Story: Asagaya
Author: saichick
Challenge: Pepperony 100
Theme: 061 Weather
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Between IM1 and IM2
Preview: A storm approaches … and Tony shares a story his mom told him to soothe Peppers fears. A Pepperony one-shot.
Pepper was annoyed at him … again.
He had always been a handful. Immature, irresponsible, petulant, and belligerent, Tony had gotten away with childish bad behavior for years because, well, he was Tony Stark. Billionaire. CEO. Genius. Inventor extraordinaire. Everybody wanted what he had, so he had never had to toe any sort of mark. Afghanistan had changed all that. So had the suit. With the realization that he was more than the weapons he created, that he had a responsibility to use his genius to help mankind, for the first time in his life Tony truly wanted to start being more responsible.
Unfortunately, changing 43 years worth of bad habits doesn't happen overnight.
He was trying. Really! But the underlying sexual tension that had always existed between them had ramped up a few notches since it had dawned on him that his feelings were more than employer/employee or even friendship. He suspected Pepper had feelings for him as well, but she wasn't falling for the usual charms. Tony was good at many things, but communicating his feelings wasn't one of them. Frustrated at his lack of progress, like an elementary school boy tweaking the ponytail of a girl he had a crush on to get her attention, Tony found himself falling into the old comfortable role of "let's annoy Pepper."
It wasn't working. Today he had pushed her too far.
He kicked himself for hesitating that night at the firefighter's ball. Pepper mistook his hesitation for rejection, but it wasn't. By the time he had tried to rectify the error, she had built a brick wall around her heart. Whereas before he could flirt with her in a not-too-serious friendly camaraderie and she would ever-so-slightly flirt back, now Pepper didn't flirt with him at all. If anything, she was downright icy to him, keeping him at a physical distance, wearing even more conservative clothing than she had before, and not even smiling when he made a lascivious comment. Everything he did upset her. Tony was at a loss about how to communicate with her anymore.
Tony looked out the window of his workshop and noticed the sky had become dark. "JARVIS, what time is it?" he asked.
"It is 2:30, sir" JARVIS said.
"Why is it getting dark outside?" Tony asked, frowning.
"A storm is approaching, Sir," JARVIS said. "A thunderstorm."
Tony smiled. Here was his chance to play hero. Pepper had grown up in the land of L. Frank Baum where tornadoes whisked little girls away to strange lands. When large thunderstorms approached in the Midwest, they often contained super cells, terrifyingly powerful thunderstorms that could spawn tornadoes. An F3 had ripped through her town as a small child. They had safely ridden out the storm in their storm cellar, but one day Pepper had confided in him her memory of the terrible sound, like a freight train, roaring overhead, as the tornado had ripped off the roof of her parents' house and deposited it in a nearby tree. Although storms were generally tame in Malibu, they still terrified her.
Tony bounded up the steps from his workshop two at a time, hell bent on 'rescuing' her from the approaching rumbler. Pepper sat on the couch, typing away on her laptop, her back towards the window.
"Storm approaching, Pepper." he said, pointing out the window at the roiling wall of blackness rapidly approaching from the west. The darkness was a palpable, living creature casting a shadow before it as it rushed across empty ocean towards the mansion.
"Ooooh," Pepper startled, snapping shut her laptop. "That looks bad. We've got to unplug all the electronic appliances that might get affected by a power surge."
Goal #1 … get Pepper to stop work … check!
"Sure, Pepper," he said. "Hey … give me your car keys ... I'll go shut your car windows for you."
Pepper gave him a curious look. "I'll do it," she said. She rummaged through her purse and rose off the couch with a nervous smile. Thunder rumbled ominously off in the distance. Pepper glanced over her shoulder at the approaching storm.
"I insist," he said, smiling. "You can shut the windows inside so rain doesn't come in."
The thunder rumbled some more, a little bit closer. He could see Pepper cringe.
Goal #2 … take advantage of situation where girl is afraid … check!
"Okay," she said, the keys jingling from her slight hand tremor as she handed them to her. "The skylight is open."
"Sure, Pepper, no problem." He hurried outside to close her windows. Since his own vehicles were parked in the garage, he came back inside right away. Pepper was pacing back and forth against the innermost wall of the house like a caged jaguar looking for someplace to spring to freedom.
"All done!" he said. A distant rumble caused Pepper to jump. "Hey … you okay?"
"You know I hate storms!" Pepper twirled her hair and wrapped her arms around her torso. She realized what she was doing and deliberately pulled her arms down to her sides as she tried to compose herself.
"Well I love them," he said, giving her a confident grin. "If you respect them, you have nothing to fear."
"Nothing to fear?" she snapped. "One took the roof off my house."
"That was in Iowa," he said. "We don't get tornadoes here in Malibu. It's just a plain old, ordinary thunderstorm."
Just then, a magnificent bolt of lightning arced down from the clouds into the ocean below, illuminating the inside of the mansion with its brilliance. Almost instantaneously, a loud clap of thunder boomed close by.
"That's two miles away," he said, counting the seconds between the flash and the sound.
Pepper's slid her arms around her own body like a pose one might find on a mummy posed in a sarcophagus. Tony came up beside her and put one hand on her shoulder. Taking her other in his as though she were a small girl frightened of a friendly dog, he led her back to the window.
"It's beautiful. Watch," he reassured her. "This house has lightning rods running ground wires all the way down into to the cliff below. So long as you don't step outside, you're perfectly safe."
Goal #3 … be the hero and reassure the girl … check!
Pepper shuddered. Tony could feel the electrostatic buildup, making the small hairs on his arm and neck stand on end. The scent of ozone permeated the air. Another bolt of lightning struck down from the sky, closer now, and Pepper jumped. He took this chance to wrap one arm protectively around her shoulders and clucked reassuring noises. She did not pull away.
Goal #4 … get in close physical proximity to the girl … check!
"How can you be so calm?" she asked.
"My mother loved thunderstorms," he said wistfully. "When I was a little boy, I was terrified of them. My father explained to me the scientific principles behind a storm, that it was only a discharge of static electricity that had built up between the earth and the sky, but that didn't help. I was still afraid. Then one day my mother told me the stories of the thunder beings."
"Thunder beings?" Pepper eyed the storm, but her trembling subsided.
"The Cherokee Indians believe powerful spirits live in the thunder," he said in his calmest, most reassuring voice. "If the storm approaches from the west, like this one is now, it is a giver of life, of rains. Storms that approach from the west are considered sacred."
Outside, the roiling black wall of clouds finally reached the mansion, devouring it whole and leaving the room so dark that he could only see Pepper's outline. His hair stood on end at the electricity in the air as the surf beneath the mansion ceased its ever-present pounding against the cliff and stilled into a dead calm, eerily silent as the ocean waited for the thunderstorm to make its next move. Pepper unconsciously cringed back into his arms and leaned against him, her back against the length of his body as one firm buttock pressed quivering into his crotch. Tony gasped in surprise and forced himself to focus on the story, not his rapidly growing erection, lest she pull away and slap him.
"The Cherokee called the thunder being who lived in the west Asagaya Gigaei," he continued, "Spirit of Thunderstorms." He forced himself to remain composed despite the fact his own electricity, the electricity of desire, now flowed from his loins through his heart and expanded outwards to his extremities in pleasant little thrills.
An enormous crackling, multi-branched tree of lightning split the heavens, striking the ocean directly in front of the mansion and instantaneously booming so loudly it shook the house. Pepper yelped and turned, hiding her face in his chest. Tony protectively wrapped both arms around her and reassured her everything was okay.
"My mother used to take me out on the patio to watch Asagaya approach," he continued. "We would sit out there together and watch the wall of clouds calm the ocean in front of him. Mom would point out how the birds became silent so they could hear his voice, how leaves turn upside down to greet him in their silvery best appearance, and how the wind dies down in anticipation of his arrival."
"Mmmmm…" Pepper acknowledged, whatever sound she may have been trying to make muffled by the fact her face was buried in his chest at the moment.
Tony placed his finger under her chin and lifted her face level with his. She had her eyes tightly screwed shut as though refusing to look at the storm would make it go away.
"When Asagaya's shadow would reach that rock out there," he said, pointing at a small rocky island jutting out of the ocean around 5,000 feet from the cliff, "we would run inside together, laughing, just in time to beat the rain."
As if on cue, rain began to pour down from the sky and pound into the windows like hundreds of angry small animals scratching to get in. The scent of salt stirred up from the ocean was palpable, tasteable, as though the storm had simply picked up the salty sea and thrown it against the house standing in its path.
"Mom would stand with me in front of the window, just like this," he said, nearly a whisper, "and have me close my eyes. She said if I listened very hard, Asagaya would speak to me."
Pepper still had her eyes shut, but her fearful grimace had eased. He could tell she now focused on the voice of the thunder rumbling outside the mansion.
"She said that if I made a wish, Asagaya would make it come true," he said.
Pepper nodded her head. Tony caressed her chin with his thumb and forefinger as he studied her features, high cheekbones, long lashes, alabaster skin, full lips, just a spattering of freckles across her nose peeking through her makeup. God! She was beautiful!
"Listen to Asagaya, Pepper," he whispered. "Can you hear what he's trying to tell you?" Tony didn't know what Asagaya might tell her, but he certainly knew what he wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her he was hopelessly in love with her, but was too terrified to say anything. He feared she'd misconstrue his declaration as teasing, would quit, would leave, would break his heart.
"Asagaya will only grant a wish from the heart," he leaned in to huskily whisper into her ear, inhaling the subtle scent of her shampoo, "a wish of purest desire. What is your wish, Pepper? Tell Asagaya and he will grant it."
Although she kept her eyes shut, he could see Pepper was less afraid of the storm. Her breathing evened out as the clean scent of ozone scrubbed the air and made it all fresh again. A gentle smile turned up the corners of her mouth as she listened to the rumbling answer of the thunder to her wish. Tony shut his own eyes, focused with all of his might, and cast his wish out into the storm, to Asagaya, begging the thunder beings to help him earn the love of the woman who had taken shelter in his arms. He listened intently for the thunders rumbled reply.
Outside, the rain subsided into a gentle rain, pitter-pattering against the glass. The room brightened. The storm was moving away, the rumbling becoming more distant as the storm moved inland. He bent in and kissed her forehead.
"That was a beautiful story, Tony," she said, opening her eyes and smiling. "Thank you for sharing it." Tony almost never spoke about his parents, so she knew the memory must be a sacred one.
"What did you wish for, Pepper," he murmured, looking intently into her eyes for her answer. She seemed to be tolerating the fact that his arms still surrounded her.
"I asked to not be afraid of thunderstorms anymore," she said, already beginning to back out of the intimate position she suddenly realized they had assumed.
He reluctantly released her lest she misconstrue his actions as something sexual (although truth be told, her proximity had left him aroused). He was disappointed by her answer, but realized that even if she had wished for the same thing he had wished for, she would never tell him.
"And what did you ask Asagaya for?" she asked.
He gave her a sad smile. "I'll never tell."