AN: I still don't own the Avengers. Thanks so much for the continuing support.

Special thanks go out to: Oceanbreeze7, Maverick14th, NatalieNamikaze2006 , Whitelion69, Psyche102 and Margaret for taking the time to review.


Over the following weeks after the revelation of Tony's Were status to Pepper and Happy, there were many, however minor changes, to the way Pepper helped Tony and Stark Industries conduct business and his life.

Tony mandated that part of his R&D Department devote themselves to crafting things that would make the lives of Weres around the world a little easier. Tony knew from experience that certain medicine and foods could make Weres extremely ill, if not kill them outright. Tony wanted them to find ways around this for the sake of everyone involved.

A week after the revelation, on a friday night where Tony would have normally been out at a party or gone for a walk, Pepper sat him on the couch and sat herself on the other end, a notepad in hand.

She looked at him for a minute before nodding. "Good. We've finally got the time to do this." At Tony's questioning glance and tilted head, she smiled lightly and tapped her pen against the notepad.

"You said most of the stuff about Weres in the media and available to the public is false information. I need to know the facts so I don't accidentally poison you by giving you something you shouldn't eat or hit you with something because you startled me in the middle of the night." Tony's face lit with recognition and he nodded, his eyes enthusiastic. Finally, a human who was interested in his other half, without being disgusted or afraid like his dad was.

"Well, okay. Um, where to start. Oh, okay. Most people will tell you that Weres are able to keep their animal selves and their human selves absolutely separate. That's not true. Not even remotely. Weres are the way they are because of our genetics, so there's obviously going to be some bleed over. What it is depends on what animal the Were is associated with. I know a lot of this is also review, especially if your family has multiple Weres, but it never hurts to go over what you know."

Pepper was nodding and smiling at Tony, knowing that, only if she was receptive to this part of her boss, no her friend, would he keep talking and being open instead of closing himself off from her and Happy again.

"Certain aspects of me are Leopard, and certain aspects of the Leopard are me. For clarity's sake, I'll refer to my animal side as Amur. Aspects like eating and sleeping, times of highest activity and even recognition I get from Amur. You've noticed I tend to be more active at night and sleep during the day, that I only eat every few days and when I do eat, it's a shit-ton of food. Little things like that I get from Amur. I recognize things and people by scent and sound more than by what they look like."

He laughed softly for a minute before turning on her with a smile that was one of the happiest, and brightest she'd seen since he'd come back from Afghanistan. "One of the reasons I chose you to be my PA is because, of all the different stacks of paperwork, business proposals. and other miscellaneous crap that came across my desk, only one scent was associated with papers that were done correctly 100% of the time, with little helpful tab things for organization and I even had coffee cups with the same scent attached come across my desk after some of my all-nighters. So one day, I decided to follow the scent."

He smiled warmly at her and placed a warm, calloused hand on her knee. "It was easy enough to follow the smell of jasmine, vanilla and sunshine throughout the building until I came to your desk. Of course, you didn't make it any easier by refusing the job offer almost a dozen times before you said yes."

Both chuckled happily for a minute, caught in their memories before Tony spoke again. "I've adapted to most of the minuscule things. I walk silently, so I talk when I come behind someone so they can hear me. I'm territorial, so I try to restrict my territory to my lab and workshop. I like to perch above the ground, so I built my bed and lab chairs and benches higher than usual. I can drink coffee, but not alcohol, so when we have parties or galas, I pay the bartenders extra to replace my scotch with apple juice or my other drinks with varying sodas and even water. I even perfected playing drunk."

"I eat mostly red meat and fish and I procure them from a friend, a fellow Big Cat-Were who owns a catering company. I have to eat vegetables and grains, though not as much as a normal human. I can't eat mint or chocolate and large quantities of dairy products make me throw-up sick."

"Most of the time if I wake up while Amur, I'll shift back automatically, but I won't be able to talk for a few minutes. It's recommended that Weres change back to human when we get cut or bruised, or sprain and strain something. But if we break a limb or tear a muscle, we have to remain in our animal forms until we heal because attempting to change back with such injuries can leave us permanently lame."

By now Pepper's notebook was full of notes and she was listening intently, while Tony spoke of several more, even more miniscule things, waving his hands energetically. She smiled lightly and sat back to listen to him to talk some more.


Another week passed and Tony spent more and more time in Leopard form around the house when he wasn't working or doing press-conferences and weapons runs. Eventually he stopped flinching when Pepper and Happy reached out to scritch between his ears and he even started to initiate contact with them.

Pepper also started to notice little habits that had passed over her before. When Tony was happy, he made a rumbling sound, deep in his chest, almost like purring, no matter what form he was in. Especially if he was snuggled up against someone, namely Pepper. He made chirping sounds when he greeted someone he knew, usually only Pepper and Happy, but occasionally one of the bots.

They weren't ready for the disarray and near-tragedy that was about to befall them.


When the Palladium started to kill Tony, he started withdrawing from Happy and Pepper. He no longer shifted in front of them, knowing the limp, dull quality of his usually glossy pelt would give him away the moment he changed.

He kept sparring with Happy in a vain attempt to keep the muscle mass he was losing to his new lack of appetite. He didn't go for walks and, soon enough, he didn't bother shifting at all, the searing pain brought on by the poison in his blood more than enough of a deterrent to stop the changes.

When Natalie- no, Natasha, came to work for him, he was immediately on edge. She smelt of cleaner and iron, an old scent of blood and death and, oddly enough, leather, that screamed "Stay away!"at him in every language he knew, human or otherwise.

When he fought with Rhodey on his birthday, he would have given everything to climb out of his suit, change and roar his frustration and sadness at his best friend to the night sky. But he didn't. Instead, he flew away and, in the Iron Man suit, sat in the center of giant doughnut and ate pastries.

When Fury shouted him down the following morning, he felt momentarily vindicated when his suspicions were proven correct and Natasha came striding in wearing a leather catsuit. Tony had just barely bit back a snarl when she stabbed his neck with the Lithium and, for the briefest moment, he thought one of his greatest fears was being realized.

For a moment, Tony thought he'd been Tranq'd and SHIELD was getting ready to cart him off, Iron Man suit and all, to experiment on he and his Were-half. He was only calmed slightly when Fury explained what it was.

When Coulson showed up on his doorstep to guard him while he was figuring out how to fix his reactor, there was a flash of hope and he worked himself to the bone. What he wasn't expecting while he was down there was Coulson to come down to his lab on the second day, and smile cryptically.

"You know, Mr. Stark, we carry a burden not many others can understand. You're lucky you have Pepper and Happy rooting for you, or you might of ended up slightly insane before this point." Tony glanced at him oddly.

"I have no idea what you mean, Agent." He said slowly, looking up from where he was working on the holoscreen. Phil just smiled again and reached for his jacket, starting to pull that and his shirt off.

Tony, bless his soul, was not the playboy the media gave him credit for, most of the women he brought home were for intellectual conversation, and he could feel the heat spreading across his face as Coulson's chest became visible.

"J-jesus hell Phil!" He yowled, throwing his arm over his eyes. He was greeted with a bright chuckle and, a moment later, a bark. In his surprise he whipped his arm off from his face and stared away from him. Three feet away, standing over a pile of what had been the agent's suit, was a large tan wolf, who was looking at him with merry blue eyes.

Tony choked on his own spit for a second before he spoke. "You're a- you're a Werewolf!" He shouted. There was a moment of stillness before the tan wolf padded forward and pressed his nose into the indentation of his hip and took a deep breath. Tony recognized the move. He'd done it to Happy and Pepper both. Phil was committing his scent to memory.

Once the tan wolf stepped back, all wolf-smile and wagging tail, Tony took pause for a moment and nodded. Coulson shifted back from his wolf form and Tony kept his eyes down to give him some privacy while he himself stripped down and shifted.

Tony could feel his ears flattening when Coulson gasped, the sound sad from the usually stoic agent, and knelt down in front of Tony. Tony knew it looked bad, his spotted coat limp and dull and even missing in some places and he made a sad, 'grrrp'-ing sound in his chest.

"Jesus, Stark. This has to hurt. Why didn't you get help sooner?" The agent asked, reaching forward. On instinct, Tony tensed and snatched Coulson's hand in his jaws, though it was gentle. Coulson held still a moment before placing a warm hand on Tony's head. Tony released his hold and snuck his forehead into the crevice of the agent's crouched body and breathed.

Phil smelt warm, like cinnamon and clove but with undercurrent of one of Tony's favorite scents, like he'd just come out of a warm rain. He chirped quietly and pulled back and decided to change back.

Just as Tony left, Phil turned on him with a smile. "Mr. Stark, I've known you for a few years now. I've know you were a Were from the first day I saw you. I could smell it on you. No one knows moreso than I that Wolves take care of their own. When you get better, come find me."


After the debacle at the Stark Expo, Pepper demanded they take a vacation from her boyfriend, which Tony readily agreed with. After his debriefing with Fury and a heartfelt man-hug with Coulson, he and Pepper boarded a StarkJet to an island Tony held joint ownership of with another Were and they spent three weeks in each other's loving company. Pepper scolded him intensely for hiding his illness, and then made it her personal mission to nurse him back to health.

One night, whilst they'd been lounging in front of the fire, Tony's ears had perked up and he'd shot to his paws. Pepper had just enough time to throw the door open and watch with worry as Tony charged away into the dense forest, his fur disappearing into the dark.

She'd waited for twenty minutes before Tony came padding back, something pitiful and mewing clutched gently in his jaws. He'd come inside and stood by the fire and, when Pepper had come to stand in front of him, he'd set the bundle at her feet.

It was a kitten and it was tiny, it's light gray and white fluffy pelt probably comprising half its body mass. It looked up at both of them with one green eye and one blue eye and mewed quietly. But that's not what stood out. It was missing its left hind leg.

Tony shifted back and pulled on a pair of basketball shorts, smiling at her. "Can we keep him, Pep. Plllleeeeaaaaassssseeeee?" He whined. Pepper rolled her eyes but smiled fondly. "You'll have to take care of him. That means cleaning up after him, feeding him, playing with him and everything else." She said in a mock-lecture fashion. Tony nodded enthusiastically and scooped the tiny kitten into his arms and smiled brilliantly, if a little sadly at him.

"You hung on through that storm, lost your family and your leg and you still tried to fight me, someone bigger and stronger than you, off when I found you. You remind me of someone. I'll call you...Stykre."


When they built Stark Towers, Pepper never let him further than the three floors above the penthouse, saying it's contents were a surprise. So while he was working on making the Tower eco friendly with a huge ARC Reactor, Pepper was working on her surprise.

On the night he came home after successfully connecting the reactor to the tower, Pepper was waiting for him near the dearmoring platform, holding in her hand a strip of black silk. Tony, interest piqued, trotted over and turned around when she motioned him to do so. Once the blindfold was secured he grabbed her arm and allowed her to lead him to the elevator.

Once inside, she grabbed his hand and placed it on something Tony recognized as a biometric scanner and then helped him tab in the code. This made Tony even more interested. What kind of surprise required a biometric scanner and a passcode?

When the elevator came to a halt on what he guessed to be the sixtieth floor, the doors opened and Tony was blasted in the face by cool, dry air and the hard floor of the elevator gave way to what felt like gravel and sand. Pepper peeled the blindfold and Tony couldn't hold back the scream of excitement, kittenish joy taking over as he looked around him.

The sixtieth, sixty-first and sixty-second floors had been converted into a large Leopard habitat. The "ground floor" was carpeted by soft sand and small rocks. Lifelike bushes covered the ground and realistic looking trees branched upwards, cliff-like rocks dotted throughout the room. Each floor above him had a half floor and was decorated similarly. The air that was being pumped in was cool and almost spoke of rain. Tony whirled on Pepper, who was grinning brightly and she could feel tears of happiness prick at the corner of her eyes.

"I researched Amur Leopards and it turns out that they prefer cool, lofty places, even though they can be found in both Russia and the Amur Basin of Asia. So I looked around and it turns out there are at least three companies in New York alone the specialize in Were Habitats, mainly for hospital and school purposes, and they were happy to build this and keep your secret. You now have a place where you, and only you, can come and relax."

Tony shouted with glee again and wrapped Pepper in a tight hug, dotting her face and neck with feather-light kisses.

If only they knew how their world was about the unravel around them in less than a few hours.