He opened his eyes again and Happy was lifting him up to stretcher. "Seriously? I can walk," Tony said. Though he wasn't doing too well resisting Happy's manhandling. "I resent this," he said, as Happy got him strapped into the stretcher.
"That sounds about right," Rhodey said. Tony tried to think of a witty rejoinder.
He still hadn't thought of one but he opened his eyes and tried to sit up anyway. He was on his plane, now laid out on one of his couches. Pepper was in a chair across from him, reading. He said, "Hey, Pep. Next time I wake up I'll have the chest piece out, right?"
"No, you'll probably wake up a few times before we get to Switzerland and then we go to the private hospital and then they prep you for surgery," Pepper said. Her voice sounded less confident than usual.
"You sound like you're worried about me," Tony said. "That's not good."
"It's good because you love me and I, I reciprocate," Pepper said. "I was just reading, the surgeons and Dr. Cho sent a few preliminary reports."
"JARVIS said there's only a 45.13% chance of me dying," Tony said. "That's pretty good odds."
"Those are horrible odds. Is that why you didn't want to do this? You realized your odds weren't fantastic?"
"When I looked at the idea of this surgery, my chances of dying were much much higher. More like 85, 95 per cent. But thanks to you and your insistence, now it's less than half," Tony said. He laid back. "I haven't been the best man and god knows, my survival has been a very low priority in my life at many points. But now there's you and you will get this done. And if not, please know I really regret every time we didn't have sex when we almost could have because I would have loved to have had sex with you."
"Every time we almost had sex? Honestly, that's a pretty short list of times," Pepper said.
"No, it's not. It's at least 5 or 6," Tony said.
"I can think of 2," Pepper said.
"The times I wanted to have sex with you is nearly every day since I met you," Tony said.
Pepper said, "Liar."
Tony fell back asleep. He resurfaced and the plane had landed. Tony was in the back of a private ambulance somewhere in Switzerland. He saw Pepper and said, "I'm only lying a little."
"I forgot what we were arguing about, Tony, it was 3 hours ago," Pepper said. She had a watery smile.
"It was not 3 hours ago, I know how long it takes our plane to get from Venice to Bern," Tony said.
"Oh my god, was I exaggerating? You never do that," Pepper said.
"You do it, too," Tony said. "Wait."
He took a deep breath. "Pepper, I love you, you're fantastic, you're gorgeous. Just wanted to get that in. Just in case. You know. The 45th percentile."
"I love you, too," she said.
He did fall back into a stupor.
Tony floated. It was an effect of the anesthesia, of course. Even zoned out of his head, Tony realized that. But he floated. He watched from his own eyes, placid and unbothered, as Yinzen and others - who had helped? one of the terrorists? - put that thing in his chest. They had to save him. Why did they have to save him?
If he'd died then, it would have been okay. Not great at all, Obie would have kept selling weapons to terrorists, something would have happened to Pepper but she would have survived. Rhodey was always going to survive. But Tony felt it would have been okay.
He remembered all the torture. It happened at distance but it happened again. Like removing the chest piece let all those memories surge into his metaphorical heart. He assumed his body's pain was triggering the memories. Bringing them up to him in technicolor played out in front of him.
The worst was yet to come. He saw Obie. Obie laughing with his dad, Obie coming to the lab and Tony laughed, Obie saying Pepper was great, smart move to hire her. He expected the next parade of trauma to be his father but instead he was 13, lurking on the porch. He looked inside and saw Fury, his father, Peggy Carter, everyone sitting around talking. This, he thought, was a fabricated memory. He was sure Fury had never been to the house. He was sure he wasn't in 1983.
His mind jumped. He saw Atlantic City at 3 am, Rhodey walking naked on the boardwalk with impressive dignity. He saw Pepper in cheap jeans and barely there makeup, talking to Killian whathisface like she knew him. She had known him, she worked for him. Pepper was asleep on his couch, her posture worried even in sleep. He'd made her that way.
"Pepper," he said. He always thought of her when he was about to die.
Happy shook his head. He shook his head and said, "Come on, Tony." Happy was exasperated. He was driving a model T. "We've entered the subconscious associations part of this," Happy said.
"Are you a guide? You're an odd choice for a guide."
"Why? I'm not smart enough? You want someone smart and pretty like Pepper or Rhodey? No such luck, Tony." Happy seemed offended.
"If I were actually hoping, I would have angled for my mom or my dad. Or Jarvis. You never met Jarvis, did you?"
"I drove you to his grave, in the Jewish cemetery. Least creepy cemetery I've ever seen. I'm saying that so that must mean you think it," Happy said. "Not so dumb, am I?"
"You're me, of course, you're not," Tony said. "I've never thought about the relative creepiness of cemeteries."
"You obviously have," Happy said. They were, in fact, at a cemetery. The one where Anna and Edwin Jarvis were buried. Tony got out and went to their graves. They were beautifully maintained. Tony made sure Pepper paid for the best.
"I think I come here more than Dad's. If he weren't buried next to Mom, I'd never go. I still don't go," Tony said, standing there.
"Your father was a good man," Edwin Jarvis said, a disembodied voice but absolutely Edwin, not the AI. "Frustrating and complex, but a good man."
"I know you say that," Tony said. "And now I have all this evidence of his work with SHIELD, the people who liked him. Maybe you're right."
"I am frequently right," Edwin said.
"Listen to his ego," Anna said. She was not disembodied, she was younger than Tony had ever known, she was the age of the pictures Tony had seen, when they were all hanging out with Peggy Carter. "Listen to the ego of this man."
"He does sound more like me," Tony said.
"I am, as you are thinking, merely a figment of your imagination," Edwin said. "I do appreciate that you loved me. Somewhere out there."
"Don't sing to me, Jarvis," Tony said.
He was four and he could do anything, put any engine or computer in front of him and he could make them work. He clung to his mother's legs when he could, let Anna Jarvis feed him whatever she wanted. He sat on his mother's lap and listened to the two women in the kitchen, laughing. He thought, even though the memory wasn't totally clear, he thought they were making fun of his father. Even at four, Tony could appreciate that.
"What about the future? Do I get to see that?"
"So much ego," Anna said, tousling his four year old hair. "Why do you want to see the future? Let it happen. All we have is this. We die, we sleep in the dust. We endure." She kissed his forehead.
He opened his eyes. He was in pain. He couldn't move his neck. "Hey," he said. "Hey, am I awake?"
"You are now," someone said. She was in his eyeline and he thought, this is Helen Cho. "I'm Dr. Cho."
"How'd your part go?"
"My part is still going on," Dr. Cho said. "I'm working to fix your chest after the distortion from the chest piece."
"Big gaping hole," Tony said.
"You don't have a big gaping hole," Dr. Cho said. "I'm hoping to make it so you don't have a scar, but that is going to take some time."
Tony woke up. He woke up. He woke up. Then he finally actually woke up. This time he saw Pepper. He said, "Dr. Cho said she's working to get me a small gaping hole in my chest instead of the size of your fist. Or my fist."
"She's actually going to make it so there's no hole. Her work is amazing, Tony. She's going to revolutionize medicine," Pepper says.
"You sound so impressed," Tony said. "So she's doing good work on me. I assume, by the way, I'm not paralyzed and I didn't have a stroke and should recover eventually."
"Yes, you came through fine. So far you're having a very normal recovery."
"So far," Tony said.
"Do you want to worry about that? I'm trying not to," Pepper said. She wasn't wearing any make up. She looked beautiful but tired. He did that to her. It made him feel like an ass. Pepper deserved the world.
He said, "I love you. Since I'm probably going to survive, I wanted to reiterate that, you know, so you know I meant it."
"I knew you meant it," Pepper said. She touched his hair and drew her hand back. "Unfortunately, now we have to get back to business. There's a lot of, people are upset about Iron Man, upset that they haven't heard from you."
"Say I'm sick, but Rhodey has a spare suit which I plan to improve, and you're at the helm," Tony said.
"Nope," Pepper said. "Bad idea. Really bad idea. Put in the work for Rhodey's suit and we'll keep this under the radar. I have a ton of work to do, still. This CEO job is insane."
"It drove me insane, that's my excuse," Tony said.
"Stop being silly, you had your problems long before you were CEO and even when you had the job, I was doing 2/3rds of the work," Pepper said. She had a gorgeous cocky smile.
"Are you keeping Natalie as an assistant?"
"For a little while," Pepper said. "She's watching your recovery. Though she's been hanging out a lot with Rhodey. He loves that suit."
"Of course he does," Tony said. "Not that Iron Man needs a sidekick."
"Rhodey isn't going to be a sidekick to anyone," Pepper said.
He declined to look at his healing wound. He reveled for one moment in a deep breath with no fear. No worry of what would come into his heart.
He didn't dream.
He woke up to Happy this time. "Where's the pretty ones?"
"I'm pretty," Happy said. "Good to see you, boss."
"Good to see you, too," Tony said. "Nice being alive and not immediately dying."
"You look like shit, though. You look worse than when you got back from Afghanistan, you look worse than that vacation you took in 2002," Happy said. "Remember that one?"
"Not really," Tony said.
"You almost got a tattoo," Happy said.
"Because that would be the worst thing to happen to me," Tony said.
"You would have regretted that tattoo," Happy said.
"It was going to be an equation," Tony said. "Wasn't it?"
"Yeah, something stupid like that."
"Hey, can you get me a laptop or something? I had some ideas for the suit," Tony said.
Happy sighed heavily. "Okay, okay, I'll try. Don't yell at me if I grab the wrong one. Okay?"
"Ask JARVIS. JARVIS can tell you," Tony said.
He woke up again and this time he had a Natasha. "Hello, spygirl."
Natasha just looked at him. She handed him his laptop. "Are you planning to work on Rhodey's suit?"
"Yes, does that please you and Agent Fury?"
"It does," Natasha said.
"You want Rhodey in a suit more than me in a suit," Tony said. He'd already opened the laptop. He was already looking at the schematics. Step one was getting the new element in the reactor in Rhodey's suit. Step 2 was adding some modifications that would be more familiar for Rhodey. The kind of thing Tony didn't shoot as well.
"Who wouldn't want Rhodey in the suit more than you?"
"Me," Tony said. "Also, it's my suit."
"Rhodey's good in it," she said, a small smile.
"What a surprise, you prefer a good soldier to a -"
"Narcissist, alcoholic, self-destructive asshole?"
"I object to alcoholic," Tony said. "I really can quit anytime. I mean, with time, sure, but right now I'm more of a problem drinker." He smiled at her until he was sure she was irritated. "Do you want a suit, Natalie?"
Her face said no very clearly. He said, "Also, I've rigged one up for Pepper. She should never use it, but she needs to be safe. And you won't always be there. You'll almost never be there."
"I won't be there at all in a week," Natalie said.
"Pepper would be in danger and you wouldn't defend her? Wouldn't help her? That's cold," Tony said.
She rolled her eyes at him. She was very communicative in her way. He went back to his tablet and when he looked up, she was gone.
Pepper came in and sat beside him. He said, "How long until I can have sex? Specifically sex with you, I'm not planning on anyone else."
"A bit," Pepper said. She had her own laptop out, she was clearly working on CEO business.
"I just really really want to, Pepper. With you. I haven't had sex since before Afghanistan," he said.
"That's not true," Pepper said.
"You're wrong," Tony said. "It's very true."
"Are you not counting that woman, that one from the library?"
"Made out, no part of her came anywhere near my penis, sadly. Not that sadly, I can certainly live without sex, but I do miss sex," Tony said.
"Why wouldn't you have sex with her?"
"It is possible she didn't want to and you know I take that seriously. But actually neither of us wanted to. I was thinking of you, I'm sure she was thinking of someone else," Tony said.
"Who was she thinking of?"
"She talked a lot about her sorority sister," Tony said. "I'm not being a lech, I genuinely think I was her last date with a man."
"Poor thing," Pepper said, smiling. Then she frowned. "God, why did you promise Hammer a spot at the Expo?"
"I'm a dick?"
"Well, he's taking it, and I have to go because everything is in a freefall," Pepper said. "He is so repellant."
"That he is," Tony said. "Why do you have to go?"
"Because everyone is panicking about Vanko and you said no one would have this technology for years but Vanko has it now," Pepper said.
"Vanko is dead. I defeated him before he died," Tony said.
"I agree that all of that occured, but you can't change that people felt safe and don't feel safe now," Pepper said. "So I have to go and make Stark Industries look at least like it has a CEO."
He smiled at her. "Remember that time I tried to fly commercial? God, what was that?"
Pepper laughed. "You were drunk. And high on cocaine -"
"I was not. I only did coke in the 80s, I stopped in 1988. Never again," Tony said.
"You were 18," Pepper said. "And doing coke."
"I was very wealthy and famous and too smart for my own good," Tony said.
"You were definitely altered, you were not just drunk," Pepper said.
"There may have been something in the alcohol," Tony said.
"You were slipped something and decided to buy a ticket to, oh, god, was it Paris?"
"It was Dallas," Tony said. "No one slipped me anything. Whatever was in the alcohol, I consented to. And then I slipped away from Happy, and I wanted to go home. So I went to the airport and bought a ticket."
"You called me so I would show the TSA your driver's license which you didn't have on you," Pepper said.
"Ridiculous," Tony said. "Who else would I be? It was 2003 and my phone then was generations ahead of iphone now. I was on the cover of the Enquirer that week, why did I need a driver's license?"
"You have a driver's license and a passport, even if you never remember to carry it either with you," Pepper said.
"That's why I have you, right? Or why I need a new you. Not you like the woman I love, but a new assistant. Especially since Natalie has to go assassinate enemies of the state." Tony reached for Pepper's hand, it was an effort. A very worthwhile effort. He said, "Take the case."
"The Iron Man case? Rhodey has his suit, do I have to carry his back up? I'm not his assistant or his girlfriend," Pepper said.
"The case is for you. If you're in any danger, put the suit on and fly away. Get as far away as possible," Tony said.
"Don't stay and fight? You would stay and fight," she said.
"I'm stupid. I'm a dick. I'm self-destructive and a narcissist," Tony said. "You're none of those things so I want you safe. I need you safe. I have my heart all fixed here, Pepper. I want to get a chance to use it."
"You're already using it," Pepper said with wry, dry touch in her voice.
"Go with the metaphor, Pepper, come on," he said.
"It was just corny, sweetheart," Pepper said.
"I want to use my heart, I want to raise my heart rate with you, getting to know you," Tony said.
"Soon," she said. She looked at him and he remembered how smart she was, how much he loved that about her. She said, "If I put on this suit, you're not in charge, right? I get to decide what to do."
"Sure, I mean, I'll be in your ear, advising you, walking you through the important things to do to get away and be safe, but you're actually in control. If it comes to that. I don't think it'll come to that. But sometimes I get worried, especially about you," Tony said.
"You get worried or you have a bad feeling? An ominous feeling," Pepper said.
"Maybe, hard to tell my paranoia apart from my subconscious usually," Tony said.
"You worry too much," Pepper said. "You can just anticipate what might happen and how you would respond. I bet you're capable of it."
"Maybe," Tony said. He tapped the thick bandages on his chest. "Less to worry about now."
"I love you, too," she said. She leaned in and kissed him on the lips. "I'll be back. We'll work this out."
He watched her shapely butt walk away before it occurred to him that he wasn't sure what they were going to work out. It was either a very long list or a very short one.
He fell back into his anesthetized haze.
He woke up to JARVIS shouting in his ear. "Mr. Stark. Something has happened at the Expo."
Tony tried to sit up and fell back down in pain. "Get me out of here. Get me there, now."
"No," JARVIS said. A nurse came in, carrying an Iron Man helmet delicately like it might explode. JARVIS directed her to put it on Tony's head.
Tony tried to focus. "Vanko's alive," he heard Rhodey say.
"Which one?"
"The one from Monaco," he heard Pepper said. "Is there another one we should be worried about?"
"No, what's going on? What's happening?"
"Hammer," Rhodey said. "And Vanko."
He could see out of Rhodey's suit and then out of Pepper's as she put hers on. "This is weird," Pepper said.
"Yup," Tony said. "Natasha and Rhodey have it under control, I'm sure, time for you to fly away and come here."
"It's the Stark Expo, put on by Stark Industries, your idea, I'm not leaving everyone here to die without helping. No disrespect to you, Rhodey."
"None taken, but Tony's right," Rhodey said.
"Shut up, both of you," Pepper said.
So Tony had to direct both of them through the ensuing battle and help them to defeat Vanko while Natasha made sure Hammer was arrested. Pepper said, "Aw, did you see that cute kid? I bet he thinks he defeated the drone."
"He also thinks he met me," Tony said.
"Yes, of course, because I'm this suit with the metal six pack and big spot to cushion my dick," Pepper said. "You don't have a six-pack, why does the suit?"
"I know why mine does," Rhodey said.
"Har har," Tony said.
Tony didn't want to admit, but Pepper had an immediate intuitive grasp when it came to using the suit. While Tony was not mentioning it, JARVIS was rushing in to suck up to Pepper by telling her.
"Thank you, JARVIS," Pepper said.
"I'm good at using the suit, too," Tony said. "Remember how I designed it?"
"Wow, someone's defensive," Pepper said.
"He really is," Rhodey said.
"I hate you both, get back here immediately," Tony said.
"Fly all the way to Switzerland in these suits?" Tony could hear Pepper rolling her eyes.
"Come on home," Tony said.
"We'll see you soon enough," Pepper said.
Tony nearly growled and took off his helmet. The two of them, he thought. They were the worst. Then the nurse came in and said something about an elevated heart rate and made Tony go straight to sleep.
When he finally woke up and shook off the grogginess, Pepper was walking into his hospital room. "I insist on going home," Tony said.
"You had heart surgery, you're having your third surgery to deal with that hole in your chest tomorrow, so no, you're not going home yet."
"How's the news? Did you save the world enough, people like us now?"
"Yes," Pepper said. "Actually."
"How nice for our stocks," Tony said. "I have some ideas, you know. About the future of Stark Industries."
"I'm excited already," Pepper said. She didn't sound excited at all.
"Tell me about using the suit," Tony said.
"I liked it," Pepper said. "I don't want to do it again. Maybe. I get why you love it. It was amazing to fly. But it was frightening. We couldn't save everyone, you know, people died."
"Because of Vanko," Tony said. "Not you."
"Do you believe that when you're in the suit?"
"Not really," Tony said. "But you're better than me."
"No, I'm different from you in complementary fashion," Pepper said. "We fit together well. I'm not, don't you put me on pedestal."
"I just think you're perfect," Tony said.
"I have plenty of room to improve," Pepper said. "Should I practice in the suit?"
"When I'm better, you and me will," Tony said.
After a fourth surgery for his poor gaping hole chest, they finally let Tony go home. He decided home would be New York City.
