Author's Notes at the end.
Chapter 2: Red Mist
Mr Stark, Ms Potts has returned.
Tony's hands froze in the midst of straightening his tie. "What? She's not supposed to be back for another hour. Check her schedule, Jarvis."
Sir, confirmed, Ms Potts' calendar shows her engaged at the Opera Support tea until 1630. However, she has entered the building and is enroute to level nine.
Tony snatched up his jacket and ran. She beat him to the door by five seconds.
"Pep! Good to have you back." Tony bustled past the quartet of SHIELD agents, three of them rising to their feet from the chairs where he'd deposited them fifteen minutes ago to change his suit. Again. Pepper smiled at him and lifted her chin to peck him on the cheek.
"Fire alarm at the Met. They threw us all out and Mrs Cohen will reschedule the tea. You look very nice, good to see you in that suit." She brushed at his shoulder, where he damn well knew there was no lint. "What are they here for?"
"They? Oh, you know Agent Hill, don't you?" He had Pepper's elbow now, gently ushering her past the agents, the light on its telescope stand, and the backdrop sheet with the SHIELD emblem prominently displayed. And Barton, still sitting in the corner and staring over folded hands.
"Oh, yes, hello, so nice to see you again." Pep shook hands with Hill, who unbent enough to smile back.
"And that's Agent Blackmon, there, and you – gear-totting guy, what's your name again?"
"Agent Nguyen, sir."
"Agent Nguyen, welcome." And so Pep shook hands with the gear-totting agent, who had less neck than most of Fury's goons, and with the diminutive Agent Blackmon, who kept one hand on the bulky and very expensive looking camera slung around her neck.
"So, do you have everything you need?" This was Helpful Pep, being Helpful. Which he did not need. "Can I help you with – what is it that you're here for? Hello, Agent Barton." Barton nodded back across the room. "Tony, quit pulling on my arm." He stopped. Pepper had her knees locked, and Agent Blackmon and Agent Gear were both swallowing hard under his fiancée's bright smile.
"Official SHIELD business honey, no big deal. Just some photo stuff."
Which was the exact wrong thing to say, because Pep then turned her glare on Hill, who must have had her knees locked as well, because she wasn't backing up, even if the expression on her face said she might want to. "Photos? Official SHIELD photos? How interesting. I'm sure this isn't anything that could be related to promotional activities, Agent Hill, because I clearly remember discussing licensing terms and contracts for Iron Man's image with Agent Fury, and scheduling, and this particular engagement did not clear –"
"Ms Potts, we are not here to –"
"Pep, it's not a promo shoot, look at me, I'm not even in the suit, see?"
"- and we came at Mr Stark's express invitation –"
Which he did not want to get into. "Yes, yes, I asked them to come, can't I invite people to my own house without you blowing a fuse over it?"
"Our house, Tony Stark."
"Twelve percent."
"Twelve percent mine, which makes it ours -"
"Okay, fine, our house, you're absolutely right, but can't I invite people over? Without turning it into another ginormous intergalactic incident?" Which he would give anything for right now. Along with three fingers of whiskey.
And even the thought of the liquor in a glass, falling over the ice, worked a miracle of inspiration. "In fact, you know, now that you're here, why don't we get a few snaps of you, too, honey?" He turned to the SHIELD trio – Hill dubious, Blackmon with raised eyebrows, Agent Gear with his face carefully blank – and said, "We can do that, right? That won't be a problem? Unless you kids have someplace to be?"
Gear stayed blank. Blackmon shook her head. Agent Hill frowned. "No, Mr Stark, you're our last stop for the day. But I'm not sure –"
"I am. I would like Ms Potts to have her photograph taken, same as you're doing for the rest of – for me. Is that okay?"
"Same as who, Tony?"
"The Avengers, Pep, it's a team thing. That's okay, right? Right?"
Hill opens her mouth, but before she can speak, Barton's voice cuts across the room.
"Sure. She's as likely to need it as any of the rest of us."
"Need what?" Pepper's voice was still icy, but Tony could hear the shrill rising under the anger. "We have professional photographers – no offense, Ms Blackmon –" And that was a sign of how angry Pepper was, that she started insulting people by accident. The little agent's face had gone to stone. "- and I'm quite sure we can provide SHIELD with superior photos for whatever -"
"Not this." Barton's voice cut across the room. "Not for this, Ms Potts." He shrugged his way out of the chair – it was a good chair, very comfortable, Tony's favorite in this room – and strolled across the room to stand at Hill's elbow. Hill, for once, seemed glad to have the sniper there.
"Damnit, will someone tell me what this is?"
"It's just a photo -" Tony's voice overlapped with Hill's, but Barton over rode them both.
"Red mist pics."
Pepper stared. So did Hill. Barton shrugged. "Everyone in SHIELD gets them, every year or so."
Pepper shook her head. "I don't understand."
Hill broke in. "They're a contingency option, ma'am. In case – "
"In case there's nothing left of you to scrape together into a coffin, and they need a good photo for the memorial service." Barton's voice was flat, noninflected, and he did not look away from Pepper. "You'd think, with cameras everywhere, that everyone would have some sort of decent image saved somewhere." He shrugged again. "Lots of kids, all they have are cell snaps from Daytona Beach." He extended a hand toward the photographer. "Ms Potts, this is Agent Kelly Blackmon, formerly of US Army Combat Camera. She'll do right by you."
Pepper didn't say anything for nearly a full minute. Then she said, quietly, "I'd like to change my earrings, please." She slipped her arm from Tony's grasp, warned him off with a shake of her head, and strode off toward her dressing room.
Barton watched her go until Tony cleared his throat. When Barton turned, there was a quirk on his lips and an unapologetic look to his eye. Tony scowled. Barton grinned and sauntered back to his seat.
Tony shot out his arms, adjusted his cufflinks. "Agent Hill, can we do this?"
Hill sighed, gestured at the photographer. "All yours, Agent Blackmon."
She'll do right by you, Barton said, and the little photographer did. She fussed with the lamps, took out her light meter and made Agent Gear pull the shades. Then she had Tony stand with his feet on tape marks she had put on the floor, and put his shoulders back, and tilt his head. No, more. More. Stop. Too far.
"Oh, come on, enough already."
"Mr Stark, just another one."
"You said that already." God, next Blackmon was going to say don't pout.
Instead, it was Pepper's voice, from behind him, by the elevator. "Quit sulking, Tony. Don't you want to look your best?"
He'd missed the door opening, and resisted the urge to turn around. Or answer. Because what he wanted to say was not for this - never for this, he was never going to need this, he was going to die at ninety with his third liver transplant and the arc reactor still going strong and he would not need this.
The little photographer hefted the camera, braced an elbow against her side. Stark noticed her left hand, then – the surface of the skin tight and shiny, the color just a little off. The way the last two fingers don't, quite, grip the side of the camera, but instead hung in space. Blackmon had, he noted, no fingernails on that hand.
She snapped the picture, another, brought the camera down. "There. Perfect. Ms Potts, we're ready for you."
And Pepper was ready for them – the same dress she had been wearing, a clear green jade that made her hair look like gold, made her look radiant, rather than hot as hell, but with the earrings he had bought for her, personally, in an airport in Rio, six or seven years ago, because he had forgotten to tell her to buy herself something nice, and a good boss doesn't forget his personal assistant's birthday. The heavy stones didn't match the necklace, he thought, but they went with the trim on the dress and the necklace went with the dress and he guessed that was good enough.
Barton, standing at Hill's elbow again, whistled low and quiet.
Tony ignored him, smiled at Pepper, and held her hand as Blackmon fussed at the lamp again, twisting it this way and that, and sending Agent Gear to pull another set of drapes down.
As Blackmon stood there, fingers resting on the lampshade, Tony gestured at Blackmon's hand, at the scar disappearing inside her shirt sleeve. "Where did you get that? On the carrier? When – with –" he waved his hand, encompassing an event greater than the circle of the horizon – "Loki?"
She smiled at him, thin and young and cute and damn-it-all-to-hell young. "No, that was before. In Iraq."
Oh. "I was in Afghanistan." Because it seemed the sort of thing one said. "Not – not in the army." Never in uniform. Not as a part of a team. Not then.
"I know. I heard."
She lifted the camera again, gestured with the shiny hand at Tony. He stepped obediently out of the shot and watched Pepper smiling at the lens.
end chapter 2
Title: Contingency Operations (Part 2: Red Mist)
Summary: "Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on." Three ways SHIELD keeps momentum going. Post Avengers movie, some spoilers.
Category: Gen, Bob. Tony/Pepper. Some Blackhawk.
Characters: Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, OFC, OMC.
Disclaimer: Not mine, and I swear, they were broken when I found them. Thanks to Flora for beta.
