Chapter Text
They're hidden in one of the small streets of Tokyo, off the beaten path, rain littering down and forming puddles on the tarmac. The wind curls around her shoulders, makes the end of her ponytail drift lightly, but neither of them make any sign to move from their table under moderate cover and inside. It's comfortable. She watches passersby, more locals than tourists, and none of them bat at eyelid at Tony even when their eyes glance over him. He doesn't pay them any attention - used to being in the limelight more often than not - and lifts his bowl closer to his mouth, slurping his yakisoba.
One thing, out of the many, that had surprised her about Tony is his love for authenticity. She had never really noticed it prior to their relationship. He had always been flashy. Buying the most expensive bottle of alcohol to take to a party; hosting lunch with members of the board at the Ritz; he'd even flown a chef from Italy out to his place in Dubai for a dinner party. Though, she thinks with a wry smile, that had been with people that cared about his money, not himself, and he'd provided them with what they expected to see. Still, she's surprised that it's taken her so long to notice. She can't recall, back when she was still his personal assistant - or, as he joked, his shadow - a time when he'd ever done anything like this. Dodged the fancy restaurants and hotel spas in order to lead her down back alleys to a family-run street-food business. It'd lead her to wonder how many times he'd snuck away to discover places like this by himself, while she stayed back in the hotel probably skyping a meeting he was supposed attend, taking his place. And perhaps it'd been shallow of her, but she hadn't thought Tony knew anything but expensive taste. He'd grown up surrounded by money, she'd presumed he didn't know the value of the little man.
Tony places his bowl back onto the table. It's entirely too small, their table. She's knocked knees with him half a dozen times, but he just grins at her every time, his eyes lighting up as they always do when she touches him.
"Don't like it?"
Tony nods at the plate before her. While his bowl is almost empty, she's not even halfway through her dish.
"I love it, actually," she assures him, dipping the tempura in its tentsuyu and taking a bite.
She's being entirely truthful: it's mouthwatering. She'd had her doubts when Tony had lead her to the battered-looking building, and sat her outside on the rickety table, but the food is delicious. The hosts are gracious, too - an elderly man cooking in the centre of the room, and a young woman serving while making small-talk with the other diners. If they know who Tony is, they haven't said a word, and it's nice, for once, to simply enjoy his company. It's rare that they get to go out for dinner without her phone buzzing with e-mails; or his adoring public, the cameras, watching their move through the windows; they're often interrupted by men in suits attempting to shmooze Tony into offering them a contract on their latest project, as though the CEO of his company isn't sitting directly across from him.
"What?"
She's staring again, she realises, and ducks her head down to her plate.
"Nothing."
"Pretty big elephant to be nothing."
She glances back up at him.
"When did you find this place?"
He sniffs. "Five years ago. Snuck out when you all thought I was nursing a hangover. The takoyaki here cured me."
It worries her, knowing that there was a time when he could do that: sneak out without her realising. When she woke alone, and assumed he was safe simply because she had no reason to believe he wasn't. Obadiah had still been one of Tony's closest friends at the time. At any moment, he could've hired someone to take Tony, while he was wandering the streets and Pepper thought him to be feeling sorry for himself in bed.
"You expected a more salacious story," Tony states.
"I just can't picture you somewhere like here, that's all," she replies.
He looks caught between being offended and pleased by the statement. She nods towards the Tom Ford suit he's wearing, and thinks of her own Gucci heels, which are currently being bruised by the uneven sidewalk.
"Hey, you don't like it, I'll take you somewhere else," Tony says, and he's already placing down too many bills for their food. "The hotel recommended some places you'd like. Whatever you want, we'll get it."
"Wait a second. Tony, stop," she says, reaching over to stop him from pulling his blazer on. "I never said I didn't like it."
He does this - panics. Well, he panics about a lot of things, but mostly her. Like he's never doing the right thing, which is strange, considering the confidence she's always known him to have. But they're new to this, both of them, as much as he seems to think he's the only one wading in uncharted waters. Yes, she's been in long-term relationships before, and he hasn't (he'd confessed his longest relationship to have been three days long, but he'd only stuck with it to prove a point to Rhodey). However, she's never been in a relationship with her used-to-be-boss-now-technically-her-employee-who-is-also-Iron-Man before. Yeah, it's a lot to wrap her head around.
She feels her cheeks growing warm. "It's peaceful. Quiet."
He stares at her. "Yeah."
Like home, she thinks.
"I wish it was like this more often. Just you and me," she tells him, and keeps her gaze fixed firmly on her plate.
He's quiet, and she drops her hand from his arm, taking another bite of her tempura just to give herself something to do. She wishes she had some of the confidence she used to have when she bossed him about. But there had been clear lines then, boundaries they didn't cross in their relationship.
"I'm gonna marry you someday."
Pepper drops her chopsticks. She distantly hears them clatter against the ground as her head whips up to face him. He's smiling, a nonchalant thing, that makes her pulse hasten its pace.
"I'll get you another set," he says, and she has no idea what he's talking about until he stands and enters the restaurant, leaving her staring at him open-mouthed through the window.
The young woman fetches him a new set of chopsticks immediately, and Pepper watches as he follows her small talk easily. The longer she watches, the more she feels herself beginning to panic. She's never heard those words from a man before. She'd been proposed to, once, shortly after becoming Tony's PA, but it'd been a proposal born out of sheer desperation to keep her, not out of love.
Is it love? It sure feels like love, to her, but she's not told him. Pepper considers herself brave, but she's yet to find the courage to get those three little words out. Because Tony is a changed man, yes, but she's still on unsteady ground as to how committed he really is to this thing they're doing. She doesn't think he'll leave, but what happens when he gets bored? She's known him for too long, knows what he's like at the start of a project: he throws himself into it entirely until, a couple weeks later, he's burnt out and moving onto the next thing, already forgetting what it was his hands once spent hours crafting.
Tony reappears, handing her the chopsticks, and she accepts them without comment. She goes back to eating. She can feel his eyes on her the entire time, but never moves to speak, and she wonders if he's shocked himself to silence, too. That'd be like him. So without a filter.
He waits until she's finished before he speaks.
"So, how about it?"
Pepper finally looks at him.
"How about what?"
"Marriage."
He reaches for his sake, eyes never leaving hers.
"Are you asking?"
"Yes."
"No, I mean, is this you asking me to marry you? Right now?"
He considers this for a moment.
"Yep."
Pepper sighs, reaching over to cover one of his hands with hers. He places the sake back on the table without taking a sip.
"No."
His eyebrows raise. "No?"
"You can't honestly be shocked I didn't accept," she says, rolling her eyes.
"Shocked? Kinda. Hurt? Very," he says, placing a hand on his chest. "I'll have you know I'm a catch, Pepper Potts."
"I don't disagree," she replies demurely. "But this is something people... take time to reflect on. You know, think about. You have a track record of being impulsive."
"I resent that. I've thought about this for at least," he pauses, "two minutes."
She laughs, a small thing, but he still smiles in reply. He reaches over to kiss her cheek, his goatee scratching against her chin when he dusts a feather-light kiss against her jaw too, before pulling away. Her fingers curl around his tighter.
It's a silly notion. Thinking about accepting, while they're sat by the rain and people pass them by on pedal bikes and others with their jackets held over their heads. She still pictures it, though. How wide his smile would be. How he'd probably order her the biggest, most ridiculous ring on his phone right then and there until she convinced him to go for something more her style, beautiful but tasteful.
"Pep?"
"Yeah?"
"You've got sauce, uh," he motions to the left of her lip.
Embarrassed, Pepper reaches for a tablecloth, sighing when she remembers there aren't any. He hands his pocket square, which is far too expensive to have her wiping sauce all over it, but she has no other choice. He doesn't lose the light in his eyes as she does, though, and she tries to remember when it is they became this. She'd always been the one who'd walked in on his messes. She prided herself on being put-together, never a hair out of place. Now, she's -
Comfortable.
She folds the pocket square to cover her stains and passes it back to him. He slips it into the inner pocket of his blazer, unfazed.
"Tony?"
He's pulled his phone out, frowning at something he's reading, but locks the screen immediately to switch his attention to her. Unusual. She's used to him half-listening, his brain always skittering away, never satisfied with being occupied by just one thing.
"One day. Maybe."
"So, we're engaged to be engaged?"
God, engaged to Tony Stark. To Iron Man. What a dream-world her life has become.
"No," she answers. "I'm just saying... don't rule it out. But not for a long time."
"I'll wear you down."
"I'm sure you will."
"I give it a month."
"Five years."
He smirks. "Six months, then."
Pepper stands, slipping the strap of her bag over her arm, not bothering to remind him that there's an art exhibit they're here to attend, knowing he'll follow her regardless. Reminding him will only make him whine and beg to go somewhere else.
Tony adds a couple more bills onto the stack he's left, probably enough to fund at least a couple dozen meals at this place, before he pulls his blazer on and begins to follow her back down the street, nipping at her heels the entire time.