Chapter 10: June

The party for the birthday celebration of the star runner of ESU, Scott Summers, was practically a riot. The school had never before made it to the national track meet finals, and thanks to the jock's efforts last month, the university could finally add a few missing medals to their history and displays. The man turned twenty today, so there was no alcohol involved (and even if he had turned twenty-one, the celebration was on campus, so drinking was out of the question) but that did not mean that the college students were not living it up. Every college student was currently having a blast, except the celebrated one and his fiancée, Pepper Potts.

She had been trying to act as if she was fine, as if nothing was bothering her. But after finding out that Maya Hansen and Tony had gotten engaged, her heart had finished breaking beyond repair. She knew she had no right to be upset about it; she had been the one that had not given him a chance to talk things out. She had gone off on him and had continued with her plans, but it was now that she realized that letting anger and pride guide her decisions in the past year had been the worst thing she could have done to herself.

This, whatever pain she felt at the moment despite the happiness occurring all around her, was all her doing, and no one else was at fault.

"That's all your doing, Pep."

The irony of the phrase made her eyes sting again.

Her ache had increased tenfold when Maya and Tony had arrived on campus. Neither of them attended ESU but, apparently, Scott had told Maya about the party, and the brunette had invited herself and Tony to the celebration. She was certain that there were many other people that did not attend ESU on campus right now, but the only two that bothered her with their presence were the genius and his bride-to-be.

His bride-to-be, Pepper thought with disdain. He's getting married to her. He's… he's marrying her!

Was this how he had felt when she had gotten engaged to Scott? Was this how it felt to watch the person you love be happy with someone else?

"Pepper?"

"Ya-hum?"

Her eyes were closed, lost in the glory of his caresses. Her hands lazily ran through his hair while he placed random kisses on her neck and on the side of her face. His hands slid up and down from under her arms to her hips. It had been so long since she had felt like this: treasured, loved, desired; and the last time she had felt like it at all had been when they had spent that drunken night at the motel. It was nothing less than sad and disappointing, however, that Scott did not make her feel this way when they were alone.

"Don't marry him."

She froze on the spot and her hands stopped moving, but she did not face him as he continued to indulge in her neck. She was aware that accepting his silent proposition while dancing at the club had immediately nullified her compromise with Scott, so she saw no need for him to even bring up the topic, especially since he was NOT even supposed to know about it in the first place. How he had found out about it and when was not known to her, but her true worry did not lie in his detective skills for now. Her current issue went beyond finding out who had told the inventor about her engagement with Scott, and it related more to Tony's tone of voice.

There was something in the way he had uttered those words to her, that command he had just given to her that made her feel as if this was only the beginning of what he was going to tell her right now; perhaps even more than she was willing to hear as of yet. He had not used his Tony Stark voice to say those words; he had used his Iron Man tone, which meant that he was getting very serious about this conversation and about where he planned to take it at this time.

When she did not say anything else, lost in her own thoughts, Tony continued.

"Don't marry him," he repeated, more sternly this time. "Marry me."

"W-w-wah?" she swallowed hard. She knew what she had accepted to do with her nod back at The Rotary, and she knew that he knew too. She had thought, however, that he had meant for them only to start dating and see where and if the relationship would lead anywhere else. It now appeared, conversely, that he had been a lot more serious than she had thought he could be: a whole, fucking lot more serious.

"You heard me," he said and pulled away from her neck to stare directly at her eyes. "Don't do it. Stay with me. Don't marry him."

She gulped and felt her entire body begin to shiver under his gaze. "But-but… T-Tony… I…"

"No," he said, and when she tried to look away from him, he held her face in his hands. "Listen to me, Pepper. I... I-I," he sighed, his voice suddenly trembling in fear that he had said too much, too soon.

"I don't know what he offered you – Scott – or what he thinks he can give you but I, I… you know I'll give you anything you want. Whatever it is that you need or want me to do, I'll do it, Pepper. I'll do it for you, no questions asked."

No questions asked. Another phrase she now hated.

"Hey, I thought you said I only had fifteen minutes to get ready," he pulled her chair out after she placed the plate in the middle of the two-person table.

"You did," she gave him a quick thankful nod for the gesture and sat in the chair. "If I'd given you more, you'd take longer and I didn't want the food to go cold."

"Oh," he said and sat in his chair, opposite to the redhead. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Don't," she warned. "You don't know when you really have fifteen minutes or not."

"Hn," he mused as he evenly split the pancakes between them. "True, but all I gotta do is take you out dancing and you'll forgive me for being late."

"Hey!" Pepper narrowed her eyes at him. "No fair! You know I can't refuse a good dance!"

"Ha-HA!" he pointed his fork at her. "I know your weakness, Potts! And that, my beloved, is why you will never be able to stay mad at me forever. I'm your dancing partner for life."

"Ugh!" Pepper groaned and violently stabbed the pancake. "One day, Stark. One day I will find your damned weakness and you'll just have to do as I say. No questions asked. Mark my words."

"Marked."

How had Tony survived all this time?

I put him through hell.

It was now her turn to suffer in the same way she had made him suffer, albeit unbeknownst to her for the first year of their college lives, and on purpose for their second year in school that was now ending.

What was I thinking? She asked herself. Why did I waste an entire year trying to make him pay?

Make him pay for what, exactly? She did not even know anymore.

"I don't understand, Pepper. This… where is this coming from? I thought… I thought we'd decided to be together. I thought… I thought you loved me!"

Pepper scoffed. "Why would you think that?"

"Why would I not?" he spat back and began listing his reasons with the fingers of his right hand. "We slept together, for one, and you told me you loved me! And I… I thought you knew I love you too! Or at least that was the situation between us the last time we spoke. I just don't understand why you changed your mind all of a sudden. Why are you're leaving me?"

"You shouldn't sound too shocked, really. You should've seen this coming."

"WHAT?" he shook his head left and right. "How in the hell would I'd have seen this coming, Pep? I left five days ago for a mission and I come back and you just drop this bombshell on me like it's nothing? I haven't been able to talk to you because you were unconscious, remember? What the fuck happened when I was gone?"

"I woke up, Tony," she finally stared at him but her gaze on him was everything but pleasant. "I opened my eyes and I know what you and Gene did to me."

He flinched. "H-how… huh… uhm, Pepper… look… let me explain…"

"Shut up!" she said and turned her body so that she completely faced him now. "I don't want to hear the excuses I've already heard from Gene."

"You-you've spoken to Gene?"

"Yes. And he told me everything, and even though he was part of it, YOU'RE the one who asked him to do it. You're the one who wanted me to forget about us!"

"To protect you, Pepper!" he faced her too. "To keep you safe! To not have you involved in more of the same danger I've already put you through! It's not so hard to understand! I did it for you, Pep! I did it because I love you, so damn much!"

Her reasons for being angry at him seemed so insignificant now. Now she saw what he had done for her; now she understood what he had meant.

Tony clenched his eyes for a moment and his shoulders sagged. He then opened his again, stared at her eyes and rested his hands on her shoulders.

"Pepper, please. Don't… don't do this. We can talk this out. I… I'm sorry, alright? You know I am! I-I want you, Pepper. I need you. I… I was going to tell you everything and take it back and… please… don't do this to me… to us…"

Against her will, the ginger's eyes filled with tears and she forced herself to look away from his pleading face.

"There is no us, Tony. There can't be an us when I can't trust you… when I don't trust you. When I'm engaged to someone else… to Scott."

"The hell you are!" his hands slid down to her upper arms and he pulled her closer to him, slightly shaking her as he spoke. "You don't belong with him, Pepper! You belong with me! You don't even love him! You can't be happy with him!"

She had tried to be happy with him, with Scott. She had really tried and she knew that he had tried to make her happy, too. But Tony had been right. She just could not be happy with him. She could never make it work with Scott.

"What, Pepper?" he whispered to her. "What do you want? Tell me. We-we can still fix this. We can make it work."

Pepper shook her head vehemently and pulled her head away from his grasp.

"All I want… all I really want… is to have never met you. You… you wanted me out of your life? Well," she gulped. "You can be sure you'll get that now."

Her eyes drifted towards the recently engaged couple again, and she bit back a sob. Tony was sitting in a chair and the brunette was sitting on his lap. He seemed happy to have her with him, and she was all but glowing, her arms around his shoulder; just as the redhead's arms had been around him plenty of times.

Tony grabbed Pepper's right hand in his and slowly kissed the back of it several times until he had not left any part untouched. He then turned his swiveling chair around and in a swift move pulled the girl to sit sideways on his lap. Her right arm rested across his shoulders for support while his left hand rested on her lower back and waist to help her keep her balance on him since her legs were now off the ground.

He then used his right hand to grab Pepper's left and placed light kisses on each one of her fingertips, reminding her of how much more affectionate with her he was becoming lately – even more so than Scott. When he was done, he rested her palm on his chest, right where his fast-beating heart was and kept her hand there by keeping his on top of hers.

"Why does it have to be you? Why can't it be someone else?"

Her pity party was sickening and she could no longer take it anymore. She had to stop thinking about him and her together, and just deal with the consequences of her actions. She had set herself up. She had shot herself in the foot. She had pushed him away and sent him flocking over to the brunette. He had just done as she had asked, again.

Her mouth went agape. She could not believe she had been the one to request to be left alone! Why would she ask him to forget about her? Not to contact her? Why had she not wanted anything to do with her life in New York, this being the only life she knew?

"I mean it," the hologram continued. "Don't look for me. I'll arrest you if you do."

Pepper remained silent and unmoving as the file closed and the lights came back on. There was so much information in that one projection; she could not wrap her head around it all. She was adopted. She had chosen to leave, to end it with him. She had asked him to leave her alone; to forget about it all. He had just been honoring her request. Even if he had kept her around and with him, he had not pursued a romantic relationship with her and had moved on with Maya Hansen. He was just doing as she had asked of him.

"Hey, Pepper! Mind if I sit here?"

Pepper's head snapped to her left to see the brunette smiling at her. The ginger nodded once and moved slightly to her right, so that the woman had more space to sit down next to her at the eating bench, and she immediately did.

"Where's the fiancé?" Maya asked.

Pepper shrugged. "Being worshipped somewhere, I guess. ESU is very happy with him right now, so I haven't heard much from him since he came back from the games."

"Boo," Maya said and rolled her eyes. "Is that why you're so down?"

"Yeah," she lied. "It's hard being without him," she added when her eyes crossed paths with Tony's who was staring directly at her and at the brunette from his position, at least twenty feet from them.

"I can imagine," Maya said. "Whenever Tony goes off on a mission, it's hard for me to be without him, too. I never know if he's coming back or not. It's nerve-wracking."

"Trouble. I have to go."

"Go, where?"

"Mission," he told her and began calling on his Mark I outfit. With awe, Pepper watched the suit literally fly toward him and attach to his body as if it had always belonged there, and in seconds Tony Stark had disappeared behind the mask of Iron Man.

"Tony, no!" she spat and shook her head in disbelief, catching him by surprise. "You can't do this! You-you just got back! You haven't even healed! You can't just go off to get injured again!"

"Pepper," he sighed, his voice disguised by the modulator. "This is what I do. This is what I've always done. It's nothing new. You've always sent me off and then welcomed me back. You just… you just forgot."

"Are you kidding me?" her anger was seeping out of every word and her arms flailed in the air. "Are you telling me I just let you go out there to possibly die if something goes wrong? I don't believe it! I don't…" her head shook vehemently. "I can't… I can't let you go alone."

"I remember that feeling," Pepper whispered and finally looked away from Tony. "It wasn't the best."

Maya noticed that the billionaire's eyes had now shifted from staring at the both of them to staring just at the redhead and she began to panic. She could not let her guard down now, when she was so close to getting what she wanted; what she required. Her last extension was about to run out, and if she did not have in hand what she had come to collect for her employer, she and her stepfather would pay greatly for her mistake. There was no bluffing her way through this one either; the last call she had received had been from the man himself.

"Well," Maya began, an idea coming to mind. "I'm not going to keep you from looking for Scott for long. I just came here to ask you something and tell you something."

Pepper shifted her face to her left to stare at the brunette.

"What is it?"

"First: I'd like to ask you to be my maid of honor. And second: I kinda need an answer to it now because Tony and I have decided on a date already, and it's going to be very soon."

Pepper swallowed hard.

"How soon?"

"This year. Two months. August 14th."

Under the table, Pepper dug her nails into her skin.

"August 14th?"

"Yup. I wanted to get married in July, but he insisted we got married on August 14th, and… oh… my God!" Maya briefly covered her face with her hands. "I'm SO sorry, Pepper! That's… that's your birthday! I'm so sorry!"

Pepper looked away.

"It's alright. It's no biggie. It'll be OK. I'm sure I can skip a birthday this year," she said before she let her anger get the best of her. "In fact, I can totally ignore the fact that you guys are getting married on my birthday if you two promise to be at my wedding."

"Well, of course, Pepper! Did you guys already set a date?"

Pepper glared at Tony for a second and he was visibly taken aback by the sudden change in her demeanor.

"Yeah, we did."

"Oh, awesome. When is it?"

"This year, too," Pepper said with a smile. "Very soon."

xxxXXXxxx

He was not sure why he had let Maya drag him to this party he knew he had no business attending. He was not a track fan, he was not an ESU student, and he had not wanted to celebrate any accomplishment of the lying bastard that was Scott Summers. The inventor had recently found out that Pepper had never been pregnant from him or anyone else, and he was still fuming at his personal belief that the jock had orchestrated the entire thing just to piss him off and set the final barrier between him and the ginger.

Needless to say, Maya's cunning and planning skills had also helped in solidifying in him the lie that the charade had been Scott's plan all along, and that she had been played by the sun-glassed man as much as the inventor had been played. Tony felt he had no reason not to believe Maya's words since she had been honest to a fault with him – or so he thought, and Scott had every reason to try to tear apart the last hope he had ever had of getting back together with Pepper.

And to think I actually felt sorry for the guy! What a jerk!

His eyes looked away from the celebratory wave taking place to his right and he eyed Pepper again. She was staring back at him with a devious look he did not like, and even if he felt as if he should have returned the death glare he was currently receiving from her, he could not make himself do anything else but dumbly stare back.

The redhead eventually looked away from him and smiled at the brunette, who then clapped with enthusiasm before she hugged Pepper. Tony was aware that Maya had gone to talk to Pepper about being her maid of honor for the wedding they were yet to set a date for, and he figured Pepper had just accepted to be part of his wedding planning; a wedding he was not sure if he would be able to go through with his fiancée.

Seconds later, he saw Maya stand up from her position next to Pepper and she quickly made her way back to him. He again put on his complacent face, and he had to will himself not to look beyond the incoming brunette and to Pepper. Thankfully for him, a crowd of students that were migrating from one booth to the other walked by behind Maya, and by the time they cleared the road, Pepper was nowhere to be found.

"She said yes!" Maya began, again sat on his lap and surrounded his shoulders with her arms. His arms surrounded her waist to keep her from falling, and he plastered a happy smile on his face.

"Great!" he replied. "That's great!"

"It is! But she did place one condition, though," the brunette said, hoping that her plan worked and that her nervousness was not given away by the shake of her hands.

"A condition? Really?" Tony shrugged. "What condition?"

"She wants us to make sure that we're available to attend her wedding. I'm still her maid of honor and all, but she wants you to give her away since her dad won't be here on time for the wedding."

"W-what?" Tony spat. "She-she wants me to give her away?"

"I know! Isn't that great? I think it's a great opportunity for you guys to make peace, finally. So I told her you'd do it."

"You what?"

"I told you her you'd do it! Why not, Tony? I think it's about time you guys got over this already. Besides, who else could give her away if not you?"

"How about her dad? He should be giving her away, not me."

"Hello? Did you not hear me? She's getting married before he comes back!"

"Why, what's the hurry?"

Maya shrugged. "I don't know. Love?"

"Sure," Tony mumbled. "Love. So, when's the wedding?"

"September," Maya began, paused for a moment to make sure she enunciated her next words, and that she observed his reaction. "September 17, this year."

Tony narrowed his eyes and Maya knew her plan had worked.

"There's a library on the third floor, and a small lab I've been building so I can work from home. The elevator is at the end of the hall and the code to go up is 1357. The code to enter the lab is 09172011, but I need to add your thumbprint to the database before you can use it."

The ginger nodded to him.

"09172011? Is that standing for September 17, 2011?"

"Uhm, yeah, it is. Why?" he eyed her nervously as they continued walking down the hall of the second floor until they reached the third door before the last on the left side of the hall.

"Is that date significant to you?" she asked but did not immediately receive a response when Tony opened the door they had just arrived at and pushed it open.

"It's the first day I went to the Academy," he said and felt as if he was lying to her even though his response was partially correct. The true reason why he had chosen that code was because not only was it the same one Pepper had used to keep the Private Eye file locked, but it was also the day he and Pepper had first met.

That did it for him.

She was getting married. To Scott. On the day he and she had met.

And she wanted him to give her away.

Fine! Tony thought. FINE! THAT'S IT!

The inventor looked up to stare at the brunette, who had a fake questioning look on her face as she waited for his response. He stared at her for what felt like an eternity as a final memory of he and Pepper came to mind.

"All I want… all I really want… is to have never met you. You… you wanted me out of your life? Well," she gulped. "You can be sure you'll get that now."

"Tony?" the brunette waved a hand in front of his face. "Is everything alright?"

Tony took in a deep breath to recover her senses, carefully stood up from the chair, and grabbed both of Maya's hands in both of his. He gave her a bright smile and she smiled back at him, cocking her head to the side.

"What?"

"Let's get married," he said, determination pouring from his voice and Maya chuckled.

"We ARE getting married, Tony. You've already asked me and I've already said yes."

"No," he shook his head and then began pulling her with him towards the Stark Bike. "I meant: let's get married. Right now."

A/N: Man! I think that's the mother of all cliffies, huh? But DO NOT PANIC! This chapter is the last of the low points as far as anti-pepperony, and I think we can agree it is the absolute lowest. Things are going to change real quick. It's all uphill from here.