The Afterparty

Tony has made impressive progress on a Pernod-Ricard Perrier-Jouet 2000. The bottle of champagne is halfway to empty from his efforts alone. Pepper is a bit annoyed when she gets close enough to recognize the golden label - it is a wine that runs $50,000 for a case of 12 bottles, individualized to the buyer's taste. Each set is unique. Pepper has long since given up on trying to impress upon Tony the value of his riches, but she would like it if he could assign some value to the irreplaceable. Only 12 bottles of this vintage will ever exist. This champagne deserves a better occasion than Tony Stark, drinking alone on the ratty couch in his workshop.

"New Year's Eve is my favorite holiday," Tony announces when he notices she has entered his personal space. His back is to her, but he lifts up his flute in a jaunty salute.

Pepper knows the following metrics from checking with JARVIS before coming down to see Tony: it is currently 4:27 AM, January 1st, 2009. Of the 562 guests who attended Tony's end of year bash, 135 remain on the premises. Accounting for the 25 paid personnel still on site, Pepper included, there are 43 people conscious. For the midnight toast, the guests were served a Krug Clos d'Ambonnay, vintage 1995. Tony has, of course, lost interest with all of this some time ago. He retreated with this bottle of champagne to the privacy of the basement.

"Oh, I'm," Pepper answers, "I'm familiar." The aftermath of a good party makes Pepper feel as though she is walking through a battle field. It's a terrible simile, she knows. Tony walks through battle fields on a regular basis. She knows the horrors he sees - witnesses, perpetuates, but never talks about - have nothing in common with the state of his home the morning after he's thrown a party. His home is her personal battle field. Every step is careful, so as not to step on a stray land mine or the prone bodies of last night's revelers, many of whom are still passed out on the floor. In the light of day, there will be hurt feelings to repair, property damage to assess. Apologies will be issued, by Pepper, after she calls the contractors. The caterers were paid already, but the cleaning crew was not. She anticipates both will dispute their contracts. The caterers were paid the amount agreed upon in advance to for the work they did - also agreed upon in advance. The contract is airtight; she won't budge. The cleaners, however, had no way of anticipating what they were in for. That's why she waits until afterwards to pay them, so their compensation will be adequate for their work. Additionally, Pepper estimates, based on past parties, that no less than five patrons will attempt to sue Tony for injuries they suffered on his property. She doesn't doubt there's been ample usage of illegal substances on the premises, either.

New Year's Eve is not a popular holiday among Tony's legal team.

It isn't one of Pepper's favorites, either. It isn't the party that bothers her - Tony throws parties with or without holidays. The set-up and the clean-up both fall on her shoulders, but that's just part of being his assistant. She hires party planners for the former and has ample experience in the latter. Pepper hates New Year's Eve because the day always brings a new slew of crimes perpetrated by Mr. Stark for which she will be expected to forgive him. Apologies are her job. She won't expect one from him. Between them is the unspoken expectation that she will forgive and forget anything. It is a precedent she foolishly set herself early in her employment. It had taken time to work up an immunity to his charm.

From the couch, Tony chides, "You didn't ask what my resolution is."

"You don't make resolutions," Pepper reminds him. As she crosses the floor to where he sits on the sofa, her shoes stick just noticeably to the concrete. As carefully as she had stepped upstairs, she was still unable to avoid a rather foul puddle that was simply everywhere. She isn't sure what it was - thankfully not urine or vomit - but the shoes have seen their last party. Her dress will be retired as well, but that's typical. Much like a red carpet celebrity, her party dresses generally come on loan from the designer.

"Historically, no," Tony agrees. She sits beside him and he produces another flute, one that had been waiting by the ice bucket. "But I thought relationships were asinine lies, too, so what do I know?"

"Let me guess," Pepper hums as her lover of six weeks pours her a measure of champagne, "You've resolved to be more humble."

"Close," he answers cheekily, clinking her glass with his own.

Pepper pretends to be defeated as she takes a sip. "Next year, then."

He's quizzical. "I thought the game was everyone makes the same resolutions every year."

"We'll pretend that you're going to succeed this year."

"Ouch. Your resolution must be to perfect your barbs."

"Actually, I've got two," she admits in all seriousness. "Leave work earlier and get to the gym more." She shrugs, embarrassed. "Same resolutions as last year."

Tony balks. "I have a gym in my house. Is that where you ran off to? You missed me pop the cork."

"You could have waited until you found me, if you wanted us to drink this together." A private escape from a rambunctious holiday with a loved one was a much better occasion for a champagne of this caliber. It was a shame he hadn't managed to carry out that intention.

"I was looking for you during the countdown," he adds. The ice in the bucket hasn't melted entirely yet. If he popped a cork at midnight, it was not to this bottle.

"I made myself scarce for that exact reason," Pepper nods sagely.

"Who'd you kiss instead?" he wonders.

"I kept my lips to myself, thank you."

"I think one of the waiters liked you," Tony admits, with an air of conspiracy. "He kept following you around with those little fish things." He punctuates the phrase little fish things with a wiggle of his fingers that is intended to be fish-like, but makes her think of an octopus.

"The one with the crab puffs?" Pepper asks, squinting with recollection. "He wasn't following me - I like those."

"Right," He frowns. "And, for the official record, your stance on macking on the wait staff is -?"

"Fervently against."

He says, "Harsh," but he's smiling.

"Tony, they are here to do a job." She has never found possessiveness or jealousy to be attractive qualities, nor does she appreciate the insinuation that she would be unable to keep herself to herself. He gets a pass because all appearances to the contrary, she knows he is learning. He is growing and changing and sometimes he projects his own insecurities onto other people. It's actually a tell she appreciates. His bravado is very often seamless. It makes finding his cracks easier.

"On a holiday," he reminds her. "I don't think throwing a little sugar their way is so terrible."

Pepper smirks and asks, "I'm not going to find a waitress with her panties around her ankles stashed upstairs somewhere, am I?"

"If a waitress decided to get busy on company time after her draconian boss made her work on New Year's Eve, I think we can all agree to have some compassion for the working class," Tony intones. He ruins his almost authoritative air by bumping her elbow with his own. "Hint, hint, by the way. Are you still on the clock?"

"I'm not an hourly employee."

The phrase obviously means nothing to him. "And?"

"There is no clock," Pepper informs him. "I'm here on an as-needed basis."

"Interesting," he hums. "I'll have to look over your contract."

Pepper raises her eyebrows. "My contract that you just signed a month and a half ago?"

His face scrunches. "The terms of your employment are kinda vague."

"It's not any vaguer than it's been for the past eleven years," Pepper replies. The differences between her current contract and the one she had before her disastrous and short-lived stint as CEO are nominal, at best.

"You're 'here' as needed," he states.

"Yes."

"To do whatever I require."

"Yes."

"Okay," he says, setting his champagne flute on the coffee table. "So, say...I need you to perform a number of sex acts on my person, we are now falling dangerously close to the arena of 'my girlfriend is a prostitute.' Which, if that's the career path a woman chooses to take -"

"I'm going to stop you right there," Pepper says, holding her hand up. "Your concern for my professional integrity is flattering, but I don't think I want to hear your opinion on prostitution." She pinches the bridge of her nose. "You're probably all for legalizing it for all the wrong reasons. There are issues of body autonomy, how criminalization puts women in danger - I'm getting way off topic here." She places her own flute of champagne on the coffee table. She can't begin to imagine how drunk he is right now. He's verbose when intoxicated and his speech doesn't suffer for it. He's been drinking for hours, she knows that much. This is a potentially serious conversation with a man who is just as likely to not remember a word of it tomorrow.

"Um. Okay," State of the audience aside, it does take Pepper a few moments to gather her thoughts on the matter. "You are thinking about my job in the wrong terms. You aren't the one who decides what you need me for, or what I'm required to do. I am. If I think you can, or should, do something yourself, you do it yourself. I'm not even going to offer the possibility that I will do it for you. If you don't have the time, the inclination or the skill set to do something right, then I'll do it." She won't admit to him that hers is also the unhappy duty of actions he simply refuses to take. Issuing apologies is the primary entry under that column. "Oh," she adds, "and I've also got a lot of other little duties, like bringing you coffee or reading your e-mails, but that's more about keeping things running smoothly than anything else. Our personal lives are fairly unrelated to all of that."

"So, you are not being paid to sleep with me."

"If I was, I'd want a raise."

Tony nods with approval. "Nice."

"Thank you." Despite his earlier theory, she has not been working on her barbs, just her double entendres. "I just don't think it has to be as muddled as people want to make it out to be. Lots of people meet a partner at work. You spend a lot of time at your job and meet people that are passionate about the same things you are. I'm not naive - the power imbalances are there. The possibility of corruption, misallocation of funds, taking advantage of a subordinate - these things exist. They happen. I don't think that that is happening right now, with you and me. And I don't want anyone to think that it is. You have worked too hard and come to far to get a reputation as a man who requires his employees to perform a number of sex acts on his person now."

"Yeah, that's actually where I'm going with all this resolution stuff," Tony says. "I'm not going to fuck this up. All this faith you have in me - it's after the fact justifications, but it's not misguided, okay? I can be the man you think I am."

She can hear the emotion in his voice. He's devoutly soul-bearing and utterly disarmed; it's the first real indication he's shown of just how drunk he is. "Tony," Pepper says quietly, cupping his cheeks with her palms, "you already are." She leans over to kiss him soundly, their first kiss of 2009. Tony responds without his usual skill, but for how inebriated he is, he's no less passionate.

When she disengages, and when he's opened his eyes again, he says, "You spend every minute with me braced for impact."

"That's not fair," Pepper says sadly, her hands dropping from his face. "It's been an adjustment, that's all."

"Admit it," he instructs her, "You're dying to know what the damage is tonight."

She shakes her head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Think about it. Midnight. New Year's. You made yourself scarce so that I couldn't put you on the spot in front of a crowd after my birthday party. No part of you is wondering 'Who did he kiss instead?'"

"The bartender," she says dryly. "On the cheek. You made a sweeping declaration about a high ball that she made...? Sound familiar?"

"It was a Ginger Whisky," he specifies, dumbfounded. "How'd you even know about that?"

She shrugs. "Good news travels fast."

"That's all you have to say?" he asks with disbelief.

So Pepper adds, "I am 95% positive she is not going to sue you for sexual harassment."

Tony is ...confused. "I figured..that is to say...wait, are you actually not pissed about this because I thought - I mean, I actually did realize how stupid that was right after I did it and if you think about I think you'll see I really didn't have any choice in that situation. Which isn't to say that I don't think apologizes are in order? From me, I mean? To the general vicinity of you or just you, specifically? Which is actually a momentous occasion in terms of my personal growth, because I actually got all of this all by myself, which leads me back to that resolution that I made. I didn't make it because of this, but this is just one such incident to demonstrate the need of such a resolution, which I did not technically break because it was not 2009 yet when I did it, in some parts of the world."

By now, Pepper has had several hours to digest the incident. If he thought his confession would be the first she heard of it, he underestimated his popularity at his own party by a wide margin. "It could be a lot worse," Pepper says reluctantly. "I think the fact that it isn't says something. I think the fact that you told me means something. All right, yes, I did feel ...replaceable at first. You looked for me for all of ten seconds before kissing someone else. But you also kiss Rhodey's mother that way. I wouldn't expect you to stop doing that, so I think it would be a bit silly to get worked up over this. You owe Jennifer an apology, but we're okay. And maybe for the future, you can reevaluate how you express yourself when someone has done a good job."

He purses his lips. "Yeah, I kind of got the feeling her stance on macking on the wait staff is the same as yours. But, really? That's it?"

"I'm a little afraid of setting a precedent," she admits. "I don't want to brush it off when you do hurtful things, but I don't want to run at the first sign of trouble, either. You have grown more than that. I'd regret it if I ran away without giving us the chance we deserve. We've gone too far to go back to what we used to be. That's terrifying sometimes. If this doesn't work, we won't have each other at all anymore. However this relationship goes, I don't want to regret anything about it. You can understand that, can't you?"

"Yeah," he sighs heavily. "I am so done with the regret-train that has been 2008."

"I know," she says, running her fingers through his hair. "I'm ready to start a new chapter, too. Maybe no more regrets is a better resolution for both of us."

Tony rolls his head against the back of the couch. "Somehow, I think we'll be making the same resolution next year."

"I really hope so."

Disclaimer: Iron Man and all related characters are owned by Marvel.