Yeah, this chapter is a little vocab-heavy. See, when I get ideas of stuff, my brain gives me like scenes of how things play out, and it usually only gives me the very beginning and the very end, so I have to pad out the in-between bits, which sucks tbh. At any rate, I finally managed to write a chapter without having to delete the majority of it several dozen times, only twice this time! So major props to The Smoose (Y)

Oh, and if you didn't listen to me on the last chapter about YouTube-ing the song, DO IT NOW. In fact, go buy the album. Seriously, now. Go. Hey, you there, still reading, go! It rules all things ever. Daughtry = 3

Song of the Day: Daughtry – Ghost of Me

December 23rd cont.

She touched his Arc softly and then slowly moved her hands up his chest and around his neck, bringing him in for another kiss, but stopped short of his lips.

"Maybe we should run a few more tests, just to be sure?"

Their lips connected again, more forceful than before. Tony pushed Pepper against the counter and deepened it, bringing his hands to her hips. Pepper moaned softly and entwined her fingers in his hair while her tongue poked at his lips seeking entrance to his mouth, which he gave without hesitation.

With distinctive ease, he bent slightly and lifted Pepper onto the counter, mouths still connected. His mind registered the sound of the bowl of stuffing falling to the ground but he found that he didn't really care. He felt her fingers move from his head, down his chest and to the hem of his t-shirt, and he lifted his arms to help her strip him. As the shirt came up over his eyes, it got stuck in several places at once, effectively blinding him. After a few seconds of struggling, he managed to get his arms loose and pulled the offending item of clothing off his head, expecting to see a hopefully also-half-naked-Pepper. When the image of an injured and bleeding Obadiah Stane swap into view, however, his heart almost stopped.

"What the fu-" Obadiah's fist connecting with his jaw stopped him mid sentence. Tony fell to the floor, his head hitting the wooden cupboard at the bottom of the small island in the middle of the kitchen. He tried to get back up but a large metal foot on his chest prevented him even moving an inch. He looked up to see the full form or Iron Monger looming over him. The echo of Stane's voice boomed over the metallic noise of his armour as a small gun raised out of the forearm now pointed at his head.

"Hold still you little prick."

"Tony!"

Tony's eyes snapped open and he spluttered and coughed as if he'd been holding his breath. He looked around. He was in his bed, it had been a dream. He closed his eyes again and tried to regulate his breathing. When he'd finally calmed down enough to slow his racing heart, he turned his head to see if he had woken Pepper, only to find she wasn't there. He scrunched up his face in confusion. Surely that hadn't been a dream as well? No, he knew that was real.

"Jarvis?"

The AI answered straight away. "Yes sir?"

"Time please."

"The time is 10:37am."

"Where's Pepper?" he asked, flinging the bed sheet off himself and searching the floor for his boxers. There were no traces of Pepper's clothing anywhere to be seen.

"Miss. Potts is currently in the kitchen cleaning up what was knocked over after your activities this morning." Tony ignored the non-existent smirk that Jarvis would have donned had he had a face and pulled on his underwear. He didn't bother with covering the top half of himself and walked out of his bedroom towards the kitchen.

He found Pepper, fully dressed in jeans and a red t-shirt, pulling cling-film around the turkey, managing a far neater job than Tony would have ever dared attempt. Leaning against the door frame, he watched her finish wrapping the turkey and deposit it in the enormous fridge next to the counter. As she closed the door she caught sight of him and gasped.

"Christ, you startled me." She turned quickly back to her tidying up, an odd look on her face. Tony shrugged himself off the door frame and walked over to her.

"Sorry." He said. She remained silent and carried on cleaning up errant bits of stuffing. "So, I woke up and you'd gone..." he let the sentence hang, hoping she would explain why.

"Yeah," she didn't look at him when she spoke. "I figured it was probably best to get back to normal and..." she trailed off but he knew what she was thinking, and that kinda pissed him off.

"And what?" he said as calmly as he could, taking a seat at the island. She still didn't turn around and remained silent. "And what, Pepper? Forget it ever happened?"

She sighed and turned to him finally. "I think that's probably best." She repeated.

"Who for?" he demanded.

"Tony-"

"No, seriously, who for? Because I certainly don't want to forget about it."

"Well I do." She said bluntly. He stared at her, slightly stunned, trying to process what she'd said. Before he could articulate anything, she pushed herself away from the counter and walked quickly towards the lounge area. He sat there for a few more seconds before hopping of the chair and following her. She was behind the sofa, leaning against it and looking out at the phenomenal view of the coast.

"Why?" he asked as soon as he spotted her. "Why do you want to forget it? Was it that bad or..."

Pepper laughed dryly. "No, you were...that's not what this is."

"Then what? I'm honestly failing to see the problem here."

"The problem?" Pepper's voice raised and she span around to face him. "The problem, Tony, is I am now just another name on a list."

Tony looked like she'd just slapped him in the face. "Run that by me again?"

"You heard what I said."

"Yeah, I did, and that's what I'm struggling with."

Pepper rolled her eyes and stepped away from the couch. "Whatever." She began walking towards her room, Tony following her. "I think it's best if I go home."

"What is the conclusion you think you've come to here?" he asked, a stern look in his eye. "Where is this coming from?"

"Just leave it." She pulled the bag she had brought with her onto the bed and began grabbing clothes and throwing them into it.

"No. Hey," he grabbed her arm to stop her rushed movements and looked into her eyes. "Pepper, tell me what's wrong."

Tears were beginning to well in her eyes and she wrenched her arm away from his hand. "I already told you."

"Ok, so if that is a problem, why is it only surfacing now? Huh?" his anger was peaking again because she just wouldn't tell him the real issue. He was used to getting to the answer, whatever it may be, exceptionally fast, and this was driving him insane. "If me having been promiscuous in the past is such an issue, how could you bring yourself to make lo-"

"Please don't finish that sentence." Pepper sighed heavily, a tear rolling down her cheek. She hurriedly continued shoving clothes back into the bag, not caring about the manner in which she did so.

"Why not? We both know it was more than just sex, Pepper. At least it was to me." He finished quietly.

Pepper stopped shoving clothes into the bag but didn't look at him. "We let it go too far." She said softly.

A few seconds passed, and then Tony nodded. "Fine." He said gruffly and stormed out of her room.

An hour and a half later, Tony was just about finishing up tuning the laser guided missiles on the suit, when his music abruptly stopped. He knew it was Pepper, but he didn't bother stopping his work, or even acknowledging that he had noticed her come in. After a few seconds silence, she spoke.

"I had a dream." She quietly said, the echo from the workshop making it sound ten times louder. Tony span his chair around to face her and chucked the tools he had been using on the cluttered table next to him. He took in her red eyes and his anger dissipated slightly.

"Funny, I'm sure I've heard something similar to that before…can't think where though." He stood up and walked over to his workbench to grab a soldering iron. When she still remained silent, he smiled apologetically and propped himself against the bench. "What was it about?"

She walked over to him and copied his stance next to him. "I dreamt that I woke up this morning and you weren't here. It was late, I asked Jarvis where you'd gone and he told me you were at a party. Next thing I knew I was there, and when I found you, you were dancing with this other woman…I use the term dancing extremely loosely, and then you brought her back here and…" she cleared her throat but didn't need to carry on. She did, however, nearly have a heart attack when Tony began laughing.

Of all the reactions she had expected from him, this was not one of them.

"Have I gone insane or are you actually laughing at me?" Tony shook his head, still chuckling slightly.

"I'm not laughing at you, well, I am kinda, but not for why you might think." He smiled broadly at her and took one of her hands. "Pepper, I had a dream as well. I dreamt you morphed into Obadiah while I was kissing you and tried to kill me." Pepper gave him an odd look.

"Ok…"

"See, mine was a shit scary dream too, but that's all it was, Potts, a dream. It doesn't mean that Stane's gonna rise from the grave and murder me."

"Tony…" she took her hand from him and stood up. "It's not the same thing."

"It's exactly the same thing." He stood up too. "What, you think that just because yours is more likely to happen in real life that it will?"

"A leopard doesn't change its spots."

"Well this one's going for a whole new pattern." He walked closer to her. "Pepper, I'm trying so hard to change, I thought I might have shown you that over the past few months, but apparently I'm going to have to do a better job to prove myself." He reached down to take one of her hands. "The pre-Iron Man Tony would just let this slide, he wouldn't have cared, but he's just a ghost now, and I don't want to screw this up." He raised his other hand to her cheek and she closed her eyes as he stroked it softly. "I don't want to keep looking back over my shoulder and seeing all the mistakes I've made; I want something to look forward to." He moved to kiss her but she placed a hand on his chest holding him back.

"The problem is, I can't stop looking back, and every time I try and look forward, this," she motioned between them. "just doesn't register." She stepped back from him and began walking to the door.

"God damn it, will you stop running from this?!" he shouted after her. "What is it going to take for you to believe that I can change?"

"Proof?"

"Proof?" he repeated. "Proof? Ok, how about the fact that since I came back from Afghanistan, I haven't slept with anyone. How about the fact that since that night we kissed I haven't even glanced at another woman, how about the fact that I didn't get up and leave straight after we were done? How about all the work I've done in the past year trying to make the world a better place." He took a deep shuddering breath. "How about the fact that I nearly killed myself to stop Stane killing you? How about you were one of the very few things that kept me going in that cave? Does that mean nothing?"

"It means the world, Tony." Pepper spat at him. "But it doesn't mean you still won't break my heart if I let you in."

"But if you'd just give me a fighting chance-"

"How can I when I can't even stop thinking about it in my sleep?"

He didn't have an answer for that.

"Exactly." She murmured when he said nothing. "Now, I think it's best that I go back home and think about what I'm going to do."

"What does that mean?" he asked her. Pepper shrugged. "You mean you need to think about if you're gonna quit or not?"

"Like I said, I need to think about things." She keyed in her authorisation code and Tony's music began playing again. She opened the door and looked back at him.

"Merry fucking Christmas Tony."

TBC

Told you, drama, drama, drama!