Guest Review Responses

Thanks for the favorites/follows: Tashy 17.

Jessica: Omfg epic that was amazing AaAh I'm like so hyped rights now I need to know what happens next it'll bug me all day !,but amazing chap as always would love for you to update more sooner tho xxx – Triple feature this weekend! Hope you like this tone too!

Chapter 22

She was trying her best to keep her eyes open, but she still felt tired as heck. She had gotten very little sleep three nights ago, when she had been with Tony. Then, she had slaved away her detention time at school, only to then end the school day by stupidly eating a strawberry-filled cupcake that had been offered to her, which had in turn landed her in the hospital – and had nearly killed her, apparently; although, she remembered nothing about that. Then, last night, when she had finally been released from the hospital and been brought home, she had spent most of the night tossing and turning, unable to find a comfortable position to sleep in. Then today, at six o'clock in the morning, on a Saturday of all days, Tony Stark had knocked at her front door; bringing with him a family breakfast and all.

A box of donuts, a bag of bagels, and gallon of hot coffee later – Virgil Potts had agreed to let the redhead spend the day with her boyfriend at the inventor's home, which gave the father an opportunity to both be close to his daughter's current location, just in case she fell ill again, and relaxing himself in the company of Howard Stark, as he would be visiting the elder Stark at his own residence today, located relatively nearby to Tony's place. Surprisingly to the FBI agent and Pepper, Samantha had opted to stay home, claiming that she needed to sleep as much as Pepper needed recovery time. Neither of them had questioned her motives. In the end, they knew, these past few weeks were probably the most eventful the brunette had ever had in her entire life.

That was if, of course, no one counted hiding and running away from one's mother while one's older sister took yet another beating for you. Then again, again, the irony of this situation was that Pepper would have never eaten the darned cupcake had she still been living with her mother. The woman had had a crazy, nearly obsessive way to keep tabs on everything and anything that could make it to either of her daughter's lips. If there had been one single good thing about the former Mrs. Potts, was that once she had realized that Pepper had food allergies – albeit only one – she had made sure that the redhead had never been exposed to it again.

What would her mother say, if she were to find out how stupid she had been? It was bad enough that everyone had been so worried about her. She had not meant to scare anyone. She had just been distracted enough to not think about what she was putting in her mouth before she did.

"Let's go to bed," the ginger barely heard her boyfriend tell her, but she did feel his arms lifting her up from the couch. The entire moment was very familiar to her, comforting, too, so she just let him do as he pleased. She was too tired to argue with him, and she knew that he was still worried sick about her health. She could not blame him for it, either. She could not imagine what he and anyone close to her had felt when they had found out she had been on the brink of life and death.

Last time I eat anything I didn't make without checking it over first, she berated herself, eyes closed, feeling relieved that Tony had not been too mad at her for her slip-up. She knew she should have considered the possibility that there was strawberry in the sweet, but she had been to hung up on the fact that she had not had the chance to eat the cookies she and Tony had tried to make, just the day before. Besides, the alternatives for the couple of cupcakes that Stephen had offered her were being thrown in the trashcan; she just could not say no to free food – especially treats! The consequences of one delicious cupcake, however, were not worth the savory taste of it at all.

Then again, she was sure that Tony would have liked the second cupcake too; the one that she had planned to give to him, anyway, if it had not fallen from her hands and onto the floor when she had passed out, halfway to the exit of the school. The moment she had taken the last bite of the cupcake, she had finally identified the vaguely familiar taste that she could not quite place when she had started eating the treat, but she remembered how in the past the consumption of strawberries had only caused her to break out into a mild case of hives – she had not expected a full-on anaphylactic shock to incapacitate her so greatly and so quickly. Thanks to her little mishap, she now had to carry with her an epinephrine injection, very likely so for the rest of her entire life.

Not to mention, her food and eating habits would probably be under eternal scrutiny from none other than the blue-eyed inventor himself.

Poor Tony, the redhead inwardly sighed. He must have been freaked!

Granted, everyone that knew her had feared the worst, but Tony was the one who had been doting upon her every single second since he had been able to finally see her the night before. She was not sure she would be able to live with an overbearing genius by her side, twenty-four-seven, but she was at least going to let him get it out of his system while she felt too weak to shake him out of his fear-induced, highly and unnecessarily protective state.

Besides, her weakened stated had prevented them from speaking about that. Which was fine by her right now, since she did not yet feel ready to face that particular tune herself.

"Are you cold, Pep?" the genius whispered into her left ear, his arms circling her waist from his position behind her in his bed, spooning her if just to make sure that he could feel her breathe in and breathe out.

"No," she replied and snuggled closer to him, her body instantly relaxing that much more than it had been while in the living room of his penthouse.

"If you feel uncomfortable or need something, tell me, OK?"

"Mmhhh," she was falling asleep fast.

"Sleep tight, babe."

Her body going limp in his welcoming arms and her subsequent light snores were her only response. Yet, he remained awake for nearly another hour, needing nothing more than to hear her being alive.

xxxXXXxxx

She found him waiting for her in the alley behind her apartment complex, just as she had instructed him to do. She did not want to risk going to school, to the mall, or to any other public place to speak with the boy, even if she was not entirely comfortable meeting up with a high school senior in private, but she also could not wait until Monday to see him at the academy, either. It would be too obvious and stupid on her part, as it would make it easy for the incident to be traced back to her. Thankfully, her entire family was going to be out for a few hours today – perhaps even until late at night – while thinking that she was simply resting back at home. This was the best chance she would ever have to give her accomplice his next set of orders until the next opportunity came around.

"What took you so long?" Stephen asked, his tone of voice dripping with obvious yet justified fear.

"She's fine," Samantha rolled her eyes at him, answering the one question he had not yet asked but that she knew he had, if only just to tame the brute beast while making him receptive to her new request.

"She'd better be! You didn't tell me she was allergic to strawberries. Or that she'd nearly die," Stephen shifted his eyes left and right, as if expecting to be jumped any second.

"I didn't know she would react that badly. Otherwise, I wouldn't have asked you to offer her the cupcake. I don't want to kill my sister."

"You just want to steal her man."

"And you just want to make sure Tony doesn't find out you gave her the treat."

"If he does, I'll throw your name out there, Princess. You ain't innocent here."

"Relax," she dismissed Stephen's concerns with a wave of her right hand. "Pepper calmed him down for you. Even if he already knows it was you who gave her the pastry, he's not gonna beat you up."

"You sure?"

"Positive. Yesterday, I heard him promise to Pepper that he wouldn't lay a finger on you."

"Oh, OK," Stephen visibly relaxed and sighed in relief. It was common knowledge that Tony Stark, for the most part, kept his promises – especially the ones he made to his redhead.

"Anyway," Sam waved the pile of papers she had brought with her and then handed them to the jock. "Here's this week's load of homework, all ready to be turned in. I made a few intentional errors, just to make sure they don't suspect you didn't do the homework yourself. Coach won't send you to the bench anymore, though."

"Sweet!" Stephen grabbed the assignments and smiled. If it had not been for Samantha Potts offering this trade, he would have never played basketball at the academy ever again. He had tried to study, and he had tried tutoring, but he had come to the conclusion that he was simply too inept to understand basic mathematics, science, or even art. Becoming the brunette's muscle was certainly paying off.

"Hey," she snapped her fingers twice at him to get his attention. "Listen up!"

"K," he nodded and stared her directly in the eye.

"Do you know Rick?"

"Majors?"

"Yup."

"Yeah. We used to hang, but when I found out that he doesn't follow Bro Code, I stopped talking to him. He dated the girl I liked. After we had already started going out!"

"Really? He stole your girl? While you were still dating her?" the girl asked with fake surprise and feigned interest, as she already knew the answer to her inquiry before Stephen said it aloud. If there was something useful she had inherited from her father, it was her ability to find valuable information with ease. And if there was something positive about her mother's genes, it was her ability to make people believe whatever she wanted them to believe.

"Yeah. The jerk."

"That's not cool. But hey! We may have a chance to get back at him."

"Really? We do? How?"

"Well, it's kinda hard to accomplish. And it requires a lot of effort and, well, manning up. It might not be something you're interested in."

"Heck, yeah, I am!" Stephen puffed out his chest.

"Are you sure? Because you seem to be afraid of Tony Stark. And if this goes wrong, Tony's gonna be very mad at you."

"He is? Well, I… Uhm… What is it, anyway?"

"Are you sure you want to know? Because if you're just gonna back out of it, I'll just find someone else's homework to do."

"NO! Tell me. I wanna know."

"I don't think you do. It'll require that you talk to Rick again. And that you pretend to be his friend."

"It does?" Stephen scrunched his nose. "Oh, man!"

"But it will also make Tony mad at him, and not at you. And it will get you TWO weeks of no homework."

"Two weeks?!"

"Yup. Two. Weeks. And, I'll even throw in letting you copy off my tests."

"Man! That's tempting."

Samantha merely shrugged.

"It is, I guess. I mean, if I were you, and this Rick guy knowingly took from me the one person I liked… and I was then given a chance to have Tony Stark beat him up for me, I'd probably go for it. But, you know, that's just me."

"Right. Right. But, I don't see how me talking to Rick would get him jumped by Stark."

"Well, think about it: why would Tony Stark beat up another man?"

"Uhm," Stephen scratched the top of his head. "Oh, I know! Bad guy! Or robber! Someone who wants to take over the world!"

"Well, yeah. But that's more an answer as to why would Iron Man would beat up another man."

"But Tony Stark is Iron Man. Ain't that the same?"

Samantha pursed her lips, swallowed down the snarky retort that threatened to escape her, and then sighed.

"Yes. They're, technically, the same person. But, let's pretend that Tony Stark isn't Iron Man. And let's pretend there's no robbers, or bad guys, or aliens in the sky. Why would someone like Tony want to punch someone's lights out?"

"They… talk… trash about his mom? Oh! Did someone talk trash about his mom? Did Rick talk trash about Stark's mom? That's not cool."

Oh, jeez!

"Anyone who talks trash about anyone's mom would get beat up, Stephen. But no: Rick didn't talk trash about Tony's mom. No one talked trash about Tony's mom. In fact, why would anyone talk bad about Tony's mom? She's dead."

"Oh, yeah," Stephen's shoulders slumped. "Poor dude. Forgot about that."

"Anyway. Back to my original question. Why would Tony Stark feel the need to beat up another man?"

"'Cuz they tried to make a move on Potts," the jock said without missing a beat and then gasped.

"Bingo."

"Oh, no! Heck, no! Nuh-uh! I ain't making a move on Potts! Stark would castrate me!"

Samantha raised her eyebrows, crossed her arms, tapped her right foot against the ground, and then waited for the hamster in Stephen's head to spin its wheel enough to catch up with real life.

"Oh! Oh, wait! It wouldn't be me, right?"

"Right."

"It would be Rick."

"Yup. We just have to make sure that he does. And that Tony finds out about it too."

"But how would that even happen? Rick's a jerk, but not stupid. He wouldn't hit on Potts, even if we paid him."

"OK, for one: stop calling her Potts. That's my last name too, and I'm right here, so it's annoying me that you're using it like it belongs to someone else. For two: he would if he thought he had a chance."

"But he doesn't have a chance. No one does. Ain't nothing getting in between those two. Well, Whitney Stane came close. And Happy Hogan, too. But that was before Stark even realized that he had the hots for Potts… er, Pepper. We all knew. Except him. What a dummy."

"That's what you think," Sam smiled. "But I have the perfect way for Rick to think that he's got a chance with my sister."

"Really? How?"

"I'll tell you… but only if you're in."

"Ugh," Stephen groaned. "I was afraid you'd say that."

"So, what's it gonna be? Two more weeks of homework or not?"

"Aw, man! I need the good grades…"

"So, then say yes."

"But I don't want to get beat up by Tony."

"You won't."

"I don't know. I mean: how can I be sure?"

"Don't waste my time, Stephen. There are others I can ask."

"No! Don't! I…" Stephen sighed. "So, all I gotta do is whatever you tell me so that Rick thinks he can steal Pepper from Stark?"

"Yup."

"But I don't gotta hit on her, right?"

"Right."

"And I won't hurt her again, right? I don't wanna hurt her. She's nice."

"No. You won't hurt her again. I promise."

"And Stark won't know it was me who helped Rick?"

"No. He won't."

"Are you sure? 'Cuz you said he wouldn't find out it was me who gave her the cupcake of death."

"Actually, what I said was that he wouldn't blame you for it. Did he?"

"No. I-I… I guess not."

"So, do we have a deal?"

"Yeah," Stephen nodded. "Yeah, I guess we do."

"Great!" Samantha beamed and waved over the jock towards the exit of the alley. "Now, let's go to Belly Busters, my treat, and I'll tell you what we're gonna do."