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That Tony was functioning as well as he was astounded Pepper. By her count, he’d been awake for nearly thirty-four hours – and just lying in the suit while it flew home was not the same as napping, despite what he claimed; she’d checked his vitals with Jarvis and knew – and was still in fine form.
“It’s Rhodey’s birthday. Pepper and I can’t skip out on him,” Tony had protested when she had suggested that maybe sleeping for a day or so was called for when he came back from Belize.
Pepper refrained from pointing out all the birthdays Tony had ditched out of in the past. He was making a valiant effort to turn over a new leaf and she wasn’t going to point out the flaws in his current reasoning.
That next weekend was just as close to James' birthday as this one also went unsaid.
At both his and Rhodey’s insistence, she finally caved and joined them on the plane. Not that she would ever admit it, but Pepper was having a good time; the food was top notch, the backstage tour of Zumanity before the show was fascinating and – though neither would say one way or another, Pepper was sure that Cirque du Soleil was not the originally-planned entertainment for the night, but there was just as much flesh on display, in a more sensuous manner than either man had been prepared for.
Now, they were in a high-stakes, semi-private gambling area of the Monte Carlo – Tony’s idea as he missed the race that year and Rhodey couldn’t get enough time off to go to Europe anyway – playing midi Baccarat and chatting away.
This was Tony’s gift to his best friend and thus Rhodey – and by default Pepper – wasn’t allowed to pay for anything.
And it didn't matter how much she protested, Tony would still put stacks of chips in front of her. To prove her point, he dropped what she estimated to be another five thousand dollars in chips down on the table giving both her and James about five hundred each.
“Tony!” Pepper protested, but that went about as well as her ignoring of his incidental touching did.
“Just let him and enjoy it,” Rhodey advised her as he gleefully raked over some of his new chips, managing to steal some of hers at the same time.
“Those are for Pepper,” Tony protested trying to get the chips away from Rhodey. His arm brushed against her bare one and Pepper tried hard to ignore the contact. It worked about as well as her willful oblivion had been going all night; that was to say, not at all.
“She has plenty,” Rhodey said, eying the ten neat stacks of chips: orange on black hundreds, blue on blue five-hundreds, and blue on yellow thousand.
“She always does when she finally decides to play,” Tony told Rhodey. “I think it's an evil plan she has to show me up."
“It's because I don’t go in for the extravagant bets,” she informed them primly as she placed small stacks of chips on the table and watched intently as four cards were dealt; an eight of diamonds for the dealer, a five of clubs for the player, a four of clubs for the dealer, a nine of spades for the player.
Pepper tuned out the other two as they bickered over her chips and focused on the game as the dealer – an amiable woman in her mid-twenties with spiky blond hair and intelligent blue eyes – gave herself a two of hearts and the player – an older gentleman well into his seventies with a red pocket handkerchief and full head of silver-white hair – got a three of spades, winning the round and increasing Pepper's own holdings as she'd bet on him to win.
Raking in another stack of chips, adding nearly three dozen green on black twenty-fives and ten black on oranges to her tally, she swatted Rhodey’s hand away as he again tried to pilfer her chips.
“Mine,” she said possessively; both he and Tony lost the round, as they’d bet on the dealer.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you you should share your toys?” Rhodey asked in a mockingly superior manner.
“Yes. Then I went to to work for Mr. Stark and learned that if I don’t protect what’s mine it goes missing.”
“I resemble that remark.” Tony grinned at her, taking a sip of his drink. He swore up and down it was ginger ale, but she had her suspicions that it was Red Bull. None of them were drinking alcoholic beverages at this point; Tony was so sleep deprived as to be impaired enough to seem intoxicated, and both she and Rhodey had tacitly agreed not to drink if Tony was abstaining.
However, Tony insisted that they all order some form of alcoholic drinks even if they didn’t drink them; it was one thing to stay sober, but it was another for the public to know he wasn’t drinking as much any more.
When the waitress came, Tony ordered a Scotch despite the look Pepper threw his way.
“The image,” he told them solemnly, “must be maintained.”
“Yes, because what keeps the stocks at a steady place in the market are various pictures of you, intoxicated, doing things of a questionable moral, ethical, and/or sexual nature,” Pepper muttered as she watched her two hundred dollar bet go to the house.
With his drink came a slinky brunette in a painted-on hot rod red dress, who insinuated herself at the table next to Tony. Half amused, half resigned, Pepper watched as the woman blatantly hit on Tony despite his lukewarm response. Though the woman tried her best, Tony never let her touch him.
Rhodey tried to divert the woman, but for all her vapidness, she was focused on her goal: Tony.
When Pepper's stacks of chips started to consistently grow smaller, she decided it was time to call it a night. It was well past midnight and while she’d slept slightly more than Tony, the sleep wasn’t of the restful kind. It never was when he was out in the Iron Man suit.
Tony was fading fast and Pepper was willing to bet the rest of her winnings that he would be heading to bed himself within the next half hour. After all these years, she knew the signs: his dexterity was nearly shot, his movements jerky and occasionally frantic, words slurring together, eyes never really focusing on any one thing. And though any of those could, and probably would, be attributed to alcohol consumption by others, Pepper knew that it was his lack of sleep that was finally catching up to him.
When he finally crashed, Tony would sleep as if in a coma unless she roused him. Pepper hoped he would find his way to bed soon. His body was still healing – two bruised ribs on his right side from the fight with Iron Monger still pained him, and there was a new burn on his right thigh just above his knee from his last mission to Belize. Tony needed rest and some down time.
They all did.
This trip to Vegas was a good idea in theory, but none of them – not even Rhodey who was apparently still getting pressure to bring Tony to heel by the DOD – had really taken the time to process what had happened that fateful night at Stark Enterprises when the world had abruptly learned of Iron Man and a trusted ally had revealed himself to actually be the most deceptive of enemies.
“I’m going to head up,” she told them as she waved off the dealer for the next round.
“But it’s still early,” Tony exclaimed, nearly knocking over his new groupie in his haste to keep Pepper at the table.
“It’s past midnight, Mr. Stark.”
“See, early morning,” he pointed out setting his glass down on the table. “We have a whole new day ahead of us.”
“Yes, the early part of the morning in which I usually am asleep.” Pepper tried to gather up all her chips, but she couldn’t hold them all. Ever the gentleman, Rhodey started to help. “Don’t think I haven’t counted all of them, Colonel,” Pepper told him briskly, smiling brightly when he shot her a foul look.
“I can’t believe you don’t trust me,” Rhodey said. “I’m truly hurt.”
“You will be if you palm that yellow chip,” she shot back.
“How do you see these things?” Rhodey asked, putting the chip back with its compatriots.
“I think it’s because she’s a witch,” Tony informed Rhodey in a loud stage whisper. “She always knows when I’ve fucked up.”
The woman, whose name Pepper never bothered to learn, giggled inanely, causing Pepper to hope to hell that she'd never sounded like that much of an airhead before.
“Tony,” Rhodey drawled, “the whole world usually knows when you fuck up as it makes front page news.”
Snickering, they made their way over to the cage so that Pepper could exchange her chips for cash. Tony managed to skillfully untangle himself from the woman by the blackjack tables as they crossed the floor. Inwardly, Pepper was thrilled, though she told herself that just like always, whomever Tony chose to have sexual relations with was none of her business.
Only she couldn't convince herself of that any more.
“I believe this is yours, Mr. Stark.” She tried to hand him a bundle of bills, but Tony shoved his hands into the pocket of his slacks.
“Nope, you won that fair and square.”
“But you gave me the initial money to start playing.”
“I considered it an investment.”
“Well, here’s a return on your investment.”
“Consider it a donation to a good cause.”
“What cause would that be?”
“Watching Rhodey pout every time you won and he didn’t?”
“I knew that’s why you invited her along,” Rhodey interjected. “She’s unnaturally lucky.”
“Witch,” Tony mutters out of the side of his mouth.
“I prefer to think of it as the universe balancing out the scales for having to deal with all the various adventures the two of you have needed bailing out from over the years.”
On that note, she put her winnings in her purse and left both men staring at her in various stages of shock: that she'd actually alluded to events that she'd never, ever spoken of after handling whatever it was that needed handling . Tony was also not-so-subtly checking her out in her very cute yet situationally appropriate black halter dress with a flowing skirt that hit her just above her knees. (She would never admit how long she'd spent trying on dresses over the last week once she'd been pursued to come to Vegas with them.)
It took a not inconsiderable amount of willpower for her to keep her eyes forward and not let her hips sway any more than normal as she made her way to the elevator.
# # #
It took Pepper a second to figure out what exactly it was that woke her, and longer to realize that she had even dozed off in the first place while checking her email. A soft sound of movement came from next door: Tony’s room.
After much debate – there might have been shouting on Tony’s side and cold rage on hers – she'd finally agreed to keep the adjoining door between her suite and his ajar. There had been some threats – to Stark Industry employees generally, and targeted specifically to Pepper – which spun Tony into super protective mode. Pointing out that this was hardly the first time she'd received threats was a miscalculation on her part and only made him dig in deeper about protection.
The compromise reached was that while they traveled, there would always be the regular body guards to accompany them, only now they’d carry weapons – something Pepper wasn't entirely certain some of them didn’t do anyway, despite fairly strict concealed weapons laws in many of the places they traveled to – and that when they were alone together in their hotel suite that they would keep the doors open enough for voices to carry.
Pepper was tempted to ask what would happen if he wanted company, but it had been months since his return and the complete lack of women was more conspicuous than their naked presence used to be. If Pepper hadn’t caught the very distinctive ridge of his erection several times – those sweat pants he wore hid nothing – she would wonder if Tony was still suffering from some injury from Afghanistan that she was unaware of.
Hearing the sound of Tony stumbling into a table in the next room brought her back to the present and to the decision that if he was still awake, then she should try and convince him to get some sleep.
While his body most definitely needed rest, sometimes when he had been awake this long, his brain just leapt from topic to idea to creation and wouldn’t let him sleep. In the past, Tony went for days with the barest of cat-naps and lived on Red Bull, espresso, and god only knows what as food – because he sure as hell never asked her to get any for him.
Grabbing her BlackBerry – she learned years ago that reciting the ‘boring’ meetings on his upcoming monthly schedule usually had him nodding off by the second week – Pepper headed to his room.
Pushing open the door, Pepper stared uncomprehendingly at what she saw: Tony on the far end of the couch, legs sprawled wide, the dark-haired woman from the midi Baccarat table cozied up next to him, her hand on his chest, sliding up to undo the top button of his mauve dress shirt.
Years of instinct took over and Pepper turned on her heel; this was hardly the first time she'd walked in on Tony and a guest.. However, she didn't even make it half way through the spin, before common sense took over. There was no way Tony would let anyone in the room with him when he was this tired; he never did it in the past because it would mean actually sleeping with whatever woman he’d had sex with as he would be too tired to wait until she’d fallen asleep then sneak out of their shared bed.
Also, the way things stood, a stranger in their common space was too much of a security risk. And while Tony might be, in fact, was, lax with his own safety, he bordered on paranoid with hers.
That could only mean one thing, that this woman had somehow managed to sneak into their rooms. Instantly furious and worried, Pepper spun back around to face them. Somehow, she managed to catch her arm on the door and there was enough momentum for it to slam against the wall. The noise startled the woman who lost her balance just as Tony started awake. Reaching out to steady herself, she managed to land on his still-healing ribs. The result was Tony’s curses filling the air as the woman ended up in an unceremonious heap on the floor.
Before either of them could say a word, Pepper strode over to the phone sitting discretely on the side table nearest Tony and dialed the direct line to the suite’s concierge and advised him of the situation.
“Hey, he invited me!” The woman protested as she finally figured out that Pepper was getting security.
“No, he didn’t,” Pepper disagreed in her coldest, most imperious tone of voice.
“Yes, he did. He slipped me his key card.” As if to prove her point, she fished the plastic rectangle out of the front of her dress.
If this breach of security weren’t so worrying, the expression of outraged virtue on Tony’s face would have been priceless. Pepper wished they were somewhere with high-res tracking security cameras so that she could capture the image for posterity.
“I swear to you, Pepper, I never gave her my key card,” Tony said, looking intently at Pepper as if he could will her to believe his words.
In this case, she knew he was telling the truth; Tony was inconsiderate in countless ways, but Pepper fully believed that he would never betray her trust in him by deliberately creating a situation for her to walk in on him and some stranger. And bringing a stranger up into an area that she considered hers – well, technically theirs – would be such a betrayal.
If the door were locked and this were six months ago, Pepper wouldn’t put it past him to have half the cast – women and men – from tonight’s show up here, but that wasn’t the case.
He wasn’t that person any more.
The front door to Tony's suite burst open and four large, impeccably tailored men with military-styled hair cuts came in.
“Miss Potts, is she the problem?” a tall man roughly the size of a refrigerator asked Pepper.
“Yes. I’m not sure how she got in, but she doesn’t have an invitation from either Mr. Stark or myself to be here.”
“He gave me the card, you bitch!” The woman protested as two of the security men wrapped huge hands around her upper arms.
“Look, I have no idea how you got my key card, but I’m guessing you picked my pocket while you were slithering all over me.” Tony shoved himself to his feet and came to stand next to Pepper.
“How did you get in the room?” Pepper asked Tony as the thought occurred to her.
“My card,” he answered, his eyes flitting to the bar where everyone could see the maroon piece of plastic emblazoned with the hotel’s logo in gold.
“Miss, if you would come with us,” the refrigerator-sized security guard said. Though the words were phrased in a polite question the tone left no room for any other option.
“I don’t see what the problem is,” she protested. “Everyone knows how Tony Stark is. What’s the big deal about me trying to find out if he lives up to the hype?”
“The big deal,” Pepper said coldly, using all of her control to rein in her fairly formidable temper, “is that you broke into the room. You were never invited, nor given a key, and at no point did Mr. Stark or myself give you permission to enter the room.”
A vicious look crossed the other woman's face as she eyed Pepper with contempt. “Keeping him to yourself, are you? You know, if you hadn’t interrupted us he wouldn’t have cared who was with him. The whole world knows he’s a whore.”
Pepper refrained, barely, from the school yard retort of takes one to know one, and opted for quiet rage as the fuming woman – whose name Pepper didn't know, and she sorely wished she could keep it that way, but for safety's sake, would learn in the various reports this incident would generate – was escorted forcefully from the room.
“Miss Potts,” said Jean-Pierre, the suite’s concierge, in the deafening silence once the door was closed. “I have no idea how that woman got in here, but rest assured we will get to the bottom of this.”
However much Pepper knew that this was not Jean-Pierre’s fault, she still felt the need to take her anger out on him as the nearest representative of the hotel. Rage literally vibrated through her body causing small tremors to ripple under her skin. Taking several deep breaths to calm the battle cries roaring in her veins, she plastered on a calm veneer that she didn’t at all feel and met his gaze.
“Be that as it may, we will require around the clock security now,” Pepper informed him tartly. “I want the entrances to Mr. Stark's and Mr. Rhodes’ suites monitored for the duration of our stay. There will also be guards placed at the door around the clock, regardless if either of them are in their rooms.”
“Of course.”
“This additional expense will in no way be reflected on any bill.”
“Never dream of it, Madame,” Jean-Pierre agreed with affronted dignity.
Happy burst into the room, looking perfectly put together for such a late, or, really, a very early hour. It had been months since he’d had to be at Tony’s beck and call, driving and handling all manner of situations, at all kinds of hours, but it didn’t seem as if the gap between then and now had made him any less prepared. If anything, after Tony's disappearance, Happy stuck even closer to Tony's side, going with him on as many of Tony's trips as he could manage.
Pepper often wondered if Happy, much like herself, still felt guilt and worry over the events that led to Tony's disappearance. How could they have not seen what Obadiah was doing? The two of them who managed the actual running of Tony's life. Who saw what he didn't. Who were paid to pay attention to the details. Who were paid to make sure nothing irrevocable happened to him.
And above all, they were his friends and they let him get hurt. They never spoke of it, but she knew that both she and Happy were now hyper-vigilant about Tony and probably always would be.
Though, how he'd even knew there was now a problem in Tony's room was beyond Pepper.
“Is everything all right?” Happy asked, scanning the room. Pepper could tell he was itching to do a proper search and frankly, she fully planned on letting him as soon as the door was locked behind Jean-Pierre.
“We had a break-in,” Pepper told him simply. “Hotel security has the woman in custody and we will be pressing charges.” It wouldn’t be the first time Pepper insisted that whoever trespassed in what was considered Tony's private space be charged. Mostly Tony went along with it and he didn’t seem to be objecting tonight either.
“The police have already been called, madam,” Jean-Pierre informed Pepper, tapping the surveillance earpiece tucked into his left ear. “They would like to take your statements, though tomorrow morning would be fine.”
Mentally, Pepper made a note to make sure that both Tony and she would give their statements via his personal lawyers rather than in person. Keeping Tony, and to some extent herself, away from personal meetings with law enforcement was an old habit, one that Pepper planned to continue despite the fact that for once Tony was totally innocent.
“Would you like me to stay here?” Happy asked, eyes still scanning the room.
Glancing over, Pepper saw Tony standing by the window just staring out at the night, his features stony, his body tense. Apart from defending himself about not having invited that woman up, Tony had remained conspicuously quiet and his silence was starting to worry Pepper.
“I don't think that will be necessary, Happy.” She gave him a tired smile. “But, I know I would feel better if you checked everything out just to make sure we don't have any other uninvited guests.” It only took a look to silence Jean-Pierre
“We’re going home,” Tony stated without turning from the view of the Strip.
“What?” Pepper squawked. “Tony, it’s nearly two o’clock in the morning,” she pointed out, hoping against hope that he wasn’t serious. The logistics of getting them home made her want to curl up and cry.
“Once again, I feel compelled to point out that the plane is mine and that means I can use it when I want to go where I want.” He continued to stare out the window, and his stillness was starting to really freak her out.
Tony was many things, however, 'still' was not one of them unless he was deeply engrossed in his work.
“Be that as it may, Mr. Stark, I’m sure both Glen and Dominic are asleep right now and I for one don’t want to fly with pilots that haven’t rested properly.”
Spinning, Tony whirled around to face her; his face was still blank, but his eyes were alive with anger and something close to manic intensity.
“Do I or do I not have nearly unlimited funds at my disposal?” Tony asked in a hard voice he very rarely used with her. The last time was to tell her about his self-appointed 'mission'. “Do I or do I not pay the salaries of the people who fly my plane? Are they not paid to be ready to fly me wherever I want, whenever I want, no matter what the time?”
She knew that deterring him from going back to LA was a losing battle, and her mind boggled at how much time she would have to waste until it was closer to a reasonable hour to wake up either pilot.
As much as she wanted to try and reason with him, Pepper would never openly disobey any of his orders in front of strangers. For all they had stayed at the Monte Carlo before and Pepper had had to rely on Jean-Pierre’s discretion on several occasions in the past, Jean-Pierre was essentially a stranger.
“Mr. Stark, how about I drive us back to Malibu?” Happy offered, breaking the rapidly building tension in the room.
Looking him over, Pepper tried to discreetly make sure that he wasn’t as tired as either Tony or herself. But for all his devotion to both of them, Happy would never put either of them in harm’s way to try and grant one of Tony's more ludicrous requests. In fact, the main part of his job was to make sure that Tony didn’t get hurt.
“Thank you, Happy,” Pepper said, smiling gratefully at him. Now, all she needed to do was see about getting a car.
# # #
Tony easily tuned out Pepper, Happy, and the skinny French guy who were babbling at each other about the logistics about getting both Pepper and himself back to Malibu.
Weariness settled over him like a wet wool blanket making Tony next to useless in the discussion, not that anyone was asking his opinion. All he wanted to do was sleep, but he knew it would be impossible here. Though he would have held fast to his desire to get home, Tony was glad that he hadn't really had to fight with Pepper about it. Oh, she was annoyed at him – she so often was – but she was nothing if not efficient and nearly unflappable, so Tony had every confidence that some time soon they would both be headed west.
There was no way he could sleep in his room, not after that woman had broken in. While he wasn't exactly sure how she managed to get a copy of his key card – various scenarios flashed through his mind's eye: blew a guy at the front desk, flashed her tits to a security guard, managed to pick his own pocket, clone the card, and then return his card back to his pocket – whatever it was, he no longer felt safe here.
And if he wasn't safe, then Pepper sure as hell wasn't either.
The shine of the night was tarnished and all Tony wanted was to be in his own space, with his own things, and to know that there was no way – short of some surface to air attack, or paratroopers rappelling down from helicopters – that anyone was going to be getting into his house.
Absently, Tony made a note of what security measures the mansion needed in order to repel an attach from paratroopers. Shifting his weight, Tony swiftly and ruthlessly suppressed a soft groan of pain. Having a hundred plus pounds – his mind worked through the various PSIs possible – land on his still-sore ribs hadn't done him any favors. Over the last few weeks, he'd become incredibly adept at hiding his discomfort – something he'd never bothered to do in the past – because seeing him in pain gave Pepper a sad, pinched look around her mouth and eyes.
Right now, Tony wanted nothing more than to take as many pain killers as he could get away with. Unfortunately, they would only be those of the non-prescription kind as he needed to be completely sober to fly off at a moment's notice. Being a superhero was a huge buzz-kill. Being a superhero also came with the added benefits of lingering aches and pains from various missions with a huge target metaphorically painted on his chest. Actually as well as metaphorically in Tony's case, if the arc reactor was taken into account, for himself and his friends, employees, random people in the way getting hurt; he wasn't sure he could live with more deaths on his conscience. And god forbid anything ever happened to Pepper because of him...
If he could, he would ditch it all. Sure, it was cool to fly around in a shiny suit and shoot the shit out of stuff – explosions are very cool as his multitrillion dollar company proved. That he got more personal satisfaction out of saving one individual than he ever did from closing a long-term contract that would net Stark Industries millions weighed heavily in the favor of keeping the suit, but the danger to Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey was a pressure that nearly crushed him most days.
Step by step, Tony forced himself to focus on the night to try and figure out if their invasion was indeed his fault, if he'd become complacent enough to lose track of his surroundings and let that woman steal his keycard. But no matter how hard he tried, Tony couldn't come to any concrete conclusion.
When he thought about earlier that night, he thought about Pepper with her head thrown back laughing, the contrast of her pale skin – so much more of it on display than he was used to seeing – with the silky black of her dress, the smile that reached her eyes as she teased him about losing a hand of blackjack, or poking fun at Rhodey for actually liking Budweiser.
His mind returned time and again to a soft smile she shot his way when she thought he wasn't paying attention, to the way her scent – spicy and soft, tangy and dark, and filled with promise and life – would occasionally tantalize him when he leaned in just a bit too close for propriety. The way that, even in the dim lighting of the casino, her skin seemed to glow and her hair catch fire and he wanted nothing more than to touch both to find out if their texture matched their light.
Realizing that his thoughts had once again scattered, Tony brought his mind back to the task at hand: finding out if that woman had managed to get his card away from him.
Nowhere did he remember someone getting close enough to touch him without his knowing. Even before Afghanistan, Tony was always aware of people touching him; so many people wanted something from him and sometimes what they wanted was literally a part of him, that he had grown very cognizant over the years of his surroundings.
Scrolling through the close encounters of the evening, Tony remembered the way he avoided nearly getting flattened by an overly-excited, and stunning, Belgium woman when she had won nearly ten grand, or the clever slide out of the way of a waiter carrying a full tray of empties when he and Rhodey were horsing around, the unavoidable slap on the back from a barely-remembered business acquaintance that sent echoes of pain bouncing around his ribcage. Even the harder than necessary punch in the shoulder from Rhodey when Tony mocked Rhodey's choice of clothing.
And then the not-so-casual way Tony brushed up against Pepper whenever he threw the dice at the craps table was indelibly recorded in his mind.
But nothing about losing his keycard.
If this hotel were his, Tony would make sure that top level guests had more security than a cheap piece of plastic with an easily cloned magnetic strip. Maybe a pad with an optical scanner, or an alpha-numeric key pad where a guest could punch in a personal code in addition to the key card.
He wondered if there was a way to adapt the security he used back at the house in a practical application for a hotel room. The initial outlay for a hotel would be steeper than the current system they had, but once installed it could be used as a selling point to affluent patrons who valued their privacy. There were plenty of people like him – okay, there were no other people like him, but there were plenty of people with money, fame, and devastating good looks, who prized their privacy nearly as much as he did – who would pay good money for the peace of mind provided by top-notch security.
Pulling out an ever-present piece of SmartGlass, Tony opened a new document and started to jot down notes: security pad would need to blend, having SmartGlass or touch pad would be best – ads could be displayed on them until the guest made contact, something specific to the hotel itself would--
“Mr. Stark!” Pepper's insistent voice broke his train of thought. Startled, Tony turned to face her, but neglected to take into account the burns on his right leg. His pants pulled and he did his best to hide the wince of pain. But, both Pepper and Happy were looking at him expectantly and they both took note of his flinch.
“You know you don't have to yell. It's considered rude.” Tony smiled winningly at them in the hopes that his overall distraction would be put down to being a genius engrossed in a fantastic new idea - which, come on, he kinda was – rather than the quiet freakout – okay, so that was a huge part of his engrossment too – over Pepper finding him with a supremely attractive, if uninvited, woman draped over him..
It was hard to tell what Happy was thinking as he still seemed really tense, but it didn't look like he was buying what Tony was trying to sell. And he never should have even made the effort to hide anything from Pepper. Except for one very specific aspect of their lives, Pepper could see through his machinations more clearly than ever before.
“Happy is going to get the car and we're going to pack and meet him downstairs in fifteen minutes, if that works for you.”
“Sure, that'll be great,” Tony said nonchalantly, saving his work and setting the SmartGlass down on the bar as he wandered around the room.
“Do you want me to come back up?” Happy was officially asking Tony, but everyone present knew that Happy would go with whatever Pepper decreed.
“No, that's fine. Hotel security can come down with us,” Pepper answered for both of them. She was looking at Tony and trying to make it seem as if she weren't checking him out. And not in a 'holy crap he's so fucking hot, I need to get him naked and in me right fucking now' kind of way. More in the 'I hope my slightly unhinged boss hasn't just been sent over the deep end by a sex-crazed woman' kind of way.
Needing for everything to feel normal, Tony shot her a smug smile. “Making sure my adoring fans stay away this time?”
“As this might be the one time in a hundred we stay on schedule, I just want to make sure that we get out of here on time,” she shot back primly.
Happy stayed silent throughout their exchange – as he often did – but Tony could see their words settled something in him. While Happy was still tense, still on alert, the worry that was just beneath the surface was nearly gone.
Pepper most definitely knew that Tony was not all right, but the only way he could tell she knew was the subtle tension in her shoulders, the way her arms were crossed over her chest a little too tightly. A chest, Tony realized with a jolt that struck him like a two-by-four to the gut, that wasn't encased in a bra.
All thoughts of security, of injuries, of pretty much anything except Pepper's naked breasts scattered to the ether.
It wasn't that she was dressed in pajamas or anything, but she was wearing a shirt with skinny straps that seemed to have its own support system built in; it was just that that support system was not as restraining as a bra.
Happy spoke words, words that Pepper answered that washed over him like so much wind through the trees and he had just as much caring as bark does for the air that passes over it. His mind was much more focused on the gentle sway of Pepper's breasts, on the way, with each breath, they subtly thrust up and out, the way he could see them rising and falling, the way when she walked they moved more freely than ever before.
He would give half his fortune for the opportunity to see them completely free, to just cup their weight, to feel her softness, to taste her, to find out if she shuddered and cried out his name when he sucked her nipples into hard peaks, or if she would grasp at his hair moaning softly.
The delectable black dress she'd worn earlier required her to go braless, but the clever cut and flowing fabric had just hinted at what this well-worn cotton revealed.
The door clicked and Tony was surprised to find himself alone with Pepper. Pepper who wore a peculiar mix of exasperation, determination, and worry on her face and all while a slight smile played around the corners of her lips.
“Where did Happy go?”
“To get the car.” She crossed her arms under her breasts and Tony hoped to hell these expensively tailored pants hid his growing erection.
It wasn't that he'd never been hard in front of her before; he had, too many times to count. And it wasn't that she didn't know he wanted her; she did, even if she thought it was more of an automatic reaction than feelings with intent. But to be here, in his hotel room, after the night they'd shared – okay, so it was Rhodey's night, but the casual way Pepper had joined them, had teased both of them, had let him act the gentleman spurred his thoughts on to more intimate scenarios– and now to have her in front of him, dressed more casually than he ever seen her, was setting off shocks of desire that mixed with warnings of alarm due to uncharted territory.
He wondered what Pepper would do if he approached her now, if he asked her why they couldn't be more than they were, if she didn't lie awake at nights aching to feel his skin against hers the way he did for her.
Instead, he tore his eyes from her and tried like hell to pull himself back from a place that could very well destroy the nebulous new level of their relationship that seemed to be two parts professional, one part friends, and a very small but vital part that promised to be more.
“I'll go pack,” he offered, ignoring the look of shock his words brought to her face.
“How about you continue working on whatever it was that you were doing before and I'll go pack for both of us,” she said, doing a quick circle of the main room looking for abandoned items.
“What? I can pack my own bags,” he said to her retreating back. Though he never really had before.
Well, that one time, but they don't speak about that. Who knew airport security could be such assholes? It wasn't like the detonator was armed and even if it was, it wasn't like there was anything it attached to to detonate.
“I think history has shown us it's best if I do the packing.” She shot him a knowing smile over her shoulder that melted his heart and hardened his cock. “Do you want to change for the trip back?”
Tony looked down and considered; he'd been in this suit for nearly six hours and it was starting to show some of the wear. However, he wasn't sure anything he had would be as comfortable for the four and a half hour drive back to LA. Heaving a sigh filled his nostrils with the scent of stale cigarette smoke and made his decision easy.
“I'll change,” Tony told her, heading to his room. In the second drawer down, he found a pair of jeans gone pale with wear in the thighs and ass and one of the many Black Sabbath t-shirts he'd bought on eBay several weeks ago.
Tossing his discarded clothes on the bed, Tony sauntered back into the main room, only to find it empty of Pepper. From the sounds coming from behind the closed door that led to her rooms, Tony assumed that she was packing her own stuff. Hopefully changing too; he wasn't sure he could sit next to her for three-hundredish miles knowing that all that stood between him and her naked, mostly free breasts, was a thin layer of cotton or two.
Why that shirt was so much more tantalizing than any of the countless evening gowns he'd seen her in was a mystery. Maybe because she seemed more accessible in more than just the physical sense. She was wearing something he imagined she wore at home when she was relaxing. And Pepper truly relaxing was something he didn't think he'd ever seen before. The idea both appealed and intrigued.
The opening of her door drew him away from thoughts best not explored.
He was both disappointed and relieved to see that she too had changed clothes. The grey linen slacks fit her perfectly – these were pants he loved, as their fabric clung to her ass in the most amazing way – and the pale blue t-shirt – an honest to god t-shirt, not a button down or work appropriate – had the faintest outlines of a kaleidoscope of butterflies flying up from the hem to a lone one on her right shoulder.
“We'll be ready to go in less than five minutes,” she informed him, barely glancing in his direction as she headed to his room.
“I'll be ready,” he told her dryly as he watched her ass.
Picking up the discarded piece of SmartGlass, Tony found that he wasn't able to submerge himself in his earlier idea again. Not with the soft noises coming from his bedroom. Not when he was imagining her touching his things, wondering if she would treat his clothes with such care if, not when, she were to take them off his body. Would she set them aside then, or just let them drop to the floor unheeded in the haste to get them skin to skin?
“This is in no way helpful,” Tony muttered to himself. He needed to get control of his body's reaction to her. Needed to make sure that he in no way crossed the line that might push her so far out of his reach as to not even be friends any more.
His eyes scanned the room as if the bland walls and pedestrian furniture would somehow answer his unvoiced – even to himself – queries on how to deal with this current situation. Maybe just getting back to Malibu, to the familiar, would help him figure out what the fuck he was doing, was going to do, with these incredibly inconvenient feelings he was developing – okay, finally not able to ignore anymore – concerning Pepper.
As much as he wanted to lock himself and Pepper in a secluded location where they could gorge on each others' bodies until they were finally satiated – well, maybe not satiated, because Tony was filled with an uncomfortable certainty that once he started, he would never get enough of having Pepper – he knew she didn't want that. Or claimed she didn't want that. He couldn't tell if she genuinely didn't want him – if maybe that night at the Disney Concert Hall was the culmination of too much stress, just enough alcohol, and him using his not inconsiderable charm – or if she did want him, but only for a fling and didn't want to ruin their working relationship – she really did hate job hunting...
Or, and this was the big one, if she wanted what he did: more than a fling.. Though for the life of him he couldn't quite figure out what came after the epic amount of sex he needed to have with her. If she—
“You're all packed,” Pepper said as she reappeared in the doorway, scaring the crap out of him enough to have him jumping.
“You need a bell,” he told her, his heart racing uncomfortably against his injured ribs, his leg twinging from his jolt.
“Are you sure you're all right?” Pepper asked, abandoning his bag and coming to stand in front of him, eyes searching his face.
“Yeah, just tired,” he said, using the most convenient excuse.
“I know,” she said softly, sympathetically. “We'll sleep in our own beds tonight.”
In her eyes, Tony could read Pepper's own exhaustion and not for the first time he wondered how she dealt with, with 'things' – he searched for the right word, but was only able to come up with things – when he was off on a mission.
There was a soft buzzing and Pepper took a step away from him, checking her phone.
“Happy is waiting for us at the side entrance.”
# # #
Somewhere around Barstow, Pepper drifted off. She'd been reading him his upcoming schedule and he'd been sitting quietly listening, for once not giving his usually snarky asides or virulent objections. Reading him his schedule was Pepper's way of trying to get him to calm down and rest; she didn't think he knew why she did it, but he did. Usually, it worked.
Even before his emotions got so tangled up with her, it worked; he liked listening to her voice, liked the calm, soothing way she recited times, dates, location, and the little blurbs about the topics and people who would be in attendance. The cadence of her voice lulled him into a half-conscious world where all he could focus on was the rise and fall of her voice until there was nothing but unconsciousness.
But tonight, or rather, this morning, with his ribs aching and his mind racing, there was no way he was going to be able to sleep until he knew he was safe inside the walls of his own home.
Plus, when Pepper drifted off around four-thirty in the morning, he took a stupid amount of pleasure in being able to just watch her sleep. Even in the dim light of the car, he could make out the pale curve of her cheek – though he regretted that there wasn't enough light to see her freckles – and he could look his fill at her slim form and wonder if she would sleep this peacefully in a bed next to him.
When they started the long curving decent just south of Victorville down to San Bernadino and Pepper started to shift with the momentum of the car – neither of them ever wore seatbelts when they were in the back seat as they were usually working and both of them had long ago taken to not putting them on despite all he knew about velocity, sudden impacts, and the fragile makeup of the human body – Tony, ignoring his protesting ribs, gently gathered her to his side.
Nearly a hundred miles later, Pepper was securely settled against him with his left arm draped protectively around her shoulder. At some point, his breathing synced to hers or vice versa and in the quiet of the interior of the car, Tony let his mind drift for most of the width of LA County. His thoughts weren't of amazing new leaps in technology, or past trips to Vegas, or even the meetings Pepper had so diligently been reading to him a couple hours ago. No, his thoughts were not fully formed and ambiguous at best, but his mind was painting partial pictures of lazy Sunday afternoons, of shared breakfasts, of teasing dinners that led to sensuous nights.
Images of Pepper, arms crossed, annoyed, as she strode towards him in the workshop, pushed him against the hood of the Hotrod and having her way with him. Of him of sending her naughty texts in boring meetings, quietly stalking her throughout one of the buildings in SI, pouncing on her as soon as they got to his office and were behind locked doors.
But more, it was long car rides with her tucked against his shoulder; it was waking up in Venice together in the golden light of morning after a night spent gorging on each other. It was shared smiles, fleeting touches of hands, knowing looks. It was something he'd never dreamed of, something he'd thought was maudlin and sappy, and wholly for other people who didn't know love and permanency were lies they tricked themselves into believing when they were too deeply in lust to know any better.
As the 10 turned into the PCH, Tony pulled his mind back from thoughts of maybes and gossamer futures. Shifting ever so carefully, he managed to extract his phone from his right hip pocket – with no small amount of pain to both his ribs and leg, but it was worth it – without waking Pepper.
Quickly, he sent a text to Happy, telling him to pull into the garage rather than the front of the house as he usually did. Though it was overcast – as most summer mornings in LA were this time of year – Tony didn't want to risk the grey light rousing Pepper. He sent another message to Jarvis, asking him to keep the lights dim, glass tinted dark, and not to speak until Pepper was out of earshot.
Body aching for the sleep his mind was promising was less than twenty minutes away, Tony watched the scrub-covered cliffs and overpriced apartments whiz by, each mile bringing him closer to home. To sleep.
When they pulled up the drive to his house, Tony almost moaned with relief.
His tired brain tried to muddle through the logistics of getting Pepper out of the car and into one of the guest rooms. He still hadn't come up with a workable solution when Happy opened the back door.
“I'll take her, Mr. Stark,” Happy said, voice barely a whisper.
Instinctively, Tony wanted to dismiss Happy's offer out of hand, but only the thought of potentially dropping Pepper when the last of his strength gave out had him agreeing with a curt nod.
Neither man spoke as they made their way up the elevator and to the first guest room on the second floor. Tony drew back the blankets and needed to suppress a hot surge of jealousy as he watched Happy lay Pepper down in the bed.
“Take the rest of the day off, Happy,” Tony told him as he retreated to the door.
“Sleep well, Mr. Stark,” Happy said then left without another word.
Turning back to the woman still sleeping soundly, Tony wondered which, if any, of her clothes he should remove to ensure she slept more comfortably. In the end, he settled on her shoes as anything else would be crossing over into murky territory.
Despite the fact that his whole being was now screaming for rest, he took an extra couple of moments to watch, to make sure she was settled, comfortable. To indulge in being able to truly look at her without fear of reprisal or having to mask his feelings.
Reaching out, he stroked a lock of her hair off her cheek, comparing the velvety smoothness of her skin to the silky softness of her hair.
“Sleep well,” Tony said on a breath before finally giving in to his body's demands.
Too tired to remove his own shoes, Tony collapsed face first onto his bed and even the sharp pain of his still-healing ribs and raw burning in his thigh weren't enough to make him gather the motivation to roll over onto his back. With the memory of Pepper's easy smiles from the night before playing across his mind, Tony closed his eyes and finally succumbed to sleep.