"She told you about the sex when you were just a kid?" Tony looked halfway to impressed.
"I was a carnie, Tony," Clint pointed out. "No parents to watch my every move and never give me time alone. It was statistically almost certain I'd lose my virginity young. And think about it. How long did it take you to work out how that part of it worked?"
"Forever," Tony admitted. "I went through the first few with no one but the staff—I figured out after the first heat to tell them I was sick when I felt it coming on, and then they came to check on me and bring me food, so it wasn't fun, but I survived. And at MIT, I was in the middle of a project when my first one hit, and I didn't show at the lab, and my TA came to find me. She actually gave a damn, so she made an okay alpha. And she just did the cuddling thing for a while, and the symptoms mostly faded, and then I slept with her, and it was like the clouds broke on the heat. So when the next one hit, I dragged myself out to a bar and got laid, but she left afterwards, and it was even worse than the first heat. And the same thing happened the heat after that. So I stopped sleeping with people during heat, and got the bots to lock me up for two days and bring me food instead."
The unspoken because no one gave a damn hung in the room unsaid.
"And then Pepper happened, and she actually knew a thing or two about omegas."
Tony laid on the bed and listened vaguely to Pepper argue with JARVIS.
"Miss Potts, my primary function is to ensure Sir's well-being. He has expressed suicidal tendencies while in this mood, and it is necessary that the doors remain locked so he cannot act on those tendencies."
"JARVIS, you can override Tony's commands if I can prove I can help him better by you letting me in than keeping me locked out, right?"
JARVIS said something noncommittal and too low for Tony to hear.
"Well, riddle me this. These moods happen on a regular schedule with a frequency between five and six months, correct?" She continued, describing Tony's symptoms with an exactness that would have intrigued him if he could be intrigued. JARVIS could still be intrigued, and Tony could almost hear his lockdown command being overridden by logic.
"If that accurately describes Tony's condition, then I know what is wrong with him and how to help him. And you can't help him, JARVIS, except by keeping him from killing himself, but I can keep him from wanting to kill himself. He needs touch."
The door hissed open. Tony tried to glare at her. It didn't work.
"Why didn't you tell me you're an omega, you silly man?" asked Pepper, and she climbed into bed with him, kicking off her shoes and wrapping herself around him. Tony couldn't hold back a moan.
Pepper stayed with him like that, talking to him and stroking his stubbled cheek, and the worst of the symptoms faded. Then she kissed him, and Tony wiggled away.
"No, Pep…sex is bad."
She snorted, and he stared at her.
"Sorry, it's just…Tony Stark just said sex is bad." He started to laugh, and she laughed with him.
"Seriously, though. Sex during heat makes it worse."
"That's because it doesn't mean anything," she said promptly.
"And with you it will? We're not, you know, in love or anything. You don't love me, right? Because it's only been a few nights, and I've gotten women claiming to love me the morning after, okay, but you really have more sense than that and it isn't even the morning after yet, so—"
"It's not that I have to be in love with you," she answered. "I just have to treat you like I care about you during the sex."
And while Tony was staring at her, momentarily struck dumb for once in his non-depressed life, Pepper kissed him again. And then she began to kiss him all over, on his forehead and cheeks, down his neck, his arms. She sucked on the tips of his fingers, and Tony nearly leapt out of bed. And even as she rode him, even as she came, she never stopped looking right into his eyes. And afterwards, Tony decided that even if she wasn't in love with him, it was the closest thing to love, period, he'd gotten from anyone since the real Jarvis, and that he wasn't letting this woman go if he could help it.
The next morning, she was calm and efficient, her usual self again, and Tony's insecurities—always present, only exacerbated by heat—came trickling back in. She'd only done it to help out her ailing boss, of course, it was just part of the job to her, but fucking hell—and then she'd pulled him into a deserted hallway and said, "I'm not going to sleep with you regularly. You like sex for its own sake, and when you're just fucking because you're horny, I don't want any part of that. But I am your friend, and I do care about you and your well-being, and once every six months, to remind you that you matter and that people care about you, I will sleep with you then."