Chapter Text
Author's Note:
- This story was in part inspired by the fic “Exposed” by imgoingtocrash. It was a short fic about Tony and Pepper being soulmates, but Pepper had been the first to realize because she’d shared a nightmare Tony had had about the cave in Afghanistan. It was a cool fic, you should read it. It gave me the inspiration to write this fic.
- What you’re in for: Lots of angst and Tony being a hot mess. I like writing about people that are a hot mess. While this is a ‘romantic soulmate AU’ there’s not much romance, and there’s no funny business. The 'mature' rating of the fic is for the things Tony experiences in the cave in Afghanistan.
- Warnings: Alcohol/drugs/carousing as portrayed in the Iron Man movies, nightmares, PTSD, torture as portrayed in Iron Man 1, Yinsen dies like in the movie, mentions of Howard’s A+ parenting. Be safe friends. There’s a few instances of cursing in case you care.
- The main songs I listened to while writing this: I Found by Amber Run, Hate To Be Lame by Lizzy McAlpine and Finneas.
ONE - Hallowed But Hesitated, Shallow But Full In All Your Veins
Tony doesn’t handle loss well. He doesn’t imagine that anyone does, but Rhodey tells him whenever he’s faced with loss that he’s pretty bad at it. Tony knows he is. He’s terrible at a lot of things.
He’s terrible at making friends. The only reason Rhodey has stuck with him all these years is because he feels responsible for him, and has since he got stuck with Tony as a roommate in college. Tony thinks if he hadn’t been so young… just 15, that Rhodey might have asked to change rooms and ignored him. He’s always been difficult to deal with, he knows that. Rhodey reminds him frequently that he’s a pain in the ass, even if he does it jokingly. Howard always thought so too. Tony thinks his mother had also always been disappointed in him. She’d kept her distance from him as a child. She’d never been cruel, her words never cutting, but the cold indifference she’d given him… her cool dismissal of his presence had always cut him deeply anyway. He hated Howard, but at least Howard’s disappointment in him was expressed in a way that hurt less. Howard had been all fists and angry words, and telling Tony what a fuck up he is. Those things had hurt, but never so much as his mother’s blank stares and the way she’d pass through a room, ignoring him like he didn’t even exist.
So yeah. He’s a pain in the ass. He knows he is. Everyone thinks so.
And yeah, he’s pretty bad at getting people to like him. It’s the reason most of the students in college had hated his guts, with the exception of Rhodey. It’s the reason the press has always been critical of him and his life choices. He’s never really had anyone aside from those who feel responsible for him. Like Rhodey… like Obadiah.
He doesn’t have people in his life that care about him, not really, so he doesn’t know why he handles loss so poorly. He shouldn’t feel the absence of people that were never really there to begin with. He shouldn’t feel like his life is less without them there.
After Howard and Maria die, he feels the loss though. He feels it seep into his bones like a darkness that’s sweeping him up and swallowing him whole. Obadiah and Rhodey shoot him worried looks when they see him, but he’s not sure it’s because they care. It’s because they feel responsible for him. Rhodey because he has been since Tony was 15, and Obadiah because he’s got a lot to lose if Tony falls too far from grace and tanks the company stocks.
He’s bad at loss, like he’s bad at a lot of things. In the end, Rhodey picks him up, though Tony isn’t sure how. He pulls him out of the gaping maw that is the void Howard and Maria have always left in his chest. Obadiah takes care of the company and tells Tony to get away for a while… to go on vacation and clear his head. Because he’s still young, and because he feels adrift, he does as he’s told. He goes to Florida, and then to France, and then to a never ending list of resorts and other party destinations where a little of Howard’s money goes a long way when it comes to buying alcohol and impressing pretty women. People flock to him, not because he’s likeable, but because he rents yachts and drives flashy cars and throws money around like it’s just pieces of paper, because to Tony that’s all money really is.
This is who he is now. He tries to grow comfortable with it… to settle into the emptiness and accept the fact that any friends he’ll have in the future will be friends he buys.
All the money in the world can’t buy happiness though, despite that Howard had thought it could. All it buys him is loneliness. He feels the loss of friends that were never there, and occasionally Rhodey has to come drag him back out of the depths again.
Obadiah runs the company, and Tony drowns in money he throws away, and Rhodey feels responsible for him. That’s how it goes, and Tony doesn’t see that that will ever change.
* * *
Happy comes into Tony’s life one night in a flash of bright lights, screeching tires, and the happy confusion Tony only finds when he’s in a drunken haze. The hulking man tackles him to the ground, saving his life as a car races away. He almost died and Tony doesn’t even care… doesn’t realize the danger he was in.
“Hey, holy shit, are you ok?” the man asks. “You just stepped out into the street and didn’t even look!” He’s breathless and upset and angry, and Tony doesn’t even know his name yet.
“Yup,” he says with a smile, lying there on his back on the sidewalk. He blinks up at the clear sky, and stars wink back at him. “Wait,” he asks, “what did you ask?”
The man gets to his feet and then grabs Tony’s hand and arm and lifts him to his. Tony sways because the world is unsteady under his feet. “I asked if you’re ok. You stepped right out in front of a car!”
“I’m good…” Tony pats himself down. “Yup, I’m all here. A ok.”
“Right,” the man says, giving him a wary look. “Look, is there someone I can call? You’re wasted. You shouldn’t be out like this wandering around.”
“You can call the party police,” Tony slurs with a laugh. “I’m on my way to a party.”
The man frowns. “You look like you’re coming from a party.”
“Yup, big party, pretty girls.”
The man sighs, and asks Tony again, “Can I call someone for you? You want me to take you home? I don’t have a car, but I can call us a taxi.”
“Par-ty,” Tony reiterates slowly. He turns and points down the dark sidewalk, and then turns the other way. “Help me find it.”
“What’s your address?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know. Sorry buddy, you’re not my type.”
The man sighs. Tony can tell he’s not going to help him, so he stumbles away. “Thanks… for the whole… life saving thing. That’s a big deal… means a lot.” He holds his hand up over his heart and then twists away and walks down the sidewalk, leaving the man standing there in darkness, staring after him.
Tony gets a block and a half before he realizes he’s being followed by the man and turns and frowns. “If this is one of those deals where you follow me and then steal my organs, I have bad news for you, my liver is probably already shot.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” the man huffs.
“Also, it’s just kind of rude to steal my organs when we haven’t even been on one date, and you’re not a pretty woman either so… I think I’ll hang onto them.”
“I don’t want your organs,” he says, exasperated.
Tony points at the man’s face as he stumbles backwards down the sidewalk. He should be worried, he knows he should, but he isn’t. “You don’t even look happy to be making money off my organs. I definitely don’t want to give them to you.” It’s the alcohol, like it always is. It’s one of the reasons he drinks. If he drinks, he doesn’t care so much about the darkness that clings to his feet and ankles like it’s trying to trip him up. Sometimes, when he’s just on the verge of sobering up, he thinks about soulmates and how he isn’t destined to have one because he’s unlikeable… unlovable. He thinks about choosing his own soulmate and that soulmate being amber liquid that lets him roam around in a happy daze.
“I want to make sure you don’t walk out into the road again.”
“Why?” Tony asks, genuinely puzzled. “Don’t even know your name, big guy.”
“Harold Hogan.”
“Harold?” he asks. He finally trips after walking backwards for thirty feet, drunk and stumbling, and falls on his ass. He looks up at the big guy… at Harold. He points up at Harold’s face again. “You look so happy to be stuck looking after me.” That’s what this is, he realizes. The guy saved him and now he feels responsible for him… like Rhodey and Obadiah.
“Look, can I just get you a cab?” Harold pleads. His eyes look way more worried than they should given he doesn’t even know Tony’s name.
“Only if I can call you Happy.” It seems fitting. Harold is clearly not happy. Maybe he will be if Tony throws some money at him. He digs around in his pocket and comes out with a wad of folded bills. They’re all hundreds, held together with an expensive silver money clip. He holds the wad of money out towards Harold, but his fingers can’t hold onto it and he drops it at the guy’s feet. “Here, have some money for the cab. You can keep the rest. That’ll make you happy.”
Harold stares down at the wad of cash with a frown, looks around them in the darkness, and then stoops down quickly to pick it up. “Put that away. You’re going to get killed flashing that around,” he hisses. He presses the money back into Tony’s hands, but Tony doesn’t take it.
“Nuh uh, it’s yours, for the whole,” Tony waves his hand around drunkenly, “saving my life thing.”
Happy tucks the wad of bills into Tony’s sport coat pocket instead and then pulls him to his feet again. “I’m getting you a cab. You’re going to get killed out here by yourself.”
Tony makes his way back to lean on the wall of a business and watches as Harold flags down a cab. When one finally pulls over, Tony expects to be dumped into the back of it, where he’ll become the cab driver’s problem, but instead is confused to find that Harold gets into the back seat with him.
“Hey, whatever you do, don’t let him take me to some cheap motel. If he’s gonna steal my organs make it somewhere fancy,” Tony rambles to the cab driver. Harold only sighs.
“Do you know where he lives?”
The cab driver turns and looks in the back seat. “Him? You know who this is right?”
“Yeah,” Harold says, “which is why I’m asking.”
“Malibu somewhere. Lemme call in and ask, he’s a regular.” The cab driver reaches for his radio, but Tony sighs and lets his head loll back on the seat.
“Fine, we can go home,” he says, disappointed. He points at Happy and says, “You can’t come in though. I don’t have any knives sharp enough to dig out a kidney, and I’m not letting you carve it out with a spoon.”
“Would you let that drop already?”
“Sure Happy.”
“My name is Harold.”
“Happy it is then,” Tony says. He knows he’s getting under the man’s skin. That’s one of the few things he’s actually good at. He can’t get people to like him, but he’s a master at pushing people away. He knows he is, because he’d pushed his parents away as a child and everyone else that had come into his sphere since then. Eventually he’ll push Rhodey away too. Then it will just be him and Obadiah, and Obadiah can’t dump him, because he cares about Stark Industries too much.
Tony gives them his address, and then stares out the window of the cab into the darkness as he’s driven home. He gives Happy his wad of bills again to pay the cab driver, and then somehow gets up the steps into his house and gets himself to bed. He doesn’t really remember how after he wakes up later on. In the morning he wakes up in his dirty clothes with a hangover the size of LA and pats himself down, feeling for injuries. He has a vague recollection of being concerned about losing a kidney, but nothing else about the night before.
Tony rises, groans at the too bright light streaming in through the large windows in his bedroom, and then shuffles to the bathroom for a shower and some aspirin. It’s a ritual he’s familiar with. What comes next is always a breakfast made of whatever he can find in his fridge, which is never much, and then more aspirin and a nap. Sometimes Obadiah calls him into the office to sign some paperwork or make decisions that only he can make as the owner of this company he doesn’t care about and doesn’t want.
His regular hangover routine is interrupted by the doorbell. He wonders for a moment if it’s Obie, but doesn’t get up to answer the door. If it is Obie, JARVIS will let him in. He’s the only one aside from Rhodey that has access to his house.
The doorbell rings again, and then is followed up by knocking on the door. “JARVIS?” Tony groans, drinking a glass of water from his spot on the couch.
“There appears to be a large man outside holding your money clip.”
“My money clip?”
“Yes sir. He says his name is…” JARVIS pauses, probably because he’s questioning the visitor, and then comes back and says, “Happy.”
“Happy?”
“Yes sir, Happy Hogan.”
“What the hell kind of name is Happy?” Tony asks. He searches his mind for anything that might tell him who this guy is and why he has Tony’s money clip. Flashes of a late night cab ride, Tony lying on the sidewalk in the darkness, and a hulking man come back to him. Some of it is there, but most of it’s gone, like the memories of most of his nights out.
Tony groans and gets off the couch, making his way through the large living room and entry hall to the front door. He looks out the peephole to make sure the guy doesn’t have a knife or a gun. It’s just like JARVIS said though: Happy is standing there with Tony’s money clip, full of hundreds in his hand. He raises his hand to knock on the door again, but before he can, Tony hits the electronic button to unlock it and pulls it open, startling him.
Happy’s eyes sweep over Tony for a moment, and then he holds out his money clip. “You wouldn’t take this back last night after the cab ride.”
“Really, you sure you didn’t swipe that from me, Mr. Hogan?”
Happy frowns. “Positive,” he grounds out. He surprises Tony by grabbing his hand and then slapping the wad of bills into it. People don’t usually touch him unless he’s throwing money around. Now for some reason, his money is being returned to him.
Happy turns to go, but Tony calls out to him. “Hey, what happened last night?”
Happy pauses, turns around, and gives Tony a close looking over again. “You were drunk and stepped out in front of a car. I made sure you didn’t get hit and then followed you until you agreed to take a cab home. You gave me your address, I brought you back, and you gave me your money clip to pay the cab driver. Then you refused to take the money back and pushed me out the front door. Some bossy guy named JARVIS told me to be on my way and to have a good evening.” He points to the money still in Tony’s hand. “I came back to return that to you. Now I have.”
Before he can turn to leave again Tony asks, “Who names their kid Happy?”
Happy frowns at him and says, “You do.”
“What?”
“My name is Harold. You refused to call me anything but Happy.”
A little smile comes over Tony’s face. He must have liked the guy to give him a nickname. Despite the fact that there’s no one that likes Tony, there are plenty of people that he likes. His alcohol addled brain must have latched on to Happy for some reason.
“What do you do for a living Mr. Hogan?”
“I’m a boxer.”
“Yeah? Ever put any thought into a security gig?”
Happy gives him a wary look and straightens up. “Security?”
“Bodyguard, driving around rich assholes, that sort of thing. Keeping them out of trouble.”
Happy scoffs. “Right.”
“I’m being serious.”
He gives Tony an uncertain look. “No. I haven’t, uh… considered that.”
“Seems like you did a pretty good job keeping me out of trouble last night.”
“Hardly.”
Tony holds up the money clip. “Looks like you’re honest too. Anyone else would have left me for dead on the street, stolen my money and then sold my organs.”
“What is it with you and getting your organs stolen?”
Tony doesn’t answer him. Instead he says, “What do you say Mr. Hogan? Want to come work for me? Odd hours, lots of hassle, big payoff.”
“What exactly is it you want me to do?”
“A job description,” Tony says, thoughtful. His head is starting to pound. “Come to parties with me and make sure I get home safe and sound by the end of the night. I’ll pay $3,500 a month and health insurance. Sound good? Sound fair?”
Happy’s mouth is hanging open a little. Howard would call Tony foolish for letting someone come to work for him like this without a background check. Tony can’t help but feel that this guy has already had a trial by fire though. Besides, having him around will be better than Tony just stumbling drunk from party to party on his own. Right now he can’t even remember where he parked his car the night before. He thinks he left it in some rich neighborhood in Hollywood, but can’t remember which one.
“You’re really going to pay me to follow you around to parties?”
Tony tries to put on his best, most winning smile and nods. “Parties, here and elsewhere.” At Happy’s confused look Tony says, “Other states, other countries, you know how things work.”
He doesn’t. Tony knows he doesn’t, but he’ll learn if he stays more than a few days.
“Ok then. When do I start?”
“Right now, get in here.” Tony steps back and Happy eyes the threshold of the front door warily, but then steps through.
“I thought you already had a security guy… JARVIS?”
“JARVIS, say hi,” Tony instructs.
“Hello, Mr. Hogan.”
“That’s my AI. He runs the house. J, draw up an employment contract with everything we just talked about, get his details and give him access to the house whenever he’s working.”
“AI?”
“Artificial intelligence. I’m a genius in case you didn’t know.”
“I know who you are. The cab driver last night knew too.”
“Yeah, they all know me,” Tony says. He’s feeling energized, because he’s not used to having visitors while he’s sober, and this guy seems pretty decent. He might only stick around for a couple days before he gets tired of him, so Tony wants to take advantage of having another person around for as long as he can.
“Your driving record is clean, right? JARVIS, check that for me, will you? If you’re going to be driving me around you’ve gotta promise not to wreck my cars.”
If Happy answers, Tony doesn’t know, because he leaves him there to go into the kitchen, JARVIS instructing Happy to go to the living room to have a seat so he can get his information. Tony purposefully doesn’t go back to the living room for twenty minutes. When he does walk back in, he comes back with a set of car keys.
“First order of business, we have to find where I left my car last night. You’re done with paperwork, right J?”
“He’s all yours, Sir,” JARVIS says.
Happy looks like he feels awkward as Tony motions for him to follow and then takes him down the spiral stairs and into the garage. He takes him to a sleek red Audi and points at the passenger seat.
“Thought you said I was driving you,” Happy says as he gets in, eyeing the clean, expensive interior of the car.
Tony puts the keys in the ignition and turns them. The engine purrs to life. “You are. Tell me where you found me, we’ll find my car, and you can drive this one back here while I grab the other one.”
“Seems like you’re driving me,” Happy says.
Tony doesn’t answer. He’s not big on anyone else driving when he’s in the car, despite what he’d told Happy. The thought of having someone else drive him makes him think about the crash that killed Howard and Maria. The only time he lets people drive him is when he’s drunk. Until he is, he’ll drive himself, even if it makes his new frien- his new bodyguard feel awkward. Tony has never been good at making people feel comfortable around him, so he doesn’t try now.
* * *
It takes Happy three nights to get a feel for what the job actually entails. Tony gives him money to buy a suit, because if Happy is going to follow him around, he has to look the part of a bodyguard in the employ of a billionaire. Then, every night Tony drives the two of them out to a party and parks the car. Happy follows him around, awkwardly at first, trying to make sure everyone at whatever function they end up at keeps their distance from Tony. It’s only been a couple days but he’s already oddly protective over him. It amuses Tony to see him step in between him and random people that get too close.
Tony gets drunk, Happy corrals him when he thinks Tony has had enough, and then drives him home. The man is surprisingly efficient at rounding Tony up and making sure he doesn’t pick fights when he’s drunk, or getting him from the garage up into the house and to bed.
Tony knows he’s a handful… knows he’s unlikable, and awkward. He’s surprised when the first week passes and Happy hasn’t quit yet. After two weeks, Happy stops acting like he thinks Tony is awkward. They’ve settled into a routine, and Happy knows what all his job entails. Tony still thinks it’s likely that he’ll leave. He ends up telling Happy to take a black Audi home with him so he doesn’t have to take a cab to work anymore since he doesn’t have a car.
“Company car,” Tony tells him. “I’ll pay for gas and insurance, you wash it and keep it detailed. Deal?”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Sure I do. My bodyguard needs a company car, that’s all there is to it.” Rhodey has never accepted gifts to stick around, but Rhodey has been around long enough that Tony knows he won’t just drop him when he gets on his nerves. Happy he’s not so sure about, and to make up for his deficit in social niceties that other people value, Tony falls back on what has always worked best for him: throwing money at the problem.
Happy accepts the car and they make it through their third week. Then a month. Then two. Tony gives him a stipend to buy more nice suits, and they take a trip to Brazil for a big festival where there’s all kinds of trouble Tony is looking forward to getting into. If anything, he thinks, Happy will quit afterwards, and then Tony will know one way or another if he’s staying.
Happy bails Tony out of jail in Brazil twice in one night. He stays anyway.
When they get back, Tony offers him a pay raise to work more hours. Obadiah has been on him recently to be in at the office more. He thinks Tony being around will boost investor confidence in the company and raise stock prices. If Tony has to start going in to work, which is boring, then he wants a friend there.
Happy isn’t a friend, Tony knows that. He’s responsible for Tony now, because he’s paid to be so. Responsible like Rhodey and Obie. It’s ok, Tony thinks, because Rhodey is busy with the military, working his way up through the ranks, but at least he’ll have Happy there.
Happy agrees, and Tony says, “Now we’re in business.” He’s surprised when Happy smiles at him. At least he seems to like his job. Tony hopes the nice suits and the nice car will make him continue wanting to stay in his employ.
* * *
The first time Happy and Rhodey meet, Rhodey grabs a three hundred dollar sculpture off an end table in the living room and tries to beam Happy over the head with it. Happy tackles Rhodey and takes him to the ground, yelling all the way.
“Stay down! JARVIS, call the police! Boss, get to the safe room!”
“What the hell? Get off of me!” Rhodey shouts, statue lying on the floor several feet away, just out of his reach. “What the hell is this?”
“Stop fighting!” Happy shouts. “JARVIS, when will the police get here?”
“I have not contacted the authorities,” JARVIS says.
“What? Why not?”
“You are detaining Sir's best friend, First Lieutenant James Rhodes.”
It’s then that Happy and Rhodey become aware of Tony, doubled over in laughter behind them. Up until that point he’d been standing there, drunk and confused, blinking in the darkness of the living room.
“Shit,” Happy says, and takes his weight off of Rhodey’s back.
“Get off me man,” Rhodey says through gritted teeth. He climbs to his feet and pulls his shirt down from where it had been pushed up. “What the hell man?” Rhodey directs at Tony. “JARVIS, lights.”
The lights come up and Rhodey can clearly see that Tony is drunk, still laughing hysterically, shirt rumpled from the wild night he’s had.
“Sorry,” Happy says with a grimace.
“Who are you?” Rhodey asks. It’s clear he’s irritated and that Tony isn’t going to be any help.
“Mr. Stark’s bodyguard.”
“Bodyguard? What happened? Why does he need a bodyguard?”
When Happy doesn’t answer, JARVIS says, “Sir walked out in front of a car and Mr. Hogan saved him from being hit. He ensured that Sir made it home and then returned a large sum of money to him that Sir left with him after his… night out on the town. Ever since then, Mr. Hogan has been charged with his safe keeping.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Rhodey huffs, giving a dark look up at Happy that softens a little after a moment. “It’s all right, I’ve got him. You can go.”
“I answer to Mr. Stark,” Happy says. It causes Rhodey to frown.
“You answer to Tony? Not Obadiah?”
“Not to Obadiah,” Happy says, and there’s an edge to his voice that draws Rhodey’s attention. It’s not much, but it’s there.
“Tony is the one paying you?”
Happy nods.
There’s a beat of silence between them, and finally Rhodey seems to relax a little. “Good. Tones, can you tell him he’s done for the night?”
“Sure Honey Bear,” Tony says with a giggle. “It’s ok Hap- Happy.”
“You sure Boss?”
“Yup.”
“You’re good here?” Happy checks again, making eye contact with Tony.
“All good.”
Happy eyes Rhodey one last time, looking him up and down like he’s looking for weapons, gives a nod to Tony, and then leaves.
Tony flops down on the expensive leather couch and Rhodey turns towards him, hands on his hips, and then his face softens.
“What do you think Sour Patch?” Tony asks.
“About your bodyguard?”
Tony touches his nose, an easy smile on his face.
Rhodey reaches up for his bruised shoulder and then rolls it a couple times. “So long as he’s doing a good job and keeping you out of trouble, that’s all that matters.” He sits down on the couch next to him. “You really stepped out in front of a car?”
“I guess.”
“Was it on purpose?”
“Do I look like I have a death wish?”
Rhodey’s expression goes stony and he doesn’t answer. He’s always thought his friend has had a death wish… from the moment he caught him exchanging barbs with a senior that lived down the hall from them in the dorms that lifted weights and was twice Tony’s size. Nothing Tony has done in the fifteen years since then has changed his mind. Nothing except perhaps hiring a bodyguard.
* * *
Pepper comes into his life like a whirlwind. Two years after he hires Happy, Obadiah is breathing down his neck to become more involved in the company, not because he wants him to be, but because the board of directors is demanding it. He’s still drinking and going to parties, but now he has to be at work in the morning four days a week, so his nighttime escapades can’t extend too late into the night. It’s been hard and he hates it. He’s always behind and Obadiah is always on him about missing meetings with important business partners.
“You need a personal assistant Tony,” Obie says, hands on his hips. At least he’s not yelling anymore, Tony thinks. “You have to be at these meetings. We just lost the Allerson bid because you were an hour late to a twenty minute meeting.”
“Sorry,” Tony says. He’s not. He could care less about SI. It just continues adding to the billions he already has. SI was Howard’s baby… SI was like the son Howard never acknowledged Tony to be, and if he didn’t have to he wouldn’t be here at all… he’d let Obie take over the company and do what he wants with it. If he thought Obie would let him out of his obligations to the company he’d get it over with already and sign it over to him.
“I’ll find you one,” Obie says, reaching up to rub his forehead. He’s clearly stressed out. Tony does feel sorry about that. Obie was Howard’s business partner and just got stuck with Tony when Howard died. Tony knows he’s not the right person to be here running the company and he knows he’s difficult to deal with.
“I’ll do it,” Tony says.
“Tony- look, let me find you a personal assistant that will do the job and will last.”
It’s a great idea, Tony thinks, except for the fact that he has already been through three personal assistants that Obie had picked. The first had lasted an entire day before quitting and declaring that no amount of money would be enough to make the job worth it. Tony still isn’t even sure what he had done to chase her away. He’d been respectful. He thinks maybe it was Obie yelling at her because Tony had missed a big meeting under her watch and Obie was the one that had been paying her. The second lasted a few days and the third an entire week. Obie must feel like he’s picking better and better assistants for Tony as time goes on because they’re lasting longer.
“I’ll pick one this time,” Tony tells him. Obie shouldn’t have to have the extra stress of finding yet another personal assistant for him. It’s not fair. It’s not fair to anyone that gets saddled with him.
It’s clear from Obadiah’s expression that he doesn’t believe that Tony will actually find and hire a personal assistant. Tony doesn’t blame him. He does what he wants, when he wants, and most of the time what he wants to do is anything but paperwork and things involving SI. He does invent new weapons… he keeps new inventions rolling out of the R and D labs, but that’s not really what Obadiah wants from him.
Obadiah shoots Tony an uncertain look and leaves him in his huge office. As soon as he’s gone and the door is shut, Tony breathes out a sigh of relief. Then the weight of what he’s just agreed to do starts to settle over him like a heavy blanket. He’d promised he would find a personal assistant, but has no idea where to look for one. Is there some sort of personal assistant hiring agency? If there is, what would he even say to them? ‘Hi, I need an assistant that’s smart and can put up with my BS for longer than five days. Got anyone like that?’ Maybe he’ll have to ask Rhodey, or better yet Happy. He’d done all right picking Happy for a bodyguard hadn’t he? He thinks he did. Maybe the man knows someone equally as tough that might be willing to put up with him.
* * *
As it turns out, Tony doesn’t get a chance to ask Happy for his help looking for a personal assistant, because one falls into his lap, so to speak. The day after he tells Obadiah that he’ll take care of it, a strawberry blond with a fiery temper marches straight into his office to the protests of the secretary outside and starts yelling at him. He has no idea who she is or if she even works there. If Happy were here he would tackle her to the ground or at the very least escort her out and have her trespassed. Tony can’t even focus on what she’s yelling at him for for long moments because he’s entranced. He can’t look away from her eyes, or the way her strawberry hair seems to match her personality, cascading over her shoulders and jostling around as she talks animatedly.
“Have you heard a thing I’ve been saying, Mr. Stark? I think someone is stealing from your company and no one will listen to me!”
That seems to snap him out of the trance he’s been in. “What?” So eloquent, his mother would chastise him if she were there. Or maybe she wouldn’t. She would be more likely to ignore him and let Howard deal with him later.
“Someone is stealing from you.”
He frowns. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Virginia Potts, accountant.”
“And do you work for me, Miss Potts?”
She frowns and crosses her arms, several sheets of paper clutched in one hand, wrinkled now from how wildly she’d been gesturing a few moments before.
“Yes, in accounting.” Tony is still disoriented, but she ignores that and presses forward with the information she wants him to know. He can see behind her just outside the open door that the secretary is on the phone, probably to security, or maybe even to Happy, who had gone out to get them something for lunch half an hour before. “Look at this,” she says, pointing to the paper she’d already set on the desk in front of him. “The numbers are off… way off. Someone has been skimming off the top.”
He forces his eyes down to the piece of paper. He can see what she sees even without the bright red pen she’s used to circle the incongruous numbers. “You sure you didn’t just make a mistake?”
“I checked the numbers three times.” She seems to be calming down some now that she knows he’s listening. “I took this to my supervisor but-”
“Wait, so you’re not the one in charge of accounting?”
She shifts and looks uncomfortable for a moment. “I’m a junior accountant.” When he just gives her a look, she grows visibly angry again. “Look, you’ll probably fire me for this, but I’m telling you, someone is stealing from you and no one will listen to me about it. I took this to my supervisor and then to his supervisor and was brushed off both times. Now I’m here. If you choose to ignore this, that’s on you.”
He looks down at the numbers on the sheet of paper again and then reaches up towards her and makes a ‘give me’ motion towards the other papers still clutched in her hand. “What else do you have?”
“Evidence,” she says, handing the pages over.
“How long have you been working for me?”
She shifts uncomfortably again, but he only catches it out of his periphery. “A week.”
“That long huh? Do you like to make waves, Miss Potts?”
“Like I said, you can fire me if you want but-”
“No,” he says, cutting her off. He’s the boss, he can do that, he thinks. He can cut people off and they have to listen. He doesn’t mean to be rude, he just is. His mother always thought so and thought there was no hope for him to grasp the finer points of human interaction, so why try to change?
She closes her mouth and waits as he sets one paper down to look at the second, and then the third. “You’re right. Looks like someone is skimming off the top. Any idea who?”
“No.” She pauses, and when she speaks again, all of the fire and bravado that were there before is gone… she’s replaced with a softer spoken, less confident individual that looks like she’s just now realizing that she barged into the CEO’s office and demanded his attention. “Does this mean I’m not fired?”
He sets the papers down and looks up at her. He feels giddy and he doesn’t know why. “How about a promotion?” It’s really not a promotion and he has to work not to grimace. It’s a demotion, he knows it is, even if he gives her a raise to change positions.
She looks surprised. “I’d be a senior accountant?”
“I’m thinking more… personal assistant.” He holds his breath and tries not to let her see that he is.
She raises a brow. “Personal assistant,” she deadpans.
“How much are you making right now? Whatever it is, I’ll double it. As it so happens, I’m in the market for a personal assistant that has the brains to keep up with me and that will tell me when something is going wrong in the company, like someone stealing from me, even if they think I won’t like it. You think that’s something you can handle?” It’s a lie, sort of. He wouldn’t mind having someone like that… like her notifying him of those things. What he really needs is someone that will just stick around to appease Obadiah and possibly bully Tony into making it to meetings on time.
When she doesn’t answer right away, he tells her just that. “Actually, I need someone to make sure I get to meetings on time. You’d be doing me a favor.”
“Meetings,” she says, voice flat. She looks unimpressed.
“Double the pay,” he counters. “Worse hours and you have to put up with me, but that’s why I pay so well.”
As he watches her face, looking for any sign that he’s getting anywhere with the hunt for a personal assistant, he realizes that she doesn’t look unimpressed with his offer, but wary.
“Look, if you don’t like it you can go back to your accounting position. I’ll write it into the contract if you want. Not gonna lie, none of my other assistants have lasted more than a week. Obie will yell at you if I’m late to meetings, and I’m sure I’ll make you mad ten times a day, but you look like you can handle it. Am I wrong?”
“I can handle it,” she says, and he lets out a quiet sigh of relief.
“Good, you start today.” He opens a desk drawer and pulls out a brown leather organizer Obie had insisted he use. It’s only half full of all the meetings he’s supposed to be at over the next month and he never looks at it. He’s put a few things in there himself, but usually Obadiah comes in when he’s out and adds things to it.
He hands the leather notebook to her and says, “First order of business, I have no idea what all is in there, but I know that not everything I’m supposed to be at is written down. This belongs to you now.”
She looks flustered as she accepts it and opens it up to look inside.
“Obie wants me at all of those meetings, but you don’t work for him, you work for me. I want to know which meetings are actually necessary for me to be at. Don’t let him give you any shit. If he wants to yell at you for me being late or not making a meeting, send him to me and I’ll deal with him.” He’s got to do whatever he can to keep her in the role as long as possible.
“I’m capable of handling him myself,” she says.
He looks up at her and doesn’t even realize there’s a little smile on his face. Yeah, somehow he thinks she can, especially given how she’d barged in and shouted at him without a second thought.
“Fine. Have you eaten lunch yet?”
“No-”
“Great, have a seat, Hap is bringing food.” He pulls out his phone to call Happy to see if he’s already on his way back while she looks for a chair. There’s one in the corner and she drags it over to his desk. It’s the chair Happy usually sits in.
Happy doesn’t pick up his phone because it turns out he’s already in the building. He knocks on Tony’s office door a minute later and comes in with two bags of greasy food from a burger joint they both like.
“Oh, I’m sorry Boss, I didn’t realize you were in a meeting.”
“I’m not. Happy, meet my new personal assistant. By the way, you can send Obie to Happy too if he’s giving you trouble.”
A dark look comes across Happy’s face for a brief moment, but then it’s gone. He sets the bags of food on Tony’s large desk and holds out his hand to Miss Potts. He looks like he’s a little nervous to meet her.
“Harold Hogan,” he says, and she takes his hand to shake.
“Virginia Potts.”
Tony barely knows her, but he has a feeling that this is all going to work out. He can’t explain it, because he’s never had that feeling before. Not about anything.
* * *
Mr. Stark is… an interesting man to work for. Just when she thinks she has him all figured out, he does something unexpected and her entire view of him is tilted on its head. She thinks she should be used to it by now, but she’s surprised again and again.
She’d heard rumors about him even before she had been hired as a junior accountant at Stark Industries. He’s always in the news for something… sometimes for an incredible new weapon he’s invented, but usually because he’d done something wild and outrageous at a party.
She tries not to put stock in rumors as a rule, but as soon as she’d started work, she’d found the same rumors floating around SI in the accounting department. Playboy, troublemaker, difficult to deal with. “He’s been through three personal assistants in the last month.”
She had found the accounting error on her first day, charged with balancing one of the many SI accounts that had apparently been neglected and in need of attention for some time. Then she’d spent the next week trying to get her superiors to believe her that something was wrong with the books. It had taken her little time to come to the conclusion that the best way to get this issue resolved was to go right to the top, which meant Mr. Stark himself. She’d spent two days working up the courage to march in there and tell him that someone was stealing from him, and had expected to be fired on the spot, if not for accusing someone of theft, than for failing to go through proper channels. Being offered a promotion and a raise was never something she’d expected. Her limited view of him from the lowest ranks of SI and the rumors she had heard had been thrown askew.
In those first few days as his new personal assistant, Pepper thinks she has him all figured out. He’s not a normal CEO. He doesn’t like to be in the office, or attend meetings, or have almost anything to do with the company at all. She doesn’t know why, because the company has made him a rich man, and he certainly seems to enjoy throwing his money around. If her first clue hadn’t been the massive raise he’d given her, then it’s the company car he insists she have. He doesn’t like the work they do, but he likes the money. Based on what he’s told her, it’s her job to make sure he has to do as little as possible to keep that money flowing.
So she gets together with his secretary, and then emails Obadiah Stane to get all of the important meetings he needs to be at into his calendar. Then she goes over the details of those meetings with a fine tooth comb and boils them down from seventeen meetings to five. There are five meetings she thinks Mr. Stark will actually want to be at. Five meetings she thinks he absolutely can’t miss.
He doesn’t make it to any of them.
Obadiah tracks her down to yell at her just like Mr. Stark had said he would.
“What are you being paid for? You’re being paid to keep him in line, just like his bodyguard is!”
“Yes, thank you, I’ll do my best in the future Mr. Stane.” She shakes her head and goes back to her mental drawing board, trying to figure out what Mr. Stark is actually all about this time. Mr. Stane seems to think their CEO is a child, and for a hot minute she thinks she agrees. She reminds him of which meetings he really needs to be at. She leaves him sticky notes on his desk and when that doesn’t work, leaves some at his house as well. He spends most of his working hours at home, so that’s where she has to be too. She’s claimed a spot in a comfortable modern looking black leather chair in the living room all as her own. No one else sits there but her, and even Happy recognizes it as her spot. She writes a dozen sticky notes from that spot and then puts them on Mr. Stark’s fridge, in his fridge, and on the door to his lab garage below the house. If he’s a child then maybe he just needs extra reminders.
He still misses the meetings the sticky notes remind him of. But during her second week of being his personal assistant, spent at his house trying to make sure he remembers all the places he has to be, she realizes that Obadiah had been wrong about something. And if he’s wrong about one thing, it’s possible he’s wrong about Tony being a child that needs to be reigned in as well.
“You’re being paid to keep him in line, just like his bodyguard is!” The problem with that statement is that Happy, who does appear to be well paid, doesn’t look like he’s there to keep Mr. Stark in line. To her eye, it looks like the two are friends. Her perspective shifts again as she shifts this new lens of understanding in place.
Mr. Stark is a little wild… eccentric, perhaps is the word. He spends his nights going to parties, and if not going out then bringing people in to drink and spend time with there at the house. Happy always goes with him and makes sure he gets home safe, that’s true, but for the rest of the day he sits on Tony’s couch and reads a newspaper… goes out and gets food and coffee for the three of them to eat, and jokes around with Tony, usually about times in the past where they’ve traveled to other countries for meetings and conferences that sound more like excuses to party.
If anything, she’s observed that Mr. Stark knows what he wants, and chooses to do what he wants when he wants to. Happy is less there to reign him in, and more there to accompany him to functions and keep him safe. The man is very protective over Mr. Stark, not only because he’s paid to be, but because they’re friends.
That changes things, she thinks as week three of being his personal assistant rolls around. Happy doesn’t give Mr. Stark his opinion on things often, but when he does, Mr. Stark listens to him. “I don’t think that party is a good idea, Boss. There’s seven entry points and there’s going to be four hundred people there.”
“We’ll spend the weekend in Vegas then.”
Happy huffs like he doesn’t think that’s any better. “Fine, but I’m picking the casinos. They need to check off the items on my checklist.”
“You do that,” Mr. Stark laughs, wiping his hands on a greasy shop rag that’s come up from the garage lab with him. He’s covered in grease from head to toe. He likes to work on his cars, usually when he’s stressed out from what Pepper has observed. She doesn’t know why he’s stressed out at the moment, but he’s spent the last two days pulling apart and rebuilding an old car in the garage. He goes to the kitchen and then passes them a minute later, bottle of water in hand on his way back downstairs.
“He listens to you,” she tells Happy.
“He should,” Happy says. “The last time he didn’t there was almost an international incident between him and the prince of a foreign country.”
“Why does he listen to you?” Happy’s eyes come up from the newspaper he’s looking over. “I need him to go to meetings,” she clarifies at the question in his eyes.
He snorts. “Good luck with that.” He flips a page and says, “He listens because he pays me to know what I’m talking about where it involves security stuff. He trusts me to do what I’m getting paid to do. When he doesn’t, it causes both of us trouble.”
“Obadiah says you’re being paid to reign him in.”
A dark look comes over Happy’s face. “I don’t work for Obadiah.”
“Neither do I.”
They fall silent for a minute. She takes some time to work on a bunch of paperwork on the laptop Mr. Stark had purchased for her to use to fulfill her personal assistant duties. Recently she’s been tasked with replying to all of his emails for him. She thinks it’s a good idea because she gets a good look at things and can then tell him what he will really want to know. Once a day she goes down to the garage lab and fills him in on everything important. He says it’s an efficient use of his time and she agrees.
“I don’t like him,” Happy says, voice hard, and she looks up from the laptop.
“What?”
“Mr. Stane. I don’t like him. Boss won’t listen when I tell him I think something’s going on with him.”
“What do you think is going on?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve got a bad feeling about him. I don’t like the way he looks at Mr. Stark.”
“How does he look at him?”
“I can’t explain it.” He goes back to his paper again and doesn’t bring it up after that. Pepper makes a mental note to watch Mr. Stane the next time she encounters him and Tony in the same space.
She doesn’t have to wait long. The next day Stane comes to the house to find him because Mr. Stark hasn’t been in to the office for a few days. He dosen’t knock at the front door, he just comes right in like he owns the place.
He sounds both frustrated with Tony and desperate as he tells him about an upcoming merger they’re trying to get through. From what it sounds like, the company they’re merging with won’t sign the paperwork if Mr. Stark isn’t there. Obadiah’s tone is innocent, but when she looks at his face, Pepper’s gut starts to churn with the same bad feeling Happy had described. Obadiah looks hungry, like a fire waiting to consume everything it’s path. His eyes are cold even though he smiles, but there’s fire in them nonetheless. It scares her. When he turns to her, the cold, hungry look disappears and is replaced with just the frustration and desperation in his tone. “Make sure he gets there.” As he moves for the front door again, she lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and turns to look for Happy. The man is in a corner, muscles stiff, eyes on Stane’s retreating back. Only after he’s gone and the front door is shut and locked again does he relax. He meets her eyes and they share a look of concern.
She hasn’t managed to get Mr. Stark to go to a meeting yet, but she feels like she has to get him to go to this one. She doesn’t know how she’ll make that happen short of getting Happy to drag him bodily out of the house and down to the office.
“You’re going to that meeting.” The words leave her mouth before she even realizes she’s saying them.
Mr. Stark looks up at her, surprised. He doesn’t respond and she turns on her heel and leaves the room. She walks into the kitchen just so she can have a place to escape to without having to leave the house completely. He comes into the kitchen a few minutes later and finds her just leaning back against the kitchen counter.
“This is the one I have to be at huh?”
She doesn’t look up at him, afraid he’ll be angry even though he doesn’t sound mad. She can’t recall seeing him angry yet. The job is strange… it’s not at all what she expected when he’d asked if she wanted to be his personal assistant. All the same, she doesn’t think she wants to lose it. In fact, she knows she doesn’t even though she can’t put her finger on why. The money is good, but it’s not that. She has a degree and knows she can make good money anywhere.
“This is the one,” she says, looking up and crossing her arms.
He nods. “Gonna quit if I don’t go?” His voice is- off… quieter than it should be she thinks, given that he’s the boss and she’s bossing him around.
She doesn’t respond, afraid that if she does, no matter what she says, he’ll fire her right there.
The next day she’s completely surprised when he shows up to the meeting, Happy in tow. He’s even on time. He meets her eyes for a brief moment and looks relieved. She’s not sure why he would look relieved. He hates meetings and she’s positive he doesn’t want to be there.
As he sits down at the meeting table with the CEO of the company they’re about to merge with, she takes a seat up against the wall with Happy.
“He didn’t want you to quit,” Happy leans in and whispers, so quietly she can barely hear it.
She looks at him, brows drawn together in confusion. She wants to ask him about it, but the meeting is starting and it would be rude to talk when Obadiah and the CEO of the other company are hashing out the final details of the merger. Mr. Stark is afraid she’ll quit? What does that mean? He’d asked her if she was quitting at the house the day before.
“This is the one I have to be at huh?”
“This is the one.”
“Gonna quit if I don’t go?” She’d only responded with silence. And then he’d shown up to the merger meeting.
She’s only been his personal assistant for a few weeks. Why would he even care if she quit? She hasn’t even managed to do what he asked and get him to the important meetings… not until today.
Her eyes come up from the notepad she’s pretending to take meeting notes on, and finds him sitting at the meeting table looking bored, staring at the table as people talk around him.
This time, she thinks she has him all figured out. He’s afraid of being alone.
Author's Note:
This chapter puts me at 900,000 words written this year! This story is also my 40th work posted in the last year :p
It will be up to three weeks before the next chapter is posted. The next chapter is already 80% written, but there's a lot of editing I have to do on it.
Thoughts, comments? I've spent the last year writing Iron Dad, but I love Pepperony and this is my first full Pepperony fic :p