Archive of Our Own

They'd forgotten the basics.

That was how Pepper thought of it later. And easy as it would've been to take the blame entirely on herself, the truth was, everyone in Tony's life -- including Tony himself -- had made the same mistake. The existence of Iron Man was such a new, unprecedented thing in their world that it had skewed their priorities, shifted their focus, made them lose sight of the one fundamental fact they'd always factored in before: Tony Stark was a very rich man. And a rich man didn't need to peddle missile systems in Afghanistan or dress up in superhero armor in order to become a target.

They hadn't even realized that Tony was missing when the ransom call came in to Pepper's room at the Waldorf Towers at 5:30 in the morning. Pepper had been half-asleep when she picked up the phone, but the deep, electronically modified voice rumbling "We have Tony Stark" snapped her to full, adrenaline-fueled wakefulness in the space of a heartbeat.

"Who is this?" She'd attended seminars on this. She knew what she was supposed to do. Keep them talking, ask for proof of life, try to get the caller to say something revealing. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"We want five million dollars in small bills." The voice went on as if she hadn't spoken. "Do not contact the authorities. Delivery instructions will follow."

Click.

Even as she sprinted up the stairs, still barefoot and in her pajamas, dialing Happy's cell phone as she went, Pepper was hoping that it really was a hoax. A disgruntled employee, a bitter ex, some anonymous loser trying to make himself feel important. But the door to Tony's suite was ajar, and the suite itself was empty. Tony's Rolex was on the floor in the foyer. His phone was on the nightstand, next to a quarter-empty bottle of cognac with a card reading "compliments of the management" attached to the neck. The bed was unmade, and Tony's clothes were draped over the back of a chair. He'd gone out clubbing earlier in the evening, looking to blow off steam after his board meeting, and Pepper had stayed up to see Happy bring him back at one A.M. before turning in herself. And now--

"Miss Potts!" Happy burst into the suite, cell phone clutched in one hand. "Is he--"

"They took him, Happy." Pepper's voice sounded remote and tinny to her own ears. "They just walked in the door and took him."

She called the authorities, hoping and praying that she wasn't killing Tony with that one phone call. The seminars had been very emphatic on the subject: don't try to handle the situation yourself. Leave it to the experts. So Pepper followed established procedure, and within the hour, the Waldorf was crawling from top to bottom with NYPD detectives, FBI agents and SHIELD agents. It should've been reassuring to have so many trained professionals on the case, but Pepper had the feeling that they were all more interested in pissing on each other's shoes than actually finding Tony. Every exchange seemed to devolve into a growling argument about jurisdiction. The testosterone level in the air was toxic.

The general consensus was that somebody on the hotel staff had to be in on it. The kidnappers had entered Tony's suite without a struggle or a break-in, had known how to dial Pepper's room phone directly. The "complimentary" cognac bottle on Tony's nightstand turned out to contain a powerful sedative, injected through the cork with a hypodermic needle. Tony, already drunk from his night out, wouldn't have noticed the tiny puncture when he opened the bottle.

The detectives were still in the process of questioning the staff when the second phone call came. The electronic voice had nothing new to say. They had Tony. They wanted five million dollars, in bills no larger than a fifty, to be paid in twenty-four hours. No, they wouldn't let Pepper speak to Tony. No, they wouldn't provide a video or a photo of Tony holding today's paper. They hung up while Pepper was in the middle of explaining that Stark Industries wouldn't pay the ransom without proof of life.

"These guys are amateurs," one of the FBI agents told her. "They jumped the gun on their first call to you, then waited six hours only to repeat what they'd already said. They're jittery and they have no clear plan. Incompetent."

The idea of Tony held captive by jittery incompetents wasn't especially comforting. In Pepper's experience, it was the incompetent people who did the most damage.

The third phone call finally offered something new: Pepper was to leave the money in a trashcan near the fountain in Washington Square Park. She was to come alone, without calling the authorities, or Tony would die.

"How do I know you haven't killed him already?" she demanded.

Click.

Everyone who worked at the Waldorf Towers was questioned. Four hours before the deadline, one of the maids burst into tears during her interrogation and admitted to having let her boyfriend and his cousin into Tony's suite. Unfortunately, the two names -- Karl Wilson and Ramon Martinez -- were all she had to give. She hadn't been trusted with the details of the plan; she didn't know where they'd taken Tony.

"It'll be okay," one of the detectives assured Pepper in a manner that was probably meant to be comforting but mostly came across as patronizing. "We'll pick them up at the drop and make them talk. Small-time guys like that always spill their guts in custody. Your boss will be home in no time."

Pepper thought back to those first horrible days after Tony had disappeared in Afghanistan. Everyone had been very reassuring and full of promises back then, too.

Tony came back. Pepper kept repeating the words in her head, over and over, as she crouched in the back of an unmarked van while a female SHIELD agent fitted her with a wire and a bulletproof vest under her clothes. Tony had come back from Afghanistan after all reasonable deadlines had passed, after everyone except Pepper and Rhodey had written him off. He would come back from this, too.

Outside, it was gray and damp. Rain came down in a steady drizzle. Pepper turned up the collar of her dark gray trench coat, climbed out of the van, and put on her gloves before hefting the two bulky suitcases that held the ransom. She gave the SHIELD woman a thin, shaky smile and began the two-block walk toward the park.

Five million dollars in small bills had a lot of bulk to it. The suitcases bumped against Pepper's legs with every step, making her ankles wobble. The weight dragged at her arms. By the time she reached Washington Square North, her hair was wet and her stomach was churning. She wished she'd worn a hat.

The weather had thinned out the usual weekday crowd, but no public park in New York City was ever empty. Pepper distracted herself from nerves and discomfort by trying to guess which of the people around her were actually law enforcement agents in disguise. The shaggy-haired kid walking his Rottweiler? The couple holding hands under a bright pink umbrella? The skinny guy who chanted "smoke-smoke-smoke" as he passed her under the arch? If Pepper couldn't tell, then presumably the kidnappers couldn't either.

There were three trash cans near the fountain that Pepper could see, and none of them were big enough to actually fit the two cases. Pepper stood still and thought vicious thoughts about jittery incompetents with no real plan.

"What do I do?" She muttered under her breath.

There was a faint crackle of static in the small bud she'd stuck in her left ear, followed by an impatient female voice. "Pick one and leave the money on the ground next to it. Then get out of there."

Pepper did as she was told, hoping that no well-meaning civilian would report her as a potential terrorist bomber. She was back in the van, toweling off her hair, when the whole thing went to hell two minutes later.

Afterwards, there was a great deal of pointless debate about what, exactly, had gone wrong. Wilson and Martinez had spotted the cops and agents closing in on them, or maybe they had just thought they'd spotted something and panicked. The end result was the same: they'd drawn their guns and started shooting. By the time the smoke had cleared, there was one wounded police officer, three wounded civilians, and two dead kidnappers.

"Let me get this straight." Pepper made herself speak very softly, because if she didn't, she was pretty sure she'd scream, and having a breakdown in the middle of an FBI field office seemed like a really bad idea. "There were two people left on the entire planet who knew where Tony is, and you guys have killed both of them."

Apparently, her attempt to sound calm and rational was not entirely successful. The circle of official faces around her all looked as if they were expecting her to burst into shrieking hysterics at any moment. Pepper sat up a little straighter and clasped her hands loosely in her lap.

"Is it possible," she said, "that these men had another accomplice? Someone to guard Tony while they both came to the drop?"

"I suppose it's possible," one of the agents told her, "but I doubt it. If all they wanted was to grab the ransom and make a run for it, then they wouldn't care if Mr. Stark escaped while they were gone. I think it was just the two of them, and neither one trusted the other to go get the money alone. Chances are, Mr. Stark is still there, wherever they left him."

"Assuming they left him alive," Pepper said. The agent hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

"Yeah. Assuming that."

There was nothing to be gained by trying to keep the kidnapping secret anymore. Pepper gave a press conference, offering a million-dollar reward for information on Tony's whereabouts. The NYPD and the FBI held their own conferences, promising that "everything possible" was being done. SHIELD did not speak to the press, though their agents always seemed to be around, looking very busy. Pictures of Tony and the two dead kidnappers made the front page of every New York paper, and played in heavy rotation on local and national news. The state police in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were mobilized. Search parties were formed. An endless stream of hopeful informants came forth, claiming to have seen Tony in Brooklyn, in Yonkers, in Jersey City, in Cape Cod, in Tallahassee. Every tip, no matter how outrageous, was investigated. Every one came up blank.

Three days passed, five days, a week. Pepper programmed her Blackberry to beep every few hours, reminding her to eat and drink and sleep, because past experience had taught her that she could and would forget. This was like Afghanistan all over again, but having lived the nightmare once before didn't make it any easier the second time around. In some ways, it was worse; Pepper hadn't actually been there in Afghanistan, hadn't had to sit helpless and useless in the middle of the action, hadn't been there to watch the searchers' urgency diminish with every passing day.

Halfway through the second week, it was obvious that everyone but Pepper believed that they were searching for a corpse. In some ways, Pepper couldn't entirely blame them. Assuming -- as she was determined to assume -- that Tony's kidnappers hadn't simply cut his throat and dumped the body as soon as they got him out of the hotel, the odds of him being left somewhere with sufficient food and water (or even air) to survive this long were terrifyingly low, and growing lower every day.

Pepper didn't give a damn about the odds. Tony had beaten the odds before. Seeing everyone give up on him now made her shake with rage. She was filled with renewed affection and respect for Rhodey, who never gave up the first time, who'd put his own career on the line to keep the search going in Afghanistan. But Rhodey had no authority over a civilian kidnapping case on US soil. The Air Force wouldn't even give him leave to fly out to New York. And those who did have authority had no pressing personal reasons to care about what happened to Tony. Professional reasons, yes -- a missing billionaire was a publicity nightmare and potential career-breaker for everyone involved. But not personal reasons.

By the end of the second week, it was clear that wherever Tony was, the usual search methods weren't going to find him. Pepper packed up her travel bag and made quiet arrangements to fly back to California in Tony's plane.

The Malibu house was eerily silent. The cleaning service must've been in earlier in the day, because every smooth surface gleamed like a mirror and the air smelt faintly of artificial lemon. Jarvis flicked on the lights when Pepper walked into the living room, but made no verbal greeting. The AI had always had a tendency to grow silent, more machine-like, when Tony wasn't around. Pepper let her bag drop to the floor next to the sofa, and headed down the stairs to the workshop.

The cleaning people didn't come in here; the smell was plastic and metal rather than furniture polish, and the tops of the computer terminals were specked with dust. Tony's pet robots huddled in the corner farthest from the door, dull and lifeless in their master's absence.

"Hello, Jarvis," Pepper said.

A few seconds of silence, followed by the faint hiss of the air conditioning turning itself on. "Hello, Ms Potts. I trust you are as well as can be expected under the circumstances?"

"That's a good way of putting it. I need your help with something."

"I'm at your disposal."

Pepper walked over to the big worktable in the center, crouched down, released the tiny catch that made one of the floor tiles slide sideways to reveal the gleaming black surface of a palm scanner embedded in the steel lid of a hidden compartment. Pepper pressed her hand against the scanner, felt warmth and a faint vibration as the security system confirmed her palm print. There was a sharp, metallic click. The lid rose up by a couple of inches, then flipped open.

Since the incident with Obadiah, Tony had made sure to always have a backup arc reactor in the shop, safely hidden and locked away. The palm scanner in the lid recognized only Tony himself, Pepper and Happy. Even Jarvis couldn't open it of his own volition.

Pepper lifted the reactor from the compartment and held it in her cupped hand, the wires dangling between her fingers. She'd forgotten how heavy it was for its size. The last time she'd held one, Tony had made her swap out the one in his chest. She'd thought, naively, that it would be the most terrifying thing she'd ever have to do for him.

"Jarvis."

"Ma'am?"

"The reactor isnt... It doesn't have to be embedded in somebody's chest in order to power the suit, does it?"

"It does not." Jarvis's voice remained flat and measured, but Pepper though she detected the tiniest note of affront, as if the AI was annoyed to have to answer such a simplistic question. "It merely needs to be lined up with the appropriate slot in the chest plate."

"Could you rig ups some sort of harness to put it in? Something I could put on so that I could get inside the suit and power it?"

"You... wish to wear the suit?" This time there was no mistaking the shock in Jarvis's response.

"I'm going to find Tony," Pepper said. "And the armor is faster than any other vehicle I could get access to. I don't think..." She took a deep breath and stood up to put the reactor onto the worktable. "I don't think we have a lot of time."

Another five seconds of silence. Knowing Jarvis, that was probably long enough for him to get an online psychology degree and determine exactly how crazy Pepper had to be to even think of suggesting such a course of action.

"How can I help, Ms Potts?"

"You can start by making that harness I mentioned. Also--" This was the tricky part. Pepper had based her entire plan on this, yet she had no idea if it would actually work. "Can you detect Tony's reactor from a distance? Does it have a... a unique frequency, or energy signature or something?"

"I can scan for the reactor's signature provided I'm within one-quarter mile of Mr. Stark's location," Jarvis said, "and provided Mr. Stark is not more than one hundred meters below ground."

"Let's hope he isn't." Pepper swallowed past the dry tightness in her throat. "Is there anything you need from me?"

A section of the floor lit up with a square patch of blue light.

"If you will stand in the indicated spot, Ms Potts, I will scan your measurements for the harness."

"Right," Pepper said, and bent down to take off her shoes.

Wearing the suit proved to be remarkably uncomfortable. Without her high heels, Pepper was a couple of inches shorter than Tony, and the arc reactor ended up pressing painfully against her collarbones, with the harness straps digging into her armpits and rubbing across the back of her neck. Her knees and elbows didn't quite line up with the armor's joints; she could bend her arms and legs if she absolutely had to, but not without a lot of unpleasant bumping and poking from her metal shell. She'd had to stuff some tissues into the boot toes to make her feet fit.

Flying in the suit almost made the discomfort worth it. It wasn't like fast driving, or even like that one time when Rhodey took her up in an F16. It was more like that time in her sophomore year of college, when the guy she'd been dating had talked her into going bungee jumping. The physical sensation wasn't the same -- she couldn't feel the rush of the air against her skin, and the inertial dampeners in the suit kept her insides from doing that sickening lurching thing they'd done in freefall -- but the dizzying sight of the world zipping by at speeds almost too fast for her mind to process was almost the same.

Jarvis had offered her a number of options for the visual display, including zoom, infrared, and a dizzying variety of camera angles. She told him to just let the landscape below scroll by in real time. It felt like the flying dreams she'd had as a child, the same giddy sense of freedom from everything, even the laws of physics. No wonder Tony, in the wake of three months' captivity, was so hooked on it.

She was hailed twice before she even left California, once by local air traffic control, and once by a very harassed-sounding Rhodey demanding to know who the fuck he was talking to. Pepper had announced herself, then told Jarvis to turn off audio. Somewhere out there, Nick Fury was no doubt living up to his name, but that was his own fault for being so slow to respond. She was reasonably sure that no one would actually shoot her down in American airspace, and she was determined not to worry about anything else. They could arrest her on the ground if they really wanted to. After she found Tony.

"Forgive the intrusion, Ms Potts." As if summoned by thoughts of Tony, Jarvis spoke up in her ear. "But do you have a specific plan for determining Mr. Stark's location?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." That part, at least, was simple common sense and therefore something Pepper could feel reasonably confident about. "The earliest they could've taken Tony was a few minutes after one AM, when he got back to his suite. I got the first ransom call at five-thirty. Let's assume they wouldn't have called until they actually had Tony safely stashed."

"A rather large assumption," Jarvis drawled, sounding something like his normal bantering-with-Tony self for the first time since he'd greeted Pepper in Malibu, "considering the intelligence of the people involved."

"I know," Pepper sighed, "but we have to start somewhere. And since we're on a roll, assume also that they were driving at around the speed limit, since nobody wants to get pulled over with a kidnapped billionaire in the car."

"I see." The display in Pepper's visor changed from the flat Midwestern landscape below to a satellite map of the Northeast, with a highlighted circle centered on Midtown Manhattan. "Given your specifications, this is our search radius."

"Thank you, Jarvis." Pepper looked at the size of the circle and tried to quash the sinking feeling in her stomach. It was a lot of ground to cover, yes, but she was about to make it from California to New York in under three hours. She could do this. "Set up a gridded search pattern. If Tony is within that area, I want to make sure we get within a quarter mile of him."

"Done." A fine meshwork of lines appeared on the map, overlaying the circle. "But surely the law enforcement agencies are already covering the same area?"

"They are," Pepper said. "But they don't have the suit and they don't have you to scan for the reactor. That gives us an advantage." She took a deep breath.

"Let's find him, Jarvis."

In the end, it didn't even take that long. On their third pass over New Jersey, Jarvis detected the reactor's signature near the border of Newark and Irvington. Pepper made a wobbly, bone-jarring landing (how did Tony always make it look so easy, anyhow?) and found herself in front of what looked like an abandoned five-story tenement building. It couldn't have been abandoned for long -- most of the windows were still whole, and some of the lower ones displayed forlorn cardboard signs advertising that the property was for sale. The buildings around it all seemed to be headed for the same fate in the near future. Whatever the residents made of Iron Man touching down in their neighborhood, they were keeping quiet about it. Pepper stomped inside, walking with the straight-legged wobble she'd developed to compensate for the armor's ill fit.

Neither the lights nor the elevator worked.

"Flashlight?" Pepper said hopefully. There was a faint click somewhere in the top of her helmet, and the wall in front of her lit up with a circle of surprisingly bright light.

"Thank you, Jarvis. Up or down?"

"I'm afraid this is as specific as I get, ma'am."

"Fine." Pepper sighed. "Let's try down first."

The basement level was littered with rotting reminders of the building's prior occupants: broken chairs, a sagging mattress leaned up against one wall, a pile of overstuffed trash bags in a corner. Rats scurried away from Pepper's armored feet, squirmy little blobs of shadow on the display. Pepper clanged her way down a short corridor into a larger space that must've been a laundry room once. There were pipes running along the walls and a dented plastic hamper next to the door.

"Tony?" Pepper called out.

Silence.

There was a door on the far side of the laundry room, boarded over with five thick planks of wood nailed to the frame. Pepper almost walked past before she spotted the steady trickle of water spreading out into a puddle in front of it.

"Jarvis?"

"Ms Potts." Was Pepper imagining it, or was the AI's electronic voice a couple of notes higher than its normal pitch? "I'm detecting a heartbeat on the other side."

Pepper slammed her armored fists into the door. The wood came apart with a satisfying crunch, boards cracking and splinters flying. Pepper gripped the edges of the hole she'd made, ripped the door from its hinges and tossed it aside.

"Tony?"

The room might've been used for storage at some point; it was larger than a typical utility closet, but not by much. Bare walls, cement floor, a small tangle of wires in the middle of the ceiling where a light fixture used to be. The water Pepper had spotted came from a pipe that had been broken and twisted away from the back wall. The floor had a slight slope to it, and one side of the room was flooded with an inch-deep puddle.

These were all details Pepper would process later, when she had time to sit and think. Right then, they barely registered. Her attention was focused entirely on the man who huddled against the back wall, with his knees curled to his chest and one hand raised in front of his face.

"Tony!" Pepper lurched forward.

Tony made a harsh, pained sound and pressed both hands against his face. It took Pepper a moment to realize that he was trying to protect his eyes. He'd been in that room for two weeks, with no light but the dim glow of the arc reactor in his chest. It would take hours for his vision to readjust. "Jarvis, does this thing have a dimmer switch or something?"

"Done," Jarvis said. Pepper had to take his word for it; the display inside her helmet did not change. "I have also taken the liberty of summoning the local police department and emergency medical personnel."

"Good. Thank you." Pepper took another step closer to Tony and folded herself into an awkward squat, wincing as her knees pressed against the armor's greaves. She flipped up the faceplate, and nearly gagged at the smell of stale sweat and urine. The air on her face felt chill, and she wondered how bad of a sign it was that Tony wasn't shivering.

"It's okay now." She took off one gauntlet and pressed her hand against Tony's shoulder. His skin felt cold and clammy against hers. He was wearing only a t-shirt and boxers, grossly inadequate for the temperature in the room. "Can you hear me, Tony? It's Pepper. I'm going to make it okay."

"Pepper?" Tony's voice was a barely audible rasp. He lowered his hands, blinked once, then hissed and squeezed his eyes shut again, turning away.

"That's right. It's me." Pepper moved her hand from Tony's shoulder to cup his cheek. His beard felt scratchy against her palm. His face was so much thinner, all sharp angles, dark shadows beneath his eyes. "There's an ambulance coming. We'll have you out of here soon."

"Pepper?" Tony said again. He spoke her name as if it was in a foreign language, as if he was repeating the sounds without quite knowing what they meant. He raised his hand to grip Pepper's arm, looked confused when his fingers met metal. "Please," he said. Pepper waited for him to continue, but he remained silent.

"What do you need?" She asked finally. Tony just shook his head.

Pepper wanted to pick him up and carry him outside, away from that horrible filthy room, but she wasn't sure what injuries he might have, wasn't sure if it was safe to move him. She could see, now that she was close enough, that his hands were bloody and swollen, but she couldn't tell if anything else was wrong.

"Are you all--" she began to ask, then stopped herself short. Stupid question. Of course he wasn't all right. "Did they hurt you?" No, that was stupid too. "What did they do?"

"They?" Tony said blankly.

Pepper took off her other gauntlet and ran her fingers over the back of his head. She found no bumps or tender spots, nothing that might've indicated an injury, but then she wasn't exactly an expert.

"Jarvis, how long until that ambulance gets here?"

"Approximately one minute and forty-seven seconds."

Tony was starting to shake. It was barely noticeable at first, but the more Pepper touched him, the more violent his tremors became. Pepper tried to pull away, but he grabbed her wrists and clung, and she was afraid she'd hurt his hands -- hurt them worse -- if she tried to break his grip.

"It's okay," she kept telling him. "It's okay now. You're going to be fine."

She wasn't sure if he could actually hear her.

All of Pepper's instincts screamed at her to follow Tony's ambulance straight to the hospital, but there were logistical issues to consider. She couldn't just go stomping through the front door at Newark Beth Israel in the Iron Man suit. Nor was it something she could just drop off in her room at the Waldorf. After a brief discussion with Jarvis, Pepper decided to make use of Tony's parents' old house on Fifth Avenue.

She'd never been there before. The place had been locked up shortly after Howard and Maria died, and Tony always stayed in hotels when he came to New York. But Pepper kept his personal accounts. She knew that the utilities were still on and that a small domestic service agency in Brooklyn sent somebody over once a month to dust and air the place out. Jarvis had the code to disarm the security system, so no alarms went off when Pepper punched out the lock on the back door.

The house was the polar opposite of Tony's Malibu place, all warm wood-paneled charm instead of high-tech sleekness. There were heavy oak doors, antique Turkish rugs, light fixtures that looked as if they'd been originally designed for gas. Most of the furniture was draped with plastic dust sheets, but the few visible pieces were all solid, well-preserved antiques. The foyer ceiling had an inlaid oval medallion with a stylized V in the center; Pepper vaguely remembered reading that the place had originally been owned by a Vanderbilt.

She discarded the armor and harness in one of the spare bedrooms in the back, where the windows faced the garden rather than the street. It took her nearly half an hour to get the damn thing off. Pepper supposed she should be grateful that it wasn't the old design, the one that had required the concerted effort of three robots to remove. Still, she made a mental note to suggest to Tony that some sort of small carrying compartment would be a useful addition for future models. Maybe some sort of backpack arrangement that would hold a wallet and a change of clothes. As it was, she stepped out of the armor rumpled and sweaty in leggings, a t-shirt and canvas shoes, with her Blackberry and ATM card stuffed into her bra. She desperately needed a shower, but she needed to know what was happening with Tony even more. So pulled the Blackberry out of her bra and dialed Happy's cell.

"Miss Potts." Happy sounded relieved and harried in equal measure. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Happy. Are you at the hospital?"

"Yeah, just got in a few minutes ago. It's kinda crazy here. Cops and reporters everywhere. Oh, and Nick Fury's here with his goon squad. Nearly bit my face off when I said I didn't know where you are... Uhm. Where are you, anyhow?"

"Actually, I think it's better if I don't tell you." The last thing they needed was Fury figuring out where she was leaving the armor. "How's Tony?"

"Don't know yet. I mean, he's not dying or anything, but the doctors are still with him. "

"All right. I'll be there as soon as I can."

She took a minute to splash some water on her face, and called for a car to take her to New Jersey.

News had broken quickly. By the time Pepper's driver turned onto Lyons Avenue toward Newark Beth Israel, there was a small fleet of TV-station vans covering every entrance, as well as a scattered crowd of camera-wielding photojournalists. There was no way to avoid them, so Pepper took a deep breath and marched straight for the front door.

She indulged a brief, forlorn hope that they wouldn't recognize her. She didn't look anything like her usual public self, and the sun was going down behind her. But by the time she reached the edge of the crowd, several people were already calling out her name. Within seconds, they were headed for her like a human tidal wave, microphones extended and cameras flashing. It was like running a gauntlet. Pepper felt her steps falter a little. She couldn't imagine how she was supposed to get past them all.

There was a disturbance somewhere near the doors. Someone shouted, "Hey, watch it, bu--" and abruptly lapsed into silence. The crowd in front of Pepper parted and Nick Fury barreled through, clearing the way before him with a glare that apparently had the power to stun lesser mortals on contact. Maybe that was why he wore the eye patch, Pepper thought. Maybe the full two-eyed glare was reserved for people he actually wanted to kill.

"Get in here, Potts." Fury turned on his heels and led the way toward the door, long coat billowing behind him. Pepper had to jog to keep up, but at least no one dared disturb her on the way in.

"How's Tony?" She blurted out as soon as the automatic door slid shut behind them.

Fury marched on, forcing Pepper to follow him across the lobby and into a side corridor. Then he spun around and loomed over her like a small, very angry mountain. "I ought to arrest you," he growled. "A lot of very highly placed people have been telling me I should."

Pepper gritted her teeth. She had no desire to defend herself, and no patience to spare for arguing with giant looming men in positions of authority. She was tired and cold, her knees and elbows were bruised, and somewhere in this hospital was Tony, whom she'd rescued, and who might be sick or injured or dead for all she knew. If Nick goddamn Fury actually tried to arrest her, Pepper was going to scratch his remaining eye out.

"Oh, well, I certainly wouldn't want to disappoint any highly placed people." She held up her hands, wrists close together. "Bring out the handcuffs."

A vein in Fury's temple twitched rather alarmingly, just above his eye patch. Pepper decided that maybe it was a good thing they were in a hospital. First of all, it forced Fury to confine his rage to a muted roar; second of all, there were doctors at hand to respond if he had an aneurysm.

"Don't tempt me," he muttered.

Pepper shrugged and lowered her hands.

"How's Tony?" she repeated.

"Well, he's not dead." Fury sounded as he wasn't entirely pleased with that turn of events. "He's been asking to see you, in fact, but his doctors want to see you first. Hill!"

"Sir?" The female agent who'd helped Pepper at the ransom drop seemed to spring out of thin air at Fury's side. He still glared at her as if she'd kept him waiting.

"Take this civilian to see Stark's attending physician. And keep her out of my hair from now on."

Agent Hill's gaze flickered briefly upward to Fury's gleaming bald head before aiming straight ahead again. One corner of her mouth twitched about a millimeter, but her salute was flawless.

"Yes, sir," she snapped, then turned toward Pepper. "Follow me, ma'am."

Pepper followed.

Being Tony Stark got you a private room with a window and a pair of uniformed SHIELD officers guarding the door. But it was still very obviously a hospital room, with its pale green walls and washed-out fluorescent lighting, the humming monitors and the cheap floral print sheets. Everyone looked liked death warmed over in a hospital room. Pepper just kept saying that to herself, over and over, as she walked in and got her first good look at Tony.

"Potts?" He turned his face toward her as she pulled up a chair next to his bed. He was clean now, though still badly in need of a shave, and dressed in blue hospital pajamas that starkly set off the pallor of his skin and the dark smudges under his eyes. He had an IV drip in his left arm and several thin wires snaking from beneath his collar to connect to a monitor overhead. "What--"

"You're not supposed to talk," Pepper said quickly. According to the nice young doctor she'd talked to earlier, he had a fungal infection in his throat that made it painful to talk or swallow. It explained the harsh rasp of his voice, as well as the IV tubes. It would be at least two days before they'd switch him to solid foods again.

Tony looked as if he was going to try and talk anyway, so Pepper quickly handed him her Blackberry.

"Here, use this." It wasn't a perfect solution. Tony's hands were bandaged, and two fingers on his right hand were splinted. According to the doctors, the damage was self-inflicted. He must've done it while wrestling with the water pipe, or pounding on the door. The bandages made it awkward for him to hold anything, and he certainly wouldn't be able to manipulate a pen. But he could cradle the Blackberry against his chest and poke at the keys with one finger, which was enough to get the job done.

what happened potts

"You were kidnapped--"

know that
how

Pepper's heart sank a little. "You don't remember?"

nthng 2 remember
went 2 sleep hotel woke up dark wtf
????????????????????????????

He didn't know. God. All those days alone in the dark, and he hadn't even known how or why. Pepper leaned forward a little and curled one hand around Tony's right wrist, just above the bandage. He twitched a little in her grip, as if starting to pull away, then stilled himself.

"They drugged you," she told him, and went on to repeat everything they'd figured out about the kidnapping during those first few days. She explained about the phone calls, the botched ransom drop, the deaths of Wilson and Martinez. Tony listened in perfect silence, gaze fixed on the blanket stretched across his knees. Pepper didn't think she'd ever seen him hold so perfectly still before. When she finished, he held still for a while longer, then began to type on the Blackberry again.

whats the date

"The twelfth," Pepper said. Tony looked annoyed.

which month

Pepper blinked at him. "Tony... You know you were only gone ten days, right?"

????????????????????????????????????

Pepper tightened her hold on his wrist a little. "It's October, Tony."

Tony looked relieved. He gave Pepper a thin, fleeting smile and typed some more.

u got me out
in the armor

"Yes." Pepper felt her face grow warm. "Well, me and Jarvis, really. I couldn't have done it without Jarvis."

thank you

"Hey," Pepper said. "I'm your personal assistant, aren't I? I assisted."

He frowned and let the Blackberry fall to his lap.

"Thank you," he croaked.

"Tony, don't ta--" she began, saw the expression on his face and stopped. "You're welcome."

She started to pull her hand away, but Tony immediately tensed, so she stayed where she was. After a while, he shifted toward her a little and rested his left hand over her right. They sat in silence for several minutes until Tony finally stirred.

"Potts?"

"Yes, Tony?"

wtf did u do with my suit???????

Tony hated hospitals. Pepper had known that for years, long before her boss took up superheroing for a hobby. Tony hated being cooped up, hated being bound by other people's rules and schedules, hated the food and the lack of booze, hated being away from his own bed and his workshop and his robots and his cars and his music. Hospitals made him claustrophobic and miserable, and he made sure everyone around him knew it.

Which is why it was so unnerving to see Tony accept his stay at Newark Beth Israel with no complaint at all. Even after he regained the ability to talk without wincing, the usual demands to be instantly discharged didn't materialize. Instead, he seemed determined to run the nursing staff into a state of exhaustion, ringing with a new request several times every hour. He wanted the window open, the shades up, an extra pillow, a glass of water, the heat turned up, the heat turned down, the window closed... Every time Pepper arrived for visiting hours, she found herself confronted with harried looks and diffident requests that she "have a talk" with Tony. Pepper wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or touched by everyone's apparent faith in her ability to get Tony to behave.

So really, it was a great relief to have her solitary room-service dinner interrupted by Tony's ring tone.

"Potts. Where the hell are you, get me out of here."

"Tony." Pepper pushed her plate away. "What's wrong?"

"They're siccing psychiatrists on me. This is unacceptable, come and get me."

"All right." Pepper reached for her purse. "Where do you want to go?"

There was a lengthy silence on the other end. Pepper got the feeling that Tony hadn't actually thought that far ahead before he called. Typical.

"I'm still at the Waldorf. Do you want me to tell them to book a suite again?"

"No," Tony said quickly. "I want..." More silence, even longer this time. "You've been to the Fifth Avenue house, right? We could stay there."

Okay, that was unexpected. Pepper put her purse back down and sat on the edge of the bed. "The mansion? No one's lived there in years."

"So? It's still standing, right? You didn't crash through the roof when you landed or anything?"

"No, the roof is fine." Pepper made a mental note to have the back door lock replaced. "But the place is empy, Tony. I'll need some time to get it ready."

"What for? It's got walls and a ceiling, what else do we need?"

"A lot."

"Aw, come on, Pepper. I lived in a cave in Afghanistan for three months. My standards are a lot lower than most people think."

"Mine aren't," Pepper said firmly. "Give me twenty-four hours, then I'll come and get you."

"Psychiatrists, Pepper." Tony sounded genuinely desperate. "They're hovering. I need to get out."

Pepper rolled her eyes. "If you can't cope with a psychiatrist for twenty-four hours, then you probably need one."

"Fine," he grumbled. "Be that way. But if you don't pick me up by this time tomorrow, I'm going to discharge myself and call Happy to come and get me. He never argues when I tell him to do something."

"Really?" Pepper said. "Then why are you calling me in the first place?"

"Because." Tony sounded uncertain for a moment, but quickly recovered himself. "You're the assistant, aren't you? Get over here and assist."

"Fine," Pepper sighed. "Get some rest, Tony. I'll take care of everything."

"You'd better."

"Good-bye, Tony." Pepper ended the call and went to fire up her laptop.

She supposed she should be grateful that Tony was fixating on the mansion rather than, say, the house in Dubai or the vacation cottage on Martha's Vineyard. This was New York, after all. Given unlimited funds and the Stark name, anything could be delivered in twenty-four hours. By the time she ushered Tony inside, twenty-two hours and thirty-seven minutes after their phone conversation, there were brand-new mattresses and linens on the beds, brand-new towels and toiletries in all the bathrooms, and a week's worth of catered food from Balducci's in the brand-new refrigerator. The stove and dishwasher had been replaced too, and an 82-inch flat screen TV had been installed in the living room.

"The cable and internet people are coming tomorrow," Pepper told him. "Your laptop's on your bed and no, I didn't mess with it. Your clothes are in the bedroom closet. Most of the rooms are still bare, but I figured you won't be using them, and anyway, this was the best I could do on a day's notice. Now, I have completely cleared your schedule for the next two week, so you have absolutely no excuse not to rest, and your doctor says--"

"Where'd you leave it?" Tony demanded.

Pepper stifled a sigh. She should've known better, really.

"Come on, I'll show you."

The armor was still in pieces on the floor in the empty room where she'd left it, with a plastic sheet thrown over it to keep the dust off. Tony's hands shook a little as he bent down to lift one corner of the sheet. He was still weak, much as he tried to hide it. His face had lost that shadowed look he had on his first day in the hospital, and his beard and mustache were neatly trimmed, but he still didn't look entirely like himself. The short climb up the stairs had left him visibly winded, and he wobbled a little as he lowered himself to sit on the floor.

Pepper took out her Blackberry and quietly added "exercise equipment" to her list of things to be ordered for the house in the near future.

"You really wore the suit." Tony picked up a piece of shoulder plating and turned it over in his hands. He ran his fingers over the gleaming red surface, traced the edges with his thumb. His movements were hesitant, as if the piece was alien and unfamiliar to him instead of something he'd made and used a hundred times. "I still can't believe you did that. When you busted in, I thought, wow, best hallucination ever."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Pepper said. "I suppose you were expecting SHIELD or a SWAT team or something."

"I wasn't expecting anybody." Tony put the shoulder piece down and picked up a gauntlet, peering critically at the repulsor in the palm. "Can you get my laptop, Potts? I need to get this shit organized."

"You're not going to work on it now, are you?" Pepper stared at him. "Your hands..." The bandages were less bulky now, but the fractured fingers were still healing, and she could see from the way Tony was holding the plate that he was hurting.

"I'll be fine," he snapped. "I just want to download your flight data and get all the parts stowed away. This is delicate equipment, I can't leave it lying around."

"No it's not," Pepper said. Tony tilted his head back and gave her a startled look.

"What?"

"It's not delicate equipment. It's designed to be shot at. I know, because you keep going out in it and getting shot at. If it can handle machine gun fire and ground-to-air missiles, it can handle lying on the floor for a few days."

Tony's eyes narrowed in irritation. "If this is your way of telling me to fetch my own laptop, then fine, I get the message." He lowered the plate back to the floor and started to get up.

"Oh, just stay down there," Pepper grumbled. "I'll get it." The sooner he got this done, the sooner he might actually rest like he was supposed to. She turned and marched toward the door.

"And a FireWire cable!" Tony called after her.

It took Pepper several minutes to find the cable. When she got back, Tony was still sitting in the same position on the floor, staring straight ahead. He didn't react when she held the laptop out to him.

"Here you go," Pepper said after a while. He still didn't move. "Tony? Hello?" Still no response, until she laid one hand on his shoulder. Then he gave a startled yelp and jerked back.

"It's me, Tony," she said quickly.

"Pepper?" He blinked and shook his head. "Sorry. I must've dozed off for a bit."

His eyes had been open the whole time. Pepper didn't remark on it, just held out the laptop again, then reconsidered and crouched down to put it on the floor next to him.

"Here." She flipped the screen up and hit the power button. "Try not to use your hands any more than necessary, okay? I hate the sight of blood."

Tony managed something resembling a smile, though his eyes were still wary. "What would I do without you, Potts?"

"I shudder to think."

"Yeah," he said. "So do I."

"Tony?"

Pepper stood at the top of the stairs and leaned over the railing to get a better view of the ground floor. If she craned her neck, she could see the foyer, most of the living room, and a small corner of the dining room, all empty of Tony. She'd have to actually go down to know for sure, but she was reasonably certain that Tony wasn't downstairs. He wasn't in his bedroom, either, or any of the other rooms she'd checked. So, unless he'd left the house without Pepper noticing, the only way left to go was up.

It took her a few minutes to locate the way to the attic -- a trap door in the ceiling at the end of the main corridor, with a wooden stair that folded down after she found and released the hidden catch. The cleaning people hadn't been up there; she could see Tony's footprints in the fine layer of dust on the steps.

"Tony?" She clambered through the trap door and stood, fighting back a sneeze.

The attic was warmer and more humid than the rest of the house. The air smelled musty. There were boxes stacked everywhere, some framed paintings stacked against one wall, rows of garment bags hanging from rollaway racks. The light was on, even though the east-facing windows allowed plenty of morning sunlight to stream in.

"Hello?" Pepper called. No one replied, so she made her way toward the north end of the house, following a winding path among the boxes. The ceiling sloped downward, forcing her to duck lower and lower until she was half-crouching as she walked. "Tony?" She rounded another stack and saw him sitting on the floor with his back to her, surrounded by open boxes and scattered papers. He didn't react when Pepper called his name yet again, and she felt a sharp stab of anxiety before she saw the earbuds from his MP3 player in his ears. There was a book of some sort in his lap; he turned a page as Pepper approached.

Pepper leaned over and waved a hand in front of Tony's face. He looked confused for a moment, then reached out and caught her hand in his, grabbing just a little too hard. Pepper pulled back, startled, and he let go immediately.

"Pepper. You're still here." His voice was much too loud. Pepper pulled the earbuds from his ears and let them drop to the floor. There was a short, crackling burst of bass and drums before Tony turned the MP3 player off.

"Of course I'm here. Why wouldn't I be?"

Tony ignored the question. "You look lovely this morning."

"You don't," Pepper said. Tony was still wearing the same jeans and t-shirt he had on the day before. His hair was a mess and his eyes looked bleary. "Did you even sleep?"

"Sure," he said in an over-casual tone Pepper didn't trust one bit. "Don't tell me you came up here just to see if I got my beauty rest."

Actually, yes. "I came to give you an update. Every journalist on the eastern seaboard has called to ask if you'd give an interview. I'm telling everyone no."

"Good. Keep that up."

"I also took the liberty of telling the board that you're officially on vacation for the next six weeks. They all send their wishes for your speedy recovery."

"I'm touched. Anything else?"

"Do you still want to do that ribbon-cutting thing at Columbia next week?"

He frowned at her. "The what?"

"The ribbon-cutting ceremony," Pepper told him patiently. "For the new Physics and Engineering building. Which you paid for."

"Oh. Right." Tony squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and shook his head a little. "Forgot about that. I suppose I should..." He leaned forward and cradled his head in his hands. "Do I need to decide this right now?"

"No, it can wait." Pepper hesitated, then glanced over her shoulder toward the back door. "I'll be downstairs. Call me if you need anything, all right?" She turned to walk away.

"Wait!" Tony blurted out.

Pepper halted mid-step. "Yes?"

Tony ran one hand through his hair, looking flustered by his own outburst. "I need you to help me sort these." He lifted the book from his lap, and Pepper saw that it was a photo album. The papers on the floor were photographs too, most of them turned picture side down.

"I found five boxes full of albums," Tony told her, "and there's probably more around if you look. Mom never met a photo she didn't want to keep." As he spoke, he slid one of the photos from its plastic pocket and placed it on the floor, face down.

"Are you getting rid of these?" Pepper stepped out of her shoes and sat down on the floor facing Tony. She was glad she'd decided to wear pants that morning. Her clothes might end the day wrinkled and covered in dust, but at least she was in no danger of flashing her panties at her boss.

She flipped over one of the discarded photos and found herself looking at a very young Tony, in shorts and a Woody Woodpecker t-shirt, perched on a shiny-new red bicycle that looked much too big for him. Tony's feet barely reached the pedals, and he had to stretch his arms out to grip the handlebars. Behind him, grinning sunnily at the camera and holding the bike steady with one hand, was Obadiah Stane.

"Stupid to let them gather dust here," Tony said, carefully looking everywhere except at Pepper. "I figure I'll sort out the ones I like and scan them. Shouldn't take more than a day if you help."

"Of course." Pepper reached into the nearest open box and pulled out another album. The first page held a single photograph of Howard and Maria Stark standing under a flower-entwined arch at what appeared to be somebody's wedding. At least, Pepper hoped that the ruffled lavender satin thing Maria was wearing was a bridesmaid's gown and not something she'd put on of her own free will. The general look of the clothes and hairstyles dated the photo at sometime in the late 70s. Howard's hair was liberally streaked with grey and his face showed deep lines at the corners of his eyes. He'd been in his late fifties when Tony was born, Pepper remembered, fourteen years older than Maria.

"Find anything interesting?" Tony asked. Pepper turned the album around in her lap so he could see. "Oh, right. I think that was my uncle Edward's fourth wedding. Or maybe fifth. No one was keeping count by then." He slid closer, brushing a pile of discarded photos aside. "Is that the most hideous dress you've ever seen, or what? Mom didn't even know Aunt Helen, she just got drafted at the last moment because one of the real bridesmaids had her appendix out and Mom was the same dress size." He leaned in even closer and flipped the page to the next photo. His fingers brushed against Pepper's. "There's Dad again, doing his 'no, really, I'm sober' look."

"You look a lot like him," Pepper said.

"Do I? Everyone always says that." Tony flipped another page. "Personally, I think I'm a lot more like Mom, but maybe that's wishful thinking. She was much better-looking."

Pepper looked down at the new picture -- Howard and Maria at a table, holding up glasses of champagne. Even with the ugly bridesmaid gown, Maria Stark was spectacularly good-looking. And there was certainly no question as to where Tony got his hair or his eyes.

"You do have her coloring," Pepper said. Her voice was a little unsteady. Tony's face was only a few inches from hers now, and his left knee was pressed against her right. His hand still rested on top of the album photo, close enough to hers that she could touch him just by straightening her curled fingers. The bandages were gray with dust; he really had no business rummaging in an attic, only a day out of the hospital, she should--

"It's the goatee, isn't it?" Tony demanded abruptly. Pepper blinked at him.

"Excuse me?"

"That's what makes people think I look like Dad. Maybe I should shave it. Try the fresh-faced innocent look for a while."

Pepper felt rather proud of herself for not bursting out laughing right in his face. "I think you're about twenty years too late to try for fresh-faced and innocent. Maybe thirty."

"Point." Tony tilted his head a little and gave her a thoughtful look. "I could still try it, though. Just for variety. You think I should?"

"I really don't have an opinion."

"Oh, come on." He gave her a wide, incredulous grin. "Every woman has an opinion on how the man in her life should look."

"You're not the man in my life."

"We could change that."

"Just so I could form an opinion on your facial hair? That's a bit of an overkill."

Suddenly, Tony's smile didn't reach his eyes anymore. "I can think of a few other reasons."

Oh, God. This was as bad as that night at the benefit. Worse, even, because if they kissed now, they couldn't blame it on the drinks or the dancing or momentary insanity brought on by a sexy dress. Tony's gaze was focused and intense and just a little desperate, and she could see from the way he was tensing that he was about to move. Pepper rocked her weight back and shoved the album at him.

"Here. Why don't you sort through this one, and I'll take the next one?"

"Right. Uhm." Tony took the album from her and set it down on top of the one he already had in his lap. "I'll take care of this one."

Pepper stood to fetch another album from a box, then sat down again a full yard away from Tony. He watched her in silence for a few seconds, but didn't move any closer.

That evening, Pepper curled up on the sofa while Tony sat on the floor in front of the living room fireplace and methodically fed one photo after another into the flames.

"I'll need a scanner," he told her after a while. "And a desktop. Might as well set up a proper office if I'm going to be here for a while."

"Are you going to be here a while?" Pepper asked. She was fairly sure that Tony didn't need a desktop computer just to hold his family photo scans. He built his laptop himself. He could've scanned the entire Library of Congress onto it and still had enough disk space left for the collected works of AC/DC.

Tony shrugged. "Another six weeks, I guess. Isn't that what you told the board? I wonder if I could get Jarvis installed here? Need a lot more than a desktop for that..."

"I told the board you'd be on vacation," Pepper pointed out. "I didn't say where you'd be. If you want to go back to Malibu or, I don't know, Aruba or something, there's no reason you can't."

"Really, Potts." Tony quirked one eyebrow at her. "If you want to run away to Aruba with me, you can just say so."

"Not in this lifetime," Pepper said firmly. "But if you want to move to New York long-term, then you need to say so, so I can start making arrangements."

"When I know, I'll tell you." Tony picked up another photograph from the pile on the floor and leaned forward toward the fireplace, then seemed to lose track of what he was doing. He just sat there, staring at the photo and not moving, until Pepper got up from the sofa and came over to stand behind him.

"Are you okay?" She leaned over his shoulder to see what he was looking at. It was the bicycle photo she'd seen in the attic. The corners of the paper were starting to curl a little from the heat of the flames. Tony was holding his hand much too close to the fire. Pepper pulled him back by his sleeve, and he looked up at her with a mildly puzzled expression, as if he couldn't figure out what she was trying to do.

"Be careful," she told him, "you don't want to burn yourself on top of everything else."

"I'm fine," he said, and looked down at the photo again. "Do you think he knew?"

Pepper felt as if she'd just missed some vital part of the conversation that was happening only in Tony's head. "Do I think who knew what?"

"Obadiah. When he was teaching me to ride that bike, or taking me out for ice cream, or reading to me at bedtime, did he know he was going to try and kill me one day? I mean, it's not the sort of thing that you just decide overnight, is it?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure it's not the sort of thing you decide thirty years in advance, either." Pepper plucked the photo from his hand and tossed it into the fire herself. "Look, maybe you should get some rest. It's been a long day and... you don't look so good."

"I'm fine," he repeated in the same distracted tone as before. "I want to finish getting rid of these."

"Then just toss them all in. You'll be here all night, burning them one at a time."

"So?" He shrugged. "Not as if I have anywhere else to be." He picked up another photo and tossed it in, not pausing to examine it this time.

"Tony..." Pepper closed her eyes for a moment and pressed her fingertips to her temples. She wasn't even sure what she wanted to say, or why she felt so disquieted. Given all the things she'd seen Tony do over the years, quietly burning a pile of photos seemed like a relatively harmless pastime. But she didn't like the slow, deliberate way he was moving, or the hollow note in his voice, or the way his eyes kept going in and out of focus. She had intended to return to the Waldorf for the night, but the more she watched, the more she was convinced that Tony shouldn't be left alone in the house.

She watched him burn three more photos, then retreated into the kitchen with her cell phone.

"Sure," Happy said when she called him, "I'll bring your stuff. Do you want me to stay over too?"

"Maybe you'd better," Pepper sighed. "It'll be nice to have another sane person around." Besides, if Happy was staying at the mansion too, it would look more like "Tony Stark staying with his staff" and less like "Tony Stark and Pepper Potts shacking up together" when the press inevitably caught on. Happy would no doubt be horrified at the thought of serving as the chaperone preserving Pepper's virtuous reputation, but he'd serve the purpose just the same.

Happy arrived forty-five minutes later, with his and Pepper's luggage in tow.

"Hey, boss." He let two of the larger bags thump to the floor in the middle of the living room, and gave Tony a tentative smile. "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop in."

Tony looked up at Happy, then down at the bags, then over at Pepper.

"Wow," he said, "two live-in nannies, for just one me. Anyone else you want to invite, Pep? There's eight guest bedrooms. We could have an orgy."

That, at least, sounded more like the usual Tony Stark. Pepper wasn't sure it she considered it an improvement.

Pepper woke to the high-pitched wail of a siren outside her window. There was a moment of startled alarm before she remembered that she was in the middle of Manhattan, not an isolated cliffside mansion in Malibu, and an occasional police car or fire truck passing in the night was a perfectly mundane occurrence. In fact, the sound was already fading. Still, she got up and went to the window, pulled the curtain back and looked out into the street just in time to see a fire truck disappear around the corner three blocks south. Nothing to do with them.

It was five-thirty in the morning, and still dark outside. Pepper considered going back to bed, but she was awake now, and thirsty. She put on her slippers and headed downstairs.

She'd intended to just grab some Perrier from the fridge and come right back upstairs, but all the downstairs lights were on. Pepper turned into the living room and found Tony on the sofa, typing furiously on the laptop, a mechanical pencil tucked behind his right ear. There were papers scattered all over the coffee table, covered with diagrams and scribbled equations. An oversized coffee mug was perched precariously on the sofa arm.

"Tony," Pepper sighed. "How long have you been up?"

"Not long." Tony didn't look up from the laptop. "Just got up a few minutes ago."

"Uh-huh." From the look of those papers, Pepper suspected he hadn't been to bed at all. Again. The shadows under his eyes were starting to look like bruises. "You're supposed to be recuperating, you know. The doctors said--"

"I am recuperating." Tony gulped some coffee from the mug and finally looked up at her over the monitor. "I've been-- hey, nice jammies. Very chic, very stylish."

Great. This was what she got for waking at an ungodly hour and forgetting to make herself presentable before going downstairs. Her boss smirking at her purple flannel pajamas.

"They're comfortable," she told him with as much dignity as she could muster at five-thirty in the morning. "And we are not discussing my sleepwear right now. We're discussing--"

"Nothing," he said sharply. "We are not discussing anything. I am trying to work, and you are being a big distraction. Well, not big in the physical sense, you're actually a fairly petite distraction, all things considered, but if we're talking about distraction value per inch, or maybe per pound, I would say--"

He could go on like this for hours if she didn't stop him. Pepper leaned over the coffee table and closed the laptop with a click. Tony broke off mid-sentence to give her a bleary-eyed glare.

"Please don't do that."

"You're supposed to be on vacation."

"From the company. I promise, I'm completely ignoring the company."

"From everything." She looked down at the piece of paper closest to her. It was covered with Tony's detailed, meticulous line drawings of armor parts: boots, gauntlets, back and chest plates rotated at different angles. "Are you working on the armor again? How many times are you going to redesign that thing?"

"Technology marches on, Potts." Tony pulled the pencil from behind his ear and tapped it rapidly against one of the diagrams. "I'm thinking I can make the design more modular. Fold the whole thing to about the size of a suitcase. Make it portable."

"Won't it weigh a ton?" Pepper asked, intrigued in spite of herself, then immediately gave herself a mental kick. She was not supposed to be encouraging him.

"Not if I find the right alloy for the shell." Tony opened the laptop again. "I'm going to get Jarvis working on it as soon as I've got him installed here. Which reminds me, I've been ordering some equipment on line. The deliveries should start tomorrow. Just tell them to put everything in the basement, okay?"

"Fine. But if you have till tomorrow, then you have time to get some sleep."

"Not tired."

That was such a blatant lie that Pepper didn't even bother challenging it. She just stood there and waited, until Tony grimaced in frustration and pushed the laptop away.

"Fine," he muttered. "I'm putting my toys away and going up to my room like a good boy. Are you happy now?" He stood, visibly unsteady on his feet, and weaved his way toward the door. If Pepper had seen him like this at any other time, she would've assumed he was drunk, but she knew for a fact there was no liquor in the house.

"I'm thrilled," she told his retreating back, and went to pour the dregs of his coffee down the sink.

The deliveries kept coming in a steady stream over the next three days. Computers, monitors, circuit boards, endless spools of wire and cable. Metal tables and work benches. Lighting fixtures. Welding and soldering equipment, die cutters, other machines whose function Pepper couldn't even begin to guess at. Some of the shipments came in crates stamped with the Stark Industries logo, presumably requisitioned from the plants in Queens and New Brunswick. Others were ordered from outside suppliers. Pepper barely had time to enter each new invoice into her spreadsheet before the next shipment would arrive.

Tony declared the largest room on the basement level to be his new workshop, and promptly took up permanent residence in it. Pepper managed to badger him into regular meals, but getting him to come upstairs for the night proved beyond her powers. She ended up bringing down a pile of blankets and pillows, and threatening to put a sedative into his next protein shake if she caught him working past midnight.

On the third day, the deliveries included several sets of free weights, exercise benches and floor mats. A smaller room next to the workshop became the designated gym. Pepper came downstairs in mid-afternoon to hear the sound of voices raised in what sounded like an ongoing argument.

"--stick with the bag for a few more days," Happy was saying. "Then, when you're ready--"

"I'm ready now." Tony, in that clipped, impatient tone he generally used to indicate when he wasn't brooking any arguments from the little people. "C'mon, just a couple of rounds."

"Boss, I really don't think--"

"Damn right, you don't. I do the thinking, Hap, you do the sparring. Come on."

"Excuse me." Pepper stepped into the room. "Tony, I just signed for a shipment of stereo speakers. Do you want them to replace the ones in the living room, or do they go down here?"

Tony and Happy both turned to face her. They wore workout clothes, and Tony had his boxing gloves on. He looked hot and annoyed, and his grey MIT sweatshirt was stained with sweat. Behind him, Happy shifted from foot to foot, never looking up from the floor.

"They go down here," Tony said, "but later. Right now, Happy and I are sparring."

"No, we're not," Happy said. "I watched you working that punching bag, boss. You look like shit."

It was true. Tony's face looked pasty, his legs were unsteady, and he slouched forward a little, as if standing upright was too much effort. Even from across the room, Pepper could see that his eyes weren't tracking well. One decent punch from Happy would probably lay him out flat.

"Why don't you both take a break?" Pepper said. Tony scowled at her.

"We haven't even started yet. What is it with you two, anyway? Are you afraid I'll break a nail or something?"

"We're worried about you," Happy said quietly, "that's all."

"Worried about me." Tony's voice went cold and brittle. "That's great. Where was all that deep concern for my well-being when I was being kidnapped from my bed ten feet above you?"

There was a long, stunned silence after that. Happy looked as sick as Pepper felt, and Tony's expression wavered a little, as if he realized he'd crossed a line. He inhaled sharply once, as if about to speak again, then clenched his jaw and looked away from them.

"Happy," Pepper said after a while, "I think there are a few more deliveries scheduled for today. Why don't you go keep an eye out?"

"Sure, Miss Potts." Happy looked deeply relieved as he brushed past Pepper on his way out the door. Pepper waited until he was out of earshot before facing Tony again.

"That," she said, "was cruel. And totally unfair."

"Was it?" Tony kept staring at the wall as he spoke. "I guess it depends on your standards. I kinda thought being kidnapped twice in six months was cruel and totally unfair, but I admit I'm biased. Nothing like a couple of weeks in the dark lapping water off the floor, thinking..." He trailed off into silence.

"Thinking what?" Pepper prompted. Tony shook his head.

"Nothing. It changes your perspective, that's all."

"You're not seriously blaming Happy for what happened, are you?"

"No, of course not." Tony raised one hand to brush at his hair, then blinked at it with a puzzled expression, as if he'd forgotten he still had boxing gloves on. "He knows I didn't mean anything by it."

"You're sure about that?"

"...Fine, I'll talk to him." Tony marched over to the punching bag in the far corner of the room and smacked one fist into it. "Fuck." He threw four more punches in quick succession and stopped, panting.

"Should you be doing that?" Pepper asked. Tony had taken the bandages off his hands two days before, but she wasn't at all sure that the injured fingers had fully healed.

"Probably not." Tony stared at the bag, threw two more punches, stopped again. He flexed his gloved hand and hissed a little, as if in pain, but the look in his eyes was strangely relieved.

"Right." Maybe it was best to just leave him to it for a while. Maybe hitting things would calm him down, or at least tire him out. "I'll be upstairs if you need me."

"Potts," he called after her just as she was walking out. Pepper stopped but didn't turn around.

"Yes?"

"Call Columbia, tell them I'll do their flag waving or ribbon tying or whatever it is."

"Ribbon cutting. Are you sure? You don't have to--"

"Will you call them, or should I?"

Oh, yes. Hitting things would definitely be good for him. Pepper was starting to think it might be good for her too.

"I'll call them."

"Good." A few more seconds of heavy breathing, and then the rhythmic smacking of gloved fists against leather began again.

Pepper was very proud of herself for not slamming the door behind her as she left.

Tony seemed fine on the day of the ceremony, allowing for a somewhat relaxed definition of "fine." He came up from the workshop of his own volition, accepted Pepper's selection of shirt and tie without comment, and kept the fidgeting to a minimum while Pepper applied his make-up. It took an ungodly amount of concealer to keep him from looking like an extra in a George Romero movie.

"Really, Tony," she sighed as she dabbed a cotton pad under his left eye, "you can't keep going like this."

Tony's smile looked more like a wince. "Like what?"

He'd been sleeping in fits and starts, mostly in the workshop, at random times of night and day. Pepper had had a cot brought down there after the third time she'd come in to find him curled up on a bench. By her best guess, he was getting four, maybe five hours of sleep a night. Better than nothing, nowhere near enough. If she challenged him on it, he'd only insist he was fine, so she didn't bother.

"Okay, you're done." She tossed the pad into the wastebasket next to the chair and handed him his cufflinks. "Get your jacket on, and I'll have Happy bring the car around."

"Yes, boss," he said. Pepper resolutely did not smile. It only encouraged him.

The Broadway traffic near the Columbia campus was pure chaos, made even worse than usual by the blue police barricades blocking off the side streets. Happy presented their invitation at a uniformed officer and was waved through to a reserved parking space on 116th Street, just behind a news van. There were three more news vans parked on the same block, and couple of helicopters circling overhead. The oval lawn in front of the new building had a few hundred folding chairs crammed onto it, all of them occupied. More people crowded the surrounding paths, blocking access to latecomers who were still trickling in.

"That's a hell of a crowd," Happy muttered.

"Well, the mayor is here," Pepper said, but she knew that wasn't the reason. This was Tony's first public appearance since the kidnapping, and the reporters had been drooling for a go at him. Pepper had rejected dozens of requests for interviews, and Happy had had to chase a number of camera-wielding vultures away from the mansion's windows. And the general public, in Pepper's experience, were just as desperate to gawk as the paparazzi were; they were just slightly less brazen about it. With an official event as an excuse, Tony was going to get mobbed. They'd known that going in.

In fact, a smallish mob was already beginning to converge as Happy came around the car to open Tony's door.

"Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark! Would you mind answering a couple of--"

"--circumstances of your abduction--"

"--how did it feel to--"

"--piloted the suit to rescue--"

"--rumors about your mental--"

"--future of Iron Man's status as--"

"Hey!" Happy planted himself between the open door and the jostling reporters. "Back off. No interviews."

"Maybe you'd better get out on my side," Pepper said. "We'll have to move fast to-- Tony?"

Tony had pressed himself back against the seat as if he was trying to physically merge with the upholstery. His face was ashen under the makeup, his eyes wide and desperate. He was shaking all over and breathing much too fast.

"Tony." Pepper put her hand over his on the seat, felt his fingers clench against the leather. "Are you all right?"

"Nnnn..." Tony couldn't seem to get the "no" out. He pressed his other hand against his chest, right over the arc reactor, closed his eyes and leaned forward. His breathing shifted from panting to hyperventilating -- loud, openmouthed gasps that seemed to cause him pain.

"Happy!" Pepper across Tony to tug at the back of Happy's sport jacket. "I need you to get us out of here."

"Huh?" Happy turned around and ducked down to look inside the car. "We just got here. Whoa. You okay, boss?"

"Drive!" Pepper screamed at him.

Happy slammed Tony's door shut. Pepper heard him swear at the reporters a couple of seconds before he climbed back into the driver's seat.

"Where to?"

"Just go!"

Happy pulled out into the street fast enough to make the tires squeal. Pepper loosened Tony's tie and pulled it off, tossed it on the seat, tried to unbutton his shirt. She couldn't do it. Tony was shaking too violently, his chest heaving with every breath, and her own hands were too unsteady. Finally, she just grabbed his collar and yanked until the top two buttons popped off.

"Tony. Tony, please, you need to calm down. Can you tell me what's wrong? Is it your heart?" She pressed her fingers against the side of his neck. His pulse was racing. "Happy, find a hospital."

"N-no." Tony batted her hands away and scrambled for the door. "Stop. Out."

"Tony, you really need to--"

"Out." He tried to get a grip on the door handle, failed, pounded at the window with one fist. "Outoutout..."

"Maybe we'd better let him." Happy pulled over and unlocked the doors with a click. Tony didn't seem to notice, kept hitting the glass and demanding out until Pepper reached past him to open the door. Then he practically fell out onto the sidewalk, with Pepper right behind him.

The street sign said they were on Morningside Drive. Pepper wasn't familiar with the area, but there was a stone retaining wall, with a park on the other side that looked reasonably private. Pepper pulled Tony to his feet and guided him toward the nearby entrance.

"I can't leave the car here," Happy called after her.

"Stay with it, then." Damn it. She really could've used another pair of arms just then. Tony's legs kept buckling under him, and it took all of Pepper's strength to keep him on his feet and walking. She groaned as she realized that the entrance was an enormous staircase, several flights down to the park below. An expanse of red and gold autumn foliage spread out at the bottom, giving way to the prewar buildings of Central Harlem on the other side. It was probably one of the most spectacular views in the city, and Pepper was in absolutely no condition to appreciate it.

They made it down two flights before Tony said "Fuck," and sat down heavily on the stone landing, pulling Pepper down next to him. It seemed as good a place to stop as any. They were alone, out of sight of both the street above and the park below. Tony slumped forward with his head between his knees and struggled to control his breathing. Pepper put her hands on his shoulders and tried to hold him steady.

"Tony? Please, you're scaring me. Can you tell me what's wrong?" God please God don't let it be his heart... "Tell me what you need me to do."

She didn't know if it was her voice that did it, or the cool quiet of the park, or just the passage of time, but eventually Tony's breathing evened out, though she could still feel his shoulders trembling a little beneath her hands. After another minute or so, he shrugged her off and finally sat up straight.

"Well," he said in a carefully measured voice, "that was entertaining."

"No," Pepper told him, "it wasn't. It was not entertaining at all. Please don't do that again."

Tony gave her a rueful look. "I really freaked you out, didn't I?"

"'Freaked' does not begin to describe it! What the hell was that, Tony? I thought you were having a heart attack."

"Yeah. Sorry about that." He suddenly had trouble meeting her eyes. "Look, I need to ask you something, but I need you not to think I'm insane. Or at least, don't act as if you think I'm insane, okay?"

"I don't know if I can promise that," Pepper said, "but I'll do my best."

"Fair enough." Tony sighed. "Just tell me -- this is real, right? I mean, you're here and I'm here, and we're" -- he glanced from side to side, as if taking in their surroundings for the first time -- "in this very picturesque part of Morningside Heights, and I just blew off the mayor of New York and the president of Columbia. That's all real?"

"Of course it's real." Pepper narrowed her eyes at him. "Why are you asking me that? Can't you tell?"

"Honestly?" Tony shook his head. "I don't know. It seems real enough, but so did all the other times."

Okay, that did not sound good at all. "What other times?"

Tony combed his fingers through his hair, then let his hands fall to his lap. His movements were slow and weary-looking. He gave Pepper a furtive, sideways glance but still wouldn't look at her directly.

"I don't remember all of them," he said, "but there was that one time when I suddenly realized that the floor was dirt, not cement, and the armor was buried under it; I just had to dig down and get it out. So I did, and then I blasted my way out and flew to Malibu. It was fantastic, except for the part where it didn't actually happen."

Pepper reached out and put one hand on his back. "Tony..."

"Then another time, Rhodey busted me out. Mowed down the door with a tank. Which, you know, really should've tipped me off, 'cause Rhodey is in the fucking Air Force, why the fuck would he have a tank?" He let out a short bark of laughter, painful-sounding and quickly smothered. "Oh, and the time when Raza and his goons came in to question me and I beat them up with my bare hands. That felt really good. I wish that one had been real."

"You do know--" Pepper began, but Tony went on as if he hadn't heard her.

"I can't even tell you how many times I escaped from that damn basement, and every damn time I believed it. And then you showed up in the suit. C'mon, how is that supposed to be more believable than Rhodey in a tank?"

He had a point there, Pepper thought. Now, however, was not the time to admit it. She cupped Tony's face in her hands and made him finally turn to face her.

"This is real," she said, slowly and clearly. "You're here. I'm here."

Tony swallowed and curled his hands around her wrists, as if he was afraid that she'd pull away if he didn't hold on. "I'll take you word for it," he said in a rough voice.

"Tony, this is cr--" No, wait, she'd promised not to call him crazy. "You've been out of that basement for weeks. Have you really spent all this time thinking you were hallucinating?"

"No." He winced a little. "Not really. The first few days in the hospital, maybe. But then life went on, and I though, yeah, okay, this is happening. Or at least, I was pretty sure. Most of the time."

"So what set you off just now?"

"I don't know." Tony's grip on her wrists tightened just a little. "It was just... everything felt fuzzy. I could hear them yelling for me outside, but it sounded so far away. Suddenly, I wasn't sure anymore. And then the car was too small and too dark, and I couldn't get out."

Pepper refrained from pointing out that the company limo Happy had used to take them to Columbia was neither small nor dark. "Are you all right now?" she asked.

"Yeah." Tony closed his eyes for a moment, ducked his head a little and licked his lips. When he looked up again, the intense, focused look in his eyes made Pepper's breath hitch. "Yeah, I'm okay. I'm here. Because you said so, see, and I trust you."

Pepper's mouth went dry, and her face felt much too warm. They were so close now, just a few inches of space between them. Pepper's hands were still on Tony's face, Tony's thumbs were tracing slow circles against her wrists. All one of them needed to do now was lean in just a bit, and--

"Hey, guys!" Happy called down from the landing above them. "I found a parking space!"

They both jumped at the interruption and jerked their hands back. Pepper patted at her hair and Tony straightened his collar. He was having trouble meeting her eyes again, and for once, Pepper found it something of a relief. She gripped the metal banister with one hand and pulled herself to her feet.

"We'll be right up, Happy," she yelled, then gripped Tony's arm and helped him up. "What do you want to do now? Do you want to go home?"

"Nah." Tony smoothed his hands down the front of his jacket. "I promised I'd cut their damn ribbon, I might as well go and do it."

"Are you sure? They have plenty of people there, it'll probably be okay if you don't show."

"I'll be fine." He actually looked a little uncertain, but his smile remained firmly in place. "And if I have trouble, well, then you will assist. Isn't that right, Ms Potts?"

Pepper managed a smile in return. "Quite so, Mr. Stark."

"Let's go then." And he held out his arm to her, just like a Victorian gentleman in a movie. Pepper hesitated a moment, then rested her hand in the crook of his elbow, and they climbed up the stairs side by side.