Authors Note: I'd like to start off by saying that I do not own any of the characters and make no profit off of this. Also I hope you enjoy this. I'll do my best channeling character personalities. Especially the female ones.

On a side note if you have read CrazyKatChan07 stories, and have been saddened by her discontinuation, I'll make sure to get on her lazy butt to continue those.

Another side note, this story is T and I will change it when it gets to that point. Which it might be turned to M, you never know.

Chapter 1: In-Between Things.

It had been only about two weeks since Tony decided to come out as Iron Man, and the press had gone wild. Tony really didn't know how to deal with all the attention, for once in his life. The only peace he found nowadays it seemed like was working on his suit, and even that was full of strain seeing as the Mark V was meant to be transportable and was supposed to be compact enough for him to carry around. So, the main man of the mansion had only one thing occupying him, and therefore he spent all of his days in the basement interacting with his 'failure' robots, and JARVIS.

This is exactly how Pepper Potts found Tony Stark at 10 a.m on a Tuesday morning, buried in his basement, drawing out and calculating the math behind the suit, and listening to AC/DC at full volume. He was an absolute mess, and the dark rings under his eyes told quite the tale.

"Tony..?" Pepper called out, as she walked into the basement, she had a few messages to give to the man whom seemed to be quite occupied and unwilling to pay her a dime of attention. His nose was only about ten inches from a high definition computer screen. He was typing something, and was quite deaf from the loud music (probably why he wasn't reacting to his own name).

Pepper sighed, and walked over to the stereo and turned it off which got her an irritable, Tony Stark.

"You turned off my music.." He looked over to her, "..What did I say about tu-"

"Tony," Pepper rolled her eyes. It wasn't her fault that the man decided that he didn't need to sleep. They have been warming up to each other lately and yet with the way he had managed to bury himself in his own work he was a bit less then friendly.

"You have a meeting with Robert Gates in D.C. Clean yourself up, you have a plane to catch in an hour" Pepper wasn't here for games. She relayed the information and turned to leave, but Tony finally regained himself stood up to run up and catch her by the arm.

"Wait..!" He pulled her into his arms, and looked down with a soft smile. He was channeling the loving soft Tony that he made sure to keep locked up in the depths of his emotions.

"I'm sorry." Tony apologized for his words earlier, and let go of Pepper whom by this point was blushing and quite embarrassed. She quickly pulled away the second she could and without another word hurried up the steps trying to not make eye contact with him. He had been rather attached to her lately, and there wasn't any of the same bickering. Pepper was made only slightly uncomfortable and tried to ignore it, even though she herself felt some sort of pang of interest here and there.

Within an hour Tony Stark was in his private jet drinking some scotch. This was expected of him, but he kept the dosage fairly low seeing as he was meeting with the Secretary of Defense. He had nothing to put his hands on; his jet wasn't really made for him to work on his latest projects. So as a result he sat there and ran his fingers over the smooth reactor in his chest. The smooth built in night light of sorts was an annoyance and a burden. Stark didn't want anything to do with it, and yet it was saving him from death. While at the same time, the palladium leaked and slowly was killing him. Tony knew he had to somehow find an alternative. A safer one. But what? He had researched, and asked JARVIS (because JARVIS knew just about everything) for better alternatives and yet still there was no luck. It would take a lot more work, and brain from Tony Stark.

Tony sat in peace and quiet seeing as a four hour and fifty minute flight gave plenty of time to just sit and twiddle ones thumbs. However when the aircraft finally landed and Tony set foot on land, he was happily greeted by a well-dressed Rhodey, or unhappily. Tony wasn't quite sure; Rhodey was very good at hiding emotions.

"Blame the airforce.." Tony mumbled under his breath, as he walked down the steps, and shook hands with Rhodes.

"Long time no see," Rhodey gave Tony a pat on the back, "Nice suit." He added before turning around to lead Tony to the Bentley that Happy was standing by waiting. Tony raised an eyebrow, "When did Happy get here?" He was quite sure that Happy had NOT been on his flight.

"Well if you paid any sort of attention, Happy arrived yesterday to meet you here and drive Your Highness around." And it was back to the playful banter that Tony knew so well. He smirked over to the Colonel and shook his head.

"And what are you, if I'm royalty all of a sudden..? My jester?" Tony returned the comment back, sliding into the back seat of the car and stretching as Rhodey joined him. It was clear they meant no harm to each other with their words. There were times where they certainly sounded hurtful, but both parties knew that it was all just a joke and went on with their lives.

Ten minutes into the ride, it finally all came to Tony in one wave.

"Why am I here?" He turned to the Colonel looking quite puzzled. Rhodey's face cracked into a smile and he couldn't help a laugh.

"You're here to talk to the Secretary of Defense." He summarized, but Tony already knew that part of this trip.

"No, no I mean why am I here to talk to him?" He sighed and turned back to staring into the back of the passenger seat of the car.

"Well, Your Highness, I can honestly say that I have not been briefed yet. I am coming with you for a reason." Rhodes replied with a roll of his eyes. Sitting there and pondering what odd task Robert Gates could possibly have for him; Tony was quick to decide how much he hated flying somewhere without first being at least given a hint of what was going to happen.

This day was turning out to be not only exhausting, but also fairly irritating for the sick billionaire. He more or less slept the rest of the ride to the Pentagon where the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates was waiting to meet the Iron Man.