As with most things that involve Tony, it all starts with a perfectly normal evening of contacts, drinks, and paperwork.
And then, Tony has an idea.
They're in the living room of Tony's penthouse. Pepper is curled up on the couch, barefoot, tablet in hand. Tony is sitting on the couch next to her, elbows on his knees as he slowly leafs through a contract on the glass coffee table. Giant windows stretch around the edges of the room, framing a panorama of the New York City skyline. One of the sliding doors is cracked open, and a warm breeze slips through the room. A movie is running on mute in the background on a giant curved screen that takes up half a wall, and papers are spread out across the table in neat, paperclipped stacks that get progressively messier the closer they get to Tony's side of the couch.
That evening is Pepper and Tony's official quarterly Sips and Sign party. Every quarter, they pick a weekend for throwing back drinks, popcorn, and plowing through several filing folders' worth of paperwork so that Pepper's life as CEO of Stark Industries and person in charge of Tony's estate can continue rolling along without any major snags.
Pepper calls it a party so she can entice Tony with snacks. Tony calls it a party so they can watch movies, eat the snacks, and try out increasingly absurd flavors of sparkling water.
Pepper picks up the bottle in question. Ever since Tony cut back his drinking, he takes it as a personal challenge to bring some ridiculous non-alcoholic concoction in silent protest.
"Sparking Turtledove Cherry Cha-Cha," she reads the label. "From the Iron Man Besties Collection. Did you get Friday into the beverage business?"
"What?" Tony looks up. "Oh no, that's real. But Friday would make a great soda mogul."
"Not the worst idea you've had," Pepper mutters as she squints at her glass and the bubbling red concoction and the way it shimmers with silver when swirled. She takes a sip.
"Well?"
"Dead birds and artificial sweetener," Pepper allows. "With a metallic aftertaste. That last part must be their tribute to Iron Man. Or I'm drinking heavy metals."
"Can't be that bad," Tony says and takes a pull from his own glass. A beat. His face twists up, nose wrinkling. "Oh."
"Just be glad we're both immune to mercury poisoning," Pepper mutters. Though Tony and Pepper's versions of Extremis vary wildly in their effects, immunity to almost every toxic substance known to man is a perk they both got from the virus that rewrote their DNA.
With a scrawl made quick from a lot of practice, Pepper signs her name at the bottom of a contract and pushes it over to Tony's pile. "Asia office wants more resources. We're saying yes to the new server farm, no to the new location. Too political."
"What if we push to get Singapore on board?"
"The team doesn't have the people on site to pull off the PR and glad-handing needed right now."
"Let's have Farah take another look at buying our way in. Toast me," Tony says, holding out a skewer with a marshmallow stuck on the tip. Pepper cups her hand over it and lets her control over Extremis ease. Her skin temperature climbs to a crispy 200 degrees. Just a few seconds, and Tony is pulling his stick back and trying to catch the marshmallow with his mouth as the now-gooey treat slides along the skewer.
Pepper can't resist a snicker at the sight, and feels a wash of warmth that had nothing to do with fire. Tony still nurses more than his share of misplaced guilt over the way Extremis reacted with Pepper's biology. He was able to fix his own version of Extremis in less than a week so that he just retains the fast healing and sharp reflexes that keeps him on the Avengers roster well into his fifties.
Pepper's version of Extremis did not appreciate Tony's attempts to tame it and tamp it down. She kept the supercharged healing that makes her nigh indestructible, and...the fire. The fire-starting ability definitely stayed. Even now, it takes a level of constant vigilance to keep from setting things on fire, like a muscle that Pepper can never fully relax.
It's taken them a while, but now, occasionally, she gets a text from Tony begging her to set off fire alarms during boring board meetings or a middle-of-the-night call asking if she is able to pop a bag of popcorn without the microwave. (The answer is yes, but it took a few tries.)
She treasures each question as a precious sign that they are okay.
"I don't know why I put up with this," Tony grumbles, putting down the latest document he'd been reading and scrawling his signature in large loops across the bottom.
"The money, the fame, the giant swimming pools," Pepper says absently. "The ability to cross international borders without being shot out of the sky."
"Yeah, yeah, that would do it." Tony picks up the barely-touched glass of bubbly Iron Man Cherry Cha-Cha and gives it a swirl. The silvery substance moves around the wine-glass in a shimmer. "Let's serve these at the next Avengers honors dinner event."
"No."
"We can tell the guests it's Steve's favorite drink," Tony says. "And get Bucky to dare Steve to drink a whole bottle at the dinner. Everyone will have to drink it if it's Cap's favorite."
"Find a Hulk-themed bottle, and Steve might go for it," Pepper frowns, pen pausing mid-column on a spreadsheet. "No one's going to believe Steve's favorite drink is from the Iron Man Besties Collection. Hey, what happened here in March? Take a look at lines 23 to 49, they're not adding up."
"Bruce never goes to these things," Tony grumbles, taking the budget packet from Pepper and scowling at the numbers. "Yeah, R&D shouldn't be that high. What the hell are they doing in the Minnesota office? Friday, can you bug their phones or something? Make sure they're not opening a black hole in the middle of America's heartland. That's one congressional hearing I want to avoid."
"Sure thing, boss," Friday's voice says from the speaker in Tony's phone.
Tony grabs a slice of orange from the fruit plate and pops it in his mouth. "So, honor's dinner. You bringing a date?"
"Yeah, Molly sent over a list. I'm thinking one of the models this time." Pepper's PR team always limits Pepper's list to models and actors. Anyone in the business world, and the stock market gets real vicious real quick.
Tony looks over at her. "I mean someone you actually want to take to the ball. Like a real date."
Pepper hesitates. The actual date part isn't the problem. But ever since she got Extremis, trying to end the evening with more than a platonic kiss on the cheek gets…complicated. The moment things get heated, Pepper's concentration and hold over Extremis slips. Then things get heated in a distinctly unromantic five-hundred-degrees-Fahrenheit sort of way.
Pepper isn't about to risk hurting someone, much less someone she likes enough to want to make out with, so it's easier not to risk getting attached.
"Tony, you know I can't," Pepper says, and nudges his leg with her foot. She's come to terms with the situation. She's happy. "Don't worry about it."
Over the last two years, Tony has fireproofed her homes on both coasts and her rooms in the Tower, he invented fabric that could withstand several thousand degrees worth of heat, and built her a jacuzzi she could power with her body heat. But Pepper's bad reaction to Tony's first efforts to stabilize and suppress Extremis scared him enough that he hasn't once offered to try to science Pepper's fire thing away again.
That doesn't stop him from trying to fix things in other ways. But for one hopeful, delusional moment, Pepper thinks Tony is going to let it go. And then, his eyes light up with a very specific kind of gleam: Tony Stark has an idea.
"Hey, Friday," Tony says. "Get me a list of people Pepper can date without them getting crispy."
Pepper groans. "Friday, no."
But Friday is a menace who always takes Tony's side. Tony's phone beeps almost immediately.
He taps on it, and scans the list. "Huh. Okay, some of these aren't the worst idea ever."
"Nope, I don't want to know."
"What about Bruce?"
"Pretty sure Steve would have something to say about that."
"But if they were okay with it? There's practically two of Bruce anyway."
Pepper throws a handful of marshmallows at him. "Still not dating the Hulk, Tony."
"Okay, maybe not the best plus one for the corporate Christmas party," Tony says, picking the marshmallows off his lap. He sticks them on his skewer all in a row.
"Sure, let's go with that," Pepper says, her voice dry, but she is smiling when she reaches over and toasts Tony's marshmallows into the perfect gooey consistency.
Pepper knows something is up when she sees Sue and Reed's names on the list of guests for the quaint farm-to-table dinner that SI is hosting for two hundred of their closest east coast political and business friends and acquaintances. Tony might get along with Sue when he has to save the world. On a good day, he will tolerate Ben and Johnny (also on the list). But Reed…
"Tony, this is a business event," Pepper says, flashing the screen of her phone at Tony. It has the people her assistant wants her to speak with highlighted bright yellow. There was no reason for the Fantastic Four to be among this list. "Why is there a table reserved for the Richards?"
"You told me I needed to play nice with the wannabe hero community," Tony says. "Look, see? This is me playing nice."
"What are you announcing?" Pepper asks, because it has to be some kind of scientific breakthrough so he can rub Reed Richards' nose in it. "Does Jennifer know? We've talked about this, Tony. You're not the CEO anymore. You're not allowed to announce new products without running it through corporate. And by corporate, I mean me."
"I'm not doing anything," Tony says, edging away from Pepper's stare with an innocent grin she doesn't trust. "I just thought it would be nice to see everyone without some invasion or crisis getting in the way."
"Tony - "
"Excuse me, Ms. Potts," says a voice at her side, and Pepper glances over to a man in a crisp three piece stretching out his hand for a handshake. "Martin & Martin. A pleasure to be here tonight. Have you seen - "
When she looks back, Tony is gone.
Pepper swallows a sigh and shakes Mr. Martin's hand. Seeing Pepper finally alone, other people shift closer, and she is back in CEO-mode. One of her assistants passes her a wine glass, and Pepper catches the young man's shoulder with a touch.
"Mark, Tony's up to something," Pepper says, voice low and expression pleasant as her eyes flick over the crowd. "Tell Jennifer it might be an announcement, prep the AV guys to swap over the visuals and music to our theme if he goes for the microphone. Put someone on him."
"I'm on it," Mark flashes a perfect friendly smile with exactly zero panic and beelines for the edge of the crowd, one hand already pulling out his phone. Pepper takes a breath, exactly one sip of her wine, and, holding the glass lightly in one gloved hand, dives once more back into the fray.
"John! So glad you could make it. How are the children? Veronica tells me they just got back from Paris - "
Wine and hors d'oeuvres are passed out and then everyone drifts to their seats. The award ceremony happens and Pepper poses for seven and a half photos with the award recipients. Dinner is served.
She keeps waiting for Tony to wander over to the free seat at Reed's table. But he doesn't.
The dinner eventually breaks up and people move into the ballroom to mingle over drinks and dessert bites. The entire situation puts Pepper on edge. She's glad her dress for the event is a floor-length blue-gold thing that comes with thin, elegant gloves - all made from this slinky fireproof fabric shipped straight from SI R&D to a very expensive private designer and then to Pepper's apartment for an outrageous sum. The material means that even if her control flickers under stress, she won't melt her phone - or the hundredth hand she shakes.
Tony says that coming out as a fire woman will be good for PR: "Just imagine the press release, Pep. Green energy giant Stark nabs the hottest CEO in the industry."
Somehow, Pepper doesn't think that's going to be the big takeaway if the public ever learns she can superheat the air around her to more than three thousand degrees.
She keeps half an eye on Tony as she circulates through the event. Pepper waits for the other shoe to drop…and it doesn't. Tony seems to be on his best gala behavior. He even seems to be doing his best to avoid Reed Richards, once chatting up a small circle of very rich old men to avoid a run in. Pepper breathes a silent sigh of relief when Reed finds a small crowd to wow and settles in.
The next time Pepper looks up, Tony has one arm slung over Sue Richards' kid brother by the bar, laughing with a group of young people there. He waves at Pepper when he catches her staring, straightens, and makes a beeline for her, brightly colored drink in each hand.
"I know you're up to something," Pepper mutters, taking the drink. They both pivot and tilt their bodies towards each other with bright smiles as the event photographer floats by and the camera flash goes off. The photographer moves on and they turn back to each other in a move as old and choreographed as any dance. "Out with it. What's going on and is it gonna involve large crowds of well-dressed dinner-goers running out of here screaming?"
"No, no screaming, I promise," Tony says. The music changes into something more upbeat over the sound system. "I actually have a big surprise for you."
Tony looks very pleased with himself. Pepper tries not to panic.
"Tony - "
"No, you'll like this, I promise," Tony says, and tilts his head towards the direction he just came from. "I just talked to Johnny. He says he'd really like to meet you."
"What? Really?" Pepper looks over. Johnny Storm is laughing with that same small group of younger event attendees over at the bar. She takes a sip of the drink Tony got her - a fizzy, non-alcoholic pink thing - to buy her time. Except no, she still has no idea what Tony's up to. "Why?"
"You two have a lot in common," Tony says. Pepper's eyebrows rise as she watches Johnny throw back a row of three shots, one after another. She can hear the cheering from the other side of the large room even over the music.
"Uh-huh."
"It's…" Tony lowers his voice. "He's on the list ."
"You say that like I'm supposed to know what it means," Pepper says at normal volume, her voice dry.
"The fireproof list," Tony explains. "You know - "
He makes a kind of big gesture with his hands, like lifting something, or something exploding, and then flaps them around. His eyebrows rise meaningfully and his arms do an even bigger flap. And Pepper knows she's spent way too much time around Tony because she thinks she's catching on.
She looks back over to the bar. Oh, Tony, no.
"He's half my age," Pepper says. "At least."
"So? He's young, handsome, and fireproof. He even looks like a younger Captain America," Tony says, looking like he's one monologue away from rubbing his palms like a villain. "And he does the fire thing too. It's perfect!"
"Doesn't change the fact that I'm old enough to be his mother."
"You don't have kids, so it doesn't count," Tony explains. "Come on, he's cute. Muscles! He has them! Give him a chance."
"If we're going to keep having this conversation, I need another drink and a really big donation," Pepper says. "Get me a million dollars from Mrs. Wilmington's estate and then I'll think about it."
"What? No, you know Betty hates me - "
Pepper grins. "These scholarship funds don't raise themselves. Go on, think of the children."
"Alright, alright, I'm going," Tony says, backing up with his own grin, both hands raised. "A million you say?"
"Tony, go."
Unfortunately for Tony, Betty Wilmington isn't keen to part with her late husband's millions. Not even for the children.