Chapter Text
There was a birth certificate somewhere for a Katherine Delilah Morrow, born to Jenny Lee Morrow at Lowell Correctional Institute, Florida.
Prison.
It shouldn’t matter. It really, really, shouldn’t matter. But it does. Being born in prison has a certain influence in your life. Then more than now. Although of course she didn’t grow up there, she was only born in prison.
You might wonder who was taking care of her. The easy answer would be The State, as an entity, and through it different appointed wards. Foster homes, foster parents, a grandma here and there, an uncle who fought tooth and nail for her and then immediately forgot about her and sent her back to the grandma that had lost her custody. By age fifteen it didn’t matter because she was six states over, pretending to be a college-age girl and working in a bar where she could get the card information of clients. She said her name was Maggie and she was experimenting with a shade of blonde different from her natural own.
Eventually she was arrested for fraud and theft and a few other charges from the card stealing. They were threatening possession, too, even though that was all her boss and she hadn’t touched any of it. Drugs made you vulnerable and she didn’t like being vulnerable.
She didn’t go to jail though. Somehow, between one work shift and another in the police station, she went from arrested felon to upset girlfriend who didn’t have enough to post bail for her man but please, if only they listened to her, Barry was a good guy, please, no, don’t make me leave! Hey!
One thing could be said about the experience, it did make her think and reflect about her actions and examine her mistakes, which is something that very rarely happens in a police station. Usually there is far more blaming other people and denying everything. Not her, though. She had learned from it.
Of course the takeaway from the lesson might not have been the desired one. She learned that she had left an obvious trail, that she had trusted the wrong people, that she didn’t have enough resources to start over and that she was a very good liar. She learned how she had been caught and also how to slip away.
The next time she was brunette again, working as a secretary in a construction company that was so corrupt it was a wonder they got anything built. Her name was Amanda, but she went by Amy because she thought it sounded more feminine and dainty. She spoke in a high pitch tone and never rolled her eyes when she was patronized. She got away with 85 thousand dollars with just thirteen months of work. If there was a trail pointing at her in the embezzlement investigation, it was buried in the web of bribes to local government officials and violations of OSHA and FDA regulations.
Mackenzie and Chloe came almost back to back. Both blondes. Both always laughed at people’s jokes. One got 130K and the other 60K plus a painting and a few jewels. The jewels she kept for an emergency and she donated the painting to a museum. She didn’t have any use for it and it felt wrong to destroy it.
Then there was raven-haired Kelly. A bit over two years of work and a nice prize of 360K that could quite easily had been twice as much. All because someone in the company thought that 3% on property taxes was too much and did anything to avoid paying them. When people try to hide money it is much easier to steal. They have done half the work for you.
Life wasn’t bad, which isn’t the same as saying it was good. She had to keep three different safe places to fall back on and she couldn’t buy lasting things. She couldn’t have a boyfriend, or a dog. Not even a house plant. The idea of letting a plant die made her feel guilty but she had to be able to drop everything and run. There was always the threat of something or someone from her past reaching her. She might have been a bit too careless and definitely recklessly daring. She had made enemies.
She thought: Maybe one or two big jobs with equally big prizes and then she would go legit. Give a try to life without an expiration date.
So she got some nice clothes and let her hair go back to her natural color so she wouldn’t have to worry about keeping it dyed, and started testing the waters. Looking for people with way more money than sense. People who were smart, because smart people are proud of their intelligence and think that they can’t be deceived.
Killian was promising and there was a gentleman called Osborn who was an utter disaster begging to be manipulated. But when she got close to Tony in a museum gala she instantly knew he was better. He was perfect, in fact. Rich, brilliant, and with no idea of how the world worked. Well, neither did the other two, but there was something about Tony that said “naïve” that was absent from the others. As if, somehow, the orphan boy turned arms dealer didn’t know that there were bad people in the world.
The only problem with Tony was the competition. Cut-throat, vicious, angry competition, all circling Tony like the sharks and vultures they were. From the Amicable Godfather to the Stylist who dressed him to the— Well, everyone. Everyone but the chauffeur and the college friend (allegedly; she still wasn’t certain about either of them). All wanting their piece of the ridiculously rich cash cow.
They were ambitious and a bit cruel. You had to be cruel to succeed. You couldn’t care about your target. But they were not as good at her, not at all. They were impatient and they didn’t have enough practice. She had half a dozen jobs at her back.
Charlize was Tony’s assistant. He had two assistants, actually. One for work things and another for private things and home stuff. Charlize was the first one and she was working on seducing Tony, getting him drunk, and marrying him.
Wrong. It was too much too quickly. Charlize succeeded in the first two steps, which wasn’t saying much because any waitress over the legal age could do the same. They slept together, kept drinking, and before they had sex again Charlize suggested this time they should try it married. Tony agreed initially (he was a disaster, that was why she had chosen him) but since he wasn’t as horny as before he wasn’t impatient. Something about the trashy décor of the chapel gave him an idea for a new kind of electromagnetic circuit so he left to go do that instead and left his bride-to-be in the counter where she was filling out the license.
And then, oh sweetheart, then it became obvious that dear Charlize was too impatient and that she couldn’t take a small setback. She went to Tony with two very obvious self-inflicted bruises (How, girl? It was really bad. She had busted her lip and bruised her wrists much better). She threatened him with a knife and said that if Tony didn’t marry her that instant she would call the police and report him for assault.
You see her mistake, right? She should have demanded a payout, not marriage. He might have paid her to get her to go away, but even Tony wouldn’t marry such crazy. One has to know when to let go of the original plan and adapt to the new circumstances.
For example, she was going to take things slowly and not draw Tony’s attention until she knew everything about him and his surroundings. Slow infiltration and only make contact when she felt in control and knew the competition well. But when you have a deranged woman threatening your befuddled boss in the middle of a corridor to— shit, see? She didn’t know where that corridor went. Didn’t matter. There was a violent woman with a knife and there was her, the recently-born Virginia Potts, BA in Administration (unfinished, but she would get around it, it’s just two subjects), reddish blonde and blue-eyed and all legs and an impish smile. A bit of a Daddy’s girl. That was the name of a daddy’s girl who wanted to be a professional woman too.
She got her cute little pink pepper spray out of her purse and she emptied it on Charlize. When your sin is impatience the punishment shall come very quickly.
“Would you like me to call the police, Mister Stark?” she said, with just a bit of an impish smile. She tossed her hair, nice, long, over her shoulder.
“Not necessary. Jarvis called them fifteen minutes ago, they are on their way,” Tony said, which surprised her and she didn’t like surprises. Further proof that she had to go slow because who the hell was Jarvis and how come Tony was so unfazed by everything?
She was good, though. She was better than any of the vultures surrounding him.
“Anything to drink?”
“Ah, yes, orange juice with tomato and one of those little green things nobody likes, the girl knows how to do it. Where is she, by the way? Veronica?? Oh, and, um, who are you?”
“I’m Virginia Potts, sir. Veronica left six months ago. Lindsey was her substitute, but she had some sort of trouble. This is my trial week.”
Tony shrugged and didn’t even ask any other questions beyond the name of that green thing everybody disliked. (Celery).
Virginia Potts didn’t know what had happened to Lindsey, but the woman playing her knew very well that she had been arrested on multiple charges of possession because, again, Lindsey had been impatient and she hadn’t committed enough to the job.
You couldn’t afford any mistake in a situation like that. Virginia Potts drove like a driving instructor because she wasn’t letting a little speeding ticket ruin her. She also impersonated a concerned neighbor and called the police over the supposed fight in Lindsey’s apartment. There was no fight, but the police came anywhere and found the drugs Lindsey’s boyfriend had left there.
So now she was the new home personal assistant, but since the office personal assistant had also been arrested for her stupid knife trick (there were cameras! There were cameras everywhere in the house! This was going to be difficult), Virginia took on that role too.
________
“I know I have a meeting. What I’m saying is that don’t want to go, so make up a good excuse, Pepper Spray.”
“Potts. I’m Virginia Potts, Mister Stark.”
“Pepper Potts, all right. Not going to that thing. Tell them I died or something.”
She understood why so many people were impatient in their quest to steal Tony’s money. The man was very irritating.
Still, she was in and she started to work the job. Jobs, plural. Earning Tony’s and everyone’s trust and access too, so she could rob Tony clean, and also managing Tony day to day both in the office and at home. It was easier than if she had been just the home assistant. More work, sure, but she knew where Tony was 73% of the time, which was a hitherto unheard of achievement.
Quietly and efficiently and, above all, ruthlessly, she began to rid herself of the competition. Not Pepper, Pepper was super nice and soft and trusting, but the woman behind her.
She tipped off the HIPAA about some violations Tony’s family doctor might have committed (unrelated to Stark Industries, of course. They never fell because of their proximity to Tony) so the man was unable to make Tony sign a sketchy power of attorney to him. It was hard to believe, but apparently he was planning on putting Tony in a coma and becoming his legal representative. She foiled two more marriage ploys. Found and burned (metaphorically… mostly) three corporate spies. Dismissed two MIT professors trying to get their names attached to Tony’s inventions. Obliterated that sleazy psychic who claimed to be able to talk with Tony’s mom.
Pepper wasn’t in love with Tony and neither was Virginia Potts or the woman who was playing her. Love was for people who weren’t born in prison.
She could have friends, though. They were recommended, even, to avoid suspicions. Maggie at the bar had had plenty of friends. Amy had been friendly and she even slept from time to time with, uh, Clive? Cliff? With Cliff, who worked there and was very handsome if absolutely terrible at managing his life.
Pepper was friends with Claire from the law office, who was nice but also a terrible chatterer and quite a liability given how easy it was to get her to share private information. Happy, too, spoke a bit too much but he was also quite protective of Tony so he had some sense of when to shut up. Claire didn’t. Claire would be the one to show Pepper how exactly she could steal twenty million dollars without anyone the wiser. Twenty Million.
So she did it. That was the objective from the start. She got the money and she hid it and even prepared a new identity that would have everything in perfect legal standing. She didn’t disappear right away though. It was better to stay put a little more and then quietly quit (no one would bat an eye) and fade away. If someone discovered that some money was missing, they wouldn’t trace it back to her because she hadn’t changed even a little bit after the theft. Fourteen months and she would be clean and rich.
It was perfect. It was going to be really good. She was going to live in Oregon, name herself after some book character and own a fish (she was starting small in the animal department).
And then Tony disappeared in Afghanistan and Pepper was stuck there. She couldn’t quit. It would draw attention to her and they were already at risk of an audit. She couldn’t quit.
And then he came back.
She might have left then. He was acting weird and it was the perfect excuse. Only Tony asked her to stick her hand on his chest and literally hold his life in her hands. His life. A simple gadget of metal and wire that was the heart of the poor lonely orphan boy turned arms dealer. It made Pepper think of the old tale about the Snow Queen and the shard of ice in her heart. Tony had asked her to touch that. There had always been something naïve about him.
Tony was an immense asshole. He was callous and narcissistic and insufferable and from time to time he turned and gave you a sign of actual human emotion, something raw and vulnerable and akin to a religious experience. As if you were the only one who could make the robot boy feel, the only one to melt the ice shards embedded in the heart and the eyes.
You can’t betray someone right after that, you understand. You have to let six months pass at least.
Or so she thought. Obadiah evidently disagreed. She had never liked him but he had been around for so long! He had even helped protect Tony from some of the vultures, so she had dismissed him. A magnificent long con on his part and one that ultimately gave him nothing. He burned and crashed very quickly.
She promised herself: One year. One year for Tony to get back on his feet and she would be out. Not because she loved him or anything. It was just a courtesy for a man who had had the world vanish under his feet.
One year.
________
She knew that Natalia was fake from the very moment she walked in. She was efficient, useful, courteous without being a pushover, distractingly beautiful while being modest. She was very much like Pepper and she knew that Pepper was fake.
The fact that she was some kind of spy for a secret government agency was… new. And unexpected. She had seriously thought she was in corporate espionage, not actual, plain old espionage. She was even Russian, come on!
Of course, the interest of a government agency in Tony made her exit more difficult. They might not look into it, but if they did, they had the knowledge and resources to find her. On the other hand, now that Tony had the attention of a secret agency she was sure that he would be well cared for.
________
She left.
Sure, she was fond of Happy and Rhodey and she was… something of Tony, she was more than fond of him. She had money and a very nice orchid in her office that demanded lots of delicate care and attention.
She still left, for all those reasons. She didn’t know what to do with stability and permanence and loving trust. She left.
She was gone less than five days.
Pepper was a mess, she knew that. Tony was a much bigger mess who overshadowed everyone else’s problems so people looked fine in contrast, but Pepper knew she had issues. She was significantly quicker in dealing with them, though.
On her way back, she came across the woman who would be her substitute. Pepper jumped on her on her way home and repeatedly hit her on the face with a brick. It wasn’t as nasty or insane as it sounds. She wanted to steal Tony’s weapons, which justified a brick to the face in Pepper’s opinion. Also, she was surprisingly resistant, almost as if she had some kind of enhancement so she wasn’t hurt that badly.
Evidently SHIELD wasn’t as good at protecting Tony as expected. Look, Pepper didn’t mind if Tony lost his fortune, he was brilliant enough to build it back, but she would like it if people quit trying to kill him or manipulate him into going back to designing weapons.
The girl, Rachel, (although that wasn't her real name) had mumbled some nonsense about how two more would take her place. Perhaps Pepper shouldn’t think too much of it because she had also said “hey, a hydrant” before getting away. Evidently she had gotten one too many hits on the head. Still, it worried Pepper because it was true. There would always be someone trying to take advantage of Tony.
________
She stayed. She wouldn’t say that it was out of love because she had no idea what love looked like, but she stayed and she promised to burn anyone who tried to hurt Tony.
She didn’t know if Tony had always known, or if he discovered it halfway or if he still didn’t know. Tony was a bit weird in how he behaved with people. He had asked her to marry him, but then again two days after meeting his battle buddies he had begun designing a flat for each of them.
(She and Hawkeye had seen each other somewhere. They agreed that it must had been in North Carolina, where Pepper “studied” her BA. But she had never been there.)