Five Ways Pepper Potts Became a Superhero

[findgoodthings]

Five Ways Pepper Potts Became a Superhero
by cruelest_month

Characters: Pepper, Tony, Steve and Rhodes
Rating: PG - Gen. Some UST and possible implied Tony/Steve if you squint.
Disclaimer: I own no one. This is for fun.
Warning: The first way features character death. The rest do not, I promise.

Author’s note: Thank you, th_esaurus for looking this over and making me feel better about it. I ended up switching the order of these around a lot. Still not sure I like it completely. Anyway, while primarily based on the movie-verse, this fic also moves into possible futures/alternate realities. As a result, it draws and pulls ideas from various Iron Man and Avengers comics. And occasionally references other characters from that 'verse. IV is roughly based on something that happened to comic book Tony in the 80s.



i.

Tony had done the right thing. That’s what the papers said. That’s what the magazines said. That’s what everyone said. Except for her. The right thing would have been living. Why he chose her to be a superhero in addition to Rhodes didn’t make any sense at first and even seven months after the fact, Pepper didn’t understand why.

Every other area in the house seemed relatively the same as usual with or without him, but the basement seemed forsaken somehow. Pepper had jumped the first time she’d heard Jarvis’ altered voice and she’d started calling it -the machine, the program, the disembodied insult-Anthony because she couldn’t say Tony without crying. And she wasn’t willing to be that weak in front of two forlorn robots and an irritatingly sarcastic AI computer system.

The worst part had been when Captain America came over, heard Jarvis speak for the first time and wouldn’t calm down until she punched him in the face because she didn’t want him to tear the house apart or destroy the system even though a part of really hoped Steve would anyway. It hadn’t hurt him all that much even though her knuckles looked and felt bruised seconds later. Some combination of super human serum and grief kept his jaw whole. She’d picked up his shield and set it down on the couch next to him, retreating to the basement as if her new objective in life was to pick up right where Tony left off by behaving in exactly the same way.

There had been some strange level of foresight, she guessed, in her employer showing her the suit weeks before he’d died. Not that Tony could have known that he would. He’d been really proud of it and its modifications. Its colors too. They were in stark contrast to his.

It hurt looking at the blue and silver thing hanging on its hooks. It hurt knowing he would have wanted to see her flying that first time if only to laugh. It hurt putting it on and hearing the perfect imitation of his voice in her ear.

The first time, she felt only numb as she skittered along and eventually soared. The second and third trips were about the same. Somewhere on her way up towards the stars on the fifth or sixth attempt at making the armor mean something to her the way it would have to Tony, a part of the pain broke off with the ice and she could breathe easier.

When she saved people, and when she won either on her own or with Rhodes or Cap or other Avengers fighting alongside her, she could almost forget just how much it hurt to lose.

ii.

Sometimes she wondered how many times Howard Stark had dropped Tony as a small child. Down in the basement staring up at the "gift' Tony had made for her, Pepper was willing to bet that it had been at least ten. Possibly consecutively. “I thought you were the superhero.”

“I am, Pepper. See? I’m still wearing my suit.”

“You’re only wearing it so I don’t knee you in the-”

“It’s because I have to go to a stupid Avengers meeting in an hour.”

“Half an hour,” she all but sullenly corrected.

“You’d know,” Tony readily agreed. “Come on, don’t you like it at all?

“How and when did you find time to build me armor? With heels? And how do you… Ugh, God, Tony.”

“What?”

“That breastplate.”

“I like it.”

“I hate it. I don’t think this is going to work.”

Tony laughed and shrugged, eyeballing the blue prints on Jarvis’ monitors and then tinkering with a few things. “I’ll make a few changes. Here and there.”

“No, I don’t think this idea is going to work.”

“You better believe there’s plenty of foxy ladies out there who would love to be my sidekick.”

“All right. Go find them then.”

“Okay, so don’t be my sidekick. Might be better for you anyway. You can be your own boss in this baby.”
She made a noncommittal sound. Pepper had seen too many bullet holes in his armor and too many ER rooms to think being a superhero on her own would be anything but a lot of work, patience and responsibility.

“How about you just think about it and I show you something else that’s cool.”

“Does it involve breast augmentations?”

“What? Oh, come on, Pepper, just because I know your cup size doesn’t mean I’m a perv.”

“It only provides more evidence of the fact that you are one,” she muttered, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. “All right, Mr. Stark. Thrill me.”

“Okay.” He put on his helmet. “Now watch what happens. I say ‘Go go Gadget roller skates’ and…” He’d added built-in roller skates to the soles of his boots.

“…Oh my God, Tony.”

“I know it’s awesome.”

“No, you’re…” She scowled at his stupid helmet and shook her head. “Fine, I’m going to be a superhero. If you can do it, anyone can do it.”

“Great! I already picked a name for you and scheduled a press conference.”

“You better cancel it right away and what name did you pick?”

“Iron Maiden?”

She gave him a look and that was probably why he kept the helmet on. “Maiden?”

“Iron Woman’s not going to sound a hell of a lot better.”

To be fair, Tony had a point, but Pepper sighed anyway. She’d have to see what Rhodes thought, but considering that his name was War Machine? He would probably think it was a great idea. However, while she might have been a little outmanned, she couldn’t help thinking that with a suit of her own, she’d never be outgunned.

iii.

Pepper had thought the headaches were bad enough before she'd told Tony about what was going on with her. It was even worse now that she was getting around to telling other people she trusted because of course Tony had to be a part of every conversation. She still had most of the Avengers to tell, but she wanted Rhodes to know first. Why they were meeting in Tony's office made little sense to her, but at least there was a lot of room to sprawl out in and alcohol. "Will you stop calling me ‘Precog,’ Tony?"

"It's cute. I was thinking of making it your new nickname."

"What about something classier?"

Tony snorted and went back to signing the papers on his desk. "Pepper, this is me we're talking about."

She couldn't actually argue with that so she just rubbed her temples.

"Let me get this straight though," Rhodes murmured. He'd been pretty quiet up until now. "She can see the future?"

"Some of it."

"I'm still right here," Pepper wryly pointed out. "And, yes, I can see certain events taking place and even where they're taking place, but not what triggers them. Smaller actions are easier. Not words or conversations, but if for example Tony was going to turn one of his government contracts into a paper airplane and chuck it at me, I'd know. I'd know and he would live to regret it."

Tony looked up mid-fold. "You are such a buzzkill."

Rhodes frowned, looking over to glare at his friend. "And how did this happen, Tony?"

"Hey, man, I didn't do this."

"She just magically exposed herself to radiation?"

"It would be pretty magical if she ex--"

Pepper frowned, knowing what he was about to say because, honestly, that didn't require any psychic or paranormal abilities whatsoever. "Shut up. Now."

Tony opened his mouth and closed it again when they both started giving him an evil look.

"I'll explain," Pepper offered and Rhodes looked relieved. "I decided to bring some coffee to Dr. Pym and he was so thankful he exposed me to some gamma radiation. He was running some tests for Dr. Banner, I guess."

"Hey," Tony interjected. "Hank didn't mean anything by it. Don't make him sound like a complete jackass."

"I'm not blaming him or saying he's a complete jackass. I'm just saying that having a sign up or locking a door would be a good idea considering you're all mad or at least somewhat unstable scientists."

"Sounds like a Grade A jackass to me," Rhodes muttered.

"There's a security code," Tony pointed out.

"You told me," she archly replied, "but you didn't bother telling Hank."

"Oh. Right."

"Anyway, lesson learned," Pepper assured both of the men. "On the bright side, it could have been a lot worse than precognition." Even if the stronger visions were coupled with mild nausea and intense migraines. "I'm positive that mistakes like that one won't happen again. To me anyway. I might forget to tell Tony about certain things if they're comical."

"That's pretty cool. I should head on down to this lab and bring Hank a pastrami sandwich. Maybe he'll expose me to some alpha radiation and I'll be able to fly. What do you think, Tony?"

Tony chucked a paper-clip at Rhodes, successfully hitting him on the shoulder with it. "Okay, first of all? You both suck. Second of all? Alpha radiation? What the hell are you talking about, Rhodey? Third of all, Hank Pym doesn't just give out powers like snapping his fingers. Besides, if he's going to give out powers that make people able to fly, he's giving them to me."

Rhodes tactfully ignored Tony, tilting his head to consider Pepper."You saw that coming?"

"Sorry. There wasn't enough time to say anything."

"Just making sure. Because if there's time for a heads up, I want one, okay?"

"Okay, but honestly I'm not just going to use my powers to let you know if that blonde waitress you both like is going to be at Hooters. I'm--"

Tony grinned and looked expectantly over at Pepper. "Is she?"

She continued without pausing to answer him. "-- going to use them for more useful purposes and I'll be working a lot with the Avengers. I'm good with computers and schedules anyway. Having this ability will only make it easier for me to run things until I get more combat training."

"Then you'd be more useful in action," Rhodes agreed, looking impressed. There was a pause during which she was pleased by how mature one of them was. Then he asked: "So is she?"

Pepper rolled her eyes and sank further down into her chair. "No. She's making out with her girlfriend. It's her day off."

"Man, I knew it," said one and "That's awesome," said the other. Pepper wasn't paying enough attention to sort it out.

"Yeah, having powers is great," she muttered, getting to her feet and wandering out as they high-fived, speculated and perved. Maybe she'd go see what some of the other Avengers were up to and just tell the few that didn't already know on her own. Hank quite possibly owed her free meals for the rest of her life and Bruce was cute when he wasn't green. Pepper had it on good authority that he wouldn't be changing colors anytime soon.

iv.

Pepper didn’t understand how anyone even, Tony, could call Captain America ‘Steve.’ She couldn’t call him that and she was never going to call him Mr. Rogers for obvious reasons. Reasons she hadn’t explained and she’d been quick to change the poor man’s ring tone without telling him just why the cheerful upbeat tune wasn’t appropriate. She had wryly mentioned something about Tony wanting to be more than his neighbor after wards, but Captain America hadn’t seemed surprised to hear that. In fact, without even a hint of mischief glinting his blue eyes, Captain America had assured her that he would be glad to have Tony or virtually anyone else he’d met since waking up as his neighbor.

At the moment, Captain America was wearing a hole into her carpet and looking nervous. She knew enough about what was going on that it didn’t surprise her, but she couldn’t think of anything to do. A cup of coffee, a well-balanced Excel spreadsheet, or a brand new robot toy wasn’t going to ease his troubled mind in the same way it would have helped Tony. “He won’t listen to me.”

“He doesn’t listen to anyone.”

“This is serious.”

“With Tony it usually is,” she agreed, sitting down in a chair. Watching him pacing like a caged animal was exhausting.

“He’s going to kill himself if he doesn’t stop trying to save the world for a little while, but he could send others. He just won’t tell anyone what he’s up to.”

Pepper winced. “Tony doesn’t always tell me either.”

The war hero rubbed his forehead. “I’m not asking you to tell me, but Pepper, he can’t do this to himself. I’m glad he designed that…thing, but he can be useful without being on the frontlines.”

She couldn’t disagree and she’d felt just as strongly learning the damage that had actually been done to Tony that he’d managed to write it off and hide by creating something to, well, write it off and hide it. But going into war zones and duking it out with terrorist cells made the nerve chip implanted in his spine relatively pointless. She would have almost preferred to see Tony bedridden forever than going back out there day after day like nothing had even happened to him. “I don’t think anything short of a skull fracture is going to get him to slow down and take it easy.”

“One thing would.” Suddenly there was a pause and she was getting puppy eyes from Steve Rogers.

“Oh, no. People make that mistake, but, sir, Tony doesn’t listen to me.”

“Having someone take his place would,” he continued as if she hadn’t said anything at all.

“R-replace him?”

“Only…” The superhero trailed off, frowning a little and rubbing his forehead. “I know how it sounds, but honestly that’s not what I mean. He needs someone else to help him with this and he won’t let any of me… us do it. We all want Tony in our lives, but we’re willing to get rid of Iron Man to do it.”

There were days where, based on the stories Tony told about them, Pepper just thought the Avengers were a bunch of lunatics and losers, but that day was rapidly turning into one where she actually thought maybe they weren’t so bad after all. However, that didn’t mean she was thoroughly sold on the idea. “James Rhodes-”

“Colonel James Rhodes would be a good choice, but he isn’t ready yet, Pepper. He might never be.”

“Tony… There’s just no way he’d agree.”

“That’s where I think you’re wrong. He trusts me well enough.” She didn’t miss the slight wistfulness in his tone, but all it made her feel was sympathetic. “He trusts the others when he has enough built-in protection in case that trust proves to be misplaced, but Pepper, he trusts you more than anything else.”

“With his business. He trusts me with his accounts and his schedule and-”

“And putting his arc reactor back in place. He told me about that and it’s obvious that you’re here for him whenever he needs you. And he does need you. We need you and…”

The soldier took off his cowl and pulled the chair sitting next to hers in front of it before sitting down. He had always seemed perpetually old and iconic to her, but at that moment he seemed a little younger and less carved out of marble. He seemed human and it seemed strange that she had never thought of him that way even though she had always accepted that most people --even mutants and aliens and Norse gods-- were human deep down. “I need you to do this. Please.”

It was like one of those Uncle Sam posters only featuring a man who was much more appealing and rendered to express a greater sense of urgency. Just the same, Pepper hesitated, looking away briefly before rubbing at her temples. “You don’t think Rhodes is ready and somehow you think I can do this?”

“Why not? You already work out and you understand Stark Industries better than Tony. You’re more pragmatic and much more of a team player. The rest of us could train you so all you’re missing is the armor. Just tell him to tell you what to do so he has something else to do.”

“Captain-”

“I’m sorry to interrupt you so much. I know it’s rude of me, but I’m worried. And for crying out loud, please call me Steve?”

She couldn’t help laughing at that as she continued mulling over what had he said. It was hard to resist a call to arms from Captain America. It was hard to deny that the idea of doing Tony’s work for him made a lot of sense. She’d been doing it for years already. The only difference with being a superhero is she could set her own hours and dress as casually as she liked. Oh, and save the world sometimes, but Pepper could live with that.

“Yes and… yes. All right. I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” After he offered her a small, coaxing smile before putting his cowl back into place. Pepper returned it with a thin smile of her own, and added “Steve.”

v.

There were a lot of good reasons for Tony Stark to wear a helmet as a superhero, but Pepper thought the biggest one was that he didn't have such a great poker face sometimes. Like now when he was upset and worried about her, she could tell in a painfully easy way that had nothing to do with knowing him so well and for so long.

“What happens now? Do they make you go to Professor Xavier’s Adult Remedial Education Program?”

She rubbed her eyes and really wished she'd told the nurse to just kick him out when he'd asked her about it three hours ago. But all that would have resulted in was Tony doing something twice as stupid in order to get back into her room. "For the last time, they're not going to make me do anything."

"Yet."

She rolled her eyes and glanced at the irises sitting in a vase on the small table next to the bed. "Tony, don't be paranoid."

"I'm not paranoid. I'm inconvenienced."

"More like inconveniencing." Pepper toyed with a few petals before frowning and moving her hand away quickly.

"What?"

"Nothing just..."

"Just what?" He grimaced before moving away from the wall to pick up the vase. "Jesus, what idiot sent you these?"

"My parents."

"Oh. Obviously what I meant was 'how thoughtful.'"

"Obviously. Can you get rid of them please?" She turned away and rubbed her temples. "I can feel them dying and it's awful."

"Yeah, sure."

Paying no attention to where he went, Pepper let her eyes close for a bit and not for the first or last time, she wondered how and why this had happened. In terms of gardening, she'd always liked plants well enough especially the flowering kind. She knew the names of a lot of them and what some they meant because it had briefly interested her as a teenager. None of that meaningless information had been erased or replaced by mathematical figures or business terms so it was still there, fluttering around until it arrived at the forefront of her thoughts from time to time. These powers were supposed to begin earlier on, weren't they? At puberty or birth. And here she was, abnormal at the most abnormal time of all. Story of her life, really.

A hand lightly shook her shoulder sometime after she'd drifted off, and eventually she opened her eyes again to blink up at Tony. He was pretty much a mess. His hair was awful and his eyes were bloodshot. Pepper couldn't recall seeing him look so tense before about anything.

"Look, maybe I should just get you out of here."

Pepper glanced at the IV drip and shook her head. "With those dead flowers gone, I feel just fine."

"They can send someone out to the house for this other stuff or to talk to you about your options or whatever it is they want to do. They need data? I can give 'em data. They need detailed observations? We'll keep a log or something. Jarvis can monitor you better than these stupid machines can."

"Tony, I feel fine. The only thing vaguely resembling torture that they've inflicted on me so far is hospital food. And I'm okay eating vegetables and everything. It's just plants in vases that creep me out so far."

"You're not going to feel fine when they stick you with more needles."

"Will you please stop worrying about that? Please?"

He laughed before crossing his arms and glaring at her. "Stop worrying? How am I going to do that? I can't do anything here."

"Hey. No one is trying to actively hurt me, okay?" She tried to think of ways to get him to cheer up a bit. Tony had moved out of reach so she couldn't pat his arm or anything like that. For some reason, Pepper figured gentle teasing might do the trick. "Quite frankly, armor or not, I wouldn't want to pick a fight with you right now about anything. Are you really this worried about the other digits of your social security number?"

"No, the thing is I am worried and it's for a damn good reason. I'm worried about you. I go away for a weekend and you just spontaneously develop mutant powers? What the hell?"

"Gee, boss," she twittered, batting her eyelashes. "I'll just try ever so hard not to ever mutate again without asking your permission."

"Touché. But just so you know it's called a secondary mutation. If it happens again and it better not."

Pepper made a light huffing sound and stretched before sitting up. "I would have thought you'd be thrilled. They're pretty cool powers and they won't really prevent me from having a relatively healthy life if not a normal one. We can fight crime together. It's like Christmas came early for you."

"Yeah, sure. Iron Lad and Rhododendron Girl. We'll bring Rhodes and Steve along. Maybe Clint and Bruce and Wanda. We can be like the von Trapp family. It'll be just peachy keen and wondebar."

She laughed, but Tony didn't seem all that amused or pleased. And she could hear his teeth grinding together all the way from the bed. "Oh come on. You were funny for once and you didn't even laugh. What is wrong with you? I mean, outside of the usual stuff and the lack of sleep. Because, Tony, no one really cares that much--"

"I care, okay? I don't know how else to spell it out for you, Pepper, but I care a lot about what happens to you and right now that's mostly going to be a lot of bad things. I don't want you to get hurt or experimented on or dissected in some lab somewhere just because your powers didn't kick in when they should have. A latent mutant gene is probably a rare thing, but they can just go fu--"

Feeling a bit like a schoolmarm, she cut him off mid-sentence." I meant about one person developing mutant powers, but thank you. That's sweet. I think."

"I'm not being sweet. I'm telling you that staying here is a shitty idea and it's the truth."

Pepper shook her head and moved a bit so that her feet were sticking off of the hospital bed. She'd been lying there like a lump long enough anyway. "Okay, okay, cool your jets, tough guy. We can go. I've been wanting to do some landscaping work at your place anyway and then we can figure out if these powers are actually useful for anything besides turning you into a psychotic lunatic."

Tony just 'hmph'ed, catching her elbow to prevent her from falling over. "Walk much?"

She just gave her employer a mild look before tugging him into a hug. "Shut up, Iron Lad."

"Uh huh. Not that I'm complaining, but do you wanna wear some clothes today, or am I just carrying you out like this?"