Pepper woke in the middle of the night to find the bed empty except for herself. "Jarvis? Where's Tony?" she asked sleepily, suspecting he'd snuck off down to his workshop again.
"Sir is in the kitchen, Ms Potts," the AI replied.
"Making coffee?"
"Baking."
That woke her up. She sat up in bed. "Baking?" she repeated. "Baking what?"
"Cookies, I believe."
"Oh, god. Tell me he's not about to set anything on fire."
"Actually, he seems to be doing quite well, apart from a small accident when measuring the flour," the AI reported, actually sounding mildly surprised.
Pepper sat in silence for a moment. "This I have to see," she finally said, and climbed out of bed, sliding her feet into her waiting slippers, and snagging her robe before heading downstairs to the rarely used kitchen. Tony was standing at the kitchen island, wearing boxers and an undershirt along with a liberal dusting of flour, and was rolling out some pale-coloured dough on a large cutting board.
"Tony? What are you up to?" Pepper asked as she walked over.
Tony looked up and beamed at her. "Pep! I'm making shortbread cookies."
"Shortbread," she said blankly, and looked around the kitchen, at the opened bags of flour and sugar, sticks of butter, and the box of baking soda lying tipped over on one side, white powder spilling out of the open end. "Why are you making shortbread in the middle of the night, Tony?"
He shrugged, looking self-conscious. "Well, I was thinking about how you said that a pot-luck was an opportunity to share something special with friends. And I think that stocking the bar and having some appetizers catered wasn't really anything all that special. So... shortbread!"
Pepper found herself smiling at the enthusiastic way he said the final word while gesturing at the rolled-out dough. She moved to sit on one of the stools at the island. "Shortbread is special?"
"Shortbread is special," he agreed, looking down as he set aside the rolling pin and picked up a round cookie-cutter. He frowned for a moment, glancing once at her before be began cutting rounds of dough. "You know that there was a real Jarvis before there was an AI Jarvis."
"Your parent's butler," she agreed. "Edward?"
"Edwin. Edwin Jarvis. He looked after me a lot. There was this one year..." he paused, and turned away to open and shut several drawers, finally making a noise of triumph when he found a frosting spatula in one of them. He grabbed a cookie sheet and started transferring the rounds of dough onto it with the spatula. "There was this one year, my first or second at MIT. I came home for the holidays only to find that my parents had decamped to California to enjoy the warmer weather there, not due back until some time in the new year. Pretty much all the servants had either gone with them or been given the time off, so there was just Jarvis and the cook left in the mansion, and the cook was only working a half day on Christmas Eve before leaving to spend a week with her family, so really it was going to be just me and Jarvis there."
"And you and he made cookies?" Pepper guessed, leaning her chin on one hand.
Tony grinned and pointed the spatula at her. "Bingo. Shortbread cookies. It's a recipe so simple even I can't fuck it up. Only four ingredients, unless you want to get fancy with it. Three if you're a purist." He picked up a fork and used it to prick the tops of the cookies. "We made shortbread on Christmas eve, and on Christmas day there was a stocking and presents for me to open, then we went out in the yard and made snow forts and had a snowball fight, just the two of us. And then a turkey dinner, which the cook had prepared the day before, so that all Jarvis had needed to do was put the turkey in the oven at the right time and then heat the vegetable dishes. It was one of the best Christmases I can remember ever having, growing up."
He opened the oven and slid the cookie sheet into it. "Twelve minute timer, Jarvis."
"Of course, Sir."
Pepper watched as Tony started to roll out more dough, and eyed the volume of dough in the huge mixing bowl at Tony's elbow. "I'll make us some coffee," she said, rising to her feet.
"You don't have to stay up, I can handle this."
She smiled, and stopped to brush a kiss over his cheek before continuing on to the coffee maker. "I know. But I'd like to stay up and help anyway."
The happy smile he gave her in response made her feel warm inside, and reminded her just why she loved him.
