Wow, three years later! Ha-ha, sorry so much for having abandoned this website for so long, but once I got back into my writing vibe, I went back to this story. Been working on it most of the summer, and now here it is, ready to be posted.

Takes place before Age of Ultron, so JARVIS is still JARVIS, and not Vision.

Reading the first one isn't necessary, but one or two things will make more sense if you do.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers

Sadness Disclaimer: I wrote this before Civil War came out, and I feel like I'm the only one upset about the end of Pepperony

"Tony!"

At the shrill sound of Pepper's fast approaching voice and heels, said man quickly dropped his screwdriver, turned and faced the love of his life hands raised in the surrender position and declared, "I didn't do it! Unless I was supposed to do it, in which case I did it brilliantly."

"Oh you did it brilliantly alright," Pepper snapped, flashing a piece of paper under his nose. "What is this?"

Tony only briefly glanced at the bit of newspaper before going right back to grinning and asking, " What, so I agreed to a press conference. We did kind of recently save the world, again. It was called for."

"You know better," she huffed, "you know you're not supposed to agree to anything publicly without consulting the company first."

"I'm a big boy Pep," Tony scoffed, bending down to scoop up his fallen instrument before turning back to his project, "you worry too much, I've got it handled okay."

"No, not okay," Pepper replied, snatching the tool away from him, "you are coming up to the living room, right now, to go over a speech I've had to prepare for you in less than an hour."

"Hey, Pepper, come back with that!" Tony cried without any real heat. Honestly, if he wanted to he could scavenge about and find another one, but he followed her willingly up to the glass encased 'living room'. Of course they were the only ones of the Avengers that called it that, the others called it Peppers office with a view; feeling the term the couple used was to lose for such a grand area.

The huge glass wall that showed a beautiful angle of New York below paled in comparison to the woman standing before it, at least as far as Tony was concerned. He continued throwing such compliments at her, in hopes he could escape the office.

To be fair, the recent 'saving of the world' as Tony had called it, had blasted apart several glass buildings in New York, including the one behind his beloved. So the view wasn't tinted with all kinds of proof glass like normal. For now, Tony was still waiting on the stupid screw up contractors; honestly what was the use of people who weren't him again?

So focused was he on the redhead herself, neither took much notice as a projectile sailed right towards them, cutting through the normal glass like butter, missing Pepper's thigh by an inch, and lodging itself in Tony's lower leg.

Stumbling back in shock, he grasped hold of the thing lodged inside him, then despite Pepper's protests, he yanked it out; fury raging on his face. He opened his mouth to shout something, but the words died in his throat as his leg began spewing blood.

The arrow had struck an artery, and before the man could even fully processes this, he was on the ground, scrabbling desperately for a way to stem the bleeding while he cried out for Pepper to get out of here, there could be more!

She took no heed of his words, running forward and clasping hold of the limb, telling him he needed to calm down, that an ambulance would be here in just a moment.

Tony didn't hear any of this as he blacked out.

AAA

The gunfire pinging off of his shield was scaring him more in that moment than it had since he'd acquired his symbol. He should have known better. It was stupid, childishly so, to have thought this plan could work, and now here he was, stemming blood flow and trying to ignore his gut saying how pointless it was. He'd lost so much blood already, how much longer could he last before his so called enhanced body gave out?

'You've got to keep moving' his mind told him, but to where? He demanded right back. Surrounded by enemies on all sides with his wound, his only options left seemed to be either death or surrender.

AAA

"What no rants, no evil diabolical take over the world speech?" I slurred through a busted lip and blood continuing to drip down my face. With one more accurate punch that finally managed to snap a rib, my captors bid me a farewell, as silent as they'd entered.

With an echoing bang the only vibrations left, I turned to my partner wide-eyed and demanded, "We just had to get the silent ones. I like the ones that talk back, conversation keeps me going."

"Don't I know," Natasha's lips breathed out, tensing up her arms and legs for what had to be the millionth time in an attempt to break free of her bonds. I had given up on that aspect when I noted the chain link binding almost every inch of our skin to these metal chairs that were bolted to the floor.

Waking up like this should have bothered me a lot more, but then I would have to pretend this is the first time I'd woken up like this. It also did not happen to be the first beating I'd had to take. In fact despite their blows, it was almost childish to me. No all in all, what really began to bother me, was when I realized that my partner was in the same situation.

Not only did neither of us remember being ambushed, or any hint at all that might lead to this situation, but our captors had yet to demand information from us. So if they had us caught and felt the need to change our skin color to black and blue, while not demanding information, but had yet to kill us, what did they want?

This question bothered me more than I would care to admit, but that still wasn't the worst part of this situation. That just so happened to be the person in the room with me. There was only one other occasion since we had started our partnership did both of us get captured and held. Without the other to rely on for a rescue, we had quickly ran ourselves out of options, and only managed to make it out of that situation alive through luck, delayed answers to our tormentors, and Phil Coulson swooping in to save the day.

Now, there was no Phil to save us, and no questions to dodge to buy more time. It seemed we were here and alive for the express purpose of showing off our admittedly good looks.

Not even the other Avengers knew exactly where we were, unless Fury had disclosed that information after we hadn't checked in.

Worse still, I was suffering through all of this deaf. Having lost my hearing aids at some time during the struggle I couldn't remember only further fueled my mood.

'Sure, I can trundle through a jungle without issue, but some jerk straps me into the Seventh Circle of Hell, and I'm deaf as a-' I cut off my mental tirade as someone entered the room.

Someone new this time. He was definitely on the older side, with salt and pepper hair, wearing a nice Italian suite and walking with a cane. He took no notice of me, but walked over to Tasha and began talking with his back to me, leaving me unable to read the situation beyond Natasha's stoic face. Yeah, that didn't go over very well; I may as well have watched the ceiling for all the emotion you could read on her face.

Huffing and twitching, I tried shuffling my weight around yet again out of sheer boredom, then was startled into paying attention as I saw Natasha move.

She was talking to him, and even though I could read her lips I still had no idea what she was agreeing to do. Then she locked eyes with me as she continued talking, and I made out the words '-at least like to know why you want him.'

Confused, I opened my mouth to butt into this conversation now, then my chair shocked me! The how's didn't concern me, as most likely the electricity was arcing up from the plates below where the chair was bolted down, but the pain! I was suddenly grateful I no longer had my hearing aids in, or they would have been shocked into my brain.

How long that lasted I wasn't privy to, but by the time I had enough air back in my lungs and was glancing up, I finally saw emotion on her face. Nothing these people would recognize, in fact I would bet money that even the Avengers wouldn't see it, but I did. She responded back; and I didn't need to know it was in a flat emotionless voice 'What do you want?'

I, of course, didn't get to hear that answer either. All I knew was that whatever he did want, made The Black Widow's eyes darken. This couldn't be good. I felt like small bits were still shocking my brain, so I only caught a quarter of her response ' to kill- need a-'

Then I was being electrocuted again, which didn't feel any better than the first time.

It stopped as suddenly as it had started, and when my eyes blurred back into focus, Natasha was being unlocked from her chair, and standing with her usual grace. I grinned maliciously to myself, watching that redhead kill this whole room was better than any movie, but then I looked her in the eyes again; and I saw it.

She was trying to tell me, without actually saying it aloud. 'Sorry'.

'Great,' my inner monolog continued 'welcome to the ninth circle.'

Confused yet? Good. I like my audience to be scratching their heads until the end, hope you enjoy.