Story: In My Dreams
Author: saichick
Challenge: Pepperony 100
Theme: 060 - Dreams
Rating: PG - 100% pure Pepperoni fluff
Timeline: IM2
Musical inspiration: "In My Dreams," sung by Robert Downey Jr.,
link: .com/watch?v=JmKIF6UtbdY (yes, that really is RDJ singing)
Preview: Tony is still trying to convince Pepper to be his superhero girlfriend. Can he woo her with a song?
Ever since the night he hesitated at the opera house, Tony Stark had been kicking himself. Wiley Coyote with his ACME boot-kicker had nothing on him. If he could have programmed Dummy to hold a boot and kick him in the butt with the proper "I missed the roadrunner, now I'm going to kick myself" motion, he would have done so. If ONLY he hadn't hesitated, had given Pepper the long, passionate kiss he had often dreamed of giving her over the years, he wouldn't be in this predicament. Unfortunately, the sudden realization that Pepper had feelings for him (real feelings, not just the lets-get-drunk-and-have-sex-kind) had left him paralyzed. Him, Tony Stark, merchant of death, defender of the free world, superhero and Iron Man, had become paralyzed with fear. He had leaned in to kiss her, but by then Pepper had pulled back and he lost his chance. He'd tried numerous times to broach the subject with her since then, but Pepper wouldn't discuss it. All of his attempts to woo her had fallen flat on the unflappable mask of her Miss Potts persona.
Pepper had been less than pleased with him lately. He had been trying to tell her how he felt (and also that the arc reactor was killing him, but first he wanted to tell her how he felt about her) in a thousand small ways, but no matter what he did, there was always some miscommunication and Pepper would just end up angry. Tony had never had to pursue a woman before, heck, had never failed at anything he had put his mind to, so this constant rejection had him perplexed. Whatever it was that he was doing wrong, he knew he kept messing up in a big way!
A search of human mating rituals in JARVIS's database suggested women turn to goo when men wrote songs about them. His mother, Maria Stark, a Julliard-trained musician, had taught him to play the piano. That was it, he'd write Pepper a song telling her how he felt!
"JARVIS, I need a little guidance here," he stated. "Compile a list of all songs telling a girl you're crazy about her."
"That is over a million songs, Sir," JARVIS replied. "How would you like me to categorize them? Alphabetical by name? Date written? Lyrics? Style?"
"List songs that the guy gets the girl in the end?" said Tony. "Only songs from the last 50 years or so, I don't want to be grunting Gregorian chants or anything like that."
"I have cross-referenced the database of movies with happy endings with love songs, Sir," stated JARVIS. "I am displaying them on the plasma television now."
For the next several hours, Tony watched video clips of movies where the guy gets the girl in the end. He liked the heavy metal ones where the guy would put his feelings into a long steel guitar solo, but JARVIS nixed that idea. "Pepper," JARVIS observed, "is always turning down your music, Sir. I don't think she'd be moved by heavy metal. Might I suggest either a love ballard or something jazzy?"
"My mother used to play jazz," Tony stated. "Maybe a jazz piece. JARVIS, help me come up with a suitable jazz song to tell Pepper how I feel."
Within minutes, an obnoxious techno-pop/jazz cacophony was blasting out of the loudspeakers along with JARVIS's mechanical voice singing lyrics about how much Tony liked Peppers legs. "Stop, stop, STOP!" Tony shouted. "What kind of song is that? Even –I- know that song is going to offend her."
"Sir, I am just repeating comments you have made over the years that indicate you find Miss Potts attractive. I am but a computer," JARVIS stated. "Might I suggest you replace the piano you broke testing the Mach 2 prototype and compose a song yourself?"
"Can you handle it for me, JARVIS?" he requested. "Research the best piano in the world and get one delivered here no later than 2:00 this afternoon."
"Consider it done, Sir."
Several hours later, he heard the doorbell ring upstairs and a moving van full of burly men asked to speak to Mr. Jarvis. Tony didn't bother to explain that JARVIS was an artificial intelligence who had spoken to them over the phone, he just signed for the bill and told them to put it in the corner. His fingers were hesitant on the keys at first. It had been a while since he had played and his taste tended to run towards party tunes. After a few hours, however, he was able to reach down into some deep reserve of feeling he hadn't known he possessed and caress a tender little jazz accompaniment out of the ivories.
"That –is- rather pleasant, Sir," JARVIS stated. "I believe it will do the trick. When will you play it for her?"
"Tonight," he stated, "she's supposed to stop by the mansion for me to review some ideas she has as the new CEO. I'll play it for her then. Dummy, I want you to put a bottle of champagne on ice for Pepper. Butterfingers, where did you put the candles?"
Tony's wasn't sure how to put on his best performance. Making this level of emotional revelation was a first for him and butterflies churned in his stomach, so he opted to nonchalantly sit at the piano and pretend he had been playing for many hours (actually, he had been playing for many hours) when Pepper arrived. He lit the fireplace, placed numerous lit candles around the room, and had the wine chilling on ice on top of the piano. Pepper was late, of course, but the moment he heard her car pull up the driveway he began to play some background music.
"Tony," she called as she walked in the door. "Oh, you replaced the piano!"
Tony looked up at her, his dark eyes glistening with intensity, and acknowledged, "yeh, I did."
"Well, I just need you to sign these things, and then I'll get out of your hair so you can play," Pepper stated. Her demeanor was hurried, and harried. Being CEO of Stark Industries obviously had her stressed out.
"Sit with me awhile, Pepper," Tony asked quietly, staring into her large, blue eyes. He nodded towards the bottle sitting in a bucket of ice at the end of the Bosendorfer. "There's some wine chilling in the bucket for you."
"I probably shouldn't…" she hesitated. "What I really need is to get some sleep."
Tony's lips twitched up into a little smile which reached all the way up into his eyes. "Stay, Pepper, take a load off your feet and just relax a little while."
Pepper had walked in the door with every intention of leaving as quickly as possible, but something in his eyes stopped her. She hadn't seen his dark gaze glisten with that intensity since the night they had danced. She felt the ground shift beneath her into unsafe territory, and her heart skipped a couple of beats. This was a side of Tony she had never seen. She poured herself a glass of wine and sat down on the couch. She watched, captivated, as Tony closed his eyes and began to sing:
In my dreams you told me that you really really care It seems that dreams are sometimes make believe
In my dreams you told me it's a love that can't compare
So hold me, hold me, hold me, and never ever let me go
But now I know oh that they are real
For in my dreams you said you love me
And in reality you love me, love me, too
Pepper felt a curious, pleasant tingling sensation rise up from her toes all the way up to her scalp as she smiled. Every couple of verses, Tony would open his eyes and look into her eyes her as if he was singing the words to her, words of dreams and love. She realized she had forgotten to breathe and inhaled.
When Tony had finished the song, he paused and gave her that intense stare. His eyes sparkled in the candlelight and it took every ounce of strength she had to break his gaze and stare demurely at her feet. There she was, going all weak in the knees over her handsome boss again. "That was nice," she observed. "What song was it?"
"I wrote it. For you," he simply stated, still examining her for … something … with his intense dark gaze. He kept his face unreadable, but inside his emotions were anything but calm. Would she laugh at him? Would she fluff off his feelings as inconsequential and leave? He waited for some acknowledgement that she understood what it was he was trying to tell her.
She looked nervous to him (Pepper always twirled her hair when she was nervous), but when she raised her gaze from the floor she was trying to compose her features behind the Miss Potts mask. "Tony, I…." she stammered.
Just then, Nick Fury burst in the front door with Hogan protesting loudly at his heels. "Tony," Nick bellowed. "We need Iron Man to go on an urgent mission to Afghanistan. Three Jericho missiles have been located in Nangarhar province and we have intel Al Quaida plans to launch them at Jalalabad within 24 hours."
Tony reluctantly broke his gaze with Pepper. This was something that couldn't wait. He wasn't certain, but he could swear the emotions he saw on Peppers face weren't rejection. He'd just have to see how things went when he got back.
Forty-five minutes later, the robotic assistants strapped on the last piece of armor and Iron Man sped off to save the world.