A/N: I'm back after a work induced hiatus. Hopefully this is just one of many to come...

Movie-verse. Somewhere between IM1 & IM2. Designed to be enjoyed just for what it is.

Oh, and Tony, Pepper and all things Iron Man related are not mine...

xoxoxoxoxox

They always thought there was never enough time. It was not unusual for either Pepper or Tony to get to the end of a week and feel like it should have still been Monday. Meetings, paperwork, interviews, conferences, missions and so on kept both on their toes. Whenever they were concentrating on work, the hands of the clock would spin around in a flash. There were moments though, when Old Father Time would get his own back and force them to stop and take notice of the little things.

xoxoxoxoxox

1. Oil

Pepper gathered the papers for Tony to sign. There were only a few so chances were good that she could get him to scrawl his mark on each without fuss and leave on time. It rarely happened and she looked forward to squeezing in a few extra hours to herself. Checking to make sure she had all of them, she left her office and made her way down to the workshop.

The journey to his workshop was one she'd made on a daily basis for longer than she cared to remember. She could do it on autopilot, which she did this day, her mind on plans for the evening. So engrossed was she in her thoughts that it took a few moments to register something was amiss. The workshop was completely silent. No wall of sound had accosted her as the door slid open. Suddenly she wasn't sure that Tony was even down there. Jarvis hadn't alerted her to his departure, and Tony had told her only a couple of hours before that he was "going down to work on the Hot Rod", so she'd simply assumed that's what he'd been doing.

"Mr Stark?" she called tentatively. "Mr Stark? Are you down here?... Jarvis?"

"He's offline," came the muffled reply followed by the clicking of a ratchet spanner. Pepper headed towards the sound and, as she expected, sprawled under the Hot Rod was her boss. His legs poked out from under the chassis; jeans, she noted, covered in more grease than normal and there was at least one new rip mid thigh – he'd need new ones soon, and she pondered which of his current lot would be sacrificed to the workshop next. She made a mental note to bury her favourite pair for a week or so to save them, and before being able to rebuke herself for having a favourite pair, she permitted herself a moment to admire the way the denim stretched across his thighs.

"Shit!" Tony cried, his irritation bringing Pepper's attention back to the task at hand.

"Tony, I've got a few things for you to sign. There aren't many; it'll only take a moment." Pepper was determined not to be ignored for too long. Tony was more than capable of shutting out everything and everyone when he was concentrating on the car.

"Sure thing Pep. Just one minute. Almost done here just got a stubborn little... Hey could you pass me..."

"No." Her tone was emphatic and resolute. Any time Tony asked Pepper to pass him some tool or another he invariably changed his mind moments later and she spent the rest of her time running back and forth. It irritated Pepper and delighted Tony in equal measure. "If you need anything you'll have to get it yourself. And while you're at it you can sign these."

"I'll sign them in a sec. Now I just need... Never mind." Ever resourceful, Pepper watched as Tony lifted himself slightly and the sliver of his T-shirt she could see – another favourite of hers – was whisked away, and he repositioned himself and started twisting something. There was a pop, the sound of trickling and a "Ha!"

As Tony rolled out into the open, Pepper saw the fruits of his labours. The T-shirt was bunched up in his hand, covered in grease with some part held in the middle, and there was a puddle of oil on his chest. As he made to stand up he used part of his T-shirt to wipe the oil from his body.

"If only the admiring hoards could see you now." Pepper commented, scanning him from head to toe and shaking her head in mock disdain.

"You know, there are a lot of women who like their men dirty." The classic Stark innuendo was accompanied by a sly grin and slightly raised eyebrows.

"Greasy." Pepper shot back with good humour.

"I prefer well oiled." Tony replied, his pitch and volume dropping, and his voice losing all its playfulness. He dropped the part that had been in his shirt on a bench and used the shirt to start mopping up the remaining oil. If he was trying to unsettle Pepper it was working.

"Where's the music?" Pepper asked, in an attempt to end the conversation and steer it towards a productive conclusion.

It worked. Tony replied, but Pepper heard very little of his response. There was something about "converting files", "new sound system" and "lossless audio" but Pepper's focus had shifted elsewhere. Tony's hand moved back and forth across his chest in increasingly slow motion. It was mesmerising and when he removed his hand her eyes stayed glued to that part of his anatomy.

Despite his efforts to tidy up, Tony had missed a trail of oil, and it was on this that Pepper's attention finally resided. The oil was gradually gathering at the edge of the RT waiting to amass enough weight to slide off. Pepper's eyes slid shut, and though it was only a blink, it felt like an eternity before the captivating image returned, and by that time the drop was finally heavy enough for gravity to work its magic.

Pepper's gaze tracked the droplet as it descended across his skin, between his abdominal muscles, following the well defined lines. 'When did that happen?' Pepper asked herself as she noticed just how firm they had become, and how chiselled his torso was. She had always known that he was in good shape; he had never shied away from strutting around semi-naked before, though now she thought about it, she hadn't seen him topless since, well, she couldn't remember. 'Since I changed his reactor core' she realised. With that thought she watched more intently. Somewhere in the back of her brain she had registered that he had taken the papers from her, though it seemed like an eternity ago – not just a few seconds – and she could tell he was now signing them: his muscles flickered with his every movement, pulses of electricity rippling across them. Pulses. Pepper's had sped up and she could feel every beat of it through her veins.

Her focus was drawn firmly back to the droplet as it curved around his belly button and made its way straight for his beltline. Her mouth parted ever so slightly and she felt her breathing become shallower. She wanted it to stop so she could regain control over her senses. It was driving her mind to places it should not go, that she'd forced it never to go; places she'd built Tony-proof walls around. Alas, Pepper had no influence over that evil little bit of oil as it slid under her fortifications. Finally it glided further down, slithering out of sight between his skin and jeans, and leaving Pepper to ponder where it would stop. She permitted herself to stare at the spot where it had disappeared, and noticed that he was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. She realised that it had aided the droplet's, and her mind's, descent into forbidden places. The sweat made his skin shimmer in the harsh lighting of the workshop and she let her mind wander further down that inappropriate path. She wondered if his whole body was just as...

"Lubricated." Pepper breathed loud enough for Tony to hear. It brought her crashing back into the real world and her brain worked overtime to reconnect her with what was happening. Tony was signing the last sheet but he stopped abruptly, his eyes wide and mouth agape. Pepper's eyes snapped up to meet his and she felt the beginnings of a deep blush threatening her features.

"Wha... What did you just say Potts?" Tony stammered.

There was no denying what she'd said. There was no point. To do so would have brought a barrage of questioning and innuendo down upon her. She had to try and manoeuvre her way out of it, and having learnt from previous experience, she knew that attack was the best form of defense. Thus she watched as he managed to finished scrawling his name and briskly plucked it from his hands as soon as the pen had left the paper.

"I said 'lubricated', Mr Stark. The word you were looking for before wasn't 'well oiled', it was 'lubricated'. Much smuttier."

Tony was dumbstruck. Pepper watched as a thousand thoughts crossed his mind and he swallowed, hard. Eventually his mind settled and a grin spread over his face.

"Well, I must say Miss Potts, I never would have guessed that your mind could descend to such levels."

"I believe flexibility is key when working with you, and as I've been working for you for many years now, Mr Stark, I am incredibly flexible." She delivered double entendre completely dead pan, and watched as it had the added effect of wiping the smile off Tony's face. "Will that be all, Mr Stark?"

It took several moments before Tony's brain was able to kick back in, and in the end all it could do was allow him to deliver a perfunctory "Yes, Miss Potts, that will be all".

Pepper had already used the delay to start towards the door, hoping that her words would give her time enough to put some distance between them and allow her a quick and painless escape. She knew that if she stayed longer there was no knowing what her treacherous mind would do, especially when Tony was still in a state of undress.

"Oh and Tony, you might as well throw out that shirt when you're done with it. No point trying to clean something so irreparably dirty."

Her words made him laugh, as she'd intended, and the warm sound echoed around the room.

"No sweat Potts." He called at her retreating form. It was the last thing she heard before the door slid shut behind her. She hoped he was good to his word: he held deadly ammunition in his hand, and if he were ever to use it – even unwittingly – she knew that the walls she had so carefully built might not survive the attack.

xxxxxxx

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