To Jemma's surprise, Tony was waiting when she emerged from the Customs queue at Birmingham Airport. He'd actually dressed for this, she saw, in a sport coat and casual trousers.

"You look - very nice," she said when she was close enough to speak without shouting.

"I thought about a Black Sabbath T-shirt - entirely appropriate, given the band started here - but Pepper and Bruce overruled me."

Jemma blinked, surprised. "You know Black Sabbath started here?"

"I'm a fan."

"So what else do you know about Birmingham?" Jemma asked, not certain whether she was serious or teasing.

"I know lots of things about Birmingham," Tony told her. He took her hand and turned toward the exit. "I know a disproportionate amount of cultural, scientific and technical breakthroughs occurred here, from gun locks to medical X-rays to Spitfires, and that's just the unimportant stuff."

"Unimportant," Jemma repeated. "Right. What do you consider important?"

"Other than Tolkien, of course," Tony corrected himself as they stepped through the automatic glass doors into an uncharacteristically bright day. He gestured her toward a sleek red Jaguar F-Type convertible where he helped her stow her small suitcase in the boot next to his leather duffle bag. A metallic-looking briefcase rested on the other side of the duffle.

"Other than Tolkien," Jemma prompted.

With a flourish, Tony opened the passenger door for her, and Jemma saw a box bearing a distinctive purple and gold logo resting on the passenger seat.

"Jaguar and Cadbury," he said.

Jemma couldn't help laughing as she took the box and slid into the passenger seat. "You're incorrigible."

"You encourage me to be." Tony leaned down to give her a quick kiss before he closed the door. Moments later, he was behind the wheel, his attention focused, at least momentarily, on guiding the convertible toward the M42.

Jemma was grateful for his distraction, however brief it might be, because it gave her a moment to adjust to his casual use of money. She suspected her mother might have called it an ostentatious display, and her grandmother would certainly have called it wasteful, but for Tony, it was just normal.

This was the part she had to decide whether she could get used to, Jemma thought, being part of a world, a life, where this kind of thing was unremarkable. She'd waved away Mack's comment about the one percent of the one percent, focused as she was on Fitz, but now, confronted with the reality of it, Jemma couldn't help feeling uncomfortable.

Tony's voice interrupted her musing. "I booked us into the Admiral Hornblower."

"Fan of Forester as well as Tolkien?" Jemma asked.

"Who?"

"C. S. Forester?" Jemma prompted. "Wrote the Hornblower books?"

"If you say so."

"You don't know -?" Jemma broke off, shook her head. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you looked up all that information about Birmingham online - wait. Did you look it up?"

"No." Tony packed a world of hurt and disappointment into one short word.

"So why is it you know about Birmingham and not C.S. Forester?"

"Because -" Tony hesitated, and Jemma snuck a glance at him. He looked almost embarrassed for the briefest of moments before he cleared his throat and began again. "Because for a long time, Stark Industries made weapons."

"One could argue that the Iron Man armor is also a weapon," Jemma pointed out. "But why does that matter?"

"Gun locks and Spitfires. A lot of weapons developments came out of Birmingham. My father came over here a lot for meetings and consultations. Sometimes he brought me. Being the precocious child that I was, I picked up a lot of information. Some of it even useful back then. Some of it's only become useful now that I've met you."

"Because you think fast cars and fancy chocolates are the way to my heart?"

"Aren't they?" Tony grinned sidewise at her and Jemma couldn't help laughing. "But it meant I knew what to ask for when I was on the way over here."

"Oh." Jemma lapsed into silence once more at Tony's casual use of money.

She wasn't naïve, at least much, nor was she ignorant of the way the world worked. She couldn't be either, not after working with SHIELD, especially once she was assigned to active field duty. She knew there would always be weapon makers, as long as there were humans who were spoiling for a fight, and often they would get rich. That Tony's father, and later Tony himself, had been two of those weapon makers who got rich was actually a relief - at least they had a sense of who the good guys were.

No, it wasn't the source of the money that made her uncomfortable. It was the money itself - so very much money. Enough to buy several small countries, if he so chose.

What could one possibly do with so much money?

"Pretty much whatever I want," Tony said, and Jemma realized with a start that she had asked her question aloud.

"Which is what?" she asked. "Besides this and what I see in the tabloids?"

"Fund R&D into clean energy, improvements to existing technology, endow a chair in engineering studies at MIT - I should endow one at Birmingham University, too - pay people to do things I don't like doing. The usual."

"What about charity?"

"What about it?"

"Do you give to charity?"

"I buy a case of every flavor of Girl Scout cookies every year from every troop in New York."

Jemma waited, but - "That's all?"

"What else should I do?"

Jemma stared at him, surprised he'd had to ask. "All those people who are starving in Africa, India, all over the world… You could end it."

"No, I couldn't. Even if I gave all the money I have, and even if that money actually got to the people it was supposed to help - it would still be a disservice to them."

Jemma straightened, indignant. "How can you say that?"

"Because it wouldn't give them the ability to take care of themselves, to grow their own crops, to become self-sufficient. Worse, it would remove the incentive for anyone to do so."

"Remove the incentive? How?"

"Who could produce food, or clothes, or whatever, and sell it for less than free - which is what donations are to them. You can't beat free, and only a fool would try."

"That's so - so -" Jemma searched for the right word.

"Realistic?"

"Cynical."

"Based on personal observation. I wish it were different, Jemma, I really do. I wish I could wave a credit card and solve all the world's problems. But people have to solve their own problems. I can't do it for them."

"But you could help them."

"I'd have to start by, at least, overthrowing every government that didn't put the interests of its people first," Tony said. "And then creating schools and infrastructure that would support that kind of effort. Even I'd run out of money before I got halfway through the first steps."

"So because you can't do everything, you're not going to do anything? That doesn't sound like Tony Stark."

"What do you want me to do, Jemma?" Tony sounded serious again, and from what she could see of his expression, he was serious. "Give me something concrete, not pie-in-the-sky idealism, and I'll do it."

"Doctors without Borders," Jemma said immediately. "They provide emergency medical care after catastrophic events, like war, epidemic or famine. Also for people who are ignored by their local health care systems. It doesn't get more concrete than saving someone's life."

"You're the doctor among us, Doctor."

Jemma giggled - wait, she never giggled. She cleared her throat and said, "You don't have to be a doctor. You can donate money, or you could provide transportation or support services. But it's a good cause."

"You sound like you have firsthand experience."

"I do." Jemma didn't try to keep the pride from her tone. "I spent a couple of term breaks volunteering with them."

"Only a couple?"

Jemma shrugged. "Then SHIELD recruited me, and life got busy, and interesting, and occasionally terrifying. I keep saying I want to go back, but I haven't yet."

"Okay."

Jemma blinked. "Okay?"

"It matters to you, so okay, I'll donate."

"Just like that?"

"Not entirely - I'll want to see their financials, make sure they're not out of balance on administrative expenses like some so-called charities. But if they check out, then I'll donate."

Jemma sighed. "You'd check up on Captain America himself, wouldn't you?"

"I already did."

"What?!"

"I had to - nobody's that altruistic, that self-effacing, that … that good."

"Except him?"

Tony let out a breath. "Except him. Just means the rest of us have to be extra cynical to counter-balance him. Do you want a nap before dinner?"

"Hm?" Jemma looked around, realized they were in Oakham. The miles had flown by while they'd talked.

"Nap? Before dinner?"

The question made Jemma yawn. She tried to stifle it.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"No, it's not - I don't -" Jemma took a breath and started again. "I put in longer hours during a crisis."

"It's not a crisis now," Tony said, turning onto High Street. "Grab a nap while you can. I don't mind."

"I don't want to sleep the trip away."

"An hour nap before dinner isn't sleeping the trip away," Tony said. "And I can use the time to check out Doctors without Borders."

Jemma yawned again. That the sky was already darkening toward evening wasn't helping her stay awake. "Sorry."

"Don't be." Tony pulled the car into the park and came around to open her door. "After the Battle for New York, we went to this shawarma place, and we could barely eat, we were so exhausted."

"What I was doing wasn't anywhere near as demanding as that."

"Still demanding, you said so yourself. And you need to recover." He offered his arm and Jemma let him check them into the Hornblower and lead her to their room.

The room that greeted her was awash in calming neutral colors, from the sage green carpet to the sandy-colored walls. What drew her attention, however, was the four poster bed covered in a thick white duvet. She couldn't help the moan that escaped her.

"Come on," Tony said. "Let's get you undressed and into bed."

Jemma raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged. "Not for that, unless you've decided you're up for round four after all."

"I'm really not…. You're sure you don't mind?"

"I don't mind, "Tony said. "I'll hold you while you fall asleep, though."

"And you'll wake me in an hour."

"I'll wake you in an hour."

"All right."

Minutes later, Jemma had pulled back the duvet and slipped into bed, Tony cuddling up behind her, his arm draped across her waist, his beard tickling her shoulder when he dropped a kiss there.

Her last thought as she fell asleep was that she had never felt more protected - or loved - than she did right now.

#

This was something else he'd never done.

He'd never just held a woman and watched her sleep, never found contentment in holding her while she fell asleep.

Three days of being soulmates, and I'm henpecked already.

Only he wasn't, Tony reflected. At best, he was exploring what the soul-bond meant, building a partnership with his soulmate. At worst …

At worst, he was becoming a little less of an ass, a little more of a person.

Either way, it was good for him. Or Pepper thought so, and hers was the only opinion he could trust completely. He couldn't wait to introduce her to Jemma - the two of them would get along famously …

Which might not be so good for me. They're too alike.

With that observation fresh in his mind, and even though supersonic travel had never left him jet-lagged before, Tony fell asleep.