Apologies for the long absence. My excuses would outpace the following entry to my neglected little fanfic! it's a slow start, but I'm trying to get back in the swing of things.

Tony is… excited. Pepper is ready for them to go public. He respects her wish to go about it in a mature and dignified manner, but would it be so bad to blast it out at a press conference and perhaps yell "suck it" to all of Pepper's ex-boyfriends? The instant after he imagines that, he realizes that he doesn't want to join the ranks of said exes and just this once, he'll listen to her this time about behaving like a grown-up.

"How are you going to do it?" he says one morning, following her into her office at Stark Industries. "You've made it so abundantly clear that you don't want Iron Man to skywrite his affection for you above Los Angeles."

"Not the time or the place, Tony," she said, talking through her teeth as she smiled at the lobby security desk team in passing.

"The possibilities though!" he said once they were in her office. "We could leak it to the media. Everyone who's anyone has naked pictures stolen and revealed to the world."

"That is a terrible idea," Pepper replied, turning to her computer, and then a microsecond later turned back to Tony and glared. "You do not have nude photos of me." Tony's smile ticked up farther when he saw he had her going.

"Or do I?" he said, waggling his eyebrows. "You know how Jarvis monitors everything at the house. It would be so easy…nay, too easy."

"Are you implying that you have a sex tape?" she hissed at him. Tony watched as she placed her hands flat against the desk, perhaps to restrain herself from throwing one of her desk knickknacks at him. Or from wrapping those petite hands around his throat. He slowly pushed his chair back a few inches.

"Tape? Who uses that anymore? Does anyone even know what tape is?" Tony said, going off on a tangent. However, he soon stops the tangent when he notices she's sitting absolutely still and staring at him with that look that says she's focusing all her attention on him and all that formidable focus will do one thing: Make. Him. Pay.

"Nevertheless, despite my impressive security, I would not hold any material that would cause you undue distress," Tony said quickly.

"Because you already cause me enough undue distress with your on-the-fly antics?" Pepper responded with a tight smile and head tilt.

"Pepper, you know that when you get all snippy and uptight it just makes me think of you as a disapproving, sexy-yet-pristine librarian I want to undo," he said, leaning forward.

"How did you ever hold yourself back all those years I worked for you?" Pepper responded sarcastically.

"It speaks to my remarkable self control," Tony said, pushing his chair up and folding his arms across her desk. "Now you should tell me that all my books are overdue and I have to pay significant late fees."

"Get out," Pepper said, pointing to the door. "We will be attending an event in the near future together and out ourselves then. Don't release any sex videos in the meantime, and you owe me significant fees for annoying me."