15590/Well, it's not Miami...

Well, it's not Miami...
Date of Scene:	11 September 2023
Location:	Penthouse - Stark Tower
Synopsis:	Tony and Pepper.
Cast of Characters:	Pepper Potts, Iron Man

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Pepper Potts has posed:
Ever since their escapade in Miami, Tony's audacious romantic gestures have made Pepper's world a heady, intoxicating blend of surprise and thrill. The memory alone of how he reserved a personal Quinjet for their voyage from New York, commandeered a beachside eatery just for their intimate evening, and that sultry dance to the strings of a quartet, sends shivers down her spine. All culminating in that breathtaking moment in his penthouse when he appointed her as Stark Industries' Co-CEO.

In the vast universe of love and passion, outdoing such gestures would be a Herculean feat.

Pepper, beautifully innocent in her expectations, had only caught a fleeting glimmer of jealousy in Tony's eyes upon hearing about her date. She'd presumed he just wasn't fond of sharing her time. The revelation that he feared losing his chance at a deeper connection with her was a twist she hadn't anticipated.

Following their Miami tryst, the week was filled with procedure and formalities. Documents were signed, sealing her new influential role. The luxurious corner office adjacent to Tony's became her new realm. The entire company was abuzz with the news of her promotion, their roles clarified through memos. And soon, she had her own entourage --- a personal assistant and an elite security detail.

Then began the onslaught of meetings. A ceaseless torrent of discussions and planning. Even though she was acquainted with the who's who of Stark Industries, the meetings seemed endless. While she tackled administrative intricacies, Tony, ever the maverick, immersed himself in his first love --- innovation.

The week that ensued was all about sinking into their new roles, but it did little to bring them closer. Irony played its hand well --- their new professional dynamic meant they saw less of each other. Gone were Pepper's daily check-ins on Tony, replaced now by her own assistant's reminders.

So, on a balmy Friday evening, Pepper couldn't resist the urge to connect. She messaged:

>> Missing you. Dinner at your place? 8 PM? I'll cook.

Access to his penthouse wasn't a hurdle. By the time he arrived, aromatic fragrances from a delicious spread would welcome him.

There, amidst the gleaming kitchen interiors, he'd find her. Dressed in form-fitting jeans, the curves of her figure accentuated, and a delicate white blouse. A glass of expensive white wine poised gracefully on the counter. The soft, romantic notes of a jazz melody, orchestrated by JARVIS, would wrap around them, setting the mood for an evening of reconnection.

Iron Man has posed:
There's never .. never enough time. If Tony didn't think it'd be such a world endingly bad idea he might devote some more 'real' effort into looking into things that might be done to make more time .. even a man of his towering .. hubris gives that one a wide berth.

His penthouse hasn't seen much of him in the last few weeks, and Pepper's one of the few to know that at least half of those days planet _earth_ hasn't seen a lot of Tony, there's something he's been working on in orbit, somewhere, that's had quite a bit of his direct and personal attention.

Might be even the cause of a headache or two as governments across the globe pester Pepper and Stark-Fujikawa with a rather relentless ongoing parade of phone calls and emails wondering just what it is he's doing - because they catch glimpses of him going up, or coming back, occasionally - but never on exactly what it is that he's doing out there beyond the 'focus' of all those expensive spy satellites that are focused on the planet and not .. well not wherever he is.

So it's from the balcony that Tony walks in, stepping out of a suit of armor that's in dark , muted, but still traditional IM colors, as it opens up like the petals of a flower of sorts from around him and he walks through the sliding glass door that moves aside at his approach.

"Damn but that smells good." Says the billionaire, dressed in his own pair of jeans and a simple black t-shirt, neither of which are so crisp, or form fitting, as Pepper's .. and just a bit more to his five o'clock shadow along his jawline than he typically allows.

"Jarvis tells me you've been keeping everyone at bay with a ruthless efficiency worthy of a heartless AI."

Pepper Potts has posed:
"You know, /some/ women might take offense to being compared to a heartless AI," Pepper muses, turning her green eyes up from the skillet full of vegetables she's sauteing to smile at the man that steps through the doors. "But coming from JARVIS, I'll take it as a compliment."

She takes a break from her stirring to turn to the fridge and open it, retrieving a glass of perfectly chilled white 'wine' the exact shade of her own, though the fog of condensation immediately clings to it.

"You look..."

As she approaches him, her eyes rake down him. He didn't need 'form fitting' to show off his shoulders or his arms.. that broad, distinctly masculine shape of him. And when they finally make their way back to his, there's a mischievous glint punctuated by the sizzling of the veggies behind her.

"...hungry. At least, I hope you are."

She lifts that chilled glass of white grape juice to offer to him, stopping just in front of him and tilting her chin up with a small, pleased smile and a silent request.

Iron Man has posed:
There's no way that Tony misses that look from Pepper, or anyone really, but most certainly not from Pepper and he quirks a rogueish smile at her as he reaches to _not_ take that glass from her, at least not initially. No, one of his hands reaches out to one of her hips, sliding around it and pulling her towards him even more, while the other reaches up to cup her chin in his palm and bring her up onto the tips of her toes to take the kiss she's quite obviously offering.. and asking for in turn.

That kiss of welcome, of .. reminder, is let to linger for several moments - and just before things might be allowed to get _too_ heated he pulls back, drops his hand from her chin after brushing his thumb over her lips with a slow sweep from one side to the other, and only then reaches to take that glass of 'wine' from her and lift it with a smirk and a, "Too an enjoyable evening.. and thanks, babe."

"Hungry. Famished. You'd be surprised just how much of a workout and how little 'food' there is going up and down to a LEO orbit is...several times a day."

"Jarvis hasn't said you've run into anything needing both our weight to squash or get to move in the right way..."

Pepper Potts has posed:
It was such an odd position to be in.

On one hand, at thirty-eight years old, Pepper felt like she should have out-grown the giddiness she felt -- the way her heart suddenly raced when he made such a simple gesture as touching her chin to draw her up to him. Not only that, she'd known Tony longer than almost anyone else in her life, and she'd loved him in one way or another for a good portion of that.

On the other, this was so new and exciting -- a fresh chapter of her life that up until a couple of weeks ago she'd written off as impossible. Some part of her knew that no man was ever going to be able to hold a candle to the loyalty she felt to Tony, and that would doom any hope of finding love before it ever even began. The fact that she was barefoot in his kitchen, stretching up against him as he claimed that kiss, felt like life was finally the way it was supposed to be.

It didn't exactly feel like luck, and she wasn't grateful for anything except Tony coming home safe. Neither of them would respect her if she started feeling grateful for Tony paying attention to her.

It just felt... right. Right in a way that made her heart feel like it was going to leap out of her chest. Right in a way that made her want to hang on to him and never let go.

"You're welcome," she muses, still smiling against his chin as she gazes up at him adoringly, clinging to him gently with one hand -- and then both once he's taken that glass from her. "It's not like you've ever been great at remembering to eat."

Reluctantly, however, she's pulling away to get back to her veggies before they do actually burn.

"It's still just the first two weeks. I think they're waiting until week three to really challenge my authority," she says as she goes, glancing over her shoulder with a predatory glint in her eye. "/That/ I'll be able to handle without you."

Wooden spatula in hand, she lifts the pan off of the heat and stirs a bit more before starting to plat them.

"At some point, though, there are a couple of mergers we should discuss. There's an aerospace company out of Tokyo that that could have a potentially high ROI, and one in France you might be interested in the IP from. They've both invited me -- well, us -- out for site tours in the next few weeks. I was going to offer that we could go together, but I know you've been busy."

With the veggies plated, she takes another sip from her own glass.

"We can talk about that at work, though. How /is/ your project coming along?"

Iron Man has posed:
Does Tony do what any man might when Pepper turns and her very pretty jean clad rear's put in view? Yes. He looks... and then he gives it a very firm 'pat' as he walks up to stand somewhat behind her and peer over her shoulder down at the veggies that are a-cookin' on the stove.

"That smells amazing. Guy could get used to this."

Says a man that can afford, and has, had people to cook for him on a daily basis - even cater to his literal every whim - only to be entirely ignored in the face of whatever else it was that he thought more important at the time, or at least .. well .. better to be focused on.

Clearly that's not the case here.

"Mergers? Not outright acquisition? An acqui-hire sort of approach? Easier on the stock prices that way.. well, at least sometimes."

He just flashes a grin at her own mention of handling any potential challenges to her authority - so long as it's a business challenge and not an .. Avengers type challenge, he has no doubts in her in the slightest. The latter - that's all him.

"Turns out that spinning up a LEO jump off point for a langrange point low grav nano factory and asteroid mining facility has a few more ... fiddly bits than I'd really like. "

"Jarvis - has that booster started the asteroid moving inward? Hoping that it's as high a content of palladium as scans seem to indicate..."

Pepper Potts has posed:
"Subsidiary mergers. They're both /very/ proud of what they've accomplished," Pepper says, glancing over at him with a small, playful grin. "Not unlike someone else I know, even if they'll never live up to the same standard."

She seems a little distracted by his touch, but works through it for the sake of dinner. Notably, though, when she reaches for the pot holders, she shifts towards him rather than away, pressing back against him as she opens the often door.

Reaching in, she pulls out a big casserole dish of lasagna and sets it on top of the stove, then closes the oven door again and turns everything off.

"I told them we have some smaller interests in their fields they could partner with, rather than just sticking the Stark logo on everything they invent. That seemed to appease them."

She falls quiet, though, as she listens to him explain what he's been working on.

"Fiddly bits?" she asks, her eyes glinting with amusement. "Is that the technical term? Who would have thought something like that would have had fiddly bits?"

Still smiling, she leans up and kisses his jaw.