( . . 𝐴𝐶𝑇 𝑇𝑊𝑂; 𝐶𝐻 𝑇𝐻𝑅𝐸𝐸 ━━━━━ ! ﹆◞ ❫
IWDWS / 一世想舞蹈和某人
"MISS FA, IT SEEMS MISS EVERHEART IS AWAKE AND WANDERING AROUND."
J.A.R.V.I.S's voice suddenly erupted causing Mulan to wake with a jolt. She had fallen asleep on the surprisingly comfy lawn chair and now had gained a tan on her skin from being in the sun for hours. Blinking the sleep from her eyes she yawned as she stretched her arms hearing the satisfying pop from her stiff joints.
"Jesus Stark, how many times do I have to tell him to keep his toys in his room? What time is it Mr. J ?" Mulan asks brushing back her hair.
"It's currently 7:13 am. Ms. Everheart has now reached downstairs." Jarvis informs her.
"Alright, alright I'm up I'm going, I'm moving. Happy now, Jar?" Mulan teases.
"Ecstatic, Ms. Fa." J.A.R.V.I.S. drones.
Picking up her shoes Mulan made her way back into the mansion. She threw the empty bottle, half-empty cigarette pack, and her shoes onto the couch as she walked towards the kitchen. Coming out of the garage door was Pepper, or Virginia as Mulan chooses to call her, she adores her first name she can't help it, with a cup of coffee, her journal, and some dry cleaning she must've picked up before stopping here.
"Hi Virginia." Mulan dragged out her name with a wiggle of her fingers waving at her.
"Hi Mulan." Pepper copied her tone with a cheery smile as she moved to hug the brown-haired woman.
"Oh is that mine? Please tell me that's mine I will love you eternally!" Mulan beams catching her name in the rushed handwriting the worker must've scribbled on the side of the travel coffee cup.
"Of course it is. I saw the paper and a late night at a casino with Tony calls for a recovery morning coffee." Pepper consoled her knowing what a pain he could be. Mulan groans and rests her forehead on Pepper's shoulder as her hand rubs Mulan's back.
"You don't even know the half of it. Oh did you know he ditched me at the Apogee awards, with Obadiah?!" Mulan seethes her head now snapped up from the strawberry blonde's shoulder in exaggeration.
"He did not !" Pepper gasps.
The loud beep of machinery broke the two women's bubble followed by J.A.R.V.I.S's firm voice. Alerting the two women where Christine was.
"Found her." Mulan quips.
"You wanna take this one or d'you want me to?" Pepper ticks her head towards the other room.
"Please by all means." Mulan motions for her to go. With her following, Pepper leads the charge towards Tony's one-night stand. There she stood in nothing but her undergarments and Tony's maroon shirt from last night looking frightened at the system.
"Jesus!" Christine yelps as she backs away from the wall device.
"That's Jarvis. He runs the house," Pepper begins. "I've got your clothes here. They've been dry-cleaned and pressed, and there's a car waiting for you outside that will take you anywhere you'd like to go." Pepper explains.
Mulan didn't like the feel of this woman as a smug smirk appeared on Christine's face as she looked at her and Pepper. "You must be the famous Pepper Potts." She says as she approaches Pepper and Mulan.
"Indeed I am," Pepper confirms with a fake smile.
"And you daughter of the Mulan Fa, Tony's best friend/fuck buddy over the years." Christine theorizes with jealousy fueling her tone. Mulan didn't even respond to the woman she just busted out in laughter making her smirk drop before turning back to Pepper. "After all these years Tony still has you picking up the dry-cleaning." Christine pokes at Pepper with an arrogant tilt to her head.
"I do anything and everything that Mr. Stark requires, including occasionally taking out the trash. Will that be all?" Pepper insults with her dazzling smile as Christine's jaw slightly drops almost in disbelief that she said that to her.
"Yes you, she called you trash. Now get the fuck out." Mulan sighs feeling done with the woman.
The two women made it down the stairs to Tony's underground lab to greet the man who seems to have already gotten a head start in his tinkering for the day. Mulan types in the code for Pepper, who was busy on a call, and turns down Tony's loud emo music which Mulan loves to tease him for, and pushes open the door.
"Please don't turn down my music," Tony tells not even looking up to greet the women who entered his space.
"You gotta stop listening to depressing music first thing in the morning, this is giving me flashbacks to teenage 'my life sucks' Tony." Mulan taunts in a mock Tony voice as she approaches him who scoffs at her teasing. She looks over his shoulder to see what he's messing with. "What's that you're making?" She asks.
"A bomb," Tony says apathetically.
Mulan's eyes widen in shock before she snaps her head to the side now looking him in the eyes as he keeps a dead stare. "You're not being serious right?"
"No. Why would I—It's 7:30 in the morning! I know I'm me but for that to be your standards of me, hurt. Hurt me right here." Tony exaggerates as he points at his heart.
Mulan shoves him away as she fights off a smile, making his rolling chair roll back a bit as his cackle fills the air. Pepper shakes her head at their antics as she wraps up her phone call. "You are supposed to be halfway around the world right now." She reprimands as she fixes her grip on her papers.
"How'd she take it?" Tony asks dismissing her point.
"Like a champ."
"Why are you trying to hustle me out of here?" He holds up blueprints to the light.
"Because your flight was supposed to leave an hour and a half ago but your dumbass clearly wasn't on board." Mulan answers.
"That's funny, I thought with it being my plane and all, that it would just wait for me to get there." Tony quips.
Mulan scrunches her eyebrows in thought then tilts her head to Pepper before whispering, "He's gotta point though." Tony snaps and points his finger at Mulan in agreement.
"No no he doesn't. No point." Pepper quickly shakes her head.
"Gotcha no point there made. Ok." Mulan nods then gives her a thumbs up.
"I need to speak to you about a couple things before I get you out of the door," Pepper says trying to get the topic back on focus.
"Doesn't it kind of decrease the whole purpose of having your own plane if it departs before you arrive?" Tony distracts as he wipes grease from his fingers now facing Pepper.
"Larry called. He's got another buyer for the Jackson Pollock in the wings. Do you want it? Yes or no." Pepper explains. Mulan sits face painted in confusion over what a Jackson Pollock is.
"Is it a good representation of his spring period?"
"Um no. The Springs was actually the neighborhood in East Hampton where he lives and worked, not "spring" like the season—"
"So?" Tony interjects.
"I think it's a fair example. Um, I think it's incredibly overpriced."
"I need it. Buy it. Store it." Tony finishes now walking around the underground garage.
"Okay. The MIT commencement speech is in—" Pepper begins but that's when Mulan tunes the rest of the conversation out until something interesting catches her ears' attention.
"—What, you got plans?" Tony asks offended that Pepper has her own life.
"As a matter of a fact, I do." Pepper insists.
"I don't like it when you have plans." Tony crosses his arms.
"You big fucking baby." Mulan slits her eyes at him.
"Shut up, Mulan."
"I'm allowed to have plans on my birthday," Pepper tells Tony.
Tony raises an eyebrow. "It's your birthday?"
"Yes."
Tony shrugs his confusion away. "I knew that. Already?"
"Yeah. Isn't that strange? It's the same day as last year." Pepper teasingly smiles.
"Get yourself something nice from me."
"I already did."
"And?"
"Oh it was very nice—"
"Yeah."
"Very tasteful. Thank you, Mr. Stark." Pepper smiles bashfully.
Tony grins. "You're welcome, Miss Potts."
"Ugh! What's this taste in my mouth?! It's like- It's like throw up from this flirting happening right in front of my eyes! Oh wow, it's like burning—" Mulan yells making fake gagging motions.
One of Tony's fast cars sped down the Malibu highway on its way to his plane. Inside the small gray car held Mulan, now dressed in a Juicy Couture sweatsuit instead of last night's dress, and Tony in the driver's seat. The radio was turned up annoyingly high playing some cheesy pop song that went number one, combined with the noise of wind from the windows being down. Anxiety was painted in Mulan's pretty features as she gripped Tony's thigh from the speed he was increasing in.
"Please Tone, I beg you I fucking beg you to slow down! I AM PRECIOUS CARGO, YOU NEED TO HANDLE ME WITH CARE!" Mulan yelled nails gripping into his skin through his jeans and her hair rushed every which direction.
"It's absolutely astonishing how over all this noise I can still hear your voice. I thought I drowned you out enough." Tony smirks then pushes on the gas pedal a bit more making the car jerk up in speed. Tony received her ice-cold glare.
"I am gonna kill you Anthony Edward Stark. Mark my god damn words I'm gonna strangle you—" Mulan's threats were cut off by her screams as Tony pushed the car over 100 as he cackled.
The pair, plus Happy trailing behind them, finally made it to the airplane. While Mulan took a moment to regroup from her near-death experience, Tony immediately exited the car with a dopey smile.
"You're good. Oh, I thought I lost you back there." Tony exclaims to Happy as he gets his bags from the trunk.
"You did, sir. I had to cut across Mulholland." Happy breathes out.
Tony laughs then replies with, "I got you, I got you." Not noticing Mulan shakily slipping out of the car and making her way to Rhodey who stood at the top of the stairs to enter the plane.
"He sped again, Rhodes. I-I can't, the kids a problem." Mulan stutters as she walks into Rhodes's open arms to hug her dear friend. He gives good hugs. Great hugs a matter of fact.
"There there, I know, trust me, I know." Rhodey sighs as he rubs a consoling hand across her back as she rested the side of her head on his shoulder.
"What's wrong with you?" Rhodes grouses to Tony as he approaches with his bags.
"What, three hours I've been waiting? And you messed 'Lan up in the process?" Rhodey stresses.
"I got caught up doing a piece for Vanity Fair." Tony shrugs.
"No, you got caught up fucking the bitch from Vanity Fair. Not really the same thing there." Mulan corrects.
"For there hours. For three hours you got me standing here." Rhodey complains.
Tony made it to the top now standing next to Mulan and Rhodey. "Waiting on you now c'mon," Tony says to Rhodey as he walks in the plane. He then walks back out and kisses Mulan on the cheek. "And I will see you in about two-three days. I love you, watch the house, keep Dum-E out of trouble please."
Mulan pulls him into a tight hug, not liking his career choice extremely right now. "Yeah yeah love you too, Tone. Be safe don't do anything I wouldn't do. You too Rhodes."
"Well, that rules a lotta shit off the table." Tony grumbles then finally gets on the plane with Rhodes following, and then of course Happy with his luggage.
Mulan sighs. Something in her chest doesn't feel right about this certain missile testing. How Obidiah was shoving it down Tony's throat with how "important it is for him to go to these things" while he sat in his office looking pretty. He tried to shove Mulan out of Tony's life multiple times beforehand but always came with little success. He's a sneaky ass white man and it wouldn't be the first or last one of his kind that Mulan ever dealt with.
She walked down the stairs, leaned on the small grey car door, and watched the plane take off through her eyelashes until it turned into a speck in the sky. Then she got into the car and pushed the key into the ignition, she was in control of the speed now. Mulan sighs and looks in the glove compartment for an extra pair of sunglasses Tony had to have left in here. She comes out with a normal pair of black ones, No wonder these were in here, they're too boring for "The Tony Stark", Mulan thinks.
"Ok now let's put on some good music," Mulan says to herself after rummaging through the car to find her beloved Whitney Houston CD. She slips it into the car and the start of I Wanna Dance with Somebody belts through the speakers causing a sense of euphoria through the woman.
While driving back home she can't help but think about Bucky while listening to the lyrics, it's been decades and his presence still lingers around her like nothing changed. It's been a while since she's even visited his burial site, and for that, she felt like the worse person ever. It already took so much out of her to move from her place in Brooklyn to the fabulous Malibu with Tony. She had to leave the last place that felt like a home, her lover and her best friend, plus Howard and Maria. She knew they were six feet under but it still felt like a betrayal to her. Peggy already relocated to the D.C. area with her children near her brother.
There hasn't even been another person since him. Sure there's been a few one-night stands with a handful of men and women when she was horny but other than that the thought of opening her heart to someone else made her ache. Tony always tried to push her to date, only wanting her to be happy, which ended in her emotions blowing up and her snapping at Tony, which she apologized for. After that, he learned not to bring up the topic.
Mulan has just been breezing through life. She worked at S.H.E.I.L.D. , looked after Tony, smoked, drank, come to think of it she hasn't really been living. Almost as if her life is drained from her, of course she was happy but it wasn't the same. As the song goes, her lonely heart calls for someone who won't ever be able to pick up the phone. Her days blur together most of the time anyway so who cares right?
Mulan pushes the thoughts away and goes back to singing along with the angelic voice through the speakers. Tapping along the steering wheel she sings, off-key at that, " I've been in love and lost my senses, spinning through the town, sooner or later the fever ends, and I wind up feeling down, I need a man who'll take a chance, on a love that burns hot enough to last, so when the night falls, my lonely heart calls—"
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𝖨 𝖶𝖺𝗇𝗇𝖺 𝖣𝖺𝗇𝖼𝖾 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁
𝖲𝗈𝗆𝖾𝖻𝗈𝖽𝗒 𝖻𝗒:
𝖶𝗁𝗂𝗍𝗇𝖾𝗒 𝖧𝗈𝗎𝗌𝗍𝗈𝗇
"Clock strikes upon the hour,
And the sun begins to fade,
Still enough time to figure out,
How to chase my blues away,
I've done alright up 'til now,
It's the light of day that shows
me how, And when the night falls,
Loneliness calls—"
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𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲 ／ omg i updated sorry for the wait i was on vacay and had to get back into the swing of things! i hope y'all liked this chapter i love tony and mulan and her and pepper are girl bosses period !!