Two weeks isn't so bad? Right? My computer decided to be kind to me today! Well on the bright side, there's a long chapter waiting for you! :) Hope you guys enjoy and stuff!

Disclaimer: IMAA belongs to its rightful owners I promise.

His blue eyes stared directly into her brown ones. And she once again found herself getting lost in them, as she realized she'd been doing a lot recently. If she hadn't known better she would have thought that the whole sky had been trapped behind his pupils, or that they held the entire blue sea within them. If she listened hard enough, she might hear the waves crashing against the sand. They were so stunning and endless and full of knowledge that it was hard to look away.

His lips were pulled up at the sides, almost as if they were being tugged up by a string simultaneously. It was the smile that made her stomach do flips, but it was enough to make her heart feel as if it was wrapped in a nice, hot blanket. It likely beat just a bit faster than one would say was normal, but that was okay.

For a moment, she swore it was just the two of them. There was no teacher giving a lesson on quadratic formulas or whatnot. There was no students around them. It was just him and her. It was strange really, because after all the time that she has sat there, this had never happened. And after all the time they have met eyes before, this had never been the resulting action.

The sides of his lips fell while a single eyebrow lifted. "What?" he whispered, breaking her intent gaze into the sky he had trapped in his eyes. "Never heard the word, 'friend' before?"

She blinked, forgetting that something had sparked their eye contact. It was first period and Pepper had walked in expecting to have yet another day of Tony being sent to the office. But instead he pulled a curve ball on her. And it wasn't that he wasn't any trouble during class—although as of yet, he hasn't pulled anything funny—it was that he turned his attention to her and asked one simple question.

That question was: "Is it too early to call us friends?"

It was that instant that their eyes met and Pepper found herself getting lost once again in the vast sky that was his blue eyes. Apparently, she'd been staring long enough to give Tony the impression that she didn't know what he was talking about.

She shook her head, and accidently exclaimed, "No!" a little too loudly. Now this time, the attention was directed on her. All eyes of different colors stared intently and curiously at her, waiting for more action. They fed on anything that disrupted class like leeches sucking on blood.

She blushed madly before trying to think of an explanation for her rudeness. But out of nervousness, none came and all she could say was, "Sorry…" in a quite mumble as she heard some of the classmate's laughter.

"Is something the matter, Ms. Potts?" Ms. Darren asked, pausing what she was writing on the board.

It was Tony who came to her rescue. He gave a loud sigh and rested his chin in his pale hand in boredom. "I told you that you shouldn't have left your calculator at your house."

For a moment, Pepper was going to protest that her calculator was sitting in her lap, but she realized at the last second that he trying to help. She nodded, and smiled sheepishly and decided to go along with it. "Yeah, I guess that wasn't smart…I was just so confident in my skills of mental math."

The class gave a good laugh and even the teach gave a light chuckle of amusement, before shaking her head. "Next time you forget your calculator, please don't disrupt the class. Thank you."

Pepper nodded and returned her gaze to her notes. A few moments passed and finally the class was moving along as it was. Pepper waited a couple of minutes before twisting her head slightly to the side towards Tony. As she expected, his blue eyes were waiting for her brown ones. She decided not to risk speaking again, and smiled and gave him a thumbs up, hoping that he understood that she meant to say, No, it's not too early to call us friends.

And this time, he did smile that dang smile. And yes, her stomach still did flips over it.


"Thanks, by the way," Pepper said during free period.

Tony just shrugged, as if it the simplest thing to do. "What are friends for?"

Friends. Annie would have called this Pepper's greatest achievement in her life. Although, Pepper would disagree that it was the greatest achievement in her life, she would most definitely agree that it was certainly an achievement to be proud off. The first day she met him, she thought he was going to a great thorn in her side. Then as she hung around him more, she was almost positive that he hated her. But now, even though he didn't exactly give off the qualities of a great friend, he turned out to be one of her closer friends. She felt happy to add his name to her small list of friends. Which now went up from three to four.

"Not stealing their friend's food?" Pepper tried. Tony still had the habit of stealing food from Pepper's lunch whenever she did eat up on the roof with the two boys. And he also still had the bad habit of ignoring her personal space. Speaking of personal space, he had decided that the best place to sit was straight to the left of her to the point where they were touching shoulders and thighs.

"But you're food is so much better than my lunch," Tony complained. "Do you make it?"

Pepper shrugged. "It's not that good. It's just random things I find in my fridge or pantry at home."

"Lucky, I don't have that luxury," Tony pouted and crossed his arms, much to Pepper's confusion. "Ro—my mom never buys anything yummy and Ro—my mom told me to not eat school lunch often. You never know what can be in them."

Pepper frowned. That was the second time Tony slipped up on his words before saying his mom. She was about to question him about it, when it suddenly hit her. She felt horrible for being so slow on the pickup, but it was just then that she remembered it. Tony was an orphan. She couldn't see how she hadn't realized it when she first realized who Tony was in the first place. The car crash that had killed his father had also killed his mother. And although it was some time ago, it wasn't exactly old news either.

Wait. "Roberta?" she blurted out.

Even without his confirmation, things started clicking together like a puzzle. Roberta Rhodes, Rhodey's mom. The night when she brought over Tony's part of the project. Tony and Rhodey always walking to and from school together.

"You live with Rhodey," Pepper began.

Tony's lips were pressed in a tight, white line across his lip, his jaw set. But he nodded silently.

"Roberta Rhodes is your legal guardian, isn't she?" Pepper continued.

His blue eyes were now closed and his brought his pale fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose as he gave out a sigh. His upbeat mood had been diminished in a flash. Pepper regretting bringing anything up now, because she likely just lost her achievement of friendship because of her big, stupid mouth.

"I'm sorry…" Pepper tried to amend her mistake, but Tony held up a hand.

"Don't," he instructed as opened up his eyes. "It's just…" he paused and looked up towards the clouded sky. "…a touchy subject."

Pepper silently cursed her terrible luck of opening her mouth at the wrong time and to the wrong person. But she found that she couldn't very well leave it be after being so insensitive towards him. "No, I really am sorry! I know how it feels to lose a parent, you know? And I have to constantly worry about my dad's well-being. And I had no right to bring up such a thing. But I let my curiosity get the best of me. And you have every right to be mad and unfriend me!"

Her shoulders quickly rose and fell with her pants. Her face must be reddened from her effort to push all those words out in a single breath.

For a moment, she was staring into his eyes again and she felt almost as if she was soaring through the great blue sky with the wind breezing in her face and the birds chirping all around her. But the sky suddenly fell dark when his eyelids closed and a lilting laugh bubbled out from the back of his throat.

Pepper blinked. She hadn't realized she had said anything funny. There was nothing funny about losing a parent and having the constant fear of losing the other. She was prepared to be the one angry this time around, but a pair of cold fingers against her forehead startled her.

His eyes were once again staring into hers as they seemed to be doing a lot that day. He pushed back her head with his chilled finger tips playfully. "You make funny faces," he simply commented, before turning his attention to the sky above them.

She couldn't figure out if his words were one's of forgiveness or ignorance. But when he said nothing else, Pepper gave a sigh. Leave it to her to risk her friendship with someone the first day she earns it.


To say that Annie was happy, was a serious understatement. When she heard the news, Pepper felt a few bones crack in her spine when a pair of sturdy yet scrawny arms tightened around her in glee. Happy, for once, had been too lost in his shock to even mutter a word before the bell rang for the end of lunch.

"Congrats," Annie had cheered, a little too loudly as they walked their separate ways down the hallway.

Pepper had gave her the thumbs up and walked her way to her next class. The rest of the day—or week actually—had passed by rather uneventfully. With the new label of 'Tony's friend', nothing had changed. He was still as devious as ever, stealing things from her lunch, making her pencil mysteriously disappear during class, and even breaking into Pepper's phone to take random pictures of Rhodey and for some reason, their history teacher. Pepper wasn't sure what to say about that one. But the next time she turned on her phone, a picture zoomed in on their history teacher's nose had strangely become her background. When she had asked Tony about it, he simply shrugged and told her that he had nothing to do with it.

The change from being students with a mutual interest in the roof to become students with a mutual friendship, was hardly noticeable to even the pair themselves. As Tony was still his devious self, Pepper was still her weird, strange self that continued to make a list of Tony's pros and cons. So far, his cons still outweighed his pros, but thankfully it wasn't far unbalanced. Tony still only talked to her on a rare occasion, except conversations would be a little less one-sided.

And to be completely honest, Pepper couldn't say that she disliked the fact at all. It felt weird, but it felt that Tony wouldn't be Tony if he wasn't such a troublemaker. The image he had built for himself in her eyes, was a strong one indeed. Seeing him being kind and understanding seemed just wrong for Tony.

Speaking of Tony, somehow, he'd managed to find out that her birthday was coming up. It wasn't that Pepper was trying to keep it a secret, but it wasn't a day Pepper had an interest in celebrating. All it did for her was mark her age up by one year, but she never felt different. People—Annie—called her strange for disliking the holiday that was her own date of birth, but to Pepper, there was no sense in asking for presents and favors of others for a single day that changed nothing but her age.

But apparently, her birthday had become a big deal for Tony. Especially when she spoke of her true feelings for her birthday. He stared at her with eyes as big as dinner plates for well over a few minutes in his awe.

Which, all this led to where she was now. She was in a house, a house far bigger than her own, sitting on the world's comfiest sofa in the world, while eating a slice of ice-cream cake.

The house was owned by the Rhodes, and in it lived four people: Mrs. Rhodes, Mr. Rhodes, James Rhodes, and Tony Stark. Often times the house was missing one of its occupants who was currently stationed across seas for the military. The house was warm and welcoming. It was kept extremely tidy, almost impossibly so. She doubted that there wasn't a single surface with a speck of dirt on it.

Music was playing in the background while people all around her danced and chatted with others. There wasn't many people there actually, but to Pepper, it was a lot of people to have in one home. Obviously, the Rhodes minus the father was somewhere in the house, Pepper's four friends were also wandering about the house, her dad was there as well, and a couple people who said that they were friends with Rhodey.

The couch surfaced dipped down with added weight beside her and she half expected it to be Tony offering her yet another slice of ice-cream cake. He seemed to have gone overboard with the amount of cake, because every time the cake ran out, another one mysteriously appeared out of nowhere. And she was pretty sure that was mainly because Tony couldn't stop eating them himself, much to his guardian's displeasure.

But when she turned, it was his parental guardian herself sitting beside her, holding a glass of water. She gave a long sigh and gave Pepper her motherly smile Pepper had grown unaccustomed to. It reminded her strongly of a home that wasn't so damaged and empty and place that was warm and safe.

"I'm not the party person myself," she commented, gesturing to Happy who was trying to breakdance to a slow song Annie had popped in.

Pepper nodded. "Yeah, but Tony wanted me to come, so…"

"That's sweet of you," Mrs. Rhodes said as she took a sip of her water.

"Sure," Pepper nodded. She honestly couldn't think of how she ended up at a party thrown in her favor by Tony stark.

They sat there in what Pepper would consider an awkward silence. Annie tried waving her over to join whatever dance party the two were trying to start, but Pepper shook her head. It would be rude to walk off on Mrs. Rhodes after she just sat down.

"You're house is very clean," Pepper complimented suddenly. She did that often when she didn't want to sit in silence with someone else.

Mrs. Rhodes smiled in thanks. "Thanks, I do my best! I'm a mother of two, can't have them getting sick now can I? And I can't stand a messy home, either."

She said 'two sons' so easily, Pepper had to smile. Tony had found a good family to watch over him until he was of age to go out on his own. They seemed to really love and care for him. But Pepper, being the daughter of an FBI agent and having a keen observation, noticed that this time around, Mrs. Rhodes's smile had never reached her eyes.

But before Pepper could ask, the weight on the couch shifted once more. And this time, it really was Tony wielding two slices of ice-cream cake.

"Cake?" Tony asked offering Pepper one of the two plates he held in his hand that contained a slice of ice-cream cake on it. He either failed to notice that she wasn't even half done with her last piece, or was choosing to ignore this fact.

Mrs. Rhodes gave Tony a disapproving look. "Tony, you've had way too much cake."

When Pepper wasn't accepting the offered cake, Tony tried to hand it to his adoptive mother who shook her head. Tony frowned, likely not understanding why the two wouldn't want a perfectly good piece of cake, but set it down on the table as he stuffed a bite of one of them in his mouth. "So? It's a party, isn't it?"

Although his mouth had been full of cake, Mrs. Rhodes seemed to have fully comprehended his words. "Doesn't mean you can throw your health away. This is your last piece, okay?"

Pepper could see that Tony wanted nothing more than to protest, but he quickly succumbed to his mother figure's words. "Fine."

As he silently finished off what would be his last slice of cake for the night, Pepper tried patting his back to cheer him up. "Don't worry, there's always other birthday parties. Your birthday isn't until August, right? And Rhodey's is somewhere around here. So just have more then, yeah?"

Tony looked over to her, his blue eyes swirling with eagerness. "I suppose you're right!" he said, a broad smile etched onto his face, not failing to send Pepper's stomach into flips. He pumped his free hand into the air with a loud shout. "WHOO! Cake!"

Pepper was hardly able to withstand her laughter at Tony's enthusiasm all for a slice of ice-cream cake. She wondered if that was one of his favorite foods. Which reminded her, she really didn't know anything about Tony. She knew he was a known troublemaker at school who had fun especially messing with her. She knew that his birthday was in August, which was quite the while away. She learned that fact from Rhodey. She knew that he seemed to be ambidextrous, but favored to use his right hand. But that was about it. Oh, and he had the world's brightest smile and bluest eyes. That too.

Being the determined girl she was, she made it her next mission to find out more about Tony. To find out the simple things like what his favorite food was or his favorite color. As well as other small things that nobody cared to know about, like shoe size or hobbies or other interests. Or even something like what made him happy or what made him sad.

Mrs. Rhodes gave an evident sigh and finished drinking her water, almost as if she was prepared for something to happen. She gave Pepper a tap on her shoulder as she stood up, grabbing the extra cake Tony had brought with her as she headed out of the room. "Nice meeting you, Miss Potts."

Pepper shook her head. Even as the daughter of her dad, she never liked the feeling of being called by formality. She dealt with it at school, but if she could avoid it anywhere else, she'd definitely make a point to avoid the formality. "No, no! Just Pepper is fine, Mrs. Rhodes."

Mrs. Rhodes smiled. "Then Roberta is just fine for me," she said before adding, "When I'm at home, that is."

Pepper nodded. "Alright!"

As she left, her son came strolling in one of his friend's right behind him. "How's it going, birthday girl?"

"Right," Tony suddenly shot out of his seat and stood before the group and smiled excitedly. "We haven't sang yet!"

Before Rhodey could situate himself in the spot his mother had just vacated, he had excused himself and Tony to leave. "Sorry, he had a little too much sugar."

When the two left, it was basically just Rhodey's friend, Jason, and her at the couch. Happy was currently trying to convince Annie, who had become strangely bored with dancing, to do some weird dance he found on the internet. So, they weren't exactly paying any attention to them.

"What have you done to Tony?" Jason asked, staring at where Tony and Rhodey had disappeared to.

Pepper must have missed the joking tone in his voice, because she suddenly snapped, "I didn't do anything to him! He just had way too much ice-cream cake."

Jason blinked at her and leaned away almost as if she had scared him. "I was just commenting on how open his seems to be. I've been here a few times, and Tony hardly ever comes out of his room. He seems to act different when you're around."

That was when Pepper found herself blushing madly. She had that effect on Tony? She hadn't even noticed. Which just reminded her of her goal to learn more about her new blue-eyed friend. "Sorry," she apologized with a sheepish smile, "I thought you were accusing me of something…"

"Not at all," Jason replied. "I don't know much about Tony, really. But I do notice that opposed to normal, he seems very…what's the word? Happy, maybe?"

"Yeah?" Happy asked, his voice strained as he was trying to hold himself up on his hands.

"Not you," Jason called, but laughed. He waved to Pepper suddenly. "Well, happy birthday! I'm going to go see what Happy is up to."

With that Pepper was once again left alone to sit on the sofa, eating her ice-cream cake, listening to music. But this time, she was left to ponder what Jason's words meant.


It was later on that night, after she had gone home that she remembered that it was a Friday. Honestly, she had forgotten and had readied herself for bed at the early time of 7 o'clock. Which, normally she stayed up an hour later reading or winding down for the night before heading to bed around eight. That is, when it was the weekday. But on weekends she used the advantage of not having to wake up so early to stay up later doing other things.

So she had busied herself with watching reruns on the TV while doodling on the back of some paper that was on the coffee table. It wasn't until the clock struck around 10 that she had heard the front door open. Her eyes were heavy and her head had been bobbing as she fought sleep when she heard the telltale click of the door closing. Now alert, she tossed the paper she had been doodling on and headed toward the front door.

"Dad," she smiled in relief. She had forgotten that he had to work late and she wasn't expecting any guests, so she had done the first thing that came to mind.

Her dad raised his eyebrow at her. "What are you planning to do with the home phone?"

Instead of being embarrassed though, Pepper ended up laughing. In her slight panic that a robber was breaking in, Pepper had grabbed the closest thing to her on her walk to the door and sadly, it was the wireless home phone her dad had finally installed just a few days ago. No more did they have to rely solely on poorly charged cellphones.

"I have no idea," Pepper commented, setting the phone down. Really, the worst she can do with the phone was call 911 or throw it at the intruders head.

Her dad kicked his shoes off aimlessly into the closet and dropped his coat over the closet handle. He gave her a tired, yet comforting smile as he gave her a big hug. He smelled of the work place, which wasn't always a pleasant smell. He worked with plenty of smokers and it seemed like the office used way to much cleaner to clean up coffee spills. Which, wasn't the best of combinations for a scent to carry home.

"Happy birthday, my girl," he said, pulling away.

"Thanks, dad," Pepper replied.

He made a mock crying sound that Pepper laughed at as he pretended to whine. "You're just getting so big! I can't believe my little girl isn't so little anymore!"

"I'll always be your little girl dad," Pepper assured him.

It felt like compared to most teens, Pepper got along with her dad much more than most. And maybe that had something to do with not seeing him very often. He worked late most days and with school, Pepper was generally asleep by the time he would get home and often times, Pepper was at school when her dad didn't have to go work before getting called in later on that day. So maybe they didn't fight much was because of the lack of constant contact between the two. Making getting tired of each other harder than usual.

"Which reminds me," her dad said, leading the way to the living room where Pepper had left the television on. "How'd your party go? Any cute boys there?"

"Dad!" Pepper was quick to protest his words. Even though they got along, her dad still liked to tease her a lot on how she never seemed to like any boys. She couldn't tell if he was excited for her to get a boyfriend or was dreading the day she came home telling him she had a boyfriend.

"There wasn't any cute boys there," Pepper informed her dad.

"You don't think that Stark boy is cute?" her dad questioned, taking a seat on the sofa.

Pepper blushed, but shook her head vigorously in straight out denial. "I don't like Tony! That is final, dad!"

Pepper probably would have handled that nicer than she had, but her dad was quite the persistent man. This wasn't just the first time he had asked about Pepper's feeling and thoughts about Tony. And not just for his looks, either. She didn't know why he seemed so convinced that she liked Tony. If her dad saw how Tony was like at school, he would stop teasing her about him immediately. But then again the other day when Tony had…No, that was only a one time deal.

"Okay, okay," Her dad relented with a tired sigh followed by a long yawn. "Man, work today was rough."

She used her chilled hands to pull her dad back on his feet and began to drag him towards his room. He never was good at getting himself to bed in the proper place and sometimes he needed the extra help so he didn't end up staying up all night watching the television. "Then let's both get some rest, I'm tired to."

And after dropping her dad off in his room, she dragged her own tired self to her own comfortable bed, thinking how she wished her bed had been as comfy as the couch at Rhodey's house.


The following Monday at school, Tony had returned back to his normal self. No longer was he super hyped up on ice-cream cake and no longer did he seem to care that her birthday had just passed. It was just another day at Tomorrow Academy. As always, Tony started his little distraction in first hour and got sent to the office for misconduct and misuse of school property, also known as his math book. As well as strong backtalk. It was obvious to say that the teacher was sick of Tony's disruptions in class.

He returned by the end of the hour and thankfully stayed silent for the last five minutes of class. By the second period, things were still going normal. Tony was ignoring personal boundaries once more as he tried to snag one of Pepper's hairpins, much to her displeasure. But this time, she decided to be bold as well and swiped at his phone that he carelessly laid on his leg.

But he made no move to get it back from her. Not even a playful grab at it. Instead he just stared at her with his eyebrows raised. Almost as if he was daring her to go on with her daring act of nabbing his phone. She really didn't know what she was supposed to do with his phone, because she knew that he obviously had a code on it and she wasn't genius enough to break into it. So getting back at him for scaring her with surprise pictures of their history teacher's nose, was out of the question.

He twisted her hairpin that he had somehow managed to steal from right off her head in his hand. "What are you going to do now?"

Pepper held his phone if front of her, wondering the same thing. Even when it was in arm's length for him, he still left her with possession of his phone. But she figured it was just him being cocky and arrogant, thinking that there was no way she could possible gain anything of use by holding his phone captive.

"What's the passcode?" Pepper wondered, hoping that she was lucky and he'd give it to her. Hoping.

Tony's face took on a look of amusement. "Nope! Not a chance!" he sang out, quickly snatching his phone back with easy, much to Pepper's disappointment. She had plans for that phone.

"Hey!" she protested, stretching out to grab the phone that was currently back in its owner's possession.

"You'll never get it," Tony assured her making sure she was unable to reach the phone.

Now Tony was much taller than Pepper, so it wasn't much of a struggle for the blue-eyed boy to keep the phone out of reach by simply straightening his arm above his head. But since they were sitting, Pepper knew she could easily just stand up and snatch the device back. So, after playing along and pretending to try to reach it with no purchase, she pushed herself up with the aid of Tony's bent knee and reached up just high enough to get her hand around the device.

His grip was loose, surly out of confidence and arrogance, so the phone slipped back into Pepper's grasp with ease. She laughed and smiled brightly in pride as she scooted away from Tony. "You were saying?"

She turned the screen on and tried to guess the password a few times, but apparently it had nothing to do with Rhodey or ditching class. Not even ice-cream cake.

"You'll never guess," Tony promised.

"It's 'Stark08' isn't it?" Pepper guessed. It was so simple, maybe he was guessing that people would second guess themselves with it. His eyes widened and his cheeks looked warm to the touch as his pouted. Again, the word adorable still didn't quite fit Tony. "Ha! I knew it!"

"No, but you're not far off," Tony relented after a long pause with a sigh. "Add a zero."

And sure enough, after entering in the code, she had full access to his phone. His phone was beyond amazing. It looked like it was beyond their time period, almost as if it came from the future. She found herself so transfixed on the technology of it all, she lost track of her main goal to do something in revenge for the teacher's nose prank. She wanted nothing more than to see what games and apps Tony had on here. She wanted to ask him if he had made it, because she never saw a phone like this anywhere else.

But an alarming beeping noise began emitting from the small speakers of the phone, startling Pepper. "What?"

And just as alarming as the sudden beeping, Tony had snatched the phone back from her and was on his feet in a mere second in seemed. And just like that she had been left in his dust without so much as a goodbye as she wondered if she had missed something.

Because by the end of the day, Tony was yet to return back to class.

I'll ask again, still good? What did you think? Give my your honest opinion. I had fun writing this chapter even though it had to be rewritten at least once.

Fun Fact: (As requested) I have two siblings. Both are brothers and I'm the middle child.

Hugs and Love, SilverPedals!