K, so, I'm back from holiday, all sunburnt, but ok. We have this saying in Germany called "a native american doesn't know pain". I guess that applies here, as well.

Seems like pretty much every chapter has the first angsty part and then Tony sets in for comic relief (or for make outs). Sorry, Tony bb. I'll be focusing on you a little bit in the upcoming chapters. Also, this chapter was written for my own pleasure ;-) It isn't as long as the last one, so sorry about that. It's pretty dark right now and I have such a hectic day ahead of me. Plus, I'm studying French right now (lame excuses, je sais)!

To be quite honest with y'all, I'm kinda having writer's block. And me having to study really hard isn't helping either. Neither is rewatching all the Iron Man movies, including The Avengers. I have this little action storyline in the back of my head, but I don't know if I want the action to overshadow Pepper's struggle. And I kinda feel like writing this for myself, so please tell me: 1. Do you want me to continue? 2. What do you want to see in upcoming chapters? 3. Action - yes or no? I'm all ears for suggestions of any kind, and so is my inbox (or my askbox on tumblr, for instance).

Has anybody heard of Noveljoy? Because I've just gotten a message from them, asking me to publish my story on their platform. They said it was "very well written", so naturally, I thought it was spam. But no, it's not, it seems pretty real. But I'm still a little bit hesitant as to whether I even want this to be on other sites besides

After taking a shower (twice - thanks to Tony), drying and fixing her hair, not even bothering to put on make up, she stepped into Bruce's bedroom not knowing what would await her. Her mind struggled with the unknown and even now, Extremis was ever present, trying to drag her away from the huge green monster. Pepper had her emotions in check, though. She'd gotten a handle on this and it would be a lie to say the pleasant dream hadn't played its role in her stability. Plus, Tony really knew how to get her to relax.

"Bruce, are you there?" she asked, not out of necessity (she could already smell his sweat, that sense of danger, and the presence of another human being already alarmed Extremis) but because she didn't know what else to do. So she decided to do the polite thing, and pretend to be totally oblivious to her super instincts - like the fact that she'd already figured out his breakfast the minute she stepped inside the room.

His response came quickly and was surprisingly spot on. "Are your super senses really as low as you pretend they are or do you just act as if they're not there?" His head popped up from tons of paper, his sleeves rolled up, and he looked like he had been ripped out of his pacing mind. "'Cause I'm guessing the latter." Despite her interrupting him, he smiled at her and waved her to him.

"You're right," she sighed and let her body fall next to his on the floor. "It's creepy, like I know that you had this Indian tea you have in your backpack and a burger for breakfast. By the way," her hand gladly received one of the papers he was studying, "I don't think fastfood suits you well."

"Pepper, I think you've become my red twin," he said and laughed when she wriggled her nose to support her previous claim. She liked Bruce, he had been spending some time with her and Tony in the Stark Tower after the attack. She remembered burnt equipment and failed experiments (that had been most likely Tony's idea), but she also remembered the way Bruce had to drag himself out of bed every morning, or the circles around his eyes and the way his mind always seemed to be elsewhere. In a way, they were just alike. It made her feel more normal and not so distant from her surroundings - and she also doubted she could hurt him which was a welcome change.

His head nodded to the paper while he started speaking. "I studied some things Tony gave me on your condition, even though nobody has cared to inform me how you managed to deform your body so drastically. I hope it wasn't one of Tony's experiments gone wrong ...?" He was waiting for her to continue, but she felt a knot in her throat just thinking about revisiting it. She started sweating without even noticing, just like Tony had done before when he had to talk about New York.

"I, umm ..." She had to force out every word, and was glad that it didn't seem like she had to throw up right in front of him. Pepper's head seemed to wander off at any given moment. "Let's just say Tony's recent enemy had a strange fetish for red ..."

Bruce, bless him, seemed to understand and looked at her with an expression that she guessed was sympathy. "Good news is," he said, "it's not as bad as it could have been. You're not dead. And you haven't turned into a red rage monster, either."

"But ...?"

"It's still pretty bad." Pepper noticed the same picture of her DNA on one of the papers, the other ones were still strangely foreign to her - she was foreign now. "It seems like it's constantly evolving." She raised an eyebrow. "It's controlling parts of you that we don't even know about just yet. It's correcting things like allergies, increases your strength, but that's just on the surface. In a way, it upgrates you."

"Will it ... will it take over my body?" The words barely came out of her throat and scared her even more thinking about the pure anger she had felt when attacking Killian. Or the mug incident. Even now, she could still feel its presence in the back of her head, loaded and ready. She dreaded the day her emotions wouldn't be stable enough and she'd do things she could regret for the rest of her life.

"I don't think so."

"Tony thinks he should stabilize it first ..." She stood up and suddenly no longer felt like discussing her health. Not even Bruce. It made her so terribly angry to know that there was nothing she could do to stop it, even though Bruce had it way worse and he wasn't exactly one to whine about his condition. Pepper Potts had thousands of assistants and a million dollar company at her disposal, but she was completely powerless against herself. "But I just want it out of me as soon as possible." She started heading towards the door.

"I understand that, I really do. But Pepper," she turned back to him. He looked uncomfortably sad. Only now did Pepper recognize the emotion she had seen earlier on his face: envy. He envied her. "You have no idea how lucky you are. For all we know, you should be dead by now, exploded into a million pieces. Tony once said that, maybe, the other guy saved me-"

"No," she interrupted. "Extremis is not a gift. It didn't save me and it certainly won't be in the near future." It's ruining me, don't you see? With that, she left a worrying and hurt Bruce alone to himself and the more she thought about it, the more guilty she felt.

Pepper walked disorientated through the house. She still hadn't touched the food Bruce had done for her, her stomach didn't seem to stand food anymore. She felt terrible for snapping at Bruce like that, after all he had just tried to make her feel better. She wanted to apologize, but at the mere thought of going back into that room, she panicked (She had to have a word with him tomorrow though). Pepper closed her eyes and thought of the blank spot Aldrich had shown her. Was hers full now, glowing red, radiant as ever?

I hate you.

Hours seemed to pass this way, with her just standing in the middle of a house that was supposed to be her home, screaming internally at a thing that couldn't respond (or she hoped couldn't respond). Nightmares were one thing, but this was entirely another. Suddenly, she started to miss the nightmares.

"Are you meditating or what?" Her head jerked around and caught a Tony just coming out of the workshop and looking for a drink. "How did things go with Doc?"
Without thinking it through, she grabbed Tony's (now seemingly smaller) body and hugged him tight to her own. She hid her face in his neck when she felt tears welling in her eyes. Confused by her sudden burst of emotions, he softly hugged her back. "Tony." They just stood there for a few moments, with Pepper whispering his name like a prayer, like solace. But after a two minutes or so, she realized that he was stirring under her breath, trying to let her release him from her grip. She let him go abruptly. "Sorry."

Tony was still catching his breath. "What happened? Was Bruce mean to you?" His eyes scanned her body and was relieved to find no wounds or marks. "'Cause if you don't feel like having company, I can send him away. Just say the word."

"I lashed out at Bruce," she confessed. To her surprise, he grinned.

"Happens if you're a super hero. Heroine. You'll get used to it." He took a sip out of his drink - he consumed way too much alcohol lately, she should do something about that.

"I'm not a super hero!" she replied, trying not to smile but failing miserably. Somehow, a picture of her as Super Woman showed up in her head and she had to stifle a laugh.

With a lowered head, he murmured: "You've always been a super hero to me, Potts." Tony seemed to regret mentioning it in the first place, so she kissed his cheek, and then his lips, to signal him that she wasn't angry. Her stomach started to get warmer and warmer. Her whole being was concentrated on kissing him, telling him everything she couldn't say out loud with a simple kiss. He'd understand, he always did.

Tongues started to get involved when Pepper could no longer tell the difference between his body and hers. His hands somehow had crawled underneath her shirt and hers were gripping him tightly to her. Her butt landed on a table she hadn't known was there. Not even Extremis seemed to complain, everything was perfectly still. And in biting his lower lip and letting her hands wander deeper, she thanked him for it.

"Pep ... Pepper, whoa, slow down a little bit!" He tore their body apart, leaving Pepper cold and incredibly horny. Her mind felt like screaming words into his face she normally wouldn't even think. "You're glowing."

"I don't care." She attempted to kiss him again when he backed away a few steps. His face told her she wasn't the only one who was frustrated, at least that was a small victory.

"I do." He let her calm down for a second, but she still felt like jumping him and damn, if he didn't know that. "I don't want you to hurt yourself."

"I won't." She took his hands in hers and managed to overshadow the lust in her features with the puppy eyes, the ones that were always working with him. She needed this, and so did he. Her attempt at being seductive was still laughable, though, when she closed the space between them and whispered: "I'm all in for an experiment if you are."

"I guess ..." Tony was nervous as hell, unsure of what to do next, despite his body literally screaming him to choose the first option. After a few painful minutes, he obeyed and grabbed her by the waist. They weren't even an inch apart now, her nose touching his own and making them both smile. "We won't know if we try. And we can always buy another pair of sheets."

"I guess."

I didn't want to end this in sex (or hints of it rather, but I'm sure you're all very creative people, you can figure out what happens after), but I just rewatched The Avengers and I think I can speak for everyone if I say I was really curious as to what Pepper was whispering into his ear.

Jesus, this is such a weird chapter, from angst to make out sessions - I guess that's kinda what the life of Pepper Potts and Tony Stark looks like, though.

Urghh, I also need to write Natasha into this in some fashion. Working on it, I promise!

And guys, I need opinions on this, I really do.