It was past midnight but she was still sitting in Tony`s - Mr. Stark`s – living room, taping away furiously at her keyboard to finish hashing out at least a rough script that Tony could use at the meeting tomorrow. It was a Board Member meeting that he would be speaking at, trying to persuade the company to keep him and not kick him out for discontinuing weapons manufacturing and essentially destroying the company. But the Board should buy it, the company still had legs, Tony had diversified the company more thoroughly and strategically than Pepper had realized at the time and it quite impressively was stable, though less profitable.
Her eyelids were so heavy and her head was blurry. She`d had less than five hours of sleep the night before and had been working all day. Work days with Tony tended to be long with no set hours. She had practically no life outside of work, though the salary would amount to enough to comfortably retire in a few years, and she had decided that was probably what she would do.
She hit save and sent the document to print. Jarvis would make sure it went through and she would just have to pick it up in the morning and try to get Tony to look at it. Or, more likely she would just deliver the speech herself and get Tony to agree, if she could get him to go to the meeting at all. Pepper leaned back on the couch thinking about the next day and closed her eyes to plan her attack, figuratively speaking. Without realizing it, she drifted off briefly.
Footsteps on the stairs preceded Tony`s emergence from his workshop. He crossed stopped when he saw Pepper on the couch, curled up and leaning on the pillows at the arm of the couch. He crossed the room and seated himself beside her, a grin appearing on his face as his PA slept so unprofessionally on his sofa.
The movement of the couch cushions when he sat down woke Pepper up, but she was exhausted. Pepper opened her eyes partly and murmured something about being exhausted from cleaning up after Tony all the time. Tony frowned slightly and sighed.
"I'm sorry Peps." he whispered. I really appreciate it all, though. I really do. I love you." He reached over and pulled Pepper into his lap, so that her head was resting on his chest. She docilely let him manipulate her, too tired to look up at him, instead snuggling further into his arms. She drifted off again as he gently stroked her arm and back.
Pepper woke with a start, her eyes assaulted by the morning light streaming into the living room. She'd slept on his couch all night! And what an embarrassing dream she'd had. So inappropriate. But so nice...
She straightened her skirt and went to collect the printed script from the printer in the office. Her heals clicking on the hard floor were loud in the still house.
"Pepper!" She heard a call from downstairs. Tony, already up and working, or still up from yesterday.
"Coming Mr. Stark!" Pepper replied. She took a deep breath to clear her head then set off briskly downstairs.
"How small are your hands?" Tony asks after she entered the code and the door to the workshop opened.
"What?" Pepper asked, confused. Normally Tony didn't pay any attention to her at all, unless to make inappropriate suggestive remarks.
"Let me see your hands, hold up your hands." Tony was curt. But he didn't sound deliberately rude. He sounded slightly desperate and pained. Pepper held up her hands tentatively, talking toward Tony who was reclined in a padded chair.
"Ah, yes, very petit, excellent. I need your help with something." Tony turned his head to face her, his mouth set in a grimace.
"Oh my goodness, is that the thing that's keeping you alive? The reactor thing?" Pepper edged closer to Tony, her eyes wide as she looked at the Arc Reactor glowing in his chest.
"Yes," Tony confirmed, his mouth tightening as if he were in pain. "Except it's obsolete. I need to replace it with this new one." He held up a nicer-looking version," but one of the wires is slipped and I need someone to pull it out for me.
Pepper shuddered and she felt a stab of sympathy for Tony. He had so much to deal with, all on his own. Having pieces of shrapnel in his heart that could kill him at any second, being ridiculed for his decision to become an ethical CEO. Looking at Tony lying so vulnerable on the chair, Pepper realized that, as much as she loved him and wanted him to notice her, appreciate her, she needed to stay strong for Tony. It was what he needed to keep himself from falling apart and as she really did love him, the small sacrifice of not being with him was worth it if it meant she could keep him safer than if she were to leave him alone.
So she changed his heart for him even though it was disgusting and traumatizing and totally not in her job description. But her heart was too far in this job for a legal contract to matter. That was why she worked overtime all the time. Why she had slept on his couch last night and why she didn't mind not having a social life.
"Don't ever ask me to do that again!" She gasped, her hand covered in some sort of goo she didn't even want to think about.
"But who else can I trust to do that?" Tony said quietly. "You're all I've got, Pepper." Tony made eye contact with her and held her gaze. "I don't appreciate you enough. You should buy yourself another present from me for doing all this. And a pay raise."
"I don't think you could ever pay me enough to do this. And yes, I am all you've got. You could never find another blond bimbo to change your circuitry for you if I left." Pepper smiled at the thought of how much she mattered to Tony, whether he took her for granted or not.
"I know." Tony said. He reached out his hand and took Pepper's non-slimy hand in his own. "I'm sorry I take you for granted all the time."
"That's all right, Tony." Pepper took her hand back and stepped back, holding Tony's old heart. "I know you have bigger things on your mind. Like keeping your company from going bankrupt. So I have your speech prepared for the Board Members meeting this afternoon. The car is picking us up at 1pm. I told Jarvis to make sure you practice the script before we leave. So you can start now. I'll bring you the script and a coffee. Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Stark?"
"No, thank you Ms. Potts, that will be all." Tony furrowed his brow and looked away. "And incinerate that thing," He waved his hand at the old reactor. "I don't want someone finding it and copying the technology."
"Very well," Pepper said, and turning on her heel clicked out of the workshop and back upstairs. But she didn't take the reactor to the incinerator. Instead, she thought she would rather keep what little of Tony's heart that he would give her.