nwo_potts (nwo_potts) wrote in nwo_shield, @ 2008-07-16 17:48:00 |
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Tony was on his back, again, his head resting against the cold cement of the workshop floor. It seemed lately that he was spending more time on the floor of the workshop than on the floor of his bedroom. Maybe spending so much time around Steve was starting to instill him with good manners and honorable intentions...but it as much more likely that the suit he'd come to affectionately refer to as <i>War Machine</i> had him completely distracted from everything else.
Setting a small electric welder to the side, he reached around for his desired screwdriver. Which was...nowhere. Not to the left, not to the right...not within the reach of any of his mechanical assistants. And well, there was no way he could leave the armor to search for it <i>now</i>, not while he was in the exact frame of mind <i>needed</i> for torque reduction. He needed someone with eyes, someone helpful. Someone that had nowhere to be on a Saturday.
"JARVIS," he called, waiting for the AI to respond. "Call Pepper. Tell her I'm in the workshop, and it's urgent..."
After Paige's phone call, Pepper had given up and packed her things. It just wasn't worth the headache to sit at the office and deal with Tony's problems. Half way to her home, however, she was reminded that it didn't matter where she was : Tony always came first.
JARVIS's message relayed, Pepper sighed and headed opposite from her own home. It wouldn't take her long to get to Stark Mansion from here, and at least, now, she knew where he was.
Finally arriving, she walked into the place as swiftly as she could and all but ran downstairs. "Tony, I'm here. What's so urgent?"
With his legs sticking out from underneath the unpainted alloy suit, Tony peered out from between plates of metal and gestured with one leg to the huge red tool chest standing against the far wall. "The number five, Pepper! The steel alloy...I need it, quickly quickly..."
Pepper stood there, jaw set. "You mean to tell me, you had your ridiculously expensive AI manservant call me, tell me how unbelievably important it was that I get here as soon as possible, and all you want is a wrench?" Of course, he didn't answer, simply kept his hand out, waiting for the wrench.
Sighing, she grabbed it, and slapped it down in his hand, hard enough for him to feel it.
With his fingers around the wrench, Tony slid out from beneath the armor and fixed Pepper with his best wounded puppy look, complete with lip tremble. "Pep...it's not just the wrench. You know that. It's the company. I get so lonely down here, and i hired you for your excellent conversational skills."
He paused, sliding back beneath the hanging mass of metal, tapping one ankle against the floor. "That, and the fact that you were alphabetising the magazines in the lobby when I first met you."
She snorted. "Well Tony, for someone that seems to just crave my conversation, you've been making yourself pretty scarce. You're not even answering the phone that only I have access to. Probably because you know it's me calling, actually," she added.
Stepping back, she hopped onto the metal table and watched Tony work, her legs dangling from the frame. "Where've you been?"
"Right here," he replied, tapping on the inside of the suit for emphasis. "Working on this. It's for Rhodey...he really likes it. He was gobsmacked. He's naming a plane after me."
Having used the wrench to it's fullest extent, Tony slid out from beneath the suit once more and sat up, his chest quite bare save for the reactor. There was a large hickey on the left side of his neck, of which he seemed quite unashamed. "I'd make one for you, too," he continued, offering her a disarming grin. "But there's nowhere to put a flight booster in Blahnik heels."
"Knowing you, you'd probably make it in bright pink, and I'd stand out." She sighed. "And Tony? A hickey? Really? How old are you now, 15?"
Even though Pepper knew that, if it hadn't been for expensive makeup, she'd probably have been equally marked. Stupid delicate skin.
"A what?" Tony frowned, climbing to his feet and limping slightly to a mirror mounted beside a washbasin. He'd managed to crash the V2 suit earlier in the morning, testing out an exterior heating coil that had produced something of a negative impact in flight balance. Glancing in the mirror, he gingerly fingered the hickey, grinning.
"I had no idea it was even there," he quipped, taking two bottles of water from the drink fridge, tossing one to Pepper. "It was JARVIS. You know I'm a heavy sleeper, Pepper my love, and he has the house to himself when I'm down for the count. I really have no ide how he does it..."
She saw him limping and her heart caught just a little bit. It didn't matter that there was nothing between them: it still pained her to see him get hurt. Of course, he would never let her help him, unless it was something serious, like oh, needing an arc reactor change or something.
Catching the bottle, she gave him a smirk. "That's a lame excuse, Tony, even for you." She opened her bottle and took a drink of the cold water. Refreshing. "Besides, we both know that JARVIS likes me more."
Eyebrow arched, Tony sat down at the chair centered between half a dozen read out screens and flashing, beeping diagnostic displays. "Pepper...JARVIS is designed to be male, upperclass british, intelligent, polite, and to follow my every command..I think we <i>both</i> know which side of the fence he sits on."
"So," he continued, resting the ice-cold water against the side of his knee, wincing a little. "Did you have fun at the party? I think Steve had fun...there were so many <i>official</i> people there, if I could have I would just have invited you, me, him and Clint...and Banner. That guy needs to be let out more.
She nodded. "I did have fun, yes. Spoke to a few people who are interested in financing some of the reconstruction, as well as mended some fences that you so callously broke," she teased. Hopping off the table, she went over and grabbed the rarely used first aid kit, and brushed Tony's hand away. Without asking permission, she started to massage the knee gently. She was going to bandage it whether he liked it or not.
"And speaking of the party, I received a phone call today. On my work number. From a Paige Guthrie. Ring any bells?"
”I break fences only in the interest of expanding my fields, Miss Potts..." Tony grinned, considering pulling away. Of course, by the time he had realised what she was doing, she was already rolling up the leg of his sweatpants. He folded his arms, fingers tapping out of habit on the edge of the Reactor, and tilted his head slightly.
"Guthrie? Guthrie. The Kentucky girl! God, wasn't she adorable, Pep? I must have given her your number instead...weird. What did she say? Was she charmed, star-struck...you know."
"Wait, you really meant to give her your number?" Pepper was unrolling the bandage and was happy to have somethign to do with her hands because that statment really threw her. "Tony," she started to say carefully, "you do realize she's not like everyone else right? She called and was quite polite, not mean or nasty or anything."
Quickly encasing his knee, she set a few butterfly clips on the side and stood up, satisfied. "She's not like your typical girl."
Nodding, Tony used her arm as a lever to haul himself to his feet, testing the knee and finding himself completely unsurprised with Pepper's medical prowess. Just another footnote on her resume. Uncapping the bottle and taking a considerable swig, he returned to the almost complete armor.
"I think I meant to give her mine. I don't know. I was about one Jack Daniels away from climbing up on the bar and singing Happy Birthday. And I <i>know</i> she's different, Pep, she's a mutant for god's sake. Did you know she can alter her exterior genetic makeup? Just shed her skin and bam, different. That's so freaky...not in a bad way, but freaky excellent. Mutants - I love them."
"Don't just be going out with her because she's a mutant, Tony. I mean it. If you hurt this girl, it won't be the same as all the rest. They're golddiggers, who know the score. I really think she's just a country girl who has no idea what to expect from the city." Pepper sighed and stepped towards the armor. "And if you mess this up, I will not be fixing it. Just letting you know that now."
Tony rolled his eyes, walking circles around the studio and testing his leg. The bandage held well...perhaps he should have Pepper present on all test flights. He could call her over at three am...it's not like she had that much of a pressing social life, right?
"I resent your implications as to my good nature, Miss Potts..." he drawled, limping his way over to the bar and pulling out a bottle of kahlua. It would dull the (more considerable than he was letting on) pain much better than the water. "I think I'll call her. She was much more interesting than most of the people there. Did you see her hips? She wasn't three inches wide, that in itself makes her remarkable in the eyes of society...
"And that makes you even more of a shallow pig than the tabloids say," she teased lightly, following him to the bar. Plucking the bottle out of his hands, she gave him a look and poured out a much smaller glass than he would've given himself. She handed it over and put the bottle away. "I really do mean it though, Tony. She's not the others," she repeated.
Accepting the pathetic drizzle of Kahlua, Tony rolled his eyes once more, his default setting for a Pepper Lecture. "Well, you aren't like the others, are you? And I treat you with the utmost respect. I really don't see how we never ended up together, Pep...I employed my most flawless charms with you. They worked for Rhodey, you know. He can't resist me..."
"We tried and failed miserably, remember Tony?" Failed actually was a light word for what had happened. "And Rhodes has his own problems, least of all being his odd fascination for you."
She turned around and once again leaned on the edge of the counter, arms crossed as she tried to impart on Tony how serious this was. "Plus, if she's one of Xavier's wards, you can't risk alienating him and his team. You never know when they might come in handy."
Tony nodded, sitting down on one of the oversized wheelguards of the Hotrod. "You sound like you've started working for Fury, with all of your inter-team relations and general civility..."
He paused, sighing dramatically and gesturing overtly with his glass. "Yes. <i>Yes</i>, darling, I know. I will take her out, show her a good time, treat her flawlessly and return her in mint condition. <i>Better</i> condition than what I find her in, no doubt. It's...Paige, right?
She laughed, and walked over to Tony, giving him a brief hug and a kiss on the cheek. "You're ridiculous, you know that? And if I was sane, I would quit right here and now. Go work for Fury. I know most of the team over there, I'm sure I'd do fine."
Slipping an arm around Pepper's waist, Tony pulled her close briefly and returned the kiss, leaving aside the flashy grin and witty quips for the moment. He truly, <i>truly</i> loved Pepper, probably more than anyone he could ever have some form of a relationship with.
"You'd never leave me, I know it." He winked, returning to the suit and crouching infront of the exposed leg wires. If Rhodey didn't have such masculine thighs, he would have had this finished a week ago. "I'd be a wreck without you, and you love a charity case..."
She rolled her eyes but she didn't pull away. What with everything that had been going on, they hadn't spent any time together lately and of course, there was the whole matter of Frank, which was causing more guilt than she'd thought it would.
Tony was more than her employer: he was her best friend, and this whole keeping secrets thing wasn't sitting well with her at all. "Speaking of charity, why exactly did you decide the foundation should have a silent bake auction? And, why exactly I should bake something for it?"
"Because it's different, Pep!" Tony announced, gesturing wildly with a wrench. "It's interesting! People remember bake sales...it's a kid thing...they'll throw money down to eat Pound Cake made by Donald Trump. I assume. And it gets me in the papers."
He paused, lowering the wrench. Two years ago, that would have been explanation enough, but this was the new Tony. The Tony that stood in the bathroom every morning staring at the reactor in his chest. "People don't to go to another charity ball, or sponsor another marathon. There are causes that need more money than I alone can donate. And yes...make that cheesecake you make. I hear good things."
She had to duck to avoid getting beaned with the wrench. "Have I honestly never made you a cheesecake before?" Tony shook his head. "Huh." Pepper was sure she had at one point or another, but her baking wasn't something easy to forget.
"Remind me to bake you one sometime," she said, taking the wrench from his hand. She'd managed to avoid it before, but she didn't want to risk a second time. Now that would be a fun bump to explain.
"Perhaps I'll buy the one you make for the auction. So it had better be good..." he winked, leaving her to put the wrench away as he reached for another. Lost in the machine for a moment, he remained silent before glancing over his shoulder and arching an eyebrow.
"You still here? You should stay. Your guest room is made up...I'll cook for you. Italian...you know it's going to be better than anything you've had before..."
"Why do you insist on calling it my guest room? It's simply MY room and that's that. You'd better not be putting other people in there when I'm not around."
Running through her schedule in her head, she realized that really, she had nothing else to do. Plus, again, it'd been a while since they'd spent some time together. "Cook to your heart's content Tony. I'll stay. I'll even help. How much longer unti you're finished here?"
"An hour...at most. Go and flirt with JARVIS. He misses you, and I'm sick of listening to him whine. Oh Pepper...where's Pepper, that tasty crumpet...seriously, I'm getting sick of it."
His attention once again taken up completely by the armor, Tony turned away from Pepper and started singing loudly to himself. The conversation was about as sincere as he would get, which was still a huge improvement from the Tony before the suit
Considering herself dismissed, she climbed the stairs up to the kitchen, just lost in her own thoughts. She really did feel this crazy urge to just blurt out everything, and then bear the brunt of his anger?disapproval?disappointment? She didn't even know what to expect, and that was what was scaring her the most.
Heading into the kitchen, she rummaged through the fridge, surprised to see it was stocked --seeing as it'd been a few days since she'd gone grocery shopping for him. "JARVIS, did you force Tony to go shopping?" She called out, searching for decent vegetables to make a salad.
"I merely reminded him that although you hadn't been around, it was in his best interests to keep up to date with your wishes."
Smart man. It probably didn't hurt that she'd organized for a grocery delivery to occur, if she wasn't around to pick it up; the only catch was that Tony himself had to call and authorize it and it looked like he did. Good.
She proceeded to occupy herself with making a salad because she knew that if she didn't make it easy for him to eat vegetables, he wouldn't. <i> Such a kid. </i>