Three hours later dinner was being set up. The dining room had a modern style with three tall windows letting in the fading light. They hadn't heard anything from Carmen. The table was set, courtesy of the robotic butler's, Pepper and Tony had sat down, and the food was brought out. Still no sign of Carmen. "Maybe she forgot." Pepper said as the food was brought out. "Jarvis, did you tell Carmen that dinner was ready?"
"Yes, Ms. Potts I did, and she said 'That's impossible because it's not dinner time.' Than she accused me of trying to 'get her back' from messing with my voice controls than she apologized."
"Well there you go." Tony said as he started eating his wonton soup.
"Are you sure you thought about taking in this teenager thoroughly? Because I know-"
"Thanks Jarvis, that's enough." Pepper cut him off. Her face was grim as she mixed in her Italian dressing into her garden salad. "Maybe we should go down there and get her."
Tony gave an exasperated sigh. "Look, if she wants to come down here and eat than she will. So let's leave it at that."
They ate their dinner and at six o'clock desert came out, and so did Carmen. She looked confused when she saw them.
"Carmen," Pepper said in surprise. "I'm glad that you finally came out."
"You guys eat dinner weird." She said as she sat down.
"How can you eat dinner weird?" Tony sat said scooping some whipped cream on his maple butter pecan blondie.
"You guys eat desert first, that's weird. Every time I or Drina suggest we eat desert first Sunshine said that you always eat the main course first than you may eat desert. So eating the main course first is normal and any deviation of normal is weird. So you two eating desert first is weird." A robot butler came out carrying a huge tray with a variety of foods on it and set it in front of her.
"Carmen we already had our dinner. You were late, so we ate." Tony replied.
She gave him a brief glare, "You rhymed that on purpose." she looked at the food choices. "You guys are rude for not waiting on me." she chose the baked duck and crab rolls.
"We'll I'm sorry-" Pepper started but was interrupted by Tony. "You can't accuse us of being rude if you were late for dinner, Jarvis told you when we ate and you decided not to show up."
"You eat dinner at six o'clock!" Carmen said looking a little angry. "That's the time Sunshine set up to eat dinner. Every day at six o'clock you eat dinner unless we're having a mission or are forced to deviate from it due to unforeseen events. So you two were the rude ones and didn't wait for me!"
"Your not autistic!" Tony started to shout. "You don't need a set schedule! When we eat dinner is when we eat ******* dinner! It doesn't matter if it's six, seven, or five in the morning. So ,**** it ,when your told to come and eat that's when you come down here to eat!"
Pepper stood up. "Okay, well I think that's enough of that. Carmen, would you mind eating in your room tonight, I need to talk to Mr. Stark." Carmen and Tony had their eyes locked into a glare. She slowly stood up, grabbing her plate and only looked away when she had to turn to exit threw the door. Without a word and a scowl present on her face, she left the room and headed out the door.
Pepper gave a stern gaze to Tony. "Tony-!
"Pepper!"
She sighed and placed a hand over her face. "Maybe this was a mistake..." She murmured.
"Ya, think?" Tony stood from the table causing the chair to crash down behind him.
She removed her hand. "No. Okay, we have to do this. One way or another your going to have to learn to live with her."
"I don't have to do anything!"
Pepper knew that this argument was going to drag out for a long time. She recognized Tony's tone of voice and they way his face was set in aggravation and anger. If I don't end this now we're going to have one of those all night arguments again.
"You know what Tony..." She lifted her hands up and pulled her ponytail tighter. "I'm going to my room. I have to ,yet again, fly out to the Stark Expo for some pressing matters involving publicity issues. I'll need to leave early in the morning, Rhody agreed to come out and help you with Carmen. A SHIELD agent will be here in the afternoon to check on you. So goodnight Mr. Stark."
She turned and walked away. "Pepper-" Tony called, but she walked through the dining room door without a word and it closed behind her with a swish.
One of the robot butlers came in and pulled the chair up and politely waited for Tony to move out of its way. Tony stood there for a moment before finally heading for his room. He showered and got into his Pj's and laid down on his bed thinking about what Pepper had said.
"One way or another your going to have to learn to live with her."
Learn to live with her. How on ******* earth am I going to learn to live with her? He didn't want to figure this out right now, or ever for that matter. But know matter how he tried he just couldn't shake it off. There was no way he could ever learn to live with some stuck-up-mutant-freak- teenager who couldn't eat dinner at a different time.
He finally managed to drop it before falling asleep. His dreams were filled with images of living with Carmen for the rest of his life.
{*}
Two things. Thing One) I do not mean to insult autistic kids or people when I mentioned that. I just thought that it would fit. I know of a couple of autistic people and another with severe mental deficiancies, I still love them and I would get mad if anyone insulted them. So please take no offense if someone close to you id autistic.
Thing Two) The reason this up date took so long [I had no intention of making my fans suffer like this] is because my computer crashed. Luckily my data was saved. [I would of cried if it wasn't] So I have not and will not abandon this story and continue to try and write it. There is school so my progress will be slower, but I will still have progress. SO I hope you enjoyed it and please, please please rate and reveiw it. I've resulted to begging...so please review! :)
