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The Love of Ivan	By : miladygrimm Category: Marvel Verse Comics > Iron Man Views: 3144 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Iron Man 2, X-men (comics) Omega Red, Marvel, or Paramount Pictures, nor do I own any of the characters from the comics or the movies, this is a work of fiction and I do not profit from these writings.

Chapter List
- 14
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- 16
((Thank you everyone for your words and kindnesses. Gothicpug and LadyAura your comments make me smile and I always look forward to them. SAIgnite, you are adorable.
Momo…*hugs* Thank you for your words, I dunno why it is they made me happy, but they did. And as for what type of father Ivan will be…well…let’s just see what the muses say, shall we?))
Pepper Potts stood in front of a massive three frame mirror attempting to make the best of a terrible situation. She looked as if someone had dipped her in clotted cream and hung her out to dry. Her legs were swathed in layers of crinoline and lace. Her bodice was corseted tight to show off her petite frame. Her sleeves consisted of massive multilayered poufs that seemed pointless as sleeves, and flat out ugly as decoration.
The whole dress was ugly.
The problem was it was her mothers old wedding dress and her mother was staring up at her like Pepper was an angel.
Morgan Ophelia Potts was a southern woman who clung to her youth like a famine victim. Her painfully thin frame was clad in a billowing poets top over a pair of gray slacks. She had the telltale all over black of a dye job with no highlights. Her stone gray eyes could look warm and cold in a split second. Pepper knew her mother was a strict dieter and it showed.
The woman was also hard as iron and impossible to please. The fact that she looked so happy that Pepper was wearing her dress made the atrocity almost bearable.
Almost.
Pepper turned carefully in front of the mirrors. Alice, the tiny gray haired woman who owned Evenings Enchantments Bridal and Formal Occasions was trying very hard not to wince. Pepper couldn’t blame her. Pepper was clad in a prom dress on steroids.
“You look so lovely,” Morgan whispered getting up from the pink chair positioned near the mirrors, She adjusted one of the ribbons hemmed along the edge.
“I look…” Pepper found herself at a loss for words. The pause was enough.
Morgan’s lips thinned. Her chin came up. She was already squaring herself for an argument. “You don’t like it.” She drew herself up, the warmth leaving those stone gray eyes making them look utterly empty.
“It’s lovely I just don’t think it’s me,” Pepper explained.
“Well that’s a poor excuse for breaking your mothers heart.”
Pepper refrained from growling. “Mother please.”
“I’ve been waiting for years for this day. I had that dress wrapped specially so that you could wear it when you finally found a man who could put up with you.”
Pepper kept her mouth shut for that one. She knew baiting when she heard it.
“And now you’ve found one and you are going to throw a fit about the dress.”
“I’m not the one about to throw a fit.”
“Oh please, you’ve been throwing fits since you were 10 years old. Always had your father wrapped around your finger you did.”
Pepper put on hand on her forehead trying to stop a twitch that was forming along her right brow. “Mother, please. This is my wedding. I’ll wear the dress I pick out.”
“Why did I even bother?” Morgan threw her arms up, “You are marrying a weasel, a rich weasel sure, but a weasel nonetheless, your boss of all things! What is everyone going to think? I didn’t raise you to be a secretary but you went off and did that anyway. Now you‘ve been engaged for, what? A month? And you are already picking out a dress…You’ve picked July of all months to get married. It’s almost 10 month away. You might gain weight between then and now.”
“Mother, please don’t do this.” Pepper pleaded.
“Don’t do what?” Morgan asked, looking genuinely confused.
“This…thing that you do. You like things your way, and usually that’s fine, it’s no big deal. But this is MY wedding, You got your dream dress for your wedding. I want my dream dress for mine.”
Morgan blinked, “Well dear…if that’s the way you want it…you only needed to ask.”
The twitch began to worsen.
~
Justin Hammer smiled. He was laying back in his cell, arms behind his head, blue eyes closed. He was imagining the taste of crème` brû lé e, that slightly burnt custard cream flavored lightly with vanilla and rosemary. Served warm. He ran his tongue over his lips, smirking at the thought of it. Hammer had a sweet tooth. He admitted to this freely. He also enjoyed Italian loafers, expensive sunglasses, big breasted blonds, and slim latin men. He had expensive tastes. He had specific tastes. And he had been stuck in this hole, unable to feed his desires, for weeks.
But not much longer.
Right now two hundred thousand dollars was being transferred as a down payment into a Cayman Offshore account. If the fat red faced Warden held up his end of tonight’s deal, the account would receive two more transfers, 12 hours apart, each 500,000 dollars. The account would then shift to a swiss private banking account, and when everything was done Warden Harris would then receive the thirteen digit number that would allow him access to the account that he could wire himself as little or as much as he needed over as long as he thought necessary.
Done right, Harris could be set for life.
All he needed. was to make sure tonight went perfectly.
~
Sylvia’s knees felt week. She stood in front of her tiny white stove, carefully stirring a pot of water set with bowtie noodles. In another pot she had put together a white cheese sauce, alfredo, asiago, and mozzerella, in a last pan she stirred beef tips and mushrooms, readying herself to pour it all into a large vat, it would be a good meal for several days.
She hoped Ivan would be home soon. He’d left her a poorly scrawled note. His speaking English was good. His written English was terrible. She had barely understood it but the fact that he was trying meant a lot to her. It had said he’d gone out for business, and he would return before dinner. She hoped so.
It’s had been almost two weeks since Nadja had helped Sylvia at the doctors office. Two weeks since she’s given Sylvia a little piece of her mind, a bit of wisdom to make Sylvia realize that trust went both ways.
Dear God…had she known so little?
Yes, she had. Sylvia had spent her entire life buried in romance novels and chick flicks where things were beautiful and perfect. Love, real love, had very little to do with dashing men on horseback or perfect smiles. She thought of Ivan’s golden teeth and could not resist a giggle. Perfect smile indeed.
The morning after their argument, after Sylvia had come home from the doctors, they had apologized to one another. He had held her close and they had spent the afternoon sleeping on the little couch in the living room. It had been a quiet evening. And yet there had been a mild unspoken strain between them. It was as if both were afraid that they would say something to offend the another. It had been thrown into the light that they were not the perfect couple, but that they were normal.
It was a terrifying concept.
Normal couples broke up, they left one another, they cheated and they got hurt. Normal was scary.
She didn’t want to be normal. She had been raised by Disney movies and the Lifetime channel. She had been taught, as so many are, that a normal relationship was doomed to failure. It was the epic ones that lasted, or ended in catastrophe. She added a bit of butter to the mushrooms and beef and listened to the sizzle trying to push dark unwanted thoughts away.
She sighed inwardly at herself. “Listen to you…dooming yourself before you’ve even had a chance.”
She grabbed the skillet and tipped the mushrooms and meat into the white sauce, stirring them all together, adding a dollop of olive oil to keep the cheeses from clumping together.
She heard the door open, and the familiar sound of Ivan greeting the little white bird, who, so far as she could tell, had no name. She strained the pasta into the colander and added it to the sauce, stirring until everything was evenly coated.
“Sylvaska…” Ivan called from the living room.
“Hmm?”
“Come here, I have brought friend home.”
Sylvia frowned. In all their time together, just over three months, Ivan had never referred to anyone as a friend. She gave dinner a final stir, tapped the spoon against the side, and stepped out into the living room. Ivan stood there, His hair wet, and plastered to his forehead. He had his arms tucked up inside his jacket. It must be freezing out for Ivan to admit, even passively, to being cold.
“Is it raining?” She asked. It was impossible to hear raindrops in their apartment.
He nodded, “It is. Ice-rain.”
She frowned now, “I thought you said you brought a friend?” She took another look around the living room, “I don’t see anyone.”
Ivan drew his arms out of his jacket, and there, tucked in the crook of his arm was a sleek orange tabby cat.
“Fred!” Sylvia gave a gasp and swooped forward pulling the elderly creature from his embrace. “Ohhh Fred…”
The cat gave her a long sniff, and then, as if some olfactory memory had clicked into place, he nudged her cheek and began to purr. “Oh, Ivan…how did you find him?”
“Have friends,” he said softly, “You happy?”
“Ohhh yes! Very much yes.” She snuggled the orange furred creature until he began to fidget. Fred had never been one for prolonged direct attention. He squirmed until she set him down and began to sniff about. For a moment Sylvia feared that he would try to go after Ivan’s bird but he seemed utterly disinterested in the white feathered creature, and far more interested in a fat red pillow on the couch.
Yes, that was definitely her Fred.
“Dinner ready?”
“Yeah,” Sylvia said suddenly feeling anxiety settle into her stomach. “I mean, yes…yes it is.”
Ivan looked at her, his lips forming into a pout. “Sylvaska…what’s wrong?”
“Nothing…I mean…I don’t think there is anything wrong…come on. Let’s eat.”
Ivan continued to frown but followed her into the kitchen to dollop pasta into simple plastic bowls. Sylvia was quiet now, and she was keenly aware of Ivan’s eyes following her as she sliced up bread to be served alongside the pasta. They headed out into the small niche that was a makeshift dinning room and sat down to eat.
“Ivan…”
“Mmm?”
“What was your father like?”
It was a blunt question. Sylvia knew it. And it was poorly phrased, but she felt a sudden need to know the answer.
Ivan did not answer for a long moment. He seemed to be gauging Sylvia and her sudden question. She held his gaze for a long moment and tried not to worry about weather or not she should ask. “He was…smart man. Hard man. Lived in different time.” He poked a bit of pasta unto his fork and ate slowly. “Tough man, taught me a lot about science, math, philosophy. Stern teacher.”
Ivan had not taken his eyes off of his food since he had begun speaking about his father.
“Ivan. I saw the X-rays…when you were brought in…”
Ivan shrugged, and stabbed a bit of beef a little harder than necessary. “Tough man.” He said again, as if this explained everything. “Why you ask?”
Sylvia looked down at her food. This was it. The moment she had been waiting for for almost two weeks She’d planned it, she’d gone over this conversation over and over again in her head. How she was going to talk to him, what she was going to say. But now that it was happening, nothing was going the way she had thought it would. “Ivan….I’m pregnant.”
Ivan looked up from his bowl of food, his eyes were blank. She saw nothing. No emotion. Not good, not bad…but utterly neutral.
Ivan set his food bowl down, stood up, and walked out of the apartment.
- 14
- 15
- 16
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The Love of Ivan