Tony's going to be gone longer than usual, he says and for once she's damn glad she knows because she's gotten hell from the Board before when he takes off on one of his missions and is gone for a month.
That's only happened twice and he called everyday and once even did a phone conference for a very urgent just-couldn't-wait meeting whilst somewhere in Siberia, Logan snickering in the background.
Pepper doesn't like to admit it, but she actually worries less when he's gone for longer periods, because that means Nick Fury's planned this mission out down to the molecule, and it's almost a given that nothing will go wrong.
It's the middle of May and in New York it's hot, but in L.A. it's damn hotter. She's off the plane and almost to the mansion in Malibu, their mansion, when the phone rings.
The Notorious B.I.G.'s Hypnotize is playing loud and clear where her phone rests on the console, and after only five seconds she's picking up through Bluetooth. Pepper smiles and takes a breath.
"Hey Jimmy."
James Rhodes is War Machine. Or maybe War Machine is James Rhodes. After several initial trial runs and tests in Tony's state-of-the-art workshop, the Colonel realized he was probably as big of a technophile as his best friend. They spent the next three days holed up the workshop eating nothing but cold pizza and microwave mac and cheese until Pepper forces them to take a break to at least shower. And consume more than data sheets and blueprints.
They sprint for a quick 10 minute shower a piece, grace her with their respective presences while grabbing more mac and cheese (they've run out of frozen pizzas), and then hole up for another round of scans, tests, explosions, Iron Maiden trivia, Al Green karaoke, and welding.
Pepper finally comes in on day six and brings down two sandwiches and some sweet tea: ham and pastrami on honey wheat, mustard, mayo, two tomatoes and pickles, and sweet relish for Tony; turkey and bacon on Italian herb and cheese, honey mustard, spinach, red onions, banana peppers and olives for Rhodey.
She sits on the cot that has shared two grown men sporadically in the past week and helps herself to a Caesar salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing, stealing sips of her husband's sweet tea and snagging a few of his best friend's black olives.
Before Afghanistan (or B.A. as the two have come to abbreviate it), James only called Virginia for something he needed done at that moment because he knew that she was the only person in the world that could get Anthony dressed, prepped and smiling for the military in less than two hours. That was important, because while the Board could overlook a ten, fifteen, or even seventy-six minute
delay, the Military could not. And if that meant breaking the speed limit several times over, then that's what had to be done.
Not that Pepper really minded. She secretly enjoyed the swift push and pull of the Bentley on days like that, with Happy hugging the curves like a pro, pushing 150, causing the scenery around them to speed by swimmingly.
James didn't mind it either. A happy Pepper was a happy Tony was a happy United States Military was a happy Jim Rhodes. He got a beer and beef fajitas from Fridays complete with movie night at the Stark mansion with Tony-no girls, no booze, no distractions besides guns and westerns or pulp films on the giant home theater screen.
Once, he'd invited Pepper to join them, but she declined politely and retreated to her beach house for a long soak in her Jacuzzi, a glass of Merlot, and an extensive scroll through Bergdorf Goodman's online Christian Louboutin selection.
When Tony makes love, he does it like he's starving most of the time and Pepper realizes that he probably still is, even though they've been intimate for three years, and married for two. It still hasn't yet counteracted the twenty-something years spent in decadence and emptiness inside ambassador's daughters and socialites and Hooter's waitresses.
It may take a long time to cancel out the long nights spent in the workshop after those trysts and Pepper knows it still seems strange to him to wake up with someone beside him, or wake up and have her in the shower, or already downstairs and making breakfast in one of his t-shirts, the hem rising to just below her derrière.
She realizes, too, that standing in front of a stove cooking bacon at nine in the morning on a Saturday with Tom and Jerry on the kitchen TV with said shirt on is just enough to stir a sleepy Tony to attention. Minutes later, he has her propped up delicately against the island, one foot on the floor to steady her and the other draped over his hip and around his waist. He's kissing her so deeply she gets scared (every time) that he'll take more than she can give back, but when he leans back and grins, his eyes still a little groggy with sleep but his body no more so, and angles his hips against hers in just the right spot, she forgets her fear and drowns in his bourbon eyes.
Her nails dig into his bare hips while he thrusts first up, then down and circles around, hitting spots she swears she didn't know existed (though they've done this almost every Saturday since she moved in) and her eyes flitter for a brief second then close, no, clamp shut, her body riddled with spasms of pleasure when he reaches between them and uses those calloused fingers for something other than raking through her hair.
When she comes, she can't breathe and an unholy scream bubbles from her throat but only leaves in a far more erotic hushed gasp of air. It's his name, drawn out and stretched from the island to the other side of the kitchen and he only suckles on her neck and gives the most primal groan she's ever heard a few seconds later.
Pepper has the good sense to turn the bacon off before his arms circle her waist.
The second long mission that Tony went on with the Avengers ended successfully, but that doesn't mean that he's going to be home for longer than a few hours. He turns the news on and learns about a weapons cache hidden somewhere in the Middle East with his name on it and suddenly he's not tired anymore.
He scrawls Pepper a note, draws two hearts besides his initialed 'T', and takes off right before she pulls into the drive, home from another day at the office. When she comes into the living room, and it's that quiet and that empty, fear clinches her gut and she does her breathing exercises to stop the panic from taking hold because she hates, hates, hates when he goes on these solo missions to destroy his weapons. It's nowhere as safe as a SHIELD mission and there's no one besides Jarvis to back him up and she just knows that if something were to happen to him…
She's turning on the news, fully intent on sinking into the white leather couch with a comforter and a fresh bag of anxiety when she sees the note on the coffee table. He's gone for a little while, it says and there are his two trademark hearts (because he loves her with both his hearts) and his initial scrawled at the bottom. And at the far right corner is Jim Rhodes phone number. Pepper lets out a shaky breath and prays hard that he comes back in at least two pieces cause she'll never forgive him if he knows something bad is going to happen but goes anyway.
It takes two rings before he picks up. "Pep…you okay?"
For a second she can't speak, and when she does, more fear comes through her voice than she wants. But this is Jim she's talking to so she doesn't care when she starts to cry on the other end.
"I'm on my way."
After Afghanistan (A.A., of all things…) Pepper and Tony's dynamic changes, naturally, and along with it, so does Pepper and Rhodey's. One evening as Tony's holed up in the workshop tinkering with the Mark II, Rhodey dials the house and gets Jarvis to redirect him to Pepper's cell.
The ring tone is a standard telephone ring, one she reserved for general callers and wrong numbers so she knows he's not on his phone, though Jarvis does inform her that Jim is calling. When she picks up the phone, she hears the faint but steady beat of loud music, people talking, laughter.
"Are you busy, Pepper?" he says, his voice muffled slightly by the noise behind him.
"No. Doing some paperwork to pass the time. What's up?" She's absentmindedly tapping her ink pen against her cheek while she stretches her legs out, wincing slightly as her joints pop from hours of disuse.
"Nothing, nothing…just…didn't have anything to do. I was just wondering if…"
Pepper smiles and begins to shut her laptop down, begins filing her papers away, begins thinking about which jeans she going to wear to wherever he is. If she didn't know any better she would've thought the good Colonel was lonely, which surprised her to no end. Jim may have not been Tony Stark, but he never lacked for female attention or company. "Where are you at Jim?"
"Mickey's in San Diego. By the Wal-Mart."
"I'll be there in an hour."
An hour and a half later, they're sharing drinks and laughing like old friends (which they are) and looking like lovers (which they're not). He's got one arm draped over her shoulder; she's got a hand tucked against his far side, and they're discussing the pros and cons of doing Baby Got Back for karaoke (he's such a sucker for karaoke) when the bartender brings Pepper her fifth Dos XX.
Maybe it's because they're tipsy, but they finally decide on Hypnotize and win the 500 first prize, splitting it down the middle. Jim says it's only because Pepper knows how to work the mike and she
giggles into her beer and now she's drunk, but she feels so giggly she's not thinking about the hangover she's (he's) going to have in the morning. She doesn't even think about potential paparazzi, though there isn't any because Tony's not there. And she's definitely not thinking about how lonely she's been the last two weeks, how utterly confused and derailed.
She really doesn't think at all, and maybe for once, that's a good thing.
After they take out Obadiah, and Tony tells the world he's Iron Man and SHIELD puts him on mandatory house arrest for a few weeks, she actually takes them up on their movie night offer. She's the one that gets the Fridays and they let her pick the movie. It's between an Eddie Murphy movie or Lethal Weapon, and she's never seen Coming to America, so she pops it in and sits back in giddy amazement, watching the two men quote every line verbatim.
Tony gives Pepper Saturday off, but she and Rhodey both spend the night anyway because they stay up so late, watching it four more times.
Pepper tries to turn it off CNN every time Tony goes out like this, but she can't smother the masochistic urge to know what's going on. Oddly, she wonders if she'd be better off with a visit from SHIELD, or if hearing about it on the news, and she takes the news because they could get the facts wrong, but SHEILD would know the truth. Rhodey's been sitting on the couch with her for five hours now, and it's dark outside, the sun having set long ago. His boots are kicked off and half under the couch, and he's leaning into the television with his eyes trained intently on the report.
They've picked up his activity in Iran, and are tracking it on the hour, every hour. Tony's alter persona is still hot topic on most channels, even almost four years later. Pepper is doing untold amounts of damage to her bottom lip, chewing it with an intensity that only belies how worried and scared she is. It never ceases, that knot in her belly, but this time it is worse and she's half afraid she's got ESP, that the SHIELD agents will come knocking at her door, solemn faced.
Mrs. Stark, I'm afraid we have some bad news…
She doesn't realize she shaking until Jimmy pulls her into a hug and lets her shudder. Tears don't fall, though they threaten and sting her eyes. She takes in deep breaths and leans into the hug, letting his arms envelope her. They stay that way for long minutes and he presses a soft kiss to her temple and murmurs that it'll be alright. She's sure it's the fear that's makes her snuggle into his neck and breathe him in. He smells like man, and solidity and reassurance and she drinks it in, and it calms her.
"He's coming back. Because he has you to come home to. He told me something at the reception, he said he'd always come back for you."
Despite her self, she smiles. The coarse fabric of his denim shirt scratches the skin on her face. His fingers are making odd little circles against her shoulders. And she knows he's right; he's changed from the suicidal vigilante to a genuine hero, and he knows his limits, he knows hers, he knows she'd fall apart without him.
"It doesn't make you any less scared though, does it?"
When she lifts her head to look at Jim, his brown eyes are furrowed and filled with this emotion she's having trouble identifying. She's the master of emotion categorizing and it's irritating and alarming that she can't quite figure out what's storming beneath those eyes. "Well…no." And she stops because it's not worrying Tony's safety that takes the biggest toll; it's having to worry about it alone. When he's gone and out of her range Jarvis is gone with him and her mother picks up the phone and lets her chatter till she's breathless, and her nervous energy is spent, but it's not enough. There are people in the world that claim to be Tony's friend, and few people that can actually claim that privilege, and thusly, far fewer that love him.
Only one other loves him half as much as she does.
Pepper finally breathes (though she didn't even know she hadn't been) and shifts in the couch, giving them space. It's suddenly hotter than it should be; the air's suddenly thicker and something almost tangible hangs in the space between them. And she knows she doesn't have to say it out loud because she knows Jim feels what she's feeling, that he knows how cold the shivers that run through her are when she sits and waits and worries. Alone.
And before she can shut her mouth, she's voicing a thought that's been floating in the back of her head for months now, a thought she takes considerable lengths to shut out and quiet because it means more than it sounds like it would. She knows he'd know it too.
"I miss you…when you leave, too. I miss you and worry about you too."
Because sometimes War Machine goes on solo missions from Iron Man and she's left alone again, scouring the news for any mention of what and where and how he's doing. She doesn't have Tony there to kiss her hair and massage her shoulders and reassure her that Rhodey's gonna be alright, because he's on the other side of the world saving people and making her proud.
The look on James Rhodes' face is enough to make her hands tremble and they do, and still do when he finally bends down to kiss her.
Initialy, Pepper decides that maybe Tony doesn't have to know about this. After that first kiss and the ones after, after his big, strong hands find the hem of her blouse and tugs, after she's sprawled across the couch with her arms wrapped around his neck, she realizes that she's making out with her husband's best friend and pushes him off and stumbles over to the other side of the coffee table. He's left panting with hungry eyes and a half unbuttoned shirt. Her lips are an angry red and there's little nibble marks on her neck where he got a hold of her.
"We…we can't do this."
She's stuttering and stammering and her hands still tremble. Her blouse hangs open down to her pale belly and she is vaguely aware of the cool air that tickles her almost bare cleavage.
Rhodey nods. That's all he does; he nods and gets up and crosses the distance between him and her and grips her wrists in those hands of his. "No. No, we can't", he murmurs against her collarbone then suckles on it, and swiftly catches her in his arms when her knees turns to jelly.
By the time it's gotten to round one, she's knows she could never keep this a secret from him because this is too big, too wrong. She can't lie to him, though she's got an excellent poker face. The guilt is going to eat her alive, she knows it is. That doesn't make her make him stop what his hands are doing, though.
He somehow has managed to get them up the stairs to her bedroom and has her spread across the sheets like a meal, one stiletto adorned foot digging into the mattress on either side of the bed. By the time she realizes just how far gone she is, how sick this is, his mouth is latched on to her nipple and
the gasps she gives doesn't even sound like her. Calloused fingers skim and stroke milky skin, teeth nibble on random freckles. And suddenly it's not fair that he's that clothed and she's down to panties and Manolos.
When he's naked, completely naked, it takes all her will not moan out loud and she swallows, hard, because he's all muscle and man and ripped and his skin's the color of her favorite frappuccinos. And when she runs her hands down his chest and his breath catches, she smiles in spite of herself and pays his skin back the favor he had bestowed upon her. It isn't until he swings one long, pale, toned leg over his shoulder and runs quick, fiery kisses down her calf and thighs to just above the injunction between her legs and her core, does she realize that she still has those damn panties on. And it takes all but a smoldering glance for him to literally rip them off.
She loses all thought when he finally tastes her.
Round two, and she's half spent and dying for more and it's killing her that she likes this so much. A voice is screaming in the back of her head that she should run, but all she can do is increase the pressure her petite hands have around the thick of him and revel in the fire that courses through her veins at the sight of him unconsciously thrusting into her palms. When he can't take it anymore and grabs her wrists and pins them above her head, all the steadying in the world can't prepare her for how mind blowing it feels to have him inside her.
No sound comes out, just the rushed, shallow breathing of a woman in ecstasy and somewhere in the back of her mind she sees Tony's face above her and Jim's beside her and there's no guilt or regret, only pleasure. His hips are angling and shifting in ways she's finding trouble matching, but she perseveres and meets him thrust for thrust until they're both so dizzy and lost that there's nothing left but skin and sweat and the smell of him on her.
When his hands grip her hips so tight it'll probably bruise she comes, and it's only then that she begins to cry. Vaguely, she thinks, he's probably crying too, and his groan tugs at something powerfully carnal within her.
There's not supposed to be a round three. Technically, there isn't that night, that morning. It waits till that afternoon after the morning after, after everything that's brought them to this place has been set in its proper place.
When she wakes, it's to the soft hum of voices, and she's not even fully conscious yet, but a cold, sick dread fills her stomach. She doesn't want to open her eyes. She doesn't want to see him while she's in their bed with his best friend. But something bids her to look at him and the fact that their voices are soft is reassurance enough that maybe Tony at least won't kill Rhodey.
Pepper stirs and blinks and the first thing she notices is that it's 11:15 a.m. and that they've probably slept 6 hours, and she's never felt this rested before. They stop talking; she sits up and doesn't pay attention to the fact that the sheet has slipped past hickey dotted breasts. When she finally summons the courage to look up and into Tony's eyes, she's surprised to see no anger or hatred or disappointment swimming there, but only a mixture of curiosity and lust and good natured jealousy. The relief is so overwhelming she can't speak and instead sits up on her knees and wraps her arms around her husband and breaths him in. he's hugging her back with all the fervor and hunger of a man that hasn't seen his wife in a month and two days and he's kissing her neck and marveling at the bite marks Jim left the night before.
When he goes to take a quick shower, she flops back into bed and the realization of what has happened overtakes her and she starts to laugh though she's swearing her revenge at the same time.
"He's planned this all along, didn't he?" she muses to her lover lying by, and he chuckles, a sheepish grin spread along his face.
"Maybe."
"I'm gonna whip his ass. I swear, I'm gonna make him pay so bad…right after he's slept and ate, we'll make him wish he'd done this sooner." Jim's fingers absently stroke her bare belly, and he doesn't say a word but she knows now that everything has changed and that she should hate herself for how selfish this is.
She's in love with two men, wholeheartedly in love with both men, and they make two halves that make her whole and she can't have one without the other.
When Tony's clean, he's naked and still slightly damp, but he crawls into bed along side them, spooning Pepper to his chest and draping an arm over Rhodey's that's draped over her hip. They sleep the rest of the morning and to late after noon, and finally it's time for round three, and Pepper has never been this sore and satisfied and loved in her entire life.
It goes along like this after that: When Tony's gone, with the Avengers or alone, Jim automatically comes over if he has no business and they make lasagna and watch the news together in silence until a whirling noise of busy robots signal the return of Iron Man. If it's Jim's turn to go, Tony cradles Pepper in his arms and lets her sleep and stays up all night by the phone till he calls and tells them he's okay. Then he's at the mansion and they spend the night drowning in each other. If they're both gone, she's alone but not alone because no matter how far away or how busy they call and she has to hear both their voices before she's alright. And when Rhodey's lease to his apartment is up and he retires from the military, he gets his on wing of the mansion. They cook dinner together, the three of them and then watch movies and make love and go skinny dipping in the Pacific.
And Pepper knows she's being selfish, that this isn't normal or right, but she doesn't want to be the good girl anymore. She likes selfish, and needs abnormal.
And she can't have it any other way if it's not right.
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