His tongue licked a strip between her breasts, grinning as she arched her back, suppressing a moan with her hand. If you'd told her three months ago that she would be naked and panting in Tony Stark's bed, Caroline would of laughed straight in your face. Caroline Morrison and Anthony Stark had been best friends since they were kids. Sex was not something she would have predicted for them. Everyone else maybe. Pepper Potts, Tony's personal assistant-turned CEO of his company, had said they would get together since she met Caroline, when she was first hired by Tony. Yet Caroline and Tony had remained oblivious to the increasing sexual tension between them…or they pretended to be oblivious.

Caroline's fingers were tangled in Tony's hair as his lips made their way up her neck. She wouldn't lie and say she hadn't thought about this. The paparazzi say he's like a god in bed, and Caroline can now confirm to herself that its true. Tony Stark was a god in the sack. His lips finally smashed against her, hard and fast, and she smiled against his mouth. His tongue licked her bottom lip, before his teeth nipped it, for once waiting for permission. Caroline was only too happy to comply. Their tongues fought for dominance, as Caroline flipped them over so she was straddling his waist.

"Round two?" She asked, between kisses. Tony just nodded, his mouth busy peppering lazy kisses over her neck, shoulders and breasts.

You might be wondering how this even happened. Well…let's just say there's nothing like a nuclear bomb and a near death experience to bring to light feelings that you didn't realise you had. When Iron Man flew into that wormhole, Blaze was raging. Not just Caroline. The other side of Caroline Morrison, Blaze, was angry, worried and shit-scared that he wouldn't make it out. Until she zoned in on the hot rod red and gold spec that fell out of the sky, and she felt relief and love surging through her. And when Hulk caught him and placed his body onto the road, she didn't realise she was crying until Tony was conscious again and caught her. Then she laughed at him, and reverted to her self-defence mechanism of being sarcastic. But they knew. And that's how they ended up in bed. They got themselves patched up, debriefed and then headed back to Stark Tower. They were in the elevator when they were drawn to each other. It was sudden, hot, unbridled passion being unleashed between them.

Caroline collapsed on to Tony's naked chest, both sweating and panting, from exerting themselves with their sexual escapades. His fingers smoothed her hair down and out of her face. Caroline rolled off of him, deciding to stare up at the ceiling.

"If that's the reaction you have to me almost dying, I might have do it more often." Tony joked.

"Over my dead body, Metal Man. You put your life on the line like that again, I'll kill you myself." Caroline breathed.

"You cried." Tony said.

"I know."

"You love me." Tony said, shocking Caroline. Was she in love with Tony? They'd been friends since they were fourteen years old. She'd helped him though the deaths of his parents. He helped her when her first boyfriend disappeared. They kept each other together all of these years, and maybe because of his bed-hopping and her heartaches…she'd pushed her feelings for him deep down inside so that he wouldn't be able to hurt her.

"Yes." She said. Tony loved that about Caroline. Everything she said was short, simple, and to the point. She left the elaborate story telling to him. That's how they worked.

"Feelings mutual."

"You have such a way with words." Caroline remarked, brushing off the surprise she felt that he felt the same way. They wouldn't say the exact words. Not yet. They both were too damaged to dive in that quickly.

"I thought you liked it when people got straight to the point." Tony murmured, pressing his lips against her shoulder. She turned her eyes onto him and stared at him demurely.

"I like it when you start rambling about science. I like it when you eventually go off on tangents that have nothing to with whatever point you were making. I make everyone else talk as short and as fast as possible, so I have the patience to listen to your long speeches," Caroline teased him, before pressing a quick kiss to his lips to silence what he was about to say. "Now shut up, close your eyes and sleep. Between kicking aliens asses and having mind-blowing sex, I am wiped."

Caroline laid on her back, and closed her eyes. She knew Tony wouldn't let her sleep yet though. She could feel his eyes on her…well on her naked body. Soon she felt his hand sneaking onto her body, his fingers ghosted along her arm, across her stomach, down her thigh. Then came his lips. Gentle kisses rained down on the skin of Caroline's neck, throat, shoulders and breasts. A smile spread across her lips, as Tony's mouth was on hers, his teeth nipping her bottom lip.

"I'm not sleeping tonight, am I?" Caroline questioned, when his mouth left hers so she could breathe again.

"I wouldn't bet on it."

Caroline tangled her fingers back into his hair, and rolled on top of him. Except, Tony decided he wanted to be on top, so rolled on top of her, eventually the constant battle to be on top sent them toppling over the edge of the bed.

That's the way their friendship had always been. Constantly trying to best each other…in a completely healthy way, of course. She rebuilt her father's empire, working from the inside while he drank himself to a near death. He did the same to his father's company, revolutionising modern warfare, and building genius new technologies. She would sleep with a male model. He would sleep with a female singer. He'd sleep with a European heiress. She would date a European prince. He got kidnapped in Afghanistan and now had a miniature arc reactor in his chest and became Iron Man. She joined a group of assassins/biochemists, was experimented on and became Blaze.

Their relationship was drunken antics at three o'clock in the morning; it was big, ostentatious outings and cameras flashing in their faces; it was the snarky, sarcastic remarks between friends and the veiled flirting that kept them unsteady between the line of friends and more; they were complicated and simple at the same time.

They were Caroline Morrison and Tony Stark to the business world. They were Blaze and Iron Man to the press and the children of the world. They were consultants Caroline Morrison and Tony Stark to S.H.I.E.L.D. They were Caroline and Tony to their team mates and friends.

But to themselves, they were Hothead and Metal-man. Playful nicknames in reference to the heroes they portrayed but didn't truly believe they were. In his head, they were still rowdy teenagers that would sneak her father's liquor onto the roof of her mansion on the beachfront of Malibu, getting wasted, then sleeping on the roof. Caroline's English boyfriend (Tony couldn't remember his name) would show up and help Tony get her down off the roof and back into her bed to sleep off her hangover. Tony would always secretly resent how Caroline would grab the British dude's hand, and ask him not to leave in her husky, hung-over voice.

Yet, now he had the fame, the fortune, the kick-ass robotic suit, the English-speaking AI butler (he admitted he programmed JARVIS as English to one-up her ex), and now the girl. And this time it was the right girl. Pepper was great, but she was no Caroline Morrison. Caroline knew that she loved her first boyfriend and always would, but whatever she had going on with Tony felt right. And she loved him just as much. He wouldn't be second place in her heart. He'd be first.

She made him agree to keep them a secret, until she worked things out in her head. Yet of course, the next day, Pepper was 'awwing' at her, Barton was making crude comments that made her put him in a unique headlock (she jumped onto a chair, then onto his shoulders, forcing them to the ground and used her thighs to cut off his air supply until he apologised - this backfired because Tony made a flippant remark about how she did something similar the night before, and she threw a kitchen knife towards him, making it miss on purpose), Steve blushed when he looked towards Caroline, Bruce said a simple congratulations and left it at that, and Natasha smirked. Caroline would later threaten to withhold sex, and would fail as Tony charmed her back into his bed.

And that's how the rest of their lives would go. There was lots of sex, spending late nights in old dive bars when they weren't working, more sex, arguing over the smallest of things, and trying to best each other. They got married, but only because Tony was possessive and wanted that stupid piece of paper that bound them together. He had it blown up and framed and hung it in their penthouse, even sent a copy of it to several newspapers who ran the story of their marriage. They were happy, even through battles, wars, and their wedding (which, if it weren't for Pepper and Natasha, would have been an absolute disaster as Caroline had no idea how to plan anything other than mission tactics and pranks on Clint and Steve and Tony just wanted (going completely against Tony's need to be centre of attention) a small wedding with just the Avengers and the Black Keys playing live).

They faced it all together as they always had done, as they did, and always would.