A/N: Hey guys! I've been sitting on this plot for a few years. At one point I was super-obsessed with it (because Iron Man swooping in to save a completely different movie's butt was just wildly appealing), fell out of interest, and then back into interest. I was horrified with what I read-so I overhauled it massively, and I will probably continue to do so forever.

Feel free to leave a review or comment if you have any questions, or just wanna share your opinion about what you think. Thanks, and enjoy! (:

XOXO, Helix.

Disclaimer: I don't own Iron Man or Independence Day.

Okay.

As a superhero, it was only natural and right to expect to see some weird stuff. It was basically in the fine print.

I mean...I didn't anticipate anything more extreme than Hammer's stupid androids. At the very least, some bank-robberies or collapsed train bridges.

Of course, I'm not stupid, either. I figured something was bound to happen. It was too quiet. Nothing happened after Flushing. Everyone was suddenly so peaceful, and sure, it was unsettling, but if I had known what was coming, I wouldn't've complained. Not once.

But that was before the peace was interrupted.

Maybe even for good.

You know what they say, when something seems too good to be true, it usually is? They're completely right...whoever 'they' are.

I was the one who proved it.

3:18 p.m., July the 1st

Santa Monica, California

Mark V was destroyed.

To paraphrase the potential legal battle, I'd passed out in the middle of verbally confirming whether or not to let Jarvis autopilot the Suit the rest of the way home after a particularly nasty recent mission. I missed the mansion by more than ten miles and crash-landed in a strip mall. I didn't remember a thing, but there apparently there was enough structural damage that I couldn't possibly pass it off as a weather balloon or swamp gas.

It was actually giving me a headache.

Overall, I'd been in a sort of bored, irritable haze for a while, but since Pepper left for a conference in Vegas two days ago...it probably got about ten thousand times worse.

When I first brought it up to Happy (because he wasn't quite as good a boxer as he was a therapist) he claimed it was just a creative slump, but the actual monotony (minus Pepper) was killing me a whole lot quicker than Palladium poisoning could have ever hoped to. He'd laughed, too. Hard. Then he suggested that I buy him a new flat-screen if I didn't have anything better to do.

(The best he was going to get was an Iron Man bumper sticker for the Bentley-not that that would do anything for security, ha-ha.)

In fact, I actually thought that Pepper was making things worse. I really did. I was very anxious not to have her glued to my hip now, especially after Vanko and Hammer-whose techniques I would have almost admired if he hadn't destroyed my Expo.

My Expo. My baby.

I'd never been more angry in my life-second only to Obadiah ripping out my arc from my chest-but Pepper...

Well. I gave her brownie points for holding it together until we both got back to the hotel, at least.

At first, the good part: she had hugged me so hard that my [kick-ass] new arc prototype had probably bruised her, but afterward it got real ugly, real quick. As soon as she could catch a flight back to Malibu, she left. I personally thought it was absurd that she didn't even leave on the same plane she arrived on, but I supposed she was just so angry that she didn't want anything to do with anything that had my name plastered on the side of it.

Hell hath no fury, I guess.

We didn't speak for almost two weeks after that.

And it was as if the kiss hadn't even happened at all.

It was awkward forever, but when she started to relax around me again, it wasn't the same. To have some of our old banter (probably not the best word to describe it) back, was kind of reassuring, but apart from the usual, "Will that be all?" and "Stop using my shoes as paperweights," it was now strictly business. It was disgusting.

So I stopped trying, and decided that if I couldn't keep her at my side, I could sure as hell keep Happy at hers.

I yawned widely. I was bored, nervous, and exhausted.

And it was only three in the afternoon.

Rolling back to the console, I began the unnecessarily long process of shutting down all the tablets, holographs, and touchscreen computers by hand; I hoped that doing so manually would speed along the process exhausting myself to unconsciousness.

"Sir?"

His tone had a weird inflection in it that I couldn't put my finger on. I frowned and shook my head-I could clean up whatever Dummy's newest mess was after I finished. If I wasn't going to sleep efficiently-even though I knew I needed it-I at least wanted to be in a bed.

"Sir," the A.I. said a little louder, resigned-sounding.

I scowled.

"What? I'm trying to close all these computers down so I can-"

"My apologies, Sir, but you must listen."

He cut me off. An interesting affectation that was just this side of weird enough to make me pause.

"The computer to your left, Sir."

I glared up at the ceiling.

"I swear, Jarvis, if this is the Maze Game or something, I'll shred your codes." I rocked onto my heels and my computer chair rocketed backward toward the console. "And then I'll feed the scraps to the surfers," I added darkly, and scrolled with my left thumb until I found the systems controls, cranked up the volume, and waited. "How does that sound?"

Unholy.

My threat died with Jarvis' recording.

The noise, whatever it was, was screechy and terrible and deep-so profoundly freaking unnatural that my skin crawled.

It almost sounded like a language. The same sound oscillated, now, and it was sharper this time. I sat back in surprise, watching the static bounce up and down on the screen. It looked too organized. Mathematical, even.

Binary code?

"Are we the first ones to intercept this?" I asked warily. Whatever notion of sleep I had before was long gone now.

"From what I can tell by the Stark Three Communications Satellite, Sir, we are currently in the outermost sector of Earth's magnetic field. Our flight path is followed closely by only one other, but we seem to have intercepted the signal first."

"Who's that?"

Jarvis paused just slightly. "A Hammer Tech Satellite. However, it is of the Weapons Tracking variety."

I groaned. "And how far behind are they?"

"The Hammer Tech Satellite will most likely intercept the signal in one and a half hours; however, this is not an approximate estimate based on previous accounts of Justin Hammer's technological successes."

"No," I shook my head, and twirled a gnawed-on ballpoint pen between my fingers. "Hammer can't manufacture long-range missiles worth crap, but satellites...They aren't bad."

"Shall I contact him with intentions to warn, Sir?"

And I snorted. "Warn him about what? For all we know it's some malfunction. Just email Tech or R&D and have 'em figure it out."

That's lazy and you know it.

"Our satellite isn't producing the sound, Sir. The satellite is receiving it from a location past our magnetic field."

My pen stilled, and I went cold.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying, Jarvis?"

"I can confirm that it is, at least, not coming from the actual of Earth, Sir."

"Well, then...can you confirm it's from an Earthly satellite?"

I was honestly grasping at straws, but I refused to live in another science fiction movie for at least another year. The Hammer Drones had been plenty of death-defying excitement.

"Would you prefer that I directed my energy toward obtaining the signal distance, Sir?"

"Better keep an eye on it," I muttered. "No trail, though."

"Very well, Sir."

I tapped my pen on my desk, irritated. I hated to admit it, but Hammer had some of the best Satellite technology aside from NASA; right up there with mine. I probably wouldn't have the time to go to my laboratory in Fresno without seriously cutting into time that I didn't know I'd need or not.

Which sucks!

Hammer was really leaving me with no options, and I was starting to slightly regret our competitiveness, now. He was the only one outside of any credible government installation who would understand what that static meant.

Either way, it included a trip to Washington D.C.

A computer to my right chimed. I disliked the sound of the little alarm, but I looked. I had to.

I hadn't really expected to like what I saw, but...well, I really didn't like what I saw. And if I was expecting anything at all, it sure wasn't...that.

"Whoa, hello," I mumbled. "Jarvis? Wanna explain?

"Sir, if my calculations are correct, the signal is coming from a small three hundred and seventy-five thousand kilometers away, the distance the Earth is to the-"

Bleakly, I finished his sentence. It was a talent that not even Rhodey, my arguable brother, could boast of our own relationship.

"The Moon."

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