AN: OK. I'm trying this out. I don't know how you'll like it, but I'm sort of excited about it. I know this has gone awhile without an update, but I was peeking through the reviews and saw just how many people enjoyed it. I wasn't ever sure what I wanted to do with it until now. So here we go…

I've decided to give the story a little twist and set it back to the '60s, during the Vietnam War. Pepper and Tony both still attend MIT. Pepper is a freshman, while Tony is close to graduating from the graduate program. They're both seventeen. I've been doing a lot of research on this time period, so hopefully I can keep it as close to period as possible. If anyone has any knowledge about this time period, I'd love to chat.

I've edited the previous chapter to take out some of the anachronisms that were there.

I know the robots and technology may seem out of place, as far as Tony and Howard Stark's work is concerned, but if this universe could be imagined during the '60s in comic form, it can exist. So that's my logic haha.

I hope you enjoy and stick around with this new change. I'm pretty excited about it and I think it makes the story stand out as a bit different from the norm.

Enjoy.

-O-O-O-

The next time he saw her, they were both in the library. He didn't notice it was her at first. But those shiny loafers with dainty little laces caught his eye around the corner of a bookshelf. When he leaned his chair back to admire those long legs, he saw that familiar red hair all neat and up in a ponytail. She had a book open, her nose buried within it. The cover was blank, but he caught the author as Keats, printed along the spine.

She wore a striped blouse with little capped sleeves. She was quite petite and slim, but her legs were longs and lean. Her skirt was black, wide and swishy at her calves. It was his favorite type; perfect for…well…that was for a later date, and definitely not for this girl.

"Hey," he said loudly. Several people around him glared.

She looked up at the noise, her brows furrowed.

"Shhh!" she shushed him quietly and moved to his table, closing her book but clamping it under her arm.

He chuckled silently.

"What do you want?" she hissed.

"Why were you crying?" he asked, referencing the night he found her—or rather she found him. He was blunt and impolite. He knew it, and it made her turn away.

So he followed her back to the narrow space between the selves where she'd been lurking. The fluorescent lighting made her red hair glow.

"Look, I think you owe me. You crashed into me," he observed.

She slid the book back onto the shelf and braced her hand against it. "I told you I was sorry. So go away."

"What happened?" he pressed.

She snatched the book next to the one she'd replaced and swiveled to glare at him again. Her ponytail swished with the motion. "You're being rude, and uncouth. And it's none of your business."

She definitely didn't have a problem with being blunt.

He blocked her exit, placing his hands on the shelves leading to the study tables. "Look," he said, his features softening, being sincere for once—or at least trying his best to be. "I'm just worried, ok? It was late, and I'm just making sure you weren't hurt. You were coming from the boy's dormitory, so I figured…"

"You do a lot of 'figuring,' don't you?" she accused coolly, ducking beneath his arm. "Stick to math, Stark."

She escaped him again, disappearing into the labyrinth of the library. He grew tired of trying to find her after searching only the section next to him. If she didn't want to talk, that was her own problem. He was just looking out for her. She'd seemed nice that night, but maybe it was just because of her disheveled and startled state that she'd seemed that way. He couldn't get friends. He couldn't even get pretentious, stuck-up, red-head girls to talk to him. What was even the point anymore?

-O-O-O-

Days later, just before Thanksgiving Break, he saw her among a gaggle of girls in the quad. They all wore matching sweaters with three Greek symbols embroidered at the breast pocket, and those swishy skirts he loved so much. He wouldn't have noticed her if it wasn't for that flaming hair. He walked by briskly, while she had her head thrown back in a laugh, and tugged her ponytail.

He passed without looking back, satisfied when he heard her yelp and scoff loudly so he could hear.

Kindergarten tactics were working just nicely.

-O-O-O-

Finally home, he locked himself up in his father's workshop, tinkering away on a new prototype. His father's latest creation, dubbed The Machete, was laid out along the workbench nearby. He paused in his work, admiring the missile. It was slim, narrow and sleek, and was famed to be the lightest missile Stark Industries—or any weapons company—had ever produced. His father and the R&D department had harnessed Palladium as merely a thin solid sheet, not even weighing a gram, poised to combust upon ignition and reduce the surrounding 5 miles radius to dust. No other missile had ever been as advanced at this one. It was his father's pride and joy.

The Machete, Tony mused. What an apt name. The jungles of Vietnam were thick and dank. Any verbiage used against the USA's enemies, ironic, crude, and claiming superiority, sold like hot cakes. The entire war had been built on prejudice.

He resumed his work, cranking hard on the wrench in his hand, tightening a bolt at the base of the robot's mobility system: a carefully constructed maze of screws, nuts and bolts, and metal shafts that allowed the bot to move easily by use of remote control. The remote was cumbersome and the delay in command and the robot's response was slacking. That'd be his next project to tidy old Dum-E up for top notch condition.

The door at the end of the shop opened noisily, and Tony jumped, slamming his head against the robot's arm when he sat up.

"Ow. Dammit. A little warning, could ya?" he groaned, rubbing his forehead, glancing up at his father.

"Your mom sent me to fetch you for dinner. Not screwing anything up down here are you?"

Tony stood, reaching for a rag at the end of the workbench, wiping away the grease on his hands. He watched his father move protectively around the room, surveying the Machete and the other projects he had laid out along the length of the vast workshop.

"No, just working on that…" He gestured to his bot. The arm drooped pathetically, the claw bent at an odd angle. A scattering of bits and parts littered the floor around the bot. Maybe Dum-E wasn't quite there yet, but he was a work in progress, and certainly advanced for his day.

His father hummed distastefully, appraising the bot, tapping his fingers along the joint of the arm. Tony knew he'd get no compliment, no matter how impressive this work was.

"It's a bit bulky, huh?" the elder Stark said, moving around his son's work, eyeing it.

"Yeah. I've got a few new renderings I'd like to play around with. Watch out for the…"

But it was too late. His father's wing tip shoes bumped and scattered the pieces on the floor that Tony had so meticulously separated out into specific piles for particular purposes. He didn't look at all apologetic, but just shrugged. Tony groaned, tossing down the rag. He said nothing, just followed his father out of the shop and back upstairs.

-O-O-O-

This was their tradition. Even if Tony was now in graduate school, he was still young, and still loved spending time with his mother. He could admit it. He was a mama's boy. A few days after Turkey Day, they ventured out to the Santa Monica pier, settling at a table on the edge of boardwalk overlooking the ocean, each with an ice cream cone in hand.

He bit into the rim of his cone, licking the excess vanilla from his lips, resting his elbows on the little table between them.

"So, are there any girls?" his mother asked, her eyes glinting expectantly. Her own ice cream cone wasn't even down to the waffle part yet because of her chatter, but Tony didn't mind.

He laughed softly. "Um...well sort of I guess."

"Sort of you guess?" Maria said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her ankles daintily. "What's her name?" she asked knowingly.

"Uh…" He looked away, watching a pack of seagulls over the ocean. Below, a little girl was throwing up bits of bread to them.

"Its Pepper," he said, feeling a strange warmth at the base of his stomach. He hadn't really thought of the girl like that. She was strange, different, and definitely not the type he tried to corner at formals or nights out at the drive in. But she was the closest thing he had to an actual friend, so he might as well make up the story to entertain his mother. Make her think he wasn't a total loser.

"Pepper? That's different. Is she pretty?"

Tony scoffed, smiling. "Is she pretty?" he repeated. "She's great. But not as pretty as you, Ma."

Maria blushed, bringing a hand up to cup her cheek. "Oh, my Tony. You devil."

He grinned, looking back out over the sea. "She's a redhead, and she's in a sorority." He knew that little fact would impress her; as far as Maria Stark knew, all ladies in sororities were well behaved and mannered like English duchesses.

"Oh. And what is she studying?"

Thank goodness he was good liar. "Uh. Business," he answered. "She's my age." At least he didn't think that part was a lie.

"You should bring her down for Christmas," Maria suggested, and Tony merely shrugged.

"Maybe. Hey, I'm entering this contest for robotics," he told her, changing the subject effectively.

He hated lying to her. But what was he supposed to say? No, Ma. Everyone hates me and I have no friends. I sit alone in the library, I don't talk to anyone in class, and when I do go out its because the people I'm with feel sorry for me. Aren't you happy your prodigal son is a social failure?

It was easier to make her think everything was fine. And it made her smile. She never smiled enough anymore these days.

-O-O-O-

Pepper sighed, turning her face away from him. "I just don't want you to go. Its not even the fact that you're going away. Its just that it has to be…there," she said with a tiny shiver.

They only had a few more weeks together before he was shipped off the Vietnam. And then who knew if she'd see him again. He knew how she felt about the war, about the country's involvement, and that didn't make this decision any easier. Especially since he had no choice.

"I know, sweetheart." He traced his fingers along her waistline. "But I promised you something when I get back, don't you remember? Just think how wonderful that will be once the war is over." He squeezed gently, tickling her.

She laughed aloud, echoing across the silent neighborhood. "Aldrich!"

He chuckled, growing serious again. "Don't be sad, darling. I can't stand to see you cry anymore. We have the rest of this semester, right?"

She sighed, leaning forward to rest her chin against his shoulder. "Yes." She let out a long breath. "That night you told me…I was just so upset. I think it'll be easier if we write. You will write me, won't you?"

She leaned back to look into his amber eyes.

"Of course I will." He glanced quickly at the watch around his wrist. "Its past your curfew," he said, making Pepper roll her eyes. "I'll be here at 9 tomorrow to pick you up and drive back up to Cambridge. I love you."

She nodded, slipping from where she was sandwiched between him and his Cadillac. Before she could disappear up the sidewalk, he tugged her back to him for a quick kiss. She playfully hit his shoulder, making him laugh before she hurried away.

-O-O-O-

AN: Ah-ha. See what I did there? :) Please review and tell me what you think? I'm nervous about this…