Boom another update! Even though I should reaaaallllyyyy be working on my uni work. Ho-hum. I like this chapter :) And before anyone asks, snuggling totally counts as hugging :)

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The Third Time

Her alarm goes off at some ridiculously early time in the morning and Pepper yawns, stretches, and sits up. Drawn by the noise, Rocky (her overweight cat) jumps on her bed and meows pitifully at her.

'It's 6am,' Pepper tells him. 'You can't possibly be hungry this early.'

He meows at her and Pepper sighs and manages to get out of bed, fatigue hitting her like a wave the second she stands up. 6am is a lie-in for her, usually she's up by 5am and ready to go by half 5, but today is a Friday and she was up late finishing budget reports.

Once the cat is fed, Pepper pours herself an espresso and drinks it while watching the news. She used to hate espressos, but since she started working for Tony (whose blood volume is at least 70% coffee) she'd developed a taste for them and relished the kick they gave her at ridiculously early times in the morning, such as today.

Pepper stretches and starts her morning routine, washing her hair in the shower, blow-drying it neatly and fixing it in her usual bun, selecting a pretty grey skirt-suit with a blue blouse, applying a light coating of makeup (she hates her freckles, Tony said she looked cute with them, which makes her hate them even more) and selecting her 'Thank Fuck It's Friday!' shoes, the black ones with blue insoles and tasteful décor on the front.

She picks up her handbag, checking her keys and phone are inside, tucks the budget reports and her laptop in neatly, and exits the house. By this point, it's quarter to seven. The working day doesn't officially start till nine, but there are always employees who like to get in early to finish work and make a good impression on their managers. In Pepper's case, she likes to get to her boss's house early and drag his ass out of bed (if he isn't already up) to get him showered, dressed, full off coffee, and ready for the important budget meeting at ten.

On arrival at the house, she finds said boss sprawled on his front across the sofa, x-box controller still in one hand, cuddling a cushion with the other, dead to the world and looking slightly adorable. From eight years of experience (has it really been that long? Has it really been that short?) Pepper is well aware that a nuclear bomb could go off and when he was this asleep, he wouldn't notice.

Pepper makes her boss a cup of espresso and waves it under his nose, the coffee tendrils wafting up into his nose. He scrunches his nose (not cutely, it definitely wasn't cute, stop it Pepper) buries his head a little further into the cushion, and opens one eye lazily to investigate. He finds his lovely red-headed assistant smiling sweetly at him and he immediately knows she's going to make him go to a meeting, he knows that look. He also knows that she knows that he thinks she looks lovely in blue, that and the coffee…

'It's a budget meeting isn't it?' he mumbles into the fabric.

Pepper chuckles (he thinks it's a lovely sound) and nods. 'Turn up and pay attention, then you have an R&D meeting this afternoon.'

That cheers him up a little, R&D meetings are always a laugh and usually result in them trying to make a new chemical compound that will explode fantastically, the first time this happened it resulted in a line of fireworks that came out a few days before the 4th of July and sold out in minutes.

Tony manages to pull himself into a sitting position and yawns noisily, taking the espresso from his assistant's dainty hands (wow, her hands really are petite) and running the espresso-free hand through his hair, no doubt messing it up more than it already was. He watches Pepper as she sits beside him and pulls out her BlackBerry, checking her emails no doubt. He doesn't like people handing him things, never has, but when it's Pepper doing it somehow it's a little easier.

By 9am he's showered, dressed, looking like a calm, competent, professional CEO and whining to Pepper about why she won't let him take the bike to the office.

'If you must drive yourself, at least take the Audi,' she tells him firmly, picking up the R8's keys and dangling them in front of his face.

'Who's the boss?' Tony asks, hands folded across his chest, but the small grin on his face lets her know she's won and he's just winding her up. 'Are you coming with me?'

Pepper eyes the car cautiously. The car itself runs like a dream, she knows because he let her drive it up and down the PCH a couple of times when he forgot her birthday that year (he forgot her birthday the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that, but this year she decided to make him suffer).

'Fine,' she agrees after a while. It would be silly to take both cars to the office when the company is trying to promote clean energy and lower CO2 emissions: the press would not be impressed with that, and the employees of Stark Industries are used to their CEO and his PA arriving together so it wouldn't cause a scandal, in fact usually she gets nods and silent applauses that she managed to get him to the office at all.

Pepper eyes her little car parked outside his house sadly as Tony floors it and zips down the driveway and onto the highway. The sun is shining and the traffic isn't too bad for a Friday morning, they reach the office in no time and Pepper is actually in a good mood after being renegaded with tales of old MIT exploits when Rhodey was his roommate. Apparently he snores like 'an elephant driving a lorry with a rocket engine.'

The budget meeting is slow and dull, but Tony does pay attention and asks relevant questions, and impresses everyone with some quick math when a question comes up about overall projections for the next season. He is a genius; people seem to forget that, probably because he has the mental maturity of a five year old. He's wearing odd socks as well, Pepper notices: one blue sock and one Loony Toons sock. It's an odd combination and Pepper is actually quite impressed that he can pull it off at all with his brown pinstriped suit as well.

'Nice job guys,' Tony says, shaking his employees' hands as they exit the room. He turns to Pepper, eyebrow raised when it's just them left and gives her an inquisitive glance.

'Nicely done,' Pepper tells him, smiling. 'Now if only you would act like that in all your meetings.'

'I've got the Friday feeling,' Tony says, arms outstretched and head turned towards the window with the brightly coloured sun pouring through. 'You do too.'

'I do?' Pepper asks, gathering everyone's notes up and putting them in a neat pile ready for her to look at later.

'You're wearing blue,' Tony points out, flashing her a knees-trembling grin. 'You wear blue when you're happy.'

Pepper is impressed that he noticed and nods in acknowledgment. 'So you do pick up on some things? I'm impressed, Mr Stark.'

'I'm a man of many talents,' he says, shrugging modestly and holding the door open for her.

'So I've heard,' she murmurs quietly, and hurries quickly into her office, but not before catching Tony's Cheshire-Cat like grin in the reflection of the glass.

It's a good day. The budget is perfect, the employees are happy, the sun is shining, and the laughter coming from the meeting room next to her office indicates that the R&D guys are obviously doing a good job. Pepper crosses to her printer and lifts its lid, placing a sheet of paper on the glass to copy. Annoyingly, nothing happens and Pepper sighs and writes a memo to remind her to call the IT guys again.

She retrieves the paper and steps out into the hallway, deciding to use the copier downstairs, she'd get to see her old accountant team that way and hear all the gossip. Maybe Marianne has had her baby.

About four stairs down, a door somewhere is blown shut due to wind let in by an open window and Pepper starts.

And trips, the heel of her right favourite Friday shoe snapping clean away.

It's her own fault, she insists on wearing ridiculously high heels to work. But they're so comfortable and makes her feel empowered (not that she needs to; everyone knows she has Tony Stark's balls in a vice).

It's a fall so impressive she wishes someone was filming it as she flies down the stairs head over heels, landing with a thump on the floor below. It isn't a steep set of stairs and it's only a small staircase, but something cracks and pain shoots up her leg in agonising waves. Pepper can do nothing but sit there and grit her teeth, panting heavily and fighting the wave of nausea crawling its way up her throat.

It's late in the day and no-one's around to see her fall so she's sprawled at the bottom of the stairs on her own, unable to move and fighting back the urge to cry. She isn't a crier, she isn't a run and hide person when faced with a difficult situation. She's a heads on gets-shit-done kind of person and everyone knows it. And she has just fallen down the stairs and, judging by the pain, broken her ankle so she's allowed to cry for crying out loud.

A door upstairs opens and Pepper hears a panicky voice at the top of the staircase. She doesn't catch who it is until that person is right in front of her and tiling her chin upwards to look at them.

'Pepper, hey, Pep look at me.'

Pepper manages to fight through the wall of pain to look at her boss's face, whose eyes looked worried but manages to ease her fears a little when he says: 'why did you fall down the stairs? That was daft.'

Pepper laughs a little but cuts off in a grimace when the pain comes back stronger. Tony squeezes her arm reassuringly and a couple of the R&D guys come down as well to help.

'Catching a nap where you can get it?' Tom, the senior developer, says; a glint in his eye despite the worry in his voice.

'You're working her too hard, boss,' someone says from the top of the stairs.

Tony chuckles and oh so gently eases her heels off her feet, obviously conscious of her broken ankle.

'Come on Pep let's get you up,' he says, wrapping an arm around her waist. 'You don't look comfortable or dignified sprawled on the floor like that.'

Tom smiles at her and wraps his arm around her waist as well, so she's being supported by the two men, one on either side. Slowly and carefully, they get her to her feet and one of the other guys grabs a chair for her to sit on.

'I've called an ambulance, boss,' someone says and Pepper winches.

'You're not made of titanium, Miss Potts,' Tom says, pulling a face at her. 'You're not invincible and we're not letting you walk to the door.'

Matthew, another R&D guy, picks up her broken shoe and examines it. 'Do they make shoes with metal heels?' he asks.

His team gives him strange looks.

'I'm not really a high-heel sort of guy,' Tom says. 'I always found them difficult to walk in.'

Bill and Dave nod their agreement.

'Maybe that should be our new pitch?' Kevin says. 'Shoes for invincible businesswoman with titanium heels.'

'Gold-titanium is stronger,' Bill points out.

'Perfect, gold-titanium heels. Miss Potts can model them; they'll be sold out in seconds. The advert can be "Gold-Titanium! Guaranteed to not break when you fall down the stairs!"'

Pepper can't help but laugh, because she knows they're only saying it to cheer her up and make her feel a little less embarrassed. The guys are smiling warmly at her and Tony has his hand on her shoulder and it's still sunny outside and there is a tiny bit of her good mood left.

'That's better,' Dave says approvingly. 'Look on the bright side, Miss Potts. Mr Stark has to give you some time off now.'

Tony clasps his chest and fakes a heart attack at the very notion of being without Pepper and they all laugh. Then someone starts whistling 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' and that sets them all off and for a second Pepper is able to forget about her bruises and her broken ankle. Then the pain comes searing back and she grits her teeth and Tony squeezes her shoulder reassuringly.

Much later that evening, she's sat on Tony's sofa with her ankle in a cast propped up on a footstool, full of drugs and leaning on Tony as they watch Monsters Inc. Pepper has never seen it and Tony is not impressed.

It's definitely the drugs, she tells herself, as Tony pulls her closer against him and wraps his arm tightly around her shoulders, letting her use his chest as a pillow. They gave her morphine at the hospital and she'd spent the car ride back to the mansion giggling hysterically, then sobbing, and then giggling again. She did manage to get Tony to pick up her cat on the way back though. They'd (well, Tony) decided that she should stay with him so he could keep an eye on her, as her relatives were spread out across the states and her neighbours were mostly elderly and wouldn't be able to keep popping in to check she's okay. Plus the house is large and she wouldn't keep walking into everything with her crutches like she would at her own home. Rocky (who was most indignant at being picked up by a strange man and deposited into a car) is sat on her leg swishing his tail back and forth and glaring at Tony.

Pepper yawns sleepily and snuggles into Tony's side, eyes drifting close. She dozes through the rest of the film and hears Tony quietly tell JARVIS to turn the lights off downstairs. Then she's being picked up gently and cradled carefully in his arms as he carries her upstairs, minding her cast on the narrow staircase. He deposits her gently down on the soft mattress in the upstairs guest room and pushes her hair away from her face. Rocky jumps onto the bed and curls up against her side as he tucks her in, pulling the sheets over her. She's dressed in his old MIT sweatshirt and baggy sweatpants and doesn't need to worry about getting changed. Thank god. After the embarrassment of the day she doesn't think she could bear it if Tony saw her naked as well.

'Night, Pepper,' Tony says softly. Pepper continues feigning sleep and smiles when she feels his lips press gently against her forehead. Then she hears his footsteps as he exits the room and the door closing quietly behind him. Rocky purrs and licks her hand, always able to tell when his mistress isn't really asleep and Pepper opens her eyes and looks at the closed door, his kiss burning her skin, heart full of longing.

It's definitely the drugs.

(Months later, when she's able to walk again but confined to flats, she finds a shoe-box in her office that contains her broken favourite Friday shoes, repainted a deep blue with firm black coloured gold-titanium heels.)

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