He's watching music videos on MTV when she walks in.

Pepper, standing behind the leather sofa in her heels and smart pencil skirt doesn't find his choice in program particularly surprising. What she does find surprising is that MTV is actually playing music videos at all. Not that she watches MTV in the spare time that she almost never ever has. Certainly not.

He must have heard her heels slide through the thick carpet because he says suddenly, "Did you know, Miss Potts, that apparently sexy has gone missing?"

Pepper quirks an eyebrow and taps something on her phone. "I'm sorry?"

"It's true. Thank god we have Justin Timberlake to bring it back for us."

She snorts lightly, taps another button on the handheld device and it beeps happily. It starts to vibrate in her hand and she checks the ID. Christine Everheart. She mumbles something rather undignified under her breath before canceling the call with a delighted crack of her nail against the screen.

"Were you worried?" His voice breaks through her internal happy moment and she turns her head to catch his eyes lingering on her face. Occasionally roaming to the bare expanse of her neckline.

"About what?" She asks and looks back toward the tv with feigned interest. On screen a blonde with cropped hair and a leather jacket starts to gyrate.

"About the sexy. Going missing."

"Oh, inconsolable. For weeks."

"Good. I'm glad someone was concerned." He flicks the tv off and tosses the remote on the side table with a clang. Pepper cringes. He catches the action and the corners of his lips quirk up. "Hung over Potts?"

She looks affronted for a whole minute before deciding he isn't worth it and goes back to manually organizing her smart phone. He'd programmed it to put everything into separate and distinct categories for her but she always ignored it; never liked having things done for her, especially by a machine. Or in this case, a computer program programmed by Tony Stark which surprisingly hasn't tried to take over her apartment yet. She's giving it another week.

He approaches her slowly, his bare feet making muffled thumps against the floor as he moves. He stretches languidly and the fabric of his shirt rides up, revealing the bare skin of his stomach and the sharp dip of flesh at his hip. Pepper averts her eyes and swallows.

She knows he caught her looking because she can practically feel the smug radiating off of him. He brushes her arm casually as he shuffles past and she pulls the short fabric of her sleeve down further on her arm.

"Mr. Stark--" she calls, does an about face on the tips of her feet and clicks after him, down the stairs and around the corner to his work station. "You have a meeting at 4:00 with Jennifer Manns from Time magazine; apparently they want you on the cover again, this time in the suit. At 6:15 you have a short meeting with Stacey from PR, she's been bugging me for weeks about that press conference you walked out on last month." She hits a button on the phone and it beeps back. She bites her lip, hesitates just slightly before saying, "Oh and you have that Vanity Fair party this evening." He turns to look at her as she follows him into the room, her fingers pressing into the sides of the little device in her hand. It buzzes in her palm and she jumps, startled. "It's at 7." She finishes, and comes to stand in front of him.

He narrows his eyes, looks her up and down in a way she finds slightly offensive before saying, "Are you going?"

Pepper only takes a minute before replying smoothly, "Everybody's going."

"Yes but does that mean you're going? Or are you actually everybody and it somehow just slipped my mind? I mean, I know you're good but are you really that good?"

She rolls her eyes, sets the phone on the table next to her and steps forward to adjust the collar of his shirt. "Yes I'm going. No I'm not everybody. Yes," she says and gives a smart little yank on his shirt. "I really am that good."

He smiles. "Of course you are. Never doubted you for a second." He pauses, seems to consider his words for half a second before asking, "What are you wearing?"

She sighs at the question and the exhaled air blows against the side of his face. She stops fussing with his shirt and drops her hands to her side. They're standing rather closely, she muses. So she steps back, picks her square phone back up where it slides perfectly into the palm of her hand.

Over her shoulder she says, "A dress. Like everybody else."

Her phone starts to ring and before she can press the answer button she hears him call back, "I hear everybody is wearing a short dress!"

She shakes her head and laughs quietly to herself up the stairs.

+

"Is this too much?"

She's placing a hat on and off her head, watching herself critically in the mirror. It's a small hat, with a bit of lace on the side and ok, it looks kind of ridiculous but she saw a woman wearing it in Vogue magazine last month so it can't be all bad. She sucks in her cheeks, purses her lips and stands at an angle in the mirror.

She hears a thump from the corner behind her and lets out a breath. She pulls the hat off and tosses it on top of the nearest shelf. It lands appropriately between a top-hat and a single black shoe.

Rose fusses with her hair in the reflection for another minute before going to find the Doctor who has his foot stuck in a pile of dress clothes, one slinky black gown wrapped around each of his knees. She stifles a laugh and bends at the waist to help him, slips the fabric off easily and spins him around to face her.

"Oi! You haven't even changed! What have you been doing this entire time?"

He's looking away from her, down at the slinky dress coiled around his feet as he says, "I'm wearing a suit already I don't need to--" He looks up suddenly, trailing his eyes from where the hem of the long silk dress she's wearing starts and following it all the way up to wear it stops, slunk low on her shoulders and dipping precariously in the front. She's pretty sure he's stopped breathing.

Rose bites her lip and lets her hands shuffle self-consciously through the fabric. "Does it look alright? It doesn't really fit all that well in the back." She turns a bit to show him, pulling at the excess silk in the back with steady hands. He isn't saying anything so she turns back, raises an eyebrow and pokes him sharply in the shoulder.

"Hello? I was asking you if--"

"It looks wonderful. You look--wonderful." The green of the dress glints in his eyes, lighting them up as he looks at her. His face is very serious.

Rose smiles beatifically and watches with slight satisfaction as his breath hitches. "Right! We're good to go then." She waggles her eyebrows and swings one arm through his, pulling him carefully over the piles of clothes at their feet. They make their way slowly through the Tardis halls, Rose's right arm looped through the crook of his left and he doesn't actually start to smile until they reach the Tardis control console.

He presses a button with his free hand and the ship hums and whirls around them. Rose steadies herself against his side and laughs. "Oh, I've missed this." She tells him, and watches the pleased line of his mouth as it curves upward.

"Yeah?" His eyes follow hers as she nods, laughs and bites her lip.

"Yeah." She reassures and touches the side of his face with her open palm. "Course I have."

He leans forward, tilting their foreheads together, their noses touching briefly as he sighs. The exhaled breath blows warm into her hair. "Thank you," he says, quietly. Rose closes her eyes as his lips brush her forehead, the side of her face, the dip of her eyelashes. He repeats it again and again, into the tilt of her jaw and the dip of her ear and she knows it isn't really meant for her. He's thanking anyone else, anything else. Time, the universe, demi-gods, semi-gods, whoever brought her back to him. Whatever twist of fate that allowed her to find him again, slip her hand in his and smile.

He doesn't take it for granted. He kisses her lips with a quiet kind of reverence.

+

"Well if I'd known you were going to be wearing that dress--"

She doesn't even let him start. Just clamps a hand over his mouth and shakes her head. He says something behind her fingers and the warmth of his breath against her palm makes her shiver. She pulls her hand back and watches his lips press together.

She makes a motion for them to go in with her shoulder. He shakes his head. She rolls her eyes and loops an arm through his, more as a way to steer him forward then for actual contact. At least, that's how she reassures herself when his hand briefly touches hers and she finds herself stumbling on one of the stairs. She swears at the length of her purple dress and pulls at the hem with her free hand. Tony just smirks.

"Geeze Potts, I thought you wore freakishly tall heels for a reason. Aren't they supposed to prevent you from tripping, or is there something else I should know about? Foot fetish?"

The secretary of state makes a face at them as they pass and Pepper cringes. She pinches his arm with her nail and tries not to grin with satisfaction when he mouths theatrically Ooow.

"Not exactly," she hisses low near his ear, "the appropriate conversation to be having right now."

"Oh really? I'm sorry. When would you prefer to have this conversation? Over dinner perhaps? Maybe back home, I've got a very sturdy kitchen table--" She jerks him to the right just as the vice president steps in their path with an armload of what looks suspiciously like tiny fried shrimp. They managed to avoid him just as one plops to the floor, inches away from Pepper's brand new five hundred dollar Manolo Blahniks. She heaves a sigh of relief.

A woman to her right suddenly steps back, right onto the hem of Pepper's dress, halting their maneuvering. Pepper turns to say something just as the woman, tan to the point of ridiculous and showing an incredibly expensive and barely realistic looking set of breasts, darts forward and tosses her drink into the stunned face of the secretary general.

"And that's for fucking your secretary you two-timing piece of--" Pepper clears her throat loudly and the woman turns sharply, her eyes bouncing as rapidly as her breasts. Pepper tries very hard not to look down. "I'm sorry but you're actually--" and points down. The woman follows the line of her finger for a half second before (and in what is probably later going to be the most hilarious moment of Tony Stark's life) slapping Pepper Potts across the face with one neatly manicured hand.

Pepper steps back, tripping briefly on her dress and falling sideways into Tony who grabs her by the elbows gracefully. She lets her mouth fall open in shock as two security guards come out of nowhere and haul the now screaming woman from the dining hall. "BITCH! WERE YOU SLEEPING WITH HER TOO? WE'LL JUST SEE ABOUT THAT PRE-NUP--"

The large gold plated doors slam shut behind her, muffling her voice over the buzzing of shocked voices. All eyes now turning to stare at Pepper who is trying to pull herself from her boss's grip with some kind of dignity, cause the pale skin of her face to brighten around the edges. The freckles at her nose make a furious appearance.

She smoothes the lines from her dress, straightens her back, and tries very hard to pretend that she was not just bitchslapped by the secretary general's 19 year old third wife. And she does a damn good job, to say nothing for the bright red welt forming on the side of her face.

Tony comes up behind her smoothly, clearing his throat and making sure to stay at least two paces behind her the entire way. When they reach the bar she orders a dry martini with about thirteen extra olives and doesn't say a word until she's downed the entire thing.

Two drinks and ten olives later, she turns to face him, stretching her back against the bar and cutting a sharp line with her eyes through the length of him. "Right." She says, her voice a bit unsteady from alcohol and the lingering effect of embarrassment. "Well, at least we were only an hour late this time."

+

They manage to get into the party smoothly, with only a slight scuffle at the start before the Doctor fumbled out the slip of psychic paper to flash triumphantly in the guard's face. The man makes an irritated gesture with his hand and Rose makes another, more profane gesture with hers that makes the guard take a menacing step forward while the Doctor pulls her backward by the waist.

He raises an eyebrow at her as they pass through the arch of the dining hall and she just grins, tongue poking out from between her teeth. Out of habit, he grabs her hand, squeezes, and she watches in delight as he grins back, all teeth and expressive eyebrows. They wander into the main reception hall where Rose casually pops a chocolate covered strawberry into her mouth and sighs in content.

"I love gala food. They always have the best hors d'oeuvres." She takes a bite of another piece of fruit, licking her lips free of chocolate. The Doctor chews on his carrot while considering the tray of food before them.

"And everything is miniature! Aw, I love miniature food!"

Rose laughs and watches him eat a mini cake with delight. "Remember that planet where everything was miniature?" Rose says, nudging him to the side so she can have access to the tiny bits of cake. "Even the people were tiny. Mind you, I did almost crush that little merchant man with my foot." She slips a piece of chocolate cake in her mouth and hums happily. "Mm, this is brilliant!" she says around a mouthful of chocolate confectionary and points at the line of them.

The Doctor takes her suggestion and pops two into his mouth at once. "Ss'f freally fis fault."

Rose nudges him in the side. "What was that, I couldn't hear you around half the buffet table."

He shoots her a half serious glare and swallows audibly. "I said--it was really his fault. He did try to wage war against your giant trainer."

"Oi!" Rose pokes him in the hip sharply. Her eyes flash. "What was that crack about my feet bein' huge?"

"To him!" the Doctor corrects, and would have held up his hands in defeat if they hadn't been covered in chocolate crumbles. "They were huge to him, Rose. He was only four inches tall. Weeell, four and three quarters. Everyone on the planet of Cartfraction Oh Eight is exactly four and a three quarter inches tall. It's actually coded into their tiny little DNA strands."

Rose, now only half caring about the conversation, turns to one side to watch a woman in a purple dress begin to straighten the stacks of carrots on the buffet table. She watches critically for a moment before a man in a very sharp suit and tie comes to stand behind her, taps her on the shoulder and watches with amusement as she blatantly ignores him in favor of anally organizing each stack of chocolate covered pretzel sticks.

"Pepper," he says slowly, and Rose finds a strange sort of delight in the pitch of his voice. Low, like a hum forming deep in her chest. "Seriously, I'm sure no one noticed. Ok, maybe only half of the left side of the room and just about everyone in ear shot of sixty miles or so." He pauses as her back visibly stiffens. "I'm sure the guys from the senate were outside anyway, probably drunk off their asses on cheap bar vodka. Lamar is seriously going to regret that eighth shot of tequila in the morning."

Rose cracks a smile, makes an amused sound in her throat that alerts the man's attention. His eyes rake over her body, taking in the slinky green fabric and the way it hangs loose around her hips, the dip in the front rising and falling with her breath. Rose looks away, blushing. She hears him clear his throat, watches out of the corner of her eye as he brushes long fingers over the woman's bare back.

The woman called Pepper stops fussing with the dessert cart and turns to face him. She straightens to her full height which Rose finds oddly intimidating from three feet away, and pokes him in the shoulder with the shiny nail of her pointer finger. "You are seriously not helping." She pauses, looks glassy eyed for a moment before saying, "I am going to get some air. Don't follow me." And marches off, expensive heels clicking loudly on the ornate gold tiling.

Rose purses her lips and turns back to the Doctor who, she notices with a slight glance at the empty tray at his side, has now eaten well over fifteen pieces of mini cake and looks all the sicker for it. He rubs his stomach with something like trepidation. "Rose--I think I'm--going to need some air." He darts past her suddenly, his shoulder catching hers as he slips through the crowd and leaves her standing, alone by the plate of mini hotdogs.

She sighs.

+

When she's finished dry heaving, Pepper lifts her head to find a rather tall man in a brown pinstriped suit heaving over the balcony next to her. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and arches her back against the railing, relishing the feeling of cold metal on her bare skin.

The stars wink above her head as she tilts, trying carefully to maintain her balance as the world shifts hesitantly around her. She swallows back the returning nausea and shuts her eyes. "I hate looking at the stars like this," she says to no one in particular. "All that blinking, and moving. Makes me feel unsteady."

"They aren't actually moving," a voice from her side corrects. She turns her head to see the man in the pinstripe suit stand up, bracing the palms of his hands against the railing for purchase. He makes a moaning sound and drops his head to the rail, rubbing his forehead against it like a cat. "S'nice. Cold. Railing." He mumbles.

"What?" Pepper stares at him openly.

He's still nuzzling the railing when he says, with exaggerated patience, "The stars. They aren't actually moving. They're balls of gas, stationary. They aren't moving, the cells in your brain are slowing down, dulling your sense of which way is up or down. You're becoming deficient--" he heaves suddenly, over the railing and the sound makes Pepper's stomach roll uncomfortably.

"I'm becoming what?" She asks, annoyed.

The man straightens up again, this time to full height. Takes a deep breath, attempts to smooth the wrinkles in his tie and looks at her again. "In oxygen. Your brain is lacking oxygen; it's why you're spinning. Or, rather why you feel like you're spinning." He shakes his head quickly, jumps up and down and begins jogging in place.

Startled, Pepper pushes off from the railing and nearly breaks a heel in the process. "What the hell are you doing?"

He makes a snorting noise, like working phlegm out of his throat and wiggles one leg in place, hopping around the balcony with one foot held out. "Trying to displace the alcohol. I've already moved it from my head into my foot and now I just need to--" he makes an abrupt jerking motion with his foot, lets out a shout loud enough to alert everyone in the dining hall, and shudders visibly.

Pepper watches with startled fascination as he collapses on the ground in front of her.

There's complete silence for an entire minute while Pepper just stares at him, open mouthed, one hand still gripping the railing. He sniffs, and looks up at her sheepishly. "Sorry," he pants as he leaps back to his full height. "I don't do well with inebriation. Makes my brain cells fire too rapidly and that--that is hard to accomplish when they're already at ten times the normal capacity of an average human syst--am I completely freaking you out?"

The sudden shift in topic takes Pepper by surprise. She blinks, straightening up and releasing a bit of coiled tension that lingered somewhere in her chest since the beginning of the party. "Actually, you're probably the sanest person I've met all night."

Another beat and the man extends his hand. Pepper shakes it slowly and smiles around the numb feeling in her face. "I'm the Doctor." he tells her conversationally and with a smile so welcoming it makes Pepper laugh.

"Pepper Potts." she releases his hand and drops it back to her side. Finds herself tilting with it and is only partially surprised when the Doctor reaches out to steady her shoulder.

"Long night?" He tries.

Pepper sighs. "You have no idea."

+

"I'm sorry, I don't think I know--"

"Rose Tyler," Rose supplies, extending her hand with a smile. He takes it and smiles back, his fingers wrapping confidently around the curve of her wrist.

"Tony Stark."

She narrows her eyes, half-pretending she's trying to figure out the name and half actually trying to place where she's seen his face before. She thinks briefly of a magazine cover she saw the Doctor reading once but the instant his hand drifts from hers she forgets it.

She brushes cool hands over the skin of her neck and tilts her head to side casually. Rakes her eyes through the crowd of thin people dressed in varying shades of black and white, trying to spot the sharp contrast of the Doctor's brown suit through the hall.

Tony Stark steps forward suddenly, reaches out and touches her hip with very warm hands. "Would you care to--" and he gestures to the side. Rose watches a few couples meander by, arm in arm, and notices for the first time the soft string of instruments playing over the throng of voices. She smiles and takes his hand.

He compliments her on her dress a few more times then is entirely necessary but Rose just laughs. Slips her fingers through his and moves steadily forward.

He leads her gently and easily, and Rose falls into step with a hand wrapped casually behind his neck. Her fingers brush the skin behind his ears and he quirks an eyebrow at her. "That's pretty forward at this point in the relationship Miss Tyler. I didn't realize the English moved so fast."

Rose catches her tongue between her teeth and retorts, "That's just what we want you to think. Think we're all polite smiles and tea time and then before you know it you're down a pair of pants and five quid for cab fair."

He laughs and Rose delights in the sound of it, the low rumble it leaves where their chests touch. "Well, that explains why I don't remember my third day in London. And why my wallet was missing the next morning. That--that wasn't you by any chance was it?" Rose is laughing while he talks, her head dipped low against his chest and she can smell expensive cologne and the briefest hint of metal on his skin. "Because if it was I have to say, you were incredible. Simply incredible. Well, obviously not that incredible since I apparently forgot your face the next morning but I'm sure that has more to do with the drugs you probably slipped into my tea while you were stealing my--what is it you English call them? Pants?" He finishes just as Rose says the word with him, nodding and still laughing.

"Right," her hand slips out of his briefly and he catches it, pulls her back into place against his hips with a subtle kind of surety that has Rose's head spinning. She hasn't been this blatantly flirted with since she met Jack on that invisible spaceship. "And I'm sure now that we're standing so close together it's bringing back all kinds of memories. I hope I didn't injure your back by the way with that thing I did. I heard American men like a--what do you call it--spry? Woman."

The music shifts, slowing down in tempo and Rose leans into him a little too casually, notices the line of his mouth a little too obviously. She's missed this. Human contact, the gentle nature of casual flirting, the ability to make a man smile at her like that, like she's the most fascinating person in the room. Well, she thinks. There is a man like that, wandering around somewhere, probably getting himself into loads of good trouble without her. She frowns suddenly, looks over Tony's tall shoulder, searching the room again for any sign of the Doctor's thin frame.

"Looking for that guy you were with?" He asks casually. Rose slides her eyes back to his and smiles.

"Yeah, I lost him awhile ago when he--"

"Ran out of the room to puke over the side railing? Yeah, my assistant did the same thing. Light weights. Total drag."

Rose looks down at her feet, kicks the long hem of her dress back to the side and sighs. "That woman in the purple dress? She's lovely."

"She is. More lovely when she hasn't had about 14 too many dry martinis. Before that, really, she's a treat."

He slides a hand down her hip and Rose shivers. "Are you and she--" she knows it's probably reaching but she saw the way his hand lingered at the base of Pepper's spine. Saw the way his mouth formed the letters of her name, worry edging into his voice behind the gentle teasing. He shakes his head, but his eyes confirm it. Rose just smiles.

"Right. So it's definitely not a 'you're secretly in love with her but trying to keep your distance because you're her boss and you might hurt her' situation then."

He pulls back a little, his eyebrows raising just slightly in surprise. Then he sighs. "That obvious is it?"

"Unbelievably."

He's silent for a minute, and they just move in gentle circles around the floor. The quiet strum of violin strings hums through the hall, guiding their movements forward and around. He leans close to her ear, his lips brushing the skin just briefly enough to make her heart start to pound. "And you're definitely not just pretending to be his best friend while secretly harboring dirty fantasies about what's underneath that tight suit of his?"

Rose opens her mouth, then shuts it. She pulls back, looks him straight in the eye and says, "It's seriously that transparent."

"Yup."

"Fantastic." They come together again, Rose resting the flat surface of her palm against his shoulder as they move. "It is--" she stops, bites her lip and pulls her upper body away. Just enough to be able to watch his face as they move. "It's sort of different now. I mean--since I came back." She catches his eye, notes the confused expression there and shakes her head. "I was--there was a thing. We were separated, for a bit. He was--" she pauses, sighs again, and it settles heavy in her throat like regret. "It's complicated."

Tony nods. Smiles and says truthfully, "Yeah, that I get."

Rose looks away, out toward the heavy expanse of the window and watches the stars blink back. She thinks about her mum, about how she might be getting on with Pete and Mickey and Jake. Tries very hard not to think about her little sister, and the things she gave up to be here. The choices she made.

It must be written all over her face because Tony nudges her, gently near her ribs with his elbow. "If it's any consolation, I may have completely messed things up with Pepper. I do this thing where I--" Rose turns her head to look at him, watches the way his throat bobs and his eyes look away, up, toward the ceiling. She waits. "It's stupid. It's a guy thing, you've probably seen it a million times." He snaps his eyes back down to hers. "The guy thinks he's doing the noble thing, trying to save the girl by--I don't know, keeping her at arms reach and then it all falls fantastically fucking apart anyway and he should have just--"

"Gone for it in the first place?" Rose finishes quietly.

Her arm tightens, just a little bit, around his shoulder. For shared comfort, maybe. To have something to hold onto, right now, while her sister's face and tiny eyelashes whirl through her mind. While she tries to fight the complications of regret as a pre-cursor to relief. There's a part of herself, she knows, that will always think of what could have been. Of what it would be like to still be there, with her family and her job and living a life day after day. She swallows roughly and looks at a nondescript spot on Tony's chest.

"You don't regret it, do you?" He asks softly. His voice is a comfort when she shuts her eyes. Takes a moment to just breathe. Like she hasn't done properly since she got here. Since she came whirling through the divide and slammed, hard headed and determined into her old world. Into the catch of his arms and the simple recurring thought of--He needs me. I need this.

"No," she says, a bit too heavily. "Not really. I made a choice, a long time ago that I was never going to leave him and I--" she shakes her head, suddenly wanting, needing to cry about it. Maybe scream about it; indecision and the sick way it settles in her chest like so much guilt. "It wasn't a choice, anymore. It stopped being a choice since I met him."

She stops talking and he stops asking questions. Doesn't nod his head, or come up with a story of his own to commiserate. Just sort of holds her tighter, increasing the pressure on her hip in reassurance. Rose looks over his shoulder again, eyes barely reaching over the expanse of his arm, looped casually at her side. And she sees him, finally. Walking with a rather unsteady, almost hesitant gate. She opens her mouth to say, something, anything, whatever as long as he notices her again. Sees that she's still here, waiting like always. That she isn't going to--

His hand is in another woman's. A very tall woman in a bright purple dress that clings to her thin body like water.

--go away again.

And it's kind of funny, really. How Rose's mind manages to start and stop her sentences when she isn't even vocalizing them properly. But she doesn't laugh this time. Just stops moving, just watches the way the Doctor pulls the woman forward, says something low and near her ear that makes her laugh. Her hand up and out, placed delicately on his chest. Pressing.

"--really just epic you know? In fact I think I've seen it in a movie once. B movie, total crap but the plot was the same. Waste of six dollars. Not that six dollars is even y'know important but--you've stopped listening to me.  Hello? Did I lose you with the epic comment? I'm sorry, it just slipped out."

He's been talking to her and all the while her eyes were glued, narrowed and unusually angry, at the slight form of his amazonian secretary and her soft hands on the Doctor's chest. His shirt is suspiciously missing a button. Near the top, where he always leaves it open a bit. But the button is missing, she notes with teeth so tight together it makes her head start to pound. Like it just came off.

"Seriously if I'm boring you I could always go. But I warn you that everyone in this room now thinks we're sleeping together so if you just leave they'll think you blew me off and it'll be this huge ordeal that'll end up in all the gossip papers tomorrow and probably wound my fragile male ego." He puts a hand on her collarbone and the warmth of it draws Rose's attention. She catches his words like a delay, momentarily confused and then laughs. Short and abrupt and finds the tension coiled around her spine release. "I'm sorry, I seem to have spit on you. I get so excited sometimes around women it just comes out, that's really never happened to me before--" He brushes the pads of his fingertips across her throat, wiping away imaginary moisture as Rose laughs.

Her teeth flash and her tongue slips between them again. She says coyly, "I bet you say that to all the girls you spit on." His hand slips between the strap of her dress and coils, almost accidentally, around her naked shoulder-blade.

"You make it sound like it's a fetish or something. That would be weird. Spitting on people. Actually, now that you mention it there was this one time at a party where I asked a girl for her bra and she spit on me. Do you think she was coming on to me?" He raises his eyebrows as Rose grins.

She opens her mouth to retort but a throat clears near her right side and she stops; turns her head to see the Doctor, standing neatly next to Miss Pepper Potts. Rose's grip loosens itself automatically in Tony's hand and he follows her gaze in response. He lets her go so quickly it's like being dropped back to the floor. Rose steps back, trying not to stumble.

"Doctor." She acknowledges, trying to erase the earlier memory of his hand in someone else's. Someone else who, Rose notes with a kind of sick self-disdain, is nearly his height in heels and looks about 30 times better in a clingy dress. The purple of it mixes almost perfectly with the Doctor's silk tie.

"Rose," he replies. His eyes are still somewhere in the middle of where Tony and Rose stand, where their hands previously met and her body pressed warmly into his. She thinks of Tony's hand, gently moving across the skin of her throat and she feels guilty, if only for a minute.

"Miss Potts." Tony states, like wonderment. Like he's surprised she's even there in the first place. Rose shoots his a glance from the corner of her eye and notes the way his shoulders have tightened, the way the small vein in his neck has made a slight and agitated appearance.

And Pepper, for her part, somehow manages to look completely unfazed. She even cracks a knowing smile, tilting on one sharp heel in a half-turn as she says, "Mr. Stark." And then, just like that, she's gone. Rose follows her back for a whole minute, watching the shift of her spine as it moves from poised and ready to small and hunched over. When she's reached a safe distance, she brings a thin hand to her mouth, as if wiping away lipstick.

Now, despite herself, Rose feels the guilt slam into her like a freight train. She hunches her shoulders, lets out a quick tension breath, and touches the Doctor's arm. "There you are," she says with false cheeriness. Her face hurts from the effort of smiling. "Feeling better?"

He jerks his gaze back to her, seems to consider her for a moment before saying, all too quietly, "Yes. Fine." Then the expression shifts, moving swiftly back to a cheery smile as he grabs her by the arm. Rose wonders, briefly, if it's as fake as her own. "Right, well, good to meet you--I'm sorry, have we met?"

"Tony Stark," Tony supplies, reaching out a hand to take the Doctor's. They shake, and in a rather hilarious moment of clarity, the Doctor's face suddenly lights up. He shouts, "OH! The Tony Stark? You're him! Oh, brilliant! Honestly, that's brilliant!" He shakes his hand with about ten times more vigor then is necessary but Tony Stark just smiles.

"And you must be--"

"The Doctor," He says, still smiling, "I'm the Doctor and this is Rose Ty--oh, sorry you've probably already met." He looks at her quickly, and drops his smile and his hand. It finds his pocket easily and he coughs.

Right. Well, that wasn't entirely awkward then.

Rose gives Tony an apologetic smile before grabbing the Doctor's arm. "Well, it was lovely to meet you. And thank you for the dance and the-" she stops, not knowing what to say. Tony just nods, touches her arm fondly and shakes his head.

"Anytime. Really, I'll be here all night. Just over there by the mini cakes. Probably eating all of them because who can resist tiny chocolate cakes? Goes straight to my thighs but I just can't help myself." He leaves Rose laughing, smiles at the Doctor again with a "Good to meet you. Excuse me," before departing. Rose watches him subtly weave his way back to Pepper.

The Doctor clears his throat again and she sighs. "Must you do that all the time? I know you're there you know. You can just say something, like a normal person." 

It's silent for a couple of minutes while Rose folds her arms across her chest carefully, making sure the dip of the fabric doesn't reveal to much when she moves. He just looks out across the room, eyes scanning for what, she doesn't know. Probably waiting for some kind of inevitable explosion to distract them from having this argument. From actually working through something for once. Annoyed, Rose turns on her heel suddenly and leaves him standing there, waiting like a git for some unexpected tragedy to draw his attention.

He catches up to her when she's almost reached the balcony and stops her with a gentle tug to the elbow. She whirls around, blurting, "I was worried, about where you went, alright? I mean I just find a way back here and suddenly we're doing things differently and that kiss in the Tardis and then this dress and you go and swan off with some completely gorgeous woman--"

"Well you seemed to be doing fine on your own," he says, cutting her off all too nonchalantly. The air of it irritates Rose's skin. She bristles despite herself. "Just dancing with the only other completely brilliant mind in the room, possibly the only other man in the entire universe that could completely rewire a trans-dimensional vortex configurator with his hands tied behind his back." He whirls on her suddenly, finger pointed accusingly. She steps back, startled. "And he gets around you know, shagging every completely beautiful woman he's ever spoken to. It's not like you'd be the first gorgeous blond in his life. Probably not the first English one, either. Or who knows, the first time traveler even. I wouldn't put it past him, bloody Captain Jack point two--"

Rose, despite the fact that he may have just called her completely beautiful and gorgeous in one go, is too offended at the suggestion--both that she would really be that easy and that she'd even do such a thing after everything they'd gone through--to take notice to the indirect compliment.

"Are you completely mental?" She all but shouts and the Doctor has to drag her out onto the balcony by one angry arm to avoid the stares of other dinner goers. She shakes free and stumbles back. He takes a moment to look completely shocked at her abrupt outburst and a little frightened at the way her entire body seems to be shaking, pressing forward like a train picking up momentum.

"Oh what, like I'd break through two universes to find you just so I could say, 'oh hello again, glad to be back. Could you just wait a minute while I go shag other men? How ridiculous are you?"

He gaps at her, looking for all the world like a fish out of water and she allows herself to be at least momentarily pleased with her outburst.

"But he's completely--"

"Brilliant I know," Rose cuts him off with a wave of her hand. "And a weapon's manufacturer. And despite the fact that he's ridiculously confident, completely rich, maddeningly gorgeous and mind you, complimented my dress three times--"

"I said you looked wonderful!" He cuts in, annoyed.

"Despite all of that--" she says between her teeth. "I still want you, you great big bloody idiot. It hasn't even been--" she stops, takes a breath and realizes the territory she's treading on. She's embarrassed suddenly, and takes a step back and away from him to cover it. All of the anger and upset leaks out of her like water and she feels deflated, left bare and cold and shivering under the scrutiny of his gaze.

He doesn't say anything and for once, she's relieved. Wants the topic to suddenly just die and go away; wishes they'd never gone to this stupid party in the first place. Everything was starting out so--she looks out at the city below and considers. So much like it always should have been. Like there was a reason she gave up her family and everything she'd built for herself in that other world. She shuts her eyes and wraps cold arms around herself. Braces for the impact of his inevitable denial and the hollow feeling it's started to leave somewhere in her chest where understanding used to reside.

The wind picks up, darting her dress around the thin line of her ankles and she watches it move lazily, picking up dirt and trailing along the cold cement behind her.

Suddenly, he touches her arm. Grips it tightly right above the elbow and she glances up, catches the look in his eyes and feels her heart stop. He isn't--

"It hasn't even been what, Rose?" His voice is soft, whispering gently across her face and she shivers. Against the cold wind, against the thin material of her dress, against the warmth of his hand contrasting the chill settling on her skin. She shakes her head, looks back out toward the city, watches the lights blink and flicker like starlight.

"Finish it," He asks her and it's so much like a plea that she comes back, looks him in the eye and answers. Because she's never really been able to deny him anything. Because he's only ever looked at her like that once before, on that beach when her admission hung heavy in the air and he said her name for the last time. Well, that had been then.

This is now.

So she takes a breath, parts her lips and says confidently what she never thought she'd ever have to say aloud again. "It hasn't even been a choice, Doctor. Between staying with you and leaving, between finding you again and staying where I was. There were no other options. There was only you."

Her words hang heavy in the air like a breeze. It blows around them both, echoing through the small expanse of the balcony and she's only dimly aware of how hard it was to say that. Even more, of how she doesn't regret it.

He takes her hand in his, looping warm fingers through hers and bringing them up to his mouth. He kisses her knuckles, catches her eyes over the barrier of their hands and she breathes. Once, and sharp.

And then it's over. They stand together, her hand in his, and watch the city lights reflect off the sky. Cast a haze over the stars and the distant memories of the places they've been. Of the places they have yet to see.

+

Tony finds her, back rigid, dress sweeping the floor under her frenzied movements, back at the buffet table. She's organizing the mini tomatoes now, each in a perfectly symmetrical oval that oddly amazes him with its intricacy. He comes up behind her, sweeping one hand under hers just quickly enough to grab the last of her tomatoes. He pops it into his mouth with deft fingers.

She turns then, her blue eyes narrowed enough to probably stab him with their angle, and says quietly, "Mr. Stark. I'm--"

"Anally organizing the mini table to the point of psychosis? Seriously Potts, we might need to get you a hobby or something."

Unbelievably, she laughs. The sharp jerk of it from her chest startles him and maybe even her because she takes a moment to collect herself. Then wipes her hands clean on the edge of the table cloth and turns away. Over her shoulder she says, "Oh that's rich, coming from you."

He grabs her arm despite himself. Kind of half whirls her around so that she's facing him, almost in his arms from the surprise of contact and the way she tries to steady herself on wobbling legs.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He asks, eyes roaming the expanse of her face and the crooked, angry set line of her mouth.

She crosses her arms and all but hisses, "Iron Man ring a bell? Jesus Tony, do I really have to spell it out for you?"

He opens his mouth, shuts it again. Says with only a hint of annoyance, "Obviously."

She makes a sound low in her throat that might be strangled frustration and kind of throws her arms up in the air as she turns, putting her back to him suddenly and moving rapidly away from him toward the entrance. He trails behind her, half expecting her to turn around and wallop him one on the side of the head but she doesn't so he keeps moving with her. Makes sure to stay at least out of the range of hitting distance.

When they've reached the entrance and she still isn't speaking he finally voices it himself, loudly and in front of about thirty five members of the Stark Industries board. "Why are you always running away from this, Pepper?"

He was right in his thought that it would make her stop. It does, but it also makes her turn sharply on her heel, grab his right arm and all but yank it free of its socket on the way down the stairs. Out the door they go and he's letting out undignified little yelps of "ow ow OW" as they hit the entrance at full stride and all but stumble over the threshold. The night air hits him, cold and heavy in the face.

She whirls to face him, somehow magically producing her keys from god only knows where and shaking them at his nose. "Is this really how it's going to go? You're going to accuse me of running away from things when you're the one flying off to-to Afghanistan and Nicaragua and--to save small children and be some kind of superhero." She finishes lamely. She drops her hand back to her side, still clutching the keys between two fingers. It cuts into her skin but she ignores it.

"How is that--even the same thing?" He asks, eyes wide. "I'm not running away, I'm facing this head on. I'm--"

"No, Tony. You aren't facing anything head on. Not your own problems anyway. You're just taking on everyone else's. Like you always do." Her voice has deflated, lost its angry pitch and suddenly she's tired. Wants to go home, take this damn dress off and never look at it again. She thinks, self-pitingly, that it doesn't look half as good on her as it would on that blond English woman he was dancing with earlier.

And for the first time in a very long time, Pepper starts to feel sorry for herself.

She starts to walk, slowly and with only a slight limp from the pain her shoes are causing her feet, down the unsteady sidewalk. She's vaguely aware of his presence behind her but says nothing to acknowledge it.

"Is this really about the suit?" He calls from somewhere behind her. She keeps walking. "Because I don't think it is. What is this really about Pepper? Does it have something to do with what happened on the balcony that night? About what almost happened?"

"What didn't happen," she corrects and stops, abruptly and he almost slams into her full-tilt. He stops himself just short of reaching distance. "It's about you flying into danger like it's no big deal. It's about what Obidiah did. It's about--you trusting anyone anymore, about not ever letting anyone in. It's about--"

"I'm sorry, did you just accuse me of having trust issues?"

His face is too close now, hovering near hers and she leans in, unexpectedly and despite her better judgement. Wherever that went, anyway. She smells his cologne, the sharp tinge of it stinging her nostrils and reminding her why he never wears it. It's his 'special occasion' cologne. The same kind he wore that night on the balcony.

And it is really, just too much like that moment. So she swings back, away from him and stumbles a few paces in the other direction. The lingering bit of alcohol she didn't manage to get our of her system over that balcony rears its ugly head. She swallows roughly. "No," she tries, attempting to finish the argument. Conversation. Whatever the hell they're always dancing around that involves words. "I'm not. I'm not saying you don't trust people I'm just saying--"

"Yes you are, you're accusing me of never letting anyone in. Of never letting you in." He moves too fast, with his words and the slight shift of his body so that he's closer, somehow, even though she's just stepped back; away. And he's there, moving above her again and she blinks, feeling confused. She shakes her head to clear it. Sighs over dramatically and looks at the ground.

"I don't know. I don't even know what the hell I'm saying anymore. This is all just--"

"Confusing? Mind boggling? The last thing you expected? The only thing you've ever wanted, what? What is it, Potts?"

"Quit," she says through gritted teeth. "Talking over me like that. It drives me nuts."

"Oh," he steps back. "I always thought it was endearing."

She smiles, with her head down and cocked to the side as a way to disguise it. But he catches it anyway, go so far as to touch her. Rub his thumb up and down the pale inner flesh of her arm. She sucks in a breath but doesn't pull away.

Maybe she needs this right now. Maybe she just needs to shut up, take what he's giving her. Let this just be. Form into whatever it is that's growing between them; what started months ago on that balcony and lingered later, like an afterthought.

"It is," she gives him, just this once. "Kind of endearing." She catches his eye and he's smiling again, his hand now wrapping about her arm fully and pulling her closer. She lets him. "To other people." She corrects and he gives her a sidelong glance that makes her laugh.

"You're insatiable. I don't know why I ever hired you."

"Because you'd forget to breathe or eat or shower if I wasn't there to remind you?"

"Well, that and you look great in a skirt. Do you work out?"

+

They're heading back to the party, one of Pepper's arms looped neatly through Tony's and her foot hits the first step before he calls out, "Hey! Where do you think you two are going? The party just started."

Pepper looks up, tilts to the side to see past his shoulder and catches the dark green of the English woman's dress as it slips down the stairs. The woman wearing it turns, catches her eye and smiles. The tall man at her side moves forward and Pepper recognizes the pinstriped man from the balcony. Gives a reassuring smile in return.

"Ah!" He calls, turning Rose around to face Pepper and Tony. "Mr. Stark, Miss Potts." He acknowledges with what is probably the widest grin Pepper has ever seen in her life. At his side the blond woman laughs, for no other reason then to smile.

"We were just heading back to the Tardi--" The woman bumps him with her hip forcibly and shoots him a warning look. He regards her critically for a moment before saying, "Aah--our um, vehicle. Vehicle?" he tries, looking at her again. She shrugs. "Vehicle! That's where we were headed. Care to join us?"

"You want us to go with you to your car?" Tony asks, wrinkling his forehead. "I hope it's a stretch limo, otherwise this could get awkward. I get kind of--grabby in tight spaces." Pepper steps on his foot with the corner of her heel. He winces.

"Weeell," the Doctor draws out, slipping both hands into the pockets of his trousers. He leans back and forth on each leg and smiles. "It's a lot bigger on the inside."

+

At some point in the evening, both Rose and Pepper have lost their shoes.

Mr. Stark has his head buried underneath the Tardis console and the Doctor stands behind him, pulling wires out at random.

"Is that safe?" Pepper asks around a half eaten chip. Her legs are outstretched on the floor, the hem of her dress pulled back to reveal the smooth expanse of her thigh. Rose eyes the length of them warily; curls her shorter legs underneath her body instead.

"Oh yeah, does it all the time." She assures, munching around a bit of fish. "Totally safe."

Just then a shot of sparks flies out and lights the hem of the Doctor's trousers on fire. She calls out, "Oi! Fire mishap!"

The Doctor looks down, shouts something that sounds suspiciously like two dirty words blended together, and hops up and down on one leg, blowing madly at the offending flame.

Pepper stabs another chip with her fork and brings it to her mouth. "I saw him doing that earlier on the balcony. Does he do that a lot?"

"What?" Rose asks, not looking. Pepper starts to thrash one of her legs wildly, looking a bit like someone having a mild seizure. Rose bursts out laughing.

"Oh that, yeah. He's always like that. You get used to it after awhile. Comes in handy during charades." She waves a dismissive hand in the air and puts her fork down.

A second later Tony Stark pulls his head back from under the controls, hair standing on end, slight tear in the lapel of his jacket and a smile on his face to match the Doctor's. He's also wearing a blindfold and has his hands tied behind his back. The Tardis gives a sharp jerk to one side, sending Rose and Pepper into a crashing heap on the floor.

"Blimey!" The Doctor shouts, still bouncing up and down on one leg. "You really can do that blindfold!"

+