#rescuepottsceo

[thefuturistknows]

June 22, 2016 | Tony & Pepper

@rescuepottsceo

[An automated JARVIS text sent to Pepper, 8:15 AM]: Ms. Potts, Mr. Stark intends to approve Mr. Hogan’s “Janitorial Robotic Squad Initiative.” His reasoning stands as follows: “Pepper let me do it.” This is a Moderately High Alert Phrase, as designated by Mr. Stark on the 3rd of February, 2009; and I am programmed to immediately alert you of its usage.

[Sent to Pepper, 8:16 AM]: Joke!

[Sent to Pepper, 8:16 AM]: It was a joke.

[justatrainingexercise]

The Same the Angels Breathe // Pepper & Rhodey

If he had to choose, Jim would say he was an East Coast boy -- he’d grown up in Philadelphia, gone to school in Cambridge -- but he’d been steadily working his way westward after graduating from MIT, and he couldn’t say he regretted it. There was something to be said about flying over open desert and under cloudless skies, the likes of which just didn’t exist over the metropolitan-heavy East Coast, but if he was going to fly over the Mojave again, he was going to have to get back in flying shape after over six months out of commission first.

Before that, though, he had to repair the War Machine armor. The hard part turned out to be cleaning it; then it was just a matter of replacing a good deal of the wiring and resetting some of the resuscitation systems. (At least Vision had had the decency to leave the suit more or less intact, and Tony had prevented Jim from hitting the ground at a velocity that would have turned him into Spam.)

Finally, on a clear summer day when he couldn’t stand to watch the news coverage of the SRA debate for another minute, he decided he was ready. He was also going to need a wing man, though, at least for his first return flight, and he was halfway to pulling his phone out to call Tony when another thought occurred to him.

He dialed Pepper instead.

“Hey, Pepper. It’s Jim. You busy?”

[thunderbolt-n-lightning]

Visiting | Thor & Pepper

"Prince Thor, Lady Pepper has arrived."

While he was on Asgard, he received permission to allow any of his friends from Midgard to visit. Especially with the wedding coming soon, it was important to have people coming to and from to help prepare. But Pepper wasn't here for all that, he figured she would be stopping in to see the twins.

They were running around in one of the gardens. Being on Asgard allowed them to be outside much more often, and he was glad for that. They spent too much time cooped up in their small room of the Avengers Tower. He looked across to the entrance and saw Pepper coming through.

He corralled the twins so they were at least not charging towards Pepper as she walked in. Luke was hiding behind Thor, hugging his leg, and Leia was trying to grab Thor’s hand.

"It's lovely to see you," He said. "Luke, Leia, you remember your Aunt Pepper, right?” The two of them gave shy ‘yes' noises. They didn’t have a handle on big words still, but they knew ‘yes’ and ‘no’. “I hope your trip wasn’t too terrible.”

[thefuturistknows]

Bonfire of the Vanities | Tony & Pepper (Jun. 17, 2016)

Stark had holoconferenced with President Ellis a few hours after the incident involving Wanda and Fandral. Jan and Dr. McCoy had already responded as well. And after that, Ellis still wanted to talk to him.

Personally.

That wasn’t fucking good. It didn’t take a self-proclaimed futurist to anticipate that this wasn’t good.

The flight to DC was scheduled for early next morning, and after four hours of obsessive deliberation, Tony still hadn’t decided what tie he was going to be wearing. After narrowing the number of options down to twelve, he ultimately avoided the dilemma by packing all of those and telling himself he would deal with the decision during the flight over.

He was hyperaware of every twitch denouncing his uncharacteristically acute nervousness in face of this entire situation. He was usually good at picking ties. He knew his way around the rhetoric of formalwear, hell, he lived and breathed this rhetoric, and he had been doing it since he was first stuffed into a tuxedo tailor-made for him when he was six years old. He was usually so good, in fact, that the only judgment he would defer to when it came to this was Pepper’s, and unfortunately, she wasn’t there to help him make that decision.

In fact, Tony had almost called her while he packed. He had almost called her at least seven times in the last two to three hours, and the only reason why he didn’t was because he already knew she was busy. There was a Stark Industries gala tonight, and televised reports on it were playing on screens prominently projected in his walk-in closet, bedroom, and bathroom; echoing each other and delivering a continuous string of triple hits to Tony’s already wounded mood: he was an inventor and an industrialist, not a politician. If he couldn’t be in his workshop, then he wished he could be at the gala, instead of getting ready to fly to DC so he could try to bargain for the Avengers’ existence –

“Sir.”

As usual, JARVIS’ speech drive was slower than Tony’s brain, and he mentally picked up on the AI’s report before any other words had to be spoken.

The news JARVIS had to give were of the type that almost made Tony believe bad karma had to be real.

He picked the first dress-shirt and jacket he could get his hands on, and within five minutes he was headed for the gala – in a metal suit.

Tony mentally flew the armor away after stepping out of it. He wanted it close, but discretion was paramount – and also relative, when you’re Tony Stark. He set the red carpet ablaze the second he set foot on it, and by the time he had entered the hotel where the gala was being hosted, he had already eased into his clothes and public smile enough to make himself look like magazine-cover material despite the fact that his jeans rendered him the most informally dressed person in the premises.

He had told the security people at the door not to let anyone else in, under any circumstances. Once inside, he scanned the venue for Pepper, and sometimes his eyes lingered on specific corners as he mentally mapped out the structural weakspots of the place.

After spotting Pepper – she was by the bar, talking to a few people –

-- It was completely absurd, how lovely she looked, the light was cascading off her hair like solar flares –

-- Not that this was relevant at the situation at hand –

-- Anyway, he bee-lined straight to her, smiling shallowly and promptly ignoring everyone else who tried to approach him.

It wasn’t until he poked Pepper on the shoulder that he realized he had picked up a glass of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray on his way over. That sort of thing was such an ingrained part of his internal “act natural” schemas. Tony set the glass down just as Pepper turned, and his grimace gave place to a smile as soon as he caught her eye.

“You mind if I have this dance?”

Tony offered Pepper his hand, both fueled and miserably weighed down by the awareness that the dance was just a practical excuse to talk to Pepper alone without raising any suspicions.