FIC: Or Even Rearrange You

[lettered]

Title: Or Even Rearrange You
Rating: NC-17
Length: 11,000
Characters: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Warning: lots of het sex?
Summary: Tony and Pepper negotiate the beginnings of a romantic relationship. With sex.
A/N: Thanks to
my_daroga, for being interested.

If you want, this could be Tony/Pepper backstory for the series I’m writing, Responsible Science. Other than the fact that I wrote them with the same characterizations in mind, though, they have very little to do with each other.

This takes place right near the end of Iron Man 2.


Or Even Rearrange You

They were at his house in Malibu. The place was still wrecked, but there were some rooms that were at least still functional. Tony had slept for four hours; then he’d woken up and Pepper had fed him and they’d argued about him dying. Then he’d slept for another two, and he’d woken up and come into the sitting room where Pepper was working on the computer and said, “You weren’t serious about the company, were you?”

He was standing over near the door and he looked like shit, so Pepper said, “I wasn’t serious about the company.”

“You weren’t.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.

“I wasn’t,” she said, closing the laptop, standing up.

“You sure,” he said, and he said it like he said everything, flat and a little bit sarcastic and totally convinced, even though Pepper was fairly certain that he was less sure of this than anything.

“I’m sure,” Pepper said, coming toward him.

He watched her come. “Are we going to do that kissing thing?” He licked his lips. “Because if we are, I could really use a little tongue right now. Really. Or a lot. Like I could use it-”

“We’re not doing the kissing thing.”

He kept watching her, even though she was really close now; he pulled back his head to watch her more. “Why not?”

“Because I’m doing the putting you to bed thing,” said Pepper.

“With kissing?”

“No,” said Pepper, taking his arm in an attempt to steer him. He leaned in. “Maybe,” she said.

“Just a little tongue,” Tony said, and then his hand was on her neck, and he was steering her. “Come on. Just a little.” He leaned in and kissed her.

“Mm,” she said, and pulled away. “Okay, a little. Tony, you need to sleep.”

“With you? I definitely need to sleep with you. We need to sleep together; this is such a-”

“You know what?” she said, taking his arm again. “You go to bed right now, and we’ll actually talk about it.”

“We will?” Tony started going with her this time. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Pepper,” he said, and stopped. Then he was looking at her, his hand slipping around her waist, and she didn’t want to stop. She wanted him to go to bed, but he just kept looking at her, and she was already tilting her head back. She didn’t actually mean to; she just did, and then he was kissing her, his other hand coming up to her face, lightly caressing her jaw. Then he pulled away. “Good night,” he said, turning from her.

“Wait,” she said.

“Nope,” said Tony, walking toward the door. “You’re right. Need sleep. What am I thinking? Up at eleven am. This is ridiculous. Far past my bedtime.”

“Wait,” Pepper said again. She hurried after him, shut the door in his face as he tried to open it.

“What-” he started to say, and she kissed him again, hands on either side of his face.

He made a strange sound, and then his arms wrapped around her, one around her waist and the other around her neck, bending her back a little bit, and she wondered whether this was what he did with all of them. Did he do this to every girl; was this why they all swooned; was this why they just kept coming even after he’d proven on so many occasions that he was just a cad, that he didn’t care, was it this thing he was doing with his tongue, was it-

Pepper pushed lightly on his shoulders. He made that sound again, kissed her harder, so she pushed him harder back. Then he let her go.

She tried to catch her breath. “I want you to go to bed.”

He looked away.

“How many hours straight have you been going?”

He turned back. “I just slept six hours.”

“Sleep another six,” she told him.

He just stared at her. Then he said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. Another six. Anything else?”

“Anything-”

“Anything else you want,” he clarified.

“Yes.” Then she kissed him again, her lips catching his bottom one before she pulled away. “Sleep well.”

He just looked at her again, and he could be eerie when he did that, his expression so utterly blank, his eyes so dark and still they seemed to bore right into her. Then he reached out, hesitated; then his hand was tucking her hair behind one ear; his fingers were dragging down the side of her cheek, and there was something-she thought that there was something sad, now, in that blank expression. “You’re very . . .”

Pepper waited.

“Qualified,” said Tony, and took away his hand. “You’re qualified, as CEO. You shouldn’t listen to the TV. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Pepper looked away. “Go to bed, Tony.

He stood there, holding her eyes with darkness. Then he turned away and went to bed.

*

Nine hours later, Tony had showered, shaved, eaten, called Rhodey, and allowed himself to be bandaged up. They were all minor wounds, so Pepper didn’t exactly feel up to the monumental struggle it always was to get him to see his doctor. He was quiet while she put on the bandages-quieter than usual. Sometimes he got like this, especially after action; it was a little scary, but she was used to it. Tony was never good when he was introspective, but it always passed.

He was probably still thinking about Vanko, and he hadn’t even so much as tried to cop a feel, much less kiss her. He probably didn’t want to talk about the ramifications of their relationship. It was okay. She didn’t want to either, so after the last bandage, he put his shirt on, and she kissed him.

Tony, sliding off the counter, pulled away. “Mm,” he said. “Little more?” He leaned in.

Pepper met his lips with hers again, and then she was really kissing him; her mouth was opening and his tongue was darting against the undersides of her lips, and he pulled away again.

“Little more?” he asked.

She kissed him and this time held his head, her hands tangled in his hair, her tongue against his lips, now. He put one hand on her neck, the other on the side of her head, and pulled away.

“Hm,” he said. “Oh, that’s-” he kissed her again, briefly. “That’s good. One more?”

“Tony-”

“Just a last one. Little quickie,” and without waiting, his tongue was in her mouth, his hips were against hers. It was deep and hot and wet, and he was kissing her thoroughly, far more thoroughly than he’d ever kissed her before, doing things with his tongue inside her mouth and stroking-“Oh God,” he said. “You squeaked.”

“I-wh-what?” Pepper’s hands had slid down to his shoulders. She was clinging a little, but she guessed it was okay. If he was going to kiss her like that, it was okay. He might just be the only thing she had to hold onto, if he was going to kiss her like that; so it could be excused if she-“I didn’t squeak,” she said, at last regaining coherency.

“Yes, you did, you squeaked; you-” He kissed her again, but this one was brief. “Mmph. You squeaked.”

“I didn’t.” She was still clinging.

“You did. You-you know what? You’re making this really hard.”

Then Tony moved back, and she couldn’t cling. It was actually really hard to stand up because she didn’t actually think she’d really been clinging, not really, but apparently she had been, because when he moved back, she sort of wavered.

“Whoa.” Tony’s arm slid under one of hers, bracing against her back. “Up, up, up.”

“I’m up,” said Pepper. “I didn’t squeak.”

He just stood there for a moment, holding her-holding her up more than he was just holding her. His gaze was very still. “Course you didn’t,” he said, and let her go.

“Maybe I squeaked,” said Pepper, and let him go too.

He just stared at her. Looked away, and then stared at her again. “This isn’t,” he began, then stopped. “You do know you kissed me.”

“But I didn’t squeak.”

“Erase it.”

“What?”

“Take backsies. You can take it back.” Tony’s voice was very flat. “Go ahead, unkiss me.”

Pepper could feel herself scowling. “You can’t un-”

“Yes, you can. I’ll allow it. I give you my permission. Unkiss me.”

Finally Pepper realized she didn’t need him at all to stand. “No,” she said, drawing herself up. They were practically of a height. When she wore heels, she was taller.

“Yes, you can do it. Unkiss me, Pepper. It doesn’t-”

“Are you going to say it doesn’t matter? Because if you are, so help me God, I’ll-”

“You’ll,” said Tony. “You’ll what,” but it wasn’t a question. He waited, but when she didn’t say anything, went on. “It matters. It matters a lot. Whole lot. I’m just-I’m pretty sure you’re gonna want it not to matter when I say what I have to say, so I’ll just say it and then it can-” he sort of winced-“it can not matter, okay? And you can unkiss me.”

Pepper crossed her arms. “I’m not going to unkiss you.”

“Yes, you will.” Tony met her gaze with his own flat one, eyes expressionless. “I’m not going to date you.”

“I already know that.”

“You do? Oh, well, you do. That makes things either. You do? How do you know that?”

Pepper glared. “You’re not really the dating type.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? That’s all you have to say about that, is oh?”

“Yes, oh. Oh, do you want some other letters? Why.”

“Why aren’t you the dating type?”

“No, that was just another letter. Y.” Tony stared at her, but she knew him, so she just waited. At last, he stirred. “Pepper.”

“What?” Her voice was a little high, but she didn’t care.

“This isn’t going to work.”

“What’s not going to work?”

“You. Me. We. Us. This.”

“Oh, come on,” said Pepper, because she was really annoyed, now. “At least say something with multiple syllables. I dare you.”

“Okay, how about this,” and that also wasn’t a question. “I’m going to fuck this up, and disappoint you-no, let me finish,” he said, because her mouth was open. “This is my really heroic moment, and I’m-I’m going to do the right thing, here. You think I haven’t been thinking about this? I’ve been thinking about this. I’ve been thinking about this since the moment I laid eyes on you. Okay, maybe not that long. This is about respect, and as you know, people have to earn that from me, but you-”

“No.”

“What? No, really, they-”

“No.” Pepper was kind of infuriated, now. “You can’t tell me you’re not going out with me to be heroic. You can’t. I won’t.”

“You won’t not go out with me? Because that’s kind of-”

“This isn’t your decision-”

“-a lot of the double negatives, there-”

“And don’t I get a say-”

“-not my decision? Because how is this not my-”

“-in who I date? And anyway, I don’t-”

“This is totally my decision,” Tony said.

“-want to date you,” Pepper went on. “I want-”

“Of course you want to date me; you-”

“-to sleep with you.”

“Oh,” said Tony.

“You’re a bastard,” said Pepper.

“Because you want to sleep with me?”

“No.”

“Does that make me a bastard? Because I really don’t think-I want to sleep with you too.”

“Oh, great. Fine.” Pepper uncrossed her arms. “Thanks for that.”

“I also want to sleep with Lindsay Lohan.” Pepper’s hands tightened into fists, and Tony raised his hands. “Don’t kill me. I don’t want to sleep with her as much as I want to sleep with you.”

“How can you-”

Tony dropped his hands. “Because that’s the kind of person I am.”

Pepper knew what he was doing, then, and tried to figure out what to do about it.

Tony, naturally, just went full tilt straight into his mode of self-destruct, because he really was a bastard, sometimes. “I make bad choices,” he said. “I want-well, everyone, basically, and I’ll sleep with most of them. I want people I shouldn’t and I want them in ways I shouldn’t, and if they ask-I won’t say no. I’ll just . . .” He made a frittering gesture with his hand. “So, see. Just this once, I’m saying no, because I-you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Pepper, and even if you’re just my friend, I can’t-I can’t stand-” He stopped, baring his teeth. “The thought of losing you feels like someone took this,” he went on, tapping his arc reactor, “and just . . . crushed it. Just crushed it under a-a tank, or steam engine, or whatever it would take, but it would be gone and I wouldn’t have-I can’t do it. I can’t do it, Pepper, and I won’t.”

“You don’t have to,” Pepper said, and she could feel her eyes filling up. She hated it when that happened. She didn’t want to cry; she didn’t want to manipulate him. She just wanted to tell him not to do this.

“I have to,” Tony said. “You know that I do. You know that I can’t give you what you want. You know I’m not-I’m not what you need.”

“How on Earth-” Tightening her fists again, she tried to catch her breath. “How could you possibly know what I need?”

“Because,” said Tony, in that hopelessly arrogant, Tony way. “I know. I know you’ll want me to be monogamous. You know I can’t be that.”

“How do I know that? How do you even know that?”

Tony opened his mouth, closed it, then looked away. When he finally looked back, his gaze was even flatter than before. “Do we seriously need to count the ways in which this will not work?”

Pepper kept her eyes wide open, because if she didn’t blink, the tears wouldn’t fall. Instead they would dry, and she straightened where she stood. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think we do.”

He was so still that she could tell he was going to fly into motion at any second. When he got like that, there wasn’t any stopping him. When he got like that, he ran away.

“We do,” Pepper said, her voice very firm, “because I don’t understand why we can’t try it.

“Because I’ll fail.” He remained very still, just his mouth moving. “I don’t like failure,” he added. “It chafes. Really rubs me the wrong way. I-”

“So you’re not going to try?” Pepper crossed her arms again. “What can they give you?”

“It’s like a Christmas sweater,” Tony was going on. “Failure gets itchy, never fits right and probably isn’t meant for me. What do you mean, what can who give me?”

“Those other women.” Pepper lifted her chin. “What can they give you that I can’t?”

“Don’t.” His answer was quick and decisive, but he swallowed hard. His voice went a note lower. “Don’t ask that, Pep.”

She lifted her chin higher. “I’m asking.”

“Well, um, er, uh.” The noises were not in any way hesitant. “Try this. I’m bisexual. Did you know? It’s funny, because I thought you knew. I mean, the media doesn’t know, because you’ve had to clean up enough of my messes, but-I thought you knew. You didn’t know that?”

“I know.” Pepper kept her arms crossed. “Name one thing they can give you that I can’t.”

“I don’t know, maybe a cock. Christ.” Tony threw up his hands. “There, look, you made me say it. Do you have a video camera in here, because I’m sure someone would love to-”

“This is your house, Tony,” said Pepper. “Do you have a video camera?”

“I don’t know.” Tony picked up a clock sitting on the kitchen counter and put it back down. “I don’t know, because I didn’t design this house. I didn’t talk to the designer; I didn’t talk to the architect; I didn’t talk to the fucking interior decorator, because you know who did that for me?”

His voice was just so marvelously cool, as if he didn’t really care.

Pepper looked at her hands. “Let me do this for you, too.”

“What, be a man?”

Pepper just kept looking at her hands. “I’m not saying you should abandon that part of your sexuality. I wouldn’t want you to. It’s a part of who you are.”

“Then what? You wanna be my whore? You wanna spread for me when I-”

“Don’t-”

“-want you to, then wait at home while I-while I what? Would I even be allowed to bring them home, or would I just-”

“Please-”

“Suck their cocks in bars, fuck them against the doors of restroom stalls, eat them out in-”

“I said-”

“Because it’s not just about men, Pepper, it’s about women. Different women, different women in different ways, and you want to just be nothing, just be one of them-”

“Don’t talk this way,” said Pepper.

“Don’t talk the way I talk?”

“The people you sleep with aren’t nothing just because you had sex with them.” Pepper shook her head. “You’re not that powerful. Nor are you that cruel.”

Tony looked away. “Maybe you’re just that naïve.”

Pepper took a step forward. “I don’t want to deny you that part of your sexuality either. The part that likes variety,” she explained. “But you haven’t even given me a chance.”

He twitched when she touched him. “I like you,” he said.

“I know,” she said, and touched him more, her hand along his arm.

“No.” He caught her hand in his, callouses rough against her skin. “I really like you. I can’t let this happen. I can’t-do this to you; I like you, Pepper, please. Please don’t make me do this.”

“Do this,” she said, and moved closer.

His thumb moved in the palm of her hand. “Don’t.”

“Let me try.”

“Try what?” His thumb pressed in. “There’s nothing to try. I’m not built for-”

She kissed him then, her arms wrapping around his neck. He just stood there and let her, hands settling on her rib cage, not pulling her closer, but not pushing her away. “Did you ever think that maybe you were built for me?”

“No.” His voice was low. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“I know it doesn’t. But what if it could?”

“I’d say that that-that that was . . .” He looked down into her eyes. “Please, don’t make me.”

She put her hand at the side of his neck, and he was so warm. His eyes could be so cold that sometimes it was a shock. “I’m not making you. I think it’s perfectly plausible that there are some people who could never be happy with just one person. I even think it’s true. I’m just unconvinced that you can know you are that way for certain, if you’ve never even tried it any other way.”

“I know.” Tony’s hands slid down to her waist. “If you only knew,” he began, and stopped.

“Knew what?” When he didn’t answer, she tilted her head. “Is it kinky? Because I can do kinky. I can do so much more than-” She stopped because he let her go, disentangling himself deliberately, stepping to the side.

“You have no idea,” he said quietly. “The kinds of things I’m into. The kinds of things I want.”

“Then tell me,” she said, wrapping her hand around his wrist, “and we’ll see.”

His jaw moved, like he was grinding his teeth. “I can’t lose you.”

“Promise me you’ll try,” said Pepper. “Just try. And I promise you will never lose me.”

He did that thing with his jaw again. “If I try, I’m definitely going to.”

“No,” Pepper said, and then took off her shirt. It was a blouse, a little lacy, easy to pull over her head, and when it was off, Tony’s eyes had gone a size larger. She wore just her bra on top.

“Not fair,” he said, his voice guttural.

“I know.” Smiling, Pepper unzipped her skirt.

“Ah.” Tony’s hand closed over hers. “Don’t do that,” he said.

“You do know that you’re still unzipping my skirt.”

“I know,” said Tony. “I can’t help it. I don’t mean to. I’m supposed to be zipping it up. Preserving your modesty. Dignity. Same thing. Are they the same thing? I can never remember.”

“They’re not the same thing,” Pepper said, putting her hand over his, dragging the zipper down.

“Pepper. Pepper skirt. Unzipping. Pepper skirt unzipping; we can’t do this.” As her skirt slipped down, Tony clutched it, holding it up. “We can’t do this, and that’s your bra-good bra. This is a great bra. You planned on sleeping with me.”

“Yes,” said Pepper. “Why did you think I wanted you to be well rested?”

“Um.” Holding up her skirt, Tony just kept staring at her breasts. “Because you care about me? You want me to be healthy.”

“No.” Pepper reached behind her to unhook her bra.

“You definitely don’t want me to be healthy.” He put his hand on her bra and held it there as the back fell open, other hand holding her skirt. “Ooh,” he said. “Um. Breasts. Pepper, your bra came undone. In back.”

“Tony, let go.”

Tony shook his head. “Can’t.”

“Tony, let go.”

“No. Because then you’ll be undressed, and I’ll be-” Her hands reached for his zipper. “I’ll be-ah ah-really turned on, Pepper, don’t-”

“A little turned on,” Pepper said, because he was only half hard. She slid her hand down over his cock, over his briefs.

“No, that’s just, um-Pepper. You have not achieved my full consent. This is-these are questionable actions.”

“Want to stop me?” She pressed her palm against his cock.

“Yes,” Tony breathed. “But then-ah-you won’t be wearing any clothes.”

She leaned in, put her mouth by his ear. “Then say okay.”

“Okay. Wait. Um. Not okay. This is definitely not okay. You seduced me. This is seduction; this is not okay.”

“Not okay?” Pepper’s hand still pressed in at his crotch; his own hands still held up her skirt and on her bra. She caught his earlobe with her teeth. “Are you sure?”

“Definitely not-” he made a sound, sort of like a whine-“okay.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Think about it,” Pepper said, and sucked.

“I-I can’t.”

“Think about it hard,” Pepper said, then put her tongue in his ear.

“Hard. Okay, hard. I-Pepper.” He pulled away, putting space between them, though he still held up her clothes. “I respect you deeply. I had the noblest of intentions. I just want you to remember how hard I tried, and how deeply that must mean I care, before I-did this.” Then he dropped her skirt, and her bra.

They didn’t actually fall off right away, so he pulled her bra off and tugged her skirt, and then he stepped in close. One hand rose up to cup a breast, the other snaking around behind her to splay in the small of her back. He kissed her then, deep and full-so deeply and so fully that her head bent back, and the hand at her back came up to support her neck. The other hand didn’t leave her breast, slowly squeezing, and then he was coming up, gasping for air, his hot breath all over her face, the side of her neck.

“Oh God,” he said. “God, oh God.” He sounded weak, and she had heard him sound like this before, but not often-his throat scraped raw with terror and relief. “God, you have . . . freckles on your shoulders.” Then he was kissing her shoulder, little pecks all over it. “Why don’t you-show off your shoulders more often; you’ve got-gorgeous-”

Smiling, only a little, Pepper threaded her fingers through his hair. “I wouldn’t want to drive anybody wild.”

“They were hiding.” Tony switched to her other shoulder. “You hid them from me.”

“I’ve worn strapless dresses.”

“You should wear strapless everything.” His left hand was still cupped under her breast, holding it as though he’d forgotten it-but gently. His other hand was on her shoulder blade, pulling her in. “I’m going to find all your clothes and cut out the shoulders. You can keep the sleeves. But no shoulders. Ever.”

“I’ll be very 1980s.”

“1980s.” Tony pulled back. “Pepper in the 1980s. What were you like in the 80s?”

Pepper swallowed another smile. “Shorter.”

“Shorter,” he said, and kissed her. His tongue stroked the inside of her cheek, the underside of her upper lip, then was gone. His lips closed gently around her bottom lip, and her hands were in his hair, holding him tight. Pulling away, he looked down. His hand was still on her breast and finally, finally he seemed to notice it there.

He didn’t say anything, just looked at it. She looked at it too, his dark hand on her paler skin, and he lifted up a little, taking away the weight. Swallowing hard, she watched his thumb come up, felt the calloused pad brush across her nipple. Heard herself make a sound-strained, without opening her mouth. He just looked down, watched her nipple harden as he dragged his thumb back and forth.

“Tony,” she said, but didn’t even know what she wanted to ask for.

He didn’t answer her. Instead, he brought his other hand up to her other breast, started doing the same thing, and at last she realized that she knew this expression. This was his work expression, when he looked at a new thing, and decided how to make it function, decided the best, most efficient way to make it function, learned all the things he could do to it and make it do, explored every inch of it and used it up until it was utterly spent. He looked at engines like he was looking at her breasts; he looked at raw metals like this and machines, and Pepper wasn’t sure whether she’d ever been this turned on in her entire life before. His thumbs kept moving gently over her nipples, slowly circling now.

“You like that?” he said at last, low and quick, but it wasn’t any different than how he said he wanted coffee and pass me that drill bit; he must have heard the sounds that she was making.

“Yes.” Pepper swallowed hard. Her breasts were aching now and so sensitive that she wanted him to stop, but she didn’t want him to and so said, “Yes, I like it.”

Then he bent down and used his tongue to do what his thumb had been doing.

Hearing herself cry out, Pepper put her hands back in his hair and held on. He did it just right-it was just right, not too much flicking, because her nipple was too sensitive, but hot and wet and firm, just firm enough, pressing. Then when he put his lips around it and started sucking, there was something just so gentle in the way he did it that her knuckles were going white, clenched so tightly in his hair. His other hand moved away from her other breast, drifting down to rest possessively on her stomach, just above her slip.

His mouth moved to her other breast, less carefully now, sucking, swirling his tongue. Then he slid down to his knees, the side of his head against her belly, his hands on her hips, and she didn’t know what to do. He was just kneeling there, her hands still in his hair, and she pet him because there was something horribly prostrate in that posture, in his silence.

“I tried,” he said. He set his chin on her abdomen and looked up at her. His beard was scratchy, and she just kept petting him. “Honestly, I tried. To do the right thing. I tried.”

“We could be the right thing,” she told him.

“Not really.” He turned his head to the side again. “I’m really not the right thing.” His hands slid down her hips, over her ass, over the silk of slip and panties. “You’re the one who took your clothes off,” he said, and squeezed.

“I seduced you,” she agreed, stroking her hands through his hair.

He put his chin on her belly and looked up at her again. “You deserve someone better.”

She gave him a crooked smile. “Like who?”

“I don’t know. Like-like-well, I can’t think of anyone, but there must be someone in human history who-like Captain America. You deserve someone like Captain America.”

Pepper wrapped a piece of his short hair around her finger. “I deserve some dead guy?”

“I mean if he were alive. And not ninety-six, or whatever he would be. You deserve someone like that, who would-”

“I don’t want someone like that.” She just kept wrapping that piece of hair, over and over again. “I don’t want Captain America.”

“I know.” Taking his scratchy chin away, he sat back on his heels, looked at her navel. “I know.” He brought his hands back to her hips, right where the elastic of the slip met bare skin, then looked up at her again. “I’m just saying that you should.” Then he was pulling her slip down, and leaning in, and his mouth was hot against the silk of her panties, and her hands were tangling in his hair, jerking hard in surprise.

She could feel his tongue through her underwear, wetter and hotter than the rest; then he was hooking his thumbs into the bands at her hips and tugging down even as his mouth pressed in, holding the middle swath of fabric up. Then he finally moved his mouth away, and his thumbs were pulling her panties down, an inch and then two inches and then three, and then his tongue was sliding into the wetness of her sex and she could feel his beard on her thighs, the scratchiness of hair against her-then it was gone.

“Bedroom?” he said, looking up at her, hands steady on her hips.

“Oh my God,” said Pepper, and pulled him up by the hair.

He came, but not all the way, stopping to kiss her collar bone and then scrape his teeth along it, and then he was pushing her back. Kissing her neck, now, he pushed her back and back and back, until her legs hit the back of the couch. “No bedroom?” he asked, as he pushed her down onto the couch. “I get it, you’re impatient; you can’t wait; it’s no big deal; we’ll make it to the bedroom next-” He cut himself off with kissing her, sucking a wet bruise against her neck.

Needing more, Pepper pulled his mouth up to hers, and he made a low, needy little sound. She’d already forgotten what he would taste like, where his mouth had just been. There was just the hint of musk, but it was enough for her to know why he hadn’t kissed her on the mouth, and why he’d made that sound when she kissed him, so she kissed him deeper, harder, chasing the tang out of his mouth. His hand found her thighs, sank between them, fumbled just a little with her panties, which were still stretched around her legs below her crotch. Then his hand was against her wetness and his fingers were stroking her, until one blunt finger pushed right into a pool of wet, and she wanted it deeper, inside, oh God-

“Do you always get this wet?” Tony said, pulling back a little bit. His finger was just-just playing with it, swirling a little circle around her entrance but not dipping any deeper; it was crazy- “It’s okay if you don’t,” he went on. “I mean, I like it. I like that you’re wet; that’s good. I like your breasts and I like your nipples and I like the sound you make when I suck them. Did you even realize you were make sounds, because you sounded like you didn’t.” His finger swirled some more. “You realize you’re making sounds right now?”

He was leaning on the couch beside her, hand between her legs and he was looking at her, just looking. “Oh my God,” Pepper said again. “Stop teasing me.”

“Teasing is what I do.” His face was expressionless. “You want it in?” His finger sank a little bit, deeper inside her; she could feel herself try to clench around it. “There, you made that sound again. Definitely a squeak. You want me to put it in, all the way in? Then you gotta tell me.”

“Yes.” Pepper sucked in a breath. “I want it-in, put it-”

He pushed his finger in until she could feel the knuckles of his other fingers, pressing against her too; everything felt wet and sinking, like it could just give way, like a wave that could just roll back and sink everything entirely-“There you go,” Tony said, and tugged on her earlobe with his teeth. “Want another one?”

Her breath caught. “Tony-”

“Do you prefer the term cunt or pussy? I can never decide. Pepper’s cunt. Pepper’s pussy. Wow. Both of those are great. I really like the alliteration on the second one, but Pepper’s cunt has a certain-”

Pepper tugged on his face, pulling his mouth away from her ear, because he was going to drive her crazy. Instead, she kissed him, tongue on his lips and teeth until he opened his mouth, and then she was inside, sweeping her tongue over his. His finger bent, then flexed inside of her, thrusting deeper, and then his thumb brushed over her clit.

“-ring,” he said, pulling away from her mouth, and easing a little with his hand. She didn’t even know where his thumb was, now, but it wasn’t on her clit. He tilted his head, his lips red and swollen. “That a request? You want another finger? Because if you do, you-”

“I want you to take off your clothes,” she said, and started tugging on his shirt.

“That’s a little forward. I don’t like to rush.”

She pushed on his arm. His hand came out from between her legs; she could see the flash of wet fingers, but she was pushing him back, pulling up his shirt.

“Okay,” he said. “If you insist.”

The shirt was soft stretchy cotton. He helped her get it off; then it was on the floor somewhere and he was braced on the couch beside her, sort of over her but not all the way, and the arc reactor was really, truly bright.

For a moment he just stared at her, and she stared at it. When she touched it, he didn’t say anything; he didn’t say anything when her finger traced the rim. Tony got quiet sometimes when he got serious; he’d gotten quiet when he first started exploring her breasts, and he was quiet now. She thought that when many people would have started breathing hard, he stopped breathing altogether. Maybe that was what he was doing now, because she couldn’t hear him at all. There was nothing.

He didn’t have a lot of hair on his chest. The arc reactor, front and center, had taken care of where most of it would be, and then there was the scar tissue. There was quite a lot of scar tissue. Pepper had seen it all before; she’d touched it even, but never quite like this-quietly exploring, without a single comment from him-he, for the moment, hers. Still not making any sound, he slowly wound her hair around his fist, until he held it very tightly-hand close to her skull, but he didn’t do anything, just held it, just holding on as she touched him.

The skin was rippled and strangely textured, and she thought that it was beautiful. She hated him for not telling her about the palladium; she hated him for so many things, but she loved him for this, for being strong enough to survive fire, for being smart enough to fight it, for being brave enough to conquer it. When she looked up at him, he was staring down at her, eyes black and expression blank.

Pepper bent her head and kissed his chest, painting scars with her lips. His hand went tighter in her hair, tighter and tighter until it hurt; it really hurt, but she didn’t pull away. She kissed the violence against his breast, the tortured skin above his sternum; she scraped her teeth along the scar the jutted just under his collar bone, then she circled the reactor with her tongue.

When at last she laid her lips against the metal, he jerked back on her hair, hard; then he was slipping off the couch and pulling her down. It was a fluid movement, not rough, but swift and efficient; in what felt like the same moment he was reaching between her legs to pull her panties down and off. Then he had spread her legs and was kneeling between them; he was leaning in and his mouth was on her thighs and then was between her legs and he was kissing her pussy. He was practically making out with her pussy, rather fiercely.

She’d known the skin around the arc reactor was sensitive, but she hadn’t known what touching him that way would make him do. Pepper filed it away for future reference, and then he was sucking her, pulling her labia into his mouth and sucking, hard, his finger pushing into her and now he was not coy at all, because almost as soon as he put in the first, he put in another.

Then he took them out again and replaced it with his tongue, his tongue inside of her while wet fingers found her clit and just kept going. He was fucking her with his tongue and she was so wet she was getting it on his face, and she was making sounds, and she couldn’t remember the last time a guy had gone down on her.

It had to have been two years. It had to have been Todd. Or David. Maybe Syed. Probably David, and that was definitely two years ago. She’d been sort of kind of seeing him, and then Tony Stark had asked her to dance and left her standing on a balcony, and she’d been a bad girlfriend after that. Like a really, really, really bad girlfriend, and then Tony had been held hostage and she hadn’t been any kind of girlfriend at all, because she really couldn’t take it any more, and oh God, he was doing this just right.

He wasn’t touching her clit too much, because she couldn’t stand that; it hurt sometimes and could leave her sore for hours. He was just occasionally stroking with the side of one knuckle, so sporadically that she might have thought it wasn’t on purpose, except it was Tony, so of course it was. Then he’d trade, drag his tongue up, licking, until his tongue was pressed flat against her clit and his fingers pressed inside her. Then he’d fuck her with his fingers and flick her with his tongue, and it made her feel so desperately good, even all the painful scratching of his stupid, stupid facial hair.

She buried her hands in the hair on his head and just held him there, between her thighs. He pulled his fingers out again and kissed a line along her labia, and when he was at her opening again she could finally hear him breathe. It was a big deep breathe through his nose, between her legs, and it suddenly occurred to her that this was the longest spell of silence she’d ever spent with Tony when he wasn’t sleeping.

Then his tongue was inside her and a wave pushed through her, sudden and unexpected; he’d touched her clit again or something and curled his tongue inside of her, pushed deeper than before, and her hips were coming off the couch. God, this-this-it had been a really long time. A really, really long time; all of her felt taut, like she was snapping, and she couldn’t wait for it to be over so she could come down and rest, rest, sleep for a month in his arms. It always felt so good, after.

He pulled his head out but didn’t take his fingers away. When she finally calmed down enough to look at him, her cunt was still seizing up, sweet and tight, over and over again, but his head was resting calmly on her thigh.

“You screamed,” was all he said.

Pepper tried to remember screaming.

He took his fingers out from between her legs, touched them to the top of one thigh. Then he glanced up, as though to see whether that was okay, and whatever her expression, he must have found approval there, because he licked up the wet spot on her thigh with a thick flat tongue. Then he put his head on her thigh again and wet fingers just above her pubic bone.

“You don’t wax,” he said.

She tried to process whether that possibly mattered.

“I like it,” he said. “I like your belly button. I like your knees. I like that you don’t wax, because I can never really decide on the color of your hair, but having seen this, I-”

She pulled on him, hard. He came up a little, tilting his head, and she leaned down so that she could kiss his mouth. It tasted warm and musky, and when she pulled away a little, he chased her back with tongue.

“That’s sort of dirty, Pepper,” he said, when he finally pulled away. “Think of where that mouth has been.”

She kissed him again, this time with more of an agenda than simply shutting him up. Her hands went to his pants; then she realized she couldn’t get them off with him kneeling there, so she pushed him back and stood. Getting the picture, he stood as well, and she started the work of pulling his pants and briefs down.

It wasn’t the first time she’d undressed him, actually. It was just the first time she’d undressed him with what she had in mind.

“I like the way you taste,” he said. “I mean the way your pussy tastes. Specifically. I mean, also you, and your freckles, but also your pussy. I could eat you out for a really long time, you know. Longer than you lasted. At least an hour. Do you eat a lot of fruit? Because I hear that that can make it taste-oh.” Her hand wrapped around the base of his cock. “You-that’s good. You can do that. I won’t complain.”

“What about this?” Pepper said, and started kissing a line down his chest, right around the arc reactor. Her hand moved slowly up his cock, tight and sure, and he was hard for her. Tony was hard for her, and her cunt was throbbing from where he’d made out with it, and she thought she might just die of lust.

“That’s,” Tony said-“I’ll allow it. Just this once. Actually any time. Really, Pepper, any time you wanna-no.”

As she started sinking to her knees, his hands suddenly locked onto her shoulders, bringing her back up.

“I don’t like reciprocation.” He didn’t sound mad or upset or particularly serious, and yet he didn’t sound like he was making a joke, either. “It makes you feel like someone’s doing it just to return the favor. Makes you doubt whether it’s genuine.”

Pepper finally allowed herself to look down at him, erect and-well, she hated this word as applied to cock, but it really did look proud, maybe because it was Tony’s. It was both thicker and not quite as long as she’d expected, and why she’d imagined the proportions of Tony’s dick was beyond her, but of course she had, and the curls around the base were tight and dark and he was naked. He was completely naked in front of her, and she realized that her mouth was watering. “I want to,” was all she said, looking back up at him.

For a moment, he didn’t say anything. “Well, who wouldn’t,” he said, without changing expression, “but I don’t want you to.”

Pepper kissed him, because she wasn’t sure what else to do. She tried to show him what he was missing, because she wasn’t that bad at sucking cock, actually. Her tongue pushed into his mouth, drawing his out until she could suck on it, moving back to stroke his tongue with her own periodically, then doing the same things with her hands on his cock.

Turning him around, she pushed him back, back until he was the one sitting on the couch, because maybe with his legs spread with her on her knees in front of him-

“Do you know what I want?” Tony said suddenly, breaking away as she pushed him on the couch.

“What do you want?” she asked, spreading his legs.

He just looked up at her. “Condom,” he said. “I like condoms. I think they’re great. Fantastic, actually.”

Pepper almost told him he didn’t need one, because she’d seen every medical test he’d ever had, but then again he hadn’t told her about the palladium. Besides, it wasn’t really fair if he never looked at her medical tests, even though he probably could have if he really wanted, and she didn’t want to have to explain to him why she was on birth control. It was just something she did, because it was safe, but Tony, who wasn’t safe-except about condoms, apparently-probably wouldn’t understand.

Tony was looking around. “I thought they were right . . .” Leaning over, he turned over a bowl on the side table. “Around here some-JARVIS?”

Pepper walked over to one of the side tables against the wall. Opening a drawer, she reached for the box in the back, then opened that and took out three condoms. When she brought them back to Tony, he looked up at her with interest. “You know where my condoms are?”

“Tony,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I put your condoms there.” She sat next to him on the couch, taking one of the packets from him.

“That was you?”

“I just want you to be safe,” she said, then opened it with her teeth.

He made a little gulping sound. “I’m safe. I told you. I like condoms. I think they’re swell. I think-one-handed?”

“I’ve put on condoms before,” she told him, as she rolled the condom down over his cock. He was warm and hard and it had been too long, actually. “And you’re not safe. You should have told me about the palladium.”

“You’re not going to lecture me again, are you, because-” He cut himself off, looking up at her-probably because she was straddling him, positioning him so that she could sink down onto his cock. He made the gulping sound again. “You know, you just came; maybe I should drive.”

His hands settled on her thighs, and he made no move to shift her, so she started sinking down. She had to bite her lip, because it really had been a long time, and he was stretching her and despite how wet she was, it still burned. It had been a long time because of him, of course-not because of this but because of another thousand things, because of the company and because of Iron Man and because she worried and because he couldn’t manage to get his own clothes pressed and because sometimes, out of nowhere, he did things like buy her coffee or make her CEO. Once he’d bought her mom a house. Just because. She’d been mad at him a whole month, and oh God, he was so deep inside-

“I’m really glad God invented condoms.” Tony’s voice didn’t sound any different, even when he had his cock balls deep inside of her.

She was surprised into laughing, a little huff. “I don’t think God invented them.”

His hands tightened on her thighs. “I’m glad evolution invented you.”

“Tony-”

“I like what it did with your voice, too. You’re all husky now. And, okay, I confess, I like what it did with my cock. I’ll admit that it’s an impressive specimen. I could understand why you would want to-Pepper.” His voice sounded a little strained, now, and his hands convulsed on her thighs. “Are you going to move?”

She looked down at him, smiling a little around the pain and stretch of it. It was easy, actually. “I thought you were talking.”

“Pepper.” His hands slid up, cupped her breasts, thumbs reaching for her nipples. “Pepper, please.”

“Please what?”

“Move. Please move. I want-” His hands slid back down, and finally, finally she moved her hips. “Oh God,” he said. “That’s-that’s-”

It had been a while since she’d done this, particularly since she’d down it in this way, but she’d always thought she was pretty good at it. She could go slow at first, agonizing, rising up, sinking back down, a clinging, aching burn that made her want more. She thought of his mouth on her, the way his tongue had thrust inside her; paired with the feeling of his cock, harder and deeper and rougher, it made her want still more.

“That’s evolution,” Tony said. “Really, really good evolution; can I-” But he didn’t finished his question, whatever he was going to ask; instead he leaned in, cupping her breast and feeding her nipple into his mouth.

His mouth was really, really good, and his other hand moved around to her ass and his fingers found her crease. She hadn’t really been considering all the ramifications of everything she’d said earlier, but now she thought of anal sex and of pain and somehow, that made her want even more. Tony’s fingers pressing between the muscles of her buttocks and just--settling there, inside her crease, as though he just wanted to keep them there; his mouth on her breast, like he just wanted to suck her; his cock inside of her like he just wanted her to move on him and squeeze him and take him-it was so good-so so good-

“New sounds,” he said suddenly, taking his mouth away. “Those are new sounds. You’re making new sounds.”

“Tony-”

“That-” His fingers pushed deeper in the crease of her buttocks, and his hips tilted up. “That’s a new way you said my name. You’ve never said it like that before.”

God, God, God, he was doing things with his hips now, little circle motions; the way he pressed his fingers in her ass was an opposite pressure on her body, just the slightest press down onto his cock. He was increasing the pace, just a little-sort of annoying, because she was already going faster-

“You can say it like that any time you want,” Tony went on. “Any time. Pepper?”

“What?” she demanded, because he wouldn’t stop talking, and she was busy getting off, here.

“Please? Please, can you just-”

She shut him up with her mouth, then sank down on him faster, not pulling all the way up now, but rolling her hips in steady jerks. He pulled back from her mouth to whine-a strange sound, and her hands were on the scars beside the arc reactor, stroking him, pressing her nail into the skin against the rim and-

It happened in a blur, a fluid motion that didn’t hurt her but was so sudden that it took her mind a moment to catch up with the jolt. His hands were on her shoulders and he was yanking her to the side, then she had her back on his white leather couch, legs spread out at a rather wanton angle, one foot on the floor. He was above her and his cock had come out of her.

“Sorry,” he said, hurriedly. “Pepper,” then he kissed her, and he was thrusting into her.

It was hard and fast, now, and she should have felt resentment; he’d taken all the control away, but she didn’t care; she just couldn’t care. It was so hard and thick and fast she already knew she wasn’t going to come, and she didn’t care; she didn’t care because it felt good and she wanted it and she loved that he was using her and how sore she was going to feel after. She loved the way his hand squeezed on the back of her knee, pulled it up and up until his hand slid down the back of her thigh, and he had managed to splay her legs so that one foot was on the floor and the other was on the top of the back of the couch. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spread her legs so wide.

She knew that she was making sounds-screaming, probably, but he was making sounds too, low, harsh sounds that were undecipherable as words. Then his hand was on her face, splayed against her face and turning it away from him, as if he didn’t want to see, as if he couldn’t bear to look. She thought she might come after all, and then he did instead, with far less fanfare than she had thought he would.

He didn’t say anything at all, just thrust once solidly, twice, then erratically, and she sort of wished he could just keep going, but then he slowed, and stopped.

For a moment, he just lay there on top of her, even though she was ninety-nine percent certain he wasn’t about to cuddle her after sex. Ninety-five percent. Ninety-

He was warm and heavy. She liked the weight; she even liked the bruises she was going to have under her knee, the hickey she was probably going to have on her neck from earlier, the gross, sort of tacky film of drying sweat between them.

Then he got off of her, stood up. Peeled the condom off, and went away.

Pepper closed her eyes. She still liked it. She liked how warm and swollen her cunt felt, and she’d never really been sure whether that was normal-liking how it felt after about as much as how it felt during. Trying to get out another orgasm right now would just be painful; she didn’t actually want one. She just wanted to lie there and smell them, and wonder what the hell she was thinking, doing this with Tony.

Sighing, she sat up, and then a glass of whiskey appeared in her peripheral vision. Tony moved the glass in front of her, swirling it, so she took it. He walked around the couch with his own glass, still naked. His back to her, he stopped at the unbroken bank of windows.

The other bank was broken and currently covered with a tarp. Of course she’d ordered new glass, but it was an awkward size, transportation of whole sheets to this location basically involved a helicopter, and she’d been busy. Tony had been dying and she’d been running a company and also she’d been sick, and also she’d just had sex with her former boss. Pepper drank the whiskey in two big gulps.

The thunk of her glass on the side table didn’t cause Tony to turn around, and for a moment she just looked at him. She’d seen him naked before, but never naked just after she’d had sex with him. The lines of his back were solid and strong. He had a good ass.

When she finally went to go stand beside him, he just stared out the window, empty glass in his hand. “I can do this,” he said.

“What?” Pepper said.

At last, he looked over at her. “Let’s date.”

Pepper had learned never to listen to anything Tony said, unless he said them several times. Even then, he might not be serious. “I thought you said you weren’t going to.”

“Changed my mind.” He brought up his glass, realized it was empty, then put it back down. “I want to date you, Pepper. I want to-go out to dinner with you, go to movies, strolls in the park. Candles. Hang-gliding. The whole nine yards.”

“Dating means hang-gliding?”

“It does now. Whaddya say?”

Pursing her lips, Pepper said, “Yes to everything except the hang-gliding. And the movies.”

“Thought you liked movies.”

“I don’t have time for movies. And I also don’t have time for you using your phone the whole time, making everybody mad at you, like you did in Star Trek.”

Tony winced. “Did they really make another Next Generation movie?”

Pepper swallowed a smile. “It was a reboot.”

“We could just make out the whole time.”

“We can do that here. In fact, I’m not going to go for the strolls in the park either.”

“Why not?”

“Because one of us would be on a phone the whole time then, too. Besides, weird people hang out in parks.”

“You’re saying we’ll just have to spend all our date time here. Having sex.”

Pepper inclined her head. “I didn’t say no to dinner.”

Tony went and put his glass on the side table, then came back, put his hand on her shoulder. It slid gently down her arm, stopped at her elbow, rubbing a little. “I can do this,” he said.

Something about the way he said it tugged at her heart. “You do realize that I never asked you to.”

“You-”

“I never asked you for dinner,” she said. “Or candles.”

“I can do it.” His hand tightened on her elbow. “Maybe not the candles. I want to. Have to. I’ve changed. I can keep changing.”

Pepper laid her hand on his chest. “I don’t want you to change.”

“You do. Not into a different person. A better person. You always have.”

“I-”

“If you say you like me just the way I am, you’d be lying to me, and I would like you less.”

Pepper didn’t say anything.

“I’d like you less if you were telling the truth, too. You’ve always wanted better from me, Pepper. You’ve always expected better. You want me to be a better version of myself, and I-need that. I want it. I need someone who believes I can-Howard always expected better, too.” His hand slipped off of her, and he turned toward the windows again.

She supposed he didn’t know how sick it made her feel, that somehow she managed to remind him of his father.

He glanced at her. “I didn’t mean it that way. Fury gave me a video. He said-Dad said I could change the world. He believed in me; he made it so I-if I don’t have that, I forget.” He swallowed. “Remind me, Pepper. Remind me of who I can be.”

For a long moment, she didn’t answer. “I have two conditions,” she said, when she found her voice.

“Two, well, that’s kind of steep; I’m not sure I-”

“The first is, next time, you have to tell me when you’re dying. Or about to die.”

He grimaced. “Well, sometimes-”

“You tell me.”

“You’re very intimidating when you’re naked.” He licked his lips. “Sometimes I’m in the middle of something-you know, flying around, saving orphans; I can’t always remember to-”

“Program it into JARVIS. I don’t care. Wherever you are, you tell me if and when you’re in imminent danger of dying.”

“Are you-”

“I just want to tell you how stupid you are.”

Tony stared at her. “You’re also very sexy when you’re naked,” he said finally. “It’s a great look for you. I can’t believe I’ve never seen you naked before. It’s at least-three point five times better than I imagined.”

“Three point five?”

“Yes. Your nipples especially.”

“Second condition,” said Pepper.

“Here we go.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “When we break up, we go right back to where we were when we started going out.”

“We’re already at that part now? ‘It’s not you; it’s me; I hope we can still be friends’? Did we skip a whole big middle part, because-”

“I’m serious, Tony.”

His jaw went hard. “I’m serious too. Why is it already when? How do you know there’s a when? What happened to if? What happened to, ‘if we break up’-”

“We’re going to break up.”

“Thanks for telling me.”

“We are,” said Pepper. “Even if we get back together, there’s going to be at least one break up in our future. If there’s not, I’ll do it just to make things interesting.”

“Kind of twisted.”

“I don’t care. It’s going to happen, and it’s not going to break my heart. It’s not going to ruin the best thing that I have in my life. It can’t.”

“I made you CEO,” said Tony. “I can’t actually take it away. I made sure I couldn’t. The board-”

“Stark Industries is not the best thing in my life.”

Staring at her, Tony slowly licked his lips again. “You shouldn’t say that, Pepper,” he said finally. “You know, in some ancient cultures, saying things made them true. On like alternate planes. That’s why the Egyptians-actually, I don’t know anything about the Egyptians. But you shouldn’t say that.”

“It’s true. Promise me. Promise me that when we break up-”

“If we break up.”

“-you’ll still work with me, and listen to me, and won’t treat me like you have all those other women, like garbage you put out on the street for someone else to take.”

“I don’t treat other women that way.”

“Only the ones you’ve slept with.”

“I’m still friendly with some of them.”

“Name one.”

“Zenobia.”

“You never return her calls,” Pepper pointed out. Zenobia was brilliant, actually; Pepper had liked her, even though she’d gotten more serious with Tony five years ago than most women that had been in his bed. As soon as he’d realized what a good thing it was, Tony had dropped her-basically acted like he was allergic to her. He’d even hid, once, when she’d come to the office to try to reach him.

Tony winced. “Rachel.”

“Only when she got married.”

“You could get married, if we break up.” Then he appeared to think about it. “Scratch that. You can’t. You could join a nunnery. That would be okay with me. Wimples really do it for-”

“Valerie.”

What about men? I haven’t treated any of the men that way.”

“Kenneth.”

“His name was Kenneth, Pepper.”

“Jerry.”

“He smelled bad.”

“Nerak.”

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it. “Oh,” was all he said, because Nerak had been nice and smart and handsome, perfectly willing to keep a secret, and Tony had treated him like shit when he’d decided-whatever he’d decided that made him drop him, and never return his calls.

“You don’t get to do that to me,” Pepper said.

Tony’s jaw tightened. “You know that I can’t promise-”

“You can promise to try.”

“I don’t want to break up, Pepper. We just got together.”

“Promise to try,” Pepper said, “and we can stay together.”

"You didn't ask me to promise to be monogamous," he pointed out.

"No. I'm asking you to promise not to throw me away."

"I promise."

"You're the one who's stuck on monogamy," Pepper said.

"You don't want me to be faithful?" He looked like he was grinding his teeth. "Tell me you don't want me to be faithful."

She couldn't tell him that, so she didn't. Instead she said, "We'll deal with that when it comes up."

"It always comes up. Pepper. Always."

"I'm not doubting you," she said. "I'm trusting you. I'm trusting you to tell me when it comes up, and then we'll deal with it."

He stared at her. "Can I make you come again?"

She had to swallow a smile.

"I’m pretty sure you didn’t the last time, and I want to fuck in bed with you, and you gave me three condoms, two of which I haven’t used. I don’t know if that was wishful thinking, but-”

“You can make me come all you want.” Smiling, Pepper laid her hand over his arc reactor.

“Good. Great. Jesus.” His hand covered hers. “Can we do missionary?”

She raised her brows. “You’re asking if we can do missionary? I don’t know, what you did on the couch was pretty missionary, if you-”

“I know, but I want to do it with a mattress. And pillows. I know. It sounds boring. Not what you expected. But we’re going to date and hang-glide and I’m going to be good and I just really want to fuck you on a bed with sheets. I like sheets a lot. I know I don’t act like I do, because they get tangled, but I like them.”

“Okay,” Pepper said. “Missionary.” She took his hand, started leading him to the bedroom.

“There are plenty of things you can do with missionary,” he said, following her. “And two condoms. Pepper.” Stopping, he tugged on her hand until she turned around. “You could never be like anyone else. I would never throw you away.”

“I know,” she said.

He just looked at her with that flat, blank expression she still could not read, but she thought must mean tenderness. “Bet your cunt is all swollen, huh.”

It was the last thing she had expected him to say, but she didn’t have to think of a response. It wasn’t really a question, and he leaned in to kiss her. “That’s okay,” he said. “I’m going to make you come so hard. So hard you will not believe, and it won’t hurt at all.” He kissed her again. “Maybe just a little. Do you understand how slow I can go? Not like last time. I sort of-got excited. I can go at an agonizing pace. Really. It’s going to be torture. You’ll love it.”

“Then come on and do it,” she said, and tugged his hand.

“Pepper?” he asked, following along. “I really do like you.”

“I like you too.”

“A lot.”

“Mm.”

“I’m going to prove it to you.”

“Tony.” They’d reached the door to his bedroom. She opened it, then kissed him. “I believe you.”

“That’s why,” he said, then kissed her back. “That’s a big reason why.”

“Come show me,” she said, and he did.

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