A/N: BTW, sorry about the mishap with the last chapter. I swapped the stories again, although I wonder how much of it was my fault this time around. I found missing CHUNKS of previous chapters for no reason when the original copy has them there. Sigh. I guess the server updates FF is doing may be messing with my mind. Sorry about that!

Chapter 6

Pepper felt Tony's muscles become rigid under her touch, his face becoming pale as he stared down at her with an agape jaw. His blue eyes searched her brown ones, looking for a miniscule sign that she had just made a terrible joke to him, but the sincerity on her soft features was heartbreaking. Images of what a forced marriage to the man he hated with every fiber of his being meant for his Girl Friday invaded the young scientist's mind. The possibilities were endless and nothing short of revolting; in a flash, his world began crashing down onto itself.

"Wah w-w-hat? Do, huh? W-wife? Married?"

Pepper looked down, the courage that had pushed her to reveal one more hidden piece of her ordeal to him suddenly leaving her in waves. "Well, since he's dead and all, maybe I should've said widower, huh?" She looked up to him again as she began standing up and took him with her.

Tony's shock was not placated, especially with the faint look of disappointment that flashed in her eyes following her resignation to being the surviving spouse of a maniac. Even if it had been for just an instant, Tony had seen it and it made his stomach churn. He allowed the redhead to guide him to his bed, both sitting on it in an almost mechanical manner. He then stared at his friend from the corner of his eye, not wanting to misread her reactions if only just to avoid pushing the metaphorical, rusty dagger deeper into his back. "Pepper, are you even…did you and Gene…uhm…did-you-did-you, I mean…"

"How about we talk about the details later?" She responded as she stared down at her watch and looked away so that Tony would not see the slight tint of red on her cheeks. "The afternoon visiting hours are going to start soon."

"But –" he began but the beeping of his Stark Pod interrupted him. "My Dad's gonna come pick us up." He said after reading the text message and sighing loudly.

"Really?"

"Well, we have no car, right?" He said in between clenched teeth with more venom than he had intended, but it seemed to him that Pepper had not caught the restraint in his voice.

"Right." Pepper's glaze became lost for another moment as thoughts of Gene crossed her mind, but she shook them off. She could feel the anger growing inside of Tony, and she knew she had to defuse it before it burned down the hotel they were in. "Tony?"

"Uhm?" He stared off into the wall in front of him, unable to look at her after what she had just said. Pepper bit her lip at his stiff posture; she should have followed her gut feeling and should have never said anything to him. She should have stayed quiet, but of course that was the problem, since she hardly ever could. Now, there was no turning back.

"I…" She reached for his hand but Tony pulled away. "Tony?" When he did not respond, she tried again. "Tony, why are you…"

Her question was left unfinished as Tony stood up from the bed and threw his pod at the wall before turning around and staring down at her with fire in his eyes. "Seriously, Pepper? You married Gene? GENE?"

And, there it was.

"I did but it's not what you think."

"It's not what I think? It's NOT what I THINK? How do you even know what I'm thinking, huh? Are you a mind reader now?" He spat to her as his arms flailed in every direction to show the fury that was quickly rising up in him. "Do you want me to turn around so you can pull out the dagger, Pepper?" He pointed to his back. "Do you want to stab it somewhere else?"

"What is wrong with you, Tony?"

"Wrong with me? What is wrong with you? I thought you were over him, Pepper! He betrayed you as much as he betrayed me, and you still married him? How could you, Pepper? How could you do this to me?"

"Tony, you're making it sound as if I had a choice!"

"There's always a choice! People don't just marry anybody! They marry people they love! They marry people they want to spend the rest of their lives with!"

Pepper shook her head and covered her face with her hands. The young billionaire took her gesture as a sign of acceptance of his words, which only irritated him more than he already was.

"You-you love him? You LOVE him?"

Pepper removed her hands from her face and it was now her features that were full of rage. She stood up and almost bumped into the genius had he not taken a step back. "From all the things Gene did to me, not once did he speak to me in the way you're doing right now. And, in case you have forgotten, Tony, you're the one who betrayed me first; with him and with Whitney. You willingly chose them over me way before Gene forced me to choose him over you."

Tony opened his mouth to deny her claim but he knew she was correct. Hell! The whole reason why Pepper had begun hanging around Gene was because she had been paired up with him to complete the extra Social Studies paper they had all earned thanks to her outburst. When Pepper noticed he was having a difficult time coming up with a retort she turned on her heels and stomped her way out of his room, slamming the connecting door between them and locking it behind her. By the time Tony realized what she had done, his efforts to twist the doorknob were going to lead him nowhere, fast.

"Pepper? Pepper! Did you just say I am worse than Gene? Did you seriously just compare me to that backstabber?" He pounded on the door.

"I see they don't call you a genius for no reason, Tony Stark!"

Tony was taken aback, again, but his shock was quickly phased. "And I see why Gene liked you so much! You're both backstabbers! You both stabbed me in the back!"

The only response he received were stomping and opening and closing of drawers and doors, which for some reason he felt was nothing more than a loud way for her to ignore him, so yet another unfounded, angry statement escaped his lips.

"Are you looking for your dagger? Because it's still attached to my BACK!" The stomping continued until finally a loud slam that caused his room to shake was heard. He pressed his ear to the connecting door and tried turning the doorknob again, but it was still locked. The silence coming from the other room did not sit well with him as he knew Pepper was not discreet when she was in the middle of an argument.

Unless…oh, crap! Tony ran toward his front door, skidded to a stop and ran toward the bed where his pod had ended up bouncing to. He picked it up from the floor, turned around and sped up to his door. He opened and closed the door in a flash before he ran down the hall toward the elevator as if an angry Hulk was chasing him. He pressed the down button and after noticing the elevator was stuck somewhere on the first floor, he cursed his luck and began running toward the stairs.

He almost hit an old lady that was coming out of her room, but thanks to his Extremis agility he was able to dodge her at the last second. Once he finally reached the stairs and remembered he was on the 15th floor, he took in a deep breath and began jumping from one landing to the other, relying on the small amount of the virus he had in him to speed up his descent. Once he reached the bottom floor he all but slammed open the metal door, looked left and right, and when his eyes fell on the reservation desk, he practically flew towards it.

"Potts!" He slammed his hand on the counter. "Did she check out, Pepper Potts?"

"Yes, sir. You just missed her, she –" Tony had no time to waste with the clerk and ran outside the building. Again he looked left and right, twice, and on his second look he saw the redhead hailing a cab at the end of the street. "PEPPER!"

A random cab stopped almost immediately, but only one of her legs had made it inside before he finally reached her, tackled her inside, bag and all, and then closed the door behind them. At first Pepper thought she was being kidnapped or that somebody was trying to hijack her cab, but when her eyes focused on his blue ones, she growled.

"Are you kidding me? Did I forget something? Oh, I know! You're here to return the dagger, aren't you?"

The cab driver looked back at the teens as if what he was seeing was a daily occurrence and shrugged. "You said you wanted to go to the hospital, ma'am?"

"YES!"

"NO!"

"What do you mean 'no'? Get off me, Tony!"

Tony, maneuvering as he could while still pinning Pepper down to the back seat, took out a couple of hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and tossed them at the cabbie before he spoke to the surprised man. "Leave, now!"

"What? No!" Pepper began. "Don't leave! Don't…ugh!" She groaned in exasperation and tried to wiggle her body free from Tony's fierce hold. The cabbie took the money and ran out of the car, taking the keys with him and walked inside a nearby café; he had a feeling this was going to take a while. Once Tony was certain the driver was not going to return soon, he looked back at Pepper, only now realizing what position they were in.

He was lying completely on top of her, his left hand held both of hers above her head. His left leg was bent between hers, and his right foot was firmly planted on the floor of the cab, giving him more control over his position. The hand he had used to find the cash was now resting on her waist. Pepper, on the other hand, had been bucking under him to push him off, but once she too realized their positions, she went rigid and her cheeks matched the color of her hair.

"Is this something you learned when I was gone? Does Whitney like it?" She spat to him despite her rapidly beating heart, attempting to use her anger to dilute the convoluted situation upon her.

"Oh, jeez, I don't know," he spat back. "What did Gene think when you were squirming under him?"

Pepper narrowed her eyes at him, and despite the hurtful tears that were forming in her eyes, her tone of voice did not match her pain. "Is that what you came here to ask me? You could've sent me a text message for that!"

"No, I came to stop you from leaving."

"Oh, you aren't done telling me how bad of a friend I am? Goodie! I was hoping you had more insults hiding in that fake friendship face of yours!"

"You're one to talk, Potts! You're the one who married my worst enemy! Behind my back!"

"Oh, yeah, sure. Next time I get married to a villain like, say, Dr. Doom or MODOK, I'll make sure to send you an invitation from the freakin' Twilight Zone!"

"Can you stop yelling at me for two seconds? Or are you practicing to beat the Hulk in a scream match?"

Pepper gasped. "See? That right there is something Gene would've never said to me! And you wonder why I said he was better than you in that respect. He at least loved me!"

"Loved you?" Tony scoffed. "You think that selfish bastard loved anyone but himself?"

"Yes! And he did love me! Unlike other selfish bastards I happen to know!"

"Me? Are you talking about me?"

"I'm looking at you, aren't I?"

"Do you think I don't love you, Pepper? Is this what this is about? Because you're damned wrong! I DO! I can't believe you'd really think I don't care! Then why the fuck do you think I didn't stop looking for you? For the fun of it?"

"Because you feel guilty!" Pepper responded, trying to not let his angry confession get the best of her; she could not really trust it, anyway, as it had been a product of their current fight. "You told me so yourself! You felt like shit that I was taken under Iron Man's watch! It's just a pride thing to you!"

"Pride? PRIDE? You think I threw my college life away to look for you for the sake of PRIDE?"

"You…you threw…you…aren't going to MIT?"

"I…" Tony sighed and looked away. "I postponed it. I'm starting next semester."

"But, Tony…you…you couldn't wait to go…why?"

"Yeah, well, I had better things to do." He responded to her, still unable to face her. "I couldn't just stop searching for you, right? Everyone else already had."

"Tony…" He slowly moved his face back to her, the anger in his eyes almost completely gone. Her eyes landed on the bandage he still had above his eyebrow, and the memory of how he had tried defending her honor made her heart clench. "I'm sorry. You…you are not the same as Gene…or worse… you're just…you're Tony, and he is Gene; and that's all there is to it."

"Pepper…" The young man began, guilt creeping up in him as well. "I'm…I'm sorry, too. I didn't mean what I said…well, except…"

"Except…what?"

"Except…that I…that I do…"

"What are you kids doing?" Howard Stark asked from outside the cab, his head peeking in through the window. "Should I leave you two alone, or…?"

As if on a spring, Tony jumped off Pepper and landed on his back on the floor of the taxi, his feet awkwardly propped up by Pepper's bag. Pepper covered her face with her hands, completely mortified of what Tony's father was thinking about them right about now. Tony was the one to recover first, sat up on the floor and gave his father a nasty look. "I'd say that it's not what you think it is, but I somehow know it doesn't really matter what I say right now."

Howard gave him a smile, completely agreeing with his son's statement. "I thought you and I wouldn't understand each other until much later, son. Glad to see the time has come," he jested. "Pepper?" His eyes landed on the still embarrassed girl. "Are you ready to go see your Dad?"

At the mention of her father, Pepper swallowed her pride and humiliation. She sat up on the seat and nodded, her face still slightly pink around her cheeks. In an attempt to try and get up from the floor, Tony grabbed the handle of the door behind him, assuming it was locked. To his surprise, the door opened wide and Tony had only enough time to pull back his arm before a vehicle rounding the corner at a higher velocity than necessary pried the door off at the hinges, taking it with it as it sped by. Pepper squealed and Tony flinched as they eyed the gaping hole that had once been covered by a door, and even Howard had the decency to recoil at the scene.

"Do you think that door repair will cost 200 bucks?" Tony asked Pepper, recalling the money he had given the driver to leave them to their argument alone, and wondering to himself when he had become an avid involuntary wrecker of other people's cars.

"I think you may want to throw a few thousand more onto that," Pepper answered him before they helped each other out of the cab, determined to avoid the curious stare Howard Stark was giving them.

Teenagers, he thought as he chuckled to himself.

xxxXXXxxx

After much deliberation, Howard had convinced Pepper to remain outside Virgil's room with Tony. The trio had been surprised to find out that Virgil had woken up an hour before they had arrived to the hospital, and while Pepper had wanted to see with her own eyes that her father was alright, Tony's father had recommended otherwise.

"He probably doesn't remember what happened to him, Pepper. It's best if I broke it to him first, just in case." Howard had told the impatient teenaged girl. Despite Tony's need to have her do what he knew would make her happy, Tony had begrudgingly agreed with his father. The last thing Pepper needed was feeling even more responsible for her father's health condition by giving him a second heart attack after just waking up from the first.

Even though Pepper had been reluctant to agree with the suggestion, she had accepted it as the best course of action up until now. It had been an hour since Howard had walked inside the room and she was growing anxious that the visiting time would end without her even having the chance to see her father at all. Tony shared her concerns, and while neither of them had spoken more than two words to each other – and had been careful to avoid talking about the incident in the cab – it was obvious that they were both counting down the seconds to when Pepper could finally see her father again.

After five more minutes of no sign of Howard coming out, the only thoughts keeping Pepper sane were that: a) No member of the medical staff had yet rushed inside the room, crash cart in tow; and, b) The memories of Tony's face above hers, his body pressing her down, and his raw emotion-filled declaration – sort of – that he felt something strong for her – maybe as strong as she did for him.

Tony was sitting to her right, his left elbow rested on his leg, and his head resting on his left hand. His right forearm hung lazily on his right knee, and his free hand held his pod in it as he randomly scanned police reports for the need of Iron Man in California. His suit was back in the hotel, but he knew he could just summon it with Extremis on his way to a potential crime scene. However, he was doubtful he could truly concentrate on whipping bad guys' asses at the moment, seeing as his mind was drowning in a sea of Pepper-ridden thoughts.

"I didn't love him, but I did like him" Pepper's small voice said suddenly. It took Tony a moment to realize what she had said, and when he did, his shoulders slumped. When Tony did not respond to her comment, Pepper took in a deep breath and continued to clear her conscious to him. "And had the situation been different, I might've chosen to marry him in the end."

Tony put away his pod and twisted his body so that he was now hunched in the chair, his eyes staring down at the floor. "Different, how?" He asked her, this time preparing to remain calm enough to try and sort out this circumstance between them.

Pepper took a moment to organize her thoughts and measure her words. "Different as in if he had not been a villain, and I had not been kidnapped, and if I didn't now see him as I see Rhodey, and if you had not been in my life."

Tony took in her words, played with them in his mind, jumbled their order several times, but it did not matter how he arranged them, the ideal situation that Pepper was describing would have never happened unless they were able to go back in time and change everything for everyone involved.

"That's a lot to ask for, Pep."

"Maybe that's why it would never happen."

Tony flared his nostrils and smiled weakly, lightly shaking his head. "Did he love you?"

"Not in the way that would've warranted a marriage, but yes, he did."

"Then, why did he ask you to get married?"

"Forced."

"Forced," he used her word. "Forced you to get married?"

Pepper shook her head. "It doesn't matter why. I think the marriage license is only valid in the same zip code as Oz." She ended with a chuckle that Tony could not help to mimic himself.

"You should've just said so in the beginning, Pepper. You had me worried there for a moment."

Pepper twisted her arm around his, laced her fingers in his, and made it so that their arms rested on his left leg. Tony stared at their intertwined hands with a hopeful smile before he heard her speak again.

"I've tried to tell you a million times," Pepper began. "But you won't stop talking long enough to let me."

It took Tony a brief second to remember where he had heard those words before, and when it finally dawned on him, he chuckled. He shook his head lightly and pulled their hands toward his lips and pressed a chaste kiss on the back of her hand before returning them both to their original position. The gesture made Pepper smile and her heart filled with even more faith that there was something growing between them

"You stink, Pepper," he jested.

"But, you wouldn't have me any other way."

"No," he finally stared at her. "I wouldn't have."

Their silent eye conversation ended when Howard walked outside to let Pepper know her father was ready to see her alive again.

A/N: So, I just realized that I said Pepper's mom died, but in the series she's still alive. Please just bear with me; the situation helps the plot. Thank you for reading, and don't forget to review!