Work Text:
Bruce was ... having trouble. He was uncomfortable around the tower. Pepper noticed these things. In this particular case, she thought Tony did too, but Tony also appeared to be doing his 'silent delegation by virtue of pointedly not doing anything about something' thing, which ... was annoying, but she was used to that.
Also, possibly appropriate. It wasn't Tony Bruce looked at like he was waiting for execution or summary eviction, after all. That was ... mostly her. As though she would. As though she would even think it.
Although, she supposed she couldn't blame him. Having read his history (SHIELD files, not that she knew a thing about them, nope, never saw a single hacked page, your honour), she understood that Bruce just genuinely wasn't used to being allowed to stay anywhere. Particularly if the people there knew what he was.
And Tony ... Tony was the exception, because Tony was the exception to everything, and gave off an aura of manic unflappability that said 'I am weirder than you on my best day, what are you talking about, Banner?', and just generally didn't act like someone who would be bothered by anything short of a full-scale assault on his house or his person. Which Bruce obviously didn't intend to provide. So.
With her, though, even a little with JARVIS, Bruce was ... tentative. Not cringing, there was too much wry humour there for that, but ... A little flinching, yes. Ready for her to come to her senses, maybe, and tell Tony to get the giant green rage monster out of their house, what were you thinking, Tony.
And Pepper ... figured it might be time to gently inform Doctor Banner that if she actually said that every time Tony did something stupid and/or ill-advised, she'd have been gone long since, and besides. On a scale of Tony disasters ranging from 'I built an intelligent super-computer that's taken over my house' (before her time, but JARVIS was a dear, anyway), to 'so I built a suit and went out to pick a fight with a tank while you were out, hope you don't mind' (bullet holes), to 'so I basically picked a fight with the entire American military-industrial complex, while also dying, can you take over my company for me?' ...
Let's just say, rooming with a very nice man who happened to have some severe and destructive impulse-control problems when threatened was ... more or less par for the course, around here.
The trick was, of course, in getting Bruce to accept that. And if two weeks of watching the localised hurricane that was Tony Stark at work hadn't done it ...
Perhaps it was time for the direct approach.
"You do get used to it, you know," she said at last. Perching next to him on the windowsill. A windowsill, incidentally, near the fire escape stairs, and out of the way of most major thoroughfares through the building. Bruce always sat within range of an escape if at all possible. Tony had jokingly offered to set him up with absailing gear and/or one-shot repulsor tech around key exit points.
At least, Pepper thought Tony had been joking. It was hard to tell.
Bruce blinked at her for a second. Watching her settle in next to him, wriggling back onto the 'sill. She wasn't really wearing the right skirt for it, she supposed, but she'd just come back from a video conference, and besides. There was no-one around but them, and this was Pepper's tower (12%, my ass), and she could do what she liked. So there.
Oh god, she needed to stop listening to Tony, didn't she? He'd broken her. He really had.
"Get used to what?" Bruce asked quietly, when it became obvious that a) yes, she was talking to him, and b) no, she wasn't moving off his windowsill. Smiling faintly at her, with that weird, soft look in his eyes he got when people forgot to be careful around him. She liked that look. She wanted him to always have that look.
She smiled back, a little wryly. "I'd say living with Tony," she said, lightly, "but no-one ever believes me."
He laughed, a little. A small little chuckle. Good. That was good. She grinned along with him, for a minute. He looked good when he was laughing.
"I can see why," he murmured. With a crinkle around the edges of his eyes, soft and unaccusing. That was ... part of why she wanted this. Part of why she liked this. He knew why Tony took getting used to. But he wasn't holding it against him, like so many others. Pepper ... liked that. Oh, she did.
"Yeah," she nodded. Well, it was true, after all. "But you do, you know. You can get used to even Tony." After some years, usually, and more than a few moments of blind panic, but ... "That wasn't quite what I meant, though."
He dipped his head, looking away. His smile turning knowing, and a little cynical. "I know," he said, quietly. "I'm not quite sure ... what you want me to tell you."
She felt her smile fall. Not disappointment. Seriousness. Sympathy. Maybe, just a little, a touch of anger. Not at him. At ... the world, maybe. "I don't want you to tell me anything," she told him, gently. He wasn't looking at her, so she nudged his shoulder a little, waiting until he blinked back up at her for a second. "I want you to listen to me for a minute, okay? And then you can tell me to get the hell off your windowsill, if you want."
His eyes flickered, an aborted smile. "I'm pretty sure it's your windowsill, actually," he noted, and there was humour in it. She smiled gently.
"Well, probably it's Tony's," she mused. "I think he owns most of floors thirty through seventy. Though I might have won it back off him for a jug of chocolate, three nights ago. I'd need to get his agreement in writing to be sure."
Bruce ... looked like he wasn't quite sure what to do with that. After a second, she relented. God, she really did need to stop listening to Tony.
"Things changing," she said, quietly. A little bit out-of-nowhere, but Bruce was a genius. He caught on. "The world not being what you thought it was. Your whole life turning upside down, over and over again. You ... You eventually get used to that, you know? Well. A little. Sort of."
Bruce ... looked at her. Long and sad and slow. "Do you?" he asked, very gently, and god, that was sympathy. For her. And oh, so not where she was going with this, but ... Lovely. And touching. And ... maybe workable.
She smiled lopsidedly at him, almost instinctively casting a look at the ceiling, towards the place where, some two floors above them, Tony was working.
"When I first started working for him," she explained, soft and fond and a little rueful, leaning against Bruce's shoulder. "It was ... nothing I'd expected. I mean, the lechery, and the complete lack of people skills, and the mad genius, yes. I expected those. But not ... Not the robots. Or the casual kindness. Or those moments when he looks at you, and it's like he honestly respects you, just for a second, before he starts being an asshole again." She smiled, shaking her head. "I didn't expect that part."
Bruce smiled at her. That sad, crinkly thing at the corner of his eyes. "No," he nodded. "I doubt many people do." A cautious pause, and then ... "Especially when they don't deserve it."
Lord above, she was going to hunt people down and kill them, for hurting this man. She really, really was. It wasn't even going to be hard. She'd just get Tony and/or JARVIS to cough up the list they'd already have made.
"Yes, well. He's usually right about the people he respects," she said, not at all pointedly, no sir. "He doesn't actually meet all that many, but when they show up, he's usually right about it." With the one major exception of Obadiah, but none of them mentioned that. Not Tony, not her, not JARVIS, not Rhodey, not Happy. None of them mentioned that son of a bitch and what he'd done to them. To all of them.
He'd kept a picture of it, kept a video in his goddamned office, of Tony alone, and dirty, and hurt so badly, and afraid. Obie had kept that. And there were moments, just some of them, where Pepper remembered that she'd sort of been the one to kill him, to kill Obadiah, and she did not regret it. Not even a little bit.
Bruce just shook his head. Quiet, and rueful, and sitting on a windowsill so he could run if he had to, and avoid hurting them. Spectacularly failing to realise that that was why they weren't afraid of him. Or no more than common sense dictated, anyway.
There was not a single one of them, after Obie, who did not understand the difference between someone who might hurt them, and someone who wanted to.
"Getting back on track," she managed, eventually. Only barely keeping from glaring at his polite disbelief. "I got used to Tony. Which no-one believes, but it's actually not that hard. You've just got to be willing to work for it, that's all."
Bruce chuckled a little, at that. "I'm sure," he murmured, and she'd be offended, she really would, except that he was sporting that bemused, rueful, reluctantly understanding expression that people only got when they were starting to actually understand what she meant.
Tony Stark. He grew on you, like a particularly aggressive and inappropriately shaped fungus. And you could thank Rhodey for that comparison, not her, thank you.
"Yeah," she grinned, a little, and then sobered. "But then ... things changed. Again. There was ... Afghanistan, and Obie, and suddenly ... Suddenly he was driven. You know?" She couldn't quite help curling into herself, a little, curling further back onto the 'sill, and Bruce shifted with her, moved almost subconsciously to better shield her from the corridor, and anyone who might see her. She ... maybe loved him a little bit, for that. "He built the armour. He started coming back ... with bullet holes. And picking fights with tanks. And then Obie murdered him. And everything ... changed. Everything changed."
There was nothing in Bruce's eyes beyond pain, right then. Nothing except raw, pained sympathy.
"Yeah," he rasped, low and rough, with a small smile that was frankly horrible for how softly, blackly real it was. "Things do that, don't they?"
"Yes," she said, and it was soft, and knowing, and fierce. Just a little. Because she'd lived this. She'd fought this. She was goddamn proud, of this, of him, of them. "They do. And it's horrible, and you don't know what to do, and for such a long time you're not sure if you can bear it, because it doesn't stop. It doesn't stop, because it's your life now."
Watching him go out, time after time. Waiting for those calls, telling her he was dying, or missing, or shot down. Worse, waiting for the things he didn't tell her, the things he never told her, like what the nightmares were about, or how he was dying, or whose face it was he saw, when he wanted to stop, wanted to give up, and found he couldn't. All those things she knew. All those things she never would. That was her life, now.
And it was one she would fight for. All the way down.
"But then ... you get used to it," she said, low and quiet, and humming with pride. "Because it's worth it. Because the day it stops will be the day he's gone, and that will never happen. Not while you can stop it."
Bruce was staring at her, and there was ... something in him. Memory. Longing. Something that looked like he wanted ... to touch her, maybe. To hold her, and touch her, and just have something. Just be able to have something. And he could, that was the point, he could have something now, so she leaned into him. She grabbed his elbow, and leaned into him, and kept him close.
"That's what you have to do," she whispered, soft and fierce, but gentle. God, so gentle. Was no-one gentle with him, anymore? "When your life changes, and all the bad things come, and you're not sure if you can bear it. You have to find something. Someone. Who makes it worth it. Someone to hold onto. Someone who will be there."
"I did," he ground out, harsh and pained. "I had. And she ... You don't understand. I almost killed her. I ruined her life. And here ... And now ..."
"You can't ruin us," she told him. Fiercely. Furiously. Because she was Pepper Potts, and Tony was Tony, and maybe people could touch them, maybe everyone could touch them, maybe the whole damn world could crawl inside their lives and make them hurt, but no-one ... no-one could ruin them. No-one could make it not worth it. Not when he smiled at her, and told stupid jokes, and gave her 12% of a moment, and had her be the last thing in the world he thought of, when he was falling.
"You can't ruin us," she repeated, more gently, reaching out to curl her arms around him. Around Bruce, who sat shaking beside her "And maybe ... Maybe you didn't ruin her, either. Because ... sometimes it's worth it. Sometimes all you can do ... is decide what makes it worth it."
He made a sound. Soft, inarticulate. And she knew it. She recognised it. Tony, clawing free from a nightmare, curling into her like she could keep him safe, like she could possibly keep him safe. That small, soft noise, that made her want to. That made her want it more than anything in the world.
"You're not safe," she said quietly, wrapping her arms around him, tucking his head into her shoulder. "We're not safe. Nobody's ever really safe." Because she'd learned that, when someone killed Tony, when Obadiah betrayed them, when Vanko came from nowhere, when the thing in Tony's chest had turned around and almost killed him. When the skies above New York opened, and no-one at all had been safe. She had ... learned that. "But ... that doesn't always mean you can't trust someone. That doesn't always mean you can't ... stay, and love them anyway."
"I can't," he whispered, raggedly. "I don't ... I can't."
She closed her eyes. Swallowed, held it. For a second.
"Then don't," she said, softly. Not wanting to, but having to. "If we're not worth it. If we can't be. Then don't stay. But ..." She waited through his noise of protest, and went on. "We'll help you. Both of us. All of us. We'll find you ... places to go, and ways to get there, and ways to ... to keep you in touch with anyone, whoever you need to." She swallowed. "If you have to leave, then leave. But you don't have to run. And you don't have to ... stay separate. Stay away. You don't have to do that."
And then, because it was too much, because he was shuddering with it, because she'd spent too damn long (and not nearly long enough) around Tony Stark, she ... broke the moment. Because she had to.
"Um. Do you want to tell me to get off your windowsill, now?"
And he laughed. Wetly, and a little desperately, and tightened his arms around her in his turn. Holding, just a little. For the first time in a long time, maybe. And that, too, was something she was proud of.
"I want to keep you," he admitted, very softly. Curled in her arms. "Both of you. All of you." A long pause, and a damp smile against her neck, rueful and broken. "I wanted to keep her, too."
And, oh. So much. Oh.
"Well," she said, carding her fingers gently through his hair. "Maybe then ... we should work on making that happen. What do you say?"
Because Tony had ruined her. He really had. Maybe once, she wouldn't have thought it, maybe once she'd have bowed to things that seemed inevitable, but she'd spent years, now, bullying Tony through life, and picking up his pieces when the world smashed at him, and watching him grin at it all anyway. She'd been years, at his side, and the thing she'd learned, in that time?
Sometimes, when you wanted something, you damn well went out and got it. And it was unscrupulous, and taking advantage of money, and privilege, and technology, and power, but sometimes ... Sometimes, when it was worth it, she just didn't care. Not anymore.
Tony'd broken her. Slowly, and sneakily, and more than half unwittingly. But he had. And sometimes ... there was nothing in the world she was more glad of.
"Let us help you," she murmured, gently. "Do what you have to, but let us help you. Because I promise you ... We can. And we're willing to get hurt trying."
Bruce ... stilled. Went still, went quiet. Quivering and tense against her. But he didn't pull away.
"I can't," he said. "I don't know how. But ..." And she tried not to feel the leap, tried not to let it throttle her. "But I ... want to. I want to know how."
And she breathed, and swallowed, and smiled. Looking up to meet Tony's eyes, to see him hiding behind the door of the emergency stairs, watching them with those dark, dark eyes of his, and that shockingly, terrifyingly open expression he sometimes wore, that desperate, hungry, shining thing. Just for her. Just for them. She met Tony's eyes, and held Bruce tight, and smiled.
"Well," she said, lightly, brightly. "It's a start."
And she was Pepper Potts, who'd gone from Tony's lowly PA to one of the most powerful women in the country.
There was a lot she could do, with the right start.