The Hamptons' House

2006: Part 2

The dull throbbing headache and tacky mouth that Tony woke with, was all too familiar. It was so rare that he woke any other way that he sometimes forgot that it wasn't normal for people to wake up feeling like this. It didn't even really slow him down anymore. He knew a hot shower and the hair of the dog would chase away the feeling, and he could even manage to jerk off in the shower most mornings, and there was nothing quite like the endorphin rush of an orgasm to make him feel better.

So he didn't think twice about it. He just pulled the covers higher and mumbled to JARVIS to pull the blinds. As darkness filled the room, Tony took stock of the things he did need to adjust to.

The first was you were in his bed. Waking up with someone wasn't as uncommon as it used to be. Since installing JARVIS he trusted that he could leave them in the morning and nothing would end up stolen. JARVIS and Pepper had become quite the team when it came to kicking out Tony's one-night stands. Tony would get up while they were asleep, shower, and head down to the lab. Pepper would come into work and get their clothes cleaned, then come down and bring him his coffee which he'd spike to get him through the day. JARVIS would wake whoever it was he'd brought home with him a little later, he'd let them have a little look around, and then Pepper would come in with their clothes and boot them out the door. It was no muss, no fuss.

There were times he felt guilty about it. That is if he let down his armor enough to feel guilty about it. He didn't want people to get hurt when they slept with him. He always made it clear it was a one-night thing. No one ever went into it thinking that it was any more than that. But still, there were times when JARVIS would say something to him about it and he'd wonder if the right thing to do would be to have breakfast with them. He did program JARVIS after all so if the AI was bringing up the behavior as potentially shitty, then maybe he thought it was too, deep down in the dark recesses of his mind.

Strangely though, he didn't feel as bad for those one-night stands as he occasionally did for Pepper. He liked Pepper. A lot. She was smart and capable and she knew when he needed her to let something go and when he needed a hard kick up the ass. He occasionally found himself staring at her and daydreaming of a world where she wasn't his assistant and they were dating. A world where they complimented each other and pushed each other to be better. It was worse since he went to see you in DC and got to meet your kids. Holding that tiny baby girl that had been named after him made him realize that this path he'd taken to both avoid processing the deaths of his parents and being thrust into the role of Stark Industries CEO with no experience and to avoid being the father he had to children of his own, was maybe a path where he missed out on some fundamentally good things.

Then he'd remember how he was actually a piece of shit and there was no way Pepper Potts would even look twice at him after half the shit he'd had her do as his assistant and he'd go back to the cycle of using booze and women to numb his pain and keep him disconnected from every other human being on the planet.

Not here though. This was his time to not be that shit person who couldn't commit and spent all his time either working, drinking, partying, or fucking or some combination of the three. Here he had a girlfriend for a little while. Someone who brought out the good things in him. Here his best friend was just his best friend and not the guy he had to try to sell to or who had to act as his chaperone so he didn't get into too much trouble and sink his company right along with his reputation. Here he could actually sleep and wake up with someone. Not just someone. You. The woman he'd had his longest committed relationship with, even if it was only one week out of every three years.

He'd now known you for half his life. It was the 18th anniversary of his 18th birthday and the two of you had come back here to the place you'd met that whole lifetime ago to relive it a little.