Hey everyone! I know, long wait. I've been extremely busy lately – working. Honestly, I've been coming home anywhere between ten and two in the morning. I'm actually about to rush out again and won't be back probably until ten or so. If it's any consolation I do have part of the next chapter already written. So maybe the next wait won't be so bad, eh?

There are probably some typos – but if I wait any longer this chapter won't be up for another day or two so…here we go!

Chapter 4

Even though it was Sunday morning, Pepper and Tony were still up early getting ready for another day at Stark Industries. Today though, Pepper wasn't needed. Tony had a few things to take care of and Pepper intended to use her free day to do absolutely nothing.

Her plan was ruined by a single phone call that came in just minutes after Tony had left the house. As soon as her phone started ringing, she rolled her eyes and cursed. She was wearing sweats and one of Tony's shirts. She had absolutely no intention of getting her ass out of the house and into Stark Industries.

"Hello?" she murmured into her phone without checking caller ID.

"TONY STARK?"

At first, she didn't even recognize the shrill, female voice and almost hung up with a shake of her head, sure it was a reporter. But before she did, her brain placed the unnaturally high, not to mention angry, voice. "Mom?"

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?"

"Mom, what's going on? Stop yelling I have no idea what you're mad about."

"You honestly have no idea?" She sounded slightly calmer, but not all that much. "Virginia, I want to google your name. Right now. Google it."

"Mom, I-"

"Just google it!" she screeched.

Sheesh. But Pepper knew better than to argue with her now. Instead, she grabbed her computer tablet and typed in her full name in the search engine. She sighed. All the regular stuff was there. "Tony Stark's personal assistant, Virginia "Pepper" Potts-" and "Ms. Virginia Potts, once CEO of Stark Industries-". Blah, blah, blah.

"Mom, I real don't see what-"

She stopped when she noticed the running "current news" toolbar near the top. And she frowned when she saw the first lines of one of the articles: "Tony Stark and his personal assistant Virginia "Pepper" Potts seen last night at Bel Piatoo..."

Before the news reel could scroll down she clicked the link taking her to the main page.

"Oh God..."

A picture of her and Tony on the balcony of Bel Piatoo...when they were...

"The two of you are practically fornicating on the page!"

Nicely put. "Mom-" Pepper warned trying to keep herself together, but she just felt helpless...helpless and angry. What the hell? She wanted to yank the picture from the internet but even if she could, what was the point? Half of the country had already probably seen it. She had wanted to go public, but not so soon...and definitely not like this; not with her face plastered on his all over the internet.

Being Tony's assistant, she didn't have any power or influence (which worked since she happened to hate both), but she did have respect. People respected her. After all, she had been Tony's PA for years, and one of the few women who had ever been within a five foot radius and still hadn't let him get in her pants. When she had first been hired, there were jokes going around that she was playing hard to get, making him beg for it. But over the years she had proven herself as someone different and even a friend to him.

Now what were they going to think? She cracked? She wanted her old job as CEO back? Pepper didn't even want to think about some of the headlines that were out floating around now and suddenly she wasn't so sure about the whole "going public" idea.

"Virginia-!"

"I'm going to call you back," Pepper said instead. She needed to call Tony; not just to tell him what was going on but because she needed to talk to him. Just to talk - and her mother wasn't her best option.

"Don't you hang up on me, Virginia!" her mother warned. "What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking about how happy I was that Tony remembered my birthday and took me out to a restaurant I've wanted to go to for years and made the night so special for me!" Pepper screamed back. "But apparently I can't even do that without some reporter snapping some stupid picture and sending it off to the internet!"

Her mother was silent on the other end and Pepper knew she had probably pushed her limits but didn't care. Pepper dropped her head in her free hand, willing herself not to cry. She wasn't a teenager – she needed to take care of the problem at hand and waltz through the battlefield ahead with her head held high.

"Mom, I need to go-"

"Go where? It's Sunday!"

"I need to call-"

"Him?" Vanessa Potts scoffed, as if just saying mentioning "him" was enough to make her gag.

"Yes, Mom!" Pepper yelled back exasperated. "Of course I need to call Tony!"

"He'll find out sooner or later."

With everything happening all at once, Pepper wasn't sure she could even become more frustrated. Yet those few words almost drove her over the edge. "Can you give him a break? You've never even met him."

"I don't need to. I know his reputation just as well as you do."

"To hell with his reputation!"

"Virginia!"

"He's changed, he's different…" she tried to explain everything that had happened in the last year in just those words. His abduction, the three months without him…the unstable months back, palladium poisoning…but there were no words that could summarize the emotions that had come with the events. "You don't know him."

Her mother sighed heavily, like static to Pepper's ears. "Honey, we'll talk about this later." She sounded calmer.

But Pepper most certainly wasn't. "No, we won't! You'll just tell me I'm being an idiot!"

"Calm down, Ginny-" Nicknames. Now she was just begging. "I'll pick you up in about ten minutes, we'll go to your sister's."

"I don't want to go anywhere!"

"Would you stop yelling? I'll pick you up in a few."

Pepper was silent, not too willing to explain why that wasn't going to work. But Vanessa picked up the hint. "You're not at home, are you?"

Again, Pepper's silence was answer enough.

"You're at his house? Oh, God…"

"We've been dating for three months, I think I'm allowed to-"

"Three months!"

Oops.

"And you never told me?" her mother demanded.

"This is why I never told you!"

"Fine. I'll pick you up there."

"No, I'll drive to Liz's place myself. After I call Tony."

"You don't want me there now? What the hell can-"

"It's not your house, Mom," she said curtly. "End of discussion. I'll go to Liz's place."

"Well at least we can agree on something."

As soon as that conversation was over, she quickly dialed Tony's number, picking at pieces of lint on her sweatpants. He picked up on the first ring.

"You're calling early, I haven't even gotten out of the car yet," he joked.

"We've gone viral," Pepper announced. "It's online everywhere - the two of us at Bel Piatoo last night, some idiot went off and took a picture and now everyone with a cellphone or a PC can-"

"Whoa, hold up, slow down," he interrupted, instantly recognizing the tell tale signs of "rant mode". He made her explain the problem again and when he finally pulled out his phone to see for himself he found himself equally speechless. After a brief moment of silence, he simply stated, "Oh, shit."

"Now what?" Pepper asked, sounding like a little girl.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Tony."

"I'll come home right now and-"

"No, you can't!"

"Why not?"

"Listen, I'm fine, okay? And you need to take care of…whatever it was."

"Who even put this picture up…Quinn Gustavo, huh…I'm going to ruin him."

"Tony-"

"This is my fault."

She hated hearing him say that. She hated it whenever he felt guilty.

"I shouldn't have even taken you up there, it was stupid-"

"No, it wasn't," she told him. The last word she'd use to describe anything about that night was 'stupid'. "Besides, we were thinking about going public, remember?"

"Yes, on our terms, not theirs. Now we're going to have to deal with all the questions, the press...it's just a meaningless waste of time."

Pepper was trying to hold a brave front for Tony. She could handle it, despite how inconveniencing and annoying it might all be. Yet, she continued to scroll down the google page that seemed to hold the latest information concerning last night. She knew she shouldn't bother looking at it, that it was only going to upset her - at least, that's what Tony seemed to always do. But there was one headline that caught her eye, and made her sick to her stomach.

Stark Finally Bags Assistant.

Those words angered her. It was demeaning, as if she was simply a prize to be won. But the headlines also came with a realization - that was what everyone else would think; that she was merely an accomplishment, another notch on the bedpost. That's how she would be viewed by the media, everyone she worked with...

"Pepper?" Tony called out after a brief moment of silence.

"Yeah?"

Immediately he knew something was wrong; she sounded distant, as if she was in her own world. God, he just wanted to turn around and find her. "Pepper, what just happened?"

"Nothing-"

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I-"

"Forget this, I'm coming home-"

"I told you I'm fine."

"Then what is it?" After a moment he added, "You're making me nervous."

Pepper couldn't help but smile, even it if it was just slightly. "I…I'm just a little upset."

"Well, I'm royally pissed right now, how can you be just a little upset?"

"I don't know, I just…I thought I could handle it." She sighed. "Now I'm not so sure."

"You can," he reassured her from over the phone. "I know you. You kick ass if someone pisses you off, it's the best thing about you."

Pepper finally found it in her to laugh. "Not sure if I should be flattered."

"Oh, that would be a definite yes."

"So what now?"

"Well, now I'm about to take hell," Tony told her as Happy pulled up in front of the building. "So I'll tell you how well that goes and after that we'll start making things up as we go along. As soon as I'm done here I'm coming straight home-"

"Don't bother," Pepper told her, already getting her purse. "I'm going to be at my sister's."

Dead silence. "Why…?" Tony asked cautiously.

Pepper sighed loudly through her nose. "Because I have to see my mom."

"You know the way you say that really, really scares me…"

Pepper laughed but Tony wasn't finished. "I swear, I'm about to shit in my pants right now; it's as if your mother's Hitler or something, I mean, come on, she can't be that bad-"

"You've never met her."

"Because you won't let me!"

"And I have a very good reason for that. Believe me, you'll get your chance soon."

"Yeah – but now she's going to want my head on a pike or something."

Pepper laughed again, knowing his assumption was far off from the truth. "I'll call you soon…just…don't do anything stupid."

"We stupid people prefer the politically correct term, 'spontaneous'," Tony corrected. "I'll see you in a bit."

"Bye," Pepper told him before she hung up. But as soon as she did, she was filled with dread and worry all over again. When she was talking to him, even on the phone, she felt invincible. Now she felt like a mouse thrown into a maze with a hungry cat.

She tried not to think about it as she unlocked her car door.

Vanessa Potts had opened the door before Pepper even reached the front steps that led to the house. Liz was standing in the house behind her mother trying not to laugh aloud, much to Peppe's annoyance. The look on her face reminded her of Tony's all too familiar smirk.

"I still can't believe you would do this," she told her daughter as she entered the house. Liz rolled her eyes and behind her back mouthed, "She's been at it since!"

"Hi, Liz," Pepper greeted instead.

"Ginny, I don't think you're taking all of this seriously."

Pepper tried to make sure she didn't get to her but her mother was definitely pushing some of her buttons. Again, behind Vanessa's back, Liz told Pepper. "I still can't believe you're dating Tony Stark." But she didn't sound disappointed - more intrigued and desperate for details if anything else.

Pepper smiled at her sister. If anyone wasn't taking any of this seriously it was her. But to her mother, Pepper said, "Mom, I am taking this seriously. We both have been and we decided that...well, everyone's going to find out about us eventually. It was bound to happen."

"And this is how it was supposed to happen? With that...picture of you on every newspaper stand in the country?"

"No," Pepper answered angrily through clenched teeth as she sat down on the couch. "I don't know how...that wasn't what we wanted."

"So just how do you plan on taking care of this?"

It was when she said that, a new revelation made itself clear to Pepper. "Mom...why are you angry?"

Liz shook her head emphatically, eyes opened wide as if to say, "Wrong question!" She had a bowl of popcorn in her lap as she watched the conversation.

Vanessa nearly jumped out of her seat out of sheer frustration. "What do you mean why am I angry? What don't you understand about what's going on?"

"I mean...is it the picture or is it just that I'm dating Tony?"

Liz glanced at her mom, wincing slightly as if she already knew the answer and Vanessa sighed. Pepper just about exploded, immediately sensing the answer from her silence. "What do you expect me to do? You want me to leave him?"

"Pepper, I honestly have no idea why you're with him to begin with."

"Because I love him!" She sounded like a teenager, she knew but she couldn't help it.

"What?" Vanessa scoffed as if unimpressed. "What did he say? What did he do? Did he say he loved you? Did he buy you flowers, take you out to dinner? This is Tony Stark! So what else is new? You of all people should know his reputation and you still fell for it?"

You weren't there, Pepper thought to herself, trying to keep her cool. You don't know what we've been through. What it's been like. You weren't with him at his lowest, when he was alone, on the brink of death, scared...and you weren't there when he had nothing to worry about, when he was happiest. You only saw what they wanted you to see. You don't know him like I do. "You don't know him, Mom," she said simply. "You don't know him. No one sees him, who he really is. After he came back from Afghanistan..."

"Ginny, I just don't want to see you hurt."

"I won't be."

"Honey-"

"I get it," Pepper interrupted suddenly. "You don't Iike him. I understand that. And I'm saying that I still love him. There's more to him than what everyone sees."

Vanessa looked at Liz with pleading eyes as if to say, "Talk some sense into her!" Instead, Liz just looked at her mother, with the straightest face and said, "He's hot."

Pepper would have laughed hadn't she been so frustrated but her mother just groaned aloud.

"He's different," Pepper repeated. "When you meet him you'll see that."

Vanessa glared at her daughter. "Whatever gave you the notion that I want to meet him?"

Pepper stared back, hardly believing her ears and even Liz stopped eating her popcorn, stunned by what her mother had just said. "Aw, Mom…" Liz started, a hurt look even in her eyes. "You don't mean that-"

"I mean everything I say. I don't want to see him." And with that, Vanessa stood up and left the living room, leaving her eldest daughter lost for words.

She was immediately heartbroken. Pepper knew her mom wasn't going to be thrilled to hear that she was dating her boss, and she expected the eye rolling, the whining, the yelling even but not this. She could handle reluctance to see him, but not a definitive and irrevocable 'no'.

"What do you mean you don't want to meet him?" Pepper asked as Vanessa returned.

"You know exactly what I mean. It's bad enough that you decided to date him…this is something I expected from your sister but definitely not you."

Liz frowned. "Hey!"

But Vanessa wasn't finished. "You have a good head on your shoulders and you know him…or at least you knew him. You knew about his reputation, how he is with girls, complete lack of responsibility, he's erratic behavior and you know quite well he always has and still will take you for granted. I don't know why you decided to do a stupid thing like this."

"Mom!"

"I hate that you're dating him and I hate that the rest of the world gets to know it too. He'll never respect you. Give him time…a couple weeks, maybe a couple days…you'll remember what I said."

Her words stung, leaving Pepper nearly empty. She knew she shouldn't take what she said seriously, she was just angry, but how could she say those things? She knew nothing about Tony, and she wasn't even willing to give him a chance.

Pepper was done here. She stood up, ready to leave the house without giving her mother a second glance. Liz quickly followed her out, spilling the bowl of popcorn all over the floor. Before Pepper could leave the house, Liz stopped her. "Hey," she said softly, taking her shoulder. "She's just…frustrated, don't pay attention to her. You know her…she's so overdramatic."

"Yeah," Pepper said through clenched teeth trying to turn to leave, but Liz wasn't letting her go anywhere.

"I'll talk to her," she promised. "I'll…buy her some Skittles or something and talk her out of it."

Pepper laughed lightly. "Thanks."

Her sister nodded, looking up at her sister with an eyebrow raised tauntingly. "So…Tony Stark, huh? Damn, you have good taste, you lucky bitch."

"He's not easy to deal with, you know," she told him, still smiling.

"I think he's the type of guy…every girl would want to go out with," Liz said. Then she smirked adding, "And every girl would leave in about a weekend."

Pepper laughed at that one, knowing just how true it was.

"Yeah, well you know him at least," Liz told her. "That has to make it easier."

Pepper shrugged. "Not much."

"Well, I for one have to meet the guy, no matter what Mom says." When she noticed Pepper's sad look again she sighed. "Listen…you said you know him. And you've known him for years…which means you know how he's been…with girl and all-"

"Liz, I know it looks-"

"But if you know all that, and you're still going to go through with this and it's been working for the last three months…well, obviously you know something we don't." Liz smiled and gave her sister a hug. "Go for it. I trust you, and you trust him…so I don't have much of a choice here."

Pepper hugged her sister back, grateful she had someone on her side. Besides, she was about to face the rest of the world now – not many people would see her view. "Thanks so much, Liz." She sighed, a new strength brewing within her as she left her sister's house.

"Don't forget to invite me over some time!" Liz yelled out before Pepper entered her car. "I still want to meet him!"

Pepper laughed aloud, silently promising to do just that.

Her first test of the day came in the form of a teenager working at the local ice cream store. Pepper had no real reason to be there – aside from her hopeless craving for something sweet. A responsible person in her shoes would have gone home to figure out how to straighten up or at least deal with this new mess. Instead, here she was, in her sweatpants, about to stuff her face at Baskin Robbins.

The teenager taking her order had at least nine piercings all over her face, hair as red as Pepper's and the most exhausted look on her face. She took Pepper's order and was about to go complete it when something seemed to catch her eye. She stopped popping her gum and squinted at Pepper as if to examine her.

"Are you the girl who's dating Ironman?" she asked as she opened the freezer cover.

Pepper shrugged, and raised up one hand, palm up as if to say, "You got me."

The teenager smirked, obviously amused at Pepper's completely nonchalant demeanor but asked no more questions while Pepper smiled to herself - for absolutely no reason at all.

Remember how I said I wouldn't be home for HOURS? Well, how nice would it be if I come home and I've got a bunch of reviews waiting for me in my inbox? I know – pure heaven, am I right? XP lol, read and review please!