People Who Have Money and People Who Are Rich
Title: People Who Have Money and People Who Are Rich
Author: firstflier
Theme: 001 Rich
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2,833 words
Summary: “I promise I won’t watch you sleep or anything. Scout’s honour.”
Author's Note: I don’t know when this is set really; it just kind of happened. Maybe after IM1? Eh, I don’t know. Just a plot bunny that wouldn’t leave me alone. Oh and UST. Like...serious UST.
It’s 7 pm on a Friday night when Pepper comes back in through the door she just exited.
“Miss Potts! What an absolute pleasure. Have you decided to stay for a night cap?” Tony is all smiles and she just wants to get home and crawl into bed.
“No, my car won’t start. I think the battery might be dead.” Her frustration is palpable and she runs a hand over her forehead. “Happy has already gone home so he can’t give me a lift and by the smell of you I take it you can’t give me a lift either?”
The smell of alcohol is already hanging heavily in the air.
“JARVIS?”
“I can confirm, Miss. Potts, that Mr. Stark is in no fit state to drive this evening or, indeed, tomorrow morning.” The cold, detached voice of JARVIS reverberates around the living room and Pepper sighs.
Tony, in his rather cheery state, decides to do the gentlemanly thing and offer his hospitality.
“Just stay the night, Potts. There’s at least four guest bedrooms you can choose from that haven’t got my junk stuffed in them.” He can see that she’s swayed (even in his slightly hazy state) as her legs tense to remove her shoes.
“I should just call a cab and go home. Can I borrow the ph-?“
“Oh for Odin’s sake, Potts. Just stay the night, we’ll order a pizza and make a night of it. I promise I won’t watch you sleep or anything. Scout’s honour.” He clumsily salutes her.
“You were never a Boy Scout.” She eyes him suspiciously but her feet are aching and all she wants to do is curl up on the sofa and watch Die Hard. If she can survive days on end putting up with his antics surely she can survive one casual evening, can’t she?
“What, are you afraid you won’t be able to keep your hands of the infamous Iron Man?”
“Hardly.” She emits a ladylike snort but he notices that she is slowly shrugging her jacket from her shoulders. She’s still standing rigid and firm in his hallway so he thinks she might need one last push in the right direction.
“Besides, it’s nothing you haven’t done before. Just think of it this way; you’ll get to sleep in a guest bed instead of falling asleep on the couch over your laptop like normal.”
As she slips off her Manolo Blahniks with a sigh of relief she pretends not to see the smug grin plastered on his face.
Pepper sinks onto the sofa with a grateful sigh and neatly curls her legs up as far as her pencil skirt will allow. Tony notices the tight stretching of material across her thighs and tries not to stare. He tugs the blanket off the armchair next to him and takes a seat beside her before throwing the quilt over both of their legs. She smiles at him and is confused when his brows furrow.
“What?”
“I think there should be some rules for tonight’s proceedings.”
She actually laughs; a proper, full on belly laugh as she stares at him in disbelief. She stops rather suddenly when she spots his raised eyebrow.
“You’re serious?” The mere idea of Tony Stark abiding by, let alone setting, rules is quite hilarious.
“Deadly.” His feral grin warns her that she’s probably (definitely) not going to like what he’s about to say. “After all, it’s my house, my roof, my rules. So...you game, Potts?”
She knows that fighting will only exhaust her and he is right; it is his house so he can do as he pleases. Besides, she thinks that she trusts him enough to know he won’t do anything stupid (and she can always call that cab if his demands become unreasonable).
“Of course, Mr Stark.”
“Excellent! First things first; it’s a casual evening so no calling me ‘Mr Stark’.”
“Certainly, boss.”
He exhales a laugh when he spots the twinkle in her eyes.
“Haha, aren’t you a regular little smart ass?”
She crosses her legs and inspects her nails nonchalantly but her feline grin gives her away.
“I try.”
“Rule number two; nothing to do with work tonight. No sir, no boss, no reminders about meetings and contracts. Just two friends having a casual Friday evening together. Alright?”
She eyes him critically and wonders just what sort of game he’s playing with her. Sometimes she feels like a shiny, new toy and he enjoys figuring out how she works, pushing her limits. Even after 7 years he still seems to find her as intriguing as the day she arrived in his office with her Carvela heels clicking, her Blackberry buzzing and her sharp tone reminding him that, yes, actually he was expecting to attend that meeting in the afternoon and, no, she would not like to accompany him to the bathroom ‘just in case he needed a hand’. She supposes she should be grateful that the infamously fickle Tony Stark has found her vaguely interesting for more than five minutes. Still, she can’t see any menacing genius lurking behind his open, hopeful gaze so, against her better judgement, she agrees to his terms.
“Sure, Tony. That sounds fine to me.”
The smile he blinds her with is beatific and catches her off guard but she finds herself smiling back anyway.
“So what film do you wanna watch?” There’s a boyish innocence to his question and she realises, suddenly, that this is dangerous. It’s dangerous to be sat on Tony Stark’s sofa on a Friday night and not have some half-baked excuse to run away. She stamps on the butterflies fluttering around her chest and focuses on the selection of a film. Her decision isn’t hard.
“Die Hard.”
If he’s surprised he doesn’t show it and she’s grateful that he doesn’t ask her what she likes about them. She doesn’t want to confess to liking the explosions and the adventure and the danger. But, most of all, she doesn’t want to admit that her love for Die Hard stems from the fact that John McClane is a normal guy saving the world.
She doesn’t want to reveal that she finds the everyday heroism alarmingly attractive and reminds her of someone else, rather closer to home, that she finds alarmingly attractive.
“You want to marathon all four?” Tony’s excitement is infectious and, despite her exhaustion, she finds herself nodding in agreement because this is so familiar to every sleep over she ever had in her teens.
Although, there wasn’t all of this unresolved sexual tension between her and her hosts back when things were simpler.
Her musings are interrupted by the noise and vibrations of the surround sound making itself known. The lights have dimmed without her noticing and Tony suddenly seems to be sitting a lot closer than she remembers.
“Well...isn’t this cosy?”
The dark rumble of his voice has her trembling and her mouth has gone dry. She looks at how they are curled up on the couch, her body angling towards his, with a blanket draped over their laps. It’s all so oddly adolescent and reminiscent of times that are long gone. She feels as though they should be holding hands under a cushion in case her mother walks in and catches them.
It’s a ridiculous thought, not least because her Mum has been dead and buried for 5 years.
She shrugs the blanket off and abruptly stands up. She hopes he doesn’t notice her knees quaking. She’s backing up in the direction of the kitchen and he looks slightly shell-shocked at her reaction to his simple jest.
“I’m going to order that pizza. What do you fancy?”
Half of her wants him to look at her with those melted chocolate eyes and whisper ‘you’. The other half hopes he’s in the mood for Hawaiian. She almost hates the smirk on his face that suggests he knows exactly what she’s thinking. She races for the phone before he can say anything to ruin the evening. It’s inevitable that he will make some lewd remark and destroy the tone of the night but she wants the peace to last as long as possible.
She dials the number for their regular pizza place with shaky fingers and barely notices that she’s ordered hot, spicy pepperoni instead of Hawaiian.
When she shuffles back into the living room she feel a lot more composed and sinks into the seat she vacated next to Tony.
“Everything okay?” He sounds genuinely concerned so she smiles at him, doesn’t notice that it might be a little too bright, and nods.
They watch the movie in silence for a few minutes. Predictably, it’s Tony that breaks the silence.
“Is this a date, Potts?”
“What? No! No, it’s not a date. Why would you even-“
“This feels like a date.”
“Just because we’re watching films and it’s a Friday night-“
“I’m just saying that-“
“-and I know what you’re like with girls on Fridays-“
“-we’re sitting in the dark and ordering pizza-“
“-and Saturdays and Sundays and ... well any day ending in ‘y’ really.”
“-it feels like a date.”
“It’s not a date.”
“So why does it feel like one?”
“Probably because you keep putting your hand on my thigh.”
She raises her eyebrow and looks pointedly at the offending limb. He merely hums noncommittally as though he hadn’t really noticed his hand resting lightly just above her knee.
“Hmm. Or maybe it’s because it actually is a date.”
She can tell that there is no way for her to win this argument.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, boss.”
“Ah-ah! No work tonight!” He seems genuinely gleeful that she’s forgotten their arrangement. She can feel his hand sliding further up her thigh and she slaps it away, hoping the blush spreading across her cheeks is hidden in the shadows. “As to things that help me sleep at night, Potts, why don’t we-“
“How would you even know what a date is like?” Her change of conversation topic is more to save her own composure (when did she start breathing so heavily?) than to stop his embarrassing onslaught upon her legs.
“Hey!” Tony looks wounded. “I date-“ She arches an eyebrow. “-ed. I’ve dated.” He corrects with a slight glare in her direction and maybe the hint of a huff. Pepper smirks at him with a strangely familiar quirk of her lips and he recognises the look as one of his own. There’s a strange warmth in his chest at knowing that she is stealing little pieces of him.
“Play dates as a toddler don’t count, Tony.”
She’s shrewd, he’ll give her that.
“Okay, okay so I’ve never really dated. I didn’t have to.” He peers closely at her as she rolls her eyes. “Will you hit me if I make a comment about a bovine and getting dairy products free of charge?”
“Probably.” She admits with a soft, slow chuckle.
“Besides, why would I need to date when I know I’ve got you waiting for me at home?” He’s trying to make a joke but, instead, the deep sincerity of his eyes makes her breath catch in her throat and, suddenly, she’s struggling for air. “You’re the only woman I really want in my life anyway.” He takes in her speechlessness and looks a little surprised. “Didn’t you know that, Pepper?” His eyes pin her to her chair and he wraps her smaller hand up in his calloused palm. It’s an oddly comforting gesture and one that she would not normally allow him to get away with.
She glances down at their entwined fingers and her heart seems to skip a beat at the absolute normalcy of it. When she looks back up, she can see his face bathed in that eerie blue light, can see that his pupils are blown wide and she can see every little pulse of desire radiating from him as though it were some tangible thing she could reach out and grab if she wanted it enough. What scares her is that she knows she wants it more than enough, needs it to breathe, needs it to be.
The doorbell rings and seems to shake her out of her stupor although her eyes are still cloudy, her brain just a bit muddled. Bruce Willis yippee-ki-yays in the background.
“I should get that.”
“Let JARVIS put it on my card.” He’s leaning closer, his gaze focused solely on her parted lips. His hand squeezes hers softly and she thinks that maybe her legs are quaking again. His voice is nothing more than a growl that she can feel in her chest before her ears distinguish the individual words. The intent is clear. The blood pumps heavily around her head and she feels suddenly dizzy.
“But it was going to be my treat.” She whispers, unwilling, for once, to destroy the soft harmony playing between them. She can almost taste the tang of alcohol on his breath and she wants to inhale the heady scent of Tony Stark before she can persuade herself not to.
His eyes laugh at her when she says ‘treat’ and she can almost hear the innuendo on his tongue but that doesn’t stop her from licking her lips in anticipation.
“Yeah, because it’s not like I’m rich and famous or anything.”
“It’s not about being rich; it’s one friend doing something nice for another friend.”
Her statement seems to drain all the fizz out of her and she pulls away from him looking oddly flat. The word ‘friend’ rings in her ears and she realises how close she was to doing something completely stupid and un ‘friend-ly’. Or maybe far too friendly. Either way, she puts a stop to it despite his eyes still burning at her and his hand still too warm around her own.
The doorbell rings again; the sharp jangling noise jolts them both awake and out of whatever strange dream world they were in where Tony Stark and Pepper Potts could ever be more than just Mr Stark, superhero extraordinaire and CEO, and Miss Potts personal assistant and frustrated.
As Pepper pays the pizza boy, a young lad that seems far more in awe of the fact that he can see the reflection of Tony Stark if he leans just a little to the left than the fact that Pepper gives him a $50 tip in her disoriented state, she wonders just what the hell she is thinking. Why has casual Friday quickly and efficiently destroyed all the walls and safety mechanisms she spent years building up against the Tony Stark charm? She pauses on her way back to the living room, takes a few deep breaths, and reminds herself of all the reasons why there shouldn’t be a Tony and Pepper, all the reasons why there hasn’t been a ‘them’ thus far.
She goes back and settles next to Tony to eat pizza and watch movies like two old friends.
Just friends.
She tries to ignore, once again, the taste of disappointment that lingers like treacle in the air, of fully realised hopes and half intended promises.
She also tries to ignore that, as much as she argued with Tony, this is how most of her dates turn out.
**
3 hours into the Die Hard marathon and Tony feels the dull weight of Pepper’s head loll onto his shoulder. He knows she’s asleep because, rather than remove it quickly and mutter apologies, she sighs against his neck.
He’s absolutely sure that his goose bumps are entirely to do with a glitch in the AC and nothing to do with the feel of Pepper’s warm, moist breathing against his rapidly climbing pulse. She’s curled into his side and he rather likes the comforting feel of her body pressed against his, the feel of her chest rising and falling in time with each staccato breath hitting his jaw. But, promises are promises, and he did say that she wouldn’t sleep on the sofa. He scoops her legs across his lap in order to pick her up bridal style but, with her nestled between his thighs, he’s tempted to just stay there until morning. The almost-nearly-there-just-a-bit-further kiss is sitting rather heavily in his mind. He ignores his body’s urges and lifts her easily, his arms wrapping around her slim limbs with little to no effort.
As he carries her up the stairs towards the guest room he watches her soft expression, traces the pout of her lips and the smattering of freckles curving over her collarbone. He feels like the wealthiest man in the world.
And not because he didn’t pay for the pizza.
&&Fin