Finally, we get to the titular table, and I get to declare this story over. I tried to put some flirting in their conversation, but I just couldn't make it fit without making it seem forced...

Virginia Potts had been working for Tony Stark for two months today. All of her work could be categorized into two elements: The first and easier part of her job was arranging meeting and galas and press events for Mr. Stark and his company. This included answering phones, writing emails, keeping a calendar, negotiating times and dates (and sometimes prices), and responding to all of the many people after a piece of Tony Stark's time. The second, much more difficult and frustrating half of her job was something she affectionately referred to as 'Tony wrangling' (she never used these words in front of him, of course. She could very easily picture the sly smile and weeks of innuendo that would follow if she did). This part of her job included actually getting Mr. Stark to the events on the calendar, which meant she often had to wake him up, or pull him out of his lab, or convince him to play with hi AI later, or get him away from his newest girl-toy. Of course, he never submitted to any of it without a large dose of protest and he was almost always late, despite her best efforts. Over the last two months, however, Virginia had learned some tricks to get her boss to do the things he needed, and she had plenty of time to create and practice a variety of glares.

However crazy and frantic and frustrating running Tony Stark's hectic life was, though, she found she enjoyed it. Though Tony often acted more like a petulant child instead of the genius man he was, and though it seemed he sometimes went out of his way to irritate her, and though he flirted at her shamelessly (and sometimes very inappropriately), she found she didn't mind. She actually liked the way Tony was. She actually liked the way he would ask intentionally shocking questions and then watch carefully for her reaction (she became more and more immune to this over time). She liked the dry and often dirty jokes he shot at her, and she knew he liked her quick, sharp responses. She liked all the different things he could say with a smile ('ok, you win,' 'just try to get me to leave this lab,' and of course, the most common, 'that's what she said'), and all the things she could respond with one of her own ('I know I win,' 'I will get you upstairs and in a suit,' and 'I'm not acknowledging what you just said'). Working with Tony Stark was not by any means easy, but it was always interesting, and almost always enjoyable.

To better manage the second half of her job, Virginia had, like Tony, all but abandoned her office at Stark Industries to work in Tony Stark's very spacious home. This way, during her work hours, she was only ever a flight of stairs away (usually the flight connecting the first floor to Tony's garage/lab) from her boss. Her favorite workspace was Tony Stark's otherwise unused dining room table. He ate at kitchen counters, the sofa in the living room, in his lab, and sometimes walked around carrying his plate of food, but the man refused to sit at his own large, lovely, solid oak dining room table. Virginia loved the space. She could very easily fan out all the work she had to do and papers she needed to reference and set up her laptop.

Today was a day where she did just that. She was surrounded by the most recent test reports on some weapon Tony was building, and she was on the phone with Tony's old friend, Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, discussing a meeting Tony had with a few military supervisors that both the men would be attending tomorrow (if she could get Tony out of bed). Out of nowhere, Tony approached her, a bottle of champagne and two glasses in hand.

He smiled at her, it said, 'get off the phone, I have something to say.'

She rolled her eyes at him and smiled back, 'one second,' "Yes, I'll make sure he's there tomorrow," she said into her phone. "As on time as I can possibly make him be," she promised. "Pleasure speaking to you too, Colonel. Goodbye." She hung up the phone.

"Rhodey?" Tony asked.

"Yes, you have a meeting with him and–"

"You lost me at meeting," he said, sitting down for the first time Virginia had ever seen in one of the dining room chairs. "It's a special day, Pepperspray!"

"Did you just rhyme intentionally?" she asked, looking back down at her computer.

"Of course not!" he said, feigning hurt. She didn't look up. "Yes," he admitted. "It took me twenty minutes to come up with the perfect line. But it is a special day."

"And why is that?" she asked, flipping through some papers.

"Oh come on, stop working for a second, we're celebrating!" he complained.

She closed the folder she had in her hand and looked at him. "What exactly, are we celebrating, Mr. Stark? I have work to do."

"Grouch," he accused with his usual amused smile. "It's our two month anniversary!" he punctuated the sentence by popping the cork off the champagne.

Not long ago, Virginia would have been stunned into confused silence by his announcement. Now, though, she just raised one eyebrow at him. He just smiled at her, enjoying having confused her for the moment. Finally, she asked, "our what?"

"Two month anniversary!" he declared again. "You started working for me two months ago, and as of today, you have officially worked for me longer than any other PA I've ever had."

She sighed and shook her head. "Do you realize that that's actually sort of sad?"

"No. It's happy! Look, I even have champagne." As if she could have missed the champagne.

"I've told you already, Mr. Stark, I don't drink in the job," she reiterated.

"You ever gonna budge on that? I mean, I drink on the job all the time," he argued as he poured two glasses and extended one to her.

"Fine, the day I have your job, I'll take that champagne," she promised as she took the glass and immediately set it down on the table.

He over exaggerated a sigh. "Oh, Pepperspray," he said in mock disappointment. He took a sip of his champagne. "Pepper, Pepper, Pepperspray." He drank again, then stopped and fell into his 'concentration face,' as she'd started to call it when he was obviously lost in some thought.

"I like it," he declared.

"The champagne?" she asked, turning back to her work.

"No. Pepper. It's better. Pepperspray was too long. At least one syllable too long," he announced.

Practice be damned, she found herself astonished. "Did you just give my nickname a nickname?"

He smiled, proud that he finally surprised her again. "I did. And it's staying. Pepper Potts. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

She rolled her eyes at him. It did have a nice ring, but she would never admit that she thought so.

"You like it," he accused. He sat back in his chair smugly. "I can tell."

She sighed, and turned on her serious face before looking back to her boss. "Will that be all, Mr. Stark."

His smile said victory as he stood, gathering his glass and the bottle but leaving hers on the table. "That will be all, Miss Potts," he responded, but he didn't leave. He stood, staring at her still.

She sighed, "What, Tony?" she asked.

He suddenly grinned at her. "You called me Tony, Pepper."

She hadn't even realized that she had, but by the time she was ready to retort, he was already gone. So instead, she took a deep breath and dove back into her work.

Maybe she could get used to being called Pepper.

So there we have it, what was originally just going to be a cutesy, funny oneshot turned into this sort of Pepper Potts origin story. For the record, how pepper got hired and how she got her nickname are both canonically accurate.

Like I said above, I'd wanted to put in some flirting between them (more like Tony flirting at Pepper than flirting between them, but still), but I the way I have Pepper and Tony here, flirting would probably just get her annoyed and/or defensive immediately, and in this story I imagine Tony had wanted to tease Pepper a bit, but not get her to shut down to him right off the bat.

Maybe if some inspiration hits me I'll tack on another chapter to this with some meaningless flirting, though I think it would have to happen further into their working relationship...