Pepper had always been attracted to things that were bad for her. When she was young, the only way her mother could stop her from eating strawberries was not to buy them. Even as an adult, she would sometimes stand in the produce aisle of the grocery store, imagining the sweet juice that would fill her mouth when she bit into one.
When she was sixteen, she would go into stores, take strawberries out of the boxes, and eat them when no one was looking. Her mother was in a constant frenzy, saying that if the rash didn't go away, she'd send Pepper to a dermatologist. Whenever this happened, Pepper would stop for a few weeks, promising herself that it was the end, but she could never quite keep away.
Years ago, before she and Tony had started dating, he'd bought her a box of strawberries as an apology. She'd scolded him for that, but when he wasn't looking, she popped one in her mouth. Maybe this was why she always associated him with strawberries.
Tony was another one of those things that Pepper should never have let herself become attracted to.
Bruce couldn't think, surrounded by this many people. It made no sense from a logical standpoint, but when he looked out of his large window onto Manhattan, he had to take deep breaths in order to steady himself. It was isolating. Everyone walking up and down the streets, feeling no sense of connection to the other people who were also walking up and down the streets. Out here, constantly surrounded by Tony, who was constantly surrounded by the orbit of the city, Bruce couldn't make himself forget how lonely he really was.
Tony liked the idea of stability more than he liked stability in and of itself. Sometimes he thought that if he could just get his shit together, his life would finally start. He could stop killing time and start really living. In practice, though, stability did nothing so much as bore him. The time spent in a shack building his first Iron Man suit had been the most exciting part of his life. Terrifying, yes, but exciting. Obviously, his everyday life couldn't be like that, but it didn't have to be dull.
He tried to be stable for everyone else's sake (not that that ever worked out, really) but sometimes it would hit him that it was all a front. He wasn't stable, and he didn't have it all figured out. In a world where everyone knew where they were going and how they would get there, he was drifting.
It was terrifying, and sometimes Tony thought he would drive himself crazy, but that was exciting, too.
Bruce woke up in a cold sweat, trying to assess his surroundings as quickly as he could. He was under a blanket, so it was unlikely that the Other Guy had just made an appearance, but this definitely wasn't his home.
Oh yeah. Stark Tower.
The dream was always the same. He was the Other Guy, and he saw through His eyes clearly, in a way that he never did in real life. There was a terrifying sense of power, and he knew that if he wanted to hurt somebody, there wasn't a person in this world who could stop him. What was worse was that there was always somebody in front of him, somebody he knew he wanted to hurt.
Arm at an angle, coiled, ready to strike, and when he did…
He always woke up before his fist struck.
Bruce had been at Stark Tower for two weeks now. Maybe it was time to move on.
He got up and stretched, then looked at the clock. 5:11. No point in trying to get back to sleep, then. Instead, he grabbed the sweatshirt from off his floor and pulled it on over his head. He padded through the halls and towards his lab.
Tony was already there, looking at a slide on the microscope. He looked up when Bruce entered the room. "Hey. I was just looking over your results from the last test. You said you weren't sure about sample three, and I think I may have found your problem."
Bruce took in Tony's disheveled clothing and red eyes. "You haven't slept, have you?"
Tony looked back at him. "Couldn't sleep."
"Nightmares?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Yeah."
"Well, pull up a stool and look at this. I think you'll find that you forgot to compensate for the growth factor, which in turn stimulates…"
Pepper woke up alone, and event that was becoming alarmingly commonplace. Tony's side of the bed hadn't even been touched. When he slept, he tossed and turned, to the point where the bed looked like it had been the location of an intense wrestling match. He also hogged the sheets, which Pepper pretended drove her crazy.
"Jarvis, what room is Tony in?"
"Mr. Stark is in the main chemistry lab with Dr. Banner."
"Are they busy?"
"They seem to be."
"I'll leave them alone, then." As always, Pepper replied to Jarvis before remembering that he was a machine, and didn't actually need a response.
She sighed, stretched, and forced herself to get out of bed. "Jarvis, could you pull up my schedule for today?"
"Here you go, Ms. Potts."
There were a few calls to be made, some paperwork, and a meeting with an astronomer named Jane. Pepper had no idea why an astronomer wanted to see her, but this woman was very well respected.
Jane had asked that they meet for coffee, so Pepper put on fresh clothes and lipstick and headed outside. She hailed a cab so as to avoid having to park, and made it to the coffeeshop with ten minutes to spare. She sat down at a table facing the door and waited. Over the course of her time as CEO, Pepper had mastered the art of locating people who were coming in for meetings, even if she'd never seen them before in her life. Jane was no exception, and when she saw her walk in, Pepper stood. "Hi. You must be Jane," she said, extending her hand. "Sorry for the lack of formality, but my secretary neglected to write down your last name for me."
"It's Foster, but you can call me Jane." She shook Pepper's hand, but looked confused.
"I'm Pepper Potts."
"Hello. I, um, I was supposed to meet with the CEO of Stark Enterprise?"
"Yes, that's me. Why don't you sit down?"
Jane sat, and Pepper followed suit. After looking at her warily for a minute, Jane blurted out, "I don't mean to be rude, but I thought Tony Stark was the CEO of Stark Enterprise."
Pepper couldn't stop herself from snorting. "He hasn't been in charge for a while. The morning meeting time should have tipped you off. Tony can't be depended on to be awake at a reasonable hour." Instead, he's up half the night in one of his labs.
"Oh." Jane blinked a few times in quick succession, still looking baffled.
"So, when you called you said you had an important question."
"Yes, it's just—" Jane swallowed, looking nervous. "I'm sorry, I was really hoping Mr. Stark could—"
"I assure you, I'm fully capable of answering any questions you might have." Pepper took a few deep breaths to stem the irritation bubbling inside her, the anger that always arose when someone implied that she wasn't good enough.
"Are you capable of telling me what happened to Thor?" Jane asked, looking her directly in the eye.
Pepper paused. "Oh. You're that Jane."
"Yes."
"He left. He had to take Loki back to Asgard for punishment."
Jane pushed back her hair. "Of course he did. That's what it's all about, isn't it? The noble work of heroes." She stood. "Thank you for your time, Miss Potts."
Tony woke up with Pepper in his arms. Their sleep schedules had been so different lately that this was a rare occurrence, and he savored it, wondering how he'd gotten to be so lucky. There'd been more women in his life then he cared to admit, but she was the only one who mattered. They'd been dating for a year, which was approximately 26 times as long as he next longest, which had been a girl named Marissa, when he was 19.
Tony still remembered the name of every girl he'd ever slept with. Remembering names was a talent of his, and it far exceeded his ability to remember much else.
When he was Sixteen, there had been Heidi, whom he'd slept with mostly because she always hooked him up with the best weed.
At seventeen, there'd been Grace, who'd worked in an indie book store and had a nose ring.
At seventeen and a half, there'd been Victoria, who'd thrown her TV out the window when he dumped her.
At twenty-two, there was Lindsay, who'd run off after a week, stealing a watch that had cost him 1$1,000.
At twenty six, there'd been Rebecca, whom he'd thought he was in love with.
There were others with less interesting stories. He'd slept with a Jill, two Rachels, a Brandon (who had been his first foray in to sleeping with men,) Sarah, Jackson, Lillian, Tamora (who had cried the entire time they were having sex,) Samantha, Tristan, Teagan, Cyrus… well, at any rate, a whole lot of people.
And now, Pepper, who was beautiful and strong and breathtakingly stable. Pepper, who he might be in love with, but how can you tell when you're in love when you're not even sure love's something you believe in?
Truth be told, Tony wasn't nuts about the idea of being in love. This was the most stable relationship he'd ever been in, but that didn't mean he was prepared for anything more permanent.
He leaned over and kissed Pepper lightly on the cheek. She didn't stir, and he looked at the clock. 5:30 AM. Pepper always woke up at 7:00 on the dot, and not even the promise of sex could entice her to wake up earlier. Tony didn't have a regular sleep schedule, and was just as likely to wake up at 4:00AM as he was at noon.
With nothing better to do, he walked into the living room and headed towards the minibar. He set to work making a mimosa. Just as he was putting the final touches on it, Bruce walked into the room.
"Hey," he said. "You're just in time. I was mixing up a mimosa, you want one?"
"Tony, it's 5:30 in the morning."
"Actually, it's 5:37 and twenty-four seconds. And nothing says 5:37 and twenty-four seconds like a mimosa."
"I was thinking more along the lines of a nice cup of coffee.
Tony then noticed the dark circles around Bruce's eyes. "Trouble sleeping again?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. One large cup of coffee coming right up."
After Tony had made the coffee, he and Bruce sat down at the bar together. After a few minutes, Tony asked the question he'd always wanted to know the answer to. "What does it feel like?"
"What does what feel like?"
"You know. When you—when the Other Guy makes an appearance." Normally, Tony wouldn't have used the euphemism, but he knew he was pushing it a little even asking the question. It'd be good not to upset Bruce too much in the asking of the question.
Bruce set down his coffee, but kept his hands around the steaming mug. "It's terrible. You have no idea what it's like to be that powerless. To have this—this thing inside of you, this thing that you can't control."
"I might understand better than you think." You may be fighting to control the Hulk, he thought, but I'm fighting to control Tony Stark, and I can't blame him on a Gamma accident.
"Maybe so, but I doubt it. Tony, has it ever occurred to you that you're the only one of us who has power because they wanted it? None of us chose this except for you. You could maybe argue that Steve wanted it, but that's a grey area at best."
I only chose it because of how badly I needed not to be me.
"No," Tony said tightly. "It's never occurred to me before.
Every time the spoke, Bruce wondered how long it would be before Tony grew tired of him. And it was when, not if, because really, who was he trying to kid? What was Bruce compared to Tony Stark? A joke. A science experiment gone wrong. At best, a novelty. He was Tony's latest project, yes, but Tony never stuck with one project very long to begin with.
He wrapped his hands around his coffee, savoring its warmth and wondered how long it would be before his time would run out and he'd have to leave another place. Maybe he'd go to Greenland next. There was nobody to hurt in Greenland.
Greenland didn't drink alcohol at 5:37 in the morning, or stay up into the night working on experiments.
Greenland wouldn't put Bruce in a position where the only option was getting hurt.
Pepper walked into the room, wearing a bathrobe and bunny slippers. Tony rose and kissed her. "You're up early."
"Jarvis just reminded me that I have to squeeze in an extra meeting this morning. I have to get ready and head out."
"But you're never up early."
"Since when have you been Mr. Consistency?"
Tony pouted, and Pepper kissed his cheek. "I've got to go get dressed. See you tonight?"
"Yes."
Bruce looked away as they kissed good-bye, feeling awkward. He'd always hated people kissing in front of him, and for some reason, Pepper and Tony were the hardest couple to watch. It was too natural, too unselfconscious. To perfect.
Bruce didn't like perfect things.
Once Pepper had left, Tony turned to Bruce. "You know, now that you're living in New York, we should see about getting you set up with a woman."
"No." Bruce's voice came out harsher than he'd intended it to.
"Why not? I'm not planning on hunting down Betty, if that's what you're worried about. What, can you not have sex with anyone without Hulking out?"
Bruce opened his mouth to say that yes, he could have sex, thank you very much, when he realized that there was a more immediate issue that needed addressing. "Betty was—an exception. I don't normally go for women."
Tony was unfazed. "Bruce, this is New York City. I could find you a hot, willing guy like that." He snapped for emphasis. "In fact, tomorrow night I'm taking you to a gay bar. Okay? It's about time you had some fun."
Bruce opened his mouth to protest, but before the words were out of his mouth, Tony had already left the room.
Pepper's meeting wasn't work-related, as she'd implied to Tony. She'd just wanted someone to talk to. It had been a week since her meeting with Jane, and she couldn't get over the fact that Thor's girlfriend was a real person who arranged meetings and drank coffee.
(And how if she turned that around, people probably thought of her, Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Enterprise and allergic to strawberries, as "Tony Stark's girlfriend.")
She couldn't get that thought out of her head, so she did the only thing she could: arranged another meeting.
As soon as Jane walked in the coffeeshop door, Pepper flagged her down. "I'm really not sure why I wanted to talk to you again," she said. "I know it's pretty out of your way."
"Actually, it's not. I'm subbing at NYU this year while their astronomy professor is on sabbatical. Don't worry, I wouldn't fly all the way up from New Mexico just to meet someone for coffee."
"Right. New Mexico."
The sat in silence for a while. Then, Pepper summoned up her courage and said, "I guess I just wanted to know what it's like for you, dating a superhero. I thought we could compare experiences."
Jane snorted. "I'm not really sure I'd say Thor and I were 'dating.' We kissed once, over a year ago, and I haven't seen him since. People romanticize the whole thing. It's like, there's got to be a love interest to perfect the whole superhero package, and the way everyone sees it, that's me. But what about my life? What if I want to date someone else, while he's off fighting evil? What if I don't want to date anyone? It would be considered a betrayal."
Pepper nodded, but her mind was in turmoil. There wasn't a thing Jane was saying that didn't make sense to her.
"It's not like what you and Tony have. I'm sorry if you wanted to talk to someone who understands, but I'm the wrong person for that."
"It's all right." No one could understand, really. Because Pepper wasn't just dating a superhero, she was dating Tony Stark, and that really wasn't something anyone else could understand.
Jane checked her watch. "I've got to go, anyway. I have an 8:30 class to teach, and I'm not finished with prep yet."
The bar was a stupid idea. A stupid place to take Bruce, who didn't do crowds, and really, what had he been thinking? If he'd really wanted to get Bruce laid, Tony should have taken him to a library, or a science convention. Someplace where he could ease up a bit, where he wouldn't be gripping his beer so tightly that Tony was half afraid he would Hulk out at any moment.
"Chill out a little, will you?" he asked impatiently. "You look like you're in a doctor's office waiting to find out whether you have cancer. Incidentally, why don't you have cancer? All that radiation should have done a number on you."
"I don't know," Bruce said, staring into his glass. "All I know is that I don't. I had myself tested pretty thoroughly, after the accident. Maybe the Other Guy has cancer."
"You're not relaxing," Tony said. He slid off his stool in one smooth gesture and reached for Bruce's hand. "Come on, dance with me."
"What?"
"You heard me. Dance with me, Doc. You aren't going to loosen up unless you put yourself out there."
"By dancing with you?" Bruce's face was highly skeptical.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to take advantage of you in your state of helplessness. Now come on!" He looked Bruce in the eye, trying to tell him without words that it was fine.
After a few seconds, Bruce nodded, breaking eye contact. "Okay. One dance. But after that, I'd like to go back to Stark Tower."
"Okay. If that's what you want." Tony led Bruce onto the dance floor and slid his arms around his waist. After a moment's hesitation, Bruce settled his arms on Tony's shoulders.
As Bruce relaxed a little bit, Tony started to move. The music was slow and sensual, the kind of music Tony did best. Someone across the room caught his eye and smiled; Tony winked back.
Then he turned and looked Bruce in the eye, and something shifted between them, something intangible. He considered, briefly, turning and looking away, but he didn't. He didn't so much dismiss the idea as know that it wouldn't work.
Bruce was biting his lower lip, looking adorably nervous, and Tony realized that he wasn't used to dancing with people who were so close to his eye level. And Bruce's lips were so close to him, and Bruce must have noticed this too, because he was turning away.
"Don't," Tony said. "Just relax." And Bruce turned back suddenly, too suddenly, and now their lips were only an inch apart, but Bruce moved in to fill the space between them. And the kiss was slow and sensual, just like the music. Tony leaned in closer, rubbing circles on Bruce's back with his fingers, and Bruce was holding him so tightly, and then, just like that, Bruce was on the other side of the room, further than that, Bruce was running away, and it took Tony a few minutes to gather his mind enough to follow him.
By the time Tony got to the street, Bruce was gone, so Tony caught a cab home as quickly as he could get one, unsure of where else Bruce possibly could have gone.
"Jarvis, where's Bruce?" he asked the minute he stepped into Stark Tower.
"Dr. Banner is in his room packing."
"Christ," Tony said under his breath. He took the elevator up, then ran to Bruce's room, where he was, sure enough, packing a duffel bag.
"What are you doing?" Tony demanded.
"I'm leaving." Bruce almost sounded sure, but a waver in his voice betrayed him.
Tony reached for his hand, then stopped. "I don't accept that. I don't understand. What the hell is going on? Why—"
"Because I stepped way over the bounds of what's okay. Tony, kissing you was the stupidest—"
Tony closed the distance between them and slid his arms around Bruce's waist. Before he could let himself think, he was kissing him again. After a few seconds, he let go and looked Bruce in the eye. "There. Now we've both done something insanely stupid. Will you stay now?"
There was a pause before Bruce nodded mutely.
It was then that Tony remembered about Pepper.
It was just a kiss. It didn't mean anything.
Bruce looked out the window of his bedroom and wished that that he could see more trees.
What the hell was he going to do?
Pepper wasn't stupid. In some ways, she'd known before they did, and she certainly knew once it had happened, no matter how hard they tried to hide it. In a place as large as Stark Tower, it was surprising how difficult it was to keep secrets. Still, she waited. Waited because if Tony had any decency, he should be the one to break up with her, and if he didn't, he didn't deserve to have her coming around making things easier for him. And because she didn't want to believe it, and because maybe it was just a fluke, and everything would work out, and because Pepper was attracted to things that were bad for her, people included.
After a few weeks of watching Tony look away every time Bruce made eye contact, and Bruce dropping whatever he was holding whenever Tony entered the room, Pepper knew she had to do something. For some absurd reason, she wanted to contact Jane again, but that didn't really make sense, so she settled for calling Natasha.
They agreed to get coffee, because Pepper never felt comfortable having people over, not to Stark Tower. Because even though it was supposed to part hers (at least 12%,) it still had Tony's name on the top, marking it as his. Pepper was so goddamn tired of coffee, but she couldn't see any other options.
It wasn't until all of the plans had been made, (really, not until she actually got there) that Pepper realized that she couldn't talk about this. Or maybe she could, but not to Natasha, and quite frankly, there was no one else she could go to. Running Tony's corporation, being Tony's girlfriend, took so much time and energy that many of her outside friendships had fallen to the wayside.
So she ordered her coffee and sat down with Natasha, trying to think of something to say. To her surprise, even without a concrete topic like she had planned, they still found plenty to talk about. Things like Natasha's childhood in Russia, and problems Pepper was facing running Stark Enterprise. And then, bizarrely, they were talking about superpowers.
"Sometimes I feel like Clint and I are just getting in everyone else's way," Natasha said. Her voice was less steely than it normally was, and combined with her wearing street clothes made her seem like a whole different person. Like "alter ego" could mean something even when there wasn't a whole different set of powers involved. Maybe it was even true. "I mean, they can all do incredible things, and we stand around shooting people."
"What would you want to have as a power? If you could pick?" Pepper realized as she was asking that she desperately wanted to know the answer.
"I'd like to be invisible. It'd make elements of my job much easier."
"I think I would fly," Pepper said softly. Escaping sounded so beautiful, so simple, and it didn't even have to be called escape when it happened that way. It could be called freedom, or adventure, or any of those other words that really, when you got down to it, meant escape.
Because what it came down to was that Pepper didn't want to be here anymore.
"Thanks for the coffee," she said to Natasha. "I should go."
"There's something you need to do, isn't there?"
It was strange, but Natasha's eyes were strangely piercing, as if she knew exactly what it was that Pepper needed to do. She nodded. "Yeah. Let's do this again sometime. I'd like to get to know you better."
Natasha nodded. "Definitely. I need someone to help me escape all of the masculine energy I'm constantly surrounded by."
Pepper laughed.
When she got back to Stark Tower, the first thing she did was find Tony. She pulled him aside; told him they needed to talk. As they went to the living room, she looked out the window, feeling the strangest urge to jump out it, as if she would fly.
As if she could escape.
She turned back to Tony and took a deep breath, trying to recreate how sure she'd felt while talking to Natasha. Sure enough that she'd raced back, unwilling to wait for fear she'd change her mind. "This isn't working."
She expected Tony to be confused at her vague wording, but he jumped right in. "Why not?" His gaze was level, but his voice held a challenge.
"Because it isn't. You know it's true. We don't live in the same world." Pepper wondered if maybe she was coming down with a cold. Maybe a bad case of something dreadful, something that would explain why she sounded so fake, explain why her eyes kept flitting to the window as though that were where she really wanted to be. "I can't be in a relationship with someone so unstable."
"Oh, so I'm unstable now?"
"I just meant—you know what, to hell with it. It's true. You move from thing to thing, you're up all hours working in the lab with Bruce—"
Pepper had meant to go on, because yes, this was about Bruce, but it was also that she needed someone who was there for her, not just when they felt like it, and Bruce was a symptom of the problem, not the cause, but she was interrupted. "Oh, so this is about Bruce now? Are you aware that those hours in the lab are building up to what could be an earthshattering breakthrough in the world of sub-atomic particle acceleration?"
"Okay, I don't entirely understand what you just said, but that's not the point. The point is—"
"Yes, tell me. What, exactly, is the point you're trying to make here?"
"I'm trying to tell you, if you would just stop interrupting me!"
Silence fell. After a moment, Tony spoke. "Well? Enlighten me. What were you trying to say, before I so rudely interrupted you?"
"I want us to break up."
Tony just scowled at her for a moment. "Fine."
"Okay." There was an awkward pause, and Pepper felt that she had to fill the space with something. "I have some paper for you to sign regarding your decision not to give a speech to the Boy Scouts of America. Should I bring it by for you tomorrow?" Or do I need to wait a few months until you don't hate me anymore?
"Whatever you want."
"Okay." Pepper left the room and waited at the elevator, unsure of what to do with herself now. She debated getting drunk, but that wasn't what she really wanted. What she wanted was fresh ripe strawberries, allergy be damned. Unable to relieve herself of this craving, she stopped on the way home and bought a box, promising herself she'd just have a few.
She ate the whole thing in one sitting, and woke up a few hours later with a rash so bad that she felt as though she were dying.
Escape, just like everything, had its cost.
Tony didn't even hesitate on his way to the liquor cabinet. By the second drink, he had revised the breakup mentally, making himself the perpetrator. He'd done it because she was holding him back; he'd just let her do the breaking up to make her feel better. After all, it was inconceivable that it could have happened any other way; inconceivable that Tony Stark could be broken up with against his will.
By the fifth drink, he was feeling downright reckless.
Reckless enough to walk (because Tony Stark didn't stumble, no matter what the circumstances, and okay, maybe he tripped a few times, but that was just because he was clumsy, not because he was drunk) into Bruce's room, where Bruce was reading in bed, glasses on, and looking positively adorable.
"Tony—what? What's going on?"
Tony didn't answer, just continued to move forward, until without thinking, he was on the bed, straddling Bruce's thighs and taking the book out of his hands. Kissing him sloppily, until for no good reason he could think of, Bruce pulled away.
"What are you doing? Are you drunk?" Bruce demanded. When Tony didn't answer, he shoved him back. Lacking the coordination he normally would have possessed, Tony fell off the bed. Bruce was now standing over him. "What's going on, Tony?"
"We broke up," Tony said. "Me and Pepper."
Bruce looked at him piercingly. "For good?"
Tony nodded.
Bruce helped him to his feet (which was unnecessary, really, because he was fine, and besides, he hadn't had that much to drink.) On an impulse, Tony leaned in and licked the place where Bruce's shoulder met his neck. "Bed."
"Are you sure?" Bruce had a hungry look in his eyes, and Tony knew that if he said yes and let Bruce take control, everything would be okay, at least for a little while
"I'm sure."
Bruce woke up terrified. Terrified because he didn't know what had happened last night, because, for the first time in years, he was waking up in a bed with another person, and every instinct was telling him to run, run away and never come back.
Simply put, he wasn't willing to have someone trust him, especially someone like Tony. People like Tony were the easiest to hurt, because they considered themselves invincible. If Bruce did anything that proved he couldn't be trusted, Tony would take it twice as hard as someone who expected to be let down.
He needed to get out. Needed to think, and with that in mind, he slid out from under the covers and found his discarded clothes. The walk of shame was twice as awkward leaving his own room, and he didn't have anywhere to go.
He needed trees.
His coat was hanging in his closet. He grabbed it, pulled on his clothes, and all but ran out the door. He thought about taking the subway, but the only way he was going to clear his head would be if he walked.
So he did. All the way to Central Park, and while he did so, he put together a pro-con list in his head. In the pros were that Tony liked him, and that if he left the team now, it would be seen by all of the Avengers as an act of abandonment. Besides, it couldn't be guaranteed that Natasha wouldn't just come after him again.
On the con list was just about everything else.
In the end, the driving force behind his decision to go back was that he really didn't have anywhere else he could go.
END