Notes: not mine, no profit garnered. Title and opening quote from John Mortara's Direct Imperative To You, the Person Reading, or Don't Tell Mr. Singh I was Bleeding on the Porch. Thanks to A for beta help!
i got myself into this mistake of a brain and you've got to get me out. if i try hard enough i could probably replace one common sense with another. like you could unravel me into a pile of snakes tasting air, i could stop framing people like you into gold. but i am always loving people why do i do that? the very second we met on friday a car alarm sounded in the alley. that must have been the warning so why didn't you remind me?
Tony makes fun of Pepper for bleaching her hair. He says, "I know and have known a lot of blondes where the curtains didn't match the carpet, but usually it's not the actual natural redheads. Should I say ginger?" He runs his fingers over the short curls between her legs.
It's more irritating when he brings it up because he's just waiting for her to admit the truth, and he knows the truth. One gray hair she could ignore, two it was time to take action. The white blonde means no one can see. Like he doesn't dye his hair. His probably costs more than hers.
Two days after he hired her as his personal assistant/number two/whatever her job title was that first year, they had sex. She followed him home because she was trying to get work done, actually done. He was already drunk (Happy drove), he offered ridiculously expensive champagne. She'd never had anything like it before. "Some things really are worth the price," she said.
He looked at her once, his eyes serious. She stared back. The sex was pretty good. She left in the morning and saw him again at work 3 hours later. They never talked about it.
Now she's back in his bed, naked, watching him scowl and answer his phone. She ignores the conversation for the most part. She hears him say, "You have no idea how fucking rich I am. I am so rich I won't even notice how much it costs to dig up every piece of dirt on you I can find and put it on every billboard in Times Square and banner ads on Facebook, such a big juicy story all the news is talking about and you'll be out of a job before the President can say "What was his name again?" So yes, you will do what I'm asking you to do, or I'll wait a month and talk to someone who will do it for me."
Pepper shakes her head, pulls the covers up to her neck. She could sleep.
Tony finishes his phone call. He swears a little and then gets back in bed. "Are you judging me right now? You have a better solution?"
"Seems like a perfectly fine solution to me," she says. "Though I would have pointed out you and I do have friends who can accomplish what you were threatening without spending that much money. You're not as rich as you once were."
"Yeah, we gotta work on that," Tony says. He gets back in bed but doesn't lie close to her. "Maybe if I were focusing on inventing things instead of fixing this mess."
"That is not your making, a mess you didn't make," Pepper says. "It's nice you want to help everyone not be fugitives, but they chose."
"We were all being manipulated," Tony says.
"Maybe we could do something better with today and tomorrow," she says.
They were on a break. They had been on a break. But Pepper could only see Tony's exhausted battered face on TV and on Skype before she gave up all her objections. She hates more than anything seeing Tony in pain. Even if she knows there's very little she can do about some of it. She's back in his bed and she feels like things have changed enough she doesn't have to be embarrassed about leaving him. Accomplished and done. She doesn't have to do that ever again.
"Define better," Tony says.
"We could have lots of sex and have your new Jarvis tell everyone we're too busy to deal with them," Pepper says.
"Your definition of better is the best I've heard," Tony says.
She loves having sex with Tony. His brain doesn't shut down or slow, his genius never really stops, but all of it is focused on her. And himself. But more on her than him and she's happy to let every one of Tony Stark's IQ points find new ways to make her come.
Pepper's so sated, so perfectly satisfied, she can barely move when they finish. Tony, the bastard, springs up and disappears from her view. She says, "Where are you?"
"Over here, babe," he says. She sits up and sees him in the hot tub. It's a new hot tub that Tony, the bastard, has tinkered with. It's big and hot and according to him, "unbelievably hygienic unlike every other hot tub you've ever been in."
She gets up and she sits in the hot tub across from him. It does feel very good. She says, "Here's my real question, is that kid from Queens your secret love child?"
"Parker? God, no. No. Come on. He has parents who are in no way me," Tony says.
"Okay," Pepper says, smiling. She imagines Tony's kids would be like that. Earnest little geniuses who couldn't stop themselves from doing good.
Tony says, "What's that smile?"
"I was thinking about you with kids," Pepper says.
"Do you want kids?"
Pepper dips under the water, feels the warm water all over her. She sits up and says, "I think I do. But only with you. What about you?"
"I feel, you know what? Exactly like you," he says, as he floats slides over to her.
"You only want to have children with yourself?" She runs her wet hands through his hair.
"Ha ha," Tony says. "With you. You and me." He goes underwater himself and come back up standing between her legs.
"I say we talk about it next month," Pepper says.
"Good plan," Tony says. He kisses her and it's like magic all over every time. She loves him and he loves her and this is the right world.
"Time to dry off," she says, getting out of the tub. "And sleep. I definitely want to sleep."
"Fine, fine," Tony says. She gets in bed and pulls the very nice blankets and sheets up to her chin. It's good she does, because Tony pulls on a pair of sweatpants and opens the door to the balcony. It's one of their buildings, they're pretty damn high up. "It's raining," he says. "It's bracing."
"And cold," Pepper says.
"That's the thing about living in Los Angeles, there's no goddamn weather, none. But here in New York City, we get weather. Sweet, sweet rain," Tony says. He turns back to her, his face wet again. He has that happy smile they've both been wearing since Pepper came home.
"Are you going to start singing Milli Vanilli?" She pulls the sheets and blankets over her head.
"You wound me, Pepper, you wound me," Tony says. She hears the balcony doors close and then Tony gets under the covers with her. He puts his wet hands all over her and she giggles and tries to get away.
At some point, she does fall asleep. She wakes up to Tony laughing to someone on the phone. "Hey," she says. "We said no more phones."
"It's not work, dear, it's Rhodey," Tony says. He puts his phone down on the bedside table. "Do you remember that time, we were all on the jet, and I mean the four of us, you, me, Rhodey, Happy and we decided to play Whist? And Happy won every damn hand. Every single one."
"You kept saying he had to be cheating or he had some trick," Pepper says. "I think you said, you were born in 1750, weren't you? You were calling him two hundred year old man for weeks."
"I think it was more like a week," Tony says. "A week at most."
"I think it was a month," Pepper says. "Why did you even want to play Whist? Oh, God, you had sex with a woman named Jane Austen, you swore that happened." For a year after she started and they slept together, Tony never mentioned the many women he had sex with. Then after 13 months, whatever rubicon that made Tony keep silent had been passed and she got to pick up after them and hear about them.
She was in love with him for a long time, but she didn't mind, she told herself she didn't mind. Even now she thinks she didn't mind. Tony never dated, he just had sex with people. Pepper never really dated, at some point she just stopped trying. Tony took up her whole life.
"She really was named Jane Austen," Tony says. He grabs his phone and starts typing. "See?"
"Oh, she's on Facebook," Pepper says. "She does porn, and her name is Janeane Austen, she just prefers to go by Jane."
"She does very ethical porn," Tony says. "It says right here, it's a collective that privileges consent and actors have total control of the acts they perform. We could watch this and not feel any guilt."
"I'm not interested in watching porn starring your ex-fling," Pepper says. "Feel free to dig in while I'm asleep."
"Would you be upset?"
Pepper smiles. "Watch whatever you want. Just don't expect me to."
"Is there other porn we can watch together?"
"I'd rather have sex with you than watch other people having sex," Pepper says. "Speaking of."
"Good point, fuck Jane Austen," Tony says, already moving on top of her.
"You did, remember?" She holds his face and kisses him.
They have excellent sex. Excellent. They clean up and then they get slightly dressed when the food gets delivered. "I love Thai," Tony says. "I can fly to Thailand and get you authentic Thai sometime."
"You're not Superman and I can actually fly to Thailand, too, we have a jet."
"You're killing me," Tony says, smiling at her.
"You know what I was thinking about? How my dad hated delivery food. He always wanted to drive and pick it up himself," she says. "Did I ever tell you my Dad served in World War II?"
"Yes, you did, and one time he saw Captain America and he always used to tell you about it," Tony says. "We both grew up hearing about him endlessly."
"My dad didn't talk about it endlessly," Pepper says. "He used to say, though, it was impressive I worked for Howard Stark's son. I didn't tell him stories about you."
"Didn't want him to know the truth?"
"No, I had a lot of good stories about you," Pepper says. "We just had other things to talk about." She leans her head on his shoulder. "You sent flowers to the funeral, that was so sweet."
"I could do some things without you," Tony says. He takes her hand and squeezes it. "They looked nice, right?"
"You never saw them, of course," Pepper says. "You just went to our usual flower guy. Marion did such great work, I'm still angry you slept with - wait, who did you sleep with that he got mad at you about?"
Tony shrugs. "So much of my life is a haze from that time."
"I don't care, you know," she says. "I got you now."
"You do, you do," he says.
They fall asleep with Pepper being the big spoon as usual.
In the morning, she reaches for her phone and checks her messages. Tony says, "Staycation over," with a sigh.
"I think," Pepper says, "for the next part of our honeymoon, we should go to Bangkok."
"Authentic Thai food," Tony says. "Good plan."
She takes his hand and then kisses his wedding ring. Then she has to go back to her messages. "How long should our honeymoon be?"
"30 days," Tony says. "We have 26 more days to schedule. I think my next opening is a week from now."