With their relationship as it had been of late-- that was, Pepper arbitrarily deciding to despise or fawn over him like his mother would in the days after a nasty fight with his dad, and that was only when Pepper deigned to grace him with her opinions and ideas at all, which was rarely-- Tony didn't feel any urge at all to be sympathetic to this latest burst of hysteria. He had his own hysterics to worry about, after all. Since the rough and likely mostly ineffective reassignment of everything he was supposed to have been doing for the next two days had been taken care of, his office remained still and undisturbed, lit only by the afternoon sun through the expansive windows that Tony hardly noticed. He sat behind his desk, staring intently at a monitor as he made mostly impotent attempts at furthering what little he knew about this developing situation in Russia. No one, it seemed, was about to talk about it.
"Are you going to give me any warning before harping at me?" was Tony's mumbled answer to Pepper's first question, focus still on his computer screen until Pepper demanded otherwise. He still only glanced at her, insisting, "I'm working, I'm busy--" as she talked, gesturing towards what obviously had him captivated, only to continue, "We changed the schedule, you know that, I have more important things to do than review accounts. You're all adults, you can decide for yourselves if you're spending money wisely. I promise you, the minute someone fucks it up, I'll be there to tell them." It was just his voice in the room by the time he finished, which appeared to make Tony quickly uncomfortable upon realizing it, hand dropping heavily onto the desk from where it had hovered in the air to make his point and attention returning sheepishly to Pepper. There was momentum there, where had the momentum gone? Why was she just looking at him like that?