Author: hell_grrl
Disclaimer: Me, no owny.
Word Count: 700
A/N: I pumped this one out. It sucks. I leave for camp tomorrow and I wanted to get one done. So enjoy. Don't be too harsh.
Drink
Stark Mansion: Malibu, California- 10:42 PM PST
Steve Rodgers and James Rhodes agreed that the military prepared you for most things. They also agreed that it didn't prepare you for Tony Stark. There was nothing on Earth that could ever do that except the man himself.
Pepper Potts, Tony's assistant and the idiot's keeper, had left for Connecticut to visit her parents for her birthday. So Tony had invited the two of them over for a "boy's night in". (Pepper made it very clear that he wasn't allowed to do anything stupid while she was gone.) The two readily agreed. What the hell, they thought. Tony was a fun guy.
Maybe a little too fun.
The three men were down in the workshop with a bottle and a half of vodka. Needless to say they downed it rather quickly. And, well, it went downhill from there. Tony and Rhodey were totally wasted. Steve remained sober because he couldn't physically get drunk. So, as usual, he remained the voice of reason. But Tony had insisted on showing them one of his new projects.
"Uh, is the blue wire supposed to connect to the red port?" Steve asked nervously. One wrong move and they'd all be toast.
Tony waved him off.
"Did you go to MIT?"
"No."
"Are you a former producer of weapons of mass destruction?"
"No."
"Then," Tony hiccupped. "Shut the hell up."
Tony connected the two wires. The result was a rather huge explosion.
Boom!
"Get down!"Steve shouted. The soldier immediately dropped to the ground bringing down his two drunken companions with him. Smoke flooded the room. The fire alarms buzzed. The AI had begun spitting out damage reports.
"What-," Steve shouted but was stopped by a rush of coughing. "-The hell was that?"
Tony grinned sheepishly. "Whoops."
"So, what do we do now?" asked Rhodey.
They sat there, under Tony's work desk. And unanimously they all said, "Call Pepper."
Potts' Family Home: New Haven, Connecticut- 1:52 AM EST
"I like big butts and I cannot lie! I like big butts and I cannot lie!" Pepper's phone rang.
She shifted on her couch. Damn, Tony. Damn him for the fact that he changed her ringtone. Damn him for calling her at two in the morning when she hadn't a good night sleep in a week.
She flung an arm onto the coffee table. A sharp pain ran up her arm. Those were her keys, not her phone. Round two: this time she nicked her father's ash tray.
"Damn it," she swore as the phone continued to ring. Pepper flipped herself around on the couch and slapped the wall, hitting the light switch. The room illuminated. She snatched her phone off the coffee table and pressed talk.
"Hello, Tony," she mumbled.
"Hi," a violent wave of coughing blasted through phone. "Sorry, hi, Pep."
"What's wrong?" She asked. Her voice was a mix of annoyance from beginning woken up and of fear because coughing like that was never good.
"I-" started Tony.
"He blew up the workshop." A voice cut him off.
"Captain?" Pepper asked.
"Hello, Miss Potts."
Pepper would have liked to head through the phone to strangle that man. He tells her that Tony successfully blew up his own pride and joy, and rather than explain, he just says a polite "Hello, Miss Potts".
"What the hell happened?" She cut right to the chase.
"Um, well, he was drinking…" The Captain started nearly jumped out of the couch.
"He was drinking?" She shouted. There was no response. "You let him drink? Jesus Christ! He's been sober for a few months. Didn't you say that your father was an alcoholic? You know what this is like. My God, you better kill him before I do."
"He's a man, Miss Potts. There's-" Steve tried to redeem himself.
"You don't understand!" She shouted. "He's an alcoholic. It's a disease for God's sake! Captian, Captian? Are you listening to me?"
That was answered by the ring of a dropped call.
Stark Mansion: Malibu, California- 11:04 PM PST
"What'd she say?" Rhodey asked, nursing both his and Tony's wounds from the couch.
"I think she was angry." That was all Steve could say.