Guest Review Responses

apps: Niceee going...but i am not liking this samantha and tony should really fight hard for his relationship now...coming to pepperony part i am really into it. – This Samantha/Tony/Pepper interaction is going to be very interesting, to say the least. Hehehe… hehehehe :D

Guest: Okay, I know this is going to sound super insensitive, but here goes. I know you like JUST updated it, but please don't make me suffer. You mus update again! Please! The suspense! I cannot take it! It's so good! – SO SORRY! I totally wanted to update ASAP but, you know, life and all that. I had a good schedule going, but my work hours have extended a lot and shot my plans :( I was aiming for aiming three stories per week on the weekends, but man, I am SO behind on that! Sorry about that, but here's the new chapter. Hope you like it!

MyCaptainsSwan: (Can't be bothered to log in) 'Or worse: had her father band her from even speaking to him?' ...ahem...wrong fic... Oooooh is Sam the 'her'!? HAHA POOR RHODEY Omg I'm actually feeling jealous for Pepper wth. That's just rude you made her bond with Tony on the one thing Pepper can't uggghhhh I already hate Sam. 'I guess we can be lab partners for today, then, huh?' KILL IT WITH FIRE! WHAT. THE... OMG. I WAS THINKING MAYBE A COUSIN, BUT IT'S HER SISTER?! Damn...can't wait for the next chapter! – LOL! Yeah! When I read your review I realized it sounded like 2020 XD Total coincidence, I promise! There will be no end-of-the-world theme in this one. And yes, Sam is her. We'll actually learn more about Pepper through Samantha, and you may even end up liking the girl… maybe… towards the end… or at some point before we all die. Or right before we all walk up with torches to her and set her on fire.

Chapter 4

It was already happening. She did not want to believe it, but it was already happening. The one thing that she had so greatly feared, as soon as she had walked into her living room the day before to see her father sitting with Samantha on their couch, was already unfolding before her very eyes: Tony Stark, her genius boyfriend, was already bonding with her.

Her. Why her? Why did it always have to be her?

In hindsight, she should have seen it coming, miles away; both literally and metaphorically. She had heard her father talking over the phone about it. She had suspected that something very serious was happening with her mother – something that resembled the reason why she and her father had divorced. But the redhead had expected the matter to be resolved elsewhere. She had not expected Samantha to be sent to New York because of it.

Or at least not while she was still around, that was for sure. Could Child Protective Services not have waited until the summer break? Or maybe until she was no longer living at home?

Why, oh, why had they deemed it appropriate to uproot Samantha from Pittsburgh, only a couple of months away from high school graduation? Why had the government entity believed it wise to send a sixteen-year-old girl away from her mother to live with her father and her older sister, two people the teen rarely called to say hi to?

Why? I mean, like… Why?!

Sadly, Pepper Potts knew why. She knew it too well, in fact. She had lived it, more than Samantha would ever be able to remember, and much more than the younger girl had even been able to understand. She had been the oldest child at the time. She had taken the hits for her sister – one too many times to count.

With a loud sigh, the redhead closed her stinging eyes. Her arms then circled around herself, taking on the same helpless pose she had grown accustomed to being in every time her mother had beaten her up in a drunken rage. She could almost hear her slurred, angry words yelling at her; smell the alcohol-ridden scent emanating from her pores; and even feel the pain left behind on bruised areas of her body that had healed long ago.

Healed physically, sure. But emotionally…

"You can't hide in there all day, Pepper," Rhodey's knock on the door made her yelp. Shaken out of her stupor, Pepper briefly covered her mouth with her hands as if she could somehow take back the sound she had just made, stared left and right, and then looked over her left shoulder and towards the door.

"I'm not in here!" she physically flinched right after the words left her mouth. "Aw, man!" the girl added with a groan.

A light chuckle followed the opening of the door of the cleaning closet she had chosen as her hideout, to reveal a smirking yet concerned-looking James Rhodes.

"How did you manage to unlock the door?" a petulant-sounding redhead asked as she stood up from the floor.

"Locks from the outside."

"It, what?"

The redhead took a step towards the exit to place the lock on the knob. She then proceeded to jiggle the handle both from the inside and the outside, quickly confirming with a whine that her friend was telling the truth.

"Stupid door!"

"You can't avoid him forever, Pepper," Rhodey candidly stated, cutting to the chase before the ginger had a chance to try to make an escape or come up with another delay of a retort. Her face scrunched in distaste at his words, opened her mouth to deny his claims, but then her eyes narrowed when a mop fell on the side of her head.

"Ugh! Stop doing that!" Pepper stomped her right foot on the ground as she pushed away the offending cleaning tool, much in the same fashion she had done so the first time the wet mop had hit her when she had first walked inside the tiny room.

"Pepper–"

"How did you find me?" she snapped while she crossed her arms over her chest.

"There's only so many places to hide around here," Rhodey shrugged. "And the last time you tried to hide from people, you did it here. It was the day that you accidentally slammed into Greg in the cafeteria during lunch and your food tray flipped onto you."

Pepper's mouth went agape and her arms dropped to her sides, unable to believe that Rhodey recalled the first time they had ever spoken in their entire lives. They had not been friends back then, but the highly mortifying incident had made the young boy feel embarrassed for the quirky girl that had all but bolted out of the cafeteria after being covered in questionable food. As such, as it was his nature, he had taken on the task of looking for her to make sure she was alright. He had known that the entire school, during their freshman year – and still a little bit, nowadays – thought all kinds of weird things about the spunky girl. Nevertheless, she was still a person, one that had never had friends until Tony Stark had shown up, and high school-aged kids could be extremely harsh.

"You remember that?"

"Yup. You hid in this same cleaning closet back then. And once I found you here, I remember that, for the rest of the day, you smelled like grape juice, pizza and chlorine, all at once."

Her only response was to look down and shrink further into the small room.

"Come on, Pepper," Rhodey waved her over with his left hand. "You have to come out."

"No, I don't," she replied between gritted teeth.

"Yes, you do. You've been there all your free period, haven't you? You haven't even eaten, huh? Lunch ends in twenty-minutes."

"So, what?" Pepper challenged, her nose sticking up in the air and her arms crossing over her chest once more.

"So we have class in twenty-five minutes, if you count the passing period. The four of us: you, me, Tony, and–"

"LALALALALALA!" Pepper covered her ears with her fingers.

"Fine!" Rhodey lifted his arms to the sides of his face in a defeated gesture. "Won't mention her name, OK? But you still have to come out of there. You still have to talk to–"

"LALALALALALA!" the redhead repeated her previous response, prompting Rhodey to roll his eyes before pulling her out of the closet by the hand.

"Hey! Watch it!"

"Snap out of it, Pepper!" Rhodey growled.

"No!"

"Pepper! Seriously! What's gotten into you? You and Tony need to–"

"NO!" she clenched her hands and leaned closer towards Rhodey. "This is not happening. We are NOT talking about it, because there's nothing to talk about!"

"Pepper–"

"NO!" she shook her head vehemently. "We are not having this conversation. You are not here. I am not here."

"Pepper, you're not a child! You have to–"

"No! You can't tell me what to do. And you know why? Because I don't have to do anything! Nothing at all! Nuh-uh! No, siree! NOTHING! I don't have to do anything!"

"Actually, you do. You do have to talk about it… with me."

Her eyes went so wide at hearing Tony's voice coming from behind her that Rhodey was reminded of an eerie-looking Halloween mask of a zombie he had seen on display, long ago. Her face paled almost at the same time that her shoulders became stiff, leaving her to look as drained of color as said mask had been. The only thing the redhead was missing at the moment to equally resemble the Halloween item was a trail of blood leaking down from the corner of her mouth, unmistakably originated from a recent brain eaten by the apocalyptic entity in question.

Unfortunately for the redhead, a sudden zombie outbreak was currently not in the cards.

"I'll see you two in class."

With that final statement, Pepper's eyes were on Rhodey the entire time it took him to turn around in place, walk away from her, down the hall, and then around the corner. Her eyes then drifted from the end of the row of lockers on the wall to the still opened closet to her left, wondering how fast she could jump back inside, and how likely it was for her, once there again, to be magically teleported to a faraway land.

"Pepper?" Tony's voice was tender yet firm. "We need to talk."

The redhead swallowed hard, closed her eyes tightly, and then spoke in a barely joking tone.

"I know enough about relationships to know what the line–"

"No," the genius rounded her standing form so that he could finally face her. This was the closest they had physically been since yesterday, and he was already feeling the negative effects of the invisible wall that was appearing to be rapidly building between them. He would not let it finish coming together, let alone allow it to be there forever.

"You know that's not what I mean," he continued. "And it's not a joke."

"But…" her voice trailed.

"But, nothing," he said in a way that made her open her eyes and look up to stare at him. In response, the inventor then tried to place his hands on her shoulders, but the redhead immediately hugged herself and pulled back.

"Tony, I… I can't…"

Hearing her nearly burst into tears – something she was not known to do often – Tony felt his heart break. Whatever was happening to her, whatever she was feeling right now; it was a lot worse than what he had imagined it could be.

"Let's go upstairs," he took a step closer to her and he was glad to see that she did not pull away this time. "I'm not mad, Pep. Just… confused. And worried… about you."

She opened her mouth to decline his invitation, but she was unable to force the words out. Knowing that trying to outrun Iron Man was not going to lead her anywhere, the redhead opted to reluctantly give her boyfriend a nod. She even let him grab her hand and lead her towards the roof, where she knew exactly what they were going to talk about.

xxxXXXxxx

Neither of them knew how to start the awkward conversation, if they should have been sitting rather than standing, or if the result of this talk was going to be positive at all. But they also knew that they could not pretend that Pepper had not been avoiding him since yesterday after he had dropped her off at her home. Tony was not so much concerned with the fact that his girlfriend had ignored him on purpose, but much so with finding out the reason why she was so visibly riled up.

When another minute of silence passed between them, and not wanting to be sent to detention again for being late to class once more, Tony scratched the back of his head with his left hand, dug his hands into his pockets, and then finally spoke.

"Soooo…" his right foot slowly moved from side to side, "You have a sister."

Pepper nodded in response, her eyes still avoiding his at all costs.

"And, I take it that, given the fact she's enrolled in the Academy, she's gonna be here for a while."

"Yeah," she croaked.

"How long?"

"I don't know," she half-shrugged.

"How come? When did she get here?"

"Yesterday," Pepper finally spared him a glance. "She was home when I got there. I… My mom… she-she's not able to care for her right now. And, since she's still a minor, well…" she shrugged again.

"Huh," Tony rubbed his chin with his right hand. "And… this is a problem because…"

"We… we aren't exactly on speaking terms. We haven't been for a while."

"OK," he folded his arms over his stomach and then leaned closer to her, his body language showing how much interest he had in the conversation. "Why?"

"Uhm…" the redhead's eyes shifted left and right, up and down, and even diagonally, stopping only when she felt Tony's right hand on her left cheek.

"Pep, come on. You know you can tell me anything, right? I know you know that you can trust me."

After closing her eyes for a moment when Tony brushed her cheek with his thumb, Pepper sighed in defeat before making her reply.

"We… were never very close when we were kids. And then definitely not close at all for the longest time. After my parents got divorced, she and my mom moved away. We used to visit them often but… but it was never nice. We would always fight. Eventually… eventually the visits stopped. My dad stopped making me go visit them. He knew I hated it."

"I see," the inventor measuredly replied as he pulled back his hand from her face, his mind instantly recalling how nice Samantha had been to him and Rhodey, and how honest she had seemed about it as well. Other than that one comment about Pepper using him to pass Physics class, the girl had been nothing but upbeat and polite. He was not one to judge Pepper or her sister, and he could not really understand what sibling rivalry between two females entailed, but he was one to give people a second chance.

"Well, Pep," he braced himself for an outburst, "What if… what if she's changed?"

To his surprise, Pepper's face did not show any anger. Instead, it just fell.

"I doubt it. Last time I saw her, we… well, there was a fist fight."

"Really?" Tony's head recoiled. "How long ago was that?"

"Uhm… two, maybe three years?"

"That's a long time."

"Yeah. Yeah, it is."

"People change," he offered again, hoping her calmed demeanor remained after his retort, but he was in fact faced with a scowling look.

"Are you actually defending her, Stark?" she repeatedly poked his chest with her right index finger until his right hand wrapped around it to make it stop, but only held it for a second before she angrily pulled it away from his grip.

"No, I–"

"Did she get to you already? Did she sweet-talk you with her science know-how?!"

"What? No, Pepper! Of course not! I just…" he sighed. "All I'm saying is that I can see how much this affects you. I can see that it makes you very upset. And I don't want to see you like that. I… maybe… maybe you should give her a chance. Talk to her. You're not kids anymore, right? I mean, if she's gonna be here a while… coming to school with us and all… don't you think it's worth trying to get to know her again? Maybe even call a truce?"

"I…" her shoulders deflated and she hugged herself again, unable to refute his words. Samantha, thus far, had not been the pain in the ass that she remembered her to be. This did not mean, however, that she was not planning to be one the first chance she had. Yet, at this point in time, all the redhead had to go by to make assumptions of her true intentions were the incidents of their past.

"I guess, yeah. Yeah, maybe you're right."

Half-smirking and quite happy with his handiwork, Tony closed the distance between them, rested his hands on her waist, and then tilted his head to the side to catch her eyes.

"Are you gonna be alright, Pep?"

Incapable of keeping her sad look in place while staring at his hopeful face, Pepper nodded a couple of times and smiled.

"There you go," he pulled her even closer to him so that she could rest the side of her face against his chest, and his chin on her head. "That's more like it."

A silly giggle escaped her lips, which was then followed by a sound coming from Tony that told her he had just realized something he knew he should have noticed way before.

"Hey, Pepper?"

"Yeah?

"You said she's younger than you, right? Why is she taking senior-level courses with us?"

"Because she's very smart. I mean, not quite you smart, but still very smart."

"Oh."

"Yeah," she closed her eyes and sighed in contentment, his warmth making her feel safer than she could now ever feel at home. "She's always been the smart one of the family."

"Well," he slightly pulled away from her to face her, "I guess then that makes you the pretty one… who also happens to be smart."

She blinked multiple times as his words replayed in her head. And once Tony gave her his most charming smile, the poor redhead felt her face heat up.

"T-T-Ton-ny…"

"What?" he kept his nonchalant face and tone of voice despite how fast his heart was starting to beat. He knew that she was feeling very embarrassed at the moment, but the thought of having that effect on her made him fill up with a strange sense of pride… and something else that he had never felt before and could neither name nor describe.

"Uhm…" she gulped, stared him directly in the eye, and then closed her orbs again, almost instantly so, when she realized what he was about to do.

Her hands slowly slid up his arms until they reached his neck, clinging on to him as if her life depended on it, and so he did to her as well. Needless to say, he did not mind one bit, and he could have stayed there with her like that all day, had the school bell not just rung to let them know they were going to be late to class.

Screw getting detention again! The punishment did not matter to Tony as long as Pepper was going to be there by his side.

Unfortunately for him, only one Potts was going to be in the same room with him after school for that… and it was not going to be the one that he had hoped it would be.

A/N: Wondering where the update for The Last Chronicle is? Well, I'm proud to say that this is not my fault XD MY part of the chapter is done. I'm waiting on my hubby to write the flashbacks scenes (he has a thing about the flashbacks for Doom and Whitney/Maya, I don't know what it is, something about "filling in the backstory," I dunno :P). Anyway, the plan is that he'll finish them at some point today and I'll post the new chapter. Plus, I am working on Aftermath right now, too. If all goes well, the three main stories right now will get some love! And then once TLC is finished, I'll be turning my attention back to the others that are pending.

Thank you, my Faithful Readers! You make having to work to pay my electric and Internet bills all worth it! :D