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The piano is the last thing to be installed in the mansion once the renovations are through. Tony prefers to call this whole project a ‘redecoration’. However, since it is a project that she is, once again, spearheading because Tony’s far too busy playing ‘War’ with General Fury and James Rhodes she calls it exactly what it is: ‘complete renovation’.
The warm gold of the setting sun is refracted through the diamond clear casework of the Schimmel K213 and illuminates the resurrected living room with a soft gold. It’s extravagant piece – even for a baby grand piano. It is just what this room needs to finally feel like home again.
There hasn’t been a piano in the house since before Obadiah died – her skins prickles at the thought of the man. She still occasionally had nightmares about that night in the arc reactor building – of Obadiah catching her in that monstrous suit, of them all being killed when the arc reactor blew.
The worst nights are when she dreams about murdering Tony – that she presses the button just like he’d begged her to and Tony is completely incinerated by his father’s creation – and she’s the one to kill him. Even though he told her to – he’d begged her to – she’d had a choice and that choice could have killed him.
Her lips purse as she rests her thumb on the middle C key. It is one of the few things she still remembers from her childhood piano lessons – her mother for a few years had been convinced that with her long fingers that her daughter would grow up one day to become a famous concert pianist.
While she might have had the fingers she never had the passion for music that was necessary to become anything but a great technical player. Tony, however, used to drop down in front of the keys and without any particular thought involved create – she’d never been jealous of Tony Stark until she heard him play for the first time.
She’d have to ask Jarvis to confirm her suspicions but she’s fairly certain that Tony hasn’t played since coming back from Afghanistan – or at least since he began working on the Iron Man. Definitely not since Obadiah died.
Since Afghanistan – it’s amazing how many of her sentences start like that nowadays – Tony’s been changed. Not that anyone wouldn’t be after being held captive in a by a bunch of terrorists in a cave for three months. The psychiatrists had told her to expect some personality changes.
In a lot of ways he was the same old Tony once he’d stopped isolating himself– he worked hard, he played harder (with more disastrous consequences, her mind whispered as she remember the birthday party). Only his work now included saving the world, and while he’d never stop being an irrepressible flirt she hasn’t had to play bouncer to any 'overnight guests' Tony might have.
There had been a time – just before Tony’s final confrontation with Stane, when he’d ordered then pleaded with her to go into Stark Industries and download the ghost drive—
There’s nothing but the next mission – he’d said in a strained desperate voice that frightened her to her very core. He had sounded so hopeless and she was certain that he'd never be whole again.
She’d thought it was only a momentary lapse, but since the Expo – no, since meeting with SHIELD after the calamity of the Expo – she’d been seeing that same haunted, hunted, desperate look more and more these days between ‘consultations’ for SHIELD that lasted days at a time and rarely allowed for any down time.
If she ever found out what Nick Fury had said – she’d probably be sorely tempted to slap the man. She was all for Tony acting more responsibly, but SHIELD’s definition seemed to be sucking the very spirit and sanity out of him.
Her thoughts are interrupted by the familiar roar of jets, which are currently attached to a man dressed in red –just not one led by a pack of reindeer.
She hears him land and her anticipation builds – she used to go down and watch him take off the armor but she can’t any more, it makes her too nervous the next time. She gives him the space to clean himself up in private before he comes to her so she can pretend that the suit really is invincible.
She hears the slow heavy tread of his feet as he makes his way up the staircase – he’s undoubtedly exhausted after his five day ‘consultation’ with the Avengers and SHIELD.
She turns on the bench towards the stairs just as his feet hit the landing. His exhaustion is palpable even from twenty feet away – his shoulders slumped and his stance slightly unsteady. His face is pale and still smudged with grease or ash; even though it appears he tried to wash it before coming up. The cowlicks in his hair have risen up in asymmetrical clumps that almost form a halo around his head.
“…What’s with the piano,” He asks in a throaty voice.
She smiles at him, scooting over on the bench and patting the space beside her. “Merry Christmas.”
He blinks rapidly, his expression distant as moves towards her.
“Shit, its Christmas already –” He drops down beside her on the bench, slouching forward with his elbows resting on his knees. She can see the line of his spine outlined through his thin white undershirt
“Actually, its three days after Christmas,” She corrects him gently.
“Awwww shit,” Tony moans, hands going to his hair. “I hope you bought yourself something nice from me.”
She sighs, resting her chin on his shoulder as she leans against him.
“Right now all I want is for you to play me a song,” She whispers in his ear, one hand coming up to rub along his shoulder.
He pulls back from her, his expression bewildered and she can only smile in response.
“You’re crazy,” He mutters, turning around on the bench to face the keys. She turns with him, studying his face. She’s never had an excuse to be so close to him while he plays before, and she’s not going to waste it.
Tony’s expression is pensive, his fingers resting lightly on the keys. He almost starts several times, shoulders and hands rising to strike the first notes before he sighs and sets them down again.
“Any requests,” He asks after several false starts, looking at her from the corner of his eye.
“Nothing in particular,” She assures him, secretly amused to see him so hesitant.
He frowns slightly and then finally begins – Carol of the Bells begins to ring out– and she pushes away the prick of disappointment at not getting a ‘Stark Original’. It’s not important what he gives her – it’s important that he’s here in the moment with her.
Then the music starts to change, shifting into some strange new melody that dances all over the middle and lower registers. She lets herself be swept away, her eyes sliding half shut as she imagines winter landscapes and the sacred silence of snowfall.
She finds herself grinning as he moves his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer as he reaches for the upper register. She stays there, even though it’s uncomfortable half leaning over his lap, because with her ear pressed to his chest she can hear the whirr of the arc reactor and ever so faintly the steady thump of his heart.
Gradually the music slows and softens and reforms itself into another familiar melody – Silent Night. She finds herself humming along as the song winds down to its close. He holds the final chord, the notes echoing around the room before slipping away and leaving only silence.
She feels him kiss the top of her head as she leans into him.
“Merry Christmas, Pepper.”
“Merry Christmas, Tony."