I live in England, so all the weather and temperature information was provided by the internet in all its reliable glory.
Also, I meant for it to be July in the first chapter, not September. I don't know why I wrote September...
And just a quick shout out to 'ugh' who left a review for the last chapter. I would reply directly, but you reviewed anonymously. I appreciate you taking the time to read the first chapter, and you're quite right, you're entitled to read and review whatever you choose to, but I do ask if you're going to do so, try and actually review the fic you're reading, rather than telling the author that you hate both comics and how the website combines the comic and movie worlds. And I hate to use that old chestnut 'if you don't like, don't read' but it still applies. If there's something wrong with the writing, by all means correct it, but telling the author you hate everything about their story really isn't helpful. It's a review, not a condemnation, and I couldn't really see anything directly relating to my fic in your review. No hard feelings though.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the names of the Jets players Jeff O'Connell and 'Lewis'. I figured that in ten years, they probably wouldn't have the same players. I'm not too sure how Rhodey morphed into a douchebag, but that's what we've got here. Thanks to Marvel Universe Wiki and Marvel Comics Database for providing character background.
August rolled through Malibu with an extreme dry heat that still blindsided Pepper. Growing up in Connecticut, where the humidity could easily frazzle even the tamest hair, she revelled in the calm breeze that flowed through her open window. It was nice not to have to worry about carrying a brush or even a hat just in case. She rolled the window of her car up as Happy pulled round the front of Tony's Malibu mansion and the heat gripped at her instantly.
"Autumn weather my ass." She huffed, popping the door open of her oven on wheels and stepping into exactly the same conditions. Happy chuckled. A New York native himself, he wasn't bothered by the baking sun.
"You need me to come in with you?" he asked from the driver's seat.
"No, it's fine." Pepper smiled. "I only need a few files from the office; I'll be back in ten."
Happy watched as she walked up the remaining bit of driveway and into the house. As soon as she closed it behind her, he reached for the stereo and tuned it into the sports station.
"…and O'Connell takes the snap and holds it…holds it…holds- and there it goes! The pass is long and accurate, Lewis scores the touchdown and it's Jets – forty-seven, Bulls – thirty."
"Yes!" Happy punched his fist in the air and whooped. "Come on Jets!"
His grin quickly vanished when a scream ripped through the air. His fist landed on the horn in shock and he fumbled for the door handle, stumbling out of the car and speeding towards the house. He burst through the door and looked around.
"Pepper!" he called. The house looked just the same as it always did; there was nothing out of the ordinary.
"Oh my God!" he heard her yell again in the direction of the master bedroom. Happy's hair stood on end as he rushed towards the sound of her voice, throwing the door to Tony's room open.
His vision clouded with rage immediately. There was a scraggy looking man with long hair and a beard gripping Pepper by her elbows. Happy didn't even think before he ran at the pair, shoving Pepper out of the way and tackling the man to the ground. He pinned him to the floor with his knees and punched him in the face.
"Happy! Stop!" Pepper yelled. Happy, who had raised his fist ready to throw another punch, paused and swivelled to look at her. She rushed over to them and pulled Happy off the man.
"Pepper, what are you doing?" he asked, reluctantly getting off the man and rising to his feet. "Hey, you stay down buddy, I'm calling the cops." He said to the man who was trying to get up.
"No!" Pepper said, looking, if anything, worried. Happy scrunched his eyebrows together. She was staring at the man, who was attempting to get up again.
The grubby shirt he was wearing had come unbuttoned slightly.
"Oh my God."
Pepper closed the front door behind her and looked around the foyer. She immediately noticed something was wrong. She'd left the newspaper from the day of Tony's funeral on the coffee table in front of the couch.
It wasn't there.
The hairs stood up on the back of Pepper's neck. She stepped forwards into the house and tapped her security code on the Jarvis alarm block to the left of the door. It beeped to let her know the code had been accepted.
"Good afternoon, Miss Potts, lovely to see you again." Jarvis said.
Pepper froze. Jarvis had been turned off since she'd moved out of the mansion ten years ago to save his memory and hadn't been turned on since. He should not have spoken to her.
"Jarvis." She muttered. "Who turned you on?"
"I don't know, Miss." Jarvis replied. "I was activated using Mr. Stark's code; however my facial recognition software did not register the person who entered the code."
Pepper gulped. The only person that knew that code other than Tony was her, and she didn't enter it.
"Is that person still in the house?" she asked, moving forwards and looking around for any other kinds of disturbances, or if available, some kind of weapon.
"Yes, Miss Potts. They are in the master bedroom." Jarvis replied.
Pepper gulped again. She slowly made her way towards the master bedroom. The thought about yelling for Happy, but her damn curiosity got the better of her. Why the hell was this person in the bedroom? There wasn't anything of value in there. Everything that wasn't in the safe in the basement had been put in storage long ago. She stopped outside the door and took a deep breath before cracking it open slowly. Poking her head around the door, she looked around.
There was a man lying on the bed, asleep.
She stepped through the door and stepped forward cautiously. The door swung shut and clicked into the frame. She froze as the man on the bed snuffled and moved. He turned over and slowly opened his eyes, groaning softly. He spotted Pepper and snapped awake, flinging himself off the bed and stumbling to his feet. Pepper was glued to the floor, unable to move as the man gaped at her. He had long black hair and a thick, short beard, and extremely dark eyes. Something in those eyes caught her and she stared.
"Pepper?"
It was Tony.
Pepper screamed.
"Pepper! Pepper, please calm down." Tony rushed around the bed and walked up to her.
"Oh my God!" she gasped, backing away from him.
"Pepper, calm down-"
"Oh my God!" her eyes were almost bugging out of her head and he grabbed her arms.
"Pepper, please-"
Tony's head snapped up as the door burst open. He barely had time to let go of Pepper before Happy pushed her out of the way and dragged him to the floor, knocking the wind out of him. He tried to speak, but Happy's fist connected with his face and he promptly forgot what he was going to say. He saw Happy raise his fist again and winced, waiting for it to connect, but then Pepper dragged him away. He tried to get up but Happy yelled at him to stay down. Not wanting to get on his bad side again, Tony did as he was told. He heard Pepper tell Happy not to call the cops and he managed to focus his vision enough to see them both staring at him. Seeing Happy was far enough away for it to be safe to get up again, he groggily got to his feet, the world spinning as he did so.
"Oh my God." Happy gasped. Tony teetered on his feet and stumbled slightly. Happy rushed forwards and caught him. "Mr. Stark…Jesus are you ok?" he assisted Tony over to the bed and sat him down.
"Ask me again in a minute." Tony mumbled, touching his jaw lightly where Happy's fist had struck him. "Damn, you can tell you used to box."
"Man, I'm sorry-"
"Don't sweat it." Tony said, shaking his head and blinking. "Why wouldn't you punch me?"
"Well what the hell do you expect?" Pepper asked. Both men turned to look at her.
"Nice to see you too Pepper." he chuckled darkly.
The next thing he registered was a slapping noise and the dull thud of pain in his jaw being replaced with a sharp stinging sensation. Putting the two things together, he realised Pepper had slapped him. Nice.
"Ok, what is this? Beat up Tony Day?" he asked, rubbing his cheek.
"You son of a bitch." Pepper said, her voice shaking slightly. "You think you can come back here after ten years and pretend everything's normal?"
"I didn't think there'd be this big a problem-"
"Tony, you're supposed to be dead!" she screeched. Both Tony and Happy winced.
"Yeah, I can see how that'd be a slight hurdle to jump-"
"SHIELD is still hunting you down."
"-again, bump in the road-"
"You freaking killed Bruce and Nick Fury and then went on the lamb!"
"What?" Happy looked completely shocked and backed away slightly. "You killed someone?"
"See, this is how rumours get started." Tony said, standing up. "That is definitely not true."
"So you didn't kill them?" Pepper asked, folding her arms.
"Exactly." Tony said.
"So why does everyone think you did?" Happy asked.
"It's a conspiracy." Tony spat. Pepper laughed darkly. "What? It is!"
She shook her head, still smiling. "Clearly, that must be why you're taking this so seriously."
Happy shifted uncomfortably. "I'm just gonna go wait in the car." He mumbled, stepping back slowly. When neither Pepper nor Tony stopped him, he made a break for it.
"Well?" Pepper said when they were alone. "Are you going to explain or just stand there?"
Tony raised a lone eyebrow. "Well how 'bout you explain just how you found out about all this SHIELD stuff? It's supposed to be classified ya'know."
"So I've heard." Pepper muttered. "Maria Hill came round for a visit, that's how I know."
Anger flashed across Tony's face. "Hill was here?" his eyes flitted around, as if checking she wasn't still there. "Did she touch anything?"
"No, she came to my house; none of your precious stuff was harmed." Pepper said. Tony's face fell somewhat.
"Your- you don't live here anymore?" he asked quietly.
"Why would I?" Pepper retorted. "And stop changing the subject and just explain what the hell is going on!"
Tony swallowed slowly. "Ok, um…well, what exactly did Hill tell you?"
Pepper sighed and walked over to the bed, sensing this to be a long conversation.
"She told me everything, Tony." She said once she'd sat down. "She said that Fury dreamed up this registration thing, that you didn't want it to happen and that when Fury and Banner refused to withdraw it, you killed them."
"And I bet she was conveniently elsewhere during this little story." Tony mumbled, running a hand through the coarse hair on his chin.
"She said she was stationed somewhere else." Pepper said. "Why? Was she there as well?"
Tony shook his head. "No, but she sure as hell framed me." He sat next to her on the bed. "Hill was the one who dreamt up Project 42 and submitted it to Fury. At the time, Banner and myself were working closely with Nick and Maria, who was just a field agent with high clearance at the time. When Maria submitted Project 42, she said it was one of a hundred ideas that her own team had thought up to make the world a better place." Tony laughed. "I'd hate to think what the rest of them were. Fury considered the proposition, but I was outraged by it. I managed to talk him round in the end, and Banner who wasn't too keen on the idea in the first place, so Fury denied the project. Maria was the one who went psycho, not me. She started arguing that not controlling 'freaks' like us who had the power to do anything they wanted was dangerous and that we'd regret it. Three days later, me and Bruce were working in one of the labs when we heard a commotion coming from an adjacent lab. We went to take a look and there was Fury, lying dead on the ground with a few Cape Killers standing over him-"
"Cape Killers?" Pepper spluttered.
"Maria's grunts." Tony clarified. "Officially, they're called the Superhuman Restraint Unit, but they've been given the name for…well, you can guess. Scary looking suckers, they wear gas masks usually and more weapons than you can shake a stick at. But they saw that Banner and I had seen and started firing at us. They got Banner. I ran down to my quarters, fired up the suit and got the hell out of there. I've been dodging them ever since."
Pepper stared at him. "But…that doesn't make sense. Why would she try and kill you and Banner? Why not just get rid of Fury if the final decision was down to him?"
Tony smiled sadly. "I was next in line to lead SHIELD after Fury, and there was no way in hell that Prop was going through with me in the way." He shook his head. "I can't believe they made her Director."
"That's another thing." Pepper said. "Why are you so adamant that Project 42 doesn't happen? I mean, you revealed yourself on national television-"
"Yeah," Tony interrupted. "And look where that's got me Pepper, pretending to be dead and hiding from the government and a bunch of superheroes." He stood up and paced around the room. "It made me a walking target; it made the people I love walking targets. You think after all the damage I've caused for myself I want that for other people? Sure, the logic behind the idea is sound, but the reality check is when you come home and your mother or your wife, or your baby are dead because the bad guys know exactly who you are and how to find you."
"But surely they'd have security measures put in place." Pepper said. "I mean, it's not like I'd be able to go and find out that information on the internet or something."
Tony snorted derisively. "Pepper, they killed their own leader to make sure this goes through, what makes you think they wouldn't sell information to the highest bidder? Or kill anyone that got in the way?" he shook his head. "I think this goes deeper than that anyway. Why would she be this extreme just to set up a register of superheroes?"
"Tony," Pepper interrupted his musings. "She had CCTV images of you doing it."
"What?" Tony span around and stared at her.
"I saw them." Pepper continued. "There were pictures of you…blasting Fury with your repulsors." She shuddered as the image played across her mind, still engraved behind her eyelids.
"She made fake evidence…but no one can replicate that kind of damage." Tony mumbled to himself again. "That means…that means no one ever saw the bodies. There's a huge difference between a gunshot and a repulsor blast…" he started pacing again.
Pepper was just about to speak when her cell rang. They both jumped and Pepper scrambled for her pocket, pulling out the offending item and flipping it open.
"Hello?"
"Pepper, where are you? I thought you were going to Stark's house to pick up some stuff?" Robert's voice rang through.
Pepper immediately made a shushing motion to Tony. "Uh, yeah, I'm still here. Just having a bit of trouble finding it is all."
"Oh, ok." Robert said. "Do you want me to come up and help?"
"No!" Pepper said, a little too quickly. "I mean, no, it's fine, I think…yeah, I must've left it at the office or something, it's not here."
"You sure?" he didn't sound convinced. "You said you looked all around the office first."
"It's fine, seriously." She said, biting her lip. "It's not majorly important, just a pain to have to search for everything all over again, but it doesn't matter."
"Well, if you're sure…"
"Totally." She said confidently. "I'll set off home in a sec."
"Ok, guess I'll see you in a few then."
Pepper said goodbye and then snapped the phone shut. When she looked up from it, Tony was staring at her.
"Boyfriend?" he asked, trying to sound casual.
"Boyfriend." She repeated.
"Good." Tony said. Pepper raised an eyebrow. "I mean, it's good that you have someone to…" he trailed off, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.
Feeling anger bubbling up, Pepper took a deep breath and got off the bed. "I'm going home." She said and started walking towards the door.
"Pepper, you won't…you won't tell anyone I'm here will you?" he looked genuinely scared.
"You mean will I go around telling people there's a dead man hiding out in this house?" Pepper asked sarcastically. "No, Tony, I won't."
Tony nodded in thanks and she set off again.
"Does he make you happy?" he asked before she stepped back through the bedroom door. Pepper stopped in the frame but didn't turn around.
"He doesn't make me cry." She replied, and closed the door behind her.
She sped out of the house, completely forgetting to actually look for the file she'd come for, and got back in the car with a waiting Happy. He stared at her once she'd buckled herself in.
"What happened?" he asked tentatively.
Pepper sighed and shook her head.
"He's in trouble."
Pepper awoke the next morning hoping everything had just been a horrible nightmare, that she'd completely imagined everything the day before and that today would just be another Tony Stark-free day.
Unfortunately, life very rarely lets you get away with things like that, and the reality check came in the form of Rhodey swinging by her office that afternoon.
She'd been in the middle of re-typing the file she'd originally gone to Tony's to get the day before when he knocked on the door and let himself in.
"Knock-knock." He said, smiling as he entered.
To say she'd been happy to see him would have been an overstatement as they weren't exactly on speaking terms. Rhodey had left the Air Force a year after Tony had disappeared off the face of the Earth and had joined SHIELD. Somehow, and Pepper still wasn't sure how, he'd managed to 'borrow' Tony's Mark II suit, something she was sure Tony hadn't approved before he left, and as such they'd had a falling out. Rhodey had kept the suit and was now, subtly, calling himself 'War Machine' but they'd barely spoken in the last six years. She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually seen him face to face.
He didn't even come to Tony's 'funeral', and Pepper thought this visit might explain why.
"Rhodey." She acknowledged him as he entered, but she didn't rise to greet him. This didn't put him off and he plopped down in the chair facing her desk. "What brings you here, completely unannounced?" she smiled a little too sweetly and folded her arms on her desk.
"Oh, you know, just felt like a catch up." He rolled his head back, looking around her office.
"I'm sure." Pepper mumbled. Rhodey laughed at this and shrugged.
"Ok, so maybe this impromptu visit isn't so…spontaneous," he grinned, showing his teeth. "But throw me a bone here Pep."
'When did he get so conniving?' she thought. "You're completely right, I apologise Rhodes, we've got a good few years to catch up on, how the devil are you?"
"There, was that so hard?" he asked, still smiling. "I'm very well thank you Pepper, how're you?"
"Oh you know, the usual, working my fingers to the bone running a multi-billion dollar company, avoiding Government agents-"
"I heard about that." Rhodey interrupted.
"I'll bet you did." Pepper countered.
"Although 'agent' is a bit of a demotion." He continued as if she'd never spoken.
"Did she send you on some kind of fact finding mission or something Rhodes? Because to be honest, I expected you a lot sooner than this." Pepper said, turning back to her laptop and making some adjustments to the document she was typing up.
Rhodey laughed again and stroked his chin. "I've been…out of the country, and I told you, I just popped round for a catch up, but if you want to talk about that particular conversation…" he shrugged, as if to say he had no problem with it.
Yup, definitely devious.
"Would have thought your boss would've let you in on it." Pepper said, still not looking at him. "Don't tell me a military man like yourself doesn't know how to kiss ass to get what he wants."
Rhodey's expression darkened somewhat. "It's a little different up there than in the air force." He said shortly.
Pepper hummed in response. "I suppose you don't know about Tony's death then, seeing as we missed you at his funeral."
"Like I'd go to that traitor's funeral." He spat back at her. She raised her head victoriously.
"So you do know." Pepper said. Rhodey simply stared at her. She sighed and closed the screen on her laptop. "Fine, you want the scoop? Your Director came to my house and told me all about this Superhuman Registration Act, and then all this crap about Tony killing Nick Fury and Bruce Banner and then going on the run."
"It's not crap, Pepper." Rhodey said sternly. "SHIELD doesn't get things wrong."
Pepper laughed. "That's what Robert said."
"How is old Bob anyway?" Rhodey said smarmily. "Haven't seen him round base much."
Pepper's jaw set. "He's still off sick because of his leg."
"It's funny, really, because you'd think a veteran soldier would know to put the safety on a gun before holstering it-"
"You know, I'd expect one of his closest friends to be a little more sympathetic." She snapped "Is there something else you wanted, or can I have my office back?" she was done playing games with this dick biscuit version of Rhodey. How can someone she'd known so well have changed so much? What the hell do they do to people in that base?
Choosing to ignore her question, he ploughed on with one of his own.
"What do you think of Project 42?"
Pepper sighed and rubbed her forehead. "From what I've heard of it, it doesn't sound like the greatest idea in the world."
"What?" Rhodey asked, clearly thinking she was joking. "How can you think it's a bad idea?"
"Think of the security issues." Pepper reasoned. "I mean there's bound to be a day when someone snaps and gives away the information. Not even the Government is infallible."
Rhodey barked out a laugh at this. "You know, that sounds exactly like something Tony would say."
Pepper shook her head at him. "When did you become this person Rhodey?" she asked him. "When did you become the type of person to put orders before their friends and family?"
"Hey!" Rhodey snapped at her. "This is the way I was brought up. You get orders; you follow 'em, you don't ask questions. And it's not like Tony ever backed himself up, nothing says 'I'm innocent' like running from the law." He scoffed and stood up, preparing to leave.
"What if he was framed?" Pepper asked. "You ever think about that?"
Rhodey stared at her. "I don't believe you." He said exasperatedly. "I really do not believe you. After everything that man has done, after everything he's put us all through, put you through, you still stand by him."
"Yeah well, maybe I just believe in the good in people." She said.
Rhodey shook his head in disbelief. "There's only so long you can stand by a dead man." He with that, he turned on his heel and left, slamming the door after him.
Pepper let out a frustrated groan and slumped back in her seat.
"What the hell am I getting into?"
TBC