The following story has been beta'd by the lovely TrixieFirecracker, and you should all bow down before her helpfulness and mastery of verb tense agreements.
You should also bow down to Marvel, Stan Lee and Don Heck, who created Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, and Matt Fraction (means action) and Salvador Larroca, without whom we would have far less with which to amuse ourselves.
Good Decision
As it turns out, the new repulsor tech rig inside of Pepper's chest is not a pacemaker. It is a good decision maker. She had originally intended it to be present only to power the New and Improved Rescue, but the original version had included a few convenient life-saving medical features. That one had been like a pacemaker, after a fashion. She had even gotten used to thinking of herself as someone with a pacemaker. Pepper had preferred to think of herself as someone with a medical prosthetic rather than a cyborg. Her other classification for herself had been inhuman, but she grew out of that one gradually as she came to understand the ramifications of what she had been becoming.
It's at the party in Seattle, when she arrives and Tony is wearing a look of dawning comprehension that has her thinking that he finally, finally gets it and Pepper has trouble remembering why she wanted this wicked thing that keeps her away from him. For such a fundraiser, the CEO and COO of Stark Resilient required a new dress and a new look. Her primary fashion consideration had been something that emphasized the glowing sphere of empowerment centered in her chest, liberally accessorized with cleavage. A long, looping necklace further served to draw the attention of the masses exactly where she wanted it. Pepper chose the red dress because red is attention grabbing. She is proud to have something worth looking at. Pepper knows that with her hair, a bright red doesn't suit her complexion, but she can't help but be drawn to the color. Tony puts his red and gold color scheme on everything he can and while Pepper does not consider the colors as a means of expressing her identity the way he does, she feels stronger wearing them, whether she is in a suit of armor or a couture dress.
He gets it. She wants to kiss him. Pepper isn't even concerned about the high profile venue. She thinks he even might deserve such a public kiss for being such a trooper. She needs to kiss him and she can't because their RT implants repel one another. Honestly, she doesn't know why neither of them realized this before. Magnets attract and repel. The repulsors, as indicated by their names, are designed to repulse. Had their chest pieces attracted one another, the conversation they had in the elevator a few days before would have gone quiet differently.
They would have been plastered together, chest to chest. Pepper didn't have the intent then that she has today, but direct bodily contact might have left her with a different perspective. She just might have ravished him right there. In actuality, the magnets had not reacted to one another that day. They must have been standing too far apart of the implants to respond. Even without any magnetic attraction or revulsion, it had been an eye-opening elevator ride. Tony tried to talk her out of the suit, or at least of seeing the suit immediately upon leaving the hospital. It was the same conversation that they had been having for days, but it had still managed to be a significant one. The conversation helped shape her intent today in two ways. He was giving in to what she wanted, despite his own feelings on the subject and the reality that he cannot protect her. Pepper knows that Tony wants to protect her and the fact that he can't watch out for her all the time weighs heavily on him. Second was his casual admittance of how he was able to build her suit. The admission that he had built the new Rescue from melting down older Iron Man models was very telling. When Tony lost his position as Director of SHIELD, the new commander of HAMMER had taken possession of all of the properties he had used in conjunction with the job, which included a large store of old Iron Man armors. When Osborn was out and Steve Rogers came in, Rogers had not been too eager to return the armors to their original owner. In the end, he had compromised and returned a handful from what had been dozens, possibly hundreds of suits. Tony had only nine of his suits, suits which he had kept so long for sentimental value. Suits he had willingly destroyed for her.
She figured he'd earned some heavy petting for it, at least.
After that elevator ride, after that reintroduction to an old friend she likes to call Rescue, she puts on that suit of armor and Pepper becomes reacquainted with herself.
Her body is not currency with which to pay him for his good deeds, but when he does things like this for her, it does make him infinitely more attractive and impossibly dear to her. Moreover, she wants him to understand how much it matters to her that he's done these things and she knows him well enough to know that the physical is his true language. Fighting against or tangling himself with another person is his most reliable means of communication.
She wants to speak to him in his own tongue, but their magnets repel one another. Even though their eyes and their words and their body language is all sex, they can not get near one another thanks to the implants. For just a second, it is hard for Pepper to remember why having this device inside of her was so important. But only for a second. Any sacrifice she has to make is worth it, if it means being Rescue. Pepper never imagined that embracing Tony would be the thing she would have to give up to make the life she wanted work. She can not-kiss him. She's been not kissing him for the vast, vast majority of her life. It's painful to not kiss him, but she'll survive.
All things considered, it is better this way. The way he looks at her when she walks in the door does not negate all of their past mistakes with one another. It doesn't mean that Taiwan and an elevator ride where she danced around the idea of going home with him, only to be abandoned for the first tipsy woman who meandered into his path, did not happen. It doesn't mean that somewhere in between a kiss good-bye and a kiss hello, he didn't sleep with someone else.
It is not that he doesn't love her. Pepper isn't worried about misinterpreting his emotions. He tried to say it, when he was losing his mind, and she coaxed him into a full confession by hinting that she would return the sentiment. The person he had been then was more trusting and less guarded than any other time in his life. She knows that everything he said then was true or at least something he believed to be so. Years of smoldering, lustful stares and sloppy attempts at forging an emotional connection - those, she can and always had, disregarded. Those were not anything he had not given other women. Even the sex itself did not necessarily mean anything. She isn't happy that it happened, not anymore. It's been marred by doubt and selfishness and the fact that he doesn't remember. It has become a bitter regret of hers because it can't mean anything. He had needed her, been honest, and she doesn't doubt that it was love making, not some quick fling. But none of those things mean it was the right thing for them to have done in the greater context of their lives. The fact that their magnets repel each other serves to illustrate that point. The two of them are at their best when they are not touching each other.
And it isn't that she doesn't love him. She does. She loves him so much that she needs that love, and that relationship, to be sustainable. They work well together. They are close friends. Her suit isn't exactly the same as his, but she can still stand with him. It's for the best that they maintain a line between what works for them and what is a failed road. Maybe if she had not had to give up another sort of relationship with him in order to be Rescue, she would have carried out all of her intentions and any of his he cared to share. Rescue has yet to steer her wrong, so while Tony says they can figure out this magnet problem later, without a roomful of eyes, she isn't quite as eager as he is.
Tony, being Tony, wanders off before long when some other women catch his eye. He hits on them and tries to schmooze and it is rather disgusting, but in a predatory way. He has a long, storied history with Justin Hammer and Justine and Sasha promise to be no end of trouble, just as their father and grandfather had been. Tony has a reputation that he is very good at making work for him. Sasha Hammer does not feel threatened by him. She is perfectly content to believe that her beauty and intelligence have won over the tiny brain of a man easily more than twice her age who is widely known for giving into base desires. The young and arrogant make easier prey than their more experienced mothers.
To anyone else, it looks like Taiwan and the party crashed by Zeke Stane all over again. Long suffering Pepper Potts has been abandoned for a younger model. To Pepper, this is the Iron Man going back to his routes. He's made detours in public service and government positions, but he will always be the defender of the corporate world at heart. Neither Sasha nor Justine understand how shrewd he really is. They buy into the reputation and see only what they expect to see.
Because he's him, he's got a plan. Tony hasn't shared it with her, but he generally doesn't do anything without having an endgame in mind. He can probably handle whatever is coming once he walks out that door with that little girl. He's probably got contingency plans for contingency plans in that head of his.
But Pepper didn't become a superhero because it is good enough for her to assume that someone else probably has it covered. She didn't assume he had it covered when he ran away from Osborn and she didn't assume he knew what he was doing when he was lying unconscious on the concrete floor of a middle school basement. By her count, she's two for two so far. If Iron Man has a mission, she can rest assured that it is Rescue's mission as well.
Her armor might not fit inside a briefcase, but she brought it along anyway.
That was a good decision.