Spiderson Oneshots

Ch 05 - How Hard Can Stealing Be?

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open; they revealed the penthouse apartment that sat atop the Stark Industries tower. Pepper stepped out, ready to be home for the night. It had actually been a nice day once she had commandeered Peter from Tony, but still, she was ready to slip off her heels and enjoy a (hopefully) peaceful night.

"He won you over, didn't he?" Tony spoke from his spot on the couch. He had a glass of wine ready on the coffee table in front of him; FRIDAY must have alerted him that Pepper was done for the day and on her way up.

Said woman unbuttoned her suit jacket and let it fall onto a nearby chair as she made her way over to her fiancé. "Hmm?" She answered with feigned innocence, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Peter." Tony's eyes followed her as she walked until she was stood beside where he sat. "You were with him for almost 2 hours today, it should've only taken about half that time for him to have wormed his way into your heart." He tried to play it off as annoyance, but the pride was clear in his voice as he spoke about his young protégé.

Pepper picked up the glass of red wine from the table and sighed as she sat. "45 minutes actually. I had just had him sign an NDA and was about to take him into the prototype labs when he told me he was Spider-Man. Said he knew he could trust me to keep his secret and he looked at me with those big brown eyes and I'm pretty sure my heart melted."

It was Tony's turn to sigh, "God, that kid has got to get better at not telling people his identity." His left hand pinched the bridge of his nose in worry as his right arm dropped from the back of the couch to settle around Pepper's shoulders. He turned to her with a mock glare, "But I'm not sharing my intern with you."

"Oh no, I fully plan on stealing him." Pepper's smile was teasing, but her words were not.

"It is so on, Miss Potts."

"I can't imagine it will be difficult, Mr. Stark."

-------

"Hello?"

"Ah Peter, there you are!" Pepper kept her voice light, but she would be lying if she said that she hadn't been a little worried when Pete hadn't answered the first time she called. "It's Pepper."

"Oh! Hi-uh, hi Pepper!" He sounded out of breath and Pepper had a sneaking suspicion that he was probably looking for a suitable rooftop to land on right about now. "Sorry I didn't answer before, I don't generally answer my phone if I don't know the number but then Karen said she recognized the number and said I probably should answer and -"

Pepper laughed, "It's okay Peter, I think I can forgive you. I was actually calling to ask you about tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Pete sounded confused.

"Yes, well I had such a fun time with you last week I was wondering if you'd like to stop by tomorrow after school and shadow me for a bit. You'd get to learn firsthand about business and I'd get to spend some time with someone who actually has the word 'fun' in their vocabulary." And they would get make Tony jealous, but Pepper decided to leave that part out.

"Oh wow, Pepper, I'm honored, really, that you thought of me, but I actually have my internship with Tony tomorrow. You see every other Wednesday Happy picks me up after school and I spend a couple hours in the lab. Tony's been teaching me engineering and mathematics that I'm not learning in school and sometimes when I've grasped a concept he'll even let me work on the suits, which is like way cool, and anyway he really doesn't like it when I miss a lab day."

Pepper knew all of this of course, it's why she picked the day she did; she had Tony's schedule memorized but even if she didn't, the man could ramble to rival Peter when he wanted to, and lately his ramblings tended to focus on a certain intern. She realized said intern was still going and decided to let him talk himself out on this one. She had interrupted him once during this call already, and besides, his chatter was rather adorable.

"I could come up after we're done depending on how much homework I can finish in class tomorrow, but I'd still have to leave by 9 in order to get in two hours of Spider-Man-ing. I'm only allowed to stay out 'til 11 on school nights and I like to make sure to go out on lab nights - I don't want criminals finding a pattern of when I patrol. Tony always makes sure we get done by 7 so that I can eat dinner before I go out, he's weirdly overbearing about making sure I eat enough, but I could come up at like 7:45? We could get in at least a good hour of office time before I have to go stop some bad guys." A deep breath. Had Peter taken in any oxygen during that?

Pepper found herself chuckling as she shook her head, "I'm not sure how it's possible, Peter, but I think you might have a busier schedule than me - and I'm the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar tech conglomerate." She smiled to herself at the ridiculousness that was this kid. "But anyway, I'm sure Tony won't mind you skipping out on one lab day. You'll still be getting your SI hours in, just on the business end instead of the developmental one."

Peter sounded hesitant has he spoke, "Uh, I don't know Pepper, Tony really didn't seem happy the other day when I left and that wasn't even scheduled time, I just stopped by because I got a hole in the suit. But I can call him and see if it's okay! Or maybe he can join us!" He seemed to perk up at the idea of finding a way to make everyone happy.

"No, Peter, that won't be necessary." Pepper sighed but tried not to let the disappointment seep into her tone. It might be more difficult to steal Peter's loyalties then she had originally planned. "How about this, you only meet with Tony every other Wednesday, so you're free next week, correct?" She waited for the boy's hum of confirmation before continuing, "What if you come over and join me at SI then? Become my intern for a day. How does that sound?"

"That, wow, that sounds awesome, like, really awesome."

"Wonderful, I'll be at your school at 3:15 to pick you up, we can stop somewhere and grab something to eat on the way? Tony says you're always hungry after school, something about your metabolism, I'm not sure, he tends to ramble. Anyway, there are some business proposals due that day that we can go over and I have a meeting at 5 about the new StarkPhone design that you can sit in on. And Peter?"

"Yes, Pepper?" The boy sounded slightly overwhelmed.

"Since when is he Tony?"

"Oh, um, yeah, I only call him Mr. Stark to his face." Pepper could almost hear the boy's blush over the phone. "We're definitely past that, but it's just way too easy to get a rise out of him, I can't stop now. You won't tell him, right?"

There was pride evident in his voice; there was a smile evident in Pepper's. "And ruin the fun? Never."