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Tony picked up the tongs and carefully lifted the curved faceplate out from the red hot coals. He had no idea why he was making this, but the urge to heat metal until it glowed and then beat seven shades out of it with a five pound lump hammer had been too strong to ignore. He moved the two steps to the anvil and began to swing the hammer in a smooth, rhythmic fashion.
Naked from the waist up, his dusty denim trousers covered in ash and soot, he pounded the quarter inch thick piece of steel until the curve was to his liking. Sparks flew, and whilst he felt the occasional one sting against his skin, he paid them no attention. If you hit white hot iron with a hammer, you were bound to get sparks. A thin sheen of sweat covered his bare torso, the deep orange glow from the coals illuminating every sculpted muscle across his shoulders and back. The light from the reactor cast a contrasting blue, which almost seemed cold against the cherry-red fire beside him.
Thrusting the face plate back into the coals, he removed the breastplate and began to deftly crease it down the centre. It was as close to the original Mk1 as he could recall. Which meant, of course, that it was near as damnit an exact copy. An eidetic memory helped enormously at times like this. Instead of welds joining small scraps of iron together, he had entire sheets that he was beating creases into, to give the appearance of welds. It took a little more time and artistry, but he was in no rush. He had a clear weekend – Pepper had informed him of that earlier and that had given him the idea of firing up the forge in the small room off the workshop. The side of it was open to the sea, and he could just hear the crash of the surf below him over the sound of the ringing hammer. It was pitch dark out there, but there wasn’t much of a cooling breeze coming in off the water, as he’d intended when first building the smithy. The fact it was late August might have something to do with it, he thought, plunging the piece of metal into a vat of water with a sizzling hiss. A boiling cloud of steam enveloped him, the smell reminding him of that cave in the mountains.
He paused for a moment, remembering Yinsen. The man had died to help him escape. That kind of sacrifice had never entered into his sphere of thought before. Now though, he hoped that somehow, somewhere, Yinsen knew of what he was doing. Knew what he’d done in Gulmira. And knew that it was his actions which had been one of the strongest prompts for Tony’s personal mission now.
He didn’t believe in anything of a religious or spiritual nature, but some small part of him hoped that Yinsen had indeed found his family, and a generous amount of peace.
He laid the breastplate aside with a small smile and took up the reheated faceplate.
Pepper came down the steps into the workshop and paused, looking around for Tony. After a moment, the ringing informed her that he was in the forge. He’d not been in there for a while, she mused, stepping carefully across the debris strewn floor of the workshop. She was no mechanic, but having been around Tony for as long as she had, she recognised various, fairly important, pieces of the hot rod. Guess he’d given up on putting that back together and gone for something a little less mentally taxing.
Not that Tony Stark wasn’t capable of doing the kind of mechanics needed to work on the hot rod standing on his head. Building miniature arc reactors was the type of thing he enjoyed doing to stretch himself a little. Pepper followed the ringing sound, feeling it fill her chest until it felt like her heart was beating in time with it.
Carefully and quietly, she pushed the door open and looked straight into a scene from Dante’s inferno. The red glow of the furnace illuminated the bare concrete walls, the leaping flames that jumped up the very back of the coals sending flickering, gyrating shadows across everything. In the centre of the room stood Tony, his broad chest gleaming in the firelight, the muscles in his arms rippling as he brought the heavy hammer down onto the glowing iron.
Pepper felt her breath catch in her throat and swallowed involuntarily. It was at moments like this that she fully appreciated the animal magnetism Tony Stark had for women. Her heart rate increased and she was glad there were no overhead lights on to show up the blush that had just started on her chest and travelled rapidly up to the roots of her hair.
He was beautiful. Forgetting what she’d come down to tell him, she allowed the door to close silently behind her, and simply stood watching him. His trousers were filthy, covered in burns and bits of slag and ash. The waistband sat low, resting on the bones of his hips and exposing a great deal of well toned abdomen and that intriguing V of muscle that went from his waist downwards towards the button fly. He was scowling with concentration now, and Pepper felt that familiar little hiccup in her chest that he always managed to elicit when he was in bad boy mode.
Which, she admitted ruefully, he tended to be a lot these days. The mad genius was there, certainly; the flamboyant playboy she’d not seen much of at all; but the warrior, protector and spoilt-brat-turned-good were all in evidence. Along with the bad boy that did things to her insides that no one had ever done before. If he only knew, she thought, watching him plunge the facemask into the barrel of water. If only he knew how hard she had to fight to keep him at arm’s length, to brush off the come-ons, the double entendres, the out and out requests to take her to bed. She’d nearly come close to caving in the previous week, when faced with a hot, sweaty Tony fresh from the gym on the top floor. He’d been shirtless then, she recalled.
As the steam cleared, she followed the line of his slim, muscular legs up to that damned fine ass, circled once around the hot, soot streaked chest and finally allowed her gaze to drift across his full lips and up to his eyes. Which were staring straight at her.
Tony watched her eyes widen as she realised he was looking at her. He’d felt each caress of those baby blues as she’d practically undressed him on the spot. Not that he was wearing much. He laid the hammer down on the anvil and walked silently across the forge to where she stood, her back against the door.
She was perfect, he noted. Crisp white shirt, immaculately pressed navy blue pencil skirt, some phenomenal heels which she really shouldn’t be skipping about the workshop in. Unless, he mused, she wasn’t wearing anything except the shoes.
“Tony,” she began, but he silenced her with a scowl and a shake of the head. Pepper was staring at him like a deer in the headlights and it gave Tony a heady feeling of being the one in total control. Normally in these situations, Pepper had the upper hand, the snappy comeback, the quick escape route.
But not today. She’d blocked her own escape by leaning against the door she’d have to pull open. And he could see by the stunned expression that she wore that there weren’t any words available for her to use. Her brain was well scrambled, which suited Tony just fine.
Reaching out with one iron blacked hand, he caught hold of her and pulled her up hard against him. The little gasp she made only served to heighten his arousal. His jeans were uncomfortably tight and he used his other hand against Pepper’s hips, holding her close enough so she too could realise just what state her visual appraisal had put him in.
The heat of his skin burned through the fine cotton fabric of her shirt and the scent of him filled her senses. At some point in the day, he’d been wearing his normal, indecently expensive aftershave, and she could just make that out, but the overwhelming scent was of primeval male. Testosterone and pheromones combined with the stink of metallic steam and the smoke from the forge. She felt her knees go weak.
A hand came up and pulled the clip out of her efficiently tidy bun, allowing her hair to cascade around her face in a burnished shower, each strand lit by the glowing fire into copper, brass and gold. Taking a handful of her hair, he tilted her face up to his. His back was to the fire now, so his eyes were dark pools of mystery to her, but there was no mistaking the desire in his face.
Now would be the time to say something, a corner of Pepper’s brain said, but the rest of her wasn’t listening. The only thing she was aware of was Tony’s mouth, curved into a small smile of triumph as it came down hard on hers.
The kiss blew whatever remaining functioning brain cells she had completely away. Her hands came up to clutch at his shoulders, feeling the hot, slick skin burn her cool palms. A deep groan from the back of his throat went straight to her insides and she pressed herself closer to him.
Work roughened hands moved to her skirt, sliding it up around her waist in one ruthlessly efficient move before grasping her by the hips and lifting her, allowing her to wrap her long legs around him. Never breaking the kiss, he navigated by memory alone to the wide bench that ran the length of the room perpendicular to the open side. With an impatient flick of one hand, he cleared a spot on the bench and sat Pepper on it.
The height was perfect. Her legs were twined around his hips and he could almost imagine that he could feel the heat from her pressed against the crotch of his jeans. One hand back in her hair, the other moved between them, flicking open the fly of his jeans. Pepper’s smaller hands were at the waistband, pushing them down almost before the last button had been undone. Her small white lace panties were no barrier to his strength either, and she hardly noticed when he ripped them off.
“Pepper,” he breathed, sheathing himself inside her and she shuddered at the speed of it. This was no gentle lovemaking, as she’d once imagined them doing. This was something that reached much deeper, a coupling on a primeval level of two souls who had been dancing around each other for years. Something, somewhere, had snapped and that thin veneer of civilisation and restraint had been wiped out in a heartbeat. It was a kiss short of brutal and Pepper at once submitted and fought back, yielding to his strength whilst returning each kiss with the same desperation and hunger. She couldn’t get enough of him.
She felt the buttons on the front of her shirt pop as Tony peeled it off her, his dexterous fingers unclipping her bra a second later. Then the heat of his chest pressed against her pale breasts and the contrast sent a jolt through her system.
“Pepper,” he groaned, pulling his mouth from her lips to bury his face in her neck. The rough sound resonated in her mind and it tipped her over edge, joining Tony as he came hard, deep inside her, his fingers digging into her hips.
The silence was punctuated only by their breathing and the hiss and pop of the forge. Letting her trembling legs unwind from about his waist, she rested her cheek on his shoulder with her eyes closed. Don’t move, she thought. Don’t break the spell.
Tony was of the same mind. He held her close against him, feeling the heat of the forge on the right, the warm sea air to the left. His lips travelled lazily up the side of her face to press a kiss to her temple, where he could feel the pulse of her heartbeat.
“Did you want me for anything in particular?” he asked her in a low baritone. “Or did you just come to watch?”