"I never said share, I said introduce," Tony pointed out. "Completely different things. Introducing takes like five minutes."

"The introduction will lead to sharing," Cameron pointed out, grinning a bit. "You know it will, you sciencey types are always that way."

Tony shrugged. "Maybe, but not in my building," he said. "What those crazy kids get up to on their own time is their time, not my time with Brucie."

Cameron snickered.

"The only person you're fooling is yourself, Tony," she said, grinning. "You wouldn't be able to resist butting in any time you felt left out."

Tony shrugged. "And if Bruce didn't want me doing that, he'd figure out a way," he said. "He's smart, he knows what he's dealing with with me."

Cameron raised an eyebrow.

"It's not like you to be so mellow," she commented. "You're usually a lot more high strung about this sort of thing."

"Migraine," Tony reminded her. "Outbursts are too much effort right now."

"Still, it's not like you," Cameron said as she moved over to the couch and got comfortable. "You're usually cranky and whiny when you're in non-life-threatening pain."

"Yeah, no, did that already back at the tower," Tony said with a shrug. "Guess I don't feel like it right now." Because of her, not that he was going to add that, or admit to that, ever.

"Alright," Cameron said, still a bit skeptical. "Just relax, then, and see if you can get some rest."

Tony shrugged and went back to his reading, settling in a little closer to her than was strictly necessary. Hey, she was relaxing, and she wasn't making his migraine worse.

Cameron glanced over when she noticed him settling a bit closer to her. Well. That was interesting. She looked away again quickly, trying not to let her cheeks turn too pink.

Tony ended up staying relatively quiet for the rest of the night, mostly because of the migraine. Although he did stay away from other people too, just in case.

And then Pepper called him about an event that he had absolutely had to go to, and he swore. Nastily and inventively.

Cameron blinked when he started swearing.

"What's going on?" she asked, glancing at him curiously.

"There's a party tomorrow night that I have to go to," Tony said, running his hands over his hair until it was completely disheveled. "I can't get out of it, but I don't know if I have enough control yet."

"Oh," Cameron said, blinking. "Yeah, no, that's not good." She was quiet for a moment. "I guess it's too bad I can't go with you, I could cover for you. I mean, we have the same power, after all. Wouldn't be hard to say it's me."

Tony paused at that, thought it over, and then looked right at her. "Why can't you? Are you busy? Do you want to come?"

Cameron froze at that.

"No...?" she replied, though it came out more as an uncertain question. "Is that even allowed? Should you be bringing, I don't know, some European supermodel or something?"

"I bring whoever I damn well want," Tony said with a shrug. "Nobody will question it. Well, okay, they will, but it doesn't matter." He paused, trying to figure out what she'd answered 'no' to. "If you went, anyway. You don't have to."

Cameron was quiet for a moment.

"You realize I have nothing to wear," she finally said. "And you said this thing is tomorrow."

"We can take care of that," Tony said with a careless shrug. "It's easy to find something for you to wear, Pepper will help with that. She has a better eye for dresses than I do."

"By tomorrow?" Cameron asked, blinking. "Pepper's a busy woman, I doubt she'd have time in her schedule for that."

"You'd be surprised what she can pull off." Tony grinned and dialed her.

"Pepper, darling, light of my life--"

"Tony," Pepper said, sounding exasperated/amused/wary. Tony had put her on speaker. "What did you do?"

"Nothing! Yet." Tony grinned. "I need you to buy a dress."

"A dress?" Pepper asked. The raised eyebrow was clear in her tone. "Well, that's one I haven't heard before. Explain this one to me."

"I'm going to cover for Tony," Cameron said. "At the thing. He and I have the same power, so I'm going to cover for anything that gets out of hand."

"Cameron?" Pepper asked, just to be sure. "Alright. So for the party tomorrow night. Any preference in color?" And just like that, she was all business, because she was Pepper Goddamn Potts and this was going to happen. Especially because she was rather grateful to Cameron for going with Tony.

Tony beamed.