Tony walked through the front door of his mansion with a heavy sigh. Too many thoughts were running through his head. Is Pepper going to be safe? 'He' isn't a very good name for a villain… got to think of a good name. Why does Natalie always have to interrupt my 'me' time. Why did 'he' attack Leon Industries… their weaponry isn't even that amazing. What's the purpose of all of this… besides dominating the world?
He shut the door behind him as his thoughts finally settled in his head. I'll think about everything later and look into the attack. JARVIS will have to put everything aside for today. Tony walked towards the living room and heard the clicks and ticks of a particular someone typing away on her laptop. He widened his smile when he silently stood behind her, admiring how dedicated she was to her work and how focused she could get.
She was wearing a pair of jeans and a black blouse with her hair tied up into a pony tail. She looked absolutely gorgeous—well, she always looked adorable in his eyes.
Tony draped his jacket over the couch, right next to her body. Pepper jumped with a small shriek and was about to purposefully injure the person but she whipped her head around and saw it was only Tony.
"Jeeze, Tony, you don't have to sneak up on me like that." She breathed a sigh of relief.
"I had to get you to stop working somehow." He widened his smile and walked around the couch to sit next to her.
Pepper rolled her eyes at him and proceeded to get back to work.
"What are you working on?" Tony looked over her shoulder.
She felt his warm breath tickle the side of her neck.
"I'm writing a formal apology to Leon Industries—"
"What?" Tony cut her off and began to widen his eyes. He turned his head to look at her and she glanced back at him. Does she… know?
"Leon Industries wanted to have a meeting this Tuesday but we are already meeting with R&D to discuss the budget." Pepper explained.
Tony almost let a big sigh of relief escape his lips. "Oh." He began to furrow his eyebrows. "Wait—we have a budget?"
"If you don't want to be bankrupt in a few years to a decade, then yes, we have a budget." Pepper returned a small smile and continued to type away.
"I'm a billionaire, Peps." He rested his head against her shoulder and returned the smile. "Screw the budget. Let R&D run free in the wild where they'll be eaten by Senator Stern lions." He sarcastically added.
"Poking fun of a man that almost took your suits, Mr. Stark?"
"Always." He smirked.
"I thought you were going to pick me up at five." She added in, still typing.
"The visit ran short." Tony quickly explained, taking his head off her shoulder and sitting up straight, but still sitting close to her.
"So, what was the damage?" She simply asked.
Tony was still thinking about the attack at Leon Industries. "What?" He turned his head in shock. She knows!
"Um… Well, I don't know. Nat—"
"I thought you went over to Rhodey's to upgrade his suit." Pepper reminded him. She turned her head to face him and furrowed her eyebrows.
"Oh." Tony looked away, hoping she didn't get the last bit before she interrupted him. "Rhodey's suit was just lacking efficient… um… upgrades. I tweak my suit every week and he was just complaining." He lied, quipped with a small fake smile.
"That's odd."
"Huh?" Tony widened his eyes again. Oh crap, she caught—
"You're not usually that nice about upgrading his suit." She finished.
"Oh… well…" Tony stammered. "He would've bothered me about it for weeks if I didn't… so…" This time, he looked away as if dazzled by something else. After a few seconds, his eyes trailed back down to her laptop. She was typing away; her delicate, slender, and soft fingers were rapidly hitting keys. He loved every inch of her soft skin. Sometimes, he just wanted to take her hands and make them cup his face. His lips began to form a small smile.
"Is something wrong?" Pepper asked. Tony didn't even notice that she had stopped typing for a full few seconds. He looked up at her with that small smile.
"Nope." He simply responded. "Why would you think something's wrong?"
"I don't know…" She shrugged. "…But you do know, if something's bothering you, you can always tell me, right?"
"I know, Pep." He leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. "I know." He whispered into her ear. Pepper began to widen her smile, and as the warm feeling spread throughout her body, she leaned against his chest. Out of sheer habit, he wrapped arm around her shoulder and gently rubbed it. Both of them were smiling and simply enjoying their time together.
—Pepperony-Pepperony-Pepperony-Pepperony-Pepperony-Pepperony—
Tony walked downstairs and towards his workshop. He stopped at the glass door and heavily sighed. As much as it pained to kill him, he had to leave Pepper so he could figure out the recent attack on Leon Industries. He punched in his access code and opened the glass door.
"Welcome back, Sir. Would you like me to read you today's news?" JARVIS suddenly asked him as Tony entered his workshop.
He furrowed his eyebrows. "Since when did you start offering to read the news, JARVIS?" He walked towards his desk.
"In response to this morning's argument, Ms. Potts has ordered me to add that to the list of daily requests." JARVIS explained.
Tony sat down in his chair. "Hm, guess I took that a little too far." He snapped his fingers three times, once at each monitor. "C'mon, wake up boys. Daddy needs everyone to be at their optimum speed for…" He looked down at his watch. "…three hours."
The monitors suddenly lit up and started analyzing current events, daily performance ratings, the stock market, etc.
"Would you like to know what the stock market value on Stark Industries is, Sir?"
"Um… no. You can actually tell that to Pepper." Tony looked at each of the monitors.
"Ms. Potts was notified this morning after you left, Sir. Would you like to—"
"JARVIS, I think today I'd like to investigate more on the attack on Leon Industries." Tony leaned back in his chair with his elbow resting on the arm rest and his hand gently rubbing his goatee.
"Of course, Sir." JARVIS announced.
"Do you think you could pull up the feeds from the security cameras from last night? Approximate time frame should be between 8PM and 2AM." Tony rubbed circles into his forehead in deep thought. Each monitor was sliced into nine equal parts, each showing one security camera feed.
"Pulling up security camera feeds from said time frame. This may take several minutes." JARVIS announced.
"Um, JARVIS. Do you think you could keep this a secret between boy and his machine? I really don't want Pepper to know about this." Tony spoke up.
"Of course, Sir." The AI responded. "The first few feeds should be appearing."
Tony leaned forward and glared at the feeds. The first feed from 8PM showed employees clocking out, one by one. Suddenly, more feeds started popping up and Tony examined all of them.
"I count… at least twenty security guards. What about you JARVIS?" He asked his AI.
"My results are the same."
Tony rubbed his chin and heavily sighed. "Fast forward to 8:30PM."
The feeds suddenly buzzed through until it hit the 8:30PM mark. The security guards were sitting at their posts. Some of them were conversing with each other. Everything was pretty normal.
"Nothing out of the ordinary, yet." Tony observed aloud. "This could take a while…"
"Would you like me to fast forward to a different time frame, Sir?"
"Fast forward it but keep it at… Mmm," He thought for a second. "…Twenty-five times regular speed."
"Will do sir."
Nothing happened out of the ordinary. Tony sat there at his desk and leaned back in a somewhat lazy position. He crossed his arms across his chest and observed each feed one by one. His eyes mimicked patterns across the screen. After a few minutes, he began to think of something else entirely, but his eyes still scanned each screen. He thought about the time he and Pepper decided to barbeque some teriyaki marinated chicken breasts. He began to smile, zooming to the memory of declaring himself as the man of the house, therefore, being the one that had to cook the chicken. It didn't go so well. He ended up burning two and setting three on fire. He panicked and didn't know what to do, so he ran back inside the house and immediately called for Pepper. Pepper was in the kitchen cooking some steamed vegetables and preparing the rice cooker. When she heard him shriek her name, she rolled her eyes and lazily walked towards the doors that led to the backyard. When she saw the three chickens that some how were on the grass and on fire, she couldn't help but laugh.
"Pepper, I'm pretty sure these are one of these moments when we look back and laugh our butts off, but that moment won't exist—actually the house won't exist because THE CHICKENS ARE CATCHING THE GRASS ON FIRE!" Tony exclaimed.
Pepper eventually grabbed the fire extinguisher from inside and doused the chicken with its contents. Of course, she still laughed even after seeing the aftermath the three flaming chicken left. She laughed even harder when she saw the three small black burnt grass circles the size of watermelons.
They ended up keeping the vegetables and rice, and ordering pre-cooked and season chicken from Boston Market.
Tony smirked, thinking about how much fun they had. He couldn't stop thinking about her. Every little detail in his life involved Pepper somehow but he loved it. He liked it when she stayed over and when she'd cook absolutely orgasmic food. He wanted her to stay with him, heck – half of her wardrobe is in his closet, so why not? It wasn't like he was asking her to marry him—oh boy, that question wouldn't come up for a while. It was only a simple question about moving from one place to another, right?
The more Tony thought about it, the more time passed. He gazed up at the monitors and noticed that the feeds had already reached midnight.
Everything was still normal. Tony furrowed his eyebrows and sighed again. "If she lied to me, I swear to god, I'll—" Suddenly, all of the feeds went fuzzy, obscuring every single visible area. Tony sat up in confusion. That's weird… "JARVIS, I didn't say you could stop the feeds."
"I did not stop them, Sir. They'll still running."
"What the…" He sat up and rolled his chair forward. "What's the approximate time when all of the security cameras go berserk?"
"Scanning… Analyzing… The approximate time frame is at 12:04 AM at thirty two point five six one seconds." The AI announced.
"Rewind back to midnight."
The feeds zoomed back to midnight and everything seemed normal. Tony sat up straight and observed every second of the feeds. He narrowed his eyes at each monitor on confusion. When the feeds hit 12:03AM, all of the guards turned their heads in different directions.
"Pause." Tony abruptly said. All of the feeds paused and at the same time, all of the guards were tilting their heads to the side and looking in different directions. "Do you see that, JARVIS?"
"Yes, it seems like the guards were alerted via communication devices."
Tony pointed to one camera feed. "If they were all alerted, that means one feed has to be the starting point." He looked at all of the cameras in search for the odd ball. "Slowly fast forward all of the feeds."
As JARVIS slowly fast forwarded every feed, Tony observed all of the guards rushing in every which direction. He searched for the specific feed and after a few minutes, he found it.
"There!" He exclaimed before pointing at it with his index finger. "JARVIS, focus on the bottom left hand corner on the second monitor. Rewind it to a few seconds before all of the feeds die out."
"Rewinding…"
"Stop. Right there!" Tony pointed with his index finger again. The feed had shown half of a body that wore dark clothing in the bottom right hand corner. The security cameras are too out of focus to correctly observe the single figure. "Is there any way to focus on that figure?"
"Yes, but it will take some time to properly focus it." JARVIS responded.
He pointed to the specific feed and then pointed at the dark figure. "If this is the guy who attacked from the inside, then who cut the feeds?"
"What are you suggesting?" JARVIS asked.
"More than one person was in on this operation. There's no way this guy could attack Leon Industries from the inside and cut the feeds at the same time." He observed.
"Have you thought about a remote detonation?"
"I thought about it but I highly doubt it. If he had a remote detonator, he would've cut the feeds way before he entered the range of the security cameras. Either that or this guy is really sloppy." He supported his elbow with his hand and leaned into the other palm in deep thought. "What time is it?"
"The time is 4:31PM."
"Shit, I'm supposed to get ready by 5PM." He began to rub his forehead with his fingers in frustration. "Um… send the feed to Fury. Tell him to focus it on the bottom right hand corner and then tell him to send it to Captain America for further analysis. Also, tell them about my observations."
"Of course, Sir."
He quickly stood up and walked towards the door. "Keep all information regarding the attack in my personal and private servers. If anything urgent comes up regarding relevant suspicious activity, notify me at the appropriate times."
He reached for the glass door's handle. "And when are the appropriate times, Sir?"
"When Pepper isn't present." He looked up at the ceiling in annoyance. "If Pepper hears about the attack from you, I swear to god, I will scrub your motherboard with Victoria Secret perfume."
"Duly noted, Sir."
"Good." Tony opened the door with a small smile on his face. "Oh, and what do you recommend, tuxedo or casual?"
"Casual, Sir."
Tony widened his grin and nodded. "Good choice, JARVIS."
A/N: Short chapter. I've got midterms next week, so I won't gauarantee anything in the next few days. Reviews keep me distracted (although, that's not a good thing, lol) and distraction means typing, and typing means fluff and stuff! ALSO, I bought a Stark Industries decal online :]. They're stickers (kind of like bumper stickers), that you put on your laptop. I could've chosen hot pink, gold, or red but I liked white because my Alienware is pitch black. The Stark Industries will stand out under the glowing alien head ;). I think I'll buy more (they were only a dollar!) and stick them everywhere. I should ask if they could do a Robert Downey Jr one. I also bought a neon yellow t-shirt that says Team Robert Downey Jr on the back. I actually have that on five t-shirts and a sweater… my parents do not know about this. Good-night everyone! TGIF!
