Part 2 of Chapter 5
Of course, the next time he sees her is in fact just a few hours after their extremely enjoyable first encounter. Of course, he knew she would be there. And of course, he also knew she wouldn't be as pleased to see him again as he would be to see her.
The second meeting is not as enjoyable as the first. Although he is pretty amused (and slightly scared, though he'll never admit it) by how revolted she looks when she hears what Mr. Kusaka and Mr. Osana have to say.
He hides behind his jackass persona, a decision which is definitely not a reflection of his genius intellect, and he cannot seem to find the off-switch button when he – belatedly – realizes that it's probably not the best way to handle one Virginia Potts. Especially when you need her help.
She exits the room and it's only because the laws of nature would not allow it that she does not leave a trail of fire in her wake.
Hell freezes over when he tries to follow her out of the meeting room. Somehow, he is very glad that those windows are reinforced. Falling from the 47th floor would not be his demise of choice (he's actually thought about it and it's a tie between trying to break the speed record in a racing car and dying an awesome – if reckless – death, or of eating too much peanut butter while drinking galleons of single malt. Decisions, decisions).
The discussion continues in the elevator where she figures it out. Damn her and her long legs, and he feels strangely aroused and focus, Stark!
But she won't budge and he respects that, he does. He did try to force her hand after all. So, he does the only thing he can do and kisses her, one last time, and it feels bitter and sloppy, but he needs it and it terrifies him that he needs something from a woman he barely knows. He makes his exit. He knows he'll see her again. Women like that, they don't stay in the shadows of other men very long.
XXXX
He is on his yatch, somewhere not far from the French Riviera, and he knows that he is drunk and that London, as far as he is concerned, was a total disaster. Not the sex though, never the sex. But the rest. He went there with one idea in mind: Get Potts out of his system. It's been months since that first and second encounter in Tokyo. He's gone back to California, trying to fin a way to go round Obadiah without wounding his pride, then went to Brazil with Rhodey for his birthday, then back to California. He worked, he partied, he worked and partied again. It's not monotonous, it never is because Tony Stark doesn't do monotonous. But then, he didn't think he did being hooked up on a girl – a woman, his JARVIS inner voice corrects – anymore. Not since college. And he was 15. Twenty years later or so and he hunts the faintest whispers about Pepper Potts. JARVIS has set up a Google alert and an NSA alert for him. He doesn't hear anything about her but the usual yiddy-yadda on financial news. Then Andrew Wannamaker dies, Google alert rings every hour, each article making wild speculations on VAST, Wannamaker, his family and Potts' involvement in a family business. The NSA alert bips once : "Potts highly probable successor of Wannamaker". They even upgraded her 'keep-watch' level. They sure know how to celebrate a promotion at the NSA.
He asks his assistant (Clara, Kimberly, Courtney?) to get him an invitation to the funeral.
When he gets there, it's raining and various news channels are at the gate of the cemetery. He goes in, looks dutifully serious and gets in without too much trouble. He spots her almost directly, mostly because she's keeping her distance from the family circle. Also, she doesn't have an umbrella and he decides to do the gentlemanly thing and share his.
Unfortunately, his resolution to be as polite and as supportive as he could stops when he undirectly asks her for a blowjob. Not his best move. It goes downhill from there and he goes back to his hotel suite, trying to figure out whether he wants to go out tonight or crash in bed and sleep off his jet lag when someone knocks and hope springs. He opens the door and it's her, looking pissed off about something (probably him) and she assaults him in the most awesome way. Meaning: they have really hot sex right there on the floor and god, what happened to the woman who didn't want people to know she was involved with him? Not that they know now, but he really didn't expect that from her, espescially after she blew him off at the cemetery. Well, far from him the idea of complaining. But something feels off. This is not the woman he met in Tokyo. She was lonely and a little sad, but there was no anger, at least not before she saw him in that conference room. This Pepper is angry. Sad too, but mostly angry. Did he make her angry? He doesn't think so. Sure, he's an ass, but he's pretty sure he's not the reason of her sudden outburst. Later, on the yatch, he'll wonder if this was the counter-shock of Andrew's death before giving in to the alcohol-induced coma. In the meantime, she's giving him all she's got and probably more and god, he's an idiot. For someone who's got such a fucked up relationship with alcohol, he should have seen it coming. After all, addiction runs in the family. He tells her that next time, he'll take her to diner. He means it.
She leaves before he can make good on his invitation. He sees the note and he sincerely hopes that there will be a next time. What he did not expect was seeing her in Mauï, beautiful and sun-kissed and having diner with Rhodey. What the hell ?
His impromtu escapade ( is there any other type of escapade ?) to Hawaii begins strangely, with Rhodey flirting with Pepper and ends… in a catastrophic way.
In the space of a few days, Virginia Potts becomes friend – without benefits – with one Anthony E. Stark and from there, they go to clubs, yatch parties and the like. He watches her being as care-free as she can be, dancing and drinking and laughing and he wonders what she must be like to be with, day after day, just being herself, being brilliant in a way he would never have expected someone to be. Rhodey has always been his exception to the way he handles close relationships, i.e. : he doesn't have any apart from that odd fraternal friendship. Obadiah is great, of course, but with SI between them two, he knows their relationship is bound to be fraught on some levels. And JARVIS? Well, he's created him as well as the Bots. They're perfect because they came from him. No chance of being betrayed there. No risk taken. Perfect and perfunctory.
But Virginia? She's messy. She could very well be the order to his chaos, but she's no angel. She applies logic to emotions until they spill over and sometimes, when he is lucky, he's there to see her fall to his level. Give in to a bit of chaos, just enough until she catches herself and goes back to her pedestal, perfect and pristine.
So he watches her when she's not looking, he watches her giving in to the sway of the music, to the rush of adrenaline resulting from two, three, four shots of margharitas. She's never drunk but always a bit tipsy, a lighter spring in her step when he inevitably always get back with her to her hotel, just to make sure she makes it home, and maybe also because he wants to go up with her but she always kisses him on the cheek, suddenly shy and chaste as she waits for the elevator to arrive. He won't go further than the lobby. Tony may be a lot of things, but he's not the type to impose himself when it comes to women. He just makes himself available and waits to see what comes falling on his lap. (Gorgeous women, all too ready to please him). Pepper steps in the elevator, waves goodbye and looks straight at him until the doors close on her. Then he goes back to Rhodey, waiting in the car outside, trying not to spill his dinner on his shoes. And they day repeats itself. That is until Rhodey spots a gorgeous Swedish tourist and decides to end his leave with a bang. Literally.
Tony could have blamed Rhodey for putting him in a position where he would have to stay alone for an extended period of time with Pepper. He didn't. Tony Stark owns his successes and his mistakes. Even the tremendous fuck-ups of galactic proportions.
(One day, when decades have gone by since that fateful evening on his yatch, when he's bone-weary from the fight with alien demi-gods and titans, he'll look at the woman sleeping next to him in the bed they've shared for years, and thank his good star that she was there to keep him alive, to keep him sane. Because he would know by then that loosing her would have affected the fate of the universe. And that scared him to no end.)
That evening, he makes the mistake of running before walking. Hell, he probably wasn't even ready to walk in the first place. But he tries anyway, because fortune favors the bold and Tony Stark is nothing but bold in everything he does. He should have remembered that he did not do relationships. And apparently neither did Virginia Potts. Or at least, not with him. They end up having sex anyway, but he can't handle it, won't even look at her, or rather, let himself endure the look she's giving him, and he gets the yatch to the nearest dock. She tells him she still wants to be friends. He doesn't let her hear the bitter laugh he's holding back. She leaves. He doesn't watch her get away from him. The next day, when Rhodey comes back from his night with Klara, he asks :
'No Pepper?'
Tony doesn't answer. Rhodey doesn't bring the subject up again.
XXXX
He sees her one last time at the wedding. He got himself there by way of chatting up one of the bridesmaid to get him invited as her plus one. Harmony – Melody? – doesn't seem to mind. She just want to one up the bride who's been making her life a living hell for months now. And who better than the infamous Tony Stark to make a control-freak bride enrage ? But Tony just wants to see Pepper. He needs to apologize, something he seldom feels the need for. But this is Pepper Potts and the rules don't apply to her. However, the universe is set against him and she rejects him not once, but twice that day. Strangely enough, he's not the only one getting rejected that day. Apparently John Wannamaker also has some (unrequited) feelings for the beautiful red-head. John gets married with a pat on the back and a heavy heart. Tony leaves the celebration early with a stinging cheek and two cocktail waitresses. He drinks, has sex with one of the girls, calls Pepper and leaves a message then has sex with the other girl, and blacks out. He doesn't remember calling Pepper the next day.
They don't see each other for the next three years.
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