Guys! This is the SECOND to LAST chapter! Review before it's too late!
Also, Pepper back by popular demand! Haha, jk, there wasn't a demand...
To Kaoschild: Yes, I quite agree, MOAR REVIEWZ PLZ! lol about the chapters...see note above ^_^
and my lovely Evee: I know, Pepper is in pain too. I tried to make her realistic-she loves Tony, but knows she has to let him go so she tries to stay strong when he's around not to make him feel more guilty than he needs to be because she understands just how hard this was for him as she goes through her own grief. Phew...anyway, thank you for all your reviews, they are wonderful themselves. I accept your cookie and offer you this chapter...
Chapter Six: Tony Stark Has a Heart
Loki pulled his disappearing act again after that and Tony figured it safe to assume Loki was having another minor freak out again. Not that Tony could blame him. He had nearly a week to really get used to the idea of their odd relationship and what it truly meant to him and he still wanted to do something crazy to get his mind to stop obsessing over it. Unfortunately, he simply wasn't hardwired that way. He couldn't just forget about something or someone so tricky and challenging that it puzzled his great mind. No, he had to constantly analyze this shiny new substance, person or word/feeling as the case may be.
So, while he waited, blessed by some higher power with temporary unlimited patience-he was starting to freak out his fellow Avengers with how zen he became; seriously, he was practically rivaling good ol' Brucey-he agonized in a horrifyingly pleasurable way about the enigma that was Loki and his relationship with him. And when he wasn't donating brain power to necessary involuntary functions, or dissecting every memory to find out where it all went wrong and how, he was trying desperately hard to not act like a twelve-year-old-girl who just got asked out by the dark, artsy, forbidden-romance kind of guy who also just happened to be the same guy she had a long-time crush on. Of course, dwelling on his in-depth comparison didn't help much. He could feel himself blushing already from imagining what a mortal, teenaged Loki would like.
His thing for leather would probably stay, so across those elegant shoulders would rest an expensive leather jacket. He would probably be dressed to the nines in black-maybe a splash of emerald on a good day. Steel-toe boots with a bit of heel because Loki loved to lord over people with his height since he couldn't do it as impressively as Thor in musculature; laces done tight because he was anything but messy for the Nnorse equivalent of a God of Chaos. His long legs would be stitched into the smallest pair of skinny jeans the world could find which would not hide the fact that he was packing muscle in the only place that counted but still mislead you in believing those skinny sticks of his had no power. God, he could remember the feel of them wrapped around him tight-he could kill a man in a headlock with those things.
No horns, though, they were garish already. No, but maybe a few golden studs in his pale ears as a replacement, half hidden by his long hair that curled so adorably at the ends to frame his angular face. And a nose ring to sell his rebel look even further, oh, and an eyebrow ring-fuck yeah, he should totally convince Loki to get one for real, especially since he wouldn't put anything sharp near his mouth for obvious reasons. Oh, and just a touch of kohl around his eyes to make them pop otherworldly in the only way humans knew how to do to try and capture the essence of his eyes now.
Holy shit. Why the fuck did he have to be so gorgeous as a human?
"Stark. Stark...Tony-look, man, I know this is technically your place and all, but could you, I don't know, have your sex dreams someplace not at the breakfast table?" Clint's voice broke through his visualizing just when he finally got to the good part: teenager-Loki was just about to get his freak on with teenager-female-cheerleader-Tony, complete with the outfit and pom poms. this was so going on his RP list.
"What?" he asked, absentmindedly wiping away any drool he may or may not have from the corner of his mouth and off on his pants. He had really only tuned in enough to hear that he was being addressed by his company.
"Your noises that are most appropriate for one's bedchambers are most disquieting, man of Iron," Thor submitted helpfully, munching around a few pop-tarts.
"Ah, I see," he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Sorry,"
"I think we'd accept that if you told us who it was that caused you to turn back into an unrestrained teenager," Natasha grinned.
Normally, Tony would have grinned lecherously right back and make some comment about how he knew she always wanted in on his sex life. That's probably what she was looking for to check if he was normal and not on drugs or something. But he wasn't and he hadn't felt like it since Loki left. Everything was a bit off without his presence, like he was missing his confidence or something equally important. He looked down as the flush of red crawled up his neck.
"Uh, it wasn't about anyone. Certainly not anyone we know," he rattled off. He could feel their concerned gazes. Hell, he was giving himself one. Way to sound convincing, Tony, they totally believed that. "Yeah, so...I'm just going to go leave now," he said as he stood up and made his way into his workplace.
God, Loki, please get over this soon or come visit me so that I can help you work this out and we can all go back to normal-or our new version of normal...
He ended up staying in his lab for the next few days, doodling pictures of him and Loki-mostly Loki-and it was the first time he wished he had Steve's girly talent. He sighed, spilled over his work bench lethargically, pushing a pencil back and forth with what little energy he had left. He had no inspiration to even tinker with making Loki-clones or something. He didn't want to do anything.
Is this what liking someone was like? Everything bright and perfect and wonderful when you were together but soul-sucking when you weren't. It didn't sound too pleasant. Why was everybody all gung-ho for it? But then he remembered-
"Tony, you're making everybody worry-"
Tony scrambled to cover up and hide what the incriminating evidence of what he had been doing, but he was so deep in thought, he didn't realize how close his intruder was. He had barely enough time to put his papers away and stand up to use his body as a cover for those he couldn't before she caught sight of him and his rather cluttered desk area.
"Pepper! Ah, what brings you down here? Don't you have a company to run?" he winced at how harsh that sounded, but she only smiled.
"I do, but I'm unfortunately friends with a certain irresponsible Avenger who has locked himself in his room and refused contact or meals,"
"Yes, how terribly irresponsible of him or her. You should check on whoever it is right away and stop dawdling with me," he managed to bunch some of his drawings even more out of sight while he spoke without it looking like a desperate action. "I bet it's the Captain, there's no way he adjusted that easily and quickly to this time. Or maybe Hawkeye, he's got the whole rebel vibe and Loki managed to brain-whammy him so there's no telling what he might do.
"Then again, Natasha totally faked working with us and I don't like her so she must be up to something,"
Her smile grew more amused and slightly sad. "That's because she outsmarted you,"
Tony scoffed. "That's one theory,"
Pepper stepped forward, looking around her as she came a foot or two away from her boss and ex-boyfriend. He sweat-dropped inwardly. "Well, you sound like your normal self and your place isn't a complete mess, so that leaves only one thing..." she gave him a piercing stare, the one she used for particularly difficult entrepreneurs and board members or Stark. "What are you hiding, Tony?"
"Absolutely nothing," he deadpanned and he was so sure that he would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those meddling kids. And by kids, he meant the very damaging evidence of a Loki drawing that floated to her after his abrupt swinging hand motion of denial. He sighed as she bent and reached to pick it up.
"What's this?" she asked and then gasped as the answer became obvious to her.
"It's nothing really," he mumbled as she pushed past him to see all the others still on his desk. "Just a bit of boredom is all,"
"So you two really are together," she said, mostly to herself. "Tony, these are beautiful," she insisted, to him.
"Not really," he grumped, overly critical of his work like always, moving to order them into a neat pile now that he had the time. Contrary to popular opinion, he liked order just as much as chaos. His OCD was a bit of an on-off thing really, in that regard. More like anal-retentive, but he was billionaire enough to hold a few eccentric qualities. "It's far too analytical-like I'm picking him apart and giving an objective view. But that doesn't capture the light of his eyes or how they sparkle when he smiles, or how the line of his lips say as much about him as his mouth does. These can't show you efficiently enough how much I-" he cut himself off, ceasing all motion as if that could take back what he had just been about to say. Because it couldn't be true. It just couldn't.
"You love him," Pepper finished for him in a whisper of awe, though she had to have known. She was always better at this than he was. "You really love him,"
Could she stop saying that? He wanted to pretend that it wasn't true so that things could go back to normal, where he didn't feel things that made his stomach fluttery for Gods that were his enemies and he couldn't do that if she kept throwing it in his face.
He slumped. "Can we please not talk about this, anything else-anything at all-just please not about my little semi-unrequited crush,"
She shook her head at his immaturity, but it wasn't like she expected him to have a handle on it yet. It would take at least three more days from what she could tell. "Did you ever draw me?" she asked instead.
Not much better of a topic, but still...anything was better than dealing with his...crush.
"Pep," Tony said softly. "Of course I did. Granted, it was mostly during the time I thought I couldn't have you and believed in the hopelessness of a cure, so they're a little dark but-" he reached into a hidden drawer and pulled out a single piece of paper with a reverent touch. "I kept one," he breathed as he handed it to her as if scared to ruin it.
It was a picture capturing a single moment in time so realistically, she almost thought she was holding a mirror. Of course, she knew that wasn't true because the Pepper in the "mirror" wasn't doing everything that she was. Instead, she had a stern expression on her face, going through a stack of items telling her what needed to be done-memos on top of memos that still invaded her nightmares from time to time-and things that needed Tony to sign and look over. A sharpened pencil was tucked behind one ear, causing her neat hair to allow a few wisps to fall into her face and highlight the freckles that looked like they had been lovingly placed. She could almost sense a glow in her eyes. But the most beautiful thing about her portrait, is that she knew with 100% certainty that she had never seen Tony draw anything at any time that wasn't a blueprint or sketch of his inventions. so this image before her had to be constructed out of memory alone and maybe a hint of imagination.
"Can I keep it?" she asked, holding it to her chest, hardly daring to breath.
Tony smiled at her and she almost missed how heart-breakingly sad and guilty it still was. "Of course. It's not like-" he sighed, correcting his unrefined words, and reached up to kiss her forehead instead. "Consider it part of your twelve percent," he said as he left the room finally.
Well, she accomplished what she set out to do, she mused as she rubbed over a corner of her picture. Tony Stark has left the building. She sighed, heels clicking as she held her newest gift tight and moved to turn off the lights with a final glance around the room. She wondered how long Tony would continue to avoid her out of his sense of shame. She wondered how long it would still hurt to see him and not be with him.
But it didn't matter, did it? She would keep working for Tony with a completely professional attitude because she had to. Tony needed her and she would get over Tony because Tony mattered so much and he deserved to be happy. She had her chance to be that for him and it didn't work because they weren't right for each other. She wasn't built to last the stress of dating the Iron Man and Tony never would be able to think like a business man or understand one. She was surprised that they lasted as long as they did. Besides, now she not only had proof that Tony Stark had a heart, but that he had loved her with it in his own way.
With a faint smile on her lips, she turned her back and continued walking away.
