Title: In Compassion Lies The World's True Strength
Author: firstflier
Theme: 070. Friends
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1,991 words
Summary: 'But what if I need you, Potts? What if there is some huge tie disaster?'
Author's Note: Slightly longer than normal and, again, a bit angsty but fluffy at the end.
They weren't always friends.
Pepper liked her life to be in neat little boxes with work in one and her personal life in another. She liked to be professional and to always know where she stood with the people in her life. She constructed lines and boxes and walls which were intended to keep some people in and to keep other people out.
It was somewhat lamentable that Tony Stark had never had much respect for boundaries.
Limitations were a challenge; something to overcome and he liked to push her to her limit as much as humanly possible.
Fortunately, something happened that allowed Tony to freely move between Pepper's neat little boxes and become her best friend.
Unfortunately, it had to break Pepper a little in the process.
One very normal, very dull Friday in the Stark household Tony noticed that Pepper's eyes kept glancing towards the watch wrapped tight around her wrist and he felt a frown pull at his eyebrows. He didn't like it when she had plans. He recognised that it was entirely selfish and childish to want to constantly be the centre of her universe but it didn't stop the annoyance he felt whenever he knew she was going to be busy.
He studied her face whilst she continued bombarding him with information he didn't care about and noticed that she looked tired. In two and a half years he had never seen her looking so exhausted. She was still efficient, immaculate, perfect even but there was something off. The bags under her eyes were dark and deep, as though she hadn't been sleeping for a week, her shoulders were slumped, even her hair had less shine than normal and her eyes were just blank. The cold fingers of alarm began to creep along his spine. It might have been his new Sherlock Holmes kick but he knew that he needed to get to the bottom of it.
He glanced down at the stack of paper she had pushed in front of him and tried to block out the sound of her heel tapping a quick staccato beat on the floor of the workshop.
"Why are you so eager to finish?" Tony glanced up just as she was taking another peek at her watch and she dropped her arm guiltily. "Do you have plans?"
"Yes, I do." He can almost hear the eye roll in her voice; she didn't like it when he pried into her personal life.
"I don't like it when you have plans, Potts. I thought we had established that?" He quickly signed the first page and looked up at her with a sly smirk. She remained silent and he realised she needed more goading. "So...who is he?"
"Sorry?" She had a terrible poker face and he could see the tips of her ears turning pink.
"The guy. Who's the guy? Is he taking you out for dinner or something? Maybe a movie? Or taking you to Paris for a romantic-"
"Tom." He paused as she interrupted with exasperation at his interrogation. He had the distinct feeling she would say anything to shut him up. "His name is Tom."
"Taking you to dinner?" It was like getting blood from a stone.
"Something like that." Pepper shifted her weight awkwardly from one leg to the other and gestured for him to sign the next paper.
"Alright, well no hang over tomorrow, understand Potts?" There was a grin in his tone and he signed the last piece of paper with a flourish.
"I've got the weekend off."
His head snapped up so fast he was surprised he didn't injure himself.
"What?" She looked a little alarmed at his outburst but remained silent even as he narrowed his eyes at her. "You never have the weekend off. What's going on? When did this get decided?"
"I'm going away for the weekend. I sorted it out with HR earlier in the week." Her tone sounded defensive and his suspicions were further aroused.
"But what if I need you, Potts? What if there is some huge tie disaster that I just can't cope with on my own? Or what if I want your expert opinion on grilled sandwich choices?"
"I'm sure you'll manage, boss." Her smile was tight and it didn't reach her eyes as she began gathering the contracts from his grasp.
"Wait, wait." He grasped her wrist and stopped her from sweeping up the rest of the documents. "I can't manage without you, Potts. You know, as my PA, I should be your number one priority at all times."
"Mr. Stark I really need-"
"I mean, what do you know about this Tom character anyway? I must be more important than him." His tone turned decidedly whiny and he missed the warning flash in her eyes. "Besides, your my PA. You can't just disappear for a weekend without at least telling me where you're going. That's just not fair to me, Potts. And besides, I'll need you for the gala tomorrow night-"
"I have other things in my life besides you, Tony!" Her tone was sharp, almost caustic, and he could see that he had pushed her too far. She seemed to sense that her response had not been professional that it had, perhaps, over stepped the boundary between them and straightened her back as she drew in a shaky breath. She ripped her wrist from his grip and he could see her hands trembling. "Will that be all, Mr Stark?"
Sensing that she was giving him a lucky escape he nodded with wide eyes.
"That will be all, Miss Potts."
She stalked from the workshop in heels that accentuated her anger with each harsh click against the floor and echoed it around the room long after she was gone.
Tony sat, as close as he'd ever been to being dumbfounded, and wondered just where the banter had gone too far. He had said much worse to her in the past, had irritated her for longer and in more intimate ways but she had never reacted in such a volatile way.
"JARVIS? Where is Miss Potts going for the weekend?" He had, after all, only been joking about being whisked to Paris but the possibility that it was the truth had beads of sweat gathering along his hairline.
"I believe Miss. Potts' flight is booked for this evening and she is travelling to Iowa, sir."
"Iowa?" Tony asked, disbelievingly. "What's so romantic about Iowa?"
"Sir, records indicate that Miss. Potts' family is based in Iowa. Perhaps she has plans organised with her family members."
Tony balked. She was taking this Tom character back to meet her parents? Was that why she had looked so tired? She was nervous that her parents wouldn't approve of her new boyfriend?
He convinced himself that the only reason he was thinking about it so much (and disapproving so much) was that a steady boyfriend would mean Pepper would be more lax with her duties at Stark Industries. It was not in the company's best interest for her to have more distractions than necessary. Still, he could not get images of Pepper hanging on the arm of some stunningly handsome, intelligent, funny douche bag.
Suffice to say, he did not sleep well that night.
It was late Saturday afternoon when Tony actually discovered the real reason for Pepper's mysterious disappearance.
Flowers were delivered to his door by one of the women that worked on the third floor. (Patty? Pamela? Polly!) Polly arrived at his door with red rimmed eyes, a hushed voice and a bouquet of flowers so big that even Tony was a little impressed. The message was simple: 'tell Pepper we're thinking of her'.
Tony nodded that he would and the woman tottered away.
He dumped the flowers in the sink in the kitchen and ran some water for them to sit in. Suspicions were beginning to form in his mind along with patchy, semi-repressed memories from his childhood and he could not stop the racing beat of his heart.
"JARVIS, pull up the newspaper articles from the last week in Iowa. Anything related to 'Potts'."
"Searching, sir."
Pouring himself a shot of whiskey, Tony settled down on the couch to wait for JARVIS' findings to appear.
"Search complete."
Several newspaper articles glowed into life on Tony's interactive coffee table and he leant forward to inspect the various pieces. There was some rubbish about a Potts beer festival and something about a new miniature golf park opening up but it was the third article that caught his attention.
It was an obituary.
'Sophie Anne Potts passed away suddenly Wednesday 15th August. Beloved wife of the late James and dear mother of Virginia. Funeral service on Saturday 18th August. No flowers please.'
Tony could feel the glass slipping from his fingers but couldn't seem to move to stop it from smashing on the tiled floor. The rough crash of splitting glass shook him from his stupor and his brain seemed to kick into action.
Pepper's mother, her only living relative his mind inserted unnecessarily, had died.
And Tony had been as oblivious as usual.
The tiredness, the foul mood, her exhausted appearance were all signs he should have spotted a mile off and recognised as something more than the result of a few late nights falling asleep in front of the TV. Half formed, painful memories swam to the surface about his own parents and Tony hated the fact that, even as Pepper buried her last vestige of family, his capacity for selfishness was astounding.
If she had just told him he might have been able to lighten her load, give her the week off, something, anything.
But it was typical Pepper to keep things of such a personal nature to herself, to absorb and deflect.
Tony felt, quite suddenly, rather sick.
His eyes were drawn to the huge bunch of flowers still resting in the sink and he made an executive decision that they would have to be the first things to go.
When Pepper came back to work on the Monday, Tony didn't say anything about her weekend, didn't ask what she'd done or if it had gone well. He didn't even hint that he knew what she had been doing.
It was nearing the middle of the afternoon and he just couldn't help himself any more.
He had to do something.
At 12 minutes past 3 he brought her a coffee. She was sat, prim and proper as ever, on the sofa as she tapped away on her blackberry. Tony brought the mug in and perched beside her on the sofa, the seat sinking slightly with his weight. If she thought that it was odd she gave no indication and carried on with her work. She reached with one hand for the coffee, offering Tony perfunctory thanks as her right hand continued to click away at the minute buttons on her PDA. When she replaced the coffee mug on the table, her hand remained on the cushion next to her.
Slowly, so slowly that Tony was not really aware that he was moving, he wrapped his hand around hers in complete silence. She noticed that he wasn't letting go and turned to look at him. One glance and she could read all the conflicted emotions in his expression, all the emotions that he couldn't verbalise, all the emotions he didn't understand.
"I'm sorry."
She swallowed around the lump that rose in her throat and had to fight back tears as she understood, so completely that it terrified him slightly, the implicit sentiment he was trying to display.
That's the day they became friends.
So, years later, when she says that he's all she has, he knows that it's true and that she's thinking about the same moment he is; the moment she became the most important person in his world and he in hers.
~Fin.