A Very Avengers Christmas

Saturday 19th December

Tony and Pepper have a party and the other Avengers have decided to let them go alone whilst they watch It's a Wonderful Life and all of the Doctor Who Christmas specials. Pepper dresses in a navy blue, glittery, 50s style dress with her hair down. Tony dresses in a black shirt and a casual grey blazer with grey trousers. "See you later," they tell the other Avengers. "Enjoy the film!"
They get into Tony's sleek, silver Ferrari and Tony drives them to a hidden mansion in the middle of Manhattan. Their car drives down a ramp and is parked in an underground car park from which they get redirected to a garden surrounded by what looked from the outside line skyscrapers but from the inside can be seen to be part of one castle like house.
"Recognise anyone?" Tony asks Pepper over the loud live music coming from the centre of the garden.
"Yes," she says. "I have to deal with most of them on a day to day basis. You know most of them too. You just might not recognise them all because you were usually drunk when you met them."
Just then a man who looks like he's had a bit too much to drink sways over. "Tony!" he says enthusiastically. "I haven't seen you at one of these since before that whole weapons fiasco. Heard you've stopped making Gina and bombs. I thought 'that's not my Tony' but I came to see you and some guy with an eye patch told me to piss off so that was that."
"No, I've really stopped making weapons," Tony tells the man. Then he whispers to Pepper, "What's his name?"
"James Hudson. Owns a mind my company. They supply the metal for your armour."
"Really?" he asks in disbelief that this staggering drunk in front of him could be a profitable millionaire.
"Yeah. You used to look like this. I mean, the majority-"
"So now you got your bird telling you what to do?" sniggers James.
This makes Tony angry. He steps close to James and says quietly, "Don't you dare insult this lady. She is a wonderful business woman and she is the reason that my company is succeeding. From the sounds of it, it's probably an under appreciated woman who is running your business as well. So don't talk about her as if she is from a lesser species. Because she certainly isn't."
James looks shocked for a moment and then he says, "You've changed." Then he wanders off to pester someone else.
"Well," says Pepper dryly. "That was a good start to the evening."
"Yeah," says Tony. "I hope everyone else is more friendly."
"I wouldn't count on it. I'll find some interesting people though." She looks around the garden. "There," she points at a woman in a long golden evening gown and elegant cornrows. "Who is she?" Tony asks.
"Grace Lee. Very intelligent lady who is working on using technology from weapons to make 'peace bombs'. I don't understand the technology side of it but it's essentially helping peace treaties and fighting ideological wars with bombs that explode with food, books and medicine instead of gunpowder."
He looks back to Pepper. "Am I finding her?"
"The company is a bit, but not massively."
"Introduce me, please."
"Sure thing, boss."
They wind through the garden, past the love band who have just started a terrible cover of an already terrible indie pop ballad, until they arrive at the side of Grace. Pepper introduces them and soon enough they are in deep conversation about things that Pepper doesn't quite understand. So she excuses herself and goes to talk to some other people about other more interesting topics.
Pepper and Tony while away the evening without any more confrontations and a large amount of money pledged to Grace's project. When they get home in the early hours of the morning, they find the rest of the group have fallen asleep on the sofas and each other and JARVIS has turned the TV off. "Well done, JARVIS," Tony tells him.
"You're welcome, Mr Stark."
"It's late, Tony," Pepper tells him. "We should get some sleep. They'll be fine until morning."
"You're right. Goodnight, everyone. Goodnight, JARVIS."
"Goodnight, sir. Ms Potts."
"Goodnight, JARVIS."
They smile and find their own bed to collapse into, leaving the others to rest until morning.