escritorzuela

Pepper let herself into the main office without waiting for a reply to her knock. “I think you need to look into Dr. Shapanka, Ms. Stark.”

Natasha Stark sat despondently, with her feet over the chair and a knee peaking over the desk. Her hair hung on a low bun that was a light breeze away from falling apart, and she was playing with the golden cord of a giant red phone. A tacky button, in color gold too, stood out on the device; Ms. Stark had told her employees, in a tone that left them confused as to whether she was pulling their legs, that it was her direct line with Iron Man. Every time she saw the ridiculous gadget, Pepper had to repress an overly fond scoff.

She raised her finger, indicating to Pepper that she needed to wait a moment. She pushed her typewriter (not red this time, thank heavens) away to take a few quick notes on paper before she hung up.

“Is anything troubling him, Ms. Potts?” Ms. Stark asked, a poorly masked look of concern on her face.

“I get the feeling it may be a problem more suited for… Iron Man, ma’am.”

She raised a perfectly trimmed eyebrow in reply, and her face closed-up. “Must be serious, for you to say that.” Almost as soon as she said that, her face morphed again, into a gentle, distant smile.

“You work too much, Ms. Potts,” she chastised her. Pepper made a show of directing a pointed glare at the stack of blueprints over Ms. Stark’s desk. “Seriously, you need to enjoy yourself a little. You’ll come to the gala tonight, won’t you? I even invited the Avengers, come on. I’ll introduce you.”

Pepper hadn’t planned to attend, in all truth, but in the face of her boss’ petition, she couldn’t bring herself to say no. “I’ll be there. Will that be all, Ms. Stark?”

Her gaze was drawn to her work once more, a small smirk adorning her face. “That will be all, Ms. Potts.”

Before working directly under her, Pepper had already greatly admired Natasha Stark. After prolonged contact with the woman, she’d become downright smitten.

Like every soul across the country, she’d witnessed from afar how she inherited the company after her parents’ deaths; young and burdened with responsibility, she’d managed to keep it afloat despite her multiple detractors, maintaining up to the last government contract. Pepper, back in accounting, had been in awe. The fact that after Vietnam she’d decided to change the direction of her company, and still succeeded in retaining her position, her assets, and her employees, was nothing sort of amazing.

And up close she’d been so charming, so glamorous, with a sharp intellect bright on her eyes and a gentleness in her demeanor buried beneath the bluster… Pepper sighed.

The worst part, by far, about her infatuation with her employer, was the small spark of hope she felt that her feelings could, someday, be returned.

As a woman making a career in a men’s field (and surpassing them with ease), there was no shortage of callous comments questioning said womanhood. In Ms. Stark’s case, Pepper knew for a fact that not all of them were completely off the mark: it was a well-kept secret among Stark Industries employees that their boss had her share of discreet dalliances with other women in the past (all of them, to Pepper’s chagrin, incredibly different from her). Even if that hadn’t been enough, up till very recently they’d been clued in by the presence of one Joanna Nivena. It was obvious to everyone around them that Ms. Stark would’ve married her if she’d been allowed to.

Pepper’s daydreams were halted when Iron Man irrupts in the room, pushing a humiliated Dr. Shapanka before him. The activity in the office stopped abruptly, since everyone was keen on seeing first-hand what would go down.

Iron Man came along two regular security officers, and accused Dr. Shapanka of trying to steal Ms. Stark’s inventions. He looked unhinged, driveling about how he’d have his way, how the secret of immortality was in his hands.

Dear lord, Pepper thought, and continued with her own job. Some people had too much free time on their hands.

“You don’t need to worry, Dr. Shapanka.” Iron Man told him. “Despite everything, Stark Industries has a more than generous compensation package. You won’t be left out in the cold, and you’ll be able to find a new place of work soon enough, as long as you stay on the right side of the law.”

“I can tell that whore of yours where she can put her filthy money!”

Pepper was up before she knew it, arriving next to him in quick steps and slapping him in the face for his insults. “Ah, Potts. I know it was you who ratted me out! You were always a cold bitch. Ha!”

He spat on her face, and she made an effort to keep her eyes locked on him and maintain a poker face, despite the disgust that overcame her.

Iron Man violently tackled Dr. Shapanka to the floor, pressing his face against it in a show of strength. When he spoke, his distorted voice resonated with ferocity. “I think that’s enough, don’t you?”

He didn’t respond, his face knotted in a furious grimace.

Just as Pepper was about to –begrudgingly– thank Iron Man for his defense, his inexpressive face plate pointed to her. “You should know when is and when’s not your place to act, Potts.”

His tone, as always, had been clipped and dismissive. He was so damn rude. She checked he was still looking at her when she made a show of rolling her eyes.

Pepper arrived at the Maria Stark Foundation charity gala quite fashionably late. She had lost track of the time catching up with work at the office and had to rush home to get dressed, and she changed her mind about her attire a total of seven times.

The first thing she saw there was the Avengers. It was hard not to pay attention to them. For one, those suits were positively flamboyant. Thor wore a cape. Ant-Man and the Wasp’s clothes were supposed to be more discreet, but she wore them with as much poise as if they were the most elegant dress in the room. And Captain America walked around wearing the damn flag, for goodness' sake.

Out of them, only Thor and Wasp looked comfortable with their surroundings. Thor, she imagined, could’ve looked comfortable anyway, as foreign as he was supposed to be. Wasp simply acted as if she’d been in thousands of galas like that one. Maybe her moniker was an acronym. Ant-Man appeared to wish he were literally anywhere else; and though better at disguising his discomfort, Pepper got the feeling Captain America had yet to get used to this new world.

The guests clearly considered them the main attraction, and Pepper couldn’t say she was completely unaffected by their presence. But for her, the highlight of those nights were Ms. Stark’s eloquent speeches, perfectly calculated to charm money out of their benefactors, and yet so full of true passion for what she was trying to accomplish.

As if she’d summoned her, Pepper saw her walking towards the Avengers. She wore a double-breasted white suit with a high waist that perfectly hugged her figure; with her heels she stood as tall as Thor, taller than Captain America. Her hair seemed to impossible float behind her, and her lips were so red Pepper could distinguish their color from afar. She wore a black shoelace necklace, and Pepper would’ve bet actual money its tips were golden.

Her shirt was buttoned up to her neck, Pepper noticed. There had been some whispers among the employees, about their boss new taste for discreet outfits, about how after Vietnam she always covered her chest and what that might mean. Pepper had cut that talk with her iciest glare, intimidating them into submission without uttering a word.

She always looked beautiful, Pepper thought. But with that suit, she took her breath away.

From afar, she watched as Ms. Stark looked through every Avenger before stopping in front of the Wasp and asking her for a dance with an exaggerated gesture of her hand. The Avenger looked at Ant-Man, smug and with a hit of challenge, before accepting and accompanying her to the dance floor.

Pepper, wistful, imagined how would it feel to be her. To be pressed against Ms. Stark’s chest, to let herself be gently but firmly guided across the room, to feel her hand against her back and to have her face so close to hers. It seemed, however, that she was doomed to do exactly as then: watch from afar. This wasn’t her scene, like it seemed to be the Wasp’s; Ms. Stark often did that, invite her to gatherings like this, and then maybe talk to her once or twice, if Pepper was lucky that night. But mostly, she just stood away, bickered with Happy and tried not to look like too much of a mooning fool.

She stood up from her chair, determined to find someone with a decent conversation when all hell broke loose.

Or, more appropriately, the entire opposite. Ice shards covered the dance floor, awakening panic among the guests. Pepper saw among the frantic runners that it all came from a man, looking as white as the shards, screaming about getting “revenge against Stark”. Her heart started beating erratically, and she tried to locate Natasha to no avail.

“Please ma’am, we need to evacuate the building.” Ant-Man had appeared in front of her and urged her to leave. Still trying to find her, she let herself be guided outside. Among the chaos, she saw Iron Man and felt herself relax. Iron Man’s priority was getting his boss out of danger.

But when she got out, Happy rushing to see if she was alright, Natasha was nowhere to be found.

Pepper could feel herself panicking, and in a fit of what, deep down, she recognized as stupidity, she began to walk towards the building. Happy tried to stop her, questioning her sanity, but she was having nothing of what that blundering fool could say at that moment.

Once inside, she felt even more idiotic. What was she going to do? She didn’t even see a blunt object she could’ve tried to use as a weapon. But now that she was there, getting out felt pointless. She’d simply have to be quiet (she took her heels off; they were high and thin enough that maybe they could work as a weapon, if she got a very, very lucky shot), try to find an Avenger, and warn them that Natasha was missing –right in the middle of an attack orchestrated by some madman with a grudge against her.

Instead, said madman found her, because that was just her luck. In the split second they looked at each other, she could tell he was somewhat familiar. Right before he raised his hands, and Pepper could futilely throw her shoes at him, a hard body pushed her away from the blast, knocking her against the floor.

It didn’t take a genius to guess it was Iron Man. While the villain ran, pursued by the rest of the Avengers, and before they had even gotten up from the floor, Pepper asked: “Where’s N–… where’s Ms. Stark?”

A long silence stretched between them. “That’s why you got back here?” Iron Man asked, incredulous. “Are you a fool?!”

Pepper controlled her trembling chin, because yes, she did feel like quite a fool. But she could’ve done without the remainder, frankly. “Where. Is. She.”

“She’s safe. Worry more about your damn self.”

Pepper struggled to find something to say to him (“you’re not the boss of me” sounded childish, but it would've done the job), he doubled over himself and tripped. He raised his hands to his chest, and his breath sounded laborious. “Are you alright?” Pepper asked, concerned despite herself. He stood up with difficulty and simply turned his back on her and walked away.

Feeling humiliated she left to wait outside, next to the door. Almost an hour later, the police had finally arrived and was taking statements –the villain had apparently escaped, and they were trying to get a description; she had the feeling they shouldn’t have trouble finding a humanoid block of ice, but maybe she was wrong, maybe they truly needed to interrogate her for twenty minutes, who knew! That’s when she finally saw Natasha, whose suit looked rumpled, her hair a mess of static electricity and, more worrying, had a nasty wound and a bloody cut over her eyebrow.

Pepper walked towards her, taking deep breaths to calm herself down and not act like a hysteric idiot while she checked on her. However, she couldn’t avoid a clipped “I don’t know what good is a bodyguard when he’s proved he’s either useless or careless when it comes to guarding your body.”

Captain America overheard her and jumped in his teammate’s defense. “Ma’am, I assure you that Iron Man takes his job seriously and that–”

The anger and frustration she’d felt with Iron Man raised to her throat again, and she prepared herself to let it all out with the new target until she felt Natasha’s hands on her shoulders.

“Ms. Potts, Ms. Potts. Please refrain from fighting the national icon for my honor.” Her tone was unbearably paternalistic. “I don’t like his odds against you, and I don’t have that much of it.”

“Your honor is a more than worthy cause to defend, Ms. Stark,” Captain America proclaimed. Pepper decided maybe he wasn’t so bad.

“Thank you, Captain,” Natasha said, with a gracious nod of her head. She took Pepper a few steps away from the Avengers. “I’m glad you’re in one piece; Iron Man told me what happened. Please, Ms. Potts, I ask that it doesn’t repeat itself. I was covered, and there was no need for your help. Protect yourself and let Iron Man do his job, next time, yes?”

Getting gently reprimanded by Ms. Stark was a thousand times worse than anything Iron Man had ever said to her.

With only two hours left before her usual time of arrival at the office and almost half that time to get home, she decided to simply return there. She let her hair down, feeling the pressure of the hairpins against her scalp, and she started typing memos, absentmindedly.

Pepper felt the chill before she saw the ice. Panicked, but with a quickness that made her a little proud after that mess of a night, she ran to Ms. Stark’s office and locked herself in, knowing it was the most secure room in the building. Praying that it hadn’t all been a joke, she pressed the golden button on the phone. She tried to turn up the heat, but for some reason, it wasn’t working properly.

She took a deep breath and, pushing aside her scruples, she started looking through Ms. Stark’s desk, as she knew she often carried backup clothes. She found suit pants and a jacket that she rushed to put over her cocktail dress, and a large coat she draped herself in up to her ears.

“Ah, Potts, Potts, Potts… you really think a measly door can stop me?”

She recognized that voice. “Dr. Shapanka?”

“Dr. Shapanka is dead! I am Jack Frost!!” Oh, great. He’d gone full-on super-villain. “You were always so cold with me, Potts. And now you’ll die for it, slowly!”

Pepper began to seriously question, in a distant way that made her wonder if the cold was starting to affect her, if she was going to truly die in that room. She wished she’d picked any other office, to save Ms. Stark the trouble of finding a corpse hidden under her desk in the morning.

Her hopes raised when she heard sounds of a struggle outside the door, but she didn’t dare to move from her hideout. When the door was blasted off its hinges, and Iron Man’s voice screamed her name, she painstakingly pushed herself to get out, but her legs failed her when she tried to stand up and she fell on her ass, to her shame.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ll carry you, Pepper.”

It was the first time since she knew him that Iron Man sounded human, she thought. She was so happy to see him she could have kissed that ugly face-plate of his.

But then, just as it happened after the gala, Iron Man’s body seemed to fail him and both of them dropped unceremoniously on the floor. Again.

“What’s wrong? How can I help?”

“There’s a chord in a hidden compartment, in the third drawer,” he explained. Then, he pushed himself against the wall, and began messing with the radiator; to her surprise, he managed to fix it. She got the cord out, not without effort with how much her hands shook, and handed it to him.

Iron Man plugged it on his chest.

Was he truly a robot, like those conspiracy theories said? Natasha could’ve pulled it off, certainly. But she would’ve taken care to make him gentler.

“You’re cold.”

“Brilliant deduction, Watson,” she whispered.

He seemed deep in thought, looking up. “Could you please keep your eyes closed, Pepper.”

If anything, the struggle was keeping them open. She nodded, and was unsurprised when she heard mechanical thuds. Not a robot, then. But she couldn’t really picture what his body would look underneath.

He draped himself around her, in a parody of a hug, moving his arms up and down trying to warm her up. The stove helped, but somehow it was nothing next to his body heat. He felt slimmer than she would’ve guessed.

“C’mon, Pepper, you can’t fall asleep. Tell me something.”

“My face is cold.”

Without a second of hesitation, his hands flew to her face and started gently rubbing them. She felt their callouses and long nimble fingers.

And long, sharp nails. Like the ones Ms. Stark used for social events, because she always kept her short to thinker around her workshop.

Her breath caught in her throat. Everything and nothing made sense, but the idea refused to leave her brain once it entered, and it pushed through the fog in her mind. With a thin voice, she asked, “… Natasha?”

A hand remained on her face, but the other left and she heard those same noises again. She was taking off her helmet, Pepper thought, when long soft hair fell over her. “Yes.”

Since it had become a moot point, Pepper opened her eyes. Natasha still sported her previous wounds, in addition to a new bruise on her jaw. Her makeup was ruined, and she looked pale and more terrified than Pepper had ever seen her.

What was the truth? Was Natasha the tender but distant –and, if she was honest, slightly condescending– woman she knew? The harsh brutish man that always snapped at her? Pepper was tired, and confused, and didn’t think she would've known what to make of it even if this happened under better circumstances.

She put all her questions aside, and instead asked what truly mattered. “Is… what is this? In your chest? Are you okay?”

Natasha closed her eyes, the left corner of her lip curving up. “I’m dying.”

“What?!”

“I have shrapnel in my chest;” she continued, “they call us the walking dead because it’ll never stop trying to get to my heart. And one day, it will. If I’m trapped and run out of charge, or I overexert myself… I’m done.”

Overexert herself. She was a damn superhero. Pepper truly was in love –and fuck, what a moment to admit that to herself– with the biggest idiot on the face of the Earth.

Tears drowned her eyes, feeling sharp against the cold. Natasha rushes to her, pressing their foreheads together. “No, Pepper, please don’t cry. Please.” She gently cleans her tears, and Pepper wonders at how wonderful her warm breath feels against her face.

“Who else knows about it?” she asked, trying to find a distraction.

Unwittingly, she seemed to have fallen on a sensitive topic. “Joanna knew, about the shrapnel. She knew about the armor I used to escape. But I wasn’t– I didn’t plan this, becoming Iron Man. She encouraged me, told me I could be a hero.” She sighed. “Then she left. We weren’t a good fit, to be truthful. She wanted a family, and I… I knew that wasn’t for me, even if I fell for a man. Not with my history. Iron Man was a huge downside, for her.”

“I can’t imagine a single downside of being with you,” Pepper said, emboldened.

Natasha’s face contorts as if hearing that had hurt her somewhere deep inside. Pepper turned her eyes away, ashamed.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Thinking she must’ve heard wrong, Pepper’s head snaps back again. Natasha’s eyes are impossibly fond. “I couldn’t understand why, but I hated the thought that I would never see you again, that you wouldn’t poke fun at my writing or threatened me with more paperwork. I didn’t understand it until I returned, and you said I was unforgivably late to work.”

Pepper remembered that. It happened just over a year ago. She had made a joke, knowing Ms. Stark would like that, but there had been tears in her eyes.

Acting on impulse, Pepper raised her head and kissed Natasha’s soft smile. It was a timid kiss, barely a few seconds long, and her lips were chapped from the cold. But Pepper’s toes curled, and she felt heavenly and warm again.

Natasha didn’t move away. In fact, she leaned in but stopped herself just shy of a second kiss. “This isn’t a good idea, Pepper. I told you, I’m dying. It’s… simpler, if no one gets close. Not really. Ms. Stark is dazzling but superficial, and Iron Man is just a man in a can. It helps.”

“No one who knew either of you would think that,” Pepper said, reproachful, briefly remembering how Captain America was ready to battle for both. “And even if I don’t get any closer than this, do you think I won’t still be heartbroken?”

“Pepper…”

“I was, you know? When you went missing, I fell apart. I was wrecked.”

“You weren’t,” Natasha protested, amused. “You kept my company afloat. Like I knew you would. You’re the strongest person I know.”

“That’s one hell of a compliment, now that I know you regularly hang out with Thor.”

Natasha laughed, loudly and heartily, a laugh Pepper hadn’t heard before. Ms. Stark and Iron Man might only be parts of the wonderful person in front of her, but only looking at Natasha, no masks involved, was making Pepper fall for the whole of her even deeper. It was terrifying. She didn’t know what she was going to do, aware of what Natasha got up to when everyone thought she was safely hidden from danger. But she doubted she’d be strong enough to stay away even if she wanted to.

More confident, Pepper kissed her again. She tangled her hands in Natasha’s hair, marveling at the softness she’d dreamed of so many times. The spirit was more than willing, and the body was almost there; despite the cold, her body was being set aflame.

Natasha kept interrupting their kisses, babbling about how they really needed to talk, and to see a doctor once they were able to move again, and a dozen other little things. Pepper slides her tongue over Natasha’s lower lip, reveling in her mouth; she slip it in when her mouth fell open, and Natasha finally gets with the program.