5 Times Tony hugs Pepper… and one time she hugged him.

The first time.

It's five months since the start of her employment as Mr Stark's executive assistant at Stark Industries, and Pepper has just about had enough.

The man. is. insufferable.

Although now that she thinks about it, 'insufferable' really isn't the right word. Overbearing, stubborn, obnoxious, arrogant, condescending, she could go on. As an example of how ridiculously all of the above he is, they're currently sat in a meeting with the Board of Directors no less, and he's leaning back on his chair, feet on the desk, tapping away on his phone and so obviously not paying attention. Stane flashes an apologetic look at her and she hides a sigh and looks down at her perfectly written notes that he will, no doubt, completely ignore.

After the meeting, she goes to the restroom to splash some water on her face and do her best to arrange her hair slightly more neatly. Sitting in a room full of stuffy old men and women does occasionally result in her literally pulling her hair out.

Outside, Tony Stark is waiting for her, leaning back against the wall with that infuriating smirk of his on his face that he thinks gets him all the ladies (and maybe if she was that kind of girl it would have worked by now), but as far as she's concerned, makes him look stupid. He's a smart man, a genius even, so much more than just a pretty face.

Plus, the man is 28 years old for crying out loud, he could at least act like it.

'Hey, Potts,' he calls out to her in that offhand way, as though he's surprised to see her in the washroom and was waiting for someone else. 'Fancy a drink later?'

'No, thank you, Mr Stark,' Pepper tells him. 'I have plans this evening.'

'I don't like it when you have plans.'

'I don't like it when you don't pay attention in important meetings, but somehow I think that isn't going to stop,' she snarks back at him, surprised at herself for her boldness, but this man really knows how to push her buttons, not in the good way either.

'Touché, Miss Potts,' her employer tells her, and saunters off down the corridor, no doubt to harass the new blond bombshell in the typing pool.

She doesn't have plans that evening either, other than sitting in front of the TV with her overweight ginger cat watching Whose Line but there you go. A date with her cat certainly wouldn't be as embarrassing or awkward as a date with her boss. She could just picture how that would go. Flirting for the entire evening then trying to kiss her then maybe trying to get her into bed with him.
Ew, no.

Not that she thinks her boss is unattractive, in fact she wishes he didn't have those large smouldering (or puppy dog, depending on what mood he was in) brown eyes, or those full utterly kissable lips, those strong toned arms, or that rich thick dark head of hair. Yep, Pepper thinks to herself, feeling slightly annoyed. This job would be much easier if my boss wasn't so easy on the eye.

For her and for him, more than likely.

The evening brings as much joy as she anticipated. A glass of wine, the leftover slice of lasagne, and a large fat cat using her as a pillow. Not that she minds particularly, it's nice to have someone who wants to cuddle with her. That then proves to be a dangerous line of thought, as she pictures what cuddling with her boss would be like and wakes up on the sofa with his name on her lips and her hand between her legs.

She has an extremely cold shower the next morning.

Tony gives her a barely discernible grunt when she delivers his coffee that morning, and shuts himself away in his workshop all day, forgetting she's even there. Pepper doesn't complain however, and uses the calm atmosphere to set up her laptop and folder full of work at the living room table and dedicates herself to answering emails, scheduling appointments, forwarding calls, like the good little PA she is.

And she pictures the gorgeous Louboutins she can buy with that month's pay check. Black leather, red soles. Yum.

Her phone rings around eight thirty that evening and jars her out of her work, where she stares dumbfounded at the clock and wonders where the time went. Caller ID identifies the person on the phone as her mother, and Pepper settles back comfortably against the sofa to answer the call.

'Evening, mom,' she says cheerfully, stretching out her suddenly aching legs.

Her mother is quiet on the other end of the phone, and Pepper thinks she can hear sniffles.

'Mom? Is everything okay?' she asks cautiously.

'It's your grandmother, dear,' her mother says, and her voice is full of sadness.

'Grandma Joyce?' Pepper asks, frowning. Last she knew her grandma was in Portugal with a toyboy called Ricardo.

'No, sweetheart. My mother, Grandma Elsie,' her mother says, her voice on the verge of tears.

'What's happened?' Pepper asks, though by the tone of her mother's voice, she can guess.

'She had a massive stroke,' her mother sobs down the phone. 'She's gone, Ginny.'

Pepper stares into space for a few minutes (or at least it seems like a few minutes), clutching the plastic case of her phone tightly in her hand.

'Oh,' she says, because there isn't much else she can think of to say. It doesn't seem possible to her. Grandma Elsie was larger than life, always ready with a bag of sweets and a cheerful smile, or a suggestion of where exactly she could stick her boss's ego. A stroke being her downfall didn't seem right, didn't seem possible, the woman had survived two World Wars for crying out loud.

'Can you come home?' her mother asks, making her jump.

Pepper stares at the mountains of emails building up in her inbox, the unanswered messages needing her attention. She can get JARVIS to do them, she decides. Mr Stark did try to explain to her exactly what his AI was capable of, but she still had no clue. 'Trial and error,' he'd announced when she'd first visited the mansion, shrugging when she continued to give him a blank look. 'You'll figure it out, you're smart enough.' Then he'd given her a lopsided grin and a tour of the house.

'Of course,' she says, still not sure what her emotions are doing. 'I'll come home first thing tomorrow.' It's sensible of course. She needs time to pack and tell her boss, she needs to find someone to babysit her cat, she needs… she needs…

She needs a hug.

Her mother says her tearful goodbyes and leaves her daughter sitting on the couch; staring at the wall and not realising her mother has hung up until the dialling tone begins to drill through her subconscious.

Her grandmother is dead.

Pepper feels a ball of emotion welling up inside her, she wants to cry, scream, yell about how unfair life is, but she can't even get the energy to get off the couch. She wants someone to hold her and love her and tell her everything will be okay. Instead she has an AI, two incompetent robots and a boss who thinks the only things a woman is good for is sex and organising his life.

Pepper gets off the couch eventually, she's never been one for sitting around doing nothing during a crisis, and she has things to do. Quick instructions to JARVIS organise her inbox and her schedule for the next couple of days, and she's able to make her way down the steps and into the workshop, tapping her code silently in at the door and stepping into the room.

She can make out the shape of her boss by the Hot Rod that should have been finished years ago, and now JARVIS has turned down his obnoxiously loud music (Black Sabbath? AC/DC?) she's able to make herself heard.

'Mr Stark?' she calls out.

'What have I told you about turning my music down, Potts?' her boss replies, but his tone is quite light-hearted and there's no real venom in it.

'I'm sorry, sir, I need to talk to you about something,' she says, making her way across the floor, her heels clacking on the stone.

'What's that?' Tony asks, perching on the tire and wiping his filthy oil covered hands across his filthy oil covered jeans, not really cleaning them, more spreading the dirt around.

'I need to take a few days off, immediately,' she says apologetically. 'Maybe even a week.'

Stark frowns at her. 'That's not like you,' he says, and Pepper is impressed that he's got such an accurate impression of her from five months employment where he seems to have spent every waking second trying to seduce her into bed.

'Is everything okay?' he asks, and Pepper realises that she has to actually say the words out loud for them to be true, so she swallows the big ball of sadness in her throat and opens her mouth to explain the need for her sudden absence.

And promptly bursts into noisy, heart-wrenching sobs.

'Pepper,' Tony says, standing up and awkwardly holding his hands out, sounding genuinely distressed to see his normally competent, calm and professional PA in tears in front of him. 'Don't cry, I'm a bloke I don't know how to cope.'

The admittance of his incompetence doesn't help, and if anything it only makes Pepper cry harder, hiding her face behind her hands as she tries (and fails completely) to staunch the flow of tears.

Then strong arms are wrapped around her and she's pressed against a soft warm body and she latches on to the front of her boss's t-shirt and howls into the fabric. Embarrassment is pushed to the far recesses of her mind because he's here and warm and comforting and actually hugging her.

Tony leads her like a small child over to the couch by the kitchenette, pulls her into his embrace and holds her tightly and lets her sob out the tears of her childhood all over him. He doesn't say anything, just holds onto her and lets her cry, occasionally stroking her hair or saying her name softly.

Eventually she stops crying and starts hiccupping awkwardly instead and she's able to look up at him with bleary red eyes and the worry in his face nearly sets her off again.

'Pep,' he says softly. 'What's happened? Do you need me to beat someone up for you?'

That produces a peculiar sounding hiccup-laugh as she pictures her boss fighting St Peter at the Pearly Gates while her Grandma chuckles and takes bets from the other angels.

Tony looks indignant but he smiles gently at her all the same and she takes a few deep breaths and manages to get those four seemingly small but suddenly huge words out.

'My grandma is… dead.'

'I'm so sorry to hear that,' Tony says, stroking her hair, and his words and face are full of genuine sadness. 'Life sucks sometimes.'

Pepper nods her agreement and sniffs loudly, then manages to pull herself together a little. Something taps at her shoulder and Dum-E beeps and whirs confusingly at her, a screwdriver in its claw.

Tony shakes his head in despair and gives his oldest robot a look. 'I don't think screwdrivers will work on our lovely Miss Potts, maybe put the kettle on.'

Pepper takes the screwdriver anyway as the big bot rolls off to the kitchenette. 'When I'm upset or annoyed about something I like taking things apart and rebuilding them,' Tony explains, nodding at the screwdriver. 'Something Dum-E over here has picked up on.'

Pepper clutches the small screwdriver tightly and can't help but laugh when a loud crash indicates that Dum-E has knocked the kettle onto the floor and is whirring at it in annoyance.

'Don't go anywhere,' Tony tells her, and reluctantly looses his hold on her and stands up to berate the bot, who hangs his claw down low in shame.

Pepper looks at the screwdriver and can't help but wonder if maybe the reason Tony had held her so tightly, is because no-one had done the same for him when he lost his parents, that then makes her wonder what he'd done when he'd learnt his parents were dead, and a quick glance at Dum-E and the concerned way he was still beeping at her gave her the answer.

'She'll be okay,' she heard Tony say quietly as he picked the kettle off the floor and plugged it back in. 'Our Pepper is made of stern stuff.'

When had she become 'their' Pepper?

U stuck its claw in her face and awkwardly patted her hair, trying to imitate its master and, even though the cloud of sadness still lay heavily around her, Pepper couldn't help but smile. She'd lost one member of her family that night, but she was pretty sure she'd gained another.

Sorry for the angst but kind of happy ending, right? :( Please review! And to everyone that does thank you so very much. Next chapter coming soon.