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“We should… probably do something, right?” Stephen asked, keeping his voice low so as not to attract the attention of either Pepper or Christine. Though he suspected he could be yelling right now and the two wouldn’t notice. Not with how the two of them were leaning over Christine’s hand where she was now wearing a diamond ring on the ring finger of her left hand.
She had not been wearing one earlier that evening.
Stephen still wasn’t entirely sure where Pepper had gotten it. Pepper had disappeared to the restroom and hadn’t returned until thirty minutes later when she’d suddenly had a ring and a tipsy proposal.
That was a slight under-exaggeration. Pepper had slipped past tipsy and into drunken. But Stephen was still having a hard time reconciling Pepper as drunk, tipsy was easier to believe. Pepper, it turned out, was a lightweight.
Still, a drunken proposal would be one thing. Drunken proposals he could handle. The way Pepper and Christine had started talking about finding an officiator right this moment… well, that was something else altogether.
“To stop them from making impulsive life-altering decisions while drunk, right?” Stephen added on. “That’s what mature adults and good friends would do, isn’t it?”
Tony frowned. He looked as lost as Stephen felt, if somewhat more amused than Stephen really thought was appropriate. “I don’t know. Normally Pepper’s the sober, mature adult and I’m the drunk, impulsive idiot. I have to admit I have no idea what to do now that the roles are switched.” He shook his head. “But, I mean… should we really stop them? If this is what they want to do? Who are we to stand in the way of true love?”
“They’re drunk,” Stephen said dryly. He didn’t think either of them had intended to get quite this drunk, but Christine had said something about ‘letting loose’ for once in her life; Pepper had rather wistfully agreed. Added to that fact that they were both lightweights and things had rather spiraled from there. They’d rather succeeded in ‘letting loose’, that was for certain. “I’m not sure that true love has anything to do with it.”
Not that he didn’t think that Christine didn’t like Pepper. In fact, Stephen would stake quite a lot on the fact that Christine rather did. Pepper returning her affection wasn’t a surprise either.
“True,” Tony agreed. He hummed, thoughtful. “I’ll take Pepper, you take Christine. We’ll try to talk sense into them.”
Stephen wasn’t sure how productive that was going to be. Christine was stubborn while sober; Stephen didn’t think that was going to change now that she was drunk. If she thought she wanted to get married tonight, then Stephen wasn’t sure he’d be able to change her mind. Still, he followed Tony as he approached their two best friends. Tony sidled up to Pepper and nudged her away, telling Christine that he needed to do his ‘maid of honor’ duties for a second.
Christine and Pepper were drunk enough—it would never stop being surreal that it was the two of them that were drunk—that they accepted it.
Christine turned to him, beaming brightly at him. Stephen was taken aback for a moment by how radiantly happy she looked in that moment.
“Christine,” he started.
“Smile, Stephen!” Christine told him, her own smile almost blinding. “I’m getting married!”
Stephen winced. “About that…”
Christine waved at him to be quiet, clearly already aware of where he was going with this. “No. No being sensible. You’re already married, you don’t get to try to stop me.”
Stephen opened his mouth, not quite sure how he was going to talk sense into her. “Christine, you and Pepper aren’t even dating.” Even if Tony and Stephen had been trying to set the two of them—who were clearly interested in each other—up for over a year.
“So?” Christine asked. Her tone made it clear that she didn’t see what that had to do with anything.
All right, so apparently that bit of logic wasn’t going to work. “This is a big decision. Life altering.”
Christine scoffed. “This is what people do in Vegas, Stephen. They make big decisions.”
It really was rather inconvenient that the medical conference had been in Las Vegas this year. He was almost regretting that Tony had shown up last night—the last night of the conference—Pepper in tow and convinced him and Christine to stay an extra day to make the most out of being in Las Vegas.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time. He and Christine both needed to relax, and Tony was always good for that. But now he and Tony were the sober ones, Christine and Pepper were drunk, and the two of them wanted to get married.
“Just because everyone else does it, doesn’t mean you should.” He was pretty sure that was an argument that Christine would agree with. Especially if she were sober.
“You’re married,” Christine said, as though that was an actual argument for why she should be getting married. Her brow furrowed. “I never thought you’d get married before me,” she admitted. “That was weird.”
To be fair, if anyone had asked Stephen whether he or Christine would get married first, he’d have definitely thought it would be Christine. Stephen wasn’t exactly the ‘marriage’ kind.
Showed him what he knew.
There had been nothing but him and his work. And then there had been Tony and ‘whirlwind romance’ was perhaps one of the more apt descriptions of what had happened between them. It was, despite that, a surprisingly stable marriage. The ‘surprisingly’ bit was according to everyone else, of course. Neither Stephen nor Tony had been surprised they could make it work. They’d been confident going into their marriage. Why would they have gotten married if they weren’t?
“That’s not a good reason to get married,” Stephen argued.
“It’s not a bad reason, either,” Christine said, with the sort of logic that only made sense when drunk. “If the two of you can make it work, then so can Pepper and I.” Yep, definitely only made sense when drunk. Because that was absolutely a bad reason to get married. Sober Christine would agree with him.
Sober Christine was not currently present.
“I want to marry her,” Christine continued. “She’s so beautiful. And smart. And good. She’s so good. And patient. She puts up with your husband, after all.”
Okay, so that was true. But did Christine really have to bring Stephen’s husband into this? Tony was… well, Tony. But he was kind of perfect that way.
Tony approached them, Pepper following behind him, a brilliant smile on her face. Tony, on the other hand, was wearing a conflicted expression, though his eyes were sparkling with good humor. “I think we should let them get married.”
Stephen let out an exasperated sigh. There went his back up. “Why?”
Tony shrugged. “Because Pepper might have just waxed poetic about Christine’s work ethic. Which is a very sober thing to focus on for someone so very drunk. It’s clearly true love.”
Stephen sighed. “Fine. I disagree vehemently; they’re going to be banging their heads against a wall tomorrow morning. But far be it for me to stand in the way of true love.”
Christine and Pepper scoffed in unison. Christine leaned into Pepper’s side, looping their arms.
“Please, we know what we’re doing,” Pepper proclaimed.
Stephen snorted. They absolutely did not know what they were doing.
“They won’t be banging their heads against any hard surfaces tomorrow,” Tony disagreed.
“Thank you,” Christine exclaimed.
“They’re going to be way too hungover for that,” Tony finished. “Head banging is not conducive to managing the headaches they’re both going to have.”
“Spoke too soon,” Christine grumbled.
It was actually a very good point. That didn’t change the fact that they were absolutely going to regret all of their life decisions come tomorrow morning.
Well, that was a problem for Christine and Pepper to deal with tomorrow. Stephen could rest assured that he’d done his job as Christine’s best friend and tried to convince Christine not to go through with it.
Perhaps not as hard as he should have, but he had. That was all that mattered.
“Plus,” Tony added. “Pepper threatened to take away my ‘maid of honor’ status if I tried to stop her from getting married. She threatened to give it away to Happy. Happy’s not even here.”
Stephen rolled his eyes. That was exactly the sort of pressure that Tony would cave to. “That is—“
“Ooooh,” Christine said. She turned to him. “If you stop trying to stop me from getting married, you can be my maid of honor.”
“I’m not—“ he stopped. If Christine was trying to bribe him, she was clearly sober enough for this. Or at least that was what he was going to tell himself. And her, when she asked tomorrow. And no, he wasn’t caving to pressure, he was allowing himself to be bribed. There was a difference. “All right, you win.”
Christine grinned, bright and carefree. She really did seem to want this, even if Stephen never would have seen this coming even this morning.
Because, and he thought this deserved reiteration, Pepper and Christine weren’t even dating.
Tony led them all out of the bar, and Christine oohed as they passed a storefront with diamond rings on display. “I need one,” she said. “Pepper needs a ring.”
They crowded into the store as Pepper and Christine oohed over rings. Stephen caught sight of Tony handing his card over to the cashier, muttering something about charging it to his card.
Christine didn’t even notice as she and Pepper chose a ring, a simple silver band with a beautiful teardrop diamond tastefully displayed between two smaller diamonds. It matched the ring that Pepper had chosen for Christine with its own silver band dotted with small diamonds leading up to a pear-shaped diamond as the centerpiece.
Stephen made a note to do something nice for his husband, even as he ran a finger over his own wedding ring, cherished just as much now as when Tony had proposed to him during a sleepy lie-in where there’d been nothing but each other.
They left the store, Christine and Pepper actually giggling together as they found a taxi stand. The taxi driver looked only vaguely amused by the request to take them to a chapel. Stephen would not be surprised to find that this happened to him often.
The drive went quickly, Christine and Pepper whispering together, heads tucked close and smiles soft.
Tony held the door open for Christine and Pepper as they climbed out of the taxi cab, calling out cheerful thanks to the drive who dryly wished them luck with their upcoming nuptials.
“Elvis, really?” Stephen asked as he took in the chapel that Tony and the cab driver had chosen. The building was all off-white and pale blue, with maple wooden benches that looked rather uncomfortable. There was an Elvis impersonator standing at the front of the chapel in a white bedazzled suit.
Tony grinned. “If they’re going to do a Las Vegas wedding, they might as well do it right. Or very, very wrong, that depends on your point of view.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Don’t worry, they don’t have a marriage license. This isn’t actually a legal marriage.”
Stephen felt some of his worry dissipate. He’d somehow forgotten about that little detail, but the realization that they were missing that key component was a relieving one. “Then why are we doing this?”
Tony shrugged. “Because they want to, and it seems to be making them both happy. And hey, maybe this will lead to a real wedding.”
Stephen thought about reminding Tony that Christine and Pepper weren’t even dating, but then decided in this case, it probably wasn’t necessary. Because, dating or not, he honestly thought a real wedding was actually a valid potential consequence to this whole thing. There was a reason he and Tony had been trying to set the two of them up. The pining looks they sent each other and their general compatibility were only scratching the surface.
And really, this leading to a real wedding was hardly the worst thing that could happen as a consequence of this drunken mishap. It shifted the whole situation from slightly concerning to admittedly hilarious. “And they can’t get annoyed at us for letting them make life-changing decisions while drunk. Win, win.”
“Exactly. Now prepare Christine and Pepper,” Tony told him. “I’m going to go talk to Elvis and get this whole thing worked out.”
Tony didn’t wait for Stephen to protest. Instead he abandoned Stephen with Christine and Pepper, who were too busy smiling at each other like saps to pay any attention to him, so Stephen didn’t bother ‘preparing’ them for anything.
They could handle this whole thing just fine themselves. They’d certainly been doing a good enough job of it so far, with only a little help from him and Tony.
Tony returned a few minutes later. “Elvis is willing to ‘perform the ceremony’,” he murmured, just quietly enough for Stephen to hear.
Pepper turned toward them when she realized Tony had come back. Her smile was blinding. “Come on, Tony.” She moved away from Christine to loop her arm around Tony’s elbow. “Walk me down the aisle, first.”
Christine copied Pepper, looping her arm around Stephen’s elbow. “You need to walk me down the aisle,” she said seriously. “That’s how it happens.”
“Of course,” Stephen agreed. If they were going to do this, they might as well do it ‘right’. Or as right as things could go when there was an Elvis impersonator involved.
He waited until Tony and Pepper had made it to the front of the chapel, Tony standing to the side of Pepper and clearly doing his best not to laugh. Stephen led Christine to where Elvis, Pepper, and Tony were waiting.
Christine was steady on her feet, thankfully. Drunk enough to get married in Vegas, apparently, but not that drunk. Stephen escorted her to the front of the chapel before stepping to the opposite side of the aisle from Tony as Pepper took Christine’s hand.
The Elvis impersonator led them through the wedding vows easily, though Stephen noted that he left out anything about them being ‘lawfully’ wedded. Stephen had to wonder just how often this happened around here. Not even real Las Vegas weddings, but drunk people wandering in without a license just wanting to say the words to each other.
Probably too often.
Though really, the marriage officiants in Vegas had to go home with the most interesting stories. Tonight’s adventure probably wouldn’t even make the list.
Christine and Pepper kissed as the Elvis impersonator finished. The kiss bordered on overly-enthusiastic as they clung to each other.
They looked happy, Stephen couldn’t help but think as they pulled back. Radiantly so.
Definitely going to lead to a real wedding.
Stephen couldn’t wait to see their reactions tomorrow morning when they found the rings on their fingers. Stephen suspected that they’d be too hungover to realize that there had been no license immediately, which should give Stephen and Tony plenty of initial entertainment.
Christine might be Stephen’s best friend, but really, that was going to be hilarious.
Combined shrieks from the other side of the adjacent hotel room woke him and Tony up the next morning. Stephen buried his face into the pillow, hiding a grin. Yes, he’d been right. This was hilarious.
“What do you think, did they notice the rings?” Tony asked, tone a little sleepy, but clearly amused. He burrowed into Stephen’s side.
Stephen turned his head to find Tony smiling at him, warm brown eyes dancing with his suppressed laughter. “They certainly noticed something,” Stephen said. “How long do you think we have?”
“Less than five minutes,” Tony guessed.
The pounding on the door two minutes later proved Tony right. Stephen had to admit that this was less amusing. He enjoyed cuddling with Tony, and it was rare when they both had a morning when they didn’t have to get up early.
Still, entirely worth it. He got out of bed to let Christine and Pepper into their hotel room while Tony started making coffee for their two very hungover friends.
Christine and Pepper had gotten dressed before coming over, but were otherwise completely unprepared for the day. Given that Stephen had rarely, if ever, seen either of them so disheveled, he had to admit that it was a little strange.
They piled into the kitchenette as Tony finished making the coffee for their two interlopers. Tony grinned at Pepper. “You know, of the two of us, I really didn’t picture you as the one who would pull off the Las Vegas wedding. But hey, these things happen.”
“I would never let you do something like this,” Pepper said.
Which was true. Tony and Stephen had mentioned eloping once before Pepper had put a halt to it and taken over. Pepper had run Stephen and Tony’s wedding with terrifying efficiency. Tony and Stephen had eventually just let her do whatever she wanted. It had been an entire event.
“I can’t believe you let us get married,” Pepper continued in a mutter, making a demanding motion for Tony to hand over the cup of coffee. Tony handed it over and Pepper took it gratefully, pulling it tight to her chest.
Christine was too busy trying to gulp down the coffee that Tony had just handed her to be all that offended by the insinuations, so Stephen had to do it for her.
“Are you saying you don’t love my best friend?” Stephen asked, faking affront. “Your wedded wife?”
Pepper made a completely out of character noise, spluttering a little bit. “I… That’s… I’m not…” She let out a groan. “I’m too hungover for this conversation.” She sent a glare in Tony’s direction. “How are you not hungover?”
Tony just shrugged. “Stephen and I kept to a drink each.” He grinned, skin around his eyes crinkling. “I finally understand the benefit of staying sober, you get to watch everyone else be ridiculous.”
“That’s not actually the benefit of being sober,” Stephen corrected. “The benefit is the lack of damage to your liver.” Tony made a face at that, but they’d had the liver discussion before—along with the argument that Stephen wanted to be married to Tony for a very long time, and he couldn’t do that if Tony gave himself cirrhosis—and Tony clearly wasn’t in the mood to rehash it. “But watching people make interesting decisions is certainly an enjoyable side benefit,” Stephen conceded.
“The sober people are supposed to stop everyone from making poorly thought out choices,” Pepper muttered.
“Oh, we tried. You were both just stubborn,” Stephen defended.
“Are you saying that marrying me is poorly thought out?” Christine asked. She set down her coffee cup and pushed it at Tony for a refill. Tony obediently did so, handing it back to her. She clutched it to her chest as though it was the key to nirvana.
Stephen noted that she hadn’t actually removed her ring, yet. The diamond glinted in the light of the hotel room’s kitchenette. He glanced toward Pepper to see that she hadn’t removed hers either.
He glanced at Tony, making a subtle gesture to the rings. Tony’s smile managed to widen.
Pepper stumbled over her words. Stephen didn’t think he’d ever seen Pepper do such a thing before. She was normally far too put together for that. “I… No. That’s not what I’m saying. But you can’t pretend that this is how you’d want to do it. I have a very blurry recollection of an Elvis impersonator being there. That’s just…” She shuddered. “Absolutely terrible.”
Christine wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Well, no. But…” A blush crossed her face. “I’m not saying I’m opposed to marrying you in a general, no-Elvis-impersonator’s-involved sense.”
This time Pepper blushed, ducking her head to sip at her coffee. “Oh.”
“What a development,” Tony said, tone cheerful. “That means the two of you want to do it right?” Tony asked. “Because, I know you’re still a little hungover right now, but you might have forgotten important little details like marriage licenses and certificates last night.”
The sheer relief that crossed Pepper’s and Christine’s faces in perfect unison deserved commemoration. It was a shame that Stephen hadn’t gotten a picture of it.
Tony tutted. “And here I thought there would never be a day in which Pepper Potts forgot the proper paperwork.”
“Oh, thank heavens,” Pepper murmured. “My mother would never have forgiven me.”
Tony’s grin was devious. “Lies. Your mother would have praised the heavens that you finally learned to ‘cut loose’ and ‘follow your heart’.”
The look on Pepper’s face said that there was probably a degree of truth to that. Stephen felt the sudden need to meet Pepper’s mother, because that sounded nothing like Pepper at all, and Stephen was having a hard time picturing it.
“Your mom?” Christine asked. “My mom would have held it over my head for the rest of her natural life. And knowing her, she’ll probably live to 100 and not a day shorter.”
There was a moment of collective silence as they all appreciated the bullet they’d all just dodged. Because Stephen had no doubt that Christine’s mother would have held it against him and Tony for not stopping them as much as against Christine and Pepper for having done it in the first place. Better to avoid that.
“So…” Tony said. He leaned against the counter, casual and easy. “About that real wedding…”
Pepper thunked her head against the counter. She muttered a low ‘ow’. “Tony—“ her voice was muffled. “I’m not proposing to Christine while hungover.”
“Of course she’s not,” Christine agreed. “Because I’m going to propose. And I’ll do her the courtesy of making it romantic.”
Pepper looked up, a frown on her face. “Who says you’re proposing?”
“I do,” Christine said, matter of factly.
Pepper’s eyes narrowed. Stephen could practically see her running calculations in her mind. “We’ll see about that.”
Tony considered the two of them for a long moment. “I can’t believe the two of you are going to have a more interesting engagement story than Stephen and me. But hey, something has come out of all of this.” There was something in Tony’s voice that pinged on Stephen’s radar. He searched his memories of the night before, and really… Tony had spent most of the night amused rather than concerned.
Of course, part of that was just how Tony would operate. But… Stephen couldn’t help but wonder.
Christine and Pepper both finished their coffee—though they didn’t seem any less hungover than before—before they headed back to their own hotel room to start getting ready to check out of the hotel.
Stephen waited until the door closed behind them to turn to Tony. “Where did Pepper get that ring?” he asked.
Tony’s grin was entirely innocent. “Are you insinuating that I had something to do with last night’s events?” Tony asked. “Because I was with you all night. I couldn’t have possibly done anything.”
Stephen raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Hey, they were the ones who got drunk. I did nothing to encourage that. It took me by complete surprise.” That, Stephen believed. Tony had seemed just as bemused by Pepper and Christine’s little drinking fest as Stephen had been.
“And?”
“You can’t prove anything,” Tony said staunchly. Which meant he’d had something to do with last night. “And anyways, I really didn’t see last night coming at all. I might have poked Pepper a little bit about asking Christine out on our way to Las Vegas. But I definitely wasn’t expecting a proposal to come out of it. I was just hoping she’d finally ask Christine out.”
Stephen considered that, then decided the less he knew the better for when Christine eventually ended up interrogating him on how the night had actually gone.
There were more important things to worry about, anyways.
Namely… “Do you think she’ll really let me be her maid of honor?” Screw traditional gender roles, he’d make an amazing maid of honor. And Christine had been his best man, so it was only fair.
“Oh, absolutely,” Tony said. “Drunken promises are still promises. And since I’m 100 percent going to be Pepper’s maid of honor, we can totally collaborate to make this the best wedding ever. We can put our own to shame.”
Stephen laughed. It really would be an amazing wedding. It could hardly be other wise when it was Christine and Pepper. Of course, that was dependent on either Pepper or Christine actually proposing. But, Stephen suspected that would be happening sooner rather than later, now that they were competing to see who could propose first.
Now that the wedding-that-wasn’t was out of the way, Stephen suspected that the real one could only be right around the corner. At which point, it really was Tony and Stephen’s turn to have fun.
Christine and Pepper were lucky to have them.