aubergines | ( #002 ) FAKE MARRIED AU

[Is there any workable reason that these two would be fake-married? To take the heat of Tony or keep an eye on him or something?]

[ It could totally be a publicity thing, taking the heat off Tony for doing yet another Stupid Tony thing.

Or even if they get pulled into some reconnaissance thing by virtue of Tony? idk, I'm good with anything! ]

[Did I hear 'both'? I'm pretty sure I heard 'both'!]

Pepper was not panicking. Definitely not. Though the level of her not-panic was almost directly proportionate to the level that she should be panicking.

She knew she had no real reason to panic, after all it wouldn't be the first conference Tony had been to that had run longer than expected, it wouldn't be the first time that he'd had to change travel arrangements last minute, and it definitely wouldn't be the first time he'd forgotten to contact her about either situation.

But at the same time, she was worried, especially with everything that had been happening recently, and because Bruce hadn't been able to go along to keep an eye on him. All of that was what had led to her leaving a voicemail for Rhodey that consisted of: "I'm going to find Tony, I think he's doing something stupid, and I need you to pretend to be my husband so I don't have to go alone, call me."

To be entirely honest, it's not the strangest voicemail he's ever recieved. It is, however, the strangest voicemail he's ever gotten from Pepper.

At times, Rhodey keeps his phone on silent. After all, he can't exactly have his phone going off when he's reporting to his superiors in the Air Force. As a result of this, he ends up checking his voicemail about an hour or so after Pepper leaves it, and he calls her back almost immediately.

"What's this about pretending to be your husband?" He's not sure if he should be amused or worried.

An hour was enough time for her to calm down a little, and collect herself a lot because even though the Extremis was stabilized -and Tony had stayed up for three days to get that figured out- it was really just to keep her from physically exploding, it manifested now as emotional uproar and the occasional bout of paranoia.

She was still worried, but not as badly as she had been, "Tony's not back yet, he's at a conference in Germany, Trier, and it was supposed to be over two days ago. He was supposed to be home yesterday." Even her tone was calmer than the voicemail had been, if only a little, "He hasn't called, or emailed, or ...I don't know, sent a carrier pigeon, so I'm going to go find him." Because of course she knew his itinerary, she'd been the one to put it together in the first place, "I know it's not that dangerous for a woman alone, but it's easier with backup, and let's face it, you're really the only person I trust to be backup."

"You think something's happened to him." It's not a question. If Pepper thinks something happened to Tony, then he believes her. After all, Pepper knows Tony just as well as Rhodey himself does. They might be a little overprotective at times, but there were reasons for that.

And, honestly, it's not like Tony to not respond to Pepper in any way. Not for two whole days. It's worrying enough that he doesn't blame her for wanting to find him. It could be nothing. It could be Afghanistan all over again. If it is nothing, Pepper going alone wouldn't be a problem. But if it's not...

"I can be there in thirty minutes. If we're going to be "married", we might as well go together."

"I hope not, but I think it's a possibility." She answered, even though she knew it hadn't been a question, not really.

The fact that she'd relaxed a fraction more was probably audible in her tone, if only a little, "Thank you. That should give me time to work out travel arrangements." Because that sort of logistical puzzle would calm her down some as well. Taking visible steps always did, "I'm at the office, not the Tower." She added, just in case.

She can't see the nod that he gives in response to her location, but he gives it anyways.

"Don't worry about it. We'll find him, okay?" It's not a mindless reassurance. It's a promise. It might have taken him three months to find Tony in the desert of Afghanistan, but he'd found him and brought him back home. Whether something happened to him in Germany or not, they'll find him and they'll bring him home, safe.

They always do.

She knew it wasn't a platitude, after all, that three months might have been six, or a year, or never if Rhodey hadn't kept looking. Neither of them had it in them to just give up on Tony, especially when he might be in trouble.

By the time he arrived she'd already arranged plane tickets -since they couldn't really take the jet- and was in the middle of working on room and board. Her German wasn't as good as her French, but she seemed to be holding her own if nothing else, and only had to ask things to be repeated due to a bad connection as opposed to not understanding. She turned a relieved smile on him as she finished up the call with a cheerful-enough: "Danke, thank you, very much."

She turned the gratitude on him then, somewhat more reserved than she'd been on the phone, looking just a little tired, "Thank you for this, really."

Just like how Rhodey knows to trust Peppers instincts. After all, she'd been the one to call him, during the whole Obadiah Incident. He hadn't believed her at first, but she had turned out to be completely correct in her accusations. It's not a hypothesis he wants to test, not when it could mean Tony's life was on the line, but here they are.

He crosses the room to put a hand on her shoulder, giving her as much of a reassuring smile as he can. "You don't have to thank me for this, Pepper." And she really, really doesn't. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Another little sliver of relaxation slid into place at the touch, reaching up to rest her hand against his, giving him a wan smile, "Tell me I'm not overreacting?" She kept oscillating back and forth between thinking she was and knowing for certain that she wasn't and hadn't yet managed to settle to some sort of level middle ground.

She turned her computer monitor a little so that he could see it, "Hotels around the convention center are still booked solid, but I found a bed and breakfast not too far away. According to his hotel, he hasn't checked out, even though most of the rest of the convention has, not everyone, so it's not odd to them, the concierge said that often people decide to stay a few days longer than their original reservations because the city's beautiful."

She wasn't entirely sure that made sense to her, but she hadn't argued, either, easier just to absorb whatever information she could get and file it away for later.

He gives her shoulder a squeeze. "You're not overreacting." And sure, maybe they do have a tendency to get a bit paranoid, especially after Afghanistan and then Obie and then Monaco and then him nearly dying due to paladium poisoning and then New York and...

Yeah. She's not overreacting.

Despite himself, he can't help but give a completely undignified snort. As if Tony would stay some place longer than necessary simply because the city was beautiful. If anything, it sounded like the kind of BS excuse Tony would give because he'd found something decidedly more interesting than the city as a whole, or because he was avoiding something that was happening back home.

But either way, he wouldn't do that without telling someone.

"So, if anything did happen, it happened before he could check out yesterday."

She nodded, "I haven't been able to get ahold of anyone from the conference to see if he made his last presentation, but I'm pretty sure I would have heard about it by now if he hadn't." CEO of Stark Industries or not, she was still the one people contacted when Tony wasn't where he was supposed to be, even though he had official handlers and a whole PR team that didn't include her any more.

"Sometime between about nine PM two days ago, and check out time yesterday." It was a wide window, but not impossibly so, they could make it work. They had to.

He nods, thinking it over and doing some quick math. "That's a fifteen hour window." While that was, objectively, a small window of opportunity, especially since most people would be in their hotel for the majority of time between nine PM and noon the day of check out, Tony wasn't exactly most people. There's every chance that Tony was out drinking or partying or well, doing anything, really.

A lot can happen in fifteen hours.

But not enough that they can't piece together what happened.

She nodded, "And while I'd like to say that there's not much trouble that he could get into in that time, this is Tony we're talking about." She sighed, checking over lodging arrangements and travel times once more, "Alright. That's all in order." She nodded then, more to herself than anything, "Right, as long as we're at the airport by six PM, everything else will line up like it should."

She rubbed at her temple, "Six hour time difference between here and there, and about an eighteen hour travel time, there weren't any direct flights, so we've got one layover, Zurich for an hour, and then train from Luxemburg City to Trier itself. So all that's left now is to pack."

( #002 ) FAKE MARRIED AU

James "Rhodey" Rhodes | MCU

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both is good!

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