Only Two

"Tony, you need someone to help you with all this."

He doesn't even look over. "Completely untrue, we can cancel it."

Obadiah Stane raises his eyebrows. "Cancel all of them?"

Tony waves a hand vaguely. "Sure. We'll take a break – go to France or something. You know, in France –"

"Tony. You can't cancel a weeks' worth of imperative appointments for…France."

"Sir, I regret to inform you Mr. Stane is correct."

"Traitor," he mouths at the ceiling. "Fine. A temporary assistant."

"She could be cute," Stane tries again.

He smirks. "A very temporary assistant."

But he doesn't want a very temporary assistant.

He wants someone like her.

This wouldn't have been her first choice, admittedly. It might be everyone else's dream, but the only reason she's outside the office at four o'clock sharp gripping her handbag for dear life is that she's looking for work and Stark has a reputation.

She was never one to let something like this slip by, and Stark's business is despicable enough as it is.

She won't be one of them. She's not someone who'll stand down easily. The fact that her name is Pepper and not Virginia on the card she's holding is proof of that.

And at five past four, she's still waiting.

Four-fifteen.

Four-twenty.

Four-thirty-five.

Pepper's not someone who'll give up easily either.

She takes out a Post-It and writes "Tomorrow, four o'clock. Ms. Potts" on it and sticks it to Stark's desk. She's at the door, head high, about to leave when a wave of noise, chaos and charm rushes into the room.

Pepper looks back.

"I told Obie already, Happy, he just won't listen, the time it's taking to get a secretary isn't worth the time it'll save, and she probably left anyway –"

She clears her throat. "Mr. Stark."

He turns around and throws up his hands. "Ms. …?"

"Potts." She lifts her chin. "Pepper Potts."

Stark sits, or flings himself back into the nearest chair, at least.

She wasn't on the list.

"That's great. Mind if I call you Pepper?"

"Mr. Stark."

"Listening."

"A couple days ago I noticed a small error in the calculations of the weapons delivered to the troops in Afghanistan."

He raises dark eyebrows.

"I realize that with your universally accepted genius and billionaire status, this may be difficult to understand –"

Breath.

" – but it would appear that less explosives were shipped to the Middle East than were accounted for at base." Pepper takes another breath.

Stark grins at her. "So, do you just do this on a day-to-day basis? Going around to all the major companies and telling them about the stupid things they've done? Cause I could pay you to go over by Hammer Tech." He smirks. "Among other things."

She pointedly ignores his last sentence and shakes her head. "No, I do not "go around to all the major companies" and "tell them about the stupid things they've done", although the error was quite frankly inexcusable, and no, I will not go to Hammer Tech to irritate them on your behalf, especially because I am leaving right now."

She gets up. He plucks the Post-It from the desk and gazes at it from under raised eyebrows. The words are sudden.

"You're hired."

"I wasn't aware that a position was being offered."

Again, the charming, crooked grin, the hands tossed up carelessly. "What can I say, life is full of surprises. Want a drink?"

There's that part of her that says he's just trying to bribe her into not telling the world about his mistake, that she knows the Stark-related scandals in the paper occur at least once a week without fail, and why did she get herself involved in this in the first place?

But then, there's the other half. The half that wonders why genius Tony Stark hasn't verified her information. Why genius Tony Stark would possibly make such an obvious error in the first place.

Later, she thinks it was because he wanted somebody he could trust.

"So are we, you know, together?"

Pepper stares into his chocolate-brown eyes. "Not yet. We're together if you promise me two things."

"Only two?" Tony smirks and spreads his arms. "Fire away."

"One, you're going to tell me what happened in Afghanistan." She pushes back the choked feeling in her throat. "All of it."

"I told you all of it, Pep." He ticks them off on his fingers. "Demo, kidnap, missile, Iron Man."

She can feel the heat rise to her face and touches her cheek. Yes, she's blushing. "That's not true. There was a video, in Ob- Stane's files – you looked really bad –"

Pepper watches Tony go pale. The emotion torn from his eyes can only be described as pain.

"They sent him the footage," he breathes, then: "Son of a bitch."

Silently, she nods, putting herself back together. The image horrifies her: Obadiah Stane, friend and father figure, smiling over footage of Tony being threatened while she gulped lattes and listened to Enya and put off job hunting as long as she could.

"You didn't look through his files," she says.

He shrugs, still manages the lighthearted façade. "Course not, I'm terrified."

Pepper breathes out slowly, her smile one of relief. The other Tony hurts to look at.

"Did you watch it?"

"Some people would call that an invasion of privacy, Mr. Stark."

Tony raises his eyebrows, then shakes his head. "Nah, you didn't. If you had I'd be at a psychiatrist or something."

"I didn't," she says, "because I want to hear it from you."

He grimaces. "Yeah, whatever. Onto thing two."

Swallowing, Pepper looks up. "If you ever think – know – you're going to die, you have to tell me. You can't just try," her voice is rising, "you have to tell me, because I may be the only one you've got but I have people I can go to and things I can do and I can get over it if I just know –" she breaks off " – and that is the deal."

Tony's eyes are wide, but he nods. "Deal."

Pepper pulls up a smile. "Is that all, Mr. Stark?"

"That will be all, Ms. Potts."

It's been two weeks from their conversation and she thinks he's not going to tell her, as a matter of fact she's completely sure and has almost forgotten, when he comes up from the lab one morning balancing a coffee, a laptop, and a bag of potato chips in his arms and looking like he hasn't slept in the past five days. Which he may not have. He spends forever in the lab and Pepper really doesn't have a clue.

Tony drops into a chair opposite her and starts entering codes. Pepper waits. More typing. Pepper sighs. He clicks enter and turns the computer around.

It's the video.

She doesn't want to see this. She really doesn't want to see this.

He's saying something. " – lucky for you they trimmed it, figures Obie wouldn't want to sit through three months of boring old me." Tony points to the screen she's sitting behind, rigid and very afraid, going on about tracing the feed to Stane, cameras and his brilliance, but she's not really listening. She presses "Play" and feels his eyes on her, holds on to the knowledge that he's staring at her face, waiting for her reaction. That he needs her acceptance, her endurance like a drowning man needs air.

I refuse.

She closes her eyes and opens them again, this time looking at Tony.

He looks back at her.

– extraordinary heroics of the group known as The Avengers –

Pepper can't stop watching.

And it's Tony. She sees him flying straight up, towards the portal, and she thinks "What the hell is he doing" and she's getting a call but she can't deal with work right now, she just wants to tell Tony he's going to be alright and he doesn't have to do this –

"One missed call: Tony Stark."

The horror hits her before the realization.

This was their deal.

She only asked two things from Tony, and he was going to tell her. No omelets, no strawberries, no nothing. He was calling her while he flew into an alien portal with a nuclear bomb, and his line's dead and she can't answer.

The irony, the "famous Pepper Potts", the neat, responsible worker, fails the only man she'll ever love.

That's right.

She loves Tony.

If you ever think – know – you're going to die, you have to tell me, because I may be the only one you've got but I have people I can go to and things I can do and I can get over it if I just know.

"Sir, should I try Ms. Potts?"

It was their deal.

"Might as well."

It would be nice to see her picture before he dies – sort of like seeing her.

Dialing.

Besides, he loves her.

The line disconnects. The holograms in front of his eyes shake and go black.

That's right.

He loves Pepper.