Author's Note: Again, thank you so much for your wonderful reviews and support. I hope this part was worth the wait. Enjoy and please review! Feedback is love.

To say that Tony's memory was hazy would have been just as big of an understatement as saying that he felt bad. 'Bad' was what he'd felt the morning after that one party at the Playboy mansion. This was more like 'might-as-well-crawl-into-a-gutter-and-die-it'd-be-less-painful'. Which, incidentally, had been his intention all along, and it might have worked this time if that woman had not interfered.

This was what Tony could recall:

At some point after half the bottle of vodka was empty he remembered being cold and wet and utterly miserable. That was not really new. What was new was that the fact that he did not stay that way. He remembered being half pulled half dragged to a car then having to clime what seemed like an endless flight of stairs. He remembered the sensation of warm water running over his body and down his throat. He remembered… barking? And then familiar elements came to mind, like the intense smell of vomit, the acidic burn in his throat, and the feel of a hard – though surprisingly smooth – surface under him.

On average the night was filled with bits of images and memories of sensations. He could not tell just how much later he awoke and could not begin to tell what part of the sourness and headache came from the hangover and what came from being curled up inside a bathtub of all places. There was a pillow next to him though, and a blanket thrown around his semi-naked body. Tony franticly looked under it. Yup, all things in order and none the worse for wear.

He rubbed his eyes and tried to sit up, succeeding after several attempts, then assessed his surroundings. He was obviously inside someone's bathroom. The fan was running. There was an odor in the air, no doubt the scent of air freshener attempting to mask the lingering smell of vomit, but the bathroom itself was surprisingly clean. Also...

Also there was a small, roundish, and very ticked off looking bulldog sitting on the tiled floor, looking very much like a fat Buddha statue from a Chinatown shop. It was staring at him and emitting continuous unhappy growls. Tony stared back, bewildered.

"Ahh... this is different," he frowned.

Apparently the dog did not care what was and was not different. The low growls turned into barking – he knew that hadn't been his imagination! – as the dog stood straight again. Reflexively, Tony scrambled against the slippery surface of the bathtub.

"Socrates! Stay!"

The dog and the man simultaneously looked up into the doorway where a clearly very angry Pepper stood, hands on hips. Tony wondered why her stilettos, which he had always secretly found unbelievably hot, all of a sudden looked like deadly weapons. Not that that in any way detracted from the way her legs looked in them...

"Outside," she told the dog, pointing into the hallway. "Right now, Soc."

Sending one last growl for good measure in his direction, the bulldog waddled outside. That was when she turned her full fury on him.

"Don't you dare speak," she held up a hand. Tony opened his mouth, but nothing came out anyway. "I haven't said anything for the last three weeks because it's really none of my business, but you're in my home, and I spent the night making sure you didn't drown in your own vomit so I'm asking: are you trying to kill yourself?"

He tried speaking again in vain. It seemed like such a... stupid question. Tony just wished he knew which direction that stupidity fell on. Pepper just kept looking intensely but no longer as if she was waiting for an actual answer. Finally she sighed.

"I'm late for work," she announced. "Your clothes are in the dryer. Feel free to take another shower. Actually, I insist that you do. There's food in the fridge you can help yourself to and a bag of kibbles for Soc. Pour some in his bowl and fill the other one with water around noon. They're both in the kitchen next to the sink. I'll be back right after work."

Her heals clicked once on the tiled floor then were silenced by the living room carpet. Tony did not dare to move until the front door slammed shut.

Pepper's memory was not nearly as patchy, though perhaps a little hazed by the lack of sleep, but she clearly remembered the effort of simply getting him up the stairs and into her apartment, shooing away a startled, then obviously jealous Socrates, guiding him to the bathroom, and making sure to aim for the toilet bowl to contain the mess. Thanks to one or two college roommates, Pepper knew the basics of dealing with someone who had had too much.

By the end of the night he had passed out in her bathtub, partially from the exertion of expelling the poison and partially from the alcohol that remained in his system. Pepper was exhausted, but she had just enough energy left to strip most of his garments and throw them in the wash and clean herself up as best as she could with her shower commandeered. By the time all that was finished, she was already late for work.

It's going to be one of those days, she realized fairly early on. Most of management was in the office which meant she could not slow down for a second, and the prospect of enjoying lunch with Rhodey was cut short when she learned that the lieutenant colonel was at a different site in the north part of the city. On the bright side, it was Friday, so all she had to do was survive the day before the blessed reprieve of the weekend.

Somehow she managed to do it. It was five-thirty, and Pepper was wrapping up the last of the paperwork. Within fifteen more minutes she was packing away her computer and heading towards the elevator, squeezing in just in time as the doors closed behind her. She was annoyed as she was once again shuffled out as several people exited. Worse, the doors closed and elevator moved on before Pepper realized she was left standing on the ground floor instead of the garage. She sighed, annoyed, but it did not matter much. It was easier to take the remainder by stairs.

That meant she had to cross most of the lobby which was actually interesting since Pepper usually took the elevator directly to her floor without much sightseeing unless she was sent down to meet clients in person. It was a nice space, large and airy, even more so than the rest of the building. She paused for a moment at an image hanging on the wall, one which was not the logo of some splinter company or a military-related emblem. Pepper tilted her head and studied the enormous portrait of the two men in slightly dated but still formal business suits, standing side by side in a clear gesture of friendship and camaraderie.

One, the more serious looking of the two, she recognized as Obadiah Stane, the current head CEO of Stark Industries. He worked mostly out of the West Coast office so Pepper had not yet had a chance to meet him, but she had heard a lot of things about the man. He was considered powerful, firm, even ruthless, and the sole reason S.I. survived the last few years.

The other seemed familiar, but Pepper could not say where she had seen him before. She knew he was not Tony Stark, the long missing – and for most, presumed dead – industrialist. The picture was much too old for that; Stane still had hair. It must have been the elder Stark, she realized, the founder of the company. What was his name? She walked closer and squint at the plaque.

"Howard Stark." But why does he look so…

The wheels in her head might have been slow to turn, but once they started, the stream of consciousness was unstoppable. Impossible! she thought at first, but what were the chances? What were the chances that the man who'd spent the night in her bathroom, the one with the unexplainable device in his chest, one who had given her the very name she was reading now bellow the portrait but did not believe actually belonged to him, looked so much like the founder of the very company he frequently expressed strong distaste for?

Like they could be… father and son.

Pepper's eyes went wide, and she dove for her cell.