From the Desk of Virginia Potts

He wanted to flip them. Laying back in a car seat left him with almost no mobility, so all Tony could do was lay back and let her torment him with those little bites on his neck as she bounced against him. He couldn’t return them, that much he knew for certain (despite wanting to so much it almost made him want to scream). Not now, at least. He’d get her back at some point soon; maybe when she was making a cup of coffee or taking her earrings out, when she was less likely to have a defense against a sudden set of teeth to her neck.

For now, he met her rhythm and put a little more force to it from below, the hand that wasn’t surrendered flat to the console viced over her waist to guide her along. He’d never be able to say as much out loud, but the view from the headrest seared itself into his memory the moment he broke away and looked between them. The reserve she’d been wearing earlier was already all but gone, washed out and replaced with a vivid flush on her cheeks and chest that made her freckles stand out in subtle contrast.

Pepper grinned sharply at the thought, finally moving her hand from where it pinned his wrist. She used it instead to rake through his hair, using her leverage to keep his head where it rested back against the headrest. Nuzzling against the exposed expanse of his neck, she pressed down against his lap, chasing the way it felt to take him before her body dictated it. It was easily enough to take his knot on her own, and so she eased up a little, settling into a shallower rhythm on his lap.

Her eyes softened as she peered down at him; whatever they were to each other, he was the only one she’d ever visited this place with, the only one she felt wouldn’t judge her, the only one who’d taught her, moment by moment, to let go, to be untethered in her attraction.

Her thumb smoothed down the curve of his earlobe seconds before her mouth followed.

(Hm, it had been a good long while since he’d shot Darcy a text. Maybe it was time to change that.)

But now that it was done, it turned out she held more card than she’d expected to. If she walked into that meeting with Tony’s scent all over her, there’d be reactions. People whom she would otherwise be forced to read cold would give up their honest impressions without any more effort on her part. It was surprisingly useful.

...But that definitely wasn’t her motive as she reached down, working in tandem with him to tug his jeans down just far enough to be able to get a hand around his length, pausing only to lick the pad of her thumb.. Lightning quick, her saliva was slick against the underside of him as her thumb traced the topography of a vein, her mouth moving to stifle his noises.

“No knots,” she detailed breathlessly, kissing down the column of his neck as she positioned him, her thighs framing his hips as she sank slowly downward.

“I really can’t miss my 3 ‘o clock.” And if he knotted, she’d be sent into a tailspin, which sounded awfully good now that she thought about it...

“Thought about it.” He’d never admit to the color of her suit affecting that particular decision. The hood of the Bentley was currently covered in dust from having its wheel wells shaved down. If he’d received any warning that this was going to happen, the car itself might have been a little more prepared. As it were, the butter-soft leather under his back was more than enough for him.

There was a long moment where she fought for composure through the pheromones -- but she found it.

“Almost?” Her eyes flickered up to where his dark lashes rested against tan skin. That was exactly where Bridget got it from.

To convince him, she reached down, one thumb hooking in her panties to pull them down. They rested in the passenger seat.

“I’d tuck them into your pocket -- but you’d keep them, and I really do have a meeting at three.” She moved against him, enjoying the scratch of denim against pale skin, the way her was hard against her thigh, and stretched to press her mouth to his. It was the lightest kiss, and she thought she could hold out a bit longer -- but the next thing she knew, her teeth were teasing the bow of his bottom lip, her fingers curling under the soft collar of his t-shirt to trace his clavicle.

“I see how it is,” he murmured quietly. “Throw everyone’s schedules off for a moment to yourself. It’s like you sign everyone’s paychecks or something.”

But she didn’t mind that he knew her endgame, not when he also knew exactly how much pressure to give his thumb where it circled against her. He would always know those things about her, those things that no other soul on this earth had been afforded the time to puzzle out. But that was Tony through and through. He lived to take people apart, to find out what made them tick.

And that was just fine with her. He wouldn’t find anything here he didn’t already know.

Her fingers left his wrist, a soft warning tap letting him know she didn’t want him moving it. She was putty under his hands, and when he started in on her she knew she’d be a goner. She wanted time to herself before that happened.

Nails grazed his scalp as she brushed his hair out of his face, shifting toward his fingers with a soft sigh. She trusted the soundproofing down here more than most places.

His eyes rolled briefly upward before they darted into a quick scan of the work floor’s long, windowed wall. Technically speaking, his lowest work floor in the tower was the safest. Aside from the obvious benefit of having a wall of armored suits at his short beck and call, being close to ground level meant the foundations were much sturdier.

Still, it was old habit to make sure everything else around them was quiet. The doors were locked, the windows were strong enough to take a sniper round at close range, and he had every weapon he’d made for himself in the last decade close enough to reach out and grab. Once he heard the pneumatic pistons snap the door bolts into place, his eyes stopped checking locks. JARVIS had it covered.

He was faster than she was, underlining everything biology told her, and before she knew it his arms were around her. His palms were invitingly warm, even through the fabric of her blouse, and she allowed herself a silent moment to appreciate the fact of them before wrapping slender fingers around his wrists to push them away.

“No.” Her chin raised a fraction in defiance; if she was going to go down, it was damn well going to be on her terms. She stepped primly out of her skirt -- bunching it around her waist would leave telltale wrinkles -- before easing onto his lap, the soft leather seats giving purchase for her knees as she straddled him.

“Moving your schedule around?” he asked back as he leaned back in his chair. “Must be a big day.”

And okay, staring at her legs was a little obvious. But honestly, it wasn’t hard to tell where their eyes were leading. They were doing the same song and dance they always did when one was ramping up… but it just felt different now. She was staring too intently for this to be just play.

The AI didn’t answer, and she circled the current car of Tony’s affections, slipping her pristine jacket from freckled shoulders as she moved, always keeping the vehicle between them. She was breathless, mouth dry with the effort of trying to resist how much she wanted him, even when he actively drove her crazy.

“And this is my call? Not a habit you’ve developed with your... beneficiary?”

To be fair, Tony did his best to deflect it. “No, I think that’ll be all, Ms. Potts,” he murmured back with his eyes firmly glued to his keyboard. It made a little sense now, the way she’d been pushing his buttons. Even Pepper knew to put a clipboard down sometimes when she really needed something handled. But no, she’d stared him down. She stared him down and didn’t flinch like she knew hit him right in the gut and-

“Unless you want to take lunch off.”

It was off his tongue before he could stop it. Her eyes screamed a challenge, though. Tony wasn’t a strong enough man to withstand that sort of of open call. Pepper was calling him out on his own turf, and on purpose to boot. If the way she was still gripping his desk edge was any indication, he wasn’t far off the mark. “I mean, if you’re not busy. I wouldn’t mind the company.”

Her steps paused at his offer, knuckles white around the edge of the clipboard where he couldn’t see. It was stupid coming down here like this; he would never not affect her. She knew better.

Maybe she’d just wanted the company, too.

“You know my schedule won’t allow it.” She turned slowly, watching him. She didn’t quite feel like prey yet.

“Marie.” One hand lifted to the headset at her right ear, her receptionist answering immediately. “Push the Greenpeace meeting back an hour, and reschedule my lunch to 3 today.” Her heels clicked again as she approached Tony’s workspace, staying just out of reach as she slid the earpiece off, setting it on top of her clipboard before setting it aside.

He scrawled a signature and shoved the pen back toward her. “Doesn’t matter,” he reminded with an indifferent shift of his shoulder. “You’re beneficiary of my estate.”

On the other hand, ‘beneficiary’ was the coldest title she could think of right now.

“Don’t even what?” The pen slid smoothly back into its place along the top of her clipboard, her immaculate suit like armour against whatever he would say. Here she could pretend that it didn’t matter that she was three seconds from activating privacy protocols, that she could smell him even over the usual metallic waft of engine oil. She could hold on for one more day, couldn’t she? Be more than an Omega?

And then his workshop doors swung open.

It was a saving grace that kept him from snapping. JARVIS didn’t have the air scrubbers on that day, so it wasn’t hard to tell when Pepper walked through the door. Still, his entire face pinched down into a harsh frown when the pneumatic hiss reached his ears. She knew better than to just-

“Luckily you’ve got several foreign dictators who have that on their personal To-Do List, so you don’t in fact need me for that life goal.”

It was more acidic than she usually allowed, but he knew that was a bad button to press. At any time, their entire existence could be threatened -- their company, their good work, their children, their home -- and he thought it was something to joke about.

“The Maria Stark Foundation’s bylaws expressly prohibit the gifting of funds without a Stark’s approval, as you well know --” She’d been hounding him for signatures since her first day as his PA. “--So excuse me for not being more help.”

"I’m spending a lot more time in-state," he noted as he laid the card on his knee and pulled out his phone. He snapped a quick picture of it and handed the card back over, his own tucked under it as he slipped the device back into his coat pocket. "Let me know if you’d like company over lunch or something."

The dull white of Phil's card disappeared past the neckline of her card. She was quite adept with technology, yes, but there was something romantic and old-fashioned about paper. At any rate, her more important correspondence was on letterhead whenever possible.

Her rise was graceful, accompanied by pale falling silk as her skirt straightened itself.

"Thank you for making time for me in your evening. Phillip." Her soft smile said she knew he'd had little choice, but appreciated it anyhow. "I'm sure we'll run into each other soon. If you'll excuse me, I have a human to get back to."

It was a responsibility she kept close to her heart, a dangerous game in the business of what she did. But he was baiting the undersecretary, flirting relentlessly from the looks of it, likely because he was bored. Pepper could fix that, and save Marjorie in the process; the woman had proven invaluable to her lately, she deserved that much.

"I’d say I’m still a couple of centuries away from understanding where I am now in the world," he remarked back, a subtle jab at his own "youth" and the fact that being under a century old put you in the "Basically A Squishy-Skulled Baby" category. "But it’s nice to feel relevant now. What’s the point of being here for so damn long if we don’t enjoy what’s happening?"

He’d accidentally exposed a thin root of his own internal anxiety, but there wasn’t a thing to be done for it. Pepper had been honest with him, anyway. He owed her the respect of being honest in return. “We’ll both see Darcy put in the ground. Eventually, I’ll have to see Clint put in the ground as well.” His grip increased marginally on his glass at that thought. It was decades beyond them, but it still hurt to think about.

"Yes," she agreed a bit uneasily. It was a thought she'd had several times in relation to Tony's achingly short lifespan. He was brilliant for a human; he would be incandescent as a vampire. But she knew he was driven at least in part by his own mortality... there seemed to be no answer to heir conundrum. "I suppose we have that in common."

He would let her, she thought. He would have no idea what he was agreeing to, but he would let her. Sometimes her thoughts turned to the question of if she could live with herself afterward, knowing all she'd lost to become who she was now.

"Talk to him," she underlined after a moment, quieter this time. She made the silent decision to do the same.

The fact that she’d targeted someone for possible blackmail was a little disconcerting, but that was the way the older generations acted. Once you hit a few centuries old, you apparently stop giving as much of a shit about modern morality.

"It’s not my place to speak for him," he replied gently. "But I don’t foresee a conversation like that going very well." But it was an idea. An idea that, unfortunately for him, was taking a tiny root in the back of his head. They wouldn’t have to be concerned over Clint’s lifetime being drastically shorter (something they’d talked about to great length and accepted as an unchangeable fact), or the risk their jobs posed in the field, or his hearing-

…Would that fix his hearing?

He shoved the thought away as quickly as it had flashed up. He didn’t need Pepper prodding around in his head (like he knew she probably was; he knew that little smile from when Melinda watched him) and finding something like that. That was Clint’s secret to share, not his, even if it happened on accident.

But this was all she'd wanted when she brought the subject up, so she let it go gently.

"We are," she agreed simply, her glance lingering over the patrons who surrounded Tony this time. As much as Tony loved pressing the rules, they all kept a respectful distance; they knew what it would mean to raise Pepper's suspicions tonight, here in her home.

"He... keeps me a little more human than I was before." Her words were chosen carefully now. Tony was responsible for a lot of things, some of which she never told even him about. Exasperating as he was, he was good for her, and she'd thought several times about turning him -- a thought she didn't voice now.

But then again, did he want to be quiet? She seemed genuinely interested on some level, and that in itself was sort of rare. “Clint was born into his abilities,” he explained solemnly, propping his elbows on his knees with his fingers interlaced in front of him. “The community he was raised in see his kind as demons. He grew up thinking he was some sort of monster and joined a circus troupe because it was the first place he could think to run where he wouldn’t be rejected.”

"The no-strings approach," she nodded. Tit for tat is only fair, she supposed. "That's how Tony began, too."

Her smile was even as she sipped from a sparkling flute of champagne. She wouldn't feel the alcohol.

"As far as humans go, he has power of his own. Influence. His conduction of media affairs is quite canny." That wasn't her bragging on her consort; those were proven facts. "He was just supposed to be a safe bet, someone who had enough to lose that -- if he proved to be trouble -- would be easy enough to control."

Her smile was fond. How wrong she'd been.

"Anyhow..." She refolded her napkin on the table. "You see how that worked out." She watched Tony across the room for a few moments, appreciating the crisp lines of the suit that he'd insisted on tonight.

To an extent, walking on eggshells was just par for the course with old blood like Pepper. The respect they demanded was well earned (most of the time). Anyone else would have been immediately eyeballed for taking such a sharp tone with him.

"Are you thinking of turning him?" It was an invasive question for anyone else, but she had a way of making people want to confide in her. It was a natural talent, present far before she'd been made. She'd already had a background check done on the man - it was sparse, but she liked what she saw. They didn't need people who had a tendency to make waves; like it or not, secrets were their life.

"It could solve a lot of problems for you," she explained, small hands spreading in illustration across her lap. "And you could keep the girl between you."

The sudden appearance of the attendant made him twitch, glancing sideways to watch the retreating back like he expected it to turn around and call him ugly. Being in a den of his own kind should have put him at ease, but the ruddy copper flecks that still clung to the edges of his irises was a dead giveaway for how much younger he was than almost everyone there. If he was a tad self-conscious about it, though, he kept it to himself.

It was as soft a correction as it could be -- but when she spoke, people listened, so her words tended to carry weight.

"I don't keep him for the convenience factor." She smiled, because life with Tony was anything but convenient. "I don't keep him at all, really."

Which was true. As important as she was to the vampire community, he was not like her. It was unlikely he'd ever grasp her real significance -- but she was confident she was important to him in a different way.

"Our relationship is more than that, as you may have heard." She shared another secret smile. Oh, she knew there were rumours. She's started some of them herself, while others were completely true to begin with.

He nodded to show his agreement, an exhale perfectly timed with the stroke of her fingers as she explored. Tony was never gonna get used to seeing her pull away the professional veneer; it took him damn close to a decade to get under it, and the ease with which she pulled it away now (and for him, of all people) was still just as mind-boggling as the first time.

It was almost embarrassing how quickly he was getting worked up, but the way she smiled up at him radiated trust as well as want. Don’t get all self-conscious now, Stark."Gonna end up skipping it if you don’t stop teasing me," he murmured, reaching for his belt to tug it free and toss it aside. The fly of his pants went next, hastily opened and shoved away with the opening of his boxers as Pepper took the lead and pulled him free.

"Who's teasing?" she murmured, one side of her mouth lifting in a smile as she dipped her head.

Her fingers guided him past her lips, and she hummed in agreement at the weight of his hand on the back of her head. She didn't have the sort of college experience that made her confident in her abilities -- she'd learned most of what she knew with Tony -- but the way his fingers flexed minutely in her hair always made her feel competent.

Blue eyes flickered up to Tony, well aware of the power she wielded from where she was. This was nothing they ever had time for during heats, and it always made a flare of want spike low in her stomach.