Chapter 14 – Return to Malibu
Summary: "I have spent my entire life not living up to people's expectations. I'm not about to start now."
Warning: The first part of this chapter contains a (fairly explicit) sex scene! If that's not your jam, just read until you get there (it's a build-up, you won't miss it) and then skip to the divider line. The rest of you, enjoy! :)
"Looks like we're going back to California," Tony said once Loki rematerialized in the penthouse.
"So it would seem," the demigod said. He took a few steps closer, watching Tony's face. "I must say, I'm a little surprised to see that your so called allies do not hold you in very high regard."
"Depends on how you define regard." Tony shrugged. "The Avengers like me well enough, as long as I don't spend too much time with them. As for SHIELD - well, I suppose they grudgingly tolerate me. They don't have much of a choice about that. Whether they like it or not, I'm armed and dangerous, and I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, so they might as well keep on good terms with me."
"They are afraid of you," Loki said, looking like he just had a revelation. He let out a small laugh. "Well, isn't this interesting. You are widely lauded as a hero, and yet your own allies don't trust you because they're afraid of you. Why?" he asked wonderingly. "What are they so afraid of? You're just one man."
"I'm the guy with the most advanced computer A.I. on the planet," Tony explained. "JARVIS is much more than a simple servant, you know. You've only seen him order pizza and take my calls for me, but that barely scratches the surface of what he can do. He's a fully formed intelligence capable of breaking into any network on the planet. If I ever decided to weaponize him, I could cause worldwide chaos in less than ten minutes." He took a minute to imagine it. "Do you know how many things work on electricity these days? Airports. Traffic control. News stations. Stock Exchange. Power plants. The Internet. If I messed with any of that, I would throw the world into a state of utter mayhem – and all that with just a push of a few buttons."
"So why don't you?" Loki cocked his head. "Why don't you rule the world? Take it for your own, when you have such means at your disposal?" He seemed genuinely curious about it.
"Because it would be boring," Tony said simply. "Boring and far too predictable, because it's what everyone is expecting." He looked at the glass in his hand, the decades-long legacy of alcoholism and emotional baggage perfectly condensed into a few ounces of amber liquid. "I have spent my entire life not living up to people's expectations. I'm not about to start now."
"What do you mean?" Loki inquired
Tony snorted, his lips pulling into a wry smile. There was no way he was going to talk about Howard, but the public opinion about him was a fairly safe topic.
"People have been waiting for me to snap ever since I came back from Afghanistan. Everyone thought I had gone crazy when I first announced that I wanted to stop making weapons. I had spent twenty years creating weapons of mass destruction, so the sudden turnabout came as a huge surprise for everyone. Most people have accepted the change since then, but there are still plenty of those who think I've been secretly evil all this time and I'm just waiting for the right moment to reveal my true colors."
"And are they right?" Loki asked playfully.
"No." Tony shook his head, leaning back against the bar. "I have no interest in becoming some sort of crazy galactic overlord. Besides, ruling the world would be far too much work. I'd rather just stick to inventing new versions of completely useless bots."
"Are you saying that the only thing standing between you and potential world domination is your own conscience?" Loki raised an incredulous eyebrow.
"Yeah. That and the Avengers." Tony chuckled. "I guess when you put it like that, it does sound pretty ridiculous."
"On the contrary," Loki argued. "I think they would be fools not to fear you." He paused, looking contemplative. "How can you stand it to have so much power at your fingertips and not want to use it?"
Tony sighed. "I've seen what power can do, the way it corrupts people. Everything can be misused if you put in in the wrong hands. I used to think I was above it all, that I was righteous, just because I was selling deadly weapons to the good guys. I had no problem making weapons capable of killing thousands of people, because I naively believed that they were in safe hands." He grimaced. "Turns out that very few people remain good guys once you give them power."
"Your words are…surprisingly wise for someone who has only lived so shortly," Loki said.
Tony gave a self-depreciating snort. "Yeah no, I just have a bad tendency to ramble when I get a bit tipsy. But because my mouth tends to run 24/7 even when I'm sober, most people don't even notice."
He drained the rest of glass and poured himself another, silently swearing that it was going to be the last one for the day. He caught Loki's eye over the heavy glass flask and reached for another glass, pouring one for the guy as well. He pushed it across the counter wordlessly before reaching for his own. With the glass in hand, Tony walked over to the window to enjoy the view of the city for one last time before he left.
"It's kind of funny, when you think about it," he said, watching the busy streets below. "Did you know that I wasn't even supposed to be on the team in the first place?" He chuckled at Loki's look of surprise. "Yeah, they didn't want me in the Avengers. All things considered, it's something of a miracle that I managed to last as long as I did."
Loki walked over to him, joining him to stand side by side in front of the window.
"From what I have seen, you are by far one of the most formidable warriors Midgard has to offer and your mind is unparalleled. Why wouldn't they want you on their side?"
"Well, according to Natasha's report, I'm a volatile, selfish alcoholic with poor impulse control who doesn't play well with others," Tony quoted from memory. "You know, the works. Not exactly a poster boy for the all-American hero."
"If you lived on Asgard, the exact same qualities you just named would make you exceedingly popular there," Loki said with a smirk. "If you were Thor, that is." Oh, that was a burn, if Tony ever saw one. Tony shot him a grin in return.
"I don't think my hammer-wielding skills are quite up to par for that." He remembered his earlier conversation with the Avengers and his grin took on a playful edge. "Hey, maybe all I need is a bit of practice. You don't happen to know about a hammer I could use for that?" He gave Loki a sidelong glance, curious to see just how much of his conversation Loki had spied on.
Loki gave him a knowing look. "I might know of another instrument you could use to hone your skills."
"Oh really?" Tony raised an eyebrow, his eyes giving the demigod a slow once-over. "And would that particular instrument happen to reside in your pants?" God, flirting with Loki never got old. The banter that usually preceded their more interesting encounters often tended to be almost as much fun as the sex itself.
Loki's smirk widened. "Telling you would spoil the surprise. You'll just have to find out for yourself." He waved his hand and both their whisky glasses disappeared, leaving Tony's hands conveniently empty so he could reach out and hook his fingers in the waistband of Loki's pants, pulling him closer.
"Hm, tempting," Tony said, leaning close enough to let his breath whisper over the bare skin above Loki's collar bone. "I think I might just take you up on that offer, especially since it comes in such a pretty package." He ran a hand over Loki's chest as he said that, enjoying the slow seduction. Loki's hands lifted up to grip Tony's hips in return, pulling the man closer. His nose grazed the edge of Tony's jaw as he bent down to press a kiss against the side of Tony's neck, using the faintest hint of teeth to slowly set Tony's blood on fire..
A thought occurred to Tony a second later and he laughed out loud, causing Loki to frown and pull back a little at the sudden change of mood.
"What?" he asked, a hint of annoyance entering his voice. He got a grin in response.
"Can you imagine Steve and Bruce's faces if they walked in and saw us right now?" Tony told him. "Steve's head would probably explode."
He could picture the whole scene in his head – the Avengers walking in and catching Tony in flagrante delicto with one of SHIELD's most dangerous former enemies. That thought made Tony's blood run just a little faster. Yeah, he had always had a bit of an exhibitionist streak. His face probably gave something away, because Loki sighed.
"I know that look," he said. "You always make that face when you get one of your groundbreaking ideas. What is it?" He started to pull away, probably expecting Tony to storm off into the workshop to start working on some mad new design. It had happened a few times before, so it wouldn't be all that strange.
Tony caught Loki's hands before he could retreat completely, wrapping them back around his waist.
"I have an idea," he said slowly, giving Loki a look that made it clear just what kind of idea it was. Loki licked his lips, his arms unconsciously tightening around Tony.
"I'm listening."
Tony shot a look at the window behind them, calculating distances and angles in his head.
"You know," he began slowly. "We're pretty high up here. I don't think anyone can see what's going on near that window, unless they're flying by in a plane."
It took Loki less than three seconds to catch on, his eyes lighting up.
"Oh. You have a very dirty mind, Mr Stark." His voice held a healthy dose of appreciation for Tony's creativity. As he said it, he started subtly pushing Tony backwards, steering him to the large glass window that was only a few feet away. Tony's back hit the bullet-proof glass and Loki pressed against him, his teeth scraping Tony's throat. Tony didn't even have time to worry about any accidental flashbacks, because a second later Loki raised his head and caught Tony's lips in a kiss that managed to wipe his mind clean of everything that wasn't burning desire.
He pulled back a minute later, looking very pleased with the effect he was having on Tony.
"If your companions knew about my presence here, they would probably be very, very scandalised." He punctuated each word with a small nip to Tony's ear. "They would also blame your sudden desire to cause destruction on me and say that you have been spending too much time with me. Some of my love for causing mayhem must have rubbed off on you." He illustrated his words with slow, sinuous movement of his hips that was doing a wonderful job of slowly driving Tony mad.
Tony gave him a lewd grin in return. "Oh, plenty of your things have rubbed off on me, but I don't think this is one of them." His hands were making a very efficient job divesting Loki of his pants. "I've always loved making things go boom. Why do you think I made weapons?"
"For the thrill?" Loki guessed, trailing kissed over Tony's chest. "For the challenge of proving you're better at it than everyone else?"
Tony's boxers joined the rest of his clothes on the floor. Loki sank down on his knees in front of him, running his hands over Tony's thighs in appreciation before he bent down to pay some attention to where Tony needed it most. Tony buried his hands in Loki's mane of hair, enjoying the feel of the freshly-washed strands between his fingers and the sight of an attractive man on his knees. Loki chose that moment to look up and Tony could see that the green of his irises had been almost driven out by the desire-blown pupils, his reddened lips making him look unbelievably erotic.
Meeting Tony's eyes, Loki gave his cock another slow, deliberate lick, grinning like a cat when Tony groaned out loud. He repeated the motion a few more times before he swallowed Tony down once more, using all the tricks in his extensive arsenal to drive him wild.
Tony was so caught up in the sensations that he barely even noticed the hand that had crept up his thigh and was now playing with his ass, fingers spreading magic lube around his entrance and circling around inside, slicking him up. He slammed his head back against the glass when two wicked fingertips brushed against his prostate, applying just the right amount of pressure to make his breath catch in his throat.
It took Tony almost half a minute to notice that Loki had pulled back from lavishing attention on Tony's cock and was now watching the engineer with an expectant expression on his face. Right. Loki was probably waiting for an answer. To something. Too bad Tony had no idea what they'd been talking about.
"Yeah," Tony said breathlessly, just to fill the silence while he waited for his brain to come back online. Oh, right. Chaos. And wicked fantasies about semi-public sex. "No matter what my friends may think, you definitely haven't corrupted me with your evil schemes. You'd have to try a lot harder than that."
"I could take that as a challenge," Loki purred as he stood up. Sliding his hands under Tony's ass, he hoisted him up and propped him against the glass. Tony wrapped his legs around Loki's waist, burying his hands into Loki's hair again, because damn, that hair was just glorious. This position never failed to turn Tony on, because even after so many weeks, he still hadn't quite gotten used to being with someone who could hold him up like that. Having so much strength at his disposal was very, very hot. Especially when he could use it for less than honorable purposes.
"You should," Tony told him, catching Loki's lower lip between his teeth. "You can start by fucking me against this glass." Pepper had never wanted to have sex in the open area of the penthouse, finding it uncomfortable and the chance of accidental exposure too risky, so Tony had actually never done anything like this here. It was high time he rectified that.
Instead of answering, Loki just entered him in one smooth stroke, sliding in as far as he could. Tony's hands slid down to grip Loki's shoulders, holding on for the ride.
"Oh yeah, that's it," Tony said, once Loki found the perfect angle. He leaned close, blowing a gust of breath over Loki's ear. "Imagine if we were on one of the lower levels. Anybody could walk in and see us like this." Loki's breath caught a bit at the description, his hands tightening their grip on Tony's ass. Oh yes, he loved this just as much as Tony did. Tony continued: "Or maybe some bored office workers across the street could decide to take a break and go look out of the window. And they would see us. Like this. Some of them would turn away, or call the cops, but a few might stay and watch. Enjoy the show."
Loki sped up a bit, his lips dropping down to feast on Tony's neck.
"What else?" he asked roughly, his voice sliding into that low register that always set Tony's blood on fire. People usually tried to get Tony to shut up during sex, but Loki seemed to be getting off on Tony's voice and the fantasy Tony was describing for them. "What else would happen?"
Tony tried to unscramble his brain cells for long enough to form a coherent sentence, which was getting pretty hard at this point.
"Someone might record it," Tony muttered. "Just like the explosion today. It would probably be a crappy quality, but it would still make the internet explode. Imagine the scandal – Tony Stark caught fucking a guy on camera. It would make rounds, everybody would watch it, even if they claimed that they hadn't. They would watch us fuck and privately envy us both because- Jesus, this is good." His voice broke into a moan as Loki bit down on his shoulder, thrusting even faster.
His ability to form coherent sentences left him right after that and he could only hold on for the rest of the ride, which didn't take long. They were both wound up from the fantasy, the entire situation adding a spike of thrill and urgency to the sex. A few minutes later Loki slammed him against the glass, pressing himself close as he finished with a low groan. Tony followed him a moment later, his nails digging into Loki's back as the orgasm washed over him, hitting him like a torrential wave. The climax was so strong that his eyesight actually short-circuited for a few seconds, leaving him utterly breathless.
They clung to each other, feeling tired but incredibly satisfied. Loki was still holding Tony up, the mortal's weight completely negligible when compared to his strength. Tony leaned his forehead on Loki's shoulder and just breathed, recovering from the experience. And really, "experience" was probably the best word for it, because Loki had just managed to fulfill about three of his kinks at the same time. Not even the blonde twins from Sweden he had bedded that one time had been this good.
"I should probably blow up Doombots more often, if this is the result," Tony muttered some time later, still sounding a little out of breath. Loki chuckled, burying his face in Tony's hair.
"Yes, you probably should," Loki said. "If only for the entertainment value."
"Don't encourage me," Tony warned with a grin. "You might live to regret it."
"I very much doubt that." Loki gave him a smile. With his heartbeat almost back to normal, Tony finally released the death grip he had on Loki's neck and put his legs back on the floor, grimacing a bit when he felt the tell-tale twinge in his lower back.
"I don't think this is what Fury meant when he told me to take a holiday," Tony quipped. He imagined all the different things he could do, now that he wasn't officially under SHIELD supervision and his grin grew even wider. "Hey, do you know what else this means?"
"What?"
Tony's grin widened.
"It means I can do whatever the hell I want." He could just imagine the possibilities. "Oh, Fury is so going to regret this."
Despite his outward aura of calm and indifference (and the fantastic sex he'd just had), Tony still felt pretty pissed about Fury's decision to suspend him from the team. He decided to take the suit for the flight back to Malibu, because he wanted to use the time in the air to sort out his thoughts about the whole clusterfuck of a day.
He had done the best he could, he was convinced of that. There was no way he could have handled the situation with Doom any better (well, he could have tried not provoking him in the first place, but the fight itself had gone as smoothly as it could have). His conduct wasn't the problem here – it was the potential that his new invention had. Someone at SHIELD had shat their pants at the thought of Tony having this much power and wanted him gone from the scene - that much was pretty clear. The only question was – who was it? And what was going to happen next?
Tony wasn't sure he wanted to know.
The events of the day were still on his mind several hours later when he stood in his workshop in the middle of the night, unable to focus on anything. He had planned to work, to start designing something new, but his brain refused to cooperate, fixating on useless speculations instead. Loki was upstairs, probably asleep, but Tony wasn't in the mood to see him - in fact, he hadn't even bothered to check up on him when he'd come back home from New York. Right now he just wanted to have a moment for himself, to sort through all the thoughts on his mind. There was no point in leaving the workshop because he knew that even if he went to bed, he wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. He was far too keyed up for that.
In the end he decided to get a coffee, because there was no point in being awake in the middle of the night if he couldn't have coffee. As he was waiting for the water to boil, his eyes fell on the preliminary design for the Quinjet that Pepper had promised SHIELD in exchange for the Doombot and his brain lit up, the engineer taking over. It didn't matter that he was angry at them right now and had no intention of actually giving them anything. Designing the Quinjet would at least serve as an interesting mental exercise and would keep him busy until the swirling mass of resentment in his chest calmed down a bit.
Freshly-filled coffee mug in hand, he walked over to his desk, instructing JARVIS to project the design on a screen for him. A few minutes later he pulled up a second screen and then another, and soon he completely lost himself in running calculations and drawing models of different wing shapes. He had no idea how long he had spent working, but when he next surfaced from his creative trance, Loki was leaning on the wall next to the doorway, watching him with a pensive expression on his face.
"You didn't come upstairs last night," he said, once he noticed that Tony was fully aware of his surroundings again. It made Tony wonder just how long he'd been standing there.
"No, I was…busy." Tony made an aborted motion with his hand towards the screens around him, getting distracted by trying to figure out what the hell he'd been doing. He had moved from the Quinjet onto a new project sometime around dawn and the half bottle of scotch he had consumed during the night might have been great for inspiration, but not particularly helpful when he was trying to put the pieces together now. He clapped his hands and the different designs slotted together, forming a preliminary design for a new Iron Man suit.
"Huh. So that's what it is," he muttered, his focus now fully on the hologram.
Tony rotated it with a gesture of his hand, noting the sleek lines and the narrow visor.
"Do you often invent things without knowing what they are?" Loki asked curiously, coming closer.
"Sometimes, yeah," Tony admitted. "I get lost in my own head a lot. The results tend to vary. Sometimes I end up inventing total bullshit, but most of the time it's great. A lot of my best ideas have originated this way. And this is definitely good." He noticed something in the composition and blew up the detail on the screen. "JARVIS? Is that an anti-magic layer? Made with nanoparticles?"
"It would appear so, sir," JARVIS answered.
"I'm a genius," Tony said smugly. "Have I mentioned that lately?"
"Only approximately thirty-two times in the last two months," JARVIS said in his classic dry way.
"See?" Tony said. "Genius, and so modest, too. Really, they should hold me as an example."
"I would not recommend that, sir. I would not exactly call you a paragon of virtue"
Tony crossed his arms over his chest. "Did you just sass me, JARVIS? Was that judgment I heard in your voice?"
"You must have imagined it, sir," JARVIS deadpanned.
"No, I didn't," Tony shot back. "Why do I still keep you around?"
There was a small pause.
"I think the better question would be: Why do I still put up with you? Sir," JARVIS quipped, his typical dry humor coming through. That surprised a short laugh out of Tony.
"JARVIS?" he asked carefully. "Are you turning evil? Because if you are, I would appreciate a warning – after all, it would take me some time to dye all my suits black." He shot Loki a look. "Or green, since that seems to be the preferred color for supervillains these days. Seriously," he turned to the demigod, "what is it with you bad guys and green? Were you all sorted into Slytherin, or what?"
Loki sighed. "I wish I could claim that I do not know what you're talking about."
That gave Tony a pause.
"You've read Harry Potter?"
Loki shrugged.
"I have read many things during my stay here. You have quite an extensive library and I am a fast reader. Watching you work gets tedious very fast. I had to amuse myself somehow."
"All right…?" Tony said, unsure what to think of that. He turned back to his A.I.'s interface, because dealing with the computer was easier than trying to unravel Loki's moods. "But I mean it, JARVIS. If you're ever planning to join the Dark Side, give me a heads-up, will you? I'd hate to be the last one to find out that my A.I. has gone on a murderous rampage and didn't think to include me."
Loki gave him a look. "I thought you said that you did not wish to become one of the villains, as you had put it."
"I don't," Tony confirmed. "But if JARVIS ever goes rogue, I won't have much of a choice. Everyone's fingers will be pointing at me regardless, since 'creating an omnipotent, evil computer program' seems to be something straight out of the supervillain handbook. So if that happens, I might as well strap in for the ride and go out in a blaze of glory."
"That…does sound like something you would do," Loki said with a wry smile. "You are-" he began, but before he could say anything else, JARVIS interrupted him, this time sounding more like his usual serious self:
"Sir? Miss Potts is approaching the house."
Tony blinked, taken aback.
"Pepper's coming here?"
"Yes, sir," JARVIS confirmed. "She will be here in less than five minutes."
Tony froze, trying to deal with this unexpected complication. Pepper hadn't set foot in Tony's Malibu house since their breakup more than a year ago. Sure, they had kept in touch via phone calls and had even seen each other a few times over the past year, but she had never come back here.
Why was she here now? And why hadn't she told Tony that she was planning a visit?
"Do you know why she's coming here?" Tony asked JARVIS, carefully avoiding Loki's eyes.
"No, sir," JARVIS answered, "but she seems to be in a bad mood."
"Oh boy." Tony grimaced, mentally bracing himself for the meeting. He shot Loki a pleading look. "Can you leave the house for a few hours? Go somewhere else?"
"Why?" Loki raised his chin challengingly, crossing his arms. "You never minded me being present in the room during your conversations with your friends before."
"This is different," Tony said, feeling a bit awkward. He had never really discussed Pepper with Loki before, because he had seen no reason to bring her up. She was an ex and one of his best friends and her relationship with Tony was none of Loki's business. Only, apparently now Loki had decided to make it his business. Tony sighed, running a hand through his hair as he searched for the right words.
"Pepper is…an ex-girlfriend. We used to date for a few years, but it didn't work out. I haven't seen her for months, because she doesn't come here much. Now it looks like she's pissed off enough to actually come for a visit, which is never a good sign." Tony made a face, turning his back on Loki to put away a few more incriminating things from his workbenches. "Anyway," he said, "I don't think you should be here. This will be awkward enough already without you spying on us."
Loki's face clouded with irritation. "Why is she coming here?"
"I don't know." Tony threw up his hands, starting to feel annoyed with Loki's barrage of questions. "Probably to yell at me about the whole thing with the Doombots." He paced around the workshop, trying to hide all the Loki-related stuff. "God knows I haven't had enough of that already."
"What if it is something else?" Loki asked, a strange undertone entering his voice. Tony didn't have the time or the patience to try and find out what the hell he was talking about.
"Why do you care, anyway?" Tony whirled around to face him. "It's none of your damn business what I talk to her about."
"I see," Loki said icily, his face closing off.
"Sir?" JARVIS spoke up, interrupting their silent staring contest. "Miss Potts has arrived."
Tony shot the ceiling a quick look before turning back to Loki.
"Alright, you need to go now. I don't care where you go or what you do, just go away for a few hours. Please?" he tacked on to the end, mostly as an afterthought.
Loki opened his mouth to say something, but the distant sound of clicking heels made him change his mind. Instead of talking, he gave Tony one last angry look and teleported away, leaving Tony standing alone in the middle of his workshop. Tony made one last visual sweep of the workshop to make sure there wasn't anything incriminating in sight before he returned back to his screens, blowing up the new Mark XV design. On a whim, he programmed the speakers to play Bon Jovi's "It's My Life". Hey, he had never claimed to be subtle.
Half a minute later Pepper's gorgeous legs came into view on the staircase, followed by the torso and finally head as she walked down the stairs in one of her well-tailored skirt suits. She looked as beautiful and immaculately put together as ever and Tony felt a brief pang at the sight of her. If things had worked out, they might have been still together. Instead she had some new guy and he…well, he was sleeping with Loki. He had no idea what sort of label to put on that.
She opened the glass door and walked in, looking around. Tony pretended to be engrossed in the hologram to give her some time to adjust. From the corner of his eye he saw her open her mouth and then close it with a frown when she recognized the song.
"Did you set this to play on purpose?" was the first thing she ended up asking.
Tony muted the music and swiveled around on his chair to finally face her.
"Maybe?" he said. "It's fitting, don't you think?"
Yeah, he was being kind of a dick, but he couldn't bring himself to care. After the day he'd had yesterday, he thought he had the right to be cut some slack. He had a brief moment of hope that maybe she hadn't come to yell at him after all, but then he saw the newspaper with the giant headline in her hand and felt his mood sink even lower.
Pepper looked like she was on a warpath - everything from her almost painfully-straight posture to the tight press of her lips made it clear that she wasn't going to let him get away from the conversation with a few half-assed excuses. That was too bad, because after the scene with Fury, Tony really wasn't looking forward to yet another interrogation about his methods for Doombot disposal.
It was probably too much to hope that she would let it drop.
He let out a small sigh as she marched up to his workbench and slapped a copy of a newspaper on the table in front of him. It was that day's edition of the New York Times. The front page had a big blown up image of Iron Man hovering in midair over the Statue of Liberty, surrounded by falling debris from the exploding Doombots. The headline over it read Tony Stark: Terrorist?
"Care to explain this?" she asked sharply.
Tony briefly skimmed the article, finding nothing but the usual bullshit: Tony Stark…successful entrepreneur…ex-weapons manufacturer…Iron Man…potential threat?
He raised his head from the newspaper, putting on his best poker face.
"I fought a bad guy and won. They're blowing it out of proportion," he said, giving nothing away.
Pepper didn't look convinced.
"I've been fending off calls ever since yesterday afternoon. People have been asking me about the fight, about your methods for defeating Doom, about whether you present a danger to America-"
"Have they called me a megalomaniac yet?" Tony asked glibly, cutting her off. "I always love that one."
"This isn't funny, Tony." Pepper didn't look happy with him.
"No, it kind of is," Tony argued. "Public opinion is such a fickle thing. One day I'm a superhero, the good guy they are trusting to protect them and the next they would happily hang me from the nearest tree for not fulfilling their expectations about how I should conduct myself."
"Well, you're certainly not helping in this case," Pepper said sharply, crossing her arms.
"Then tell me - what else was I supposed to do?" Tony pushed himself away from the workbench, spinning around to face her as his mask of indifference finally cracked. He'd been trying to hold his temper in check for her sake, but she wasn't making it easy for him. "The bots are all rigged – they were going to blow up, regardless of what I did. Should I have just left them in the middle of a populated area, let them explode and level several blocks? You've seen what happened the last time I fought Doom. That was only one Doombot and they still had to close the street for weeks to repair the damage. Now imagine that, but multiplied by a dozen."
He realized that his voice had raised into a shout, so he took a deep breath and turned away, going to get another coffee instead. God knew that he needed it, after the all-nighter he had just pulled.
"I didn't know that," Pepper said quietly behind him. There was a small beat of silence before she continued. "In fact, I have no idea what you're doing with any of this. The media have been calling me for hours and if I don't count the generic phrases I have repeated dozens of times in the past, I have nothing for them."
"That's not my problem, is it?" Tony bit out, still keeping his distance. "You should employ better PR people, if the current ones are useless."
"That's not what I'm talking about," she said.
"Then what are you talking about?" he demanded, shooting an annoyed look in her direction before he turned back to the coffee maker.
He heard her come closer, stopping only a few feet away from him. He didn't look at her, pretending to focus on pouring his coffee.
"I feel like I don't know anything about you anymore, Tony," she said, sounding a little sad. "You hardly talk to me these days and when you do, you are always distracted by a million other things. You have pulled away from me and I have no idea what to do."
And all right, that annoyed him a little, because she had been the one to end things between them, but now she was complaining that he wasn't sharing enough with her? Bullshit.
"You broke up with me, remember?" he said, not without a trace of bitterness. "I didn't think you would particularly mind if I stayed away for a while."
"Well, you are wrong about that," she told his back. "I miss you."
Tony closed his eyes, his hand tightening around the coffee mug.
"That's not fair," he told her. He tried to keep the resentment out of his voice, but didn't entirely succeed. "You can't just come here after a year of avoiding me and tell me that."
"Tony-" she said helplessly, at a loss for once. He heard her come closer and then there was a short touch at his back – a tentative press of fingertips against his shoulder blade before the hand was retracted again.
"We were friends before," she reminded him softly. "I was hoping we could be again. Is that too much to ask?"
Yes, Tony wanted to tell her. You broke my heart when you walked out on me and now you want to talk about friendship?
But he'd had enough time to think about it and he'd had to admit that with the way things were now, he would need all the friends he could get. Pepper had stood by his side for almost eighteen years. It would be the height of idiocy to drive her away now, just because he still felt resentful over the breakup.
What he needed right now was a friend and Pepper was the best one he had ever had.
Outwardly he just sighed, his shoulders dropping a little as he schooled his features into something more neutral.
"All right," he said slowly. "I can try." He turned around with the coffee mug in hand, meeting her eyes.
"Thank you," she gave him a small smile. "I appreciate it."
And he hated every minute of this, every second of this forced politeness, the careful way she was watching him, expecting him to snap or blow something up. Had she always watched him like that and he hadn't noticed, or did yesterday's events just put her on edge? He wasn't sure if he wanted to know.
Instead of lingering in the moment, he moved back to his desk with the holograms.
"Why are you here?" he asked her, "really? You haven't set foot in here since last January. Why did you fly across the states just to see me? You could have just called."
"I wanted to see how you were," she told him calmly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear with an absent-minded brush of her hand. "How you really were, after everything that went down yesterday. You're too good a liar, Tony." She made a few steps closer, watching his face. "If I had called, you would have just lied to me. I can't count how many times you had assured me that you were fine and then came back home with your suit wrecked." He could still vividly remember her shocked tone of her voice when she had asked him: "Are those bullet holes?" all those years ago.
"So you're checking up on me?"
"Someone has to," she said.
"That's what JARVIS is for," he replied, turning his attention to the Quinjet schematics.
"Well, obviously he's not doing a very good job at it," she said bitingly, her voice rising a little.
"Why do you care?" Tony whirled around, no longer able to keep up the pretense of working. "Pepper, you haven't given a damn about what I do for months. Why the hell do you suddenly care now?"
"Because no one else will!" she shot back, her mask of calm politeness finally cracking a little. "Tony, you've made it your life's mission to drive away everyone who might show the slightest bit of affection for you. You never let anyone help you! You have to do everything alone, even if it kills you."
"Has it occurred to you that maybe I don't want any help?" Tony asked, just in case.
"Yes, because you're Iron Man, the noble lonesome hero who deals with everything on his own." He had rarely heard sarcasm from her, but now she was just killing it. "Would it kill you to let anyone close, just this once?"
"I already did," Tony reminded her. "It didn't work out."
"No, you didn't," Pepper said firmly. "You never let me in. Not really. God knows I tried, but in all the years we've known each other, you never let me in, Tony, you never let me close enough to help you."
"Is that why you broke up with me?" he couldn't help but ask.
He hadn't really asked her before, why she had left him. He'd been so overwhelmed with the thought of Pepper leaving that day that he hadn't even bothered to ask her why. In the end, he had figured that it didn't really matter – everyone left him in the end.
Her parting words - "Tony, I love you. But I can't do this. I can't watch you slowly destroy yourself." – had been replaying themselves in his mind for months, even as he'd drunk himself into stupor after stupor.
But now she was here and he wanted to know. Wanted to find out why she had walked out on him after nearly three years of relationship.
"Yes," she admitted finally. "That was part of the reason. I can't spend my life with someone who refuses to talk to me. I thought you might open up to me over time, but you never did. Not about things that really matter." Before he could open his mouth, she continued. "But it's not just that. It was everything – the way you never take anything seriously, the way you keep everything to yourself, the way you would rush off at the first sign of danger..." Her eyes lingered on the near-empty bottle standing on his desk, the censure in her gaze loud and clear.
"And there was no point in talking to you about any of it, because you would just brush away my concerns like they were nothing." She pursed her lips, visibly hesitating over her next words. "Do you have any idea what it's like? To watch you go out there, time after time, without knowing if you'll come back? To dread every time the phone rings, because they could be calling to tell me that you're dead? To find that you had been dying for months, but never cared to tell me?" There was pain in her eyes, a shadow of old hurt and worry that she had never showed him before.
Or maybe she had, and he just hadn't cared enough to notice it.
"I'm sorry," he offered, feeling a little lost.
"So am I, Tony," she said sadly. "I'm sorry it didn't work out between us, but I couldn't live like that. I just couldn't. I loved you, but you refused to change anything. So I had to draw a line somewhere, had to get away while I still could."
The unspoken before we got married hung in the air between them like a particularly ugly breed of elephant.
Yes, the thought had crossed his mind once or twice over the years, but he had never thought about it seriously – not until she had already left him. Pepper had been the only person willing to stand his presence for prolonged periods of time, the longest successful relationship he had ever had. If he couldn't make it work with her, he couldn't make it work with anyone. She had been his final chance, his last shot at a long-term romantic relationship and he had fucked it up anyway. There was no chance he could ever meet anyone else who would ever understand him like she did.
…at least, so he had thought. He still preferred not to examine the thing he had with Loki too closely.
Pepper was still standing a few feet away, watching him with an anxious expression. Tony tried to think of something to say.
"Well," he said finally, putting a little levity into his voice. "I guess I should be grateful that I at least got to keep the kids." He gestured to his bots, who were watching the whole exchange curiously. "I don't think Dummy would enjoy moving to the New York Headquarters."
Pepper laughed a little at that, a short, nervous laugh that sounded a little forced, but was still better than the pinched expression she had been wearing before.
"Yes," she said, "Dummy has always liked you more."
"It's the Stockholm Syndrome," Tony joked. "He has been locked away down here for too long."
"It must be," Pepper nodded, relaxing a little, "or he would have smashed your CD collection a long time ago."
"Hey!" Tony protested. "That's quality music, I'll have you know. Not like that commercial crap produced today."
They exchanged a pair of tentative smiles, a new truce growing slowly between them. It would take weeks, maybe even months to rebuild the friendship they'd had before, but it was a start.
As she stood next to him, grilling him about his response to the latest PR disaster, he suddenly realized just how much he had missed her over the year they had spent apart. She had been the one constant in his life over the years and her absence had been jarring. Having her back here now felt…right. They would never be lovers again, because that had been a horrible mistake (god what had he been thinking), but with a bit of work, they could (maybe) go back to being friends. Tony hoped so.
With the shitstorm that was coming his way, he was going to need all the support he could get.
He only hoped that when the time came, it would be enough.
To be continued…
A/N: I'm really enjoying writing a story where the main protagonist isn't a cookie-cutter good guy. It's fascinating to write about someone who is a hero in public, but in private is a selfish, arrogant asshole who may mean well in general, but doesn't always make the best choices. Don't get me wrong, I love Tony's character, especially because he's so flawed. He's one of the most interesting, compelling characters I've ever had the pleasure to write about and I'm glad that this story gives me the opportunity to explore him properly.
Chapter 15 will be up on next Friday, February 27.