That glimpse of his Pepper was fading fast, frustrating Tony all over again like it did when he watched her march steadily across the lobby with her deadly heels clicking and laser focus on the problem ahead of her. Tony was good at many things, and one of them was reading Pepper nee Potts. She was annoyed with him, she wasn't nearly finished with him, and she was backing down not because she could torture him with it later-- she wasn't even going to see him for the rest of the day if Tony could help it. What the hell happened to her?
"Not worth getting wrinkles over," he advised, watching her closely as he started to slink around the desk. "You do your job, let me do mine. When did you stop trusting me?" Maybe this Tony compensated for his lack of ambition by being a total asshole. There were way too many missed opportunities for Tony to handle for that guy; he should have made the leap much earlier instead of watching Pepper from afar for weeks. There was no reason for either of them to be so lonely.