Do you know how many times I've re-written this? Seven. That's right, SEVEN. And that's just the first section! I was planning to post once a week, but I figure I need to get this done before the next film comes out (great time to start an epic long fic Smoose, nice one) cos...well, PLANS! Plus, it'd be kinda shitty competing against all the IM2 fics whilst still writing this. And you may notice, I am TOTALLY screwing with the time lines after the "I am Iron Man" stuff. Know why? Cos it's my fanfic, that's why.
And, after much deliberation (and I mean *much* after changing it seven bleeding times [and then twice whilst editing]):
Song of the Day: Sugarland – Want To
Oh, probably should have put this in the first chapter as well, but meh, I own nothing but the mistakes and the sandbox I'm letting the characters play in. Enjoy!
"That tickles." She mumbled. She saw the Arc glowing faintly through his white shirt and lightly traced around the edge of it before placing her whole hand over the silk covered metal.
"So does that." He covered her hand with his larger one. They locked eyes again, and Tony moved in for the kill.
Their lips touched. Tony's Arc vibrated softly, causing her to pull back nervously. He seemed as shocked as she did, which didn't help.
"Tony, what-"
"Wait." He interrupted her, pressing their hands tighter to his chest and pulling her back to him. "Just…just let me try something."
"I really don't think we-" her argument died on his lips. He pushed her back into the low wall slightly to put more force behind the kiss and Pepper braced herself with her free hand. The Arc buzzed again, more violently this time, but after a few seconds died down to nothing. Tony smiled against her mouth and stepped back slightly.
"Wow…that was a rush." He said through heavy breaths. Pepper rested her forehead against his, eyes still closed.
"What the hell was that?" she whispered. Tony released her hand on his chest and snaked both his arms around her waist, linking the fingers together at her bare back.
"Well…I think…and don't over-react now, but I'm pretty sure you just gave me a heart attack." He was still smiling when Pepper's eyes snapped open.
…the fuck?
"I did what to who now?" she tried to break out of his hold but he didn't let her. "Are you serious?"
"Hey, I said don't over-react." He held her firmly to him as she pushed against his arms. "I'm fine. It was only a teeny tiny one."
She stared disbelievingly at him. "How can you say that? You just had a fucking heart attack and you're acting like it's nothing?"
"Because it is nothing." He said. "I'm still standing aren't I? And it's not like I haven't been through worse in the last few months is it?"
"Yeah but…" she looked panicked. "God, this is too weird. I can't…" she stared at the lapels on his jacket for a few seconds before grabbing them firmly and pulling him in for another kiss. He had to catch himself on the wall behind her, pressing them closer together. Pepper's hands moved to the nape of his neck and her fingers played with the short hairs there, bringing a delightfully sexy whimper from Tony. He shivered as she continued and wrapped his arms around her body, trailing kisses along her jaw line and towards her ear, only stopping when he felt her fingers trembling rather than twirling.
"Pepper?" he pulled her back to arms length and noted the beginnings of tears in her eyes. "Hey, calm down." He said softly and rubbed his thumb gently along her stomach where his hands had landed. "It's ok. We're ok."
"Tony, we just..." she couldn't even bring herself to say what they had just done. "We just crossed some pretty major boundaries." She pushed away from him and began walking back towards the entrance back into the building. "Everything's changed."
"Not if you don't want it to." He called after her. She stopped walking but didn't turn around. "Do you want it to?"
Seconds passed that felt like hours.
"No." she whispered and walked through the door, leaving Tony propped up against the wall, hands shoved morosely in his pockets. He sighed heavily.
"Then neither do I."
Two months later
"If I were Iron Man, I'd have this girlfriend who knew my true identity. She'd be a wreck. She'd always be worrying I was going to die, yet so proud of the man I've become. She'd be wildly conflicted, which would only make her more crazy about me, tell me you never think about that night." He turned to face Pepper, a smug, yet cautious smile playing at his lips. Pepper stayed totally professional, smoothing out the few wrinkles left on his blazer.
"What night?" she asked without looking at him.
"You know." She could practically feel his eyes boring into her skull but refused to give him the satisfaction. She began fussing with the square in his breast pocket.
"You mean the night we agreed we were never going to bring up again so we could keep everything normal?" she still wasn't looking at him.
"You." He corrected. "You said we'd never talk about it again, I agreed to no such thing." Her head snapped up, eyes filled with indignation.
"Tony!"
"Pepper?"
"Thirty seconds Mr. Stark." A member of the press crew poked his head around the door. Tony gritted his teeth to stop himself snapping at the young man.
"Will that be all Mr. Stark?" Pepper asked, patting down his pocket square as if the conversation hadn't happened. He snorted.
"For now." He said, not totally un-threatening.
Pepper tutted and turned to watch the conference on the flat screen across the room.
She watched him step up to the podium.
She watched him joke with the reporters, although silently praying he did as he had promised and stuck to the cards.
She watched as one very familiar face asked him a question, bewildered as to why no one stopped her, and watched as Tony completely botched the answer and Rhodey stepped in, whispering to him to stick to the God-damn cards.
"Stop digging at get out of the hole Tony." She hissed
And then...
"The truth is...I am Iron Man."
She watched as her workload increased a thousand fold.
Tony was in the dog house. Big time. He felt nervous in his own home and was seriously beginning to regret begging, pleading and reasoning with Pepper that it was not only more convenient, but safer for her to stay at his place, considering the mess he had landed her in. She only finally took his advice when she awoke in the middle of the night to find a photographer dangling inches from her bedroom window, leaning over from a tree branch. Not the best way to get her to move in with him but he'd take what he could get.
The only issue now was that she wasn't speaking to him. Well, she wasn't not speaking to him, she answered him when he spoke to her, as long as it was strictly relevant, but she wasn't starting up any conversation either, so he often found himself sat alongside her on the sofa, completely in silence as she tapped away on her laptop or took phone calls from various media sources, or the occasional S.H.I.E.L.D calls coming through a specially patched feed via Jarvis.
About a week into the move he couldn't take it anymore, he practically begged for forgiveness, apologising in five different languages, one of which she wasn't sure was a language, sending her flowers in the shape of 'I'm Sorry' and offering her such a large raise in salary she had no choice but to forgive him, if only to stop him going any further.
One night, three weeks after the press conference, Tony was in his workshop under the hood of his new Cobra, the old one being a tad dented, trying to bump up the horsepower to the specs of its predecessor. He straightened up when his music suddenly stopped and turned to see Pepper walking towards him, casually dressed in jeans and deep burgundy jumper.
"Ok, I've managed to get you a week of peace for Christmas and New Years, but after that you've got to meet with the Minister of Defence, they want to talk to you about your 'new weapon', and Fury wants to bring you in to brief you, again, although I don't know why they think they'd need to go to all this extra trouble to keep you in check." She smirked at him. Although she wouldn't tell him, she'd forgiven him completely for his slip up...until she saw the sheer amount of crap she'd be stuck with sorting through, so she coupled the smirk with a 'Don't-Even-Think-I've-Totally-Forgiven-You-You-Iron-Clad-Douche' look.
"Very funny Potts." He mumbled, also smiling. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you liked berating me over small details that happened nearly a month ago."
"Oh darn, you've caught me." she said, her voice laced with sarcasm. "I start each day wondering and hoping that you'll do something ridiculously stupid just so I can tell you off for it later and add to my already overflowing stack of evil paperwork." She tossed a folder onto his extremely junk-filled work station. "Those need signing and returning to me within the hour." She turned on her heel and stalked back upstairs.
Tony dropped the spanner he was holding. He'd do one better, the least he could do after all the trouble he'd caused was sign a few documents. He rushed his signatures, not needing to read what he was autographing, and sped after Pepper.
He found her sitting on top of the kitchen counter, swinging her sock-clad feet side to side, staring at the microwave. He walked silently up behind her and poked her with the folder, making her whip around.
"I signed the stuff." He held up the folder and plonked it onto the countertop. She looked astonished.
"Wow, to what do I owe the honour?" she picked up the folder to confirm that he had actually signed everything she'd needed him to. Tony shrugged.
"Well...ya know, I feel kinda shitty for not thinking you'd have all this to deal with after I opened my mouth, and yes, shock horror, Tony Stark thinks about other people...after the fact, but still." He smiled playfully and then glanced at the microwave. "You shouldn't eat microwave food Potts, there's no nourishment in it."
"Coming from the man who's often seen living off P, B&J sandwiches?" she jumped down from the counter and walked over to the now beeping machine. "And anyway, it's not ready made, I froze some curry and rice I made the other night and I was merely heating it up." She gingerly pulled the hot plastic carton from the microwave and placed it on a tray. "Want some? I made enough to feed the five thousand."
Tony walked around to her side of the counter. "I didn't know you could cook. Damn," he took a long, deep sniff. "that actually smells like heaven. Pile me some up." He wiped his greasy hands on his wife-beater, and quickly realised that did jack shit. After he'd thoroughly washed his hands, he grabbed two plates and sets of cutlery out of the respective cupboards while she set about defrosting another carton. He stood there slightly awkwardly as the timer ticked down the seconds.
"Go." She wafted a hand at him. "Change and sit down, I'll bring it over to you."
"Oh." He stepped back slightly. "Uh, table or couch?"
The question threw her slightly. "Well, I was going to take mine to my room and watch Friends, but if you wanna sit and talk, or-"
"Oh," he said again. "no, don't worry, don't let me bug-"
"Or," she pressed as the microwave beeped again and she served up his portion. "we can sit in the lounge and do both?"
His smile was her answer.
TBC.
Ok, so this was one son-ma-bitch to write, but it's amazing what you can do with three Jagerbomb's, two large bottles of blue WKD, no TV/phone/internet and only six hours. So I'm posting now before I look at it again tomorrow and want to fiddle with it. In all seriousness, I've written over 2,000 words, and I dislike fics that go over 1,00 in general, so this is pushing it for me. Plus, the next chapter's probably gonna be even longer. Can't wait =/