Title: "Everybody Needs a Fence to Lean On"
Author: Lila
Rating: R
Character/Pairing: Pepper/Rhodey
Spoiler: none
Length: one-shot
Summary: Tony's disappearance hurts the people who love him as much as it hurts him.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.
Author's Note: I'm not sure I've ever loved a comic book film the way I loved this one, and the character-driven story just jumped out at me and said, "Lila, you must write fic!" So I did. Is it in character? I don't know. I sure hope so, but I'm iffy on this one. I hope it works. Title and cut courtesy of The Headlights. Enjoy.
She fucks Rhodey while Tony's gone.
It isn't supposed to happen (naturally), but it doesn't change the fact that she fucks Tony's best friend, in his bed, while he's being tortured by terrorists.
It happens because she's tired and she's drunk and it's day thirty-four or forty-three and it doesn't even matter if it's day fifty-seven, because the sun rises and the sun sets and she's still puttering around an empty house, canceling meetings for a person who may never have the chance to reschedule.
She won't let herself think about part; she turns to the scotch instead.
She's a martini girl, a WASPy, New England girl through and through, and she like her martinis dry, arid, a punch to the gut, but she also likes the way the scotch burns as it slips down her throat, like Tony's fingers brushing over hers as she slips a memorandum into his hand.
On day thirty-four or forty-three or maybe even fifty-seven (she stopped counting when the news lost interest and it was like he'd never existed at all), she sits on his couch and drinks his drink and smiles as she swallows and a trail of fire burns its way into her stomach. The military has already debriefed her, prepared her for what she could face when – they say if, she says when -- Tony comes back, and she refuses to think about what he could be facing in that place, a thousand miles, worlds, universes away, and the scotch burns like a thousand flames licking the walls of her belly, but she keeps going because if Tony can make it she can too.
--
Rhodey finds her on glass number three, the fire a full-fledged blaze, and stands at the top of the stairs and just watches her.
"Who let you in?" she finally asks, shaky fingers depositing the glass on the coffee table. "I told Jarvis no visitors."
"Jarvis was worried about you," he says and glides down the steps towards the bar, all military finesse and precision in his stride. "He called, said you've been here drinking the last three nights."
She can't help but smile, because she's at her lowest – not lower than Tony of course, but she won't think about that – and she's been sold out by a computer. "Jarvis should keep his mouth shut." The smile sinks into a thin line, and the rim of her glass stings her lips as it clangs against her teeth.
Rhodey's fingers still around the rim of his glass. He's wearing his military uniform, and the drink he's poured is more than a few fingers deep. His mouth tightens as he turns to face her, and she can see it in his eyes: I'm worried, I'm scared, I'm afraid he won't come home. "Pepper, talk to me."
He slips onto the couch beside her, and she might have started hers first but he's hurting too and his glass is emptied and refilled before she can come up with a reply. "What if he doesn't come back?" she finally manages to ask, her words slightly slurred by the fear and the pain and the scotch still burning a hole through her. "What do I do?"
They both know she isn't talking about her job. Half the known world is aware that she's the only thing keeping Tony Stark afloat, and it isn't because she's his first assistant to last longer than six weeks. They both know she's talking about Mike, and Mark, and the one before him, and the ones that will come after them both and crumble into what might have been, because the one person Pepper Potts loves most in the world is the one she doesn't have. "What will I do?"
He has to look away so she doesn't see that the anguish in his eyes matches hers.
--
Rhodey has a line for every minute of every day, but he can't quite bring himself to feed her one. The press has stopped calling, but the world is still asking questions and he's running out of answers. He's tired of lying, tired of searching, tired of waking up every day knowing it isn't just a bad dream. He's tired of waiting in limbo for the other shoe to drop, the call to catch in his radio and inform him that he's lost a piece of himself. He just wants it to be over, either way, even if it means he brings his best friend home in a bodybag rather than a three-piece suit.
Pepper is tired too. He can see it, in the circles under her eyes and the dull glow of her hair in the light and the way her freckles stand out like angry flares against her pale skin. He wishes there was something he could do for her, but there isn't. He's a military man, lord of the skies, and he can't complete this mission, can't retrieve the target that disappeared on his watch; there's no way he can fix her.
"You'll go on," is what he tells her. "It's what he would want. Look at how he lived his life – you think he'd want yours to end just because he isn't there to see it?"
She's the one to look away rather than let Rhodey see the truth – she has no life worth living if Tony isn't a part of it.
--
The scotch goes first, followed by his jacket and her shoes, and by the time they're crawling on their knees and searching through the bar for anything, anything that will help them forget, her hair is spilling down her back and his shirt is showing six inches of bare chest.
She knows the last day he saw Tony they were watching a blonde and a brunette wrap themselves around a pole, and he knows the last time she saw Tony he was frowning because she was spending her birthday with someone other than him.
He knows she broke up with Mike in the aftermath, and she knows that he can't look at sake without his stomach spilling into his throat and the rain of gunfire blaring in his ears.
She knows he's on R&R – their choice, not his – because they're worried they might lose him too if he returns from another rescue mission without his best friend in the seat beside him. He knows they lost her days, weeks, months ago when her boss took his leave and never came back.
--
His hands are strong and calloused, worn through from months in the cockpit, and his fingers stretch over her skin the way Tony handles his projects: gentle, fleeting, like she could break if he presses too hard.
She kisses him hard, rough, so he can hear the scrape of their teeth against each other, and there's something wild, unfocused in her eyes that tells him it no longer matters because she broke thirty-four, forty-three, maybe even fifty-seven days ago and there's nothing left to put her back together again.
Her fingers skim over his bare chest, over the beating heart protected by medals of honor and service, compliments of the missions he has completed (not the only one he can't see through), and she lingers there for a moment before she wraps her arms around his head and they lose themselves in the scotch and the regret and the warm skin that lets them know they're still alive.
--
When they come, it's his name on both their tongues.
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