Pepper walked through the front door with a purse in one hand and her Blackberry in the other. She walked towards the couch and placed her bag there. She stood there, typing away on her Blackberry, and answering some e-mails. She made the motion to sit down until a pair of strong arms suddenly enveloped her. With a small squeal, she squirmed in the person's grasp and laughed lightly.

"Tony, what the—" She grinned, almost losing grip of her phone.

"Thank god you're safe." He whispered, digging his nose in the crook of her neck.

"I told you it was safe. And I assure you, it was a safe and boring meeting." She stopped squirming and felt his grip on her loosen.

His head sprung up. "Really, you thought the meeting was boring?"

She nudged him in the ribs with her elbow and smirked. "I'm glad to know you were worried about my safety." She added sarcastically.

Tony chuckled. "Of course I was worried about you—but I didn't think you'd actually say if a meeting was boring."

"You weren't there to make snide remarks about others through texting, so yeah, it was boring."

"Where's Natalie?" Tony turned his head slightly to look behind him.

"She dropped left after Happy dropped us off. She said she had other pressing matters to attend to." Pepper managed to turn in his arms to face him. She saw a worried expression flash across his face. She furrowed her eyebrows and began to grow worried herself. "Is everything okay?"

"Um… not exactly." He told her, pressing his lips together. "I want you to look at something." He unraveled his arms and tugged on her wrist. Pepper reluctantly followed him with curiosity.

He walked down the stairs that led to his workshop and inputted his access code. With Pepper trailing behind him, they both entered the garage. She looked around and saw the digital turquoise hologram that floated on top of his other desk and various other files on the screen of every monitor.

Tony led her to his main desk and bent over. He waved his hand over the desk and an illuminated keyboard glowed light blue. His fingers flew across the keyboard just as a few files popped up one by one. Pepper looked over his shoulders and peered at the monitors. He sat down in his desk chair and heavily sighed.

"When Natalie and you left to go to that meeting, JARVIS managed to spot two files that were recorded as transferred on the night of the attack. We ran a recovery back up systematic program and recovered the files but JARVIS told me something at the last minute that caught my attention." Tony looked up at Pepper. Her eyes were fixated on the monitors.

"What was in the two stolen files?" She glanced down at him.

"I skimmed through them. The recovered back up files was missing at least one-eighth of its information – it was expected. But, I managed to get the gist of it. Leon Industries was trying to build a smart missile. They managed to get most of the mechanical and electrical issues down but their calculations were a bit off." Tony started out.

"Okay, so we have the two files that were pretty much useless for both parties." Pepper figured. She glanced over at Tony and noticed he was unfazed by her statement. "What?"

"He duplicated my weaponry." He stood up from his seat and walked around his desk. She kept her eyes on him, waiting for him to continue talking. Of course she knew that the man had duplicated his weaponry. He told her himself. But what did that—

"If he stole this information from Leon Industries, he could do some serious damage." Tony pressed his lips together and folded his arms across his chest. "I've done most of the calculations while you guys were away. It would take at least two weeks for him to buy the parts and finish the calculations."

"What does it make?" She glanced down at the monitors.

"A missile that splits up into five separate bombs."

"Like the Jericho—?"

"Worse." Tony interjected with a frustrated and worried expression. "Much worse. Each bomb splits up into one hundred micro bombs. They have a blast radius of three feet."

"W-well, you gave the information to Fury, right?" She tried to calm him down. She knew what he was getting at. Tony hated it when his own weaponry was used against innocent people. He blamed himself for the deaths of innocents around the world. It wasn't his weaponry that this man was using this time, but he still treated it like it was his fault.

"Yes, I did." Tony nodded. "But he wouldn't listen to me when I told him how dangerous it was. He told me to let everyone else handle it." He started to walk over to his Iron Man suit. Pepper's eyes suddenly widened.

"Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?" She furrowed her eyebrows slightly and quickly walked towards him. "Please tell me you aren't going to do what I think you're going to do."

"How can I not do anything, Pepper?" He angrily asked, and almost shouted, at her. He whipped his head around to glare at her. Without a doubt, Pepper was shaken up by his voice, but she stood her ground and looked at him. She didn't show any signs of frustration, anger, worry, or fear. She just looked at him.

"He's not using your weaponry, Tony. He's using Leon's."

"It doesn't matter!" He shouted this time. She still stood her ground. "He's duplicated my weaponry and he still hasn't been stopped. That's reason enough to go after him."

"What are you going to do once you catch him?" She blatantly asked. Tony looked up at her and saw how serious she was. He didn't say a word. "Are you going to kill him?"

"Of course not." He managed to mutter.

"Are you going to put him away in jail like Justin Hammer?"

"Why are you asking me this?" He asked under his breath.

"Because you're really worked up right now. If you go out there and try and capture him, you'll fight with your emotions, not with your head." She pointed it out to him. "I don't want to see you get hurt and unintentionally do something that you'll later regret."

Tony heavily sighed and looked away. She was right. He was getting worked up over something that wasn't a complete threat yet. If he went out there, and managed to find the man that has been duplicating his weapons… there's no telling what he would've done to him. He made his way over to Pepper and tugged at her hand. Again, she followed him, but this time it was to the hologram table.

"JARVIS, pull up folder fifty-five." He announced. He looked over at her with endearing eyes. Pepper glanced up at him and saw how soft and glossy his eyes were. She was about to smile back but once his head turned, the moment was gone. "Look."

Pepper looked up at the hologram and widened her eyes. "What… but how?"

Tony looked up at the folder that was labeled 'Project Kin' and pressed his lips together. "JARVIS found this folder in Leon Industries system. Didn't Hardman talk to you about—"

"He did." Pepper interjected him. "And he was there at today's meeting."

"I know…" He muttered under his breath. "Did he talk to you?"

"He seemed… normal." She looked up at him.

"Normal?"

"Like Leon's disappearance didn't faze him." She shook her head in disappointment. "I can't believe—does he know that Leon had this?"

"I don't know. I was thinking they were working together." Tony shrugged. "What did he tell you about Project Kin on the night of the Charity Ball?"

"Nothing unusual." She folded her arms across her chest. "He said his team was working on a weapon of some kind. Something that could vitally paralyze someone."

"Nothing else?"

"Nope." She shook her head. "Just a jealous boyfriend and butted in after." She playfully grinned up at him.

Tony chuckled to himself and smiled down at her. "You can't expect me to just sit there and watch as an annoying businessman flirts with my personal assistant."

"Did you figure out what Project Kin had?"

Tony had noticed her change in subject. "Um… kind of. The files contained weird calculations and engineering schematics. It didn't look like anything I've ever seen before. It was all jumbled up too."

"Jumbled up?" Pepper furrowed her eyebrows.

"Words were turned around. Numbers and calculations weren't exactly neat. And some of the commentary at the side was blurred out." Tony touched the hologram, opening the folder. The files flew out of its container and into plain sight. He zoomed in on one of the schematics and pointing at the blurred out words.

"That's weird."

"Yeah… I didn't give it to Fury. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?" He smiled down at Pepper and she smiled back. She shook her head at him and nudged his side.

"He'll find out one day, and you'll be sorry." She warned him and gave him a smug look.

"When is the next meeting with Hardman?"

"Next week on Monday." She responded.

"Are you going to go?" He raised his eyebrows at her, implying that she shouldn't go.

"Yes, of course. I'm your P.A, Tony. I'm supposed to go to these meetings since you obviously never want to go."

"What!" He exclaimed. "Why do you—"

"Do you want to go instead?" She glared at him.

"If it means that you'll be out of his reach, then yes." He nodded and paused. "Pepper, he could seriously reach over the table," He started to make gestures with his hands. "grab your neck, and kill you."

"You're incorrigible." She rolled her eyes at him.

"At least act serious about this, Pepper."

"A weapon that vitally paralyzes someone doesn't sound that harmful, Tony."

"It's a weapon nonetheless." He tried to tell her. "And he did say that he wanted to further inform you about Project Kin."

"So, now you want to use me as bait? I thought you were hell bent on protecting me. It is the reason why you lied to me about everything." She shot back at him.

"I do want to project you, but while you two were away, I've thought of a plan." He watched Pepper take out her Blackberry.

"Can you tell me later? I have to meet with Jane right now."

"Jane?" Tony furrowed his eyebrows. "If you wanted a threesome, you could've just asked."

"Oh can it, Tony." She spat back. "Jane is the woman that takes care of the shipment papers for all of the equipment. She wanted to make sure the regular list was still accurate and useable."

"When will you be back?" He asked, almost with an innocent tone. Pepper glanced up at him and noticed how disappointed he looked. She couldn't help but flash a small smile.

"I'll be back around five o'clock." She reassured him, making her way towards the glass door. "I'll bring dinner home, so don't eat anything until I get back."

Tony nodded with a small frown. Before she left his workshop, he called her back. "Pepper."

She turned around with her Blackberry still in her hands. "Hm?" She hummed innocently.

"I'm sorry for shouting at you earlier… I was just—"

He was apologizing for something that wasn't initially his fault. She knew that he was under a lot of pressure. He had to worry about innocent people, basically the world, and yet he still wanted to apologize for yelling at her. It wasn't the first time he did it, but he was still sorry for it. Tony wasn't usually the type of person to say sorry to anything or anyone. She was glad he changed for her. She was pretty sure even the butterflies in her stomach were smiling like a Cheshire cat. "I know, Tony." She said understandably; her small smile grew quickly.

A/N: Short chapter. :S It's getting hotter here in L.A. But it's night time right now, so it's the perfect weather! I went to Santa Monica with my friends. We were going to go to Venice, actually they were going to drop me off so I can go find Robert Downey Jr, but we went to the beach instead. They kept shouting "HEY IT'S ROBERT!" and pointing at random people. :( I'm so gullible.