Pepper knew that something had changed.

She couldn't define it, but something was different. Tony put on a brave face, acted mostly like his old self, but something was off.

She couldn't imagine what it had been like, what he had gone through. To fight off aliens, sacrifice yourself for the good of others, fall from a portal to space into the arms of an enormous rage monster. It had to change a person. Still, she didn't think that was all there was to it.

After Thor took Loki back to Asgard, Tony brought Dr. Banner back to Stark Tower with him. Pepper was overwhelmingly busy in those first days, so she kept missing the chance to properly meet him. She barely had time to see Tony, and that ended up being just a few drinks while they discussed the tower reconstruction before she was called away to handle another company crisis.

Six days after Banner had come to stay at the tower, Tony came to her office and insisted the three of them go to lunch.

He perched on the edge of her desk. "Miss Potts, you are spending entirely too much time here. You're coming to lunch with us, today. I insist you get away from all this work. You've been missing out on getting to know Bruce, too."

"Mister Stark, I have been up here running your company and trying to get this place rebuilt. I will, however, make some time for lunch today. I do want to finally meet him."

She got up to give him a kiss, but he was already on his way out of her office, grinning. Over his shoulder, he said, "Great! Lobby, one p.m., Thai."

When she reached the lobby, Tony and Bruce were already waiting for her. She found that interesting, as Tony had never been on time for anything in his life. Pepper decided it must have been Bruce to get Tony down on time, and she was impressed that he had been able to swing that. Tony was notoriously difficult to manage.

Walking over to them, Bruce caught sight of her first. The little she knew of him fell into two categories: he turned into the Hulk, and he was a genius. Tony himself was a genius, and not modest about it, so for him to sincerely apply that term to another person was significant. She smiled at him as she approached and extended her hand.

"Dr. Banner, it's a pleasure to finally meet you," she said. His handshake was firm but not crushing, his hands dry and calloused. He gave her a shy smile.

"Please, Miss Potts, call me Bruce."

"Then Bruce, that's the last time you get to call me Miss Potts!" He gave a silent laugh, and Tony grinned at them both. "So, Tony, you said something about lunch?"

He motioned them toward the entrance. "Happy has the limo waiting out front for us. Bruce, there is this great Thai place on 42nd that I've been dying to take you to."

"Great, I love Thai food. I spent a few months in Thailand shortly after…" He broke off and looked away, and Pepper realized he must mean after his accident.

"Study anything interesting while you were there?" Tony asked, not giving an awkward moment the chance to develop.

"Actually, yeah, there was this little biology lab…"

After that, the two men descended (or was it ascended?) into technical banter way above Pepper's head. By now they were getting into the limo, and Pepper sat on the side, letting the two settle into the seat, amused at how they so easily slipped into seemingly another language, just one that happened to use the same conjunctions. Bruce made some sort of joke, at least that's what Pepper thought it must be, from the way Tony chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder.

Tony was a demonstrative guy, but something in that touch made a little something go click in Pepper's brain. Watching Bruce and Tony together was almost hypnotizing, with their bright eyes and quick smiles. She didn't think she had ever seen Tony have such a connection with somebody.

The thought made her pause. Did she even have such a connection with Tony? Sure, they had chemistry, but this was something on an entirely different level.

They arrived at the restaurant and were shown to a booth. Pepper sat on one side and Bruce the other, Tony motioning the other man to scoot in so he could sit next to him. They picked up their bantering again, though she noted that they were now talking astrophysics instead of some sort of biology. They didn't seem to be intentionally excluding her from the conversation, they were just so wrapped up in each other to notice that she wasn't participating. It was fine with Pepper; she wanted the freedom to observe what was going on without notice.

If they were this intense at lunch, what would it be like in the bedroom?

Had they been together? She watched for a few moments, judging their reactions to each other, and decided that they hadn't. She had worked for and with Tony long enough to see sexual tension in him. Now that she had seen it, she could see it crackle off both men like electricity. No, nothing had happened yet, but both wanted it to, even if they hadn't admitted it to themselves yet – or each other. Well, Tony knew, at least. That was what had changed. It wasn't saving the world or nearly dying in the process. It was this, this meeting of someone, which had changed him.

The waiter came and took their orders. Now Tony and Bruce had moved on to joking about Thor's hair. Pepper cast her mind back through the last week and realized that not only had she and Tony not slept together since the battle, they hadn't even shared a bed. He did have the tendency to crash on the floor in one of the labs when he got caught up in a particularly interesting project, and she had been working such long hours that she hadn't always made it to bed, the couch in her office being much closer, so she hadn't even noticed.

This is the end of us, she thought sadly. How could it be anything but that? What she was witnessing, these two, this went beyond chemistry. This was something deeper. This was…cellular.

It was at that moment that Tony looked up and caught her gaze and held it. For a second, he looked so open, so vulnerable. His eyes said, I love you, I am so sorry, but I need this. He looked even more vulnerable than the time they had argued about him being Iron Man, about how he thought he had been spared for a reason.

Her brow furrowed slightly, but she gave a small smile, too, one that she hoped would convey I love you too, I understand. Go to him. Be happy.

Before Bruce noticed them, the moment was over, and shortly thereafter their food arrived. With eating slowing down their brains, the two men conversed like normal people again, and Pepper put her feelings aside and enjoyed a pleasant lunch with them.

The three of them chatted amiably on the ride back to the tower. They climbed into an elevator and Tony punched two buttons, one to take the two men to the labs, the other for Pepper's office, which was on a higher floor.

When the doors dinged and opened, Bruce walked through, and Tony started to follow. Pepper tugged on his sleeve to stop him. If it had to happen, it may as well happen right away. Tony couldn't be happy with pretending, and now that Pepper knew she couldn't either.

Without even looking back to see what she wanted Tony called to Bruce, telling him he would catch up. The doors dinged and closed.

They rode to her floor, passed her assistant at his desk, and made it into her office all without saying a word. Tony paced, full of anxious energy.

She sighed and went to sit on the couch. "It's ok."

"Is it? Is it really?" His questions were rhetorical.

"Does he know?"

Tony did another lap around her office and then collapsed into a chair, head in hands, the picture of angst. "I don't know," he mumbled.

"Did you ask him? Has it ever come up?"

"No. Not what needs to, anyway. We've talked about him being here, how he doesn't need to worry about running ever again, of course, but getting from 'Come hang at my place' to 'I want your dick in my mouth' is a different story. "

That stung. She didn't know how to respond to it. Tony was self-involved, sure, but was what they had going to go without even a whimper before she had to start offering advice on how to get into Bruce's pants?

For once, Tony knew he'd been an ass. He sighed and got up, joining her on the couch. He took her hand and said, "I'm sorry. You have got to know that I didn't plan this, not in any way. It just…"

"Happened. Yes, I can see that. I suppose I should be thankful that we had as much time together as we did. I've seen you go through an entire calendar of girls in the same amount of time that we've been together."

He gave her an apologetic look. "For what it's worth, you're worth more than two calendars of girls."

"Yes, I know." He smiled and squeezed her hand. "So, can I ask? Why him? What happened?"

Tony got up and resumed his pacing. "I don't know. I read his file and thought, hey, finally Fury brings along someone I can talk to. Then I met him. He was jumpier on the helicarrier, worried that the Hulk would come out, hating himself for having a part of him be so dangerous. Shaking hands with him was like taking a jolt to the arc reactor," he strummed his fingers on his chest as he stopped pacing and looked out the window. "I don't know what it was. I just know what it is."

There it was. At least he admitted it to himself. Now he just had to do the same to Bruce. For Tony's sake, she hoped he felt the same, but seeing the way they interacted, she didn't think that would be a problem.

"So, what are you going to do about it?"

"Fuck, I don't know. He's so…fragile. For something so strong, he's amazingly fragile. I don't want to do anything that would scare him away, and I think the wrong word could send him to a million pieces."

"A million pieces? Like…the Hulk?"

Tony made a dismissive sound. "The Hulk is the last thing on my mind."

"So, it doesn't bother you that at a moment's notice he could…?"

"Pepper, it's not like that. He's a man, he's not the monster, and he's acquired far more control than he lets on. No, it's not the Hulk I'm concerned about. It's the man."

"Well…do you want me to talk to him?" Tony turned and stared at her. Finally it looked like she was speaking a language he didn't understand. "Ok, maybe not."

"I'll…figure something out. I have to."