Tony smirked having successfully broken into Pepper's house within twenty seconds. He walked through the front door and quietly closed it behind him. No lights were on expect for the ones in the kitchen. He walked a few steps and came across a figure heading his direction. Quickly, he ducked behind one of the sofas and waited before crawling to the right end of it and peeking over. Grinning, he got up and followed Pepper until she stopped in her tracks.

She jumped and screamed when she felt his hand touch her.

"Hey, it's just me," he yelled out, stopping her from running.

Pepper whipped her head around and glared at him, her face as far away from amusement as possible.

"What," he shrugged. "You were taking too long. It's 40 degrees outside."

She opened her mouth to say something, but took a much needed deep breath instead.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Tony twisted his lips thoughtfully, trying to figure out the best response to her question.

She pushed him out of her space. "Don't ever do that again. Ever. I thought you were gonna kill me or something."

He picked her phone off the floor and handed it back to her. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't mean to scare me," Pepper repeated with a drab expression. "Right. Did you also not mean to break into my house?"

"Not break in, implemented a code. There's a difference."

She let out a sigh.

"Besides, your system is crap. Anyone could have broken in."

"Oh, so you're saying Stark Industries is crap?"

"That piece of shit?!" He did a double take at the door. "Whatever. Their lawsuit." He remembered telling, or rather taunting, the techs at R&D that their security system prototype wasn't anything special. As usual, he'd been ignored. Something about his age, his lack of PhD, and no experience. Like he needed any of those to run circles around them.

"Don't change the subject."

"You started...that wasn't what I was trying to do."

"You broke into my house."

"Okay, like I said, I didn't break in. I put in a code."

"You broke into my house."

"I said it was cold."

"I sent you a text."

"You did," Tony asked, genuinely surprised. He pulled out his phone to check his messages.

"Yeah; maybe if you weren't breaking in, you would had noticed."

"Okay, I guess I can see how it can be construed as that," he relented, but not at all admitting Pepper was right. "Come on," he said, gesturing her up the stairs. "I wanna start playing."

"Don't break into my house again."

Her voice was stern; her message loud and clear. "Yeah, yeah. Got it. Your parents left," he said more as a statement than an observation.

"Yep. They have tickets for a concert."

"You know what they're going to do there, right?"

"What?"

Tony turned around and waggled his brows.

"Ugh. Is your mind incapable of thinking about anything else?"

"Hey, I'm not the one who jumped to that conclusion. You didn't even know what I was thinking."

"Then what were you thinking?"

He thought about it for a second as he walked into Pepper's room. "Get some weed and smoke it."

"My parents don't do that stuff."

"Fine," he shrugged. "Then maybe they're gonna do what you were thinking."

"Tony..." She sighed. "Could you not say stuff like that?"

"What? That they're gonna get down? You do know how you got here, right?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Where's your bro?"

"With his girlfriend."

"Oh, so we're alone," he gladly said. "Awesome. Plus..." He trailed off, looking under her bed. "I had him sneak something in for me."

Her eyes widen when Tony pulled out a bottle of vodka.

"Yeah," he grinned. "It'll be a fun addition to the game. If you don't wanna answer the truth or do the dare, you drink." A look of disapproval crossed her face. "I think under all that stuff..." He pointed at her up and down and to nothing in particular. "...you got a wild side and I'm gonna get it out of you."

Tony twisted the cap off the bottle and poured the liquid into shot glasses. "Drink up," he said, sliding the glass over to her. "It's not that bad if you drink all of it-"

"At once. Just because I never go to the parties doesn't mean I've never been to one or haven't drank before."

"See," he pointed out, pouring his third shot and grinning at Pepper. "We haven't even started and I'm already learning new things about you."

Pepper gulped the shot down and closed her eyes when the warm feeling made its way into her throat. "That's really gross," she coughed out.

"You get used to it." He filled her glass again. "To make it fair, you can only use this as a substitute five times."

"I'm fine with that," Pepper agreed, sitting down and leaning against her bed. "Since you lost at Mario Kart, I think you should go first. Truth or dare?"

"Truth," he easily said, taking a seat across from her.

"Okay," she nodded, thinking about it. "When's your birthday?"

He was surprised by the question. He expected her to ask something personal, something difficult. "May 29th."

Pepper made a mental note. "I choose truth."

"Truth," Tony repeated, looking around the room and deciding to ask the question that'd been bugging him since yesterday night. "Is there anything in this room from him?"

"What do you mean?" She was honestly confused for a second, but quickly recovered. "Oh, you mean Robert. Are you sure you want to know?"

"Yeah," he softly said.

"Okay," she mumbled, glancing around the room and coming to a stop at her modernized storage shelf. "I'm not gonna get rid of anything though." She had put most of Robert's stuff in a box inside her closet, but there were some things she decided to keep around for memories. "So don't bother asking me."

"I won't." He followed her over to the shelf hoping it wouldn't be too bad. I asked, right? He was only getting what he wanted.

"Most of his stuff is gone; anything he's given me is here." She pointed to an acrylic sign at the tall cubed end of the shelf. He regretted it once he read it: Every love story is beautiful but ours is my favorite. 'Beautiful' and 'favorite' were in red and there was a heart to the right side of it. "See? I was right. You don't want to know," she told him, seeing the look on his face.

"It's fine," he brushed off. Truth was he could rip that thing into shreds right now. Taking his mind off that idea, he scanned the shelf searching for anything else that screamed ex-boyfriend.

"There's this." She grabbed the Mark Twain snow globe. "He got it for me at Disney World." The Sorcerer Mickey Mouse hat sitting next to it was self explanatory.

"I got a real boat at home."

"Well, good for you," she simply said, ignoring Tony's need to one up everyone. "He got me this iPod speaker for my birthday a few weeks ago." That he was fine with. "And then there's these conches and shells from the beach that we found over the years."

"What about this," Tony asked, pointing to a jar half filled with pennies. There was a piece of paper taped on it: I think someone owes me a date!

"He was a TA for our English class. He kinda had a crush on me and would sit me next to him because he was in charge of assigned seats. One day he asked me out. I said no. Then he gave me this jar of Snickers from the teacher's desk and asked if I'd change my mind. I told him no again."

"You were playing hard to get."

"I wasn't," Pepper denied, slapping his shoulder at the teasing look on his face. "I didn't think he was worth it because he'd just gotten out of a relationship; so I dumped the candy out and as a joke said if he could fill the jar halfway with pennies for every day I sit down in class I'd give him a chance. He stopped bothering me right after; I thought he got the message, but after we got back from break, I found it sitting on my desk."

"He waited until after to give you it? What an idiot."

"I thought it was sweet. You'd never do something like that for me," she challenged.

"I could totally do something like that," Tony shot back. He stared at the jar of pennies in disdain before letting it go. "I'm gonna prove you wrong."

Pepper smiled at his determination. "Truth or dare?"

"Truth," he said, sitting back down.

"Again," she amusedly asked. "Why? You afraid I'll make you do something horrible?"

"Honestly? Yeah." He wasn't going to bother denying it.

"New rule: five truths and five dares. They have to cancel out."

"Fine."

Pepper ignored his response and went on with her question. "You remember the cheerleader that came up to us the other day? What happened with you two?"

"Why do you think something happened?"

"Because girls aren't that possessive and jealous over nothing."

"Um, I don't know." Tony saw her raise an eyebrow and was confused. He honestly had no idea what the quirk was for. "Maybe she wanted to be my girlfriend."

"So nothing?"

"It's not like I slept with her or something."

She was glad he said that. She didn't know how she would feel if he had.

Tony grabbed his drink and drank it. "This is gonna get personal, isn't it?"

"You're the one who wanted to get to know each other."

He nodded. "Right, and I still do. Drink up."

Pepper took her shot. "I thought you said-"

"Nah, changed my mind. Trust me, it's easier to tell people stuff when you're out of it."

It was now her turn to nod. "I'll pick dare."

"Really," Tony asked excitedly. If only he'd prepared himself for this. "Hmm...come on." He got up and went downstairs into the kitchen, Pepper trailing behind in slight fear. "Get ready for something good."

"Oh no...don't." Pepper grimaced as he pulled out various things from the refrigerator.

He opened several cupboards looking for a cup. "Found them." He took out a cup and started squeezing in ketchup, mustard, pickle juice, blackberry jam, vanilla soy milk, and apple sauce into it. All she could do was wince as she watched him mix the ingredients together.

"Drink all of it."

"What?!" She glanced at the dark colored liquid. "I'd rather do the shot."

"Nope. I said we weren't gonna do that anymore, remember?" Pepper didn't respond, she just glared at him. "Fine," he sighed. "Just a spoonful. Oh, and I've got a new rule: no repeats." He pulled a spoonful of the mixture out and handed it to her.

She took it and could literally feel her stomach starting to flip. Closing her eyes, she put the entire spoon in her mouth and swallowed. Unlike before, her gagging was real and she immediately took a napkin off the dining table to spit out everything left in her mouth. "That's gross." Not bothering to look at it, she threw the wad into the trash and rinsed her mouth.

Tony laughed as she did so and went up to her. "I'll let you get me back."

"Oh, I plan to." Pepper smiled deviously and opened the freezer side of the fridge, bringing out some ice. "This is all going down the front side of your underwear."

Suddenly his smile disappeared; his face turned into pure panic.

She took notice of his expression as she popped an ice cube in her mouth. "Hey, where'd your smile go?"

"You know, Pep," Tony said, a playfulness in his voice as he pressed himself against her from behind. "If you want me out of my pants, all you have to do is ask."

"Oh, could you?" She turned around and gently shoved Tony back. "Just so I know you're not cheating." Cracking the tray on the counter, she continued. "They all need to melt for it to count though."

"Okay, now you're just being vengeful."

She shrugged.

"You know it hurts, right? What if we get married or something? It could affect my sperm."

"I'm not that concerned." She turned to him, her eyes twinkling. "Whenever you're ready."

"I hate you." He glared at the pieces of ice in Pepper's hand as he took off his pants.

Her eyes did their best to stay glued above waist level, but since she was a teenage girl with a pulse, she had to glance down and see what he was wearing. She had innocent intentions at the beginning, but now she couldn't help thinking perhaps underlying it was an ulterior motive.

Tony smirked, taking into account the flustered look on her face as he grabbed the ice from her. With a deep breath, he carefully put the cubes into his briefs. He grunted to prevent himself from saying curse words and closed his eyes thinking it'd help in some way. "Shit." It didn't. No surprise there. "That's...fucking cold." He groaned and slowly backed himself against the wall, eyes still shut as he sunk into a sitting position. His arms wrapped his knees and he bent his head down. He could feel the painful sensation starting to build up. "Truth or dare?" The ice wasn't melting fast enough; he needed a distraction.

"Truth," Pepper responded, sitting on the floor next to him.

"Have you ever watched porn?"

"What?" She knew what Tony asked. She just couldn't believe he would.

"Hey, it's my turn," he told her, glancing up. He took a few seconds to catch his breath. "And since I got ice in my underwear, I think it's a reasonable question."

She sighed. He had a point. "No, but I've inadvertently seen it."

"Yeah, that didn't help," Tony muttered, teeth clenched. "Alright, truth."

"How about we just wait until you're fine?"

"Okay," he breathed out. All he wanted to do right now was scream, but he refused to give Pepper that kind of satisfaction. "Maybe we should stop playing now."

Pepper chuckled. "We just started."

"Yeah, but you're mean."

"I didn't do anything that wasn't fair, Tony."

"I can't feel anything. Anything," he emphasized to her.

"Oh." She hadn't thought of that and suddenly felt bad, but just a little.

"You're enjoying this too much."

"You're the one who wanted to play truth or dare."

"Yeah, I'm starting to regret it now."

"Maybe I was a little vengeful," she thought out loud.

"A little," Tony asked, raising a brow.

"It's not like I gave you all of them."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?"

"Yep. Besides mine was worse."

"No, it wasn't!"

"The thing you made was disgusting."

"Okay, why don't I try the thing I made and you shove a couple ice cubes down your underwear and we'll see?"

"Nope, I'm not stupid."

Tony smirked. "Then I'm right."

"It was three pieces of ice, get over it."

He crossed his arms across his chest and stuck his tongue out at Pepper, which made her chuckle.

"So what are we gonna do now?"

"Talk," she suggested.

"Talk," he repeated warily. He didn't like the sound of that.

"Yeah," Pepper confirmed. "I thought about what you said and we really should start getting to know each other. Like what we like and all that stuff."

Tony knew she'd get mad if he sighed so he forced it down. He did not want this. He'd do anything but this.

"I know you don't like opening up and it's fine," Pepper softly said, catching his attention. He looked back at her with a smile that matched her tone. "But I think we should try. We can't keep doing this casual thing forever. I told you with me it was serious, remember?"

"Yeah, I know." How could he not remember? "But could we do this some place else cause my butt hurts."

Pepper chuckled and nodded.

He followed her into the living room and sat opposite her side of the couch, pulling a blanket over his legs as they face one another. "How's this supposed to go?"

"Just think of it like the truth part of the game."

"Okay," he slowly said.

"We'll start off simple."

"Oh, good." He let out a deep breath, relieved to hear that.

"What's your favorite color?"

"Red and gold."

"Really? That combination?"

Tony could see the judgmental look on her face. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing," she quickly said.

He eyed her suspiciously. "What's yours?"

"Purple."

"Purple?"

"Yeah. What's wrong with purple?"

"Nothing." Tony paused for effect. "Just that it's boring."

"Purple is a nice color."

"What kind of purple?"

"Lavender."

"Like I said just then, boring."

"Why are you being so mean? It's not like I said anything about yours."

"Your face did."

She rolled her eyes and asked another question. "Why were you staring at me during homeroom?"

He looked up at Pepper in surprise.

"Yeah, I noticed," she pointed out, smirking.

"I wasn't staring."

"Yeah, you were."

"Fine." There was no use denying it. "It was your hair."

"My hair?"

"Yeah. I liked the color of it," Tony answered truthfully.

"My hair actually used to be blonde."

He stared at her, trying to picture Pepper as a blonde. "I can totally see that."

"Of course you can," she flatly said.

Tony shot her a lopsided smile. "So what were you thinking when I finally did come over?"

"That you took longer than I expected; then the kind of pick up line you were gonna use."

"Ha," he yelled out. "I didn't use a pick up line."

"You asked me a couple minutes later if I was good with my hands."

"You practically laid the groundwork for it," he smirked. "So bad first impression?"

"Well...no." Pepper smiled. "It was memorable."

"Of course it was memorable. It's me," he replied smugly.

She shook her head and sighed.

"So what did you think of me," Tony curiously asked.

"I knew how you were like and wanted nothing to do with you."

"Besides the obvious, Pep." He had came to the same conclusion a couple days after meeting her and wanted to know something surprising.

"Okay," she said, thinking about it. "Even though you tried to pick me up every chance you got, I secretly liked the attention. It was cute watching you come up with reasons to be together."

"So you had a crush on me."

"Really? Are you that narcissistic?"

"It's true." She could sense the smile in his voice. "Admit it."

"I'm not saying." The blush creeping up her cheeks deceived her.

"You so did." He had to admit it was nice knowing Pepper did.

"What about you," she asked, turning the tables. "What was your first impression of me?"

Tony said what came to mind. "That you're hot, but hard to get."

"Because I actually use my brain."

"There's girls I've been with that-"

"Really," she asked before she could stop herself. It was common knowledge Tony got around with girls, but she'd prefer them to remain nameless.

"Yeah. Like Cassidy. She's going to Berkeley next year with a full ride."

"Yeah, I guess," Pepper replied, looking down at blanket as if the designs on it were something she hadn't seen before.

He sensed the silence as his fault and replayed back what he'd just said. Probably not a good idea to tell her who I've had sex with. He nudged her foot until she looked up. "Favorite food?"

Pepper thought about it for a second. "Mac and Cheese. My mom makes it."

"I like pasta." Just thinking about it made him drool.

"Do your parents know we're dating?"

"I think mom does. I don't know about my dad," he said with a shrug. "But if mom knows, he definitely knows."

"He doesn't like me."

"He has his reasons." It was true. Howard made it clear to him that he shouldn't be around girls, saying they were only after him for the money and a tie to the company. It was easy to see his father viewed Pepper as such. "It's not your fault or anything."

She nodded, not pressing the issue. "What does your mom do?"

"She runs charities and makes sure personal relationships are on good terms. But I'm sure she does more than that because she's always busy." He averted his gaze and wrung his hands. "I don't know. I never asked." He tried to shrug it off, but knew it was too late. He knew his mom did the important things his father didn't trust anyone else doing and he was always jealous of that. Wasn't he important?

He cleared his throat and looked back up at her silently hoping she'd get the message and let the topic go.

"My dad works at Stark Industries. That's why we moved here."

Tony's ears perked up out of curiosity. His mind began sifting through the people Stark Industries had hired this past fall. "Really? What does he do there?"

"Oh, I'm not telling you," Pepper smiled. "You figure it out yourself."

"Fine. Shouldn't be hard." He thinned his lips and thought about it. "It's a good position since your parents can afford to buy a house like this. He probably works a lot of hours cause I've been here a few times and never seen him, which means he's either in finance, public relations, or research, but since you're horrible at science I'm gonna rule research out."

"That argument isn't even valid."

Tony grinned. "I guess I'm right."

"Just because I'm not good at science doesn't mean my dad isn't. There's a ton of people who-"

"So your dad has a biology degree," he interrupted.

Pepper opened her mouth, then closed it. Damn it.

"Gotcha," he smirked. "So finance and PR...that means conferences, which means I could've seen or met him before. He's probably blonde cause no one has red hair there. Does he have big nostrils?"

"Nope," she replied, shaking her head.

"Good." He had rubbed a man with big nostrils the wrong way and was hoping it wasn't Pepper's father. He'd scope around on Monday. "So how many boyfriends have you had," he asked, changing the subject.

"Two excluding you. What about you?"

He shot her a 'seriously' look and she sighed. She didn't want to jump to conclusions and think zero, but who was she fooling?

"Yeah," he answered unashamed. "I did try once though."

"Really? Tell me what happened," Pepper replied excitedly.

"I think I was four and in boarding school. There was this girl I liked and I went up to her during lunch and asked if she wanted to share my sandwich and be my girlfriend. She said yes, then dumped water on my pants and yelled out I peed myself. It was embarrassing."

A smile crossed her lips as an attempt to not laugh. She tried to suppress it down her throat but it escaped her and laughter filled the air.

"It's not funny! They made fun of me." He watched as Pepper covered her mouth, but he could still tell she found the whole thing funny.

"What'd you do after? Push her to the ground?"

"No, I'm not that mean," Tony brushed off. Though what he did decide to do was far worse. "I rigged her desk so that each time she pulled it up, it'd squirt mayo onto her stuff. It took her almost three weeks to notice it."

Pepper made a disgusted sound.

"Yeah," he grinned, thinking about it. It was a blast. "I got kicked out of school a couple days later and my mom was so pissed. I had to seal letters for a month."

"That's not too bad."

"I was four," Tony stated.

"Well, if you could make something that squirts mayo every time a girl opened her desk, I'm pretty sure you could seal some envelopes."

"What about you? Anything embarrassing happen to you at school before?"

"I don't think so," she responded, still thinking about it. "But in third grade I pushed a girl into a three foot wide mud puddle because she took my seat in class."

"Wow, you really are mean to people."

Pepper glared at him and kicked his leg underneath the blanket. "I'm nice."

"Yeah, you totally are," he sarcastically said, reaching down to rub his leg. "That's why you kick people for no reason."

She smiled and shrugged. "No one would even believe you if you said that." Her smug demeanor disappeared when she felt him kick her own leg. "Hey!"

"Yeah, it's not fun, is it?"

"I didn't kick you that hard!"

"A kick's a kick," he equated.

She made a move to retaliate, but Tony grabbed her leg. "Let go!"

"So you can kick me again? I don't think so."

She tried tugging her leg back harder and was caught by surprise when Tony let go. She flew backwards and hit the arm of the sofa. All she heard after was him laughing so she threw a pillow at his face. It stopped him instantly, but she could still see the smug look on his face.

"So worth it," Tony smiled.

She huffed and leaned back; that was when her eyes caught the time. It was nearly 2am. Already? It was just 11:30 awhile ago. "Are you gonna stay tonight?"

"Yeah, I'll take the couch," he replied, watching Pepper get up.

"Yeah, that's better than sleeping on the floor. And don't break into my room," she told him in case he planned on doing so.

"How am I gonna break into your room? You can just walk in."

"Then don't walk into my room," she corrected.

"No problem. You sure your parents are gone until tomorrow?"

"Yep. Don't fall off," Pepper teased, sitting down at the empty space next to him on the sofa.

"I won't," he said, tangling their fingers and tugging her gently towards him. She gave in and leaned forward until their foreheads softly touched. He let go of her hand and made his way up the nape of her neck. His thumb swept the underside of her jaw as he pulled her in for a deep kiss. He didn't know how to describe it. Everything was better when she was around...he was happier. Maybe the idea of love wasn't too bad after all. He remembered being scared out of his mind going into this relationship with Pepper. Looking back on it now, that'd been stupid. If you had the right intentions, everything would fall into place. It makes sense. He understands it. She pulls back smiling; he knows it's sincere...knows it's just for him because when he smiles he figures she must be feeling the exact same way.