Letting Down her Hair

by saichick-Anna-Erishkigal

For as long as she could remember, Pepper Potts had hated the color red

Title: Letting down her hair
Author: Saichick
Challege: Pepperony 100
Theme: 003 - Red
Rating: PG

Preview: As long as she could remember, Pepper Potts had hated the color red.

As long as she could remember, Pepper Potts had hated the color red. Although it was meant affectionately, she had hated it when her relatives had teased her about her "carrot top." As young as 3 years old, Pepper had lopped off the offensive locks with scissors in an effort to eliminate them. The kids at school had often teased her about her "orange" hair, and she had spent the better part of her teenage years and early 20's bleaching her hair into a scratchy, lifeless pile of yellow straw with Sun In and hydrogen peroxide. Blonde, black, or even green! Pepper would have preferred to have any color hair but the obnoxious carrot-red hair she had been born with!

Because even the slightest hint of red brought out the highlights in her hair, Pepper avoided wearing red like the bubonic plague. Not only did she avoid red, but she also had to avoid bright colors such as orange or yellow because these made her hair look like a pumpkin. She couldn't wear pink, or purple either, for that matter, because they clashed with her hair. She loved the color blue, especially the deep sapphire blue of her eyes, but ever since Bambi Wilson (the head cheerleader) had elicited roaring laughter from the entire football team commenting Pepper looked like an American flag with her red hair, white skin and blue outfit, Pepper had avoided blue as well. Green was nice because it didn't clash with her hair and tended to tone down the orange undertones, but she wore it rarely because, once again, everyone always commented on her red hair. Thus, Pepper always wore black, or sometimes navy blue or brown. Those were the only colors that didn't either clash with or highlight her red hair.

She had even briefly dyed her hair brunette when she had first started working for Stark Industries, but within 3 weeks her co-workers were commenting on the bright red roots emerging from her scalp like a parasitic Alien erupting from the chest of an astronaut. Within 2 months of expensive every-3-weeks trips to the hairdressers to touch up her roots (something she couldn't afford as a peon bookkeeper), she had given up and let her hair return to it's natural color. She had discovered the best way to minimize the offensive color was to minimize it by twisting them into a french twist or ponytail and wear black.

She was aware her boss, Tony Stark, preferred redheads. It had been the second thing he had praised her for the day he hired her out of the bookkeeping pool (the first thing being catching a multi-million dollar accounting error everybody else had missed). With the six-figure salary he had offered her, the first thing Pepper had splurged on was a trip to the hairdressers to dye it brown. Within 20 seconds of walking into his office to sign paperwork the next morning, Mr. Stark had wrinkled his nose as if smelling something offensive and commented, "I don't like you as a brunette. Change it back." New at her job (and such a generous salary) and wishing desperately to keep it longer than her last 72 predecessors (who had never lasted more than two weeks), Pepper had complied. Tony Stark had been definitely pleased when, the day after that, she had walked back into his office, her red tresses returned, and had promptly nicknamed her "Pepper."

Everything about Tony Stark, on the other hand, was red. His birthday was in April, an Ares, born under the god of war, and his astrological color was red. He owned a fast red Lamborghini, constantly worked on the flaming red hot rod in the workshop in his mansion (which he even kept as a screen saver on his computer), and often wore a burgundy dress shirt or red tie with the Armani suits he preferred to wear. Many of the loose women Pepper had had to "clear out" over the years had garishly-dyed red hair or wore red dresses. Since his alma mater colors were red and grey, his favorite MIT alumni sweat shirt was a deep red color, and his MIT class ring sported a bright red ruby large enough to eat your lunch on. Therefore, it was no great surprise the day Pepper walked down into his workshop and caught Tony Stark in the process of being extracted from a suit of flaming red armor by his robotic assistants.

Ever since his capture in Afghanistan had ripped away her pretenses and lay bare her feelings, Pepper was no longer able to deny that she was hopelessly in love with her boss. But ... Tony Stark was a player. Although 3 months in captivity had appeared to change him, she didn't trust that the change was permanent enough to either risk her heart or the job she had come to cherish almost as much as the man himself. She knew only too well what had happened to the 72 predecessors who had made that mistake. Pepper had just barely manged to stop herself from kissing him at the opera house and, when he never returned with her drink, she realized she had dodged a bullet. Still, Pepper realized, she was in love with her boss, and Tony Stark loved red. Maybe she had imagined the sparks flying between them as they had danced, his leaning in to kiss her right before she had pulled herself back, but she hadn't imagined the intense look in his eyes when he had touched her red hair and told her she looked great.

From that day forward, Pepper started to wear her hair down.

Tags: rating-pg/k+, theme-003red