Pepper was extremely used to people with sleek, shiny edges who were entirely capable of presenting themselves as wounded when they were not, and whole when they were wounded. Thomas looked as if he had been struck, and she thought it was apt. Something she had liked, a great deal more than she had given credence to, had cracked ever so slightly. She had liked him and her judgement was flawed, and she ran a palm in a clean sweep over the slick of her hair in a gesture that looked as if it were better suited to the privacy of an office and one's own worries.
"Necessary." Her voice was low, haunted. It was necessary to take away choices. She looked at him, as he surmised her character, and yes, she agreed. She recognized herself in his summation and her smile was sad.
"I would. But now I am not loyal. And I won't be able to tell anyone that I cannot be trusted. I don't have very much. But why, why couldn't you ask them? Ask Steve, or Doctor Banner," Tony would have been as impossible and impenetrable to tackle, Pepper knew, that asking could not even have begun, "They who know. He - the Winter Soldier - I don't know anything." And faintly, she looked at her own hands, at the backs of them as she felt the shudder of the building respond to her own searching, "I trusted you."