Notes: For the trope bingo square food and cooking. Title and opening quote from Virginia Hamilton Adair's Red Camellias. For A. Not mine, no profit garnered. Post Civil War.

but waking in our window
the lawn green through red & white
camellias, I know neverness.
It was a dream. Nine years
since you saw the sun rise, gold spill
through leaves, over lawns. My face
has grown old, knees stiffen
making ridiculous my love
of racing barefoot.

"I got you tickets to Hamilton," Tony said, handing them over to Pepper.

"I've already seen it," she said, taking the tickets. "Twice. Once in better seats than this."

"So you liked it enough to see it multiple times," Tony said. "Who are you going to Broadway plays with? Not that I'm jealous, we were on a break."

"We are still, sort of," Pepper said. "I was given tickets and I took Rhodey because I knew he wanted to see it. And then I got tickets and took Jane because she was sad about her breakup -"

"Being dumped by a demi-god is usually cured by men dressed in the best colonial American fashion," Tony said. "But this time I am bringing you. I bought these for you and I am taking you."

"They are good seats," she said, smiling.

"Backstage afterwards, too," Tony said.

"I did that with Rhodey," Pepper said. "They were all dying to meet him."

"So you're willing to come, sit by my side?" He smiled, coaxing, begging, every iota of charm he had she might respond to.

"Sure," she said. She had a smile he could call gentle and try not to read into.

They went that night and he watched her out of the corner of his eye or just straight on for the entire performance. At the intermission, he said, "How about dinner after?"

"Which restaurant are you taking me to?" She was still smiling as she said it.

"No restaurant, I can cook. I am ready to cook for you. It will not be delivery or take out or secretly prepared by a real chef. You can watch me cook the whole thing," Tony said. "Not at all, I did some of the prep beforehand. But you can trust me, I did the prep."

"I can't wait," Pepper said and when Tony looked over she seemed very sincere.

They actually walked in silence that wasn't overly uncomfortable until they got to the Tower. "This one has your name on it," Tony said.

"On the lease," Pepper said, smiling. "Even after we went on our break."

"A promise is a promise. Also, I'd do a lot of things to get you in the same room with me when you're happy. I want you to associate me with happiness," Tony said. "Not whatever it is you associate with me now."

"Happiness," Pepper said. "Love. A lot of things, Tony." She even took his hand.

"But still you needed to take a break," Tony said. She predictably dropped his hand. "We should be able to talk about the big break. I mean, I feel like this is an important topic."

"We talked about it, Tony, it wasn't just something I invented one day," Pepper said. "We had reasons."

"You had reasons," Tony said. "No, I'm sorry, you're right, we had reasons. But maybe they were bad reasons."

"They really weren't," Pepper said.

"But reasons that are still subject to be unreasoned," Tony said. "So I am going to cook for you. I did some of the prep beforehand, but I am going to cook."

He made potato kugel and roast beef.

"This feels very New York," Pepper said.

"Is that your subtle way of saying 'Jewish?' I learned it from Jarvis, the person Jarvis, his wife Anna. They were old when I was born, but that lady was, Anna loved to cook, she was always nice to me. I found out later, long after it would have made a difference, that my dad got every single one of her relatives he could find after the War over to America, got them all jobs. Just a day in the life of Howard Stark who never really felt like sharing that part of himself with me," Tony said.

"Maybe he was concerned you would make it all about your issues," Pepper said, smiling.

"Ha," Tony said, smiling back at her. "I just mean, I wish things had been different and I had known him better. Captain America probably knew my dad better than I ever did."

"Because we show our children so much of ourselves," Pepper said. "Is that how you plan to parent?"

"I don't plan to parent," Tony said. "Do you want to parent? I would parent with you."

"Maybe I want to parent," Pepper said, pushing potato kugel around her plate. "But I'm not sure I approve of letting every single thing hang out as a style of parenting."

"Not every little thing, but maybe let the tyke know that you were a good guy, say nice things to him," Tony said.

"Teach him to cook," Pepper said. "Why don't we ever talk about my daddy issues?"

"I would love to," Tony said. "I mean that sincerely."

"I don't really have any," Pepper said. "He was just a really nice guy."

"Do you have mommy issues?"

"She was a handful," Pepper said. "She taught 2nd grade and the farther I got away from 2nd grade, the more confusing she found me. But it stopped bothering me when I was about 15, because you know, she loved me and she loved her work."

"Grandmother issues? Grandfather issues?"

"Mostly, I've just had some tragically bad boyfriends," Pepper said.

"Present company included, I assume," Tony said. "I can be better."

"I didn't know you could cook," Pepper said. "This roast beef is really good, actually."

"Thank you, Anna Jarvis," Tony said. "How do you feel about sex? Make up sex? Friendly ex sex?"

Pepper grinned. "I like sex. I like sex with you. No commitment, but tonight, definitely."

"Which cast member of Hamilton will you be picturing me as?"

"Angelica," Pepper said.

"That is super hot. Let's get to this sex right now," Tony said.

The sheets were the highest thread count man could buy but the delicate skin of Pepper's thighs was still softer. He dug his fingers into her butt, then pushed two, then three fingers inside her. She said, "That's good, that's good."

He wasn't about to take his tongue off her clit to say something witty. She was wet, her thighs moving without intention as he was basically driving her wild. He looked up from between her legs and said, "More?"

"Yes," she said, gasping. "Thanks for asking."

He pushed his hand into her and she rocked up and down, moaning. He brought his mouth back to her clit while he fisted her until she came and laid there trembling. He stood up and took off his glove, tossed into one of the trashcans. "Actually compostable," he said. "Safe sex doesn't have to mean plastic piles floating in the ocean."

"You're very articulate for someone so hard," she said.

He kneeled between her legs. He tugged a little at his dick. He said, "Where do you want me to put it?"

She laughed. "Mouth," she said.

He put on one of his own condoms and she took a glove. He said, "No fisting me, tonight, honey, just, you know, a little funsies."

She was, as always, amazing and it was one of his top 10 orgasms, at least for the past year and he and Pepper had had some great sex while they were deciding to take a break. "Now I'm exhausted," he said.

"Mmm, hmm," Pepper said, wrapping herself in one of the super soft sheets.

"Make some room in the burrito for me," Tony said.

"If you make me," Pepper said.

He fiddled with his phone to make sure he wouldn't miss anything slightly less important than Pepper. He double checked that he could whip out the Iron Man hand if necessary because he never slept unless he did that.

He woke up when the alarm went off. The bad alarm. "Pepper, get in the safe room."

Her eyes were wide. "Which one?" She wrapped the sheet completely around her.

"The one under the bed," Tony said, rolling out of bed naked and pulling the bed 2 feet to the left. The panel under where the bed had been lowered and Pepper lowered herself down. The floor closed up again and Tony pushed the bed back.

"Suit, please and what exactly set off that alarm?"

"Drones, boss, nasty ones," Friday said as the spare suit he kept here flew out to him. Naked Iron Maning was a fantastically awkward and sure to be painful job. He wished he'd had time to at least find his underwear but then the window broke open in a burst of glass. The expensive protective glass Tony had had installed in every single room Pepper might possibly be in was not so protective, apparently. He noticed that it broke in large chunks, one of which embedded itself on Pepper's former side of the bed.

The drones were naturally armed with lasers and force pulses and probably had spikes that would pop up if you tried to touch them but the design didn't immediately scream any particular bad guy Tony could think of. He said, "Reinforcements would be great, thanks."

"Alarm already sent," Friday noted with a hint of asperity.

Vision showed up and in a half hour between only the two of them since no one else wanted to help as far as Tony could see, they had run the drones back to the sewer they had literally risen from. Vision said he would follow to the source. "Then call the other Avengers," Tony said. A half hour with no clothes on in the suit was 30 minutes too long.

He got Pepper out of the safe room, trying to knock "Alexander Hamilton" as the sign it was him. She didn't get it. He was worried helping her up, wasn't this one of their issues? But she smiled and said, "You took care of it, right?"

"Yup," Tony said. "And Vision, the only other, well, not person, the only other one to show."

Pepper nodded. "It's not personal." Tony was pretty sure it actually was personal, no matter how much he spent to clear records and get people back to their lives and saving the Earth, he was still the bad guy. The accords were working much better than anticipated and everything had been straightened out, but hey.

He shed the suit and winced as half the hair he had on his body went with it. Hair in very delicate places. He pulled on his underwear and said, "That suit needs cleaning."

"Don't need to know that," Pepper said. They were already in the private elevator. This building only had three floors that were personal; the top one for Pepper and the bottom two underground. Everything else was actual offices for the people Pepper kept in line running Tony's company.

The very bottom floor was oddly peaceful and not as dank as Tony as always expected. Pepper held out her hand and dropped her sheet. "Get in this bed, loser."

"You're not mad at me?"

"I'm not an asshole," she says. "You can't stop being you."

"This is me," he says. "In a suit depilated state. Or with the suit on." His voice was cautious, uptalk constant in everything he said now that maybe he would get what he wanted.

"That's not the problem," Pepper said sighing. "It's not."

"I thought it was," he said.

"Do you think I like thinking about you going up in that wormhole and falling back to earth? Do you think I can take that forever? Every time you put that thing on," she said. "It's hard for me. It's girly, right, the girlfriend who can't take your dangerous job, the girl in every movie saying 'don't do it, don't do it, come home safe.'"

"I don't think of you that way," he said. "I think, someone cares if I come home, I have to get home because she is waiting for me. Doing other things, of course, running a company, taking sad astrophysicists to plays, but I just want to be done and play in a lab and make things for you to make money on."

"That glove is going to be a winner," she said, smiling.

"From earlier? Absolutely," he said. "It'll need FDA testing, I'll have to see if we can volunteer."

"No," she said, pulling him onto the bed. "But more company testing. Tomorrow morning."

"I'll take it," he said. "Tomorrow and next week, etc."

"Etc," she said, smiling against his shoulder.