( AND THAT'S ON LEGACY )
CHERRY COULDN'T TAKE MORE THAN TWO WEEKS OFF FROM HER JOB, SO SHE WAS THERE WHEN THEY GOT THE CALL ABOUT TONY. She was sat at her desk, a hand on her mouth as she stared at her computer. Obadiah walked by, a lot of people following him, but he didn't motion for her to follow so she stayed seated. Renee laid her hand on Cherry's back and rubbed it soothingly as Cherry tried to work out the emotions that were storming inside her.
She was so happy that Tony was back, but she didn't want to think about the sorrow that was clawing its way up her throat. It had been three months. Three months of Tony trapped and held hostage while whoever had taken him had done unspeakable things to him. Cherry leaned closer to Renee, let the warmth of her hand comfort her. She didn't cry. Not again. But she did sit at her desk, breathing through her nose with her eyes closed to keep herself calm.
She wished she would have been able to meet Tony at the airstrip, like Happy and Pepper did. But, she was working and had to be working. It was a terrible excuse, she really should have taken up Pepper's offer to come and pick him up, but Cherry knew that both Pepper and Happy (and Jim, but he had found him) were Tony's people more so than she and he needed to see them first. Cherry was just going to have to wait her turn.
It was a few minutes, but Cherry knew Tony had walked into the lobby when people started clapping. She opened her eyes and looked at him, finding him beside Obadiah, who had his arm around Tony's shoulders and was leading him through the gathered crowd. Tony's blue eyes immediately found her in the crowd, and Cherry sent him a blinding smile, so glad to see that he was okay. There was a some cuts on his face, and he was a little sunburned, but he was okay.
Tony sent her back a smile. It wasn't like the ones he gave the press, but something more private and personal and it made Cherry warm up from the inside out. He was gone in the next moment, a flow of people following him. Cherry got up and found Pepper in the crowd, Renee on her other side as they stood at the back of the room. Together, they watched Tony walk to the podium at the front of the room. Cherry reached beside her and grabbed onto Pepper's hand, squeezing tightly. Pepper squeezed her hand back, a comfort among the group of journalists that filled the room. Why Tony called a press conference as one of the first things he did being back on American soil, Cherry didn't know. She guessed she was about to find out.
"Miss Potts? Miss Armstrong?" A masculine voice caught their attention and Cherry turned to see a man in a black suit, some sort of badge clipped to his breast pocket. Cherry didn't recognize him as one of the usual reporters that came to the press conferences, but then again, she didn't pay a lot of attention to them. "Can I speak with you for a moment?"
"We're not apart of the press conference," Pepper answered, pointing her free hand towards where Tony and Obadiah were getting on stage, "but it's about to begin right now."
"I'm not a reporter," the man said, briefly looking at the big group of people before turning back to focus on Cherry and Pepper. "I'm Agent Phil Couslon, with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."
He held a card out as Cherry whistled, Pepper commenting on the length of the name. However, she took the card as she said, "You know, we've been approached already by the DOD, the FBI, the CIA--"
"We're a separate division with a more specific focus. We need to debrief Mr. Stark about the circumstances of his escape." Cherry felt her eyebrow raise. The circumstances of his escape? How did he escape? Nobody had really told Cherry anything, other than Jim had found him amongst the sand, wandering the desert. They hadn't really told her about his condition more than that, probably because she would have freaked out.
"I'll put something in the books, shall I?" Pepper told him, nodding. Agent Coulson nodded, said his thanks and then disappeared into the crowd as Obadiah took to the podium. Cherry straightened, trying to spot Tony from her spot at the back of the room. Her eyebrows furrowed when she didn't see him.
"Hey, would it be all right if everyone sat down?" Cherry blinked as the aforementioned man's voice rang through the room. He wanted everyone to... sit down? "Why don't you sit down? That way you can see me, and I can-" he cut himself off as the reporters crouched down in a wave, starting from the front and working its way back. Cherry was finally able to see him and watched as he took a bite of a cheeseburger. "A little less formal and-" he cut himself off for another bite of his food. Cherry wanted to run up there and take it from him, glancing around nervously because how were the press going to take this? Sure, Tony was known to do weird things but...
He just spent three months in captivity and maybe shouldn't be up there right now.
Obadiah dropped down beside Tony on stage, Jim crouched down beside Cherry, Pepper, and Renee, quietly asking, "What's up with the love-in?" Cherry shrugged helplessly as Pepper told him that she had no idea. They were both surprised by the turn of these events.
Obadiah and Tony mumbled some words, before Tony was announcing, "I never got to say goodbye to my father." Everyone watched him chew for a second, Tony's eyes searching the crowd before they landed on Cherry and stuck. He set his burger down beside him, but Cherry didn't follow the motion, could only keep her gaze on his doe eyes. "There's questions that I would have asked him. I would have asked him how he felt about what this company did." Cherry felt her breath catch in her throat. "If he was conflicted, if he ever had doubts." She thought back to their fight, about what both of them had said. "Or maybe he was every inch the man we all remember from the newsreels."
There was a pause, Tony collecting his thoughts. He glanced around, "I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them." He took a deep breath. "And I saw I- that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability."
A couple of reporters tried to ask him questions, Tony calling on one of the named Ben. The reporter simply asked, "What happened over there?"
Tony got to his feet, moving around the podium he had been leaning on as he said, "I had my eyes opened. I came to realize that I have more to offer this world than just making things that blow up." When he got to the mics, when he was facing the room again, his eyes met Cherry's and locked again.
He sent her a soft smile, before saying, "And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark International-"
Everyone jumped to their feet. Obadiah grabbed Tony's shoulder and pushed him back. Cherry felt like all of her breath had left her. All she could hear was reporters calling Tony's name and shouting questions until Tony spoke up again, his voice the only thing that Cherry could hear.
"-until such a time as I can decide what the future of the company will be." Obadiah was trying to talk over him, to get the attention off of him, but Cherry could only hear Tony. She only wanted to hear Tony. "What direction it should take, one that I'm comfortable with and is consistent with the highest good for this country, as well."
Cherry watched as Tony walked through the hoard of reporters. It was chaos, the reporters moving to get a quote, shoving recorders in his face. He paid them no mind, his eyes still locked on Cherry. When he got to her, he hooked his arm around her waist and led her away from the scene. Cherry kept her eyes on him, let him lead her wherever, couldn't take her eyes off him if she wanted to. He was a supernova, exploding in front of her.
She loved him. It consumed her, the thought, set fire to her veins, burned its way up her nerves, cracked her skin. She probably looked awed, her eyes wide and stunned but she couldn't help it. Tony was... Tony was everything. She had been at a precipice before, looking over the edge into fog, wondering what was down below. But now it felt like she had taken the lead, felt the air rushing around her, finally let her feel everything. Tony had had the courage to stop weapons manufacturing.
So, you couldn't really blame her for what she did when they got to where Tony was leading them. They stepped into the room, Tony shut the door, turned to look at Cherry, and as soon as their eyes met, Cherry launched herself at him.
Her lips landed on his, her hands cupping his cheeks, and she tried to pour every emotion that she was feeling into it. A beat passed... and another... Cherry realizing that Tony wasn't responding, was about to pull away, blame it on the elation of having him back when one of his hands hooked around her neck, pulling her closer and then they were... they were kissing.
It felt right. To cup Tony's cheeks, to feel his tongue trace the seam of her lips, to open up and let his tongue explore. It wasn't a messy, dirty kiss that Cherry had expected from Tony. In fact, it was slow and tender and passionate and it felt like coming home. All of her kisses before this one were now found moot, thinking about them. This was everything.
Every time one of them tried to pull back, the other was chasing each other's lips. It just felt so good to be kissing Tony. This way, Cherry knew that he was really okay. He was really here, in front of her, and this wasn't a dream that she would wake up from. It helped that Tony had moved his hand and was squeezing her hip methodically, like he was thinking the same thing.
After several long minutes, they finally detached, but didn't move away from each other. Tony rested his forehead against hers and they just stood, sharing their breaths and feeling the other's heat. Cherry opened her eyes, took in the lines of Tony's face and the expression he was wearing and knew what was coming. So, she pushed herself closer, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder, trying not to put more pressure on his arm in the sling.
"Even before everything, I thought about this," Tony whispered, his head dipping down to lean against hers. "But, with everything that's happened, that's happening, I- I don't think I-"
"It's okay, Tony," Cherry said, because she got it. He needed time to recover, to recuperate, and to get his affairs in order now. Especially with the announcement he had just made today. Cherry pulled back to smile at him, "I'm not sure I should be dating my boss anyway. Not only is the power dynamic not sexy in this situation, I don't know S.I.'s policies against it, and it's fucking cliché."
Tony scoffed, soft smile on his face, as he caressed her cheek, his thumb rubbing a soft line on her cheekbone. Cherry leaned into the touch, turned her head and kissed his palm. "I resent that. I think the last twenty minutes prove that I'm still able to surprise everyone."
"I'm so glad you're back, Tony," Cherry whispered, closing her eyes. "I was so scared that you-" she felt her breath stutter in her chest, pushed the feeling away. She opened her eyes and said, "Scottie and I are coming over tonight."
"Oh, I don't get a say?" Tony asked, his eyes alight with amusement. Cherry smiled and shook her head. Tony grinned. He sniffed once, before saying, "I could stand to spend more time with Scottie. I definitely missed him the most." Cherry smiled at him, gave him a gentle squeezed before pulling back. "I have to talk to Obie first. We'll have to talk about S.I. and then I'm sure one of them..." he trailed off, his hand moving to rub his chest. "I have something to show you. Later."
Cherry nodded, confused and a little scared. But, she let Tony go with a kiss on the cheek, going back to her job until she could run home of grab Scottie and go to the mansion.
Later came when they were getting ready for bed. Scottie was curled up on the bottom of Tony's huge bed, staring as Cherry as she changed, waiting for her to settle down to cuddle. Tony had went to his closet as soon as he came into the room and had not come out since. She was getting a little worried.
Until he called her, she stepped into the humongous closet, and noticed shirtless Tony standing there, a mess of scars on his chest, something round and glowing in the middle. Cherry couldn't help the gasp that left her mouth, couldn't stop her eyes from watering at the fresh scars, still raised and pink and terrible looking. Tony had been in pain, so much pain, to have gotten those. And Cherry couldn't move, didn't know what to do, because the thing in the middle, the glowing blue light, was embedded in his sternum and she felt useless.
She watched as Tony raised a hand and tapped at the device in his chest, "There's shrapnel in my chest, trying to get to my heart. This is stopping it from reaching. It's a mini arc reactor powering an electromagnet."
Cherry gulped, thinking of the arc reactor that was powering the plant. She doubted that Tony would build something insufficient to save his own life, but it looked painful. "Does it hurt? The magnet?" Obviously, the scars and shrapnel had hurt.
Tony looked like he didn't know what to do with the question, which was a first. He looked down at it. "A little. Not as much as the rest of this-" he gestured to the mess of raised scars, "-had, but I don't have the same amount of lung capacity as I used to and that took a long time to get used to."
Cherry tried not to picture him gasping awake in the middle of the night, feeling like he's suffocating because his lungs aren't working as well as they used to.
She stepped forward, stopped in front of him, then looked him in the eye, "Can I touch it?"
It took a second for Tony to nod his assent, letting out a breathy yes. Cherry raised her hand and delicately traced one of the raised scars, feeling Tony shiver from the touch. She made it to the device in the middle, felt the metal that was warmed by Tony's body heat, then placed palm in the middle of the arc reactor. Cherry's palm was the same size, maybe a little smaller, and blocked the blue light from shining through. She closed her eyes, let herself feel the hum of power that was in the device, knowing it was helping keep Tony alive. And that was the most beautiful thing of all.
Not being able to help herself, she opened her eyes, took her hand away, and gave the device a kiss. Ignored the way Tony's breath hitched, hooked her fingers in his and pulled him with her, walking backwards.
"Come on, let's go to bed. Scottie is gonna get cranky if he doesn't get to cuddle you soon."
"It doesn't bother you?" Tony asked, his voice small.
Cherry shook her head. "It's my own personal night light," she smiled a little goofily as Tony snorted. "And it helps keep you alive. How could that bother me?"
She pulled him to the bed, before getting in and scooching over until Tony had enough space to climb in beside her. The blankets were pulled up, Scottie moved so that he was between Tony and Cherry, and Tony called out to JARVIS to turn out the lights.
Cherry knew he wouldn't stay the whole night. Had a feeling that something big was buzzing around in his brain that wouldn't let him get more than a couple hours of sleep. But until then, she squished as close as she could with Scottie between them and just let Tony's presence and warmth make her feel safe. And if Tony moved Scottie so that he was on the pillow above them so that he could wrap Cherry up in his arms, the girl only pressed a smile into his neck and snuggled closer.
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it's nearing the end of the anniversary of the heart and soul of the mcu. after this, i will be watching infinity war and endgame to cry my eyes out.
but, enjoy this fluff.
i miss him so much.