FENRIR ※ Tony Stark [2]

17 - SHOWTIME

"Hey, don't look so defeated," Tony called out, watching her jaded expression "I don't know what I'm doing either."

Her eyes narrowed mockingly "I think we've established you don't know what you're doing most of the time..." she paused "Then again, neither do I."

"I won't even argue with that," he laughed "On the bright side, if this goes to hell, you get to tell me I told you so."

"Oh, I get gloating privileges?" she rubbed her eyes tiredly "Well that changes everything! I'm almost glad we're a mess."

He shrugged "I've learned to embrace it."

"Of course you have."

Tony unbuckled his seat belt and inclined his seat backward "Well, we got six hours to go. You should get some sleep."

"I'll try."

She watched him pop his headphones on and close his eyes. The music blasted in his ears so loudly she could hear it playing from where she sat. It made her laugh a little. The fact that he could sleep through this deafening ruckus was seriously abnormal; then again it wasn't the strangest thing she'd seen coming from him.

She leaned against her seat, trying her best to relax her nerves. Nagging thoughts kept tumbling in her mind. She didn't want to say anything in front of Tony, but the truth was, this trip to California kept reminding her of Malibu and all the promises they had made to each other a lifetime ago... There they were now, four years later, and none of those promises were kept.

But they weren't doing so bad, were they?

She quickly shook off the trip down memory lane. Now was not the time to think about it. They had a job to do and that was that.

She was brought out of her thoughts by Pepper walking up the aisle of seats. It was only natural for Pepper to be in the party. She was the CEO of Stark Industries after all.

Being around her had been odd at first, but after so long, neither of the two women had animosity towards one another. In fact, Angie came to genuinely appreciate Pepper Potts.

It was like a storm of strawberry blonde hair and over-caffeinated anxiety came to sit opposite to her. Pepper had been excessively nervous about Tony's dodgy plan, even more so than Angie herself.

"I just got off the phone with the senior financial officers of the company," Pepper announced, seething "Every single one of them voted against the sponsorship, so that's just great."

Angie simply shrugged "You know; the sponsorship doesn't have to be real. We just need to hint at it and let people's imagination do the rest."

"I guess..." Pepper trailed off pensively "I mean, I could Veto it and get the money anyway but I'd never live it down."

"Relax, no one made an official announcement about a sponsorship anyway. Your credibility is safe."

Pepper heaved a long sigh, leaning back against her seat "Let's hope you do a damn good job at being subtle."

This made Angie smirk "Lucky for you, I know how to manipulate my way to getting information, and him..." she pointed at a sleeping Tony on the other side of the aisle "He's an expert at it."

The other woman cracked a smile "Well, you're not wrong."

Soon after, she returned to furiously typing emails on her phone, allowing Angie to drift off to sleep for the remainder of the trip.

⁂

Tony fiddled with the bow tie of his tuxedo, pacing back and forth across the hall. He had rented a villa for the duration of their stay in LA — although neither he nor Angie really knew how long that would be. A black limo was parked in the driveway, waiting to take them to the Gala of the International Astronomy and Aeronautics Summit.