Kill it with fire

Nothing Tony was doing was having any effect on Unicorn. Well that wasn't really true, he could just repulsor blast his head into microscopic dust, but he was 90% sure that Peter (among others) would disprove.

His first attempt at incapacitating him was unsuccessful was even though he had ears and a brain they'd been changed in some way so that an auditory attack was ineffective.

Which was not only inconvenient but worrying.

It meant that someone, had purposefully changed Unicorn's physiology so that Tony's most basic non-lethal attack was useless.

But Unicorn was in no way defended against any of Tony's lethal options, which meant that someone wanted the Unicorn dead and more than that wanted Tony to kill him.

Killing a (fairly) unarmed man in public, would not be good.

Which meant that Tony had to get creative, first things first. Disarm the fucker.

He blasted a low level repulser beam at Unicorn's hand, he dropped it. But he got the impression that he dropped it more from shock than pain.

Then he magnetically dragged some metal sheeting from a nearby construction site and wrapped it around Unicorn. Sealing it with a quick burst, welding the two sides together.

"This holiday season, every child wants a homicidal unicorn under the tree" Tony quipped quietly and automatically. His mind was on other things, he didn't even hear the cheering of the pedestrians as he flew away to drop off his packaged villain.

After he was done, he called up Peter.

"Hey Peter, how's tricks?" he asked as he flew to the tower to check up on some projects before their date at 8:00.

"I'm all right, turns out I don't have the 'flu" he answered cheerfully.

Tony had to resist the urge to find Peter and hug him right there and them, he was so ridiculously cute sometimes. He knew Peter wouldn't appreciate the sentiment, but it was true. Contrary to popular belief it was possible for a man to be sexy, and manly and cute. And Peter was all three of those.

"Awesome, just checking, 'cause I was distracted before."

"I know".

"Saw the news did we?"

"Yep, and yes we're on for 8:00. Vietnamese, and you're getting me at 8:00."

"Thanks Pete, love you."

Tony stopped dead, they hadn't actually exchanged 'love you's' yet and he was really worried that he'd fucked up their whole dynamic, until.

"I love you too Tony, see you tonight" and then he hung up.

There was barely a pause, and it was a natural conversation pause as well. Not a 'oh fuck what do I say pause', like it was totally natural to say 'I love you' back.

Tony stared at the phone, mid-air before shaking his head and continuing on to the tower.

He really was a lucky man.

It was only five, which meant that Tony had three hours to check on his projects and get ready for his date.

When he landed on the roof tho' he was greeted by a familiar sight, an irate Pepper.

She was standing, hands crossed over her chest. Frowning as only a terrifyingly efficient secretary-cum CEO could, balancing on ridiculously high, high heels.

"Pepper?" he asked warily.

He didn't think he'd done anything wrong, he'd been going to meetings (both S.H.I.E.L.D and company related) on Peter's insistence. No drinking or partying and there hadn't been any scandalous stories lately, as far as he knew he'd been a good little boy.

So why was she making her, 'I'm going to burn you and rape the ashes face?'.

"Tony you and I need to talk" she said, it was remarkable how she was far more intimidating like that, than Tony could ever be in his armour.

"About?" he asked as the spinning rings magnetically removed his armour.

He stood in front of her, and felt naked and vulnerable as she glared at him.

They walked inside and as soon as the glass doors where closed, she rounded on him.

"Have you been drinking again?" she asked.

Tony did a double-take, and stared at her.

"No! God no, I haven't had a drink in forever. Why? What's brought this on?"

"Happy told me, you've been having odd hours. No-one knows where you are, and you've been going to all of your meetings. The last time you did that you were doing it to prove that you where and I quote 'a fully functioning member of society".

Tony stared at her and laughed like crazy, which only made her madder but when he could get his breath back he pulled out his phone.

"Pepper I have not been drinking, and I can prove it".

He showed her a picture of Peter (one of many) where he was grinning like an idiot.

"Who's that? What sort of answer is that?"

"That is Peter Parker, and he's the reason why I've had odd mysterious hours and have suddenly grown a conscientious responsible bone. I've been dating him for about six months now."

Tony fully enjoyed the shocked look on her face, up until she punched him hard in the arm.

"You jerk! I was worried for nothing. Tell me everything. Why didn't you tell me?"

And Tony did, tell her everything (except for the whole Spider-Man part), until it was 8:00 and he realised that he had to go and pick Peter up.

"No, no, no, no, no." She protested, "I want to meet the man that convinced you to actually do your job, call him and make him come here."

There was no arguing with Pepper when she got that excited, so Tony called Peter.

Away from Pepper in case she heard something compromising and Spider-man-ish.

"Peter change of plans" he started when his boyfriend answered the phone.

"What? Why?"

Tony explained what was going on, and how he had to tell Pepper but made sure that Peter knew that she didn't know that he was Spider-man.

"Awesome" he said after a while, "I guess we're eating in then, I'll see you in half-an hour since I can't come as Spidey."

He hung up and Tony had a nervous half-hour waiting for him, he went back into the living room and talked with Pepper about company business and pointless gossip.

There was a beep at the door and J.A.R.V.I.S announced Peter's arrival. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, with a brown jacket.

All of which looked thoroughly lived in, but clean and neat.

His hair had been messed by the wind and the cold of an autumn evening, and his face was red from the weather as well, he looked as if he'd just had an amazing blow-job. And Tony would know.

Pepper got up and shook his hand, "hi, I'm Pepper Potts" she introduced herself.

Peter did the same and Tony was amused by how nervous and awkward he was.

"So I hear you've been dating Tony?" she started giving him no time to adjust to, 'oh god another person who knows about me and Tony'.

Peter had told Aunt May that Pepper sort of knew but that was more of a show of 'its totally not a secret love affair.

"Yeah," he answered not providing any more details.

"Thanks, by the way," she continued.

"For what?" Peter asked, genuinely confused.

"For making Tony actually go to to meetings, even I was never able to do that."

Peter just laughed, a long deep chuckle that went to straight to Tony's dick.

Suddenly he really wished that Pepper wasn't here.

Once they got over the initial awkwardness Peter and Pepper spent over an hour talking first about the company, and the Avengers and then somehow it degraded into talking about Tony.

Pepper was telling stories about how- back when he was a raging alcoholic- he'd had a bad habit of falling asleep everywhere.

Peter countered with stories of Tony getting really excited and wanting to buy massive amounts of random shit.

After a while Tony got a bit tired of getting mocked so he made a cursory, -'just going down to the garage'- and left.

He was down there for a couple of hours, just catching up on some work and when he came back up Pepper and Tony were still talking about him.

Except the conversation had changed somewhat. Tony hung around the corner and eavesdropped on their conversation.

"So you really love the idiot don't you?" Pepper said to a Peter that was sprawled face-down on the floor.

Peter was lying on a collection of throw pillows and he looked surprisingly comfortable.

There was a muffled answer, and Pepper nudged him with her foot to force him to turn over.

Peter did so reluctantly, and looked up at her.

"Yep."

"Why? I mean I know why I loved him. But I also know why it didn't work out. I don't want you or Tony to go through that kind of...pain."

"If you're wondering that if we break up then I'll go to the tabloids as a jilted lover. You can rest assured, no matter what happens I won't do that."

Pepper breathed a sigh of relief, and Tony was touched that she cared. But also a little annoyed that she'd think that Peter would do that. Then again, she didn't know him like he did.

"I didn't mean that as an insult or..."

"No its fine, Tony is a public figure. The face of a company and Iron Man. Its important how the world sees him, I get that its fine. You don't know this but I am a free-lance photographer for the Daily Bugle, I know how the media works."

"You work for the Bugle?" Pepper asked incredulous. "Its run by that... well its run by J. Jonah Jameson, how can you work for him?"

Tony forgave Pepper for her earlier assumption, for that comment.

"Gotta pay the bills somehow, and it was the only job I could get as a 15 year-old with flexible hours so..."

"You started working for the Bugle when you were fifteen? How did you wrangle that?"

"I was the only guy who could get photos of Spider-man, the 'jolly one' had no choice but to hire me."

Pepper snorted indelicately at that, "how do you get pictures of Spider-man?" she asked genuinely curious.

"Trade secret, I can never reveal my sources" Peter said and laughed.

"You never actually said, why do you love Tony?" Pepper asked again.

"Lots of reasons, most of which are soppy and might involve embarrassing badly written poetry. But I guess I love him because, he's just so Tony. That and he can sneak up on me."

"What do you mean by that?" Pepper asked, but Tony decided to butt in, just in case Peter revealed a little bit more than he had intended.

"Are you ladies still talking about me?" Tony quipped as he strolled in.

"Fuck you" Peter said automatically.

"Maybe later."