A mess to clean up.

Laying on his back and looking up at the overhead lights of his workspace, Tony's eyes were blurry, rubbing them with the back of his hand to blink awake with clear eyes. He had no idea what time it was or how long he was asleep on the floor but after looking out to the window at the far end to find it almost dark out, it had to have been quite some time.

"Damn! Wonder if there's still any scotch in the fridge because I am starv..."

He was about to sit up when he became aware of several things all at once. One: He was naked. Two: There was a woman laying on top of him and she too was naked! Three: Pepper was going to kill him! Looking down at the woman who swooned and nuzzled her head into his chest, her arms were draped around him and her legs tangled in with his. Wide eyed with shock and confusion, Tony darted his head back and forth trying to find a way out of this. Even going so far as to reach for a stray pencil that had fallen off his desk and poke her in the shoulder with it to wake her up. "Pshh, pshhh, wake up..." Tony whispered, only garnering a mewl of protest from the woman as she clung to him more tightly.

Almost panicking, Tony looked for anything else to wake her up, finding nothing save for sharp objects and a stress ball. Eventually, the woman sat up and yawned, still looking sleepy as she stared down at Tony with half-lidded eyes and smiled. "Hmm... Morning sweetheart, looking for another round?"

Cold in the legs and feeling pale over the circumstances, Tony watched as her eyes cleared and she found that the man she was lounging on top of WASN'T her husband. The two sharing a look of pure horror as Tony raised his hands up defensively. "Now... I KNOW how this might..."

The scream she gave off was enough that every mechanical device in the place woke up and beeped with alarm. Followed quickly with her snatching up a clip board and using it to smack Tony across the head and arms before she frantically pulled away and pressed her back against the wall. "Okay, that was uncalled for."

"****! ****!"

"Okay! THAT's uncalled for!"

"You took advantage of me!"

"I did not!" Tony defended himself verbally while finding his shirt and tying it around his waist to protect his decency while she did the same, finding the remains of her uniform. "If I recall, YOU kissed me."

"YOU kissed ME! And you tore up my uniform!"

"After you tore open my shirt, which is pretty expensive by the way."

"Yeah, well..." Slowly regaining the memories of mind-blowing sex for over several hours, Michaela blushed and looked around, rummaging for her things. "You were pretty passionate..."

Raising an accusing finger, Tony slowly lowered his hand and nodded, begrudgingly agreeing with the woman after he found his pants and underwear and got dressed hastily. "Yeah... Yeah... Guess I just miss somebody a whole lot." Realizing the buttons to his shirt were missing, the man rolled his eyes and looked back at the maid, finding her forcibly hugging herself to keep her get up together.

"Sigh... Look, Pepper's got some spare clothes for just in case some of my former bed affairs stayed longer than over night... And that sounded a LOT worse than it should have coming from a married man."

Marching her way past him and up the stairs to the main floor, Tony collapsed into his workbench chair and spun around with his hand wiping over his face. By the time he found the energy and courage to head up himself, he found both of spare clothes lying outside of a closet shelf strewn open and the maid nowhere to be seen. Exhaling deeply, Tony made his way to the washroom and commanded Friday to set him a cold shower, having felt hot enough already and blaming said high temperatures for screwing up.

When he had finally gotten dressed and set himself some avocado toast and orange juice, he sat heavily on the couch and nodded at the television screen to show him the latest news from five stations. All of them still going on with what happened in Latveria. The once harshly xenophobic and antagonistic nation in Europe had essentially dropped dead over night. Several pointed out that all life for miles had died instantly and by the same cause of porous exsanguination, baffling scientists and medical specialists alike. Biting into his toast, Tony made a face as he chewed his breakfast, finding himself not into the fried slice of fruit in his hand. Instead he had a taste for some bacon, or maybe some cooked chicken. But after the events of the morning, he wasn't much hungry for anything.

Cleaning up the box of spare clothes and the scattered items in his shop, Tony went back to studying what had happened to his armor. Checking for his cell phone nearby, he was a little hesitant, but he tried to reach out to Pepper. After a few rings, he was sent to voicemail instead.

"Hey... Pepper? It's me Tony. Uhm... I think I may have screwed up a few things while you were gone; the washroom, the monthly expenses, maybe the plant you told me to water and... Uhm...'cough'... The maid. ANYWAY, if you could call me back, that would be fantastic, I miss you and... I just wanted to..." The beep from the answering machine told him he overspent his time leaving a message and slowly nodded to himself.

Going over some of the lines and fractures in the armor plates, he did notice something odd, something that didn't come up when he was going over structural fatigue and physical damage. The inside lining of the armor plates still had stray hairs clinging to the insulation materials and fabrics inside. Getting a tweezer, he plucked the course hair off what would be his wrist guard and held it under a magnifying glass. "Huh... Friday?"

"Yes boss?" Asked the disembodied AI.

"Can you get me a read on this?"

A scanning light flicked over the plucked hair and some time passed as Friday made a scan of the hair's DNA.

"Done... It's yours boss."

"What?"

"It's yours, 100% human and its from you."

Leaning back in his chair and making a face of confusion, he looked down at his right arm with a raised eyebrow and waved the course black hair still pinched in the tweezer over the thin fine hairs over his arm.

"Uhm... Are you sure?

"Checking... Yes sir Mr. Stark."

Looking back at the tweezer and back at his arm over and over again, Tony shook his head and wiped his hand over his face. "Friday, remind me to decompile your files for debugging."

"Yes sir Mr. Stark, and remind me to delete all the messages Miss Potts left you on how to run your life without me."

Looking up at the ceiling to the snarky response, Tony took another sip of his drink, shaking his head. "I knew I should have loaded Jocasta instead."

*

It had been several days since that morning, and Tony was still not reacting well to it. So much so he missed meals, or screwed up in his work at Stark incorporate when he'd go to any meetings, finding himself distracted. Both with his findings, missing Pepper... And other things.

"More coffee Mr. Stark?" Purred an assistant with a pitcher of coffee she was pouring for everyone at the meeting. Looking up at her he found himself staring into her crystal blue eyes before diverting to her partially open blouse that exposed her cleavage to the man. "Uhm... No, no thank you." Biting his lip he quickly looked away, having painfully learned his lesson with Michaela and shrugged in the negative, politely waving the beautiful woman away who simply pouted and made her way around the long table. It didn't go unnoticed by the man that she traced her fingers across his shoulder when she did. Just like a few days ago, he found himself getting hard in his pants and leering back at the woman's perfect rear, wrapped in a skin tight black dress that showed off her hips and long legs.

When his meeting was over and after several minutes of dabbing ice over his face to cool off and kill off his erection, Tony trekked his way to the hired help branch of his company. Standing in front of the glass office door of the branch of his company that was responsible for the 'human' aspect of his home; whether it was house keeping, catering, landscaping or just checking his mail for bills, the man took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

"Yes? Come in."

Opening the door, he found the business woman checking papers and looking up to the visitor to her office. Her green eyes narrowed and her pleasant smile turning to a frown for only a split second before putting the façade of joviality back up as she nodded for him to enter. She was rather stunning, standing to her full height and gently patted down her dark blue business dress to step around her desk and shake Tony's hand with her own. Her eyes were a soft brown as was her mocha skin with highlights of lavender in her hair and makeup that did nothing to keep Tony's erection from tenting the front of his pants again.

"So... MISTER Stark, now what do I owe the pleasure of you coming to my office?"

"Hello Nikki. Uhm... I wanted to talk about a few days ago regarding one of our staff."

"Michaela?" She replied with a straight face.

"Yes! Her... Now there's going to be some wild accusations flying around, and I just wanted to make sure..."

"She claims you screwed her six ways from Sunday on your work bench and ruined her uniform."

"Now THAT's the kind of accusation I'm worried about the most... Is she pressing charges?"

Crossing her arms and leaning against her desk, the woman snorted and eyed the man with distaste. "Surprisingly no, no offense sir but I run a staff, not a whore house."

Leaning his head back and grimacing at that Tony was at a loss for words. "Well, I hope I didn't leave a very bad impression, I honestly don't know what came over me, er... Us."

"You should feel lucky i don't report all of this to your wife Mr. Stark!" Accused Nikki, narrowing her eyes at the man and flaring her nostrils, she was upset, very much so. Sitting up from leaning against her desk, she approached the man and pointed a finger at his chest. "And believe me, when she gets back from Europe, she is going to put your balls in a blender."

Being in proximity to the man, Nikki smelled something in the air, something that made her heart pound in her chest and a rush go through her veins. Very quickly she found herself losing any fire to be threatening to the man and despite herself gently straightening his tie, almost affectionately. It was driving her wild that she didn't notice it before when Pepper Potts hired her last year and introduced her to her husband to work for. She thought he was handsome if a bit narcissistic, but whatever he was wearing, cologne, body spray, whatever it was made her squirm on the spot and feel her nipples go stiff under her blouse.

"But I'm willing to look past this, just for you. I'm rotating the staff a bit, Carmelita will be handling cleaning at your place." Tightening his tie just a bit too close, the woman leaned in close enough that their noses almost touched. "Don't FUCK her! Got it? I don't care if you sign my pay checks or not."

"Yes ma'am."

Letting him go and returning to her chair, Nikki added a sway to her stride that didn't go unnoticed by Tony when she got to her chair. "Is there anything else boss?"

"No... Is it warm in here?"

"Good day Mr. Stark."

Getting the idea, Tony stepped out of the woman's office and headed back to his office. The moment he was out of sight, Nikki undid the first couple of buttons from her business blouse and fanned her chest and neck as if she were boiling in her own office. Opening a window, the woman returned to her paperwork and pulled out a decanter of bourbon. "Fuck I need a drink."