Work Text:
By the time she and Rocky get kidnapped by a rogue division of PETA, Pepper pretty much has a handle on the whole pet-ownership thing. Technically, Rocky’s not actually her dog, he’s Tony’s. This does not change the fact that she feeds him, walks him, actually did 90% of his training – she never wants to think about the invoice slips she had to process after Tony’s attempts ever, ever again – and is responsible for taking him to the vet.
It’s only when she and Rocky are ordered, at gun point, into a rusting VW Mini Bus while in the middle of crossing Santa Monica Boulevard that she realizes giving Rocky a routine (and making him stick to it) might have been pleasurable for her organized mind, but a hugely bad idea.
Stupid Mutt Hutt Thursday.
“You aren’t serious.”
The guy in the red flip-flops and ‘Save the Whales’ t-shirt waves the gun a little more emphatically in her face. “IN THE VAN, MISS POTTS! You and the dog!”
She resists, barely, the urge to rub the spot between her eyebrows. “You know, you have the safety on, right?”
The masked man blinked and looked down at his weapon, a split second before Pepper’s fist meets his face in a text-book perfect left hook. This wasn’t her first kidnapping, and the guys from Hydra had, at least, been vaguely competent enough to scare Tony into frog-marching her into self-defense classes.
Not that she hadn’t already been taking them. With the same instructor. Since roughly seven hours after That Press Conference.
A quick elbow jab to the solar plexus and Mr. Nylon Stalking On His Face In 90 Degree Weather is gasping in the crosswalk.
Unfortunately for her, she’s forgotten about the other guy.
The barrel of the gun is cool against the back of her head, and the man’s breath is discordantly sweet against her cheek.
“I believe my associate asked you to get in the van, Ms. Potts.”
Sighing with great annoyance and glaring at the thirty or so people across the street currently gawking at the increasingly surreal scene – most of them taking pictures on their cell phones she notes, bitterly – Pepper hopps into the van.
Rocky, ever eager to follow his Pepper, hauls himself in after her.
-
“-take his dog in protest!”
“You know, this was a phenomenally bad idea, right?”
Her butt’s cold from the exposed metal in the floor of the Mini Bus. Roughly thirty seconds after the doors had closed, Green T-Shirt and Flip-Flops had started in on their manifesto. The urge to rub her forehead and roll her eyes have been building exponentially since.
Unfortunately, they’d taken her bag, along with her panic buttons. Flip-Flops had even turned off her phone.
Green T-Shirt – the guy who’d gotten her into the Mini Bus – is glaring. It would be more effective if he hadn’t been wearing the other nylon sock. As it stood, it took a rather lot for Pepper not to bust out laughing.
The guns helped, but only just.
“You do remember who my boss is, right? And who Rocky’s actual owner is.” She raises an eyebrow and folds her arms across her chest.
“Why would we kidnap you if we didn’t?” Green T-shirt rolls his eyes, but keeps his revolver aimed at her.
“A MURDERER!” Flip-Flops, who is now sporting a rather impressive black eye, didn’t seem to feel the necessity. Pepper’s pretty sure that Green T-Shirt is the brains of the operation. Such that they are.
“Why this time?”
Rocky, who’d raised his head at the outburst, settles his head back in her lap and gives her the “Treat now?” face. She pats him apologetically, and he wuffled mournfully. These guys were idiots, but they have guns, and she doesn't want Rocky (or her) to get caught in any kind of crossfire.
“He’s doing nothing while thousands die in Afghanistan!”
Pepper, abruptly returning to the conversation, blinks. “Are we talking about Tony Stark?”
Flip-Flops turns a bright red in what she assumes is righteous indignation. It might be heatstroke, what with the nylon still on his head, and the growing discomfort of three people and one very large, very warm, puppy in a non-ventilated, enclosed space. Pepper didn’t want to make a snap judgment.
“Of course!”
“Big red suit? Took out five weapons caches and saved three small villages? Last week? Ring any bells, guys?”
That really seemed to set Flip-Flops off. “Those are just people!”
She blinks some more. Of course they were.
“What my associate is trying to say, is that Tony Stark is doing nothing to protect the animals being killed by his weapons. We’re doing this as a wake-up call for him.”
Several connections clicked in her brain. There’d been memos. And notes. And an email that the security department had printed out and posted in the break room for everyone to get a good laugh in.
“Oh, my god, you’re those guys! The ones who PETA kicked out!” Really, it’s a good thing they have guns, otherwise she’d be sicking up her lunch laughing.
Green T-Shirt and Flip-Flops had the decency to blush.
“It was a misunderstanding,” Flip-Flops tries, his tone incredibly young and embarrassed. “A big one, but a misunderstanding.”
Green T-Shirt just sighs.
“A misunderstanding? PETA banned you. For being too extremist.” And incompetent, she doesn’t say.
“We’re dedicated.”
“Okay, fine. You have me. What are your demands?”
“Well, we didn’t actually want you.” Flip-Flops has the grace to look sheepish.
Sighing, Pepper shakes her head. Of course they didn’t. “You wanted Rocky.”
The two men nod. “He’s a symbol.”
“Of the fact that Tony Stark isn’t saving goats. In Afghanistan.”
“And other animals.”
Were there other animals in Afghanistan? Pepper figures there must be. Possibly, that’s their point. “Whatever. Demands, kids. I have a full schedule on Monday and want to get this wrapped up as soon as possible. You.” She focuses on Flip-Flops. “Demands in under fifty words. Go.”
“Um.” The kid had no idea what to do with that. “Money to open a shelter to save the animals victimized by the human conflict?”
“You sold me. You got anything to add?”
Green T-Shirt raises an eyebrow. “You do realize that you’re the hostage here. You don’t actually have any control in this situation.”
Pepper matches Green T-Shirt's eyebrow raise. Obviously, Green T-Shirt has never had a girlfriend of any note. “I’ll take that as a no. Drop me off near a pay phone, give me your names, and I’ll have a trust set up by the end of the night.”
Even the driver reacts to that. Pepper grips Rocky’s collar as the van came to a sudden, screeching halt. A beachball of a face ducks through the small dark curtain strung across the front of the Mini. “Are you serious?”
Radiating disdain, Pepper snifs. “I don’t ‘fun’ with people holding guns on me and my dog, thank you.”
“You’re lying.”
Flip-Flops, however, seems convinced. “But Conrad, what if she isn’t?”
“You idiot!” Both the driver and Green T-Shirt (apparently ‘Conrad’) reach to slap Flip-Flops on the side of the head.
“What? She doesn’t sound like she’s lying!”
“She’s afraid for her life!” The driver points at her.
“I’m really not.” No one paid any attention. She gives Rocky’s head another scratch and reaches over to fiddle with the busted door mechanism. The handle is completely missing.
Damn, she thinks, tuning out the escalating argument at the front of the Mini Bus. Time for plan B.
“Conrad!”
“Mulligan!”
“Ed.”
Seriously? Okay, that was it.
“Rocky?”
Rocky raises his head and stares, adoringly, at Pepper. She points at Green T-Shirt (Conrad) and Flip-Flops (Mulligan), who were now shouting. “Danger.”
-
“Hello?”
“Tony.”
“Pepper! How’s Rocky liking the massage?”
“We got kidnapped.”
“WHAT?”
“Oh, we’re fine. Apparently, they forgot that Rocky’s a mastiff and tried to kidnap us with a Volkswagen Mini Bus.”
“Are you serious?”
“Would I bother lying about something so incredibly stupid?”
“I assume, from your incredibly derisive tone, that you’re away and safe.”
“Just get Happy to pick the Land Rover up from the Rodeo Parking Garage and come get us? We’re at the Santa Monica police department.”
“I’m going to laugh about this after I finish freaking out, right?”
“Well, everyone else is.”
-
“You want me to what?”
Pepper sighed and took a sip of her perfectly chilled seltzer water. “Give them what they wanted.”
“But!” Tony is sputtering. It is actually kind of funny. It’s a rare day when the man doesn’t know exactly what to say for greatest effect, and Pepper’s petty enough to enjoy it while it lasts. Kind of like the hand-and-foot service she’s going to have to endure for the next week, if history is anything to go by.
Getting kidnapped sucked for more reasons than one. Especially when her reward for being rescued involved Tony’s incompetent, if sweet, domestic skills.
Pepper pulled the slice of lime out of her drink to suck on and eyed Rocky as he shifted around. He’d flopped on her legs when Tony’d ordered her to stretch out on the couch and ‘relax from her ordeal’. Tony, predictably, had spent said time pacing around and ranting about vegetarians.
“I think you should set Ed and Conrad and Mulligan up with a couple million dollars and ship them out to Afghanistan so that they can start their shelter. After they get out of the hospital, of course.” Her smile is full of innocence and light.
It, and her words, stop Tony cold, his eyebrows somewhere near his artfully rumpled ($400 every three weeks with Jorge) bangs.
“That’s what those three idiots wanted? To get sent to Afghanistan to save goats!?”
She mmm’d and took another sip of her water. “It’s a noble cause.”
This time, he caught the gleam in her eye. He blinked.
“Where do I need to sign?”
Pepper reaches down and scratches the back of Rocky’s head with one hand, and with the one still holding her drink, she points at the clipboard on the coffee table. “I set it up and highlighted everything while Happy was driving us home.”
“Potts,” his grin is broad as he signs off on the brand new charity. “You are evil.”
“No one touches my dog.”
“Hey!”
-fin-