Eh heh...Okay, soooo I was sadly mistaken...hahahaha you're going to hate me (Mulberry) because it was a different chapter that I needed to fix up, not this one...my bad!! I'm super sorry. So, I hope you like this super short chapter followed by the one I need to fix up :) Sorry I'm such a frustration to you.

This is chapter is dedicated to all my lovely Reviewers. Thanks a ton, guys, you're the best!


Chapter Four

It was early in the morning and Pepper sat in the conference room of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, listening to the blabbering of a CEO for a company in the middle of manufacturing a new line of machine guns. Nick Fury was...needless to say, furiously arguing with the man.

"You CANNOT manufacture a machine gun with a built in flame thrower!" He yelled.

"WHY?!" The man yelled in defense, "It's perfectly safe! There's a lock on it! You have to have a key!"

Nick Fury almost screamed, "Then why would you even want one on there?! You couldn't use it in battle! 'Oh, excuse me sir, while I blow you to bits, could you just wait a second so I can pull out this key from my pocket and unlock the flame thrower so I can then, cook you and EAT YOU?!' That is NOT going to fly!" Nick Fury exclaimed.

Being Nick Fury and overseeing the general safety of the public and also trying to find some kind of intelligence within the weapons manufacturing companies was proving harder than anticipated. He needed a new line of weapons for his team, and so far, it was proving to be disastrous.

Pepper rolled her eyes and stared up at the ceiling in disbelief. Tony wouldn't be this stupid in weapons design. Tony. When was the last time she had seen him? It had been way too long. She pulled out her blackberry phone and continued to ignore Nick Fury and the CEO.

'Tony! How are you?' She texted quickly.

Within seconds she received a reply.

'I'm all right. How are you?' He asked.

Pepper breathed out a sigh of relief, 'I'm going crazy! Can we do something soon? I miss you and Rhodey.' She texted back.

'Haha yes, of course. We haven't seen each other for about three months. It's definitely been too long, in my opinion. Meet you at the Café we used to go to all the time?' He asked.

'Yes! Perfect. When?' She asked.

'Mmm...how about, this afternoon, one o'clock sharp.' Tony said.

'All right, I'll be there!' Pepper smiled gratefully, excited to see Tony, and possibly Rhodey again.

The early morning came and went, Pepper could barely sit still in her seat. The heated argument had finally calmed down and Nick Fury had declined the CEO's offer for his Machine gun/Flame thrower. Pepper had decided it was best to take the rest of the day off. She didn't want to deal with his attitude for the rest of her Friday afternoon.

"Crazy son of a-" Nick had muttered, closing the door behind him before his sentence was finished.

Pepper sat for just a moment, checking her blackberry. It was 12:30. If she didn't get out of here soon, she'd be late.


On the other side of the world, Gene Khan stood in the chamber, looking at the last ring of power. The only thing he could think of, was putting on all nine rings, transforming into the Mandarin, and shifting like light back to New York. Since he now knew exactly where the ring was, he could shift back to it.

He grabbed the necklace from under his shirt and put each ring on, transforming into the Mandarin and shifting through light to the other side of the world.


Pepper hurried from work straight to the Café. She wore some cute silver pointed toe flats and black dress pants, along with a royal blue top. Her purse dangled from her elbow as she briskly walked down the sidewalk toward her old favorite place. She was a little more than half way there when she got the weird feeling that she was being followed.

She glanced around quickly, still keeping her fast pace. She rounded a corner and could clearly see the little Café. All she had left was to walk the remaining one hundred yards and she would be there.

Tony parked his car outside the small Café and entered, looking around for a booth. Lucky for him, there were a few left. This place would never go out of business. He looked down at his watch, where it read 1:00 exactly. Pepper should be there any minute.

A waitress came up to him, stuttering for a moment. Everyone knew Tony Stark. "Do you need help finding a table, Mr. Stark?" She asked, fidgeting slightly.

Tony gave a dazzling smile, "Oh no, it's fine. I'm waiting for someone."

The waitress nodded with a twinkle in her eye and turned to go back to help someone else.

He turned to his right and looked out the window, he could see a cute red-head looking absolutely beautiful, walking down the sidewalk toward the Café. She seemed to be glancing around, looking for something, and yet nothing in particular.

"What on earth is she doing?" He asked himself, smiling and shaking his head. He went back to the door, opened it and started toward Pepper. She looked up to see Tony waving his hand at her. She waved back, a huge smile on her face.

They were about fifty yards from each other when Pepper got another urgent feeling that she was being followed. She looked up just in time to see the last person she was expecting to see. "Gene." She whispered, although he was in the Mandarin armor, she knew exactly who it was. He had appeared in a flash of light, demanding the attention of everyone around them, especially Tony.

"Pepper! RUN!" Tony yelled frantically, sprinting in her direction, as well as Gene's. He had not expected Tony to be there. He turned and shot a blast of light in his direction, Tony dodged the first blast and kept running toward them, trying at least to get to Pepper.

Pepper had frozen in shock, not having heard Tony's yell to run. Her eyes found Tony's only a moment before she knew what was going to happen. Tony ran as fast as his legs could cary him toward Pepper, the Mandarin shot another blast, this time finding its mark. It hit Tony right in the chest. Tony flew through the air and hit the ground, rolling a few feet before getting back up, he turned just in time to see Gene grab Pepper's shoulders and in a flash of light, disappeared.

Tony stood in the middle of the street, cars honking, people shouting. The scene was like a wake up call and Déja Vu had hit him in the face like a ton of bricks. This same scene had played out before his eyes little more than five years ago. Five years...Gene not only had his father, he now had Pepper.

Tony bolted back to his car and drove as fast as he could toward the armory, even after all this time, he and Rhodey still went there every now and then if they needed to get information "off the record". Tony pressed Rhodey's speed dial on his phone.

"Hello?" He heard Rhodey ask.

"Rhodey! Pepper's been kidnapped by Gene!" Tony yelled, honking his horn at some people driving exceptionally slow, in his opinion.

"What?! When? Why?" Rhodey asked quickly.

"I don't know, Rhodey!" Tony said frantically, "We need to find her though. Meet me at the Armory as soon as you can. I might be able to get the GPS signal from her blackberry." He swerved out of the way of an on coming car, it's horn blaring loudly at Tony.

"Okay, I'll be there asap." Rhodey stated quickly.

Tony closed his phone just as he pulled up in the Rhodes' driveway. He bolted from the car, heading straight for the armory.

Rhodey pulled up into his parents' driveway about ten minutes later, seeing Tony's car already there. He ran as fast as he could to the armory, still in his air force fatigues.

He found Tony furiously typing across the keyboard. "Tony! Hey, have you found anything?"

"Not yet, but I think I might be close." He responded quickly.

"Whoa..." Rhodey looked at the massive computer screen with awe, Tony was somehow able to zoom in from space, also using live GPS coordinates, he could see things as they were happening. "How are you doing that?" Rhodey asked, "Wait, don't tell me. You "borrowed" a satellite, let's say...from...NASA?"

"You got it." Tony murmured.

A painful ten minutes passed before Tony could finally locate Pepper's signal.

"You've got to be kidding me." Tony stepped back from the computer, running his hands through his hair.

"What is it?" Rhodey asked, not understanding what had happened.

"She's in Afghanistan." Tony stated numbly.

"Afghanistan? I thought you said she was taken only a half an hour ago?!" Rhodey exclaimed.

"She was. Gene can shift through light waves. It came with having the nine rings instead of five." Tony closed his eyes for a moment. "It's gotta be where the last ring is. I don't know why he needs Pepper, but we're going to find out."


Well, hope you somewhat liked this next chapter! I know it's really short, but the next one is twice as long. Reviews would be fantastic!