Chapter 3

The clothing store's attendant's initial demeaning attitude had changed in an instant when she had recognized that the identity one of the two customers whom had just walked inside the premises was none other than Tony Stark. The casual clothes and shady beard had prevented the poor woman from recognizing the young billionaire, CEO of Stark Solutions – a division of Stark International. The physical appearance of his female companion was not any better than his, and the attendant had been quick to assume that neither of them could afford the least expensive pair of earrings in the establishment.

Now, however, nearly two hours after Pepper and Tony had first walked inside the store to buy Pepper new clothes, the attendant was short of dropping herself on the floor to serve as a human mat to Pepper's constant visits to the fitting rooms. Tony, on the other hand, sat in a chair near the dressing rooms, forearms on his knees, and head resting on his hands, watching intently as the clerk brought any and all items Pepper asked for while inside the dressing room.

"Would you like to try another size, Miss Potts?" The attendant asked as she stood by the closed door of the stall. "I think I may have an extra small size available for this dress."

"No, thank you. I should grow into it, soon. I'm usually not this skinny."

"Are you certain? You can always come back and exchange it."

"No, it's alright. Thanks. Here," Pepper handed her a pair of shoes. "Mind bringing these over in red?"

"Absolutely."

Tony's eyes followed the attendant as she walked to the back of the store, presumably to get the color Pepper wanted for her brand new shoes. The last time he had been dragged into one of Pepper's shoe-shopping sprees had been the day his future grandson had shown up to exterminate his ass to prevent Tony from making the worst mistake of his life: creating the Vortex virus.

"I said: When did you become Whitney Stane?" An exasperated Tony asked Pepper immediately after she removed one box from his face so that she could hear his complaint clearly.

"How about you don't mention Whitney when you and I are on a date?"

"A what? Uh, this is a date?" His eyes became saucers. He was not sure how he had not just dropped her boxes of shoes then and there.

"Well, we're taking the day off." She argued. "No computer talk. No armory. Just you and me."

"That doesn't make it a date."

"It's just a word. Relax. Come on, we still have a lot of shopping to do. Shoes! It's an addiction!"

Despite his initial surprise at the use of the word date, Tony had kept his comments to himself and had continued walking behind her, at least until the explosion signifying the arrival of his grandson made itself heard. Today, many months after that particular incident, he wondered what would have happened between them that day if their date had not been interrupted by Andros Stark.

Probably what's going on right now: me sitting here while she buys the entire store. His thoughts were interrupted when the chair next to him shook and Pepper sighed loudly after sitting in it.

"It feels good to have something clean to wear, again."

Tony looked at her up and down. She was wearing a white, knee-length, non-sleeved, V-neck dress with red flowers as pattern, and a cropped denim jacket. Pepper was not one to show off her legs or the curves of her body, but he could not blame her for putting on something that did not remind her of her time in captivity with the Makluan guardian. "You look nice, Pep," he smiled at her. "But now you make me look like a homeless bum."

"A homeless bum wouldn't drive a sports car," she pointed a thumb to the vehicle parked at the curb behind them. "So, I'm gonna say you're just a bum." She ended her statement with a smile to make sure he knew she was just being playful.

Tony chuckled. "Jeez, thanks, Pepper. But I think a bum wouldn't have deposited your paycheck in your bank account every month while you were gone," he responded, and he had meant it to be a joke, but when her eyes became downcast, he mentally kicked himself. "Wait, Pepper, that's not…what I meant…I…"

Pepper patted his knee with her left hand, and shook her head. "No, you're right. I'm sorry. You didn't have to keep paying me my salary. I guess I owe you a year's worth of free software testing and design, huh?"

Tony shook his head and placed his hand over hers, which she had not removed from his leg, to his surprise. "Nah! Let's just call it…worker's compensation. That's what it was, right?"

"More like hazard pay," she joked, but the look in her eyes did not change to match the humor in her voice. "I'll pay you back, Tony. I promise. I just need to…find myself again, first."

"You already did pay me back, Pepper," he rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb, his eyes fixed on her face. "I probably owe you, still."

"Miss Potts?" The attendant's voice startled the teens, and Tony let go of her hand. "You're in luck. This is our last red pair," the woman said as she crouched down in front of Pepper and fitted the shoes onto the redhead's feet. "But we also have them in burgundy."

Pepper eyed the flats on her feet, and wiggled the tips of them like a little girl. "I think I've gotten enough clothes to last me for the year. I'd like to checkout now." Pepper handed the debit card to the woman. The attendant took the card from Pepper and excused herself to close the transaction. The redhead stood up from the chair and patted her dress to remove the cresses that were already forming from sitting down. Tony eyed her silently for a moment until the sales clerk returned with Pepper's card.

"Thank you for your purchase today, Miss Potts. We hope to see you here for the winter line release."

Pepper just smiled at the woman; she was not accustomed to buying expensive clothes, and she probably would not return to the place ever again, but this had been the most decent store on the way back to armory from the restaurant Tony had taken her to, and she had desperately needed a change of clothes that did not include borrowing from Tony's repertoire again.

Tony.

As if on cue, Tony stood up from the chair and took out the car keys from his pants' pocket, pressed the unlock button in the electronic keychain, and a second later the trunk opened up. "Guess I should start dragging these bags and boxes to the car."

"I'll help you," Pepper said. After a few minutes of carrying Pepper's new wardrobe, everything was loaded in the trunk and both teenagers got inside the car. The ride back to the armory was quiet save for the radio station playing a variety of current hit songs, and mostly uneventful save for the moment when Tony intertwined his hand in Pepper's, gave it a light squeeze, and informed her she had been missed. His grip on her hand was not broken until they reached the basement entrance of the Makluan temple.

xxxXXXxxx

Tony stared at himself in the mirror, surprised to see his beardless face again. It was not as if he had grown it long enough to classify him as a yeti, but he could now see what Pepper had meant when she had asked him when had been the last time he had shaved.

Maybe she meant to say she likes me more like this,he dared to muse before shaking his head in self-disapproval; his emotions were best dwelled upon at a later time –a time when Pepper was not just recently arrived from another dimension. Pushing the the silly thoughts aside, he grabbed his aftershave bottle and sprinkled a few drops on his hands before rubbing them together and patting his face. He had just finished showering and was now dressed up in normal clothes, his homeless bum look left behind. He gave himself a last look in the mirror before walking out of the bathroom and bedroom, and into the main lab where he had left Pepper about an hour ago.

Just as when he had gone off to refresh himself, Pepper was sitting in front of his laptop, typing furiously and flawlessly on the keyboard, her brows furrowed in deep concentration. He walked up to her and pulled a chair behind her, sat down in it and poked his head over her shoulder to see the screen. His sudden appearance made her gasp but she quickly recovered and continued her task. "Now you smell like a normal person, Tony."

"Ouch," he flinched in an exaggerated manner. "Thanks for the confidence boost, Potts."

"Anytime," she responded.

"So, what are you looking for?" He leaned in closer to her, his chin almost resting on her shoulder.

"My dad," she began. "I'm having a hard time finding out where he transferred."

"Can't hack into the FBI database? Are we losing our touch, Pep?"

Pepper scoffed. "As if! I'm starting to think he changed his name for some reason. His badge number has been disabled, and his record shows he is no longer active. But, I know my dad. He'd never just quit. Maybe he went undercover or something like that."

"I don't know, Pepper. He was pretty down when I told him…when he found out that…"

Pepper stopped typing and turned around to face Tony with a shock-ridden face. "Does he know about…me…and the suit? And, and…you?"

"If I say 'no,' would you believe me?"

All she could do was groan and shifted her body slightly to her right to face Tony's angled posture. "Great! He's never gonna let me put it on again. So much for Rescue."

"Rescue?" He furrowed his brow.

"Yeah! After I…disappeared, I was locked up for a long time; had a lot of time to think. The name just came to me and it stuck. Doesn't it sound cool? Rescue?"

Tony's eyes were glued to hers, and while her last bit had been meant to be encouraging, the only words Tony had clung onto had been locked up. The sorrow inside him was pouring out in waves through his facial expression, and while at first it had been somewhat endearing to Pepper that he was so worried about her time in confinement, she was getting tired of seeing what her captivity had done to him.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" He pulled himself closer to her face.

"Like you just rescued an abused dog from the pound on the day he was going to be put down; like that."

Tony closed his eyes. "That's not what I'm thinking about."

"Well," she began through clenched teeth. "That's how you're making me feel."

Tony opened his eyes once more and licked his dried lips. "I'm sorry, Pepper," he whispered as his eyes fixated on her lips. "I…I should've been faster…I should've jumped after you…"

Pepper's eyes – which until a second ago had been cold – began to sting. She was not ready to talk about it, but she knew Tony was as stubborn as she was; he was not going to let it go until he found out what he wanted to know. She did not pull away from his inches-away face, but her eyes darted to the side. "I hope this is not your way of telling me you feel responsible for this; for what happened to me, Tony."

"Why the fuck wouldn't I?" The expletive –which was rare coming from any of them – was what caught Pepper's attention the most, forcing her to face him again. "It was me who took you there," he gritted his teeth.

We are having this conversation after all, huh? She thought bitterly. "You didn't take me anywhere. I wanted to go."

"But, you wouldn't have gone if I hadn't built the suit."

"C'mon, Tony! I would've just put on another one of your suits, and you know it."

"I'd have sealed them off. I would've never let you go if I had known that…" He closed his eyes again but opened them immediately when he felt her left hand on his right cheek.

"And I wouldn't have let you and Rhodey go off to China alone. I would've found a way to hack into the suits. I designed your software, remember?"

Tony swallowed hard. If he ever thought of a response, he would never remember it after this moment. The only things his mind could concentrate on was the fact that she was so close to his face he could smell her mint-scented breath, the warm feel of her delicate skin on his cheek, and the loud pounding of his own heart inside his chest. The silence in the lab was uncommon for such a lively place, but what was not uncommon to either of them was the easiness with which they could forget everything around them when the other was near. Over two years had passed since Tony had met her for the first time up on the roof of NYTA during one of their free periods, and not a moment since then had he been able to remove the high-spirited girl from the back of his mind for one reason or the other.

"I missed you, Pepper." He whispered to her, this time avoiding the use of the word we, as he had done so earlier on their ride back to the armory.

His left hand, working on its own accord, found the side of her neck. His fingers curled around it and pulled her towards him. She allowed him to tilt her head, both of them slowly closing their eyes as the distance between them disappeared. Their lips brushed once, twice, but neither of them felt brave enough to press them closer together despite the feeling of a warm hand clutching around their hearts.

"TONY!"

The loud instance of his name pulled them apart in a flash. Pepper moved away from Tony and stared at the laptop screen without actually reading anything on it. Tony stood up from his chair and rubbed the back of his neck. Half a second later, Howard Stark appeared from the narrow entrance hall, his face contorted into one of pure anger.

"Anthony Stark! How could you've been so careless?!"

"What did I do now?" He asked in a bored tone, walking toward his father to meet him halfway into the lab, but not standing too close to him.

Howard's eyes darted from Tony's to Pepper's back, sighed loudly, and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Pepper. I didn't mean to barge in here like this. Are you alright?"

Pepper slowly stood up from her chair, turned around, walked toward Howard and nodded. "It's nice to see you, Mr. Stark. I didn't know you knew I was back."

As she stopped directly in front of him, the older man cupped her shoulders with his hands and gave her an honest smile. "Look at you! You look great! I'm happy you're back! Everyone was worried sick about you."

"You mean other than the ones who had already given her up for dead, right, Dad? And how do you even know she's back?" Tony pointed an accusatory finger at his father.

"Tony!" Pepper's head snapped to her side to stare at Tony standing a few feet behind her. Whatever else Tony was going to say to his father died on his lips with the look Pepper gave him, but his annoyed face did not go away.

"It's all over the news," Howard finally responded to their question. "Apparently some lady leaked pictures to the media and they're now all over the place."

"What?" Pepper spat. "What pictures? Of what?"

"Just turn on the T.V."

Tony walked to his monitors and brought up the first news channel his satellite picked up. As Howard had expected, the top news for the last hour had been the plethora of pictures taken with a cell phone of Tony and Pepper, and the news was still being broadcasted nonstop even now. The screen showed the blurry images of Tony and Pepper in the clothing store, Pepper trying different outfits, Tony and Pepper sitting next to each other in the chairs and holding hands, and a final image of them loading stuff into the trunk of his car. The caption of the picture reel read: Pepper Potts alive? Did she fake her death to run off with billionaire Tony Stark?

"They're joking, right?" Tony yelled, his finger pointed at the screen. "Who the hell approves these crackpot ideas to be shown on TV?"

"It's the media, son. This is what they do. You should know that by now. Now that you're 18, you're no longer off-limits. Anything you do or say will be scrutinized; and so will everyone around you," Howard finished his response by staring at Pepper. She was staring in shock at the screen before she covered her face with her hands.

Tony groaned in frustration and turned off the screen and walked toward Pepper. He stood in front her, grabbed her wrists with his hands, and tried to pry her hands from her face but she kept them firmly in place. "Whoa, Pep." He bent his head down and to the side to try to see her face in between the separations of her fingers. "It's alright. I'm sorry I didn't think about this sooner. I just…Pep, are you OK?"

Pepper removed her hands from her face and growled. "NO! I'm NOT OK, Tony! I am NOT OK!" Her arms flailed in the air with her words.

Tony was taken aback by her sudden outburst, stared at his dad for a second for some clue as to why Pepper was taking the media garbage to heart, and then placed his hands on her waist. "What am I missing here?"

"Seriously, Tony?" She sighed but did not pull away from his hold. "My DAD is probably watching this right now! He's gonna freak, at least. I'm in soooo much trouble." She placed her hands on her cheeks, pulling down on her skin in desperation.

"What? Why trouble? Your dad will be happy you're alive!"

"Actually," Howard interrupted them much to Tony's chagrin. "I just received a call from a friend that has been keeping an eye on Virgil, you know, just in case you turned up." Tony's eyes widened by his father's revelation. "That's part of the reason why I'm here."

Tony's hands, which were still on her waist, felt her muscles tense up under him. She pulled away from his embrace and turned around, walked back to Howard and held her breath. Her hands clutched together on her chest, and she swallowed hard to ask the question that was burning her lips. "You know where my dad is? Is he alright?"

"Pepper," Howard lowered his voice. He placed his hands on her upper arms and stared directly at her eyes. "Your father had a heart attack. The news…he didn't take it well."

The small whimper that escaped her lips stabbed Tony's soul and before he could stop her, she ran out of the lab, leaving behind two men calling out her name.

A/N: I know, I'm mean. But, I've done worse :)