This was supposed to be a one-shot, but I may continue it. I was awake with a migraine last night and I found myself trying to remember what happened in Iron Man. The movie hasn't come out on DVD yet, and I went to watch clips on youtube this morning, and I loved the way Tony Stark talked to his computer and the way it responded to him. And I really liked his relationship with Pepper Potts. I have no idea where this crazy story came from – blame it on the migraine.

Warning: Spanking of an adult by very unusual circumstances. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE, AND DO NOT REVIEW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of this.

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Tony wasn't sure exactly what went wrong – one minute he was flying back to his house and the next minutes the computer system went crazy. Jarvis usually was mostl helpful, but after getting a shot a few times, the computer wasn't its normal happy self.

All right, if Tony had to be honest, it was more than a few times. He had been shot forty-two times, tiny bullet dents all over his Iron suit, when he tried to bust a drug deal. Jarvis had warned him of the danger, but Tony had pushed on through the rain of bullets and knocked out all the thugs.

And it would have been all right except that the last thug to go down had whipped out a semi-automatic and fired tow direct shots at Tony's chest, striking against the arc reactor and jarring the electromagnet in his chest just a tad. It hurt, but he had enough strength to wipe out the thug.

Then Jarvis had ordered him to go home. "System crisis," the computerized voice had declared. "Return to base. System crisis."

"I'm fine," Tony had told the computer. "I just need to contact the police –"

"Return to base immediately," Jarvis told him.

No matter what Tony tried to do, the computer repeated the same message over and over again. Frustrated, Tony finally turned the suit towards home, ready to shred the suit to pieces and permanently turn Jarvis off.

As he neared his home, dusk has permanently set in, and Tony wondered if he would have time to fix the suit and head out again to prevent more crime before it got too late.

He landed in his workspace, wondering for the umpteenth time if he should build another garage to store his very expensive cars. He had already ruined one testing out his suit, and he was determined not to wreck another with some computer screw-up.

The moment he landed on cement floor, Tony should have known something was wrong. His main computer was blinking rapidly, the multiple screens flashing, and the dummy was hovering close, anxiously searching for any sign of fire.

"I'm all right,' Tony told all the machines. He slowly trudged to the place where the machine would remove the suit from his body. He locked his boots into place and held his arms out.

The machine moved warily towards him, the pieces buzzing softly.

"What?" Tony demanded. "Get this thing off. I'll make corrections, get the bullet marks out of the suit again, and that's it. Get to it."

"My records now show a 62 carelessness in execution," Jarvis told him as one arm of the machine lifted away his headpiece.

Tony blinked and shook his sweaty, dark head of hair, wanting his arms free so he could brush it back from his face.

"That is up from last week with 54 carelessness," Jarvis continued, his voice now coming from the main computer. "You are taking unnecessary risks."

"Comes with the game," Tony replied. "Take off the rest. Chop, chop, get to it."

"Negative," the computer replied.

"Huh?" Tony said blankly. "What do you mean negative? I have to get out of this."

"Negative," Jarvis repeated. "You must learn to be more careful."

"Look, I'm the creator," Tony felt irritated. "I built you, I tell you want to do. You cross the line with me, and I take a chainsaw to you."

"You build me as a safeguard," the computer replied without emotion. "I am here to protect and serve, but always to protect. Commence with discipline training."

"What?" Tony demanded. "What does that mean?"

The mechanical arms came down to grab his wrists, holding them like vices.

"What the hell?" Tony roared.

Another arm pushed an empty work cart in front of him, and to Tony's increasing horror, the arms grasping his wrists pulled him forward, forcing him to bend his torso over the cart.

The suit, always heavy and awkward, now was like a prison as he couldn't move his feet or arms. Panicking, Tony craned his head around to shout at the computer, "Abort! Abort! Power down."

"Negative," came the automatic reply. "Preparing subject for discipline."

Tony felt the metal back part of the suit lifting away, baring his boxer-clad rear. He always wore boxers, a wife-beater, and socks inside the suit, but now he wished he had another Iron suit inside the original one. He had no clue what the machine planned to do to him, but there were plenty of devices for torturing nearby: screwdrivers, drills, blow torch, pliers –

Tony squeezed his eyes shut. "Please don't hurt me," he whispered. "Please, please, just let me go."

"Beginning sequence," Jarvis said.

Tony held his breath, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Nothing happened yet, nothing, nothing – wham!

He would have jerked forward if he could have gotten out of the suit, but he could not do anything except gasp. Something very hard had hit his rear.

He managed to look behind him far enough to see a mechanical arm holding a thin slab of board, something from the workbench, and the arm was pulling back for another swat.

"No!" Tony yelled, but the arm swung the board into his bottom again.

Oh, that hurt so bad!

"Ow, you're hurting me," Tony hollered. "You're supposed to be protecting me."

"You have been careless," Jarvis replied. The board struck again, and Tony gave a yelp. "You have ignored personal safety. This sequence will ensure that does not happen again."

"That's the last time I ever hook you up to the internet," Tony declared. "You're not getting any more ideas. You're going to be destroyed, you freakin' Matrix, Terminator, perverted piece of crap. I'm the human – I control you and – Ow! Damn it, stop right now. Ow!"

"Negative," the computer replied after the board hit him for the fifth time. "The end of the first repetition. Now beginning again, to continue for nine more circuits."

"Nine more?" Tony tried not to freak out. "Nine more swats? Or nine times five? You can't hit me forty-five more times, you freak."

"Beginning again," Jarvis repeated.

Tony squirmed and wiggled inside the suit, but he could not get out. The board struck him again and again and again, slamming five more perfectly-aimed swats into his helpless backside. Tony blinked, trying to soothe his smarting eyes, and he held his breath, praying the computer would only deliver four more and then let him go free.

"Please, please, please," he whispered under his breath.

"Beginning again," the computer announced, "for eight more circuits."

"No!" Tony tried to thrash inside the suit. "No, it's not fair. You can't hit me forty more times. Let me up, you –"

He began to swear avidly, using every awful word he had ever heard before. But his cursing had no effect on the computer or that damned arm which began paddling him again, laying five more searing swats on his bottom. His boxers offered no protection, and Tony howled at the end of the sequence.

"Please!" he pleaded. "Come on, I'm begging."

"Beginning again, seven more circuits."

"Just a sec," Tony tried to reason with the machine. "Let me just have a second. I need time to pull myself together. I can't – Ow! No, I'm not ready. Let me just – Owwww! One second!"

Another five without the least bit of concern about his poor bottom, and Tony felt tears gathering in his eyes. A beating from a foe he could have taken, but this relentless pounding was shattering his nerves because he couldn't even try to fight back. Hell, he couldn't ever think as the machine broke him down, one blow after another.

"Beginning again, six more circuits," Jarvis told him.

"Aagghh!" Tony bellowed. "Come on, hit me somewhere else."

"Discipline in another place could cause serious harm," Jarvis told him.

"So it's okay to turn my ass in ground beef?" Tony shouted back. A sharp swat was the only answer the computer gave him.

A single tear rolled down Tony's nose and dropped to the floor below. He sniffed and wondered how he would manage the rest of the swats.

"Tony?" a female voice called out as heels began to click on the stairs.

"Pepper?" Tony lifted his head. Relief flooded over him. "Pepper, in here. Come quick – come help me."

Pepper Potts dashed down the rest of the steps and ran into the work area, concerned. "Tony, what –" she stopped at the sight of him, bend over the cart with the mechanic arm swinging the board into his rear.

"Oh, Tony," she shook her head, "is there no level you won't sink to? This has to be the worst thing I've ever caught you doing."

"Agh!" Tony cried out as the machine swatted again.

"I can't believe you're getting spanked by your own machine," Pepper crossed her arms. "You need help, you really –"

"For God's sake," Tony roared, "turn it off! Turn it off! I can't take it any longer."

Pepper took two quick steps forward. "What do I do?" she asked, finally realizing that Tony did not want to be in the position that he currently occupied.

"Turn the computer off," Tony gasped.

She rushed to the computer as the machine finished up the circuit and started on the fifth. "What do I do?" she glanced over the huge computer and all the screens. "There're buttons everywhere. Oh, Tony, that sounded like it hurt."

"It did," he yelled. "The plug – pull the plug out of the wall."

Pepper scrambled to the wall only to report, "There're a dozen cords going into the wall, but none of them end in a plug. Is there a switch somewhere I can turn off?"

"Yeah, on the wall over there," Tony jerked his head toward the opposite wall, and then his whole body jerked with another swat.

As fast as she could move in her high heels, Pepper ran for the wall and pushed the giant switch down. The lights went out, plunging the room into darkness. But then a whirling sound started, and back-up lights shone from the ceiling and the computer lights and screens flared brightly.

"What?" Pepper said, but Tony whispered,

"It's all on generator. But maybe that tricked the computer into stopping."

He held his breath, and Pepper froze, afraid to breathe.

The mechanical arm behind Tony had stopped with the board pulled back, not moving. But then it swung forward and hit him again.

"No!" Tony wailed.

"Beginning sequence again, restarting fifth circuit," the machine announced.

Tony let his head drop hopelessly as his punishment continued.

"I'll break it," Pepper declared. She snatched up a wrench and ran towards Tony, swinging out at the machine. She struck one of the arms, and then the board swung at her. She jumped back just in time, but Tony bellowed,

"No, no, it will hurt you. Stay back."

"I'm not leaving you," Pepper's voice was high and frantic. "I'll call the police."

"And tell them that my own machine has turned on me?" despair filled Tony's voice. "Go, just – just go, Pepper. I don't want it to start over. Ow," he whispered over the next swat, too broken to cry out loudly.

"I'm not leaving you," she said with determination. "You – demon machine! – when are you going to stop?"

"Completed fifth circuit, beginning fourth," came the reply.

"How many –" Pepper looked at her boss, his head hanging limply, the rest of his body held tight in the suit.

"Twenty," Tony whispered.

"Then get it over with," she ordered the machine. Stepping in front of Tony, she gently lifted up his head, resting her strong fingers under his jaw. His face was wet with tears, and she softly brushed them aside.

"It's going to be okay," she assured him. "I'm here – I've got you."

He exhaled haggardly, and then the swatting started again.

Pepper flinched with every stinging blow that slammed into her boss, but she never let go of his face.

Tony tried to hold himself together manfully, but around swat twelve he lost the battle, and when the machine got down to swat ten, he began to sob loudly.

Tears filled Pepper's own eyes, but she kept brushing away his tears and hushing his loud cries. The last five were particularly hard for poor Tony, and the moment the machine finished the last one, Pepper ordered,

"You're done. Enough. He can't take anymore. Let him go."

She waited, feeling rage building inside her. If the machine did not let Tony go, she was ready to pull it apart with her bare hands.

"Discipline completed," Jarvis announced. "Further carelessness will result in more sequences."

"You were being careless?" Pepper glanced down at Tony. "Why were you being careless?"

Before he could reply, the arms began to remove the Iron suit. A moment later, Tony stumbled forward into Pepper's arms. She held her arms around his sweaty body, feeling him tremble and cling to her desperately.

"This isn't over," she promised the computer before she turned her attention to the man in her arms. "Come on, Tony, let's you get you into bed. Hold onto me."

He groaned, but he began to limp slowly towards the stairs, leaning on Pepper who braced him with both arms and talked to him slowly as they moved.

"Almost there," she encouraged at they reached his bedroom door after so many agonizing steps. "A few more steps to the bed. Here, let me pull back the covers. No, before you get into bed, take your boxers off."

He gave her a startled look to which she replied,

"I've seen you naked before. Remember Spring Break, Daytona, when I found you naked and passed out on the floor of the senior girls' hotel room?"

"I got lost," Tony groaned. "I was trying to find the door."

"In a piles of bikini bottoms? Likely story. Boxers down. I want to see the damage and if you need medical attention."

He moaned, but finally told her, "Turn around."

Obliging, she turned around. He gave a pitiful groan as he slid the boxers down and then flopped face-down on the bed.

Pepper turned back around and hissed between her teeth when she saw the battered state of his bottom. The machine had really done a number on him – his entire rear end and the back of his thighs were a blackish red, purple in some spots.

Pepper felt a wave of helpless rage wash over her, and then she felt furious at Tony for always making her feel the way she did.

"Why did the machine do this to you?" she asked sharply. "You created the machine, Tony – what made it do this?"

"I don't know," he sniffed into his pillow.

"Tony," she prodded.

"Go away," he begged.

"Anthony Stark," Pepper was stern, "you tell me right this moment or so help me, I'll add to your misery."

He pushed himself up a little to look back at her. "Pepper?"

"I mean it, right now."

He moaned and groaned, but she persisted and eventually he confessed, in broken sentences, that he had been shot at multiple times at close range.

"But the suit can take it," he protested when she said nothing, just stared at him ominously. "It can, it really can."

Pepper pressed her lips together, weighing her choices. "I think we need to have a long talk about this," she finally said. "But not now. Now you rest. Do you want some lotion?"

"No, don't touch it," Tony slumped into the pillow.

Pepper wanted to reply that she was not touching his ass at all, but instead she pulled the sheet up over his body to his shoulders. She reached for the comforter, and he protested,

"No, too heavy."

"You're shaking," Pepper replied as she drew the comforter up carefully over his rear. "If you get cold, you'll get sick."

He sniffed again and hugged his pillow with both hands. He looked so miserable, so vulnerable, so completely needy –

She sat down on the edge of the bed, not leaning on him, and she put one hand on the back of his head and began dragging her fingers through his damp hair. She rested her palm against the back of his neck and kept her fingers moving through his hair, helping him calm down.

"There, there," she soothed. "It's okay, you're going to be okay."

"Hurts," he whispered. He never complained about pain, and it tugged on her heartstrings even more.

She reached up to rub behind his ears, knowing how much he liked varying pressure, massaging deeply one moment and then lightening up to the softest of petting over his hair.

"Tony, Tony," she shook her head, "only you could create a machine that could literally kick your ass. With that magnet in your chest, you've got to be more careful."

He made no reply, and she kept scolding, her voice very quiet, barely more than a whisper. "You have so many enemies – you have to take better care of yourself. What if the suit hadn't held up against the gunfire? I can't be everywhere, always protecting you."

She softened her touch, patting her fingers against his head. "Please promise me you'll be more careful."

No reply came – he was fast asleep.

She looked down at him, that handsome face under the dark hair. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than to lean down and press her lips against his flushed cheek.

But she didn't. Instead, Pepper got up, careful not to disturb him, and tiptoed to the door. She left it open a few inches, enough to hear if he called for her. It wasn't even nine o'clock yet, but she was satisfied that he was down for the rest of the night. He had been sporting dark bags under his eyes everyday at the office, and she had come to his house to tell him to get some rest and not to go crime-fighting that night.

Pepper reached down to take off her heels. She would stay the night, in the guest room that he always kept ready for her on the nights they worked late and she spent the night rather than drive back to her apartment. Stepping on the wooden floor in bare feet, she headed back down towards the basement, wanting to get answers from the computer about why it had treated Tony so horribly.

It was rather an odd thought, demanding a computer account for its behavior, but as Pepper walked down the stairs, she supposed that was what happened when her boss was Tony Stark and Iron Man.