Disclaimer: Don't own Iron Man. Don't own Limp Bizkit. Don't ask what sugar filled dream made me slap the two together and call them pancakes. Just accept I didn't buy enough syrup.
Chapter 6: Climbing Up Hill
Limp Bizkit- Lonely World
Angela had already done the time conversion in her head. It was noon in Malibu. Pepper Potts was bound to be busy.
She bit her lip as the phone rang, knowing that the woman was probably on the look out for a call from Italy. "Potts," Angela heard the red head answer.
"Hey, Pep," she greeted lowly.
From the other end of the line there was a sharp intake of breath. "Angela." Someone in the background on Pepper's end asked a question and the red head was quick to reply, "Excuse me. I need to take this." The declaration was followed by the sound of hurried heels and a door closing. "Oh my God, Angela. Are you okay? What's going on?" Her friend's words rushed over each other.
Angela grinned. It was good to hear another familiar voice. "Breathe, Pep," the brunette counseled. "I'm still at the hospital in Italy. Thanks for getting a hold of Mike for me by the way."
Mike shook his head. Angela pursed her lips and made a shoo motion toward him. His part of the plan involved gathering up the team of doctors again.
"As for how I'm doing?" She shifted her grip on the hospital phone. "Not so great, but I think you might be able to help."
"Help?" Pepper questioned. "Of course. SI is behind you. It's the least we can do after…" She struggled for words before finishing lamely, "After what happened."
Angela nodded to herself. That was the expected company line. "You might want to hold off on promising me things until you hear me out. Are you sitting down?"
There was a slight pause before Pepper answered, "I am now."
"Good." Angela steeled herself. "I need you to keep an open mind," she cautioned.
"Okay," the other woman drew out nervously.
After a moment of trying to come up with a gentle way to tell Pepper what was going on, Angela opted for bluntness again. "I have shrapnel embedded in my chest from the attack." The other end of the phone remained in expectant silence. "It's from a Reaper. I don't know if you're aware of the design specs, but the barbs are made to migrate to the organs over a short period of time." Angela couldn't help but close her eyes briefly in self recrimination.
"I've already had surgery and the doctors were able to remove several of the pieces. But there are a handful that are positioned awkwardly and very close to my heart. Left as they are, they'll kill me." She winced when she heard Pepper start to sniffle. "The hospital wants to perform another surgery, but the odds of me surviving it are infinitesimal. I have a better solution and that's where I need your help," she finished.
"Anything," Pepper choked out. "What do you need? What can I do?"
At Pepper's immediate and unequivocal answer, Angela stifled a few sniffles of her own. She dashed a hand across her face to wipe away stray tears and looked up at the ceiling to gather herself. "I told you to hold off on promising me things until you hear me out," she tried to joke.
"I don't care," Pepper insisted wetly. Angela could hear the red head steady her breathing before asking, "What's your solution?"
A nervous laugh slipped from Angela before she explained. "We can't get the barbs out so I'm going to lock them in place using an electromagnet. The catch is that for the magnetic field to be strong enough the device would have to be implanted in my chest."
There was a prolonged silence on the other end of the phone before Pepper breathed, "That's insane."
"I'm hearing that a lot." Angela found it in herself to chuckle. "I'm not a doctor, but you know Mike is a heart surgeon with the Cleveland Clinic. He believes this may work. I won him over." That wasn't entirely true. She'd bullied him into it and she had every intention of doing the same with Pepper. That probably made her a horrible person. "Do I need to spend time convincing you as well?" She asked impatiently.
"There has to be another way," Pepper argued.
"There's not." Angela shook her head in denial. She didn't have room for doubts. In her mind time was like a loosely chained beast. "The doctors say I have twenty four to forty eight hours before the shrapnel works its way into my heart." Screwing up her face and pulling out the big guns, Angela pushed. "Can you not just take it on faith from someone who Mr. Stark has let work in his private lab?" She knew that Pepper understood everything implied about her by that question.
There were several more beats of silence from Pepper's end of the call. "That was harsh," she reprimanded quietly.
Angela grimaced. It had been. It had also been blatantly manipulative and in bad taste to capitalize on her missing boss's name with his distraught assistant. Angela was running on a cruel mixture of desperation and hope but she was still talking to Pepper. "Sorry," she added, hoping to soften her hard line sell.
The red head gave a long sigh. "You're not. But you're not wrong." There was another pause before Pepper admitted quietly, "You sound a little like him when his patience is worn particularly thin."
At the soft admission Angela's lips twisted in melancholy. "I've never heard him sound quite this crazy."
Pepper laughed, but it still sounded sad. "Oh, he has. And it's worked out too. If anyone besides him could make what you're describing work, it would be you." Angela pictured the other woman shaking her head. "I'm on board."
Thank God Pepper was the PA of the boss. No one else but someone who dealt with insane genius on a regular basis would have capitulated so quickly.
Angela drew in and released a deep breath. "Great. Because I think I'm going to need to fight my way through the base doctors and maybe the military as well," she confessed.
"Well, first we need to get a lawyer to you. In person would be better but video conference will do. The first thing they'll probably try to do is declare you unfit to make decisions," Pepper advised. She was back in business mode.
"Mike has medical power of attorney and he's on my side," Angela let the red head know. "It's attached to my records."
"Good. That will help." Pepper hummed in thought. "The best leverage would be to let the air force know you plan to go ahead with the operation outside of their jurisdiction if you can't within it."
"Okay," Angela agreed dubiously. "But I don't think any other hospital is going to allow me to do the procedure either. There's also the matter that the current hospital may refuse to release me," she pointed out.
"Well," Pepper drawled, "You would have to sign waivers to absolve SI of liability, but we could set up a private operating suite at the penthouse in Venice."
Angela felt her jaw loosen in shock. That was above and beyond what she'd hoped for.
The red head continued. "Of course the ideal situation would be for the air force to recognize the threat for what it is, and allow you to do the procedure where you are."
This was why she had called Pepper Potts. Some sad, ill informed, people believed she was only Tony Stark's personal assistant. But the reality was that the woman was wicked smart, with backbone and loyalty to spare.
Angela felt such a wild surge of hope that she found herself fighting not break into hysterics. She took a long, steady breath through her nose. It wasn't the time, she couldn't afford to break down yet. "I recognized early in planning that I, and possibly my next of kin, would need to be willing to absolve everyone of liability. I'm more than willing to do so." She hesitated for a moment then asked, "Could you honestly set up the Venice penthouse as an operating theater?"
Pepper gave a weak chuckle. "It's one of Mr. Stark's contingency plans in case of an accident in any of his in-house shops. With the timeline you gave me and the organization required it would be a close thing, but it would be better than nothing."
"Bless the boss," Angela mumbled. She hoped it went out into the universe to reach the lost man.
"Yes," Pepper agreed. "As for your current hospital being unwilling to release you, leave that to the SI lawyers. I'll get started on pulling a team from legal and Tony's personal lawyers."
"Pep," Angela breathed. "Thank you so much." Mentally she checked off several items on her to do list.
"Just make this work, Angie," the red head ordered. "I don't want to lose you too."
"It'll work," Angela assured. It had to work. In an effort to relieve some tension and cheer up her friend she added, "The boss isn't gone, he's just missing. I will continue to deny he's gone until he's been buried for at least ten years." The man had his own sense of time and a love of attention. He would probably enjoy seeming to come back from the dead.
Pepper laughed. "Thank you. I needed to hear that from someone else. I've fielded so many calls asking for interviews for memorial specials already."
"Boo," Angela jeered and the other woman gave a rather wet chuckle. "Although if some network is desperate enough to go through putting one together, Mr. Stark will get a kick out of it when he gets back."
Angela pointedly put aside the part of her that remembered him standing just across from her when the Reaper went off. She wouldn't believe that was the end of him. She wouldn't believe that his death was her fault.
"Thanks for the positive Angie," Pepper added. "I'll have a lawyer call you in less than two hours okay?"
"Sure." Angela forced herself back to the present problem. "Thank you again, Pepper. Give Happy my love."
The two women said their goodbyes and Angela listened until she heard dial tone. She was exhausted and in pain, but she wouldn't take any more morphine. She needed a clear head. Angela took a moment to rub a hand gently over her face. Her eyes closed and she tried to center herself again.
If she ignored that the people she was maneuvering weren't her underlings, and that she had a chest full of shrapnel, it really wasn't any different than a day at her office at SI.
Angela opened her eyes and tried to prepared herself for the upcoming battle with the doctors.
…...
The little section of the cave they were staying in was alive with activity. Tony stood in front of a work bench, issuing orders, as the man in the suit translated.
"If this is going to be my work station I want it well lit. I want these up." He gestured. "I need welding gear. I don't care if it's acetylene or propane." Tony continued talking over the chaos around him. "I need a soldering station. I need helmets. I'm going to need goggles. I would like a smelting cup. I'm going to need two sets of precision tools."
The list went on. The men around him were more than willing to fulfill his every need now that they thought they'd get what they wanted.
Later, after everyone had left, Tony worked on cracking the case open on one of his missiles. "How many languages do you speak?" He asked the man in the suit.
"A lot," the man admitted. "But apparently not enough for this place." Tony huffed in bitter amusement while he continued to work. "They speak Arabic, Urdu, Dari, Pashto, Mongolian, Farsi, Russian."
That diversity in language implied a large organization. "Who are these people?" He pulled out the propulsion and fuse sections of his weapon.
"They are your loyal customers, sir." Tony turned to look at the man in the suit, wanting to know the name of the people illicitly acquiring his weapons. "The call themselves the Ten Rings."
With a breath through his nose, Tony filed that information away for later. He crouched down at the head of the missile and used the air impact wrench to free the warhead. "We're the only captives here?" He tried to ask casually.
"It appears so. At least there are no other's who have required my assistance." The man in the suit watched him curiously. "Why?"
Tony felt something unclench within him. If the group had taken Angela she would have required medical attention. "I was with someone," he admitted.
"I am sorry I cannot tell you more," the suited man replied. "If they were captured it is unlikely they are still alive," he informed gently.
Of course, they could have just killed her. With a grimace, Tony felt himself tighten back up.
After a long moment of watching Tony work on the missile, the elder man crouched down next to him. "You know, we might be more productive if you include me in the planning process."
"Yeah, huh," Tony grunted in response, feeling a mixture of relief and sadness. Angela wasn't with them, but that just meant she was probably dead. His jaw locked in bitterness before he swept the thought away. He wouldn't know unless he got back.
With a few quick hits he dislodged the warhead and then reached in for the guidance system. He brought the assembly over to his bench and worked on extracting the palladium he knew was housed within it. Once the metal was free he commented, "Okay, we don't need this." Tony tossed the mechanism over his shoulder.
"What is that?" The man in the suit peered at the piece of metal Tony held up to the light.
"That's palladium, zero point one five grams," Tony grumbled. "We need at least one point six, so why don't you go break down the other eleven."
Later still, Tony worked on creating a ceramic mold for the palladium ring. Once he finished he placed the metal he'd harvested from the missiles into the smelting cup and waited for it to melt.
Tony rubbed his hands over his face. This wasn't really any different than a day at his shop at home, if he ignored the fact he was using sub-par tools, and was a captive in a cave. He rolled his jaw, feeling the scratchy growth of beard on his chin. He was dirty and starting to smell, but couldn't really afford to care.
There was only so long before the people watching them realized that he wasn't building a Jericho missile. Time was like a sinister presence looming over his shoulder. They had to hurry. The arc reactor was only the first step.
Once Tony had judged that the metal was at the correct temperature he watched nervously as his cell mate carried the container across the room. If anything screwed up with the palladium, they were dead.
"Careful," Tony warned. "Careful, we only get one shot at this."
"Relax. I have steady hands," the man in the suit assured him easily. True to his word the tongs never wavered. "Why do you think you're still alive?" He joked.
Tony followed him toward the bench and then set the battery down on it. With narrowed eyes, he watched the man pour the liquid metal into the mold. "What do I call you?" He finally asked.
The man paused for a long second, finishing his task before speaking. "My name is Yinsen."
"Yinsen," Tony repeated. "Nice to meet you." He was relieved to see that everything looked to have gone well.
"Nice to meet you, too," Yinsen replied.
…...
The base doctors were not amused. At one point, the surgeon who had operated on her swore at her in Italian before storming out. Angela made a point of learning that the roadblock's name was Dr. Whitman.
Outwardly unfazed by his exit, she continued to lay out her plan with the intractable will she had so recently honed while working on the repulsors for the Freedom line. Mr. Stark was a horrible lab partner, but he was an excellent whetstone. Unable to convince the surgical fellow, and with the head surgeon having left the discussion, the two groups stalemated. When the doctors left, Mike warned her that they were probably going to try to get medical power of attorney.
Angela gritted her teeth in rage. They were wasting her time. No court would pass judgment fast enough. She would die waiting on their decision. Mike tried to keep her on an even keel, but they were both exhausted and frustrated.
It was nearing eleven at Aviano when the lawyer called. Angela was gratified to hear the steady voice of Mr. Jimmez on the other end of the line. It paid to have friends in legal.
They made sure the door to her room remained shut before coming up with a plan of attack. Jimmez was soon joined by another lawyer. A third on a separate line got a hold of base command and set up a meeting between him, the hospital's chief of medicine, and the two siblings. There was also another pack of lawyer's expected to be there to represent the Base and the hospital.
The meeting couldn't be held in her room however, so Angela tolerated the nurse's fussing to get her mobile. A consent form was produced, which she signed. Then a separate form had to be signed for the same thing by Mike.
Angela counted her breaths, thought of a good wine, and steeled herself. She couldn't be seen as unstable. If she was going to have bite, it would have to be the press of logic leading the way. It wasn't easy. The control on her emotions was a slippery fraying rope.
It was one in the morning at Aviano when the meeting took place. No one was at their best except for the lawyers in Malibu. Angela leaned back in her wheelchair next to Mike, allowed the suits to duke it out, and waited for her cue. When Dr. Whitman opened his mouth, she was ready.
"Drawing the shrapnel with a magnet will cause untold tissue damage to the patient," he protested.
The way the Aviano contingent kept addressing her as 'the patient' was pissing her off as much as Garrick's subtle misogyny.
"Forgive me Doctor," Angela broke in, cutting off Whitman's continued argument. "But the electromagnet will not draw the shrapnel at all," she rebutted. "Instead it will create a magnetic field that will keep the barbs in place where they currently are."
She angled her shoulders toward the base commander and chief of medicine. It hurt, but she kept going. "The cluster in question is here." She waved a hand imperiously at the image Mike held up for her. They'd choreographed it back in the hospital room, and Angela secretly enjoyed the petty shot across the surgeon's bow.
"As you can see, all the pieces are within centimeters of each other, located to the right of the right ventricle just above the inferior vena cava. Inoperable, unless one considers a procedure with an estimated ninety five percent mortality rate. Estimated, because there has yet to be a single documented fully successful surgery to remove the barbs of an FGM-96 Reaper. A weapon which I designed," she added, just to remind them that yes, she was the engineer there.
"It is an untested medical procedure." Dr. Whitman's face was pinched, his eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to continue but Angela interrupted him again.
"As is the surgery you are recommending as the medically sound option." She folded her hands primly in her lap.
Angela took a moment to meet the eyes of the chief of medicine and the base commander. "Gentlemen, I am willing to waive any liability your hospital, or your base, may hold over my treatment if my proposed prosthesis implantation is allowed to occur." Unsaid was the threat that, if they denied her, there was potential liability for her previous and current treatment.
Her lead lawyer from Malibu broke the ensuing standoff.
A tall, tanned man, with a bald head and thin mustache, Mr. Jimmez did not look intimidating. His voice, however, was crisp and forceful. "Miss. Harper was given an estimated time frame of twenty four to forty eight hours of life, of which several have elapsed in argument." He folded his hands on the table in a way that somehow seemed menacing. "If Base Aviano, and it's associated medical institutions, are unwilling to provide the care Miss. Harper requires, we will move she be released on her own recognizance."
Angela was very careful to only blink slowly and keep the grin off her face. The part about meeting a challenge that she had always loved was using her arguments, and the tools at her disposal, to win the day. That her tools were sometimes people wasn't sitting as well with her anymore, but it wouldn't make her back away from doing what was necessary.
Jimmez pressed the argument. "Stark Industries has secured a private operating theater in Venice for Miss. Harper. It is staffed with surgeons who have already agreed to perform her prosthesis implantation should Base Aviano prove unwilling."
The chief of medicine was the one who spoke up next. "Miss. Harper's state of mind is in question. There are concerns over whether she can make decisions about her own medical care."
"Concerns answered by the legal holder of her medical power of attorney being seated next to her," Mike chimed in. "For the record I approve both the procedure and the potential release of my sister on her own recognizance."
He tipped his head to the side and threw a slightly condescending note into his voice. "As a medical professional, I know that it can be challenging to be presented with care options that differ from common practice. However, there are reasons why progressive hospitals are embracing a more holistic care approach. Simply put, working with the patient is what works, gentlemen."
Angela tried to suppress the spark of triumph in her eyes. Dr. Whitman looked to be having a hard day.
The base commander finally cut through the renewed bickering. "After hearing the arguments presented, I am inclined to allow this procedure to go forward." He held up a finger and turned to the lawyers. "Provided we have all necessary liability forms filled out and the surgeon who performs the operation is sourced by Stark Industries."
On the screen Mr. Jimmez made a motion. One of the lawyers next to him rose and walked off camera. "We will arrange helicopter transport of Dr. Yuen from where he is waiting in Venice to your base. He will be there within the hour. Please gather the necessary forms and we will oversee Miss. Harper's signature of them."
"One more thing," the base director continued. He looked directly at Angela with his hard brown eyes. "I am cutting through the crap surrounding this as a favor." He pointed at her. "My return for this favor would be that you allow us the specs for the design you put together for use in the United States military."
Angela felt herself flush in rage. Low. Very low. She could refuse and fight her way through being released from the hospital, which would take more time. Or she could accept and have to share her design with the military. Angela took a moment to try to channel her boss at his most irritating.
She smiled politely at the base commander, hiding her clenched teeth. "I'm sure my legal team will be able to draft a contract between myself and Base Aviano for the medical usage of my prosthesis."
Angela wondered if the man would go for her carefully couched offer. The guidelines she'd verbally sketched would be further built upon by the excellent lawyers at SI. Though it was a medical matter they were currently consulting on, one should never argue intellectual rights with a Stark lawyer.
The commander nodded and the group began the process of wrapping up the legal loose ends.
