Fandom: Iron Man (movieverse) Rating: R Pairing: Tony/Pepper Summary: It's Pepper who's hurt, but it's Tony who needs the comfort...   Disclaimer: Most of the characters and situations in this story belong to Marvel Comics, Fairview Entertainment, Dark Blades Films, and other entities, and I do not have permission to borrow them.  All others are mine, and if you want to borrow them, you have to ask me first.  No infringement is intended in any way, and this story is not for profit.  Any errors are mine, all mine, no you can't have any. Thank you to everyone who reads and lets me know what they think.  I appreciate it more than I can say.   Banner by the most generous Cincoflex!       ********* She was up to something.  Tony didn’t quite know what--yet--but he could practically smell the guilt coming off of Pepper.    The trouble was, Jarvis had turned stubborn and refused to tell him what she had been doing online.  Tony could, if he chose, go through the logs himself by eye and find out, but he wasn’t sure that they would give him any hints.    After breakfast, maybe.  If I can’t get anything out of her then.  She was moving around the kitchen, putting together breakfast and chattering about nothing, and smiling with the edge of brightness that he knew hid a nervousness she wasn’t willing to acknowledge.  Tony let her move, seating himself backwards in a chair and resting his arms on the back, and watching her with the patience of a predator.  It would only make her more nervous, but at the moment that suited him.    Finally, when she had eaten two bites of her bagel and was walking over to the trash can to throw the rest of it away, he spoke.  “What’s up, Pepper?”    It could be completely innocent, he knew that.  Yesterday had been full of shocks for her, and she demonstrably hadn’t slept well--even if he hadn’t seen her restlessness first hand, the shadows under her eyes showed through her makeup.  So he kept his voice gentle.    “I’m going out this morning,” she said directly, surprising him--he had expected prevarication.    “What time?” Tony asked, mentally rearranging his schedule.  “Happy can drive you.”    She flushed a little.  “That’s not necessary.”    Tony opened his mouth to argue, then changed his mind.  “Yeah, okay, sorry.  No reason you can’t drive yourself.”    The blush deepened slightly, but Pepper looked relieved.  “Thank you.”    He stood up and pushed the chair in.  “Errands to run?”    Pepper shrugged.  It was supposed to look casual, but it wasn’t, quite.  “I’m going apartment hunting.”    The sensation was akin to the magnet coming loose in his Mark I implant.  It took an effort to keep the hell you are behind his teeth, but Tony managed.  Swallowing, he forced his voice to be level.  “Pepper, this is your home.”    She looked down, then back up again, meeting his gaze calmly.  “I don’t want to hurt you, Tony.  But it’s not.  Not any more.”    Didn’t want to hurt him?  She’d just eviscerated him.  Licking his lips, he tried again.  “It’s only been a week.  It could be a month before your memories come back.  And then you’ll have all the hassle of moving back.”  He tried to grin, and wasn’t entirely sure it was successful.  “You hate moving, Pepper.”    He watched as she sorted through responses.  “The odds aren’t in my favor, Tony,” she said at last.  “I can’t wait around for something that might never happen--I have to deal with things as they are now.”    He wanted to howl.  He wanted to grab her, and shake her, and kiss her until she figured out that she was supposed to stay with him.  And he almost did; his fingers positively itched with the need, until he clenched them into fists.    “You’re welcome to stay here,” he managed, surprised that his voice was still calm.  “If you don’t like the room, I can change it.  Or build you something.  Pepper--“    She shook her head.  “It’s not that, Tony.  It’s the fact that, like it or not, I’m your employee.  It’s not appropriate for me to stay here.”    Anger was swelling up under the fear, and Tony moved, stepping closer to her.  “Bullshit, Potts, and you know it.  No one would blink an eye if my personal assistant decided to cut the commute.  In fact, nobody did.”  It wasn’t strictly true, but the backlash had been a whole lot weaker than either of them had anticipated.    Her mouth tightened, sign of a rising temper.  “That may be, but we are not in a relationship, Tony.  I need my own space.”    Before Afghanistan, before everything, he might have thrown a spoiled-brat fit, threatened to fire her, even tried to keep her by force out of sheer panic.  Now he knew that the tighter he held her, the harder Pepper would try to escape, her nature sparking against his.  He couldn’t lose her, but there was more than one way to make her change her mind.    He forced himself to step back, and consciously relaxed his hands.  “All right.”    Pepper blinked twice.  “What?”    “All right,” Tony repeated, turning to walk a few feet away.  “That’s logical.  Find your own space then, Pepper, and get Jarvis to help you.  But remember two things.”    He swung back around and held up one finger.  “One: you’re still my PA, and that’s not going to change. Two--“  He stalked back towards her, right up into her personal space.  “I reserve the right to change your mind about that relationship, Potts.  And as you’ve remarked before, I play dirty.”    Her lips parted and her pupils dilated, signals that his libido recognized and gleefully pounced on.  He leaned in even closer, feeling her breath warm his own, but turned aside at the last moment so his mouth grazed her cheek.  “We’re still the same people,” he whispered against her skin.  “It’s inevitable.”    And then he forced himself away and out of the room before he did something she wouldn’t forgive.        Her first impulse was to quit.  Pepper sat in the back of the taxi she’d called out of sheer irritation, and fumed, considering the various merits of two weeks’ notice versus just going up and telling Tony Stark, to his face, that she was gone.    But her job was familiar.  About the only thing left that was.  And even if she wasn’t actually performing it at the moment, she would be soon, and the idea of losing that last bit of what she remembered made her stomach twist with panic.    You can do this, she told herself as the taxi wended its way towards downtown.  You managed him for years; this is just the same.  After all, he’d been flirting with her the whole time she’d been working for him, and she’d had no trouble holding him off.  Maybe she’d wondered sometimes what it would be like to give in, but that was all...really.    Despite the fact that his proximity that morning had swamped her senses and locked up her nervous system.  It’s just hormones, she told herself.  You have a brain, you don’t have to let them run you.    The fact that Tony was a lot more dangerous when he was focused she chose to dismiss.  She’d managed him through mergers, stock drops, illness, let’s-fly-a-party-halfway-around-the-world-right-now impulses, and messy one-night stands, and Pepper had confidence that she could manage this too.    She had to.    She spent the morning with a real estate agent, looking at higher-end apartments with lots of space.  Pepper hadn’t yet managed to get down to the sub-basement storage space that Jarvis said held her extra things, so she wasn’t exactly sure what she owned any longer, at least in the way of furniture.  But she did want something airy and open, with plenty of room, and thanks to her infuriating boss, she had the money to indulge her desires.    By the time she got back to the mansion, Pepper had a folder full of possibilities, a stomach full of lunch, and a more relaxed mind.  There was no sign of Tony, so she settled down in her office with Jarvis and applied herself to his lessons in history, Stark Industries, and the current company situation.    “You will soon be as up to date as I can bring you,” the AI told her when Pepper paused for a break and a cup of tea.  “In fact, you could return to work on Monday, provided that you are careful not to overtax yourself.”    Pepper grinned wryly.  “Yes, sir, Doctor Jarvis.  Since when do you have an M.D.?”    “Modern medical institutions unfortunately continue their prejudice against allowing artificially created intelligences to matriculate,” Jarvis replied serenely, making her sputter with laughter.  “But I have the accumulated knowledge of all the accredited medical journals currently in print.  Though your current situation falls more under common sense than actual diagnosis...”    “Okay, okay.”  Pepper waved a hand.  “I’ll probably be so overwhelmed by the end of the day anyway that I’ll just want to go home and cry.”    “Unlikely.”  Jarvis’ tone was crisp.  “You have shown a remarkable ability to cope with adversity, Pepper.  Your first day back on the job may be stressful, but it will not conquer you.”    Pepper blinked, taken aback by the AI’s statement.  “I, um...thank you, Jarvis.”    “You are quite welcome.”    It was dark by the time Pepper finished her remedial work, and Tony still had not shown up.  “Where is Mr. Stark, Jarvis?” Pepper asked, standing and stretching.    “He has flown to Boston for a meeting.  He will return tomorrow morning.”    “Oh.”  The news was a bit deflating, and that realization immediately irritated Pepper.  The fact that it was Saturday didn’t make any difference; at Tony’s level, meetings often happened at odd hours and in strange places, as people jockeyed for his time and attention.  “All right.”    Pepper took herself down to the sub-basement to look over what she had in storage.  Like the rest of the house, the storage area was climate-controlled, and it held a wide and sometimes astonishing range of objects--hideously expensive artwork, engines for cars and small jets, antique furniture dating from the elder Starks’ day, records and backups and things she couldn’t even name--though she was sure they were on an inventory list somewhere.    Her stuff had its own section, near the big freight elevator.  Curious and apprehensive both, Pepper tugged off the shrouds to find the handmade cradle she’d picked up in a junk store and converted to a bookshelf, and the wrought-iron bedstead she’d bought when she graduated from college.  Both of them precious to her, but not quite fitting the decor of the house.    Not to mention, the bed was a twin...    She replaced the shrouds, though there was very little dust for them to protect against, and turned to the boxes stacked against the wall.  They were labeled in her own neat, legible print--financial records, photo albums dating back to high school, her brief flirtation with scrapbooking, various other ephemera.  Several boxes contained books that she had not moved upstairs for one reason or another.    I guess I’ll need to go furniture shopping.  Pepper sighed and moved on to the last set of boxes, and then stopped, smacking her own forehead in exaggerated exasperation.  “Diaries.  Virginia, you idiot.”    She couldn’t blame this memory lapse on her head injury.  Pepper had begun journal-keeping in college and had kept it up ever since, on a fairly consistent basis.  It was more an exercise in organizing her thoughts than an actual record, but she found it soothing even if she didn’t write every day.    And I forgot all about them.  Four years of what I’ve missed, all neatly written down.    Sighing and laughing both, Pepper went to find the hand truck stored near the elevator, and hauled the three newest boxes upstairs to her office.  “Let’s see,” she murmured, surveying them.  “2009?”    But when she opened the boxes, the latest journal was dated July 2008.  Pepper frowned down at the cloth-backed book.  I fill these things faster than one per year.  Where’s the latest?    She couldn’t find it.  It wasn’t in her office, nor in the master bedroom, nor any other place she could think of.  Even when she took into account the fact that the entire house had been her home, it was in no logical spot.  And not in any of the illogical ones she tried, either.    Finally Pepper gave up and went back to the July ’08 volume, taking it and the two previous out to the living room so she could curl up on the couch in comfort.  They were written in her usual terse style, short statements meant to evoke memories interspersed with longer ramblings.  The first entry was dated in late July and simply read They’ve found him.    Not hard to figure out.    Pepper read on.  Brief commentaries and facts about Tony’s return and his injuries, a slightly disbelieving account of the arc reactor implant, a few rants about how much she hated it when he didn’t give her any warning about outrageous statements to the press.  Pepper found the whole thing more than a little disconcerting; it was her voice, her handwriting, but the memories the words were designed to evoke were missing.  It felt like reading fiction about her own life.    Uneasy, she finally set the first volume aside and picked up the latest one.  This was less fraught, and contained more day-to-day details about managing Tony Stark and, by extension, a large chunk of Stark Industries.  Pepper read avidly, trying to ignore the occasional comments about the man himself outside the context of work.    But it was hard to pass over statements like He brought me breakfast in bed this morning and didn’t even burn the eggs, or Note to self, Tony is much more pliable if I let him indulge his romantic side, or even How did he figure out to kiss that spot?  Not that I’m complaining.  All of it hinted at a relationship that was much more than just sex, and a Tony who was a good deal more involved than Pepper would ever have given him credit for.    Maybe he’s changed, whispered the insidious voice in the back of her head.  Maybe he really is capable of maintaining an actual relationship.    She didn’t want to think about it.  She had enough to deal with as it was, and the proof that such a relationship had existed was an additional pressure on barriers that Pepper had carefully erected the moment she realized that she found her boss very attractive.    So she forced her mind back to the mundane details of managing the man and the company, and made notes, and tried not to think about how quiet the house was now that she knew Tony wouldn’t be home until morning.    At ten-thirty, Jarvis spoke.  “There is a delivery approaching the front door.”    Pepper looked up from her diaries, frowning a little.  “Who delivers this late?”    Jarvis apparently took the question to be rhetorical, and didn’t answer.  Pepper rose and headed for the door, envisioning a shipment of parts and a driver who’d gotten lost in the wilds of Malibu, but instead opened it to find a young man in the uniform of the local meal delivery service.  He gave her a cheerful grin.  “Are you Ms. Potts?”      She regarded him with some skepticism; either Jarvis or Happy had vetted the car on the way through the gates, but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been a mistake.  “Yes.”    “Great.”  The young man pulled a large, flat box out of his insulated bag and handed it to her.  “Here you go.”    Pepper took it automatically.  “I didn’t order anything,” she protested.     “Nope,” he agreed.  “The guy who phoned it in said you hadn’t.  Paid by credit card.”    Tony.  Who else could it be?  Pepper hesitated, but the savory odor drifting up from the box was making her mouth water.  “Hold on and I’ll get you a tip--“    The delivery man shook his head, already backing away and still smiling.  “It’s already taken care of.  Have a nice evening.”    And he was gone, striding back to his little battered Beetle.  Pepper rolled her eyes, and took what seemed to be her dinner back inside.    The box, when opened on the kitchen table, proved to hold three separate styrofoam containers.  As Pepper lifted them out, Jarvis spoke up again.  “Ms. Potts, Tony has recorded a message for you.”    Pepper opened the largest container, which proved to hold a generous serving of scampi over angel hair pasta.  It was still steaming gently, and the fragrance made her stomach growl.  “Couldn’t he call directly?”    “The message is timed to coincide with your acceptance of the delivery,” Jarvis replied.  “Shall I play it?”    The other boxes held a salad and a slice of strawberry cheesecake.  “Can I prevent you?”    “That question has a number of answers--“    “Never mind.”  Pepper smiled.  Jarvis was so flexible that sometimes it was hard to remember that he was, in fact, a computer.  “Go ahead.”    Tony’s voice came on through the AI’s speakers, slightly stern.  “Ms. Potts.  Jarvis says you haven’t eaten, so enjoy your dinner.  Don’t make me fly back and tie you to a kitchen chair.”  He paused.  “Though that does sound kind of fun.”    Pepper sighed, amused despite herself.  Tony’s voice got serious.  “Skipping meals isn’t the way to heal faster, Pepper, so eat.”  The recording cut off with an odd sound, as if further speech had been edited out.    Brusque as the words were, they warmed her.  Pepper fetched a knife and fork, and was half-tempted to raid Tony’s wine cellar for a nice pinot grigio.  That’s hardly professional, though.    As she ate the excellent food, Pepper reflected ruefully that she had expected Tony to make good on his threat...but not quite in this fashion.        Pepper’s eyes flew open in the dark, and she held absolutely still, trying to hold onto the memory...for memory it was that had invaded her sleep.  She’d been running for her life, dodging obstacles, everything blue...and behind her strode Death, impossibly fast.    Obadiah.    Even knowing what she knew, even having seen the house recording of Stane’s theft of Tony’s arc implant, Pepper couldn’t quite reconcile the expansive, sharp-witted man she knew with the monster who’d tried to kill them both.  But the resurgent memory brought back the horrified disbelief, the terror of that night at the company headquarters, vivid and undeniable.    Finally Pepper relaxed.  The memory was as fragmented as a bad videotape and clearly incomplete, but her hunger to regain what she’d lost was stronger than the gluey fear of the remembrance.    Rolling over, she looked at the nightlit clock and saw that it was almost dawn outside.  As the surge of adrenaline faded, Pepper drowsed, slipping just under the edge of sleep but no further.    So when her door sighed open, she heard it.  Instantly awake, Pepper held still, knowing that if Jarvis had not sounded the alarm there was only one person it could be.    His footsteps were almost silent on the thick carpet...almost.  Pepper knew she should sit up, say something, castigate Tony for violating her privacy, but instead she kept her breathing slow and steady, consumed by curiosity as to what the hell he was doing.    As far as she could judge with her eyes closed, Tony walked up to the edge of her bed...and then just stood there.  She could hear him breathing, but that was all, and she wondered wildly if he was on to her, if he was waiting with that sardonic grin for her to turn over and look at him.    But then he sighed, a long, sad, weary exhalation.  A moment later the lightest of touches ghosted over her hair.  “Please don’t leave, Pepper,” Tony said, his voice hardly more than a whisper.  “Please.  Don’t go.  I don’t--”  He swallowed.  “I don’t know what I’d do without you.  Without you here.”    His hand brushed her hair once more, and then he walked slowly away.    It wasn’t until the door closed again that Pepper could move, but all she did was open eyes that were brimming with tears.          Chapter One      Chapter Two     Chapter Three    Chapter Four    Chapter Five    Chapter Six    Chapter Seven     Chapter Eight    Chapter Nine    Chapter Ten    Chapter Eleven    Chapter Twelve    Epilogue  Iron Man Home Feedback