A/N: Inspiration struck me in the face. Or, I got bored, made an account on LJ and accidentally stumbled on this community that challenged me to write about 100 themes. I like challenges, I have a hard time passing them up. Having said that, I am also lazy and busy. And prone to get passionate about writing, only to become dispassionate weeks later. Sometimes it takes years for the interest to come back. Case and point, the still incomplete story I've been working on for the past 4 years. I will probably never make it to the 100th theme. Or I will, it will just take 12 years to do it…
General Disclaimer: Me no own. You no sue.
All of these are also posted in the pepperony100 LJ community under the name citizenkat. Different name, same person.
Title: The Devil's Contract
Theme: #9 Gold
Rating: G
Summary: Pepper has worked with him for a decade. Tony reflects.
Pepper Potts had signed her life away the day she accepted the position as Tony Stark's Personal Assistant. There was a legal binding contract stating that essentially, she was to be at his every beck and call. It was a Devil's Contract, signed in bold black ink.
10 years. Tony thought to himself as he had Jarvis make reservations at that Italian place she loved so much.
She'd put up with his shit for 10 years. (He'd given her a lot of shit to put up with.)
It was the longest relationship he'd had with anyone. Ever. Despite his active social life, he had no real friends to speak of. Everyone wanted a piece of him. They were all trying to use him, and he used them in return. He was fine with that, he wasn't a man who needed friends.
But then Pepper came into his life, and slowly over time their working relationship had evolved to include an intimate air of friendship. He supposed it was impossible to work so closely with someone for so long without some amount of friendship developing. But long before he ever even realized what was happening, Pepper had become his closest friend. She was his confidante, keeper of his secrets, signer of his documents, holder of his credit cards, his ever faithful companion.
Even though she had stood by his side for the past 10 years, and knew practically everything there was to know about him, he knew next to nothing about her. He knew she had been born and raised in Baltimore. She had moved out here in order to attend UCLA. She had carefully trained every last scrap of an Eastern accent out of her voice in order to pursue her dreams of broadcast journalism. After her first year of courses, she had realized she was much more comfortable behind a desk than in front of a camera, and switched majors to accounting.
He didn't know much other than that. Talking about Pepper's personal life just simply wasn't done, and he'd never pushed it. Pretty much all he knew about Pepper were things he had observed. For instance, she tried really hard to be obsessively neat when she really wasn't. She always ate healthy, despite the fact that she loved steak. Big medium rare steaks. More rare than medium, actually. And even when she was drunk, she managed to be in control.
And he knew that when she'd first come to work for him a decade ago, she had been engaged. He knew that because there had been a gold ring on her finger. The diamond had been small but brilliant, it seemed to catch the light no matter how she moved. He had never really asked about her fiancée, and she had never really talked about him. She had always been very strict about keeping her professional and personal lives separate.
Once, he had commented on the tiny-ness of the diamond. He told her she should run away to Vegas with him, that he could provide her with a much larger diamond. He had only been half joking.
She had laughed and told him playfully that she wasn't like one of his girls. He couldn't buy her love, no matter how much money he had.
That was the most he could remember them talking about her fiancée. Other than the nights when she had already put in her overtime, and he would try to hang on to her for double overtime, and she would say, "I have to get home, Mr. Stark. I'll finish it first thing in the morning."
Then, quietly and suddenly, the gold ring disappeared from her finger. He hadn't even noticed it at first. Eventually, though, he noticed she had stopped fighting all-nighters. She even stayed when he hadn't asked her too. He had to start telling her to go home, get some sleep.
Her eyes had been red a lot in those days, but he'd attributed it to lack of sleep and forced her home at the end of her 8 hour work day. He'd never suspected anything to be wrong, and she'd never given any indication for him to believe otherwise. By the time he'd realized the ring was gone and put two and two together, it seemed too late and too awkward of a situation to bring up. So he stayed quiet about it, and so did she.
Pepper never really dated after that. Occasionally, she'd strike up a relationship with someone, but her work schedule always prevented it from going anywhere. He would have felt sorry for her, but he hated it when she was dating anyone. She was all he had, and he didn't like to share.
"Pepper," He said into the intercom, "Meet me in the garage in half an hour. We're going out for dinner tonight."