So honestly, I'm not too happy with this chapter, I thought it was a little flat, but I guess that's why I need help and inspiration for the next few :( Let me know what you think and whether anything can be improved, and on that note, I have to say, I made an editing mistake in the previous chapter which was embbarassing, so I've taken more care with this chapter, let me know, JIMENUSH, whether there are any other silly mistakes lol!

A long hour had passed since Pepper had spoken with Doctor Hollinger and an hour since she found out that there was something wrong with Tony which even the doctors couldn't work out. S.H.I.E.L.D's doctors.

Her heart sunk, what hope did he have when even they couldn't work out what was going wrong.

She gripped his hand tighter between hers and pressed a kiss to it.

The door silently opened revealing Steve, now in civilian clothes, standing with a weak smile.

'How's Natasha?' Pepper heard herself asking.

'She's going to be ok, her body heals in a similar way to mine,' Steve explained making his way over to the free chair.

'What you said, about Tony just being a man without the armour-' Pepper began.

Steve quickly interjected, 'I never should have said that I was wrong-'

'You're right, he's human and mortal and things can destroy him, so easily, but he's so much more than that,' she mused, 'he would do anything you or Natasha would do.'

Steve nodded, 'I know, he's equal to us, and I guess…'

'He was trying to prove that.' Pepper finished, 'what happened?'

Steve glanced down at Tony and solemnly back at Pepper, 'we were scheduled to fly over a hot spot known for terrorist activity, someone new has been making a huge scene on our radar and we were tasked to do a routine check, somewhere along the way we were made and targeted, I should have seen it for what it was.'

'You couldn't have known.' She murmured.

'I should have known, I'm trained for this, I'm their Captain,' he bowed his head pressing his fingers to his temple, 'Fury gave us the intel and he trusted me to make the call, not only did I bust up the mission but I destroyed his jet and nearly got two of his team killed.'

Pepper listened to his sincere confession and she could see the pain behind his eyes, she wanted to be able to comfort him but the man lying in a coma between them, stopped her.

She swallowed hard and looked at him, 'what call did you make?'

'I gave him the clear to fly in.' He said looking her straight in the eyes.

At least he was being honest.

'It seemed too easy, too convenient, but my desperation to stop this terrorist clouded my judgement, and because of that, Tony's here.' He offered.

'Who is he?' Pepper asked, 'the terrorist.'

Steve looked down at Tony with a sigh, 'he calls himself The Mandarin.'

The Mission

The sky darkened much quicker than Steve had ever seen, he remembered the nights with Peggy when they watched the stars for hours and hours until the day would start to bleed through. This was nothing like that.

There weren't any stars or moon or sounds, it was eerie and menacing and completely black without any hint that the light would ever break through.

Feeling the uneasiness rising within him he shrugged in his suit and tightened his grip on his shield, 'what have we got Agent Romanov?'

'Everything is quiet,' she murmured guiding the quinjet through the air, 'too quiet.'

Steve nodded looking through the window and noticing the lack of anything around them.

'You're just paranoid, and boring,' Tony quipped from the back of the jet, 'besides, nothing we can't take care of right?' He stepped toward them armoured up with the face plate raised.

Steve turned around as pure annoyance flashed across his features, 'we're not dealing with an idiot, Tony, this guy is good and he knows what he's doing.'

Tony moved closer and looked through the windshield, 'not as good as me,' he said nonchalantly taking a step back, 'so like I said, paranoid and boring, we need some excitement in our lives, since Loki and the portal,' he cringed slightly, 'nothing has been happening and I haven't had any feeds on this guy, if he was so special I would have known.'

Steve shot him an annoyed look again, 'you're not always going to know everything before us.'

'Pretty sure I will.' He mused with a wink.

Natasha rolled her eyes, 'can we just focus on this, please, you can sort you marital issues later.'

Steve scoffed only making Tony smirk.

'Just relax Cap, it's fine, you know what you're doing and you let us do the rest.' Tony added.

'Thanks.' He muttered before stepping closer to Natasha.

A long, silver streak of lightning cracked through the sky, as it opened up heavy rain began to fall almost instantaneously.

'That came out of nowhere,' Natasha muttered knotting her brow and looking intently at the new shift in the weather.

This time even Tony furrowed his brow, 'that's not right,' he leaned in for a better look.

'Still nothing?' Steve asked sarcastically.

'A little bit of rain is not something.' Tony retorted.

'Keep a look out; let me know if anything changes.' Steve ordered before stepping back and rushing over to Tony.

He swallowed hard looking at Tony nervously, 'I need you to run permitter, whatever this is, it's not natural.'

Tony nodded.

'Stay close, keep a visual of us, if this gets too rough we'll lose you.' Steve explained motioning to the sky which had opened up and was now hammering them with winds, thunder and rain.

Tony shook his head, 'I've got that covered, you stay safe and keep flying North,' he pointed to the right direction, 'and stand by on coms, if I'm not mistaken this looks like an electrical storm, we may not have communication for long.'

Steve looked at him intently, 'how do you know that?'

'Let's just say I may have heard a few things here and there about this guy,' he sighed and turned back to the captain, 'he calls himself The Mandarin, he likes to play with nature and mess her hair up a little.' He explained looking back to his gauntlet where he began keying in coordinates and locking in to the quinjet via Jarvis' sat coms.

'You know this how?' Steve demanded.

'From what I've read, he likes to play around with magical rings,' he said nonchalantly ignoring Steve's pointed looks disagreeing with Tony's illegal methods of obtaining information, 'nothing we can't take care of, no stress,' he reiterated before looking back down at his gauntlet and finalising the coordinates.

'No stress?' Steve asked incredulously, 'what do you mean no stress, you know something about this guy and you don't say anything?'

Tony finished all the pre-flight tests on his armour and sighed looking back at Steve, 'I didn't say anything because I was still researching him, and so far, nothing too alarming has stuck out worth noting.'

'Anything about a mission we're going on is worth noting.' Steve added dryly.

'Duly noted,' he snapped his visor shut, 'drop the door Romanov.'

'Fine, keep coms open, as soon as we lose visual on you we're coming after you!' Steve yelled over the noise of the rushing wind and Iron Man's thrusters.

He rushed back to the front revelling in the peace and quiet when the door closed; he took a seat beside Natasha and buckled up.

'I don't like this.' He muttered scratching his head.

Natasha looked at him sideways, 'too hairy for you Captain?'

'Quite the opposite,' he mused, 'if there were guns and planes I would understand, magic and silence?' He looked at her, 'that I don't get, but this doesn't feel right.'

'You're not wrong,' she looked back to the window, 'maybe we should pull back?'

Steve cleared his throat , 'no need, we're fine, I want to find this guy and put an end to all this.'

Natasha simply nodded and continued their flight over the deserted area ocassionally making small chat with Tony as he spotted anything worth mentioning.

They flew silently for at least twenty minutes before Steve spoke up again, 'are these meant to be doing that?' He asked looking down at the console.

Natasha glanced down and muttered something in Russian before hitting the coms button, 'Stark whatever it is, it's coming in fast and it's throwing us off radar.'

'Copy that,' Tony replied, 'I'm checking out a signal Jarvis picked up.'

'Be careful Tony, if this is some kind of magnetic-'

'I know, reactor, got it.' Tony interjected.

Steve turned to Natasha, 'reactor?'

'His reactor is an electro-magnet, keeps the shrapnel from his heart,' she replied not taking her eyes away from the windshield, 'if there are any severe interferences it could affect him.'

Steve nodded and immediately understood, the man faced his mortality on a regular basis, he didn't know much about the technology which kept him alive but he knew enough to know that positive charges didn't work well when faced with negative charges.

He swallowed hard realising then just how many scenarios made him vulnerable and just how much he risked every day, yet he did it, without being asked without being commanded to.

'Romanov,' Tony's voice broke through the coms.

'Reading you Stark, what have you got?' She replied pulling the jet out of auto-pilot and regaining control.

'There seems to be nothing, which is really weird because it doesn't feel like nothing.' His voice waivered across the radio.

'Stark?' Steve called out as tendrils of anxiety wrapped their hands around his heart.

'Something…electric…really, really powerful, I don't know what-' His voice was silenced abruptly.

'Stark!' Romanov called out before a blinding light flashed across the windshield and fried the electronics on board.

'We're going down!' She yelled to Steve who was already getting ready for impact.

He flung himself in front of her and held his shield out as the jet took a severe nose dive.

'Hold on to me!' He yelled over the howling winds trying to keep himself, and her safe.

She nodded against his chest wrapping her arms around him.

As much as she was confident in her own healing abilities, she knew they were nowhere near as advanced as Steve's.

She stole a glance outside the window bracing herself as she saw a snow covered cliff coming into view fast, too fast.

She clenched her jaw shut preparing for impact.

The jet slammed into the side of the rocky peak and began its sickening plunge down the cliff.

She felt Steve's grip tightening around her thankful for it, the cold assaulted her lungs as those sharp breaths of air were all that kept her from dying.

The free fall finally ended as they fell into a bloody heap in the snow.

She let out a painful cry but her screams were muffled by Steve's hand on her mouth.

'We're not alone, quiet,' he breathed leaning into her ear.

His body against hers was extremely uncomfortable not because of the proximity but sheerly for the fact that she was sure she had several broken ribs.

'I'm sorry,' he whispered, 'as soon as we're clear you can punch me.'

She looked up through watery eyes raising her eyebrows at him.

'Yeah, yeah I made a joke,' he whispered.

He finally pulled his hand away from her and looked around in the dark trying to pick up any sounds he could.

'I don't know what happened to Stark and I don't know if anyone will find us.' He looked down at her.

She squeezed her eyes shut trying to force her breathing to slow down, 'I let out a beacon before we lost power.'

'Good, let's hope we don't freeze to death first.' He muttered, 'can you walk?'

'I think so,' she turned on her side trying to get to her feet, she took Steve's outstretched hand and got up swiftly.

'Alright lean on me, we have to find shelter, whatever's out here it's not looking for a friendly chat I'm sure.' Steve spoke quietly, efficiently helping Natasha along.

The cold was almost intolerable and she found herself fighting back the urge to cry. Natasha didn't cry, there was no way, especially not freely and in front of Steve, so she pushed that childish need aside and carried on biting back the nausea.

'Tony's suit is programmed to fly him home should anything happen, he'll be alright.' Natasha said finally still sensing Steve's anxiety about the whole situation.

'We should have pulled back.' He muttered still dragging her along.

'You couldn't have known.' She said weakly growing irritated at this round about conversation.

He shook his head, 'you are my responsibility, both of you and I nearly got you killed, for all I know Tony could be dead in the woods somewhere.'

'He's fine, I told you, Jarvis routes everything to autopilot when something goes wrong, he's probably on his way home.'

'I hope you're right.' He muttered, 'there, is that a friendly?' He asked looking to the sky.

Natasha squinted trying to focus, 'it's definitely a quinjet, so unless someone commandeered one of ours, it's a friendly.'

Steve nodded pulling Natasha closer keeping her out of the cold as best as he could.

'I'm trying to lock into their signal; we need to get a bit higher up.' She pointed to a peak.

'Let's go.' He agreed.

They made their way through the trees and started climbing, Natasha checking her wrist watch every few feet or so.

'We're good,' she whispered reaching up to the branches and holding her hand out to the sky, 'they've got us.'

A sigh of relief escaped her lips as Steve helped her down, they waited silently for the quinjet to reach a low enough altitude to be winched to safety.

Once aboard Bruce, Clint and Thor fussed over them checking them over and asking a thousand questions.

Natasha full of exhaustion collapsed against Clint who demanded he be left to look after her and no one argued.

'Where's Stark?' Steve asked once they were sure Natasha was comfortable and safe.

Bruce and Clint looked at each other, 'he hasn't contacted you yet?'

Steve shook his head, 'no, he was, he was running perimeter we lost contact before we went down,' he wrapped a bandage around his wrist and grimaced.

Thor cleared his throat and looked at the team, 'should we not attempt to contact Miss Potts?'

'I don't know.' Steve shook his head.

'Fury's been contacted, he's meeting us at base.' Clint added folding his arms across his chest, 'what happened Rogers?'

'Some kind of electrical charge, I don't know, something fried everything on board,' he tried to explain without letting his voice waiver.

Bruce stepped forward, 'wait, an electrical charge?'

Steve nodded.

'We need to find him, if that impacted the jet I'm afraid to think what it must have done to his reactor,' Bruce was already rushing over and opening several laptops, he began keying in all the scenarios he could think of and what outcome they could have had on Tony.

Steve looked around with concern laced across his features, 'you think he didn't make it home?'

Bruce shook his head not taking his eyes away from the screens, 'I have no doubt he made it home, he's programmed his suit to do that, I'm just worried about what condition he's in.'

Clint rubbed his forehead stepping closer to Steve who looked like he was on the verge of a physical breakdown, 'you couldn't have known, Cap, come on, you need to get checked out too.'

Steve shook his head standing his ground stubbornly, 'I'm fine, just find Stark.'

Bruce finally looked up, 'he's home, Jarvis just confirmed it.'

Clint looked at him sideways, 'you can access Jarvis from here?'

'Tony made sure I could,' he dropped his gaze back down to the screens with a sullen expression; 'it doesn't look good.'

Clint turned to Steve but before anyone could stop him he was already gone.

Thanks for reading, looking forward to your reviews, as always, be honest and brutal, these things make me work harder! :)