A Supremely Bright Idea
By Sinead

Chapter Eight

.o.

Tony was hurting something fierce, and Pepper was all but tying him down to the chair to get his bruises treated with some ointment that she had gotten for occasions like this. He didn't want to sit still. The phone was pressed against his ear, Rhodey on the other line while sitting next to Rebeckah, holding her hand when the pain overrode the IV-drip painkillers. "Did they ID what drugs it was that Stane used?"

"Yeah, and once they did, they hooked her up with an IV with some painkiller that isn't going to conflict with these drugs. She's dozing between the bouts of pain. Chill, Tony. How are you doing?"

Rhodey was all too calm about this, but Tony couldn't blame him. The man was a machine when crisis arose. "I'm feeling like crap and I'm barely conscious. Happy's going to drive me over while Pepper sleeps. I'll sleep once I see how she's doing."

"In a chair, no less." Rhodey sighed. "Hold on." He put the phone aside while the young woman awoke with a gasp of pain, tears rolling down her face as she gripped at Rhodey's hand. "Hey, girl. Easy, now. Tony's on his way."

She nodded, sobbing once before catching it, and trying not to break the man's hand. She knew what was going on with her body, and what had already happened to the life that had been forming within her. With a whimper, she squeezed her eyes shut and held the tears back.

Rhodey picked the cell phone up again. "Tony, get here fast. You're the one she needs."

The voice that answered him was thick with tears, pain, and anger. "I'm already in the car."

The line went dead, and five minutes later Tony rushed into the room, taking Rhodey's place. "She okay?"

"Sleeping only, man." Rhodey stood behind the distraught almost-father, resting his hand on the man's shoulder. "They gave her a light sedative just after you called."

Head hanging, he trembled before holding himself together, leaning over the resting woman, kissing her forehead before resting his own against hers. His heart hurt. Pulling back, he folded her hand over her abdomen, walking to the end of the bed to pick up the clipboard hanging there, reading what they had found in her blood. He sighed and leaned against the foot of the bed. "What are these three drugs listed here?"

"I asked them the same thing; they're abortion drugs. I asked for information on them, which is on the sidetable. I'm worried about the combination of two of them; so are the doctors. Both have a rare event of uterine rupture." Rhodey swallowed, then leaned against the armchair, watching how Tony's face went white, then blank as he walled his emotions off. "They were shocked at the combination used, and started to flush her system before the pain got to be too much for her. They'll continue it in a day or so and want her here for observation until they're sure that she'll be fine."

"Were they asking about circumstances?"

Rhodey ignored the very quiet, dead tone of his friend. "Yeah. I pulled out my ID and told him that it was confidential. They think that she overdosed herself on drugs from the black marker, but I reassured them that it was not the case. Once they pulled up the information that she was the young lady who had been in the caves with you, they thought that the child had been one of theirs. Talk to me, Tony: how was the baby yours?"

Tony remained silent, staring at Rhodey for a moment, then looked at the drugs again. Mifepristone. Gemeprost. Misoprostol. How did Stane get his hands on them? He looked up as the form on the bed stirred, putting the clipboard back down on the hook and swiftly moving up to stroke the back or Becka's hand, his gaze soft. She drew in a deep breath through her nose, not opening her eyes as she whispered, "You're okay."

"You're not," Tony murmured, still stroking her hand. "But you will be. I'll take care of you."

"Thank you," she murmured, opening glazed, very drugged eyes to blearily look up at the man. She tried to find his hand with her free one, but Tony took her hand in his, holding it up to his face, against the contrast of stubbly jaw and smooth cheek. A tear fell, splashing against her knuckles.

It wasn't much longer before he was leaning over her form, embracing her and feeing her tears soak his shoulder, while his drained into her hair, against her face. Obadiah had done more than just try to ruin and kill Tony; he had committed a great crime that would never go answered publicly. And that was the worst part about it.

.o.

Three days and multiple medical procedures later, the hospital staff were ready to throttle Rhodey. Tony thought that it was hilarious that it wasn't him that was glared at. That man was almost worse than an overprotective mother hen! Most wanted him out because he was always in the way of questions being asked, and would reply to most of the questions with "That's confidential information, and you're not allowed into the room unless you're on the list that I currently hold in my hand." And once he had his uniform, he was even more annoying.

Then came the moment when he wasn't blocking the door from the doctors with questions, they were deferred by none other than the fact that Tony Stark was in the room, talking softly with the young woman. They didn't look away from each other until the doctor cleared his throat, and the man looked up, standing and walking closer. "Can I help you?"

"I have some questions."

"Because you want to know what's become a national security issue." Tony's voice was soft but firm, dark eyes glittering. "Don't press your luck. If you're not here to do anything medical, please leave." Without waiting for an answer, Tony sat back down beside the half-awake woman, taking her hand, stroking her face with his other hand.

The doctor frowned and left, causing Rebeckah's soft, tired voice to rise up. "You said that you wanted to ask me something."

Smiling, nodding, he kept stroking her face. It should be a crime to have a complexion this clear, a face softer than a child's. "Yeah. What do you want to do with your life?"

"Finally askin' me, huh?"

"You haven't exactly been coherent over the last few days. I think you're liking your morphine drip a bit too much."

"Hah, no kidding. Talk about trippy visions." Smiling, she replied, "I don't know how to say it other than in 'Christianese.' Is that okay?"

"It's always okay. You're alive, you can talk. I'm very cool with that."

Chuckling breathlessly, the young woman spoke. "I want to reach the privileged youth of South California, to show them that it's not all about the material things."

Tony took a moment to think about that, never stopping his calming movements over her face. When he spoke, he whispered his words. "That sounds like something I could easily get behind. How are you going to do it?"

"Long story."

"I think we have the time."

"Time, yes; hot air, no." Yawning, the young woman gasped and shuddered as pain rippled over her stomach again. She groaned softly, and Tony reached around her to embrace her to him, pressing her head to his shoulder. He hated this helplessness, hated the hurt that she was going through. Once the contraction was through, she whispered weakly, "Tony . . . did you even want this child?"

He drew in a shaky breath before whispering, "With everything I am, everything that I've become, I wanted this baby. I wanted to hold him, see him cry, laugh, learn . . . Beckers, I wanted this child more than I've wanted anything else in my life, with that one exception being your hand."

"My hand?" she whispered.

"No child should have to grow up with separated parents. And I don't want any baby of yours to ever have to go through what you had to. Besides," he kissed her forehead, her temple, then carefully rested her back against the pillows, stroking hair away from a sweat-beaded forehead. "You don't let me get away with anything, and you don't hate me."

"Why would I hate you?"

"The night that the little one had been conceived," he murmured softly.

"But you . . . you showed love to me that night; you didn't just do what they said without any reason. Tony, you didn't have sex with me; I could tell that you made love to me. There was no ulterior motive; there wasn't any malignant lust, and there certainly wasn't anything but respect for me in you." She touched his face, then blinked and saw that he was crying. Smiling, she whispered, "Did I just catch the world's most eligible bachelor?"

"You caught me the moment you decked me in the face," he whispered thickly, trying to push the tears away, trying to be a man and not cry or get emotional around Becka.

But her hand stilled his. "Men who cry for a reason and with all of their heart are some of the most wonderful men of all. You're crying for a very, very good reason. Two, actually, I think."

"Because our child was taken from us?" he queried, giving up and letting the tears fall, resting his head upon her shoulder.

"And because I'm hurting."

"Yeah," he whispered through the tears, shuddering.

She rested her hands around his head, cradling it against her body, and sighed deeply. "I think that you've finally turned the corner of your life, Tony. Yinsen started turning you around it, but you were halfway there once he left our world. Obadiah and his actions caused you to make the final turn, and face the new direction with all your heart. I gotta rest . . ."

He nodded, then moved so that she was able to arrange herself comfortably. Taking her free hand in his, Tony kissed it, then rested his head on his other arm, holding her hand, stroking his thumb over her skin, watching her fall asleep, his mind running circles at the perception that this lady possessed, on how she seemed to know what he was thinking all the time. She could read into facial and vocal expressions like no other person ever had. Not even Pepper could predict his moods, his actions. But this lady . . . he had to know how she did it. It was like a new car to him; he knew the outer look, knew the engine, but until you turned the key in the ignition and interacted with the environment, you really didn't know how good of a car it was. You had to investigate how it took the turns at different speeds, how quickly it stopped, how fast it went from zero to sixty, and overall performance.

But if he was going to equate her to a car, then all the others had been Fords, Toyotas and Dodges for all he cared. She was something sleek, smooth, and with a great engine, the best timing and reaction time that he had ever seen.

She was a prototype in his world.

He liked how that sounded.

.o.

"How many children do you want?"

"Five. You?"

". . . five."

"Really?"

"Because you want five."

"Be serious, Tony!"

"I am!"

"Then how many children did you want before you met me?"

There was silence.

"None, then. Jerk."

Pepper smiled quietly at hearing their conversation, more than relieved that they were bantering again. Tony without amusement in his life was a miserable man to be around. She let her mind wander to the date she had gone on last night before forcefully dragging herself to the present, standing outside the hospital door. Composing herself, putting on the professional mask, she walked into the room to see Tony with his tie loosened, top three buttons of his shirt undone, expensive suit coat tossed haphazardly onto the foot of the bed, and his sleeves rolled up. He was sitting beside Rebeckah on the bed, his head leaned towards her while they paused to look at a commentary of one of the presidential candidates.

Sighing, grumbling something uncomplimentary under her breath, Rebeckah shook her head and carefully popped the knuckles on the hand with the IV drip still in it. They had resumed to help flush the remainder of the drugs from her body, but the downside was almost hilarious: she had to pee very often, and once she was strong enough, had demanded to use the restroom properly.

Tony wished he had been present for that argument, but Rhodey insisted that he didn't.

Both looked to Pepper as she entered, and Rebeckah beckoned her closer. Curious, Pepper did so, and was surprised when she was enveloped into a strong hug. Putting the Blackberry and notebook down, the personal assistant hugged the younger woman back, smiling warmly. Once they pulled away, Pepper took up a seat on the side of the bed that Tony wasn't on, pulling her stilettos off and tucking her feet up under her in a very ladylike, prim fashion. "How are you?"

"Almost through this, I think. I've had more tests run on me than any graduate student has to take in one semsester, and they're almost done making sure that I'm going to be fine." But there was something in her face that said that she really wasn't fine, and that Tony didn't know about it. Within seconds, Pepper told Tony to take a hike and get this young lady something real to drink that wasn't hospital tea and non-dairy creamer while they caught up on girl stuff.

"What are you hiding from Tony that he's too naïve to pick up on?" Pepper leaned closer.

Sighing deeply, glad for the chance to talk to another woman, Rebeckah explained that they had spoken to her about the chance that she would never be able to conceive again, and the chances that if she did have a child, there was a chance that it wouldn't be a "perfect" baby.

This was when Becka realized that Pepper's nickname meant something.

Pepper was furious.

Tony walked in, saw the look on Pepper's face, put the tea down, and walked out again with the excuse of, "Forgot to get something."

She ranted for fifteen minutes about what the doctors had said, and how blind they were to so much, and what she thought about their opinion of a perfect child.

Tony walked in again. "I caught about all of that. Um, should I talk with the doctors?"

"No," came Rebeckah's sighed answer, and she outlined the problem yet again.

The man blinked, snorted, then leaned over the recovering lady to kiss her forehead. "Children aren't robots or machines or equations. There isn't such thing as a perfect child, and if it means that we have to try harder to make a baby, well . . . I'll be glad for it."

"Tony! We've had a talk about you bringing up sex all the time!" Pepper snarled on behalf of Becka.

He gave her a hurt look before settling on the bed beside his loved one again. But his voice was anything but hurt. He was speaking in a tone that bespoke of intense irritation. "Did I say sex? No. I said, 'try harder.' That is a concept not merely limited to the act of procreation, but in fact can cover all the bases. See? I'm learning the rules and doing my homework."

"You're insufferable."

"That's why you're my personal assistant; you don't lie to me. Beckers, did I make your tea right?"

But Rebeckah was laughing too hard to acknowledge the man she was really beginning to love. Smiling at him, she was glad that Tony was continuing on the road that Yinsen had foreseen for him, a road of better days and responsibility.

That . . . was very cool.

.o.

Author's Note: I'm working on some plot, as was introduced here and will be brought further in the next chapter. I'm thinking about taking a break from this story to write "Black Hawk Skimming," my Knight Rider story, or "You'll Get Used to It," which is of the same fandom. We'll see. I need to evaluate where I'm going to take this story. Five reviews gets you chapter nine, regardless of how fast I'm writing chapter ten. I usually post a chapter when I finish the one ahead of it. Hope you liked this, please let me know what you thought about it!