I've had this done for the past day now, but for some reason the site wasn't letting me on my profile for the past couple of days. But, you don't care about that. Here's the next chapter and sorry in advance if there is any Oocness...

Disclaimer: As usual, I own nothing, nada, zip. IMAA belongs to its rightful owners.

Before she could even question his words, Tony was gone. He was running out of the hospital as fast as his legs could carry him. Pepper turned to follow him, but Rhodey stopped her.

"Pepper wait," Rhodey said, grabbing her arm. "What did he say?"

"He knows him," Pepper said, not taking her eyes off of the door Tony just exited through. She wanted nothing more than to follow him. Which was why she didn't stick around to hear what else Rhodey had to say. She was out the door quicker than Rhodey could ask her to wait again.

Ignoring the looks she received from people passing by in front of the hospital doors, she looked to the left and to the right. She had no clue which way Tony ran. She didn't even know where to guess. Fortunately, she noticed that to her right, some people were stepping to the side quickly as if avoiding being hit by something. Without a doubt, that had to be Tony running without paying attention. She rushed that way herself, hoping that she wasn't too far behind.

As she went, her mind started filling with questions that demanded an answer. The top question that seemed to demand the most attention, had to be: How did Tony know this guy? For all she knew, the guy was family friend or someone who worked at his dad's company. But with all that was going on lately, she doubted that it wasn't related to Tony's situation earlier that dad. Was he the person who was messing with Tony's head and giving him nightmares? If so, why was he dead?

She just barely saw him, but she had no doubt that it was Tony as he rounded a corner. She followed him, still unable to catch up. At least she was able to keep him in her sight. "Tony, wait!" But no matter how loud she shouted, Tony didn't seem to be listening. If he was, he was ignoring her. She followed him as he crossed streets and turn corners, but after a while it appeared that Tony didn't even know where it was he was going. She started to notice this as they ran across the same street and ran around the same block multiple times. Three times if she counted correctly.

"Tony, stop!" she tried shouting once more. She expected him to keep ignoring her, so she wasn't expecting the inventor to stop dead in his tracks. Leading her to crash right into his back, sending the two to the ground. "Ow…"

She looked up to find that Tony wasn't even fazed by the sudden fall. Instead, he sat up on his heels looking around wildly as if he was going to find something he needed. He was panting heavily with sweat rolling down his face from running and stressing so much.

"Tony, what's wrong?" she demanded, getting freaked out by his actions. "Who was that man?"

Tony looked to her with his eyes wide, as if he forgot that she had been following him throughout the streets of New York City. She wondered if he even realized that it was her that ran into him. "Pepper?"

"It's me," she replied, shoving herself to her feet. "Now come on, talk to me."

She offered him her hand, which he hesitantly accepted. With her help, he pulled himself up to his feet so he was standing a mere inches away from Pepper. He stepped back and looked around once more, as if he was still searching for something.

Pepper sighed in slight annoyance. "What are you looking for? If you're looking for that man, he's dead. What were you hoping to find?"

"I don't know," Tony shook his head, "I know him from somewhere."

"But you don't know who he is?"

"I don't know, Pepper," Tony replied, "I thought I'd seen him somewhere before. Maybe I was imagining things."

"Well, running around out here isn't going to help you discover who he is," Pepper told him, "how about we go to your house and look some things up on the computer. Maybe we'll find something about him there."

"Yeah, maybe," Tony agreed quietly.

She slipped her hand into his and walked ahead of him, leading the way. He followed silently and obediently, allowing her to drag him back through the streets of New York to his house. It was a long and tiresome walk, but to Tony, whose mind wondered off at some point, it had been the blink of an eye. They were stepping into the familiar place that was his home. The familiar place that he's lived in for the past few months.

He blinked a few times, returning himself to the present time and place. Pepper gave him a comforting squeeze, but stopped short when she brought his hand closer to her face. "What happened to your hand?"

Tony glanced down at his hand as well, investigating her words. He twisted his lips into a downward curve and pulled his hand out of hers letting it hang just out of her view. "Nothing," he mumbled out his lie. He'd forgotten all about that. His dream, that hallucination, all the blood…

"It doesn't look like nothing," Pepper insisted, reached to grab at it again. Tony flinched away, shoving his hands in his pockets, ignoring the sting he hadn't realized he had been ignoring the whole day.

"It's nothing you need to worry about," Tony said, avoiding the anger that suddenly flashed in Pepper's eyes.

But she withheld her anger in a sigh, and forced her hands back to her side. It hurt that he wasn't trusting her to help him and that he looked like he was ready to flee any second. It wasn't like she was going to bite or anything. She decided she wasn't going to press the matter at present time, knowing at the moment, Tony wasn't exactly in the best state of mind. Compared to what he used to seem, he looked like a glass vase on the verge of falling off its pedestal. It was shaking and wobbling, threatening to topple over and shatter at the slightest touch. Unlike before when it felt like the inventor himself could move mountains if he so desired.

She waved him further into the house, even though it was his own and he followed behind at his own sluggish pace. "Let's see if we can find anything, shall we?"

Tony nodded silently, giving Pepper the impression that he was afraid of even speaking to her. Ever since the incident earlier, Tony's been acting very timid and cautious as if worried that he wasn't treading lightly enough. Though, if she had to be honest, he wasn't the only one scared. Despite her words earlier, she feared what would happen if Tony lost it again. If he became that other person while they were here alone. Without the armor, she knew she didn't even stand a chance against Tony. After all, most of her self-defense methods were taught to her by Tony himself.

Pepper sat herself down on Tony's swivel chair that sat before his computer desk in his room and started up the computer. While she waited for it to turn on, she spun slowly in the chair and looked to Tony, who had seated himself down on his bed a few feet away. "Do you know his name?" she asked him, to begin their search.

Tony shrugged. "Not really."

Pepper pursed her lips in thought. So they didn't even have a name. But she was Pepper Potts, daughter of Virgil Potts—Agent Virgil Potts. She wasn't about to give up then and there. She spun back around to the computer screen and went straight to her well-trained mind told her to go. The news website that had broadcasted the news to the public not too long ago. They'd likely have posted a name of the man there, would they not? Fortunately, she only had to click a few things to prove that her assumptions were correct.

She craned her neck to look at Tony. "Is this the man you saw?"

Tony leaned over to see the picture of the man over her shoulder before nodding. "Yeah, how'd you find him?"

She ignored the fact that he had grown immensely pale and shaky the few moments she had the picture up. She discreetly closed the picture without alerting Tony that she noticed anything and shrugged. "I am the daughter of an FBI agent, Tony."

Which brought her to the next site. The FBI data base. Sure, her dad said that it was strictly illegal for her to do such a thing, desperate times called for desperate measures, as she liked to say. It wasn't that hard to crack her father's code—not that it was ever that hard—and she was searching for the man as they spoke.

Oswald Charles.

Weird name, Pepper silently commented as the search went on. She turned to Tony, knowing that searching for someone on this website wasn't exactly a quick process. But it was definitely worth the wait. As long as she wasn't caught. She shouldn't if she was using her dad's profile, but that was beside the point. It was useful, the end.

"Would you like some ice?" Tony suddenly asked.

"What?"

Tony tried giving her a smile, but gave up quickly. "For your…cheek."

Pepper pressed her fingers lightly to the bruise that now adorned her face still a shade of red. She bit her lip and shrugged, knowing that he felt guilty. After all, his guilt was practically pouring out of the inventor. "Its fine, it doesn't hurt," even though that was a lie, "It wasn't your fault," she assured him.

"I could have stopped it," Tony pressed, but Pepper wasn't having it.

"There was nothing you could do," Pepper promised, "It wasn't you."

"Can I at least get you some ice?" Tony asked. She figured that he would try his best to treat her injury as if he was trying his best to make it easier on himself to forgive himself.

She gave a nod. "Sure, if it'll make you feel better."

He gave her a successful, small smile and shot up off the bed to head for some ice. While he was gone, Pepper turned to see the computer doing its work. Oswald Charles. They were going to find him. Even though they already knew the man was dead. They—she—needed to know how Tony knew this man. And chances are, if Pepper's intuition is correct, that man had something to do with Tony's nightmares one way or another and she wanted to find out how.

Really, all she hoped was that in the end, it meant the end of Tony's suffering from these nightmares. As long as that was the reality, she could care less about anything else. Just that he was alright and back to his normal self, which she hoped to see once this was all over. She hoped that he'd find it in himself to forgive himself.

A startled yelp followed by both shattering glass and a loud tumbling sound made Pepper's stomach just about hit the floor. She wildly spun around to witness what she had been dreading. She stood up and approached Tony carefully.

"Tony, what's wrong?" she questioned, when his eyes wouldn't even look up. His eyes were glued to the floor just behind where she stood. "Tony?"

His mouth was propped open in a silent scream as nothing but terror-filled breaths shook their way out of his lungs. Pepper took another step forward, avoiding the broken glass, as Tony slowly brought a shaky hand up to cover his mouth, looking like he was about to be sick.

"No, no, no," he groaned into his hand. "Not again. No. No. No. NO!"

Pepper placed a hand on Tony's should and gave his a sudden shake. He was starting to scare her with how violently he was shaking and how his voice rose with every word, each one sounded more desperate than the other. "Tony, snap out of it! It's okay!"

And suddenly it was blue eyes to brown eyes. She tried to send him her promise that everything really was okay and that he could calm down. It must be working, because he gradually lowered his hand from his mouth and blinked away tears that had begun to form in his eyes. His shaky breaths became slow and labored, but that was better than short and choked off breaths.

"Pepper?"

As soon as his words escaped his lips, he seemed to have broken out of his trance and was finally seeing Pepper. On pure instinct, he instantly gripped Pepper in a tight hug that nearly left her breathless. She could feel relief and happiness practically oozing from his form as he buried his face into her neck.

Ignoring her current worries and fears, she hugged him back with as much comfort as she could possibly manage. "It's me. It's okay." She repeated her words a few times, when she felt that he needed it until he finally pulled away.

"It's not over," Tony whispered, looking to Pepper with dread as if he expected her to fix things that instant, "They're back…"

Would you consider that a cliffhanger? A little one, yeah, but nothing major, right? Hopefully...Anyway, did you guys like it? And don't question the man's name (Oswald Charles) it was the first name that popped into my mind and I just had to put it. I don't know...

Fun Fact: I have a weird addiction or habit of getting rings. I only wear two, but I have like 10 other rings...

Hugs and Love, SilverPedals!

REPLIES!

PercyJacksonLover14: What was I supposed to do? It wouldn't be a cliffhanger if I didn't leave it there! Hey, but I didn't leave that bad of a cliffhanger this time, right? See, I'm not entirely horrible. :P

Someone: Is Mr. evil dead or not? Hmm, I wonder. Well, I guess we'll (you'll) have to wait and see! ;p

Lilith Vampire: Should I be scared? At least I updated! I almost didn't update this for some time, but I found the time.

russianwinter013: Okay, can I leave it at this, or is that a bad thing? But you have what you wanted, an update. For now. :)