A/N: I saw this post: wittywallflower. tumblr post/96543130386/nominominus-bigbarawolf-butterpaint-lol and couldn't resist making a fic out of it. So enjoy! Take the spaces out of the link to see the post.
Tony had no idea why he hired the girl. She was young, sure. Probably pretty. But it was difficult to tell behind the ill-fitting clothes and thick glasses and long hair. Maybe that was why. Since Pepper was CEO now, he needed some sort of assistant to make sure that he was breathing and ate and went to all the meetings he needed to go to. And he really didn't need a hot assistant distracting him, and so she would do. And she actually made decent coffee and let him eat unhealthy things like pizza as long as he ate a salad every now and then. Plus Pepper yelled at him less for missing meetings, which gave them time for things that were far more pleasurable. All in all, he felt good about his choice in a PA.
He was working in his lab, as usual, when she showed up for the day. Normally, he probably wouldn't have even looked up when she started talking, but she sounded different today, even he could tell that much. Shaken, almost, and when he looked up, he could see why. She looked entirely different. Her hair had been chopped to a length that was almost a bowlcut. In fact, it seemed like that was what she'd done. And she was wearing a suit that looked as though it had probably been handed down from a brother or some man that was much larger than she was, so it hung oddly in the wrong places. Her glasses were still there, but the haircut just made them even worse, although her brown eyes were now huge. He gaped at her for a few moments, and then realized the silence was getting awkward, even for him.
"What are you wearing? And what the hell did you do to your hair?" He asked, dropping the wrench he was holding onto the worktable as he turned to stare at her more fully. A blush rose on her face, and he swore she was shaking.
"S-sir, I-I, just feel more...comfortable like this. I-I understand if you're upset...I hope you can take me serious like you d-did when I w-wore a skirt...please?" Her voice cracked at the end and he narrowed his eyes, looking her over again before shaking his head, wiping his hands on a rag.
"No one will take you seriously." He said softly, looking up when a small noise escaped her throat, rather like a whimper. He imagined that she had gotten several negative reactions with this choice already. "Not while you're wearing that suit! Where'd you get it? It doesn't fit you at all!" He shook his head, tossing the rag and pushing himself away from the workbench.
"Cancel all my appointments, we're going shopping. And getting you a decent haircut, because I died a little when I saw that hair, I can't have a PA that looks like that! Are you getting hormones? Or surgery? I'll buy you the best dick in Manhattan, trust me on this. JARVIS, find me the best surgeon, and tell Happy to bring the car around. Oh, and text Pepper for me, tell her I'm busy and I can't make lunch." He shot off rapid-fire, taking the papers from her arms and setting them on a random workbench before steering her out of the lab. She was stammering again, but whatever it was, wasn't comprehensible.
The rest of the day was a whirlwind of shopping, stylists, and he took great pleasure in buying her contacts and more stylish glasses than the ones that she was wearing. And at the end of the day, he found himself strangely satisfied by the smile on her face.