A/N: Quick side story to get the creative juices flowing, release school-related stress (Macroeconomics is a boring bitch), and to say to all my Faithful Readers: thank you for being so patient with me with The Last Chronicle… and for being awesome :D

And, you have my hubby to thank for this story. He made one comment that I misunderstood and this fic was born.

Standard disclaimer for all my stories: My stories are graphic, angsty, frustrating, filled with cliffhangers, drama and foul language. Read at your own risk – medical issues and subsequent bills are not covered by yours truly ;) If you don't like, please don't read. I appreciate reviews and constructive feedback but if you cannot stand the plot, save yourself and me some time and walk away. You don't have to love all IM stories :)

Remember that most of my stories, including this one, are written for the half-screen option here at FF. You'll see fewer line/paragraph breaks if you set the screen to half-screen.

Summary: Twelve years have passed since Tony, Pepper and Rhodey graduated from the Tomorrow Academy. Life has pulled them in many different directions. And now, a 30-year old redheaded superhero has a very important question to ask her blue-eyed genius friend.

IMPORTANT: The kiss at the end of the Makluan Invasion never took place in the continuity of this fic.

DOUBLE HELIX

Prologue: Friday

"No."

His answer to her unexpected and bewildering question escaped his lips almost immediately. It bounced against the old, partly crumbling walls of the Makluan Temple, only to then resonate in her ears louder than what she had wanted to hear his negative and declining reply. She was uncertain as to what was more hurtful for her at the moment: the fact that he had not hesitated to provide his retort, or the fact that he currently appeared to be appalled by her request.

Either one of these scenarios was bad news in her book for a myriad of reasons she could not begin to list, fathom and that she plainly did not want to dissect right at this very moment.

Nevertheless, she decided to pull through.

"Oh," she barely managed to say, trying and miserably failing to look as nonchalant as she wanted to seem. She opened her mouth to elaborate on her comment, to say anything else – whatever sound that first came to her mind that resembled any real word – but her lips just closed once more to swallow down the hard knot of disappointment, embarrassment and regret that threatened to gag her to death.

Her gaze fell to the floor, her lips and mouth suddenly dried, and had she not been resting against one of the multiple worktables Team Iron Man kept around to hold the increasing number of defense devices and weapons they had accumulated over their years of crime fighting, she would have disgracefully fallen flat on her ass.

For his part, Tony was as speechless as Pepper appeared to be. Never, in his more than a decade of knowing her, had he witnessed the rare spectacle before him; one in which the usually overconfident and chatty redhead had nothing to say.

How did she expect him to react, however, in a situation such as this? What kind of response did she expect to obtain from him to a life-changing request such as the one she had just asked him to consider granting?

This was nothing like all the other favors she had asked of him in the past. This was not like when she had asked him to build her a suit of armor before she was legally licensed to drive, or the multiple times she had asked to be taken into battle before she had mastered the X-51. This was definitely not like the time she had asked to borrow his vehicle to go on a twelve-hour road trip to a huge shoe sale across the state. This did not even come close to the time she had asked him to pretend he was her boyfriend to get some chump from her college-going years off her back.

No. This was not like any of those requests at all. This was the kind of request that, once granted, could not be shrugged off as a silly memory and forgotten with the passage of time as new memories were forged. This was the type of request that caused a paradigm shift in one's existence – the type that made one become something that they would remain until the day they died.

"I'm sorry," her eyes finally lifted but she did not stare at him. "I… I don't know why I thought it was appropriate to ask you that. I… I-I'm really sorry. Just… just please forget I asked, OK?"

Is she being serious? How can I?

Was his best friend even aware that asking him to forget what had just transpired was nearly as impossible for him to do as what she had just asked him to do for her?

With her?

To her?

Evidently, she was not.

"Anyway," she clumsily began walking away from him, bag in hand, and towards the door. "I have to go, uh, back home now and… yeah. I… you… yeah… movie night tomorrow at Rhodey's, right? Right. Uhm… yeah… Yes. Well, huh, bye now!"

Bye, his mind repeated for him. Wait: bye? What? No! NO!

"Pepper, wait!" his eyes aimed towards the spot she had been standing at seconds ago, but she was already gone.

A/N: This will be a relatively short story; probably about the same length as The Little Things. Hope you like it already! And: what do you think Pepper asked him to do?