Author's Note: I don't own Tony Stark or any other Marvel character. They belong to Mickey Mouse. My story, Neogenic Nightmare 2012, ended just after Thanksgiving. After watching Iron Man 3, I wanted to continue my AU. For this story, Pepper and Happy are together and Tony and Bruce are married.

xxxx

I'll Be Home for Christmas

This was Tony's alumna mater, but where was Tony? Tony had gave money to the MIT and Howard Stark had a hall named after him. A bit of early December snow frosted the grass in white. The cool crisp air reminded Bruce of his time in Canada. Bruce enjoyed talking to the biggest names in robotics and, if it wasn't for the fact no one mistook him for a college student, Bruce would have felt like all those years away from academia didn't happen, but here he was with his graying beard - no longer the adorable young man that sorority girls had tried to con into giving them free pizza.

During a seminar on artificial life, Bruce's phone vibrated. He took the phone out of his trouser pocket to see the call was from Pepper. Why would she be calling him? He excused himself from his seat and walked into the hallway.

"Pepper, is anything wrong?" he whispered. "Tony should have been here two days ago, not that I mind attending lectures and speaking to experts alone."

"Tony has locked himself in the basement, again," Pepper said, "But that isn't the reason I called."

"Is he sleeping?" Bruce continued to whisper although the hall was empty. Most of the students were leaving for winter break. This was the last day of classes until mid-January.

"Not much," said Pepper.

"Peter came over like two in the morning and Tony made some lame excuse about why he had his suit on at that hour, but he has no one fooled. You've known him a lot longer than I, but I'm worried about him. Our brains need sleep to function."

"Talking about brains. This gentleman showed me live pictures of his brain. I would like you to look at them." Pepper pronounced gentleman in such a way that Bruce knew she meant the man she spoke to was as far from a gentleman was an amoeba was from a blue whale.

"Send me the file," said Bruce.

"Done," said Pepper.

Bruce's Starkphone acknowledged the file was sent. "Thanks. I'll look at it when I have a free nanosecond. Anything else before I return to hearing about self-regulating systems?"

"Happy makes me so angry at times. He actually thinks that our employees hating him is a good thing."

Bruce then asked, "What did Happy say that makes you so angry?"

"He wants to replace our human security with robotics."

"It wouldn't hurt us to downsize a bit. Stark Tower's security is mostly robotics." As in Jarvis to be specific.

Pepper huffed.

"We do employ some human security personnel," Bruce said, trying to ease Pepper hurt feelings. He didn't go into psychiatry for a reason. Pepper was the CEO. Less employees improved the bottom line, so something else must be bothering Pepper. Bruce really didn't have time for this since he had people to talk to before MIT shut its doors for winter break to guarantee their next generation of Carrie Caregivers incorporated all the latest technology. They were only as good as their newest product. Pepper knew this. "Have Happy talk to me. I'll set him straight."

"Will do." said Pepper.

Instead of going back to the lecture hall, Bruce went to the student union and opened the file. Aldrich Killian, the head of Advanced Idea Mechanics, had altered his body with Extremis — an experimental regenerative treatment intended to allow recovery from crippling injuries. Bruce would have to look at the file on a proper computer since his Starkphone didn't do justice to the images. Feeling a bit guilty for how he treated Pepper, Bruce phoned her back. "I'm sorry. Tony was suppose to show me all the places he went to when he was a student and, when he didn't show, I took it out on you."

"I thought you couldn't get angry," said Pepper.

"I'm more upset than angry," Bruce explained. "Tony and I should be walking along the Charles River hand-in-hand and I'm here alone. Well, I opened the file and I need to look at it more before I can give an opinion, but my gut feeling is you shouldn't trust him."

"And about Happy?" asked Pepper.

"Tony hired human security for the Tower when we opened because, although Jarvis is thorough, human beings make people feel secure and feeling safe is as much a part of security as being safe," said Bruce. "Until Asimov's laws are no longer science fiction, we need human beings to mind the store. Then again, who defines what is human? A lot of people wouldn't define me as human, which includes me much of the time."