Title: Restaurants
Rating: PG
Summary: Tony would have picked a better restaurant, she thought, and tried to convince herself that was a fact and not a what-if floating around her head at all.
One thing that was hard about being a billionaire's assistant was the restaurants. They were never good enough.
It was hard enough finding dates. She was married to her job; it was just there. She had almost given up on men entirely: they were all either Tony Stark, or Tony Stark's associates, and that was just too much. She just wanted to find someone nice. Someone who wasn't overconfident, who was considerate and listened to her when she talked and was responsible and didn't call her all the time.
This one had seemed so promising. The suit, for one thing, was right. Pepper noticed suits. She picked out most of Tony's, or at least paid for them in shops where the sales clerks raved on and on about such-and-such and told her all about what a Good Suit had to have. So she picked it up. Pepper learned quickly: she knew computers and understood some of Jarvis's programming and now she knew how to pick out a suit. And this man didn't have a bad suit. Black with gray pinstripes, three-button, crisp pressed shirt, silk tie. Check.
But then the restaurant.
It was popular enough. French, on the beach, tourist attraction, etc. But it wasn't right. Their wine list was tiny compared to what she was used to seeing (not drinking: she didn't drink). The tables were too crowded. It was too...popular. It was a nice restaurant, but that was all. Not a Good Restaurant, not the same way his suit was a Good Suit. Tony would have picked a better restaurant, she thought, and tried to convince herself that was a fact and not a what-if floating around her head at all.
The night's a wash after that, really. The restaurant was wrong. The wine he ordered was wrong. The Good Suit points were lost in the glasses of mediocre wine and half-hearted compliments. She's almost glad to get the phone call, and excuses herself, walking out of the restaurant with a backward glance.
Tony would have done it better, she thinks, and she knows she's right.