Disclaimer: I do not own anything that is recognizable; everything belongs to their respective and rightful owners. Iron Man and any other Marvel related things belongs to Marvel No copyright infringement is intended, I just do this for fun.

A/N: .Alright so this is my first Iron man story and so far it has been pretty fun to write. There are some references to characters in my other story but you don't need to read it to understand this one. A huge thank you to my beta, Anariel Goldenarrow, for putting up with all my minor mistakes. I hope you guys enjoy it.

It all started in in 2000 when I first applied to Stark Industries for the open position of a personal assistant. I had just finished up my Masters in history and wanted to find a different job before starting on my PhD and I figured that a personal assistant job at a company like Stark Industries would be a great idea, I was already used to being an assistant to professors so how much different could this be? When I applied I had no idea whose assistant I was applying to be; I had figured that I would just be some lower levels department heads PA.

"Good morning, welcome to Stark Industries; how may I help you?" the receptionist at the main desk said in a false cheery voice.

"Hi, I'm Alexandria De Leon; I'm here for an interview at 2." I awkwardly replied, having no idea where in the world I needed to be in this huge place, thank god I had the sense to arrive thirty minutes early. The secretary nods and rapidly types several things into the computer before picking up the phone.

"Mr. Stark, your two o'clock is here." She says into the phone, there is a muffled reply she hangs up the phone.

"Mr. Stark will see you now; his office is straight up the stairs and straight back, you can't miss it." She hands me a visitor's badge before turning back to her computer.

I turn on my heel and head towards the large staircase at the center of the room; I walk up the stairs at a reasonable pace the clicking of my heels on the floor seems to echo in my ears as I walk. I stand outside the door with a placard that reads Tony Stark. I straighten my black pencil skirt and adjust my black suit jacket trimmed with white; I place a confident smile and knock on the doors.

"Enter." I hear a masculine voice call from the other side; I pushed the door open and stepped in, had I realized the sight I walked into would be what I had to deal with for the next five years I would walked out right then and there. Papers strewn about the office and a cluttered desk with a large computer monitor sitting on it and a chair in front of it the man sitting behind the desk had a carefree smile on his face, what seemed to be impeccably groomed facial hair and a expensive looking suite.

"Hey. You're the girl applying for the P.A. position." He smiled showing off perfectly white teeth.

"Yes Mr. Stark. I'm Alexandria De Leon." I spoke my creole accent slipping through, I hold out my hand for him to shake.

"Please call me Tony," He shakes my hand and flashing what I think is supposed to be a flirtatious smile "Sit down and tell me about yourself."

"Well I just graduated from LSU with a Master's degree in History. I recently moved to California for a change in scenery. I have a passion for learning about how technology has changed in the past; my thesis was actually on how weaponry has changed over the course of the World Wars, and how those changes affected how warfare was conducted. "

"You have a degree in history and rather than teaching; you are applying for a position as a personal assistant in a major cooperation?" He raised an eyebrow at me.

"Yes sir, I wanted to take a break from academics before going back and perusing a Doctorate, I figured being an assistant would be much better than having to teach high schoolers who only want to pass the standardized test rather than learn the small details of history. I also figured that it couldn't be any worse being an assistant to someone here than it was being a T.A." He laughs at the last part of the answer.

"So could you tell some of your strengths and weaknesses?" He leaned back in his chair.

"I am punctual, organized, and rather level headed, I tend to do well under pressure, and I also have a lot of patience. My weaknesses are that I do tend to speak my mind when something or someone has annoyed me; I tend to not be trusting of other people. I have a really hard time letting people in, but I am working on trying to have at least a little trust in some people."

"When can you start working? " He sits back up straight.

"I could start as soon as you want me to Sir." I answer.

"Great you're hired, and please call me Tony!" He exclaims bending over to pull out a packet "Fill these out and you start today." He hands me a pen and the packet.

"Sir…" I started looking over the packet, first thing I noticed was the salary, the amount of zeros on the end of it is more than I had even thought I would get paid.

"It's Tony. You should know that I do not play well with others, and I will at one point or another call you at all hours of the night; you are going to have to get used to my systems. Also I need your phone, Dolly." He holds out his hand expectantly.

"Dolly?" I raise an eyebrow as I hand him my phone.

"Yeah, because you look like one of those porcelain dolls." He takes my phone out of my hand as he reclines back in his chair placing his feet on the desk; and the rest is history.

I sighed at this it wasn't the first time someone has compared me to one of those creepy glass dolls but, with my pale skin, that thankfully wasn't covered in freckles, and red hair that never seemed to want to do anything but curl the comparison has been made many times.

'What in the world am I getting myself into?' I thought as I got to work filling out the stack of papers that sat in front of me.

Time skip- 2007

I sigh as I walk into the mansion with Tony's latest one night stand's clothes, which I had to take to the cleaners this morning. Thankfully the owner knows my employer and is willing to bend over backwards to please the great Tony Stark, so I was able to get these clothes dry-cleaned in less than two hours. I rolled my eyes as I walk towards the kitchen.

"You are not permitted to access that area." JARVIS' voice alerted the blond walking around in the marron button up shirt Tony was wearing last night and her underwear. The blond jumped at the disembody voice.

"That's JARVIS, he runs the house." I speak up the blonde quickly turns to face me.

"Here are your clothes, they have been dry cleaned; there is a car waiting to take you anywhere you need to go." I smile as I rattle off the lines that I have been telling girls for years.

"Ah so you must be the famous Dolly De Leon." The blonde takes the clothes out of my hand giving me a scrutinizing glare.

"Why yes Ma'am, I am." I state resisting the urge to roll my eyes.

"You worked for Tony for how many years and he still has you picking up the dry-cleaning." She smirked popping her hip out like she owned the place.

"Oh Honey, bless your heart. Mr. Stark pays me a fantastic amount of money to do just about anything he wants, and that includes sometimes taking out the trash. Anything else?" I smile sweetly at her my southern accent dripping like honey, she scoffs and walks away. I shake my head as I watch the car drive off with the girl, after grabbing my folder that had all my files; I turn to head down to the lab where Tony is no doubt hiding. Lo and behold loud rock music is pouring out from the lab as Tony sits hunched over one of his many classic cars.

"Jarvis turn the music down a bit" I tell the AI as I punch in my code.

"Please don't turn down my music." Tony comments without looking up from the part in his hands.

"Tony, you should be on the plane halfway to Afghanistan. " I comment searching for one of the many things Tony needs to take care of before he leaves for the weapons demonstration.

"How'd she take it?" He continued working on the car not even looking at me.

"She took it well, Mr. Stark." I rolled my eyes at his typical antics.

"Why are you trying to hustle me out of here?" He asks.

"Well one your flight was supposed to leave an hour and a half ago; two your best friend is waiting on you to get there, and knowing Rhodey he has probably been waiting there thirty minutes before the flight was supposed to leave." I list off.

"It's my plane it should leave when I tell it to." He sasses me.

"Okay now is not the time to be sassy. I have roughly five million things you need to take care of before you go." I exaggerate.

"Really that's why I own the plane so I can leave when I want." He moves to sit on the wheel of the car completely ignoring what I just told him.

"Larry called. He has another buyer in line for the Jackson Pollock painting. Do you want it? Yes or no?" I ask.

"Is it a good representation of his spring period?" Tony.

"I have no clue; I think it is incredibly overpriced…" I start to tell him.

"I want it. Buy it and store it." That marks that point off my list.

"The MIT Commencement speech?" I quickly ask.

"Is in June please stop nagging me about it." He stands up and heads towards the kitchenette that is in the lab.

"Well people are nagging me about it so I have to nag you about it. So I'm going to put it down as a yes." I follow behind him making a note in my folder.

"You take care of it, and don't nag me about it. " He sighs, I flip open my folder to the document that he needed to sign.

"Sign." I hold out a pen and the document to him.

"Trying to get rid of me so soon; what do you have plans?" he turns to face me taking the pen out of my hand.

"Yes, I do have plans as a matter of fact." I sass as he signs the paper handing my pen back to me.

"I don't like it when you have plans without me" a small frown sets on his face.

"Well tough, my sisters are flying in today and I plan on spending time with them." I roll my eyes at his possessive attitude. He thought he should be the center of everyone's world and that my life should be planed around his.

"Oh I forgot; Happy Birthday Dolly." he smiles at me.

"Oh, so close but yet so far; you got the right date but my birthday is three months away." I smirk seven years of working with this man and he still gets my birthday wrong.

"Well you can have your present now anyways; I wanna see you open it before I go." He picks up the large neatly wrapped box off his desk and holds it out to me. I place the file on the desk before accepting the box; I carefully unwrap it and open the box.

"Tony…" I gasp as I pull out a beautiful crimson evening gown.

"Do you like it?" He smiles hopefully.

"I love it its beautiful. Thank you Tony." I quickly place the dress back into the box before wrapping my arms around him in a light hug. He wraps his arms around me and squeezes picking me up slightly off the ground in a teasing manner.

"Awesome. So will that be all Ms. De Leon." He gives me a cocky smirk as he sets me back on the ground.

"That will be all Mr. Stark. Now shoo, Rhodey's waiting for you.". I tell him as Happy comes down the stairs to the lab with Tony's bags.

"Ready to go boss?" Happy asks.

"Sure am, want to race over there." Tony raises an eyebrow before moving over to his current favorite car. Happy copies him moving towards another car and placing Tony's bag in the trunk before getting into the drivers seat.

"Bye Dolly, see you when I get back" He calls out as he's getting into the sports car.

"Have a safe trip Tony." I reply with a smile as he shuts the door. The boys soon peel out of the garage leaving me standing there. I grab the file and my present, throwing the wrapping paper into the trash can before heading upstairs.

"JARVIS lock up the house after I leave." I address the AI as I grab my things from the kitchen

"Yes, Ms. De Leon; have a pleasant day." The AI responds.

"Later JARVIS." I call shutting the front door. I walk over to my car placing everything in the backseat before hopping into the driver seat to head out. I had to drop off the file at Stark Industries and then head over the airport to pick up my sisters. As I rush out of the main building at Stark Industries my phone starts ringing I quickly rush to find my phone in my large purse; after locating it and looking at the caller id, I see it's my sister Emmeline calling.

"Hey, I am on my way to the airport to pick you guys right up I had to swing by work." I quickly fire off hustling over towards my car.

"Its fine, we've touched down and are waiting to disembark then we have to wait for our luggage, so you're good." My older sister's voice chimes through the speaker.

"Well I am on my way right now, so give me about thirty minutes." I tell her getting into the car.

"Alright love you Sis. I will see you in a bit." She says over a ton of background noise.

"Love you too." I hang up the phone and start up my car.

It takes me a good twenty minutes to finally arrive at the airport. After rushing to find a spot in the crowded lot, I hurry into the building to find my sisters. It doesn't take long, Teddy's striking silver hair and Emma's wild red curls are easy to spot in the crowd. I rush over and skid to a halt in front of the pair.

"I'm here." I state going to hug them.

"Alex!" Teddy exclaims throwing her arms around me in a tight hug.

"Hey Teddy, so how was y'all's flight?" I returned Teddy's hug.

"It was good, although I am so ready to be done traveling for the day." Emma runs a hand through her curls.

"Well let's get your luggage and we can head home." I give my older sister a quick hug.

It takes another twenty minutes to get their luggage before we can head home. It is a quiet drive back to my home in Malibu with minimum conversation between us. Emma occasionally gets a few texts, and Teddy manages to nod off in the back seat. We eventually pull into the dive way of my modest sized home, that had a nice view of the ocean.

"Nice place." Emma commented off handedly.

"Yeah, the view's not as great as the one from Tony's mansion but it's still a beautiful view." I laugh.

"How is your man-child boss?" Teddy yawns as she gets out of the back seat.

"He seemed to be in a good mood this morning." I shrug my shoulders walking around to open the trunk. The girls grab their bags out and follow me inside. As I walk in I drop my car keys into the bowl that is on the table in the foyer.

"Home sweet home." I muse out loud.

I gave them a quick tour of the house, showing them which rooms they would be staying in. Teddy commented that she was going to take another nap and Emma wanted to call in and check on her children and then probably work on her next book for a bit before dinner. I nodded and left the two to their own devices telling them that they could find me in my office if they needed me. I start up the computer and begin to finish up some work before Tony gets back; as I am typing away at the key board the door to my office opens. I look over at the door and see it get pushed open followed by hearing a soft tinkling bell that is no doubt attached to my cat's collar. I hear a soft meow followed by the padding of paws against the hardwood floors. My large Savannah cat is soon by my desk standing on his hind legs, his front paws on the arm of my office chair, demanding my attention.

"What do you want Leo?" I give him a quick scratch behind his ear. He meows again wanting to play, I open one of my desk drawers and take out one of the cat toys I had in it before hurling it out of the office; Leo quickly takes off after it and I roll my eyes. Leo had been another one of Tony's extravagant gifts to me, and once I did some research on the breed, I nearly had a cow about how much he paid for the kitten. He however came back that Leo was my birthday present from him and also an apology gift for one of his infamous public relations disasters that I had to help fix. I shake my head and get back to work while Leo comes back in with the toy and bats it around the office. It takes about another hour for me to finish up the work that I had to do. I twist around in my chair popping my back before standing up.

"Come on Leo it's time to start making dinner." I drew Leo's attention away from the second toy he found in the office. I walk out of the office and head towards the kitchen with Leo padding along behind me. We find Emmeline sitting at the kitchen table typing away at her laptop; Leo immediately leaves my side to go investigate the new human in his home. After Emma pets him a few times he walks away from her and jumps up to one of his favorite places in the house which is on top of my refrigerator.

"You know there are more comfortable places to work on your book in the house than at the kitchen table." I comment to my sister before opening the fridge and grabbing out what I needed for tonight's dinner.

"I know but, working in the kitchen is familiar and helps me actually get some work done. Now do you need some help with dinner?" She asked.

"Yes please, we are having stroganoff so the meat needs to be cut up, amongst other things." I answer as she hits a few keys on her laptop before shutting it. She gracefully stands up and walks over to the counter; I hand her a knife. A few minutes later Teddy stumbles into the kitchen; Leo upon seeing another new human decides to investigate and jumps down right in front of Teddy.

"Oh my God!" Teddy shouts jumping back slightly, quickly placing a hand over her heart as Leo begins to rub up against her leg. Emma and I immediately burst out laughing at her reaction.

"Guys that's not funny." She puts as she leans down to pet the cat.

"Sorry 'bout him, Leo like to meet new people." I tell my sister.

"What kind of cat is he? He's huge." She pets the cat a bit more before walking over to us.

"He's a Savannah cat." I laugh.

"I thought our cat was big but Leo dwarfs him." Emma comments; Emma's daughter Gentry has a beautiful Norwegian Forest cat who is tiny compared to Leo.

"No joke. So how was your nap Teddy?" I ask the silver haired woman who is now sitting on my counter top.

"It was nice to take a nap and not have one of the twins wake me up." She laughs.

"Where are the twins, are they having some quality dad time this weekend?" I am curious as to where my baby niece and nephew are.

"No actually they're with Gentry." Teddy shrugged.

"Gentry, our 18 year old niece Gentry?" I turn to face my youngest sister.

"Yes, that Gentry. How many other Gentry's do you know?" Teddy raises an eyebrow; I open my mouth to retort back when Emmeline spoke up.

"Alexandria, child, its fine; Gentry loves babies, and it's not her first time taking care of a baby. She's helped me with her brothers when they were small." Emmeline waves her hand nonchalantly.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute. So you two are telling me that you left your teenaged daughter," I pointed at Emma "in charge of infant twins and five other kids." I looked at my sisters like they were crazy.

"Alex, Gen is a natural with kids and Edwin is there to help if something is wrong. Her brothers with the exception of Greyson don't need much help if I am not there." Emma places her hands on my shoulders.

"She will be fine. I mean look at her." Emma reassures me with a bright smile, holding her phone out to me. I look at the picture on the screen; my niece is sitting on the floor playing with the twins with a huge smile on her face as one twin is sitting on her lap pulling at her long curls and the other is playing with stuffed rabbit.

"When was that taken?" I asked.

"About half an hour ago, Edwin sent it to me." She smiles fondly looking at the photo. I shake my head.

"Hey guys, y'all might want to pay attention to the stove." Teddy interrupts. Emma curses turning back to the stove.

The rest of the day passes by uneventfully; I was enjoying the time I got with my sisters. They told me about how their families were from the different first for Teddy's twins to Gentry planning out her wedding. I tell them about how Tony's friend and business partner, Obadiah Stane, gives me the creeps. We have a good laugh as we open a bottle of wine to share and continue to have a good night together. With all that was going on here with my sisters I could almost forget that the person I spend 95 percent of my time with is over in a war zone.

I woke up the next morning with a sinking feeling, but quickly ignored it and went on to enjoy the day with my sister. By lunchtime I knew something was wrong; Tony normally called me to let me know that he was on his way back to the states after his weapons demos, but he hadn't called and his plane should have taken off thirty minutes ago. I know Tony is arrogant and can be an ass but he has never forgotten to call me and tell me when he was coming home especially when he is doing weapons demonstrations; the sinking feeling in my gut returns tenfold. Leo hops up on the couch that I am sitting on and bumps his head against my side meowing .

"Not right now Leo." I pat the cats head as he curls up next to me. Another hour passes and I start pacing my living room; I stop to look at the ocean view when my phone rings. I quickly answer not even bothering to look at the caller I.D.

"Hello." I answer.

"Hey Dolly, it's Rhodes." Rhodey's voice comes through the speaker; his tone immediately tells me that something is wrong.

"Rhodey what's wrong?" I feel the panic rise in my throat.

"It's Tony, Dolly, he's been kidnapped." Rhodey's breathe hitches at the end.

"Oh my God." I whisper, a giant wave of distress washed over me as my phone slipped from my hand and crashed onto the hardwood floor. I felt like I couldn't breathe, Tony couldn't be gone, he just couldn't. I can hear my sisters rush towards me but it sounds like I am underwater everything's muffled; black slowly creeps around the edges of my vision; I feel Emma's hands on my shoulders she's asks me something but I can't hear her, Teddy bends down to pick up my phone talking to Rhodes on the other side. The black rapidly takes over my vision and I feel Emma's grip tighten on my as my knees give out. I feel her guide me gently to the ground before I loose consciousness.

A/N: So what do y'all think? I would love to hear what you think; however if you don't like it please don't be rude about it. Review if you feel like it, constructive criticism is always welcome.