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She told Tony where she was going, who she was meeting. She always did, when it came to things like this. Natasha looked at her askance, sometimes, because of it. Never saying anything. Natasha didn't. Just the silent implication.
Pepper ignored it. Which was rude, especially with Natasha, who'd taught Pepper ... a lot of things. But this wasn't something she could explain. Neither her nor Tony. After those three months ... It was important, for both of them, to know when the other was meeting with a potential enemy. It was important to know ... when they might have to start looking.
Not that Phil Coulson was an enemy, as such. He was a Prohibition Agent, certainly. And he was definitely attempting to investigate Tony. Quite possibly successfully, though through sources other than Pepper. Which did make him something of an enemy. But there was something strange about him. Something different.
He hadn't been the first to try to get to Tony through her, of course. There had been a number of those. Mostly cops, before the arrangement with Captain Rogers. However, they'd had ... other methods, those men. Playing her nice and gentle, thinking her bedazzled or love-addled by Tony, forgetting she had a mind of her own. Or worse, once. Another agent. Attempting violence, thinking her little more than Tony's whore, trying a little rough persuasion.
Bruce had been the one to take care of him, while Rhodey and Natasha kept Tony locked in the backroom. Not that Bruce had turned out to be much gentler, but since the accident in the ring, Bruce at least always made sure he knew when he was going to kill someone, and stopped himself just at the edge. Tony had no such compunctions. Not anymore. Not when it came to her.
Agent Coulson, though, had tried something a little different. He had approached her professionally, in her capacity as bookkeeper and general secretary to Mr Stark. He had pointed out, very gently, that he was well aware of Mr Stark's 'other activities', informing her fairly up-front that he was there to investigate them. And then, while she was blinking a bit at the sheer, dead-calm nerve of him, he'd asked her if she was aware of Mr Stark's activities herself. If she'd noticed any discrepancies in the books, for example, any monies going places she hadn't been told about.
Which she could honestly say she hadn't. Tony didn't put money anywhere she wasn't aware of. She more or less didn't let him, because while Tony could turn a profit on just about anything, he didn't much know what to do with the money once he had. She might have been largely self-taught, but they both knew she had a knack for it that he didn't. Better, then, for all concerned if the financial considerations of their new ventures went through her.
Agent Coulson had taken that in stride. Asked her if he might have a look at those books, please. Which had been fine, because she had a dummy set all ready. Not that she'd used them before, because for some reason no-one else had thought to ask. Which had been sort of the point, or one of them, of her pretending to be Tony's moll, but it was still faintly aggravating.
Coulson had looked them over. Right then and there. Not just a skim, pretending to look while he studied her. He sat down right there in her office, the small one she kept at Tony's downtown offices, and given the books a professional work-over. It had taken him the better part of an hour.
She'd spent the first ten minutes staring at him in bemusement, which had apparently bounced off him without notice. She'd then excused herself, and gone into Tony's empty office next door to ring down through the relays that there was a Prohibition Agent sitting in her office examining their books. Tony had arrived fifteen minutes later, breezing through with his rich-idiot-businessman act in full swing, sticking his head 'round the door to ask Pepper if she was entertaining on the job, and didn't she know that was unprofessional of her? Agent Coulson had simply raised his head, offered his hand with absent professionalism, explained his purpose there, and gone back to the papers with nary a further murmur. It was one of the few times she'd ever seen Tony struck speechless. Standing there gaping like a fish, because he just had no idea what to do with that.
Sometimes, she thought she had warmed to Agent Coulson just for that moment.
They'd left him to it. There wasn't anything in her office that could incriminate anybody, so they'd repaired to Tony's. And then hadn't even said anything, because what could you say? The last time either of them had seen that much bald-faced nerve, to walk into an enemy stronghold despite what had happened to the last person to try it and announce his purpose right to said enemy's face, it had been on Tony, and he hadn't been near so professional about it.
Coulson had left half an hour later, having apologised for taking up their time and office, thanking them for their cooperation, and congratulating Tony for having so professional and talented a secretary. Pepper had felt a thrill of apprehension even as he said it, though there'd been no threat or innuendo in his smile or his patient handshake. Tony, when she turned to him, had a similar look.
Coulson knew what she was, what she did. Both of them knew it, in that moment. Coulson, like no-one else before him, had realised that Pepper was neither love-addled moll, nor innocent victim. Coulson had realised that there was nothing Tony did that Pepper didn't know.
Coulson, in short, might be the most dangerous threat they'd yet had from that quarter. Because Coulson was smart. Smart, and calm, and with guts you could use to cast iron.
So Pepper wasn't really sure why she continued to meet him. Twice so far, with this the third. He'd asked to meet her, to ask her some questions. Named a very nice restaurant both times, actually sat down to eat with her, treated her with all the courtesy she'd never really learned to expect. Asked a series of mild, innocuous questions, backing away respectfully from issues she didn't want to discuss, dropping threads when it became apparent that she was gently stonewalling or sidelining him. Readily offering up information on his own life, his career thus far, a woman he'd cared for once. An obvious blind, to prevent the conversations from feeling too much like exceptionally gentle interrogations, but she'd found herself appreciating them regardless. Sympathising with him, in certain cases. Agent Coulson had never had much luck with the fairer sex, it seemed.
Honeytrap, Tony kept muttering, when she reported what took place at the meetings. Not the details, the conversations. Phil .. that was, Coulson ... deserved some privacy, despite what he was trying to do, and Tony was worse than she was at spotting verbal traps, so it wasn't like he'd have anything pertinent to add. Honeytrap, he said, and she sometimes considered that he might be right. Especially when Natasha, looking somewhat distantly impressed, appeared to agree with him.
But. Even so. She found herself quietly looking forward to those meetings, to those conversations and those meals. Even knowing it was a trap, even knowing Phil was, ever so gently, trying to pry Tony's secrets out of her, and use them against him. She found herself enjoying the encounters, coming away feeling, if not relaxed, then alert, confident, capable.
And it had been ... such a long, long time, since she had felt those things.
That was the reason, she thought, that Tony didn't say anything about it. That Tony didn't gently point out that a) trap, and b) he's using you, and c) I'm going to be the one payin', once he's ready to stop playing. Because Tony could sometimes control what came out of his mouth, and even if his eyes spoke volumes when he caught her fussing a little with her hair before leaving, he didn't remind her of consequences, didn't say anything about traps, or her being used against him.
Which was lucky, considering what he was getting himself into with Laufeysson.
Instead, he'd taken her hand, with that black, storming thing in his eyes that had been there since ... since Stane ... and swore softly that he had her back, and the moment the game became too dangerous, the moment Coulson dropped the amiable act and tried to hurt her ... he would kill him. Plain and simple.
She'd smiled, and raised their hands to brush her lips softly over his knuckles. Tony was one of the few people, perhaps the only one, that she was yet free to touch without fear, the only one she still felt safe with when his hands were on her. The fleeting touch was as much a thank you to him as anything she'd ever said, and from his face he knew as much.
So here she was. Wearing her second best dress, a set of truly beautiful earrings that had been a gift from Tony by way of Bruce and Betty (as in, he'd paid, Betty had pointedly told him what not to buy, and Bruce had agreed to whatever Betty said), and with a pearl-handled Remington Model 95 in her purse. That had been a gift too. From Natasha, by way of Tony. Though the means of using it, and its larger cousin in her desk drawer, had come mostly from Maria.
Sometimes Pepper wondered at how oddly crowded her life had become, since ... well.
Phil stood up when he saw her through the window, had her seat already drawn out by the time she reached the table. The restaurant wasn't very large, or very high-end, just a single dining room fronting onto the street and simple fare, but they'd both agreed it was the most pleasant. And also, not somewhere they would draw unnecessary attention.
"Miss Potts," he said, with that faint smile of his. Pepper had discovered that Phil was privately and gently amused by quite a lot of things in life. The vagaries of the people around him most of all. She never took offense. Many of the things he found amusing were things she found her own lips twitching at as well. "I'm glad you could make it."
She inclined her head. They didn't shake hands. Phil had noticed her vague unease at touch, and kept a polite and comfortable distance thereafter. There were times she almost wished he wouldn't, because she could handle a handshake or two, especially from someone who treated her with that much respect, but ... She was wary of giving even small permissions, these days. Too many took them as invitations for larger ones.
"I had the evening off," she said, smiling at him, sitting down and placing her purse within careful reach on the table. "Though I have to admit, I'm beginning to wonder why you keep asking me." She let her smile turn lopsided, faintly rueful. "You must know by now that I can't help you the way you want me to ..."
"On the contrary," Phil said, sitting down opposite her and waving for a waiter. "You've been very helpful to me, Miss Potts." He shook his head at the look of alarm she carefully did not allow to show. "It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of such ... unarmed company?" He smiled, a little more genuinely. "You've been a great help to my nerves, these past few weeks."
She blinked, and only barely kept herself from flicking a look at her purse, feeling a faint squirm of guilt. Oh dear. And then, surprise, and a vague stir of worry.
"I didn't know you'd been threatened," she said, softly, watching him carefully. "You have a dangerous job, of course, but I didn't realise you were having trouble in the city ...?"
He shouldn't have been. If he was here to investigate Tony, then he shouldn't have been. Tony wasn't going to move that aggressively against him unless Coulson did something unwise. Tony was a great believer in not letting people know how fucked they were until it was far, far too late to do anything about it. Coulson hadn't done anything yet to cause that kind of response.
Phil shook his head, a vaguely rueful expression flickering across his features. "News of my arrival has gotten around," he said, quietly. "A number of people have expressed ... concern ... at my presence. None identifiably, of course. Simply some anonymous efforts to remind me that I should, perhaps, be careful who I'm looking into."
Pepper stared at him, opening her mouth to say ... something. She wasn't sure what, when she couldn't directly answer the concern without openly acknowledging the role they both knew she played in Tony's organisation. She could neither deny nor reassure, not without granting evidence of far, far too much.
Thankfully, though, the waiter arrived before she had to, ready to take their orders. Phil hadn't pre-ordered, had waited for her to arrive and decide for herself what she wanted to eat. It probably shouldn't have meant as much to her as it did, but again, it was a small courtesy that she simply wasn't used to, an unconscious consideration for her intelligence and her control of her own desires. Phil didn't try to impress her by ordering what he thought was her favourite, didn't patronise her with things she 'simply must try'. He just invited her to the meal, and let her choose for herself.
In some ways, it only highlighted how dangerous he was, how intelligent and aware he was under the polite, unassuming exterior. On the other hand, it was the kind of danger she had as much trouble resisting as Tony did the lethal, knowing undercurrent of Laufeysson's seduction.
... Sometimes she worried at how much of a pair she and Tony were. How many ways they'd mirrored each other, since they'd entered this new life. How well she'd matched him, when he was fast becoming one of the most dangerous men in all of New York.
Sometimes she wondered. But when the waiter opened his mouth, and the first words out of it were not "And what will it be today?", she remembered that she was also pretty grateful that this was a life she had been able to adapt to.
"This your doll, bull?" The snide question came at exactly the same moment as the hand landed heavily on her shoulder, and Pepper cursed herself silently for not paying enough attention. To the fact that, among other things, the waiter was built like a brick shithouse, and had come over to their table with a rather large gun tucked under his apron. "Nice. Very nice. Lookit the gams on that."
Phil, across the table, had frozen. Not in fear. Pepper was only beginning to be able to see the things that lurked beneath that polite, imperturbable mask of his, but this wasn't fear. Something closer to the look she saw in Tony's eyes, when she came back from that interrogation with a brutal bruise across her cheek, though much, much better hidden.
"The lady is a friend," he said, mildly, casually moving his leg into a better position to move. "We were discussing the chances of her becoming my secretary."
The man holding her grinned, and her flesh crawled at the sight of it, old, sour fear churning to life in her stomach. His hand on her shoulder was suddenly making her want to claw herself out from beneath it, to tear herself free and be sick.
She didn't. She fixed her expression to polite confusion and worry, and didn't move save to rest her hand on her purse.
"Now, I don't know as that'd be a wise choice, for the little lady," the man purred, smirking patronisingly, and somewhere under the fear, a dull surge of fury roared to life. Pepper didn't act on it. Not yet. She watched, instead, as a second man came up behind Phil, and the other patrons in the restaurant fell still in worried, fearful silence. "She know what you are? What you're messing with?"
Phil flicked a glance her way, his eyes darting briefly back to the second man in his peripheral vision. "If she didn't before," he murmured, low and rueful, and surprisingly, genuinely, amused, "she does now."
Pepper felt her eyebrows shoot up of their own accord, and he had the decency to blush faintly. It didn't last long, fading back into raw, polite fury under that so-bland cover, as the man behind her leaned down over her, and sniffed her hair.
The revulsion, the memory, the terror, shot through her like slow fire, a cold burning through her whole body, and Phil's face hardened completely, his body going from relaxed to poised without ever moving a muscle. Pepper didn't know if he could manage them both in time, if he stood a chance when one of them had her by the arm. He was smart, and intelligent, and damned dangerous because of it, but she had no idea how physically capable he was.
Fortunately, it probably wouldn't matter.
"How about I show her exactly what you're messing with, huh?" her captor asked, his hand tightening as he turned a nasty expression on Phil. Completely ignoring Pepper herself, presuming her too scared to do anything, or maybe just too female. The man behind Phil wasn't looking directly at her, either.
So neither of them saw her slip the gun out of her purse, and prime it under the table. Neither of them saw her eyes grow cold, and the shakes deliberately disappear from her hands. Neither of them saw a damn thing, until the hand at her shoulder loosened a little as its owner leaned across the table to better menace Phil, and she took her opportunity.
"Or maybe," she whispered viciously, as the snub nose of her derringer pressed itself into the soft flesh under his jaw, "you should ask the lady who the fuck she is, before you do anything stupid."
He froze, staring cross-eyed down at her as he tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. The man behind Phil reacted quicker, trying to bring his own gun to bear, but Phil was as fast as she was, and in no mood to be nice.
She kept her eyes deliberately on her man's now-sweating face, but the flurry of movement across the table told her that Phil was, indeed, as dangerous physically as he was with a set of books in his hands. She couldn't quite help the flinch as a joint separated behind her with a sound like a gunshot.
"Now, gentlemen," Phil said, calmly, as several other 'waiters' produced guns from beneath their aprons, and Pepper swallowed against the realisation that they were most definitely surrounded, her gun pressed more solidly into her hostage's throat in warning. "I think this has gotten a little out of hand, don't you?"
"Tell the bitch to let him fucking go!" one of the others spat out, moving as though to close in around them. Phil, the second man's liberated weapon in his hand, suggested with a gesture that this might not be wise. "Tell her, or you're both wasted!"
Phil looked over at her, caught the desperate, stone-cold determination in her eyes -she was not, never, letting anyone touch her like that again, not if she had to shoot every last one of them- and shook his head, that dark thing flickering behind his eyes.
"I really don't think that'll be viable," he said, softly. "Miss Potts here doesn't look like she'd care to oblige."
She felt the man freeze under her gun, saw the expressions that flashed across the faces surrounding them. Saw the cold, chill knowledge flow across them, the instant Phil said her name.
Tony had made such a name of himself, down here. Had made so many people aware of the consequences of messing with what was his.
"Here's what's going to happen," she said, quietly, and the tremors in her gut didn't translate to her voice for even a second. She made sure of it. "I'm going to keep my piece on this gentleman for a few minutes. Just to make sure. One of these other nice people is going to run to the nearest telephone, and get Captain Rogers from the precinct down here. And the rest of you ..." She smiled, low and savage, and watched them swallow. "You can either put down your weapons, and wait for the Captain to put you in a nice, safe cell. Or you can leave now."
And wait in a not-so-safe-place for Tony to catch up to them. Which he would, as soon as her prisoner told him, himself or by word of his affiliation, where to start looking.
She didn't look at Phil, at the wary knowledge she knew was going to be in his eyes, now. She'd said nothing to give him proof of Tony's capabilities, but the faces around them, the knowledge and sudden terror in the eyes of their attackers, was all the confirmation he really needed, even if he might have heard rumours before. And Phil had always known, had known from that first meeting in her office, that she was involved, up to her neck, but now he knew exactly how much fear her name could induce, not just Tony's. Even without the gun in her purse, she suspected this might be the last friendly meal she had, with this not-quite-enemy.
For that, as much as the remembered terror humming through her, she wanted to shoot out the throat quivering under the metal nose of her derringer.
They stayed. To a man, they stayed, until Steve arrived with four other men, and an expression of panicked worry on his face. Phil stayed, too, a silent, confident presence at her back, covering her with casual ease in case someone tried to remove two threats with one bullet. Ignoring their sudden fear with the same casual -and false- disregard he'd shown Tony over her books. She quivering silently, internally, showing absolutely nothing, for the whole time.
Until there was a gentle hand trying to close around her wrist, trying to take the gun from her, and she looked up in sudden panic into the soft, concerned features of Captain Steven Rogers. She jerked away, almost fumbling her grip in panic, and Steve backed up carefully.
"We've got them, Miss Potts," he said, holding out his hand for the gun, while one of his men pulled her prisoner away. "You're safe. You can put that away."
She blinked at him, her grip tightening instinctively, putting the arm with the gun defensively across herself as she scanned the room for confirmation. None of their assailants remained in the restaurant. Neither, for that matter, did any of the other patrons. Only Phil, standing calmly by their table, and Steve, holding out a gentle hand towards her.
"Perhaps Miss Potts might like to take care of her gun herself," Phil noted mildly, exchanging a surprisingly hostile glance with Steve, as though warning him to back off. Pepper blinked at him, a little. "She's had a difficult evening. Perhaps now might not be the time to attempt to deprive her of her protection?"
"No, I ..." Pepper started, and then stopped. Feeling the tremors starting to run through her, feeling them flood up to the surface. Abruptly, she needed to sit down.
Phil moved instinctively to her, though didn't move to touch, for which she was very, very grateful. She smiled, even as she dropped shaking into the chair, and on a sudden whim, proffered up the derringer to him. He blinked, as close to stunned as she'd ever seen him, and took it from her as though she'd handed him something inexplicably fragile and precious. Or, perhaps, explosive, which at least might be true.
He checked it professionally, though. Disarmed it quickly and capably, with barely a look.
"Pepper," Steve interrupted, looking between them with a worried frown on his face. "Pepper, did you want to tell me what ...?"
"Keep them out of circulation for a while," she said, and almost snarled at the weakness of her voice, at the way it shook as much as her hands did. "Just ... Just make sure they're out of the way, for ..."
"Alright," Steve said, and she wanted to punch him for how gentle it was, how careful. For the way he looked at her, like she was so ... so breakable, so ... "How about I get you home, hmm? Bucky's got the car, not three blocks from here. That sound okay?"
She looked at Phil. She didn't know why, when even if he'd been inclined, he really, really shouldn't go anywhere near Tony when he'd probably almost just gotten her killed. Even if it hadn't been intentional, and they hadn't had the first clue who she was. She didn't ... didn't know why she looked at Phil.
Who, for his part, looked down at her with something strange in his eyes, something she couldn't fathom at all, and a small, rueful smile.
"That might be best," he said, quietly, and then knelt suddenly beside her chair. Ignoring the shocked looks both she and Steve gave him. "I'm sorry, Miss Potts, that you had to get involved in this." He ducked his head, a flare of anger briefly appearing, pointed at himself. "I didn't realise they'd followed me. This should never have happened."
Pepper ... smiled. She had to, even if it came out so much more tremulously than she'd meant it.
"I guess this meeting wasn't as good for your nerves as you were hoping," she commented, with a tremble of humour, and he looked up, blinking at her in some shock, and then, after a second, some amusement.
"No," he agreed, lightly. "And you weren't quite as unarmed as I thought, either." He smiled, faintly. "I shall be better prepared, next time?"
She didn't know what her expression had been, then. What she'd revealed, shock, hope, pleasure, fear. All of the above. But his smile vanished, and suddenly he was staring at her with far more seriousness than ever before. Suddenly, he was staring at her with a little fear of his own.
"Yes," she said, softly. Wondering, even as she said it, if it was possible. "We both will, I think."
And even as she left, as Steve guided her carefully outside and put her in the car with Bucky, even as Phil stood calm and still and thoughtful behind them, with her gun held strangely tightly in his hand, she wondered.
Honeytrap, Tony'd said. Natasha'd said. Damn well everyone had said. The man was a honeytrap, and he was good at it, he had a gift, for some reason, for managing to do the right thing nine times out of ten, when it came to her. He was damned good, one of the best traps she'd ever seen.
But she wondered, even still. If Tony was right. If some traps were maybe ... maybe worth walking into anyway. Just ... to see. Just to know.
And, too. She wondered if she could maybe find out who was hunting him, who'd decided they were going to send Prohibition Agent Phillip Coulson a message, and more, if he didn't get out of their city. She wondered if she could find them. And show them, quite pointedly, what happened to people who messed with what was hers, not only Tony's.
She thought Tony might help her, too. He was generous, like that. What was his was yours, when you were his, and what was yours was his, too, to protect.
And in this, as in so many things, she was Tony's partner.