Pepper/Natasha, regency era (for minor_ramblings)
Natasha and Pepper accept society invitations, not to find a husband, but to find sport and enjoyment in each others' company, for there isn't much on the dance floor or in the edge of room conversations to tempt them, though Anthony Stark has been taking Pepper's attention for the last three functions now, and Natasha refuses to let that slide without comment.
Pepper listens to the list of reasons that Stark is not worth the trouble, not worth the effort to peer beneath the veneer, for there is nothing but pot metal under that gold shine, but her smile is still her own, a secret, and her words are spare and quiet when she answers: "He takes no real pleasure in women, because women take such pleasure in him, simper after his favour and his fortune, but I do not intend to be a prize so easily won… I intend, dearest friend, to be a prize beyond his attaining, so that he might want it all the more."
"Then I shall take myself to Europe," Natasha declares with a put upon sigh, turning to face her friend, "find my own pleasure, live my life and have my fun, feel no guilt or shame, and then find a man with great age and greater wealth, and wait for nature and time to make him a happy corpse and me a happier widow…" and she smiles, and Pepper has not a single doubt that Natasha will bend entire nations to her will, just as she has not a single doubt that she will take a man dedicated to a life of decadence, and make herself the one unattainable indulgence he refuses to live without.