Author's Note: After several months of writing nothing but school stuff, I decided to try my hand at fic again, now that I'm on holidays and have plenty of time to spare. This might not be my best story ever, but at least I wrote something, yay! This is a sequel to my story Cryobiosis, and similar in spirit: pretty predictable, traditional drama/hurt/comfort, with no pairings. The story is finished, I'll be posting the rest of it over the next few days.
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Damn, he was bored.
As much as Tony hated hospitals, the as-good-as endless period of convalescence at home was almost worse than the days he had spent staring at boring TV-shows and flirting with nurses. A few days short of a month after his little accident in the Arctic, he was still under strict doctor's orders to stay out of the armor, and everyone around him had teamed up to make absolutely certain that he followed those orders.
He was no longer officially on sick leave, he could attend meetings, he could do design and repairs at his workshop, but none of it could make up for the fact that working as Iron Man was still off-limits to him. He missed the suit. He missed the action, the adrenaline, and even more than those, he missed the feeling that he could actually do some good. Business dealings, paper work and tinkering would never give him that.
He leaned back and glanced at the suit schematics filling the screens in front of him. He rested his right hand on his slightly achy left shoulder - now with extra titanium, implanted in the surgeries that it had taken to get all the bones back where they belonged. The good news was, the fine motor functions of his hand weren't impaired in any way. The bad news was that his shoulder might never be quite the same again. He'd regained most of the use of it already, thanks to his physical therapist and Pepper. If it wasn't for Pepper, he would probably have missed most of his PT sessions and skipped all of the exercises he had been given, so it was a good thing she was annoyingly persistent about these things.
During the last few weeks, Tony had done a dozen upgrades to his suit. He'd done the same to Rhodey's suit, and he'd had Rhodey do test flights, so he also knew that everything worked. Still, that wasn't the same as doing the tests himself, especially since he didn't want to ask Rhodey to do any really risky, extreme stuff. And as long as he wasn't allowed to do test flights, Tony was stuck designing more upgrades.
He was still staring absently at the screens, his thoughts lingering somewhere between boredom and self-pity, when his phone rang.
It took a good minute before he began to make any sense of the call - the number was an unknown one, and whoever the caller was, they seemed to be on the verge of panic. "Mr. Stark, I know I shouldn't have bothered you directly, but since you're you - I mean, you're Iron Man, after all, I thought that, well, the security folks have already contacted the fire department and they're doing their best, but -"
"Whoa, whoa, hey, you need to slow down a bit," Tony said. "Who're you, again, and where's the fire?"
"I'm sorry, sir, this is Jones, from logistics, I know you've got no idea who I am, I'm just a grunt, really, but there was an explosion in assembly plant three, and the fire's spreading, and there were people working there at that time, and -"
As he listened to the frantic explanation, Tony held his hand over the cell phone's microphone and told Jarvis to search the media for anything related to this. The screens were still empty when Jones finished speaking, which wasn't all that surprising, since the explosion had taken place only a few minutes ago. Apparently, this guy's first reaction to the whole thing had been to pick up his phone to contact Iron Man. Tony definitely appreciated that.
"All right, Jones, thanks for letting me know. You did the right thing. Help is on the way."
Tony placed the phone on the table and stood up. He knew perfectly well that what he was supposed to do was to call Rhodey, so that War Machine could take this case. Then again, that would take time, and those were his people in there, people who worked for him, trapped in his plant. Even though no one seemed to have any idea of the cause of the explosion yet, it screamed "sabotage" to Tony. His safety protocols were strict, and all related technology was top-notch. The possibility of an accident leading to an explosion leading to an uncontrolled fire was virtually non-existent. Besides, assembly plant three was where most of the projects for S.H.I.E.L.D. were done. There was no way that could be a coincidence.
The worst thing that could happen was that he'd overstrain his shoulder, which would give him some serious pains and aches and cause a setback in his physical therapy. It was nothing he couldn't handle, when lives were at stake.
"Jarvis, seems it's time for Iron Man to fly again," he declared, already pulling on his undersuit.
"Sir, you are still under doctor's orders not to take up any activities that will place significant stress on your injured shoulder."
"Yeah, and you're still hard coded to obey my orders, which means that you can forget about whatever the docs say. I'll use an override if I have to. I know you hate it when I do that."
"I'm incapable of 'hating' anything, sir," Jarvis replied - but nevertheless, didn't push his point any further, which Tony took for resignation.
The very second he stepped on the platform, the door to his workshop opened, letting in an anxious-looking Pepper. Her expression went from a worried frown to an angry glare as soon as she spotted him.
"Jarvis, don't you dare put that suit on him, and Mr. Stark, get away from there, right now. You know as well as I do that you can't do Iron Man missions yet."
"Pepper, I've got to! There's a fire at -"
"At assembly plant number three, eastern quadrant of the Stark Industries complex, yes, I know. I've already called Rhodey, and he'll be here in less than five minutes."
"That's five minutes that we shouldn't waste. In five minutes, I'll be in the suit and at the site. It's not like I'm actually injured anymore," Tony complained, still standing on the platform, although the robotic arms around him had stopped before they'd placed one single piece of armor on him.
"Right, sure you aren't. Tell me that doesn't hurt," Pepper said, and poked his bad shoulder with her forefinger, "and you're free to go."
He couldn't help flinching and gasping the unexpected stab. "Hey, your nails are really sharp!"
"Come on, Tony," Pepper said, resting her hand on his biceps now, steering him away from the platform. "This mission is Rhodey's, not yours."
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Rhodey drove straight into Tony's basement and leaped out of the car. He found Tony sitting behind his workstation, wearing his undersuit, and looking like a sulking kid, while Pepper stood in front of the suit platform, her arms crossed, like an an angry mother. Even though he knew the situation they were facing was serious, Rhodey couldn't help grinning a little.
He walked over to Tony and gave his good shoulder a squeeze. "Hey, give it a week or two, and we'll be doing this together again."
Tony shook his head. "I don't care about two weeks from now. What's going on right now is that my people could be trapped in there and dying," he motioned at a screen in front of him, which was showing a live camera feed from the accident site. A thick, dark column of smoke rose from a large, low building, which had the Stark Industries logo painted on its wall. There were already several fire trucks parked in front of it.
"So, forget about the pep talk, and get going," Tony finished.
Although Rhodey had his doubts about selfless reasons being the sole explanation for Tony's sullen mood, Rhodey nodded, and went on to get suited up. Almost ten minutes had already passed since the explosion, and the chances of being able to get anyone out of there alive were growing slimmer with every passing second.
"The armor should protect you from the environmental hazards long enough for you to go in there, see if anyone's around, and to get them out, but you need to be careful," Tony said, as the robots were building the metal shell around Rhodey. "The conditions are bound to be extreme. We've never tested the suits in circumstances like those, and despite all the upgrading I've done, they're not designed for sustained use in a blazing inferno. Of course, your air supply isn't endless, either. So, we'll be sitting here, monitoring your progress and making sure you stay within safe limits. Also, I've every reason to believe that this wasn't an accident. There might be bad guys in there, or more bombs."
Rhodey stepped off the platform in full armor, his faceplate still up. "You're telling me to be careful? Who are you, and what did you do to Tony Stark?" he quipped, shaking his head. "Pepper, you'll make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, like follow me, right?"
"You can count on that," she said sternly. "I'll tie him up if I have to."
"Ooh, I'd like that," Tony said with a wink. "Handcuffs would do the job, too. Or you could just sit on my lap, that might be just as effective. You'll have to test it to find out."
"In your dreams, Mr. Stark."
"That does it, I'm outta here," Rhodey said, closed his faceplate, and took off.
He'd done several missions alone during Tony's sick leave, but this was the most dangerous one yet, and the one closest to home. It felt weird and wrong to dash into action at Stark Industries, while Tony stayed at home with Pepper, staring at screens and going nuts with the lack of activity and the general feeling of uselessness. Then again, they'd almost lost Tony in the Arctic, and his shoulder had been a complete mess. He really needed the extended time-out.
At full speed, Rhodey covered the distance from Tony's mansion to the Stark Industries complex in a few minutes. He didn't need instructions to find the exact location, since it was obvious from afar. From the video he'd seen, Rhodey hadn't realized how big the plant was. The amount of billowing black smoke escaping through the hole the explosion had made in the roof was overwhelming from a close distance.
"I'm here," he told Tony and Pepper through the radio.
"Jarvis has the plans for the building," Tony said, and the said diagrams showed up on Rhodey's HUD display. "Pepper's been in contact with the fire department, so they know you're there. Not that they're really doing anything at the moment. The fire isn't going to spread outside that building, and the conditions in there are so difficult that they can't go inside."
The layout of the plant seemed simple enough: a rectangular structure, with a personnel entrance and several small rooms in two storys adjacent to it, and then a huge big hall, filled with machinery, with several large doors for vehicles.
Rhodey landed in front of the personnel entrance - a simple, thick-looking metallic door. The fire trucks were parked nearby, and the firefighters waved at him as a greeting. He lifted a silvery hand in reply.
"You might want to stand back," he told them and the gathered crowd. Then, feeling more than a bit nervous, he grabbed the door handle and turned it. The door opened to reveal a long corridor filled with smoke, pitch-dark except for the flicker of flames at the far end. Through the suit, Rhodey couldn't say anything about the temperature, but he could almost see the heat in the air. He switched the HUD to infrared. It would help him to spot any trapped people.
"All right, I'm going in," he declared, both to the onlookers and to his friends.
He stepped into the corridor, and closed the door behind him.