Why is it that every time I listen to Pray for the Wicked all I can think is "Wow, this song totally fits Tony!"

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

It didn't take long for Tony to locate the last underwater power supply line running through the East River. It was old, rusted, grimy, and easy to cut through with just a low-powered energy beam from one of his repulsors. He had the metal housing open in seconds and was able to secure the power inhibitor with ease. Once he saw that it had powered on and was functioning properly, he took off, resurfacing and turning his attention straight to his newly-built tower. The place was as black as midnight, but thankfully all the buildings around it were still lit up. That was a relief. One of the concerns he had was that he'd accidentally cause a city-wide blackout trying to take Stark Tower off the grid. Good thing that didn't come to pass, otherwise he'd have a lot of explaining to do to the City of New York (again.)

While Tony headed for the tower, he sent a video call in to Pepper. She answered right away and was at the ready at the controls to the building's power systems.

"Good to go on this end," Tony notified her. "The rest is up to you."

"You disconnected the transmission lines?" Pepper asked, just to make sure everything was good to go. "Are we off the grid?"

"Stark Tower is about to become a beacon of self-sustaining clean energy," Tony confirmed.

"Well," Pepper said. "Assuming the arc reactor takes over and it actually works."

"I assume," Tony said. "Light her up!" Pepper nodded and hit a few buttons on the console in front of her. Just then the tower's floors began to light up a handful at a time. Tony couldn't help the sense of pride swelling up when the bright blue letters spelling out "STARK" finally came to life.

"How does it look?" Pepper asked.

"Like Christmas," Tony said. "But with more me."

"We gotta go wide on the public awareness campaign," Pepper said. "You need to do some press." Tony hated hearing those words, but it couldn't be helped. Facing the press was a necessary evil when it came to change the world, unfortunately.

"I'll get Conroy on it," Tony assured. Excitement began to build as he began to fly parallel to the side of the tower, taking in the bright flash of the lights on every floor as they zoomed by. Oh yes, this was just as good as Christmas, and Tony hoped it would only get better once he got back inside. It was edging closer to eight o'clock, after all.

"Well, I'm going to be heading to DC tomorrow," Pepper said. "I'm working on the zoning for the next two buildings."

"Pepper," Tony said. "You're killing me. The moment, remember? Enjoy the moment."

"I am and I will," Pepper said. "Come inside, we have celebratory champagne."

"Is Steve there yet?" Tony asked.

"No, not yet." Tony's face fell a tiny bit as he touched down on the landing pad that led back into the tower's penthouse. "It's only 7:54. I'm sure he'll turn up soon."

"Yeah, yeah," Tony said. "See you in a minute." The video feed back to Pepper cut out and the mechanisms to take apart the Iron Man suit came to life around Tony. Slowly, he stepped off the platform and the machinery began to take apart his armor bit by bit.

Obviously, Tony was more than a bit antsy to see Steve. How could he not be? The guy was the only thing he had on his mind for the past week, other than completing construction on the tower. It was a little scary to Tony to admit that, but at the same time it was thrilling.

After their first meeting and disastrous first date (which was ultimately his own fault for pushing everything else in his life to the side to chase after a hot guy fifty years his senior) Tony and Steve had kept in contact via phone calls and later text messaging once Steve had learned to use a cell phone. (A 2007 Blackberry, but an actual working cell phone nonetheless.) Tony would admit he felt attracted to Steve the moment he saw him, but once he started talking to him, Tony found that he liked him. He really liked him. He liked him so much that when he stayed over at Steve's during the Hurricane the previous week, he almost kissed him.

Keyword, almost. At the last second, he chickened out and backed away. He didn't know why. Usually when he kissed a guy or girl, he went for it without a second thought. This time, though, he hesitated, and he wished he hadn't. It gave him a second to think about what he was about to do and that one second was enough to make him change his mind. He had no idea how Steve would react or even if he felt the same way. Besides, he was still trying to come to terms with the fact that it was okay to be gay now. Kissing him would only upset him and Tony didn't want to do that. So, he backed away, rolled to the other side of the bed, and pulled the covers over his face to hide his shame. He didn't talk to Steve about it the next morning and put off calling or texting him for most of the week. That was, until last night.

Tony had been up most of the night, preparing to take the tower off the grid. While he was doing some electrical work (because apparently the electrician he hired chose to ignore him when he said to wire the penthouse to both the main city powerline and the powerline running directly from the arc reactor), Tony's mind started drifting to Steve again. He knew Steve probably knew that he was going to try to go in for a kiss. After all, he might be from the sexually repressed 40's, but he wasn't stupid. Even though neither of them said anything about it the next morning, Tony knew they couldn't put off that conversation forever. No, they had to talk about it at some point and avoiding Steve was only delaying the inevitable.

Knowing that both Pepper and Conroy were going to be at the tower to celebrate their great achievement of creating the world's first self-sustaining skyscraper (or drowning their misery with champagne if things had ended up going the other way) he decided it would be the perfect opportunity to invite Steve over. With the two girls there, he'd have a bit to get comfortable and figure out what he was going to say, and once they left he planned to lay it all out for Steve; admit that he had sexual and maybe even romantic feelings for him. If Steve reciprocated, that'd be great. Then they'd figure out what to do from there; whether they wanted the whole "relationship" thing or just keep things casual and maybe work up to that. The thought of that was scary to Tony, but not as scary as the more likely result – that Steve would reject him. As much as he liked to keep his hopes high, Tony knew that this was how it would probably end up, which was why he busted out the good champagne for tonight. He got the horrible feeling that he'd be drowning his misery no matter what, and it was only getting worse now that the tower had been lit up without a hitch. Something was going to go wrong tonight. He could just feel it.

Tony's mind was taken away from his Steve-related worries as he heard JARVIS' voice come over the exterior speakers as pieces of the suit continued to be removed from him as he walked inside.

"Sir," the AI said. "Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on the line." Tony rolled his eyes. Of course S.H.I.E.L.D. would call now of all times.

"I'm not in," Tony said as the helmet was removed from his face. "I'm actually out."

"Sir, I'm afraid he's insisting," JARVIS said.

"Grow a spine, JARVIS," Tony remarked. "Tell him that I have a date." It was the truth, even if his date hadn't shown up yet.

Stepping into the penthouse's living room, he could see Pepper intently studying the holographic screen in front of her. The screen showed a virtual schematic of the entire tower along with various readings on the building's power and energy status.

"Levels are holding steady," Pepper remarked as Tony came closer to her, not bothering to look behind her. "I think?"

"Of course they are," Tony assured. "I was directly involved, which brings me to my next question. How does it feel to be a genius?"

"Well, I really wouldn't know, now would I?" Pepper said as Tony came to stand next to her.

"What do you mean?" Tony asked. "All of this came from you." Pepper shook her head with a slight laugh.

"No," she said. "All of this came from that." She gestured to the Miniature Arc Reactor in Tony's chest. The thing was truly a breakthrough in modern science in more ways than one. Firstly, it was the first clean energy generator of that size to ever be constructed and function properly, which was amazing when you considered that Tony only constructed the first model while being held captive in Afghanistan with nothing but a handful of scraps. Secondly, it ran off a newly-discovered element that Tony managed to synthesize himself in his basement with (an admittedly crudely constructed) particle accelerator. So yes, Pepper was right in saying that the construction of Stark Tower wouldn't have happened without those two major breakthroughs, but she was still somewhat wrong.

"Give yourself some credit." Tony put a hand on her shoulder. "Stark Tower is your baby. Give yourself… Twelve percent of the credit."

"Twelve percent?" Pepper raised an eyebrow.

"An argument can be made for fifteen," Tony quickly added.

"Twelve percent for my baby?" Pepper asked as she started to make her way over to the seating area.

"Christ," Lara said as she walked into the room with four champagne glasses in-hand. "If that's how much credit Pepper's getting for this, I don't wanna know how much I've earned."

"0.5." Lara scoffed at that.

"0.5?" She questioned. "I don't even get a whole percentage point? I was the one who had to sit on FaceTime with you while you told me which wires went where."

"You're forgetting I'm the one who did all the heavy lifting," Tony said. "Literally, I lifted the heavy things."

"And you had a suit of armor to help you with that," Lara pointed out as she poured herself a glass of sparkling water. Unfortunately, she couldn't participate in any of the festivities involving alcohol, but she could always pretend. "I, meanwhile, had no protection and ended up with a second-degree burn on my palm." She held up the wounded hand in question, showing a big, dark, red mark right between her palm and the heel of her hand. It looked like it was starting to heal, but it was obviously very painful for her to ordinary tasks, given how she was wincing as she poured herself a drink.

"I told you to put safety gloves on," Tony defended.

"Yeah," Lara said. "But I couldn't get my fingers those damn petit little wires with those things on. You should have made those wires bigger."

"Still, you shouldn't have taken them off," Tony pointed out as he began to pour two glasses of champagne for him and Pepper. "So, your fault, just like that little security snafu we had last week."

"Oh, God," Lara groaned. "Here we go again. That wasn't my fault."

"Twenty sweaty workmen all crowded in my private elevator," Tony said. "Explain to me how it wasn't your fault."

"Okay, I'll admit, I might have fibbed to the foreman guy about which elevator was the service elevator," she said. "But I don't see how that was a security concern. Besides, you're leaving out a key word there."

"Oh really?" Tony said. "And what would that be?"

"Sexy!" Lara exclaimed. "Those workmen were sexy and you know it!"

"Yeah," Tony said. "About as sexy as a truck stop men's room."

"I wish I could say you have no taste," Lara said. "But I've seen Steve, so that be an outright lie. You agree with me though, right Pepper? Those workmen were sexy, right?" Pepper fought back a smile as she swallowed down a sip of her drink.

"No comment," she said. Lara frowned rather dramatically.

"You're no fun, Pepper." At the same time, JARVIS spoke up again.

"Sir, the telephone," he said. "My protocols are being overwritten."

"Mr. Stark, we need to talk," a tiny, somewhat muffled voice said from a nearby counter. Tony quickly snatched up his cell phone and held it in front of his face. Looking at the display, Tony could see that it was none other than Phil Coulson who had hacked his phone. God, couldn't S.H.I.E.L.D. take a hint and leave a guy alone?

"You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark." Pepper laughed while Lara's eyebrows came together in confusion. "Can you please leave a message?"

"This is urgent," Coulson said.

"Then leave it urgently." As soon as Tony said that, the doors to the elevator came open, revealing that the Agent had also made his way up to the penthouse without triggering any of the security protocols. Great, now Tony was going to have to update those again just when he finished the last round of updates. "Security breach!"

"Phil, come in," Pepper greeted pleasantly while Lara got to her feet.

"Oh my gosh," she said. "I haven't seen you in so long!" She quickly crossed the room and gave the agent a big hug, which he returned. "How've you been?"

"Things could be going better," he said. "In fact, that's why I'm here. I don't have time to chat."

"Uh, first of all, his first name is Agent." Pepper shot Tony a glare. "Secondly, how the hell do you know him?"

"When I worked for the Secret Service, I ran into S.H.I.E.L.D. a few times," Lara said. "They tended to be very helpful, especially those times when someone tried to kill the President with a freaky experimental ray gun."

"I thought you never protected the President," Pepper said.

"My friend Todd did," Lara said. "And she introduced me to Phil and Melinda, who ended up being very helpful contacts to have in my line of work. Speaking of which, where is Melinda?"

"Uh, she's taking care of something for a friend," Coulson said.

"Classified?" Lara questioned.

"Very," Coulson confirmed.

"Forget I even asked then."

"Why don't you come in, Phil?" Pepper asked. "We're celebrating."

"Which is why he can't stay." Pepper shot Tony another glare.

"I need you to look this over," Coulson said as he held out a tablet to Tony.

"I don't like being handed things," Tony said.

"That's fine, because I love to be handed things. So, let's trade." Pepper handed Coulson her glass while she took the tablet and gave it to Tony, who still looked slightly annoyed.

"Official consulting hours are between three and five every other Thursday," Tony said.

"And the fact that coincides with Happy Hour at T.G.I. Friday's has nothing to do with it." This time, Tony shot Lara a glare.

"This isn't a consultation," Coulson said.

"Is this about the Avengers?" Pepper asked. "Which I know nothing about."

"Can't say I've heard of it either." Lara said perfectly honestly.

"Psh," Tony scoffed. "The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought, and I didn't even qualify."

"I didn't know that either," Pepper assured.

"Apparently I'm volatile," Tony continued as he hooked up the tablet to the holographic projection screen. "Self-obsessed, don't play well with others."

"That I did know," Pepper said.

"This isn't about personality profiles anymore," Coulson said.

"Miss Potts, you've got a sec?" Pepper quickly joined Tony at the counter, leaving Lara to chat with Coulson.

"What's going on?" she asked. "What is all this?"

"This is, uh, this." Tony hit a button and the holographic screens came to life with the display images showing the files that Coulson had brought with him. On the far left, the images and tactical info about a Dr. Bruce Banner (A.K.A. the Hulk) were displayed, along with news footage from the fight that destroyed half of Harlem the previous year. On the far right, there were more images and tactical info, this time about a man by the name of Thor Odinson. Accompanying Thor's profile was grainy video surveillance footage of the man taking on a giant killer robot in the middle of a suburban street. Then there was the file in the dead center…

Steve's file contained just the general information about his origin and the effects the Super Soldier Serum had on him along with pictures of him pre and post-de-icing and old battle footage from World War II. Tony had already come clean to Pepper and Lara about who Steve truly was, so he wasn't worried about that. No, what worried him was the fact that Steve's file was included with the rest of the Avengers. He didn't know that Steve was supposed to be a part of the initiative. (Although, why S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted to thaw him and have full access to him was starting to make more sense.) Worse yet, the fact that Tony was being handed these files at all was a bad sign. Looking glancing at the time display on one of the screens, Tony saw that it was 8:05. Steve had yet to show up. Tony knew that something bad was going down, and now all he hoped was that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't drag Steve into it (mostly for selfish reasons, but there were a few legitimate ones thrown in there, too.)

To distract himself, Tony turned his attention over to Pepper, whose eyes were flitting from screen to screen with a look of deep shock on her face. Tony listened as she took a deep breath and finally spoke up.

"I'm going to take the jet to DC tonight," she said. "You clearly have homework to do."

"Mmhm," Tony agreed as he stared disappointedly at the center screen. Pepper gave him a friendly peck on the cheek.

"I'll see you later." She then turned and went to escort Coulson back to the elevator. "Make sure you save some of that champagne for me." That caused Tony's lips to quirk upwards for a second, but not much longer than that. He opened his phone up to the messenger app. He'd been busy all day trying to get the tower up and running. He hadn't had time to check his messages after he texted Steve during brunch. When he finally got a look at his unread messages, though, he was met with heartbreak.

Captain Handsome: Something's come up. Sorry, but I can't make it.

Tony let out an exasperated breath. Yup, S.H.I.E.L.D. was in some pretty big trouble and of course they were going to lean on their golden boy to make everything alright. Still, there was nothing Tony could do but read the files and figure out a way he could help. Meanwhile, Lara walked up next to him and set her glass down on the counter.

"Well, looks like you've got your work cut out for you." Tony only nodded in response. "Anything I can help with?"

"Yeah," Tony said. "Can you go out and get me another bottle of this champagne? I'm going to need a lot of it." Lara looked concerned for a second but nodded.

"Sure thing," she said. "Anything else?" Tony shook his head. "Alright, I'll be here so let me know if you need anything else."

"You don't have to stay," Tony said. "You can go home."

"Please," Lara said. "You've clearly got work to do and if I'm not here to assist you, well then I just wouldn't be doing my job now, would I?" Tony gave her a small smile in gratitude.

"Thanks," he said.

"Don't mention it." Lara then turned and grabbed her coat before heading for the elevator herself. "Be right back," was all she said before the elevator doors closed, leaving Tony alone to wonder and worry.

Thank you to mfaerie 32 on FFN for the follow and the reviews and shekelash on AO3 for giving kudos! You guys rock! :)

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! I hope everyone's having a good time! Me, I couldn't personally care about Christmas given that my family sucks, I'm not Christian, and the holiday is so overly commercialized at this point that it's really lost any and all of the meaning that it had to begin with. However, it gives me an excuse to post, which is why you're getting chapters today and tomorrow.

Of course, this scene had changes to it. It was kind of obvious given that Tony/Pepper isn't a thing in this universe. Not that I have a problem with the Tony/Pepper pairing - I read fics about them all the time - but I just prefer Steve/Tony a little bit more. That being said, I hope I was able to cut back on the flirtiness between the two of them. As established in MHATRAR, although the two of them quickly failed as a couple, they still remain close friends and I hope that's what comes across here.

Remember kids, I don't trust anything or anyone below the sun. I don't feel anything at all...

Originally posted on 12/24/18