Guest Review Responses
Thank you for the favorites/follows: Taiski.
Venessa: Update ? – YES! I'm taking a day off work, so I here I am! Hope you like it!
Silvia 0 rai: really talented! One of my favourite pepperony writers keep updating I need to know what happens next ! Hope your okay !;)xxx – Awww, thank you! :D The next few chapters are going to be diabetic-comma inducing. In other words: too sweet!
Guest: Write more, please? Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? I want more adorable Pepperony fluff! You are so good at writing it! Just write Pepperony fluff and have Sam fall off the roof. Or be hit by a bus. Or just die in any way shape or form. Please? – HAHAHAHA! Funny you mention roof… because, well… Sam's end will happen on the roof… but not in that way… and not yet ;)
Chapter 8
"Dad?"
"Uh-huh?"
"Do you like Tony Stark? I mean: are you OK with Pepper dating him?"
Virgil Potts spared his daughter a quick, curious glance, just to make sure that it was Samantha and not Pepper asking the odd question, and he then returned his attention to the morning paper in his hands.
"Not that it matters if I didn't, but yes: I do approve of her dating him."
"What do you mean: it doesn't matter if you didn't?" the tone of utter disapproval was evident in Samantha's voice, even more so than the fact that she was yet to touch the cereal in her bowl.
"Pepper's an adult, Sam," her father reminded her. "She can make her own decisions now."
"Even bad ones?" Samantha's head recoiled. "You're just gonna let her make awful decisions?"
Virgil, not fazed at all by the girl's questioning, simply shrugged.
"Really, Dad?" the young woman slammed her palms against the table. "Tony Stark is a rich boy! A superhero! One that is always in danger! You know what I caught them doing at school yesterday?"
"What?" Virgil asked, successfully hiding a tiny sense of dread from showing in his voice.
"Sparring!" Samantha threw her arms in the air. "They were fighting! Punching! Kicking! Like, actually fighting!"
"Training," Virgil corrected the girl. "It's called: training. I've seen them do that on roof here, too."
"And you're OK with that? You're OK with a boy… a man, since Tony's also an adult, beating Pepper up?"
Virgil scoffed and rolled his eyes.
"Tony Stark wouldn't beat up your sister, Sam."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Yes."
"But, he's still stronger than she is. What if he tried to–"
"If he tried to," Virgil set down his newspaper on the table, "Pepper would fight back as much as she could. And, he knows that afterward, I'd stop at his doorstep with a shotgun."
"And what would a shotgun do against his suit of armor, Dad?"
Whatever retort Virgil was about to give was interrupted by the front door of the apartment suddenly opening to reveal a wide-awake Pepper Potts.
"Morning, Dad!" the redhead chirped as she closed and locked the door behind her.
"Morning, sweetheart," the man replied with a smile that widened when his oldest daughter placed a box of warm donuts and a cup of steamy coffee before him on the table. "Long night?"
"A tad," Pepper said with a shrug before her eyes briefly landed on the brunette glaring at her. "Would've been longer if all three of us hadn't gone out together."
"The three of you? Where were you?" Samantha crossed her arms over her chest.
"Team Iron Man mission," Pepper replied.
"In pajamas?" Sam pointed towards her sister's outfit.
"Of course not," the ginger replied before she pressed the center of her backpack to let it envelop her in her Rescue persona. She allowed the suit to stay on her for only a few seconds to allow Samantha's jaw to drop at seeing the armor up close, and she then retracted it to walk over to the refrigerator and pour herself a glass of milk.
"A mission. On a Saturday. It's not even 7 AM!"
"Crime has no curfew," Pepper responded.
"But you do!" Samantha narrowed her eyes.
"No, she doesn't," Virgil said in between bites of the donut in his hands before he stared at the redhead. "Everything OK, I guess? No major injuries?"
"None," Pepper snatched one of the donuts and took a large bite out of it, "And before I forget: Mr. Stark wants to know if you're still interested in going with him to the Yankees' game tomorrow."
"Oh, yeah!" Virgil sipped on his coffee and snapped his fingers at the same time. "I meant to call him back about it, but I forgot!"
"I'll make sure Tony tells him when we go out today."
"Go out?" Samantha did a double-take. "You have a date? With Tony? Today?"
"Yeah," Pepper said slowly, her tone denoting how obvious it should have been for her to understand that seeing someone in the way she and Tony were seeing each other meant going out on dates with them at some point.
"Seriously?"
"Yes. Seriously."
Samantha pulled her gaze away from Pepper's, stared at her now soggy cereal, and then scoffed.
"Well, hopefully you won't go to a science museum or any other intelligent place in the city. You won't be able to understand half of what is happening there with that tiny brain of yours."
"Samantha!" Virgil spat, ready to reprimand his daughter for the uncalled for insult against the redhead, but the brunette was out of the kitchen before anything else was said or done.
xxxXXXxxx
Tony would be at her doorstep, any minute now, to pick her up for their day-long date. It was rare that the couple had a chance to act like normal teenagers on the weekend, so when the opportunity arose for them to go out on a date, they made sure the occasion took the entire day.
"Well, we're taking the day off. No computer talk. No armory. Just you and me."
Tony Stark had taken her description of a date to heart. Though, she highly doubted that shopping for shoes was on his list for today.
Then again, most of the things that would interest Tony, would bore Pepper to death – not because she did not want to please him by going along with them, but because she knew she would not be able to share his excitement with him.
Or, at the very least, not in a way that he would not immediately see as a blatant lie; an attempt to show attentiveness for something that was way over her head.
He had told her that she did not need to learn anything about science for his sake. But that had been before Samantha had come along.
Had things changed since then? Did she now have to pick up a science book and learn it from cover to cover?
Was she even able to achieve such a feat?
"I thought you had a date," Samantha's mocking voice as the brunette sat next to her on the couch made Pepper's blood boil. Her apartment, while it had always been small, had never felt claustrophobic to the redhead until her sister had made herself at home. Now, even watching television in the living room was a chore. She would have waited for Tony downstairs, outside, perhaps even on the street. But it was way too hot to wait for him there. She would be a stinky pile of sweat by the time he showed up.
"I do," Pepper replied between clenched teeth, her eyes glued to the television screen. "He'll be here soon."
"He will?" Samantha eyed her up and down. "Then why aren't you dressed up yet?"
Pepper's head snapped towards her right to stare at her sister, and she then looked down at her typical attire of leggings, long blouse, high-top sneakers, and her signature tie around her neck.
"I am dressed!"
"That's how you dress for dates?" Samantha's eyebrows rose.
"Yes! Is that a problem?" Pepper glared at the girl.
"No," Sam shrugged. "At least if you plan to lose him to a pretty girl once you go to college in a few months."
"W-what?"
"I'm just saying. Might as well get ready for that. College girls are always dressed up. I know. I've seen them. Especially if they know someone like Tony Stark's gonna be around. He's going to MIT, right? I'll probably see him there. One of my college acceptance letters is from MIT."
"How… how do you know where he's going?"
"He told me. I was undecided between MIT and Yale, so I asked for his opinion. We both agreed that MIT was probably best, seeing as Dr. Richards teaches there. You know he's coming back to the Academy next week? I'm totally not missing out on that lecture! I'm sure Tony and I are gonna have so much fun there! In fact– uhm… Pepper? Pepper! PEPPER!"
Just like that, Pepper Potts had run back to her room, leaving her sister to bask in the glory of her triumph until there was a knock on the door.
Perfect timing, the brunette thought as she stood up from the couch to open the door, knowing very well who was standing on the other side of it. To her surprise, the genius had not made any significant adjustments to his own wardrobe for the occasion, either; the only difference for him was that he was wearing a black polo shirt instead of his typical red tee-shirt.
"Hi, Sam," Tony said with a smile, a set of keys twirling around his right index finger.
"Hi, Tony. Here for Pepper?" the girl rested the right side of her body against the edge of the door, a coy grin on her face.
"Yeah. She ready?"
"That's a good question," Sam looked back over her shoulder with a devious grin and towards the ginger's room for a second, and she then returned her eyes to the inventor. "Want to come inside while you wait? There's a documentary on the mass and light beam that came out of Markarian 335."
"The black hole?" Tony said with excitement, the keys' movement coming to a halt. "That's so cool! Did you know that… that… t-th-that… wow…"
"What?" Samantha was momentarily confused by Tony's sudden look of shock and his jaw practically hitting the floor until she heard him gasp her sister's name and watched as his eyes moved up and down to something behind her.
Someone behind her.
"Hey, Tony," Pepper took short steps towards the door, afraid to trip on her own two feet due to the height of the heels she was currently wearing, knowing that the short, black, strapless dress that surrounded her body down to her mid-thigh would leave her rather exposed if she were to fall.
Tony Stark's gulp was loud enough for Virgil Potts to hear.
"H-hey," he licked his lips. "You-you… uhm… hair… dress… legs… oh, legs… I mean…" he shook his head. "Nice. You… you look nice."
Pepper gave him a one-sided shrug before she finally reached the door; Samantha silently staring between them in awe, the girl clearly forgotten by the two teens.
"I-I… You… ready, Pep?"
"Yes," she nervously rubbed the back of her neck with her right hand. "Is it… I mean, I can change. Is this too much?"
"No. Fine. It's… fine… But," he looked at himself. "I… I gotta change."
"No, Tony. It's OK," Pepper began walking back towards her door. "I don't know what I was thinking. It's silly. Give me five minutes and I'll–"
"No, Pepper," he grabbed her by the hand. "It's OK. You're fine. I can… and you… well… you… you look... You look amazing."
Pepper bit her bottom lip at the look of unrestrained approval that Tony was giving her, remembered that her sister was still very much present, and then decided to make things even between them.
"I bet I don't look like a boy anymore, huh?" the redhead winked at her boyfriend.
"No, you don't," he could not keep his eyes from taking in every inch of her. "You never did."
"So, date?" she pressed her body against him and felt him tremble where he stood.
"Yes. Date."
"Lead the way, then," she hugged his right arm with both of hers and pressed her face against him to keep him from seeing the blush that was creeping up on her, which only finally cemented itself on her entire face as soon as she felt the rapid beat of his heart.
