Mod Pepper attacks with yet another snippet! This time it’s a Suspense prompt for February 12: Merpeople in rare PepperStony flavor:
“Did you bring the snacks he asked for?” Pepper asked her husband.
Steve nodded. “And the supplies from Strange.”
Pepper sighed. “If he really can manipulate the curse -”
“If anyone can do it, it’s our Tony,” Steve squeezed her hand as he put the car into reverse and set off down the driveway.
When they arrived at the cove where they had first met their merprince, Steve unloaded the car and Pepper headed straight for the water. She found Tony sunning himself on a rock and went straight to him.
“Hello love,” he whispered and pulled her in for a kiss. “Steve?”
“Coming,” she whispered. “Carrying all the supplies.”
“Are you sure you two want this?”
“We want you, Tony,” Pepper confirmed. “If you want to stay mer, then we still want you. If you want to try humanity, then we want you. We want you.”
Steve arrived then and handed Tony the satchel from Strange. After examining it, Tony nodded. “Okay, then let’s begin.”
“I never thought Tony would have a physical library like this one…” Steve said, taking a step back and craning his neck up to look at the highest bookshelves. “I figured he’d have all this in digital form.”
“He does,” Pepper assured him. “But he believes in backups. And backups take space…” She climbed up on the ladder to reach one of the books Steve had asked for. He found himself watching her legs and rear as she ascended the ladder.
She turned, undoubtedly catching him staring. She smirked, arching her eyebrow. “Here,” she handed down the book before leaning back against the ladder. “Now, is that all you need from me, Captain?”
gimme some Steve & Pepper (or Steve/Pepper, bc let's be honest, Steve/ALL THE LADIES + bucky is my OTP), daemon AU
Work? Who cares about getting ready for work when you can write instead?
I'm so gonna be doing my makeup on the train, LOL.
Okay, some notes first: 1) everything I know about daemons (and, presumably, the books that they're from) came from one quick read of the Wikipedia article, so be warned there are probably a lot of daemon related things I got wrong. 2) This story ended up being more about Pepper than Steve, though it's safe to say that both are the main characters. 3) Because of that, there's also some Pepper/Tony in there too - I like those two together too much to break them up! I'm a sap, I know. 4) Massively AU, and massively un-beta'd. If you see any glaring errors let me know and I'll edit up the post. Otherwise, enjoy. :)
1924
"No, no, no, see, one day, I'm gonna change the world." Virginia, called Pepper for the freckles like stars sprinkled all over the skin of her face and arms, patron saint of perpetually scraped knees, is six years old, full of fire, and always seems to know something that he doesn't. She's staring down at Steve imperiously from her perch on the stairs of the fire escape, and he looks back up at her warily.
"Yeah? An' how you gonna do that?" he asks, leaning out of the window of his apartment to try and get what little fresh air rises up from their busy New York City street. Steve warily eyes the great ginger tom called Grimalkin perched on the steps next to her, flicking his tail and looking back with luminous green eyes that look like sea glass.
'That's a witch's cat,' his Ma always says under her breath whenever Pepper comes around. 'Careful with that one,' she warns him, though she never says that Steve can't play with her. She's the only one in the building who doesn't treat her frail little boy like he's going to keel over and die any minute, after all.
Steve's own little daemon, currently squirrel shaped, trots merrily up the stairs to sniff carefully at the cat, head-butting it gently when Grimalkin bends down to meet it.
"You'll see."
1936
"Well look what the cat dragged in."
Steve turns around at the familiar voice, gawping just slightly when he sees Pepper standing there on the Brooklyn street. She's certainly blossomed in the ten years since he'd seen her last, tall and willowy with hair that's just seemed to get redder over time. The freckles are a little more faded, kept in the shade thanks to the brimmed hat she's wearing, but the smile's the same. As is Grimalkin, weaving in and out between her ankles. "Pepper! Um, hi. How, how are you?"
"I'm well," she says, smiling. "And you?"
He shrugs. "Still alive, at least."
Without warning he senses rather than feels Bucky coming up behind him, right before his arm drops around his shoulders and squeezes. "Stevie, you going to introduce me to this fine dame?" Steve winces slightly when he sees the icy look that comes over Pepper's face at the word 'dame'.
"Pepper, this poorly mannered trouble maker is my roommate Bucky - "
"Hey!"
1937
"So your daemon still hasn't settled yet?" Pepper asks, curiously, as she leans over to look at the small bird of prey perched on the edge of the counter in Steve and Bucky's apartment. Her mother would tan her hide if she knew Pepper was in the apartment of two men unchaperoned, but Pepper knows she'll never get anywhere in this world if she does exactly what her mother asks. And besides, Steve is trusted. He'll not hurt her, never overstep his boundaries - unless she asks him to.
She's still internally debating that one. If virginity is a prize then she wants to be the one to decide who is rewarded it.
Steve nods, sketching a few lines on a piece of paper to try and capture the shape of the bird before she shifts into something else. "Apparently I'm a 'late bloomer', or so it's called."
Pepper rests against the table, watching the bird as Steve draws it. "Maybe it's because you just haven't figured out who you're meant to be yet."
"I don't think it works like that."
1938
When Bucky's out on the town, either stepping out with the girl that's caught his fancy that month or heavy drinking with the guys from the docks after work, Pepper sneaks over, peels back the blankets, and slides into bed with Steve. His hands, those careful, steady artist's hands, slide over her skin to make her sigh and gasp and shout. It's not romance, that's not at all what she's looking for in her life, but it's something better. It's trust. She can put all of herself in his hands and she knows that he'll return all of it and help her be something far greater than she was previously.
Their daemons curl together at the end of the narrow bed, grooming and petting and snuggling together while their humans are otherwise occupied.
1942
The war in Europe comes to America's shores. Bucky enlists, heads to boot camp, and waits for his marching orders.
Pepper falls in with a group of - don't call them witches, call them interested women who want to help their European counterparts through any means possible (including magical ones). She craves adventure, true, but she also knows she has a duty.
And Steve? He racks up 4F after 4F, hoping desperately for a chance. No military man's going to enlist a guy with enough health problems to fill a phone book and a daemon that still can't decide what it wants to be.
1943
Steve's on stage somewhere in middle America, asking the kids and the moms and the elderly to buy war bonds to help the effort, and he swears he can see Pepper somewhere in the audience, a flash of red hair that stands out even amidst the crowds. He doesn't get a chance to find out if it's really her, but he knows exactly what he'd like to tell her if it is.
He wants to tell her that his daemon's finally settled into a shape, and has asked for a name. She's a huge grey and white wolf, a pack animal that's still got that edge of wildness about her, and has asked to be called Fiamma.
Fire.
1945
Pepper sees the names of her friends in the lists of the dead that fill the newspapers daily, and decides then and there that death is for the weak. She knows people who can help with that.
Besides, she promised a friend she was going to change the world one day. This way she'll have the time to do that.
Grimalkin approves, or, if he doesn't, he never mentions it to her.
First, though, she's got to educate herself. There's a great big world out there and she's got a lot of learning to do.
mid-1950s
Captain America is officially declared dead. The original died mid-battle at the end of WWII, and the subsequent replacements shoved into the uniform for propaganda purposes afterwards were just pale shadows of the original. Eventually the government gives up and shelves the project, the only information sneaking out in cryptic newspaper and magazine articles that barely reveal any of the truth.
Still, Pepper reads these articles and can feel her stomach sinking. Something's not right, but she can't quite determine what.
Grimalkin hisses at the paper, slashing at it with his claws until it's nothing more than confetti.
1969
In retrospect, Pepper adored the 1960s, the evolution, the change, and the way the world is shaped to herald great things to come. She's sad to see them go, and knows how fleeting things are as she watches the sun rise over Woodstock as electric music echoes in her ears.
1973
Pepper sleeps outside Madison Square Garden in a worn out bedroll with Grimalkin warming her feet just so that she can get tickets to see Led Zeppelin. It's entirely worth it.
1980s
Time for another identity and another round in school. Technology is advancing by light years and she's determined to keep up. The accounting degree is a fall back; people will always pay for bookkeeping skills. The art history degree? That's all for her.
Sometimes at night, when Pepper's up late poring over textbooks full of Renaissance Masters and Parisian Impressionists, she remembers that skinny boy who sat at his kitchen table and sketched that fickle daemon of his who couldn't make up her mind about what she wanted to be.
late-1990s
Tony Stark is everything she had heard and was warned about. On the flip side of that coin, he's something entirely different from those rumors. Something more than the image he likes to project to the public, although it's often lost in whatever starlet he decides to take home with him and the gallons of booze he likes to drown himself in. He likes her, though, of all things, even though she took it upon herself to point out an accounting error that should have never made it that far.
It's an odd job, being his personal assistant, but she's good at it. And Tony's intriguing enough to make her want to hang around longer to see what he and his fox daemon Guin are going to do next.
2003
Tony tasks her with cleaning out some of his father's old files, things he'd collected from his time in WWII and afterwards. "They're dust collectors," Tony says, repairing one of DUM-E's joints as Guin perches herself on the outstretched arm. "Most of the memorabilia's already been hauled to the creepy Captain America hall of horrors. The rest of his shit can be tossed."
"Are you sure, Tony? You may want this stuff someday," Pepper says, slightly despairing over his casual dismissal of the past. Of course, she lived through those times. Maybe it's different for someone who wasn't there.
"Just make it go away," he says with finality.
So all of the old files and photos go into storage, with the exception of one particular photo that Pepper sneaks out in her purse. It's a black and white picture gone sepia with time, and the two men in the shot are covered with suspect mud and grime. But they're smiling, laughing at something just out of sight, and the thought of it makes Pepper's eyes well up with the memories. On the back of the picture it's written in what she presumes is Howard Stark's handwriting "Sergeant James "Bucky" Barnes" and "Captain Steven Rogers aka Captain America," finally confirming a long-held theory of hers.
The picture of the boys from Brooklyn is put in the place of honor on her nighttable, laughing her and Grimalkin to sleep every night.
2009
Afghanistan. Pepper can't help but hold out hope for Tony's return, but she's a realist (to a certain degree. Anyone who's lived as long as she has knows that a little bit of the fantastic can take you a long way). There's a good chance that he may not make it back.
Grimalkin spends the three months stalking around, looking for Guin even though he knows that she won't be found. He's lost friends over the years too, and wants to hold onto the ones who are there as long as possible.
And then there's the issue of her feelings. Pepper hadn't ever considered falling in love, had never had time for that in all of her life, but the loss of Tony hits her far harder than she had ever imagined possible. She keeps a cool head in public, can never let Obadiah see her sweat. But at nights, for the first time in a long, long time, she cries herself to sleep, Grimalkin curled up in a worried lump by her head, and always in the shadow of the picture of the boys from Brooklyn.
2010
CEO. Tony wants to make her CEO. She's a bit worried about the motivation, but this is an opportunity beyond her wildest imaginations. She's always wanted to change the world, and being the CEO of Stark Industries will open a hell of a lot of doors.
There's the briefest of worries that the identity of Virginia 'Pepper' Potts won't hold up to public scrutiny, but she's no novice at this. She knows all of her paperwork is solid, leaving a trail right back to birth that not even the men in black at SHIELD would be able to figure out. Magic has some perks, after all.
And then...then Tony kisses her on that rooftop. It's not something Pepper needs, but it's something she wants. And she's been known to get what she wants.
It's kind of nice, this whole being in love thing.
2012
When Steve comes to the first time after crashing into the iceberg, he can feel Fiamma stretched out against his side and the echoes of a baseball game in his ears.
Yeah. Bad idea.
Then the sky falls and it's time to save the Earth once more. Steve's fairly sure he has a purpose again, something to do in this strange new world of his, and it feels good, feels right. And you know what? This time, they actually won.
Steve doesn't get a chance to meet Pepper Potts before being shipped down to D.C., but he's read the magazine profiles and heard the stories from Tony, sees how his face lights up when he talks about his CEO and paramour. It humanizes Tony, and, frankly, makes him look a lot less like an asshole. He supposes he should be surprised she's lived this long, but if anyone was going to survive to this far future date and looking hardly any older than the last time he'd seen her, it would be Pepper.
2012
After the Battle of New York, Pepper reads through all of the files on the Avengers Initiative again and again, trying to commit all of the details to memory. But she spends more time on Captain America's file than anyone else's, studying the initial event with the serum, Howard Stark's involvement, his actions during WWII, and the miracle of finding him in the ice, frozen yet still alive and kicking. It warms her from the inside out to know that her oldest friend is back in the land of the living once more - he's always been special, spangly uniform or not, and the more people who can see that the better the world will be.
What surprises Pepper is how much she now wants to tell Tony everything about herself, where she really came from, all of her travels and studies, her actual age. Hell, even her real last name so that he can understand just why she needs to see her old friend once more.
That, and because she wants Tony to be able to read her like a book, flip through all of the chapters, even the long ones, and see all the words on the pages, not just a select few.
It's kind of strange, this whole being in love thing.
Grimalkin just huffs and shoots her a look that says she isn't fooling anyone, then stalks off to pounce on Guin and tumble around like two overgrown puppies.
2013
Extremis.
Bah.
Pepper's survived worse, though she's forever grateful for Tony and his help to get the formula out of her system. More than that she's immensely proud of the man Tony's becoming. It's not easy (never is) but he seems like he finally knows exactly who he is and what he wants.
She loves that about him.
2014
It's Grimalkin that tips her off first. He's never been the most talkative of daemons, despite being her constant companion since she was four years old, but after nearly a century she knows how to read him easily by now. His ears perk up and his tail twitches, fluffing up just slightly in that affectionate sort of way. Then she sees for herself as the door to her office opens and Tony and Steve, of all people, walk in, followed swiftly by their daemons.
Without warning Grimalkin bows Guin over, pushing her into Steve's Fiamma and sending them all into a snapping pile of crazed, affectionate animals. Pepper's learned over time how to keep surprise from showing on her face. Tony's nowhere near as skilled, though he has his moments. This isn't one of them, and he gives the daemons an impressed and slightly suspicious look. "Pep, meet Captain Rogers," he says once he's looked away from the puppy pile. "We're thinking of getting the band back together. So to speak."
Steve offers up a hand for her to shake, and he nods solemnly, giving no indication that he's even remotely familiar with her. "Pleased to meet you, ma'am," he says, putting on what's obviously the fine manners his Ma had drilled into him as a youngster.
"Likewise," Pepper says with a soft, careful smile.
They make small talk for a few minutes, until Tony's phone rings and he darts off to take it, calling Rhodey yet another 'interesting' nickname over the phone lines.
Steve looks back at Pepper, and now the look is sly, a little mischevious, and otherwise amused. "Does Tony know?" he asks in a low voice.
"No," she says, shaking her head. "Though I think it may be time to tell him everything. I want him to know everything."
"That's going to be a fun conversation."
"Don't underestimate Tony. He just may surprise you," Pepper says, a slow grin spreading across her face.
"Oh, I have no doubt of that." Steve crosses his arms over his chest, watches the three daemons who have settled into grooming each other, the different fur colors blending and meshing well together. "It is good to see you again," he says."
Pepper smiles widely now, looking for all the world like that little girl who used to hang out on fire escapes so she could talk to her neighbors. Look how far we've come, she thinks. "Likewise."
Steve glances over at Tony, still chattering away on the phone, and then back. "So how goes the plan to change the world?"
"Well, but we've still got a lot of work to do." She looks around her gleaming, 21st century office space, eyes skimming over Steve, landing on Tony for a moment, and then back again. "You wanna help?" Pepper asks him, grinning, like she doesn't already know what his answer will be.
