"Ah-ha!" Pepper shouted triumphantly. "So it's a he! You leaked valuable information. And that narrows down the field..." She frowned after a moment. "...practically not at all."

She eyed the trainers with an unimpressed sort of air. "Mm-hm. And then you can get hypothermia in the winter when all the snow gets in 'em. We'll have to cut off your toes 'cause of all that extreme frostbite. It'll be like when we pretended to be Eskimos after that snowstorm."

Pepper had a brief moment where Adam's arm around her waist made her tense internally, her stomach clenching the way it would before taking a fall. Her mind caught up a second later and she remembered it was Adam, and then everything was all right. She was safe. Reaching up, she let the heel of her hand rest against his spine, her fingers tugging gently on the hair at the nape of his neck. "Guess we did. S'different but good, really. You're not gonna tell me who it is, though, are you?" Her mouth twitched a little bit, and she wondered why he might want to keep it a secret. "I always kind of wondered... well, with Brian I thought maybe.... It was like when he was takin' care of me, he didn't try to pull anythin'. Not that he would because he's kinda like the brother I never had, but..."