Title: Redesign This! (chapter 2)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts
Disclaimer: I don't own Pepper Potts or Tony Stark (although I wish I did), or any of the rights to Iron Man…just Jo. She's mine.
She pulled up at the house, curved and sleek and clean. It looked just the way it had eight years ago when she first saw it from the tinted windows of one of Tony's limos. She parked in the drive and walked up to the door. Jarvis sprang to life with a beep, "Hello madam, Mr. Stark has been expecting you." He was greatly improved since she last met him, complete with humanoid voice development.
She smiled, "Thank you, Jarvis."
The foyer, the living room, the bedroom to the left and kitchen behind her. It was the same layout, but the furniture was all new, beige, white, and streamlined and small quarter-circle stations glowed blue on the corner walls.
"Tony?"
No one answered. The house seemed deserted. "Jarvis?" she asked, "where is Tony?"
"Mr. Stark is currently at Stark Industries plant number four."
The house was deserted. She dropped her bag in the foyer and looked around. If the workshop was still in the basement she might be able to get started anyway. Tiptoing her way down the stairs, she met the familiar glass pane doors. From there, everything looked different. The benches had been moved and mechanical arms had been installed, looming like cranes over the worktables. She pined to get inside and look over all the upgrades.
There was a new glass keypad to her right, and she systematically tried all the old passwords. None worked. She stood outside the workshop longingly, and somewhere deep insider cursed Tony for his tendency for vague appointments.
"Jarvis, can you let me in?"
"I'm sorry madam, but this area is restricted."
She sighed and went back upstairs.
The house was almost sterile in its modern deco, but the waterfall made pleasant gurgles that echoed off the walls. It was nice enough, but it made her miss her apartment. She had always found it hard to work in Tony's stark environment, but that was half the joke, wasn't it?
She perused the house nonchalantly, peeking through all the old rooms, and then grabbing a beer from the fridge and lounging on the couch to wait for Tony to come back.
But it was Pepper who got there first. Jo had been sitting for about two hours, plucking on the electric guitar in the corner and surfing Tony's music collection, when the door clicked open and the clack of heels came from the foyer. She looked up, startled at being caught in the act, and waited like a deer in headlights for Pepper to see her, but she didn't.
"I need one order of
Kung Po chicken and fried rice, and two egg rolls. Extra soy sauce.
Thank you." She tapped the headphone in her ear and dropped the
paper bags she was carrying on the kitchen counter. Huffing, she
turned around to see a woman, wide-eyed, sitting on the sofa,
casually slinging Tony's guitar. She almost screamed, but first she
whipped out her pepper spray and yelled, "Don't move!"
"Hi."
Pepper blinked, her defensive stance lessened. "Jo?"
"Um," Jo stood up and put the guitar back on the stand. She wavered for a moment, realizing the beer had hit her a little harder than she intended, and that she had forgotten to eat that morning. "Did Tony tell you I'd be coming by?"
"Are you alright?" Pepper put down the spray and hurried over to grab Jo's arm.
"Yeah, just, woah, a little woosey." She lowered herself back onto the sofa.
"Let me get you some water." As she wandered to the kitchen, Pepper called back over her shoulder, "Tony didn't say anything about you coming," the skepticism in her voice was palpable, "but I suppose he must have made some appointment for Jarvis to have let you in." She crossed to one of the corner stations and clicked the keys, muttering, "I wish he'd tell me when he does this."
Jo pressed her forehead, "He came over to my apartment last week and asked me for help on a project."
"Oh," Pepper clicked the station back into dormancy and crossed to hand her the water. "He's at the offices today."
"It's alright, I can wait." Jo took a few sips, feeling better immediately.
"I can't say when he'll be back, but you know him as well as I do."
Jo looked up as Pepper walked back towards the kitchen, "How've you been? You look good."
"Thank you, I'm alright. And you?" She paused, "Sabotage paying off?"
Jo sighed, "Get it out. You're angry, Tony's angry, the whole fucking company is angry. I did what I thought I had to do. I didn't stop anything, so there. No harm done. Get over it."
"Why did you say Tony invited you?" Pepper turned, giving Jo a piercing eye.
"He wanted help redesigning the reactor in his chest," she spat the words, like a key to a revealed secret.
"I see," Pepper turned back to the bags and began extracting a pile of small brown boxes. The women were silent until Pepper crossed the room with an armful of the boxes. "Do you want into the workshop? Come on."
Jo hopped up and followed the click of Peppers heals with the soft squeak of her Converse. Pepper tapped the keypad one handed and the door slid away. The immediate hum of machinery hit Jo, soft but pervasive.
Pepper set down the boxes in a pile one a nearby table and walked over to the workstation surrounded by screens. Bending down where Jo couldn't see, Pepper incited a whirr of machinery, then a soft clang, and rose with the blue glow of a miniature arc reactor showing between her fingers.
"Here's one of the extras. It's smaller than the one he has right now, but it should operate the same way."
Jo took the reactor from her tentatively, and Pepper closed the safe. "He uses the workstation over to the left," she pointed, "You can look over it now. I'll inform Tony you're hear when he arrives." She turned to leave.
"Thank you."
Pepper glanced back, "Hm," and clicked back up the stairs.
The beer was wearing off, and the glowing of the reactor intrigued Jo into focus. She sat at the workstation and analyzed the design. It was almost completely different from the full-scale model, and the fact that she could hold it in her hand testified to its compact power. She was almost afraid of taking it apart. If it operated the same way as a full size reactor, who knew what kind of explosion it could produce.
"Jarvis?" she asked, half expecting no answer.
"Yes madam."
"Does Tony have plans for the miniaturized reactor on his servers?"
"Yes madam."
"Can I see them?"
"I'm sorry, you are not authorized to access that information."
"Dammit." She didn't like working here. There was so much unidentified clutter, and Jarvis made her nervous in his new form (and even in his old one). She felt as if was laughing at her behind his interface-façade. Instead, she turned her focus back to the reactor.
After about an hour of examining the structure and the output, she was pretty well aware of how it worked. It was genius. All unnecessary parts were discarded, and it ran more efficiently than she could have imagined. It was as if she'd fallen into some alternate universe were utopian products were real. It was beautiful.
But it had to have a byproduct. She knew why it produced a plasmic discharge, and while the volume was less in a smaller model, she would have to redesign half of it to make it stop.
"Hey," she jumped. Tony came around behind her and looked over at the reactor. She hadn't even heard the door whirr open. "Pepper said you were here. Also that you helped yourself to a beer."
"Maybe I wouldn't have to if you kept appointments."
"What'd you figure out?"
"It's a nice design. I could power my whole apartment on this thing."
"What about the plasma?"
"You'd half to redesign it all. Or most of it. What do you want it to discharge? It'll have to be something. Hydrogen and water are big right now."
She turned around to look at him, and he twitched a smile and slid into the chair next to her.
"I can't compromise the design. It has to have the same energy output."
"The thing puts out energy like a nuclear power plant, do you really need that much just to power an electromagnet?"
"Short answer; yes."
She looked at him, he was hiding something. "Is it the suit? It's how you power the suit, isn't it? I'm not naïve."
"Looks like my big secret's out." The corner of his mouth twitched, "What can you do about the plasma?"
The Kung Po chicken was re-heated after an afternoon in the refrigerator and Jo sat feet up on the workstation, shoveling noodles from a box. Tony was leaning against the table, scooping the middle out of an egg roll with a pair of chopstick. They had been crowded around the screened workstation for hours analyzing diagrams.
"Maybe we're just thinking about it too much. Would an output valve work better to remove it? You've have to empty it periodically, but you could keep the same energy output."
"I don't like it."
"Well goddamnit, I don't know if we can keep this design. The discharge is intrinsic to the way it runs. You know that."
"I thought as someone who helped build the original, you'd know we can do any damn thing we want."
"You can't defy the laws of energy conservation."
Tony had been staring at the screen. Now he dropped the roll into the trash and wiped his hands. Picking up a stylus, he transferred one of the designs to a holographic display when Pepper came down the stairs. She crossed the shop, "I'm going home. I need you to sign off on two Intellicrop orders." She handed him a clipboard and he scrawled a signature nonchalantly on the bottom.
"Already? What time is it?" He tapped the pen and handed it back to her.
"Almost ten," she replied, hiding a yawn with her arm. "You have a meeting at noon tomorrow with the shareholders. Do not be late for this one, please." She looked at him with a tired, pleading look.
"What, you don't trust me?" he smiled at her.
"No, not so much," there was a tension between them for a moment, and Jo watched as they stood a little apart. Tony wasn't smiling, but looking intently at a spot just above Pepper's eyes. Suddenly the mood broke and Pepper turned the clipboard back around. Tony blinked, "Is that all?"
"That's all. Goodnight Mr. Stark."
"Goodnight Miss Potts." Pepper turned, nodded to Jo, and clicked back up the stairs out of the workshop.
Jo whistled and leaned forward, "You have a thing for her."
Tony shook his head and turned back to her, unfolding his arms from the position he was in as he watched Pepper leave.
"What are you talking about, it's just friendly conversation. Completely professional."
Jo snorted and leaned back in the chair, feet propped on the table, "Yeah, looks like it."
"You're being irrational-"
"You've never had sex with her, have you?" Jo threw up an eyebrow over her glasses.
Tony fumbled with the stylus he was using and Jo laughed. "You haven't! You have it for her bad."
"She's my assistant-"
"Like that has ever stopped you. You can't be around a woman for ten seconds before imagining being on top of her. I'm surprised it took you this long."
Tony got up close to her face, "Well I could always imagine myself on top of you."
Jo snorted, "Oh, that's one of your worst pickup line yet," and cupping his face in her hands, she kissed him, moving to press her body against his. "She hates me, you know," she whispered in his ear.
Tony pulled away and looked at her, "You're kidding."
"You don't see the malice?" She kissed him on the cheek, "sorry Tony, but not tonight. I'd better go too." She kicked her feet off the table and rose.
He grabbed her around the waist, but she stiffened. "C'mon, not tonight."
He drew back, "You sure?"
"Yes." He seemed surprised, and a little sad, and she began to worry about what she was doing, but Tony was a big boy and could handle himself. "I'll be back again tomorrow, bright and early." She furrowed her eyebrows at him and then, "Get some sleep."
Tony left her at the door, feeling alone for the first time in recent memory. He didn't want to think about Pepper. Back in the workshop he grabbed a beer and sat down in front of the screens, letting the diagrams rotate in front of his vision, and tried not to think about the petiteness of Peppers hands.
