This is how I show my love

[iron_ically]

In theory, his armor is supposed to protect him from any serious injury. It’s surprising how often it fails. Of course, it seems to be directly related to how often he gets blown up. Maybe that’s what should be surprising, or maybe not considering the mission he’s given himself: world peace.

Injury is the reason he’s running late, or being blow up is. Either way, he lands on the roof of his house with a less than graceful thud. He stumbles, scraping the knee of the suit against the concrete.

“Mr. Stark, shall I inform you guest that you’ve arrived?”

“Unless she’s gone deaf, she’s aware. Apologize for me and let her know I’m going to dress for dinner and be right with her.”

What he really meant was that he was going to clean up, bandage what needed bandaging, self-medicate with scotch then join her for dinner. Whether he’d be dressed appropriately or not was still up for debate.

Getting out of the suit had been a breeze; it was all automated. Getting out of the shower was going to be a problem simply because Tony loved his shower, particularly when he felt like he’d been dragged across miles of concrete. Oh. Wait. He had.

“JARVIS, have dummy bring me a scotch and assure the pretty girl that is hopefully still waiting for me that I do plan on keeping our date.”

She would forgive him, or at least he hoped she would. He actually liked this one enough to have more than one date. He liked her enough that he was concerned about pissing her off, enough that despite the fact he hurt enough to have scotch in the shower, he didn’t want to break the date.

It was, quite possibly, a first for Tony Stark.

Comments

[iron_ically]

The next time he had a function, he'd mention it. He might even ask about it tonight as he's got something coming up on the calendar. She could explain to him.

"Who needs modesty when you're...well...me?"

The oven beeped, letting him know that it was heated. He picked the pan up and slid it into the oven.

[moderatelyfluent]

Niamh gave Tony such a look. Someone was not impressed, just not at all.

[iron_ically]

Tony chuckled. He got that she wasn't impressed. There was little use in hiding who he was though.

"So, outside of my tardiness, how was your day?"

[moderatelyfluent]

"It was... admittedly less exciting than yours, though also less violent apparently. I was vomited on twice." She frowned, trying to think of anything else notable that happened during her day.

"We did colors today. You would be... pleased to note that the color combination most popular is red and gold." She was feeding his ego and didn't care, it was cute. Her kids adored the super heroes.

[iron_ically]

"They're still doing that? The vomiting thing. Have you checked them for alcohol consumption?" He was half joking, but only half. Tony knew absolutely nothing about kids. He hadn't even been much of a kid himself.

A grin spread over his face as she fed his ego. "Good kids. It's a very striking color combination."

[moderatelyfluent]

"They're kids, love, they tend to be messy. Although, you know... one of them had been hitting the grape juice a little hard. The lush." She didn't mind though.

She wrinkled her nose at his smile. She was such an enabler. But it was so cute, and the kids really did love him. "I do personally like the combination myself. When I was little I always wanted a ruby ring, the ones you get in the little candy machines? I never got it, just 15 blue ones."

[iron_ically]

'Better stage an intervention. It's best to get them early." He took a sip of his scotch and a bite of the crab stack.

He liked being enabled! It was fun and it made him feel comfortable. "One of the big gaudy ones that go from knuckle to knuckle?"

[moderatelyfluent]

"Can you even imagine that. An intervention with a couple dozen seven year olds. Oh god, with wee little index cards." She put her head down, giggling into her arms. That would be hysterical. After a couple seconds, her head popped back up.

"Noo, one of those wee little ones-- well, they're little now, so I s'ppose a bit big. Not like Kardashian big, though. That's..." She wrinkled her nose. "That's gross. Anyway, I've not seen one of those machines in ages. At least not with rings, just those sticky hands."

[iron_ically]

Tony watched her, thoroughly amused by her. "And cups of bad coffee. They always have bad coffee at an intervention. It's like no one thinks to bring the good coffee. That'll somehow derail things, or maybe it'll just force an intervention over coffee as well."

He pondered that a moment, fingertips ghosting over his beard before he responded. "You know, you've got a point. I don't think I've seen one in a while either."

[moderatelyfluent]

"I've never been to a proper one, just seen 'em on TV. They've got horrid coffee at AA meetings though, so I can imagine. Dad used to say if you could live through one of those cups, you could live another day without a drink. And he was sober... sixteen years? So it must have worked." Her faint Irish lilt became a bit more pronounced when she talked about her father. She missed him.

Shifting slightly, she finally shrugged out of her jacket, setting it on the stool beside her. "Alas, they've gone the way of the pay phone and the do-do bird."

[iron_ically]

"I've actually had one staged for me. Or two...maybe three, but it's hard to tell." He took a sip of his scotch, a bite of the appetizer and sat down on the stool next to her. "Sobriety is one of those things that don't sound like much fun."

"Oh, I wouldn't say they're extinct. Just harder to find, which makes it a challenge."

[moderatelyfluent]

"No I don't think it sounds like much fun either." Niamh scooted forward on her stool a little, pressing her toes against the stretcher of the to lift her up a little. She leaned forward and kissed Tony, softly at first and then a little more forcefully. "Thank you, for making dinner."

[iron_ically]

His hand went to the small of her back, holding her more stably against him as he returns the kiss.

"You are very welcome," he whispers before kissing her again.

[moderatelyfluent]

She hummed out a little noise of contentment, putting her hands on his knees, fingers pressing into his legs. She leaned forward a bit more. She didn't mind continuing kissing him, she didn't mind that at all. She wasn't incredibly forward, even being raised with boys, so she was content to let Tony take the lead in cases like this. He was good at it, bossy.

[iron_ically]

Why yes, he was bossy and he liked to think he was good at taking the lead, not to mention kissing. He presses his toes into the floor, giving himself more leverage so that neither of them end up slipping.

He slid one hand up, fingers going to take her hair down and let it cascade over her back while he kissed her. They had a few minutes until the pasta was done.

[moderatelyfluent]

Niamh's hands crept a little higher on his thighs, only to keep her balance though, she didn't intend to do it, simply centering her balance as she leaned more into their kisses. She liked the feeling of his hands on her skin when his hand traveled up to tug her hair free.

[iron_ically]

Whether she intended on doing anything or not, the result gets a groan out of him, stifled softly against her lips. He leaves his hand on her back, just on top of her shoulder blades, palm flat against her bare skin. His other hand rested at the small of her back to keep her close. He had no intention of aborting this makeout session prematurely.

[moderatelyfluent]

He might not have intended it, but his groan made Niamh pull back, brown eyes worried and full of concern. "Are you okay, did I hurt something?"

Because he had been hurt earlier, she hadn't forgotten, nor did she want to cause him any extra pain. Her fingers loosened their grip slightly.

[iron_ically]

He looked a little dazed when she pulled back, but fairly quickly recovered. "No. No. You definitely did not hurt me." Yes, he had been hurt and still was, but he was numb enough with scotch and kissing that it didn't matter much.

"Although, I do think I felt better when you were kissing me."

[moderatelyfluent]

His answer made her laugh, shaking her head a little. But she would never be accused of making him feel worse if he didn't deserve it, so she pushed back into for another kiss. Her hands moved up his legs on purpose this time, fingers squeezing gently.

She was sweet really.

[iron_ically]

His touch and his kiss was more urgent this time, needy and filled with want. He twirled her hair around his fingers, and stood up a bit more, his knees on either side of her legs as he pulled her body flush against his.

The sweetest.

[moderatelyfluent]

Niamh whimpered a little, breath coming faster when Tony pulled her closer, slightly caught off guard. They had kissed before, Niamh enjoyed their kissing, and they had gone on a fair number of dates, enough for the tabloids to call them a "couple" and she certainly knew about his reputation -- still, somehow she was caught off guard by him. All the time really. He wasn't always the man he made the world believe he was.

In any case, she hadn't expected to feel so much with him and the rush of desire startled her. She didn't pull away though, curling her arms around his waist with equal need.

[iron_ically]

Tony liked Niamh enough that he'd been willing to keep dating her despite the lack of sex currently involved in their relationship. He also liked her enough that he wasn't seeing anyone else, hadn't seen anyone else since their second date. As far as who he was, sometimes he wasn't even sure who he was. He knew who he needed to be for the media, but Tony Stark got lost somewhere beneath all of the hype. Or maybe, he was just so used to who he thought he needed to be that it was unnatural to be who he really was. In any case, she was getting to know more of him than most people.

The rush of desire he could feel thrumming through her body, combined with that whimper made him groan, a deep, throaty sort of sound. He wanted to stop even less right now than he had previously. In fact, what he wanted was to pick her up and carry her up to his bedroom. In this particularly instance, he did not do what he wanted. Whoever said Tony Stark couldn't deny himself anything had no idea what they were talking about.

[moderatelyfluent]

Niamh didn't want to stop either. She wouldn't have protested being literally swept off her feet. She sure didn't protest being metaphorically swept off her feet and Tony was certainly on his way to doing that properly. Her hands gripped to his tee shirt, fisting the fabric against his back.

Except, dinner.

Well. They could eat later.

"Tony," she whispered, his name coming out like a question, "would you be very insulted if we skipped dinner?" Usually she wasn't so bold, but well, Tony Stark made Niamh Oliver a little bit fearless.

[iron_ically]

She really didn't have to ask more than once. In fact, if she hadn't asked, he might have taken the liberty of assuming by the way she was trying to become one with him. Not that he was complaining, he was attempting the same sort of feat.

"I think I would be very insulted if we didn't." He stood up, sweeping Niamh literally off her feet and heading toward the bedroom.

"JARVIS turn off the oven." Because it was a necessary feature for the program to control. He'd left the oven on while down in the lab more than once, but it'd only taken one kitchen fire for him to program it.