Disclaimer: Anything not immediately recognizable as a registered trademark of Marvel and/or Paramount Pictures is probably mine. Anything you do recognize I'm simply borrowing. I seek no monetary gain from this. I wrote it simply for fun (and because I really like these characters).

Author's Note: In my infinite wisdom, I decided one night in May 2010 I was going to write an Iron Man-related, one-shot fic for every song that Tiësto included in his Elements of Life set list. This amounts to forty-one fics for forty-one songs. The stories don't really have anything to do with the songs, though (ie - these are definitely not songfics).

As the stories are not interconnected by anything other than their titles' origins, I have decided not to post them all in a single entry, but to treat them as the separate stories they all are.

Additionally, these aren't beta'd before I post them. This means that there might be a few missing words, typos, and/or grammatical errors somewhere in the text, to say nothing of the occasional slip in characterization. If you notice anything, please point it out to me and I would be glad to fix it!

Also - this particular story has been refurbished from one I wrote for a drabble challenge on LJ. The requester wanted a story about a date between Tony and Pepper that didn't involve explosions or near-death experiences, and this is what I came up with in response. I tried to keep it short to keep it closer to the original definition of a drabble, so it ended up in a slightly different style compared to some of my other work. I've added a sentence or two here and there to help it fit in better with my personal challenge (namely, added a reference to the title in the text), but otherwise it remains the same as it appeared originally.

Summary: Tony and Pepper's first "normal" date is still anything but normal. Thankfully, at least, nothing explodes and no one comes too close to dying.

Other: Iron Man Movie!verse; Post Iron Man 2; Tony/Pepper, assumes the two have been established for at least a little bit.

Elements of Life

The first date Pepper and Tony ever had that didn't, in some way, involve explosions, fire, disaster, kidnapping, or near-death experiences happened over seven months into their burgeoning relationship, hadn't actually been planned as a date, and still included a certain level of drama. Tony had come down with the flu and didn't want to be left alone, leaving Pepper with two choices: she could stay with him at the mansion, or he could take the risk and go home.

Staying at the mansion increased her own chances of getting sick but guaranteed that Tony would owe her (again) and that he would probably stay quiet and mostly immobile knowing that Pepper was just a short distance away. If she left him, there was a good chance he'd find a way to craft an emergency just to get her back.

So, in the interest of his health and her sanity, she chose to stay at the mansion.

Tony ended up crashing on the couch. Or at least on the couch cushions, which he has insisted Pepper use to make him a little bed-fort on the floor in the living room. From there, he insisted, he was not only comfortable, but equidistant from the bathroom, the kitchen, the cross breeze created by opening windows at the front and the back of the mansion, and Pepper's pseudo-office. He could also hear any car that pulled up in his driveway, overhear any conversation that went on within the mansion, and if Pepper turned on the radio at all he could hear that clearly, too, instead of the snippets he'd get if he were stuck upstairs.

Pepper indulged him. Tony was sick. She'd been sick often enough in her own life to know that it felt nice having someone indulge you when you were miserable – even when the sick individual was used to being indulged even when healthy.

And at some point during the course of the evening, Tony had asked if she wanted to watch a movie with him. He was feeling better, he insisted, and at least well enough to watch something with her and actually try to keep her company instead of the other way around.

Pepper had resisted. But Tony, as always, wore her down. So Pepper had picked a movie, one neither of them had seen before. Instead of popcorn, they shared a box of saltines and drank ginger ale.

The movie was bad, really bad, the winner of Razzies bad, but it had been a good choice anyway, because Tony and Pepper spent the whole time exchanging wise-cracks and pointing out the movie's many horrifying inaccuracies and trying hard not to laugh – Tony, especially, because laughter turned to coughing and coughing hurt and threatened the delicate balance he'd struck with his heaving gut.

But everything else was fun. Pepper was even able to forget Tony was sick for a while and, in those moments, she realized that she had been craving this, an evening with Tony that didn't involve either of them being in imminent danger. It was one of those simple elements of life that she'd never really imagined having to go without. Of course, she'd accepted that with Tony's lifestyle - both as the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and as a superhero - she'd have to make certain sacrifices. But something as simple as a quiet date-night…

Tony, it seemed, then decided to read her mind.

"This was nice," he said, his voice slightly hoarse.

"It was," Pepper agreed.

"We should do this again."

"When you're not sick," Pepper said.

Tony smiled weakly and nodded once. "Good plan."

They did do it again. A few weeks later, even.

It was just a pity that it happened because this time, Pepper was sick.