Five Things About Tony Stark (that Pepper...) - Prologue
Title: Five Things About Tony Stark (that Pepper…) (1/6)
Author: patriot_jackie
Rating & Genre: PG Fluff
Pairing: Tony/Pepper - Spoilers for Iron Man 1&2
Summary: The human mind reaches out to experience life through five separate senses. It’s little wonder then that Pepper Potts is so attuned to the many stimuli of her tantalizing employer.
Word Count: 1,161 Words
AN: The title is purposely left incomplete as this is from Pepper’s 3P somewhat-stream-stream-of-consciousness POV, and it just seemed like a sentence she wouldn’t complete. Which makes this somewhat of a mystery for y’all to fill in the blank after reading...
Prologue
There is a difference between lust and attraction. Unfortunately for Pepper Potts, working for Tony Stark - billionaire genius, previous celebrity playboy, eccentric narcissist, and superhero extraordinaire - had long ago blurred those lines. If only for the integrity of her own careful mind, she preferred to believe that the attraction had preceded the lust. Of course, with the way Tony flaunted his multiple charming assets, if it hadn’t happened that way, Pepper justified to herself that it was entirely his fault.
They were on his couch, she flipping through some last minute memos on her PDA and struggling to stay awake as her mind gradually strayed from the work at hand. His arm was loosely slung across her waist, her back securely pressed to his chest, their legs intertwined, and his breath gently ghosting across her neck and ear as he lightly dozed. Up until a few minutes ago, he’d been pestering her while looking over her shoulder, sarcastically commenting on the messages she pulled up. If she had known catching an accounting error would eventually lead to this, she wondered if she would have fought it for all those years. - Well, at least for the past few months.
Giving up for the time being, Pepper gently placed the PDA on the glass coffee table. She momentarily considered dragging him to his bed instead of sleeping on the couch, but quickly discarded the notion at the thought of moving. Instead, she wiggled a little lower and closer, using his arm as a pillow and covering his other arm with her own to grasp his fingers. He grunted softly and tightened his grip on her middle, blindly kissing the top of her head. As she closed her eyes, she couldn’t imagine a more complete feeling of contentment, her thoughts drifting.
Pepper was constantly struck by the irony of what had transpired between the two them. She, his severe personal assistant whose greatest fear in employment had been becoming one of his girls, had gone and fallen in love with him. Incredibly, in Pepper’s mind, despite all manner of emotional barriers to protect his heart, Tony had fallen right along with her. So now here she was, not one of his girls, but his only girl, as he took to insisting, in an actual relationship with him. She had gone from one extreme to the other. In addition, she’d never compromised her standards; indeed, he had well surpassed anything she’d ever dreamed he could become.
When Virginia Potts had first arrived at the Stark residence, she’d had illusions of boundaries and privacy. Despite word of mouth and rumors, she had supposed that there would rules and restrictions, forbidden zones, and absolute no-nos. It had lasted that way for the first five minutes.
By the end of the week, she’d been almost everywhere, seen almost everything, and more. - Far more than she’d wanted to see on two separate occasions, which led her to the conclusion that she had better get used to it or quit right then and there.
Week number two ended in her own security passcodes to the house and to the newly developed JARVIS AI computer program Mr. Stark was installing throughout the mansion. By the end of the fourth week, she handled all of her employer’s personal details and data, including his social security number.
So it was that Tony Stark’s new executive assistant had access to everything in his house except for his workshop.
Three months passed in this fashion, Pepper Potts proving her worth by tripling the record length of employment by any of his previous PAs. Tony found her indispensible and had told her such on one occasion, immediately followed by his marvel at her lack of a sexual harassment lawsuit; she told him she’d truthfully considered it, but had determined she liked her position even if she had to deal with his childish behavior. Peculiar and self-absorbed as he was in public, and even more so in private, she liked her employer, and, more accurately at the time, her job.
“Miss Potts.” The disembodied page from the speaker on her desk drew her out of the manila folder she was reading through the next day.
She placed a well-manicured finger on the talk button: “Yes, Mr. Stark?”
“Drop what you’re doing and come down here.”
She blinked and hesitated. Even Obadiah Stane wasn’t allowed down there, and he was the closest thing Tony had to a father. The only person she’d ever seen allowed access was Major James Rhodes, or Rhodey as he insisted upon, and it had only happened once.
“Aren’t you in your workshop?”
“I trust you.” The response was immediate, honest, and direct: a symptom, she’d learned, of his preoccupation. He gave no further explanation, and she’d been too pleased with the declaration to ask. Then, “Get down here. Jarvis is holding the door open.”
Most of the novelty wore off over the years. Tony was always developing something new, something fascinating, something that would revolutionize the world. Eventually she gave up her mental blinders to not look for his sake and took him at his word for his faith in her. Sometimes it was impossible not to be amazed, and other times, her amazement was 180 degrees the opposite of awe. About the same time he began to insist she call him Tony, she began to come down to the workshop uninvited. He didn’t mind; he merely required she change her entry PIN every thirty days and instructed Jarvis to positively ID her first before admittance.
It was a slow but steady progression from employer & employee to friendship. For Pepper, things may have progressed a little beyond that, but she refused to allow herself to ponder the possibility. Instead, she became accustomed to his flippant flirtation, his quick sarcastic wit, the self-destructive habits that underscored his loneliness, his understated brilliance, his habitual irresponsibility: in short, his ignoble quirks along with the hidden, sweet temperament which underlied most of his actions. She became accustomed to Tony Stark, and in light of that did the best she could as a warm-blooded, first and foremost professional, female.
Of course, as previously mentioned, there’s a difference between lust and attraction, and when it came to Tony Stark, that distinction was really just a fine line. Like their position at the present moment: as he exhaled again pleasantly tickling the hairs at the base of her neck, she wondered which she felt for him now.
Distraction had been inevitable. The truth was that over the years, there really were so many things to notice about Tony that… well, to put it mildly, that Pepper liked. (Okay, extremely mildly.) They were things that, if she hadn’t been so stubbornly professional, she might have caught onto quicker. She could hardly categorize everything she’d noticed about him, even with her very considerable organizational skills as she wavered in and just outside consciousness, but there were off hand a few favorites…
TBC...
AN: Most of these chapters are almost or already completed. This will be the first fic I'm actually consistent in updating...!
Chapter 1 Teaser: Pepper never tired of the novelty that was seeing him sprawled underneath the hot rod. Or any car, for that matter, but it was usually the hot rod. Half of him was usually missing, but something about Tony Stark being left to the imagination really did it for Pepper - especially when he was right in front of her.
Continue to Chapter...
I. Sight
Author: patriot_jackie
Rating & Genre: PG Fluff
Pairing: Tony/Pepper - Spoilers for Iron Man 1&2
Summary: The human mind reaches out to experience life through five separate senses. It’s little wonder then that Pepper Potts is so attuned to the many stimuli of her tantalizing employer.
Word Count: 1,161 Words
AN: The title is purposely left incomplete as this is from Pepper’s 3P somewhat-stream-stream-of-consciousness POV, and it just seemed like a sentence she wouldn’t complete. Which makes this somewhat of a mystery for y’all to fill in the blank after reading...
Prologue
There is a difference between lust and attraction. Unfortunately for Pepper Potts, working for Tony Stark - billionaire genius, previous celebrity playboy, eccentric narcissist, and superhero extraordinaire - had long ago blurred those lines. If only for the integrity of her own careful mind, she preferred to believe that the attraction had preceded the lust. Of course, with the way Tony flaunted his multiple charming assets, if it hadn’t happened that way, Pepper justified to herself that it was entirely his fault.
They were on his couch, she flipping through some last minute memos on her PDA and struggling to stay awake as her mind gradually strayed from the work at hand. His arm was loosely slung across her waist, her back securely pressed to his chest, their legs intertwined, and his breath gently ghosting across her neck and ear as he lightly dozed. Up until a few minutes ago, he’d been pestering her while looking over her shoulder, sarcastically commenting on the messages she pulled up. If she had known catching an accounting error would eventually lead to this, she wondered if she would have fought it for all those years. - Well, at least for the past few months.
Giving up for the time being, Pepper gently placed the PDA on the glass coffee table. She momentarily considered dragging him to his bed instead of sleeping on the couch, but quickly discarded the notion at the thought of moving. Instead, she wiggled a little lower and closer, using his arm as a pillow and covering his other arm with her own to grasp his fingers. He grunted softly and tightened his grip on her middle, blindly kissing the top of her head. As she closed her eyes, she couldn’t imagine a more complete feeling of contentment, her thoughts drifting.
Pepper was constantly struck by the irony of what had transpired between the two them. She, his severe personal assistant whose greatest fear in employment had been becoming one of his girls, had gone and fallen in love with him. Incredibly, in Pepper’s mind, despite all manner of emotional barriers to protect his heart, Tony had fallen right along with her. So now here she was, not one of his girls, but his only girl, as he took to insisting, in an actual relationship with him. She had gone from one extreme to the other. In addition, she’d never compromised her standards; indeed, he had well surpassed anything she’d ever dreamed he could become.
When Virginia Potts had first arrived at the Stark residence, she’d had illusions of boundaries and privacy. Despite word of mouth and rumors, she had supposed that there would rules and restrictions, forbidden zones, and absolute no-nos. It had lasted that way for the first five minutes.
By the end of the week, she’d been almost everywhere, seen almost everything, and more. - Far more than she’d wanted to see on two separate occasions, which led her to the conclusion that she had better get used to it or quit right then and there.
Week number two ended in her own security passcodes to the house and to the newly developed JARVIS AI computer program Mr. Stark was installing throughout the mansion. By the end of the fourth week, she handled all of her employer’s personal details and data, including his social security number.
So it was that Tony Stark’s new executive assistant had access to everything in his house except for his workshop.
Three months passed in this fashion, Pepper Potts proving her worth by tripling the record length of employment by any of his previous PAs. Tony found her indispensible and had told her such on one occasion, immediately followed by his marvel at her lack of a sexual harassment lawsuit; she told him she’d truthfully considered it, but had determined she liked her position even if she had to deal with his childish behavior. Peculiar and self-absorbed as he was in public, and even more so in private, she liked her employer, and, more accurately at the time, her job.
“Miss Potts.” The disembodied page from the speaker on her desk drew her out of the manila folder she was reading through the next day.
She placed a well-manicured finger on the talk button: “Yes, Mr. Stark?”
“Drop what you’re doing and come down here.”
She blinked and hesitated. Even Obadiah Stane wasn’t allowed down there, and he was the closest thing Tony had to a father. The only person she’d ever seen allowed access was Major James Rhodes, or Rhodey as he insisted upon, and it had only happened once.
“Aren’t you in your workshop?”
“I trust you.” The response was immediate, honest, and direct: a symptom, she’d learned, of his preoccupation. He gave no further explanation, and she’d been too pleased with the declaration to ask. Then, “Get down here. Jarvis is holding the door open.”
Most of the novelty wore off over the years. Tony was always developing something new, something fascinating, something that would revolutionize the world. Eventually she gave up her mental blinders to not look for his sake and took him at his word for his faith in her. Sometimes it was impossible not to be amazed, and other times, her amazement was 180 degrees the opposite of awe. About the same time he began to insist she call him Tony, she began to come down to the workshop uninvited. He didn’t mind; he merely required she change her entry PIN every thirty days and instructed Jarvis to positively ID her first before admittance.
It was a slow but steady progression from employer & employee to friendship. For Pepper, things may have progressed a little beyond that, but she refused to allow herself to ponder the possibility. Instead, she became accustomed to his flippant flirtation, his quick sarcastic wit, the self-destructive habits that underscored his loneliness, his understated brilliance, his habitual irresponsibility: in short, his ignoble quirks along with the hidden, sweet temperament which underlied most of his actions. She became accustomed to Tony Stark, and in light of that did the best she could as a warm-blooded, first and foremost professional, female.
Of course, as previously mentioned, there’s a difference between lust and attraction, and when it came to Tony Stark, that distinction was really just a fine line. Like their position at the present moment: as he exhaled again pleasantly tickling the hairs at the base of her neck, she wondered which she felt for him now.
Distraction had been inevitable. The truth was that over the years, there really were so many things to notice about Tony that… well, to put it mildly, that Pepper liked. (Okay, extremely mildly.) They were things that, if she hadn’t been so stubbornly professional, she might have caught onto quicker. She could hardly categorize everything she’d noticed about him, even with her very considerable organizational skills as she wavered in and just outside consciousness, but there were off hand a few favorites…
TBC...
AN: Most of these chapters are almost or already completed. This will be the first fic I'm actually consistent in updating...!
Chapter 1 Teaser: Pepper never tired of the novelty that was seeing him sprawled underneath the hot rod. Or any car, for that matter, but it was usually the hot rod. Half of him was usually missing, but something about Tony Stark being left to the imagination really did it for Pepper - especially when he was right in front of her.
Continue to Chapter...
I. Sight