Chapter Two: Victoria's Secret Identity
Five days after The Conversation, Pepper was sitting at her desk at 7:13 PM (according to her laptop's clock) typing out yet another e-mail, blouse slightly untucked, shoes MIA. She was working late in one of two luxurious offices in the mansion, a classy space lined with windows that overlooked the Pacific and some of the mainland. Fred and the bright Gerber daisies on her desk were her only company at the moment. The daisies had shown up mysteriously this morning in an expensive vase with no note – which meant they were from Tony, mystery solved – but Fred was a staple.
Just staring around was enough to break her concentration mid-sentence. So she stood up for a stretch and wandered over to the tank. She crouched before the glass and smiled. Fred spotted her. Delighted at the attention, he swerved from his usual route and engaged her, transforming instantly from a red-gold-spotted circle to a peachy-colored line with delicate lacy fins and black eyes positioned like headphones. He bumped into the glass and made blurpy water talk at her. Fred loved people in general and Pepper especially. He was an elderly discus fish, a Red Pigeon Blood to be precise, that she'd had for six years. As old as he was, he was still her baby.
"Hi Fred," she said, and waved.
Fred blurp-blurped at her again, but suddenly he got startled and darted behind his favorite rock, leaving a trail of bubbles in his wake. She frowned. Then a throat cleared way too close to her and she yelped, whipping around with a hand splayed across her blouse.
"Oh! God, Tony!"
Tony, towering over her in socks and the remains of his business suit, looked a little embarrassed. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. Um, I got this for you."
And he held out a distinctive pink striped bag by its silver yarn handle. Victoria's Secret. She stood up and eyed it cautiously. Then she looked at him with a challenge in her gaze.
"If that's kinky underwear, so help me, you'll be wearing that bag as a hat."
Tony knew when to take her threats seriously and now was not it. He laughed. "It's only kinky if you're imaginative. But it is an undergarment, thus the bag. Here."
He handed it over. Pepper took it. Peered in. Pulled out a forest-green something and looked flummoxed. "What is this?"
"Just put it on and come down to my shop, Miss Potts," he instructed, striding for the exit.
Pepper began to investigate the thing in her hands, intensely curious and puzzled. It was made of some odd substance and felt almost like a scuba suit, but not quite. It was a little stretchy.
"Oh, and Miss Potts?"
She started again and looked up. Tony was hanging in the doorway by one hand, like he'd forgotten something.
"Mr. Stark?" she responded warily.
"Happy Birthday," he said. And he winked.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Pepper crept down to the shop some minutes later, arms folded protectively over her chest and padding along self-consciously in the contents of the Victoria's Secret bag: a skin-tight forest green bodysuit that covered her from neck to toe. She uncrossed one arm so as to enter her code for the shop and stepped in, automatically lowering the level of Tony's music. He glanced up from his computer station and smiled at her. Then he held out his arms like "Ta dah! We match!" She saw that he wore a bodysuit like hers, only jet black, and smiled back politely.
"Hey," he said warmly.
"Hi."
She glanced around, having correctly assumed that there was more to her birthday present than the bodysuit, but she didn't see any obvious presents hanging around Tony's cement bunker of a shop. The resident mechanical engineer cleared his throat and pulled out his best "casually authoritative" voice, the one he generally reserved for board meetings.
"Well, Miss Potts, I'm sure you're wondering why you're here."
"Lil' bit," she agreed.
"You are here," he explained, "Because I have created something for you. I'm hoping that if you get to know it, 'shake hands with it,' so to speak, then … hopefully … you'll be a little less afraid of what it is … I do."
Pepper blinked at him. "What?"
"See, Jarvis, I knew that was too opaque," Tony complained to the ceiling. "Last time I take your advice on stuff like this." He stood up and walked over to her. "Sorry, Pepper. Okay, here's the deal. I made you something for your birthday. And if it's not the coolest birthday present ever, then I seriously don't know what is, so you'd better like this. C'mere, gimme your hand."
Pepper eyed him skeptically. "Tony…" she warned, but she let him take her by the hand and lead her to the center of the floor, where a big white grid was laid out on a black background. She noticed two small ovals to her right and settled into a stance on them, looking down at the funny feet of her suit, which separated the big toe from the other four. She'd seen Tony suit up (and down) many times, and they were standing in the exact same spot, so she already had some idea of what was going to happen to her. But the look of delighted anticipation on her boss's face made her shut her mouth against her suspicions. He was so cute when he got like this; she didn't want to ruin his fun.
"Okay," he said with a grin, "First the important stuff. Jarvis?" The floor before Pepper split open and a pair of nearly disassembled boots rose up to meet her. Tony gave her his hand for balance. "Step in. … Good, now hold out your arms. … Good. All right, now close your eyes, and hang on to your hat. Hit it, Jarvis!"
"Yes, sir," the AI replied. "Miss Potts, please do your utmost to stay still."
Pepper had never been really good with surprises. To her credit, she didn't move, as per Jarvis's order, but she did peek, which was a big mistake. The grid around her exploded into a million different pieces and mechanical arms came down out of the ceiling and up from the sudden caverns on her right and left, all bearing unidentifiable bits of metal and hydraulics. They aimed themselves straight for her and bore down like incoming aircraft; she squeaked in terror and squeezed her eyes shut. There was a lot of whirring and clanking, drilling noises, a slight tightening sensation all over her and the thunderous quaking of heavy machinery, but no pain, thank goodness, and then …
"Pepper, you can open your eyes now," Tony said from her left. He sounded a little amused.
She blinked. She felt a little taller and broader somehow, and she could tell that she was totally encased in something very strong and protective. But rather than feel restricting, it was perfectly comfortable, like a second skin. There was definitely a helmet on her head and she felt the gentle press of padding against her chin and cheeks, and when she held up her hands for inspection she saw that they were covered in metallic gloves, painted a shimmering forest green that would have looked quite awesome on a car. She turned to Tony in wonder.
He nodded in approval. "Good thing you helped me test that body scanner a few months ago. I saved your file and used it as a blueprint for this," he explained. "It looks perfect. How does it feel?"
She blinked. "Incredible," she said. "I'm sure it's like, crazy heavy, but it's like I'm not wearing anything! Well, I mean, not nothing, you know, but it's like I'm – I'm floating in here." She couldn't help her excitement, or her smile, and it seemed that both were contagious because now he was grinning too. "Tony, this is …"
"Supercool?" he asked eagerly.
She gave him one of those beatific, yes-you-are-a-good-boy smiles. "Supercool," she agreed.
He looked even more pleased with himself, if that was possible. "Oh, just wait 'till I show you how to fly it," he promised. "Okay, shoo for a second. I gotta suit up. Jarvis?"
"On your mark, sir."
"Wait a second, it flies?" Pepper asked as she clumsily moved away from the still disassembled floor space. "Does it have weapons, too?" she added with consternation.
But Tony was suiting up and ignoring her. She frowned. Seeing as she wouldn't get an answer out of him for at least a minute, she stumble-clanked over to the holo-box to give him some privacy.
"Miss Potts?" Jarvis asked. He raised his volume so he could be heard over the whirring and whining of the machines that were suiting Tony up. "Would you like to see how you look in the suit? Mr. Stark has outdone himself, I think."
Pepper bit her lip. On the one hand it was probably stupid to indulge him – or herself, for that matter – and she knew that. But on the other hand, she was very curious, and he'd gone to all this trouble… "Sure."
"Very well," Jarvis said.
In a flash, the holo-box transformed into a mirrored surface, and Pepper got her first look at herself.
Her suit was more graceful-looking than Tony's, and it reflected her physique; it had recognizable hips, breasts (thankfully nipple-free), and smaller shoulders. It was also powered by an arc reactor in the middle of the chest, but instead of Tony's circle, hers was a triangle. And the color scheme was quite different. She was secretly pleased at this; as soon as those robotic arms had started to whir, she'd begun to wonder if she would step back from the platform looking like an Iron Man clone. But her suit was predominantly sparkly forest green with silver accents, in the exact same way that his suit was red and gold.
Slowly, with a pressurized hiss, the gleaming silver faceplate of her suit came down to meet the chin with a click. She was complete. She cocked her metallic head at her mirror image. The face of her suit was modeled after Tony's, but the eyeholes were slightly larger and the chin was smaller, giving it a gentler, more womanly appearance. She brought up one green gloved hand to touch her cheek.
"Amazing," she murmured.
She was still admiring Tony's work when Iron Man, hulking and polished to a shine, wandered over and stood proudly behind her in the mirror. He put his hand on her shoulder with a quiet clank.
"Beautiful," he said softly. Then he cleared his throat and commanded, "Jarvis, bring Miss Potts on-line."
"Yes, sir." The suit lit up inside, to Pepper's surprise, and suddenly Jarvis was in her ear. "Hello, Miss Potts. Are you reading me?"
Pepper gasped. Glowing blue readings flitted across the Heads-Up Display, lighting up different objects in the room as Jarvis got everything ready. "Y-Yes, I'm reading you."
"Excellent," the AI replied cheerfully. "Mr. Stark is going to show you some basics. Follow his instructions to the letter, and I am right here if you need me."
"O-Okay," Pepper distractedly agreed. She was a little caught up in the thrill of the blue numbers and the exquisitely clear vision field of the HUD, not to mention getting a close look at Iron Man – a phenomenal engineering achievement who also happened to be pretty easy on the eyes – so Jarvis's words didn't quite register for a bit. Tony took her by the hand again with a slight metallic squeak and led her back over to the floor grid. It had reassembled itself seamlessly into a flat surface. They clanked their way to a halt right in the middle of it.
"All right," he said, and his voice came out electronically magnified and slightly altered. It was a little gruffer than usual. "Pepper, you ready?" he asked.
"Huh?" Pepper's word came out equally amplified, and the juxtaposition of her commanding voice and her clueless question made Tony laugh.
"I asked if you were ready," Iron Man teased. The red-gold suit tapped the green-silver one on the forehead with one metallic finger. "Need a bit of focus here, Potts. Is that too much to ask?"
Iron Woman looked almost embarrassed. "Sorry, no, it's not too much. I'm just a little … sorry." Pepper's whoosh of breath was amplified, too. "Okay, I'm ready. What are we doing?"
"Flying," Tony announced gleefully, and he was off and babbling before she could protest. "Okay, so this thing," he said, taking her green-gloved hand and spreading her fingers so that she could see the circular glass contraption in her palm, "Is called a flight stabilizer. It can be used for lots of stuff, but the first thing you're going to learn to do with it is steer. Well, right after you learn how to take off, of course." Pepper stared at him. "Jarvis? 2.5 percent power for both of us. Pepper? Take my hand. Come on."
They joined hands in the center of the floor.
"In three. Two. One."
With a blasting roar, the thrusters on their boots fired and both of them rose to hover about six feet the air.
Pepper squealed and flailed her arms, and Tony cackled at her reaction. But he didn't let go of her hand until she was dead steady.
"Okay," he coached, setting his hands at his sides. He fired his right gauntlet at low power and gently drifted to the left, where he stopped on a dime and hovered so he could wait for her. "Just copy me. Give it your best shot."
"Here goes nothing," she said. She wasn't quite sure how to actually fire her flight stabilizer, so she figured maybe it was a voice-command. "Um, flight stabilizers, go!"
Sadly, Pepper had no idea how seriously Jarvis took English grammar. The plural was her undoing. She accidentally fired both of her hand thrusters at once and got knocked sideways with a scream. The boot thrusters compensated for this and blasted her forward in an attempt to right her, and she careened smack into Tony with another scream, knocking them both into the wall. They slid down to the floor in a clanking heap. He threw an arm around her. She was silent and shaken; he was hooting with laughter as his mask flipped up.
"Damn, Pepper! What the hell did you do? The steering runs on biofeedback, by the way. You don't need to say anything special to fire your stabilizers. … Are you all right?" he asked, manually unlocking her faceplate to get a look at her. "Do you need an ice pack?"
Pepper groaned. "No, I don't, and maybe you could have mentioned that thing about the biofeedback before I knocked us both on our butts?" She gently extricated herself from his grip so she could stand. When she faced him, glittering proudly in his latest creation, Tony smiled and took a second to feel incredibly lucky as he stood up to join her. There was determination in her stance, dangerous curves in her figure and fire in her voice. For a brief moment, nothing on earth was sexier. "All right, come on," she said firmly, clunking over to the launch pad again. "I want to get this right. Let's give it another try." And she clicked her faceplate shut again.
Tony was delighted. She was at least halfway hooked and most importantly, much less afraid. "Yes ma'am," he said with a mock-salute. "Jarvis, increase thrust to 4 percent."