Hi old friends, new friends, this is Cara.
Below is my valiant attempt aft the LJ 100fic challenge-y thing using a lot of crossovers featuring our beloved Bruce Wayne. I only have a few complete, but finals will be over soon so I should be able to write more.
Prompt: 35. Sixth Sense
Pepper got feelings about things from time to time. She could tell when something was not right, when someone was lying, or when something big was about to happen. Call it a woman's intuition call it a sixth sense, call it being empathetic, call it whatever the hell you wanted, it was what it was and right now she could tell something big had happened.
"Mr. Stark?" She calls out hesitantly taking soft, unsure steps, forward.
In the few months she has worked as Tony Stark's personal assistant she has seen him lots of different ways. She's seen him hung-over, and drunk, and sick, and angry, and happy, and on a few very unfortunate incidents she's seen him post, pre, and mid coitus. If she's lucky it's post….
He never really gets sad though, and he is always animated in whatever he does. When he's hung-over he complains loudly and makes a big show of wincing when the lighting is too bright, when he's exhausted he yawns and stretches his arms theatrically, when he's drunk he raises his glass and says something entirely inappropriate, when he's sick he denies it until Pepper forces him to his bed and that's when he curls up and drives her crazy with ridiculous demands ("I think the only thing that would make me feel better is those little white and pink circus animal cookies.. and Kindereggs. I'm sure you could fly to Europe and pick me up some in the next ten minutes, right?), when he's angry stuff breaks and people- grown men sometimes -cry, when he's well… she tries not think very often what he does behind closed doors…(and against closed doors, and on the floor, and behind not-so-closed doors) because it makes her heart skip a beat and her face gets hot..
Pepper has seen her boss in many different ways over the long months she has worked for him, but she's never seen him so subdued before. He's standing on the second floor balcony overlooking his pool with a mostly untouched scotch in one hand and a cigarette burning away in the other.
"Mr. Stark?" She calls out again; because even though she's outlasted all his other assistants she doesn't feel comfortable calling him by his first name.
"Hrm?" He glances over his shoulder.
"Oh, hey Pepper." He turns back to stare at the pool that is currently glowing an eerie blue color that gives her a weird twist-in-the-stomach sort of uncomfortable feeling she can't explain (it's that sixth sense thing again.)
"Is… is something wrong?"
"No."
"…You're lying." She says and he swirls the scotch in its glass and says nothing.
"I can tell when you're lying, Tony." She doesn't realize until hours later she called him by his first name. They stand for a long time and neither makes a move until Tony finally speaks in a quieter-than-normal voice.
"They had Bruce Wayne declared dead today."
Pepper doesn't know what to say, so she says nothing. The silence is heavy and makes her stomach keep twisting.
"He probably killed himself." Tony says without much emotion in his voice.
Pepper doesn't speak as much as make a confused and curious noise. It is her way of asking "Mr. Stark, why would you say such a thing?" without actually saying anything.
"A couple years before he disappeared I walked in on him almost jumping from a balcony at a party."
"Did you stop him?" Pepper asks, even though it's obvious Bruce didn't jump that night.
"Of course not, I made fun of him and went back inside."
Pepper lets out an indigent "Tony!"(the first of many in their long professional relationship).
Stark just smiles and turns around to lean backwards against the railing and looks at her.
"What? It was cold, and besides if he was really going to do it nothing I said would have changed that, as evidence by this." He lifts up his scotch hand and waves it vaguely to indicate the entire abstract situation.
"Were you friends?" Pepper asks after a few long moments of silence.
"No," Tony says with a laugh and he flicks the cigarette on the ground.(He promised himself he'd quit, but it hasn't happened yet.)
"I hated that prick."
Pepper stares somewhere between confusion, abject horror, and indignation.
"But.. but.. why are you so upset?"
"Well, they're probably going to liquidate all his stocks and I'll have to snatch them up so no one else can become the majority share holder in my company. You see when he was sixteen that little fucker surprised everyone buy out buying nearly everyone. And if he had just killed himself like he wanted to do the next year I could have gotten the stocks then."
Pepper continues to stare with disbelieving wide eyes, "….you're lying." She finally says.
And Tony flashes an impossibly large and shining grin.
"No, Pepper, I'm not." But something in the base of her twisting and turning stomach tells her he is.
Call it a woman's intuition, call it a sixth sense, call it empathy, call it whatever the hell you want, she could tell he was lying… He had to be lying…. He has to…..