Pepper can't concentrate.
She can't even concentrate on what's distracting her. Half her brain is remembering last night. The other half is preoccupied with just how wrong that is.
Half of her remembers, all too vividly, the feel of his hands drawing lightly up her spine, the feel of his lips gently against hers, the feel of the arc reactor depressing an indent into her chest. This, of course, only leads to some (she is loathe to admit, rather regular) visions of Tony naked—all hard muscle and male sweat—above her, pressing down on her, his mouth over her collar bone and his hands on her thighs.
The other half is mostly annoyed at how easy Tony thinks this is. Not that he's voiced his opinion, in so many words, of course, but she knows how easy he thinks it is. Make coffee. Check. Bed his assistant. Check. Meet with the board at noon. Check.
It's not even that she's necessarily in love with him (it's not even that she'll admit she's in love with him); it's that it just isn't that easy. All profound revelations aside, she figures, it just looks unprofessional for both of them.
But his hands, and his lips, and his dark, dark eyes…
Movement sounds downstairs, alerting her to Tony's renewed presence.
There are the quick thumps of footsteps up the carpeted stairs, and Tony pokes his head into the guest bedroom that she's claimed as her personal office. She looks up, one perfect eyebrow arching.
Tony smiles at her, sitting there at her desk, shoes kicked off and laptop open.
"Hey." His smile is disarming.
"Hey, yourself." Pepper closes her laptop and looks at him expectantly, "How was the meeting?"
"Meeting?" Tony cocks his head and leans against the doorframe, "Oh, yeah. Eh. Rhodey's stepping down as liaison to the company. Didn't give a reason. Met the new guy. Big, typical military."
"Oh?" Pepper reopens her laptop, "What's his name, I'll throw him on the contact list."
"Uh, Stan. Or Steve. Steve-something." Tony doesn't care. "I'll have Jim forward you the stuff."
Pepper rolls her eyes. "Anything else? Because I just scheduled a meeting with the board in an hour."
Tony nods, "I'm flying to Japan."
"After the meeting."
Tony scratches the back of his neck and tries to look helpless. "It's…kinda urgent."
"Urgent."
"Absolutely." He nods to emphasize said urgency.
"So urgent that it cannot wait until after the meeting."
"Uh-huh." He crosses to where she's sitting and leans against her desk.
She falters. He's suddenly way, way too close, and she can smell his cologne and she has to look up to see his face. He shifts, pulls his coat off and tosses it across the room onto the bed. She focuses on the light blue stripes of his shirt, and continues. "Mr. Stark, you've been avoiding the board for over two weeks and I really think they need at least an, um, an appearance."
"They'll get over it. This is more important. This is all that's important."
"Japan? The Japanese don't have any of your weapons that weren't supplied to them directly by the U.S. military, Tony."
"Not Japan, necessarily. But someone does. My technology. It's complicated, and there are military secrets involved…I can't really tell you everything." Tony frowns, and Pepper frowns.
"What are you talking about?"
"I don't know. But I'm about to find out." He reaches down and puts his hand over hers, where it is resting on the desk, and pauses before thinking better of it. "I'll be back sometime tomorrow morning."
With that, he turns and walks out of the room.
A half-hour later, Pepper still sits in her "office", trying to get work done.
"Jarvis?"
"Yes, Miss Potts?" The silky voice of the A.I. responds immediately.
"Is Tony still here?"
"He's in the middle of suiting up right now."
Pepper slips her heels on and starts toward the door.
"Thank you, Jarvis," She calls over her shoulder.
"Anytime, Miss Potts."
Tony's both glad and annoyed that he's streamlined the suit process. Glad, because it means he doesn't have to spend over 24 hours in it. Annoyed, because it's a lot easier to put on a ton of metal when robots are helping you.
He snaps down his left gauntlet and catches his finger in the process. "Shit!" He yells, just as Pepper walks through the door.
"It's okay," he mutters as he hears her heels clicking faster toward him, "Just a scratch."
Her heel-clicks slow.
"Come to wish me luck?" He mutters, as he fiddles with the gauntlet.
"No." She replies. "Just good-bye."
He glances up, "That's not very supportive."
She stares at him, her blue eyes steel. He walks over and holds out his hand, where he is bleeding slightly from the gauntlet bite, and adopts a pout. "I won't be gone very long, it's not even a fighting kind of mission."
Pepper picks up a tube of antibiotic ointment from the work desk behind her and yanks the cap off. "If it's not a fighting mission, Mr. Stark, then why don't you just take a plane?" She rubs the ointment on the cut and then releases his hand.
"Faster. And, you know, you never know." Tony shrugs.
"I don't believe you." Pepper mutters. How dare you risk your life when you don't need to, is what she thinks.
Tony looks up, hears the bite in her tone. He's getting tired of this. His eyes darken, and his mouth sets. "Fine." He says, "Don't wait up." He snaps the other gauntlet on, and picks up the helmet.
Pepper doesn't say anything, because he looks so set and so ready for some stupid battle that she's afraid she might cry if she tries. He steps closer to her, the helmet at his side, until he's so close she can't breathe.
"Wish me luck." He leans down and presses his lips against hers, fiercely.
He steps back, puts on his helmet, and without a word he's zipping past his car collection and out the hole in the ceiling.
She slowly raises her hand to her lips, and steadies herself on his work table.
Good luck.