Author's Note: Basically this fanfic is being done because everybody else has already written Pepperony better than I ever could. It's time for variety in pairings. Also it's an excuse to post one shots instead of lengthy fics, because I'm better at one shots than anything else. And I know, I know, everybody hates Whitney and nobody really wants to see Tony/Whitney happen, but I hate ship wars, so suck it, I ship both opposing ships. Everybody deserves love, no exceptions. (Hence the crappy title.)

I'll probably update this on Friday or Saturday. I wish I had more ships to start out with, but, well, I'm running low on time, so make due with this for now.

Disclaimer: If I owned Iron Man Armored Adventures it would deal with underage drinking and Pepper would have a jetpack. Since I do not, don't sue me. All you'd get is a collection of socks, anyway.

Whitney Stane never believed in love.

Her mother loved her very much. That's what she'd told her whenever she was clean, however briefly that was. She liked to be smothering and snuggly when she wasn't high. But inevitably she loved the cocaine more. She loved the needle more than she loved her little girl. Whitney remembered the way she'd hit everyone, her husband, her daughter, the wall, throwing things and yelling for them all to get out. She'd be completely different the next day, her smile like sunshine that had been dimmed ever so slightly since the last time she saw them all. Eventually she died as she lived, curled up on the bathroom floor high as a kite. Whitney had been seven years old then. She'd been the one to come home and find the body. It was then that she realized it was possible to hurt so deeply that on the surface she went blank and cold.

Her father loved her. That was why he worked so hard. That was why every single birthday after her eighth was spent alone in an empty kitchen without presents. That was why, when he was reminded or felt guilty, he'd give her nice big checks to buy anything she wanted, to get her out of his face. He was very busy. Work was very important. He didn't have to come right out and say it was more important than her, she'd seen that all her life. She knew very well that he wanted her to have a better life. She didn't understand why a better life meant she was all alone. She just understood that she was an ungrateful brat who should stop whining and be happy to live a life of privilege. She was a whiny attention whore who should be ashamed of how immature she was acting.

"Can't you see I'm busy?" her father had asked her last week, when she'd brought up the idea of having a little time with him for her sweet sixteen. "Leave or I'll call security on you. I should've known you were trying to pull something by coming here. You're just as manipulative as your mother was, you know that? I've got more important things to do than waste time with you. We are this close to a breakthrough on the Iron Man case!"

Iron Man. She'd been so jealous of him. Her father was obsessed with him. And obsession wasn't love, but it was something. Her father didn't even hate her. He didn't even seem to really dislike her. She was just a burden to him. Why should he feel one way or another about her? She wasn't important to him or relevant to his life. The only time he even noticed her was when he asked about her spying on Tony. Whitney was a tool to be used, and she was a terrible, broken tool that couldn't accomplish its task. Sometimes, as messed up as it was, she wanted Tony to yell at her for being a blatant spy. Sometimes she wanted her dad to tell her she was a failure as a means of corporate espionage. At least then someone would be talking to her. At least then she'd have a reason to feel bad. Right now she had money, a great school and a big house. What did she have to complain about? Her dad loved her.

Ha! Yeah, right. Love was a one word excuse for every awful action. Any atrocity, any hurt, any pain or crime could be made noble if someone attached love to the preceding or latter sentence. Love was a great theatrical prop, a good legal move, a nice plotline. Love wasn't real, anymore than she was real. She was a fake, smiling girl who was crying rivers inside just love was a front for abuse. Anyone who thought romance was anything other than tricks was a sheltered idiot. Or at least, that was what she told herself every Thanksgiving she spent eating TV dinners in front of the TV and every Christmas her father sent her to France so he could go out drinking with his buddies and then hold over her head what a great father he was. That was love. Love was doing something under the appearance of kindness and really holding the metaphorical knife to someone's throat.

Today was her birthday. Her father wasn't home. She'd nearly died two months ago, had damage done to her memories and brain cells that could never be reversed, had whole months that were blank, and he didn't care enough to call. She'd tried to see him and had been thrown out. The clock was nearing midnight and she was completely alone... So nothing bad had happened, really, it was a very typical day for her. She ate breakfast alone, went to school and got tripped in the hall and called names by other people, escaped the world for lunch, lost herself in a book as much as she could and eventually made it home. Home was barren, empty and cold, true, and yet it was also kind in its loneliness. No one was ever here to bother her, or hurt her. That also meant no one was here to ask her how her day was or surprise her with a dorky birthday party. The same little bit of shelter she had from her life was also suffocating her.

The only person who had remembered what today was, was Tony. In her hands she held his gift, a small arrangement of flowers. It wasn't very big, or expensive, or even pretty - and who cared about all that? It was her only gift. He was the only one who noticed her existence anymore. If lightning struck her the only New Yorker that wouldn't step over her and keep moving was that naive genius. Tony said that her father had worked very hard to make sure she didn't die once he found out about the mask's toxins. She was fairly sure he was just lying to make her feel better. That was okay. Everybody lied to her, either to her face or behind her back, but at least Tony was trying to make her happy with his lies. He was trying to make her life better. He didn't want to hurt her.

That was the closest thing to love, real love, that she'd ever known.