A/N: Holy Christ on a cracker! Is this what you think it is? Oh, yes! YES, IT IS! After a long hiatus (sorry 'bout that) I present to you the long-awaited sequel to The Last Month!

Oh, and the entire story is already written! I am posting the prologue here to give you a week to catch up with The Last Month if you need to, and then after that you will get one chapter a week. How is that? An update every Friday :)

Don't you love me? I know, I know, you do ^_^

Standard disclaimer for all my stories: My stories are graphic, angsty, frustrating, filled with cliffhangers, drama and foul language. Read at your own risk – medical issues and subsequent bills are not covered by yours truly ;) If you don't like, please don't read. I appreciate reviews and constructive feedback but if you cannot stand the plot, save yourself and me some time and walk away. You don't have to love all IMAA stories :) I don't own IMAA. My stories are better viewed by using the "half screen" option of

Summary: After being rescued from certain death by Gene and Tony, a Pepper Potts without memories of her past struggles to find her place in the world once more. It seems that the hard life is not done with her yet, and this time Tony will do the unthinkable to keep her safe and alive.

THIS IS A SEQUEL TO THE LAST MONTH. READ THAT FIRST OR BE FOREVER CONFUSED! K? Tks, bi!

The Last Summer

Prologue

She was not expecting any more visitors today, so she adjusted her back against the strangely comfortable head of her hospital bed, closed her eyes, exhaled deeply and relaxed.

But then she heard an almost apologetic knock on the door.

Her eyes snapped open and had she not already been sat upright she would have done so as well. The cast around her right leg prevented her from moving around the bed as much as she would have liked, but thankfully for her the cast had to be on for just a short month. According to the doctor that had visited her this morning – when she had first awoken from her two-week slumber since being found – someone had done a good job in preventing further injury on her broken leg and this had reduced the recovery time rather greatly.

No one had bothered to tell her, however, that the someone they had been referring to had been her old self – the one that she had been before her memory loss.

"Yes?" the ginger said, patted down herself and quickly brushed her hair with her fingers to make sure she was as presentable as she could be.

Ever since her eyes had opened today, she had been overwhelmed with people coming in and out of her room. Nurses, doctors, social workers, and a handful of people that had claimed to be friends or relatives of hers had stopped by. Her head was still spinning from trying to remember everyone's names and faces, and she had gone as far as coming up with silly phrases to match everyone's name with their face. However, she sincerely hoped no one expected her to memorize all their names by tomorrow as she was still having a difficult time remembering her own.

"Can I come in?" she heard a male voice call from the door.

She could not immediately see who it was and the voice did not sound like any of the other ones she had heard today. Her bed faced the window, and the door was on the same side as the bed. However, a small wall created a separation between the location of her bed and the corner where the door was, and she could not for the life of her find a reason for this wall to be there other than to build suspense in her at not being immediately able to see who was walking in.

"Yes, I'm here," she said, feeling strange to say she was there when she was not sure who she was, anyway.

She waited patiently as the visitor took the five steps that separated the entrance to her vantage point from the bed and she was visibly taken aback by what she saw.

The boy – young man – before her was tall. Not as tall as the other two boys that had already come to visit her, but taller than she, he absolutely was. He was wearing a black polo shirt, blue jeans and blue and black tennis shoes, and even though his clothes were not tight, she could already tell there was muscle underneath them, perhaps more than she had seen on the African American boy she had met, but less than the Asian-looking guy that had come to see her earlier today. His hands were in his pockets, his eyes partly downcast. The smile on his face was small, almost sheepish, and if it was not for the fact that he was yet to say he was in the wrong room, she would have not believed someone as handsome as he was here for her.

Was I friends with only boys? She wondered, not being able to recall if anyone had said she had any friends that were of her same gender. Was I some kind of tomboy? Jeez, that's comforting!

The boy's eyes finally looked up to her and he stared deeply into her hazel eyes. She had never seen eyes as blue as his, as far as she knew anyway, and if he had not looked so sad, so… distraught, she would have enjoyed them that much more.

"Can I get closer?" he asked and pointed to the general area of her bed.

"Sure," she said. "You're the first one to be concerned about my personal bubble," she added with a smile.

He shortened the distance between them and stared at her up and down. She felt her heart skip a beat at the way he was staring at her, as if she was a porcelain doll that had recently fallen to the floor and he was looking for chips or marks. When he finished his examination he gazed at her again.

"I heard you're going to be out of here pretty soon. You, uhm, you gave us quite the scare, Pepper."

"You're calling me that, too, huh?" she tilted her head.

"Too?"

"Yeah," her eyes landed on her cast for a second before looking up at her visitor again. "Everyone has been calling me that. Well, except my dad and my mom. They called me: Patricia."

"You always liked being called: Pepper."

"That's what I've been told. You also used to call me that: Pepper?"

"Sometimes," he shrugged, hands returning to his pockets as if his confidence disappeared with them. "I'd sometimes call you: Pep."

"Pep?" she let out a small laugh. "What was your other nickname for me: To Bismol?"

"What?" he repeated the entire sentence in his head and once he understood what she had said, he could not help but laugh. "I never thought of that before! And no, just: Pep."

She shrugged, remembering how one of the male nurses had poked fun at her with the same joke today. "I'd rather be called Patricia for now, if you don't mind."

"Uh, no, not at all," he immediately agreed but he had to admit to himself that he was already attached to the girl's nickname. Besides, he had never before called her by her birth name other than the time she had begged him to stay in the temple with her and he had…

Not now, he reminded himself.

"So, mind telling me who you are?"

His eyes widened for an instant and then he chuckled. "Yeah, that'd probably help with the memory loss, right?"

"Maybe, although please don't be offended if I don't remember who you are tomorrow."

"It's alright," he said and hesitated for a moment before extending his right hand to her. "I'm Tony Stark, and we used to be… best friends."

The ginger smiled and accepted the handshake, responding to him while her hand was still in his. "And I'm Patricia Potts. I hope we can be best friends again."