about you?"

"Another long, mundane day of cleaning up Tony's messes," Pepper answered, then sighed. "Sorry, that was a little out of nowhere."

"No, it's okay. I can't imagine how much work you've had to do, especially during these last couple of days," Max replied.

Pepper scoffed in response. "Listen, you wouldn't happen to still be in the building, would you?"

"I just stepped outside the doors, but I can go back inside if you need me to, why?"

"Okay, so I still have a few hours of phone calls and meetings ahead of me and I have some paperwork I need dropped off at Tony's house, and I swear I wouldn't normally ask this of you if I wasn't so desperate, especially because I know you just got off of your own shift and-"

"Do you need me to drop it off for you?" Max asked, politely cutting off Pepper's rambling.

"...Would you mind? I just...even if I wasn't insanely busy right now, I cannot deal with Tony right now."

"Of course I don't mind," Max insisted. "Remember when I said if you needed anything I'd be there? I wasn't just saying that to be nice."

"Max, you are a saint," Pepper said. "Thank you so much. And I definitely owe you a drink sometime later this week when this whole mess hopefully calms down."

"You don't owe me anything, but I'll accept your company if you're offering and have the time."

Pepper laughed. "That works, too. And if it's easier for you, I can send Happy to pick you up so that you don't have to take a taxi all the way over to Malibu."

"If he's not already busy, yeah, that would be great."

"Excellent; as soon as we get off the phone I'll give him a call. I'll see you in a couple minutes then?"

"See you in a minute," Max replied. She hung up, slipped her phone into her purse, and turned around to head back inside.

Thankfully, the walk up to Pepper's office was a relatively easy one, since her office was close to where the elevator came out on her floor, and Max arrived at her friend's office in no time. When she arrived at the room, Pepper was just getting off the phone.

"Max, hey," Pepper greeted her. She picked up a small stack of files off her desk and held it out in front of her as Max approached the desk. "These are the files that need to get to Tony's." She handed them over to Max. "Thank you so much, again. You're seriously saving me from having to do another hour or two of work tonight."