Hello again! I apologise for taking a long time to get back to this. But I appreciate all the kind words left since I updated months ago, they've been amazing and have given me the reason to keep going, and as such, I love you all 3000. In Marvel related news: Avengers: Endgame is awesome, and I think that everyone needs to see it. Naturally, we won't get to Endgame for a long time, but please avoid spoilers if talking about it in the comments. #Don'tSpoiltheEndgame Now, on with the show!


Tony looked down as the image of Pepper Potts entered the room, she stared in disbelief at the TV screen, wondering what was going on. "What is this?"

"This is a movie, Miss. Potts." Nick Fury commented. "It's telling the story of our dear Iron Man." Pepper looked over at Tony, who still couldn't meet her eyes. She slowly sat down, away from Tony, and joined the viewing.

The screen showed an image again, Tony was laying down on some sort of bed. His chest wrapped in bandages, a small rope stuck to his nose.

"What the hell did they do to you?" Bruce asked as Tony paled.

"You saw." Tony replied simply as the movie continued.

He woke suddenly, pulling the rope out of his nose.

"Ew." Wanda stated for everyone.

He turned, attempting to get some water but simply knocking the bowl over.

A small laugh went around the room at this.

The screen changed to a man shaving,

Tony paled considerably at this man. Pepper glanced at him slowly, worried for him.

Tony watching carefully, he tries to move to grab the bottle, but a mechanism holds him back.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The mysterious man says. Tony turns back, seeing what was keeping him from reaching the bottle. A car battery.

"You're connected to a car battery!" Bruce said, as his skin started to change to a green colour.

"Sun's getting real low." Natasha quickly jumped in as Bruce started to calm down, his rage at the car battery still there, but not that much.

In shock, Tony starts to rip at the bandages on his chest, revealing that the battery was connected to something where his heart should be.

Everyone in the room stared in shock, Tony should've been dead. Pepper looked particularly torn, as her eyes started to tear up.

The scene changed, a meal was being made of some sort. The camera pans up, showing the man cooking the food, while Tony sat at the back.

"What the hell did you do to me?" Tony asked.

"That's a good question!" Bruce raged again, angry at what this man did to Tony.

"He's a good man." Tony simply said.

"What I did?" The man laughed slightly. "What I did is to save your life. I removed all the shrapnel I could, but there's a lot left, and it's headed into you atrial septum. Here, want to see?" The man asks as he takes out a small bottle.

"Atrial what?" Sam asked.

"Atrial septum. A hole in the heart, it's dangerous if shrapnel passes through."

"I have a souvenir. Take a look." The man throws Tony the bottle, Tony catches it, continuing to look at the man, before looking at the bottle.

"Do you still have it?" Clint asked, looking at Tony with puppy dog eyes. Tony simply nods.

"I've seen many wounds like that in my village. We call them the walking dead because it takes about a week for the barbs to reach the vital organs."

"What is this?"

"That is an electromagnet, hooked up to a car battery, and it's keeping the shrapnel from entering your heart." Tony continues to look at the man as he subconsciously zips up his jacket.

"He wouldn't zip up the jacket if the man was a woman!" Clint said... before getting slapped by Natasha.

The screen then shows a camera, the man notices Tony looking at it. "That's right. Smile. We met once, you know, at a technical conference in Bern."

"I don't remember."

"I do now." Steve watches Tony carefully, this man was important to Tony in some way.

"No, you wouldn't. If I had been that drunk, I wouldn't have been able to stand, much less give a lecture on integrated circuits."

"Seriously Stark?" Fury asked as Tony grinned back at him.

"Where are we?" Tony interrupts the man as he speaks. Suddenly the door is banged, someone behind the door speaking a different language. The man with Tony moves towards him quickly.

"Oh shit."

"Come on, stand up. Stand up!" Taking Tony by the arm, the man continues speaking. "Just do as I do. Come on, put your hands up." Both Tony and the man put their hands up as the door is burst open, the terrorists piling in.

"This is not good."

"You think, Clint." Natasha sternly replied.

"Those are my guns. How did they get my guns?"

"They have your weapons, Stark?" Fury asked.

"Yes, they did."

"Did?" Wanda asked, her accent coming through.

"I don't make weapons anymore. This is what caused that change of heart."

"Do you understand me? Do as I do." The lead terrorist comes forward, continuing to speak a different language, so Tony stands there, not understanding what the man is saying to him.

"This is not helping. I hope that man is a translator of some sort."

The man helping Tony translates what the man just said. "He says, "Welcome, Tony Stark, the most famous mass murderer in the history of America."" The terrorist speaks again. "He is honoured" The man translates for Tony. "He wants you to build the missile. The Jericho missile that you demonstrated." The terrorist gives the Man an image, which he shows to Tony. "This one." There is silence for a few moments.

"I refuse." Tony is suddenly being tortured again, his head being dipped in water.

"You really didn't think about the consequences didn't you, Stark?"

"Hey, Eyepatch! I'd never been in this situation before."

"Tony!" A womens voice is heard in the scuffle.

"Pepper." Literally everyone in the room intoned at the same time. Said woman glanced over at Tony. He still wouldn't meet her eyes.

Tony is then seen being led outside, where the terrorists have all their weapons. All the weapons have Stark Industries written on them.

"This is bad. This is very, very bad." Bruce stated as everyone nodded. Steve and Bucky has particularly bad flashbacks to WWII, the sight of the weapons was enough to do that.

"He wants to know what you think." The man continues to translate the terrorists words.

"I think you got a lot of my weapons."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious!" Clint cheerfully stated... causing Natasha to hit him again, this time with a real warning on her face.

"He says they have everything you need to build the Jericho missile. He wants you to make the list of materials. He says for you to start working immediately, and when you're done, he will set you free." The terrorist shakes hands with Tony while he smiles knowingly.

"No, he won't."

"No, he won't." The man repeats as the terrorist smiles widely. The other terrorists watch from afar.

"He won't." Bucky stated, Steve nodding in agreement.

The scene then cuts back to the cave, where the man and Tony are sitting quietly. "I'm sure they're looking for you, Stark. But they will never find you in these mountains. Look, what you just saw, that is your legacy, Stark. Your life's work, in the hands of those murderers. Is that how you want to go out? Is this the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark? Or are you going to do something about it?" Tony had stayed unusually quiet throughout this spiel.

"That's unusual, normally you can't keep your mouth shut, Stark." Tony grinned at Fury.

"Why should I do anything?" Tony interrupts. "They're going to kill me, you, either way. And if they don't, I'll probably be dead in a week."

"I was wrong, as I'm here now."

"And we all absolutely love that."

"Well, then, this is a very important week for you, isn't it?"

"It was."

The scene cuts to the terrorists bringing supplies into the cave. "If this is going to be my work station, I want it well-lit." Tony orders as the terrorists run around. "I want these up. I need welding gear. I don't care if it's acetylene or propane. I need a soldering station. I need helmets. I'm gonna need goggles. I would like a smelting cup. I need two sets of precision tools." While Tony is ordering the terrorists around, the man is translating for him.

"If you think about it, Tony would be a good leader, just in a different way and style than Steve." Sam adds, giving Tony an accepting look. "Cap is still better though." Tony stares back in response.

The scene cuts to Tony and the man working on taking apart another Stark Industries weapon, while Tony makes small talk. "How many languages do you speak?"

"A lot. But apparently, not enough for this place. They speak Arabic, Urdu, Dari, Pashto, Mongolian, Farsi, Russian."

"Seriously. How do they all communicate around here?" Clint asked to the open crowd. No one could answer.

"Who are these people?"

"They are your loyal customers, sir. They call themselves the Ten Rings."

Clint and Natasha froze, that wasn't a good sign. At all. No one else noticed the assassins tense up though.

The scene cuts to outside, where the terrorists are viewing the cave through the camera.

"They had an eye on everything you did? How did you even escape?" Bruce asked.

"You'll see." Tony smirked.

The scene cuts back to Tony and the man, where they are hard at work. "You know, we might be more productive if you include me in the planning process." The man asks carefully. Tony simply replies with "A-ha" as he continues to pull apart the weapon.

"Really indifferent there, Tony." Natasha noted with a small smile.

"Okay, we don't need this." Tony says as he pulls something off the piece he got out of the weapon, then simply throws that piece away.

No one regarded the fact that Tony simply threw something away.

"What is that?" Tony pulls up what he has grabbed onto the screen.

"Palladium." Tony and Bruce stated at the same time.

"That's palladium, 0.15 grammes. We need at least 1.6, so why don't you go break down the other 11?"

"That's a first."

"What was that?"

"Actually working with someone." Natasha smirked as Tony started spluttering.

The terrorists continue to watch the screens. "What's he doing?" The screen translates as the terrorists watch. "Working."

"Yes, yes I was."

Tony continues working, making a mould, melting the palladium. As the man brings the melted metal across Tony is talking. "Careful. Careful, we only get one shot at this."

"Relax. I have steady hands. Why do you think you're still alive?" As the metal is poured into the mould. Tony speaks again.

"What do I call you?"

"My name is Yinsen."

"Yinsen. Nice to meet you."

"Why didn't you follow the plan?" Tony whispered to himself, not taking any notice of anyone else.

"Nice to meet you, too." The ring of palladium is then shown being taken out of the mould, being carefully put together with other pieces. The screen montages the process of making this machine showing various things happening, until the screen is dark, and the machine starts to glow blue. "That doesn't look like a Jericho missile." Yinsen says as both he and Tony look at the small machine.

Everyone turned to Tony, where there was no arc reactor situated in his chest, but the hole was still slightly visible. They all looked in awe at Tony for a moment, before he broke the silence.

"Yes, I built the arc reactor in a cave. Happy?" Everyone simply turned back to the movie.

"That's because it's a miniaturised arc reactor. I got a big one powering my factory at home. It should keep the shrapnel out of my heart."

"But what could it generate?"

"If my math is right, and it always is, three gigajoules per second."

"What if it wasn't right?"

"It was Birdbrain, don't question it."

"That could run your heart for 50 lifetimes."

"Yeah. Or something big for 15 minutes."

Some people in the room were now starting to figure out what was going to happen when Tony escaped. But building the Iron Man suit in a cave? Made the rest of the Avengers lose some faith, which was quickly brought back after remembering the arc reactor was built in a cave.

The scene cuts again, Tony is shown with a few pieces of paper as Yinsen comes up behind him. "This is our ticket out of here."

"What is it?"

"Flatten them out and look." Tony flattens the pages out, showing the blueprints for the Mark I.

"Everyone. The Mark I, the first Iron Man suit." The plan was slowly being set into motion in the eyes of the Avengers. Tony was going to escape in the first Iron Man suit.

"Do you still have it, Stark?" Thor asked.

"No, it got destroyed pretty quickly. I did rebuild it for novelty, but that got blown up a few years later, although I suspect that we'll see that later on. In fact... I should rebuild all my suits, remake the Iron Legion..." Tony started mumbling to himself as the movie continued.

"Oh, wow. Impressive" The scene then cuts again.


And there you go, another chapter of this finished. Now this chapter was difficult to write. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out when to cut the chapter, and when to start the next one. It came down to the first reveal of the blueprints of the Mark I, or the reveal of the finished helmet. I decided to use the blueprints, and the complete escape sequence will be next chapter. Until then, Ciao!

Reviews!:

Guest: Thanks for the kind words! Yeah, I do struggle with Mental issues. (Yeah!) But I do try to update when I can. Yes, it was Pepper!

Deathr0ses: Correct!

Sai Kunai Blade: Hope you enjoyed!

Lacila: Thanks so much! I do plan to continue, for a long time.

XiaoR18: Thanks! I guess... I don't speak any languages other than English...

alfriendo123: Will do!

HPfan7-8: Is this good?

TTGG03: Thank you! It'll get very interesting very soon!

Rasi10: Have an update. And yes, it is Pepper.

Team Iron Man: Yep!

Akira Daiyamondo Suta: Peter will arrive soon, he's at school.

AnayaStark: Hope it's good!

kagome higurashi: Thanks for liking my fic. There'll be more to come.

viloet-starlight: Thank you so much! This review made my day! Of course I'll continue, updates might take some time though.