Rating: PG-13
Genres: Angst, Romance (Tony Stark/Pepper Potts), Character Study (Tony and Pepper both) Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Humor, Friendship (Tony/Rhodey/Pepper, Tony/Happy/Pepper), Action (mild)
Summary: Pepper's been away for a week, and Tony is anxious for her return.
Spoilers: The Iron Man movie.
Length: 2 chapters, over 8,500 words — 18 pages
Notes: Sequel to my fic "Aftermath" — read that one first. See the bottom of this page for more notes
Feedback: You may post feedback to this fic at LiveJournal, deviantART, or .

Harry "Happy" Hogan wished his boss were a dog. Dogs listened to what you told them. Dogs were happy to see you. And to medicate a dog, all you had to do was hide their pill in a hot dog or a slice of cheese.

The first day, Happy had tried sneaking a pain pill into Tony's beloved cheeseburger. Tony had noticed — quite vocally, in fact, as he ranted that he could have choked or broken a tooth on it. Next, Happy tried crushing it up and putting it in applesauce. Except he should have known better — since when did Tony eat the healthy part of any given meal? So Happy tried sprinkling it in the condiments on another burger. Unfortunately, the pills apparently tasted terrible, and Happy ended up on the receiving end of a burger-laden spit-take.

Happy wasn't feeling much like living up to his namesake at that point.

Happy tried very hard to stick to the schedule Pepper had given him, and his efforts did not go unrewarded: they turned out to be his salvation, in fact. Tony was in the middle of a conversation with someone when the alarm went off on Happy's watch, reminding him that it was time to force another pill at Tony. He handed his boss the pills right then and there, attracting the notice of the Board-member that Tony was talking to; Tony tried to refuse it, but the woman he was talking to wouldn’t hear of it. It was then that Happy realised the way to ensure Tony took his medicine was to approach the situation in front of witnesses — particularly female ones, who, it seemed, would insist upon Tony taking care of himself ....

Tony looked on the long table and the people surrounding it. He had just announced his plans to make small Arc reactors — though a bit larger than the one he wore in his chest — to power cars. He'd come up with the plans on the way over, desperate for something that would wow them so much that they couldn't say no and wouldn't try to get rid of him, something that would distract them from war-mongering. Yes, the units would be expensive (it was going to take a decade or two to make them affordable — and probably a year or two to even make them mass-producible), but far less dangerous than using hydrogen power. Far cheaper and better for the environment than gasoline, too. For cars owners that couldn't afford to have their own Arc reactor, they could still "recharge" special batteries at "reactor stations", making the concept of an entirely-electric car more feasible — those kinds of cars would cost the same as a hybrid, and he would do everything he could to get them cheaper as fast as possible (without sacrificing quality, of course). And the whole prospect was certainly a more effective means of crippling insurgents than actually fighting them — this would strike them in their major source of income. So Tony should have found gratification in the Board-members' awed expressions and quiet exclamations of his brilliance, should have worn a smug smile of his own in reply. Instead, he felt oddly ... empty. As hollow as his Iron Man suit currently was.

Was there something wrong with him, that he would prefer to be facing down insurgents in said suit than facing down these men (and women, who, in general, were even scarier than their male counterparts), here and now? Were these board-members so very dangerous that he had reason to want the armour? Were they really so fearsome that he felt naked without it? Even when, Obadiah's passing had, ironically, left his heir Tony as the primary shareholder? Even when Tony had so obviously won the Board over with his pitch?

Yes, apparently they were. Or maybe it was just that he wasn't used to dealing with them without Obadiah and a glass of scotch to act as a buffer. Now he had neither.

Pepper had called Happy after they had left the airport, with further instructions regarding Tony's medication: namely, that it was not to be consumed with alcohol. Every drop, from the wet bar in his living room to the wet bar in his office, had been placed into protective custody. Pepper, it turned out, had done the same with the Japanese sake on his private jet; when he'd gone to work on it, he'd intended to ransack the bar on it, only to find it a dry well. Granted, he could try to buy some whiskey somewhere — save for that Happy had also confiscated all of his keys, leaving Happy himself as Tony's only means of transportation. And if Tony tried to take a taxi, Happy was unerringly at his side, frowning in disapproval, as if in direct opposition to his nickname. Tony was starting to think he should have called the man Sourpuss.

Tony wondered if Pepper had brought the Board into the conspiracy: at one point during the meeting, he had reached for the bourbon-filled glass of the man seated to his left, but the man had snatched it from him with a heated glare and looked pointedly at Tony's glass of Coke. Coke with a sad lack of Captain Morgan. Well, at least it had grenadine in it.

And to add insult to injury, when Tony was already finding himself unable to bask in the awed glow of impressed board members, Happy chose that very moment to walk in and unceremoniously plunk a glass of water and a couple of pills in front of him, declaring, "Time for your meds, boss!" Well, at least the man seemed happy now.

The meeting ended soon after. On his way out the door, Tony started to speak Pepper's name, thinking to ask her to make a note about a follow-up meeting, but caught himself before her name fully escaped his lips. And that was when he realised it: it hadn't been lack of Obadiah, or scotch, or even the suit that had left him feeling naked and vulnerable, it had been the lack of Pepper.

Her reaction to his announcement would have been the only one he would have actually cared about.

For the first time in his life, he looked forward to Friday as eagerly as the bulk of his employees did.

Friday was the day Pepper was coming home.

Pepper secretly disapproved of using the private jet, as it was bad for the environment. Usually she did, anyway, so it was something of an irony that those environmental concerns had led her to be stuck on a passenger plane instead (in coach, no less, as first class was shockingly full this flight), when she would have given her favourite pair of stiletto heels to be alone for the flight. She'd had a not-terribly-pleasant week, helping her mother through her grandfather's death, making funeral arrangements, and attending said funeral, and the annoying little boy next to her was just adding insult to injury.

"Are you going to eat those?" he asked, eyeing her miniscule "biscotti" (which reminded her more of graham crackers, just yummier).

"Yes," she growled at the impudent youth, ripping open one of the tiny packages for emphasis (and, well, because they were fairly hard to open) and shoving the contents — all two crackers — into her mouth. Her eyelids fluttered in pleasure. They were very good, practically melting in her mouth. Not to mention that she hadn't eaten since early the evening before, and it was now nearly noon the next day. They'd gotten to the airport too late for her to eat, and, after being delayed on the tarmac, they'd arrived too late in Chicago, then Kansas, for her to take advantage of the layovers. She cursed the terrorists who had changed the airline industry so dramatically, causing the airlines to cut meals in order to cut costs.

The little boy seemed to sense her hunger (or hear her stomach growling), and ate his own cracker-cookies just as rapidly, as if fearing to lose them.

Pepper sighed and stopped herself from hitting her forehead on the seat in front of her in frustration. The kid had been kicking the seat ahead of him repeatedly (causing their own row to shudder with the impacts as well), and she didn't want to disturb the poor folks in front of them any more than the boy already had.

She did want to kick herself, though. Tony had told her excitedly about the meeting with the Board, and how they were going to develop the Arc reactor for the car. She had made the offhand comment, after enthusiastically complimenting him (because she really was impressed) that they should look into using the arc reactor for jets, too, as she always felt guilty when they used his private one. He'd said he'd get right on it, and hung up. Now the private jet was in pieces, because obviously he hadn't gotten everything worked out yet. She appreciated that he'd wanted to make her happy, but if only she'd waited until she'd returned to actually make the suggestion ....

"You're acting like she's never flown anywhere before," Rhodey complained to his eccentric friend, wondering (and not for the first time) if, as a billionaire, Tony Stark had any grasp of reality whatsoever. People flew in planes all the time, and Pepper Potts was a grown woman, fully capable of seeing herself on and off of a passenger jet. The plane was due to land in about an hour anyway, so why was Tony so anxious about this? They were going to be late for the meeting with the Secretary of Defense, at this rate. Well, at least Tony was showered and in good clothes — Rhodey had been certain he would find the man still in a grease-covered tank-top.

"She hasn't flown commercially before!" Tony insisted. "Not since I announced I was Iron Man, anyway," he elaborated before Rhodey could deny the statement.

"You announced it about a week ago!" Rhodey pointed out, exasperated.

Tony went on, apparently choosing to (surprise, surprise) ignore the statement. "She was on my jet when she left — no one besides myself, Happy, the pilot, and Pepper's mother knew she was going anywhere last time!"

"And no one really knows she's travelling this time, either, Tony! I mean, it's not like airlines publish their flight manifests online! The US military is not going to give your personal assistant a military escort just because you're paranoid," Rhodey replied, rolling his eyes.

"I'm not asking for an escort," Tony replied through clenched teeth. "I'm simply asking to postpone this meeting. Send someone to my house in the middle of the night again, if you want, I don't care! It's my fault Pepper's not on my private jet, and I just need—"

"Wait, what? Middle of the—what are you babbling about, man?" Rhodey asked, afraid Tony really had cracked and was seeing Men in Black everywhere.

Tony gave him a wary look. "They didn't tell you? ..." He gave Rhodey a long look, then nodded. "Well, they didn't make me sign any nondisclosure agreement, so if they don't want me telling you, that's their problem — you tell them that from me, okay?"

"Wait, wait, slow down, man — who didn't tell who what ...?"

"The head of that SHIELD thing — Nick Fury? He came to my house the night Pepper left."

Rhodey had a vague notion of what SHIELD was — mostly thanks to Pepper's complaints — and Fury's name sounded only vaguely familiar. "So? What did he want?" And why couldn't it have waited till morning?

Tony stared again. "You know what? I think I left the important part out: he was waiting in my house, Rhodey. I found him here after we dropped Pepper off. And he didn't break in, either."

"What?" Rhodey asked, reeling. "... Wait, you don't think I brought this guy here, do you? I don't even know a Rick Fury!"

"Nick," Tony corrected absently. The man began pacing as he continued, "And I know you didn't, Rhodey — you would have waited here for me if you had. Even if the man ordered you out, you would have waited for me outside, warned me." Tony gave him a reassuring smile.

Rhodey relaxed, marginally. "I wouldn’t give out your door code, either — not even to the brass! Hell, they don't even know I have the code! And what about the scan, or the voice-match?" Rhodey was more than a little alarmed, not to mention feeling betrayed. Why hadn't this SHIELD group gone through him? Why break — sneak, whatever — into his friend's home?

"Fury has some interesting acquaintances: a superhero team he calls The Avengers," Tony explained. "I wouldn't be surprised if he's got a psychic among his circle of friends, someone who could pluck the code right out of someone's thoughts — mine, yours, Happy's, Pepper's. Maybe a shapeshifter who could copy one of our retinal scans or voice commands, too."

Ah, so a government operative hadn't broken in; Tony was just losing it. Rhodey should have known better; Tony had been through a lot, after all; it was understandable that he would have become so paranoid. Rhodey wondered if he needed to call a mental health facility right now, or if he could wait for Pepper to return and let her handle it.

"Or perhaps I just let Fury in," JARVIS suggested with an unsettling amount of dryness for something which had no true throat.

Rhodey blinked, looking to the ceiling as if he would find JARVIS up there, with an expression that could be read.

"You what??" Tony snapped at the disembodied voice of the AI.

"You seem to have forgotten about installing the emergency override protocol for the police and fire department, Tony," JARVIS gently chided.

It was all true, then, this talk about psychics and shapeshifters? Well, Rhodey knew about mutants, but would they really work for the government after the fiasco with the anti-mutant legislation Henry Gyrich had lobbied so hard to pass? And would government really use them to sneak into Stark's house, of all things? Was there some reason the brass needed to keep this all a secret from Rhodey, some emergency that prompted the invasion?

Tony rolled his eyes and plopped down onto the couch, putting his head in his hands. "Great. If I want to not die of a heart attack or whacking my head in the shower, I have to allow the government unlimited access to the house. What do I have security for again? ..."

Rhodey scowled. "Well, I'd hope not for keeping out the US government," he pointed out tightly. Regardless of how he felt about the government's behavior at the moment — and to be sure, he was angry — Rhodey was firmly of the belief that, if one had nothing illegal to hide, one had nothing to worry about. (The problem was, Rhodey would not be at all surprised if he were to learn that Tony did have some sort of contraband in his place ....)

"Well, I do like to walk around in the buff sometimes, you know," Tony quipped. As if that were a worry for a man whose walls were already made of glass ....

Rhodey shook his head; Tony had managed, once again, to completely sidetrack him. Granted, he was glad Tony had finally told him about Fury's visit, so that he could look into this mystery himself .... "Look, Tony, I promise I will look into this, but right now—"

"Tony, I think you'd better see this," JARVIS interrupted. The television popped on, tuned to the news.

"—repeat, authorities are unable to reestablish radio contact with flight 815 of Pegasus Airlines, who last reported problems with their navigational controls as they were halfway through the heavy storm currently covering much of California, Colorado, and Nevada," a newscaster informed them.

Tony paled as he looked out the window. "Pepper ...." he whispered, then bolted from the room, hurrying towards his workshop.

Fear clawed at Rhodey's gut — not just for Pepper, but for Tony, too. "You can't just fly out there, man — it's a storm, and the suit is made of metal!"

"I've compensated for that, Rhodey," Tony explained, sounding irritated by the distraction and grimly determined as he started to gear up. "Static wick, just like what they have on airplanes. Well, okay, not just like, but the principal is similar. Besides, JARVIS can guesstimate where lightning might be a problem — and with more accuracy than a weatherman ...."

"So what, you're gonna go play Rudolph and guide the plane in?" Rhodey asked, ready to pull his hair out, if only it wasn't too short to get a grip on.

"Yup."

Rhodey stared at Tony in disbelief.

Tony caught him staring and sighed, never stopping in his task. "She—they could crash into a mountain at any moment, Rhodey. I'm not going to let her—all those people die!"

Rhodey knew then that there was no point in trying to convince Tony — how could he ask the man not to save the woman he obviously loved? And as Stark was sealed into the suit, Rhodey's disbelief was slowly converted to certainty. The suit had top-of-the-line navigational equipment, right? Rhodey then realised that it wasn't that he believed the task was impossible, anyway. It was just that he didn't believe in Tony, hadn't come to grips yet with the changes that had occurred in the man since the incident in Afghanistan. Rhodey decided it was past time he did face the scars on his friend's soul — and accept that, while in some ways Tony had been crippled by it, in other ways the billionaire had grown stronger. Tony had been shaped and tempered by his ordeal like iron from a fire.

Rhodey had a sneaking suspicion, though, that losing Pepper would break Stark again — and the man had already been shattered and welded back together so often, Rhodey didn't think the man could be put back together again if that happened. Pepper had always been Tony's solder, after all.

"The brass ain't gonna like this," Rhodey muttered to himself, shaking his head. In doing so, he noted the other suit hanging off to the side. "Hey, Tone, man ... how's about I join you?" he asked, pointing to it.

Robots finished screwing the suit's faceplate on, but Rhodey could swear that he could sense Tony smiling behind it. "Still have to work some bugs out of it," Tony's distorted voice came from a speaker that Rhodey couldn't see, somewhere on the suit. "Maybe next time." And with that, Iron Man shot like a bullet down the tunnel leading out of the garage.

Pepper gasped and gripped the seat with whitened knuckles, freckles standing out in stark contrast. The pilot had just warned over the intercom that they were hitting turbulence, but he'd sound oddly strained. And the lightning outside the window wasn't helping her nerves, which were charged with energy of their own. She'd wanted to close the window's blind, but the little boy next to her had insisted he wanted it open, so that he could watch the storm.

Pepper had never been so glad that she couldn't have children.

"Whoa, did you see that?" the kid asked excitedly, his shrill cry making it through her headset. "A robot just flew by!"

It had all turned out to be much easier than Tony had feared, though no less frightening. He gave JARVIS control of the suit, and the AI did all the flying. Far better able to make split-second changes in direction. That being said, there were a few close calls with lightning, and the sudden jerks were going to leave him sore for days.

Looks like I'm going to be on those damn pain meds till the end of time ....

He (well, JARVIS) had actually circumvented the plane in the effort to avoid a bolt of electricity, and had to swerve back now, sailing past the windows of the cabin. He resisted the urge to peek into the windows along the way. Of course, with JARVIS in control, it wasn't like he could have done so even if he'd wanted to. It occurred to him that he could just have let JARVIS do all this, and stayed home. But no, he wasn't going to leave Pepper's welfare to anyone else — not even someone he had created.

JARVIS got him into position near the windows, startling the daylights out of the man and woman in the cockpit, who then gave him a relieved smile. And then Tony wowed them with a display of his holographic tech, emitted from the suit's "eyes": at Tony's instruction, it projected the words Are there terrorists on board? onto the window, in green light.

The shook their heads vigorously, and the woman grabbed a clipboard and a marker, flipping over a sheet. We're not being threatened, our nav & comm are just down, she wrote, showing the clipboard to Tony.

I'll guide you home, Tony assured them, then turned the messaging over to JARVIS, who was able to keep in touch with the control tower. JARVIS didn't actually fly the suit out in front of the plane; he just continued to project instructions to them, staying with them even as they pulled up to the gate. Well, almost — Tony then directed him to fly the suit into the opening of the gate, so that he could greet Pepper ....

As they pulled into the gate, Pepper let out a sigh of relief. The pilots had never announced a problem, but she'd just had a bad feeling the entire trip, like something was wrong — and for once, that feeling wasn't applied to Tony.

Tony. She couldn't wait to see him, popping the seat belt open the split-second the light of the sign overhead went out and scrambling out of her seat. She told herself that her hurriedness was simply a fierce desire to get far away from the spawn of Satan whose company she'd been forced to endure the last leg of her journey. The pilots hadn't even given her a reprieve by letting the kid come up to see them.

The hellspawn's phone rang.

From under his seat.

Pepper grabbed the kid's phone from him as he went to answer it. "Are you his parent?" she snarled into the device without preamble.

"... Who is this? What are you doing with my son's phone??" came a confused woman's voice.

"Confiscating it for a violation of federal law!!" Pepper snapped. She dropped the offending device on the floor and stomped on it, the stiletto heel cracking the glass. "There is a reason they tell you to turn these damn things off while we're in flight!" she then barked at the boy. She'd endured a long diatribe on the subject once when Tony had insisted a Board-member turn off an iPhone on his jet. All right, so there wasn't really any definitive proof that cell phones messed with a plane's navigational systems, no, but she was going to trust the scientific genius: if he was worried about the possibility, that was good enough for her.

The silence after her outburst seemed to accentuate it. She realised the entire cabin was staring at them. And then the silence was broken by the boy's delayed wail. "My momma tooooold me to keep it oooooooon!" he informed everyone. The crowd then proceeded, it seemed, to frown and tsk at her. Never mind that the kid could have killed them all. She felt the fragments beneath her heel and sighed. She'd never had to figure a way out of a mess of her own making of this magnitude before. Surely it couldn't be any different from cleaning up one of Tony's messes? But she was stumped. The straw couldn't break the camel's back, because the camel was already roadkill: flat as a pancake and a week dead already.

Tony shifted impatiently as he waited in the entrance to the gate. Not that anyone could tell — such slight movements were not reflected in any way by the suit. The door opened, and a flight attendant gave a little gasp of surprise. (Funny, he'd always thought the phrase eyes wide as saucers was hyperbole; apparently he'd found the long-lost daughter of Marty Feldman ....) He smiled at her, forgetting for a moment that she couldn't see his face, then nodded instead. She gave a weak, unconvincing smile and nod in return.

A moment later, a passenger pushed past her, followed by another, and another. Businessmen from first class; they were in a hurry, yes, but in the usual fashion, without an ounce of fear (save maybe for that which they felt towards their employers).Tony suspected they hadn't even been told about the danger they had been in. And none of them paid the slightest bit of attention to the six-and-a half-foot metal suit as they passed. Typical. Well, Tony imagined he would have been guilty of such inattention himself, would he deign to travel in a commercial airline: he hadn't earned the title "self-absorbed" for nothing.

And then no one else came off the plane.

The pilot and copilot had seemed calm enough, and had told him that their problem had just been a system failure, but Tony was no stranger to paranoia, and it paid him a visit now. Could there have been terrorists aboard after all? Was Pepper being held hostage that very moment, the tip of a gun-barrel buried in her strawberry-blonde tresses?

He stepped aboard, moving past the still-stunned flight attendant, and made his cumbersome way down the aisle, his superhero cool halved by his having to do a sort of sidestep, especially when he got past first class. He couldn't see anything but the top of Pepper's head at first, the aisle being full of people who were just staring, some of them having paused midway in their efforts to collect their bags from the overhead compartments. He shivered in his suit, heart pounding as he feared the worst. Then, through the suit's external mic, he heard the wailing of a child; it took him a moment to realise that it was coming from Pepper's vicinity. A few people behind Pepper noticed him then, and gaped in astonishment. (Their eyes were perhaps just the size of quarters, though.) The people in front of Pepper took note of the people staring in their direction and turned, confusion marring their brows for a moment before they raised them in shock. They quickly scurried into their seats, clearing the way for him, and finally giving him a clear view of Pepper and her despairing demeanor.

Despite her apparent unhappiness, she seemed to be okay.

Tony's knees went a bit weak with relief. Handily, the rigidity of the suit helped him stay upright.

Then Pepper noticed him, too, her seeming despair giving way to surprise. That in turn was bowled aside by a battle between her obvious happiness to see him and a sort of What the hell do you think you're doing?? look of disapproval. "Tony??" she squeaked.

The wailing had stopped, and an annoyed face peeked over the seats, the owner upset at having the attention stolen — at least until he laid eyes on the suit. Then the child hurried out into the aisle, shoving Pepper hard in the knees before hurrying over to Tony and trying to wrap his little arms around Iron Man's metal-clad legs.

"She broke my phone!" the child proclaimed, momentarily waving an accusing finger at Pepper. Or, more accurately, at Pepper's feet, where Tony did indeed espy, thanks to the suit's camera's zoom, the remains of something that could have indeed been a cell phone.

"Pepper?" Tony asked, wondering if the befuddled nuance of his tone would be lost through the suit's speaker, hoping it wouldn’t come out angry. He wasn't angry — he would never believe Pepper would do such a thing without good reason. And then, before she could answer, his super-smart intellect put two and two together, which did indeed equal Pepper having good reason for her action. "Never mind," he told her hurriedly, "I get it." He looked down at the annoying tick of a child that had fastened himself to him and resisted the urge to pluck the boy away. "Did you have that phone on during the flight, little man?" he asked sternly, again hoping that the suit's speakers didn't lose the nuance of his words.

The child seemed to shrink before him, and Tony felt bad. For about point-three seconds.

"My momma told me to!" the child informed him plaintively.

Oy, how to handle this? He didn't think it was a good idea to tell the child that his mommy was dead wrong to have done that, but the damnable woman could have killed her son — and his Pepper!

"Well, I guess your mommy must not have heard the news then," he told the child, who then released his grip on Tony's lower appendages. "You're not supposed to have cell phones on while on a plane — it can mess with the equipment. Just like it did here today," Iron Man added, raising his head to address the crowd. Some good might come out of this mess .... "You all could have been killed! I heard that your plane lost navigation and radio, and flew out here to guide it to the airport; if this suit didn't exist, you could very well have crashed."

Well, okay, it was a slim chance, as planes generally went over the lowest areas of the Rockies and flew well above the mountains to boot, but still. They could have hit a bad pocket of lightning that would have been more than the static wick could handle, or could have hit another plane as they veered too far off course. And that other plane, the one that had in Europe whose crash was suspected to have been caused by cell interference, had happened under far more favourable weather conditions than the storm they had flown through ....

"So let this be a reminder to all of you that laws exist for a reason, and you shouldn't go disobeying them just for the sake of your own convenience," he told them all sternly. "This young lady here has every reason to be outraged," he added with a nod to Pepper. "So promise me, young man, that you will listen — and obey — when you're told to turn your phone off on a plane from now on!"

The boy nodded numbly, lip quivering. Tony's heart melted a little, and he carefully ruffled the child's hair. "It's not your fault; it's good that you listen to your mommy — most of the time. But tell her what I said, okay? Tell her you almost died because she told you to disobey the rules, and that you both gotta obey the law from now on. All right?"

The boy nodded harder this time, a smile on his lips, clearly relieved at being forgiven by the hero.

Iron Man gave the kid a thumbs-up, then turned, making a clumsy, side-stepping exit off of the plane.

Pepper grinned at Tony's gesture towards the child, and his awkward exit. As she gathered her belongings, she made a mental note to talk to him about doing public service messages. She moved to leave, then paused and dug through her purse, pulling a fifty out of her wallet. She handed it to the boy. "Here, I'm sorry about your phone; I shouldn't have lost my temper." His phone hadn't been a terribly expensive one anyway, so he could actually get a marginally nicer one now. She gave him a tight smile that didn't reach her eyes — though she felt bad about her action (even if it felt marvelous at the time), she wasn't about to forget what a brat he had been through the entire trip. She stepped around him and made her way out of the plane, glad that she'd only grabbed a small carry-on bag from her apartment before leaving for New York in the first place, so she wouldn’t have to go through baggage-claim hell.

Now she wondered how she was getting home. Was she just supposed to leave Tony there? It had been decided that Happy would come pick her up, once they'd discovered that the Secretary of Defense had wanted a meeting — one that Tony had obviously missed now, and how much sweeter did it get, knowing that your boyfriend blew off a meeting with a government official to save your life? Well, she supposed Happy had probably still come, but it was disappointing to think Tony was there after all but likely couldn't go with her through the airport (seeing as he didn't have a ticket and was wearing a weapon), much less fit in the limo. And, well, he probably wanted to get out of that suit ASAP (she wanted out of her own nylons, for that matter), and could get home much faster on his own.

He was waiting just outside the door, off to the side — waiting for the plane to get out of the way so that he could leave himself, she was sure. "Thanks. For saving our lives, I mean," she told him bashfully, wondering if it would be appropriate to hug him, wishing that she could do more. "Um, I can wait here with you—" she began.

Tony held his arms out, making the come here gesture with his hands. Smiling, she wrapped her arms around the cold metal, the circle that marked the location of the Arc reactor warm against her cheek. He wrapped his arms carefully around her.

"You better wait here with me, if you want a ride home," he told her, and she swore she could hear the affection in his voice despite how the suit's speaker system distorted it. She wondered what he meant -- she sure as hell wasn't going to hold onto him while he flew home! He couldn't hold her then, needing his hands to stabilize his flight!

Passengers passed them, smiling knowingly, nodding and sometimes thanking Iron Man for his help. The pilot and copilot came out; Pepper stepped away to let them thank Iron Man as well but he put his arm over her shoulder, drawing her close, shaking the two pilots' hands with his free one. They chatted for a few minutes while people continued to disembark, some of them stopping to take a picture or ask for an autograph, the flight attendants having to verbally prod them to move along. Pepper could tell that the employees wanted to stop and talk to the hero too, but they restrained themselves until the last of the passengers were finally departed. Pepper realised then that the pilots were trying to protect Iron Man from gawkers as much as thank him. Their hero.

Her hero.

After the plane was empty, they still had a bit of a wait for the plane to leave the gate and be taken somewhere for repairs. Tony looked at it as an exercise of his endurance, or, better, a scientific study, seeing just how long he could tolerate being in the suit. By the last few minutes, he was about ready to just fly right through the roof. Two things stayed him, and neither had anything to do with fear of legal repercussions for vandalism: the Arc reactor (the new model he had built while Pepper was gone and had the robots help him install) was running low on power (although it had faired far better than the previous two models), and he wanted to stay with Pepper anyway.

Even if he wasn't having the Arc reactor issues, wanting to stay with her would be reason enough not to leave.

The plane finally left. Tony managed to get the airport employees to wheel a set of mobile stairs over, so that Pepper could get down (because frankly, it didn't sound to safe to fly down with just her arms wrapped around him, seeing as he couldn't hold her and fly at the same time and she could get singed by the stabilisers). He flew down himself, though, as it was easier than navigating the stairs. By the time they both reached the ground, Happy had arrived, with Rhodey as his "copilot" and an airport security escort flanking their vehicle.

And Happy had driven a van. (A real one, not a soccer-mom's mini!) Tony could hug the man; the suit would not have been easy to maneuver into a limo. As it was, he needed Happy and Rhodey's help getting into the back of the van, the suit not really being designed for ground maneuvers in small spaces. They got him situated so that his back was against the back of Pepper's own seat; she reached down to hold his hand. He could swear he felt the heat of her through the cool metal glove.

On the one hand, the drive to her apartment was unbearably long; he was getting horribly claustrophobic, and being unable to touch Pepper, who was right there after being gone for an eternity, was torture on par with what he'd suffered in Afghanistan. (Okay, no, it wasn't, but he was trying to forget how horrible that had been, and thinking in hyperbole helped.) On the other hand, getting to her place meant being separated from her again, at least until morning. (And when she saw how much work had piled up while she was away, because he hadn't dared trust it to anyone else, he might not see her for another week while she played catch-up!)

After a while, they heard a fire engine, and Happy pulled over. Tony felt guilty; he might be sad for whoever needed the truck, but he was oddly grateful for the delay. The vehicle passed, and Happy pulled out — only to have to pull over again, as an ambulance approached. Then came another fire truck and two police cars.

"They're headed straight for my building," Pepper remarked quietly, and Tony was sure her grip had tightened on his metal phalanges. (He wished he could squeeze her hand back, comfortingly, but, well, he didn't want to break her fingers ....)

Sure enough, when they reached her home less than a minute later, they found the place in flames. Pepper hurried out of the vehicle, and Tony followed as quickly as he could, Happy and Rhodey helping him out. Pepper sank to the ground in shock. Tony had never imagined that he could feel so helpless in the suit, but being in it meant he couldn't hold her, couldn't comfort her. All he could do was stand by her.

And a moment later, he couldn't even do that much.

He heard a woman crying that her teenaged daughter was still in the building, begging for someone to go in and save the girl. A fireman was about to do just that when Tony stepped in front of him. "Someone get me a wet blanket," Iron Man ordered; without hesitation, a paramedic brought over a blanket, which the fireman subsequently wet with the hose. They gave Iron Man an extinguisher for good measure, and he ducked inside the building. As he did, Pepper's cries of protest now drowned out the woman's continued pleas for help. Rhodey and Happy held Pepper back; she might never forgive them for it, but Tony would always be grateful.

The suit was designed to survive intense heat, and had a cooling system within it to protect the wearer. He'd never really tested it, but it worked like a dream, especially with the extinguisher to smother the fire where it was at its worst along the way. (He wondered if there was a way he could fit an extinguisher into the suit without making the design clunky ...) He found the girl — she'd collapsed on her way to the front door to her flat. Wrapping her in the now-half-dry blanket, he carried her outside. The roof started to collapse as he went, but it pelted him harmlessly. The doorway fell in just after he stepped outside. He hurried away (as well as one can hurry in an exoskeleton), and was swarmed by paramedics, neighbors, firemen, reporters, the girl's mother ... and a worried-but-proud Pepper.

Tony realised then that being a superhero meant feeling proud-but-guilty. And, well, he'd been worried too, all afternoon, fearing a terrorist attack on Pepper's plane, regardless of how sensible she'd sounded when she'd pointed out that working for him had meant she'd always been at risk. He supposed that was the key phrase — "at risk." It didn't really matter that she had ever been at risk before; it was the fact that she was at risk right now — and forevermore — that he had a problem with. But he was selfish, too; he couldn't give just her up.

The choice to leave him would have to be hers, then.

"Tony, uh ... c-can I stay at your place tonight?" Pepper asked, voice squeaking, tears making her freckles glitter.

Hating himself for the relief he felt, he assured her that she could stay as long as she needed to. He hoped she wanted to stay forever — and in punishment for that hope, he added, "And let's see to it that your neighbors are put up for a week somewhere. They can come back to the house with us until we get this all sorted."

When she beamed at him in gratitude, he realised it wasn't a very effective punishment for himself.

As efficient as Pepper was, it took only half an hour for her to get her neighbors (all ten adults and four children — it had been especially lucky that Happy had brought a regular-sized van) shipped off to a local hotel, where they would live until new homes could be found. Once every last person was out the door and on their way, she finally allowed herself a small breakdown. She wasn't a very material person, and hadn't really had a lot of sentimental or overly-valuable things, just some fine clothes (as work necessitated) and a few mementos. Oddly enough, one of the items was both — the dress she had bought herself as a birthday present from Tony, which had made him really see her, as a woman, for the first time.

Presently, Tony peeked his head warily around the corner. She hurriedly wiped her eyes, but it was too late; he'd seen her with her guard down.

"Whoa, whoa, hey," he said, coming to sit beside her, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her close. His tank top was damp, his hair dripping water onto her own, and he smelled of lilac; she realised that he must have had to shower after being in the suit for so long. She thought fleetingly that she would have liked to have joined him in the shower, and excused it with the reasoning that her own suit wasn't all that comfortable after having spent a good twelve hours in it ....

"I've been dying for a week to do this," he murmured into her hair. Then he stiffened suddenly and pulled away, drawing out an involuntary mew of protest from her own lips.

"Oh god, that was a really bad choice of words!" he said, wincing. "I-I'm sorry, I forgot about the funeral ...."

When she caught on to what he was talking about, she laughed. "Tony, I didn't even think of that myself, so don't worry about it. In fact ..." she began, slipping her arms around him. "I was just thinking about much I had wanted to do this," she murmured into his neck. "Great minds ...."

He relaxed under her touch, sighing, drawing her down with him against the couch, his body curling around her. It occurred to her that, were she someone else, he'd have her halfway out of her clothes by now; while the notion held some appeal, she was definitely a fan of cuddling. Tony Stark, to the best of her knowledge, had never cuddled with anyone in the time she'd known him — probably not even in the entire history of the universe.

"Ow," he whispered in her ear.

She drew herself upright, worried. "Tony?"

His eyes were screwed shut in obvious agony. "Sorry," he breathed.

She had a flashback to the spasm he'd had the night she'd left — he was still in that much pain from the fight with Obadiah??

"JARVIS kinda tossed me around out there," he explained, "and now that I've stopped moving, I'm starting to feel it," he explained, slipping a hand behind his back, still grimacing.

"My apologies, sir, but I thought you would prefer that to being struck by lightning, static wick or no static wick," JARVIS pointed out.

"Where are your pain pills?" she asked, scowling.

Tony opened his eyes, a look of doom on his face. "Happy has them."

"Mr Hogan put them with Miss Pott's paperwork, on the table," JARVIS informed them.

Pepper blinked, with a sinking feeling of her own. "That mess on the table is for me?" She'd noticed it when she was making the calls for the hotels, but hadn't really paid much attention. She strode over to the pile, finding the pill bottle, then strode over to the wet bar for water, noting happily that the alcohol was gone.

"Uh, welcome home?" Tony offered. "Seriously, I think I need to give you a raise — I tried to take care of it myself, but I couldn't make heads or tails of any of it!"

Imagine if I hadn't handled the phone calls while I was in New York, she thought to herself ruefully. "I told you that you couldn't last a day without me," she quipped, turning to him with a grin, a glass of water, and his meds.

He accepted them but didn't swallow the pill, just regarded her seriously. She supposed she should be glad to have him take her seriously, but that look never boded well for his mental state. Or hers, for that matter.

"No, I don't think I could," he agreed. "And not just because of that," he added, gesturing to the table. "Pepper, I ... I could have lost you today. I don't know what I ..." He blinked away tears, looking away, lip trembling.

"Hey, hey, come on." She sat beside him, taking his hand. "You saved my life today, remember? And that girl, Tina! A mother would have lost her daughter today without you!"

He surged to his feet, his hand slipping free of hers, and for a moment she felt like she'd lost him over the edge of a precipice.

"Your mother could have lost you because of me," Tony said, pacing. He seemed to crackle with nervous energy, like he'd carried the storm home with him. She supposed he did, at that.

"How do you figure that?" she asked, baffled. She then wondered if Happy hadn't managed to keep Tony out of the sauce after all, and he was having some sort of delusion in reaction to his meds being mixed with alcohol.

"I —" He stopped short. "Wait, that was ... okay, fine, so the plane's equipment failure wasn't terrorists like I'd thought, but your apartment—"

"Was burnt down by a space heater," she informed him, standing and crossing her arms. The best way to get Tony out of a funk was to slap him with a reality check. "I talked to the firemen and the tenants while you were rescuing Tina. Had nothing to do with your enemies trying to get at you through me," she told him in her firmest tone, the one he rarely argued with. "In fact, if you hadn't been so concerned about me, your girlfriend, you probably wouldn’t have been there to save that plane and everyone on it, nor would you have been there to save Tina tonight." She sauntered over to him, getting playful. "So if you ask me," she purred, "it's more than worth it to have Iron Man in my pocket."

He wasn't quite won over yet, though. He opened his mouth to protest, and she laid a finger against his lips. "Besides, it would take a team of assistants to replace me," she continued. "And if you think I'm at risk, it would be irresponsible of me to let you risk a bunch of people in my place. Iron Man needs someone to watch his back, someone to take care of the details so he can concentrate on the big picture. I know the danger; don't I have as much right as you do to do my part to save the world? Don't make me get all feminist on you, Mr Stark."

He was too stunned to speak for a moment, but finally managed a "Wouldn't dream of it, Ms Potts," smiling weakly, his eyes still glittering with unshed tears.

She smiled back fondly, brushing a damp strand of hair from his brow, then sliding her hand to the side of his jaw, brushing his cheek. "You know, Tony ... I'm going to worry whether I'm with you or not. I love you." His sharp intake of breath was a good mirror for her own surprise — she hadn't intended to say that aloud. But it was true; she'd known it already, had faced it in baby steps since his return from Afghanistan. Besides, she was his girlfriend, officially, right? So wasn't it expected for her to say it, much less allowed? But she realised it wasn't really a boyfriend/girlfriend kind of love anyway — it went a lot deeper than that. "I'd love you no matter what kind of relationship we have," she told herself as much as him. "But I'll worry a lot less if I'm still at your side, looking out for you."

"Well, I guess that'll make it a lot easier for me to keep an eye on you, too," he quipped with a little sniffling laugh. Then he grew somber again. "I would have saved you no matter what, you know. Even if I were still the shallow guy who was sleeping with every girl he meets, I would have saved you ...."

She knew that was as close as he was going to get to the three magic words for a while, and that was fine. She spoke Tony-ese fluently; she knew what he meant. "Of course you would; I'm all you have, remember?" she teased. "And you're all I have," she reminded him, leaning close, brushing his lips softly with hers.

The kiss was hesitant at first, a week of waiting having made them shy again, but awkwardness soon gave way under anticipation — a week's worth, a month's, five years' worth ....

The first rays of dawn woke him, as they typically did. He felt a warm body between his arms and, for a panicked moment, thought that the last few months, the kidnapping and everything since, had been just a dream — no turning his life around, no Iron Man, no Pepper, just another nameless girl in his bed, someone else to untangle himself from in order to go back to the daily grind of a wartime profiteer.

And then he remembered that he'd never woken up with his arms around the girl before — quite the opposite.

The sun caught on strands of red-gold hair, kissing freckles on pale shoulders.

Pepper.

He took a deep, shuddering sigh of relief, relaxing into the embrace, tightening his arms around her. For the first time in his adult life, waking up to find a woman beside him didn't spur him to retreat to his lab; instead, he had every intention of spending the day in bed.

"Don't ever leave me," he whispered.

"Never ever," she promised sleepily. "But don't get too comfortable; we have a meeting at seven-thirty."

"Cancel it."

" ... Okay."

I hadn't originally planned for a sequel, but response to the previous fic had been so enthusiastic, my writing muse, Maer, was well-fed. See what giving feedback will get you? ;) Thanks to silentphoenix for planting the idea actually mentioning Happy having to deal with the meds, and to 4persephone, whose ficlet "Bending" (unintentionally) planted the seed of a notion of Pepper moving into Tony's place in my head.

I don't have a sequel planned, but you saw how well that turned out last time ... (In other words, feedback feeds my muse! ^_~)

Oh, and about the line about her not being able to have kids: in the comics, for a long while, she and Happy couldn't have kids, so they adopted. The problem might actually have been with Happy, I don't know, but I cannot have kids myself, and it's something of a sore point with me that people think this is a tragedy. Sooo I thought it would be nice, for this version, to have a Pepper who not only couldn't have kids, but was glad of it -- kind of a hero for me and people like me, ya know? ;)