Title: Operations of the Heart
Author: fading_tales
Pairing: Tony/Pepper (Iron Man)
Disclaimer: I do not own Iron Man or any of their characters.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: What do you do when you think you just lost your chance at true love? You self-destruct.

I.

For the longest time they've been doing a little dance. Flirtation on his part, carefully worded replies on hers. They straddled the thin line between friendship and something a little more. Truth be told it's his fault. He has never really told her how much she really meant to him. Flirting doesn't count since he does that with everyone. But she knew. He was sure of it. Nevertheless "I love you's" were never exchanged. He felt it, God how he felt it. But again, such sentiments were never actually said in so many words.

He wasn't surprised when Hammer started talking to her more than business would require them. He assumed the bastard was just trying to poach his recently promoted business partner. It wouldn't be the first time. He was more shocked when one night he ran into them at Geoffrey's, obviously in the middle of a date.

"Well, looky here. Tony Stark."

"Justin. How are you?"

"Marvelous. I'm having dinner with your remarkable partner."

Pepper hasn't looked him once in the eye since he's approached their table.

"I see that."

The sting of betrayal made the blood in his veins run cold.

"Well, we better get back to our dinner."

"Yes… I guess you should."

She finally spares him one glance and a forced smile.

"See you tomorrow, Tony."

"Yes, Miss Potts. I'll see you tomorrow," he replies with what might seem to other as nonchalance, but to her well trained ears, it was hurt.

She always did know him best. He guesses that probably why she has such good aim at breaking his heart.

The next day they go back to work and pretend that nothing ever happened.

What she does on her own time is none of his business. But soon the sight of the two of them became a frequent appearance and the media hound quickly catches the scent of corporate scandal.

He bursts into her office one morning after reading the latest tabloids on their controversial affair.

"Are you insane? He's our biggest rival!"

"Tony-"

"I was going to let it go because it's your personal life and I don't have any right-"

"It is my personal life and no, you do not have any right to meddle."

"You're my CEO, Potts. And you're canoodling with the head of my biggest competitor. That makes it my business."

"Have you taken a look at our stocks lately? It's gone up at least 10%. If anything it's helping you business. And besides, you're not in the military defense business anymore so he's not your rival."

It's true. Although the immediate reaction was mixed, Stark Industries have been getting a lot of good free press since they've been dating. You'd think it was the opposite, but the charismatic Justin Hammer spins stories well. Hammer Industries take on new "green" innovations and at the press conference Hammer attributes the change to being "inspired."

"It's hard not to be when you're in the presence of someone as wonderful as the lovely Miss Potts," Hammer smarms.

The media eats it up. Tony suppresses a gag.

Pepper is handling it all very well and the board has actually been supporting the pairing. It seems like the only person not sold on the couple is him.

"So you're going to continue on seeing him."

"Look, Tony. It's not interfering with my job and it's not hurting the business. So… yes. I'm going to keep on seeing him."

He leaves slamming the door behind him.

---

Pepper stays true to her words. He continues to read about the couple in magazine articles, see them get featured on talk shows. He's even been pulled into the mess and has been asked on more than one occasion what he thought about his CEO and his business rival colleague being together. Every single time he answers, "No comment" and then goes to pour himself a glass of scotch.

---

One night after a particularly large drink, or several large drinks, she finds him sprawled on the grease-stained couch in his workshop.

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with Hammer having a moonlit dinner on the beach or something?"

"Justin doesn't like getting sand in his shoes."

Tony laughs a painful laugh. She was still in so many ways his Pepper. But then he remembers that she was never his to begin with.

"Tony, how much have you had to drink?" she asks concerned at the sight of the many empty bottles lying around his feet.

"Not much…" Not nearly enough to numb the pain in his heart at the sight of her. It was worse that that time Obadiah pulled out the arc reactor that kept metal shrapnel from piercing his heart. He'd gladly take Obadiah's betrayal over hers.

She begins to ceremoniously pick up the abandoned bottles and tidying up his workspace area. It's a familiar gesture and reminds him all the more of what he's lost.

"Stop."

She ignores him and continues to neatly pile up some of the drafts he drew for the new suit.

"I said STOP!"

He rips the paper from her hands startling her with his sudden rage.

"I told you to stop," he says, this time more quietly.

She doesn't answer him and merely stare back at him with those big blue eyes of hers.

"You need to stop. Stop seeing him."

"Why?"

"You know why, Potts."

She looks away from him.

"Stop seeing him," he repeats.

"Tony, I-"

He doesn't let her make her excuses. He efficiently silences those hurtful, tantalizing lips with his own.

She kisses him back and he's just so goddamn happy he almost thinks the excruciating agony of the past few months was worth it.

She should've listened to him the first time when he told her stop. The stacks of paper she so carefully piled on his desk are brusquely swept onto the floor when he grabs her by the waist and hoists her up on the table. He hasn't shaven and the feel of his 5 o'clock shadow rubbing against her smooth skin is a kind of masochistically good pain. The clothes that lay as barriers between them are quickly dealt with and they never pause long enough for her head to clear or for second thoughts to form. It's the first time he's felt like the world made sense.

---

He wakes up with her gone and she calls in sick the next day. He fights the urge the go looking for her, but he realizes maybe she needs her space right now. A few hours later he thinks twice and decides she's have enough "space" already from the last few months. He grabs his jacket and is on his way out the door when he finds Rhodey blocking the doorway.

"Have you seen the news?"

"What news? I've been in my workshop all day."

Rhodey has on a look that he only wear when great impending doom is near and Tony is afraid that perhaps WWIII has just been declared and he'd missed it.

"What's going on, Rhodey? Is there another terrorist attack or something?"

Images of horrific battle zone image fill his head. Innocent civilians scattering about, bullets flying through the air. The smell of burnt flesh and sulfur clinging to his nostrils. These were the things Tony was ready for. He could get in his suit in two minutes flat and be on his way halfway across the world in another ten.

"It's about Pepper."

Rhodey's words hit him harder than any nuclear missile head could. Images of war torn villages are replaced with an even more horrific mental visual.

"What's wrong with Pepper?! What happened? Is she okay?!"

A million questions spilled from his lips. His heart hammering away at his chest. Panic causes the arc reactor to turn hot from his increasing pulse rate.

"No, no. It's nothing like that."

A feeling of relief washes over him momentarily, but he could tell there was more to the story.

"Then what? Spit it out."

Rhodey hesitates for a few seconds before ripping out his already damaged heart.

"Hammer just proposed."

---

He doesn't wait for the colonel to fill him in on the details. He gets in the fastest car he has and in ten seconds flat he's recklessly racing down the road. He would have taken the suit, but he knew how she felt and thought of when she was the suit. He didn't want any more cons about him, about them to be added to the list when he goes to talk her out of accepting Hammer's ill-timed proposal. He stops in front of her apartment, barges his way through the lobby and is almost at her room when he sees none other than Justin Hammer himself, beating him to the punch.

"So what are you going to do Pepper?" Hammer asks. "You haven't answered my question yet."

She's standing right inside the doorway and so he only sees Hammer's side profile, but it's her voice alright.

"Are you serious?" he hears Pepper say.

"You know I don't like to play games," Hammer replies with a smirk.

The smarmy bastard.

"I need to think about it…"

"Time is money, Pepper. You know that. What's there to think about? Stop trying to stall. Tell me… what's it going to be?"

A pause in the conversation gives him the opportunity to show himself. Before he could clear his throat, cough obnoxiously or make some other noisy indication that he was present, a single syllable resounds from inside Pepper's apartment and he stops short.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

Yes? Tony's heart is beating way too hard for it to be normal. He reasons that's what is interfering with his hearing because she couldn't have possibly said what he just heard her say.

"Yes… I'll marry you, Justin," Pepper's voice answers simply.

He turns around and leaves before he gets to witness the victorious, arrogant grin spread across Justin Hammer's face.

---

They could have been amazing.

Tear down the walls, kick open the doors. Burn the city to the ground. Paint it all red and crimson like. That kind of spectacular.

He sees her through the clear glass walls of her office, her back to the door, busy looking through some paperwork on her desk. He silently dismisses her assistant, who quickly and discreetly leaves for an early lunch break.

"What are you doing, Potts?"

Her back stiffens at the sound of his voice and she pauses in her ministrations, but quickly recovers and returns to her task.

"I'm getting ready some paperwork for tomorrow before the party," she answers nonchalantly.

The engagement party was announced just yesterday. He had burnt his invitation with a metal blow torch.

"You know that's not what I'm talking about."

She sighs and calmly states, "I'm going to get engaged. And I'm going to get married."

She doesn't ever turn around from sorting the paperwork on her desk to face him.

"Why?"

"Because that's the plan."

Fuck the plan. Didn't she know? They could have been amazing.

"Why?" he repeats as if he was a record she had broken.

"Because… he loves me."

If its love she wants he has more than enough of it. More than more than enough. He's fucking drowning in it, suffocating from it. Can't breathe a single breath when she walks into the room.

She finally turns around to face him. She looks more tired than usual and the large diamond on her ring finger taunts at him as it twinkles in the early evening light.

"I have an appointment to attend to now. I'll see you later, Tony. Don't forget about that meeting on Tuesday."

She gathers up all her oh so important files and documents and without another word, leaves. It all end as abruptly as it started and he has no idea what to do with himself.

They could have been amazing. But they weren't. The walls remain in an upright position. The doors firmly closed. The city isn't on fire. And the only red thing is the memory of those perfectly painted fingernails of hers trailing down his back. Only a memory. They could have been fucking amazing. But they weren't. There's no spectacle here unless that of a broken man.