AN (5/21/2012) : Hi everyone! I have edited few things in this story and hopefully it is more readable now. By the way, I have a terrible sense of humour so I apologize in advance. :/
There is a proper AN at the end, which will hopefully answer to your questions as to why on the hell I ventured to write something as lame as this... :P So yeah till you reach there, happy reading everyone! :))
Time line: Happens sometimes after IM-1 movie. That is Tony and Pepper are not a couple in this. Though Tony sure is trying hard to woo her. :D
Non beta'ed. So sorry for any mistakes you may find in here.
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me. They belong to their respective creators.
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PEPPER: Mr. Stark I believe the presentation is happening to your left side and not below the table, where my legs reside!
That was Ms. Pepper Potts, the beautiful, over-worked PA of Tony Stark. She, as usual after being fed up with her annoying yet charming boss, was sending him a warning SMS to remind him that he was actually the boss of the company whose affairs were being discussed there. As most of the times he seemed to completely forgot that and behaved like a horny teenager compelled to listen to a church sermon, every time he attended an official meeting.
TONY: Ah, the presentation on the left is too bald for my taste! ;) I like this one better! Besides your legs were hanging in front of me like carrots in front of Mr. Rabbit. Now who can blame me for ogling at them? ;)
PEPPER: Seriously? Bald? I hope Mr. Simmons doesn't hear that; he is one of the very important board members of our company.
PEPPER: And RABBITS and CARROTS? Really? Is that all you can come up with? Now Mr. Stark, I really doubt whether you are a actually a genius you are considered to be…
TONY: Ah you wound me Miss Potts! Hmmpf! :x Hmm now let me see… what about honey in front of Pooh? That sounds more apt don't you think? ;)
PEPPER: Honey in front of poo? Whatever that means! Now you are insulting me and that seriously sounds disgusting! I think I ought to quit this job at once!
TONY: My God Pepper; chill will you? I did not say poo; I meant Pooh, as in Winnie the Pooh! Surely you know Winnie the Pooh, don't you?
PEPPER: Pooh? Who? o.O
TONY: Seriously Pepper now you are making me doubt my choices in hiring you! You don't know Winnie the Pooh? That is simply outrageous! It is Winnie the POOH!
...
Tony was unnaturally excited and strangely offended at the same time, that Pepper, his genius, all rounder Pepper did not know Winnie the Pooh; his favorite cartoon character! And he certainly did not realize that he had just spoken out the last few words he typed, a little too loud... that is loud enough for the whole silent board room to hear !
The presenter, Mr. Simmons, a serious man with a slightly balding head, as clearly noted by Mr. Stark in his conversation, wasn't very happy being cut in between his serious presentation. He was discussing the drop in their share prices with a strictly made up bar graph. And the others in the room certainly did not approve of being jolted of their wide-eyed slumber (or to be apt, it was more like a zombie-like state) either. And that too by the totally out of the blue and not to mention unprofessional reference of a rotund and grudgingly cute cartoon character!
So, Pepper who was enjoying his whiny messages suddenly got panicked when she realized what had happened. And somehow before she could salvage the situation, Tony spoke up. But she just couldn't understand whether what followed was for better or worse.
...
Tony who suddenly realized his mistake, looked up to find many disapproving pair of eyebrows raised at him. Mr. Simmons did actually look scary; and it was saying something, because after all he was the Iron man! And so Tony was secretly thanking God that he did not shout out his first message out loudly, otherwise that would have been the end of this!
But now he had to salvage the situation somehow and he being the lucky devil he was (yup you got to accept that he is one hell of a lucky guy to be a billionaire with super genius genes and those God damning good looks!), he always finds out a way to charm his way out of the trickiest of situations with or without Pepper's help, that is. And today was no different. Because as his luck would have it, the current part of the discussion was about the bad image of Stark Industries, as it was responsible for all the weapons supplied to kill all those innocent people in the Eastern war zones. And it being one of the reasons for the plummeting share prices.
So the need of the hour was a good PR event to build up their image in front of the public, which automatically would reflect on the share prices. And he being the genius Tony and all, found a way to save them both; as in both him (from the deadly glares of board room members) and his company out of the current fix with his absurd solution- a COUSTUME PARTY!
Yes, he somehow convinced everybody present there that they should throw a costume party and invite all their employees and their families to it. And they can donate whatever they want and that money along with a million dollars from the company will be donated to the families of the war heroes and the war affected families. The idea of course was lauded as a very nice one.
But sadly what followed next was one thing Tony would always regret in his life and if asked why it happened, he without any remorse, would blame the evil scheming genius - Ms. Virginia Potts for it. Because the following question was one where his genius did not work as expected and he fell into the trap. Because when the members asked whether he wanted to be the Winnie the Pooh in the party as he had yelled the name earlier, he just fumbled and said the first thing that came to his mind, "No I want Pepper, I mean Miss. Potts to be Winnie."
Pepper gave an indignantly shocked look at this abrupt announcement but decided that saying 'no' to it in front of everybody, would mean that she is questioning her boss's authority. Hence gave a slight accepting nod to everybody who had their eyes glued on her for her answer.
...
The moment passed, the meeting was over and Tony came back to his senses and realized what he had done. He wanted to apologize to Pepper for springing it upon her like that. So he waited till everybody had left the room to have a word with her.
"I'm really sorry Pepper to spring Pooh upon you like that. And even more so, when you don't even know who that is." The last words where slightly laced with the same old disbelieving sarcasm which he first had when he heard that she did not know Pooh.
Pepper after gathering her laptop and few files had turned towards the door, when she heard him. She then turned and replied in a playful tone, "Oh, it's actually a relief Mr. Stark. I'm really glad that you suggested Pooh, you know. I was infact afraid that you would want me to be Wonder girl or someone like that with skimpy costumes. So thank God."
And after a small pause as she began to leave the room again, she turned and added, "By the way, in my opinion I think Tigger and Piglet are much cuter than Pooh. Don't you agree?"
And she left him there with his mouth open in disbelief. He couldn't decide as to which of the happenings were more appalling, the fact that he missed probably the only possible chance to see her in such a sexy costume or the fact that she played him the whole time about not knowing Pooh! Damn that evil Pepper!
ORIGINAL AN (08/17/2011): Hehe okies now that was weird and lame I know! But what to do? That came to me when I when to sleep last night (no, seriously!). And somehow I decided to purge it out of my system was by writing it down asap. :D It is my 1st Iron Man fic and yeah I know it is not upto the standards of some fantastic fics I read here but hopefully it wasn't too bad. And actually just yesterday I had read some old humour fics... guess that's the reason something like this actually turned up in my dream! o.o ;P
Well I had thought of a small chapter 2 for this, but somehow I think it better suited as a One shot, so I am leaving it as it is and sparing you guys further literary torture. :P
And now coming to the tougher part... I mean the verdict part you see... o.o So what did you guys think? Terrible? Palatable? Hmm? Well whatever it is, I would love to read your reviews. So do please take few mins and put in a word or two, will ya? And yeah, I apologize in advance for any glaring grammatical or spelling errors. :)