Thor frowned and leant in towards Steve, speaking in a low voice. "Captain, is there a child called Timmy in danger? If so, why do we dally here? We should be away."
"I don't think there is a Timmy," said Steve slowly. "I think it was a joke."
Thor looked perplexed. "I do not understand the humour of a child's life being in danger."
"I think you had to be there," Steve surmised.
Pepper stormed up to Tony and stopped directly in front of him. She hiked up her skirt to the top of one creamy thigh and jabbed a finger at the beginning of her exposed bottom. "What is this, Tony?" she bit out.
Tony blinked, momentarily distracted by the display of perfect flesh on display. "One of the many reasons I find you utterly irresistible?" he offered up hopefully, having a fairly good idea what this was about and already working all the angles to get himself out of this. He looked past Pepper to see Happy shaking his head at him frantically and Tony grimaced internally. This was going to be bad.
Pepper's face was flushed bright red and she looked fit to burst as she dropped her skirt down. "I was going through security at the airport and guess what happened, Tony?"
Tony stalled. "Why were you going through security? You were on a private jet, you don't need to go through security."
Pepper glared at him and ground out her answer from behind clenched teeth. "Because, I was doing some PR stunt for Stark Industries with the installation of the new security scanners in all American airports. Stark Industries has done an update to improve their sensitivity."
"I know," said Tony, "I approved the project."
"Well," Pepper bit out, "today was the day they went in they wanted a photo op with me going through the detectors and guess what happened?"
Tony's heart sank. Now he really knew what this was about.
Pepper didn't give him a chance to answer. "The thing went off and after I took off my shoes, my watch, my earrings and every other bit of metal imaginable they did a scan on me and found something right here." Pepper jabbed a finger at the area of thigh she'd just shown him. "I had to tell them I had some metal in me from an old car accident before they'd let me pass!"
"Nice save, Potts," said Tony brightly.
Thor frowned. "I do not understand, what does this mean?"
"I'll tell you what this means, Thor," Pepper practically shouted. "It means that, without my permission, Tony has somehow managed to tag me." Her glare was nuclear. "Isn't that right, Tony?"
"I wouldn't call it tagging," Tony protested. "It's a state of the art tracking device which continuously sends out information about your location and your condition."
"My condition?" Pepper repeated in disbelief.
"Yes, like your heart rate, blood pressure, stuff like that," said Tony. He made a rueful face. "I feel like both are going to be reading a little high right now."
"Why would you do that, Tony?" she gasped.
Tony stood up and held out placating hands to her. "Because after what happened it only made sense to have a way of knowing where you were at all times, in case something like that happens again. I designed it myself, with the added features so that if something did happen, I'd know if you were hurt or not." To Tony this made perfect sense and he couldn't quite work out why Pepper was still looking at him like she wanted to tear him into pieces. This was to keep her safe. He tried to explain. "There is similar technology in my suits," he reasoned with her. "And if I do that for my suits, of course I'm going to want to do it with you."
Out of the corner of his eye Tony saw Happy groan and put his hand to his face.
"What?" he said defensively. "What's wrong with that?"
"Is that what I am to you, Tony," Pepper threw his words back at him, "another piece of your property that you want to keep tabs on?"
"Ah, no, that wasn't-"
Pepper was advancing on him, angrier than he'd ever seen her before. "I'm surprised you didn't just slap a 'property of Tony Stark' sticker on my forehead and be done with it!" she raged at him.
"I'm not seeing what the problem is here," Tony argued. "I did this for you, Pepper."
"Oh," bit out Pepper, "you did this for me, did you? If you were worried about my security we should have talked about it or I take self-defence lessons or something, anything but this! You don't tag me like some salmon going upstream to spawn. This is the worst thing you've ever done!" she yelled at him.
Tony held up a hand. "Whoa there, Potts, that's a long and prestigious list you just shot to the top of. Are you sure you want to make that call so early?"
"I can't believe you'd be this high-handed and disrespectful of my feelings," she threw at him. "Wait a minute, what am I saying, of course I can believe it! Tony Stark only ever thinks of himself first."
"That's true," said Tony urgently, "but not when it comes to you, Pepper. I swear, I did this for you so you'd be safe."
"You did this for you, so you'd feel better about things!"
Tony was at a loss. "Can't both things be true? It's kind of a win/win situation."
"We talked about my security and agreed on how it was going to be taken care of and then I find out you just went ahead and did whatever you wanted!" she said accusingly. "You didn't ask my permission, you just stuck some kind of foreign tech into my body and didn't even tell me about it!"
"Hey, I came up with the hamster ball option but you vetoed it." Tony gave her a pointed look. "So, if you think about it, this is really all your fault."
Bruce shook his head. "Amazing, it's like the guy has no sense of self-preservation whatsoever."
Pepper sucked in an outraged breath and seemed to struggle to be finding her next words. Her eyes burning with fury, Pepper whirled around and stalked out of the room.
"Pepper!" Tony called out after her.
"Don't you dare follow me!" she yelled back from the corridor.
Tony made a pained expression. "That didn't go as well as I hoped."
He turned around to see the other four men staring at him with various degrees of disapproval...