Tony Stark is characteristically hyperverbal. (the_iron_man) wrote in avengers_logs, @ 2020-01-07 12:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | -complete, pepper potts, tony stark |
Who: Pepper & Tony
What: dinner and discussion about recent events
When: evening of this post.
note: in progress
Tony spent a lot of time getting everything perfect before Pepper got home after working another late night. It was the least he could do for the hardest working CEO in the business world was speedrace in the suit to Paris and bring back some of the best French food in the entire world. Carrying it got interesting, but nanorobotics meant he could compartmentalize anything onto the suit, and his knowledge of aerodynamics meant the travel time didn't suffer any.
As he expected, Morgan turned her nose up at the mention of her parents eating French food. Blech. She wanted salad and cheese pizza, which was easy enough to order before he left. Happy agreed to keep an eye on her for an hour or two, and after he got back, the kiddo zonked at her usual bedtime. All that he had to do was keep the food warm. Or cold, in some cases. He could manage that much, without imploding anything in the kitchen.
The table was set with romantic candlelight, flowers, and the best wine was ready to go in the glasses. Pepper's free time was few and far between lately and he wanted things to look nice, even while they talked about stuff that was going on lately. That's why he dressed himself prettier than a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. A nice shirt and blazer, and pants that weren't wrinkled from being at work.
He hoped she liked it, and he was absolutely not hovering by the front door of the penthouse. He was trying to distract himself by watching the news, and peeking over at the front door every two minutes.
See? It wasn't hovering. It was watchful waiting.
Pepper came bursting through the door in a gust of energy. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Her high heels clicked rapidly across the marble floor of the foyer. “Huffington Post was camped outside the office and jumped me as soon as I walked out the door.”
The heels were literally kicked to the side, her briefcase dropped by a table on her way into the main room. “Hi. I’m late.”
Being no stranger to breezing in looking hectic, Tony stood up and started toward her.
"Hey, no! It's ok," he assured he with a smile, drawing close enough to put his hands on her shoulders and lean in for a quick kiss. "I got everything ready and the food's still warm. You're dealing with getting jumped by the Huff. They're vicious and they hate rich people. That eScape fallout is not going away."
He felt guilty about it. It was supposed to be great, and it could still be great, just with a lot of training wheels and government restrictions. Which he was sure to hear about during...the hearing. He winced just thinking about it.
She hummed into the kiss, a smile coming to her face as she felt more relaxed already, and she wasn’t willing to let him go just yet. “I don’t want to even think about it anymore today.” She stole another quick kiss then let him go.
“I want to change into something I can wrinkle with impunity.”
"Noted," Tony said against her lips before he backed up a step, still very close to her like he was caught in a gravitational pull. Sure, that problem was not going away, and he wanted to talk about it, but right now? Not the time. "I mean, we'll have to talk about it eventually? But not tonight, after you had reporters in your face. Yuck."
He looked down at what she was wearing and raised his eyebrows a little.
"You know how much I like seeing you in corporate mode," he was saying, drinking in the sight of her as his eyes went down and then trailed back up again. "Then again, I'm biased. I think you look great in anything. Even sweatpants or cut off shorts. Go get comfy and I'll get the wine poured."
Pepper smirked as she pulled the pins out of her hair to let it fall behind her shoulders. “And I’m even going to put on your sweatpants.” Smirk became a grin then she was padding away on barefeet to go get changed as quickly as possible.
True to her word, she was back a few minutes later in a pair of Tony’s sweatpants, fuzzy socks and her favorite, tatty sweater. “So what did you make for dinner?”
Tony's mouth made a little o shape as he watched her go down the hallway to change. As soon as she was out of sight, he made sure the candles were burning bright, the wine was poured, and the fanciest French food on the planet was perfectly warmed and on their plates. When she came back, he let out a low whistle like he was appreciating the view. Which he did, considering he lived in jeans and a t-shirt most days.
"Lookin' good, former Miss Potts. I got some nice French stuff for you," he said while holding the chair out for her to sit down. It was obvious by how pretty it was (and how simultaneously not cooked yet charred around the edges) that he didn't cook it. "I hope you like it and leave me a five star review."
She sat down as invited, tucking one foot under the other knee to be comfortable. The food did look, and smell, delicious! It reminded her of the time Tony took her to France to forgive him for something he’d done. She didn’t remember what.
Tilting her head back she smiled up at him. “Five stars, huh. Depends on what’s for dessert.” She grinned suggestively.
The plating was only slightly haphazard, looking like they were rearranged to look as close as possible to the website pictures. It was from the same apology restaurant too, high star rating and exorbitantly priced, all white with gold embellishments. Even though Tony knew how to speak french, but boiled dessert down to, "Some mango brioche tart thing to butter you up, in case you were thinking of only four stars."
At least he remembered she was allergic to strawberries. He sat down to her left side after kissing the top of her head.
"Bon appetite," he said, grinning at her and saying the classiest thing any husband could say to a wife. "By the way? You're so hot. I like it when you wear my sweats."
Which was true. He liked that as much as her in those high heels she liked to wear, probably because she could put someone's eye out if they were thrown. Someone else, other than him.
“You’d like it if I wore a burlap sack.” Pepper smirked. Despite what she said she loved seeing the look on his face whenever she stunned him with her appearance. Some years ago she’d roll her eyes since Tony had been a notorious womanizer, but those looks were all for her now.
She began to tuck into the dinner for a few moments before speaking again. “So which of the 8,011 topics did you want to start with?”
Tony did a double take look at her, smirking because that was a true statement. She could show up wearing burlap and make it look good, and she was the only woman he wanted to lay eyes on. Or hands on. Or the rest of him honestly, since he was huggle-riffic when asleep.
"I can cut that in half," Tony said, between bites. Since work stuff was off the table, he decided to tell her when he was sure of the congressional hearing, and would submit the outline to the board about the eScape revamp minus the B.A.R.F. tech. It was still immersive but without the danger of brainjacking by what they were pretty sure was a disgruntled ex-employee. That was something he still had to tell her about but..... "Um, kiddos, if you're ok with that? I mean, I want to get things settled so it's as low pressure as possible for Darcy, and make sure Morgan's set up. Get Parker's college paid for. Forget about the work stuff for now. I'll send you a post-it note."
That worked. He stuck those all over the place anyway.
The fact that whatever work related topic he wanted to discuss would fit on a post-it made Pepper gulp a little. That meant that the rest of the 8,010 things were topics she wasn’t entirely aware of. She was getting to the point where she hated surprises.
“Trust funds?” That much was easy. “I can do that. You know the details I’ll need. Social Security numbers and what not.”
Hey now, some of his best post-it's had doodles on them. And he only plucked that number out because she threw it at him, once before. A long time ago before he made her CEO, and they began bantering about that whole twelve percent thing.
"Yeah, those," Tony said, and he knew that Pepper would know what to do there. She was a pro business woman, able to navigate through anything, while not putting up with anyone's crap. Including his own. "I can get that stuff. And I know we can set up something nice for all of them, even MJ since she seems like a good kid. Sure, she'll probably want to apply for it herself, but she can put that money toward...some sort of charity start up or whatever she wants to do with it."
Tony paused to chew on a bite of froofed up sea bass, looking thoughtful.
"It's no big," he finally said, "that's mostly it. Just to get the ball rolling with the legal stuff. Wills, college or trust funds. I know you've had a hard day and I just wanted to see you, honey. What else have you been doing, other than avoiding the press?"
He grinned over at her while sticking his fork into some poor defenseless vegetables.
The mention of wills made her heart skip a beat. She thought she’d been past the point of anxiety about Tony dying. Apparently not. Pepper picked up her glass of wine to wash down the small lump in her throat. Fortunately, what he followed that up with made her relax again and smile.
“So this was just some kind of ruse to make me stop working?” That was sweet. “That’s usually my move.”
It was impossible for him to not think about what happened over in that other universe. Sure, he knew his other self would have seen to that sort of thing already, and he wanted to update everything so that everyone he cared about would be taken care of. It was hard as hell to find an insurance company that would cover superheroes, which was a thing he also found out about years ago.
He noticed when she needed the wine, and leaned over to rest a steady hand on her lower arm while pressing a kiss against her cheek. He didn't pull away quickly, slowly siitting back to let the motion be what broke the kiss.
"Yeah, it is," he agreed, "because I learned it by watching you. You're the reason I'm here and haven't gone flying off a cliff, drunk and lit on fire. I need to make sure you're ok too."
Ok that was even sweeter. The kiss and the statement. Pepper’s eyes grew a bit more shiny. “So you’re saying I’ve been working too much and need to remember my family?” She caught Tony’s hand to give it a squeeze.
The disaster with the eScape was slowly being eliminated. The spin doctor tricks she employed were doing their job. Tony and the rest of them in the lab were doing the rest. There really was no reason for her to be running around as manic as she was now that she thought about it. She could schedule whatever was left into her day and be home for Tony and Morgan at a decent time.
“Sorry,” she said and meant it. “I can rearrange things.”
There was no one who worked as hard or that put up with as much as Pepper did. It was why he always trusted her, even to deal with the intimate details of his trainwreck of a life, years before kissing her on that rooftop.
Right now, the candlelight made her eyes glisten brightly and he worried that she was going to cry or feel guilty like she somehow neglected them. Pep would never do that, no matter how many late hours she worked. It wasn't like he didn't understand what she might be thinking, since he often felt guilty when glancing at the clock at work and realizing how late it was getting.
"Whoa, stopping you right there so I can let you know something," he said, reaching over to clasp one of her hands in his own. "Morgan and I are a-ok. You always vid chat or call if things run late, and our kid is the coolest ever about our work, because she thinks we're cool. That'll probably end after she's fourteen and decides she hates everything, except cell phones. This is to do something nice for you, because you always do a shit ton for everyone else. You still take such good care of me and Morgan, so I'm not doing this to make you feel guilty or bad in any way. I'm doing this because I wanted to say thank you. I love you, honey. Okay?"
He smiled at her, hoping that he was being reassuring in some way, shape, or form.
Ok now she was going to cry for an entirely different reason. Pepper sniffled as she swiped under her eye. “...Tony.” It wasn’t quite a whimper, but she was smiling. Her hand tightened on his just before she lurched forward to throw her arms around him. “I love you, too.”
Both of his arms went around her in an instant and he placed a kiss against the side of her neck before saying softly, "Everything's going to be ok. I promise."
If it wasn't, then he would try his hardest to make it all ok for her, for Morgan, for Darcy, and for Peter. No matter what it took to make that happen, or the lengths he had to go to. He knew that Pepper felt the same way too, which was the greatest feeling in the world: knowing someone has your back, through thick and thin.
"Come on, let's try to make it to dessert. Which is being served in the bedroom and consists of berries and whipped cream. It's on me. And I don't mean the cost."
Of course not. Wink wink.