Got that idea from watching an old episode of CSI: Maimi – the one with the cougars where the guys got electrocuted while playing beach volley ball. I actually did try this trick on a guy once and I can tell you it actually works...other girls don't know what to do with it.

Disclaimer – I don't own anything :)

Pepper should have known better. She should have known that a moment of madness could have this kind of fallout. He was Tony Stark. The media was interested in anything and everything to do with him.

It had started that morning. Pepper had ended up staying late at the mansion again in the lead up to the unveiling of Tony's newest gadget. It was her home away from home, really. She had her own office. Her own bedroom – although only Tony called it that. She preferred 'the guest room I just happen to use most often'. And then she'd pretend not to hear when Tony pointed out that 'the guest room' had a wardrobe full of her clothes, a fully stocked make-up supply and a modest shoe collection. She'd given up pointing out that it was a practical arrangement years before.

Especially when they'd been up until 1am going over press releases, advertising campaigns and choosing the talk shows he'd do for promotion. And then when he'd woke her up again at 5am to change the whole format of their strategy 'because it felt too forced'. If there was one thing Pepper couldn't complain about, it was that Tony could be the level-headed CEO when he wanted to.

Yes, he'd rather lock himself away in his garage all day and simply let his mind run wild. Yes, he took the idea of work hard-play hard to the extreme – Tony could never do anything halfway.

Pepper knew people tended to forget that Tony's brain worked on a whole other level to the rest of the general population. Hell, if some of those MENSA meetings she'd had to accompany him to were anything to go by, he wasn't even on the same level as his 'equals'. There were cliques, sure. Tony fit in nicely with the rest of the engineer-physics-robotics types. Even attempting to listen in to their conversations made her head hurt. But he didn't belong. Not when they seemed to want to be 'smart' all the time, relaxing by reading thousand page texts in Latin or playing chess against their supercomputers.

Tony would rather turn his brain off by tinkering with his cars, partying or finding some bimbo to entertain for the night. Sometimes, she'd even agree to his offers of dinner or take-out and a movie. They were friends, and that's what friends did.

Friends also got annoyed when they'd had little sleep and one of Tony's random fangirls tried to tackle him before Pepper had even had her morning coffee.

Okay, so maybe she had feelings for him. And maybe she knew he had feelings for her too. But that didn't mean that a relationship would work. It was a recipe for disaster if he didn't change, and they both knew it.

That didn't mean Pepper had to like getting mobbed in her favourite coffee shop.

It took them half an hour to escape. Even Tony was a beginning to visibly strain under all the attention...to her at least. When Tony was in CEO-mode or on a creative kick, he wouldn't even look at another woman. The more he tried to shrug the women off, the more desperate they became. It was a routine she knew well. Pepper thinks she shared an exasperated look with an elderly couple seated by the window – she knows she had her usual barista send them a couple of pastries. By the time their order was ready, Pepper was seriously beginning to regret letting Tony out of the car.

She passed the coffee and bag of food to Happy – she didn't particularly care if some gossip rag noticed the bag was full of muffins and pastries or that the fruit had been an afterthought – then snatched one of Tony's coffees from the tray and threw the coffee collar into the nearest bin. Throwing a glare at the barista who had written her number on his coffee collar as she grabbed a new one, Pepper tried to ignore the paparazzi she just knew were outside catching all of this on film and walked quickly to the car.

Tony slid into the car next to her a few minutes later, throwing her a tired, apologetic glance. He'd started doing that a lot when he got unwanted attention. Especially since that night at the Benefit that they didn't talk about. His apology quickly turned to interest when he saw her rummaging through her purse with that fierce determination that normally preceded heads rolling.

Before he could ask what she was up to, Pepper apparently found what she was looking for. Pulling out a black Sharpie, she grabbed his wrist and in one swift move she uncapped the pen with her teeth and pushed his sleeve out of the way. When she was finished, she pushed his arm away and raised an eyebrow as if daring him to comment.

Looking down at his new 'tattoo' Tony smirked as he read what she'd written, "Propriété de VP?"

"I thought you'd take a dog collar the wrong way." Pepper rolled her eyes, taking a sip of her coffee. She closed her eyes as she felt the caffeine enter her system. Her voice was a little less irate and more teasing when she added, "That'll do until I get a 'if lost, please return to' card for your wallet."

Grinning when he saw that Pepper wasn't mad at him about the girls, he reached over and grabbed the bag of food from where it sat between them, "You make it sound as if I don't know my own way home."

"The suit has GPS-navigation for a reason, Tony."

.

Pepper and Tony forgot about her impromptu branding of his wrist by the time they reached Stark Industries. Like lunch, it was forgotten in favour of preparing for the afternoon's press conference. Tony was prepped to the point where he could recite his speech backwards – now all he had to do was actually say it – and everything was set up just so. The reporters would sit around the walls of the press room, with the podium in the middle and a ring set up for the demonstration. Just because Tony had stopped designing weapons of the military didn't mean that he had scrapped all of their contracts. He still built them robots, but they were more of the landmine-detection variety than the pilotless-jet variety.

The current model had already been approved and snapped up by the armed forces, this was merely a PR move. Something to show that SI was not abandoning the military completely. Stock was expected to rise at least three points in the next twenty four hours.

Pepper had been around Tony long enough that she failed to see what the big deal was. Tony had been using similar technology at home for years... Hell, Dummy was more advanced than the three robots that were currently sitting six feet away from her. This robot answered voice commands, it had several algorithms that made it seem like it was thinking for itself but was in reality responding to outside stimuli, and the controller could command an entire fleet from the same interface whereas older models had been limited to one robot per interface.

Despite Pepper's lack of enthusiasm for the robot, the conference went pretty well considering the world was watching...waiting for him to screw up somehow. This was the first big press conference since the whole 'I am Iron Man' thing, so she supposed it warranted the heads of PR and Legal standing by the doorway, ready to spring into action. That didn't mean she had to like it.

As it was...she probably should have been glad they were there.

Everything was going without a hitch – even though Tony had deviated from the plan and made one of the robots hand her a vase from the opposite side of the room instead of taking a notebook from a reporter and scribbling a few notes. She'd rolled her eyes and smiled as she accepted the flowers, trying to ignore the boyish grin that Tony was aiming at her. The whole thing was flawless...until Tony decided to roll up his sleeves.

He was supposed to hop off the podium and take the casing off one of the robots to show its arc reactor core. His suit was Italian. His dry cleaner would have his head if he rolled up the sleeves. But Tony was in his element. He was showing off his toys.

Hence, he forgot he wasn't in the garage.

He was still stood at the podium when he took off his jacket and pushed his sleeves up – like he would when he was at home. He had just jumped off the podium and was explaining the core when a reporter shouted over him, "Mr Stark, what's that on your wrist?"

Tony's brow furrowed as he instinctively looked down, turning his wrist upwards...which incidentally gave the cameras in the room a better view. His eyes widened as he recognised the words and his other hand moved quickly to lower his sleeve again. Pepper felt a gasp slip through her lips as the realisation hit, and she tried to ignore the sudden presence to her right that indicated the head of PR had moved from his post.

Pepper knew what Tony was going to do a moment before he did and prayed to every god she didn't believe in that he'd change his mind halfway through the move. It was possibly the biggest give away he could have made. As he pulled his sleeve down, his head snapped towards Pepper. There was something in his eyes that she didn't recognise, but he'd looked away before she could figure out what it was. Pepper fought to keep her expression blank as she felt several of the cameras turn in her direction, hoping that Tony's obvious attempts to keep the conference moving would work.

If he could keep the vultures distracted until they left the room that was all they needed. The head of PR was already typing away furiously on his phone, and a quick glance told her that he knew exactly what the inscription read.

.

"I got the conference back on track! That has to count for something."

"It does..." Pepper trailed behind Tony as he stormed out of the elevator ahead of her. He was the perfect picture of a dangerous, angry CEO. It was a side of him that was so rarely seen in Malibu – he tended to keep it for New York and when things went wrong – that it sent the employees running for cover. His gait was quick and agitated. His frown was prominent and that glare could cut a person in half. His hands were waving wildly as he tried to make Pepper understand. Pepper wanted to feel sorry for the secretaries who were scrambling to get out of Tony's path but she had bigger things to worry about.

Like the fact every news crew allowed in the SI press room had footage of Tony's wrist. Footage that named him as her property. Or the fact that their conversation on the elevator hadn't went the way she'd planned.

The moment the doors had closed, Tony began talking. For some reason, this slip up had gotten under his skin. No matter how hard she'd tried, she couldn't get a word in edgeways as Tony got himself more and more worked up. She's pretty sure he thinks she's mad at him.

She isn't. It was just a stupid mistake. But he won't let her say that. He won't let her say anything.

There was something in his voice that was alien to her. After knowing him for slow long, that unnerves her a little. If it had been anyone else, she'd have said that that underlying current was fear. But this was Tony Stark. Why the hell would a little hiccup like this scare him?

"It was a great save. You were..." Pepper needed to take three steps to keep up with every one of his, and she was still a few steps behind him. She didn't need to see his face to know that his frown had deepened at her words – the look of terror one of the secretaries shot her told her everything she needed to know – but she refused to inflate his ego any more by admitting that very few people would have been able to get a press conference back on track after something like that. They would have lost it or the pressure that the press had been piling on would have made them bend.

As it was, Tony had just kept going, he had ploughed on regardless. To look at him, you'd never know that anything had gone wrong with his presentation. He'd ignored all further questions regarding his wrist as if they were nothing more than white noise, yet the way in which he answered the odd question that pertained to the robots showed the press exactly who was in control.

"Anyone else would have made that situation worse, Pepper." Tony snapped without turning his head to look at her. She knew his anger wasn't directed at her, she'd heard this tone a million times before. For some unknown reason, he was annoyed at himself...

Internally shaking her head, she just accepted that nothing about this situation was making sense and adopted her usual talking-Tony-out-of-beating-himself-up tone: part sympathetic, part sarcastic. After years of knowing him she knew he wouldn't respond to anything else, "Yes, anything else would have made that situation worse. We all know that, Tony. PR is astounded by your finesse. Well, everyone except Jones. But he remembers when you had to handle the PR after I punched that reporter."

They had reached his offices now. Tony's secretary barely looked up from her desk as he stormed past. Kelly was a twenty-one year old ex-hostess he'd hired three years before when she'd handled the press storming her restaurant with an air that was so typically 'Pepper' he'd hired her on the spot. She was also one of the few secretaries who Tony hadn't slept with, the girl confiding in Pepper that 'she didn't have daddy-issues, thank you very much'. Kelly had seen Tony in worse strops than this and knew that it was better just to stay quiet and let Pepper deal with it. Her job would be to keep everyone out of the office until the storm had passed.

"Pep, if you hadn't decked that bastard, I would have." If possible, Tony seemed even angrier at the reminder of her own PR incident. Kelly raised a perfectly styled eyebrow at his words, shooting Pepper a confused look before inclining her head towards the door.

Translating the look with ease, Pepper nodded. She felt a little better knowing that there wouldn't be an audience for whatever happened once they went into his office. Kelly would 'go for a coffee' and guard Tony's door from the other side...and they could clear the air without worrying about anyone wandering into Tony's outer office and overhearing.

"And considering how everything went down," Tony continued as he threw open the door into his inner office, "he probably would have preferred it if I'd decked him."

That statement Pepper couldn't argue with. She didn't even remember the reporter's name now, but she's pretty sure Tony still keeps a file on the guy. Tony Stark was not a man to cross, especially when it came to his PA. Pepper had been working for Tony for about a year and a half when it happened. Some drunken reporter had made a few comments about how good she must be in bed if 'Tony Stark' kept her around. She'd excused herself and spent the whole night avoiding him but a few hours, and a lot more drink, later the reporter got a bit too grabby and tried to drag her off somewhere. He was on the floor before Happy reached them, and Tony made sure the idiot didn't have a leg to stand on.

In Tony's mind, he'd done nothing wrong by punching the first three reporters who'd insinuated things about his relationship with Pepper. He was protecting her. The only reason the fourth one wasn't hospitalised was because he'd realised his behaviour upset Pepper more than the accusations. So he started protecting her in more subtle, less violent ways – starting with a meeting with the top brass in the media and making it perfectly clear that Pepper was off-limits. After that it was only the rags that ran the 'banging the PA' stories whenever there was a quiet week, but Pepper seemed to ignore them with relative ease.

Ignoring this story wouldn't be so easy.

Repressing a sigh, Pepper continued on as if Tony hadn't spoken, "But that doesn't change the fact that within an hour every news outlet that was downstairs will be speculating about the dynamics of our relationship instead of your robots."

Tony would do anything to protect her, especially from the media. While she might understand why he was upset, that didn't change the fact that there was one hell of a fallout to contain or that his reaction was completely out of proportion. And it didn't help that she was freaking out ever so slightly for reasons she still didn't understand. Pepper didn't sugar coat things. She was one of the few people Tony could count on to tell him straight, and she wasn't about to change that because their playful banter had forced them into a situation where they would need to address their attraction.

They'd made it into his inner office, and after she closed his door behind them Pepper came to a stop beside him. She watched him carefully, waiting for him to make the next move.

Tony sighed and ran a hand through his hair, but didn't move to look at Pepper as he spoke. Keeping his gaze firmly on the windows, he said, "They've always said there was something going on between us. JARVIS keeps a record of the articles so I can head odd the worst of it. Since I came back everyone's noticed my lack of female company...some of the rags are speculating that I must be attempting a relationship with you." He sighed again as he turned to look at her, suddenly sounding tired, "I should have expected this. Before if I thought they were getting too out of line with the whole Pepperony thing I would just go out and pick up a few bimbos. But now...I'm not that man anymore Pepper."

He sounded almost apologetic, as if he thought becoming a better man had somehow harmed her. Instantly Pepper found her protective instincts coming back into play with a vengeance. Reaching out to place a comforting hand on his arm, she whispered, "I know you aren't."

She felt like she was failing miserably at this communication thing. She might know Tony better than anyone else – better than he knew himself – but when it came to talking about their feelings, she was as emotionally stunted as he was. She needed to say something that told him she'd be okay with this, that she wasn't mad at him. Something coherent that couldn't be constructed as worrying about her words on his wrist.

It wasn't his fault and he needed to know she didn't blame him. Once he knew that, they'd be able to handle the media with the same practiced ease they'd used in the past.

"For what it's worth, you did good out there today, boss. I'm proud of yo-" Before Pepper could finish her sentence his lips were on hers.

The shock froze her in place for a moment, but when his hands came up to rest on her waist she surprised them both by stepping closer into his embrace. One hand came up to tangle in his hair, acting on an urge she'd possessed since the first day she'd met him. She silenced the little voice in her head that said she was doing it to try and stop him from running away. Again. The benefit was still a little too fresh in her mind for her liking.

Eventually, they had to come up for air, pulling back just enough so that they could look at each other carefully. Pepper's hand dropped to rest at the side of his neck, and she tried not to notice the way his smile seemed to grow from that one movement. Quirking an eyebrow, Tony frowned and asked, "Too weird?"

Pepper shook her head quickly, noticing the way her hand fisted into his shirt at the words. There was no way she was letting him go now. Not when he was so close. Their relationship had always been all or nothing. And she was planning on taking him for all he could offer. "No. No, it's not weird..."

She caught his eye, recognising the emotion in them as the same one as she'd seen earlier, leaning forward to capture his lips she murmured, "Run that by me again?"