That entire week Tony worked on the suit while I watched until one day, he surprised me with handing me a tool while I was standing nearby. I took it gratefully and smiled brilliantly. He walked me through the steps of how to use them and what to do. He wouldn't allow me to use the welder for fear that I'm going to damage the stabilizers. ("You said it was made of gold and titanium! They can't melt into a puddle with a welder—maybe the sun, but not a welder!" He ignored me.)

We had finished the right hand flight stabilizer when it was late evening and Tony was trying on the stabilizer.

"That looks really heavy," I commented.

"Eh, I'm having some help." He tapped his arc reactor that was shown clearly since he cut a hole in his shirt for it.

I heard the door open behind me and turned around to see Pepper carrying a brown paper wrapped box with a cup of coffee balancing on top of it. She reminded me of a waitress.

"Hi, Pepper," I greeted with a smile and small wave.

She looked at me and smiled and spoke to Tony. "I've been buzzing you in; did you hear the intercom?"

"What?" Tony asked with out taking his eyes off the stabilizer he was holding up while his arm stayed horizontal.

"Obadiah's upstairs—"

"Great, great, I'll be right up."

Pepper set the box and coffee down on the table and stared at the stabilizer suspiciously. "I thought you said you were done making weapons."

"It isn't," Tony explained. "It's a flight stabilizer. It's completely harmless."

The stabilizer glowed and shot Tony backward with a blast and a crash. Pepper covered her ears and half-ducked while I cringed and covered my ears also.

"I didn't expect that," Tony said quietly as he began to stand back up look at the mess of junk he had knocked on the floor from the shelves he had crashed into.

I shook my head slightly and laughed softly as I said to Pepper, "It never gets boring being around him."

"You start to miss 'boring' being around him," she responded with a grin. "Trust me."

She walked over to Tony and wiped the dust off him and tugged at his shirt. Pepper pointed at the stabilizer and said, "Take that thing off and come upstairs."

"Yes, dear," Tony replied, a small smile appearing.

Pepper sighed in annoyance and strode hurriedly out of sight up the steps, heels clicking.

Tony hadn't taken his eyes off Pepper the entire time.

My eyebrows went beneath my bangs.

He caught my look and played innocent. "What?"

"You know what!" I accused.

"No," Tony pleaded his innocence. "I don't know 'What'. Who's 'What'?"

"Stop playing dumb!"

"I'm not playing 'Dumb'. I don't even know how. Is it like a board game?" He spoke so seriously it was almost believable. Almost.

I hung my jaw and grinned disbelievingly. "You are so guilty of hitting on your PA!"

"I really have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're a really good actor Tony but I'm not buying."

"You really lost me with all this stuff that I don't even comprehend. I need to be up there so…" He began to take off the stabilizer and set it on its stand.

He wasn't going to talk so I let it slide.

Tony walked past me and I started to follow when he turned around with his hand up. "Oh no. Where do you think you're going, young lady?"

"I'm gonna go meet Pepper and Obadiah upstairs with you," I said innocently.

"Na, you don't need to meet Obie," he said.

"Come on! You're keeping me in a prison, Tony! And someone's come to visit me in my cell!"

"It's a heck of nice jail, if you ask me," Tony compromised. "Besides he doesn't even know you exist. No one's supposed to know you exist, but nice try with the metaphor."

"Why can't I show I exist?" I questioned. "He's your co-owner so can't I just—"

"No, Cara," Tony indisputably. "It's for your protection, and so I don't have reporters tailing my ass everywhere."

I breathed angrily through my nose but gave in and crossed my arms.

He pointed to the couch, "Sit."

I obeyed but not without giving him a scornful look.

When I had sat down, Tony pointed to his eyes and then at me, meaning he was watching me, but by the look on his face he was trying to be funny.

I cracked a smile, laughed a little and hid my mouth behind my hand, knowing that's what his purpose was.

He turned around, still wearing the same face and he climbed the first couple of steps and repeated the laser-eye gesture through the glass wall. I laughed again; I can't keep a straight face when he does stuff like that.

Tony finally disappeared up the open staircase.

I sat on the couch with my legs and arms crossed as I counted out the minutes. After I counted to three minutes, I opened the door and walked upstairs.

I heard them talking as I came up the steps. They were all sitting on the couch of what appeared to be an argument. Tony glanced at me while he was talking to Obadiah and narrowed his eyes; he was not happy with me. Pepper seemed more worried than angry.

I kept my face passive as I walked up to them. Obadiah noticed that they were looking off in my direction and turned around in his seat.

When I first glanced at his eyes, they were shocked, then—to my bewilderment—furious, but these emotions were only in his eyes for a millisecond until they turned emotionless.

He looked at me curiously while his face showed false happiness, like a face you would wear for the press so they didn't know what you were thinking and gave everyone the impression that you were happy and your life was great; a façade for the rest of the world to read naively.

"Hi," I said politely, holding out my hand, "I'm Cara Howard, Tony's niece. It's nice to finally meet you, Mr. Stane."

"Oh!" Obadiah lightened up more and shook my hand. "I thought you were a…unexpected delivery." He inclined his head toward Tony.

I smiled, pulling my hand away. "No. No, I'm—if you didn't know—Tony's sister's, Talia's, daughter."

"Yes, I knew Talia. Quite the girl; very bright. How is she nowadays? I haven't seen her in years."

"Um, well, she…passed away a little more than three months ago," I replied awkwardly.

"Oh, I'm…sorry to hear that," Obadiah said looking sympathetic, but it didn't seem to me like he truly meant.

I nodded. "Thanks."

"How long have you been here?" Obadiah asked with his eyebrows knit.

"Three months," I answered.

"Hm." He turned to Tony, and just then realized that I had sold him out. "Tony?"

Tony glanced at me hatefully, where I tried to fit in an apologetic look before he turned to Obadiah, who continued, "Why didn't you tell me you had this fine young lady here?" He indicated me with a hand.

Now I could see the gears in Tony's head spinning, trying to think of an excuse.

I glanced down at the table: there was a pizza box.

Bingo.

"Pizza! I'm starved!" I opened the box while everyone turned to stare at me. I looked at Mr. Stane. "May I have a slice?"

He hesitated and looked at me skeptically like I couldn't have picked an even worse time to cut into the conversation. "Yeah. Sure."

"Thank you!" I smiled gratefully as I picked up a slice.

Tony took advantage of the distraction. "You know what? I'll have another one, thank you."

He stood up with his slice of pizza, and walked in front of Obadiah toward the staircase. I followed him while Obadiah called to Tony, "Why don't you show me what you're doing down there."

"Good night, Obie," Tony called back as he walked down the stairs.

I looked back at Obadiah and waved in goodbye.

He didn't wave back or smile but only looked me in a suspicious way, so I looked quickly at Pepper instead. She gave an unconvincing smile back and looked down which perplexed me.

Something wasn't right about Mr. Stane.

I walked into the workshop, knowing what was coming.

"I thought I told you to stay put," Tony started on me while I avoided his gaze and chewed on the pizza. "And what do you do? You follow me upstairs. I had specific reasons for not letting you meet him, so why did you deliberately disobey me and come upstairs?"

"I figured he was someone I could trust—"

"Fact is I don't trust him. Not since after I got back from Afghanistan. He's not acting right and is asking me too many questions. Now you put yourself in danger and me on thin ice. Thanks. Thanks a lot."

"How could I be in danger? He did look shifty to me, but not someone that would think about killing me or something."

"He could tell others and that's all it takes until word spreads that I have a fourteen-year-old niece that could be easily taken care of so that they can hurt me. And I was thinking about letting you wander around town since you want to go out and get some fresh air. I guess that's not happening." He shrugged. "Oh well."

Great, I thought. He's playing the "guilt trip" card.

"You know," I said, trying to over-compensate his "guilt trip" play. "I think you're over-stressing the situation. It can't be that bad."

"It is that bad, Cara," Tony verified. "And you say I don't take things seriously."

"Well what's done is done and it's my mistake," I said to him with slight bitterness. "I'm sorry."

"Just why do you ignore everything I tell you to do?" Tony asked, exasperated. "Why am I still the enemy here?"

"I did it without thinking," I explained hastily. "It's nothing against you."

"Use the gray stuff between your ears," Tony said lightheartedly. "Not like you use it often."

"Why do people always tell me that?" I asked rhetorically, laughing.

"Because it's true," he answered.

"I was being rhetorical."

"I'm still going to answer the question either way."

"Do you purposely try to annoy everyone you know?"

"Kind of," Tony replied, starting to smirk. "You should hear me annoy Platypus."

"I don't know the nicknames you give everyone so just say their real name please."

"Platypus slash Rhodey is James Rhodes," he said with a sigh. "I used his cell to call you before I came here, remember?"

"Yeah of course I remember. Are their any other nicknames I should know about?"

"There's Happy; He's my chauffeur. His real name is Harold Hogan. Understand why I made a nickname?"

"Yeah but why do you call James Rhodes 'Rhodey'? Can't you just call him 'Jimmy' or something?"

"Rhodey is not a 'Jimmy'," Tony said while laughing. "If you meet him ever then you'd understand.

I caught the "If" but didn't start on that. So instead I continued with the topic, "What about Pepper? What's her real name?"

Tony looked up in thought, eyebrows slightly furrowed. "Uh I think Vio—no Vir, Vir…" He snapped his fingers trying to find the name. "Virg—Virginia!"

"I can't believe you took that long," I looked at him incredulously.

"You don't hear that name everyday and besides she looks like a 'Pepper', don't you think?"

"I suppose so," I shrugged and decided to pop that question, "Why did you flirt with her anyway?"

"We do that all the time. It's harmless." There was something behind that…

"Really." I looked at him doubtfully.

"Yeah it's nothing new."

"I don't believe you. You're hiding something."

"I'm not hiding anything."

"Why are you so defensive of this subject?"

"Cara, there's nothing to defend—"

"Yes there is. I'm not stupid, Tony. Why can't you just say—"

"'Cause there's nothing to say!"

"Okay," I said calmly, sitting on the couch. "You can tell me when you're ready."

Tony leaned back and glanced at the ceiling, laughing at my persistence.

I looked at the TV across from me and grabbed the remote on the table.

"What do you think you're doing?" Tony asked, pointing behind him. "Forget something?"

"What? Aren't we done for the day?"

"No. Break's over. I want to test all the stabilizers tomorrow so we have to get these done tonight."

"Come on! I haven't watched TV in a while."

"It's been a week."

"For a teen, that's like a decade. Besides I want to try and stay up-to-date since I can't go anywhere." I glanced accusingly at him.

Tony walked up to me and grabbed my wrist of the hand that was holding the remote. Pain shot through my arm, causing me to drop the remote.

"Ow!" I screamed, caressing my arm. "Oh my God! God bless America! Ugh!" I looked up at him, my face showing complete shock. "That hurt! What the heck did you do that for?! You know there are gentler methods!"

"I figured this would get your attention," he spoke as he flipped the remote in his hand.

"How did you know where to pinch anyway?"

"The ulnar nerve is the easiest nerve to pinch, to me at least. I looked it up one day."

"You look up nerves to pinch, why?"

"I don't look these things up everyday, and I don't do it all the time either. I just wanted to see how efficient it is on you. It's fun doing it to Rhodey." He grinned mischievously.

"Another method to annoy people, I presume?"

"Yep. Never gets old. Oh and I did that to you because I wanted to see your reaction. 'God bless America'?" He thought it was hilarious; I could tell. "You bring the new meaning to 'cursing'. So every time something bad happens to you, you bless the country?"

"I never thought of it that way but I guess that's what I'm doing." The pain in my arm finally went away. "Don't ever do that again. Please, don't," I said while laughing.

Tony looked at me carefully and I was daring him through my eyes to try again. He shot a hand for my shoulder and I raised my hand to knock it away, but he shot his other hand to my shoulder muscle while I as distracted with his left hand and he pinched hard and fast.

I've been pinched there before, because it's a common place for others to scare me by quickly jabbing my shoulder and neck muscles so I jumped whenever I felt the nerves electrify me so the hairs rose of my body.

But I've never been pinched there that badly before.

My hairs instantly rose around the lower left side of my head and so did the entire left shoulder, neck and arm area as pain became imminent very fast.

"Ahh!" I yelled throwing my hand up to my shoulder. "Stop it! You're so mean!"

"It's kinda your fault since you were daring me—"

I slapped him on his arm; the only part I can reach from the couch.

"Hey!" Tony exclaimed. "No slapping."

"No pinching!" I shot back. "Especially on major nerves! I'm not getting off this couch now since you crippled my arm!"

"The pain'll go away, but fine; I'll work on it without you." He glanced back teasingly as he walked back to the flight stabilizer. "I'll probably get a lot more done."

Ignoring the statement, I inquired while I spread out on the couch comfortably as the pain subsided again, "What did you learn from my reaction this time?"

"That you only give people two strikes before you get really stubborn."

"You don't deserve three strikes!" I called behind me since I was laid out on the couch facing the opposite direction.

"Yeah," he said indifferently. "You're probably right."

I laughed. We didn't talk after that since he got absorbed into his project. Over that time I closed my eyes and thought about anything that I happened to dwell on.

"Okay," Tony whispered. "I like Pepper. Happy?"

He glanced at Cara at the couch. She didn't move nor respond.

"Cara?" He walked over to Cara and saw that her eyes were closed and her chest rose and fell gently; she was fast asleep.

He smiled at how angelic and fragile she looked, but laughed quietly because she was the total opposite.

The way her head and neck were on the arm rest looked terribly uncomfortable and he wondered how the heck she could fall asleep like that.

He decided to do something decent for her. So he went upstairs to her room and took a pillow off her bed. Right out her bedroom doorway, he ran into Pepper.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, catching her breath. "Tony, you scared me."

"Yeah, sorry," he said hastily. "Where are the blankets around here?"

"Um, there right..." She touched a sleek metal door and walked inside to grab a large fleece blanket from a top shelf.

"Here," she finished as she handed the blanket to Tony. "Why do you need it?"

"Cara fell asleep downstairs," he mumbled and shrugged.

Pepper smiled. "That's nice of you, Tony."

"Does it turn you on?"

"Just make sure she's warm, Tony," Pepper laughed.

Tony turned and walked down the staircase while Pepper watched him walk down the steps. She soon left the mansion, thinking of the changes in Tony as she drove to her loft.