Walking up the steps into the house that he hadn't been near for the last three months, Tony couldn't wait to get inside and was barely containing his excitement.
"I'll take it from here Hogan," he said as he took the one bag from his bodyguards shoulder.
"Are you sure Sir?"
"Positive. Go get some rest, God knows I've probably kept it from you long enough while I was gone."
Hogan gave a short laugh, looked up and nodded.
"You did Sir, have a good night," and saying that, he walked back down the steps and took the limo down to the gate, Tony watching him safely exit before turning and pressing his hand to a scanning pad by the door and walking through when it opened.
"Welcome home sir," JARVIS' cool voice greeted him.
"Thank you kindly…"
"It's been a long time," JARVIS said.
Tony span around as he walked, taking his tie off and looking at the cascading water flowing down the fountain that surrounded the stairwell.
"Based on news reports, I calculated your safe return at 0.25 percent."
"Yeaaap, I missed you too…"
Something on the low table caught his eye, and he sat down, sighing, to pick it up as the fireplace in the background turned on automatically.
'Tony,
Thank God it wasn't your time,
Obidiah.'
Obie had gotten him an expensive wristwatch as a welcome home present. How like him…Maybe he should have given him one of those cheeseburgers today. Looking up as he fastened the watch around his wrist, he got an idea to check his voicemail, so he moved fast the couch and discarded he dinner jacket onto it.
Standing facing the full length windows that adorned his home, he looked out.
"You have 1713 new voice messages," JARVIS said as the screen lit up, displaying each and every persons name across it in full, glorious detail to the thousands for Tony to read.
Tony pulled a face, hands in his pockets, looking resigned.
"How should I catagorise for you?" JARVIS said.
Tony took a quick glance through them, pulling his hand across the screen to go to different people's names, faster and faster as he saw no one he particularly cared about. Making a circle with his finger on the screen, he pulled all the messages into the centre, then to a point in the corner.
"Delete all."
As the screen went dark JARVIS' voice spoke again.
"I am detecting the presence of electromagnetic energy in the house."
"Mhmm…Boot up the scanner, will ya?" Tony said as he walked away, moving down the stairs and into the workshop.
The scan went without problems, taking in every ounce of new information from the Arc Reactor and recording it for later usage. Tony took the opportunity to think about the design of it, and spent the evening consulting with Jarvis.
"It is recommendable that you upgrade the Reactor to something that can sustain the Iron Man suit that you will be making for longer than fifteen minutes, Sir," JARVIS said.
"Noted, JARVIS. Pull up the scans, will you?"
Tony looked at the scans of his chest, seeing all the shrapnel near his heart. He wouldn't tell anyone, but it scared the shit out of him how close it was, and how careful he would have to be in the future to make sure the Arc Reactor never left his chest except for upgrades and checking. Half an hour of it not in his chest and he was quickly on his way to being as dead as Yinsen was.
It would need to be more efficient, and why not make a new one if he's got all the equipment that he does? Hell, he could make fifty Arc Reactors if he really wanted to, but he really doesn't because this tech, he wants to keep safe and secure.
It's still evening when he finishes doing the designs. He's happy with what he's done, and does one final check.
"Should we start machining the parts?" Tony says out loud, and the machines around him boot up, Butterfingers and Dummy beginning their daily ritual of making at least one mistake per job that they have to do. It's almost morning by the time that they're all finished, and he's just putting the finishing touches on it as the light starts peeking through the windows.
"Sir, Ms Potts is approaching the house," JARVIS breaks in.
"Let her in, tell her I'm sleeping," Tony says as he puts the finished Reactor on the bench, pulls his shirt off and collapses onto the couch in the workshop.
"Indeed Sir."
"Ms Potts, Mr Stark asked that I informed you that he is asleep in the workshop," JARVIS noted to Pepper as she pressed her palm to the pad by the door.
"Typical of him to sleep during the day. I suppose he was awake all through the night?"
"Yes Ms Potts, he was working on the design for the Arc Reactor."
"The what?"
"Sorry Ms Potts, I am not authorised to tell you anymore on the subject. He has asked that he himself informs you of his condition."
"Right," Pepper said, walking into the living room and setting her laptop down near the giant TV.
Several hours later and five-hundred emails send and read, Pepper looked up from the laptop's screen.
"Let me show you the new Start Industries business plan!" The man on the screen said, pointing the viewers. He smashed a cup with a baseball bat.
"Look, there's a weapon company that doesn't make weapons!" A sound effect of a jaguar played when he pressed a button. "Here's my recommendation for Stark Industries! Abandon ship! Does the Hindenburg ring any bells?"
Wow. Pepper thought.
"Pepper, are you there?" Tony's voice came through a computer on the table.
"Yeah," she said, turning down the volume on the TV.
"How big are your hands?"
"What?"
"Nevermind, get down here."
She walked quickly to the stairs and bounded down them. Or bounded about as fast as someone wearing three inch heels could.
"Let's see them, show me your hands," Tony said.
Pepper held them up, still confused, "I don't understand?"
"Oh right, they are small. Very petite. C'mon, come over here."
"Oh my GOD. Is that the thing keeping you alive?"
"It was. It is now an antique. All I need you to do is help me out here. I ran into a little speedbump…"
"Speedbump? What are you talking about?"
"Nothing, it's just a wire cut, and it's causing a little bit of a short"- he pulled the reactor out "-circuit"
"So what do you need me to do?"
"Nothing really, just reach in there and switch 'em out."
"Oh, no…I don't think I can do this, Tony," Pepper said.
"Sure you can…Go, go!"
"Okay, okay," Pepper said, reaching into Tony's chest and feeling her hands squelch into something. "Ewww, there's pus!"
"It's not pus, its discharge…It's from the device, not from my body…"
"It smells!"
"Yeah it does…Now grab the copper wire."
"Okay…I've got it." Pepper started pulling out the wire until it was about half a meter from Tony's chest.
"Great, now pull, but don't pull out the magnet,-" Pepper kept pulling, something in his chest clicked and a bronze magnet came falling out of the Arc Reactors hole.
Shit.
The heart monitors began bleeping rapidly.
"Oh God. DON'T put it back in!" His chest was starting to feel tight, and he was beginning to breath rapidly. The magnet was in there to hold the charge for several minutes while the Reactor was being switched out. The only thing to do now was not worry about the magnet anymore and think of a new way for the same thing to work.
"What do I do?" Peppers worried tone broke into his voice.
"Hurry, hurry, we gotta switch it out really quick," Tony said, handing Pepper the new Reactor.
She started putting it in, then stopped.
Jesus woman! Tony though.
"Tony, I'm gonna make this okay. I promise, you'll be okay." And with that she started putting it back in.
"Lets…Hope. Now you're gonna attach that to the baseplate, and m-make sh-sure you. Yeoow!"
Instant relief.
Tony looked and saw Pepper watching him, her hands dripping and a glare on her face.
"Don't you ever. EVER ask me to do anything like that…Ever again."
"I don't have anyone…But you…" Tony said, looking sheepish, "anyway," he leapt off the surgical chair that he was on, and started bossing around the robots..
Pepper asked him about the old Arc Reactor, to which she got the reply to incinerate it, on the grounds that he wasn't nostalgic and had no need to keep it around.
I'll make something out of it. Pepper though, and kept it close to her as she walked back up the stairs, inspecting it – how he had made it, and how it worked. She couldn't figure it out.