Part II: The Price
Chapter Ten
Leigh wakes up the next morning feeling like she'd left some really important mental papers pinned to a public billboard. Even though she knows it is important to get Rhodey's help finding at least some of the former Avengers, the fact that she told him about her plan makes her nervous.
She's still in her nightgown when she sits down to check her email, and after reading the third one, she feels like she's covered in miles of goosebumps.
It's a list of contact information, from Lt. Colonel James Rhodes, USAF. Next to each is a blurb, something personal, something he says he hopes will help. Leigh looks at the list and thinks about how these people used to fight alongside Tony; each of them is a fully-fleshed out person, just like Tony has become to her, now that she knows him as more than Iron Man. It seems unreal that she would be trusted with this knowledge, even more unbelievable that she'll maybe get to meet some of them someday.
Leigh thinks about the list as she pins up her hair, dressing in a swingy little yellow skirt, matching form-fitting top, and white lace bolero. Rhodey's list says that the charity Captain America works with nowadays has recently rented a building in the city. She puts on her shoes, grabs her purse, takes a screenshot of the email with the address to that building, and heads out of the tower. It's a bit of a walk, but it's a nice morning.
Five minutes from the tower, Leigh gets a text message.
Tony: Do not tell me you're going to that terrible bagel place, please
She's glad she has a Rule about not checking her phone in the middle of the street, because she would have stopped dead no matter where she read this one.
Leigh: …do you have a GPS tracker on me somewhere?!
Tony: No
Tony: I can see how that would be something I would DO, but no
Tony: Chuck saw you leaving as he came in
Leigh: On a Saturday? Let the man have a social life, Tony
Tony: Rude.
Leigh has to stop in front of a dress shop, lean up against the brick facade, and just let herself grin for a while. The man really ought to be regulated, if for no other reason than her inability to focus on anything. He's unbelievably handsome, knows it, witty as all fuck, and smarter than should be allowed. She can't believe how much he has upended her life, how much she's happy about that upheaval.
The warm July sun heats her face while the hot brick sinks through the clothes at her back, and still Leigh shivers, thinking about kissing him.
She's always been attracted to confidence, which almost makes Tony her dealer, given how much she really loves how justified his sense of his own power is. He'd joked about Stockholm Syndrome, but Leigh was already halfway gone when he'd pulled his bunker down on top of them. Not enough to have prevented herself from saying the words she'd practiced in her self-righteous sadness beforehand, but enough to secretly cherish the time alone with him.
Her whole family had gone on a vacation to California when her youngest sister graduated high school. During that trip, they'd visited a winery and attended a tasting. It wasn't really her thing, but one thing Leigh never forgot was the unique experience of striking up a conversation with one of the employees. They'd spoken about the way it's possible to taste the various flavors in wines, and he'd offered her a chance to try one that had no preservatives, a small batch, expensive offering not usually brought out for tourists.
The difference between the wines was striking- so much so that Leigh had foregone all wine for nearly a year afterwards, unable to stop noticing their strong chemical-y taste. Leigh thinks of Tony as the small batch, refined wine, as compared to the celebrity egos he's surrounded by, in his wealthy circles. So many of those other people rely on falsity as a stand-in for their sources of confidence, but Tony is the real deal. And Leigh's ridiculously, stupidly, obviously in love with him, so much so that she hid in her rooms, trying to figure out how to function without permanent hearts in her eyes.
Leigh loves Tony with an award-winning winery's diverse bouquet, appreciating not just his intimidating intelligence and innovative spirit, but his vulnerability, his caustic self-deprecation, smart-assed humor, and, oh yes, his confidence. Their time in his barrel-bunker equipped her heart with all the knowledge needed to be completely ruined for anyone else. And all of that had happened before he'd touched her!
Tony Stark may no longer have a magnet embedded in his chest, but as far as Leigh's concerned, his magnetism is entirely intact.
Leigh reminds herself that Tony is the reason why she's about to show up at a building that might not even be open yet, seeking a teammate that he deliberately drove away out of grief and trauma. This thought gets her moving again, and she gets to the building right about when her feet start to hurt.
It's open. Leigh walks in and notes the makeshift quality of everything in the lobby- storebought pegboard with a few important notes on it, folding table and chairs in the 'reception' area, packing boxes piled in the far corner.
"Can I help you?" the fresh-faced young man at the table asks.
"Yes. Here's the thing-" Leigh takes a deep breath, then shifts into business mode. It's easier. "This is probably unconventional. I'm not even sure what you do here, I'd just like to help Captain America."
"You would be surprised how many volunteers we get saying the exact same thing," he tells her.
The building is destined to be a soup kitchen. Leigh finds herself signing up for the very first day of operation, next week. They tell her to get a hair net, and Leigh laughs- those almost never fit the amount of hair she has. She'll have to come up with something.
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Dear Ms. Romanoff,
Lt. Colonel James Rhodes gave me your email address. I'm writing to you because
Dear Ms. Romanoff,
You don't know me, but I'm friends with a few people you know, one of whom gave me this email address. I'm reaching out to you because
Dear Ms. Romanoff,
My name is Leigh Balci. You may have seen me on the news recently thanks to one of your former teammates, who took it upon himself to lock the two of us inside one of his inventions for two full days.
I feel like you're one of the few people who can understand the experience of being frustrated with, yet still liking this guy at the same time. I expect that his worst instincts after your fight with Thanos contributed to the distance between you, but I felt compelled to reach out. '
Favors' are reciprocal, and I'm aware that right now I don't have anything to offer you but a small chance at reconciliation. I'm asking you to meet with me as a favor of sorts, with the hopes that I'll be able to do something for you in exchange, sometime in the future.
Tony doesn't know I've done this.
I simply want to understand what he's lost, how he lost it, and if there's a chance to come back from that.
Thank you for your time,
Leigh Balci
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Tony: Come by the lab for lunch? Chuck brought an extra sandwich and I'm watching my figure
Leigh: You told him to buy me a sandwich, didn't you?
Tony: I'm sorry, you're breaking up. Hello? Hello? If you hear me, meet me at the lab at 12 PM
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Leigh knows where Tony's lab is because it's next door to the office he set up for her. She's never gone in, though. She told herself that it was because she didn't want to break anything in there, but the truth is, Leigh's pretty sure that once she sees Tony in his element working on something mechanical, she'll just up and tell him how she feels. Maybe it would go great, but if it didn't, she's still entirely at his… if not mercy, then at least his good graces. They're attracted to each other, that much is obvious, but Leigh doesn't want to be the only one invested.
A naughty part of her doesn't hesitate to point out that at least she knows they're physically compatible. Not kissing him when they were locked up in that bunker was one of the hardest things she'd ever (not) done.
There's a familiar-looking keypad outside Tony's locked lab, and on a whim, Leigh rests her hand on it.
The door opens.
Snatching her hand back, Leigh retreats a few feet until the door shuts. Surely that was a mistake? Will FRIDAY tell Tony she'd tried to hack into his lab somehow? The door opens again, and Chuck pokes his head out.
"Was that you?"
"I think FRIDAY got overzealous there," Leigh says. It's a good explanation. She's convinced herself, and Chuck nods thoughtfully, standing back to let her come in.
"Avocado roasted chicken breast?" he offers.
"Always," Leigh says, grinning. "Though it's a bit intimidating to know that you guys can just scan my grocery spending habits and extrapolate my favorite sandwich, especially in so short a time."
"Whose favorite sandwich? They stuck an extra in the bag," Tony says, coming out of a side room rolling up the sleeve of the shirt he was wearing underneath a Black Sabbath printed tee. "Hey, look, you didn't combust or turn into a frog by coming in here." He narrows his eyes at her and angles his head to the side. "Weird."
"Yeah, how dare I not waltz into Tony Stark's private lab like I have a right to," Leigh says lightly. "Imagine waiting to be asked to visit! So weird."
"Never know where you might belong 'till you try it, Firebrand." Tony unwraps his sandwich and takes a challengingly large bite out of it, holding eye contact with her the whole time. She rolls her eyes at him, and he does his own ostentatious eye-rolling in a performative display of enjoying his sandwich.
"Has someone invented the anti-meeting yet? A gathering you can schedule yourself not to attend?" Chuck says, reaching over to snag his wrapped sandwich from the bag.
"If anyone did, it'd be you, Chuckie boy. Go on, skedaddle." Tony jerks up his chin in a type of respectful farewell. "Thanks for setting up the thing."
"It's your money, sir, I just move it around for you." Chuck walks over to the door, turns around, and clicks his heels together with a loud clack, bowing his head sardonically at the same time. Then he leaves, whistling.
"I think he mounts a little metal thing on both shoes to make that louder," Tony says. "Sit down wherever," Tony says, taking another huge bite and moving over to a raised worktable to examine an upside-down Iron Man helmet.
Leigh looks around, but the only place with a chair is at a desk full of precarious piles of papers and machine parts of all shapes and sizes. The chair has a crisp red dress shirt hanging over the back of it, and Leigh walks over and runs her fingers along the collar. It's still warm, ramping up her low-level awareness of him to high-level, instead.
"You can sit there if you want," Tony says from across the room. Leigh jumps, looks up to see if he caught herfondling his shirt like a lovesick teenager, but he's focused on the wires under his hands.
"Is there sauce on your sandwich?" she asks.
"I don't think even an AI would be able to predict you," Tony says, shooting a confused, indulgent smile over at her. "No sauce." When she nods in approval, he angles his head, obviously employing his powers of observation to try to figure her out. Leigh can see when it hits him, her heart throwing off a silent solar flare in response to the pleased, almost self-satisfied expression on his face.
"That was about not contaminating the wires, wasn't it?"
"Yeah."
"I have no idea how you make 'maternal' sexy, but I'm not complaining," Tony tells her.
Scheduled combustion happening as expected! Leigh thinks to herself wryly.
She leaves the desk area and scans the room, seeing a child-sized stool that is probably there to help him sit and work on something low to the ground. Leigh walks over to it but immediately recognizes that, with a skirt like hers, she'd be gawky and indecent if she sat on it. With a shrug, she picks it up, goes to grab her sandwich, coming over to the other side of Tony's worktable. After taking a bite, she sets her sandwich down on the stool, leaning with her elbows on the table to watch him.
Tony does an actual double take, looking over at her. He even leans all the way over, as if checking the position of her skirt.
"Was there something?" she asks, mentally blushing at her coy tone that seems to have come out of nowhere.
"Nope," he says, suddenly hyperfocused on the wiring. Leigh eats her sandwich slowly and watches him for a good fifteen minutes. It isn't a surprise that she finds him attractive even when he's working, but it's different than she pictured. Tony's whole body is focused on what he's doing, but he's still animated, never still. His gaze is riveted to his task, but his body circles it, head moving, knees bending to give him a better viewing angle, arm muscles tensing before they release.
He's also constantly commenting, and none of it to her- praising, complaining, troubleshooting. Leigh's face flames as she eats the last bite of her sandwich, because she can't help extrapolating how he is now, with this task, with what he might be like at other, more intimate times.
"Better than homemade?" Tony asks her.
She offers him a crooked smile. "Sandwiches are always better when you're not the one who has to make them."
"Among other things," Tony says without looking away from the helmet he's working on.
Leigh kind of wishes that she was one of the women she knows he's been linked to in the past, the kind of woman who would walk up behind him, slide her hand down the front of his pants, and ask him if that's an invitation. Suddenly she's far too hot, and he'll know why, and it'll be pathetic, how eager for his attention, affection, and approval she is. To cover herself, she starts pulling pins from her hair, setting them in a little neat pile on the worktable. The twist she'd put it in is too tight, its weight is pulling too hard, she needs to free herself before she does something rash.
Suddenly, Tony reaches across the table with a low plastic tray.
"Thank you," she murmurs, not looking at him. "It's just all tangled up, I need to-"
"Not complaining," he says in a voice just this side of gruff.
Minutes later she's nearly finished pulling them all out, and Leigh catches a glimpse of Tony simply standing at the table, both hands gripping the edge, watching her. His gaze is intense, almost angry, and her hands pause, just like she'd done in the bunker.
"Please," Tony says.
"Please stop or please go on?" Leigh asks, unsure.
Tony pushes off of the table and comes around it, inches away from her, his eyes tracing her face and her hair. "I don't think you understand how many times I have pictured watching you take down your hair in front of me, and none of them were in my lab," he groans. "I'm not cursed with a lack of imagination, so can I just-" and he reaches up, skating his hand across the disheveled, mostly disassembled mass of her hair.
"Oh," Leigh breathes, completely overcome. Her body feels heavy, like the weight of his words have sunk into her skin, sparking the scientifically documented chemical reaction of flames, unregulated heat, when they interact. "Yes." She takes Tony's hand in hers and guides his hand to the next pin. He pulls it out slowly and gently, but nothing about the look in his eyes is gentle. Leigh thinks that just maybe, the same runaway reaction that singes her veins might be blazing in him, too.
With each pin, Tony drifts closer, until finally, he throws the last one and rushes to sink both hands in the loose waves with a sound of deep satisfaction. He snags his fingers in the tangles, sliding and tugging. Leigh's caught at his chest, one hand resting on the table, the other clenched in a fist at her side, trying not to grab at him and distract from the moment.
Tony's height puts his lips at her hairline, hers near his neck, and Leigh's rapidly losing her self-control. She can smell him and feel his charge, all sweat and ozone, like he's integrated his suit with his body to the point where he's electrified.
She breaks first. Tony's hands tighten on her hair and Leigh's left hand slips on the table, spilling the pins. The sound prompts Leigh to clutch at Tony's back and press her lips to his pulse point as if she'll die if she doesn't.
"Yes," Tony groans, and she can taste the sound of it, through his throat. He pulls one hand free of her hair and the feeling of yanking desperation is fuel to the well-banked fire in her gut. He kisses his way down her cheek to her mouth, his free hand dragging her hips right against his, holding her there like he'd done on the floor.
Instead of a whirlwind, as she would have expected, Tony kisses her gently, despite the iron grip he has on her hair and her hips. He captures her lips as if it's their first meeting, angling his head and increasing the pressure with each subsequent kiss. It's like he's drawing out her anticipation, and by the time he nudges her mouth open for him, she's shaking, needing it. Leigh kind of loves the way Tony gives up on the slow build once she opens up to him. It's like he likes to build a solid foundation for what he wants, but once he has confirmation of its structure, he goes for passion instead of perseverance.
Leigh gives herself over to him as Tony kisses her like he's desperate for the touch of her tongue and the taste of her little moans that he prompts when he combines the ungentle tug on her hair with the blatant grind of his hips against her. She responds as best she can, arching up against him, clutching his shirt, letting her hand drift down to his waist and burning a path for her fingers along the bare strip of skin she finds there.
Tony starts to trail kisses down her neck. "Rapidly starting to devalue anything on a flat surface in here," he confesses in a low voice. "Want to shove everything onto the floor and make excellent use of the empty space."
She can't see his face, but the huskiness in his tone is speaking to her in purely physical ways. Still, Leigh knows that the room is full of things that are both irreplaceable and expensive.
"You'll value them more if I made you pick up everything before you could touch me again," Leigh tells him.
Now Tony lifts his head and looks her right in the eyes. She's pinned in place; he wants her, she can see it, hopes he can see the same from her.
"Okay." He kisses her temple and slowly pulls his hand free of her hair. Then, he grabs her right hand, making an unbearably smug expression as he presses his thumb on the 'Tony' they both know is there, and starts walking toward the lab door.
"Where- Tony?"
"Trust me."
"Always, but-"
He stops and turns, only a foot away from the lab door, head angled, curious, pleased. "No hesitation."
Leigh shakes her head, confused. "No reason to hesitate."
Tony's face scrunches into a brief frustrated expression before he explains. "I am going to hate myself in the shower later, but- those two weeks, they weren't hesitation?"
Leigh can see what he needs, and she's happy to give it to him right now. She's probably lust-giddy, but whatever.
"They were in no way hesitation. In fact, if anything, they were trying to give you leeway to hesitate. Shit, we've said the word too much, it's lost all meaning." Leigh rubs her forehead with two fingers and tries to focus. "I'm romance novel-levels of crazy about you, Tony. It's embarrassing." She doesn't let herself look at him.
"Erotic romance novels?"
Leigh's shoulders rise up and she yanks her hand free so she can use both of them to cover her face. It's a classic Tony response, but it also completely deflects from the part where she handed him her heart on as rich a platter as she can afford, knowing he can buy the top of the line without even asking the price.
"Look at me, Leigh."
It's coming, she's sure of it. The let-down. Leigh lowers her hands but tips her head down, letting her hair slide forward, as much armor as she's got, in the moment. Tony's standing where he was before, one hand in his pocket, the other jittering beside him.
"Me too."
The two words strike her like heat-seeking grenades; where they hit she's dizzy, delighted, disbelieving. Tony can tell. He walks toward her, eyes locked to hers despite the vulnerability in them.
"Han saying 'I know' so Leia doesn't hear it as a goodbye levels of crazy about you. Superman going back in time to save Lois Lane levels of crazy about you." His eyes are burning with intensity, they're greedy, if an expression could be thought of as that- Tony's manic, like this kind of truth telling is a dark art that consumes its practitioners.
"Did you just out-Solo Han Solo with that?" Leigh asks, coming up to him but stopping inches away. The impact of his words are still sizzling under her skin. Kid Leigh had the world's biggest crush on Han Solo. Cocky confidence, yes. Clever competence, YES. Relentlessly cool but vulnerable, solid core of decency despite not always being the best of men- "Oh, my god," Leigh says, slamming a hand over her mouth.
"What?" Tony asks, reaching out as if drawn by the Force to her hair. He strokes it with the back of his hand, searching her eyes for an explanation.
"I'm in love with Han Solo."
Tony's lips twist in an adorable mix of delight and annoyance. "You know Iron Man is an actual, living superhero, right?" Leigh lifts her hand to slide her fingers through his hair. He hums for a second or two, his eyes shut. "Come make out with me in the penthouse."
"You mean the elevator," Leigh corrects him. "Unless we take separate ones, because…" She lets out a ragged breath.
"I accept," Tony says. Leigh expects he'll take her hand and drag her toward the door, but instead, Tony picks her up, bridal-style.
"What-" she starts to say, but he kisses her quiet.
"Multitasking," Tony tells her. "FRIDAY, open the doors to the lab and elevator, then take it up top."
Being able to feel his strength in this particular way is like an aphrodisiac (not that she needed one, like, at all), and that's before taking into account that her skirt is so short that his hand is basically on her bare thighs. Leigh watches his face as he walks into the elevator. She's waiting for him to realize, hoping she'll see the effect that knowledge will have on him. Because he's Tony, he notices.
"What?" he asks, nosing a hot caress into her hairline.
"Boss, I'm compelled to remind you of the meeting you have at 1 PM today. That's in fifteen minutes."
"Reschedule it. What?" The second word is to Leigh, but the answer is given by FRIDAY.
"As much as Mr. Fisher would appreciate it if I didn't remind you about this, you have promised him a 30% bonus on current salary if you skip out on this meeting. It's already been rescheduled twice."
"Thirty percent!" Leigh gasps.
"It goes up for each reschedule. There are only a few clients that qualify," Tony sighs. "The brilliant little shit invests it and makes even more. Wouldn't bother me except that the less he relies on his actual salary, the less he's intimidated by me as a boss."
"There's a solution for that, you know," Leigh says, kissing his jawline. The fact that she can, that he might want her to… it almost affects her as much as the physical contact itself. "You could, I don't know, attend them."
"Put your arms around my neck." She does, and Tony shifts her, slides her down his body to stand stretched across him. Her skirt does not slide down from the gravity. Leigh can see him looking down at her ass, and she wiggles just a little to get the skirt to cooperate.
"Yeah. Fuck the meeting," Tony says, turning their bodies to forcefully crowd her up against the wall of the elevator, latching his mouth onto hers in a fierce, needy kiss. His hands trail down the sides of her body, thumbs curving in to press up under her breasts. His right hand skates up over her nipple and then back down to her hip, grabbing handfuls of the skirt until he can reach down to grab her ass, nothing between them but the fabric of her panties. "Lace," he groans into her mouth.
"Tony," Leigh murmurs, pulling her head back with miserable reluctance. "Thirty percent of what Chuck makes-"
Tony cuts her off with another brutal kiss, dipping them both down to catch her leg and hook it around his hip. "If you don't stop pushing I'll give you both the money, and you can stress over the implications of that," he says, his words muffled as he kisses down her neck. "You are so infuriating and gorgeous when you stress out about my money," Tony adds right in her ear, breath hot, lips brushing fire with every word.
The elevator door opens to the loudest ding Leigh's ever heard in her entire time living in the tower.
"FRIDAY, I did not design you to cockblock me," Tony says, dropping Leigh's leg to the floor and his head to her shoulder.
"Go, it's not like I live all that far away," Leigh encourages him.
"You think I'll be able to focus in that meeting?" Tony asks as she takes his hand and pulls him out of the elevator.
"Do you ever focus in meetings?"
Tony ushers her farther into the room and pinches the bridge of his nose. "All right, here's what I'm going to do. FRIDAY, transfer the bonus to Chuck's account anyway, and you," he says, dragging her over to the couch, "Sit. Stay."
"You want me to just sit here and wait for you to come back to- okay, I get it, I'll stay," Leigh says, pulling the mass of her hair onto her shoulder and starting to finger-comb it back into submission. "The thirty percent is…"
Tony's already crossing back toward the elevator. "A concession to the fact that I will neither be mentally nor in some ways physically 'present' at the meeting, all observable evidence to the contrary."
"Am I allowed to do anything?"
"Other than sit there and think about me the whole time?" Tony asks, backing all the way into the elevator to lean on the far wall.
Leigh climbs up to kneel on the couch, leaning on the back of it, knowing that this shoves her breasts up enticingly. "I do that pretty constantly anyway."
The sound of Tony's head hitting the wall is the only thing she hears before the doors close.
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Leigh sits on Tony's couch in Tony's penthouse apartment and closes her eyes, drunk on the last half hour. Suddenly she sits up, realizing she'd intended to call the lab that Dr. Banner had contracted space from, hoping to get through to him. Her phone is in her purse at her apartment, since she knows if she needs to use a phone while she's in the tower, she can ask FRIDAY. Leigh wonders, though, if she can use FRIDAY to call the lab now. The listed hours are until 2 PM on Saturdays, and they're closed on Monday.
"FRIDAY, are you able to access the number for Col-Lab in Georgia? Where Dr. Banner works?"
"Yes, I have the number, Miss Balci."
"Could you call it for me? Is the call quality good enough on the room speaker?"
"I can boost the quality if you don't move around during the call. Calling Col-Lab, Georgia."
The ringing sound clicks to an automated answering system, and Leigh freaks out a little bit until she realizes that FRIDAY can probably input the proper numbers if she says them aloud. This works, and soon she's faced with Banner's voicemail message.
"You've reached the inbox for Dr. Bruce Banner. These messages are received and screened by a secretary, and the pertinent information shared. He is unavailable for all press and publicity requests. Those who are attempting to reach him for valid academic, research, and personal reasons may leave a message after the tone."
Leigh takes a deep breath and starts her message when the tone sounds. She hopes to hell that this doesn't backfire- she'd called and heard the message that morning, but hadn't decided what to say yet. After thinking about it all morning, she has it down.
"Hello, I am calling on behalf of Leigh Balci at Charriott Design. Our records indicate that Dr. Banner called the company some months ago, seeking information about some kind of protective building. The notes here are unclear, and unfortunately the architect that he spoke with is no longer with us. We're reaching out both as a courtesy, and because some of the materials that would be suitable for such a building have been purchased in excess for a separate project, and may be available at a reduced price. Balci can be reached at this number-"
Leigh gives her own phone number, knowing that, as often happens, the secretary who listens to the message will have no idea that the person leaving the message is the same 'Lee' who is mentioned as a contact.
"I took the liberty of hanging up at the appropriate time, Miss Balci."
"Thanks, FRIDAY." Leigh wants to ask her to encrypt the message, but she doesn't. The guilt she feels about going over Tony's head is still there, and while she doesn't hope he'll listen to the message and ask her what the hell she's doing, she thinks that might be less actively deceptive than locking those few moments away.
As for lying to Banner's secretary, she hopes that he'll be curious enough to follow up. If not, she'll try something else. He's the most secretive and private, Rhodey had said, but he was also one of the ones closest to Tony, so he might be the most willing to forgive her deception.
Worst case scenario, once she hopefully reached some of the rest of the team, she'll be able to try again.
For now, Leigh slips off her shoes and tucks them under the couch, then she lies down on her back, spreads her hair out on the cushion behind her, pulling her skirt as far down as it'll go, crosses her ankles, and closes her eyes.
'Me, too.'
It would almost be too wonderful to be believed if she hadn't seen the look in his eyes that told her it's absolutely real. She shivers, thinking about his expression when he sees her all laid out for him.
Just the thought makes her curl her toes in anticipation.