Title: Found - Chapter Two of Tight Coupling
Rating: T
Pairing: Tony/Pepper -ish, movieverse
Summary: Tony finds the pantry.
Disclaimer: Marvel owns Iron Man. Not me. I'm only playing in their fantastic universe.
Chapter Two - #77 – Found
"I am Iron Man. I am freaking Iron Man!" he thought. "I have the ability to shoot missiles off my shoulders and I can fly so fast I make the Air Force want to cry, so why am I hiding?"
Tony Stark was currently inside his pantry. A pantry he didn't actually know existed until about an hour ago. He had ducked in there after he realized that the news was replaying one particular scene of the robbery that he'd disrupted and that Pepper had probably seen it and in a moment of self-preservation he decided to make himself scarce. Actually, he was more concerned about the fact he'd missed his own board meeting that he'd called...
Hence the pantry.
All in all it was a very nice pantry. Well-stocked. And because he was Tony Stark it was rather large. However like most pantries, after the eating cereal out of the box and pondering the existence of three cans of tomato soup (seriously, the stuff only tastes good when you've got a head cold), the thrill was gone and Tony was trying to talk himself into leaving the pantry and facing the music.
It wasn't really working. He decided to try humming.
When Pepper arrived at the Stark mansion she was immediately drawn to the pantry where a fairly respectable rendition of 'Eye of the Tiger' was being performed. She stood in front of the closed doors and waited until the end.
When it was finished she said, "The pantry Tony? Really? You have a flying suit at your disposal and the best you can come up with is the pantry?"
She tried the door and was actually surprised that it was locked.
"Well, I thought about flying to Majorca, but Jarvis insisted on returning the suit," he replied from behind the closed door. "It was apparently leaking some hydraulic fluid and that needed to be fixed. So anything outside of a 50 mile radius was out."
"I see," she said. Pepper wondered if Steve Jobs' assistant had conversations with him through closed pantry doors.
"And I knew that you were going to get all screechy and concerned about what they keep playing on the news and I would like to take this opportunity to say that I wasn't in any real danger, so just keep that in mind," Tony continued. "I actually had no idea I even had a pantry so I figured if I didn't know it was here, what were the odds that you did?"
He heard a very deep breath being taken and released.
"There are so many things wrong with what you've just said, I truly don't know where to begin," Pepper said.
"Oh, I'm fairly sure you'll find a good place," Tony said reassuringly. "I have every faith in you. It's one of the things that I admire most. Your ability to prioritize."
"Tony," she said quietly.
"Yes, Miss Potts?" he said.
"Open the door," she said.
A click and the door to the pantry opened. A box of Frosted Flakes was thrust into her face. She looked over the box into the face of her boss.
"I hear they're great," he offered. "And who am I to argue with a tiger? Animated or not, I'm pretty sure he could kick my ass. Well, maybe not if I'm wearing the suit, but—"
"A bullet ricocheted off your helmet," she told him.
Tony stopped talking. He sighed heavily.
"The key word there being ricocheted," he told her. "You know how tough the suit is. Bullets don't make much of an impact on it. Well, they did once, but I fixed that."
"You don't get it," Pepper said loudly. "It hit your head! I was pulled out of a meeting, that you should have been attending, to watch you be shot in the head on national television by some idiot trying to hijack a car! It hit. Your. Head."
"I know! I was there!" Tony said. "I heard the ping pretty loudly actually."
Pepper closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"Are you counting to ten? Does that actually work? I hear it's what you're supposed to do when faced with a frustrating situation."
She opened her eyes and looked at him.
"It hit your head," Pepper said softly. "The meeting got rescheduled to tomorrow. If you really want to win the board over with your new generators, you better show up."
She made a movement to walk away but turned back and grabbed the box of cereal from his hands.
"I have always known where the pantry is," she told him witheringly. "Who do you think did your shopping for you?"
Pepper headed towards the kitchen. Tony slumped against the pantry doorway and closed his eyes.
"And I'm not screechy!" she called out.