Beach –

"You ready?" he asked as he stepped into Pepper's office.

"I've been ready," she stated as she hit send on one last e-mail message and stood up from her desk.

"Hey that's from the first time we were down there!" he exclaimed as he saw a small picture off to the right a little bit higher than eye level.

"Ugh! Don't remind me. And the day had started off so well."

"Well, it was an adventure that's for sure."

Flashback

She had been Tony's assistant for two years already, yet she continued to keep him and Rhodey at arms length. She came to work, did her job and went home.

"Come on guys! I just got back and the beach is right there. Do you know how long it's been since I've seen sand that is actually attached to water instead of just sand that is attached to more sand? You guys need a break anyway."

He didn't have to convince Tony that much, considering there was a board meeting that day that he would rather cut off his arm than attend. "I'll go get my shorts," Tony exclaimed as he bound up the stairs like he was five years old.

"Don't you have to go home and get some shorts?" Pepper asked Rhodey.

"Nope, have them in the car already."

"So you knew Tony would say yes?"

"I knew he had a Board meeting today so I pretty much figured it would be a yes."

"I have to reschedule that you know," Pepper said with an exasperated sigh at Rhodey's admission.

"Sorry about that," he apologized sincerely. "You better hurry up and get into your swimsuit. Do you have one here or do you have to go back to your house?"

"Oh, no Colonel Rhodes, I couldn't possibly. There is so much I have to finish before I can go home."

"Ms. Potts," Tony stated as he came back down the stairs already in his shorts, "you will do no such thing. You have the rest of the day off and I don't want to hear any arguments. Now go grab a swimsuit, preferably one of the thong variety and get back here ASAP."

She opened her mouth to argue but with the look that both of them were giving her all she could do was turn around and head for the door, feeling slightly dizzy by being blindsided like this.

She would have actually gone to the store and bought a new bathing suit if they hadn't been calling her every five minutes since she left Mr. Stark's house telling her to hurry up. As it was, she had to settle for digging out her old blue one piece from the back of her closet, some flip flops she bought at Target for five buck about four years before, and a large T-shirt as a cover up. She grabbed her sunscreen and the largest towel she could find and headed back – hoping to not get made fun of much with her outfit.

They were already out at the shore and somehow managed to gather up some snacks and drinks. She didn't even think Tony knew where his kitchen was.

For the record they didn't make fun of her or her suit. They usually teased her in a good natured sort of way, but they knew that being down here with them was way out of her comfort zone.

While she put on her sunscreen and, after much complaining, they put some on too they shared stories with her (at least the ones they could tell her that wouldn't cause her to quit), and asked about her life. Some things she would answer and some she wouldn't but they were just happy they were finally getting her out of her shell. They liked her, not only on a professional level, but as a person and wanted to get to know her better.

The rest of the time was spent in the water, with Pepper being afraid of going in over her ankles (until Tony called her a chicken, which, as soon as he said it he and Rhodey were afraid she was going to go back in the house). Instead she swam out to meet them, dunked Tony's head in the water and explained to them that she was not currently and never had been a chicken, thank you very much.

They stayed out there for a while, playing like little kids while Tony and Rhodey proceed to outdo each other trying to impress her with crazy water acrobatics.

She was getting tired and told them she was headed for the shore to get some sun and dry out.

Just then Tony spotted something in one of the outcroppings of rocks. "Hey, look at that! I think there's a cave over there."

"Yeah, I think your right, let's go check it out," Rhodey replied, equally as excited.

"I'm still going back to the shore; I'm too tired to climb up rocks."

"Okay, we're going to go check it out," they didn't argue with her because she did look tired. She did more in one hour than most people did in an entire work day, and she had already been at work for five hours before Rhodey showed up at the door. Plus they figured she was probably still stressed out thinking about all the items she wasn't getting done while they were down here, "but don't go back in the house!" Tony ordered.

Pepper woke up later, surprised that she had even fallen asleep in the first place, to having water being dropped on her. At first she figured it must just be Tony or James standing over her, but as she opened her eyes she saw black clouds above her and even lighting out in the distance.

She jumped up instantly in horror as she ran toward the ledge that over looked the cave.

"Tony!! James!!," she screamed at the top of her lungs as she lay down with her head hanging over the ledge. They would all look back at that and realize that that was the first time she had called them by their first names. Apparently it took an emergency for her to let go of all professionalism.

"Help!" she heard from below.

She ran to the house as fast as she could.

So there she was, in her swim suit standing in the back door of Mr. Stark's house yelling for the AI to get rescue crews there in the next 60 seconds. The AI did surprising well because by the time she ran back down to the beach, falling numerous times in the wet sand, to the ledge over looking the cave she already heard helicopters above her.

"Hold on!!" she screamed again hoping they could hear her.

The rest of the evening was spent pulling Tony and Rhodey from the cave, having the medics take care of any first aid, and explaining to the fire chief what they were doing in the first place and finally Tony writing out a check for the cost of the rescue efforts.

Once they were in the house and in dry clothes they were all very quiet, Tony and Rhodey out of embarrassment and Pepper out of guilt.

"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed suddenly, not being able to hold it in anymore, "I shouldn't have fallen asleep while you to were still out there. I don't know what happened; I never fall asleep during the day!"

They were just looking at her in utter surprise which she took immediately as rejection of her apology, "I'll just get my things and go. I'm glad you're both alright," she stated quietly as she started to head for the stairs to her office.

Suddenly she was caught in a hug with four arms (two of Tony's and two of Rhodey's) and they were actually laughing at her.

"You saved our sorry asses. We would have still gone out there and got caught in that storm even if you were a thousand miles away," Rhodey explained.

"You're not going anywhere and you're not packing up anything. The storm is still going strong and no one is driving out in it," Tony added.

Suddenly Rhodey noticed that they still hadn't let go of her, which she had realized quite awhile back and was trying to figure out how to politely point out, and let go over her with a quick, "oh, sorry."

Tony let go of her to, but didn't look sorry in the least.

"It's in the top 10 most humiliating experiences of my life," Pepper noted dryly.

"Top 10? It wasn't number one?" He asked, surprised.

"I work for Tony Stark. It's up there but not even close to number one."

He chuckled at that, causing his arm to brush lightly onto hers.

She wished he would stop doing that. He was very distracting (in a good, hot sort of way) standing there in just some board shorts and no shirt on. What made it worse was that he was usually a very modest person. She couldn't help but notice even when he just took his shoes off in the house, let alone only having one article of clothing on.

Not that she was much better in her 10,000 black two piece with real diamonds. She could see out of the corner of her eye that he was looking at her, but only occasionally and she was just going to take it as a complement because, well, that's what it honestly was.

"As I remember, you got that bathing suit out of it as an apology," he stated pointing at her suit.

"Well, humiliating experience number one got me my condo, so I guess my dignity has a price," she responded with a grimace on her face. Seeing the curiosity on Rhodey's face and added quickly, "I'd rather not talk about it."

"That's okay," Rhodey teased, "I'll just ask Tony," and with that he ran out the door and down the hallway toward Tony's room.

"NOOOOO!" she yelled as she took off after him as quickly as her five dollar Target flip-flops could carry her, both of them laughing all the way as the tumbled into Tony's room.