Pepper Potts nodded absently towards something the man seated next to her said and glanced at her watch. The clock fastened to her slender wrist read 11:20 a.m.

The meeting was in ten minutes.

She wouldn't let herself panic. Too many instances of Tony not showing up on time for meetings made her tough in terms of not letting herself believe that he would actually show up. That way, if and when he did show up, she was delighted and relieved.

But this...this was so damn important. She would let him skip the next ten meetings if he would just, just this once, be on time.

"Ladies and gentlemen," A dull voice called from the head of the table. "The annual California Business Conference will commence in just a few minutes. Please use the restroom if necessary, because once the meeting starts, all other times will be inappropriate. Thank you, just a few more minutes, please."

Pepper stiffened. Sonofacocklovinghoar ohmygod.

She immediately stood from her chair, aware of the eyes stationed on her as she smoothed her skirt, and tried to walk out of the conference room without shaking in her heels. Once she was out the door, her cat like reflexes allowed her to mutha-fuckin sprint down that sunny hallway.

She whipped out her phone as her heels clicked sharply on the marble floor and dialed her extremely insensitive and inexcusably late boss's number. It went to voicemail.

The arrogant voice on the other end was like nails on a chalkboard to her ears right then. "Hi, this is Tony Stark. If I haven't picked up it probably means I'm avoiding you. Leave a message."

"Tony Stark." She snarled. "If you aren't at this meeting within the next five minutes, I'm quitting. Once I've quit, I'm going to sneak into your house, tell Jarvis to lock all the doors, and murder you! I am blatantly... blown away by this. You know what? No I'm not! I shouldn't be surprised, should I? This is you. You skip meetings, do whatever you want, and I take the heat for it. So have fun doing what you're doing right now, because once this conference is over-"

Beep.

Pepper sighed in frustration as her phone cut her strategically planned and somewhat irrational message off. Her fingers shook as she dialed the numbers again, and she turned on her heels to head back to the conference that was probably starting now. Unbelievable. Her boss's lateness may have made her late. She clenched her fists and waited for Tony's voicemail again.

And immediately stopped in her tracks as she passed a large black door to her right.

It sounded as if a cellphone, one that sounded a lot like Tony's, was ringing from the inside.

Pepper stared at it cautiously, suddenly creeped out by the muffled sound emanating behind the door. She knew from experience not to open unlocked doors, particularly ones with Tony inside, without knocking first. That is if her boss was inside.

And if he was, what would she find? Him straddling a twenty-something blonde? Him masturbating to Kim Kardashian's sex tape?

Ugh, to relive that again.

She decided she was being ridiculous, and stepped forward to open the door. It wasn't locked, to her disappointment. She took a deep breath and swung it open.

Her eyes widened; her mouth parted in shock. "Tony?"

Her boss was laying on the floor of a decently sized broom closet, wearing a grin, the lower half of his body completely submerged under a shelf that looked like it had fallen on top of him. "Hello, Ms. Potts. You called me?"

"Oh my god." Pepper muttered absently, twisting around to see if anyone had seen her randomly open a damned broom closet. She turned back to Tony Stark, still watching her, and decided she didn't have time to be angry right now. She needed to get him out of this closet, fast.

"Okay, okay, okay, how're we gonna do this," She said to herself, examining the truly stupefying scene. She shook her head. "How the hell did you manage to do this to yourself?"

Tony quirked his lips and looked at the ceiling. "I was kind of drunk, aaaaand then it occurred to me that I had a meeting, so I opened the door of this wonderful broom closet for some time alone to sober myself, and all this fell on top of me."

Pepper sighed and stepped forward. "Okay, we have to get you out from under all of this without making a noise, so I'm going to have to close the door-"

"W-wait! Stop, Pep!"

Too late. She had reached her hand around the door nob and shut it quickly before his pleas reached her ears.

She whirled around to face him. "What? What?"

He exhaled a long breath and closed his eyes. "The door locks from the outside."

Her eyes twitched. "What kind of goddamn broom closet is this?"

Tony tried to hide his laugh, but a high giggle erupted from his mouth.

"What's funny? There's nothing funny, or, or cute about this situation. You're trapped, I'm trapped. Oh no..." It dawned on her that they were trapped and she leaned against the door. "The meeting," She whispered. "Oh God, I can't miss this one!"

She turned and gripped both hands around the metal door handle, frantically yanking and pulling. When it didn't budge, she kicked it with her heel.

Tony continued to bite back his laughter. Pepper finally noticed and shot him a glare. "I'm going to try to help you out from under the shelf. If you make one sexual innuendo or even think about one, I'll be angry."

He smirked at her. "Is that a promise?"

She ignored him and walked the small two steps to where he was on the floor. She tapped her heels. "Maybe I can slide you out... I'll have to grab under your arms and pull..."

She kneeled over him and told him her plan. He nodded, still hiding a faint smile, and lifted his arms for her to grab on to. She did so, positioning her feet firmly on the ground, and gave a small pull. The brooms and cleaning supplies covering Tony shifted a little, but did not make too much noise. Pepper continued her routine of pulling, pausing, pulling, pausing, until finally, after a few pants and a back ache, Tony was out.

He scrambled to his feet, pulling himself up to look at her. His brown eyes were twinkling. "Thank you, Ms. Potts."

She looked at him skeptically. "You're welcome, Mr. Stark. Just don't make me do it again, or else."

"Yep."

They looked at each other appreciatively for a few moments, ocean blue meeting a dark brown, before the silence turned awkward. Pepper averted her eyes and looked at the door in front of them.

"So, how do we open it?"

Tony moved an inch closer to it, looking at it disinterestedly. "We could just bang on the door until someone opens it."

"No. No way."

"Why not?"

"I think you know why." Pepper said, and prayed to the almighty gods that Tony didn't prod further.

But of course, he did.

He smiled, noticing the slight blush on her cheeks. "Enlighten me, Potts."

"You know how it'll look. So it's out of the question."

"Who cares? Let someone think we were doing something. I want them to."

Pepper stared at him, clearly in shock. Did he just say that? Did he? He stared right back at her, smoldering her with his gaze. She blushed a darker red and shook her head. "You don't mean that, Tony. You're still a little tipsy."

"No, I'm not." His voice was serious; unwavering.

She swallowed. "We're not talking about this now. The meeting's started-"

"Now is fucking perfect. No one's spying on us, not even Jarvis-"

"No, Tony, I said-"

"-and I know you're always busy and I'm busy so it makes sense-"

"You never listen to me! I just want to get out so we can get to the meeting-"

"What? You're the one who hasn't been listening-" Tony slammed his fist against the door.

Suddenly, a crack pierced the air inside the closet, making both of them freeze. Slowly, their heads traveled in perfect unison up the door and to the stacks of shelves above it, holding heavy duty cleaning supplies and various heavy things. One of the shelves at the very top had cracked in half and fallen onto the next one. All of them were wobbling.

Tony sucked in a breath. "Ugh oh."

And then a torrent of cleaning supplies and heavy wood fell down from above and directly on their heads. The impact made the shelves on all the other sides of the broom close wobble and collapse as well. Tony shielded Pepper's body with his own, but for all his effort he was whacked in the head with a block of wood. He stumbled backwards and dragged Pepper with him, clinging to her blouse. Pepper shrieked as they tumbled down with the cleaning supplies, landing squarely on top of her boss.

The broom closet was finally silent.

Pepper forced her eyes to open and found herself staring directly at Tony face, which was frozen in a grimace of pain.

"Tony! Are you alright? Did you hit your head?"

"I'm...fine..."

"What can I do?"

"Please... get off..."

She scrambled to push her body off of his, eager to check his head, and then realized something. She couldn't.

She grunted in annoyance and twisted her head, examining the crime scene behind them. The answer as to why she couldn't was obvious.

Her and Tony's legs were completely submerged under piles of cleaning supplies and shelves, almost too high to see over.

"Damnit, damnit, damnit." She seethed, trying deperately to push some of the debris off herself. She could barely move more than a few inches, and when she did Tony groaned in pain.

Which meant they were effectively stuck together.

She turned back to her boss, who was coming to. "Tony? Listen. I'm stuck under a lot of cleaning supplies. You're going to have to reach around me to try and get some of the crap off me so I can get off of you." She said, her hands supporting herself on either side of his head.

"Yeah?" Tony grunted.

"Yes. Just reach around and push some things to the side so I can get off."

"How does that benefit me?" Tony grinned.

Pepper stared down at him. Tony stared up at her. Slowly, his smile faded, until he was looking at her in a way that made her suppress a shiver.

"Just do it, Tony." She whispered.

Tony did it without complaint.

She was relieved, but she should have known better.

Tony's hands reached around her, but did not go where she wanted them to go. They went where she needed them to go; they wrapped around her almost possesively, in a way a boss should never wrap his arms around his employee. He pushed her down so that she was completely pressed against him, yet she didn't fight it. She could feel the arc against her breast, but it didn't hurt.

Tony brought his lips to her ear. "Would it be so bad to just spend a of couple hours in here?"

No, it wouldn't, Was the first thought that popped into Pepper's brain. It wouldn't be bad at all. It would be wonderful, like I've always imagined. But then a seed of doubt planted itself in the middle of that good thought. What happens after the broom closet? What then?

"I'm scared, too." Tony whispered, filling the silence.

Then he traced his lips along the curve of her jaw, and kissed her. His warm lips enveloped hers, he pulled her closer, and for the first time in her life Pepper let her dreams and fantasies become reality.

They were found propped against the far wall of the broom closet four hours later in the midst of a heavy kissing session. The janitor who found them was paid five hundred dollars to clean up the atrocious mess and to keep his finding a secret; Stark Industries would sue effective immediately if word got out.

The janitor stuffed the money in his shirt pocket and shook his head as Tony Stark and Pepper Potts sprinted down the hallway, holding each other's hands and laughing hysterically.

"Kids."