Something Unexpected

"You have my phone number, my email, the number of the hotel, the address, the flight number, the time, the—"

"Pepper!" Tony Stark shouted, cutting off his girlfriend and assistant, Pepper Potts, as he watched her shut off her computer and arrange the knickknacks on her desk in just the right order. "I get it. I know all of it. And if I do forget it, Jarvis has all the information, too. I'm not an idiot, you know. Or a child; I'm an adult."

"I know that." Pepper slung her carry-on and purse over each arm. She reached for the handles of her two suitcases, but Tony beat her to it. "I just want to make sure I cover all bases here. Leaving you alone for a week is pretty risky."

Tony rolled his eyes behind her, following her to the elevator. "What exactly do you think I'm gonna do? It's not like I can throw a rager, like in the good old days. Not only do I have S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fury up my ass, but I'm sure you've already got Natasha set up to babysit me. Right?"

Pepper looked away guiltily, thanking the elevator god—or Jarvis, really—for opening the doors at that exact moment. Natasha was her only ally in the Avengers Tower, what with all the testosterone filling up the majority of the living quarters these days. "I tried," she admitted as Tony rolled in her suitcases and joined her. "She got sent on a mission so she won't be around this week either."

"Great," Tony drawled blandly. "That leaves Captain Virginity, right?" He cocked a brow at her and she laughed.

"No! Tony, no one will be around except for Bruce."

"No shit?" He smiled for the first time all day.

"Yes. Clint's on a mission, too; though not with Natasha. Steve is on his own vacation; he's hitting the south this time."

"The south…? What the hell is he doing in the south?"

She shook her head of strawberry blonde hair. "He's rediscovering America, Tony." He rolled his eyes and kept quiet on the subject. "That means you've got the tower to yourself. Unless, you're expecting Thor to drop down for any reason."

"Nah," he said with a shake of his head. The elevator doors slid opened to the garage and Happy was standing by with a car. "Thor hasn't been around in months. Since he and Jane split, he only comes when Fury sends for him." He rolled the suitcases to the trunk, helped Happy pack it, joking that it was amazing Pepper packed so light for a woman. Happy giggled, but when he caught Pepper's stern look he turned it into a cough and moved to the driver's side door. "Party pooper," Tony accused, slamming the trunk shut.

"Please behave yourself," Pepper pleaded, standing by the open passenger door, ignoring the way Tony fluttered his eyes and stuck out his tongue, like a child. "I want to enjoy my week. It's the first vacation I've had in over a year."

Tony let her take his hands, linking their fingers together and grinned. "I know. And you really deserve it. It's been…an eventful year," he finished with an amused smile. "Let me know when you get to the hotel." He reached up to place a kiss on her puckered lips then ushered her into the car. "Order room service, charge shit to the room, go get a massage; whatever you want. It's all covered." He leaned one arm on the roof of the car and smiled down at her.

"Don't forget that Bruce is around. And don't tease him too much. There's no one else to calm him down."

"Pep, stop. Go. Relax. I'll be fine. I'll just be in my lab the whole week anyway." He kissed the back of her hand and stepped back to close the door. He slapped a hand to the roof, signaling to Happy she was ready to go. "Have fun!"

Tony returned to his lab and spent the next who-knew-how-many hours tweaking his suit, checking Jarvis for any bugs, and spying on Bruce as he worked in his own lab on the third level of the Research and Development floors. Somewhere around the time he was testing one of the gauntlets from the Mark VII, flexing the metal fingers, he received the message that Pepper arrived in…wherever she went, safe and sound. He was bobbing his head to AC/DC when a dialogue box popped up on one of his numerous computer screens. It was Fury, so Tony tapped his finger to the ignore button and went back to work. He was just getting into his groove, work and music wise, when Jarvis interrupted.

"Sir, Miss Potts asked me to remind you to eat dinner."

Tony didn't lose the concentrated frown wrinkling his brow, as he responded, "Not hungry, J. Remind me around ten."

"It is ten o'clock, sir."

"Oh, shit, really?" He lifted his wrist to double check. It was indeed ten o'clock. "I guess I can take a little break. Mute the music, Jarvis, and put on the coffee. I'm pulling an all-nighter." He headed up to the top floor, to his lounge, and headed straight for the bar. After pouring himself a half tumbler of scotch, he pulled a pack of dried blueberries from a stash behind the bar and had just popped one into his mouth when his phone beeped in his pocket.

He chuckled at the message from Pepper: "Alcohol is not food, Tony. Try a sandwich once in a while, ok?"

"Did you tell on me, Jarvis?" He punched in a quick response to his girl—"U got it, hon ;)"—and stuffed a handful of blueberries past his lips.

"I would never do that to you, sir."

"Yeah, yeah…" Tony walked around the bar and hopped up on the stool, glancing about the room. The remodel had taken a lot longer than he expected. But the lounge was finally looking like a comfortable, relaxing space again—as comfortable and relaxing as it could be with more than just him and Pepper treading all over the place.

Just over a year had passed since the attack on New York by Thor's maniacal baby brother, Loki, and his Chitauri army. A year since the balcony of his tower was destroyed and Bruce's Enormous Green Rage Monster decided to play slam dunk with the God of Mischief's face. A year since that crazy bastard threw him through his own damn window. A year since they almost lost Phil Coulson. Whatever Tony's indifferent feelings toward the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent were before New York happened, he now considered Philsy—as he liked to call him—a good friend indeed.

Tony picked up the bag of berries and walked out onto the balcony, breathing in the warm summer air, admiring the lights of the city that never slept, and checking out the redesigned balcony. There was a new floor, new glass edging, a new landing and launching pad for his suit. It wasn't exactly as it was before, but it was nicely redone.

He had wandered from one side to the other and decided to get back to work. He paused and looked around the space of the balcony at what sounded boots on asphalt and someone breathing out a long breath. The hairs on the back of his neck went up and he murmured Jarvis' name, to put him on alert. He carried the bracelets to the Mark VII in his pockets at all times now and slowly, his eyes still scanning the shadows on the balcony, slipped one hand in his jeans pocket to retrieve the first one.

"That won't be necessary," an accented voice, one that Tony didn't immediately recognize, came from the shadows near the launch pad. "I'm not here to hurt you."

Tony's eyes strained, peering into the darkness, and he wished badly that he had his suit and his technology on him. Figuring it was the safest route, he played it like he knew who was standing on his balcony. "Then why are you hiding?"

"I didn't want to startle you."

He scoffed incredulously. "Like that's possible. Listen, Dark Shadows, this is a waste of my time. So either stop playing hide and seek or get the hell off my balcony." He glared hard at the area the voice was coming from and tensed his muscles when he heard movement and could just see the form of a tall man starting forward. He fought to keep his jaw from dropping to the floor and his eyes from going wide as the figure stepped into the light.

Unexpectedly, Tony laughed.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"