musicmixer08: check your PM!
It's been difficult writing this, but you guys are the greatest! Thank you so much for your comments.
It was her first day back at UCLA and this was her last class of the day. She hoped the TA would let them out early, but from what her friends in other sections said, she would not count on it. With a sigh, she walks into the building, dredging the smell. Because the building was connected to the chemistry hall, it reeked of reactions and unpleasantness. Never mind the fact that it smelled like wet paper as well. The lights were dim and she guessed one perk was that her class is located on the second floor. She took the stairs, breathing in the fresh air as sunlight hit her face. Her class was at 2:20pm. She was a bit early, though she liked being early on the first day of class. No one was outside and instead of sitting on the ledge in the winter cold, she tired to open the door; unfortunately for her it was locked. The cement floor it was. She leaned against the pillar before pulling her phone out to pass time.
"2:10. Great." Suddenly the idea of arriving early seemed terrible.
Two minutes later and she hears one of the doors in the hall open. She looked up and her curiosity peaked when she only sees the face of her body, her head sticking out, as if she was checking if the coast is clear or not. The head twisted in her direction and she quickly went back to her phone, pretending to be none the wiser. She glanced over again upon hearing voices. She thinks a male voice saying 'yeah, the door can be unlocked.' She shivered at the thoughts that ran through her mind. If what she is thinking is true, she's disgusted. People used that classroom to teach and learn...not to satisfy raging hormones.
She didn't catch the male's figure or face, but she assumed he was their TA. She's never even met him, but she already dislikes him on another level. The girl walks in direction of the stairs and disappears. It was only a few minutes later that people started lining up. Some individually, some together. She waited several seconds longer before getting up and heading toward her class.
"Hi, this is the 2:20 section for physics?"
Pepper nodded to the girl who had just sat next to her. "You wouldn't happen to know who the TA is?"
"No," the girl answered. "This section's the only one without a name next to it. I guess we'll find out."
"Darn. I'm Pepper."
"Tiffany," she responded as they shook heads.
"You want to work together?"
She smiled. "That'd be great."
"I don't know about you, but I dislike physics."
"Same!"
Both of them laugh and the room suddenly went quiet when the TA entered the room from the adjacent door and cleared his throat. That's when her heart fell to the floor. Wasn't he in Manhattan? Or school? But here he was standing in front of her. At her school. Teaching the class she was enrolled in.
"Yeah, I'm Tony Stark," he said, answering the curious mumbled conversations. "Let's move on. Couple things before we talk about the class. One: don't come to my office to flirt. Do that and I will make good on the promise of decreasing your grade by 8%. Yeah, eight. Why? Because I'm serious. From experience, I know students count on lab to replace a flunked midterm and that's not happening. I mean, if you'd like to start class with a 92%, then, yeah, be my guest. Challenges are great, but let's face it, none of you are on the level of intellect I am, so be smart. Especially since there's no curve. Second, if I see you take a picture, I'll smash the phone to a billion pieces." He paused for a second to see if he had anything else to add. Guess not. Time for class to start.
"Chris Amber," Tony called out as he read the first name off the roster. Once he matched the name with the face, he moved on. He would never remember their names, but he liked to give off the impression that he was trying.
And then he came down to Pepper's name. "Virginia Potts?"
Pepper buried her face in her hands. Would it be okay if she pretended to be absent? That way he could mark her as a no show and she could go back home to see what other sections were available for her time schedule? But, before she could stop herself, she spoke.
"Uh, where?" He heard the voice, but hadn't seen the individual.
"Here," Pepper said, her hand raised this time.
He locked in with the girl in the middle of the room and froze. That was Pepper, that wasn't Virginia. Anger bubbled to the surface, but he remained calm, and was the first to break eye contact. "Oh," he muttered. Over twenty different sections and she was enrolled in this one. Twenty different sections and he'd been assigned to this one. What the hell? He continued down the list, but he could feel her staring at him, just wanting him to look back at her, but he wouldn't. What was the point? To allow her the chance to deceive him? Like she did three weeks ago? No, he wouldn't be so stupid. Not again.
The room thinned out after he dismissed the class. With a sigh, he grabbed the papers off the table and sorted them into a neat stack before shoving them into his backpack. His arm was still working its way back to 100%. At least now he was trying to get better. Let's just say he isn't a fan of being told what to do.
Pepper said her goodbyes to Tiffany and lingered a second longer when she saw several pens roll out of his backpack and onto the floor. He was talking with one of the students and hadn't noticed. The both of them hadn't seen each other since that night and she couldn't help herself as she walked up to him.
"Tony, I..."
He cut her off. "No. I don't wanna hear it. Get out of here."
"Why are you being like this?"
He let out an incredulous scoff. Like she didn't know. Right.
"You can't still be upset about me not telling you about us. It's been three weeks, Tony. Get over it."
"Get over it?" His voice dripped of sarcasm. "Sure. I'll go ahead and tell myself to work on that for you. Is there anything else I should do while I'm at it?" She didn't respond to the question. "No? Then I think we're done here."
"You really think pushing her away is the best thing to do?" He could smack his best friend over the head if it weren't for the circumstances. "Hurting her?"
"She did it first."
"So you're going to play it on technicalities? Listen, I'm not saying what she did was right, but what you're doing now, it's not the right way to handle this."
They took a seat at a booth and ordered sodas as the waitress introduced herself before setting their menus on the table.
"Do you want to remember her?"
Tony tried to ignore the question.
"I think you do; you're just afraid to cross the line. You think because you're not the same guy anymore that what you used to have with her isn't there either and it's not true. I mean, yeah, you don't remember who Pepper is, but you're still drawn to her and it means something. Maybe everything. I'm sure she had a reason why she didn't tell you, other than deceiving you, but if you don't give her the chance to explain, you'll never know the answer you're searching for. Without opening up, you'll only be wondering about 'what if's.' Do you want to live with that? Do you want to see some guy walking her to class and she's laughing at his jokes when it should be yours? You know that's what's going to happening if you sit here and do nothing. You'll regret pushing her away, you'll regret not being able to put your pride aside, and you'll regret never trying to begin with."
"Why do you have to say it like that?"
"Because who else is gonna tell you?"
Not a single person, he thought as their waitress returned to ask if they were ready to order. He chose a burger and fries.
Rhodey chose the same. Hopefully this will all work out. He was crossing his fingers. Sometimes people needed a push in the right direction.
"So tell me about this thing you've got with Kristin."
"It's not a thing," Tony replied as the waitress left after setting their food down. "She's my therapist." His friend look at him questionably and he rolled his eyes. "She's married. I'm not putting myself into that drama."
"That the only reason?"
"Yeah. Why you would think otherwise is ridiculous." He knew why Rhodey was asking, but he ignored the implication. "Besides, Pepper doesn't want me."
"But you want her, right?"
"I shouldn't," Tony stated.
"She's the best thing that's happened to you. She still is. You cannot let her slip past you a second time."
"She's a stranger, that's all she is to me. Whatever we had, I don't remember. I don't care to remember."
"If that's true, then there is no reason for this girl to piss you off so much," Rhodey replied. "Am I right?"
Tony sunk back into the cushions and threw the fry he was holding onto the table. He was getting a headache from talking about this.
"Oh," Rhodey suddenly spoke as he tried to seem surprised.
Let's just say it worked. For a second.
Tony sat his burger down and glanced behind him to see what the fuss was about. Heading their direction was a red head and he couldn't help noticing how coincidental the timing was. "You're a fucking asshole." He'd been set up by his best friend.
"Just talk to her," Rhodey plead.
"No," he stated in anger. His friend had no right to do this. So, no, he wouldn't talk to her. He wouldn't try. He wouldn't play along. All he was going to do was leave. "Go to hell. You had no right to do this. Next time stay out of my fucking business." As soon as he turned to leave, his body collided with Pepper. He had hit her hard and he stepped back immediately to ask if she was okay or not.
She was caught off guard to say the least. Not only by the collision, but by Tony being here.
"Sorry. I didn't see you coming."
"It's okay, Tony, really. I'm fine."
He sighed and headed towards the exit.
Pepper wanted to stop him, but chose to instead let him leave before turning to Rhodey with an exasperated look. "I told you where I worked in confidence. You shouldn't have brought him here."
"Could you blame him? You did desert him when he needed you the most."
Now that rubbed her the wrong way. "I deserted him? He made me leave!"
"Look, I'm not justifying his actions. I-"
"You were about to. And before you tell me I had to know he didn't mean it, don't. I don't care if he meant it or not. He said it."
"Tony remembers you telling him that you were willing to try again. Apparently when you told him about who you were, you made it sound like the past was the past and the both of you just happened to run into one another."
"We did just happen to run into each other," she deadpanned.
Rhodey sighed from exhaustion. Here came the technicalities.
"He flipped out when I told him about high school. It didn't take more than a few minutes for him to say anything he could to get me to leave. If he's blaming me for not fully telling him the truth, fine. I'll admit that's my fault, but he needs to admit me telling him would have made the situation a lot worse."
"And I agree with you, but Tony's got it in his head that you didn't tell him because you don't want him anymore."
"Is he serious?" She could not believe he'd think that. "How shallow does he think I am?"
"That's the thing, Pepper. He knows nothing. He's been beating himself over this since you left. He feels horrible."
"What do you want me to do? I can't be in his life if he doesn't want it."
"Tony does want it. You know him, he'll do anything to admit he doesn't need your help."
"And how long do I have to wait until he admits he does want my help? Weeks? Months?"
"Let me talk to him. That's all I'm asking."
She nodded and softened her tone as she spoke. "Look, I'm not trying to be difficult, but this is just as hard on me. When he looked at me and asked me who I was, my heart shattered into pieces. I'd been so concerned about him pulling through this that I didn't even think he might come out of it with no memory of me. I wanted to disappear that day. It would have been easy, you know? The guy doesn't remember who I am, it wouldn't be difficult. But I told myself, I told him, that I would be there every step of the way and I tried up until the second he told me to leave. So I did. I gave him what he wanted and the way he's treating me now is deserved, but it's also, to a point, unjustifiable, and I won't stand here and take it from him. As much as I'd like to be with him, I can't be around the person he's becoming. I know the person he is becoming and I want nothing to do with that. Maybe it's an act to push me away, but I refuse to stand here and wait for him to get with the program. I've spent three years without him. I can go back to doing that. It'll hurt, but I'll get through it. More than anything, all I want is for him to get better, and if that doesn't include me being in his life, fine. Because then at least he'll be happy and that's what everyone should want for him."
She can feel the tears welling up in her eyes and she tells herself that means it's time to go. Little did she know he's been behind her the entire time and he's heard every single word she's said.
