A/N: These are becoming so spaced apart and I hate it! Especially since I'd been getting into the swing of updating every Thursday and Sunday but I guess my classes and a project I have going on in school are draining all of my creative juices right now. I normally think of things I want to happen in the next chapter during school and stuff when I don't want to pay attention to the teachers, but lately, I've been so focused on finishing the school year and again, my classes, that I guess I just haven't been thinking. The most I got for this one currently, I will continue to think about this chapter through the day as I'm doing this first part before school, is maybe the first few lines. We'll see what else I can get from it.

P.S. I have not yet gotten to go see Civil War, but I'm definitely on Tony's side, no doubt and it's not just because he's my favorite super hero, but it's because I think his output also makes sense, his whole opinion and theory of what's going on. Plus, Tony's never really trusted the government, yet he'll side them here which means that they are probably more likely to be trusted, or maybe the exact opposite of that and they just want super heroes to do as the gov. pleases. Idk. I'm still TEAM TONY/IRON MAN!

Thx! And sorry for the long A/N!

AMM


~Tony's POV~

I wake up on a hard tile floor and my mind immediately thinks I got drunk and passes out-old playboy day memories. But when I open my eyes, I have no skull-wracking headache and realize that I'm lying up against the door to the half bathroom in my house. I don't remember how I got here, but I slowly stand up and turn the lock and start to pull the door open. There's something that starts to fall in as I open the door so I peek through the crack and see Pepper, asleep, against the door.

Her phone's in her hand and her laptop is flashing pictures like it's only been unused for a little while. I put my arm through the door and hold Pepper forward as I pull the door open all the way. I then lean down and pick Pepper up and she immediately gravitates into my chest.

I stand there, content with having her in my arms. I walk away from the bathroom, Peppers phone starts going off, so I walk up to a wall and prop my knee against it to hold Pepper while I grab her phone, shut if off, then chuck it onto a living room couch before it woke her up. I then properly pick Pepper up again and take her upstairs.

I get to my room and I nudge the door open. I walk in and gently lay Pepper on the bed. I pull back my side of the bed and gently pick Pepper back up enough to move her to my side. I pull her jeans down because I know from experience that they aren't the most comfortable things to sleep in. I take notice of her simple white undies, but don't get distracted by them as I push her legs under the covers and pull the covers up over her.

I lean back and head for the bathroom so I can take a decent shower but not before kissing her on the forehead. I watch a small smile grace her lips and then I head to the bathroom.

~Pepper's POV~

I wake up in the comfiest bed I've ever slept in. A bed that only one person I know has. Tony. I bring my arms down from being tucked under the pillow under my head and look up to see where Tony is. I also realize how much of the cool sheets I feel against my legs. Someone took my jeans off.

I sit up in the bed and look around the room for Tony. I see him sitting in one of the chairs over by a window in just jeans. His eyes are shut and his breathing looks even. I get out of the bed and walk to Tony.

I straddle his legs and lean my head against his chest. His arms suddenly wrap around my back and him breathe in deeply.

"Hello," I hear him say in my hair.

"Hello, I can only assume that you're the one who brought me upstairs, tucked me into bed, and took my jeans off."

"Mmmm, yeah. I knew I'm probably the only person you would let strip you of your jeans without losing an arm, even if you were asleep. Plus, I know from personal experience that sleeping in jeans is not comfortable at all. I think I've only ever fallen asleep in jeans when I was completely exhausted, to the point I don't even remember if I'd made it to the bed or not.

I feel his hands creep downward and then under my shirt. He begins drawing little designs with his fingertips on the small of my back.

I'm still drowsy from my nap and I soon fall asleep on his chest again. I don't remember Tony moving me back to the bed and re-tucking me in, but I know that when I wake up again in the morning, Tony is nowhere in the room or bathroom.

I get out of bed and slip on a pair of yoga pants and walk downstairs, still seeing no sign of Tony. Then I hear quiet words, "Shoot to thrill and I'm ready to kill," And Then I hear someone start talking.

"No, dummy. I said over there. Do I need to retrain you or something? I'm pointing to the desk. Put it on the desk. Oh my god, here. Let me have it and I'll just put it on the desk myself." I then hear a loud crash then a thud. I dash towards the stairs leading to the garage and see Tony lying on the ground, fighting to catch his breath.

"Tony!" I shriek and run towards him. I drop to my knees as he starts trying to sit up.

"Just get me to my desk," he breathily pants. I pull him upward and he tries helping me walk towards his desk. He throws himself into his chair and grabs a wooden box and pulls out a metal cartridge. He pulls the center of the arc out and pulls a smoking cartridge out and replaces it. He tosses it in his trash bin, not even bothering to realize that he only had one cartridge left.

I examine his chest as he turns around with his water bottle full of something, I don't know what, and realize that a blocky pattern of veins has started to appear and spread away from the arc.

I walk forward and start tracing one of the veins leading towards his stomach when Tony stands and walks over to the middle of the room. "JARVIS, pull up the expo digital wireframe of the Stark expo model."

"Yes, sir." And a blueprint digitalizes in the middle of the room and I recognize it to be the model of the Stark expo model that Howard Stark had built and Tony had kept in his office as SI for the longest time until he promoted me CEO and took it out of the office after we'd had a heated argument. I wondered what he'd done with it, but it hadn't been the first thing on my mind at that time.

"What do you need that for?" I ask as I start walking towards him. He walks away from me though and walks straight through the blueprint. He grabs the blueprint and turns it vertical.

"JARVIS, clear away the footpaths, the landscaping and shrubbery, trees, parking lots, exits, entrances. Put it together as I had it before. Show me the viable replacements and then we're back to work." Tony stands from his chair and walks to the wine cellar and starts dragging pipes and supports and wires of all sorts from the wine cellar.

"What are you doing? You shouldn't be doing this, Tony." Tony drops the pipe he was carrying and it nearly falls on his foot. He jumps back at the last minute and then walks to me. His arms circle my waist.

"You know how much I appreciate you saving my life, no matter how you had to do it, right?"

I nod. "Well, I still want to get this thing out before it has the chance to kill me. The palladium is running through my blood faster and you saw that I only had one cartridge left, so I need to get this taken care of. I'll be fine." He kisses my forehead then walks back into the wine cellar and come back out with a sledgehammer. He grabs some of the wires and wraps it around his shoulder and then throws the sledgehammer over the other shoulder and goes upstairs. I follow, wondering what he was going to do.

He walks into the middle of the living room to the tarp covering a portion of the floor. He yanks the tarp back and I see a huge hole in the floor.

"You put a hole in the floor?!" I shriek.

He nods and throws the wires down through the hole. He sprints back down to the basement then comes back upstairs with more wire then walks into the dining room and pulls back another tarp revealing another hole. He throws the rest of the rope through the hole and then heads back down to the basement and instead of following him; I grab my laptop and take a seat at the dining table.

For the rest of the day, I listen to Tony work, grunting and hollering when he finally got something to work how he wanted. I brought down something for him to eat around lunchtime and again around supper time and he ignored both meals. By the time I was ready for bed, he was finishing up the last of whatever he was building.

Around 10:30, I hear JARVIS tell Tony that the arc successfully accepted the new element again and Tony told him to start running tests. He was going to stay up till the new arc was ready. I started heading downstairs when I heard JARVIS say something Tony probably didn't want to hear when the lights suddenly go out in the whole house.

I grab the railing and hear Tony cuss before I see a blue light at the bottom of the stairs. The blue light starts coming closer and that's when I realize it was Tony.

"Come on, let's go to bed. JARVIS is going to work on restoring power." Tony sounds tired and frustrated. Both of which I can understand. He was impaled only 2 days ago and now the new arc has rejected the new element. Though I do know that Tony is tired, I can tell in his eyes, I know his mind is racing to figure out what he did wrong to make the arc not accept the new element.

"It's ok, you'll have it figured out by morning." I tell him and pull him to a stop so I can kiss him. He kisses me back but he pulls away to soon and continues guiding me up the steps. Why is he suddenly so distant? Is he blaming me for the arc that's quickly poisoning him?

As we reach the bedroom, Tony's phone goes off from his pocket.

"Go ahead to bed. It's S.H.I.E.L.D so I'll be a minute." And with that, he leaves the room. He just goes outside of the bedroom and closes the door, but it's still ajar.

"This is Tony." He waits a minute, listens to whoever it is that S.H.I.E.L.D wants to tell him. "I'm obviously up and around and at home and you've seen correctly. I'm still trying to redevelop that new element. The arc rejected it today so I'm going to run over it all tomorrow and make sure it's all working ok." He listens some more then, "fine, whatever. Tell Natalie-I mean Natasha Pepper and I said hi." And he hangs up the phone.

He walks back into the bedroom and I hear him change out of his jeans. He soon crawls into the bed.

"S.H.I.E.L.D saw in the paper that I'd been in the hospital, looking suspicious and that he wanted to know how the arc was coming along. I hung up before he could talk me into meeting with him like I know he's dying to."

"Ok," I say, trying to stifle a yawn and failing.

"Go to sleep," he says kissing my forehead as I settle on his chest. I didn't argue and was asleep in minutes. I hope things start looking up for him sometime soon.


A/N: So, I didn't even finish the A/N above before I had to go to school so I didn't get to write this morning, but I was able to ponder what to do for this chapter instead of thinking of the frog being dissected by my teacher in front of me during class today. That's always delightful. Anyways, I now have to get to my load of homework since I've been sorta pushing off so I could type this. Your welcome btw. Anyways,

Thx!

AMM