By Design - Stony AU

Chapter 7

The sense of floating and flying on the way home was not entirely due to the car's brilliant micro reactive shock absorption. He took the scenic route home, wanting to enjoy the drive in his brilliantly designed, magnificently decorated baby. Their baby. He let himself enjoy the idea for a goofy second before admonishing himself to not over-do, not get too far ahead, not be a pushy creep. It made him smile, though. A lot.

It was a surprise to find Pepper sitting in his front room.

"Hey, Pep," He smiled, genuinely happy to see her. "I'm glad you're here. Did you get yourself anything to drink? Eat? You want something? I'm stuffed but I love watching you eat."

"That's not why I'm here, Tony." She said with a frown. She got her phone out of her purse, tapped a few buttons, and audio started playing of him... and Bruce talking.

"It's Steve, ok? Steve is sick. Very sick. I can feel it in my... in my pores, ok? And I'm freaking out."

"Okay."

"And I know you all think I'm an obsessive spoiled nutjob who's just latched onto something new and shiney but I'm kinda having feelings over here. And everyone's acting like they know better about that, and they don't."

"... I had a Romantic Soulmate."

"You did?"

"Her name was Betty, we worked together in my old facility. We were engaged for two years before... the accident happened."

"Wow. Wow man. I'm sorry. You never said. How did you... I mean... did you wanna talk about it?"

Tony sighed and rolled his eyes. "Dammit." He thought for a second to weigh the possibilities. "That's probably not even a leak in the system. Some trucker might have picked up my cell signal while I was in traffic. Jeez I'm an idiot."

"Actually, Natasha tracked it. Someone tapped your phone."

"Dammit."

"The audio is being shared all over Twitter, news outlets are covering it, and there's clues in there as to who Steve is."

Tony swallowed a strong urge to jump on his phone again and start making calls. He took a deep breath. If Natasha knew, Steve and his friends were probably already covered in the damage control department. It would be stupid to call.

"Ok. Ok. So, I'm still a little loopy, you've clearly been thinking about this for an hour. What should I do?"

"You do what you've always done: make a statement, donations, the usual. What I'm more concerned about is Steve being found and tracked by the Paparazzi. They'll pry into his private life just like they do you, and he isn't equipped for that."

Tony's mouth went dry. "That would be bad. He's a private guy. In fragile health. He's an artist, for christ's sake." He felt a wave of contradicting urges to tell Pepper, since it was kind of an emergency and he trusted her with his life, and not blurting out Steve's personal business the first time he opened his mouth. "He's got a past."

"What do you mean?"

Tony sighed. "Pep, I don't know if I should... I mean, I forgot to ask if it was ok with him if I let my friends know."

"Tony, I need to know what I'm working with here. If there's something that could blow it up out of proportion and cause even more damage, I need to know."

"Well it's..." He raised an eyebrow. "Wait, working with? You're coming back on the payroll, or is this pro-bono Tony's-bullshit-wrangling? I just wanna know what I'm working with."