A/N: *goat noises*

Again, I took a liberty or three with facts that the movie didn't explain very well. So sue me.

Chapter 10: Mostly Listless

Putting the other Iron Man suit was causing Tony an extreme amount of pain as his injuries were already beginning to swell. But he had to goddamn do it. If he let the president die, then no doubt someone would be mad.

Maya was confused, but conceded that she really wasn't much use, which was a pity. Then again, she had betrayed him and Loki, so it was probably good that her nose was out of the situation.

His chest aching, Tony took off again, telling JARVIS to point him at the virtual sticker Rhodey had slapped onto the car that had taken the president.

He honed in on it, readying weapons and preparing to fight against those Extremis bastards; he couldn't win, but he could hold them off.

The tracker signal wasn't moving. Tony landed next to the car, parked in an alley, and began to search it; however, it was empty, as he'd feared.

"Rhodey?" Tony said, his voice starting as a croak and managing to solidify into human noises. "Rhodey, I've found the car; it's empty. I'm gonna do a flyover of town, see if I can spot anything. The Grinch and his cohort can't've gotten far."

"Go for it!" Rhodey replied. "Kind of got my hands full here-"

Tony took off, staying low, just above the buildings. Fortunately, it was Christmas morning - and damn if Tony didn't wish he was curled up on a couch with Loki - so traffic was light. Problem was, despite that, there were still bland cars on the road, and he didn't know where to start. He got JARVIS to check for unusual heat readings and for anything that could possibly mean a president was in the car, but he didn't get anything.

"Rhodey, I've lost him," Tony cursed. "JARVIS, keep scanning, access public cameras and scanners."

"Yes, sir," JARVIS said.

"Could do with a hand here," Rhodey said, clearly out of breath.

Tony turned about face and zoomed back towards the river, soaring down from the sky to shoot Savin in the face. The police had arrived, and they looked tired and a little shocked as they helped the escapees from Air Force One. Once he'd sent Savin flying halfway across the river with a small rocket, he landed next to Rhodey. "I'm absolutely black and blue," Tony said. "And I lost them. You couldn't have marked the POTUS instead of the car?"

"I was a little distracted, okay?" Rhodey said.

"Damn it all," Tony said, frustrated. Who'd've thought the good ol' fashioned put him in a car, drive away, change cars tactic would work in the high-tech was they were waging? "Is it even possible to kill these Extremis fuckers?"

"What I know about Extremis could be written on a cracker, Tony," Rhodey said.

"Point taken," Tony sighed, popping up his faceplate. "Why doesn't anyone just stick a tracking chip in Ellis's ass? It would save so much time."

"Probably unconstitutional," Rhodey chuckled. "Tony, you need medical care."

"I need to find Killian," Tony corrected. "The crippling injuries can wait. I'll drop in at Loki's house and raid his cabinets for painkillers, then get back onto it."

Rhodey made a noise of disapproval, but let Tony go.

"Gotta find Pepper, gotta find Killian," Tony breathed to himself as he flew.

-O.O-

"Maya, is there actually any - augh! - way of killing those Extremis fuckers?" Tony panted, tightening a chest wrap to stop his injuries from swelling too much.

"I'm not sure, Tony," Maya said, watching with mild concern. "Killing them wasn't actually my goal."

"Rightly so, I suppose," Tony said. "Couldn't you have just killed a couple? For posterity? 'Specially that Savin guy."

Maya half-smiled before holding out a couple of bottles. "This was all he had."

Tony read through the labels before picking the one that looked strongest. "Thanks," he said, hobbling over to the kitchen on his bad hip to get a glass of water to swallow them with.

"Have you heard from Loki yet?" Maya said worriedly.

It struck Tony right then that Maya and Loki actually liked each other. Maybe it was time to induct a new science bro.

"Not a peep," Tony said. "I'm monitoring heat signatures from the area of where I think he is, but there's nothing unusual, so I think - hope - he's still alive."

"You could fly over there," Maya said.

"I could, but Pepper and the goddamn president are also in danger, and as much I really, really want to hold Loki's hand, from what you've told me, there isn't anything I can do for him but wait," Tony said. It was painful, knowing he had to leave Loki to his own devices, but he really couldn't do anything except potentially put himself up for death by explosion.

Loki's not going to explode, Tony thought. His body has been through a hell of a lot; it's not going to give up now.

He's not going to give up now.

And, hey, neither am I.

"Stay here, Maya," Tony said, heading for the other Iron Man, the one that hadn't been hit by a truck but was still looking sorry for itself. "If you need to contact me, get SADIE to call. Otherwise, do whatever, except betray us again, because that was really a bitch."

As he reached the doorway, he stopped. "You don't have Killian's cellphone number, do you?"

"Oh!" Maya said. That clearly hadn't occurred to her. "I have his old one."

"Call it. SADIE, trace the call and send the coordinates to me," Tony said, enthused by the new lead. "If Maya tries to tell him anything regarding our plans or movements or Loki's state of health, then end the call."

Eh. Loki's system of being suspicious had worked for him.

He took off, heading for the river again, where a small group of people had massed to look at the downed plane in the water. Tony released a flare as he zoomed over, which exploded brightly and made everyone look up at him. He pulled the peace sign, then headed back in the general direction of where that car had been abandoned.

"JARVIS, connect to SADIE," Tony said. "Damn, I feel like I'm making you two bad-touch each other."

"You needn't fear that, sir," JARVIS said.

"You say that now, Jay, but if I look away for five minutes there'll be an army of little AI babies," Tony snorted.

"I don't believe that's possible, sir, but I will look into it," JARVIS said, and Tony was fairly certain he was being mocked.

"Anything from your girlfriend's call trace?" Tony asked.

"The call was short, sir," JARVIS said. "Do you wish to hear it?"

"Go for it," Tony said.

There was a slight humming noise as the file was called up, then.

"Yes, who's this?" A male voice said roughly, sounding harrassed and impatient.

"Killian, it's Maya. I just wanted to-" Maya began, sounding serious and businesslike.

"Stark," Killian growled and hung up.

And that was the end of the call.

"Can you trace from such a short call?" Tony asked.

"Not precisely, sir. SADIE has traced the call to within the nearest cell area," JARVIS said.

"Great," Tony said, only a little sarcastically. Having the nearest cell area meant that he knew roughly where Killian was, and since he'd answered the phone, it was definitely on Killian's person. "Take us there."

As he flew towards and down the coastline, Tony got SADIE to check what she could about Loki from his phone.

"He is alive," JARVIS said, getting his information from the other AI. "However, she is struggling to read his life signs among the heat interference."

That made sense. "What about cameras? Microphones?"

"Neither of them can record any significant information," JARVIS replied. "SADIE believes that Master Loki has removed himself from the immediate vicinity of his phone, perhaps in an effort to preserve its integrity."

"Makes sense," Tony said. "But he's definitely alive?"

"Yes, sir," JARVIS said.

Thank the holy god of fuckery, Tony thought.

"Somewhere around here?" Tony said as JARVIS signalled for him to fly lower.

"Yes, sir."

"It's Christmas morning and this is an industrial area. Access all cameras possible, alert me to any signs of human activity. They should be celebrating whatever religion they're all up in," Tony said. "Also, see if anywhere here is under Killian's or one of his people's name. Could find him that way."

He flew around for a few minutes. There were a lot of large, shadowy buildings and some shoreside structures. Really, they could be anywhere. There wasn't a distinct lack of cars about; people working overtime, probably.

"What kind of camera access have you got?" Tony asked.

"Fairly comprehensive, sir, though my access within the buildings is understandably limited."

"Gotcha," Tony said distractedly, flying all around the district, his senses trained to detect even a little movement. There was some action; forklifts moved, people walked, but no one looked like they'd just committed Grand Theft Politician.

After flying over the whole area for most of an hour, and after JARVIS had looked everywhere, they simply came to the conclusion that nothing was happening yet. No one notable was around, and nowhere had anything to do with Killian, at least not officially.

"Call Killian again, JARVIS," Tony said.

The phone rang a couple of times, but it was disconnected.

"Damn," Tony said. "I'm not going to do any good hovering around here. JARVIS, keep monitoring the area by camera."

He was right; while he was passing over there, the odds of Killian or whoever was with him coming outside of wherever they were was slight. He needed to relay all this to SHIELD so he could get them going through it all.

"Rhodey," Tony said, opening the comms. "I've traced Killian's cellphone to this big industrial area, but I can't see anything and I can't get more exact. We need SHIELD in here, pronto."

"I'm at the Mandarin's mansion at the moment," Rhodey said. "Get over here; SHIELD's turned up in droves."

"I've got more important things to do, so you're up. JARVIS, send Rhodey the location and area. I need to talk to Maya," Tony said.

"...Okay," Rhodey said cautiously. "I'll call you with what's happening."

"It's a date," Tony said as he took off towards Loki's house. "Don't tell Lokes."

-O.O-

Tony firstly interrogated Maya about every single capability of Extremis, to find out what he was fighting and what he could expect from Loki.

Then he patched up the Iron Man suit.

Then he caught his seriously bruised hip on a bench, causing him enough pain that he curled up on the lab floor.

Then he fell asleep for forty minutes on the floor from exhaustion.

Maya gently shook Tony awake when she found him. "Tony?" she said.

"Mmph?" Tony said, his face stuck to the polished wooden floor.

"Tony, you can't sleep now."

"I can try," Tony groaned.

Maya prodded him lightly in the ribs. "Pepper and Loki need you. I can't help much, so you're going to have to get up."

Tony yelped in pain. "Oh, god, yes. Look, I'm not suggesting you're my coffee girl, because that'd be pretty not good, but can you get me coffee?"

Maya nodded and headed out of the workshop.

Pulling himself up, Tony got into the Iron Man suit and activated it, climbing into it and hoping he could maybe get JARVIS to fly him there. He followed Maya out to the kitchen, gratefully accepting his coffee after a minute or two, and then chugged it down, wincing at the heat.

With his thanks, Tony left.

-O.O-

SHIELD had no patience for Tony. Rhodey had told them everything, and they were currently getting a team together - no time to call the Avengers, apparently, despite how useful they'd be - and wanted Tony to stand down.

Unfortunately, neither Winchester nor Hill nor Fury were there, and they were the ones Tony had pull with.

Instead, Tony argued with someone who clearly didn't respect exactly how determined Tony was to get Pepper back and kick Killian's ass.

Eventually, Tony decided to leave them to their mission and work by himself.

He panned over the area again, staying high up and maximising zoom so they wouldn't see him, but activity was still minimal.

Unfortunately, as Tony worried more about solving this, his thoughts were degenerating from my next plan of action is to fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

"JARVIS, can you do thermal imaging for the area? Might pick up Extremis that way," Tony said, cutting a little lower and closer to the warehouses below.

"Yes, sir," JARVIS said, and Tony's view turned into a blur of colours, buildings simultaneously appearing blue and see-through. He started another flyover; he'd already done one since arriving and they took nearly half an hour each. Time was ticking.

Tony couldn't start smashing in buildings and hunting people down. Apparently there were laws against it. Big ones.

Where are you hiding? Tony thought.

"JARVIS, make a virtual map of the area and highlight in red all areas with no activity or normal activity," Tony said. "I'm wasting time here. I need a sleep. Cross-reference the map with thermal imaging; tell me what's weird."

The problem was, none of the buildings legitimately had Killian in them, as far as he could tell.

"I'm thinking about this the wrong way," Tony muttered to himself. For all he knew, Killian could be long gone.

And then it hit his tired, pain-addled brain like a slap in the face. He'd been cruising the warehouses, but they would all have security. One of the few places Killian could actually get away with was the oil rig in the water, which JARVIS told him was currently impounded, AKA no one was there or really even keeping an eye on it.

I win the grand prize for being an idiot, Tony thought frustratedly, turning around for the hundredth time and heading back towards the docks. As he soared down to land on a gangplank directly in front of the small building that was a part of the rig, he caught the slightest flash of movement.

Yes!

It only took me about four fucking hours. It should've taken me four minutes.

JARVIS was reading above average human body temperatures inside, but a minimum of movement. Whatever was going on, they were trying to lie low.

Killian's plan's all fucked up. Otherwise he'd be confident enough to face me. He's already lost all his advantages; all he has is this place, Extremis and the president. But he'll sure as hell fight to the death.

A gun cocked behind Tony.

And lackeys! Everyone needs lackeys!

Tony whirled and fired his repulsor on low power, throwing the person behind him backwards and into a rail.

Then the door he'd been approaching opened suddenly. Before Tony could turn around, a hand slammed viciously hard into the back of his neck.

"I've got you now, Tony," a rough voice said behind him.

Tony fired a repulsor boot backwards at Killian, knocking him over and releasing Tony from the grip.

"Sir, neck mobility is greatly decreased," JARVIS told him.

Apparently Killian had crumpled and melted his neck plating and he couldn't turn his head properly.

"Rhodey, I need backup," Tony said. Killian got to his feet and came at Tony, grinning. "Rhodey! Backup!"

Rhodey didn't answer.

Killian ran at Tony, making to full-on tackle him, and Tony lunged out of the way.

"Come here, little Stark," Killian hissed viciously.

"You really suck at foreplay, you know that?" Tony said, blasting his repulsor to take off. Savin had nearly beaten him. Killian was undoubtedly much worse.

As he left the platform, Killian grabbed his boot, melting and tearing the metal as Tony blasted him in the face. Yelling in pain, Killian let him go, but the boot was crumpling.

Those Extremis bastards really could do a lot of damage.

Tony wanted to go back and fight again, but more people were emerging from where they'd evidently been hiding out while they waited for their plans to come to fruition. He was about to turn tail and find Rhodey and maybe a dozen shield agents when JARVIS got a lock on a small, thick-glassed window.

"Facial recognition matches Miss Potts, sir," JARVIS said.

Pepper didn't look especially conscious, but it was hard to tell through the glass, which blurred everything.

"Pepper!" Tony said, broadcasting out loud. She didn't stir. He fired a small rocket at the wall, then dodged a volley of bullets as Killian gave his lackeys the order to fire. Where were they all coming from?

Killian dashed inside as Tony tried to smash his way through the hole he'd made.

Gotta get in before he does...

Tony made it in to the area where Pepper was and began tearing at her bindings after firing a shot to melt the doorknob. If he could just get Pepper out, things would be okay. Killian kicked a hole through the door, and Tony was ready for him, firing at him then charging forward to wrestle him into submission.

Killian was stronger than Tony had thought, flipping Tony over his back. Tony managed to land at a crouch, shooting Killian in the back of the knee, which toppled him over. On top of Tony.

Seizing his obvious opportunity, Killian rolled over and got his hands around Tony's throat, crushing the metal even more.

Admittedly, diving blindly to Pepper's rescue had been a mistake, but not doing it would probably have been a mistake too.

"I - thought - you - needed - me - to - fix - Extremis -" Tony choked out. Killian paused for a moment, allowing Tony to do a rather neat knee-and-head movement that caught Killian in the crotch and forehead.

They grappled on the floor for a minute or two, Killian becoming red hot as Tony fought increasingly hard to just escape. He was loosing the heavy weapons now, and that was the only thing keeping him alive. Eventually he managed to rocket forwards out of Killian's grasp.

"Sir?" JARVIS said, surprising Tony. "SADIE wishes to inform you that Master Loki has activated his teleportation capabilities."

Rhodey suddenly spoke up in the comms. "Tony, Loki's here. Where are you? He wants to join you."

"Tell him the area. Then he'll be able to see me-" Tony said shortly, more than a little busy as he fired a blast at Killian's head. Killian dropped, but Tony could see his flesh reforming. "Rhodey, get yourself and Loki over here! JARVIS, charge unibeam!"

"I'm on my way!" Rhodey said, and Tony registered him snapping orders, but Pepper was waking up and he was about to blast Killian's brains out, so he was a little distracted.

-O.O-

Loki had felt like he was being dragged repeatedly over hot coals interspersed with razor blades. Bloody and scorched. That sensation had continued for longer than he would like to think about, and the writhing and crying out had been involuntary. At one point, the sensation of being squeezed through a wringer had been added to that.

It had faded, finally, just shy of half a day after it had started. That had been more than enough. He was still burning under his skin and every part of him felt fucked up, but he'd been able to move of his own volition.

And Tony needed him, no doubt.

Working under the assumption that the squeezing feeling was his body considering exploding, he figured that despite the intimidating glow he had, he was now okay. Ish.

Which was why he crawled back over to his phone and summoned the Lightningrod suit. The number of undone buckles suggested someone had been messing with it, but it was still in working order.

The Mandarin's mansion had been the last place of action, so Loki appeared there, only to be mobbed by SHIELD agents. Rhodey noticed him first, though, and told him Tony needed his help. That was all the word he needed.

A/N: Reviews? = P