Title: Where You Lead
Author: Vashti
Fandom: Iron Man 2
Characters: Pepper Potts, Tony Stark, OC
Rating: PG
Summary:"I swear I wasn't hiding my child from you. Not purposeful- Well, not vindictively, like I didn't want you to know that they existed." "Ha! But it was on purpose."
Length: ~2,300 words
Disclaimer: Only the words are mine, and that's probably up for philosophical debate.
Distribution: Want? Ask.
Author's Note: Story title from the re-recorded "Where You Lead I Will Follow" by Carole King, sung with her daughter Louise Goffin.

"Ms. Potts? Ms. Potts, are you here?" The young woman at the door made further headway into the apartment. Worry drawing her brows together, she raised her voice: "Ms. Potts? Are you ho—"

"I'm here, Sof. On the balcony!"

The young woman, Sophie, visibly relaxed as she hustled through the apartment, hitching her bag higher on her shoulder as she went. Pepper Potts was sliding the glass balcony door closed behind her as she was clearing the last hallway into the living room.

"Ms. Potts."

"It's okay, Sof. There's no one else here. It's just us."

"Oh, Mom!"

Pepper braced herself, knowing exactly what kind of reception to expect when her daughter showed up at her apartment unannounced, but not unexpected, after what had happened at the Stark Expo. Still, she staggered back as her 130 lbs 5'5" daughter barreled into her. Bags dropped at their feet as the young woman hugged her tightly. Hot tears were leaving a stain on the collar of her very expensive blouse, but she didn't care. She needed this as much as Sophie did.

"I booked the first plane I could get to the West Coast as soon as I saw the news," was muttered against the crook of her neck. It should have tickled.

Pepper carded her daughter's dark auburn hair. "I'm glad you came, but you didn't have to do that, sweetheart. I'm fine. Which I thought I made pretty clear in the fifty or so text messages we've been exchanging for the last twenty-four hours."

The young woman shifted in her mother's arms so that her chin was resting on Pepper's shoulder. "Mom, seriously? You end up in your second life or death situation because of Stark Industries and I'm supposed to stay home? You're not the only efficient one in this family. I can totally text and check flights at the same time."

"Oh, is New York home now?" Pepper said, ignoring the less pertinent parts of her daughter's dialogue.

The young woman pinked. "Not home home. You're home. And I can't stay in New York forever. Do you know how cold it gets out there?"

"Says the girl who spent her first six years of her life in Iowa."

"But," Sophie continued as if her mother hadn't spoken, "it is the place where I spend, like, eighty percent or more of my life right now."

"I see. You know you could have pursued your Masters at Berkeley and been back in California a lot sooner."

"Look, Mom, we both know... Hey!" She pushed herself back a bit, so that she more closely resembled a petite, dark-haired twenty-something instead of a rather large parasitic creature that cried a lot. "I see what you're doing."

Pepper gave her a thoughtful expression. "And what might that be?"

"You're trying to distract me from fretting about your narrow escape from life and death situations."

"She's actually pretty good at that."

Both women turned, Pepper's arm tightening reflexively around her daughter's shoulders.

"Um..." Tony waved the over-large bouquet in his hands as if to indicate the entire room, or all of them, or all of himself. He wasn't sure what he was indicating, really, and the expression on both women's faces were growing ever more skeptical the longer he stood there flinging the flowers around. Plus it was a good way to lose a couple in awkward places. Like that one that landed on a low-slung couch. Actually that wasn't too bad...

"Yeah, uh," Tony cleared his throat and tried again. "Sorry to interrupt this time of, y'know, smooches and cuddles, but the door was open. I kinda presumed that was for me."

Pepper frowned. "You were coming over?"

"Not, you know, officially or anything. But I happened to be in the neighborhood-"

"Since when do you know where I live?"

"Why, Virginia Potts, I sign your checks. Of course I know where you live."

Pepper snorted. "I sign my checks, Tony. Or I did before I became CEO. Now Cyril from the Board does it."

"Ew, Cyril? You remember to check for cooties before you cash it, right?"

Pepper rolled her eyes and the young woman, still in her arms, chuckled. "They're electronic, Tony."

"Still. Cyril." He shuddered. "So. Pep. Didn't know you were playing both sides against each other. I guess these flowers are a little... Because, I mean, I can see that you have company." Tony noted the bags at the women's feet. "Rather permanent company. So, I'm thinking it looks like you, y'know, want to be alone with this semi-permanent company that I was not told about or invited to.

"You know, if you'd just told me that you swing both ways I could have totally-"

"Tony!"

The young woman in Pepper's arms had her face buried in Pepper's side, but it was clear that she was laughing. Every now and then a snort or an over-quick inhale gave her away. Pepper looked down at her. "Sof, be good."

The young woman tightened her grip on Pepper for a moment. "Yes, Mom."

Tony fumbled with the bouquet in his hands. "Mom?"

A resigned smiling pulling at her mouth, and her hands pulling at her daughter, Pepper introduced them: "Tony, I'd like you to meet my one and only daughter, Sophie Hélène Potts. Sof, this is Mr. Anthony Stark—"

"What, I don't get a middle name? She got a middle name. I want a middle name."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Anthony Edward Stark, which I thought you hated, Tony."

He scoffed. "I'm just saying, if she gets one then I get one."

"Of course, Tony."

"And, yes, 'Edward' is my actual middle name," he said to Sophie, watching the exchange with perhaps too much politeness. "Terrible, right? Just blows."

"Or Tony Stark as he's better known," Pepper interjected before he could go any further.

"Or Iron Man," he couldn't help but add.

"That, too," Pepper conceded. She pushed her daughter forward a little out of habit. She hardly needed the prompting; Sophie took the hand Tony offered her and shook it with firm confidence. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Stark. Obviously, I've heard a lot about you."

"Obviously," he agreed. "And just as obvious that I haven't heard much at all about you."

"Of course." They were still shaking hands, mostly because Tony wouldn't let go, but Sophie didn't seem to mind.

"And you're also..." He gave her a quick, appraising look. "A fully grown, adult-model of a child?"

"I am, sir. I see your powers of-"

"Sof."

Flashing him a quick smile as her ears reddened, Sophie extricated her hand from Tony's and returned to her mother's side. Looking at her fondly, Pepper said, "Take your bags to your room and get settled. You're staying for the week, it looks like?"

"That's about right."

"You cleared it with your professors?"

"Most of it is independent study. They don't care if they see me for two weeks. More."

"Sophie..."

"Yes, I cleared it with everyone. I swear, you're such a mom!"

Pepper smiled. "I love you, too, sweetheart." She leaned down and kissed her daughter's forehead, upturned at just the right moment to be kissed. "I'll come get you and we'll go out for lunch, okay?"

"I take it there's nothing cooked."

Pepper raised an eyebrow.

"So glad I didn't eat that extra bag of airplane peanuts." She turned to Tony. "It was nice meeting you, sir."

Tony, who's eyes still hadn't come back from saucer-wide, nodded. "Uh, yeah. Sure. Likewise. I'd love to meet me if I were you."

Sophie spared her mother another look, then left the room.

Tony rounded on Pepper as soon as Sophie left, but she held out a hand to forestall him. The hand didn't drop until there was a telltale click in the distance. "Okay, Tony."

"You're a mom?!"

Pepper shrugged. "A little."

"That looks like more than a little." Eyes narrowed, Tony said, "How long?"

"Mmm, for about the last, oh, twenty-two years or so."

Tony's eyebrows climbed into his hairline. "Were you going to tell me?"

"Until recently, it wasn't really any of your business." Pepper crossed her arms over her chest.

"Um, yeah. It was."

"Says who?"

"You're my personal assistant—"

"I was your personal assistant. Now I run your company."

"—what if this kid thing kept you from personally assisting me?"

"Sof was across the country in college by the time I started working for you. And, again, it's not really any of your business in regards to work. Ask our legal department."

Tony scoffed. "I just might do that. Never." He had also crossed his arms over his chest, although the effect was less impressive while he was still holding the bouquet.

A small smile pulled at Pepper's lips. "Tony, I swear I wasn't hiding my daughter from you. Not purposeful- Well, not vindictively, like I didn't want you to know that she existed."

"Ha! But it was on purpose."

"The moment I became your PA, I was almost as high profile as you were. Are. I didn't want my child caught up in any of that so I kept it quiet. And, may I remind you, she was across the country when I started working for you. It wasn't like the school was going to call me because she'd caught a stomach bug." A memory pulled her mouth in other direction as she muttered, "Not that there weren't days I wished they would."

When Tony didn't immediately have something to say, Pepper focused on him again. "So," she said.

"Tell me about it."

Smiling sadly, she said, "Those flowers still for me? Or have you changed your mind, Mr. Stark."

"What?" Tony jumped. "These? These, these are definitely for you. They look much better here than in my place. Not enough, um, y'know, light or anything."

"Yes, that panoramic view of the Pacific is far too limited for a bouquet of this—Tony, where in the world did you get a bouquet this big?" Pepper asked, coming closer. "How are you holding a bouquet this big?"

"The strength of my love for you?"

Pepper snorted, not at all impressed by either Tony's words or his puppy-dog eyes, as she took the bouquet from him. "Let me rescue these from—"

"Mom?"

Pepper turned toward her daughter, standing at the end of a hall, her expression immediately softening. "Sophie, I—"

"I'm sorry, Mom, excuse me. Excuse me, Mr. Stark-"

"Tony."

"But I'm really pretty beat," she went on, ignoring him, "and kind of starving, and I really didn't mean to come in the middle of, y'know, whatever you guys had planned—"

Pepper approached her daughter. "No, you're fine. There was nothing planned."

"I, uh…" Tony scratched his nose with a stray flower that had fallen out of the bouquet. "I kinda had a plan."

Pepper gave him a look then turned back to her daughter. "It's fine, Sophie."

"No, Mom, really… You're here and alive and without any major injuries seen and unseen?"

Smiling, Pepper nodded.

Sophie's shoulders dropped. "Then I'm good. I'll order from Rolfe's, catch up on the sleep I've missed for the last twenty-four hours, and then we can, like, talk when you guys get back." Turning to Tony, she said, "You were going out, right? Although, Mom, this is your house and of course you can have whoever over that you want whenever you want—far be it from me to say otherwise—but if you're going to stay could you not, y'know, do things that are, like, loud and nightmare inducing? Please?"

"Does she breathe?"

Both Potts women ignored Tony. Pepper frowned at her daughter. "Sof."

"What? I'd like to maintain the fiction that you only ever had sex that one time and that you didn't go all the way and that I was actually born in a cabbage patch just like all my favorite childhood dolls. It's a good fiction. Please let me keep it. Please, Mom."

"Wow, and she has excellent puppy-eyes," Tony said to himself. To Pepper, he said, "Is this how you always managed to manage me? You had training? So not fair."

Still ignoring Tony, Pepper's frown deepened. "I love you, but you know you're strange, don't you?"

Sophie beamed at her mother.

"Ah, and now there's the family resemblance." The Potts women turned to Tony, identical frowns on their faces. "And there it is again. I mean, you two do know that you don't look alike, don't you?"

Leaning up, Sophie kissed her mother's cheek. "I see why you like him, Mom. I'm gonna call Rolfe's. Want something for later maybe?"

"Sophie! No, wait. You're here, we're going out. Tony's not going anywhere."

"I'm not?" His eager tone was met with yet another frown. He tried the puppy-eyes again.

"Sophie's much better at it than you are, Tony."

"Aw, Mom."

Rolling her eyes, Pepper set the massive bouquet down on the nearest surface with a rustle of paper and cellophane, and followed her daughter back to her room. She'd barely disappeared into the dim hallway before Tony had his phone out. "JARVIS, get me a reservation for three at a restaurant named Rolfe's. I'm not sure where it is. Start with locations within five miles of Pep's apartment. And put the reservation under her name."

"Yes, sir."

"And look up everything you can find about Sophie Hélène Potts, starting with who her father is."

[in]Fin[ite]

AN2: I've been reading a lot of family!fic for Avengers - single-parents, accidental parents, de-aged, family of choice, etc. - and I noticed that very few of the women were featured as the parent, including a fic of my own that's buried deep (okay not so deep) on my hard drive in which one of the guys discovers that he is a heretofore unknown parent-hijinks-to-follow. But not only were women rarely featured, Pepper never seemed to be the feature. This story came out of that.

In my head there's more story-like the entirety of the lunch/dinner at Rolfe's-but I don't know if it will ever make it down on paper. Anywho, I hope you enjoyed this.