A/N: I meant to update earlier, but I lost track of time. I'm on my second week of recovering (quickly and well) from surgery. I'm itching to go back to work, but maybe in the meantime I can get another chapter of a fic written, or get together with 4persephone and get a chapter of one of our fics (which would include this) written.
In the meantime, enjoy this. :)
They're on the east balcony, mugs of coffee steaming between cupped hands, a tray of blueberry muffins and a carafe of refill java sitting on the wide, low table. Pepper's contemplating, Tony's waiting, and Jarvis is on baby monitor duty.
Tony figures this is a good place to start. It's the most recent upset for them. Not for her… Well, not only for her. It's a shared trauma, even if it is from different perspectives. It's a stepping stone down the path. Aaron's biological father doesn't even need to factor into things if Pepper doesn't want it to. All he wants to know about is what had driven her that night in December when she'd left him.
Mick had mentioned something about a panic attack, and Pepper not wanting him to know about it. Well, that's just not going to cut it.
"I think I could tolerate an open marriage."
Tony nearly chokes on his coffee. Talk about non-sequiturs. As well as out and out lies.
He takes a few deep breaths to ensure he's calm when he answers. Takes a cautious sip of his coffee. When he replies, he doesn't look her way, because if he does he's going to demand to know how she became so stupid overnight. Open marriages…really…
"Well, I know I can't. So don't even finish whatever insane offer you were going to make."
"You like sex." Pepper points this out baldly, calmly. Like she would point out that he likes Brioni silk ties or Glenfiddich scotch…preferably something that's been in a barrel since the Depression era.
"I like you more. This topic is off limits, Potts."
She shifts. He glances at her. Pepper's face is disgruntled. It would make him laugh if he weren't offended just by the idea. And it is offense at the idea, not at her.
"I think I've gotten a little bit of insight into your frame of mind when you left me." It's clear that if he's going to get any answers, he's going to have to ask specific questions. "But I want to hear from you why leaving as dramatically as you did seemed to be your only option. Why did you leave with only a note?"
"I don't want alimony in the event of a divorce." Pepper's tone is fierce, and once again Tony is thrown. He takes the time to think before answering, because clearly Pepper is operating under the impression that they're bartering for information.
"And I would be willing to cut the amount in the post-nup in half." If this is what it takes to get her to start opening up, then he's willing to negotiate. Besides, even cut in half, the monthly allotment for alimony he's agreeing to is still three times what she made as his PA…in a year. Right now he just wants to get her talking, wants to get her to lower her defenses. The way he sees it, the more comfortable she gets with letting him in on her past, the more unlikely their need for any sort of divorce settlement will be.
Pepper doesn't look happy at the offer. "I don't want –"
Tony holds up a hand, stopping her before she can repeat herself. "You're welcome to change my mind. Later. And I will listen to every single word of whatever argument you have. I promise."
Her eyes narrow a little. "I also want to know more about what you were talking to Mick about."
It's as if she's testing him, seeing how far he's willing to bend, what he's willing to offer. As if that hadn't been spelled out in Gary Larson's office yesterday.
He's willing to give her everything.
"I will tell you a story as soon as you finish telling me one." She studies him, judging the validity of his offer. It makes him hurt a little, the intensity of her gaze. "Hey…" His hand finds hers; slides against it palm to palm until their fingers are aligned – hers dwarfed by his of course. "For better or for worse, right Potts? You've been right there to peel my bleeding body out of my armor. Let me learn how to return the favor."
She shudders, and her hand wraps around his tightly. "You are so stubborn."
"I don't let go of what I've been given. There's a difference. Tell me about the day you left, Pepper." Pepper shudders, and curls her arm so that her coffee cup is cradled against her chest. Tony knows enough to recognize closed body language when he sees it.
She glances at him, squeezes the hand still folded around hers a little more tightly. "I'd been feeling off for weeks, all right?" she finally murmurs. "I hadn't been sleeping well and at that point I was constantly nauseous and exhausted from trying to hide it. Having you both there at the party was just too much…I was scared that if all three of us ended up in the same room I was going to flip out somewhere that wasn't private."
She pauses, and Tony doesn't prod for more. The way she'd qualified where the flipping out would occur indicated that she had managed to restrict any hysteria to moments when she was alone.
'Of course she would,' he thinks. Especially when he'd been in such a good mood, so optimistic in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. When she'd started spending more and more time at the house despite the light workload that usually preceded the holidays, he'd assumed that she was ready to start edging into something more. He'd had no reason not to be happy.
'Myopic as usual, Stark.'
Tony realizes that Pepper's watching him intently. Maybe she finds his silence unnerving. Maybe she's watching for signs that he's disturbed by what he's hearing. Knowing Pepper like he does, that will be her first cue to clam up. She won't tell him anything she doesn't think he can handle hearing. Which means there's something she has to say that's probably going to piss him off.
Mick had warned him about this, that Pepper might use his reactions to give herself an excuse to stall or even call quits. 'Suck it up and be a man,' he reminds himself. That means no impressive displays of temper. The coffee cup in his hand is suddenly very comforting. It gives him a prop. Taking another deliberate sip allows him time to start building up his calm and collected persona.
"All three of us…?" he asks when Pepper doesn't look away from him.
His personas have never fooled her. Pepper pulls her hands back and drops her eyes, clearly expecting him to react strongly. "Tony, it was the corporate Christmas Gala. Delaney was at the party too."
Tony nods, jaw tightening a little. But that's the visible extent of his reaction. He hadn't meant to bring the man up unless Pepper did, but now the anger rises automatically with this new information. "Delaney was there? Did he…?"
Pepper raises a hand to stop him, her eyes still firmly focused on her lap.
"No, Tony. Nothing he said or did was aggressive or otherwise inappropriate. The truth is he barely even acknowledged me…We'd already met more than a week prior to that to discuss how we intended to handle the unexpected consequences of our having had sex."
She can't quite bring herself to connect the man to Aaron directly.
Tony nods slowly. "So you left because he was there and so was I, but not because of any specific encounter that occurred that evening?"
Pepper shrugs, "As I said, Delaney didn't even appear to see me. He'd found another female who seemed more than eager for his attention…" Which should have been a relief. Except she'd been so on edge that even the sight of the man had made her stomach clench and her palms start to sweat.
'You were still scared to be in the same room with him,' her inner Mick provides gently.
"I think that it was the memory…" she murmurs, almost to herself, as something in her conscious mind finally clicks into place. "With Delaney, I mean…the position he had me in…"
Tony jerks a little. Turns it into a graceless reach for the coffee pot. "The position…?" He repeats her statement numbly.
Pepper feels her gorge rise up a little, but she's already said more than she intended. Again. "I just...the night that he and I…." She shrugs, "Delaney pinned me down on my stomach on the night that I took him home with me."
The face of the man front of her is slowly turning into iron, a mask as unreadable as that of his suit even though he's biting his tongue and his eyes encourage her to finish. She draws in a shaky breath. "I don't like being held down Tony. I never have. I sort of…disassociated…I guess..." She lets the sentence die off. "I doubt he even realized there was an issue."
"He should have," is all Tony has to say to that.
Pepper just shrugs again. It's always been so hard for her to tell what blame should be placed on her and what should be placed on others. "Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, just seeing him after that was enough to set my teeth on edge." Still was, though for different reasons. She didn't want Delaney anywhere near Aaron.
While Pepper muses, lost in processing her own memories, understanding is beginning to dawn for Tony as well, and he's not particularly pleased with the conclusions he's reaching.
Especially in connection with his earlier discussion with Mick.
'Doesn't like being pinned. Take a guess as to why…and while she my have 'disassociated' at the time, it's pretty clear that before it was over she'd subconsciously tagged Delaney as a physical threat.'
It also explained perfectly why she reacted to his name like one would the name of a physical attacker.
Tony only wishes that he'd been in the same room as the two of them at that party. Even back then he would have seen something in her body language. Pepper had certain tells when she was scared or distressed. He's pretty certain that the encounter would have tripped his warning radar.
He looks away. Yeah, his radar would have been tripped, and the pleasant buzz he'd had going that night – his Christmas present for Pepper had been at the back of his mind all evening – would have gone up in a blaze of protective fury.
"That still doesn't explain your leaving a note on my desk instead of coming to speak with me."
Pepper almost laughs out of discomfort and disbelief. Tony's actually turning the conversation away from any sort of hypothetical confrontation. It leaves her a little more willing to talk. "Between the pregnancy hormones and the out of control gestational diabetes I didn't know I had, my brain was inside a deep fryer at the time." Okay, so this subject matter wasn't actually any lighter than the first. "And…I just couldn't see any other way out, Tony. My feelings about you and I and Delaney were just this tangled mass that I was sure was the culmination of my quickly unraveling life. I didn't want to take you down with me. I know now that the main reason I felt that way was because my body chemistry was so out of whack, but all I knew then was that I was falling apart, and that you would have allowed me to take you with me." She shakes her head softly. "I couldn't do that. I needed something in my world to remain stable. Even if that meant leaving so it would stay that way."
Tony considers this a moment, nodding his head just a little. "I think I understand. At least in part. You didn't want me to realize there was something wrong, so you left. But you simultaneously left a note so…what…? Your sudden disappearance wouldn't unduly alarm me?"
Pepper nods. "Yeah. I knew that if I just disappeared with no explanation at all, that you'd worry." She shakes her head. "More than worry. You'd come looking for me, and I wasn't in a state to let you find me."
Pepper pauses than shakes her head a little. "You read people pretty well, Tony, when you want to. You'd have known something was up and you would have never let the issue go. If you'd backed me into enough of a corner..." She shrugs her shoulders a little. "Well I'm capable of becoming someone I don't like at all, when I'm desperate enough," she whispers. "Some of the things I've said to Mick over the years…well, I'm surprised some days that he's still talking to me."
"Speaking of which..." Pepper turns suddenly. Her expression appears truly confidents for the first time since he'd come into the kitchen. "What were you talking to my brother about this morning?"
Tony lifts an eyebrow. "Are you under the impression that you're calling a bluff?"
Pepper just continues to meet his eyes without saying anything.
Tony shakes his head, half amazed at how quickly she goes from uncomfortable to confident. "I was talking to him about you. What else?"
"And what did my brother have to say on that topic?" Pepper's tone is very…bland. As if she already knows what Mick has to say about the subject.
So Tony replies as he would in any uncomfortable situation… "That I'm not allowed to turn you down just because you have a glass of wine with dinner," he says wryly. The joke doesn't go over quite as well as he'd hoped. "Look, Pepper, I'm not going to deny that our talk yesterday scared me a little." He raises a hand before she can say anything. "And before you start feeling guilty, know that this is as much about my hang ups as it is about yours..."
She looks confused by that and he sighs, taking a sip of coffee before continuing on more bluntly. "Look, I spent years getting drunk and sleeping with tipsy women who I cared very little about. I don't like the feeling that I'm mimicking the habit with you."
Pepper flinches almost as if she's been slapped. "So then where does that leave us?" Pepper propels herself to her feet and starts pacing across the balcony. "How the hell are we ever going to make this work, if -"
"Pepper." Tony interrupts with a stern tone. "I have just as much a right to personal limits as you do."
She spins, eyes wide and jaw dropped. He can't tell if she's going to protest or if she's honestly shocked. He knows the words were harsh, but they were probably still necessary to remind her their current troubles involved not just one person with issues, but two. "Look, clearly I've made you uncomfortable in my attempts to not make you uncomfortable. So let's talk. I take it you're not satisfied with my performance to date."
Pepper almost starts in on the "it's not you, it's me," line, taking all the blame for their awkwardness so far. But she stops, and she thinks about her real complaint with him. "There hasn't been any performance to date, that's the problem," she says softly. "You always pull back the moment I have to stop and take a minute to figure out what I'm feeling."
"You shouldn't have to stop –"
"That doesn't change the fact that I do, Tony!" Pepper draws a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "That's why I thought a glass or two of wine might help speed things along. For both of us. It'd help me not…hesitate…or tense up so much, which would hopefully keep you from stopping."
'Oh like hell,' is Tony's gut response, and from the way Pepper rolls her eyes, the internal sentiment is coming through loud and clear. There's probably no need to actually voice it. At least not at the moment. It's more constructive to focus on the issue they're already discussing.
"Pep, I've always pulled back because I've been reading your tensesness as the precursor to panic. This is the first time you've actually told me that tensing means 'slow down, please, and give me a minute to process' instead of it just being nonverbal cue to back off. Our problem hasn't been just physical, it's been about communication."
That reminder is enough to get Pepper to blink at him. Tony shrugs, "Now that I do know what you need me to do when you tense up, we can work on that. I can't read your mind though. We both need to be better about saying what we're thinking or what we need."
Pepper nods, a little, feels a little of her irritation drain away, because the truth is he has a point. "You're right and I'm sorry if I snapped. I shouldn't have interrupted before you'd had the chance to finish speaking. I'm just not used to... talking about this subject with anyone..."
"We'll both have to learn then. On the bright side I'm so used to you telling me what it is I'm supposed to be doing most of the time anyway that this whole situation feels almost normal." He invites her to share the humor of this with him with a well placed eyebrow. She just rolls her eyes again, which makes him think that she does see the humor but is disciplined enough not to let it show.
"So do you have any more questions," she asks after moment, "Or can we pause the rest of this discussion until we both get something to eat?"
"If I tell you that we can do whatever you want, are you going to yell at me?" Tony teases gently. He sets down his cup of coffee and rises to join her over by the railing. "Food's a good idea for both of us, and if muffins aren't enough for you this morning, I could even be persuaded to cook," he murmurs as he rests his hands on her terrycloth covered hips.
The look on Pepper's face is half wary, probably because she knows exactly what he's up to. "You can cook?" The tone in her voice is the one she always uses when she knows she's being sweet talked.
"Well, I'm not your brother..." The half-seductive tone in his voice disappears in favor of bruised dignity. "I know I've been busy lately, but I don't think I've forgotten how to cook two eggs over easy with two slices of that turkey fake-bacon you liked so much back right after you first had Aaron." He waits to see if she's going to sweet talk him back herself…or act on the cautious passion he can see blooming in the back of her eyes as the heat of his hands starts to register through her robe.
"I do like your bacon," she acknowledges softly, before leaning up on her tiptoes to kiss first his forehead, then his cheek. Then she murmurs a little before her tilting her neck to brush his lips with hers gently.
Tony responds in kind, keeping the kiss soft and sweet while he slowly slides his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. By the time they're pressed chest to chest, Pepper's resting her forehead against his cheek; her breath is hot and fast against his skin. He turns his head to press a gentle kiss to her forehead before squeezing her tightly for good measure, then scooping her up in his arms. She hollers at first and clutches at his shoulders as she's surprised by the quick motion. "Tony!"
"Breakfast," he replies reasonably. "Kitchen's in the house, Pep."
"I can walk, Tony."
"And I can carry you. What's your point?" His face is suspiciously bland. Pepper kicks her feet a few times, but he makes no motion to put her down. She sighs in surrender and lets him do what he wants.
Besides…she'd never admit it, but it's nice. It's safe. It's a comfort after a conversation that'd left her the tiniest bit rattled. They're dancing so close the edge of things she doesn't want to have to tell him. She suspects that the way he's keeping her close is a sign that he isn't any more eager to hear the facts of the matter than she is to tell him. And honestly? That makes it easier to contemplate telling him everything.
'Just as long as it isn't today,' she tells herself as Tony sets her down and gets to work on her breakfast. She thinks today is going to be a good day.
