FicWad

Pepper and Tony

Bucky is finding that the sessions with Janis are helping. Steve is always there with him. Whilst he trusts Steve with his sanity and his life, he still does not truly trust anyone else except Freya. Freya had told Steve a little about what had happened with Bucky at the camp, she had even mentioned about the 'ticking clock' process and he was able therefore to tell Janis some of what Bucky had faced. Listening to Steve talking to Janis was the first Bucky knew about it. It is a shame that Tony does not tell them what he has access to, it would have helped the process - although what effect it would have on Janis' mind, god only knows. Even for Tony some of the tapes and files are not easy to look at, and they have become harder to watch and read since Janis' first meeting with them.

After that meeting Tony had locked himself away in his lab. Pepper knows it is time she interfered, time she made Tony realise just how much she loves him, just how much she wants to be a part of his life, wants to be there for the bad as well as the good.

Tony is sat at one of the many work benches he has scattered around his lab and he is working on electronic parts whilst grumbling at his helping hand, Dum-E, who behaves more like a pet dog than an automaton. His other helping hand, Butterfingers, is parked away in the corner working on some type of monitoring system and when it sees Pepper it waves to her, she cannot help but smile and finds herself waving back.

“Am I interrupting?” Pepper asks Tony. Dum-E shakes it's head as if to say no.

“It's always nice to see you but I need to get this finished. Give me a bit longer and then I'll come and find you,” Tony says picking up another circuity board.

“So I am interrupting?”

Tony smiles “Yes.”

“Good, I hoped I was,” and Pepper's reply stops him in his tracks and he looks at her. He knows that look on her face.

He does the Tony-looking-sheepish act that usually charms her, but he can see it isn't going to work this time. He throws down the board, crosses his arm and looks hard done by. Pepper takes one of his arms and pulls it to her and then takes his hand and kisses it which surprises him. Then she pulls him up from the bench and over to where he has an old couch he sometimes sleeps on.

“We need to talk,” she says as she sits down next to Tony, totally focused on him. He goes to lie to her, to tell her no they don't, but instead he finds the words drying up in his mouth. “Tell me,” she says quietly. Then she waits.

When he speaks it is not what she was expecting.

“Did she drug me?” he asks.

“Who?” Pepper is puzzled.

“You know who...” and when he can see Pepper is still frowning: “The woman, Janis.”

“No! What makes you think she drugged you?”

“I would never have shot you Pepper, never!” And she can hear the anger in his voice.

“She said you probably wouldn't remember and warned me you would ask...” she says slowly, and Tony quietens.

“Okay, you remember what you said to her about not believing -”

He doesn't let her finish “Yes, yes I remember that!” he says impatiently.

“Do you remember her asking you to remove your wrist watch?”

Tony frowns. “She didn't.” But there in the far recesses of his mind, it sounds familiar.

“You had said that no one could be made to do something by passing a watch back and forward...no let me finish,” Pepper is firm and stops Tony as he goes to interrupt her. “Janis asked if she could show you a trick, make you do something you would never do and you agreed. She then asked you to take off your watch and look at it, she told you to watch the second hand ticking around and you did. Then she seemed to lower her voice, it was...comforting. She told you that in a minute she was going to take a mirror out of her purse and lay it on the table but that you would see it as a gun. She said she would then ask you to say the alphabet but when you reached the letter G you would pick the gun up, aim it at me and fire.” Pepper smiles to try and belay any accusation that she thought he would hear in her voice. “She asked if you understood and you said yes.”

Pepper pauses for a moment but she can see Tony is beginning to remember some of it. “What happened next?” he asks quietly.

“She then said to you, if I persuaded you to fire a gun at Pepper, and you did, would you believe me then? and you laughed at her. It was if you had forgotten about watching the second hand and what she had already said to you. She got her mirror out of her handbag and told you it was a gun and to look and see if it was loaded and you did! You picked up the compact case, opened it, nodded and put it back down. Then...well you know the rest, you started saying the alphabet and....” she tails off watching Tony digest what she has said, she can see him remembering his version of what had happened.

He lifts his hands and dry washes his face and then sits back. Pepper is shocked at the look on his face. It's as if he has been wearing a mask up until now. He is silent.

“Talk to me,” she says. At first she thinks he is going to refuse but then he seems to deflate, seems to lose his energy.

And he talks. She doesn't interrupt him. Doesn't move for what seems along time.

He reminds her how his parents had been murdered but that the murder was never solved; how, when Hydra went down, he realised the truth, that it had been them and that they would have sent the Winter Soldier as the assassin. How he had been searching for him, only for Steve to deliver him to his very doorstep. How he had leaked the information of the decoded files to the news services so that public opinion would turn against James Barnes, how he added in bits that he guessed at but had turned out to be so wrong. And then they found out about the base. He had allowed Freya to be brought here because it would keep the Soldier tied to him but how Jarvis had found the new files, had found the truth. How the Winter Soldier had not been the one to murder Howard and Maria Stark.

“...And yet I still hated him! I couldn't hate Caldwell, he isn't here, he's dead, but here was this man who I had hated for so long and it seemed like...seemed like he had taken the very last thing away from me. If I could believe he was...evil, that he gave in to them, he was a party to his own brainwashing then...” And here he stops.

Pepper can count on one hand how many times she has seen Tony Stark cry. Now she sees him stop, he cannot go on, cannot finish because he is too choked up.

“Oh Tony,” she says softly and he looks at her. He can see how much she loves him, see how much it pains her to see him like this.

“A little fucked up, aren't I?” He always tries to fall back on his sense of humour.

“Just a little,“ she says. She pulls him into her arms, kisses the top of his head and allows him cry.

A noise finally quietens him. Dum-E has trundled over and extends its claw and actually pats him on the shoulder.

“I didn't know you had programmed him to do that,” Pepper says and Tony shakes his head.

“I didn't...” Something tickles at the back of his mind. Something about Jarvis. “I think...” And now he sits forward, wiping at his eyes. Pepper leans forward with him. “I think I may have....” and she can see that Tony's mind is off thinking. He looks at the helping hand and Pepper can literally see the gears turning. “I've think I'm beginning to realise I've created more than an AI...more than Just a Rather Very Intelligent System...Jarvis?” He stands up and she follows suit.

“And James Barnes?” she asks before he can become distracted again. Tony knows what she is asking. He has done untold damage with the incorrect information he has put out there. That incorrect information is causing a lot of hate against the Winter Soldier. He will have to put things right. He turns to her. “Let me think,” he says.

She studies him and he smiles sheepishly. “I know, I know.” He bends forward and kisses her on the lips. She has her Tony back for now and she knows what is wrong. She can begin to help him. Begin to put things right.

“Perhaps you can do me a favour and help Steve and Bucky out at the same time?” Pepper asks.

A suspicious look comes over his face and she pretends to flutter her eyes at him. He can never resist her doing that and it makes him smile. He comes up and puts his arms around her waist, leans in and kisses her slowly.

“Mmm,” she says and then leans back breaking the kiss, “and the favour?”

He sighs. “What?”

“Jeremy Sands...Freya said she would let him know where she was but he says he can't tell me if he has heard from her and if so where she is now...” and now she walks her fingers up his arm and gives him her sexiest look “but...I'm sure you and Jarvis might be able to find something in his files?”

Tony laughs, releasing her and patting her backside, which normally would get a smack for the sexist thing it is, but instead she just widens her eyes innocently.

*

It is not quite the walk in the park Tony thought it would be breaking into the lawyer's files and he is impressed with their security. He does not find an address, but there is a note on her file to say she is working as a waitress and gives the area zip code of where the diner is. Unfortunately there is no name. A quick look shows there are five diners in that area. How hard can it be? He passes the information on to Pepper who passes the list on to Steve. It's a place to start.

Then Tony starts to try and figure out how he can start to repair the damage he has done. He had supplied the misinformation to the DA on an anonymous basis and he now groans as he realises fully the damage he has caused. Barnes could end up shouldering the entire blame, allowing Hydra to get away with their crimes.

He needs to put it right but, as it happens, events will over take him. It is not going to be as easy as he first thought.