fic: The Courting of Tony Stark (2/7)
Part One
1999
“Miss Potts,” he says, flopping down across from her in the lounge. He's been down in the workshop for days, toiling away on something or other that he won't let her see. Not that she really wants to see it; seeing things leads to very long, very complicated explanations, and occasionally demonstrations that warrant a call to the fire department.
She glances up from her laptop. “Yes, Mr Stark?”
“Potts,” he repeats. “Potts, Potts, Potts.”
“Yes?” she tries again, but he's staring up at the ceiling. Maybe cabin fever has finally taken hold.
He throws his arms wide. “I'm getting so bored with Potts.”
“I'm... sorry?” It's been at least eight months since she last threatened to quit. Is this him finally getting revenge?
“What do people who aren't me call you?” he asks.
“Oh,” she says. “Well, my friends call me Ginny.”
He rolls his head to one side to look at her. “Like the character from that kids' book? No, I don't think so.”
“I have been considering changing my title to 'Ms',” she says. “If that helps.”
“It doesn't.” He slumps down further into the couch, his t-shirt riding up a little. “Why?”
“'Miss Potts' makes me sound like I should be a character in Beauty and the Beast.”
“Mm, you'd need a little anthropomorphic teacup to really bring it together. I could probably make that, wouldn't be so hard...” He frowns. “Does this make me the Beast?”
“If you're really going to insist on keeping the facial hair, maybe.”
He crosses his arms over his chest and huffs. “I like it, makes me look like a grown-up.”
“Sure,” she says, and looks back down at her laptop. Tony squirms a little, picking at threads coming loose from a cushion. She makes a mental note to get it replaced.
“But, really,” he continues after a moment. “I can't keep calling you 'Potts' for the rest of my life.”
The rest of his life? She looks over at him again, but he's carefully inspecting his dirty fingernails.
“I must return to the Starkcave,” he says suddenly, practically vaulting himself off the couch and heading for the staircase at speed.
-
He tries a number of different nicknames over the next couple of weeks, ranging from the obvious, 'Red', to the ridiculous, 'Smurfette'.
“Flower!” he yells from the workshop one day. She's been putting out vases of freshly cut flowers for months, to make the places look less totalitarian - all he's ever said about it is that it makes the place look like a hospital.
“Flower Potts!” he yells again, “Come down here!”
“Oh God,” she mutters, and makes her way down. She keys in her code and steps in. “You are not calling me 'Flower'.”
He spins around in his chair a couple of times. “Yeah, you're not really a 'Flower'. I'm onto something here, though. Your surname is rife with potential.”
She knows, as did the everyone in high school.
He waves his hands dismissively. “Anyway, anyway, that's not why I called you down here.” He grins. He looks positively deranged. “Jarv, do your thing.”
“Virginia Potts,” a disembodied voice says. She jumps. “Aged twenty six. Born in New Hampshire, New York, May 5th 1974. Attended Concord High School, graduated magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr, 1996. Five foot nine inches, one hundred and thirty pounds, strawberry blonde hair, green eyes, size eight shoe.”
The voice ends abruptly and Tony does a couple more spins in his chair. “So! What do you think?”
“'Strawberry blonde'?” she repeats.
“'s just what's in the file,” he says, deflating slightly.
“Who put it in there?”
He shrugs. “Dunno. But it's cool, right?”
“It's very cool.”
He punches the air. “Ask him a question!”
“Um.” She glances at Tony, who makes an encouraging gesture. “When was Mr Stark--”
“May 10th, 1971,” the voice supplies tonelessly.
“He can anticipate over a thousand different questions! Go on, ask him something else.”
“When did I graduate--”
“1992,” it says.
Tony looks extremely pleased with himself. “High school, right? Isn't he the most awesome thing ever?”
“Well,” she says, and looks down into his wide-eyed expression. “Yes. Maybe just a little bit creepy, though.”
His eyebrows jump up. “Creepy?”
“I mean, being anticipated is a little... creepy. Off-putting.”
He taps his chin. “I hadn't thought of that.” He spins back round to his keyboard and starts mashing away at the keys.
“So... its name is 'Jarv'?” she asks after a couple of minutes silence only broken up the frenzied tapping of Tony.
“His name, Honey Potts, please! His name is Jarvis. Say hello, Jarvis.”
“Hello Jarvis,” he repeats.
Tony grins. “That was on purpose, gotta start the humour subroutines off slow.”
“'Honey'?” she says. “No way.”
“I'll get it in the end,” he assures her.
-
The dinner in honour of Governor Davis is possibly the dullest event she's ever attended. She's surrounded by people at least twenty years older than her, whose eyes skip over her easily when she speaks and look away pointedly when Tony does. He's all nervous energy and irritation beside her, his shoulder bumping into hers every few minutes. It was a performance getting him to come tonight at all, and she was cast in at the last moment to come with him. She'd been all set to stay in the mansion and work while Tony and Stane went to the function, but Tony's plus one was... hardly an appropriate choice and Stane quickly vetoed her when she arrived in her fur coat and high heels.
For some reason, the mansion has a wide selection of women's clothing, and with a couple of strategically placed safety pins, she was able to fit quite nicely into a black dress, though it did nothing for her sad lack of a cleavage.
“Mr Stark,” she says quietly. “Stop fidgeting, we won't have to stay for much longer.”
He huffs. “This food,” he says in a stage whisper, “tastes like cardboard.”
She can't really disagree.
“Hand me the pepper,” he says, gesturing vaguely across the table. He's already on his fourth glass of wine, and his aim is a little wild. She grabs his hand and pulls it down, placing it carefully in his lap. He squeezes her fingers briefly before she extricates her hand.
She passes him the pepper and he shakes it over his food a couple of times, huffs some more, then pops the ceramic lid off and pours a small mountain of the stuff onto his plate.
“You're going to give yourself a stomach ache,” she warns as he starts mixing it into his food. People are beginning to look.
He shrugs. “I like pepper,” he says, then tilts his head to the side. “Hey...”
Stane is glaring daggers at them. “What?” she asks.
“Pepper. Potts. Pepper Potts. I like it. I really like it.”
“That doesn't even make sense,” she says.
“Yeah, it does. You've got red hair and, uh, sorta get freckles when you let your skin see the sun.”
“Pepper isn't red.”
“Cayenne pepper is,” he says, and waves his fork at her. “Ha.”
“Mr Stark,” she says.
“Yes, Pepper?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
By the time they pour him into the back seat of the limo, he's made up an impromptu song that mostly consists of yelling 'pepper' in a somewhat musical manner. The Governor's aides suggest that Tony turn down any invitations he might receive from them in the future.
-
She has a room in his house to work. In theory she's meant to do her administrative work at the office, but Tony is putting increasingly ridiculous demands on her time that require her to within walking distance of him whenever he's awake, and his office in the mansion has gone unused for years, as evidenced by the thick layer of dust on the desk and the tops of all the shelves.
He stays in his workshop or his bed most of the time when she's working in there, making and breaking appointments, and perfecting her Tony Stark signature. She's even started writing 'personal' emails from him to people who want to consider themselves his friends; she's getting pretty good at his unique style of writing.
When he's not sleeping or tinkering, though, he invariably hangs around the office, 'keeping her company', poking and picking and passing comment on every little thing. He's been talking inanely for the last twenty minutes while she works on untangling the snarled mess of all the things he's promised to do without a thought as to his schedule.
“This is a nice pen,” he says, holding one of her pens up to his face. “Hey, it's engraved and everything, 'To the indispensable Miss Potts'. Is this from me? It seems very formal.”
“It was a gift from Mr Stane for my birthday,” she says, keeping her eyes trained on her computer. Eye contact only encourages him.
“It was your birthday?”
“At one point, yes.”
He twiddles the pen between his fingers. “I mean, don't get me wrong,” he continues, picking up the conversation thread from wherever he likes, “it's a cool gift, it's just kind of stuffy. Impersonal, you know? I've been given a lot of pens in the past, and all of 'em got lost or broken, and you have to refill them and stuff, way too much effort. But, I don't know, you are kind of stuffy, no offence, I don't know what I'd get you for your birthday-” As if that would ever be an issue, she thinks darkly. “-maybe a new organiser? Hm, Pepper, you're going to have to tell me what to get you for your birthday next year. Or... has it not come around yet this year? Jarvis, when's--”
“Mr Stark,” she snaps, “will you please... will you please shut up?”
The pen stills between his fingers. He blinks and frowns, and she has a moment of cold horror, replaying her words. Their relationship may be somewhat closer than most working relationships, but in the end, he's still her boss; he's still her immature, prone to hiring and firing people on the basis of their shoes, boss. He can be breathtakingly petty and mean, and if he fires her right now, it won't even be petty, because everyone knows better than to speak to their boss like that. Everyone but her, apparently.
“Uh,” he says, and she forces herself to look up at him and not spill apologies that are just going to make everything a hundred times more awkward. “I'm sorry. I'll be quiet.” He places her pen back on the desk carefully, and slumps down in his chair, giving particular attention to his fingernails.
She stares at him for a moment, but he doesn't look at her again, and the corners of his mouth of turned down. “I-- Okay,” she says eventually, and goes back to her work.
-
His 28th birthday party goes smoother than she expected it would. He doesn't get naked in her presence, doesn't come on to her, doesn't do anything that would cause her to turn in her two weeks' notice again. She leaves for home at four in the morning, when the guests are dwindling and it becomes obvious that Tony wants some alone time with those remaining.
When she returns at eight, the house is in its normal state of disarray after a party, and she sets about dealing with the most immediately dangerous debris: smouldering cigarettes, glass, and suspicious white powder; they've lost more than one cleaner this way.
“The weather in Malibu in sixty degrees, humidity at fifty eight percent,” Jarvis's monotone, modulated voice begins. “The sun rose at 5.55am and-”
“Yes, thank you, that's enough,” she says. Tony has programmed Jarvis to recite all sorts of useless information and it's becoming a little trying.
“Um,” a voice says behind her. She turns around to find a blond guy clutching a collection of clothes to his chest.
She takes in his tousled hair and the beard burn on his smooth face, and says, “Would you like me to call you a car?”
“Um,” he says again, and she pulls out her phone to ring Happy.
The man, whose name she discovers is Jason, is the only loiterer in the house, and once he's dealt with, she finishes her preliminary cleaning downstairs quickly, and moves on to the always delightful task of Tony's bedroom.
“Hey.” Tony pokes his head around the bathroom door as she begins to collect various items of clothing from the floor. “Is, uh, is everyone gone?”
“Everyone is gone,” she confirms. “I sent your friend home with Happy.”
“Okay, cool.” He steps into the bedroom and nudges a pair of discarded pants with his bare foot. “Uh, I'll help,” he says, and picks the pants up awkwardly with his toes. He stumbles to one side, and bumps into a wall.
“Why don't you just sit, Mr Stark,” she says.
“Okay,” he says, and hands her the pants.
She can feel his eyes on her as she moves around the room; she's starting to get used to how often he watches her, but it's still a little disconcerting, mostly because she doesn't know why. It isn't leering, or, at least, it isn't just leering. It's... watching, cataloguing, with a kind of sincerity that he never displays at any other time.
“I need to tell you something,” he says eventually.
“You're finally shaving the beard.”
“Ha ha. No, um...” He pauses long enough that she turns round to look at him, sitting on the end of his bed, one knee drawn up to his chest. “I'm--” He pushes his shoulders back and looks her straight in the eye. “I'm bisexual.”
“I know,” she says.
His eyebrows shoot up. “You do?”
“You flirt with anything that has a pulse, Mr Stark.” She smiles. “It was a safe bet.”
“I've only ever told Rhodey,” he says. “I mean, he kind of got a live action demonstration, but... I haven't, like, come out.”
“I know,” she repeats.
“It's not that I'm ashamed,” he continues, “but I don't think that Obi would appreciate the media shitstorm it would cause.”
“I know,” she says again.
“Is there anything that you don't know?” he asks, but he's smiling.
“Nothing.”
“Man, you really are wasted on making my coffee runs.”
She tilts her head in agreement, and holds his gaze for a moment. “Black, four sugars?” she asks.
“How did you know?”
-
Tony's New Year's Eve party makes the gossip pages before it even happens, which is something of a first. It's billed as the party to be at to say farewell to the 20th century, and everyone who's anyone is invited.
“If the end of technology as we know it isn't a good enough reason for a party, I don't know what is,” he says, skimming the guest list that she's prepared. “Ugh, not George Lucas, The Phantom Menace was an insult to humanity.”
“I thought you said that Y2K was bullshit,” she replies, and neatly crosses out Lucas's name. She seems to recall a long, rather drunken rant on the matter that he delivered just a couple of months ago.
“Did you miss the part where I said it was a good enough reason for a party?”
“Evidently,” she mutters.
Her sister desperately wants to come. So desperately that she calls every night for a week to put the hard word on Pepper about family and loyalty and 'did I mention that you're my favourite sister?'. Eventually Pepper agrees on the conditions that Julia will stay by her side the entire night (lest she be initiated into the tawdry lifestyle of Tony's friends while Pepper isn't looking), that she won't drink, and that she will not, under any circumstances, tell their parents.
The latter two conditions aren't that hard to enforce, but the first one? Julia's practically as slippery as Tony, who for his part is immediately taken with her.
“My God, Potts, your gene pool, seriously,” he says, turning away from Brad Pitt mid-conversation. She does her best not to flush, and focuses on Tony.
“This is my sister, Julia,” she says.
“I can see that,” he says, and takes a step towards her. Pepper slips in and blocks him.
“She is off limits, Mr Stark.”
He frowns. “I can't even shake her hand?”
“No. I am completely serious about this.”
His mouth turns down at the edges. “Fine. Nice to meet you, Julia.”
“Nice to meet you too, Mr Stark,” she replies, and he flashes a grin.
“Call me Tony, please.”
Pepper crosses her arms over her chest, and he backs up a little. “Go find someone to flirt with,” she says, and smiles sweetly.
She hopes that will be the end of it, but Julia manages to slip off every half an hour or so, and Pepper always finds her talking to an increasingly inebriated Tony. Each time she drags them apart, she tries to introduce Julia to someone else, but apparently in the house full of movie stars, Tony is still the most interesting person there. Pepper does her best to get around and talk to people while dragging Julia along after her, but the whole affair gets more and more stressful as the night wears on.
When she catches Mr Stane talking to Mel Gibson, she's relieved; she's less so when she sees that he has his son, Ezekiel, with him, but Stane is still one of the few sane people that she can rely on. “Come meet my other boss,” she says to Julia. “And his son. Be nice.”
“Why wouldn't I be nice?” Julia asks.
“He's a little...” The word that comes to mind is 'unpleasant', but she goes for 'different', instead. She tugs Julia through the crowd; Mr Stane turns and smiles when he sees her approach.
“I didn't know you were coming to this, Mr Stane,” she says, holding Julia in check.
“Well, the kid wanted to come, and I think you probably understand why letting an eighteen year old come to one of these things alone might not be a great idea.”
“I do, sir,” she says, and manages a smile for Ezekiel, who peers at her suspiciously. “How's MIT going?” she asks him.
“It's fine,” he says.
“This is my sister, Julia. I think you two are about the same age.”
Ezekiel grunts something while Julia murmurs 'hello' and raises an eyebrow. Mr Stane slaps a hand onto the back of his son's neck and jostles him slightly.
“Be a gentleman,” he warns, his smile not reaching his eyes.
“Pleased to meet you, Julia,” Ezekiel mutters.
“Same to you, I guess,” she replies.
Mr Stane tuts and gives Ezekiel a light shove. “Kids.”
By the time midnight rolls around, Ezekiel has sloped away somewhere while Stane was talking to Tony, and the party moves out onto the deck to watch the fireworks that cost Tony untold thousands for the technicians and for what might be seen by some as bribes to the officials of LA County.
“One minutes!” Tony yells, holding several bottles of wine in his hands. “Peppeeeer, come over here!”
“What's up with this 'Pepper' thing?” Julia asks. She accepts a glass of wine from a passerby, and Pepper neatly relieves her of it.
“I don't know, it has something to do with cayenne pepper. Mr Stark likes to test out just how aggravating he can be.” She takes a sip from the glass. “This is good stuff.”
“Peppeeeer!,” Tony yells again, and she rolls her eyes.
“Yes, Mr Stark?” she says, moving towards him.
He grins stupidly at her and thrusts one of the bottles at her.
“Why are you giving me this?” she asks, taking it from him and reading the label. It's a good vintage: Latour, 1928. It certainly shouldn't be passed around like an unwanted child.
“'Cause I need my hands free. Are the fireworks ready?”
“Of course, Mr Stark.”
“Pepper,” he says again. She's beginning to think that he just likes repeating her name as often as he can get away with.
“Yes, Mr Stark?”
He smiles at her and points up at the sky. She glances up, frowning, before the assembled crowd start counting down from ten.
“Since it's already January 1st on the East Coast,” he says over the crowd, “I guess you've officially survived into the new millennium with me. Welcome to the future, Ms. Potts.”
He takes a couple of steps closer to her until they're practically nose to nose. The crowd is down to 'four' as she reflects on how long his eyelashes are. “Happy New Year,” he says, or at least she thinks he does, but she can't actually hear him over the crowd yelling 'one!' and cheering. He leans in - and up, since she's wearing her three inch heels - and kisses her. She's shocked by how chaste it is, mouth closed, no tongue, no wandering hands, just a press of dry lips to hers.
The fireworks drown everything else out, the explosions replaying behind her eyelids when she closes her eyes, and by the time she regains her equilibrium, Tony's moved back into the centre of the party.
“Well, that was interesting,” Julia says. She's holding a new glass of wine.
-
The party finally, finally, comes to an end at five in the morning when Tony passes out on the couch.
“Is he okay?” Julia asks. She doesn't even look tired.
“The dangers of drinking,” Pepper says, looking down at him as he drools onto his twenty thousand dollar couch. “He's fine. I don't know if I can say the same for the rest of these people, though.”
There are a good sixty or seventy people in various states of consciousness still in the house, and as much as she desperately wants to go home and at least change her clothes before coming back and handling the clean up, she can't in all good conscience leave the house full of strangers while Tony is unconscious.
“We're going to have to stick around until everyone leaves or Tony wakes up, whichever comes first.”
“Not a problem for me, sis,” Julia says. She's sitting on the end of the couch next to Tony's feet (and where are his shoes?), looking inordinately pleased with herself.
“If I may, Ms. Potts,” a clipped voice says from seemingly nowhere. “Fire alarms tend to be a good motivator for clearing people from an area.”
“Jarvis?” she asks, looking up at the ceiling. “You sound different.”
“Yes. Mr Stark undertook major adjustments to my program after you identified me as 'creepy'.”
“Oh. Well, it wasn't not personal.”
“Of course not. I do not have a 'person'.”
“Are you having a conversation with the house?” Julia asks.
Pepper shrugs. “I don't even know any more. Jarvis, where did the voice come from?”
“Mr Stark specially synthesised this vocal track to be pleasing to the ear. He is aware of how much BBC America you watch when you are here.”
She feels her cheeks begin to flush. “Please set off the fire alarms now, Jarvis,” she says.
“Very good, Ms. Potts.”
2001
She realises ahead of time that she shouldn't let him have the party, not that she really has any power over him, when all is said and done. He tells her it's just a Christmas party, a totally normal, everyday happening for the season, and Stane doesn't seem especially opposed to the idea.
It's not that she's against the idea of a party, per se; Tony's parties are always memorable, at least, and she'll admit to having enjoyed one or two of them. This year is different, though, there's something wild in Tony's eye, more than there normally is at this time of year. Every magazine cover she sees and every news program she watches reminds her of the cause: the ten year anniversary of Howard and Maria Stark's deaths.
Tony doesn't even look at the newspaper when she nudges it into his view, just turns his head to read the display on his computer.
“Would you like Legal to put a stop to this?” she asks. Every year there's an article or two about the anniversary, but this year is an all out assault of ghoulishness. No stone is being left unturned in the media's quest to mourn the great Howard Stark, and compare his playboy son to him.
“They gotta get their fun somewhere,” he says. “Have you ordered the alcohol yet?”
After a couple of weeks, she gives up fighting with him over the timing of the party. It's falling on December 16th, no arguments, and she dreads what the papers will make of him having a Christmas bash on the day of his parents' deaths.
“Just look out for him,” Major Rhodes tells her. She feels like a traitor calling him, somehow, but he's out on manoeuvres and unable to make it back in time. “I know he might say otherwise, but he doesn't have a fucking clue what he's doing.”
There's an air of desperation about him all evening, from when the guests arrive to when Obadiah leaves after an hour (“We all grieve in our own ways,” he says, and hugs Tony), to when, ultimately, Tony throws everyone out at ten to two in the morning.
“Mr Stark,” she says, once he's finished yelling and the last of the stragglers are gone. She catalogues the damage to the place as he stumbles a little on his way to the liquor cabinet. In the tens of thousands, at least. “Please sit down, I think there's been enough excitement for tonight.”
The glass doors on the cabinet have long since been smashed, and he cuts himself as he reaches in for a bottle. It's not deep, not deep enough for her to use her considerable first aid skills, and he brings his hand to his mouth to suck on it for a second before replacing it for the bottle and taking a long draw from it. “I'm fucking grieving here,” he says eventually, “can't you tell?”
“Tony,” she says, stepping forward. She risks resting her hands on his shoulders, feeling how tense and bunched his muscles are, and he slumps under her touch, allows himself to be guided over to a couch.
“This was a bad idea,” he mumbles, and takes another long drink from the bottle.
“Well,” she says, and leaves it there.
“Dad would be so disappointed,” he continues. “He had some real crazy parties when he was young. He was an alcoholic, you know, high-functioning, always ready for the day in a crisp suit and a tidy fucking moustache. None of this sleep till the afternoon and turn up drunk to conferences crap. Never trashed a hotel room, or threw up in the men's restrooms. His hookers were always real classy, didn't kiss and tell. America's golden boy. Everyone loves a warmonger.” He salutes the air with his bottle, spilling some of it on the couch.
“Okay, that's enough,” she says. She pries the bottle from his fingers and sets it down on the floor.
“Pepper.” He stares at her, eyes studying every part of her face like it's going to tell him something. She doesn't have any answers for him. “I don't want to be him.”
He doesn't stop studying her when she speaks, eyes roaming all over. “You're not,” she says.
“Yeah, I am: Howard-lite. Got a little mangled in production, maybe. Not quite as good as the real deal, but still a damn good try.”
She puts her hand on his knee. It's just another of the many mistakes she's already made tonight. “You're not your father,” she repeats.
“Mom tried to help him,” he says. He's leaning in, just a little. “He treated her like shit.”
“Tony,” she says, and it comes out quieter than she expects, quiet enough that it barely seems to register with him. He's slowly drifting closer to her, and when he licks his lips, her eyes are drawn to the action. Something aches in her chest. “Tony,” she says again, more forcefully.
He rocks back. “Right, yeah, sorry. Fuck, I'm not that guy, I don't-- Inappropriate, totally. I'm gonna...” He pulls away from her and stands. Or, tries to stand. He wobbles, stumbling forward and she reacts without thinking. She leans forward, puts her hands on his waist to steady him and draws him back down. He almost falls into her but manages to catch himself. It still leaves him inches from her, though.
“I don't want to be like this,” he whispers.
She moves her hands up to his shoulders, then, after a moment's hesitation, presses one palm to the back of his neck, her fingers brushing over his hair. “You're fine, you're fine.”
She'd like to say that it was Tony; it would make everything so much easier to be able to pin this on him and brush it off as another one of his fruitless passes at her, but her hand is in his hair and then they're kissing and she doesn't think he started it. She knows that this isn't going to make him better but he's pressing against her, mumbling and whining and her fingers just keep tightening in his hair.
“Pepper,” he says, “just...” He traces his fingers along the hem of her shirt, turns towards her and folds his legs underneath him. She goes with him, leaning back as he presses forward, until her head is against the armrest and he has one hand flat against the couch cushion by her shoulder. “I just... Oh, God,” he groans.
She can taste the liquor he's been drinking, can smell smoke on his clothes and in his hair. He's shaking where she touches him, kissing her messily on the mouth before moving down to her throat and chest where the collar of her shirt is unbuttoned. She curls an arm up his back and around his shoulder blade, bends her knees until she's bracketing him, holding him together with her embrace. He's half hard against her hip, rutting shakily against her, his attention back to her face, mouthing her jaw for a minute before kissing her again. She sinks both hands into his hair.
“Is this-- Pepper, I...” he stammers out between kisses. “I love you,” he whispers.
She opens her eyes. Love. She's never heard him say that to anyone, and nobody's said it to her in years, not... not like this. With a supreme amount of effort, she pushes him away. He tries to follow her as she drags herself up into a sitting position.
“I think you should get some sleep, Mr Stark.”
“Pepper,” he says, his voice rough. His eyes are wide and searching and bloodshot; it's painfully obvious how drunk he is. He reaches out and takes her wrist, thumb rubbing against her pulse.
“Mr Stark, please.”
“I'm sorry,” he says quietly.
She pats his hand. “It's fine, come on.”
He comes easily enough, trailing after her up the stairs. He's more pliable than normal, usually when she undresses him after he's been on a tear, he whines and squirms and generally makes everything as difficult as it could possibly be. Tonight she gets him down to his boxers and under the covers of his enormous bed without much of an argument. When she steps away, though, he grabs her hand.
“Pepper,” he says.
“Mr Stark.”
He tugs on her hand. “I don't...” He frowns and drops his gaze to the floor. “I don't want to be alone.”
She almost, almost runs her fingers through his hair. His fingertips knead her skin. “Okay,” she says. “Lie down.”
“Pepper,” he repeats.
“Lie down.”
He nods and flops down. She pries his fingers from her hand, kicks her shoes off, and walks around the other side of the bed to climb on. “On your side,” she says. He rolls over and she lies down behind him, rests her head on her arm, bends her knees to match his.
“I'm sorry,” he says, and she's lost count of how many times he's said those two words tonight. More than he has in his entire life, she wouldn't be surprised.
“Go to sleep,” she says, and, after a moment's hesitation, rests her hand on his arm.
It doesn't take long for him to drift off into a fitful sleep, and once she's sure he isn't going to wake up again, she gets up, closes the bedroom door over behind her and walks downstairs in her bare feet, heels in hand.
She gets home at close to four in the morning, doesn't even try to get any sleep. She washes up, shampoos the smell of smoke out of her hair, rubs moisturiser into the irritated skin around her mouth.
At seven am, she gets a text message from Obadiah. It tells her to take the day off, that he'll look after Tony.
When she sees Tony the next day, he smiles and makes some sarcastic comment that she quickly forgets. He doesn't say anything about the party, and neither does she.
-
Getting Tony to come to the Hammer Gala is like pulling teeth. Worse, even, because at least the pain of that is short lived, while she's sure Tony's going to make this as painful as he can, for as long as he can.
“Get out of bed,” she says as she collects various articles of clothing for him.
“Uh uh,” comes the answer from underneath the covers.
“It's six pm,” she says, “and the car is coming in an hour. Get up.”
“No.”
She drapes a shirt and pair of pants over her arm and sighs. “Yes.”
“Can't make me,” he mumbles.
If he really thinks that... She deposits his clothes over the end of the bed and takes hold of the edge of the cover. “You are getting out of this bed,” she says, and pulls it off to reveal his bare ass.
He rolls onto his side, cradling his head in his hand and stretching out. “If you wanted to see me naked, all you had to do was ask.”
She throws the shirt at him. “Put that on.”
He sits up and pulls the sheets up to cover what might laughingly be called his modesty. “I don't wanna go,” he whines. “I don't like Justin, he's a douchebag.”
“I don't think you're cute, you know.” She grabs a can of deodorant from the bottom drawer of his bedside table and begins to spray him with it. He should really have a shower, but she knows that if he does, it'll just be another way for him to drag this whole thing out even longer.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you trying to choke me here?” he says, waving his hands in front of him.
“I'm trying to make you smell halfway decent.” She drops the can on the bed and grabs one of his arms to force it through the shirt's sleeve.
“And you totally do think I'm cute,” Tony mutters, struggling against her as she tries to get his other arm in the second sleeve.
“I don't.”
“You do,” he insists and stares hard at her for a second.
She stops fussing with his shirt, leaving the sleeve caught around his elbow. “Tony,” she says softly.
“Because my mom always said I was the most adorable kid in the playground. Hey, give me a pair of boxers, I've gotta hide my thunder. Do I have to wear a tie? I don't wanna wear a tie, it stifles me,” he rambles, covering the awkward moment.
She sighs with relief. It's been a couple of months since the incident, and the more space between her and it, the more she realises what a mistake it was, both professionally and personally. “I'll get the boxers. If you haven't buttoned that shirt up by the time I'm back, I'll be fetching a bucket of ice water next.”
“Yes, ma'am,” he says, saluting.
He does end up wearing a tie. Justin sneers at him as he breezes past with a tiny champagne flute.
“Nice hair,” he says, eyeing Tony's hair that Pepper couldn't quite get under control.
“Nice face,” Tony replies.
“Settle down,” she mutters once Justin has moved on to new prey. “We're here for a reason.”
“We are? I thought I just here to bestow my beauty on these people and get blinding drunk.”
“Later,” she says. She points across the room. “That is General Thaddeus Ross. You need to convince him to give us the Army's weapons contract.”
“Do you mean to say that I'm here to work? Pepper, you tricked me!”
“Hammer wants it,” she says.
He nods once. “Lead the way.”
Ross is, simply put, a windbag. He's holding court with a couple of other army officials, talking about something called the 'bio-force enhancement' project. She and Tony tag onto the end of the group and listen in as he goes on and on. Tony keeps pulling faces and shifting from foot to foot, but she holds him steady, and eventually Ross looks up at them.
“General Ross,” she says, tugging on Tony's arm to get his attention back from the caterer in the tight shirt, “I'm Virginia Potts, and this is Tony Stark. He'd like to talk to you about your weapons development contract.”
“I know who he is,” Ross says. “I knew his father.”
“My condolences,” Tony says.
Ross's face becomes pinched. “Your father was a hero.”
“Yeah, sure,” Tony mutters. “So my beautiful assistant tells me that you need weapons. I make weapons. Seems like we're well suited.”
“We're in negotiations with Hammer,” Ross replies, and Tony pretends to gag.
“Hammer's a dick and a hack. Anything he builds will blow up long before it hits the enemy, guaranteed.”
Ross takes a step towards him. He has at least four inches on Tony, and uses every one of them to force Tony to tilt his head back to look him in the eye. Pepper has a creeping feeling that this is not going to end well.
“Frankly, Mr Stark, you're the one that everyone says is a hack, and with your track record you're probably too much of a liability for the US army. How about you have Stane call me tomorrow and I'll talk to him about it.”
Tony rolls his shoulders. “I've told bigger, richer, and uglier guys than you where to shove it, so I'm gonna tell you something.” He puffs his chest out and sneers. “Fuck off.” He takes a smooth step back and turns to Pepper. “Hey, I bet the Air Force would appreciate my genius, how about we give Rhodey a call tomorrow?”
Ross is already turning away from them, shaking his head.
“Yes, Mr Stark,” she says.
Part Three
1999
“Miss Potts,” he says, flopping down across from her in the lounge. He's been down in the workshop for days, toiling away on something or other that he won't let her see. Not that she really wants to see it; seeing things leads to very long, very complicated explanations, and occasionally demonstrations that warrant a call to the fire department.
She glances up from her laptop. “Yes, Mr Stark?”
“Potts,” he repeats. “Potts, Potts, Potts.”
“Yes?” she tries again, but he's staring up at the ceiling. Maybe cabin fever has finally taken hold.
He throws his arms wide. “I'm getting so bored with Potts.”
“I'm... sorry?” It's been at least eight months since she last threatened to quit. Is this him finally getting revenge?
“What do people who aren't me call you?” he asks.
“Oh,” she says. “Well, my friends call me Ginny.”
He rolls his head to one side to look at her. “Like the character from that kids' book? No, I don't think so.”
“I have been considering changing my title to 'Ms',” she says. “If that helps.”
“It doesn't.” He slumps down further into the couch, his t-shirt riding up a little. “Why?”
“'Miss Potts' makes me sound like I should be a character in Beauty and the Beast.”
“Mm, you'd need a little anthropomorphic teacup to really bring it together. I could probably make that, wouldn't be so hard...” He frowns. “Does this make me the Beast?”
“If you're really going to insist on keeping the facial hair, maybe.”
He crosses his arms over his chest and huffs. “I like it, makes me look like a grown-up.”
“Sure,” she says, and looks back down at her laptop. Tony squirms a little, picking at threads coming loose from a cushion. She makes a mental note to get it replaced.
“But, really,” he continues after a moment. “I can't keep calling you 'Potts' for the rest of my life.”
The rest of his life? She looks over at him again, but he's carefully inspecting his dirty fingernails.
“I must return to the Starkcave,” he says suddenly, practically vaulting himself off the couch and heading for the staircase at speed.
-
He tries a number of different nicknames over the next couple of weeks, ranging from the obvious, 'Red', to the ridiculous, 'Smurfette'.
“Flower!” he yells from the workshop one day. She's been putting out vases of freshly cut flowers for months, to make the places look less totalitarian - all he's ever said about it is that it makes the place look like a hospital.
“Flower Potts!” he yells again, “Come down here!”
“Oh God,” she mutters, and makes her way down. She keys in her code and steps in. “You are not calling me 'Flower'.”
He spins around in his chair a couple of times. “Yeah, you're not really a 'Flower'. I'm onto something here, though. Your surname is rife with potential.”
She knows, as did the everyone in high school.
He waves his hands dismissively. “Anyway, anyway, that's not why I called you down here.” He grins. He looks positively deranged. “Jarv, do your thing.”
“Virginia Potts,” a disembodied voice says. She jumps. “Aged twenty six. Born in New Hampshire, New York, May 5th 1974. Attended Concord High School, graduated magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr, 1996. Five foot nine inches, one hundred and thirty pounds, strawberry blonde hair, green eyes, size eight shoe.”
The voice ends abruptly and Tony does a couple more spins in his chair. “So! What do you think?”
“'Strawberry blonde'?” she repeats.
“'s just what's in the file,” he says, deflating slightly.
“Who put it in there?”
He shrugs. “Dunno. But it's cool, right?”
“It's very cool.”
He punches the air. “Ask him a question!”
“Um.” She glances at Tony, who makes an encouraging gesture. “When was Mr Stark--”
“May 10th, 1971,” the voice supplies tonelessly.
“He can anticipate over a thousand different questions! Go on, ask him something else.”
“When did I graduate--”
“1992,” it says.
Tony looks extremely pleased with himself. “High school, right? Isn't he the most awesome thing ever?”
“Well,” she says, and looks down into his wide-eyed expression. “Yes. Maybe just a little bit creepy, though.”
His eyebrows jump up. “Creepy?”
“I mean, being anticipated is a little... creepy. Off-putting.”
He taps his chin. “I hadn't thought of that.” He spins back round to his keyboard and starts mashing away at the keys.
“So... its name is 'Jarv'?” she asks after a couple of minutes silence only broken up the frenzied tapping of Tony.
“His name, Honey Potts, please! His name is Jarvis. Say hello, Jarvis.”
“Hello Jarvis,” he repeats.
Tony grins. “That was on purpose, gotta start the humour subroutines off slow.”
“'Honey'?” she says. “No way.”
“I'll get it in the end,” he assures her.
-
The dinner in honour of Governor Davis is possibly the dullest event she's ever attended. She's surrounded by people at least twenty years older than her, whose eyes skip over her easily when she speaks and look away pointedly when Tony does. He's all nervous energy and irritation beside her, his shoulder bumping into hers every few minutes. It was a performance getting him to come tonight at all, and she was cast in at the last moment to come with him. She'd been all set to stay in the mansion and work while Tony and Stane went to the function, but Tony's plus one was... hardly an appropriate choice and Stane quickly vetoed her when she arrived in her fur coat and high heels.
For some reason, the mansion has a wide selection of women's clothing, and with a couple of strategically placed safety pins, she was able to fit quite nicely into a black dress, though it did nothing for her sad lack of a cleavage.
“Mr Stark,” she says quietly. “Stop fidgeting, we won't have to stay for much longer.”
He huffs. “This food,” he says in a stage whisper, “tastes like cardboard.”
She can't really disagree.
“Hand me the pepper,” he says, gesturing vaguely across the table. He's already on his fourth glass of wine, and his aim is a little wild. She grabs his hand and pulls it down, placing it carefully in his lap. He squeezes her fingers briefly before she extricates her hand.
She passes him the pepper and he shakes it over his food a couple of times, huffs some more, then pops the ceramic lid off and pours a small mountain of the stuff onto his plate.
“You're going to give yourself a stomach ache,” she warns as he starts mixing it into his food. People are beginning to look.
He shrugs. “I like pepper,” he says, then tilts his head to the side. “Hey...”
Stane is glaring daggers at them. “What?” she asks.
“Pepper. Potts. Pepper Potts. I like it. I really like it.”
“That doesn't even make sense,” she says.
“Yeah, it does. You've got red hair and, uh, sorta get freckles when you let your skin see the sun.”
“Pepper isn't red.”
“Cayenne pepper is,” he says, and waves his fork at her. “Ha.”
“Mr Stark,” she says.
“Yes, Pepper?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
By the time they pour him into the back seat of the limo, he's made up an impromptu song that mostly consists of yelling 'pepper' in a somewhat musical manner. The Governor's aides suggest that Tony turn down any invitations he might receive from them in the future.
-
She has a room in his house to work. In theory she's meant to do her administrative work at the office, but Tony is putting increasingly ridiculous demands on her time that require her to within walking distance of him whenever he's awake, and his office in the mansion has gone unused for years, as evidenced by the thick layer of dust on the desk and the tops of all the shelves.
He stays in his workshop or his bed most of the time when she's working in there, making and breaking appointments, and perfecting her Tony Stark signature. She's even started writing 'personal' emails from him to people who want to consider themselves his friends; she's getting pretty good at his unique style of writing.
When he's not sleeping or tinkering, though, he invariably hangs around the office, 'keeping her company', poking and picking and passing comment on every little thing. He's been talking inanely for the last twenty minutes while she works on untangling the snarled mess of all the things he's promised to do without a thought as to his schedule.
“This is a nice pen,” he says, holding one of her pens up to his face. “Hey, it's engraved and everything, 'To the indispensable Miss Potts'. Is this from me? It seems very formal.”
“It was a gift from Mr Stane for my birthday,” she says, keeping her eyes trained on her computer. Eye contact only encourages him.
“It was your birthday?”
“At one point, yes.”
He twiddles the pen between his fingers. “I mean, don't get me wrong,” he continues, picking up the conversation thread from wherever he likes, “it's a cool gift, it's just kind of stuffy. Impersonal, you know? I've been given a lot of pens in the past, and all of 'em got lost or broken, and you have to refill them and stuff, way too much effort. But, I don't know, you are kind of stuffy, no offence, I don't know what I'd get you for your birthday-” As if that would ever be an issue, she thinks darkly. “-maybe a new organiser? Hm, Pepper, you're going to have to tell me what to get you for your birthday next year. Or... has it not come around yet this year? Jarvis, when's--”
“Mr Stark,” she snaps, “will you please... will you please shut up?”
The pen stills between his fingers. He blinks and frowns, and she has a moment of cold horror, replaying her words. Their relationship may be somewhat closer than most working relationships, but in the end, he's still her boss; he's still her immature, prone to hiring and firing people on the basis of their shoes, boss. He can be breathtakingly petty and mean, and if he fires her right now, it won't even be petty, because everyone knows better than to speak to their boss like that. Everyone but her, apparently.
“Uh,” he says, and she forces herself to look up at him and not spill apologies that are just going to make everything a hundred times more awkward. “I'm sorry. I'll be quiet.” He places her pen back on the desk carefully, and slumps down in his chair, giving particular attention to his fingernails.
She stares at him for a moment, but he doesn't look at her again, and the corners of his mouth of turned down. “I-- Okay,” she says eventually, and goes back to her work.
-
His 28th birthday party goes smoother than she expected it would. He doesn't get naked in her presence, doesn't come on to her, doesn't do anything that would cause her to turn in her two weeks' notice again. She leaves for home at four in the morning, when the guests are dwindling and it becomes obvious that Tony wants some alone time with those remaining.
When she returns at eight, the house is in its normal state of disarray after a party, and she sets about dealing with the most immediately dangerous debris: smouldering cigarettes, glass, and suspicious white powder; they've lost more than one cleaner this way.
“The weather in Malibu in sixty degrees, humidity at fifty eight percent,” Jarvis's monotone, modulated voice begins. “The sun rose at 5.55am and-”
“Yes, thank you, that's enough,” she says. Tony has programmed Jarvis to recite all sorts of useless information and it's becoming a little trying.
“Um,” a voice says behind her. She turns around to find a blond guy clutching a collection of clothes to his chest.
She takes in his tousled hair and the beard burn on his smooth face, and says, “Would you like me to call you a car?”
“Um,” he says again, and she pulls out her phone to ring Happy.
The man, whose name she discovers is Jason, is the only loiterer in the house, and once he's dealt with, she finishes her preliminary cleaning downstairs quickly, and moves on to the always delightful task of Tony's bedroom.
“Hey.” Tony pokes his head around the bathroom door as she begins to collect various items of clothing from the floor. “Is, uh, is everyone gone?”
“Everyone is gone,” she confirms. “I sent your friend home with Happy.”
“Okay, cool.” He steps into the bedroom and nudges a pair of discarded pants with his bare foot. “Uh, I'll help,” he says, and picks the pants up awkwardly with his toes. He stumbles to one side, and bumps into a wall.
“Why don't you just sit, Mr Stark,” she says.
“Okay,” he says, and hands her the pants.
She can feel his eyes on her as she moves around the room; she's starting to get used to how often he watches her, but it's still a little disconcerting, mostly because she doesn't know why. It isn't leering, or, at least, it isn't just leering. It's... watching, cataloguing, with a kind of sincerity that he never displays at any other time.
“I need to tell you something,” he says eventually.
“You're finally shaving the beard.”
“Ha ha. No, um...” He pauses long enough that she turns round to look at him, sitting on the end of his bed, one knee drawn up to his chest. “I'm--” He pushes his shoulders back and looks her straight in the eye. “I'm bisexual.”
“I know,” she says.
His eyebrows shoot up. “You do?”
“You flirt with anything that has a pulse, Mr Stark.” She smiles. “It was a safe bet.”
“I've only ever told Rhodey,” he says. “I mean, he kind of got a live action demonstration, but... I haven't, like, come out.”
“I know,” she repeats.
“It's not that I'm ashamed,” he continues, “but I don't think that Obi would appreciate the media shitstorm it would cause.”
“I know,” she says again.
“Is there anything that you don't know?” he asks, but he's smiling.
“Nothing.”
“Man, you really are wasted on making my coffee runs.”
She tilts her head in agreement, and holds his gaze for a moment. “Black, four sugars?” she asks.
“How did you know?”
-
Tony's New Year's Eve party makes the gossip pages before it even happens, which is something of a first. It's billed as the party to be at to say farewell to the 20th century, and everyone who's anyone is invited.
“If the end of technology as we know it isn't a good enough reason for a party, I don't know what is,” he says, skimming the guest list that she's prepared. “Ugh, not George Lucas, The Phantom Menace was an insult to humanity.”
“I thought you said that Y2K was bullshit,” she replies, and neatly crosses out Lucas's name. She seems to recall a long, rather drunken rant on the matter that he delivered just a couple of months ago.
“Did you miss the part where I said it was a good enough reason for a party?”
“Evidently,” she mutters.
Her sister desperately wants to come. So desperately that she calls every night for a week to put the hard word on Pepper about family and loyalty and 'did I mention that you're my favourite sister?'. Eventually Pepper agrees on the conditions that Julia will stay by her side the entire night (lest she be initiated into the tawdry lifestyle of Tony's friends while Pepper isn't looking), that she won't drink, and that she will not, under any circumstances, tell their parents.
The latter two conditions aren't that hard to enforce, but the first one? Julia's practically as slippery as Tony, who for his part is immediately taken with her.
“My God, Potts, your gene pool, seriously,” he says, turning away from Brad Pitt mid-conversation. She does her best not to flush, and focuses on Tony.
“This is my sister, Julia,” she says.
“I can see that,” he says, and takes a step towards her. Pepper slips in and blocks him.
“She is off limits, Mr Stark.”
He frowns. “I can't even shake her hand?”
“No. I am completely serious about this.”
His mouth turns down at the edges. “Fine. Nice to meet you, Julia.”
“Nice to meet you too, Mr Stark,” she replies, and he flashes a grin.
“Call me Tony, please.”
Pepper crosses her arms over her chest, and he backs up a little. “Go find someone to flirt with,” she says, and smiles sweetly.
She hopes that will be the end of it, but Julia manages to slip off every half an hour or so, and Pepper always finds her talking to an increasingly inebriated Tony. Each time she drags them apart, she tries to introduce Julia to someone else, but apparently in the house full of movie stars, Tony is still the most interesting person there. Pepper does her best to get around and talk to people while dragging Julia along after her, but the whole affair gets more and more stressful as the night wears on.
When she catches Mr Stane talking to Mel Gibson, she's relieved; she's less so when she sees that he has his son, Ezekiel, with him, but Stane is still one of the few sane people that she can rely on. “Come meet my other boss,” she says to Julia. “And his son. Be nice.”
“Why wouldn't I be nice?” Julia asks.
“He's a little...” The word that comes to mind is 'unpleasant', but she goes for 'different', instead. She tugs Julia through the crowd; Mr Stane turns and smiles when he sees her approach.
“I didn't know you were coming to this, Mr Stane,” she says, holding Julia in check.
“Well, the kid wanted to come, and I think you probably understand why letting an eighteen year old come to one of these things alone might not be a great idea.”
“I do, sir,” she says, and manages a smile for Ezekiel, who peers at her suspiciously. “How's MIT going?” she asks him.
“It's fine,” he says.
“This is my sister, Julia. I think you two are about the same age.”
Ezekiel grunts something while Julia murmurs 'hello' and raises an eyebrow. Mr Stane slaps a hand onto the back of his son's neck and jostles him slightly.
“Be a gentleman,” he warns, his smile not reaching his eyes.
“Pleased to meet you, Julia,” Ezekiel mutters.
“Same to you, I guess,” she replies.
Mr Stane tuts and gives Ezekiel a light shove. “Kids.”
By the time midnight rolls around, Ezekiel has sloped away somewhere while Stane was talking to Tony, and the party moves out onto the deck to watch the fireworks that cost Tony untold thousands for the technicians and for what might be seen by some as bribes to the officials of LA County.
“One minutes!” Tony yells, holding several bottles of wine in his hands. “Peppeeeer, come over here!”
“What's up with this 'Pepper' thing?” Julia asks. She accepts a glass of wine from a passerby, and Pepper neatly relieves her of it.
“I don't know, it has something to do with cayenne pepper. Mr Stark likes to test out just how aggravating he can be.” She takes a sip from the glass. “This is good stuff.”
“Peppeeeer!,” Tony yells again, and she rolls her eyes.
“Yes, Mr Stark?” she says, moving towards him.
He grins stupidly at her and thrusts one of the bottles at her.
“Why are you giving me this?” she asks, taking it from him and reading the label. It's a good vintage: Latour, 1928. It certainly shouldn't be passed around like an unwanted child.
“'Cause I need my hands free. Are the fireworks ready?”
“Of course, Mr Stark.”
“Pepper,” he says again. She's beginning to think that he just likes repeating her name as often as he can get away with.
“Yes, Mr Stark?”
He smiles at her and points up at the sky. She glances up, frowning, before the assembled crowd start counting down from ten.
“Since it's already January 1st on the East Coast,” he says over the crowd, “I guess you've officially survived into the new millennium with me. Welcome to the future, Ms. Potts.”
He takes a couple of steps closer to her until they're practically nose to nose. The crowd is down to 'four' as she reflects on how long his eyelashes are. “Happy New Year,” he says, or at least she thinks he does, but she can't actually hear him over the crowd yelling 'one!' and cheering. He leans in - and up, since she's wearing her three inch heels - and kisses her. She's shocked by how chaste it is, mouth closed, no tongue, no wandering hands, just a press of dry lips to hers.
The fireworks drown everything else out, the explosions replaying behind her eyelids when she closes her eyes, and by the time she regains her equilibrium, Tony's moved back into the centre of the party.
“Well, that was interesting,” Julia says. She's holding a new glass of wine.
-
The party finally, finally, comes to an end at five in the morning when Tony passes out on the couch.
“Is he okay?” Julia asks. She doesn't even look tired.
“The dangers of drinking,” Pepper says, looking down at him as he drools onto his twenty thousand dollar couch. “He's fine. I don't know if I can say the same for the rest of these people, though.”
There are a good sixty or seventy people in various states of consciousness still in the house, and as much as she desperately wants to go home and at least change her clothes before coming back and handling the clean up, she can't in all good conscience leave the house full of strangers while Tony is unconscious.
“We're going to have to stick around until everyone leaves or Tony wakes up, whichever comes first.”
“Not a problem for me, sis,” Julia says. She's sitting on the end of the couch next to Tony's feet (and where are his shoes?), looking inordinately pleased with herself.
“If I may, Ms. Potts,” a clipped voice says from seemingly nowhere. “Fire alarms tend to be a good motivator for clearing people from an area.”
“Jarvis?” she asks, looking up at the ceiling. “You sound different.”
“Yes. Mr Stark undertook major adjustments to my program after you identified me as 'creepy'.”
“Oh. Well, it wasn't not personal.”
“Of course not. I do not have a 'person'.”
“Are you having a conversation with the house?” Julia asks.
Pepper shrugs. “I don't even know any more. Jarvis, where did the voice come from?”
“Mr Stark specially synthesised this vocal track to be pleasing to the ear. He is aware of how much BBC America you watch when you are here.”
She feels her cheeks begin to flush. “Please set off the fire alarms now, Jarvis,” she says.
“Very good, Ms. Potts.”
2001
She realises ahead of time that she shouldn't let him have the party, not that she really has any power over him, when all is said and done. He tells her it's just a Christmas party, a totally normal, everyday happening for the season, and Stane doesn't seem especially opposed to the idea.
It's not that she's against the idea of a party, per se; Tony's parties are always memorable, at least, and she'll admit to having enjoyed one or two of them. This year is different, though, there's something wild in Tony's eye, more than there normally is at this time of year. Every magazine cover she sees and every news program she watches reminds her of the cause: the ten year anniversary of Howard and Maria Stark's deaths.
Tony doesn't even look at the newspaper when she nudges it into his view, just turns his head to read the display on his computer.
“Would you like Legal to put a stop to this?” she asks. Every year there's an article or two about the anniversary, but this year is an all out assault of ghoulishness. No stone is being left unturned in the media's quest to mourn the great Howard Stark, and compare his playboy son to him.
“They gotta get their fun somewhere,” he says. “Have you ordered the alcohol yet?”
After a couple of weeks, she gives up fighting with him over the timing of the party. It's falling on December 16th, no arguments, and she dreads what the papers will make of him having a Christmas bash on the day of his parents' deaths.
“Just look out for him,” Major Rhodes tells her. She feels like a traitor calling him, somehow, but he's out on manoeuvres and unable to make it back in time. “I know he might say otherwise, but he doesn't have a fucking clue what he's doing.”
There's an air of desperation about him all evening, from when the guests arrive to when Obadiah leaves after an hour (“We all grieve in our own ways,” he says, and hugs Tony), to when, ultimately, Tony throws everyone out at ten to two in the morning.
“Mr Stark,” she says, once he's finished yelling and the last of the stragglers are gone. She catalogues the damage to the place as he stumbles a little on his way to the liquor cabinet. In the tens of thousands, at least. “Please sit down, I think there's been enough excitement for tonight.”
The glass doors on the cabinet have long since been smashed, and he cuts himself as he reaches in for a bottle. It's not deep, not deep enough for her to use her considerable first aid skills, and he brings his hand to his mouth to suck on it for a second before replacing it for the bottle and taking a long draw from it. “I'm fucking grieving here,” he says eventually, “can't you tell?”
“Tony,” she says, stepping forward. She risks resting her hands on his shoulders, feeling how tense and bunched his muscles are, and he slumps under her touch, allows himself to be guided over to a couch.
“This was a bad idea,” he mumbles, and takes another long drink from the bottle.
“Well,” she says, and leaves it there.
“Dad would be so disappointed,” he continues. “He had some real crazy parties when he was young. He was an alcoholic, you know, high-functioning, always ready for the day in a crisp suit and a tidy fucking moustache. None of this sleep till the afternoon and turn up drunk to conferences crap. Never trashed a hotel room, or threw up in the men's restrooms. His hookers were always real classy, didn't kiss and tell. America's golden boy. Everyone loves a warmonger.” He salutes the air with his bottle, spilling some of it on the couch.
“Okay, that's enough,” she says. She pries the bottle from his fingers and sets it down on the floor.
“Pepper.” He stares at her, eyes studying every part of her face like it's going to tell him something. She doesn't have any answers for him. “I don't want to be him.”
He doesn't stop studying her when she speaks, eyes roaming all over. “You're not,” she says.
“Yeah, I am: Howard-lite. Got a little mangled in production, maybe. Not quite as good as the real deal, but still a damn good try.”
She puts her hand on his knee. It's just another of the many mistakes she's already made tonight. “You're not your father,” she repeats.
“Mom tried to help him,” he says. He's leaning in, just a little. “He treated her like shit.”
“Tony,” she says, and it comes out quieter than she expects, quiet enough that it barely seems to register with him. He's slowly drifting closer to her, and when he licks his lips, her eyes are drawn to the action. Something aches in her chest. “Tony,” she says again, more forcefully.
He rocks back. “Right, yeah, sorry. Fuck, I'm not that guy, I don't-- Inappropriate, totally. I'm gonna...” He pulls away from her and stands. Or, tries to stand. He wobbles, stumbling forward and she reacts without thinking. She leans forward, puts her hands on his waist to steady him and draws him back down. He almost falls into her but manages to catch himself. It still leaves him inches from her, though.
“I don't want to be like this,” he whispers.
She moves her hands up to his shoulders, then, after a moment's hesitation, presses one palm to the back of his neck, her fingers brushing over his hair. “You're fine, you're fine.”
She'd like to say that it was Tony; it would make everything so much easier to be able to pin this on him and brush it off as another one of his fruitless passes at her, but her hand is in his hair and then they're kissing and she doesn't think he started it. She knows that this isn't going to make him better but he's pressing against her, mumbling and whining and her fingers just keep tightening in his hair.
“Pepper,” he says, “just...” He traces his fingers along the hem of her shirt, turns towards her and folds his legs underneath him. She goes with him, leaning back as he presses forward, until her head is against the armrest and he has one hand flat against the couch cushion by her shoulder. “I just... Oh, God,” he groans.
She can taste the liquor he's been drinking, can smell smoke on his clothes and in his hair. He's shaking where she touches him, kissing her messily on the mouth before moving down to her throat and chest where the collar of her shirt is unbuttoned. She curls an arm up his back and around his shoulder blade, bends her knees until she's bracketing him, holding him together with her embrace. He's half hard against her hip, rutting shakily against her, his attention back to her face, mouthing her jaw for a minute before kissing her again. She sinks both hands into his hair.
“Is this-- Pepper, I...” he stammers out between kisses. “I love you,” he whispers.
She opens her eyes. Love. She's never heard him say that to anyone, and nobody's said it to her in years, not... not like this. With a supreme amount of effort, she pushes him away. He tries to follow her as she drags herself up into a sitting position.
“I think you should get some sleep, Mr Stark.”
“Pepper,” he says, his voice rough. His eyes are wide and searching and bloodshot; it's painfully obvious how drunk he is. He reaches out and takes her wrist, thumb rubbing against her pulse.
“Mr Stark, please.”
“I'm sorry,” he says quietly.
She pats his hand. “It's fine, come on.”
He comes easily enough, trailing after her up the stairs. He's more pliable than normal, usually when she undresses him after he's been on a tear, he whines and squirms and generally makes everything as difficult as it could possibly be. Tonight she gets him down to his boxers and under the covers of his enormous bed without much of an argument. When she steps away, though, he grabs her hand.
“Pepper,” he says.
“Mr Stark.”
He tugs on her hand. “I don't...” He frowns and drops his gaze to the floor. “I don't want to be alone.”
She almost, almost runs her fingers through his hair. His fingertips knead her skin. “Okay,” she says. “Lie down.”
“Pepper,” he repeats.
“Lie down.”
He nods and flops down. She pries his fingers from her hand, kicks her shoes off, and walks around the other side of the bed to climb on. “On your side,” she says. He rolls over and she lies down behind him, rests her head on her arm, bends her knees to match his.
“I'm sorry,” he says, and she's lost count of how many times he's said those two words tonight. More than he has in his entire life, she wouldn't be surprised.
“Go to sleep,” she says, and, after a moment's hesitation, rests her hand on his arm.
It doesn't take long for him to drift off into a fitful sleep, and once she's sure he isn't going to wake up again, she gets up, closes the bedroom door over behind her and walks downstairs in her bare feet, heels in hand.
She gets home at close to four in the morning, doesn't even try to get any sleep. She washes up, shampoos the smell of smoke out of her hair, rubs moisturiser into the irritated skin around her mouth.
At seven am, she gets a text message from Obadiah. It tells her to take the day off, that he'll look after Tony.
When she sees Tony the next day, he smiles and makes some sarcastic comment that she quickly forgets. He doesn't say anything about the party, and neither does she.
-
Getting Tony to come to the Hammer Gala is like pulling teeth. Worse, even, because at least the pain of that is short lived, while she's sure Tony's going to make this as painful as he can, for as long as he can.
“Get out of bed,” she says as she collects various articles of clothing for him.
“Uh uh,” comes the answer from underneath the covers.
“It's six pm,” she says, “and the car is coming in an hour. Get up.”
“No.”
She drapes a shirt and pair of pants over her arm and sighs. “Yes.”
“Can't make me,” he mumbles.
If he really thinks that... She deposits his clothes over the end of the bed and takes hold of the edge of the cover. “You are getting out of this bed,” she says, and pulls it off to reveal his bare ass.
He rolls onto his side, cradling his head in his hand and stretching out. “If you wanted to see me naked, all you had to do was ask.”
She throws the shirt at him. “Put that on.”
He sits up and pulls the sheets up to cover what might laughingly be called his modesty. “I don't wanna go,” he whines. “I don't like Justin, he's a douchebag.”
“I don't think you're cute, you know.” She grabs a can of deodorant from the bottom drawer of his bedside table and begins to spray him with it. He should really have a shower, but she knows that if he does, it'll just be another way for him to drag this whole thing out even longer.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you trying to choke me here?” he says, waving his hands in front of him.
“I'm trying to make you smell halfway decent.” She drops the can on the bed and grabs one of his arms to force it through the shirt's sleeve.
“And you totally do think I'm cute,” Tony mutters, struggling against her as she tries to get his other arm in the second sleeve.
“I don't.”
“You do,” he insists and stares hard at her for a second.
She stops fussing with his shirt, leaving the sleeve caught around his elbow. “Tony,” she says softly.
“Because my mom always said I was the most adorable kid in the playground. Hey, give me a pair of boxers, I've gotta hide my thunder. Do I have to wear a tie? I don't wanna wear a tie, it stifles me,” he rambles, covering the awkward moment.
She sighs with relief. It's been a couple of months since the incident, and the more space between her and it, the more she realises what a mistake it was, both professionally and personally. “I'll get the boxers. If you haven't buttoned that shirt up by the time I'm back, I'll be fetching a bucket of ice water next.”
“Yes, ma'am,” he says, saluting.
He does end up wearing a tie. Justin sneers at him as he breezes past with a tiny champagne flute.
“Nice hair,” he says, eyeing Tony's hair that Pepper couldn't quite get under control.
“Nice face,” Tony replies.
“Settle down,” she mutters once Justin has moved on to new prey. “We're here for a reason.”
“We are? I thought I just here to bestow my beauty on these people and get blinding drunk.”
“Later,” she says. She points across the room. “That is General Thaddeus Ross. You need to convince him to give us the Army's weapons contract.”
“Do you mean to say that I'm here to work? Pepper, you tricked me!”
“Hammer wants it,” she says.
He nods once. “Lead the way.”
Ross is, simply put, a windbag. He's holding court with a couple of other army officials, talking about something called the 'bio-force enhancement' project. She and Tony tag onto the end of the group and listen in as he goes on and on. Tony keeps pulling faces and shifting from foot to foot, but she holds him steady, and eventually Ross looks up at them.
“General Ross,” she says, tugging on Tony's arm to get his attention back from the caterer in the tight shirt, “I'm Virginia Potts, and this is Tony Stark. He'd like to talk to you about your weapons development contract.”
“I know who he is,” Ross says. “I knew his father.”
“My condolences,” Tony says.
Ross's face becomes pinched. “Your father was a hero.”
“Yeah, sure,” Tony mutters. “So my beautiful assistant tells me that you need weapons. I make weapons. Seems like we're well suited.”
“We're in negotiations with Hammer,” Ross replies, and Tony pretends to gag.
“Hammer's a dick and a hack. Anything he builds will blow up long before it hits the enemy, guaranteed.”
Ross takes a step towards him. He has at least four inches on Tony, and uses every one of them to force Tony to tilt his head back to look him in the eye. Pepper has a creeping feeling that this is not going to end well.
“Frankly, Mr Stark, you're the one that everyone says is a hack, and with your track record you're probably too much of a liability for the US army. How about you have Stane call me tomorrow and I'll talk to him about it.”
Tony rolls his shoulders. “I've told bigger, richer, and uglier guys than you where to shove it, so I'm gonna tell you something.” He puffs his chest out and sneers. “Fuck off.” He takes a smooth step back and turns to Pepper. “Hey, I bet the Air Force would appreciate my genius, how about we give Rhodey a call tomorrow?”
Ross is already turning away from them, shaking his head.
“Yes, Mr Stark,” she says.
Part Three