Iron Man Fic: to temporary liars
to temporary liars
if anything, it’s her biggest secret, the fact that this house is still far too big for her. and sometimes, she writes the paper for him but forgets that she reads it too. iron man. pepper. tony/pepper. movieverse. 3,248 words, pg.
-
If anything, it’s her biggest secret, the fact that this house is still far too big for her.
She’s alone in the living room, standing fresh among day schedules and the paper, a cooling pizza box hipped on the edge of his coffee table. It’s too quiet tonight, the halls of the house opening into this odd sense of loneliness that she tries valiantly to ignore. She reasons it’s because the house is too big, almost too much, and she’s not here long enough in the day to really have the time to get used to it.
Tony spends most of his time in the workshop, however, and writing more stories in her head about the house seems more than pointless and a little silly. It does get to her, from time to time, and she wonders if she’s still lingering on other things instead of holding herself to space. What it is though, tonight, is one of those nights where work is stretched thin to check her patience well into the night. She’s exhausted and lately, since his string of press conferences, his day-to-day frame of time has swallowed hers completely whole.
She’s trying not to get annoyed.
There’s a meeting on the schedule that she didn’t plan. On rare occasions, he’ll play and settle things on his own and quietly; for whatever reason, he seems to enjoy the fact that he can put things on the schedule and she’ll have to work around it in some bizarre, creative fashion. It’s how she finds herself looking around though, staring from her papers to around the house and remembering that he said something about getting dressed for tonight.
But she’s not stupid. She smells his reasoning for tonight and it’s almost funny how that suddenly makes her more uncomfortable than the house.
Trying to ignore where she’s going in her head, Pepper sits and picks up the paper. Tuesday night. Nine. And the letters ‘v’ and ‘f’ cornered underneath - it’s not Valerie, she thinks in amusement, because Tony’s sworn off any Valeries since his tequila days and that’s, that’s saying a lot. She can only assume it’s the Vanity Fair writer and that, if anything, makes her even more wary.
Christine-something - all she remembers is throwing her out, like the other girls, straight-laced and with somewhat of a cool smile. She’s not jealous. She can’t be jealous because there are things like old habits and patterns, despite however nice the idea of change is. It’s her own fault, she has to say, because the opportunity, however absent, had been there, right in front of her, and now, suddenly, there is nothing to do. It’s never been about seizing the moment, but the extensions of her discomfort seem to brave the opinion that she still doesn’t trust the idea of him in her life at that capacity. She sighs though and stops herself, breaking before she digs herself into her habitual over-analysis.
“I should be drinking for that,” she mutters dryly.
Instead, she checks her watch for enough time. He’s going to be fine, she knows, but he has the eager tendency to be fashionably late for everything - dates, weddings, anniversaries, business meetings, coffee, and the supermarket. Don’t ask her to explain that one though. It’s a painful story to tell.
She busies herself in work, turning on the evening news and making sure that things are, at least, straight for tomorrow. She learned quickly that things have to be planned for a day-to-day basis. First-hand all these rituals were never amusing to watch under the guise of his self-destructive behavior; still though, she’s not going to take away from any of this, from the idea that he wants to do something more and significant. She might be falling for that honesty too, a little more, and it’s starting to scare her.
He’s moving around upstairs again. She hears things drop. There’s a curse at the stairs and she rolls her eyes, leaning back into the couch with the paper and pretends to scan, if anything, because she knows that she’s not going to get anything done until he comes down and leaves for whatever meeting this is. She hopes it’s not another one of those interviews since his bizarre, impromptu announcement of his newfound heroic idealism. They had to work hard to clean that up. She doesn’t even tough the obvious though.
Her amusement is still brief and she listens to him jog down the stairs finally, now muttering things to the house. She shakes her head and he skirts into the living room, a little breathless and annoyed. She looks up, raising an eyebrow, and his mouth starts to open as he fumbles with his tie.
She shakes her head again, dropping her gaze to the news. “No.”
“But I haven’t asked anything.”
“You will,” she doesn’t look up,” and then I’ll pretend to think about it - in fact, I’ll probably pretend to think about it for quite awhile so that I can give the impression of actually caring. And then I’ll say no.”
He snorts. “You don’t even know what it is.”
“I do.”
He moves over to the couch, dropping down next to her and over a paper that she’s left on the other side. He winces as it wrinkles, pulling it out from underneath him and is sheepish when he drops it over her other things.
“You really don’t.”
Her eyes roll. “No. I think - I really do.”
She’s not stupid, she wants to counter, but the argument is too disposable and self-centered and really not worth it. But she raises an eyebrow again as he stares at her, his fingers fumbling over his tie. She’s not going to say it, but he gets it and peeks at the day planner in her lap as it mirrors the gesture from under her paper.
“She’s hot,” he mumbles to admit, half-ashamed and half-amused as if he’s been caught sticking his hand the proverbial cookie jar. It’s one thing that annoys her about their relationship - she’s stuck in thin metaphors most of the time, dipping herself in self-doubt and over-analysis. He just grazes over it.
She shrugs. “Sure.”
“You’re angry.”
“Why would I be angry?”
The sudden assumption makes her uncomfortable - is she? She’s thinking about it too much. The idea is tense in her head as she becomes more and more aware of his presence next to her, still driven by the facts, as weak as they are, in her head. She hides an embarrassed flush, shifting uncomfortably in her spot. It’s not that she’s angry, she’s annoyed and maybe, maybe even a little disappointed. It’s not that she carries these expectations of him, like sometimes she swears that he thinks she does, it’s that she’s too used to a lot of things and this change, his inclinations toward change, confuse and make her more curious.
He sighs. “You are.”
“No,” she shakes her head, “you’re a grown man and you need to do what you need to do and I’m - well, I’m a grown woman too.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
It’s almost too spiteful and the force surprises her, her mouth tight as she straightens. She gave away too much, she thinks. She draws her hands over the planner, pressing her palms down against the pages to calm herself. Really, she thinks, what else is she supposed to say?
But he’s still tentative, still seemingly interested in smoothing over some surfaces with her. “She’s really not that bad.”
“She really writes for Vanity Fair. They called you a hack, I believe, and drunk with an over-indulgent libido. Which was true. But it was the Christmas issue.”
It’s amusing, really, because she’s more than responsible for the level of privacy that he has. The first day on this job - bizarrely enough, she came from the accounting pool to him - Mr. Stane had made it clear that it was going to be more babysitting more than anything. It seemed to appeal to her neurotic side, ironically enough, and her over-indulgent needs to keep everything straight. Except it’s become something completely different. So really, really most of the information never came from inside, from her or him, it was really only speculation. Occasionally though, Tony would make a slip and, you know, sleep with the writers.
But that’s something different too.
She catches him studying her though, suddenly, and grows more aware of the thin line of space between them. He raises an eyebrow. She shrugs and he’s shifting close, picking at all the pieces of tomorrow’s day that she’s already organized for it.
“You read the article?”
She smirks, trying to ignore the fact that he’s leaning closer. “With cookies.”
“You’re not being very nice to me.”
She tenses when his hand drops over her wrist, just briefly, and his fingers skim the heel of her palm. Soft and slow, her eyes get a little wider and she watches his thumb brush against her skin. He’s doing it again, being forward with no concept of space, her space, as if he were trying to make her nervous, trying to catch her off-guard. She bites her lip and he leans against the counter, peering over the paper with her as he waits for her response.
“I’m sorry,” she mutters finally.
He shrugs. “No, you’re not.”
“You don’t know that.”
It’s effortless, the sudden charge of back and forth. She used to think that it was the only thing she did have with him, a thin sort of connection that keep to the surface and nothing more. Maybe, she’s driving herself to that sudden co-dependency that washes through their relationship.
It also means that, at some level, she’s much more comfortable with him than she leads herself to believe. She doesn’t know if she’s willing to push past that though, the lines and questions that she has are still unanswered. For once, she thinks, she’d like to know what he’s thinking.
For once.
But he stays steady in her space, amused and pushing. She’s beginning to believe that he’s looking for some sort of excuse. It kind of amuses her, it kind of doesn’t - she has no idea, half the time, what comes with him when it isn’t related to the company, the mundane day-to-day habits, and everything else that follows in wake.
“Actually, I do. You’re wrinkling your nose.”
“I’m wrinkling my nose?”
“Right there,” his fingers slide over the bridge of her nose, “there are wrinkles. You’re still wrinkling your nose.”
She can’t help it as she flinches, just a little bit, confused and wary of the easy invasion. Never mind how soft his finger slides over her skin, resting lazy over her cheek as he draws his hand away.
“And you have no concept of personal space,” she mutters.
He shrugs. “I like yours better.”
“How very pre-school of you.”
“I do share well.”
He’s teasing her and pushing and she hates when he does this. She’s reminded at times that she used to be some form of practice and that this easy banter was the only way she could keep some sort of foot in the proverbial door. No, he’s not a bad guy. She knows that. But what he does do is level all those perfectly lined walls that she clings to, that she’s desperate to keep straight and sure.
Tony eyes her though. There’s a brief frown, swallowed back as he says, “I don’t have to do it.”
It’s as if he really means it. The intention seems to be there and she watches him curiously, finally letting go of the planner in her lap and the papers that she’s surrounded herself with.
Tentatively, she shrugs. “It’s on your schedule.”
“Well, what are you doing tonight?”
“Not working for you, hopefully,” she snorts, biting back any inclination to be snide. It’s problematic, she thinks, the sudden desire to share more than she thinks she can afford. Sure, it’s about not getting her heart broke and of course, there’s the fact that she works for him, no ifs or ands or even buts. But she’s definitely more comfortable keeping things separate, compact even, and in places where she can easily distinguish them.
He makes them difficult.
But when he says nothing, she assumes that conversation is over and finally, finally she has that predictable set of space. She reaches for her things and cleans everything up a little bit. The paper that he sat on is still too wrinkled for her liking and she takes it, pressing her hand over the page and trying to brush all the lines out.
There’s a sigh from him and she expects the start again, feeling him lean forward along with her. Her hands stop on the paper and she’s clutching it, waiting for him to say something.
“We’re going to have to talk about, Miss Potts,” he sort of softens, his fingers grazing over her hand. “And as dashing as you know I am - I’m really not that bad. Really. I promise.”
Her eyes close. “I know.”
It’s the sort of thing you can’t forget, having these kinds of feelings for him. Of course, however silly, she’s seen the other end and she really doesn’t have any inclination to be another one of those girls. At the same time, she enjoys her professional venture and that relationship that he has with her. They trust each other. She keeps herself sane with everything, not just day-to-day, and with the understanding that she can be that person that he stops and allows to participate in whatever it is that he’s started.
“Then?”
She looks up at him, shrugging.
“There’s a problem.”
It’s the first time that she’s really honest with him, quietly watching him edge even closer to her. Problem isn’t the right word though and she lets herself relax briefly, letting her fingers apologize over his hand. He grunts, shrugging. Her hand rises out from his and she lets her fingers graze along the buttons of his shirt without any qualms.
“I’m not ready to talk about it.” Pepper pauses too, shrugging as she let herself be closer even for the moment. “It’s a little scarier for me than it is for you - don’t look at me like that.”
He blinks. “Like what?”
“Tony.”
“I’m not looking at you like anything.” He’s genuinely confused too, looking at her like she’s grown two heads. His mouth is tense, his hands dropping to the edge of the coffee table.
He almost knocks over the pizza box and sort of mimicking her stance, for whatever reason, it pushes at her annoyance. She drops the paper with a little bit of distaste, her mouth pressing together and tightening too.
“You’re not five.”
He shrugs. “I know.”
There are things she could say - she’s trying to have an adult conversation, she knows it’s destined to be one-sided, and she can even predict his faces without him being here. Half the time, she does know that she’s talking to walls that absorb what he wants to hear. For once, though, for once she’d like to hear something out of him first for a change.
But then again, he’s trying.
He’s trying and he’s looking at her in mix of confusion and amusement as if he knows something that she doesn’t. She’s trying to get herself into working again, into busying herself, but this leads to the highest point of her problem, the idea of him and her and everything in between -
She doesn’t know how to lie to him.
“Okay,” he says finally, slowly as if he were trying to grasp something more. He’s watching her and then reaches for some of her papers, tucking them away and back to where they belong.
“Okay?”
He looks away, “I can give you space.”
It’s quiet for a moment and she half-expects him to go and to stand. It’s a funny thing to say to her and he’s almost resigned. She reminds herself that he has a dinner instead. He’s going to start being late, at this rate, and she almost started thinking about the perverse kind of pleasure she would get at making him early to something and surprising the other party. Or his date, she reminds herself, and then that does make her wrinkle her nose. There’s a chuckle and she’s been caught, her blush warming lightly across her cheeks. They’re sort of staring at each other then, her eyes brushing lazily across his face.
The sudden forwardness comes out of nowhere from her, the only assurance of accountability that she has gives herself is her hand stilling and her mouth covering his. Her mind, however, is completely blank. This isn’t kissing him for the sake of kissing him. She has no idea where the spurt of bravery is coming from, haunting her as his hand sighs over her hip. Still her mouth warms over his, soft and curious, as her fingers start to brush over his cheeks. The stubble is coarse under the tips of her fingers and she feels his hand come behind her neck, cupping her skin.
“This isn’t space,” she thinks he says against her mouth, growling softly as they pull together just a little bit more.
She thinks she says something akin to you first or not me. But then it becomes about kissing him, her mouth opening to deepen movement. He seems to growl again and they shift into an awkward position, Tony pressing closer against her side as she twists up to keep her mouth easy against his. Her fingers then slide into her hair and she tastes him, really tastes him, as she taking a little reaction here and there.
He pulls away first.
She’s breathless, looking at him in confusion. He seems to alternate between looking at her with a soft affection and his own confusion, much thicker than her own. She bites her lip and he shakes his hand, standing almost abruptly. It’s bewildering, but she swears there’s even a bit of a smile, strange as the moment suddenly is.
“What about your dinner?” They’re the only words she suddenly has, watching him nervously.
He just waves his hand, sort of stunned into turning around and leaving her alone at the couch. Her mouth is still warm, her lips a little wet as she sighs and leans back into the pillows of the couch. Her eyes close and she shakes her head, wondering where the sudden spurt of impulsiveness came from. He does this to her, always has, and she still feels that odd sort of excitement humming underneath her and her fingertips.
She listens to him go, staring into the sudden space that he had once occupied. Oh god, she thinks. She’s a complete and total - no, really this is about her ability and inability to finally take something that she wants for herself. It’s a strange, almost silly step and she has no real assurances for herself.
At the same time though, she’s giddy, humming through the inclination to go after him. She wants to press. She doesn’t want to press and the indecision seems to keep her from making any pushes into a decision.
“I’ll be downstairs,” comes the call, absent, his footsteps finally wandering well into the basement and then to the workshop.
It’s then that she lets herself start to laugh.
if anything, it’s her biggest secret, the fact that this house is still far too big for her. and sometimes, she writes the paper for him but forgets that she reads it too. iron man. pepper. tony/pepper. movieverse. 3,248 words, pg.
-
If anything, it’s her biggest secret, the fact that this house is still far too big for her.
She’s alone in the living room, standing fresh among day schedules and the paper, a cooling pizza box hipped on the edge of his coffee table. It’s too quiet tonight, the halls of the house opening into this odd sense of loneliness that she tries valiantly to ignore. She reasons it’s because the house is too big, almost too much, and she’s not here long enough in the day to really have the time to get used to it.
Tony spends most of his time in the workshop, however, and writing more stories in her head about the house seems more than pointless and a little silly. It does get to her, from time to time, and she wonders if she’s still lingering on other things instead of holding herself to space. What it is though, tonight, is one of those nights where work is stretched thin to check her patience well into the night. She’s exhausted and lately, since his string of press conferences, his day-to-day frame of time has swallowed hers completely whole.
She’s trying not to get annoyed.
There’s a meeting on the schedule that she didn’t plan. On rare occasions, he’ll play and settle things on his own and quietly; for whatever reason, he seems to enjoy the fact that he can put things on the schedule and she’ll have to work around it in some bizarre, creative fashion. It’s how she finds herself looking around though, staring from her papers to around the house and remembering that he said something about getting dressed for tonight.
But she’s not stupid. She smells his reasoning for tonight and it’s almost funny how that suddenly makes her more uncomfortable than the house.
Trying to ignore where she’s going in her head, Pepper sits and picks up the paper. Tuesday night. Nine. And the letters ‘v’ and ‘f’ cornered underneath - it’s not Valerie, she thinks in amusement, because Tony’s sworn off any Valeries since his tequila days and that’s, that’s saying a lot. She can only assume it’s the Vanity Fair writer and that, if anything, makes her even more wary.
Christine-something - all she remembers is throwing her out, like the other girls, straight-laced and with somewhat of a cool smile. She’s not jealous. She can’t be jealous because there are things like old habits and patterns, despite however nice the idea of change is. It’s her own fault, she has to say, because the opportunity, however absent, had been there, right in front of her, and now, suddenly, there is nothing to do. It’s never been about seizing the moment, but the extensions of her discomfort seem to brave the opinion that she still doesn’t trust the idea of him in her life at that capacity. She sighs though and stops herself, breaking before she digs herself into her habitual over-analysis.
“I should be drinking for that,” she mutters dryly.
Instead, she checks her watch for enough time. He’s going to be fine, she knows, but he has the eager tendency to be fashionably late for everything - dates, weddings, anniversaries, business meetings, coffee, and the supermarket. Don’t ask her to explain that one though. It’s a painful story to tell.
She busies herself in work, turning on the evening news and making sure that things are, at least, straight for tomorrow. She learned quickly that things have to be planned for a day-to-day basis. First-hand all these rituals were never amusing to watch under the guise of his self-destructive behavior; still though, she’s not going to take away from any of this, from the idea that he wants to do something more and significant. She might be falling for that honesty too, a little more, and it’s starting to scare her.
He’s moving around upstairs again. She hears things drop. There’s a curse at the stairs and she rolls her eyes, leaning back into the couch with the paper and pretends to scan, if anything, because she knows that she’s not going to get anything done until he comes down and leaves for whatever meeting this is. She hopes it’s not another one of those interviews since his bizarre, impromptu announcement of his newfound heroic idealism. They had to work hard to clean that up. She doesn’t even tough the obvious though.
Her amusement is still brief and she listens to him jog down the stairs finally, now muttering things to the house. She shakes her head and he skirts into the living room, a little breathless and annoyed. She looks up, raising an eyebrow, and his mouth starts to open as he fumbles with his tie.
She shakes her head again, dropping her gaze to the news. “No.”
“But I haven’t asked anything.”
“You will,” she doesn’t look up,” and then I’ll pretend to think about it - in fact, I’ll probably pretend to think about it for quite awhile so that I can give the impression of actually caring. And then I’ll say no.”
He snorts. “You don’t even know what it is.”
“I do.”
He moves over to the couch, dropping down next to her and over a paper that she’s left on the other side. He winces as it wrinkles, pulling it out from underneath him and is sheepish when he drops it over her other things.
“You really don’t.”
Her eyes roll. “No. I think - I really do.”
She’s not stupid, she wants to counter, but the argument is too disposable and self-centered and really not worth it. But she raises an eyebrow again as he stares at her, his fingers fumbling over his tie. She’s not going to say it, but he gets it and peeks at the day planner in her lap as it mirrors the gesture from under her paper.
“She’s hot,” he mumbles to admit, half-ashamed and half-amused as if he’s been caught sticking his hand the proverbial cookie jar. It’s one thing that annoys her about their relationship - she’s stuck in thin metaphors most of the time, dipping herself in self-doubt and over-analysis. He just grazes over it.
She shrugs. “Sure.”
“You’re angry.”
“Why would I be angry?”
The sudden assumption makes her uncomfortable - is she? She’s thinking about it too much. The idea is tense in her head as she becomes more and more aware of his presence next to her, still driven by the facts, as weak as they are, in her head. She hides an embarrassed flush, shifting uncomfortably in her spot. It’s not that she’s angry, she’s annoyed and maybe, maybe even a little disappointed. It’s not that she carries these expectations of him, like sometimes she swears that he thinks she does, it’s that she’s too used to a lot of things and this change, his inclinations toward change, confuse and make her more curious.
He sighs. “You are.”
“No,” she shakes her head, “you’re a grown man and you need to do what you need to do and I’m - well, I’m a grown woman too.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
It’s almost too spiteful and the force surprises her, her mouth tight as she straightens. She gave away too much, she thinks. She draws her hands over the planner, pressing her palms down against the pages to calm herself. Really, she thinks, what else is she supposed to say?
But he’s still tentative, still seemingly interested in smoothing over some surfaces with her. “She’s really not that bad.”
“She really writes for Vanity Fair. They called you a hack, I believe, and drunk with an over-indulgent libido. Which was true. But it was the Christmas issue.”
It’s amusing, really, because she’s more than responsible for the level of privacy that he has. The first day on this job - bizarrely enough, she came from the accounting pool to him - Mr. Stane had made it clear that it was going to be more babysitting more than anything. It seemed to appeal to her neurotic side, ironically enough, and her over-indulgent needs to keep everything straight. Except it’s become something completely different. So really, really most of the information never came from inside, from her or him, it was really only speculation. Occasionally though, Tony would make a slip and, you know, sleep with the writers.
But that’s something different too.
She catches him studying her though, suddenly, and grows more aware of the thin line of space between them. He raises an eyebrow. She shrugs and he’s shifting close, picking at all the pieces of tomorrow’s day that she’s already organized for it.
“You read the article?”
She smirks, trying to ignore the fact that he’s leaning closer. “With cookies.”
“You’re not being very nice to me.”
She tenses when his hand drops over her wrist, just briefly, and his fingers skim the heel of her palm. Soft and slow, her eyes get a little wider and she watches his thumb brush against her skin. He’s doing it again, being forward with no concept of space, her space, as if he were trying to make her nervous, trying to catch her off-guard. She bites her lip and he leans against the counter, peering over the paper with her as he waits for her response.
“I’m sorry,” she mutters finally.
He shrugs. “No, you’re not.”
“You don’t know that.”
It’s effortless, the sudden charge of back and forth. She used to think that it was the only thing she did have with him, a thin sort of connection that keep to the surface and nothing more. Maybe, she’s driving herself to that sudden co-dependency that washes through their relationship.
It also means that, at some level, she’s much more comfortable with him than she leads herself to believe. She doesn’t know if she’s willing to push past that though, the lines and questions that she has are still unanswered. For once, she thinks, she’d like to know what he’s thinking.
For once.
But he stays steady in her space, amused and pushing. She’s beginning to believe that he’s looking for some sort of excuse. It kind of amuses her, it kind of doesn’t - she has no idea, half the time, what comes with him when it isn’t related to the company, the mundane day-to-day habits, and everything else that follows in wake.
“Actually, I do. You’re wrinkling your nose.”
“I’m wrinkling my nose?”
“Right there,” his fingers slide over the bridge of her nose, “there are wrinkles. You’re still wrinkling your nose.”
She can’t help it as she flinches, just a little bit, confused and wary of the easy invasion. Never mind how soft his finger slides over her skin, resting lazy over her cheek as he draws his hand away.
“And you have no concept of personal space,” she mutters.
He shrugs. “I like yours better.”
“How very pre-school of you.”
“I do share well.”
He’s teasing her and pushing and she hates when he does this. She’s reminded at times that she used to be some form of practice and that this easy banter was the only way she could keep some sort of foot in the proverbial door. No, he’s not a bad guy. She knows that. But what he does do is level all those perfectly lined walls that she clings to, that she’s desperate to keep straight and sure.
Tony eyes her though. There’s a brief frown, swallowed back as he says, “I don’t have to do it.”
It’s as if he really means it. The intention seems to be there and she watches him curiously, finally letting go of the planner in her lap and the papers that she’s surrounded herself with.
Tentatively, she shrugs. “It’s on your schedule.”
“Well, what are you doing tonight?”
“Not working for you, hopefully,” she snorts, biting back any inclination to be snide. It’s problematic, she thinks, the sudden desire to share more than she thinks she can afford. Sure, it’s about not getting her heart broke and of course, there’s the fact that she works for him, no ifs or ands or even buts. But she’s definitely more comfortable keeping things separate, compact even, and in places where she can easily distinguish them.
He makes them difficult.
But when he says nothing, she assumes that conversation is over and finally, finally she has that predictable set of space. She reaches for her things and cleans everything up a little bit. The paper that he sat on is still too wrinkled for her liking and she takes it, pressing her hand over the page and trying to brush all the lines out.
There’s a sigh from him and she expects the start again, feeling him lean forward along with her. Her hands stop on the paper and she’s clutching it, waiting for him to say something.
“We’re going to have to talk about, Miss Potts,” he sort of softens, his fingers grazing over her hand. “And as dashing as you know I am - I’m really not that bad. Really. I promise.”
Her eyes close. “I know.”
It’s the sort of thing you can’t forget, having these kinds of feelings for him. Of course, however silly, she’s seen the other end and she really doesn’t have any inclination to be another one of those girls. At the same time, she enjoys her professional venture and that relationship that he has with her. They trust each other. She keeps herself sane with everything, not just day-to-day, and with the understanding that she can be that person that he stops and allows to participate in whatever it is that he’s started.
“Then?”
She looks up at him, shrugging.
“There’s a problem.”
It’s the first time that she’s really honest with him, quietly watching him edge even closer to her. Problem isn’t the right word though and she lets herself relax briefly, letting her fingers apologize over his hand. He grunts, shrugging. Her hand rises out from his and she lets her fingers graze along the buttons of his shirt without any qualms.
“I’m not ready to talk about it.” Pepper pauses too, shrugging as she let herself be closer even for the moment. “It’s a little scarier for me than it is for you - don’t look at me like that.”
He blinks. “Like what?”
“Tony.”
“I’m not looking at you like anything.” He’s genuinely confused too, looking at her like she’s grown two heads. His mouth is tense, his hands dropping to the edge of the coffee table.
He almost knocks over the pizza box and sort of mimicking her stance, for whatever reason, it pushes at her annoyance. She drops the paper with a little bit of distaste, her mouth pressing together and tightening too.
“You’re not five.”
He shrugs. “I know.”
There are things she could say - she’s trying to have an adult conversation, she knows it’s destined to be one-sided, and she can even predict his faces without him being here. Half the time, she does know that she’s talking to walls that absorb what he wants to hear. For once, though, for once she’d like to hear something out of him first for a change.
But then again, he’s trying.
He’s trying and he’s looking at her in mix of confusion and amusement as if he knows something that she doesn’t. She’s trying to get herself into working again, into busying herself, but this leads to the highest point of her problem, the idea of him and her and everything in between -
She doesn’t know how to lie to him.
“Okay,” he says finally, slowly as if he were trying to grasp something more. He’s watching her and then reaches for some of her papers, tucking them away and back to where they belong.
“Okay?”
He looks away, “I can give you space.”
It’s quiet for a moment and she half-expects him to go and to stand. It’s a funny thing to say to her and he’s almost resigned. She reminds herself that he has a dinner instead. He’s going to start being late, at this rate, and she almost started thinking about the perverse kind of pleasure she would get at making him early to something and surprising the other party. Or his date, she reminds herself, and then that does make her wrinkle her nose. There’s a chuckle and she’s been caught, her blush warming lightly across her cheeks. They’re sort of staring at each other then, her eyes brushing lazily across his face.
The sudden forwardness comes out of nowhere from her, the only assurance of accountability that she has gives herself is her hand stilling and her mouth covering his. Her mind, however, is completely blank. This isn’t kissing him for the sake of kissing him. She has no idea where the spurt of bravery is coming from, haunting her as his hand sighs over her hip. Still her mouth warms over his, soft and curious, as her fingers start to brush over his cheeks. The stubble is coarse under the tips of her fingers and she feels his hand come behind her neck, cupping her skin.
“This isn’t space,” she thinks he says against her mouth, growling softly as they pull together just a little bit more.
She thinks she says something akin to you first or not me. But then it becomes about kissing him, her mouth opening to deepen movement. He seems to growl again and they shift into an awkward position, Tony pressing closer against her side as she twists up to keep her mouth easy against his. Her fingers then slide into her hair and she tastes him, really tastes him, as she taking a little reaction here and there.
He pulls away first.
She’s breathless, looking at him in confusion. He seems to alternate between looking at her with a soft affection and his own confusion, much thicker than her own. She bites her lip and he shakes his hand, standing almost abruptly. It’s bewildering, but she swears there’s even a bit of a smile, strange as the moment suddenly is.
“What about your dinner?” They’re the only words she suddenly has, watching him nervously.
He just waves his hand, sort of stunned into turning around and leaving her alone at the couch. Her mouth is still warm, her lips a little wet as she sighs and leans back into the pillows of the couch. Her eyes close and she shakes her head, wondering where the sudden spurt of impulsiveness came from. He does this to her, always has, and she still feels that odd sort of excitement humming underneath her and her fingertips.
She listens to him go, staring into the sudden space that he had once occupied. Oh god, she thinks. She’s a complete and total - no, really this is about her ability and inability to finally take something that she wants for herself. It’s a strange, almost silly step and she has no real assurances for herself.
At the same time though, she’s giddy, humming through the inclination to go after him. She wants to press. She doesn’t want to press and the indecision seems to keep her from making any pushes into a decision.
“I’ll be downstairs,” comes the call, absent, his footsteps finally wandering well into the basement and then to the workshop.
It’s then that she lets herself start to laugh.