The irony of it all was that Tony needn't really have bothered. It was rather sad actually, whatever woefully underprepared morons H.Y.D.R.A.S.H.I.E.L.D. had sent after him had turned a missile launcher onto the windows of the lab. The windows that were made of a specially designed, multi-layered, fiber-glass and highly-classified-materials blend that Tony himself had developed with the express purpose of keeping Pepper safe. Though to be fair, even he wasn't exactly expecting the missile to bounce. That had never happened in testing, must be old Hammer Tech.

After that it was simply a matter of waiting the remaining sixteen seconds for J.A.R.V.I.S. and the 'bots to finish the suit, suiting up, and strolling out into the corridor to punch the two who hadn't been taken out by their own stupidity and high explosives. It was really rather anti-climactic. The hard part was what to do with them afterwards, he couldn't exactly call S.H.I.E.L.D. in to haul them off.


It took a while, what with all the drama going on in D.C., but they were eventually able to hand off the surviving Hydroids, (No Pepper, that is a totally awesome name, it isn't stupid) to Rhodey and a bunch of National Guard he brought with him, barreling in to the rescue at top speeds only to find Tony, Pepper, Happy, and the 'bots standing guard over a handful of dazed and unconscious would-be killers. (And carefully ignoring the still-smoking, self-caused corpses of the others.)

Apparently it had all worked out, sorta, because Stalin and Cap had lead a coup of some sort and managed to defeat H.Y.D.R.A., something the tower's invaders must not have been aware of. The more he learned of the situation, the plainer it became the minions that had been sent after him and Pep were what were left after the bottom of the barrel had been scraped. It was mildly insulting.

Of course, then he found out about the D.N.A. targeting system being calibrated to take out a long list of people that he knew included himself and, more importantly, Pepper. No one ever confirmed that, but they didn't need to.

See if he ever let anyone have any of his tech ever again. People couldn't be trusted.


After that, things actually came around to something resembling normal, Romanoff was busy on Capitol Hill being called to the stand for S.H.I.E.L.D's accountability (or lack thereof) and Cap and his new friend (Sam Wilson, formerly of the U.S. Air Force, Operation: Falcon, worked with the VA as a shrink-like person) seemed to have disappeared.

The media hadn't calmed down much, but there were beginning to be headlines about other things besides the evil terrorist organization bound and determined to take over the world from its hiding place within the world's most shadowiest shadow agency. Spiderman was back in the news other than just The Bugle anyway. He'd been in and out of the spotlight since his first appearances in June and July of 2012. Tony was positive he saw him once, but Pepper and Happy are both skeptical. There were rumors of vigilantes in the various locals of New York City, mostly in and around Hell's Kitchen, which had been knocked back into it's historical status of un-gentrification by the various attacks that happened in the vicinity. Some nutjob blew up what turned out to have been a H.Y.D.R.A. outpost near Phoenix, AZ of all places.

The uptick in freelancer "justice" had Tony rather worried. It seemed like these days anyone one could put on a mask and get away with murder. He was distinctly reminded of his speech, what seemed like a life-time ago. "A system that is comfortable with zero accountability." Had no one learned from the H.Y.D.R.A.S.H.I.E.L.D debacle that had only just happened, mere days ago?

He was…considering (not brooding) the subject when he decided that he missed Pepper and wandered out of his lab and towards her office. She wasn't there and her secretary (Amy? Andrea? Angela?) said she had gone down to meet with the director of HR. After a consultation with JARVIS that revealed HR's location to be on the sixth and seventh floors, Tony got back into the elevator and headed down.

He didn't bother knocking, and strode right into the Director's office. "Hey Pep, so I was thinking-" He stopped so suddenly that he almost ran into the chair Pepper was sitting in. "What is she doing here?"

Maria Hill was sitting on the far side of the desk, looking prim and proper and as if there was nothing whatsoever wrong with her being here in Tony's building. "What is she doing here? Get rid of her."

Pepper has her Tony-be-reasonable look on. "Maria has been working with us to sort out people we can and can't trust."

Tony just looks at them both, feeling pricks of pain where his ragged fingernails are digging into his palms. "That would be nice." he says and doesn't even feel ashamed of the bitterness in his voice. "If we, you know, knew we can trust her."

Hill doesn't even have the decency to look insulted, just shuffles around the stack of papers on her desk. (And why are there papers in Tony's tech-age tower?)

"You might not like it Stark, but with the destruction of S.H.I.E.L.D as we knew it there is a void in the protection of this world. Stark Industries is most qualified to assist in repairing that void. I am here because no one else was available and willing."

Pepper doesn't actually look all that happy with the situation herself, but she is nodding along. "She came to me Tony. She was honest about what she wanted and what she could give."

"What do you want?" Tony asked sarcastically, arms folded across his chest to protect an arc reactor that is no longer there. "What can we do for the high and mighty fallen S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"You can reform the Avengers."


Please review?

Also, I apologize for the long wait. Updates should be fairly regular from here on out.