A/N: There is Tony/Pepper in here. Gotta squint a little in the early chapters, but it's there in the end. Long fic!

Pairings:

Tony/Pepper

Happy/Pepper

Tony/Lucy(OC)

Lucas(OC)/Arleen(OC)

Cast:

Tony Stark - Robert Downey Jr.

Pepper Potts - Gwyneth Paltrow

Happy Hogan - Jon Farveau

Obadiah Stane - Jeff Bridges

Jarvis - Paul Bettany

Lucas Donovan - Stephen Dorff

Arleen Makem - Jocette Coote

Lucy - Sienna Miller

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She stared at the flat screen, at his face on it, at the flashes from the cameras that were going off. Her mouth had fallen open in a perfect o as she stared a little longer before coming to her senses, shaking her head and snatching her purse. She headed out into the hall; she could hear the roar of stunned and excited reporters drowning out the usual click of her heels as she exited into the sunny California air and eyed the man standing at his post by the custom Rolls Phantom. The look in her steel blue eyes would speak volumes. She shook her head again, slipped into the back of the car, and waited for the man of the hour to make his exit. What on earth had he been thinking?

Harold raised his brows behind his sunglasses. "Everything alright, Miss Pepper?" he asked quietly, bending at the hips to better view her from his position. Tony was still swarmed by reporters.

She pursed her lips a moment trying to ease her temper down a notch or two. She looked at Happy and shook her head strongly, "No. "It was obvious she wasn't happy at all, "Why is it he can't do what he's supposed to? Just once. Once. Not all the time, but just this once it would have been nice." She tucked a strand of light red behind her ear and crossed her legs, trying not to tap her foot as she did so.

Tony finally made it out to the car and he slid into the back seat with a smile on his face, amused by everyone scrambling over themselves to speak to him. He laughed and glanced over at Pepper, to see if she shared his amusement. And when he noticed she obviously did not his face fell. "What's wrong, Peps?"

Her eyes widened at his laughter, he was finding this funny? If it hadn't been the man she was looking at, she wouldn't believe it for a moment, but when it came to her boss little surprised her anymore, "I can honestly say I'm not shocked you didn't do what you were told, but for once it would have been nice." She looked out the window for a moment, her knuckles turning white as she keeps her hand in a fist, "Do you realize what you've done? You've just told the world that you fly around in a metal suit as some technological superhero." It wasn't the mass amounts of work this would add to her day that bothered her, it was the threats that would come, the danger it would create for him. For all of them.

He furrowed his brows over at her. "What, worried someone is going to kidnap me? I've been there, no big deal. And if you're worried about yourself, the fact that I am a billionaire that could give any punk a shit-ton of weapons or money is threat to your life enough, I doubt a metal suit is going to change much in that department."

She almost wanted to laugh herself, but in a very cynical manner, but she refrained. She read the papers, where there were superheroes, there were villains, and worse. It was like living in a comic book world and now she was smack in the middle of it, "You really don't think before you speak, do you. It's not just me or you we're talking about. It's also the some odd hundred thousand you employ, their families, this city. Any of your associates." She could keep going, but she didn't, "When will you understand what you effect in this world?" She was going off, "And… some of us will lose sleep again, worried that a call will come, that your house has been blown sky high by some deranged maniac with some weird mutation…" She stopped suddenly, covering her mouth, realizing what she had said, that she had admitted she had lost sleep when he had been missing.

He furrowed his brows at her. "No one is going to blow up my house. Unless it's me. And lose sleep again?"

Her hand dropped slowly, "Well that's true, you know I'm amazed you haven't managed to do that yet." She looked ahead a moment and then back at him, "Well if you had received a call from your boss' best friend saying he's either dead or kidnapped… wouldn't you lose some sleep?" She forced herself to relax a little, still clearly not pleased with his decision to out himself as Iron Man, "I was worried, everyone was."

He clenched his jaw a bit. "I understand that, Peps, but this is different. I'm in control now. No one can get me."

She thought to herself, for my sanity's sake, "I hope so." She glanced towards Happy in the front and back to Tony for a moment before choosing to look straight ahead, " I really do." But a part of her wasn't so sure he was as in control as he thought he was, "By the way, you've already gotten sixteen messages from toy companies wanting to market you." She chuckled a little, clearly amused by this at least.

He laughed. "Only if I get to do my own voice work." he said, shrugging his shoulders.
She managed a small smile, "I'll see what I can do." A part of her still wanted to scream at him, to tell him how ridiculous she thought this whole thing was, but the part of her that saw the changes it had made in him overruled and for the moment she refrained for the most part, "I'm still not very happy, but what was done is done and we'll just have to make the most of it. Deal with it. I doubt this will be as bad as the time you decided to try to throw a party on every floor of the Stark Tower in New York." She shuddered slightly at the memories of that fiasco.

"That was fun. 'Don't worry about cleaning up, we'll move to another floor. Let's Congo there! Somebody grab my butt!' " he smiled innocently.

"At least this Iron Man business will keep you fully occupied for the most part." She hated how he could change the topics and put her mind at ease for the time being. She noted they were almost back to the Mansion.

"Like I'm not already fully occupied?" he asked, perking a brow at her in amusement.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, almost amused herself, "You know what I mean Tony." She arched her own brows a little, "At least you won't get bored trying to save the world."

"We can hope, anyway. I get bored pretty easily." he said, shrugging his shoulders as the car pulled to a stop.

She shook her head slowly and rolled her eyes, "Well I hate to break it to you, but you've just made yourself a full time superhero." She waited for the car stop fully before she open the door and perched to get out, "There's no getting tired or bored of that." She stepped out, fairly sure she had the last word on the matter as she began to outline various adjustments needing to be made to her schedule on her Blackberry.

"Superheroes can stop. Happens all the time." he said, suddenly right at her side again.

"It's called retirement Tony, and you've still got a good few years in you." She gave him a quick once over with her eyes and headed inside, still tapping at her Blackberry, "Though knowing you, you'll probably being doing this when you're seventy."

"Yeah. The suit will probably be my coffin." He mumbled with a shrug of his shoulders, his mind already running off to other places and not keeping track on his mouth.

That statement made an icy chill run down her spine, she looked at him, stopping as she did so, the concern not hidden in her eyes. Her eyes always seemed to betray her, "I wish you wouldn't say things like that."

He paused, looking to her. He scanned her eyes, quiet for a long time, before whispering, "I'm sorry, Miss Potts." and he sounded like he really meant it. The look in his eyes said the same.

It was moments like this that made her wish she could trust that he wouldn't be the man she knew all too well, that she wasn't so torn between what was safe, and sure, and everything that wasn't standing before her. She gave him one more lingering glance and looked back at her Blackberry, "What would you like ordered for dinner?" She returned to business as usual. Business was her safety zone.

He fights the small singe to his pride and shrugs. "Italian."

She nods and moves off heading for the private closed door world of his home office, which in reality was her office as she used it far more than he ever would. She makes the call in order as she walks, ordering just enough for him, she had plans tonight, as did his ever faithful driver/body guard. A part of her felt guilty for keeping it a secret that she and Happy were dating. She wasn't quite sure how it happened, but it had. He had asked one night during Tony's disappearance to get her mind off all the stress and she had said yes ever since then each time he had asked. He treated her well, as a gentleman would… but was this really what she wanted? Was she being honest with herself?

Tony hung around with a scotch and gave Pepper a weird look when there was only one thing of Italian. "You're not eating? Are you dieting, Miss Potts?" he teased.

She glanced up, "No. I have… plans." She hated saying that word around him, knowing it was going to incite curiosity in him, "I'm eating out." She tried to sound as casual as possible, eying the time as she began to look for her car keys.

"I don't like it when you have plans." He said, giving her a look. "Why do you have plans?"

She knew that was coming, "We've had this discussion before, I'm allowed to have plans." She really didn't want to say she had a date, something told her that wouldn't be wise, but seeing as she couldn't think of anything else to say, "I have a date." She looked at him, and yet she really wasn't. This was not going to go well she was sure.

"It's not your birt-... A date?" He fell silent for a few moments, looking like he may hunt down someone. "Who do you have a date with?"

She felt the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose, but she refrained and fiddled with her car keys, "Yes a date, which I am now late for." She turned to leave when he asked his next question she stopped, "You know him." Why was she being so evasive? She closed her eyes a moment and sighed, " I need to go. I'll see you tomorrow." She moved towards the door almost a little too swiftly, she wanted so desperately to avoid this conversation going any further.

He was right on her heels and he grabbed her wrist, gentle, not in a trapping sort of way. "Who do you have a date with?" he repeated, his voice low.

Please don't do this. she thought as she turned and looked at him, "Why does it matter?" She gently removed her wrist from his hand. His sudden closeness wasn't making this any easier, she wished she could just point blank tell him it was none of his business but she couldn't.

"I don't like it when you have plans." he repeated as if that made it better, but there's something else in his eyes.

"I'm sorry." The words had so many meanings as they left her lips and she reached for the door again, turning the knob softly and opening it seeking the freedom of the outside world, "Goodnight Tony." She stepped out, wishing she could erase the look in his eyes that was now burned into her memory.

He opened his mouth to speak and his heart fell as she closed the door. He looked away from the door and walked away, ignoring his dinner.

She paused for a moment, turning and looking back at the door. Suddenly her Blackberry buzzed and she jumped, answering it hurriedly, "Sorry. I'm on my way. No, everything's fine. Promise. See you soon." She gave the door one final glance before going to her car, getting inside and heading off. She instantly flicked the satellite radio off as some love song about some guy telling a girl he could love her more came on.