Guest Review Responses
Thank you for the favorite/follow: IMMA-L0V3R, Poosa-ard, and Lone-wolf155. Thank you very much!
Guest: Holy OmGGGGG THAT WAS JUST SO ADORABLE :P and gosh the bet sounds sooo mischievous...not making any assumptions but is it that they sleep together or something ?cuz it seems like it by the way Tony was talking to lol that was awesome ;) I would love that to be the bet as it would symbolise how strong their bond together is even with Sam in the way !..anyways amaze xx – coughcoughcouch Oh, excuse me. My throat is itchy. coughcoughcough
Guest: Soooo CUTE – Thank you! More cuteness coming soon!
Certiiii: Repoooossssstttttt ;) – LOL! I have a feeling you're gonna say the same after this one ;)
Deppt: Please update ? – Here it be!
Harrisss: Oml it's been toooooo long – Sorry! Hope this chappie makes up for it.
A/N: Know how to unwind after spending nearly 12 hours working on a Saturday? WRITE A CHAPTER FOR OH, YEAH: HER! Know how to tell me if you liked the update? REVIEW THE HECK OUT OF IT! :D
Chapter 10
From the moment Pepper had ended up in Iron Man's arms, to when the couple had found themselves in the redhead's room, only fifteen minutes had passed. However, for Samantha Potts and her father, it had felt as if hours had gone by. One second, the doting father had been relaxing on his couch, catching up on the sports news he needed to be aware of to enjoy the game tomorrow; the next second, he was rushing to his eldest' daughter's room due to a loud scream of pain.
"What the heck did you do?!" Pepper's angry words towards her incapacitated sister only served to acerbate Samantha. "What were you thinking?"
"She wasn't," Virgil's curt tone of voice sounded everything but understanding or approving of the situation the younger Potts had placed herself in.
"Stay put," Tony ordered the girl as he kneeled next to Sam to begin the unlocking sequence that would allow her to be freed from the Rescue backpack, which kept shocking her whenever she tried to move. "This will only take a second."
A second too long!
Not in a million years had the brunette ever fathomed that she would be caught in such an awkward predicament: lying face down, on her sister's room's floor, being kept in place by a darn invention of Tony Stark's.
This is so embarrassing!
She had anticipated that the armor would have some type of safety mechanism to prevent unauthorized usage; and she had believed that she would be able to easily set it offline. What she had never imagined, however, not in her wildest dreams, was that said measure would be this extreme.
Who the heck secured an armored suit by sending electrical shocks to the wearer, if he or she did not match the physical measurements already recognized by the operating system? The most she expected to encounter was some form of DNA scan, and she hoped the similarity of her pattern to Pepper's would be able to fool the system, and that she would simply be rejected if it did not. Was a simple message along the lines of: User Not Recognized, not enough?
Evidently, when the technology was one designed by Tony Stark, nothing but extreme measures would make due.
"Overriding safety measures. User: Iron Man, biometrics accepted."
No sooner than Tony removed the backpack from her person, Samantha got up on her feet and ran towards her room; stumbling and falling to the floor a couple of times due to the electricity that still made her muscles twitch with every move. Both Pepper and Tony remained where they stood; neither of them having the will or the energy to lecture the minor about what she had done wrong.
"Where do you think you're going, young lady?" Virgil called as he chased after the teen. "Get back here!"
The sounds of Virgil Potts barely making it inside Samantha's room before she tried locking herself inside was followed by the slamming of a door and the beginning of a shouting match between father and daughter; one that Pepper knew would perhaps go on for a long time, and that it would probably ruin any chances she had for having a relaxing rest of her weekend at home.
Some part of Pepper told her that she should have been at least a little bit happy that not only had Samantha made a fool out of herself in front of everyone, but that she was also clearly in trouble with their common parental unit. However, the only part of herself that she could listen to right now was the same one that had kept Samantha from being in serious trouble or from experiencing physical pain, one too many times, many years ago. Part of her wanted to go inside that room and place herself between Virgil and her baby sister to protect her, even if she knew that their father would never lay a hand on either of them, no matter how angry he was at her.
It was difficult to let go of old habits, however. It was difficult to let go of the past.
"Pepper?" the ginger felt Tony's hand grabbing hers, "Are you OK?"
Hazel eyes slowly shifted from staring at the open door of her quarters to locking with his electric blue ones to her right flank. Then, for a brief instant, while lost in the turbulent sea of concern reflected in his orbs, Pepper wanted to open up to her boy genius and tell him everything; all of it – every single awful, cruel and abusive incident her mother had put her through.
She wanted to tell him of the times she had spent the night locked up in a dark, musty closet, fearing for her life while holding on to her frightened sister, praying that her drunken mother never realized where their hideout was. She wanted to relay to him about the instances in which her mother had taken advantage of Virgil's long-lasting, away-from-home missions; the ones where she had been punished for defending her sister by being forced to sleep outside during the winter, leaving the poor redheaded child to seek warmth by curling up between the side of the house and the city dumpsters of her old neighborhood.
She wanted to finally let out all of her feelings of anger and of deep resentment towards her mother, so that she could begin mending the wounds she had not been aware were still wide open until Samantha had returned. She wanted to be held lovingly, caressed tenderly, and be told in a sweet tone of voice that it was not her fault – that it had never been her fault – what she had experienced when growing up. That it had all been her mother's doing – her lack of self-control and caring for her own offspring. She wanted someone, anyone, to tell her that she had done no wrong.
But she also did not want anyone to think less of her; least of all the genius boy.
"Pep?" he cupped her left cheek with his right hand, his left one resting on the small of her back to pull her closer towards him, "Why are you crying? What is going on?"
"What?" the ginger blinked her eyes rapidly to clear tears she had not been aware she had begun spilling. She then sniffled, cleared her throat, and roughly dried her tears with the back of her hands. "I-I… Nothing. It's nothing."
Tony immediately narrowed his eyes.
"Nothing, like when you were freaking out all day at school, thinking that something very bad was about to happen? Nothing, like when you thought Samantha was going to take your place in my life? That kind of nothing, you mean?"
"No," she pulled away and turned her back to him. "More like: nothing worth mentioning or thinking about again. That kind of nothing."
"But Pep–"
"Tony, please," she covered her eyes with her hands, "Just, please: let it go."
Tony opened his mouth once more, ready to insist and insist on his request until he made her talk about whatever it was that had upset her to the point of silent tears. However, when they heard the door to Samantha's door open and close again, and Virgil's mumbling voice stating a colorful string of words, Tony knew that this was his cue to return to his own home.
"Are you coming to the armory tomorrow?" the genius asked.
"No," Pepper replied too quickly, making the inventor's head recoil.
"No?" Tony raised a single brow.
"No," she closed her eyes even though she was not even facing him.
"Want me to stop by afterwards? Our dads are gonna–"
"No," her curt tone was starting to annoy him.
"No?"
"Didn't you hear me? I said: no."
Tony's hands turned into fists and his eyes narrowed even more. This was turning out to be as childish and reckless as Samantha's actions of just now, and he knew that he should have just accepted her answer and moved on. But there was something in the way she had just uttered the last reply that made his blood boil.
Before he could stop himself, venom came out of his lips as well.
"Well, do you still want me to talk to you? Look at you? Think about you? Or is that prohibited too?"
"Tony," she began turning around in place when she realized this was becoming the start of a pointless fight, "Don't be like that, OK? You… you just don't understand…"
"Tell me something I don't know," the blue-eyed boy crossed his arms over his chest, his face sporting a deep frown. "Call me crazy, Pep, but I thought that asking about what bothers someone and getting an answer for that question was the first part of this understanding process. But, you know, even geniuses can be wrong."
The air-quotes around the word understanding and the hyperbolic roll of his eyes became the last straw for her.
"Yeah," Pepper narrowed her eyes, caring nothing for his sarcastic tone of voice. "Yeah, you're right, Tony. Even geniuses don't know when to let things go!"
"We can't let it go when it matters to us!"
"Or even after people ask you for some space, it seems!"
"Oh, you need space now?" Tony rolled his eyes again and dropped his arms to his sides. "Am I using up your oxygen, too? World not big enough for the both of us? Well, why didn't you say so from the beginning? You want space? Fine! Take all the darn space you need! I'll just leave you alone!"
"Fine!" Pepper stomped her right foot onto the floor. "No one's stopping you, you know? Why don't you just fly out the window, while you're at it? Put on your shiny suit and go home!"
"I will!" Tony began putting on the suit.
"Alright!" Pepper threw her shoes off her feet.
"Yes!" Iron Man's faceplate covered his angry facial features.
"Be on your way!" Pepper opened the window of her room.
"I am!" Tony flew out through the window.
"Don't let the window hit you on the way home!" the redhead said before she slammed the window shut, relishing in the childish victory of having said the last word.
Pepper then angrily shut close the curtains of the window, crossed her arms over her chest, and then heard a familiar voice coming from the speakers of her armor backpack.
"Good night to you too!"
Gauging by the long-winded groan that escaped her throat, Virgil Potts had enough sense to skip past his daughter's door.
xxxXXXxxx
He felt pathetic.
Utterly pathetic.
Heck! He actually felt pathetically pathetic!
Was that even a thing?
Maybe it was. Maybe it was not. But the bottom line was that, he, Anthony Edward Stark, young and handsome billionaire, was stuck home on a Sunday night. Alone.
Pathetically alone.
His male best friend was flying back home with his mother from visiting his grandmother. His father was hanging out at a baseball game with his girlfriend's dad. And his girlfriend? Well, who the heck knew what the redhead was up to at the moment. Whatever it was, it was not being done here, in his room, with him.
Tony sighed loudly for the millionth time, his eyes briefly landing on his pod. He was in the living area of his bedroom, television on at a low volume, his feet up on the ottoman that lay before the sectional that made up the sitting area of the luxurious penthouse-like floor he lived on. Shortly after turning eighteen – and after the Makluan Invasion – Tony had made the decision to move to a floor different from the one his father's bedroom was, if just to have some space to call his own. Being a male, Howard Stark understood his son's need for having a piece of the building that belonged to him – one other than the lab he sometimes fell asleep in while tinkering with a new invention or two.
Space.
There was so much unused space in the building.
He had never even thought about it until today.
Until the concept of space hurt.
He sighed again, grabbed his pod in his left hand, and flipped it open.
There were no missed calls.
No missed messages.
Not even an unread e-mail or an angry update on her MyFace page.
There was nothing. Not one sign of Pepper's current whereabouts or thoughts.
Having space was a dream come true. Giving space sucked.
He rested his arms on the back edge of the couch, looked at the ceiling, closed his eyes, and then almost jumped out of his skin when he heard the doorbell ring.
He stood up from the couch, ran towards the door, and before he got to it, it opened up to reveal a crestfallen redhead standing by the threshold. She was in her typical outfit, her armor backpack on her. She bit her lower lip, stole a quick glance at him, and then slumped her shoulders even more. Tony halted his steps when she looked away from him, unsure as to why she had even bothered to ring the bell – she had a key to his home.
He watched her right foot attempt to go inside the penthouse, but she ended up remaining where she was. She then ran her fingers through her hair, cleared her throat, shyly laced her hands together on her front, and then spoke in the softest of tones.
"I… I'm sorry."
Tony did not say a thing, so she continued to say what she had been practicing over and over again on her way here.
"I didn't mean… I didn't want to…" she sighed. "I'm sorry for taking out my issues on you. It's not your fault that… well… I-I-I… I'm very sorry for snapping at you."
When Tony continued to stand still and silent, Pepper's chin and lips began to shake.
"It's… it's just such a long story. And I don't want to talk about it… yet. Or ever."
Tears began showing up again, more intensely than yesterday, forcing her to close her eyes to keep them at bay.
"I want to tell you. I do. But I don't know how… because I'm not ready yet. And-and you didn't deserve what I did to you yesterday. You still don't deserve it. Never will. You just don't. I… I'm sorry, Tony. I'm so sorry!"
"I'm sorry, too," his whispered voice echoed in her ears as his arms surrounded her, pressing her firmly against him. "I screwed up, too, Pep. I'm sorry."
"Tony," she grabbed onto his shirt rather tightly and swallowed down a sob when she felt him kiss the side of her face.
"It's OK. You don't have to tell me now. Or ever, if you don't want to. But I wish that you would."
Instead of responding, she simply nodded and clung onto him as if her life depended on it. Maybe it did. Maybe it did not. She was not sure. But she was extremely certain that this, him right now, telling her it was OK while holding her in his arms, was what she had been craving since she had kicked him out of her room the day before.
Or maybe for even longer than she had known.
"Sorry," the redhead said as she pulled away from his chest to see that her tears had marked his t-shirt while she attempted in vain to dry up the fabric by simply rubbing the area with her palms.
"It's OK, Pepper," he held her face in his hands. "It's OK. I'm not mad anymore."
"No," she shook her head. "I messed up, Tony. I know I messed up big time. But, I'll make it up to you. I promise, I will."
"You don't have to."
"I know. But I want to. And I will. I'll think of something. You'll see."
He nodded once, if just to show her that they were on good terms once more, and before she could think of anything else to say, an idea came to his mind.
"Actually, if you're open to suggestions, I can think of something you can do right now."
"Really?" she frowned, some of her own anxiety already melting away. "What is it? Is it food? I hope it's not food. You know I can't cook. I'll poison you!"
"No, it's not food," he pulled her further into the room, letting the front door close and lock on its own.
"Then, what? What can I do to make it up to you?"
His eyes locked with hers for a second, the words refusing to come out on their own. Yet, when his eyes briefly traveled towards the area where his bed lay, then back at her, and he saw her blush, he knew that she had understood what she could do for him.
The bet.
It all came down to paying up the bet.
"Stay," he told her, just to make sure that there was no doubt about what he was asking her to do.
"Tonight?" she frowned for a second, weighed her options, and then nodded with certainty. "Tonight. Yes. I can. I'll stay. Tonight."
"Great!" he smiled. "But, before anything else…"
"Anything else wha–"
His lips on hers marked the beginning of the night