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Virginia had a plan. She always did. It had all begun last night - emerging from righteous anger and a bottle of cheap wine.
It had all begun two months ago with another bottle of wine, a job lost and a truly awful self-help book. It’s all about taking small steps, giving yourself an achievable goal. Learn how to cook. Grow a plant. More than a little tipsy, wallowing in the kind of anger that inevitably resulted in frustrated tears – Virginia had marched (well, stumbled) into the little shed that housed all the gardening tools. She had unearthed a small bag of seeds, barely bothered to read what kind and had begun digging with a kind of manic energy. She’d look back at the incident a few days later, sober and mostly sane, and think about how close to veering off the edge she probably would have looked. But at that instant, fuelled with supermarket wine and drunken purpose, she was doggedly trying to plant the seeds she had found. She had woken up the next morning with a painfully dry mouth, a throbbing headache and dirt under her nails. And as the night came back in flashes, it brought with it the memories of a patch of dirt, that would, at some point probably, spring daisies.
Once again, Virginia marched - stumbled, college hadn’t helped her deal with hangovers any better - into the shed, looking for the packet of seeds. Maybe it came with instructions. She could almost hear her grandmother’s patronizing tut at that thought. But she was a city girl, damn it. What was she supposed to know about gardening? She was also ridiculously stubborn though. And the idea of stopping what she had started, while inebriated or not, was something that she couldn’t stomach. Moreover, with the job at AIM ending the way it had, she had nothing but time on her hands. And maybe the daisies were borne out of self-pity. Maybe she had to watch an outlandish number of YouTube videos to figure out how to care for a plant. Maybe sometimes she was struck with the urge to just yank the growing saplings out of the mud and be done with it. But over time she had grown attached to the infernal flowers – when the first daisy had bloomed, looking bright and happy and comically out of place in her otherwise bare yard, Virginia had felt something close to pride, as silly as that notion was. So of course she wouldn’t stand for the fact that every week some vagrant would just pluck the flowers and saunter away, most definitely to impress someone who didn’t know any better.
The plan was simple. She had noticed that a couple of flowers would go missing only every Monday, so all she had to do was to wait in the yard for the person to appear. Call him or her out on the thieving. And that would be that. (The part of her that told her she was over-reacting was very easily silenced by her fourth glass of wine.)
What she hadn’t expected, however, was for the thief to be so striking. Striking enough to make her forget her very well thought out speech. So instead of coolly castigating the man the way she had definitely not practised in front of the mirror last night, she found herself saying, “I’m coming with you to make sure that the girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft.” What.
Tony didn’t have a plan. He rarely ever did. It was Monday morning and he had woken up with the mother of all hangovers. A quick glance to the side confirmed that he had gotten drunk alone last night. Right. He made it downstairs in a haze, forcing toast into his dry mouth and damn near crying his thanks out to the coffee machine.
It was only when he was bent over the basin, throwing up what little he had eaten, that he remembered what had gotten him there in the first place. Six months. It had been six months since the accident. And for six months he had pretended that he was okay. That he didn’t care. That he could carry on normally. It seemed that last night – and the sound of his mother’s voice in a documentary about their life – had brought an end to that pretence. Struck by the sudden urge to cry, Tony vehemently worked around the lump in his throat, cleaned himself up, and got into his car – not yet sure where he was going. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised when he found himself following the path to the plot where his parents had been buried.
He left the car a mile or so away, choosing to walk to the cemetery instead. It was then that he noticed the daisies. Impossible not to, really – they were the only sign of life in the miserably barren lawn. Happy flowers, his mother had called them. Well, he could use some happy right now. So he walked over the yard, plucking a couple of flowers before heading towards the cemetery. And when he placed the flowers on his mother’s grave, they just looked right.
“Got you daisies. Apology flowers, for not visiting as much as I should have. Before. I – um – I had my issues with dad. Not that I was very vocal about those. But I shouldn’t have let them stop me from coming to visit you. So, yeah. Apology flowers. Hope they still make you happy.”
For the first time in six months he felt a little lighter, didn’t feel like there were so many thoughts crawling in his head that he wanted to scream. Making his way back to the car, Tony spared a quick glance at the daisies, and came to the conclusion that this was as good a plan as any. And so Monday mornings found Tony Stark, daisies in hand, heading to his mother’s - not his parents’, never his parents’ – grave.
This Monday too, should have been like any other, had it not been for the woman standing in the yard, hands on her hips and glare on her face. She was wearing cut-offs and a faded tee, hair up in a sloppy bun and glasses perched on her nose. There was no way that she should have appeared threatening. She had freckles, for Christ’s sake! But there was something steely in her eyes that made Tony freeze. It most definitely did not have anything to do with what her legs looked like in shorts, or how her hair caught the sun.
And if he wasn’t struck dumb by the woman he seemed to have every intention of eviscerating him right there – over a bunch of flowers of all things – he was definitely left speechless by what she said next.
“I’m coming with you to make sure that the girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft.” What.
The stranger seemed just as confused as she was feeling, but never one to back down, and with a terrible habit of rambling when she felt flustered, Virginia soldiered on.
“You’ve been stealing my daisies for a month. And I need to know if the girl – or guy – you’re giving them to is worth it. Sounds good, Mister- ?”
“Anthony. Just Anthony,” he managed in a strangled voice. “It’s a girl,” he added, although there was a furrow between his brows, like he wasn’t sure of what he had said. Or why he had said it. Choosing not to read much into it, Virginia just smiled.
“Okay, ‘Just Anthony’, show me the woman that merits theft.”
That seemed to rouse him out of his confusion, making him bluster indignantly. “It isn’t theft. I didn’t know someone planted them! I figured they were just growing there.”
“Without any rain?” Virginia responded, raising a brow at the poor excuse.
“Forgive me for assuming that a bunch of flowers in the middle otherwise a barren patch of land grew there naturally. If someone were to consciously grow flowers, it’s likely there would be a garden around it or something. Not just a pile of dirt.”
Well, he had her there. Suddenly defensive, and ignoring the steadily rising heat in her cheeks, Virginia muttered, “It was a project. Baby steps and all that.”
Anthony lips quirked into a smirk in response, not quite looking at her. Virginia took that time to study his face – or how much ever of it she could see. His sunglasses and cap obscured most of his face. He had a strong jaw though, covered with a slight dusting of stubble. His hair, or what she could see of it, managed to look scruffy and soft at the same time. All in all, he looked like he had just rolled out of bed. Virginia would never admit that it was a good look. And then there was his smirk –it screamed confidence, hell even arrogance. But there was also a kind of boyish mischief and something else, something almost sad– and what the hell was she doing analysing a stranger’s smirk?
Abruptly, she turned her head, trying not to think about what his smile would be like.
He could feel her gaze on him, and he had to ball his fists to stop himself fiddling with the flowers. It was a nervous tic, tinkering with whatever he had in his hand when a situation got uncomfortable.
He wasn’t unaccustomed to attention from women – hell, he lavished in it. And were it any other situation, he would have turned around, cocky grin and all, and said something to show that he had noticed. Were it any other situation, he would have even flirted a little, wrangled a date out of her. But the way she looked at him was different. Less attracted and more curious. Like he was some puzzle, like he was being scrutinised under a microscope. Dissected and laid out for parts. And it made him increasingly uneasy. Uneasy enough to make him forget all his moves. Of course, there was the added fact that he wasn’t Tony Stark. He was Anthony. Anthony who was going to meet his girlfriend. So flirting was, technically, out of question.
And that in itself was another cause for his discomfort. He wasn’t even sure what he was thinking when he blurted out his name – his real name. Or when he added that he was going to visit a girl. All technical truths wrapped in awkward lies. What a mess. But he had already been intrigued, her demand throwing him further off balance, and he found himself wanting to know about her. Playing along had seemed like a good enough plan. Until he noticed that she had freckles even on her legs. That when she blushed, it started all the way up her neck. Until he began to wonder if she had freckles on her back. If her blush began even further down. And suddenly she was looking at him like that, and there was an odd kind of swoop in his stomach, and he was torn between fleeing or flirting. Suffice to say, his thoughts were all over the place.
With the silence verging on uncomfortable, Tony awkwardly cleared his throat, saying the first thing that came to his mind.
“Why was the rest of the lawn so ugly?”
He stumbled when his words caught up with his mind, cursing his inability to actually filter what he said. The woman, on the other hand, managed to fix him with a half-hearted glare, taking it in her stride.
“Oh I’m from the city. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a patch of green, actually. So when I moved here, I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“And the daisies?”
“A flight of fancy,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh, one that implied that there was more to the story than she was revealing. Tony hated incomplete stories – he couldn’t stop until every loose end was tied together and everything fell into place. Of course, that had more to do with scientific queries than absent anecdotes from strangers, but there were always exceptions.
“There’s got to be more to it than that.”
The woman – God, he really needed to find out what her name was – seemed to be contemplating whether or not to tell him. And Tony immediately began to backpedal, panicking, wondering if he was being too pushy. Maybe the story was personal. Shit, he couldn’t remember the last time he had managed to mess up so much in the span of ten minutes. Just when he was about to apologise, she shrugged and said, “I was mad and upset about being laid off and read a self-help book that told me to find an achievable goal. I picked the flowers. I should probably mention that I was also extremely drunk.”
For the first time in six months, Tony burst out laughing.
She wasn’t sure what exactly it was that made her tell him about planting the daisies. While not exactly personal, it wasn’t a particularly flattering story. At least not one you’d tell a stranger. But then she thought of his stupid smirk, and how she thought it had almost looked sad, and thought, Oh what the hell. Maybe he could do with a laugh. That she would get to see what his smile was like was just an added perk.
And yet she was taken by surprise when he started laughing, doubling over in delight. She wanted to be offended, or at least a little affronted, but one glimpse of his smile and she could feel her own lips quirk in response. He had the kind of infectious grin that reminded her of summer days - it was childish and happy and loud - and it made up for any embarrassment she felt. When he finally caught his breath and looked at her she was struck with the errant realization that she was glad that he was wearing sunglasses. If his eyes were anywhere as expressive as his smile, she’d be falling head-first into lovestruck territory.
“So let me get this straight. You got fired. Then you got drunk and decided to consult a self-help book - and then planted daisies because of the advice from said self-help book.”
At least he had the courtesy to wince when he said ‘fired’, so Virginia only tilted her head in response.
“Most people would just drunk dial their boss, you know.”
She took a second to shake off the sheer horror she felt while even considering the situation, already hearing Killian’s overtures in her head. She shuddered involuntarily, and then tried to cover it up with a shake of her head and a dry smile. Of course he zeroed in her pretence, making Virginia wonder just how perceptive he was.
“Once again, you’re not telling me the whole story.”
She grimaced, not sure if she wanted to relive that experience. So, as succinctly as she could manage, she said, “Uh I got fired because I maced my boss for getting a bit too handsy.”
She’d expected him to laugh again; a lot of the people she’d narrated the incident to had. Instead, he stopped short, all traces of humour wiped from his face.
“Son of a bitch,” he ground out.
Oh. Suddenly at a loss for words, all Virginia could say was, “Indeed.”
Apparently that was all it took to ease his stormy mood though. A smirk - the one she’d already begun to associate with him – was back in full force, when he said, “So, Pepper, other than drunkenly planting daisies and macing scum, what do you do?”
He wasn’t sure where the anger had come from – but it had reared its head, spitting and snarling at her nameless, faceless boss. It wasn’t that he hadn’t ever heard some variant of her situation, it was alarmingly, awfully common; however, he had never quite had such a strong reaction to it. And then she had blinked owlishly, awkwardly flustered, tucking her hair behind her ears with both hands and his anger receded just as fast as it had arrived. Uncomfortable with his suddenly vacillating emotions, he slipped back into the whole ‘billionaire with a devil-may-care attitude’ persona. That was easy. That he could deal with.
The nickname slipped out without much thought. She hadn’t told him her name and with her skilful wielding of pepper-spray, the name Pepper had seemed pretty fitting. He only had to glance at the smattering of freckles on her face to reaffirm that the name was just right. Pepper, it seemed, did not agree.
“Did you just call me Pepper?”she questioned sharply, although, he could swear that her lips were twitching.
Not quite able to share his reasoning – not without revealing his abject fascination with her freckles – he just quirked a shoulder, saying, “It fits. Plus, you never told me your name.”
“It’s Virginia,” she said, and he felt his smirk grow.
Probably anticipating his jokes, she quickly moved on from the discussion. “And to answer your earlier question, I’m doing nothing. Well, right now at least. I was working as a Management Analyst at AIM before I got fired. Just in time for my grandparents to go on their world tour, actually. So they handed me the keys, asked me to look after their cottage while they’re gone, and took off. They send me postcards every other day. I don’t think I’ve ever heard them any happier.”
He would have expected some amount of bitterness or frustration, given the situation. After all, like she had said, she was a city girl. Living miles away from downtown, in a cottage, away from a job she seemed to have loved, if the smile she had on her face when she told him about it was any indication. And yet, here she was - grinning softly as she told him about her grandparents’ messages from Rome. There was something so guileless about it that Tony once again felt that swooping sensation in his gut – one that had become quite a fixture in this conversation. And because he was struck by the sudden urge to slip his hand into hers, he balled it into a careful fist and shoved it in his pocket.
“Anyway,” she continued, clearly oblivious to his internal struggle, “I found myself bored within the first week. What does one do with all this free time? It’s dreadful, really.”
“Workaholic, huh?”
“In a way, I guess. I just really enjoy being part of a business. Possibly even running one someday. There’s always some new idea to market, or numbers to organise. It’s pretty rewarding,” she said, her excitement catching up with her as she gestured with her hands, clearly unable to convey what she wanted to with just her words. The stupid swooping wouldn’t stop.
“I have never seen anyone geek out over running a business like that. Machines and code and tech I get. Business though, that’s new.”
He saw Pepper –okay, so he had taken to calling her Pepper in his head surprisingly quickly - rush to defend herself, all righteous indignation and withering glares. It would have even been intimidating if it hadn’t been for the way her face was inching towards crimson, or the honest-to-God pout her lips had managed to curl into. It was a ridiculously heady combination, which was probably why the circuits between his brain and mouth got fried and he ended up blurting, “It’s cute!”
“Oh um thanks?”
“Anytime,” he replied, almost as awkward as her. God, he had been smoother than this even when he was a teenager.
“So machines, code, and tech. Engineer?”
He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so grateful for a deflection, and suddenly he found himself rambling, his words tumbling over one another as he spoke about everything possible, ranging from Dum-E’s newest achievement to miniaturising particle accelerators. Pepper nodded along, not quite understanding all the intricacies but asking fairly incisive questions once she managed to grasp the basics of what he was saying. He found himself looking at her every few moments, trying to gauge her reaction. If her brows furrowed just a little, he would slow down, and rephrase his argument until she rewarded him with a small smile of understanding. If her eyes lit up slightly, he prepared himself to answer one of her questions. It was a give and take that he hadn’t realised he had missed. MIT had been full of people ready to indulge his 4am epiphanies or impulsive experiments; however, once he had graduated they had all ended up going their own way. And while the R&D guys at SI were great, they had either been too awkward around him, all at least 25 years his senior, or too intimidated by his being a Stark, to make for any conversation.
“So how far is your date?” she asked, effectively pulling him back to the ground. Right. The date.
He spotted the gate of the cemetery from the corner of his eye and realised that there was no way he could pull this off any longer. Time to face the music. Uncharacteristically nervous, he ran a hand down the back of his neck, kicking at some invisible piece of dirt, as he pointed to the gate with his free hand.
“There it is.”
“You asked your date to meet you at a cemet – oh.”
He watched as confusion flickered across her face. Followed by understanding. It was only when sympathy washed over her face that he was struck with the urge to cry. So, of course, he drawled, a picture of confidence, “Well, you’ve come all the way here, you can’t leave without meeting her.”
Cemetery. He was at a cemetery. And she had demanded to go with him. Oh god she wanted to kick herself. There was a part of her mind that reminded her that he could’ve just told her right at the beginning, saved her from all this embarrassment. Of course, that part of her mind was drowned out by the part that was screaming with embarrassment. Or the part that wanted to hold him until he stopped looking so damned sad. God, she didn’t even know the man, and here she was - wanting to comfort him.
“I’m so sorry – I didn’t – I wouldn’t have – Jesus, I just,” she said stumbling, barely able to string together an apology.
He just shrugged, but his face looked so blank, so rigid, that there was a lump forming in her throat.
“I didn’t tell you, did I? Come on, now let’s go meet mom.”
She just nodded, dazed. His mother. She scrubbed at her face before he caught the rogue tear that had found its way out of the corner of her eye, trailing behind him, trying to ignore all the thoughts buzzing in her head. She watched as he skimmed his hand over the headstone before placing the daisies on the grave.
Maria Collins Carbonell Stark.1929-1991. Hearts remember and follow.
Stark. Anthony Stark. Tony Stark, oh God. She wanted to look up at him in accusation but all she could do was stare at his face. She couldn’t fault him for not telling her – she had read the magazines, every single one had some picture of him from the funeral, every single rag prying ruthlessly. Had he even gotten to grieve privately?
Her eyes strayed to the headstone behind Anthony.
Howard Anthony Walter Stark. 1917-1991. Pioneer, Innovator, Patriot. ‘Husband’ and ‘Father’ were conspicuously missing. She cast her mind back to what he had said. Meet mom, not parents, just mom.
Before she could contemplate the weight in her chest, he said, “Hey mom! Meet Pepper. I’ve been stealing her daisies for you.”
“She merits it,” she found herself murmuring, her hand resting on top of his. She didn’t think it was anywhere close to enough, but he turned to look at her, his sunglasses abandoned, and he looked so damned touched and surprised, that she thought it might be.
He turned his hand over, intertwining his fingers with hers, and didn’t let go even as they walked out of the cemetery. She realised she didn’t mind.
He cleared his throat, painfully unsure of what to do. Unsure of everything other than the fact that he liked how her hand felt in his. The whole situation felt ridiculously juvenile – he hadn’t cried in front of anyone before, hated showing that he was weak, and yet there was something about her that told him that she wouldn’t judge him if he did. And then there was the hand holding and how is stomach felt like it had when he made his first circuit board – he almost snorted at that comparison, most people would have thought about rollercoasters and Coney Island. Falling for her in the span of a single conversation was ridiculously cheesy at best and foolishly childish at worst, and yet here he was.
She was staring at their intertwined hands with the kind of intensity most people reserved for entire studies. He thought about pulling away, but then her grip tightened, and the knot in his chest – one that he hadn’t even been aware of – eased.
“So you’re Tony Stark.”
“The one and only,” he said, grimacing, already wondering what image her mind had conjured for her.
She smiled and went back to looking straight ahead. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but that wasn’t it.
“What? No questions? No ‘Was it really true? That thing in People.’ ?” And then because he really couldn’t ever shut up, “If it was about how hot I am in bed, then it’s true. Everything else is bullshit.”
She raised her eyebrow, clearly unimpressed. And then, “Do you want me to ask you questions?”
“No, not really,” he admitted. So they walked in silence, all the way until they reached her cottage, a sharp contrast to their walk to the cemetery. That walk had been all easy jokes and light conversation. This one was quiet and weighted, and yet somehow, as comfortable as their banter had been.
It was when she undid the latch on the gate that he panicked. And once again, said the first thing that came to his mind.
“Want to come work for me?”
That definitely had not been what he wanted to say, and by the look on Pepper’s face, it had been what she expected to hear either. But the more he thought of it, the more sense it made.
“You worked at AIM, which means you had to have a stellar résumé. I like business, but I like science better, which means I need someone who can handle all the boring stuff while I can go do what I enjoy. I’m not sure what job title that would be, but we can make it up as we go along,” he listed. “You,” he decided, “are perfect.”
“You can’t – I can’t - You haven’t even seen my résumé. I could be extremely unqualified, for all you know. You can’t just offer me a job – one that doesn’t even officially exist – on a whim.”
He pretended to consider that for a moment, before rolling his eyes and grinning.
“I’m Tony fucking Stark. Of course I can. And I did. So what say?”
And then, with what he hoped was a winning smile, he added, “Also, do you want to get dinner with me?”
She still seemed pretty dazed, and he couldn’t really blame her, but her lack of response was making him nervous in a way he had never experienced before. Finally, painfully slowly, a grin spread across her face.
“Yes.”
He almost breathed a sigh of relief.
“Is that for the former or the latter? Or both? Say both.”
There was a playful twinkle in her eyes, one that made Tony realise that he was most definitely never going to recover from whatever this was. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t want to.
“The former. As for the latter? Maybe if you ask me with flowers that you haven’t stolen.”
The next day, there are fifteen different floral arrangements on her doorstep. Yet when Tony comes to pick her up for dinner, it’s with a lone daisy in his hand.