FIC: "Unscheduled Meetings" (3/5) - Iron Man movieverse (Tony/Pepper)
A/N: For those of you among my readership who are science people: I studied English and Theatre in university. Any relationship between what you are about to read and actual science is purely coincidental. Everyone put on their suspension of disbelief goggles for the next chapter. Ready then? Here we go!
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( Part Two)
3. Mad Scientist
Arranging the transition with Stark's last assistant, Gregory Townsend, had been relatively simple: the poor man was so relieved to be given an out that he didn't even question the whole "promotion" scenario-just took his plants and left.
Pepper's section staff were devastated when she broke the news. In the evening following her last day of work, they had thrown her a roaring going-away party at a Korean norebang, where they all drank soju and belted out karaoke hits from musicals and power ballads from the 80s. Pepper couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but since she wasn't the boss anymore, she didn't mind looking a little ridiculous. She and the ever-capable Matthew had finished up the evening with a soulful duet on "Summer Nights," after which he had hugged Pepper and tearfully admitted that he thought he might be in love with her.
Pepper had extricated herself from that situation with her usual grace and tact, breaking Matthew's heart in the kindest way possible-she told him that she had a strict, no-exceptions policy about getting romantically involved in the workplace.
It was with an unsettled stomach (and a slight soju hangover) that Pepper reported to her new boss at his house the next morning.
At least, she tried to report to him-she couldn't find him anywhere. She let herself in, using the keys and codes she'd been e-mailed the day before, and elected to give herself the impromptu tour.
The house was enormous, but slightly sterile, with a variety of rooms dedicated to the care and feeding of idle playboy billionaires: weight room with sauna, games room, a library full of books that had evidently never had their spines cracked. Located directly off the living room, she found a gleaming white kitchen, with expensive appliances showing no sign of use (apart from the espresso machine), but no dining room as far as she could tell. The top floor housed several bedrooms, all rather ascetic in appearance-Pepper guessed at which one was Stark's, by the fact that the bed hadn't yet been made. Presumably because there was an angelic young woman still sleeping in it, her scant clothing scattered across the tile floor along with the various elements of an Armani tuxedo.
At length, Pepper found her way down the stairs and through the glass doors into what appeared to be yet another hobby room. This time, the hobby was machines-cars, robots, miscellaneous mechanical objects, computers.
There was a small stack of dirty dinner plates on one worktable, directly adjacent to a series of cold, half-finished cups of coffee. It reminded her of an installation she'd seen once at a gallery in Chicago, but she doubted Stark had arranged his clutter with an eye to its artistic integrity.
Unlike the spartan quarters above, this was a room where chaos reigned; this, she quickly realized, was where Tony Stark really lived.
Off at the far end of the room-which seemed to run the entire length of the house-Stark was huddled over a workbench, painting a small object with a clear liquid. He wore grey cargo pants and a rather grubby-looking white undershirt, and looked as though he could use a shower.
"Mr. Stark?" she called, her voice echoing in the vast space.
He waved her over. The closer she got, the more the overwhelming odor of solvent permeated the air. She started to feel vaguely fluish-hot and headachey.
"I told you to call me Tony," he said, not looking up from his work. The object he was painting looked like a small rubber ball, the kind found in a shopping mall vending machine.
"I have a few questions for you," she informed him crisply, PDA at the ready. She'd reviewed her contract several times, and had found it frustratingly broad in scope-part personal services agreement, part general proxy, and parts that she didn't even know how to classify. She wanted to get a précis of his expectations, his preferences, his daily routine. She was eager, in short, to get straight down to business.
"Sure, okay. Do me a favour, would you?" Without waiting for her response, he thrust a small red canister into her hands. A fire extinguisher.
"What do you want me to-"
He pitched the ball at the wall adjacent to them. She brandished the extinguisher in alarm-but felt a slight sense of disappointment when the ball made contact with the concrete, and nothing happened. Stark plucked it out of the air on the rebound, and held it up in front of his face to examine it.
"That's weird," he remarked, polishing the ball against his shirt. "It's supposed to-"
He burst into flames.
Pepper yelped. Then she pointed the extinguisher and fired, covering her boss and everything in the vicinity in a fine purple powder. She emptied the full canister at point blank range. Everyone at Stark Industries received fire safety training as a matter of due dilligence: now that she'd had a chance to observe the CEO in his native environment, she suspected she knew why.
When the dust cleared, Stark had potassium bicarbonate in his hair, beard, eyebrows and eyelashes, and clinging to his clothes. But the fire was out.
"I think we're safe now," he observed, smirking. There was a giant smoking hole in the front of his undershirt where the fabric had simply been incinerated, but the burns on his skin didn't look much worse than the results of a day on the beach without sunscreen.
Pepper was trembling. She dropped the extinguisher, which hit the concrete floor with a loud clang. She wondered what in the hell she'd gotten herself into.
"So what we need around the core is a layer of…" he stripped off his undershirt and glanced at the tag, "cotton-poly blend, treated with the accelerant, to speed ignition." He seemed to be speaking to no one in particular; Pepper wondered whether she should be taking notes.
"Yes, sir," said a disembodied English voice, in a faintly reproachful tone. "Might I again make the recommendation that you use protective equipment while engaging in this particular experiment?"
Stark was rubbing the dry chemical off his face and neck using the remains of the charred shirt. "You can try." Catching the bewildered look on Pepper's face, he added, "That's JARVIS. He's the nanny."
"Not exactly," corrected the voice.
"Says you, Mary Poppins." To Pepper, he elucidated, "He's an artificial intelligence I programmed to run the house, help me with a few projects, and generally not be a pain in the ass. The latter part could use some tweaking, obviously. Go ahead, say hello."
"Hi, JARVIS," said Pepper, feeling a bit silly.
"Hello, Ms. Potts. A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I hope you enjoyed your tour of the house earlier?"
"No need to be so formal," admonished Stark-who, given that he clearly didn't feel the need to put on another shirt, apparently liked to practice what he preached. "In case you weren't aware, JARVIS, Potts here is going to be your new mom." To Pepper, he added, "Congratulations. It's a… computer."
"I'm thrilled to no longer be the product of a broken home, sir."
Pepper was getting that headachey feeling again.
"May I ask, Ms. Potts, whether you prefer to be addressed by your first name? I understand from your personnel file that you do have a nickname-"
"That's okay," she said, hurriedly.
Stark perked up. "A nickname? Do tell."
"It's nothing."
"I'll be the judge of that. JARVIS?"
"Really, it's not-" What was that even doing in her personnel file?
"Apparently Ms. Potts has been known to go by the sobriquet of 'Pepper,' sir."
"Hey!" Pepper exclaimed.
"Sorry, Potts, you may be the mommy, but Daddy knows best in this household." He ran a hand through his hair, causing an exhalation of purple dust. "Pepper, huh? I like it."
"No one's called me that since college," she protested.
"It's cute. Spunky. Like the smart girl with the freckles and the glasses from Josie and the Pussycats."
"You're dating yourself, Mr. Stark. They cut that character out of the series before I was even born." The word 'dating' sparked a reminder in Pepper's brain. "Incidentally, you have a guest upstairs."
Stark looked mildly horrified. "Still?"
"Well, if you don't want to say goodbye-" he gave a derisive snort, which she assumed was a no- "at the very least, should I call her a cab?"
"Sure, okay. Take care of it. Don't let her come down here."
"What's her name?"
He gave Pepper a blank look. Of course he didn't know the woman's name. "I think it started with a B," he said finally.
Pepper rolled her eyes-she didn't mean to, but she couldn't quite restrain herself.
"You disapprove, Ms. Potts?" he challenged.
"'Moral compass' isn't in my job description, Mr. Stark." With that crushing rejoinder, Pepper walked through the glass doors and back upstairs. She'd do this for him one time, and one time only-after that, he was on his own.
Pepper returned to the basement about twenty minutes later, having given a tearful young Brandi (at least he was right about it starting with B) her marching papers. She found Stark in a different area of the workshop, assembling something so tiny and intricate it required the use of watchmaker's tools and a lighted magnifying glass.
"We still need to talk about my workplan," she reminded him.
He hummed noncommittally.
She tried again: "We should do this soon, before you fly out to the Tokyo office on Thursday." She'd taken the liberty of studying his appointment calendar for the next few weeks, just so she could hit the ground running.
He looked up at her in what appeared to be honest confusion, deploying the eyelashes. "Am I doing that?"
"I don't know, are you?"
"What?"
She sighed. Loudly.
He leaned back, stretched his arms over his head-a surprisingly graceful, fluid motion, emphasized by the fact that he still hadn't managed to locate a shirt-and scratched the back of his neck absently with the head of a tiny screwdriver. "Look, Pepper…"
She noted with chagrin that he didn't have a hard time remembering her name now.
"…I'm at a crucial stage of development here."
Adolescence, thought Pepper ruefully.
"I don't have time for a chat right now."
"Well then, let me put it this way, Mr. Stark. I'm your assistant. What exactly do you need my assistance with?"
He stood up and took a step towards her, frowning intently, as though he was giving her his full consideration for the first time since her arrival. It was a little unnerving.
"Got it," he said at last, and snapped his fingers. He walked over to an area of the basement that obviously served as a loading bay, where several large crates were lined up against the wall by the service elevator. All of them were stamped with the words FRAGILE and THIS END UP. He beckoned her over. "You can help me figure out what to do with all this stuff."
"What is it?" she asked, dubiously. If he asked her to unload a bunch of engine parts, she was prepared to tender her resignation on the spot. Maybe the Marine Mammal Stranding Response Team still had an opening.
He shrugged. "It's my art collection."
"Art?" Pepper took a step towards the nearest crate, as if magnetized.
"Yeah. My parents were collectors, and I've been keeping it up, on and off." His well-muscled shoulders rippled in a fluid shrug. "I don't know the first thing about it, I just pick stuff out of catalogues. Obadiah says it's a good portfolio diversifier. And donations to museums and non-profits are great write-offs."
"That's true." She took another step. "May I?" she asked.
He was already walking back towards his workbench, waving his hand in the general direction of the crates. "Knock yourself out."
As she delved into the first crate, Pepper had the distinct sense that she was being sidetracked.
( Part Four)