Pepper was staying over at Tony's, (her Dad had to go on an undercover job to dangerous to have Pepper around with,) but ever since Gene told them he was The Mandarin then tried to kill them, she was having the same nightmare over and over again. This was the first time she had it at Tony and Rhodey's house, Tony came rushing in when he heard her scream, "Pepper! What happened?" He was wearing his old blue jeans with the red stripe from the knee down. He wore a pair out and a pair to bed, he didn't have his shirt on so his heart implant was the only light in the room also he had the iron man gauntlet on his hand, charged and ready to fire. Rhodey ran in next in his care bears Pj's, he made a bet with Tony that Gene was a villain, Tony said if he turned out to be a villain Rhodey had to wear those Pj's, enough said. Pepper was still fast asleep, still thrashing about and screaming, Tony dumped the gauntlet and ran over to her bed, "Pepper, Pepper wake up!" He said shaking her, "Dude, she's in too deep a sleep, but whatever is happening, she must be terrified."
Pepper was running as fast as she could to get away from The Mandarin, she would turn one corner to find her friend Gene standing there making sarcastic jokes then a second later he was chasing her again as the Mandarin. Iron Man tried to stop him but Gene flicked him away like a bug. The deeper she got into the dream the weirder it got, then she came to a corner, Gene was closing in on her and Iron Man was shattered in the background, she yelled Tony but there was no movement in the armour, and no witty remarks at Gene from inside the armour. Gene COULD beat Tony, Gene COULD get past Rhodey, so how long was it until he got to her, she didn't have an armour to hide behind. "Pepper, Pepper, Pepper!" she flinched as Gene got closer then suddenly she was back in Tony's spare room, "Pepper wake up!" She shot up to see Rhodey nearly asleep and Tony sitting at the edge of her bed with a worried look on his face. "Tony? What are you..." then it dawned on her, "oh no, not the dream again!" he slumped back onto her bed, Tony was even more worried,
"Pepper, if you keep having the same dream you need to tell someone!"
"Yeah, like I would tell them who Iron Man was and who the Mandarin was...opps" She covered he mouth and slumped back into bed. Tony was hurt, If he wasn't Iron Man or if Pepper never found out who he was then she wouldn't have nightmares about him. "Tony, It isn't Iron Man, You're just in it, kinda."
"What do you mean 'kinda'"
"I can't tell you."
"Why not!"
"Because the part you're in is the scary part!" Tony's jaw dropped, HE was the villain. Pepper realised how it sounded and corrected herself, "Alright fine! Gene kills you and that freaked me out because if you weren't trying to get me out of there then he wouldn't have killed you then he wouldn't have got to Rhodey and, and..." Pepper broke down crying, she wasn't going to say how it ended, the dream she just had was one of the nicer ones, and normally Tony was killed as Tony not Iron Man, which was even harder to deal with. Tony looked shocked, her nightmare, was him dying. Even while comforting her that was all he could think about.