#22 – Giggly Kiss

"Tony?" Pepper called as she walked into the house.

"In the den," he answered.

Pepper stepped out of her shoes and headed to change. "What are you doing?" she asked from the bedroom.

"Talking to Rhodey," he said.

"I didn't hear you when I came in."

"I'm not on the phone. I'm talking to him online."

She froze halfway through pulling her blouse over her head. "Please tell me you didn't get a Facebook page." For a minute, Pepper had horrible images of all that could go wrong if Tony Stark delved into the world of social media.

"Nope."

She was glad he couldn't hear her sigh of relief. "How are you talking to him then? Yahoo? Google Hangouts?"

"Nope," he repeated. "It's an instant messaging program I created. It runs through the Stark secure server. Only me, you, and him have it."

She didn't even bother to ask when he installed it on her computers. Pepper was accustomed to him leaving her these little electronic surprises and forgetting to tell her about them. When she got to the den, Tony was sitting on the couch with his back to her. "How's Rhodey?" she said, slipping her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek.

"Fine. Got a date tonight with that woman, Linda, we went to dinner with the other night."

"Oh my god, Tony," Pepper said after Tony typed his latest message. "You did not just send that."

"What?" he replied defensively. "And since when did privacy disappear in this household?"

"Since you are using my laptop. 'Gonna give her the ol' Jericho missile, War Machine?' Seriously?"

"We're guys. That's how guys talk to each other." Pepper swatted him on the chest before walking around to sit on the couch. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Figure it out."

"Just because you're girls, don't pretend you and your friends don't talk about your 'significant others,'" he said, using his index fingers for air quotes.

"How would you like it if I talked about you like that to my girlfriends?"

"Sweet! What would you say?" He heard her derisive snort. "So, you're saying I never come up?"

"Well...occasionally."

"I knew it! Do you tell them how lucky you are? About how you get the Jericho every day, sometimes twice?" Again, she snorted, but that didn't stop him. "What do they say? Do they say 'Oh, Pepper!'" he said, switching to a falsetto voice for her friends. "We are so jealous. Our boyfriends aren't anywhere near as good-looking or smart or have his unimaginable sexual prowess?' Is that what they say?"

"Believe it or not, we find all sorts of things to talk about."

Tony looked her directly in the eye. "C'mon, Pep. This is me. You want me to believe that you have never once bragged about us to your friends? Not even about that time in Venice?"

Pepper blushed. "I may have mentioned it...casually."

"Uh huh." Tony was practically glowing. "Did you care to tell them I wasn't the reason we had to pay the hotel for a broken headboard?"

"I am not taking responsibility for anything that happened after you starting talking dirty in Italian."

"I will gladly take full responsibility. That was one of my best performances." Pepper let out a girlish giggle. Tony took the opportunity to steal a kiss. When he was done, she got a kiss of her own. Tony turned to the screen. "Got to go," he talked as he typed. "Something just came up." He hit ENTER, closed the laptop, and sat it on the table in front of him. Propelling himself from the couch, he grabbed Pepper's hand. "Let's go."

"Go where?"

Not wanting to wait for her to follow, Tony scooped Pepper from her seat and into his arms. "Our room," he explained as he walked. "We need to give you something else to talk about."

Author's note: This was inspired by a picture I saw on Facebook, which, in turn, spawned a Pepperony conversation with my BFF. A series of really great text messages and an hour later, this was born. So far, this experiment has been fun. I like taking an idea and running with it, not worrying about having to make it tie into something else. I hope you like them as much as I have liked writing them. Since this was banged out rather quickly, it may stink. What do you think? I would love to hear! Thanks to my awesome BFF for helping me with a couple of places where I got stuck. Happy reading and PEPPERONY FOREVER!