Through Her Eyes

Chapter 12

"Hey, can you buzz Pepper down here? And can you grab me a beer as well?"

It was mid-afternoon and we were both downstairs in the garage, me working on my Mustang and Dad putting the final touches on the suit. It was looking exactly like it did before he went to Afghanistan yesterday. The paint had been redone and the dent that had been on the hip was completely fixed.

"What am I? You're Lassie?" I retorted but I still started heading towards the stairs after wiping my hands.

"Thanks baby! Love you!" I could tell he had a grin on his face.

"Yeah, yeah," I mumbled as I stalked up the stairs. Pepper wasn't on the couch so I headed for the next place I thought she might be, her office. It wasn't really an office but since she was here most of the time, she'd begun using one of the spare rooms with a computer. Dad's idea. I think it was because he wanted her around here rather than in the office at Stark Industries.

Bingo! She was sitting behind the small desk, typing away. "Dad needs to see you," She looked up from her computer with a puzzled look. "I don't know why. He's in the garage."

"Okay, I'll be down in a second," She replied and begun finishing whatever it was on her computer.

I left the room and headed for the fridge. Once I'd grabbed a beer (And shaken it 'slightly') I walked back to the garage.

"Here's your damn beer," I said, chucking the can over to Dad as I entered the garage. Lucky he caught it otherwise it would have gone straight into a computer monitor.

He smiled and placed the can on the table before tapping the top a couple of times to stop it foaming and spraying everywhere. Damn, was I becoming too predictable? Grinning, he took a long sip.

We both heard the clacking of Pepper's shoes as she came down to the garage. I walked over to the lounge and watched as she carefully entered using one of the smashed doors. The glass was still shattered on the floor but no one was stupid enough to walk around the garage barefoot.

"Hey. You busy? Mind if I sent you on an errand?" Dad smiled up at Pepper but she didn't return it. I guess they were on rocky grounds after the argument they had. Fair enough though, I'd be angry if I walked in on my boss in a suit covered with bullets. He'd just survived Afghanistan and what's the first thing he does? Fly around in a suit, getting shot at.

Pepper kept silent and just nodded her head dutifully.

"I need you to go to my office," He said. "You're gonna hack into the mainframe and retrieve all the recent shipping manifests. This is a Lock Chip," He unplugged a USB key and handed it to her. "This will get you in. It's probably under executive files, but if not, he put it on a Ghost Drive, in which case you'll need to look for the lowest numeric heading."

Most personal assistants would have just nodded their heads and obey him like a mindless zombie, but not Pepper. That's one of the things I loved about her. She never just bowed down and obeyed Dad. She always did what she thought was best for him, even if he disagreed.

"And what do you plan to do with this information if I bring it back here?" She questioned him, one hand upon her hip.

"Same drill. They've been dealing under the table, and I'm going to stop them. I'm going to find my weapons, and I'm going to destroy them." He replied calmly.

Oh no, he wasn't going to fly off into the sunset to destroy some weapons. Not again.

"Tony, you know that I would help you with anything, but I cannot help you if you're going to start all this again," Pepper let her hand fall from her hip as she let out an exasperated sigh.