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Part three of the All The Way Down series (after 'Hunger' and 'The Sound of Ice Breaking'). This one ... Um. This one might be where I lose people -_-;
Title: Perilous Gifts
Rating: R
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Pepper, Tony, discussion of Loki. Pepper/Tony, Tony/Loki
Summary: Pepper comes home to a drunken Tony, and the revelation that Loki wants things he probably shouldn't want
Wordcount: 3985
Warnings/Notes: Discussion of dub-con/non-con, polyamory negotiations, and Tony's brushes with alcoholism. *shrugs faintly* Um. Yeah.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Perilous Gifts
Rating: R
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Pepper, Tony, discussion of Loki. Pepper/Tony, Tony/Loki
Summary: Pepper comes home to a drunken Tony, and the revelation that Loki wants things he probably shouldn't want
Wordcount: 3985
Warnings/Notes: Discussion of dub-con/non-con, polyamory negotiations, and Tony's brushes with alcoholism. *shrugs faintly* Um. Yeah.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Perilous Gifts
She came home to a drunken Tony.
Pepper paused just inside the room, the elevator doors closing gently behind her, and took him in. Quelling the faint twinge of disappointment in her stomach (she’d hoped they’d moved past this, some little bit, hoped not to see this again so soon), and running a practiced eye over the room and its occupant. Judging how far along, how bad.
Not too bad, yet. Her shoulders eased back down a little at the realisation. Only one bottle open, only part way down, and yes, it was the hard stuff, but he was nursing it, not trying to drown himself in it. His eyes, meeting hers in the reflection of the windows, were still relatively clear.
They were also dark, pain, fear, guilt, something. She couldn’t tell just yet.
She took a breath. A deep, steadying breath, consciously dropping armour and the automatic tensing of her shoulders. She couldn’t help him like that. Rhodey could, maybe, Rhodey could snap Tony back the hard way, but her way … her way was softer. And it worked just as well.
“Honey,” she said, lightly, reaching down to slip off her shoes, and pad in stockinged feet into the room. “I’m home.”
He smiled for her. Smiled at the stupid joke. She rolled with the gut-punch of relief, only letting herself smile a little bit, and not in visible relief, as she slipped in beside him on the couch. As she casually stole his glass for a little sip. He let her. That was … a good sign, too.
“Hey,” he said, quietly. Looking up at her, something nameless in his eyes, that strange little curve of his lip that he got sometimes. Not a smile, as such. A wondering, maybe.
Pepper debated with herself for a second. To let it go, for now, to not say anything and let him tell her in his own time, or to ask. To lance the wound in one go, and see how bad it was. For a second, she weighed it up. But it had been a long day. And she didn’t much want to dance around things.
Tony rarely did, either. He prefered honesty, if at all possible.
“What happened?” she asked, softly. Gently, as she handed the glass back to him. Permission, or bribe. A little of both, maybe. He grinned darkly as he took a gulp. “Tony?”
He didn’t answer, for a second. A beat, long and tense. She had relaxed herself, deliberately, soft against him, but he hadn’t. He was sprawled, wide and loose, but it was a lie. Feeling the tight tremors through him, she knew it was a lie.
“How do I court people?” he asked, eventually, and Pepper blinked. Hard. She hadn’t … she had no idea what that was about. He turned to look at her, met her eyes, and it wasn’t a sidetrack, this, wasn’t a distraction. She could see the pain still. This was actually a pertinent question, for all she couldn’t see how.
“What do you mean?” she asked. Honestly bewildered, and that was okay, she could let him see that, Tony never hit at people for being confused. “How do you … Romantically, you mean?”
He shrugged, agitatedly. “Yes. No. I don’t know.” He growled, frustrated. “When I … when I mean it. When I really want someone. How do I court them? How did I …”
Court you, she thought. How had he courted her. Was that … was that what this was?
“You stop trying to buy them,” she said at last. Settling closer against him, curling her arm around him. Warm, reassuring. She could do that, at least. “You stop throwing money at them, being the rich playboy around them. And then …” She smiled, faintly. Exasperatedly. “Then you start giving them things. Not expensive things, not really. Dangerous ones, though.”
He blinked at her, the grooves at the corners of his eyes deepening in confusion. Dark and worn and confused, and Pepper felt her heart turn over, a little. Felt something surge up inside her, something that loved him, something that would do anything, anything at all, to protect him.
“Like what?” he asked, and he honestly didn’t know. It was simultaneously the most frustrating, tragic thing about him, and the most endearing. “Dangerous how?”
She smiled, shaking her head, and dropped her forehead to his. The ice chinked softly as he moved the hand holding the glass hastily out of the way. “Perilous things,” she told him, told those eyes only inches away. “Your trust. Your home. Your legacy. Your life.” She felt her mouth lift, a grin, rueful and fierce. “Your heart. Literally. You hand people … your actual heart. I think that’s a dangerous gift, don’t you?”
Normal people wooed you with flowers, or dinners, or trips to special places. Tony, Tony did things like casually put his life in your hands, instead. He told you you were all he had in the world. He gave the things he loved into your keeping, when he thought he was dying. He bought you strawberries, because he didn’t remember that you hated them, and he didn’t know how to give actual presents, but for you, he’d still try. That was what Tony Stark did, when he loved you.
He watched her. Lying, still shaking, still pained, beneath her. He looked up into her eyes, and his were dark, and wet, and desperate. Tony lay beneath her, and looked up.
“Does it work?” he rasped, tiny and rough. “Are those things … Are they good? Are they enough?”
She felt her heart clench. Felt her chest seize, and her hands were around his face, then, her hands were framing him, and her body was over his, straddling him. Her body was shielding his, the heart that stuttered beneath the glowing light of the reactor. Her heart staggered, and she was holding him.
“Tony,” she whispered, hard and small and fierce. “Never doubt that. Doubt everything else. But don’t doubt that.” She knew that question, knew how, knew why, and there were times when loving Tony Stark, being loved by him, was the hardest damn thing in the world, the most difficult thing you could ever do, but it was worth it. He was damn well ‘good enough’, and better, and she knew that, even if he didn’t, even if he never did. “I’m here,” she said, so softly. “Would I be here, if it wasn’t enough?”
He blinked. He blinked, and looked away, and distantly she heard the faint squeal of glass, under his hands, as his fist tightened. She heard that. She saw the sudden twisting, the sudden pain.
And then …
“Loki wants me,” he said. Clipped and blank, and out of nowhere, and Pepper felt a shard of ice stab into her gut. Felt dread, from nowhere.
“What do you mean?” she asked, slowly, sitting back a little. Still straddling him, still shielding him. “Tony. What does that mean?”
He looked up at her, and there was nothing in his face. Purposefully blank, his press face. “You heard he took me away from the others, yesterday? He wanted to tell me. He … wants me.” A small, dark smile. “Like that.”
There was a ringing, in her ears. A white, distant ringing, which she knew was fear. “Tony,” she said, and her own voice sounded oddly distant. “Tony, did he …?” No, no, and please, no. Those three months, while he was in Afghanistan, fearing. That video, in Obie’s office. No. Please, please no. Not again. No.
Tony shook his head. His smile lifting, quirking. Humour, because he was Tony, because he had the worst sense of humour in the world, but he was shaking his head, so she didn’t care. “No,” he said, softly. “He didn’t.”
Her spine curved. Let go, and she fell forward onto him, slumped down over him. Ignoring his startled yelp, and the slosh of whiskey against her thigh as he dropped the glass beside them. She curled down onto him, and her arms snaked around his neck, and then he was holding her, too, bewildered, while she shook.
“Pep?” he asked, alarmed. “Pepper? Pep, come on, what’s up? Pepper?”
“I hate you,” she whispered, squeezing him tight. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” And she didn’t know what the hell was wrong with her, why she was saying that, when he had almost been … when she thought he’d been ... “I will murder anyone who touches you, and I hate you, okay?”
“Um.” His hands fluttered over her back, lost and confused, but there was humour in his voice. There was still humour. “Okay?”
She breathed. She breathed. That was it, that was all. Give her a second. She needed to breathe.
Okay. Right. Okay.
She sat up. She fixed her face, fixed the white buzzing in her ears, as much as she could. She fixed herself, and sat up, and looked down at him.
Tony blinked up at her. Confused, and worried, lying tense and concerned beneath her, with his heart glowing under her hand, and whiskey soaking gently into her thigh, and his back.
The white closed back in, and she breathed some more. She stopped, and breathed some more.
“Tony,” she said, eventually. When her voice was steady, when her vision stopped tunnelling. When she could meet his eyes, and not feel faint in sudden fear. “You need to tell me what happened.” A swallow, hard, and steady again. “Did he … You’re sure you’re not hurt?”
Tony tried a grin, tremulous and bewildered, as if he didn’t know what was wrong with her, but would do his best to fix it. “Nope,” he assured, casual and confident, and she hated that, she hated it, because Tony, he hurt you, you idiot, but Tony didn’t see that, and kept going. “I think … I think maybe he was going to, but …”
“But?” she asked, and she was going to kill Loki. She couldn’t, she didn’t have a hope, but she was going to anyway.
Tony went still. Tony went still, and quiet, and the darkness in his eyes went deep, suddenly, and somewhere she couldn’t understand. “I told him I would kill him, if he tried,” he said, softly. Smiling faintly, and her heart surged in sudden pride. “He said I couldn’t, I wasn’t strong enough, but I can, I can figure it out, and I told him so. And … and he didn’t.”
“Good,” she said, and it was savage, so savage he blinked at her, stared up at her in shock, but she didn’t care about that, either. “I’ll kill him if he does,” she promised, low and fierce, and he stared at her. “I’ll get Rhodey, and JARVIS, and all of SHIELD, and I will kill him, if he hurts you. Okay?”
She’d killed Obie. She’d stared up at a broken skylight, and Tony hanging on for dear life, and the only reason she’d even hesitated was because Tony was in the line of fire. Not for Obie. Never for him. After that video, after the defiant tilt of Tony’s chin walking off that damned plane out of Afghanistan. She’d slammed her hand down on the button, and it had been Tony she hesitated for, nothing else.
And JARVIS wouldn’t hesitate, after Obie. Or Rhodey, after Vanko. And maybe SHIELD would hesitate, maybe they would, but Bruce wouldn’t. She knew that. Or Natasha. Or Clint. They would help her. They’d help her kill the bastard.
Tony … blinked at her. Lay beneath her, one hand on her whiskey-damp thigh, and smiled lopsidedly like he hadn’t the first clue what to make of her.
“There are times you scare me, Ms Potts,” he said, looking up at her, and it was light, it was airy, it was Tony Stark, but he meant it, too. She could tell when he meant things.
“You put your heart in my hand,” she told him, snippily, struggling to breathe. “You didn’t even warn me, and you put your heart in my hand, so man up. If I have to be terrified like that, so do you.”
He grinned, rich and dark and easy. “I can be scared for you,” he promised, and it was one of those oaths, one of those gifts, like hearts and companies and real smiles. “I can do that, Ms Potts.”
Yes. Yes, he could, and so could she, and that was why it was enough. That was why he was enough.
“He didn’t want that, though,” Tony said. Bouncing back, skipping trains again. Frowning slightly up at her. “Loki. I don’t think he wanted that.”
She screwed her eyes shut. Breathing again, but for a different reason now. Good god, but Tony could be so frustrating. “Tony,” she said, warningly. “That was a moment, Tony.”
He blinked, and grinned, sheepishly. Waving a hand aimlessly for a second. “Um. What percent of a moment?” And he laughed, he actually laughed, at her growl, and it was good sound, and he was still scared, so maybe she wouldn’t kill him. This once, maybe she wouldn’t kill him.
“What did he want, then?” she sighed, and finally shifted back off him. Nestled back in beside him, and set to mopping belatedly at her damp skirt. Tony blinked at her for a second, then shrugged, and sucked dried whiskey absently off his fingers. Pepper … just didn’t know what to do with him, sometimes.
“I don’t think he wanted that,” he said, after a pause. Distantly, mediatively. Pained and dark and figuring it out. She bit her lip, the thought of what ‘that’ was still scratching at her thoughts, and curled closer to him. “He was … he wanted, Pep. But not that. I said I’d kill him, said I’d fight him, and he liked it. He wanted it.”
Pepper felt the shudder roll through her. Allowed it. “That can be part of it,” she whispered, softly. Shakingly. “He could want that as part of it.”
Tony turned to her, looked back at her, and curled his arm warmingly around her. Shielding her, now, expression dark and rueful.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, tucking her close. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t …”
“No,” she said, quickly and firmly. “You should, you always should, we did this when you were dying, remember? You should always tell me. Even the bad things. You need to tell me.” She wasn’t going through that again. Finding out he’d almost died, too late to do anything, too late to even understand. She wasn’t doing that again.
He was silent, for a second. Then he nodded, and she felt her shoulders relax again.
“He wants me,” Tony said, quietly. “Not just … I mean, me. He wants me, and I challenged him, said if he wanted me, then he could court me, try to win me, and he …”
“You what?!” Pepper interrupted, straightening up all over again, staring down at him, aghast. “Tony, you what?”
“Um.” He put on the face, the placating, apologetic, no-really-this-is-actually-a-good-idea, listen-Pep-it’ll-work face. He put on the face, and she almost slapped it right back off. “It seemed like a good idea at the time?”
She gaped. She stared, mouth open, and he started talking, a mile a minute, he started trying to explain.
“I wanted to give him options,” he said, rapidly and pleadingly. “I wanted more options than ‘kill Stark’ or ‘rape Stark’ …” He stumbled, staggered over the word, over having actually said the word, and she stopped him. She put her hand over his mouth, until the white went away, until the flashing stab of pain went away, her pain in his eyes, and when she pulled it back, he was calmer. He was gentler. “I wanted to give him more options, but he … You didn’t see him, Pepper. He didn’t believe me. He asked if he would have a chance, and you could tell he thought I was an idiot for even trying to pull that one, for even suggesting he could have something by fair means, that anyone would … would let him ...”
“He might have a point,” she said, clipped and hard, but she saw it. She was looking at Tony, and she saw it. That dark pain, that knew what it was to ask: can I be enough? She saw the sympathy, the real, dark empathy, and it scared her. It silenced her.
“I kissed him,” Tony told her. Soft and flinching, ashamed. Cheating, he thought, she could see it, the flinch away from her eyes. “I kissed him, and I’m sorry, Pep, I’m so sorry, but …”
“Why?” she asked him. Her mind was blank. No. Not really. The thoughts were there, the knowledge was there, the understanding, even, but it wasn’t surface, not yet. She couldn’t let it, yet. She would feel in a minute. She would feel in a second. “Tony,” she said, very, very gently. “You need to tell me why.”
He looked at her. He swallowed, and looked at her, and god, he could be scared for her, couldn’t he. He could be terrified, and so brave, all for her. Because she’d asked him to tell her, and he would.
“Because I wanted to,” he said, and it was grave, and guilty, and unflinching. “Because he asked, and I saw, and I wanted to.” He tried to smile, that weird little lift at the corner of his mouth, and dipped his head. “I wanted to challenge him,” he said. “I wanted to fight him. I wanted him, and wanted him to want me, and if was going to kill me, I wanted him to know what he was killing first. And that … I don’t know, Pep, I’m sorry, I don’t know …”
“I do,” she said. And she did. She knew. Tony wanted to fly, and Tony wanted to fight, and Tony wanted to be the best, but more, more than anything, Tony wanted to be wanted. He wanted to love, and be loved, and give, and be given, and challenge, and be challenged. Hungry, desperate, powerful, scared. Tony wanted so hard it hurt him, and would carve his heart out of his own chest to give to you, when the wanting was that much. She knew that. Pepper knew that.
“I love you,” he said, desperately. Reaching out to catch her hand, to hold it in his, pressed to her knee. “I love you,” he said, and he meant it, she knew how much he meant it. Carved up from the bottom of his heart.
“I know,” she said. “I know.” And it was … oddly light. Not gentle. Not hurt. She looked at him, into his eyes, the thing that was scared of her, the thing that was honest with her, the thing that loved her. The thing that really, honestly, truly loved her. She looked at that.
And knew, with perfect clarity, what Loki had wanted. The heart in your hands. Trembling and honest and lost. The utter power of it, having that, holding that. So fragile a thing, so frail a thing, a gift so perilous. She knew what Loki had wanted.
“He was afraid of me,” Tony whispered. Soft and jagged, asking to be understood. “I kissed him, and I wanted him, and he could have killed him, could have taken me, and he was afraid. He asked permission to court me, he asked my permission, and I said yes, and … Pepper. I don’t know what to do. Please. Please don’t …”
“I won’t,” she said, and she was feeling, now, she was letting herself feel. There was anger. There was pain. There was love, helpless and heartsore. There was possessiveness. But not jealously. Not that. She knew too much, to feel that. “Tony,” she said, cupping his jaw, cradling his head. “Tony, look at me.”
And there. Dark eyes, bewildered and guilty and savage and loving. Desperate. Fierce. Hope and loss and pain, all tangled together, looking at her, for her. He looked at her.
“How do you court someone, if you mean it?” he asked, and he meant Loki, courting him, and he meant himself, courting her, and the older question, the deeper question, can it be enough? Please, please, tell me how to make it enough.
“Don’t say yes,” she told him, in answer to the older question. While he flinched, a little, between her hands. A perilous, dangerous thing. “Don’t ever say yes, Tony, unless you mean it.” She smiled, gently, brushing hair from his forehead, and she meant him to Loki, and she meant her to him. Her promise, her gift, as terrible, as dangerous as his. “Don’t hurt him that way. You shouldn’t ever do that.”
“Pepper,” he said, and he’d been drinking. Dark and pained and desperate, waiting for her to come home, drinking the fear away. Trying to. “Pep …”
“You told me the truth,” she said, carefully pragmatic, carefully logical. “You promised me the truth. You should promise him the same. You should mean it.” She pulled him close, pulled his head gently to her. “Fight him if he hurts you. Kill him if he forces you. Challenge him, and fight him, and force the truth from him, if you have to. But don’t lie to him. Don’t ever say yes, unless you mean it.”
Hard. Uncompromising. But she was. They were. Her and Tony. From the beginning. She’d told him what he could have, and what he couldn’t. Told him that she wouldn’t be his toy, wouldn’t be his PA just to be looked at. She’d told him that he had to listen to her, if he wanted her to stay. Told him she remembered that night, at the dance, where he’d almost kissed her, and then left, and he needed to do better. Told him when he’d had twelve percent of a moment, and how to have more. She’d told him she wouldn’t be lied to, left out, left unknowing when he was dying, and thought she didn’t need to know. She told him the truth, unvarnished and real.
And in return, his smiles for her were real. In return, when she laid down the line, he stepped over it, stepped through it, tried. All for her. He bought her strawberries, because he had no idea how to buy a gift, but at least understood he had to. He told her the truth, even when it scared him, because she asked him to.
And for that, because of that …
“And Tony,” she whispered, and it was soft, and her skirt was wet, and his hand was clutched in the back of her shirt. “If you do mean it, if you do want it … then say it. And mean it. And then, maybe … he will too.”
And she meant Loki. And she meant her.
He laughed. Cracked and broken, into her chest, his hand clutched tight above her shoulderblades. He laughed, dark and wet, and whispered softly. “Pepper. Can I court you?”
And she smiled, his head moving as her chest shuddered beneath it, and nodded, though he couldn’t see. “Yes,” she said, softly, holding him tight, and she meant it, she’d promised. “Yes, Tony, you can. And you can … you can court him too.”
She would kill Loki, if he hurt Tony. And she would kill Tony, if he screwed this up, if he got himself killed. But she’d promised, years ago now. When he came back from Afghanistan, that second time, with bullet holes. She promised him, and she made no promises she didn’t mean. She’d promised.
If they were going down, if he was going down, she was going with him. All the way down. For all the reasons why.
“Yes,” she told him, wild and fierce and honest, and mixed her gasping, shuddering laugh with his. “Tony. Yes.”
She came home to a drunken Tony.
Pepper paused just inside the room, the elevator doors closing gently behind her, and took him in. Quelling the faint twinge of disappointment in her stomach (she’d hoped they’d moved past this, some little bit, hoped not to see this again so soon), and running a practiced eye over the room and its occupant. Judging how far along, how bad.
Not too bad, yet. Her shoulders eased back down a little at the realisation. Only one bottle open, only part way down, and yes, it was the hard stuff, but he was nursing it, not trying to drown himself in it. His eyes, meeting hers in the reflection of the windows, were still relatively clear.
They were also dark, pain, fear, guilt, something. She couldn’t tell just yet.
She took a breath. A deep, steadying breath, consciously dropping armour and the automatic tensing of her shoulders. She couldn’t help him like that. Rhodey could, maybe, Rhodey could snap Tony back the hard way, but her way … her way was softer. And it worked just as well.
“Honey,” she said, lightly, reaching down to slip off her shoes, and pad in stockinged feet into the room. “I’m home.”
He smiled for her. Smiled at the stupid joke. She rolled with the gut-punch of relief, only letting herself smile a little bit, and not in visible relief, as she slipped in beside him on the couch. As she casually stole his glass for a little sip. He let her. That was … a good sign, too.
“Hey,” he said, quietly. Looking up at her, something nameless in his eyes, that strange little curve of his lip that he got sometimes. Not a smile, as such. A wondering, maybe.
Pepper debated with herself for a second. To let it go, for now, to not say anything and let him tell her in his own time, or to ask. To lance the wound in one go, and see how bad it was. For a second, she weighed it up. But it had been a long day. And she didn’t much want to dance around things.
Tony rarely did, either. He prefered honesty, if at all possible.
“What happened?” she asked, softly. Gently, as she handed the glass back to him. Permission, or bribe. A little of both, maybe. He grinned darkly as he took a gulp. “Tony?”
He didn’t answer, for a second. A beat, long and tense. She had relaxed herself, deliberately, soft against him, but he hadn’t. He was sprawled, wide and loose, but it was a lie. Feeling the tight tremors through him, she knew it was a lie.
“How do I court people?” he asked, eventually, and Pepper blinked. Hard. She hadn’t … she had no idea what that was about. He turned to look at her, met her eyes, and it wasn’t a sidetrack, this, wasn’t a distraction. She could see the pain still. This was actually a pertinent question, for all she couldn’t see how.
“What do you mean?” she asked. Honestly bewildered, and that was okay, she could let him see that, Tony never hit at people for being confused. “How do you … Romantically, you mean?”
He shrugged, agitatedly. “Yes. No. I don’t know.” He growled, frustrated. “When I … when I mean it. When I really want someone. How do I court them? How did I …”
Court you, she thought. How had he courted her. Was that … was that what this was?
“You stop trying to buy them,” she said at last. Settling closer against him, curling her arm around him. Warm, reassuring. She could do that, at least. “You stop throwing money at them, being the rich playboy around them. And then …” She smiled, faintly. Exasperatedly. “Then you start giving them things. Not expensive things, not really. Dangerous ones, though.”
He blinked at her, the grooves at the corners of his eyes deepening in confusion. Dark and worn and confused, and Pepper felt her heart turn over, a little. Felt something surge up inside her, something that loved him, something that would do anything, anything at all, to protect him.
“Like what?” he asked, and he honestly didn’t know. It was simultaneously the most frustrating, tragic thing about him, and the most endearing. “Dangerous how?”
She smiled, shaking her head, and dropped her forehead to his. The ice chinked softly as he moved the hand holding the glass hastily out of the way. “Perilous things,” she told him, told those eyes only inches away. “Your trust. Your home. Your legacy. Your life.” She felt her mouth lift, a grin, rueful and fierce. “Your heart. Literally. You hand people … your actual heart. I think that’s a dangerous gift, don’t you?”
Normal people wooed you with flowers, or dinners, or trips to special places. Tony, Tony did things like casually put his life in your hands, instead. He told you you were all he had in the world. He gave the things he loved into your keeping, when he thought he was dying. He bought you strawberries, because he didn’t remember that you hated them, and he didn’t know how to give actual presents, but for you, he’d still try. That was what Tony Stark did, when he loved you.
He watched her. Lying, still shaking, still pained, beneath her. He looked up into her eyes, and his were dark, and wet, and desperate. Tony lay beneath her, and looked up.
“Does it work?” he rasped, tiny and rough. “Are those things … Are they good? Are they enough?”
She felt her heart clench. Felt her chest seize, and her hands were around his face, then, her hands were framing him, and her body was over his, straddling him. Her body was shielding his, the heart that stuttered beneath the glowing light of the reactor. Her heart staggered, and she was holding him.
“Tony,” she whispered, hard and small and fierce. “Never doubt that. Doubt everything else. But don’t doubt that.” She knew that question, knew how, knew why, and there were times when loving Tony Stark, being loved by him, was the hardest damn thing in the world, the most difficult thing you could ever do, but it was worth it. He was damn well ‘good enough’, and better, and she knew that, even if he didn’t, even if he never did. “I’m here,” she said, so softly. “Would I be here, if it wasn’t enough?”
He blinked. He blinked, and looked away, and distantly she heard the faint squeal of glass, under his hands, as his fist tightened. She heard that. She saw the sudden twisting, the sudden pain.
And then …
“Loki wants me,” he said. Clipped and blank, and out of nowhere, and Pepper felt a shard of ice stab into her gut. Felt dread, from nowhere.
“What do you mean?” she asked, slowly, sitting back a little. Still straddling him, still shielding him. “Tony. What does that mean?”
He looked up at her, and there was nothing in his face. Purposefully blank, his press face. “You heard he took me away from the others, yesterday? He wanted to tell me. He … wants me.” A small, dark smile. “Like that.”
There was a ringing, in her ears. A white, distant ringing, which she knew was fear. “Tony,” she said, and her own voice sounded oddly distant. “Tony, did he …?” No, no, and please, no. Those three months, while he was in Afghanistan, fearing. That video, in Obie’s office. No. Please, please no. Not again. No.
Tony shook his head. His smile lifting, quirking. Humour, because he was Tony, because he had the worst sense of humour in the world, but he was shaking his head, so she didn’t care. “No,” he said, softly. “He didn’t.”
Her spine curved. Let go, and she fell forward onto him, slumped down over him. Ignoring his startled yelp, and the slosh of whiskey against her thigh as he dropped the glass beside them. She curled down onto him, and her arms snaked around his neck, and then he was holding her, too, bewildered, while she shook.
“Pep?” he asked, alarmed. “Pepper? Pep, come on, what’s up? Pepper?”
“I hate you,” she whispered, squeezing him tight. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” And she didn’t know what the hell was wrong with her, why she was saying that, when he had almost been … when she thought he’d been ... “I will murder anyone who touches you, and I hate you, okay?”
“Um.” His hands fluttered over her back, lost and confused, but there was humour in his voice. There was still humour. “Okay?”
She breathed. She breathed. That was it, that was all. Give her a second. She needed to breathe.
Okay. Right. Okay.
She sat up. She fixed her face, fixed the white buzzing in her ears, as much as she could. She fixed herself, and sat up, and looked down at him.
Tony blinked up at her. Confused, and worried, lying tense and concerned beneath her, with his heart glowing under her hand, and whiskey soaking gently into her thigh, and his back.
The white closed back in, and she breathed some more. She stopped, and breathed some more.
“Tony,” she said, eventually. When her voice was steady, when her vision stopped tunnelling. When she could meet his eyes, and not feel faint in sudden fear. “You need to tell me what happened.” A swallow, hard, and steady again. “Did he … You’re sure you’re not hurt?”
Tony tried a grin, tremulous and bewildered, as if he didn’t know what was wrong with her, but would do his best to fix it. “Nope,” he assured, casual and confident, and she hated that, she hated it, because Tony, he hurt you, you idiot, but Tony didn’t see that, and kept going. “I think … I think maybe he was going to, but …”
“But?” she asked, and she was going to kill Loki. She couldn’t, she didn’t have a hope, but she was going to anyway.
Tony went still. Tony went still, and quiet, and the darkness in his eyes went deep, suddenly, and somewhere she couldn’t understand. “I told him I would kill him, if he tried,” he said, softly. Smiling faintly, and her heart surged in sudden pride. “He said I couldn’t, I wasn’t strong enough, but I can, I can figure it out, and I told him so. And … and he didn’t.”
“Good,” she said, and it was savage, so savage he blinked at her, stared up at her in shock, but she didn’t care about that, either. “I’ll kill him if he does,” she promised, low and fierce, and he stared at her. “I’ll get Rhodey, and JARVIS, and all of SHIELD, and I will kill him, if he hurts you. Okay?”
She’d killed Obie. She’d stared up at a broken skylight, and Tony hanging on for dear life, and the only reason she’d even hesitated was because Tony was in the line of fire. Not for Obie. Never for him. After that video, after the defiant tilt of Tony’s chin walking off that damned plane out of Afghanistan. She’d slammed her hand down on the button, and it had been Tony she hesitated for, nothing else.
And JARVIS wouldn’t hesitate, after Obie. Or Rhodey, after Vanko. And maybe SHIELD would hesitate, maybe they would, but Bruce wouldn’t. She knew that. Or Natasha. Or Clint. They would help her. They’d help her kill the bastard.
Tony … blinked at her. Lay beneath her, one hand on her whiskey-damp thigh, and smiled lopsidedly like he hadn’t the first clue what to make of her.
“There are times you scare me, Ms Potts,” he said, looking up at her, and it was light, it was airy, it was Tony Stark, but he meant it, too. She could tell when he meant things.
“You put your heart in my hand,” she told him, snippily, struggling to breathe. “You didn’t even warn me, and you put your heart in my hand, so man up. If I have to be terrified like that, so do you.”
He grinned, rich and dark and easy. “I can be scared for you,” he promised, and it was one of those oaths, one of those gifts, like hearts and companies and real smiles. “I can do that, Ms Potts.”
Yes. Yes, he could, and so could she, and that was why it was enough. That was why he was enough.
“He didn’t want that, though,” Tony said. Bouncing back, skipping trains again. Frowning slightly up at her. “Loki. I don’t think he wanted that.”
She screwed her eyes shut. Breathing again, but for a different reason now. Good god, but Tony could be so frustrating. “Tony,” she said, warningly. “That was a moment, Tony.”
He blinked, and grinned, sheepishly. Waving a hand aimlessly for a second. “Um. What percent of a moment?” And he laughed, he actually laughed, at her growl, and it was good sound, and he was still scared, so maybe she wouldn’t kill him. This once, maybe she wouldn’t kill him.
“What did he want, then?” she sighed, and finally shifted back off him. Nestled back in beside him, and set to mopping belatedly at her damp skirt. Tony blinked at her for a second, then shrugged, and sucked dried whiskey absently off his fingers. Pepper … just didn’t know what to do with him, sometimes.
“I don’t think he wanted that,” he said, after a pause. Distantly, mediatively. Pained and dark and figuring it out. She bit her lip, the thought of what ‘that’ was still scratching at her thoughts, and curled closer to him. “He was … he wanted, Pep. But not that. I said I’d kill him, said I’d fight him, and he liked it. He wanted it.”
Pepper felt the shudder roll through her. Allowed it. “That can be part of it,” she whispered, softly. Shakingly. “He could want that as part of it.”
Tony turned to her, looked back at her, and curled his arm warmingly around her. Shielding her, now, expression dark and rueful.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, tucking her close. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t …”
“No,” she said, quickly and firmly. “You should, you always should, we did this when you were dying, remember? You should always tell me. Even the bad things. You need to tell me.” She wasn’t going through that again. Finding out he’d almost died, too late to do anything, too late to even understand. She wasn’t doing that again.
He was silent, for a second. Then he nodded, and she felt her shoulders relax again.
“He wants me,” Tony said, quietly. “Not just … I mean, me. He wants me, and I challenged him, said if he wanted me, then he could court me, try to win me, and he …”
“You what?!” Pepper interrupted, straightening up all over again, staring down at him, aghast. “Tony, you what?”
“Um.” He put on the face, the placating, apologetic, no-really-this-is-actually-a-good-idea, listen-Pep-it’ll-work face. He put on the face, and she almost slapped it right back off. “It seemed like a good idea at the time?”
She gaped. She stared, mouth open, and he started talking, a mile a minute, he started trying to explain.
“I wanted to give him options,” he said, rapidly and pleadingly. “I wanted more options than ‘kill Stark’ or ‘rape Stark’ …” He stumbled, staggered over the word, over having actually said the word, and she stopped him. She put her hand over his mouth, until the white went away, until the flashing stab of pain went away, her pain in his eyes, and when she pulled it back, he was calmer. He was gentler. “I wanted to give him more options, but he … You didn’t see him, Pepper. He didn’t believe me. He asked if he would have a chance, and you could tell he thought I was an idiot for even trying to pull that one, for even suggesting he could have something by fair means, that anyone would … would let him ...”
“He might have a point,” she said, clipped and hard, but she saw it. She was looking at Tony, and she saw it. That dark pain, that knew what it was to ask: can I be enough? She saw the sympathy, the real, dark empathy, and it scared her. It silenced her.
“I kissed him,” Tony told her. Soft and flinching, ashamed. Cheating, he thought, she could see it, the flinch away from her eyes. “I kissed him, and I’m sorry, Pep, I’m so sorry, but …”
“Why?” she asked him. Her mind was blank. No. Not really. The thoughts were there, the knowledge was there, the understanding, even, but it wasn’t surface, not yet. She couldn’t let it, yet. She would feel in a minute. She would feel in a second. “Tony,” she said, very, very gently. “You need to tell me why.”
He looked at her. He swallowed, and looked at her, and god, he could be scared for her, couldn’t he. He could be terrified, and so brave, all for her. Because she’d asked him to tell her, and he would.
“Because I wanted to,” he said, and it was grave, and guilty, and unflinching. “Because he asked, and I saw, and I wanted to.” He tried to smile, that weird little lift at the corner of his mouth, and dipped his head. “I wanted to challenge him,” he said. “I wanted to fight him. I wanted him, and wanted him to want me, and if was going to kill me, I wanted him to know what he was killing first. And that … I don’t know, Pep, I’m sorry, I don’t know …”
“I do,” she said. And she did. She knew. Tony wanted to fly, and Tony wanted to fight, and Tony wanted to be the best, but more, more than anything, Tony wanted to be wanted. He wanted to love, and be loved, and give, and be given, and challenge, and be challenged. Hungry, desperate, powerful, scared. Tony wanted so hard it hurt him, and would carve his heart out of his own chest to give to you, when the wanting was that much. She knew that. Pepper knew that.
“I love you,” he said, desperately. Reaching out to catch her hand, to hold it in his, pressed to her knee. “I love you,” he said, and he meant it, she knew how much he meant it. Carved up from the bottom of his heart.
“I know,” she said. “I know.” And it was … oddly light. Not gentle. Not hurt. She looked at him, into his eyes, the thing that was scared of her, the thing that was honest with her, the thing that loved her. The thing that really, honestly, truly loved her. She looked at that.
And knew, with perfect clarity, what Loki had wanted. The heart in your hands. Trembling and honest and lost. The utter power of it, having that, holding that. So fragile a thing, so frail a thing, a gift so perilous. She knew what Loki had wanted.
“He was afraid of me,” Tony whispered. Soft and jagged, asking to be understood. “I kissed him, and I wanted him, and he could have killed him, could have taken me, and he was afraid. He asked permission to court me, he asked my permission, and I said yes, and … Pepper. I don’t know what to do. Please. Please don’t …”
“I won’t,” she said, and she was feeling, now, she was letting herself feel. There was anger. There was pain. There was love, helpless and heartsore. There was possessiveness. But not jealously. Not that. She knew too much, to feel that. “Tony,” she said, cupping his jaw, cradling his head. “Tony, look at me.”
And there. Dark eyes, bewildered and guilty and savage and loving. Desperate. Fierce. Hope and loss and pain, all tangled together, looking at her, for her. He looked at her.
“How do you court someone, if you mean it?” he asked, and he meant Loki, courting him, and he meant himself, courting her, and the older question, the deeper question, can it be enough? Please, please, tell me how to make it enough.
“Don’t say yes,” she told him, in answer to the older question. While he flinched, a little, between her hands. A perilous, dangerous thing. “Don’t ever say yes, Tony, unless you mean it.” She smiled, gently, brushing hair from his forehead, and she meant him to Loki, and she meant her to him. Her promise, her gift, as terrible, as dangerous as his. “Don’t hurt him that way. You shouldn’t ever do that.”
“Pepper,” he said, and he’d been drinking. Dark and pained and desperate, waiting for her to come home, drinking the fear away. Trying to. “Pep …”
“You told me the truth,” she said, carefully pragmatic, carefully logical. “You promised me the truth. You should promise him the same. You should mean it.” She pulled him close, pulled his head gently to her. “Fight him if he hurts you. Kill him if he forces you. Challenge him, and fight him, and force the truth from him, if you have to. But don’t lie to him. Don’t ever say yes, unless you mean it.”
Hard. Uncompromising. But she was. They were. Her and Tony. From the beginning. She’d told him what he could have, and what he couldn’t. Told him that she wouldn’t be his toy, wouldn’t be his PA just to be looked at. She’d told him that he had to listen to her, if he wanted her to stay. Told him she remembered that night, at the dance, where he’d almost kissed her, and then left, and he needed to do better. Told him when he’d had twelve percent of a moment, and how to have more. She’d told him she wouldn’t be lied to, left out, left unknowing when he was dying, and thought she didn’t need to know. She told him the truth, unvarnished and real.
And in return, his smiles for her were real. In return, when she laid down the line, he stepped over it, stepped through it, tried. All for her. He bought her strawberries, because he had no idea how to buy a gift, but at least understood he had to. He told her the truth, even when it scared him, because she asked him to.
And for that, because of that …
“And Tony,” she whispered, and it was soft, and her skirt was wet, and his hand was clutched in the back of her shirt. “If you do mean it, if you do want it … then say it. And mean it. And then, maybe … he will too.”
And she meant Loki. And she meant her.
He laughed. Cracked and broken, into her chest, his hand clutched tight above her shoulderblades. He laughed, dark and wet, and whispered softly. “Pepper. Can I court you?”
And she smiled, his head moving as her chest shuddered beneath it, and nodded, though he couldn’t see. “Yes,” she said, softly, holding him tight, and she meant it, she’d promised. “Yes, Tony, you can. And you can … you can court him too.”
She would kill Loki, if he hurt Tony. And she would kill Tony, if he screwed this up, if he got himself killed. But she’d promised, years ago now. When he came back from Afghanistan, that second time, with bullet holes. She promised him, and she made no promises she didn’t mean. She’d promised.
If they were going down, if he was going down, she was going with him. All the way down. For all the reasons why.
“Yes,” she told him, wild and fierce and honest, and mixed her gasping, shuddering laugh with his. “Tony. Yes.”
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