fic: so many armadillos
Title: so many armadillos
Media: Ironman (movie)
Summary: “She feels like she’s working hard, pushing hard to maintain a level of order. There’s change, sure, but then there’s anarchy.”
Rating: PG? - it’s a little sexy, so.
Disclaimer: not mine, don't own etc.
Archive: My LJ, goblok archive, others by permission.
Note: Inspired by dorkorific’s Four Vignettes, which is masterful. More on the theme of soldering irons and kid’s games (Tony’s expanding his collection).
Spoilers: Post-movie
Feedback: makes my heart, er, glow.
so many armadillos
So what we’re aiming for here is Normal. That’s Normal, on a scale of normal.
First, Pepper wishes that he would bring someone home. Anyone. Anyone meaning ‘anyone’, the kind of anyone’s she’s familiar with. She squeezes toothpaste onto her brush and stands for a second in front of the mirror, slightly appalled that she has so little gender loyalty. But really, she only has one loyalty and there’s no time for any more.
She closes her eyes and frowns.
That’s loyalty to herself and to maintaining her ongoing employment.
Right.
Second, she wishes Tony would stop doing Other Things. She’s not going to write an actual list, because that would be ridiculous, and it would look ridiculous. Unquantifiable things on a list. She ticks them off in her head, to remind herself exactly how ridiculous they would look - dropping stuff; being in the kitchen with her; standing; looking that way; loitering…
Seriously. When did loitering get on a list?
She feels like she’s working hard, pushing hard to maintain a level of order. There’s change, sure, but then there’s anarchy. There’s certain proprieties. He’s not really helping, but that’s hardly in his nature. She’s just…working around it. Exactly. Factoring in the way he moves around her, the space between them, the quality of the air in that space, and just…continuing right along.
Anyway. Other Things.
Like paging her right on bedtime, which is what he’s doing now.
“Potts, I need you.”
“Yes?”
“Are you busy?”
She spits into the sink, not so loud that he could hear it over the intercom.
“It’s 12.30 in the a.m. and I’m brushing my teeth.”
“Minty freshness, excellent.”
She waits. There’s more, clearly.
“So you’re not actually in bed?”
She closes her eyes for one second.
“I’ll be right down.”
Checking herself over to ensure a certain propriety - drawstring pants, tank, covered by a tightly-belted robe. Her feet could be a problem; her slippers have fluffy edges, way too inviting of comment, so she slips on flip-flops and heads for the service elevator.
When she keys in, Tony’s head is poking up from floor level - he’s in the uber-basement (her term), working on the machines that suit him up. There’s a burning smell. The soldering iron is balanced on the black edge of the platform, at his eye-level, and she frowns critically.
“Is there… Did you set your hair on fire?”
He looks up like he never heard that.
“Hi. Nice robe. And you’re wearing flip-flops, that’s very professional. Coming down to the workshop in flip-flops - yeah.”
She sighs, because she’s actually kind of tired.
“I come down in stilettos. All the time. Was there something, or -”
“Yeah. Yes. But you need -“ He scans the floor from an advantageous point. “There’s boots near the workstation. You need covered shoes.”
She grimaces.
“You need me down there?”
“Yes, I need you down here, Potts, don’t do the yuck-face.”
“I’m gonna get dirty, aren’t I -“
He grins, and she ignores that, because double entendres are officially beneath her.
“You’re not gonna get dirty,” he placates. “Maybe your hands a little. Maybe your hem. Something.”
She sighs, goes to the workstation, slides out of the flip-flops and puts on his boots. Clomps over and goes backwards down the three ladder steps to his level. His shoes are idiotic - clown shoes - but they cover the top of her feet. When she turns around, Tony is very big in the space, very sweaty, his undershirt is grey from all the grease he’s sweated onto it. He’s taking up most of the space - there’s not a lot of space. She thinks he might be taking up all the air as well but then she gets a handle on it.
He’s holding a slim metal bar at chest level, with his reactor-heart glowing in the dark. Pepper swallows and lifts her hands vaguely.
“Okay. You want me to -“
“Hold - I want you to hold this - no wait, with the gloves. It’s not heavy. I’m soldering each end and along the length, and you gotta hold it still as you can.”
“Right.”
She doesn’t ask why the robots couldn’t do this, as he is bound to have some credible reply. He holds up the bar and shows her how to fit it into position. It’s oily; she can feel the slide through the horsehide of the gloves. Or maybe the gloves are oily inside. She doesn’t make the yuck-face but she frowns. She’s glad her hair is tied back. He lets her take the weight - it’s not heavy, that was true. Then he leaves his hands raised, open, like he’s posed her for a photo.
“That’s perfect. Now don’t move.”
Then he grabs the soldering iron and starts. She doesn’t move. Just her mouth, as she stands still.
“I’m the holder-upperer now.”
He grins as he works.
“You’re always the holder-upperer, Potts.”
She thinks he probably meant that to be endearing. She thinks about timing, lets her mouth move again.
“You know, Vanity Fair still wants a follow-up with -“
Tony’s expression becomes pained, pained but concentrating on what he’s doing.
“Oh no no no, stop, we are so not going to talk about this now -“
“You didn’t want to talk about this at lunch,” she points out, “so…”
“And I still don’t want to talk about it now. C’mon, please. I mean, you’re in your pajamas -“
“And yet, here I stand…” Pepper says thoughtfully.
“ I know,” Tony nods, commiserating. “You’re a very patient person, it’s true. I honestly don’t know why you work for me. If I was you and you were me, I wouldn’t want to work for me.”
He waves the soldering iron carelessly, and she shifts her head to compensate.
“I wasn’t going to say that -“
“Except,” he continues,” if you were me, you’d probably be a much better employer to work for than I am, and I’d be happy to work for you. But then, if I was you, I’d be the kind of employee you’d never want to hire in, like, a million years, so -“
She’s having trouble keeping a straight face now.
“I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say -“
“Wait - you moved.”
“I didn’t -“
“There. Stay still.”
She does - she is. Damnit. He moves around her in the space - it’s a compact area, full of machinery, rods and cogs and do-dads, like the burrow of a particularly industrious mole or something. He’s already soldered wires to left and right, now he starts on one end, soldering into little holes drilled along the length.
It’s hot. She has to stand very still, and he’s moving his arms around her, over, under, between, consuming all the space. His arms are bare and slick, from working in the heat - one glove off, holding the filaments in place with precise callused fingers.
His arms brush here, there; his hip nudges against her. She keeps her eyes forward, or on his fingers, and counts her breathing. One armadillo, two armadillos, three armadillos. So many armadillos. Her arms are getting a little shaky.
He hasn’t spoken for a while, and when he does she almost starts.
“You’re doing good.”
“Okay.” He reaches over her again for more filaments, and she swallows. “My arms are getting tired.”
“You’re doing good, Pepper,” he murmurs again. His eyes are dark and intent, watching the work, but his face is too close for her comfort level. Unless her comfort level is, like, parachuting. Or bungee-jumping. Or -
“You’re using that night-crème again, the one with the roses,” he says, almost conversationally.
She busses her lips in the pause.
“Lavender.”
“That’s it. The lavender.”
She makes her tone light, lighter-than-souffle light.
“I’m surprised you can smell anything except burning solder and machine oil.”
“My amazing sensory powers,” he grins. “Further evidence.”
“Amazing, yet inaccurate. Are you nearly done?”
“Almost. Just -“
The last one is just between her hands, and he has to lean over her, lean right in, to get it. His beard grazes her ear and she shivers because she can’t help it.
“Did you ever play Twister?” he asks, a whisper, a rumble near her cheek, and he doesn’t have to speak any more loudly because he’s right there.
“No.”
“No ‘Operation’, no ‘Twister’ - you had a deprived childhood, Miss Potts.”
“I managed,” she says, which is all she can manage.
“The reason I ask,” Tony continues, watching the smoke trail up, “the reason I ask is because this is kind of like the best part - you know the best part in Twister? When you get so tangled up that you can’t make the next move for your leg or something, and you overbalance, and then you fall over -“
“Could you please give me some advance warning if you’re going to fall over?”
“- which is actually why people play Twister.” Then his head turns a bare inch, and he looks right into her, and he says: “I’m not gonna fall over.”
And this is not her comfort level, this is so far out of her comfort level it’s like…like god, she can’t even think of an appropriate analogy, and she has to count one armadillo, two armadillos, she gets to five armadillos while his body is pressed up against the length of her side, while the hard edges on his chest move against her, while the skin of his arm rests on her inside elbow where the robe sleeve has rucked up. Then Tony takes a big breath and puts the soldering iron back in its sheath, and leans back.
“That’s it. We’re done.”
“We’re done?”
The absence of him, after the nearness, puts her momentarily off balance.
“Yep. You can let go.”
“Thank god.”
Her arms feel like water and her legs wobble. She touches her hair - the coarse texture of horsehide, she’d forgotten - and smooths the front of her robe, and then she’s prepared to look at him again. And she forces some breeze into her voice, because the last comment sounded a bit -
“Is that all you need?”
Tony smiles. Bats his eyelashes.
“Would you like there to be more?”
“No, thank you. I think I’d just like to go to -“ She begins again, because anything she says now sounds like a double entendre. “I think that’s plenty.”
“Are you flushed?”
“It’s hot. I’m going to go now.”
He looks like he’s about to say something, then he shuts his mouth and holds out a hand.
“Up you go then.”
She takes off the gloves and lays them on the edge of the platform, then uses his hand to get up the step ladder and nothing more, and his hand with no glove is a little sweaty, but he’s been working, and it could be her hand from the greasy gloves, and anyway. And she says:
“Good night, Mr Stark.”
- and he says:
“Good night, Miss Potts.”
And when the doors of the elevator close behind her she leans against the metal wall and just breathes for a minute. Thinks about anarchy. Rubs her hands down her sides, touches them to her cheeks, and thinks about certain proprieties, damnit, and he really isn’t helping. At all.
When she gets to her suite she shuts the door carefully and turns and leans back on it. Which is when the intercom chimes.
“Pepper?”
She lays her head back against the door and closes her eyes. For one second.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to bother you or anything, but uh -“
“What is it, Tony?”
She doesn’t sound sharp, she thinks, because she almost never sounds sharp under any circumstances, but she is really really quite tired and he -
“I kinda need my boots,” he says.
She looks down.
“And I think that I would probably look sort of bizarre in your flip-flops, especially for the Vanity Fair thing, so I was thinking maybe -“
She grins and sighs and cuts him off.
“I’ll be right down.”
fin
cheerio :)
Media: Ironman (movie)
Summary: “She feels like she’s working hard, pushing hard to maintain a level of order. There’s change, sure, but then there’s anarchy.”
Rating: PG? - it’s a little sexy, so.
Disclaimer: not mine, don't own etc.
Archive: My LJ, goblok archive, others by permission.
Note: Inspired by dorkorific’s Four Vignettes, which is masterful. More on the theme of soldering irons and kid’s games (Tony’s expanding his collection).
Spoilers: Post-movie
Feedback: makes my heart, er, glow.
so many armadillos
So what we’re aiming for here is Normal. That’s Normal, on a scale of normal.
First, Pepper wishes that he would bring someone home. Anyone. Anyone meaning ‘anyone’, the kind of anyone’s she’s familiar with. She squeezes toothpaste onto her brush and stands for a second in front of the mirror, slightly appalled that she has so little gender loyalty. But really, she only has one loyalty and there’s no time for any more.
She closes her eyes and frowns.
That’s loyalty to herself and to maintaining her ongoing employment.
Right.
Second, she wishes Tony would stop doing Other Things. She’s not going to write an actual list, because that would be ridiculous, and it would look ridiculous. Unquantifiable things on a list. She ticks them off in her head, to remind herself exactly how ridiculous they would look - dropping stuff; being in the kitchen with her; standing; looking that way; loitering…
Seriously. When did loitering get on a list?
She feels like she’s working hard, pushing hard to maintain a level of order. There’s change, sure, but then there’s anarchy. There’s certain proprieties. He’s not really helping, but that’s hardly in his nature. She’s just…working around it. Exactly. Factoring in the way he moves around her, the space between them, the quality of the air in that space, and just…continuing right along.
Anyway. Other Things.
Like paging her right on bedtime, which is what he’s doing now.
“Potts, I need you.”
“Yes?”
“Are you busy?”
She spits into the sink, not so loud that he could hear it over the intercom.
“It’s 12.30 in the a.m. and I’m brushing my teeth.”
“Minty freshness, excellent.”
She waits. There’s more, clearly.
“So you’re not actually in bed?”
She closes her eyes for one second.
“I’ll be right down.”
Checking herself over to ensure a certain propriety - drawstring pants, tank, covered by a tightly-belted robe. Her feet could be a problem; her slippers have fluffy edges, way too inviting of comment, so she slips on flip-flops and heads for the service elevator.
When she keys in, Tony’s head is poking up from floor level - he’s in the uber-basement (her term), working on the machines that suit him up. There’s a burning smell. The soldering iron is balanced on the black edge of the platform, at his eye-level, and she frowns critically.
“Is there… Did you set your hair on fire?”
He looks up like he never heard that.
“Hi. Nice robe. And you’re wearing flip-flops, that’s very professional. Coming down to the workshop in flip-flops - yeah.”
She sighs, because she’s actually kind of tired.
“I come down in stilettos. All the time. Was there something, or -”
“Yeah. Yes. But you need -“ He scans the floor from an advantageous point. “There’s boots near the workstation. You need covered shoes.”
She grimaces.
“You need me down there?”
“Yes, I need you down here, Potts, don’t do the yuck-face.”
“I’m gonna get dirty, aren’t I -“
He grins, and she ignores that, because double entendres are officially beneath her.
“You’re not gonna get dirty,” he placates. “Maybe your hands a little. Maybe your hem. Something.”
She sighs, goes to the workstation, slides out of the flip-flops and puts on his boots. Clomps over and goes backwards down the three ladder steps to his level. His shoes are idiotic - clown shoes - but they cover the top of her feet. When she turns around, Tony is very big in the space, very sweaty, his undershirt is grey from all the grease he’s sweated onto it. He’s taking up most of the space - there’s not a lot of space. She thinks he might be taking up all the air as well but then she gets a handle on it.
He’s holding a slim metal bar at chest level, with his reactor-heart glowing in the dark. Pepper swallows and lifts her hands vaguely.
“Okay. You want me to -“
“Hold - I want you to hold this - no wait, with the gloves. It’s not heavy. I’m soldering each end and along the length, and you gotta hold it still as you can.”
“Right.”
She doesn’t ask why the robots couldn’t do this, as he is bound to have some credible reply. He holds up the bar and shows her how to fit it into position. It’s oily; she can feel the slide through the horsehide of the gloves. Or maybe the gloves are oily inside. She doesn’t make the yuck-face but she frowns. She’s glad her hair is tied back. He lets her take the weight - it’s not heavy, that was true. Then he leaves his hands raised, open, like he’s posed her for a photo.
“That’s perfect. Now don’t move.”
Then he grabs the soldering iron and starts. She doesn’t move. Just her mouth, as she stands still.
“I’m the holder-upperer now.”
He grins as he works.
“You’re always the holder-upperer, Potts.”
She thinks he probably meant that to be endearing. She thinks about timing, lets her mouth move again.
“You know, Vanity Fair still wants a follow-up with -“
Tony’s expression becomes pained, pained but concentrating on what he’s doing.
“Oh no no no, stop, we are so not going to talk about this now -“
“You didn’t want to talk about this at lunch,” she points out, “so…”
“And I still don’t want to talk about it now. C’mon, please. I mean, you’re in your pajamas -“
“And yet, here I stand…” Pepper says thoughtfully.
“ I know,” Tony nods, commiserating. “You’re a very patient person, it’s true. I honestly don’t know why you work for me. If I was you and you were me, I wouldn’t want to work for me.”
He waves the soldering iron carelessly, and she shifts her head to compensate.
“I wasn’t going to say that -“
“Except,” he continues,” if you were me, you’d probably be a much better employer to work for than I am, and I’d be happy to work for you. But then, if I was you, I’d be the kind of employee you’d never want to hire in, like, a million years, so -“
She’s having trouble keeping a straight face now.
“I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say -“
“Wait - you moved.”
“I didn’t -“
“There. Stay still.”
She does - she is. Damnit. He moves around her in the space - it’s a compact area, full of machinery, rods and cogs and do-dads, like the burrow of a particularly industrious mole or something. He’s already soldered wires to left and right, now he starts on one end, soldering into little holes drilled along the length.
It’s hot. She has to stand very still, and he’s moving his arms around her, over, under, between, consuming all the space. His arms are bare and slick, from working in the heat - one glove off, holding the filaments in place with precise callused fingers.
His arms brush here, there; his hip nudges against her. She keeps her eyes forward, or on his fingers, and counts her breathing. One armadillo, two armadillos, three armadillos. So many armadillos. Her arms are getting a little shaky.
He hasn’t spoken for a while, and when he does she almost starts.
“You’re doing good.”
“Okay.” He reaches over her again for more filaments, and she swallows. “My arms are getting tired.”
“You’re doing good, Pepper,” he murmurs again. His eyes are dark and intent, watching the work, but his face is too close for her comfort level. Unless her comfort level is, like, parachuting. Or bungee-jumping. Or -
“You’re using that night-crème again, the one with the roses,” he says, almost conversationally.
She busses her lips in the pause.
“Lavender.”
“That’s it. The lavender.”
She makes her tone light, lighter-than-souffle light.
“I’m surprised you can smell anything except burning solder and machine oil.”
“My amazing sensory powers,” he grins. “Further evidence.”
“Amazing, yet inaccurate. Are you nearly done?”
“Almost. Just -“
The last one is just between her hands, and he has to lean over her, lean right in, to get it. His beard grazes her ear and she shivers because she can’t help it.
“Did you ever play Twister?” he asks, a whisper, a rumble near her cheek, and he doesn’t have to speak any more loudly because he’s right there.
“No.”
“No ‘Operation’, no ‘Twister’ - you had a deprived childhood, Miss Potts.”
“I managed,” she says, which is all she can manage.
“The reason I ask,” Tony continues, watching the smoke trail up, “the reason I ask is because this is kind of like the best part - you know the best part in Twister? When you get so tangled up that you can’t make the next move for your leg or something, and you overbalance, and then you fall over -“
“Could you please give me some advance warning if you’re going to fall over?”
“- which is actually why people play Twister.” Then his head turns a bare inch, and he looks right into her, and he says: “I’m not gonna fall over.”
And this is not her comfort level, this is so far out of her comfort level it’s like…like god, she can’t even think of an appropriate analogy, and she has to count one armadillo, two armadillos, she gets to five armadillos while his body is pressed up against the length of her side, while the hard edges on his chest move against her, while the skin of his arm rests on her inside elbow where the robe sleeve has rucked up. Then Tony takes a big breath and puts the soldering iron back in its sheath, and leans back.
“That’s it. We’re done.”
“We’re done?”
The absence of him, after the nearness, puts her momentarily off balance.
“Yep. You can let go.”
“Thank god.”
Her arms feel like water and her legs wobble. She touches her hair - the coarse texture of horsehide, she’d forgotten - and smooths the front of her robe, and then she’s prepared to look at him again. And she forces some breeze into her voice, because the last comment sounded a bit -
“Is that all you need?”
Tony smiles. Bats his eyelashes.
“Would you like there to be more?”
“No, thank you. I think I’d just like to go to -“ She begins again, because anything she says now sounds like a double entendre. “I think that’s plenty.”
“Are you flushed?”
“It’s hot. I’m going to go now.”
He looks like he’s about to say something, then he shuts his mouth and holds out a hand.
“Up you go then.”
She takes off the gloves and lays them on the edge of the platform, then uses his hand to get up the step ladder and nothing more, and his hand with no glove is a little sweaty, but he’s been working, and it could be her hand from the greasy gloves, and anyway. And she says:
“Good night, Mr Stark.”
- and he says:
“Good night, Miss Potts.”
And when the doors of the elevator close behind her she leans against the metal wall and just breathes for a minute. Thinks about anarchy. Rubs her hands down her sides, touches them to her cheeks, and thinks about certain proprieties, damnit, and he really isn’t helping. At all.
When she gets to her suite she shuts the door carefully and turns and leans back on it. Which is when the intercom chimes.
“Pepper?”
She lays her head back against the door and closes her eyes. For one second.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to bother you or anything, but uh -“
“What is it, Tony?”
She doesn’t sound sharp, she thinks, because she almost never sounds sharp under any circumstances, but she is really really quite tired and he -
“I kinda need my boots,” he says.
She looks down.
“And I think that I would probably look sort of bizarre in your flip-flops, especially for the Vanity Fair thing, so I was thinking maybe -“
She grins and sighs and cuts him off.
“I’ll be right down.”
fin
cheerio :)