Fic- When He Dreams
Title: When He Dreams
Fandom: Iron Man
Summary: Tony’s dreams, when he has them, are mostly filled with Pepper.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Tony/Pepper
Length: ~1,000
Disclaimer: Iron Man (and all related characters, etc.) belong to Marvel, etc.
Notes: Movie-verse, unbeta-ed. Angsty, I think. (Though not completely, ultimately- yeah.)
Like most ordinary, non-superhero men, Tony Stark dreams. Sometimes, his dreams are similarly ordinary; once he dreamt that it rained beer and another time he dreamt that he had the power to see through women’s clothing. (He woke up with half-formed plans to create machines to make these dreams reality, but eventually gave up, deciding that human beings should be left with some things to hope longingly for.)
More often, though, Tony dreams of Pepper.
Sometimes he dreams of her in his arms, in his bed; of being able to actually touch what is hidden up that skirt and down that top instead of just trying to sneak looks. (She caught him once, and her wrath was great and stiletto-heel shaped. The time after that, her fury came down from heaven like a heavy clipboard onto his head. Mostly because it was a heavy clipboard that came down onto his head.) There is never any context, never any explanation as to how she got there, just a fantasy of smooth curves and long legs, clad in Victoria’s Secret and impossibly high heels.
He wakes up snuggling into his pillow, arms depressingly empty, and afterwards feels jittery and dissatisfied. In the nights that follow, he invariably brings home a curvy blonde, goes to sleep pleasantly exhausted and wakes up early in the morning to tinker in his workshop, having not dreamt at all.
Sometimes he dreams of the two of them together, happily married. He dreams of seeing her face across the dinner table every night, of rainy days spent indoors and reading with his head in her lap on the couch, of shopping together and haggling over what is and isn’t an acceptable purchase. He dreams of a little girl with a love for machines and her mother’s freckles scattered over her father’s nose. (She’ll grow up to race cars and be miles ahead of all the boys. Or maybe she’ll grow up to be a pilot, looping and twirling through the air in the sheer joy of flying.) He dreams of a little boy with dark curls and his mother’s love of order and painstaking neatness, sitting on the floor, meticulously arranging his Lego pieces in their box according to colour and size. (He’ll draw wonderful scaled diagrams of revolutionary machines and will never have to design anything more sinister than a plane that goes twice as fast as its contemporaries on half the fuel.)
He wakes up refreshed and cheerful, inspired to work or invent and make the world Pepper lives in a better place.
Sometimes he dreams of Pepper being kidnapped, and him saving her.
He wakes up heart racing and breathing heavily, and goes down to the basement to work on security systems and tracking devices.
Worse are the times he dreams of Pepper being kidnapped and of him not saving her. This is never for lack of trying, but that seems to make it worse somehow; that he is unable to, even with his best efforts, find her and reach her in time to keep her safe. That even with his suit and its capabilities, he is unable to fight well enough to defeat her captor or prevent her from being killed in the crossfire. The dreams inevitably end with her broken body in his arms, her blood flowing freely and spreading out on the ground and her gaze, never disappointed, just empty, empty, empty.
He wakes up screaming, and when he has sufficiently recovered himself, goes down to the basement to work obsessively on improving the Iron Man suit. After an hour or so of aimless tinkering and countless tools thrown on the ground in frustration, he invents any ridiculous reason to call her or ask her to run an outrageous errand he’s thought up on the fly, just so he can hear her voice, see her face and make sure she’s still alive and whole. So he can look into her eyes and see faint amusement, exasperation, annoyance; anything but that emptiness he can still see when he closes his.
But the dreams that hit him the hardest are the ones of Pepper walking away from him with some nameless, faceless other guy, saying, “Was I supposed to wait for you forever?” Because no, she wasn’t and no, he never expected her to, but the other guy is nowhere near good enough for her, she’s throwing herself away, can’t she see that? This still makes the guy much, much better for her than Tony, Tony knows this, but he’s sure he can think of countless other reasons for her to stick around and wait until a better guy comes around. He’s sure he can convince her to stay, now if he could just open her mouth and tell her, or get his legs to move so he could run after her. But even though he’s had this dream so many times before, and he knows he’s had it so many times before, he’s still so stunned by her leaving that he just can’t seem to do anything. Will never be able to do anything if she leaves him.
In short, these are the dreams that hit too close to home.
These nights (they’re invariably nights), he wakes up, gets stinkingly drunk and prays to the God his mother believed in to let Pepper stay with him just a little bit longer. To ask for Him to give Pepper to Tony forever seems to be too much; he’s never been a good believer and he knows he doesn’t deserve her anyway. So he settles with asking for that inevitable day where she leaves to be kept just a little bit further away - the prayer of a drowning man to stay afloat for just one more breath - because he needs her, he needs her, he needs her more than anything else, and he knows that he won’t be able to keep her.
End.
I honestly don't know what brought this on.
Link quote from "Only When I Sleep" by The Corrs.
Whoever first came up with the Pepper stiletto-stab, kudos to you, because now I can't get it out of my head. =P
Edit: "one more minute" changed to "one more breath" because it better conveyed what I wanted. I think.
Fandom: Iron Man
Summary: Tony’s dreams, when he has them, are mostly filled with Pepper.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Tony/Pepper
Length: ~1,000
Disclaimer: Iron Man (and all related characters, etc.) belong to Marvel, etc.
Notes: Movie-verse, unbeta-ed. Angsty, I think. (Though not completely, ultimately- yeah.)
Like most ordinary, non-superhero men, Tony Stark dreams. Sometimes, his dreams are similarly ordinary; once he dreamt that it rained beer and another time he dreamt that he had the power to see through women’s clothing. (He woke up with half-formed plans to create machines to make these dreams reality, but eventually gave up, deciding that human beings should be left with some things to hope longingly for.)
More often, though, Tony dreams of Pepper.
Sometimes he dreams of her in his arms, in his bed; of being able to actually touch what is hidden up that skirt and down that top instead of just trying to sneak looks. (She caught him once, and her wrath was great and stiletto-heel shaped. The time after that, her fury came down from heaven like a heavy clipboard onto his head. Mostly because it was a heavy clipboard that came down onto his head.) There is never any context, never any explanation as to how she got there, just a fantasy of smooth curves and long legs, clad in Victoria’s Secret and impossibly high heels.
He wakes up snuggling into his pillow, arms depressingly empty, and afterwards feels jittery and dissatisfied. In the nights that follow, he invariably brings home a curvy blonde, goes to sleep pleasantly exhausted and wakes up early in the morning to tinker in his workshop, having not dreamt at all.
Sometimes he dreams of the two of them together, happily married. He dreams of seeing her face across the dinner table every night, of rainy days spent indoors and reading with his head in her lap on the couch, of shopping together and haggling over what is and isn’t an acceptable purchase. He dreams of a little girl with a love for machines and her mother’s freckles scattered over her father’s nose. (She’ll grow up to race cars and be miles ahead of all the boys. Or maybe she’ll grow up to be a pilot, looping and twirling through the air in the sheer joy of flying.) He dreams of a little boy with dark curls and his mother’s love of order and painstaking neatness, sitting on the floor, meticulously arranging his Lego pieces in their box according to colour and size. (He’ll draw wonderful scaled diagrams of revolutionary machines and will never have to design anything more sinister than a plane that goes twice as fast as its contemporaries on half the fuel.)
He wakes up refreshed and cheerful, inspired to work or invent and make the world Pepper lives in a better place.
Sometimes he dreams of Pepper being kidnapped, and him saving her.
He wakes up heart racing and breathing heavily, and goes down to the basement to work on security systems and tracking devices.
Worse are the times he dreams of Pepper being kidnapped and of him not saving her. This is never for lack of trying, but that seems to make it worse somehow; that he is unable to, even with his best efforts, find her and reach her in time to keep her safe. That even with his suit and its capabilities, he is unable to fight well enough to defeat her captor or prevent her from being killed in the crossfire. The dreams inevitably end with her broken body in his arms, her blood flowing freely and spreading out on the ground and her gaze, never disappointed, just empty, empty, empty.
He wakes up screaming, and when he has sufficiently recovered himself, goes down to the basement to work obsessively on improving the Iron Man suit. After an hour or so of aimless tinkering and countless tools thrown on the ground in frustration, he invents any ridiculous reason to call her or ask her to run an outrageous errand he’s thought up on the fly, just so he can hear her voice, see her face and make sure she’s still alive and whole. So he can look into her eyes and see faint amusement, exasperation, annoyance; anything but that emptiness he can still see when he closes his.
But the dreams that hit him the hardest are the ones of Pepper walking away from him with some nameless, faceless other guy, saying, “Was I supposed to wait for you forever?” Because no, she wasn’t and no, he never expected her to, but the other guy is nowhere near good enough for her, she’s throwing herself away, can’t she see that? This still makes the guy much, much better for her than Tony, Tony knows this, but he’s sure he can think of countless other reasons for her to stick around and wait until a better guy comes around. He’s sure he can convince her to stay, now if he could just open her mouth and tell her, or get his legs to move so he could run after her. But even though he’s had this dream so many times before, and he knows he’s had it so many times before, he’s still so stunned by her leaving that he just can’t seem to do anything. Will never be able to do anything if she leaves him.
In short, these are the dreams that hit too close to home.
These nights (they’re invariably nights), he wakes up, gets stinkingly drunk and prays to the God his mother believed in to let Pepper stay with him just a little bit longer. To ask for Him to give Pepper to Tony forever seems to be too much; he’s never been a good believer and he knows he doesn’t deserve her anyway. So he settles with asking for that inevitable day where she leaves to be kept just a little bit further away - the prayer of a drowning man to stay afloat for just one more breath - because he needs her, he needs her, he needs her more than anything else, and he knows that he won’t be able to keep her.
End.
I honestly don't know what brought this on.
Link quote from "Only When I Sleep" by The Corrs.
Whoever first came up with the Pepper stiletto-stab, kudos to you, because now I can't get it out of my head. =P
Edit: "one more minute" changed to "one more breath" because it better conveyed what I wanted. I think.