AN: I own as much Full Metal Panic! as I own Iron Man: Armored Adventures. Meaning I don't.

I actually fell asleep that night, drowned by their voices. The lack of sleep added to everything else that had happened caught up with me. The guys got me back home (theirs) and improvised a sleepover. I woke up the morning after – more like the afternoon after – after a solid fourteen-hour dreamless sleep. It was heaven. Fortunately, we had the whole weekend ahead of us, which meant no school, no fighting session and no computer – the guys threatened to tie me to a chair if I approached within ten feet of any kind of electronics. Best of all, there hadn't been any Iron Man alert, and we spent the whole weekend like (almost) normal teenagers.

The following Monday, I had to get my school life back on track. I spent a lot of time studying with Rhodey and Tony to catch up on what I had missed. I stopped caffeine altogether (which wasn't that hard, ew! – but the after effects of stopping so abruptly the consumption of this psychoactive drug were kinda hard to deal with at first) and tried to eat normally again (a bit difficult at first, considering the past days, but neither Tony nor Rhodey were letting me out of their sights). I got my life back.

It took some time for me to wear anything that wasn't long-sleeved, both because of the bruises and the coldness. Stopping caffeine didn't help with latter, and that hadn't served to ease the boys' concern about me. But now, that's ok, I can go through the day with less than sweats without much discomfort (I admit, I crank up the heat at maximum once I am home, but the guys don't need to know that…). I'll take some time to go back to my blissful state of not feeling cold ever (or on very rare instances, I admit).

Believe it or not, I went back to the dojo. I swear, I wasn't in a masochist mood or anything, I just… wanted to cut all ties I guess. Erase my step one. Anyway, I went back there and who did I meet? That's right, my Norse god! Upon hearing I was quitting – more like found out (finally) that this level wasn't mine – he told me he was instructor in the same discipline… in beginners! I transferred right away.

I'm not trying to be a super kickass, but defending myself, even outside the Iron Man mumbo jumbo, is quite important when you live in a city as big as New York City, N.Y. So I'm taking these lessons with way much more pleasure than the first ones. A lot less painfully too. And Rhodey and Tony were able to come once, to make sure I wasn't playing idiot by overexerting myself. Again. Actually, I've been practicing on them too. And I'm not half-proud to say I'm kicking their asses. Sure, they play superhero with their armors and all, but once they're out, I'm the boss.

Hum. Getting ahead of myself a bit, here.

The truth is, it's nice to see that for once, I'm better than them at something. I mean, it's not a competition of course, but at least I don't feel helpless anymore. I wouldn't be able to fend off villains such as Whiplash or any ninja at Gene's command, but I still can defend myself against Mr. Regular Guy wanting to mess with me. And that, that's really liberating.

I crossed (electronic) paths with Hewitt again, and he seemed relieved my slip-ups were not about to happen ever again (well, not that often at least). He taught me a few escape techniques (just in case) and we went back to talking mostly as Kazhloar and RoyalBlueElf defending with our (regenerated by ivy potions) lives our King and Queen of Kendahoar (and we're good at it. If not the bests. Just saying).

I gave up on ever trying to reach Rhodey's level in mechanics (I had already deemed impossible to reach Tony's, let's be serious). I'm letting the mecha otakus playing with their toys while I can concentrate more on electronics and hacking. Not to brag, but I'm getting pretty good at that. I don't have to steal my dad's accesses anymore and I can go even deeper than his credentials let him, it's like a new world opened up to me. Pepper Potts is in the place!

And no, 'mecha' doesn't refer in any way to a famous to a super kickass manga with that great seventeen-year-old soldier boy who doesn't know a thing about socialization and blows up everything everytime he thinks there is a threat on his girl and is so badass and with the coolest submarine and the most awesome friends and…

Hum. Like I was saying, not referring to this at all.

(Love you Sousuke!)

As you can see now, I haven't forgotten about rambling. It's a part of me and I won't change it, as long as it isn't life-threatening. And anyway, the guys get freaked out if I'm not sprouting a thousand words a minute, I might as well go on. Plus I love rambling, and I really – really – don't know how to filter important from trivial. And there's nothing wrong with adding a bit of extra knowledge here and there. And there. And there.

I'm back to talking with Happy. The poor lad had no idea what had happened, and I wasn't about to explain it to him. We've agreed that us dating was maybe a bit too much. Personally, I need more time to come to terms with all of what happened, and more importantly why it had happened now, to sort my life out. So we're friends, and that's all that matters.

Some say, after a particular grueling experience, that the first day after is the first day of the rest of their lives. As if it is absolutely life-changing, a nine-magnitude shake up influencing like no other event their lives and what will follow. I won't go that far. For one thing, we can't say the event lasted that long. Then, it didn't exactly change my life. It just helped me understand one or two important points and my place among my peers, probably asking themselves the same questions I had (but hopefully not related to Iron Man!). A sort of… reprioritization. But I'm still the good ol' Pepper. If there's one thing I learnt from the past weeks, is that you can't change who you are, no matter how hard you try to. All you can do is improve yourself, within limits, but never drastically change. It always comes with time.

I want to warn you, this is not a happily ever after kinda end. I'm still feeling often out of phase with Tony and Rhodey whom I repeatedly see facing danger without my being able to do anything else but watching, just as much as neither Tony nor Rhodey trust me fully not to screw up again. The first few days after the breakdown, they were constantly hovering. I had to tell them to back off a bit, but they still don't let me much out of their sight. I managed to get the exact contrary of what I wanted: prove myself to be self-efficient and not needing constant supervision. They are real father hens* (what? Why 'hen' must always be a mother, huh? Or maybe is it 'father rooster' then?). I'm probably as self-conscious as I was before, just more mature when it comes to act on it. Just like Tony is as impulsive as he's ever been, and Rhodey as…well, nothing bad can actually be said about Rhodey. He's a doll, putting up with Tony's and mine strong characters, if not temper tantrums. He's probably the sanest out of us three and grounds us, keeps us in check. Actually, we're all keeping each other in check. That's the magic behind the number three: if one of us is overdoing it, we have not one but two people on the lookout to stop everything and beat some sense into the one who messes up.

All steps: rethought with addition of new operatives.

Actually, I don't need that plan anymore…

*As I'm not a native English speaker, I have no idea whether "father hen" is common in English. In French, you'll find both "maman poule" and "papa poule ("mother hen" and "daddy hen") to describe respectively a woman or a man with such overprotective behavior.

AN: And that's all, folks! I would like to thank everyone who took time to read, alert or review this story, particularly XxThe Penny TreasurexX who never missed reviewing a chapter, and a Swiss friend of mine with whom I spent words and words commenting on the feelings I wanted to convey from this or that chapter despite her busy schedule with uni.

I really had much fun trying to write this story from Pepper's POV, even if the story led me away from what I originally wanted to write. Hope you liked it as well.