CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHINESE NEW YEAR

"I can't believe I'm actually in China for Chinese New Year," Pearl says as she looks down at the festivities happening on the streets of Shanghai.

"It's pretty cool, right?" Tony asks.

"Very cool."

It is the exact definition of cool. It's Chinese New Year, in China, on the rooftop of what's probably the fanciest hotel in all of Shanghai, if not all of China, and there's nobody else up there, except the waiters who keep bringing them more and more drinks and amazing little finger foods without being asked to and they move so swiftly they're practically invisible. It's as if food keeps magically appearing in front of Pearl while fancy and colorful drinks fly in the air before landing in her hand. The parade hasn't even officially started yet, but the streets down below are full of life and color and music.

So, it's very cool, and she could get used to it. Tony is cool, as always, and Pearl is definitely getting cooler and cooler with every drink. The sequined strappy dress she's wearing is very cool, quite literally, but the roof is heated, so it's fine.

Pearl takes a sip of the sweet and fruity drink that appeared in front of her just as she finished the bubbly and sour one. Bopping along to the music from the streets, she looks across the table at Tony, who is apparently doing something super important on his phone and not really present in the moment. She picks up a cocktail napkin and crumples it into a ball before throwing it at him. She tries to aim for his face, but it flies straight past his ear, probably due to wind or an incorrect throwing trajectory. It could be the alcohol or it could be that she was never that great at math. The flying napkin does manage to snap him out of thought; he looks at her with a raised eyebrow and a definite 'why are you throwing things at me' face.

"You still haven't told me what we're doing here. Is Gary even here yet? Is he flying in later?" she asks.

The whole thing, from the minute Gary handed her a plane ticket to Shanghai and pushed her into a taxi in Berlin to meeting Tony in the hotel lobby, has been a complete mystery, yet again. If there's anything Pearl has learned, it's that working with Tony Stark means one has to know how to go with the flow, and that's what she's been trying to do, but the fact that Gary isn't even there and Tony telling her to put on a nice dress before leading her up to the roof is just too much flow for her to handle. She needs answers. Something.

Tony furrows his brow. "What we're doing here? We're here for Chinese New Year."

He says it completely casually, as if they do this kind of thing everyday, and while he actually might, she certainly doesn't.

"This isn't a business trip?" she asks, thrown off by his answer and studies his face to see if he might be joking.

"Of course not. I wouldn't make you work on your birthday." He seems completely serious as he looks into her eyes and smiles, kind of.

Pearl sips on her drink and just stares at him, completely dumbfounded by him knowing this piece of information she's pretty sure she's never told him. "You know it's my birthday?"

"FRIDAY reminded me," he says. "You look absolutely stellar, by the way."

"Right." Pearl can't stop staring. FRIDAY might be an artificial intelligence, but Pearl is pretty sure the machine doesn't remind Tony of every single birthday by every single Stark Industries employee. She smiles, because the fact that he clearly thought her birthday was worth remembering makes her super happy even if he did go completely overboard with everything, and finishes her drink. "Still, it's very nice of you to do this."

Overboard or not, this is definitely a unique way to celebrate her twenty-eight birthday, so Pearl shifts her focus back to the streets, where the humongous parade is about to start. With a drink in one hand and her phone in the other, she watches in awe of the huge, dragon shaped parade floats, hundreds of dancers moving in perfect sync and thousands of people gathered in the streets to celebrate. She takes blurry pictures and sends them to Sam, who sends back equally blurry pictures of his meatball sub and the deli near the Avengers compound. He also sends a picture of a puddle to show her what she's missing out on.

As Pearl takes her eye off of the parade for just a second to grab a delicious looking fried thing off the plate in front of them, she notices Tony isn't looking at the sea of red and gold below. He isn't looking at his phone. He's looking at her. Casually, he shifts his gaze to the food and grabs something from the plate before focusing on the streets. Pearl decides to ignore the weird moment and eats the fried thing. It tastes as delicious as it looked, though she still has no idea what it is, but it's definitely a vegetable of some sort. She washes it down with the remaining drops of the minty cocktail in her hand before getting up and moving across the table to sit next to him.

"This is such a wonderful birthday, Tony. Thank you so much," Pearl says. Tony offers his hand and she takes it, but as she bends her knees to sit, her heel slips a little, making her lose her balance. Tony tightens his grip and kind of yanks her towards the couch, so she doesn't fall in the wrong direction and instead ends up right next to him.

"You alright?" he asks as she can't stop laughing.

"Yeah," she says with a big smile. She tilts her head to the right and finds herself staring at his face. "You know, you're actually a really great guy."

"Thanks, kid," he says dryly.

Pearl's sudden need to express her never ending gratitude may be brought on by the drinks, but that doesn't make it any less true. Tony is great. The past nine months haven't been easy, but thanks to him, they've been a little less horrible.

"No, I mean it. You don't get enough credit, but you're so nice and caring and helpful and..." Pearl trails off, trying to find that one word that describes Tony perfectly, that one word with all the vowels, but she can't find it.

"Devilishly handsome?" Tony suggests.

Pearl laughs, making him laugh, too.

"Yes, absolutely. You're devilishly handsome," she says with a mischievous smile and taps her finger on his nose.

As fireworks begin shooting up into the sky, Pearl gets up, this time without stumbling, and leans against the railing that surrounds the whole roof. She looks down at the city, now lit up with a different color every two seconds. It's so colorful and lively, that someone could write beautiful poetry about it.

"I can see everything from up here. I wonder why nobody else thought of this," she says.

"I reserved this whole roof for us." Again, he says it like it's the most normal thing.

Pearl looks over her shoulder. "What? Why?"

"Because I can," Tony says with a simple shrug. He signals something towards one of the waiters.

It does sound like something he would do just for the hell of it, but it's still odd, since the rooftop seems to be quite an exclusive place to begin with. As Pearl is about to press him for more information on why he would reserve the whole roof when there are only six tables and a velvet rope by the entrance, the waiter he signaled comes up to them and hands Tony a small box. It's dark red and rectangular.

"What is that?" Pearl asks.

He gets up to join her and hands over the box. "A gift."

Pearl takes it and holds it in her hands, tracing her finger across the leathery exterior. A gift? The trip to Shanghai isn't enough of a gift? Pearl playfully nudges his shoulder. "You shouldn't have."

"Open it."

She finally looks down at the box, only to have it make her slightly nervous. In gold, the word Cartier is embossed on the box. For her last birthday, her co-workers chipped in and got her a Starbucks gift card and Natasha usually just buys her a drink or two, so a Cartier box is definitely a new experience as far as gifts go. Taking a deep breath, Pearl slowly lifts up the lid to reveal a stunning necklace: a simple white gold chain with a circular pendant completely encrusted with diamonds. A barely audible gasp leaves her lips, and for the first time in probably ever, Pearl has no words.

"Happy birthday," Tony says. Pearl looks up to see him studying her face intently. "You like it?"

Of course she likes it, who wouldn't? It's a freaking diamond necklace. Pearl feels her heart racing, but the rest of her is frozen in one spot. She stares at Tony with her mouth slightly open, unsure of how to respond. A part of her wants to ask him if he's gone insane and another part just wants to start crying, but that's probably just the mixture of the booze and her overly active hormones talking.

She looks down at the necklace again, hoping it might have been a Target gift card or a bottle of cheap liquor or a Snuggie all along and her mind was just playing tricks on her, but no, it's still a gorgeous piece of jewelry. A gorgeous piece of jewelry she can't possibly accept, because it's way too much, especially after everything he's already done for her. After all that, she should probably be buying him gifts. She makes a mental note to purchase a thank you gift for Tony, even if that opens up the whole question of what to buy for someone who has everything, and googling help for that question has proved to be useless every time she's tried it, and the people she was shopping for those times didn't literallyhave everything, so she's basically screwed.

Pearl sees him still waiting for an answer and wonders which drink it was, that made her even more unable to focus on one thought than usual. Maybe it was the pink one with the sprinkles or the black one that was on fire. He's still waiting.

"It's really expensive," she finally manages to say. She finds herself clutching onto the box like her life depends on it, because dropping it is not an option. She slowly inches herself a little further from the edge of the roof, also know as 'the worst possible place to stand while holding diamonds.'

He chuckles. "That doesn't answer my question."

"It's beautiful," Pearl says.

"I saw it and thought of you."

Considering all the weird stuff that's been happening tonight, his statement fits right in, but it still catches Pearl off guard, because it kind of sounds like he's calling her beautiful, and he's done that before, but under completely different circumstances. Again, she doesn't know how to respond. The gift is too much, that's obvious, but their definition of 'too much' is probably quite different. Maybe he buys fancy gifts for everyone or maybe he just doesn't think about it like that. Maybe he just sees things and buys them without even asking the price, because he doesn't have to. Or maybe his personal shopper picked it out and he's just a really good liar, because he does sound totally sincere.

"Here," he says, reaching for the necklace. "Let me put it on."

Tony moves closer to her, and out of instinct Pearl turns her back on him, lifting up her hair. She knows she shouldn't accept the gift, but she's not really in the mindset of having a coherent argument about it, and even if she did, he wouldn't listen. As he places the chain around her neck, his hand softly grazes her collarbone. The metal feels cold against her skin. He hooks the clasp, and to her surprise, his fingers linger on the nape of her neck, gently caressing it. The feeling of his touch sends a little shiver down Pearl's spine and she finds herself having to catch her breath. Gently, he wraps his hand around her arm and his beard scratches her soft skin as his lips find their way onto her shoulder, right next to the strap of her dress.

As Tony places gentle kisses along her shoulder and up the side of her neck, Pearl looks up at the fireworks and wonders which drink made her unable to see all of this coming. It feels good, like really good in a way that sends trembles all over her body, and it's been a long time since she's felt anything like this, so she doesn't tell him to stop. Instead, she lets out a small moan and closes her eyes. The sound of the fireworks seems to fade away as Tony kisses his way up to her ear, making her arch her back so the strap of her dress falls off her shoulder and the jewelry box falls out of her hand, landing on the expensive velvet rug with a soft thud. She turns her head and their lips meet. He tastes like expensive whiskey and trouble.

With her heart pumping faster and faster, Pearl tries to think straight for a second and pulls back from the kiss, turning to face Tony. He sees the bewildered, yet flushed expression on her face and appears to realize what just happened and how it maybe shouldn't have. The slight shock quickly wears off as he clears his throat, looks down at the necklace and flashes that winning playboy smile of his, the remnants of her red lipstick smudged all over it.

"It looks great," he says, taking a step backwards.

"What just happened?" Pearl asks, trying to steady her breathing.

It's funny how after a nine-month long dry spell, a few well placed kisses can get her just about ready to explode. In her quest to move on and let go, she'd almost forgotten how it feels to be touched by a man. How good it feels.

Tony rubs the back of his neck. "I'm sorry. I think I've had a little too much to drink."

"Yeah, totally. Me too. It's fine," Pearl says and smiles. She steps forward and strokes his arm in a reassuring way, with the absolute intention of it being completely platonic, but it feels nice and firm, and she finds herself taking another step towards him and grabbing onto his other arm. She takes a deep breath, faintly sensing the rich and earthy, almost intoxicating scent of his cologne. As if she wasn't already drunk enough.

"You won't sue me for sexual harassment?" Tony asks, jokingly, as he observes her with caution.

Pearl shakes her head and looks up into his eyes, biting on her lip. She wonders if he can hear her heart beating, since it's pounding against her chest so hard it feels like it's about to bust out. She knows thinking straight has gone out the window at this point, and she doesn't even care. Whatever was happening before, she wants to start happening again.

"No," Pearl says, running her hand up his arm and down against his chest. "Of course not."

Tony looks surprised, but he doesn't get a chance to say anything before she closes the gap between them, leaning in for a kiss, which he eagerly reciprocates. He runs his hands down her back and onto her waist, pulling her tightly against his own body, and his lips find their way to her neck again. His breath leaves her skin quivering. Pearl unbuttons his shirt with shaky hands and runs them across his chest, grazing the scar where his arc reactor used to be, before reaching around and digging her nails into his back. He groans, his kisses becoming more forceful.

In the elevator, as they ride down to suite 2201, Tony lifts her up against the wall so hard it feels like the whole elevator shakes. The soothing elevator music gets drowned out by their heavy breathing and frantic kissing. As she wraps her legs around him, their eyes meet, his intense and wanting stare matching hers. When he reaches under her dress, hiking up the hem and runs his fingers around the lacy edge of her bra, it feels like the longest elevator ride in the world.

There are no more words exchanged, no hesitation or doubt. They sink into a sea of silky red sheets and golden bedposts, drowning into the moment, not even coming up for air. Skin on skin, scar to scar. Deliriously drunk with no concept of time, space or anything beyond this two person paradise, Pearl feels every touch, every kiss, every moan, shiver and quiver, as if suddenly sobered.

She could get used to birthdays like this.