Fic - Days Like These (Pepper, Tony/Pepper) pg-13, 1/1
Title: Days Like These
Summary: They've gotten very good at this - this avoidance, this constant progression and regression of one step forward, five steps back.
Rating: pg - 13
Author's Notes: 4,000 words. Movie-verse. First fic in this fandom. All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not. Thanks to Libby for the beta. Con-crit is a lovely, lovely thing.
In Dubai, when she’d found him broken and bloody, she’d pulled him out of the suit and patched him up and said nothing. He’s Tony, her boss, her friend, and even though he had changed since he’d gotten back from Afghanistan, even though they’d changed (together, separately, she doesn’t recognize the difference anymore) there was that line, blurred but still there, always prevalent and Pepper is a professional (and tries so hard not to be that woman) and she toes it, yes, but at the same time she doesn’t dare cross it.
After, on the flight back he nurses a scotch and she clicks clicks clicks on her blackberry and when she looks up he’s staring at her.
“I just have to, okay? I need to do this. I don’t know any other way.”
Pepper didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
It’s why this, them, works so damn well.
They just know.
+
“Fuck, Pepper. That hurts.”
Pepper pauses, q-tip poised above her boss’s eyebrow as she arches her own. “I’ve had worse cuts than this from shaving, Mr. Stark. Stop being a baby.”
“I wasn’t being a baby.”
“Oh, really?”
“I was just merely… commenting on your sudden abrasive technique when it comes to playing Florence Nightingale.”
A dry chuckle, and she presses deeper into the cut than she means to. “Florence Nightingale? You’re writing a fascinating version of history here.”
Tony winces and glares out of the corner of his eye. “You’re right. You are much hotter.”
Pepper smirks. “Good to know.”
“And you wear stilettos better than, let’s face it, half the fuckin’ female population and,” he stops talking abruptly, leaning back to look at her fully, eyes roaming over her from head to toe. His eyes shoot up to hers and she blushes in spite of herself. “Whoa, whoa, whoa you were not wearing that earlier.”
“Pity the person who tries to get things past you, Mr. Stark.”
“Potts,” he says, lazy grin in place as he leans back in his chair. “You look… good.”
Pepper refuses to look him in the eye because the thing about Tony is, well, he’s hot. And she’s a woman, she can admit that freely, so when he says things like that, it does something to her insides that it shouldn’t, can’t and when Pepper replies with a cool, “I know,” smirk in place, the blush imbedded into her skin betrays her.
If Tony notices, he doesn’t comment.
They’ve gotten very good at this - this avoidance, this constant progression and regression of one step forward, five steps back
“You didn’t have to get all dressed up to come over and take care of little ‘ole me, you know. Not that I’m complaining because your legs in that dress look,” his eyes meet hers and he clears his throat, pausing.“Really, really long. Long. I was going to say Long. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
She smirks and moves onto the next cut. There was a fight against a missile of some sort (and Pepper keeps moving and moving because jesus, a missile and there are some things she just can’t get used to) and his body is covered in a million different tiny little cuts and bruises.
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t?”
“I had a date.”
“A date?”
“You knew this.”
He thinks about it for a second. “I did?”
“Remember when I came down and told you that I was leaving because I had plans, and you said, and I quote, okay, Potts, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do and I replied that well, that wouldn’t be much, but I’ll sure try my damnedest and you smiled that insufferable little smile and then I left?”
Tony looks at her a beat longer than usual and he’s trying his hardest not to let that corner of his mouth twitch upwards. Naturally, she cracks first, her own lifting up just slightly.
“You remember all that?”
“You pay me to remember things, Mr. Stark.”
“I pay you to remember my smile?” He grins cheekily, looking awfully pleased with himself. Pepper rolls her eyes. “Are we going to have a heartfelt moment here when you tell me I have five smiles or some bullshit like that and you tell me that you find me completely and utterly irresistible.”
“In your dreams.”
Tony grins and it’s all teeth. “Naturally,” he says, and then after a moment, “So, you like my smile.”
“That is not what I said.”
“You really did. It’s okay, you can admit it. I’m cool with that. Would it make you feel better if I told you that I liked yours, too? Even the playing field a little bit?”
Pepper sighs, long and suffering and knows better, so she just lets it go. They fall into a silence and she reaches for a mini band-aide, opening it with nimble fingers and placing it on top of the gash near his brow. She’s on auto-pilot almost, fingers smoothing the ridges of the plastic out perfectly. The feel of his skin under her finger tips, warm and soft, the sight of his body covered in bruises barely gets to her anymore.
They do this a lot.
“There,” she says, taking a step backwards. He hops off the chair and saunters over to the wet bar to pour himself a scotch. She reaches for her coat.
“So,” he begins after a thick swallow, waving a hand in-between them.“How was it?”
“It?”
Another swallow. “Your date.”
She tries not smile at the acridness dripping off the words. “It was nice.”
“Just nice? For that dress I sure as hell hope it was better than nice.”
“Oh-kay, it was better than nice.”
“That’s good.”
A tiny smile plays at the corner of her lips. He sounds jealous and her skin tingles with satisfaction.
“Thank you.”
“You deserve better than nice,” he says. “That’s all I’m saying.”
They stare at each other again, distance and silence between them, and there’s that look again, wistful almost, and it’s probably the wine from dinner, but she swears it’s almost as if Tony is looking right through her.
It unnerves her. She’s the first to look away.
(This, too, inevitably, they do a lot.)
“Will that be all, Mr. Stark?” she asks, grasping for familiar ground as she idly plays with a button on her coat.
The smile on his face fades and he cocks his head to the side slightly.
“That will be all, Miss Potts.”
She turns on her heel and grabs her clutch and makes it all the way to the door before his voice stops her.
Pausing, hand on the glass and she watches his reflection in it, the opening and closing of his mouth. Another pause and she braces herself, ridiculously hopeful for reasons she can’t explain. He shakes his head at the last moment and turns back towards the bar to pour himself another drink.
“Good night, Miss Potts.”
Pepper sighs softly. “Good night, Mr. Stark.”
+
Tony tells her once, somewhere after his return and before Obadiah’s betrayal that as the months weaned on during Afghanistan he kept forgetting things: the taste of a good single malt scotch, the way his mouth watered at the thought of a good American burger, his mother’s voice.
But her laugh, he tells her without looking in her direction and his left hand fisted on top of his thigh, he could remember with distinct clarity, the sound drifting into his subconscious at the most oddest of times.
“You should laugh more, Potts,” he tells her, like he’s talking about the weather and she’s not sure what to say to that so she says nothing.
He never mentioned Afghanistan before that, and he doesn’t mention it after, either, and she’s glad almost, because she’s not quite sure she wants to know.
+
“So what’s his name?” Tony asks the next morning while she’s straightening his tie. He’s got the board in less than five minutes, so naturally he’s stalling.
She smoothes the lapels of his suit absently. “Who?”
“The guy.”
Pepper raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“The date. The dress with the legs,” he gestures his hands wide and sweeping, and narrows his eyes. “Who is he?”
“Mr. Stark --”
“I’m allowed to know.”
Her blackberry dings like it so often does and she steps away, reaching for it out of habit. “His name is Tommy.”
Tony rolls his eyes. “Tommy? What the fuck kind of name is that? Is he five? Potts, I had no idea you were so scandalous.”
Pepper rolls her eyes and barely looks up. “He is not five. And his name is Thomas. And there is nothing scandalous at all about our relationship.”
“Shame.”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Baiting me.”
“You wound me with your lack of faith,” he leans back against the edge of desk and fiddles with his tie and if Tony Stark was the type of person who had nervous habits, Pepper assumes that is his. She’s still clicking her fingers away against the keys of her blackberry and doesn’t look up when he continues, “What’s he do?”
Sighing, she finally slides the object out of her hands and onto his desk. “Tony…”
“What?” he asks innocently, holding his hands up in defense. He does that thing where he runs his hands over his goatee - he forgot to shave this morning and it’s looking a little rough around the edges and damn it if she didn’t find it just a tad bit sexy - and she looks away. “I’m nearly a friend inquiring about his friend’s personal life. Where’s the crime?”
“Nothing is ever that simple with you.”
“Well, right now it is.”
“He’s a doctor,” she finally concedes and Tony looks almost disappointed.
“Well, that’s… nice.”
“Yes.”
“A little bland though, if you ask me. I mean the long hours and the pay’s not that good. What kind of doctor is he, anyway?”
She replies, “Cardiac surgeon,” without missing a beat and kind of likes the way Tony looks almost beat at that.
In another world, with two different people, maybe it would have actually meant something.
“Tell me, Potts,” he begins, turning towards the mini bar, “what is it with women and doctors that throws them into a hormonal frenzy?”
Pepper shakes his head and watches the way his hands smooth over the glass tumbler as he pours a hefty amount of amber liquid into it. The straight line of his back.
“It’s his job to save people’s lives. It’s noble.”
“Noble?” Tony snorts and takes a long swig from his drink.
“Yes.”
“It’s my job to save people’s lives, Potts. I don’t see you going around and waxing poetic about my nobility.”
She reaches forward and snatches the glass out of his hand and places it to the side. “It’s technically not your job,” she smirks and glances at her watch. “And you are officially late.”
“What else is new?”
+
Her mother had asked her once, a few years into the job, if she really wanted this to be the most important thing she does with her life.
Pepper had replied that she didn’t really know, but it had to be better than doing nothing, right? It was a job, and when she’d met Tony she was just another entry-level employee, with a tiny cubicle and a shitty apartment she couldn’t even afford who just happened to be extremely good with numbers. The stability, she had explained to her mother, had to outweigh everything else, right?
What it had really boiled down to, even then, was that she believed in Tony. Saw the good in him underneath the dry cleaning and drinking and egotistical smugness. Call it the last bit of naiveté she had left after trading in small town living for the big city life, but she honestly believed they were doing good things, great things.
(And yeah, alright, the money is good, too. Really good and when you come from nothing and build your way up, it’s hard to look at things like that objectively anymore.)
When she thinks about it, Pepper knows that she probably should have quit years ago.
No one would have blamed her really (especially later, after he came back from the cave and built a suit of armor to hide away in, because what sane person would have actually stayed?) but she didn’t, and she won’t, so it’s neither here or there.
Just another part of the vicious cycle of give (mostly her) and take (always him) that they’re stuck in.
+
They’re back in his office after the meeting, her briefing him for the rest of the day - a trip down to R&D, a phone conference with Rhodey, which she knows would accomplish nothing but has for the sheer formality of it all, a meeting with this supplier and that backer - and Tony is yanking at his tie and slipping it over his head. When she looks up, the first thing her eyes land on is the cuts she’d patched up from the night before, glaring in her direction under the soft sunlight.
Without the tie, she can see the soft glow of the arc reactor, too, and Pepper stares a beat longer than usual.
“Tell me,” he begins, sliding into his chair. “When did my board start disliking me so much?”
Pepper’s blackberry dings and she looks down at the object in her hands. “I don’t think they’ve ever really been your biggest fans, Mr. Stark.”
Tony raises an eyebrow, and she somehow knows this without looking. “Well that was frank.”
“Just being honest.”
“I think I like it better when you lie to me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Well, either way, now I think they just hate me. And they shouldn’t. I do sign their paychecks and yours, too, the last time I checked.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m serious. Most bosses wouldn’t be this understanding about the amount of backtalk you give me.”
Pepper finally looks up. “I think you like my backtalk, Mr. Stark,” she grins. “So that’s an empty threat.”
Tony grins wildly and props his feet on top of his desk. “I like it when you get feisty.”
Her eyes roll out of habit. “You have a thing tonight. Happy’s picking you up at eight. Please try to be ready. If you show up and behave yourself, it will do wonders with your board members.”
“Pepper,” he starts, his voice a smidge away from a whine.
“Don’t start.”
“I hate these things.”
“Everybody hates these things, but everyone still has to go.”
He sits up a bit straighter at that. “Are you included in that generalization?”
“Yes.”
His eyes light up. “Awesome. What are you wearing? Something Blue? Backless? Or wait, something short? Can I get a visual here?”
Pepper ignores him. “This is, however, a working event. You will be on your best behavior - especially at the mess you pulled at that last one.”
“Okay, you know what? I am so sick and tired of everybody bringing that up. All I did was suggest a few songs. It was bored and I needed something to entertain me.”
“And you thought Hot in Here was an appropriate suggestion?”
“It’s quite a catchy party song, Pepper. Everyone always discounts it because it’s old, but it never loses its ability to brighten a social function. Ever. Fact.”
“Not when the people at said function are eighty years old.”
Tony waves a hand in the air. “Technicality.”
+
Alright, let’s talk about it, because quite frankly it can’t go on ignored:
Those three months were the longest months of her life.
It started with a phone call at four AM, Rhodey’s voice in her ear: We lost him. She had blinked away sleep and confusion and let the implications settle heavily in her chest and she doesn’t remember anything else but the quiet, mournful I’m sorry, Pepper that rang in her head for days afterwards.
Those days turned into weeks, those weeks into months and while he was lost, she thinks she lost a bit of herself, too.
Every day she would wake at dawn, slide on her stilettos and Dolce and kept moving, moving, moving because it was just simply easier than admitting the alternative.
And when he came back, yeah, she cried and thanked a God she doesn’t really know, and wanted nothing more than to hug him tight and never let go.
(She didn’t of course, just sits a little closer than before, counts his breaths as easily as she counts her own and blames it on the sheer need to feel him next to her, have some proof that he’s alive and well and with her.)
He walked onto that tarmac an inevitably different man, and when he looked at her and she looked at him and her heart did that funny little thing where it lodges in her throat and threatened to burst, the taste of a new beginning was on the tip of her tongue.
And it was like Pepper could breathe again, finally, the air leaving her in a long whoosh, filling the vast space between him.
+
“I’m hungry.”
“You just had lunch.”
Tony waves a hand and leans forward towards Happy. “Stop at the nearest Burger King. I want a burger and fries. Oh, and a milkshake, too. Chocolate.”
Pepper punches the keys of her blackberry. Four o’clock and the day wasn’t even mostly over yet. “When you get sick, I’m not bringing you Pepto Bismol at four in the morning again,” she warns. “You can just forget about it.”
“That was one time.”
“Doesn’t matter, I’m not doing it again.”
“Isn’t that in your job description as, you know, my personal assistant?” He asks. “I’ll let you have some of my milkshake,” he tries again, his voice teetering on the edge of sing song and she can’t help the corner of her mouth that twitches upwards.
“Nick Fury has called six times today,” she not so subtly segues, and Tony immediately groans. “They’re getting antsy about the specs you were supposed to send them last week. Are you planning on ever calling him back? You’ve cancelled on Reed Richards three times this week, too; he’s only in town until Sunday, you know.”
“Why does everyone get up in arms about Reed Richards?”Tony asks in a way of avoiding the question. “I’m just as smart he is. Hell, smarter. He’s not even remotely cool, either. Socially retarded almost,” he turns to her then, face serious, and Pepper can barely contain her smile. “Tell me, Potts, is it the hair? ‘Cause I could go gray. I think I could rock it, I mean, I totally have the bone structure.”
“I find it highly amusing that you are jealous of Reed Richards.”
“I’m not jealous. I don’t do jealous.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t.” There’s a pause and Pepper is entirely too thankful as she turns back to her blackberry. Then, naturally, he continues, “I mean sure he has a few more degrees than I do -“
“A few?” she questions because she just can’t help herself and when she looks up again he’s all but glaring in her direction.
“Okay,” he starts, pointing an accusing finger towards her. “I am now revoking my offer of to share the Chocolate milkshake. Nope, no more. Don’t even try to do the pouty face because it absolutely not going to work.”
Pepper just laughs.
+
That moment on the tarmac, she’ll decide years down the line when she’s old and gray and has time to ponder these things, is the turning point. The moment.
The deciding step over the line she’d toed so gracefully for years.
She never looks back.
+
Doing her best to avoid her boss, Pepper weaves in and out of an endless sea of bodies and nodding a hello to those she knows, even those who she doesn’t, and grabs a glass of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray, gulping half of it down in nearly a second flat. You didn’t work for Tony Stark and not pick up a few things, you know.
As she turns around to retreat to a corner, he’s there, of course, grinning that infuriating grin and snatching the glass out of her fingers and downing the rest for her. He promptly passes it off to someone else, who gladly takes it and Pepper shouldn’t be surprised, but she is.
“Sure,” she deadpans. “Go ahead. I didn’t want that.”
“Let’s dance,” he says, and before she even has a chance to argue he’s tugging her towards the dance floor, beat changing to something softer as her hand reluctantly finds his.
“You have people to schmooze. Deals to close. Have you even talked to the CEO of Jefferson Pharmaceuticals about the impending buyout? This is a working event, Tony. We don’t have time for this.”
“For this, Miss Potts, I’ll make time,” he grins and it’s too much - something pools in the pit of her stomach. Pepper looks away. “You know,” he begins again, leaning in close, and she can feel his breath on her skin, heating her to the core. She forgets how to breathe for a second. “I forgot to tell you, but you look fantastic. Absolutely ravishing. I prefer the little backless numbers, but you know I’m pretty sure you could wear a potato sack and still look great.”
“Potato sack, really?”
“Sure,” he pulls back to look at her, grin in place. “A little tiny one, you know. Show a little thigh, a little skin. Have I ever mentioned to you that you have great thighs?”
Blushing, Pepper raises an eyebrow. “Are you drunk?”
Tony snickers. “Unfortunately, no. I am, however, hungry. That chicken was practically rubber. How much money did we give to this damn thing? You’d think they’d be able to afford something edible.”
“You’re always hungry.”
“Well, yeah, but still.”
A moment, a pause, and he leads her around the dance floor like they’ve been doing this their entire lives.
“We should do this more often.”
“What?”
“Dance, Potts. What else? Waltz. Tango. Although, to be quite honest, I’ve always had a soft spot for the cha cha.”
Pepper giggles. “You know how to cha cha?”
“I knew a girl once. A dancer -“
“ - I’m sure you’ve known plenty -“
“Hey, hey, none of that. You’re ruining the moment.”
“We’re having a moment?”
“Of course we are. We’re dancing, Potts. Magical things can happen when people dance.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes.”
He looks down at her and smiles, actually full out smiles, that gleam in his eyes he usually gets when he’s gotten the design to his newest project just right. It makes her smile, too.
“Remind me to cancel your subscription to Stars. You’ve been watching too many chick flicks,” she jokes and he chuckles softly, the sound warming the skin of her neck, vibrating in her bones.
The beat changes. He doesn’t let go.
+
Truth: Pepper is just about three quarters of the way in love with Tony Stark. She knows it and she’s pretty sure he knows it, too. Flash backwards about a year to blue backless dresses and dancing and some very close talking and sure, she’d been the one to lean in, but her reasons for pulling away still stand.
Maybe she loved him before Afghanistan, during - she sure as hell loves him now, but the fact of the matter is that he’d come back an unavoidably different, better man (though Pepper will admit she’s never considered his character flaws as a point against him because he is who he is and a part of her knows she wouldn’t want it any other way) and while he clung to her before, she is deathly afraid that he clings to her now because he foolishly believes that she and being a better man are forever intertwined.
Another truth: Pepper holds off on that last quarter, really, because she’s waiting for him to realize they’re not.
Summary: They've gotten very good at this - this avoidance, this constant progression and regression of one step forward, five steps back.
Rating: pg - 13
Author's Notes: 4,000 words. Movie-verse. First fic in this fandom. All mistakes are mine. These characters, however, are not. Thanks to Libby for the beta. Con-crit is a lovely, lovely thing.
In Dubai, when she’d found him broken and bloody, she’d pulled him out of the suit and patched him up and said nothing. He’s Tony, her boss, her friend, and even though he had changed since he’d gotten back from Afghanistan, even though they’d changed (together, separately, she doesn’t recognize the difference anymore) there was that line, blurred but still there, always prevalent and Pepper is a professional (and tries so hard not to be that woman) and she toes it, yes, but at the same time she doesn’t dare cross it.
After, on the flight back he nurses a scotch and she clicks clicks clicks on her blackberry and when she looks up he’s staring at her.
“I just have to, okay? I need to do this. I don’t know any other way.”
Pepper didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
It’s why this, them, works so damn well.
They just know.
+
“Fuck, Pepper. That hurts.”
Pepper pauses, q-tip poised above her boss’s eyebrow as she arches her own. “I’ve had worse cuts than this from shaving, Mr. Stark. Stop being a baby.”
“I wasn’t being a baby.”
“Oh, really?”
“I was just merely… commenting on your sudden abrasive technique when it comes to playing Florence Nightingale.”
A dry chuckle, and she presses deeper into the cut than she means to. “Florence Nightingale? You’re writing a fascinating version of history here.”
Tony winces and glares out of the corner of his eye. “You’re right. You are much hotter.”
Pepper smirks. “Good to know.”
“And you wear stilettos better than, let’s face it, half the fuckin’ female population and,” he stops talking abruptly, leaning back to look at her fully, eyes roaming over her from head to toe. His eyes shoot up to hers and she blushes in spite of herself. “Whoa, whoa, whoa you were not wearing that earlier.”
“Pity the person who tries to get things past you, Mr. Stark.”
“Potts,” he says, lazy grin in place as he leans back in his chair. “You look… good.”
Pepper refuses to look him in the eye because the thing about Tony is, well, he’s hot. And she’s a woman, she can admit that freely, so when he says things like that, it does something to her insides that it shouldn’t, can’t and when Pepper replies with a cool, “I know,” smirk in place, the blush imbedded into her skin betrays her.
If Tony notices, he doesn’t comment.
They’ve gotten very good at this - this avoidance, this constant progression and regression of one step forward, five steps back
“You didn’t have to get all dressed up to come over and take care of little ‘ole me, you know. Not that I’m complaining because your legs in that dress look,” his eyes meet hers and he clears his throat, pausing.“Really, really long. Long. I was going to say Long. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
She smirks and moves onto the next cut. There was a fight against a missile of some sort (and Pepper keeps moving and moving because jesus, a missile and there are some things she just can’t get used to) and his body is covered in a million different tiny little cuts and bruises.
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t?”
“I had a date.”
“A date?”
“You knew this.”
He thinks about it for a second. “I did?”
“Remember when I came down and told you that I was leaving because I had plans, and you said, and I quote, okay, Potts, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do and I replied that well, that wouldn’t be much, but I’ll sure try my damnedest and you smiled that insufferable little smile and then I left?”
Tony looks at her a beat longer than usual and he’s trying his hardest not to let that corner of his mouth twitch upwards. Naturally, she cracks first, her own lifting up just slightly.
“You remember all that?”
“You pay me to remember things, Mr. Stark.”
“I pay you to remember my smile?” He grins cheekily, looking awfully pleased with himself. Pepper rolls her eyes. “Are we going to have a heartfelt moment here when you tell me I have five smiles or some bullshit like that and you tell me that you find me completely and utterly irresistible.”
“In your dreams.”
Tony grins and it’s all teeth. “Naturally,” he says, and then after a moment, “So, you like my smile.”
“That is not what I said.”
“You really did. It’s okay, you can admit it. I’m cool with that. Would it make you feel better if I told you that I liked yours, too? Even the playing field a little bit?”
Pepper sighs, long and suffering and knows better, so she just lets it go. They fall into a silence and she reaches for a mini band-aide, opening it with nimble fingers and placing it on top of the gash near his brow. She’s on auto-pilot almost, fingers smoothing the ridges of the plastic out perfectly. The feel of his skin under her finger tips, warm and soft, the sight of his body covered in bruises barely gets to her anymore.
They do this a lot.
“There,” she says, taking a step backwards. He hops off the chair and saunters over to the wet bar to pour himself a scotch. She reaches for her coat.
“So,” he begins after a thick swallow, waving a hand in-between them.“How was it?”
“It?”
Another swallow. “Your date.”
She tries not smile at the acridness dripping off the words. “It was nice.”
“Just nice? For that dress I sure as hell hope it was better than nice.”
“Oh-kay, it was better than nice.”
“That’s good.”
A tiny smile plays at the corner of her lips. He sounds jealous and her skin tingles with satisfaction.
“Thank you.”
“You deserve better than nice,” he says. “That’s all I’m saying.”
They stare at each other again, distance and silence between them, and there’s that look again, wistful almost, and it’s probably the wine from dinner, but she swears it’s almost as if Tony is looking right through her.
It unnerves her. She’s the first to look away.
(This, too, inevitably, they do a lot.)
“Will that be all, Mr. Stark?” she asks, grasping for familiar ground as she idly plays with a button on her coat.
The smile on his face fades and he cocks his head to the side slightly.
“That will be all, Miss Potts.”
She turns on her heel and grabs her clutch and makes it all the way to the door before his voice stops her.
Pausing, hand on the glass and she watches his reflection in it, the opening and closing of his mouth. Another pause and she braces herself, ridiculously hopeful for reasons she can’t explain. He shakes his head at the last moment and turns back towards the bar to pour himself another drink.
“Good night, Miss Potts.”
Pepper sighs softly. “Good night, Mr. Stark.”
+
Tony tells her once, somewhere after his return and before Obadiah’s betrayal that as the months weaned on during Afghanistan he kept forgetting things: the taste of a good single malt scotch, the way his mouth watered at the thought of a good American burger, his mother’s voice.
But her laugh, he tells her without looking in her direction and his left hand fisted on top of his thigh, he could remember with distinct clarity, the sound drifting into his subconscious at the most oddest of times.
“You should laugh more, Potts,” he tells her, like he’s talking about the weather and she’s not sure what to say to that so she says nothing.
He never mentioned Afghanistan before that, and he doesn’t mention it after, either, and she’s glad almost, because she’s not quite sure she wants to know.
+
“So what’s his name?” Tony asks the next morning while she’s straightening his tie. He’s got the board in less than five minutes, so naturally he’s stalling.
She smoothes the lapels of his suit absently. “Who?”
“The guy.”
Pepper raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“The date. The dress with the legs,” he gestures his hands wide and sweeping, and narrows his eyes. “Who is he?”
“Mr. Stark --”
“I’m allowed to know.”
Her blackberry dings like it so often does and she steps away, reaching for it out of habit. “His name is Tommy.”
Tony rolls his eyes. “Tommy? What the fuck kind of name is that? Is he five? Potts, I had no idea you were so scandalous.”
Pepper rolls her eyes and barely looks up. “He is not five. And his name is Thomas. And there is nothing scandalous at all about our relationship.”
“Shame.”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Baiting me.”
“You wound me with your lack of faith,” he leans back against the edge of desk and fiddles with his tie and if Tony Stark was the type of person who had nervous habits, Pepper assumes that is his. She’s still clicking her fingers away against the keys of her blackberry and doesn’t look up when he continues, “What’s he do?”
Sighing, she finally slides the object out of her hands and onto his desk. “Tony…”
“What?” he asks innocently, holding his hands up in defense. He does that thing where he runs his hands over his goatee - he forgot to shave this morning and it’s looking a little rough around the edges and damn it if she didn’t find it just a tad bit sexy - and she looks away. “I’m nearly a friend inquiring about his friend’s personal life. Where’s the crime?”
“Nothing is ever that simple with you.”
“Well, right now it is.”
“He’s a doctor,” she finally concedes and Tony looks almost disappointed.
“Well, that’s… nice.”
“Yes.”
“A little bland though, if you ask me. I mean the long hours and the pay’s not that good. What kind of doctor is he, anyway?”
She replies, “Cardiac surgeon,” without missing a beat and kind of likes the way Tony looks almost beat at that.
In another world, with two different people, maybe it would have actually meant something.
“Tell me, Potts,” he begins, turning towards the mini bar, “what is it with women and doctors that throws them into a hormonal frenzy?”
Pepper shakes his head and watches the way his hands smooth over the glass tumbler as he pours a hefty amount of amber liquid into it. The straight line of his back.
“It’s his job to save people’s lives. It’s noble.”
“Noble?” Tony snorts and takes a long swig from his drink.
“Yes.”
“It’s my job to save people’s lives, Potts. I don’t see you going around and waxing poetic about my nobility.”
She reaches forward and snatches the glass out of his hand and places it to the side. “It’s technically not your job,” she smirks and glances at her watch. “And you are officially late.”
“What else is new?”
+
Her mother had asked her once, a few years into the job, if she really wanted this to be the most important thing she does with her life.
Pepper had replied that she didn’t really know, but it had to be better than doing nothing, right? It was a job, and when she’d met Tony she was just another entry-level employee, with a tiny cubicle and a shitty apartment she couldn’t even afford who just happened to be extremely good with numbers. The stability, she had explained to her mother, had to outweigh everything else, right?
What it had really boiled down to, even then, was that she believed in Tony. Saw the good in him underneath the dry cleaning and drinking and egotistical smugness. Call it the last bit of naiveté she had left after trading in small town living for the big city life, but she honestly believed they were doing good things, great things.
(And yeah, alright, the money is good, too. Really good and when you come from nothing and build your way up, it’s hard to look at things like that objectively anymore.)
When she thinks about it, Pepper knows that she probably should have quit years ago.
No one would have blamed her really (especially later, after he came back from the cave and built a suit of armor to hide away in, because what sane person would have actually stayed?) but she didn’t, and she won’t, so it’s neither here or there.
Just another part of the vicious cycle of give (mostly her) and take (always him) that they’re stuck in.
+
They’re back in his office after the meeting, her briefing him for the rest of the day - a trip down to R&D, a phone conference with Rhodey, which she knows would accomplish nothing but has for the sheer formality of it all, a meeting with this supplier and that backer - and Tony is yanking at his tie and slipping it over his head. When she looks up, the first thing her eyes land on is the cuts she’d patched up from the night before, glaring in her direction under the soft sunlight.
Without the tie, she can see the soft glow of the arc reactor, too, and Pepper stares a beat longer than usual.
“Tell me,” he begins, sliding into his chair. “When did my board start disliking me so much?”
Pepper’s blackberry dings and she looks down at the object in her hands. “I don’t think they’ve ever really been your biggest fans, Mr. Stark.”
Tony raises an eyebrow, and she somehow knows this without looking. “Well that was frank.”
“Just being honest.”
“I think I like it better when you lie to me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Well, either way, now I think they just hate me. And they shouldn’t. I do sign their paychecks and yours, too, the last time I checked.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m serious. Most bosses wouldn’t be this understanding about the amount of backtalk you give me.”
Pepper finally looks up. “I think you like my backtalk, Mr. Stark,” she grins. “So that’s an empty threat.”
Tony grins wildly and props his feet on top of his desk. “I like it when you get feisty.”
Her eyes roll out of habit. “You have a thing tonight. Happy’s picking you up at eight. Please try to be ready. If you show up and behave yourself, it will do wonders with your board members.”
“Pepper,” he starts, his voice a smidge away from a whine.
“Don’t start.”
“I hate these things.”
“Everybody hates these things, but everyone still has to go.”
He sits up a bit straighter at that. “Are you included in that generalization?”
“Yes.”
His eyes light up. “Awesome. What are you wearing? Something Blue? Backless? Or wait, something short? Can I get a visual here?”
Pepper ignores him. “This is, however, a working event. You will be on your best behavior - especially at the mess you pulled at that last one.”
“Okay, you know what? I am so sick and tired of everybody bringing that up. All I did was suggest a few songs. It was bored and I needed something to entertain me.”
“And you thought Hot in Here was an appropriate suggestion?”
“It’s quite a catchy party song, Pepper. Everyone always discounts it because it’s old, but it never loses its ability to brighten a social function. Ever. Fact.”
“Not when the people at said function are eighty years old.”
Tony waves a hand in the air. “Technicality.”
+
Alright, let’s talk about it, because quite frankly it can’t go on ignored:
Those three months were the longest months of her life.
It started with a phone call at four AM, Rhodey’s voice in her ear: We lost him. She had blinked away sleep and confusion and let the implications settle heavily in her chest and she doesn’t remember anything else but the quiet, mournful I’m sorry, Pepper that rang in her head for days afterwards.
Those days turned into weeks, those weeks into months and while he was lost, she thinks she lost a bit of herself, too.
Every day she would wake at dawn, slide on her stilettos and Dolce and kept moving, moving, moving because it was just simply easier than admitting the alternative.
And when he came back, yeah, she cried and thanked a God she doesn’t really know, and wanted nothing more than to hug him tight and never let go.
(She didn’t of course, just sits a little closer than before, counts his breaths as easily as she counts her own and blames it on the sheer need to feel him next to her, have some proof that he’s alive and well and with her.)
He walked onto that tarmac an inevitably different man, and when he looked at her and she looked at him and her heart did that funny little thing where it lodges in her throat and threatened to burst, the taste of a new beginning was on the tip of her tongue.
And it was like Pepper could breathe again, finally, the air leaving her in a long whoosh, filling the vast space between him.
+
“I’m hungry.”
“You just had lunch.”
Tony waves a hand and leans forward towards Happy. “Stop at the nearest Burger King. I want a burger and fries. Oh, and a milkshake, too. Chocolate.”
Pepper punches the keys of her blackberry. Four o’clock and the day wasn’t even mostly over yet. “When you get sick, I’m not bringing you Pepto Bismol at four in the morning again,” she warns. “You can just forget about it.”
“That was one time.”
“Doesn’t matter, I’m not doing it again.”
“Isn’t that in your job description as, you know, my personal assistant?” He asks. “I’ll let you have some of my milkshake,” he tries again, his voice teetering on the edge of sing song and she can’t help the corner of her mouth that twitches upwards.
“Nick Fury has called six times today,” she not so subtly segues, and Tony immediately groans. “They’re getting antsy about the specs you were supposed to send them last week. Are you planning on ever calling him back? You’ve cancelled on Reed Richards three times this week, too; he’s only in town until Sunday, you know.”
“Why does everyone get up in arms about Reed Richards?”Tony asks in a way of avoiding the question. “I’m just as smart he is. Hell, smarter. He’s not even remotely cool, either. Socially retarded almost,” he turns to her then, face serious, and Pepper can barely contain her smile. “Tell me, Potts, is it the hair? ‘Cause I could go gray. I think I could rock it, I mean, I totally have the bone structure.”
“I find it highly amusing that you are jealous of Reed Richards.”
“I’m not jealous. I don’t do jealous.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t.” There’s a pause and Pepper is entirely too thankful as she turns back to her blackberry. Then, naturally, he continues, “I mean sure he has a few more degrees than I do -“
“A few?” she questions because she just can’t help herself and when she looks up again he’s all but glaring in her direction.
“Okay,” he starts, pointing an accusing finger towards her. “I am now revoking my offer of to share the Chocolate milkshake. Nope, no more. Don’t even try to do the pouty face because it absolutely not going to work.”
Pepper just laughs.
+
That moment on the tarmac, she’ll decide years down the line when she’s old and gray and has time to ponder these things, is the turning point. The moment.
The deciding step over the line she’d toed so gracefully for years.
She never looks back.
+
Doing her best to avoid her boss, Pepper weaves in and out of an endless sea of bodies and nodding a hello to those she knows, even those who she doesn’t, and grabs a glass of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray, gulping half of it down in nearly a second flat. You didn’t work for Tony Stark and not pick up a few things, you know.
As she turns around to retreat to a corner, he’s there, of course, grinning that infuriating grin and snatching the glass out of her fingers and downing the rest for her. He promptly passes it off to someone else, who gladly takes it and Pepper shouldn’t be surprised, but she is.
“Sure,” she deadpans. “Go ahead. I didn’t want that.”
“Let’s dance,” he says, and before she even has a chance to argue he’s tugging her towards the dance floor, beat changing to something softer as her hand reluctantly finds his.
“You have people to schmooze. Deals to close. Have you even talked to the CEO of Jefferson Pharmaceuticals about the impending buyout? This is a working event, Tony. We don’t have time for this.”
“For this, Miss Potts, I’ll make time,” he grins and it’s too much - something pools in the pit of her stomach. Pepper looks away. “You know,” he begins again, leaning in close, and she can feel his breath on her skin, heating her to the core. She forgets how to breathe for a second. “I forgot to tell you, but you look fantastic. Absolutely ravishing. I prefer the little backless numbers, but you know I’m pretty sure you could wear a potato sack and still look great.”
“Potato sack, really?”
“Sure,” he pulls back to look at her, grin in place. “A little tiny one, you know. Show a little thigh, a little skin. Have I ever mentioned to you that you have great thighs?”
Blushing, Pepper raises an eyebrow. “Are you drunk?”
Tony snickers. “Unfortunately, no. I am, however, hungry. That chicken was practically rubber. How much money did we give to this damn thing? You’d think they’d be able to afford something edible.”
“You’re always hungry.”
“Well, yeah, but still.”
A moment, a pause, and he leads her around the dance floor like they’ve been doing this their entire lives.
“We should do this more often.”
“What?”
“Dance, Potts. What else? Waltz. Tango. Although, to be quite honest, I’ve always had a soft spot for the cha cha.”
Pepper giggles. “You know how to cha cha?”
“I knew a girl once. A dancer -“
“ - I’m sure you’ve known plenty -“
“Hey, hey, none of that. You’re ruining the moment.”
“We’re having a moment?”
“Of course we are. We’re dancing, Potts. Magical things can happen when people dance.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes.”
He looks down at her and smiles, actually full out smiles, that gleam in his eyes he usually gets when he’s gotten the design to his newest project just right. It makes her smile, too.
“Remind me to cancel your subscription to Stars. You’ve been watching too many chick flicks,” she jokes and he chuckles softly, the sound warming the skin of her neck, vibrating in her bones.
The beat changes. He doesn’t let go.
+
Truth: Pepper is just about three quarters of the way in love with Tony Stark. She knows it and she’s pretty sure he knows it, too. Flash backwards about a year to blue backless dresses and dancing and some very close talking and sure, she’d been the one to lean in, but her reasons for pulling away still stand.
Maybe she loved him before Afghanistan, during - she sure as hell loves him now, but the fact of the matter is that he’d come back an unavoidably different, better man (though Pepper will admit she’s never considered his character flaws as a point against him because he is who he is and a part of her knows she wouldn’t want it any other way) and while he clung to her before, she is deathly afraid that he clings to her now because he foolishly believes that she and being a better man are forever intertwined.
Another truth: Pepper holds off on that last quarter, really, because she’s waiting for him to realize they’re not.