Chapter Four: Cruel to Be Kind
New York, 2010.
I: Ivan
The last thing that Justin Hammer wanted was for Ivan Vanko to go abroad in the world, but Ivan wasn't about to be the ineffectual little man's cat's paw.
He had things to do.
One of them was to find out just on what side of things his Sasha stood.
Ivan had not been angry with his father for telling Sasha that he was dead.
He and Anton had both wanted her to go to America, get a good education and make a life for herself, and she had done that.
What bothered him was that Stark had seduced her along the way.
Ivan didn't consider it Sasha's fault for falling for him.
When she met the son of a bitch she was poor, a teenager, and a stranger in a strange land.
Stark had absolutely dazzled her.
She was smart enough to get away from him when she was a little older and wiser, and stay away for ten years.
But Sasha had been at the Grand Prix, in Monte Carlo.
When the police were taking him away, he heard her, screaming his name.
She jumped over a barrier, and knocked three policemen on their asses, and for just a moment, her arms were around his neck.
"My God, Vanya! Vanya, you're alive!" she exclaimed, in their native Russian.
He would have held her tighter, but he didn't want to cut her with the broken machinery on his chest.
"Be careful, my Sasha. Don't let him seduce you again. Stark is the Devil." Ivan managed to say.
He had wanted to say more, but the police were on Sasha, and then Stark was pulling her away from Ivan and the police, telling them to leave Sasha alone, that Ivan was her ex-husband, whom she believed to be dead.
Justin Hammer had faked Ivan's death, yet again, but Ivan found out that Sasha had come to Monte Carlo to claim the body.
Not only that, she paid for Anton to be exhumed, too.
With her own money, Sasha bought an elaborate mausoleum at the cemetery of the Holy Virgin Protection Church in New York, the biggest Russian cemetery in the United States.
Ivan knew that she visited the monolithic Vanko tomb once a week, on Saturday, even though she was working for Stark again, in Los Angeles.
She came there to bring fresh flowers and talk to him.
What Sasha didn't know was that it wasn't just Ivan's spirit who was listening.
"It's cold today, Vanya. In LA, there is no weather. Not like here. Maybe in the summer, this place will be more pleasant."
She rearranged the new flowers and put her head in her hands.
"I don't know what to do, Vanya. I know you hated Tony very much. But you don't really know him. His father ruined his life as much as he ruined Anton's. Or yours. Or my father's. He's not a bad man. But he is mad. Completely and totally mad. And now he may be dying. How can I leave him to die, when I owe him so much? I lie to myself, Vanya. I have spent my whole life doing it. I try to say I never loved you. Or him. But I love you both. I should have told you. But now you're dead. I could have helped you, Ivan. I'm with S.H.I.E.L.D, you know. Level 10. You son of a bitch, if you would only give up your fucking vendetta, I could have made your whole past go away! And now, maybe Tony will die soon, too. I have to try and help him. I can't stand by and do nothing and let you both die. For ten years I worked hard to make my own life, and always I was alone. And I lied to myself to say that was what I wanted. What I wanted is for you not to go to jail. Or to die. What I wanted was for Tony not to be a drunken madman that no sane woman could ever put up with. What I wanted was for my mother not to go away. For my father not to die. But you get want you get, in life, Vanya. Not what you want. But you and Anton know that."
Sasha got up, and wiped the dirt and snow from her hands and her coat.
"I will come back to see you and Anton next week. I know that he found peace, in his life, he wrote and told me so. But not you. I hope that whether or not there is God, or afterlife, that you have found peace, Vanya. I would go to the church and pray for it, but the ikons would laugh, to see me there. If He exists, God, Himself, would laugh."
Sasha laughed a little to herself, mirthlessly and stoically, and, with her head held high, walked away.
Right past where Ivan hid.
He wanted to grab her by the arm, to crush her to his chest, and tell her that he was still alive and promise he would never leave her alone, again.
How his arms ached, and less poetically, how his balls ached, for Sasha.
His Sasha.
But it was not the right time.
Stark had poisoned her mind so deeply that ten years along, she could not free herself of his power, and now he had his hooks into her, again.
It was not enough for the son of a bitch to take his birthright, he had to take his Sasha, too.
Soon, however, Tony Stark would be dead.
Sasha would be angry with him, for a time, but he knew that would pass.
And then she would make good on making his whole life up to that point disappear.
Then, it would be Ivan Vanko who was sitting on top of the world with Sasha at his side, and Tony Stark who was six feet under.
Six feet under the rubble of his hubris and his dreams, his twisted suit for a coffin.
Ivan waited until Sasha was gone.
He took one of the roses Sasha had left from his grave and one from Anton's.
He carefully put them away from the cold, inside his coat.
Ivan laughed to himself, and lit a cigarette.
"Soon, Papa, Tony Stark will be the one who is dead. I will come here, with Sasha, to visit you, and bring you flowers. And no one will ever come to his grave."
Dr. Vanko looked at his watch.
Soon it would be time for that fool, Hammer, to come and inspect him.
It was time to go back to the lab, and continue his work.
There was little time, and so much left to do.
Malibu, California, 2010
II: Tony
Wearing only a green wife-beater undershirt, Tony Stark instructed Jarvis at the angle he was to position the webcam.
"Sir, shouldn't you shave? Shower? Comb and wash your hair? Clean up the bedroom? I don't see how any of this could possibly be…appealing." Jarvis suggested.
If it was possible for an artificial intelligence to disapprove, Jarvis was doing it.
Tony had been holed up in his bedroom for the past two or three days.
From the amount of empty bottles and take–out boxes lying around, and the fact that he and the bedroom were not in the best of shape, the average person would think that, in the wake of the Grand Prix incident, that he had been hiding from the world, getting drunk and popping pills, having a snit, while he allowed Pepper to take the brunt of the consequences.
Tony, had, in actuality, been hatching a plot.
Divert, and conquer.
He would spin Monte Carlo so it made him look like the stronger man, and then use the Congressional hearings to prove his point.
In the fifties, his father had made a monkey of a congressional headhunting hearing, rather effortlessly, and it was Tony's plan to do the same.
And, for a diversion, another Tony Stark sex tape, "illicitly" leaked to YouTube.
This one would have that whole Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, down and out and dirty, dirty, dirty sort of vibe.
"No, Jarvis. The idea is for everything to be desperately filthy and sleazy."
"Is there a reason for that, sir?"
"For Sasha."
"If you say so, Mr. Stark, sir. You have a call. It's from Miss Montalvo."
Tony had met Rita Montalvo, about eight years before, when he was dying of various well-earned afflictions in the charity ward of a hospital in Argentina.
Lovely Rita, his Lady Madonna, had saved his life, and nursed him back to health.
Even if she had not been wearing Marvel Comics scrubs, Tony would have known, immediately, that his angel of mercy was a superhero enthusiast.
Tony did not like to use terms like nerd, geek, groupie or fangirl for his fans.
Especially not the women.
Girls like her always had a thing for Tony, and although he was sometimes ashamed to admit it, Tony did a lot more fraternizing with his fans than most masks did.
God help him, as much as he liked gorgeous glamour girls, he had a thing for girls like this one, too.
Smart girls always had turned him on.
Rita was studying to be a computer engineer, at the time, and had long since got her B.S, her M.S. and a job at Stark Industries.
But she was also his and Iron Man's PR manager, his liason with Marvel Comics, and the only woman Tony had ever known that he never had to lie to.
"Put her through, Jarvis. Rita, you're late."
"Late for what, cabron? Do you have other plans?"
Tony laughed.
"Not really, no. How does it look, out there?"
"Pretty good. Much better than Pepper probably thinks it is. The Board may be having a shit fit, but the stockholders aren't. Your average stockholder, these days isn't too far above Joe Sixpack. He looks at the Monte Carlo thing and he thinks, it's cool how you fucking annihilated that Russian dude. It helps than Vanko is dead, too. And most people are on your side, not the government's. The stock went up. That should make the board happy. Let's face it, everybody likes it when you pull your dick out, and fuck somebody with it. Hard. Especially when you do it, literally. Which brings us to new business. Tony, do you want to make this movie because you need the good ink, or are jou just being a fucking pervert?"
"Are you making this movie because you want to further the cause of women who look like women, or nerdy girls, or are you just being a fucking pervert?" Tony replied.
"Neither. I'm a stockholder. Every time you and your understudy go on camera, the stock price goes up. I'm doing it for the money." Rita answered.
They both laughed.
"There's just one thing. You laid that big story on your lady love about how jou haven't fucked anybody for months, and all that other shit, and then this comes out? I want you to explain to me one more time about how putting out a video of you doing it to me is good for her?"
"Sasha is a strong-willed woman. She wants to eat her cake, and have it, too. What she's wanted, all these years, is to keep me on the string. Like she does to Hawkeye, the poor bastard. And I would let her, but I can't. Because I'm insanely in love with her. As deliriously happy as I would be when she was in my life, I'd be crushed when she left me. There's only so many lives even I have, and I don't know how many times I have to go on a 18 month binge and end up dying of malaria in a charity ward that I have before that's' it. Do you understand?"
"Not really."
"Sasha can't have me. And I can't have her. So I make the movies, in such a way that it…"
"…I know. It reminds her of when you two were together. And she downloads them and you find out her IP address when she does. But you've got her now, right?"
"Close. I'm very close."
'To what?"
"Close to the perfect balance of Sasha and I having a completely open relationship, but one in which she never splits on me for an extended period of time. This particular scenario is supposed to remind her of the first summer we spend together. `If I can get her on the hook with this, and keep her on it? Until my birthday? Trap is sprung, and finally, I've got her."
"What if it doesn't work?"
"Then I won't mind dying. And at least I was happy the last few days or weeks or months of my life."
"Tony, your other steady girl is Dr. Jean Grey. And Nick Fury's like, a hundred and he doesn't look a day over 45. The people jou know? They got shit that even you don't know about. They'll put you in the machine they used to coat Wolverine in adamantium if they have to. Nobody is going to let you die."
"Lovely Rita, that is not the way dying works. Even for me. But, I'm hoping that you're right and I'm being melodramatic. Or, I could be excusing a horrible act of emotional blackmail on the grounds of mortal necessity. Either way, it's magic time!"
Tony looked around, and emptied a trash can onto the bedroom floor, artfully arranging its contents.
"You really are a bastard, Tony. If I wasn't such a sad fucking fangirl, I'd quit speaking to you."
"And you have no tact. If I didn't secretly have a thing for girls who are smart, nerdy and dirty, I'd lose your phone number."
"But then I might lose my mind, and break into your house and make you give it to me whether jou liked it or not."
"Don't be silly, Rita. I'm a complete slut. A total whore. I always like it."
Los Angeles, California. Stark Tower West
II: Pepper
Happy Hogan shook his head, admiringly
"Whoa! Look at this guy. He's like the Energizer Bunny. And he didn't even take off his undershirt. Or his shoes."
"Happy, go past this part."
"But we've gone past the whole thing, except the part where Rita came in."
Pepper gave Happy a stern look.
"You watch these?"
"Well, yeah. I mean, Tony's my boss, right? And he needs to have somebody, uh, well, another guy, who's, uh, like, an average guy to, ah, critique his, ah, style. You know?" Happy stammered.
"I will never understand the whole guys and watching porn thing. But at least you're not some kind of amateur John Holmes. Oh My God! What was that?"
"They call that the money shot."
"I know what it's called, that's not what I meant ! Will you just go past this part! Past that part, too."
"Whoa! Now, wait a minute, honey. There's some real artistry involved in Tony's films. You have to admit it. That? Right there?"
Happy paused the clip.
"That is impressive. And it's not trick photography. I mean, the only thing holding her up is…"
"Happy!"
"Okay! I'm clicking, I'm clicking."
Pepper felt it was her duty to get a general idea of what was in Tony's YouTube sex videos, but she never sat there and watched them all the way through.
"Do you think Sasha saw this?"
"She probably watches all of his movies."
Pepper gave Happy another dirty look.
"What? Maybe she does. She used to live with the boss. Maybe she misses him."
"He's a bad man, Happy. A very bad man."
"I don't know. Maybe her and Tony, it's a thing."
"What kind of a thing? A watch me do it to another girl thing?"
"Well, yeah. Maybe she just kinda puts herself in the other's girl's place."
"You know what that is? It's sick. And wrong."
Pepper slammed down the lid of her laptop, and left her office in a huff.
She was so angry, she didn't look where she was going as she stalked towards Tony's office, and she crashed right into Natalie Rushman.
"I'm so sorry." Pepper blurted.
"Is okay. I wasn't looking, either."
"No. I mean about Tony. About his behavior. And the video. He's an asshole."
Miss Rushman laughed, and waved her hand, dismissively.
"Is okay, Pepper. I've worked for bigger assholes." she said, and went along her way.
Pepper almost felt bad about slamming the door of Tony's office, and then she realized that in a few days, it was going to be her office.
So, she slammed it extra hard.
He was on the phone.
"…no, I'm telling you the truth, it was staged squalor. Completely staged…no, I'm not following in the family tradition, did you see any milk bottles full of piss…I needed the Kleenexes…yes, that many, you try making a dirty movie, sometime, you need a lot of Kleenex…well watch the rest, you'll see I made a point of showing the camera I put a rubber on…look, Pepper's here and she's furious. I'll have to call you back…Kate said what? Oh, I agree, completely…what…yes, completely fake dirt…thank you, I will…I have to go, now…no, I'm fine…the undershirt was just part of the act…yes the gym shoes were a homage…HOMAGE! H-o-m, never mind, the next time I get a free minute, I'm going to make you a hearing aid that works…okay…who wants what…you're kidding, right? No?...Jesus, what an asshole…no, I wouldn't give him points, either, fuck him, it's not his movie…Well, I just talked to Logan and he agrees…no he doesn't have a phone up there. I should get smart and build myself a fuck pad in the mountains with no phone…"
"Tony!"
"I have to go, I'm in trouble…I'll talk to you later. Bye."
Tony hung up.
"So, you're mad about the You Tube thing?"
"Not in and of itself. I think it's kinky, but if you and Rita get off and make money with your so-called illicit sex videos, and this last one has distracted the public from what a train wreck your life is right now, fine. What I'm mad at is your timing."
"I thought my timing was perfect. Did you watch it?"
"Of course not. I did catch the introductory minute or three before anything was going on. I was disgusted. That was, literally, the dirtiest thing I ever saw. And I didn't even watch the sex part."
"You should. This was one of my better performances. So, what kind of terrible thing have I done, this time?"
"When did I meet you, Tony?" Pepper demanded.
"Is this some kind of trick question, Potts?"
"Don't get cute with me, alright? You're 44 years old, coming up on 45. You are way too old for the cute act!"
"Ouch! Wait. Let me think. Let me think around the holes the cocaine made in my mind…1982. I…was… in… graduate school? Yes, I was. And you were…you were getting your… your MBA! That's right. I was in Grad school at Columbia, and you were in grad school...somewhere in New York... and I made an indecent proposal to you in a bar in the Village . You dumped a rum and coke down the front of my pants. Ice included."
"Very good. Of course I might have guessed that you would be able to remember anything that was even remotely connected to what's down the front of your pants. And when did you hire me?"
"The day you graduated in 1985. The very same day of graduation. You still had your cap and gown on, I was literally right there. Am I getting any Brownie points for this?"
"No!"
Pepper sat down, across from her longtime employer and friend.
With a very serious expression on her face.
"Tony, I have known you for almost twenty-five years. I have worked with you for twenty-one years and, until you hired Natalie Rushman, I knew you were an asshole, and an insane megalomaniac, and a complete dick. But I never thought you were really a bad person. But you know what? Now, I do. I am glad I'm taking over this company. And I really hope that you do something very bad within the next few months so you get kicked out of the Avengers, I even hope that slimy Senator Stern and Rhodey convince the government to take your suits, because you are a bad person, Tony. That crazy Russian doctor? Vanko? He was right. You are Satan."
"I think he actually said I was the Devil. And I'm not sure how hiring Ms. Rushman convinces you that I should be in the plastic cell now that Magneto is AWOL."
Pepper slammed both of her hands down on Tony's desk.
Such that he had to take his feet off of it and jump to attention.
"I am not a complete idiot, Tony! I know that Sasha Karamazov became Natasha Romanova! And I know that Natalie Rushman is Natasha Romanova. And furthermore, I think you know, too! Don't you think that you did enough to, notice I said to, and not for, that girl, for one lifetime! The fact that you have battened onto her again is disgusting! She worked very hard to make a life for herself in spite of you. To the point of changing her identity, completely. I take it the only reason she's come back to you is because Colonel Fury, having no idea of her history with you, has assigned you to her. Probably to prevent you from doing anything else crazy to make the Avengers, or S.H.I.E.L.D look bad. And for you to take advantage of the situation is beyond heinous. It's completely and utterly despicable. I know this is a terrible thing to say to a man, but I hope your dick turns black and falls off. I really do. And I mean that, Tony."
Pepper spent a few moments savoring the expression of shock on Tony's face, and watching it slowly sink into his thick, egotistcal skull that perhaps, just perhaps, he had made a serious error in judgment.
"Did you ever consider how I feel?" he asked.
"No, I haven't. Because you've got that covered. The only thing you ever think about is how you feel. I just wanted to bring it to your attention that just because you can do something, and you want to, it doesn't mean you should!"
"You know, Potts, you may very well be absolutely right. And I have used the most underhanded possible methods to, and even I must say, wickedly seduce Sasha. Even to the point of blackmail. And not just emotional blackmail. I mean actual, literal, concrete and probably a felony blackmail. But the fact remain that I am hopelessly in love with her. As much as I was the day I met her. And very soon, for reasons I can't explain to you, it won't matter what I did. Because I will be totally out of her life. But right now? I desperately need to be with the only woman I have ever loved in my whole evil, selfish, drunken, manipulative, misspent life. And it is actually entirely possible that my dick will turn a strange color and fall off. Within the next few weeks."
That was an honest reply, and it was one that Pepper had not been expecting.
"Does this have something to do with why you've all the sudden made me CEO?"
"Yes. And it has to do with why Nick Fury is sending a watchdog after me, in the first place. It's about the sins of my father, Pepper. About his legacy. To the world. And to me. And it's about me turning 45. And it's about Monte Carlo, and the congressional hearings, and the government wanting to take Iron Man away from me. It's about Iron Man's future and the Avengers future. It's really, really, really complicated and very personal and I'm in a lot of serious emotional pain. You know, I could have been a real dick about you and Happy getting together, because, I think, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was always sort of saving you for later. And it really bothered me when the two of you fell in love. But it bothered me even more when you got engaged."
"Why? Because you're a jerk? Because you're a selfish, arrogant son of a bitch?" Pepper yelled.
"Yes. Exactly. Because Happy is a regular guy. He could stand to lost 20 pounds and he follows football and hockey and Star Trek, and he went to a state college whose games he still watches on Saturdays. He can hold onto the woman he loves. Because he's a decent human being, a good man. And I'm the Great and Powerful Anthony Edward Stark, Iron Man, and I drove the woman I love away. So far away that she literally had to become someone else. Because one thing I can't seem to get around is that I am a jerk and a selfish, arrogant self-absorbed son of a bitch who destroys everything he loves. Whether or not it's Flynn's DNA or Howard's chorusing through my cells, that means I really am Howard's son. He was the same way."
And that was a totally honest reply.
If there was anything that Pepper couldn't stand, it was when Tony's mask of bullshit, bravado and wit slipped enough that you got to see the man behind the curtain and that he was, quite frequently, a confused, lonely, desperately unhappy person.
It made her see him in the one way she would rather not look at her boss, as an ordinary human being.
Because when she thought about Tony as an ordinary human being she was reminded that he was a man who would never be quite sure who his father was.
That fireman had pulled him crying and screaming, out of the wreckage of the accident his mother lay dead in, which crippled Howard Stark and took what was left of his sanity.
That Howard had shut him up for four bizarre years in the funhouse from Hell and that it was only chance that Tony had been spending a week with Flynn that spared him from dying in another twisted wreck that took the sad vestiges of Howard Stark's life.
It made her think of Jean Grey, who gave up Logan, who she loved, because that was what was right and it was what her husband wanted, but who was firm about the fact she couldn't leave Tony because she was, besides Pepper, herself, all he had.
And Steve Rogers who worried about the state of his best friend, the son of a good friend, more than he worried about the state of the nation, the planet, or even the universe.
Worse, it made Pepper think that inside the Iron Man suit was her very best friend, a very brilliant , very astute, very capable, but yet deeply flawed ordinary human being, whose life was as fragile and finite and capable of being snuffed out by a moment of violence as anyone else's.
She bit her lip, and moved a strand of her hair behind her ear.
"Oh Tony, I'm sorry! Sometimes I forget there's a man inside the suit, and that he has feelings just like everyone else. But you forget that about everybody. Especially women. Something your stepfather is guilty of, too, he of the four marriages. Love does not mean never having to say you're sorry. That was a really, really, intensely stupid movie. But, it also doesn't mean that blackmail is okay. Sasha isn't having too easy of a time, either. She just buried a ghost from her past that she thought had been dead for 15 years. And now, all of the sudden, here you are, back in her life, as needy and greedy as ever. Possibly worse. Think of Sasha as a human being, Tony. As a woman who fell in love with you when she was a very young girl, and spent a decade trying to make her way out from under your shadow. Give her credit for that. She owes you absolutely nothing, Tony. She made Natasha Romanova all on her own. If she took this assignment, if she's back in your life, or your bed, it's because she still loves you, and she wants to help you. Not because of any of your blackmail. Or bullshit. Be courteous. Be kind. And above all, be thankful, you egotistical son of a bitch."
Tony sat back in his chair, and looked into his glass.
"Pepper, after all this is over, do you think I should consider another stint at the MORC, and another try at the S.H.I.E.L.D Moderation Program. Or at least, something like it?"
"Just let me book you in for a thirty day stay beginning on the first of the month after next. If you want to cancel, fine."
"It's a deal. Now, I'm going to finish cleaning out your office, and then I am going to take Miss Rushman out to lunch, and beg her to forgive me, and pour my heart out to her, like a complete idiot."
"Finish tomorrow, Tony."
"Good idea."
III: Sasha
When she saw the number on her caller ID, Sasha didn't want to answer the phone.
But it kept ringing.
"Hello?"
"Tell me the only reason you're not on your way back to New York is that nursemaiding Tony is your job."
"Clint, you don't understand him."
"Yes I do. I've been working with him for the same ten years you've been running from him. I understand the crazy son of a bitch just fine. In the suit? He's a great man. Out of it? He's an asshole. Sometimes, he's a likeable asshole. And sometimes? He's just an arrogant dick, who will do whatever he has to, so he can get what he wants. You don't understand Tony. You see him the way you did when you were 17. And he was thirty."
"Don't start."
"I'm starting! Look, I know this is the pot calling the kettle black, but next to Tony, I look like a humble, patient, quiet man! All I've been hearing about from you for the entire time we've been together is how this guy is the All Enduring, Tragic, Great Love of Your Life. I always thought you were just using him as an excuse for the fact that you can't commit. That's alright. I don't mind. Commitments aren't good for people in our line of work. You know I love you. You know that what we have, is good enough for me. All I'm saying, is, Jesus, Nat, this is a fucking insult. You're going out on a limb for this guy. I mean you didn't just leave him, you became a different person to get away from Tony. And the way he thanks you for giving him another chance is to make the cheapest, dirtiest YouTube sleazefest of his entire sleazy amateur porn star career with the most devoted of all his Iron Maidens? And you're not mad?"
"No."
"No? No! Why the Hell not?"
"You don't understand. He's flirting with me."
Clint put the phone down and did two minutes of uninterrupted cursing.
"Flirting with you?"
"I keep telling you that you don't understand."
"You're goddamn right about that, Nat! Look, you tell that jerk that I said he had better have a fucking good explanation by the next Avengers meeting, because Steve doesn't understand either. Next time he shows his face, it's getting smashed in. I love you. Goodbye."
From the sound that terminated the call, Sasha was fairly sure that Hawkeye had smashed his phone.
In contrast, a few minutes later, Tony actually knocked on her door.
"Come in. It's open."
"Do you want to have a really long lunch and take the rest of the day off? This place is depressing the hell out of me, today. I just had this really heavy conversation with Pepper and I almost told her I was dying and now I feel bad I didn't and if I don't die, you know, I think I really need to go to rehab. Again."
Sasha rolled her eyes.
"What? You don't need to go to rehab, now. You got no smack at your house, no coke. Just a little pot. You're only taking three prescriptions. And you're not drunk during working hours. For you? That's sober like judge. And Pepper is always reading you riot act. Now she gets all over your shit because you make fuck movie with Rita. So what? You both like sex, you both like money. Me, I like your fuck movies. I watch them all. I watch this one six times, already. For ten years, I wish you were not so in love with me, and that I am not so crazy for you because it means that we do not get to fuck, and I have to make do with watching you fuck other women. Pepper is so uptight. Now she gets you all upset so that now, when I have chance to get legs around you right after you make hot movie, even though you go to all this trouble, you come into my office a wreck, and I don't get laid."
"Well, maybe not right now. And I knew you watched all the clips. That's how I've kept track of you. Through your downloads. Did you like the new one."
"It reminded me of my first summer in New York."
"It was supposed to. I had just got out of rehab, and you were so beautiful, and I was so in love with you. I didn't want to go anywhere. I didn't want to see anyone. I didn't want to be anyone. I just wanted to make love to you. Sasha, ever since I traced your IP address, and I realized you've been following my amateur work, I've been making these clips, just for you. They're like love letters. Except, you're not a very sentimental woman."
"I figured that. And I know what you are trying to do. Tony, I am not angry with you that you try every trick in book, even dirtiest ones, to get me back."
"You're not? But Pepper said…"
"Don't listen to what she tells you about me. Or you. She don't understand man like you. Most men can be so cold. Calculating. Rational. They want to own a woman, to possess, like dog or hat or pair of pants. Talking about relationships, you can see where they are making little spot for you in the scheme of their lives. It is almost inhuman. Not you. You don't want fucking relationship. Nothing rational, or calculated, or planned. You want affair. Crazy and stupid and wild and just because it's what you want. That's what I like about you. You know that love is insanity. Lightning in bottle. Like when we meet. That feeling, like violent electric shock. It never really went away. But every time I watch movie you make, I feel it, again."
The maddening thing about Tony was, he was incredibly sweet and tender at the same time as he was callous and insensitive, but he really did love her, and the only thing that meant to him was that he never wanted her to leave his life.
And although Sasha felt obligated to visit Ivan and Anton every week, doing so always took a lot out of her.
It had been so cold in New York, and the way the withered roses looked against the snow and all the grey, icy concrete tombstones.
It made them both seem more dead, as if they had never existed at all.
On the other hand, Tony was not dead.
Sasha had been up half the night, crying, and then she talked to Clint, in New York for a few hours, and following that she watched Tony's latest video four or five times.
She didn't want to be sad, or nervous or worried and watching the 20-minute YouTube clip moved all of those thoughts from her mind.
Sasha was hoping Tony would make a move on her, but there was still something paramount in his devious mind.
He'd already had her, so that wasn't going to be good enough.
"Then, tell me you love me, Sasha."
"Tony.."
"Tell me you love me, and I'll buy you the Moon. If it's not for sale, I'll steal it. Whatever you want, if it's in my power to give it to you, it's yours. If it isn't, I'll find a way to get it. Even if it is the fucking Moon. I don't care."
He got on his knees, he really did.
"I'll marry you. I'll dance at your wedding if you marry Clint. I'll pay for it. Anything."
"I want to be in the Avengers. What do I have to tell you for that?"
"Goddamnit, Sasha, don't be so Russian and fucking impervious with me! I know you have a heart, because I've been doing the funky chicken all over it, and congratulating myself on what a good job I'm doing. No, that's not what I want. I want to spend the last few months or weeks of my life with the woman I love. I know I couldn't hold onto you because I'm an asshole and a crazy asshole at that, and I'm not going to change. But I need you now, Sasha. I'm like anyone else, I don't want to die and the thought of it scares me. I certainly don't want to die alone. My father, he had this knack for first alienating, and then destroying everyone he ever loved. And I'm just like him. Please, Sasha. If I don't die, you can pick a language in which to tell me I'm a cunt, and throw me out of your life. Just wait. You don't have to come to my funeral. Or visit my grave. Ever. Just don't leave me until I'm in it. Alright?"
Tony put his hands on her desk and slowly got to his feet, wincing.
"Fuck, am I this old, already?"
"Why do you have trouble getting up from knees?"
"I must be getting arthritis."
"Is more like poison is spreading. Do all joints hurt?"
"Actually? Yes? Even the ones in my skull."
"That is no good. But I fix. Come here."
Sasha took a circular hypo out of her desk, and jammed it against Tony's neck.
"Owww!" he helped.
She watched some of the purple streaks coming out of his collar recede.
"What the hell was that? I feel about a thousand percent better! Do you have any more?"
"Yes. But you must take in small and infrequent doses."
"Do you think if I had another shot, oh say, ah, right exactly now, I'd get really high?"
"You would get really dead."
"That is what Flynn told me when I explained speedballs to him."
"And they only killed you three times."
"Twice. No, let me think…no, you're right. Three times. I take it this joy juice won't work, permanently?"
"It won't. But listen, you are not going to die, Tony. It's my job to make sure you don't. We have Ace up sleeve."
"I don't like 'we'. 'We' sounds like a whole lot of people I never liked who think I'm an asshole are going to be involved. Why can't you just admit it? You took this job because you love me, and you want to save my life."
"You know something, Tony? Almost every word that comes out of your mouth has 'I' or 'me' right before or after it. What about me? I didn't just leave you because of things you did. Or didn't. A lot of why I left had to do with me. I wanted to make my own life, you know. Isn't it enough that you know I don't want to leave you again? It's not all my fault! I wanted to come back to you, eight years ago, and you told me to fuck off!" Sasha replied.
"I told you that when you left me it almost killed me, and that you couldn't casually pop in and out of my life when you felt like it! That's what I told you! Because I knew that's what you had planned!"
"I was just a kid, what the fuck did I know?"
"Do you know, now, Sasha? Now that I'm fucking dying!"
"I don't want to leave you again, okay? But I worked hard to make my life, and I don't want to give it up. Especially not Clint."
"When did I ever ask you to give anything up? I'm just fine with separate lives. Separate houses. Separate jobs, separate finances. But, I think you should get a place here. In LA. It's the least you can do. Considering you live with Clint Barton in New York."
"We live in same building. Different apartments."
"Oh, so now we're going to split hairs! I might have known! I come in here and pour my heart out to you, and you want to make it a business negotiation!"
"Clint's not like you—"
"Bullshit! Clint is almost exactly like me. I know. I work with the man. We're both the same kind of asshole. He's pretty much your me substitute, if you want to know the truth."
"He's not a fucking maniac! Besides, I don't feel about him like I do about you. We're more like really good friends."
"And what are you and I? Sasha? Enemies?"
"Do you think I have been so fucking happy without you? You say I broke your heart. All I wanted was the time to make my own life! I came back, to try and invite you into it. But you didn't want that! You wanted me to be your little Sasha, like a kept mouse!"
"I wanted you to understand that the next time you left me, it would kill me. Now? I don't care if it does. And I'm not just saying that because I may be dying, Sasha. The next time you walk out of my life, it will kill me. I will pine away and die without you. Like Beauty's Beast. But, now that I've come so close to death, I realize that living without you is not life. It's just waiting around and having another drink until it's time to die. I'm a selfish bastard, and there's no one in the multiverse I love more than I love The Great and Powerful Tony Stark. But even so, you've got my life in your hands. If you want to take it , go ahead. I said I'd give you anything it was in my power to give and I fucking well meant it."
For only the fourth time in her life, Sasha thought she might cry.
"Why do I have to tell you I love you, Tony, when you know that I do?"
That was close enough.
Tony sank into the chair opposite her desk.
"And now I can die a happy man."
"You are not going to die."
"I wish I could be so sure. Not now that we've, what do they say, worked out the kinks in our relationship…wait. Christ, I hope we never do that. It sounds boring."
Natasha scowled.
"Don't use that word! I hate that word! Relationship. It makes it sound like something bad. I don't want to have relationship. I want to have affair. That's why I pick guy like Clint. And you, Tony. If I want relationship, I pick nice guy like your driver."
"Me too. I agree. I hate that word. But women like it."
"Not this one. You have had rough day, already. Go home early. Let me take you to my bungalow at the Chateau Marmont. Is very nice. You should see it. Especially considering you're paying for it. So, you take nap, I call for Chinese food, we eat in bed, then is time for your close up, Mr. I Haven't Had It For Three Months Before You Showed Up. Liar!"
"It wasn't much of a lie. Just a little one, to make you feel sorry for me. How did you know?"
"You didn't look too much out of practice. Anyway, I knew when you told me that you didn't fuck for three months, because you were so sick. You? If you were that sick, you would have been dead for three months. Besides, for a guy who may be dying, you put on good show. I never see Black Sabbath as being band you can fuck to, but it turns out good for you. I especially liked the part where you pound on chest and yell "I AM IRON MAN" at paying shot."
"Money shot, Sasha."
"Yes. You and Rita probably make a lot of money on shooting these things. And I almost believe you when you go on TV and complain about the violation of your personal life and hers. What do you tell her you have kept shirt on for three months for, though?"
"I haven't. Rita knows. She doesn't know it's life-threatening, though."
"Good. Don't tell her. Because it's not."
"You just can't live without me, can you?"
"I tried. Is no fun."
IV: Pepper
Tony stuck his head in the door of Pepper's office.
"Ah, Miss Rushman has been having some difficulty getting into our network from her hotel, so I'm going to have to go over there and see what kind of gremlins have taken over her laptop. I may have to lend her one of our prototypes, so I have to, ah, assess that. Personally. See what the wireless capabilities are. Check the router. Look for three-prong outlets."
Pepper raised an eyebrow.
"Really? So you, the CEO, are going to go to a new employee's house for a low-level tech appointment that could be taken care of by someone from BestBuy?"
"Pepper, Miss Rushman is going to be your assistant. And you are going to be the new CEO. Would I leave your fate, and the fate of my father's company to the Geek Squad? They don't even drive real Beetles. Perish the thought! I'll be in again, tomorrow."
Pepper left her desk and watched Tony and Natasha walk to the elevator.
She wasn't stomping, she wasn't shouting at him, in fact, it looked like she was having a hard time maintaining a professional distance from her employer.
As the elevator doors shut, Pepper saw Miss Rushman grab Tony by his tie.
"I hope he used his retinal pattern scan to shut that camera down." Pepper muttered.
She went online and shut down the cameras in that elevator, anyway, just in case.
"I don't know how he does it. All I know is, it never works on me." She mused.
Well, not very much, anyway.
