"Coulson, I need you to watch my daughter," Tony says, keys in hand as he heads for the ground floor of the mansion.

Coulson, who had been sitting in one of the living rooms watching Supernanny, jumps up. "What-?"

"She's asleep, it won't be too hard. Jarvis can alert you if anything goes wrong."

Coulson runs over and gets in front of Tony, his hand on a weapon in his belt. "Remember what I said about the tasing?"

"I need to go to Stark Headquarters," Tony says. "Pepper is there, I need to talk to her."

"I don't-"

He puts his hands together, his keys in between them. "Please. I'm begging you." Coulson hesitates, so Tony adds, "I'm dying, remember?"

Coulson finally sighs. "Fine. But if you don't come back here within the hour, I will find you, and Fury won't be happy."

Tony turns and leaves immediately. "Great, thanks, Mom, love you."

Coulson sighs again. "I'm so getting fired."

~~~~

On the side of the road, right next to the beach, a man sits in a chair with an umbrella hanging over it. Next to him is his truck, which has strawberries in the trunk. He's selling them.

He watches the cars go by, waiting for someone to stop. No one does.

Not until an expensive white car suddenly pulls off the road and drives straight toward him, kicking up sand in its wake. It stops abruptly. The man stands, grabbing a small box of the fruit out of his trunk. The man in the car asks, "How much?"

"Six dollars," the strawberry man says.

The man in the car takes off his watch. "I don't have any cash. Here." He hands it to the strawberry man.

"No, no, that's too much," the strawberry man replies.

The man in the car insists. "No, just take it. Take it, it's fine."

"No, señor-"

"Take it," the man in the car insists. Finally the strawberry man does. He holds the box of strawberries out to the man in the car. "I don't like people handing me things, so if you could just sit that in the seat- Yeah."

The sand in the air has cleared by now, and it's then that the strawberry man recognizes the man in the car. "Are you Iron Man?"

"Sometimes," Tony Stark replies, driving away.

The strawberry man smiles. "We believe in you!"

~~~~

"Agent Coulson?" a small, tired voice asks.

Coulson, who had gone back to watch Supernanny, jumps a little, then turns. Grace is standing there, in her pajamas, rubbing her eyes. Coulson says, "... Yes?"

"Where's my dad?"

"He's, uh, he's at Stark Headquarters," Coulson replies. "He said he needed to talk to Pepper."

"Oh," she says. She goes quiet for a few moments after that, still waking up. Then, she asks, "What are you doing?"

"I'm watching Supernanny," Coulson replies.

"Can I watch, too?"

He hesitates, then smiles and says, "Sure."

~~~~

Pepper is on the phone with a TV station in her office, still trying to clean up the mess that Tony's caused. She wished she could've stayed with Grace longer, but she couldn't. She left her with Tony and Natalie, trusting that Tony had gotten his head screwed on straight this morning.

Suddenly, her PA opens the door. "Miss Potts? Mr. Stark-"

Tony walks in the door, a box of strawberries in hand. "-is here," he finishes.

"I'm sorry," the PA apologizes. "He refuses-"

"I don't. It's fine. I'll just be a second." He turns to the PA. "You are excused, thank you very much."

She closes the door behind her. Pepper holds up a hand to Tony and continues talking on the phone. "Listen, it's our position that Stark has and continues to maintain propriety ownership of the Mark II platform."

The TV is turned on to a news station reporting a story about Tony. The newscaster is saying, "When Mr. Stark announced he was indeed Iron Man, he was making a promise to America-"

"No, the suit belongs to us," Pepper says into the phone.

The newscaster continues. "We trusted that he would look out for us."

Pepper starts becoming agitated. "Yes, but you're not-"

"He obviously doesn't."

"Burt-"

"Rumors about his daughter and her mother have been circling around, and hardly any of them are good ones. And he makes no move to comment on them."

"I don't-"

"And now we learn that his secretary-"

"Yes, it does-"

"-a woman named Virginia 'Pepper' Potts, has been appointed as CEO of Stark Industries. What are her qualifications?"

"No."

"Miss Potts has done nothing to manage this terrible-" Tony cuts the newscaster off, muting the TV. He can't stand to listen to it anymore. They can talk about him all they want to, but Grace and Pepper? It makes him sick.

As if anything about Grace or her mother is any of their business. As if they have a right to question Pepper and her "qualifications." She's the most qualified person he knows.

She's stilling arguing with whoever Burt is over the phone. "No. Burt, listen to me. Don't tell me that we have the best patent lawyers in the country and then not let me pursue this."

Tony turns and looks in the corner of the room to his right. It's filled with boxes, which are all filled with his stuff. "I'll get this stuff out of here," he says. He walks over and pulls back a tarp that's covering something large and rectangular. It's the model of the city from the video he watched of his father.

Pepper continues talking. "Well, then, tell the President to sign an order. We'll talk about it at the Expo. Hammer's giving some presentation tomorrow evening. Will Tony Stark be there?"

Tony walks over and sits down in front of her desk, putting the strawberries on the table. "Will I?"

"No, he will not."

"I would like to be-"

"Bye." Pepper hangs up and looks him, obviously angry.

"Got a minute?" Tony asks.

"No-"

"Come on, you just got off the phone, you're fine, give me thirty seconds."

Pepper starts counting down, looking at her watch. "Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight-"

Tony sits forward. "I was just driving over here, and I thought I was coming to basically apologise, but I'm not."

She raises a brow at him. "You didn't come to apologize?"

"Look, that goes without saying, and I'm working on that. But I haven't been entirely, uh... upfront with you, and I just want to try to make good." He looks down at the desk ornament sitting between them. It's two t-shaped bars on a stand, and they're constantly spinning. "Can I move this?" Tony asks. "This is crazy. It's like a Ferris wheel, going. I'm trying to-"

"No," Pepper deadpans.

So, Tony moves himself and the entire chair instead. He continues, trying to figure out how to word what he wants to say in his head. "Do you know how short life is? And if I never got to express-" that I love you, he thinks, and it scares him, so he goes around it "-and by the way, this is somewhat revelatory to me — and I don't care- I mean, I care. It would be nice." For the life of him, he can't stop rambling. "I'm not expecting you to- Look, here's what I'm trying to say-"

"Let me just stop you right there," Pepper says. "Because if you say 'I' one more time, I'm gonna actually hurl something at your head. I am trying to run a company. Do you have any idea what that entails?"

"Yes."

"People are relying on you to be Iron Man, and you've disappeared, and all I'm doing is putting out your fires and taking the heat for it." At this moment, Tony, who had been playing with something on Pepper's desk, accidentally throws it across the table at her. She grabs it, now even angrier. "I am trying to do the job that you were meant to do." She looks down at the table. "Did you bring me strawberries? Did you know that there's only one thing on Earth that I'm-?"

"Allergic to strawberries," Tony finishes, remembering. She just looks at him for a few moments, so Tony says, "This is progress, Pepper. I knew there was a correlation between you and this." He gestures to the strawberries.

Pepper pauses, then says, "I need you-"

Tony's heart practically jumps as he leans forward. She's just said almost exactly what he wanted to say to her to him. "I need you, too — that's what I'm-"

"-to leave," Pepper finishes. "Now."

Tony stops, going quiet. His heart now sinks, and he thinks that maybe he's screwed up too big this time. That the Pepper who almost kissed him on that balcony over six months ago is gone now because he pushed her away.

The door opens and Natasha walks in. "Miss Potts?"

Tony turns around as Pepper takes a deep breath. "Hi, come on in." Happy walks in behind her. "Hold on," Pepper says, suddenly panicked. She looks at Tony. "Who's with Grace?"

"Somebody I trust," Tony says. "Don't worry, she's safe. She's fine."

"Really?" Pepper asks. "Because I was actually worried about leaving her with you this morning. And now this-"

"She's safe, Pep," Tony insists. "I may have screwed up, but the one thing I don't mess around with — the one thing I never cut corners with — is Grace and her safety. You know that."

And she does. She does know that. Even when the company and Iron Man are falling apart because he's being irresponsible, she knows the one thing he'll take responsibility for is Grace. He's sorry about what happened — what he said. She knows that. She has to. She sighs. "Okay. Okay. I know."

"Wheels up in twenty five minutes," Natasha says gently.

"Thank you."

"Anything else, boss?" Happy asks.

Tony starts to say, "I'm good, Hap," but then Pepper says, "No, I'll be just another minute."

Tony sighs. "I lost two out of three kids in the divorce."

"Lost two, joint custody of the third," Pepper says. "Just because you screwed up doesn't mean any of us are gonna stop helping with Grace."

Tony actually smiles. "Good. That's good. She'd be devastated otherwise." He turns to Natasha. "You know, she really learned a lot from you. The self defense, some art skills — which reminds of that easel I still haven't bought." He sighs. "Are you blending in well here, Natalie? Here are Stark Enterprises? Your name is Natalie, isn't it?"

"Yes," Natasha says quietly.

Pepper stands, her bag in hand. "Actually, Tony, while you're here maybe you and Natalie could discuss the matter of the personal belongings." She points to the boxes in the corner.

"Absolutely," Natasha says. She waits for Happy and Pepper to leave before she continues. "I'm surprised you kept your mouth shut-"

"Boy, you're good," Tony says. "You are mind-blowingly duplicitous. How do you do it? You just tear things- You're a triple imposter. I've never seen anything like you. Is there anything real about you? Do you even speak Latin?" She says something in Latin, walking away from him. He turns around to look at her again. "Which means...?"

"It means you can either drive yourself home or I can have you collected." She starts to head out the door.

"What about Grace?" Tony asks, causing her to stop. "Because I haven't told her yet." He sighs. "She really does like you, you know."

Natasha turns, and she actually looks sad — regretful, even. "When all this over, I'll tell her myself."

And with that, she's gone.