Re: Tony & Pepper
It wasn't really reservations. What Tony called reservations was a few calls to some very important people that were desperate for some tech and/or owed him big time. In one case it was a bland order for him to please not do anything stupid in public for at least two months. All of this combined got him entrance to a closed museum, a host of museum security so Pepper didn't touch any of the precious art, and a full cooking staff for the restaurant. Tony was about as subtle as a wrecking ball since he'd waited until the day before to put the final calls in, but he made it happen by showering people with money. He didn't even count the zeroes.
"Very exclusive. So exclusive that I'm hoping it will blind you to my faults for the rest of the evening." Tony tipped his head over the length of his good arm where it rested on the leather-wrapped steering wheel, smiling at her. He looked tired these days, a few hours of sleep lost here and there, but certainly not as bad as she'd seen him before. He was taking the pain killers like he was supposed to, and when he took off the sling he made sure she wasn't around to see.
Tony pulled up under the red banners. Someone had, of course, tipped off the press, and Tony smiled and waved as he disembarked from his side of the car, but he wouldn't stop for signatures or questions. He let a valet take the car and then he took Pepper's hand to lead her to the glass doors. A security guard let them in through a single door, and then they were inside the empty building. He'd bargained for half of the lights, and their steps echoed in the vast, unoccupied space.
Tony turned to watch her face intently. "You're always curating and, you know," his hand gestured up and down as if her appearance was an obvious example, "flawless taste. I figured you'd want to take a look around with nobody in the way." Tony didn't really pay much attention to art. He glanced at it, if he liked it, he liked it. Performance art went entirely over his head. Once at a benefit he had literally walked right through one such exhibition and taken a glass from one of the performers, who had been intently trying to demonstrate the crass waste of clean water modern society by holding a tray out. Tony squinted closer at her eyes. "You like it? You like it, right. Right?"