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“JARVIS, music.”
The music in the lab cut off abruptly, and Tony, hip-deep in code and schematics, blinked. The confusion was quickly replaced by a light scowl. He turned away from the array of holograms, ready to protest, but Pepper was clearly in no mood to humor him. Her long, lean legs were spread apart and her arms crossed. She didn’t look angry, exactly, but she was clearly unhappy and her body language was almost spoiling for a fight. That was… rare. Tony and Pepper bickered like breathing, but fight? Not nearly as often as people thought.
There was a time before Tony had become Tony-and-Pepper/Pepper-and-Tony that Tony wouldn’t have asked. He would have assumed that his ever-present Miss Potts would simply tell him if he needed to know something. But Tony’s Pepper didn’t always tell him things, wasn’t always straightforward. She tested her ability to be something other than a personal assistant in sometimes fascinating, sometimes frustrating ways. There were days where Tony actually had to pry things out of her. He’d been confused by these change at first, but he was coming to enjoy these more human reactions––at least, human by the standards of TV drama, which was all that Tony really knew about human interaction. He searched that databank of ‘normal’ interactions and finally hit on something non-offensive to say.
“Pep, what’s wrong?”
“It’s time for my check up,” Pepper said, her voice flat. She was looking past Tony, at the corner of the lab that Tony kept meticulously clean. The near-sterile lab tables and countertops seemed to glow; that corner of the lab had its own set of cleaning robots that were much more efficient than DUM-E. That was Pepper's corner; she demanded nothing less than perfection.
“Time for your check-up,” Tony agreed. Then he blinked. “Uh, is it? Geeze, I thought we just did that.” When Pepper gave him a long look, he instantly backtracked. “But, uh, but right, we can do this now, because you have scheduled this meticulously, I’m sure. Of course we can.” He gave himself a glance, but he’d been working on designs and holograms and equations all day; there was no oil or grease to wash away. Pepper shifted slightly, and Tony struggled to label her body language. Uncomfortable? “We could postpone it?” he offered. But if anything, Pepper only looked more unhappy with that suggestion. “Or not,” Tony said quickly. Pepper frowned at him, and Tony began to panic slightly. “Pep, Pepper, please, throw a guy a bone here. What’s going on?”
“It’s nothing.” Pepper’s voice was clipped as she seemed to stir from her brood. She brushed past him, inhumanly graceful on towering heels, and went over to the small corner of the lab that Tony reserved for her particular use. She shrugged off her blazer, and JARVIS opened one of the cabinets silently, presenting a small rack of hangers. Tony watched her hang up the blazer, then walked over to join her, halting her progress on her cuffs by laying his hand over her wrist. It was such a beautiful wrist, a masterwork in the department of wrists, Tony thought. He carefully undid the mother-of-pearl buttons and let the sleeves fall away to reveal the entirety of Tony’s obsession. He traced the contours of that pale wrist, ran his fingers of the tiny bulges of veins, looked for any tears or imperfections in the perfectly imperfect skin. (There were six freckles on Pepper’s left hand to aid her in being so perfectly imperfect; Tony checked each one with fingers, then lips).
Pepper sighed and relaxed slightly, and Tony let the left hand go to repeat the process with the right. When he reached for her neck, Pepper just lifted her chin and looked away. Gently, Tony unhooked the necklace from her neck and laid it on the counter, then unbuttoned the top button of her blouse, revealing the long expanse of a creamy white neck, delicately scattered with freckles (Fifteen freckles on her neck and jaw, including five almost buried in her hairline at the back of her neck). Two more buttons revealed the top mounds of her breasts and their pale and darling freckles (Tony might have gone overboard with those). Three more buttons and he could slide the silk blouse off her shoulders, discarding it to Pepper’s huffing sigh (“Tony, hang it up”). He returned to her body, greedily reaching around her, pulling her, unresisting into his arms as he deftly undid her bra––fancy La Perla stuff, of course, he loved that she had expensive tastes in this department when she didn’t even need a bra, not really. There was some give in her breasts, of course, he had been going for softness and malleability, but Pepper was also a young woman, and would always be a young woman, and thus her breasts were firm and supple and upright and always would be. There were twenty four freckles scattered across her breasts and Tony bent his head to kiss every one of them. Pepper’s sigh was a little more breathy that time. He traced the constellations he painted in his mind, pictures drawn by the connection points between freckles, then ran his lips over her delicately pink nipples, letting the erect nub roll into his mouth where he could suck it gently. Pepper’s skin wasn’t like other women’s. Her skin didn’t have an organic taste; there was no slight tang of salt. She always smelled ever-so-faintly of silicone and electricity. Tony couldn’t get enough of it.
“...Tony.” Pepper’s hands were gently pushing him away. “You’re getting distracted.”
“You’re distracting,” Tony whined, pulling Pepper against him. She pressed against him unresisting and he took the opportunity to hug her hard, hard enough that a normal woman would complain. Pepper didn’t complain. Pepper hummed in soft pleasure whenever he did it. Pepper liked it, and that was why Tony knew he could never be with another woman ever again. There was no woman more perfect for him than Pepper. He knew it, but she knew it too. Reluctantly, he let her go, let her pull back, let her unzip her own skirt, carefully stepping out of it to reveal panties that matched the discarded bra and a matching garter belt holding up her thigh-high stockings.
Tony whimpered at the sight of Pepper dressed in only panties, garters, stockings, and heels, confidently moving around the lab, hanging up her clothes in the little cupboard closet, then bending forward (she was doing that on purpose, Tony knew she didn’t need to bend like that) pushing her beautiful ass out into the air as she dragged her panties down and stepped out of them. “Stockings on?” she inquired archly.
He wanted to say yes. He really wanted to say yes, goddamnit, but he had a commitment to science... and to her. Clothes got in the way of sensory testing. He shook his head regretfully and did he only imagine that Pepper looked vaguely disappointed? “Tonight,” he said dry-mouthed. “Will you wear them for me tonight?”
“Will you wear the suit?” Pepper asked in response, slipping out of her heels. She was instantly five inches shorter; Tony could actually see the top of her head now. She bent down to undo the garters; it was a calculated pose designed to show off the cluster of freckles on her left shoulder and the beautiful contours of her breasts against the backdrop of her long legs. Tony was uncomfortably hard, and when she glanced up at him through her lashes, he thought, to hell with the check up.
“Yes?” Pepper said, and Tony realized he hadn’t answered her question. Pepper had a thing for the suit, the Mach Five, specifically. Something about the thinner metal and the intricate, origami-like folding scales really did it for her. Tony hadn’t quite figured it out, but he thought it might have something to do with her not being held back to human strength when he was suited up (so he’d gone a little overboard there; he wanted her to be able to protect herself, and possibly him––that was before she’d even been finished, before he’d loved her, before he’d realized he would never, ever, let her stand in front of him to take the hit).
“Sure,” Tony agreed. He flashed her a grin as she rolled the stockings down and put them neatly away in her cupboard. Her earrings were next, and then her bracelet and ring. The last thing to go was the clip in her hair; something simple and understated that had probably cost as much as her entire suit. Then she was bare; just Pepper, just what she had come into the world with.
Tony couldn’t explain why he always had the urge to treat Pepper differently like this. Was it because she seemed vulnerable without her cloth armor? Was it because he knew, deep-down, that even though they’d been doing this for years––twelve years, Jesus, that was a long time––she still felt pain every time? He couldn’t help that; part of the check-up was establishing the functionality of her secondary systems, which included sensations, such as pain. Of course, Tony being Tony, he couldn’t help but feel like a jerk every time he hurt her, even when it was necessary. So maybe he did treat her gently to try to make up for it. He held out his hand, the way he always did, and she put her smooth, smaller one into his. He pulled her closer, swept her up, bridal-style, (and that never failed to recall the memory he had of doing the same thing to her tri-tanium frame, when her personality was still just an outline, an egg-like program snuggled in the nest of JARVIS’s vast memory). He settled her out gently on the diagnostic table, which came alive, showing her measurements and comparing them to previous measurements, checking for discrepancy.
“All measurements normal,” JARVIS said quietly. “Miss Potts, you may turn now.” Pepper obediently rolled over on to her side, pillowing her head on one outstretched arm, exposing her spine to Tony’s view. There were forty-two freckles sprinkled over her back and shoulders, and one not-freckle at the base of the spine which Tony had made as a marker to mark the place where her bio-silicone skin parted around a tiny channel. Here, he slid in probe, a foot long and slightly thicker than a medical needle with a wireless transmitter attached to one end. It could have done serious damage to a human being, but Pepper had been built to accommodate the probe. She didn’t even sigh like she used to, even though it probably hurt since she couldn’t turn her pain sensors off.
As always, Tony’s hand went to her bare hip, rubbing soothing circles as he waited for her to adjust. He wished he could make this less painful for her. That was why he had cut down on the number of checkups in the first place, but he had a feeling that Pepper had been increasing their frequency again, although he wasn’t sure if that was true (or why). In the beginning, he had insisted on monthly checkups (although those had been much more clinical) because Pepper had been new, had been his first Life Model, an AI brain in an artificial body. He had been worried about all the things that could go wrong. But it had been twelve years. Her parts were holding up well and he was more than certain of the upgrades he had made three years ago. So why was Pepper insisting on more check-ups?
Pepper made a light sound, drawing Tony’s attention back to her. He squeezed her hip lightly. “All good?”
“Fine,” Pepper said. She shifted one leg and bent her knee. Tony’s hand automatically went to her rounded, tightened buttock, smoothing it gently. He saw the faint edge of a smile pulling at her face (what he could see of her face, with her turned in the other direction). “You’re getting distracted again,” she warned him.
“Just waiting for the probe to activate,” Tony assured her.
“The uplink is unstable,” JARVIS said. “I suggest re-inserting the probe, sir.”
Pepper grumbled something, but stilled herself. Tony frowned, withdrawing the probe. Pepper gasped slightly as Tony pulled it out as gently as he could and slipped it back in.
“Uplink stable,” JARVIS said. A moment later, the air above the table was full of holographic readouts; all of Pepper’s functions were lit up for them to see.
“Hey, everything looks good up here,” Tony said, thumbing through the displays. “You ready for the positronic neural load?”
“Um-hum,” Pepper said. She moved her head slightly, turning her face into the crook of her arm and turning the base of her skull up to view, exposing the tiny mole that marked the place there the second probe would slide into her skull to test artificial neurons. There was a slight tremor in her elbow and Tony glanced up automatically. The holographic readouts indicated that her secondary systems were functioning normally, which meant that Pepper was... anxious. Maybe even… scared?
“Pep...” Tony said gently. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, just put it in,” Pepper said, her voice muffled by her arm.
Under normal circumstances, Tony wouldn’t have been able to pass that one up, it was too easy, but not now, he couldn’t now. “Pep, we don’t have to do this,” he said. “You don’t even need this, my god, we just did this...” He thumbed through Pepper’s check-up logs. “We’ve been doing this every month,” he said. “Jesus, Pep, we don’t have to do this every month, we had it scaled back to once a year for years and it was fine. You’re fine.”
“No, no, Tony you have to check, you have to make sure.” Pepper’s voice was insistent, stressed.
Tony watched the readouts of her secondary systems perk up into the red. “What? Pepper, what’s going on, what is this? What’s wrong?”
Pepper was silent, her face buried in the crook of her arm, her naked body stretched out, unashamed, on a diagnostic table. There was something so vulnerable about it that Tony looked away. He waited, fidgeting with the holographic windows floating above the table. Finally she said, muffled, “You’re not going to stop being Iron Man.”
“Um, no,” Tony agreed.
“You could die,” Pepper said.
Tony flinched. “Well, that’s a minor possibility. Microscopic. Miniscule.”
“And what happens if I start to break down and you’re dead?” Pepper asked him. “When you were… when you were gone, I was so afraid that something would happen, that something would break that I couldn’t fix, or JARVIS couldn’t fix, and that I would… go offline, before we could find you, before we could get you back… and then you were... you were dying, but you didn't tell me, you were just acting strangely, and I didn't know what to do, you wouldn't do my checkups and it’s not like I can just go to the doctor if I don’t feel well…” Her rambling cut off with a 'click' as she snapped her mouth closed.
Tony opened his mouth to answer, then stopped, thought, and finally ‘hmmed’. “So you’ve been getting me to give you monthly tune-ups so that if I die... or disappear… you’ll be up to date. Your life expectancy will be increased.”
“Yes,” Pepper said succinctly. She turned her head slightly to glance at him, gave him a smile that wasn’t very real, and said, “The sex is nice too.”
“Oh, saucy, Miss Potts,” Tony purred, willing to tease. “I knew you were a kinky girl.” He leaned down over her, pressing a gently kiss to the corner of her mouth. “You should have told me. I’m going to fix this for you, Pepper. You don’t have to worry about this.” He kissed her again. “You are my first priority, Virginia Pepper Potts.”
Pepper didn’t say thank you, because she knew Tony and she knew how much Tony hated thanks, but she did draw him down for a long, wet kiss that left Tony’s mouth full of the tang of electricity and coconut. “So, are we finished with this check up, Miss Potts?” Tony asked. “Because I was thinking we could just have sex.” Like they weren’t going to do that anyway––it was Tony’s favorite method of sensory testing.
Pepper grinned. “Get up here, Mr. Stark.”
After they were happily sated––lab sex was the best sex, in Tony’s opinion––Pepper asked, “So, any ideas?”
“Mm,” Tony agreed. “I’m thinking what you need, in case of some very unlikely possibilities, is something like me, with my knowledge, maybe my personality to make the same kind of intuitive leaps. I’ll need a way to upload my mind, my thoughts, maybe I’ll have to make a new implant, but basically some kind of Life Model version of me... hmm, I could use that, maybe I could send it to those boring charity functions, like a decoy. Oh, I like that, a Life Model Decoy.” He grinned. “I’m a genius!”
Pepper sighed and rested her head against the arc reactor, and that was strange and wonderful; to have his two best creations right there like—lifesavers, both of them. “Yes,” Pepper said. “You are.”