Disclaimer: I do not own Raphael Lake or Royal Baggs. I also do not own Iron Man. He has a Marvel tag on his collar. I just shoved them all beneath a steam roller and thought the resulting impressionist art might be cool for my wall. Suppose I should have bought some cooking spray. They didn't remove in one piece.

Chapter 9: Endings

Raphael Lake & Royal Baggs- Slow Farewell

In the morning the gate called to tell her she had a delivery. Worn, and feeling thin in a way that she had never felt before, Angela trudged to the Jeep she was loaned for her own use.

She made it to the gate and finished signing for her package before she heard them talking. Angela didn't think they realized she was still there.

"That woman gets freakier every time I see her." She recognized the voice of one of the gate guards.

Another voice replied, "She's a squint. What do you expect?"

The original speaker replied, "I don't know. Sense enough to not be around where people can see her."

"Does that thing in her chest weird you out or something? I didn't realize you had such a delicate constitution," the second guard teased.

"Shut the fuck up," the first man barked. "That thing just shows she got a taste of what she deserves. You saw what that shit she made did to Paul and Donaghue. What kind of diabolical bitch thinks shit like that up?"

Angela stood up from where she had bent over to stack the package and her battery. A hush fell behind her, but she didn't turn around. She used the single crutch under her left arm to maneuver herself to her jeep and carefully slid into the driver's seat. Rearranging her battery's position, she put the jeep into drive.

…...

There was a moment after Tony lost sight of Yinsen that he could still hear the man's footsteps. Soon even those faded away. They were replaced by the sound of gun fire and yelling. Tony felt his breath shorten further, and he brought wary eyes to watch the progress bar.

In those moments between Yinsen running out into the cave and the suit finally coming online, Tony thought of a hundred different ways he could die. Worse, he thought of a hundred different ways he didn't die but didn't escape.

A loud humming noise filled the cave as the suit finished powering up. The lights in the room flickered and then went out. In the darkness Tony gave a quick jerk of his shoulders, freeing himself from the crane with a metallic snap. He slapped the mask down over his face just as the voices of several arguing terrorists approached the open door of the cell.

Heart pounding and sweat beading on his upper lip, Tony waited motionless in the dark. The harsh tones continued for a long minute before being replaced by the scratch of footsteps creeping into the room. It sounded like only one pair, so Tony knew that there were more men waiting at the door.

The first man walked right in front of him. Tony stared at his back, watching the rise and fall of the man's respirations. A final second of hesitation kept him frozen. When the man, at last, turned around to see the light from the arc reactor, Tony lashed out. The sickening crack of bones breaking against stone echoed through the chamber.

In response a hail of automatic weapons fire came from the doorway. Several bullets pinged off his armor. After images from the muzzle flashes crowded his vision. Tony breathed in the smell of gunpowder, stayed slightly crouched, and waited for them to stop firing.

After several interminable moments, the barrage died off and the group at the door took up arguing again. Tony made his move. When the remaining men looked back into the room, he was in front of them. Teeth gritted in fury, he slammed two of the guards into opposite walls before marching straight into the line of fire from a third. A swift jab knocked the man off his feet and down the hall.

When Tony rose from his slightly bent position, he noted that the suit was unwieldy, bulky, and ill balanced. About what he'd expect for being cobbled together from spare parts in a cave. It was working though, and he didn't have time to waste thinking about it.

He pounded down the hall, hitting terrorists when he came across them. Desperation drove him onward at a furious pace, and behind him he left a trail of shrieking agony and death. The thump from the boots, and the various pneumatic and gear noises, almost drowned out the shouting from the men around him. Ahead of him the terrorists fled.

From up the tunnel came the great clang of heavy metal doors. A man, who had been locked in the tunnel with Tony, slapped his open hands futilely against the metal. He looked over his shoulder as if seeing a monster.

Tony charged ahead, knocking the man aside with a careless swat. The man's skull crashed against the wall, leaving behind a smear of some unmentionable substance. Tony slammed the arm of the suit against the doors once, then twice, before raising his leg and landing a solid kick. With a metallic screech, the doors flew outward, taking out one of the men standing behind them.

He continued down the hall, twisting at the waist and clotheslining a man who came careening from a side tunnel. Unfortunately, the force behind Tony's blow carried through. With a grinding crunch, his arm became imbedded in the wall.

Sweat dripped into his eyes and mouth as he tugged against the stone's hold. He could taste salt and metal. The refrain running in the back of his mind gained volume. He had to get to Yinsen. They had to get out.

In the moment he was trapped, another man ran up and fired a handgun point blank into Tony's helmet. The bullet ricocheted back into the shooter's head and his body thudded to the ground. Tony turned to look at the fallen man in surprise as the ringing in his helmet died down.

Refocusing on his escape, he gave a last full body wrench, throwing his weight away from the wall. His arm abruptly came free and momentum caused him to tip precariously to the side. A quick shuffle step regained him his balance and he continued on his way out.

He was almost to the opening when he saw Yinsen's bloody form laying across some bags of grain. Tony's stomach went cold, disbelief and dread flooding him. "Yinsen," he called, making his way toward the downed man.

Yinsen raised his head and called weakly, "Watch out!"

Tony's gaze flicked up in time to see an incoming grenade. With a grunt, he managed to lean out of the way just as the projectile sped past him. It slammed into the wall behind him, bringing down a tumble of rock.

He looked across to see that the man who had fired it was the bald man. Hatred rose up within Tony. Before him was the man who had threatened Yinsen, who had calmly watched Tony be tortured. Behind the protective faceplate, a snarl formed on Tony's lips.

The thick gloves he was wearing didn't allow for dexterity. Instead, he slapped open the casing on his arm. With a few quick jerks, he launched one of the improvised weapons from the suit at the bald man. It sailed over the man's shoulder and detonated against the upper curve of the cave wall. In a hail of rubble, the man went down and didn't get back up.

Tony strode across the cave to Yinsen and tossed aside a sack of grain that was laying on top of him.

"Stark," Yinsen said, his voice already going weak.

Tony stared down at the obviously badly injured man and swallowed hard. Taking a chance, he lifted his helmet. Yinsen was covered in blood. Tony could smell it even over the overwhelming scent of oil and gun powder.

"Come on. We got to go," he demanded. He wouldn't leave Yinsen behind. "Move for me, come on. We got a plan. We gotta stick to it."

The elder man didn't try to get up. "This was always the plan, Stark," Yinsen admitted. He was going pale and was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

"Come on," Tony tried to persuade. They were so close. The cave entrance was right there. "You're gonna go see you're family. Get up," he encouraged.

With a wheezy rasp in, Yinsen announced quietly, "My family is dead." A spike of pain drove its way through Tony's chest. "I'm going to see them now, Stark."

With a shudder, Tony realized that the whole time they'd been stuck in that cell, Yinsen had already lost what he defined as everything.

"It's okay," Yinsen assured breathily. "I want this. I want this."

Grimly, Tony acknowledged that Yinsen was growing weaker by the second. He would never make it out of there. There was nothing Tony could do to save the man. He was helpless all over again.

Huffing out a breath, he stared down at his dying friend. In the end, Tony offered the only thing he could in the time that was left. "Thank you for saving me." He swore he would never forget it.

Yinsen's eyes were closed but he still managed to answer. "Don't waste it. Don't waste you're life." His chest rose shallowly for a handful of breaths and then he stilled. Yinsen almost looked peaceful.

Grief filled rage swamped Tony's chest. It rolled up his throat. Locking his jaw, he stood and turned hooded eyes toward the mouth of the cave. They would be out there waiting, the people responsible. Baring his teeth in a furious grimace, Tony slapped the face mask down and stomped out to meet them.

As he predicted, Tony had a brief, blurred impression of men arrayed in the valley below the cave entrance. Upon seeing him they gave battle cries and launched a barrage of automatic weapons fire at him. Tony braced himself, rolling with the multitude of impacts and waiting for his vision to adjust to the desert sun. When the shooting finally died down, he growled, "My turn."

Fisting both his hands, he activated the controls for his improvised flame throwers. Twin gouts of fire rained down on the valley before him. Keeping the flame going, he marched through their camp. Burning men backpedaled into crates as Tony made sure to target the whole stockpile of his weapons. He wasn't going to let them keep one. Nothing would survive.

From somewhere up on the cliff a large caliber machine gun started firing at him. From somewhere closer by he started taking smaller arms fire again. A lucky bullet nicked the hydraulic line on his leg and it suddenly failed. He went down on one knee as the world around him caught fire and exploded.

With a grunt of effort, he strained to get back to his feet. The heat singed him. The roar of the flames and the screams of the men deafened him. He needed to be upright to activate the launchers or he'd end up dying there after all. A final desperate push allowed him to pull his leg back straight. As soon as he was standing he hit the switch for the rockets.

Just before the whole camp went up in a massive explosion, the rockets kicked in and Tony felt the ground disappear beneath him. His vision filled with fire until he cleared the top of the explosion. Then, he saw nothing but blue sky for the first time in months. It didn't last long.

Within a moment the boosters sputtered and failed. He started to arch downward at a blistering speed. Around him he could hear parts ripping off the suit. Tony couldn't stop himself from yelling in terror as the sand dunes rushed up to meet him.

…...

Five weeks after the gate incident, Pepper called with an update on the search for the people stealing weapons from SI.

"I can't believe it," Angela repeated for the second time. She had the email Pepper had sent her, complete with pictures, open on the computer.

"It makes sense. The Deputy Director of Inventory, an acquisitions agent, Hoeft from IT, and a foreman in Safety." Pepper sighed. "Obadiah was furious. They were all discretely arrested leaving the building yesterday."

Angela shook her head, discretely arrested was better than they deserved. She wished she could personally get her hands on them. Her bloodthirstiness disturbed her only slightly. It was an ugliness she was slowly recognizing in herself. "Is Mr. Stane sure there was only four of them? The instances of theft seemed systemic."

"He's fairly certain, but I know he's had the efficiency and security teams up in his office several times." Angela could hear the echo of Pepper's heels clicking across a hard floor. "There's a meeting next week about some company wide changes, so I imagine we'll hear more then. I don't think the search has so much ended, more that it's died down."

"Well, that's slightly comforting." It was good that something was finally being done about the mess. After a few weeks, she had started to worry that despite Stane's words to the contrary, her concerns had been dismissed.

"I can't imagine how you felt when you started putting pieces together. I wish you had told me more the day that you called and asked for a meeting," Pepper chided.

"You know how it can be around the office, or even out of it." Angela rubbed the back of her neck with her left hand. She'd been hunched over at her workbench all morning, going through the options for a mini nuclear-type reactor.

All her theories up to that point had been paper only. She'd finally built a prototype. It made her stomach squirm in discomfort.

Distracting herself, she continued. "If people are aware you work at Stark Industries, especially if you have a role they deem important, you can never be safe speaking on a phone."

"Too true," Pepper agreed with a sigh. "You know we miss you here," the woman commented, changing subjects.

"I know. I miss being there too." It wasn't quite true. Angela was becoming certain she could never go back to her previous role with Stark Industries. She wasn't sure where that left her, except for in a basement lab in Aviano.

"Still working the problem?" Pepper asked.

Familiar frustration welled within her. "Yeah. It's one of those stubborn ones." From across the line a cultured British voice greeted Pepper. "Is that JARVIS?" Angela wondered.

Pepper huffed a breath through her nose. "Yes. I've been making sure that the place has been taken care of. It's still on the schedule for the staff, but it makes me feel better to visit in person."

Angela nodded to herself. She could see how that would be true for Pepper. The woman spent a lot of time in the Malibu complex.

"I miss him," Pepper admitted.

Angela had a memory flash of her boss smirking in triumph at her from across a worktable. "Me too," she agreed.

"Really?" Pepper chuckled in disbelief.

Angela made a hum in her throat. "He's the worst kind of collaborator, but also the best. If that makes sense to you?"

"You know," Pepper's voice was amused, "It really does."

"God," Angela sighed, allowing herself to be diverted to relatively more pleasant memories. "Do you know how many times I wanted to reach through the computer and slap that man?"

"Probably as often as I wanted to do it in person," the red head quipped.

"I don't know, when we actually worked together in person I wanted to hit him a lot more." Angela snorted. "One time, Jessica, the intern we hired last fall, actually caught me standing behind Mr. Stark with my fist raised."

"Did he see you?" Pepper asked.

"No." Angela shook her head again, even though she knew Pepper couldn't see it. "I managed to drop it before he turned around."

Pepper snuffled a quick sound of mirth. "It's why she was your new favorite, wasn't it?"

Angela's lips twisted wryly. "She was mouthing at me to 'do it' the whole time he was disassembling the control actuator we'd assembled just that morning. Of course that's why she was my favorite."

The red head gave a long sigh before she tentatively asked, "Do you think he'll ever be found?"

Angela took in the new twist to the question. She knew for the PA it still meant 'do you think he's alive?' "You and Jim," Angela commented tiredly. "Every time I talk to one of you it seems like you both ask that question."

"Do you see Rhodey much?" Pepper asked.

Angela breathed through her nose. "No," she admitted. "He's been back twice and only for a day or two at a time."

Pepper made a low hum before explaining. "It's not just for me that I ask, though it's nice to hear you say you still think he's alive. I just think it's important that the people who still believe that hear it from one another." Pepper gave another sad sigh. "It seems like more and more everyone else assumes he's dead."

"Ten years after I see them bury the body, Pepper," Angela obliging assured. "Leave it to Mr. Stark to be out on one of his constitutionals and not realize that everyone thought he was dead."

Pepper made a short sound of amusement. "Constitutionals, that's an interesting way of wording it. I may borrow it."

"Feel free," Angela chuckled. "It does handily cover everything from lab binges to," she hesitated, "Other binges."

They both broke into juvenile snickers. Their boss had been known to fly to other countries on a whim for things like parties, or food from a specific restaurant. Not to mention the memorable time he'd disappeared with a yacht full of women. Stories like that were legend at SI.

"It seems like such a long time ago we both started working for him," Pepper mused.

"Oh, it was. Fifteen years ago actually. I wasn't even twenty five," Angela said wistfully.

"Neither was I," Pepper drawled. "And now look at us," she continued softly.

'Yeah,' Angela thought, her mood taking a nose dive. She glanced around the poorly lit concrete room. 'Look where I got myself.' She picked the prototype she was working on up and hefted it in her hand.

After a moment of silent contemplation the red head picked the conversation back up. "I wish you'd come back. It sounds so lonely there." Angela could hear the frown in Pepper's voice.

"It is," she agreed. "I've had to take in some hard truths," she confessed. "But I'm working on it."

Pepper made a sympathetic noise.

"First transport back is another month out," Angela reminded. "Besides I really have nowhere to go until I get this stubborn, major, design flaw fixed." With each descriptor, she banged the un-working prototype against the bench. It sparked noisily and singed her fingers. She dropped it and swore.

Pepper let out a peal of laughter at the sounds of destruction from Angela's end of the call. "It's probably a good thing the two of you haven't shared physical lab space for long stretches of time. You would blow it up."

"He would blow it up. It would be his fault," Angela claimed. She toed the mangled piece of tech. It fizzed miserably.

"You would both blow it up. And you would both blame each other," Pepper informed her in an amused, knowing voice.

"Agree to disagree," Angela hedged. She might blow it up, a little. It would be in self defense, though.

There was a tone from Pepper's side of the phone. "I have to take this," she said apologetically.

"Work, work, work," Angela teased.

"Always," the red head agreed. "Bye, Angie."

"Bye, Pepper." Angela leaned back in her chair after the line went dead. She tilted her head up to the ceiling and closed her eyes, feeling even more lonely than she had before.

Her eyes trailed down to the broken piece of tech on the floor. Twelve weeks working and nothing to show for it but a list of things that wouldn't work. Angela wondered if maybe all she was good at creating any more were things that killed people.

…...

With a jarring hollow thud, Tony landed in the sand dune. For a moment he blacked out. When he came to again he was half buried, with pieces of the suit strewn around him. Pulling the mask off, he took a look around and estimated that the flight hadn't taken him all that far. As fast as his shocked fingers could manage, Tony started prying the ruined tech off of him. He needed to get further.

He spent several long moments digging himself out before starting an uneven jog across the dunes. For as far as he could see around him was uninhabited desert. He had no idea which direction to go.

As the sun traveled across the sky, he pulled his jacket off to wrap around his head. Heat beat down on his unprotected shoulders and he gradually slowed to a walk. His muscles ached. He was pretty sure the landing had dislocated his shoulder and messed something up in his leg. Tony could only roughly judge how long he'd been out there. It was a span of time sufficient enough for his vision to start wavering and his legs to feel watery.

The inventor took a moment to acknowledge that he may have gotten as far as he had only to die in the desert and never be found. If people had stopped looking for him, then by the time the government investigated the massive explosion that he had caused, he could already be dead of dehydration. There wasn't any other choice though, so Tony continued to meander his way through the desert.

At first he thought he was wishing for the sound so much that he was hallucinating. Then, from over the edge of his sightline a pair of helicopters appeared. His mouth dropped open is disbelief, and hope welled up within him.

When the helicopters got close enough for him to make out they were US military, exhilaration and joy flooded him. The exhaustion melted off his shoulders and he began to wave them down with his good arm. They circled back, and relief hit him so strongly that he dropped to his knees in the sand.

When they landed, five people in air force gear got out of the chopper and ran across the dunes to him. Tony recognized one of them as Rhodey. 'Oh thank God,' he thought. It was over. Tony just tried to breathe.

Rhodey crouched in front of him. The smart ass had the cheek to ask him, "How was the fun-vee?"

Tony closed his eyes and gave a bittersweet smile.

Gently, Rhodey put his hand on Tony's sunburned shoulder. "Next time you ride with me. Okay?"

Feeling boneless, Tony leaned into his friend's out stretched arm.

When he was finally situated in the helicopter, he asked Rhodey a question that had been bothering him for three months. "Did she make it?" He wasn't one hundred percent sure he wanted to know the answer.

Rhodey's voice came through the headset he had on. "Angela?"

Tony nodded and tried to ignore the med tech working on him. His eyes were already starting to sag shut.

"She made it," Rhodey assured.

Tony spine slumped in pure relief. Rhodey wasn't finished, though.

"She's at Aviano. You'll see her when you get there," Rhodey continued.

His eyes snapped back open and he frowned. Angela was in Italy. "Why?" He questioned.

Rhodey's mouth turned down into a grimace. "There were some complications." When Tony's eyes widened, Rhodey waved an arm. "Don't sweat so much man. That woman is tough as hell." Tony felt his eyebrows raise. Whatever she'd done had apparently impressed Rhodey quite a lot.

"Just take it easy. Once we get you cleaned up and checked out, I promise I'll take you to see her."

It was the best he was going to get from his friend, so Tony nodded and settled in for the ride.

…...

Notes: I'm going on vacation with limited access to a computer, so you get an update early. There won't be another update until 12th. Happy reading.