Avengers - Like Dynamite

Like Dynamite


Tony was crunching thoughtfully on a lettuce leaf as he read a long and meticulous design proposal.  With a tiny part of his attention, he was also chasing a cherry tomato around his salad plate with a plastic fork, failing again and again to skewer the little fruit.

It should be impossible for people to barge into his office—any would-be bargers would have to run the gauntlet of front desk security, elevators monitored constantly by Jarvis, executive reception, and Pepper.

Really, it just went to show that Janet Van Dyne could barge into any room she damn well pleased (or maybe that she could sweet talk her way through a den of rabid wolverines).

“Tony,” she said, and slammed the door shut behind her with a graceful flourish.

“Mmf?” he replied, as his tomato leapt for freedom.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she muttered.

So he swallowed.  “What can I do for you, Jan?”

“The word on the grapevine is that you took Steve out to dinner last night.”

“Is it?” he asked politely.  “I’m not sure what the grapevine has to do with you needing to take time out of your day to sashay so smartly into my office, Ms. Van Dyne.  You do still prefer your maiden name?  Or should it be Mrs. Pym?”

She shuddered.  “Tony, you know very well that I love my husband dearly and will never, never, ever take his name.  It would be ruining a brand.  ‘Van Dyne Designs Are Simply Divine’—cheesy and pretentious, yes, but ridiculously catchy and easy to remember.”

Tony grinned.  “Let it never be said that you don’t have a head for good advertising, Jan.  You’re avoiding the topic.  You blustered into my office in the middle of my work day when I actually happen to be working, and now you’re avoiding the topic.  I’m not sure whether to be flattered or insulted.”

“Steve isn’t like those silly bubble-headed trollops you drape over your arm at every party,” she said at last.  “Nobody cares about them, which doesn’t matter much since they’re all so self-absorbed.  Have as many of those as you want, install a damn revolving door on your bedroom to save a little time—or maybe just a trap door for rapid egress.  Charm them, do them, write their names on the list of landmarks you’ve conquered, and toss them right back where you found them.  They don’t matter.”

“The last time you brought up this subject, you were far less flattering about it,” he pointed out, pushing back from his desk a bit so that he could fold his hands in his lap.  “I don’t think you ever admitted whether it was because the girl had worn one of your designs and spilled wine on it or because she called you a hissing gorgon.”

She strode right up to his desk and slapped her neatly manicured hands onto it.  “Steve Rogers is a good and decent man, Tony Stark.  You’re not.”

“Good?  Or decent?”

“Or a man,” she said flatly.  “You’re a little boy who likes to play with fast toys.  Fast cars, fast planes, fast women.”

“That’s because fast things make me feel alive without asking for anything back,” he snapped.  “Unlike you, Janet.  Stand up straight, smile to this woman but not her husband, don’t compliment her ghastly dress, don’t wear green, stop combing your hair that way, only wear designer sunglasses, never wear a bowler on a goddamn Sunday when the moon is in conjunction with Mars for fuck’s sake.”

And there they were, back to hostilities, back to resentment, back to finger-pointing and trying to hurt each other’s feelings.  It was amazing how quickly she could turn him from calm, collected, smooth-talking Director Stark into Tony the Bitter Ex-Boyfriend.

She stood back and straightened her jacket (elegantly simple in its fifties-inspired bolero length with a cut to flatter her pixie build).  “He’s not one of your toys, Tony,” Jan said after a while.

“When did I ever treat him like one?” he retorted.

“Just remember that you can’t weld him back together if he breaks, and you can’t scrap and rebuild if it turns out he doesn’t match your performance specs.”

And that did hurt, because it wasn’t fair.  He had never been the one to try to change her.

…and he was pretty sure that (in a purely literal, mechanical sense) he could put Steve back together just fine if he broke…

He took a slow breath.  “You know,” he said.  “It’s a shame I quit drinking so I could go out with Steve.  I would love to put a bourbon stain all over that pretty dry-clean-only Hepburn-in-Sabrina-inspired Van Dyne original.  Jarvis, page Miss Potts for me.”

~Yes, sir.~

Pepper opened the door.

“Potts, see that Ms. Van Dyne is escorted out of the building.  She’s only welcome in the lobby and the Avengers suite from now on, and only under escort.  And if you ever—and believe me, Potts, I do mean ever—again let someone walk briskly to my office and slam the door open and closed without immediately calling security, your employment will be terminated without severance.”

He couldn’t look her in the face.  He glared at Jan instead.

“Yes, Mr. Stark,” Pepper said softly.  “This way, Ms. Van Dyne.”

When they were gone, he slid onto the floor under his desk and just huddled there in the shadows.

That was the thing about being a drunk—when people reminded you of what a horrible person you were, you could just laugh it off and have another drink.

Without alcohol to hide behind, with an attitude over the past few years of wanting to take responsibility…when people reminded him of what a horrible person he was, he had to sit there and take it.

Jan had always been so very good at bullying him.  She could make him feel awful and inadequate with an ease and thoroughness that rivalled Ty’s.  So he sat there, under his desk, hugging his knees like a little boy while useless thoughts of ‘she’s right’ and ‘what was I thinking?’ and ‘I’ll never be good enough for him’ (and ‘God, what I wouldn’t give for a glass of Scotch’) bounced through his head.

The door quietly opened and closed.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Pepper said.  “I know I shouldn’t have just let her come in.  She could’ve been an assassin in disguise for all I knew.  And besides that, it was unprofessional to break protocol.”

“Mm,” he mumbled noncommittally, and wished for a drink (or two, or twelve).

He heard her cross the room, saw her lean down to look at him.  “Tony?” she asked with a perplexed frown.

“Yeah, but don’t tell anybody,” he joked feebly.  “I’m not a popular guy, you know.  Think I could hire a stunt double to step in any time a woman who hates me shows up?  He’d have to have an unbruisable ego and a complete lack of conscience.  Ideal candidate is deaf and doesn’t speak English.  Draw me up a want ad, will you?”

“I’ll cancel your appointments and get you some coffee,” Pepper suggested.  “Are you comfortable down there?  Want a pillow or anything?”

“I’m good,” he said, then grimaced.  “Okay, I’m not good, that’d be a horrible lie in any meaning of the word ‘good,’ with the obvious exception of ‘good in bed.’  But I’ll be okay under here without anything.  Take the day off.  I can slink back to my room after everyone’s gone for the day.”

She didn’t say anything, but she made that worried little frown she had as she got up and left.  Five minutes later, she was back with a mug of coffee, which she set on the floor beside him.  “I’ll leave your salad in case you get hungry,” she told him.

And then she was gone.

He stared out the floor-to-ceiling window behind his desk, picking out the familiar shapes of the skyline.  Blankness, that was the thing.  If he just stopped thinking, he wasn’t bothered by all the things people said, or by the simple fact that Steve Rogers was entirely too nice and wholesome to ever date someone like Tony Stark.

Someone leaned into his line of sight, startling him.  He hit his head on the underside of his desk hard enough to see amazing blotches of color.

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, Tony!” Steve fretted, covering the bump on Tony’s skull with his hand.  “Gee whiz, what’re you doing under here, anyhow?  I’ve been looking all over for you…”

“Ow,” Tony said, trying to blink his vision clear.  When he managed it, he noticed how close Steve was—almost nose-to-nose.  In a very small voice, he said, “Um.  Hi.”

Steve smiled.  “Hi.  It’s almost six, you know.  Your coffee’s cold, your salad’s all wilty, and somebody stepped on your tomato.”

“Probably Jan.  Probably on purpose.”

“Oh, no,” Steve sighed.  “Janet’s such a fine lady, she really is, but she doesn’t exactly talk about you in glittering terms, does she?”

“Ohoho,” Tony chuckled mirthlessly.  “The two people on the planet who most loathe me are a fine gentleman and a fine lady.  You have no idea how comforting that is.”

“Hank does say she can be quite a fireball for such a little thing—like a stick o’ dynamite.  Is she the reason you’re hiding under here?”

“Not very manly of me, huh?” Tony said with a wry grin.

“I don’t know…exes were pretty scary even back in my day, and modern dames have a tendency to be mean and bossy when they get going.  What’d she say, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Tony sighed and sagged a bit.  “Well, chief on the list was that you’re a good and decent man,  and I’m not.  I’m a little boy who likes fast toys, and I should install a trapdoor in my bedroom for all my disposable arm-ornaments.  Oh, and apparently you’re not one of my toys that I can scrap and overhaul if it doesn’t meet specs—which is a patently unfair implication, by the way, since she was always the one trying to tailor me to fit her life.”

“Oh, Tony, you don’t really believe all that garbage…”

“All that true garbage,” he snorted.

Steve framed his face in strong hands.  “Hey.  You listen to me, you dumb genius:  what she said may have been true back when she knew you, but it darn well isn’t now.  Look how wrong she was—you’ve got the decency to hide in shame from the man you used to be.”

“Still not very brave,” Tony mumbled, unwilling to let go of his gloom just yet.

But Steve just smiled again.  “Only good and decent men are afraid of not being worthy of the good things in their lives.”

“Wow.  Remind me to put that on a motivational poster and stick it on the back of my door.”

“People will ask you why you keep smiling,” Steve pointed out.

“I’ll just tell them I’m thinking of the world’s most charming blond.”

Steve laughed.  “Come on, let’s go pick up some dinner.  I hear Chinese take-away is still popular.”

“Take-out,” Tony corrected.  “It hasn’t been take-away since the sixties.  And I only do Chinese if it’s the really bad kind that bears no resemblance to real Chinese food.”

“Fair enough,” said Steve.


.End.