Chapter 9

First, it had been cool and dry and tiring. Then it had been hot and it had hurt. Then, it had been really hot and it had hurt like hell. Then, it had been scorching hot and it had hurt like a son of a bitch, and then – just when she thought it could not get any more painful, it had started hurting a whole. Fucking. Lot.

…and then it had been cold again…

…and wet…

…and then there had been no oxygen…

And that was when she had woken up…

Gagging…

And she had nearly drowned…

But she had not, and it had been all thanks to her sheer will to live long enough just so she could tell Tony she had done it, even when he had believed she could not.

Or maybe she had survived just because she was not planning on dying just yet.

Then again, he was probably going to kill her anyway when he screamed at her a lot for disobeying an order, but truly, when did she ever listen to anything that was best for her?

I should probably start doing that right now, the redhead thought as she slowly swam to the shore – or something that resembled a shore. She was not sure where the explosion had taken her to, but it seemed like a random piece of land surrounded by the ocean. She just hoped she had not been blown all the way to Japan; it would be a bitch to return to the States if she had.

As she pulled herself from the water on all fours, she began feeling the true effects of the fight she hoped she had just won. Her ears were ringing loudly despite how much she shook her head. She was not sure the rocks she was seeing in front of her were actually several and not just one that was distorted because her eyes refused to focus, and muscles she did not know she had were starting to hurt.

Her arms finally gave in and she fell on her back, her backpack armor still attached to her after having retracted itself when the power had finally reached zero. Her body slammed on the beach with such force that she sent sand all over the place, some of it landing over her. She then shut her eyes tightly when she felt something on her leg began to sting. Holding back a yelp, she opened her eyes again and forced herself to look down at her legs only to gasp.

"Oh, crap!" she sobbed, trying to keep the tears of pain from trailing down her cheeks when she saw her left shin was burned badly, and the salt and sun were making it hurt more than it should. "I'm never hearing the end of this."

She took a deep breath and forced herself to turn over so that she lay on her face to allow the mini solar panels Tony had installed on the backpack armor to begin doing their job. She did not need a lot of energy in the suit – if it still worked, and if she was still in California. All she needed was just two or three percent to make it back to her dorm.

Or a hospital, whichever was closer.

I can't go to a hospital, she reminded herself. They're going to ask questions and take the suit and…no…I have to wait.

She remained silent and still for a moment, replaying in her head the last moments before the explosion had sent her off to la-la land. Even though the shield had come down, it had done so in such a way that only the front of it had come down first, and she hoped it had been enough to release most of the energy of the blast toward her rather than on the bridge itself. She had not been able to see the pattern the shield had continued to disappear in, but if she had not taken the worst of it with her, she was certain most of the people left on the bridge were now dead.

She closed her eyes again and sighed; the energy the adrenaline had given her just moments ago to save herself from drowning was quickly disappearing, leaving her feeling as if she had been beaten up with a concrete stick. The suit would take at least half an hour to recharge the energy reserve, and she was quickly starting to lose consciousness. She knew she had to hurry up and send some kind of beacon of her location before she passed out or she would either lose her leg to an infection or die of injuries and exposure. Her suit was in no condition to do so, so she painfully dug her hand inside her torn backpack and took out her pod.

You better work you piece of shit. She thought when she saw the device was dripping water. She shook some of it off and sighed in relief when she saw that even though the screen was cracked, the phone was still on. I guess Tony was not kidding when he said my pod was more powerful than the one he had; my other phone would've been dead by now.

The small effort to find the phone was making her struggle to keep her eyes open, so she immediately slid open the cover and activated the voice command feature of the phone. She dragged the phone as close to her mouth as she could, and with the last bits of her voice she spoke into it.

"Connect to Stark server."

"Connecting to Stark server. Username?"

"Pepper Potts."

"Pepper Potts. Username recognized. Voice recognition activated. Password?"

"Potts2020."

"Password accepted. Voice pattern accepted. Welcome, Miss Potts. Awaiting command."

"Initiate Stark 911 Sequence."

The phone beeped three times before it responded to her command. "911 Sequence initiated. Please state protocol."

"Protocol 4357. User: Rescue."

"Protocol 4357 initiated for user: Rescue. Sending coordinates to user: Iron Man. Please stand by."

Not much else I can do, bitch, she thought bitterly and chuckled before she finally closed her eyes only for her guilty conscious to lure her to sleep with Tony's terrified face in the back of her mind. Her current status had all been her fault, but she knew that he would have done the same thing she did had he been in her place.

Whether he would ever accept it, or not, was a completely different story.

xxxXXXxxx

The three roommates were afraid to move lest they would unleash the brooding anger of the inventor upon themselves. Their eyes slowly shifted from a white-as-a-sheet Tony to the television set where the news anchor repeatedly stated that the – ironically – rescue crews that had jumped after the fallen hero when she had hit the water with full force were finding nothing but parts of her suit. The news anchor had then requested prayers from the viewers, stating that thanks to the hero's intervention, the explosion had been incredibly diminished to just causing cosmetic damage, and no loss of life other than the asshole that had caused the blast in the first place was reported as of now.

No loss of life reported as of yet other than the apparent MIA status of Tony Stark's girlfriend.

"No," he whispered to himself and swallowed hard to recover his failing voice. "No, no, no," he said again as he crushed his already broken pod in his hand. The eyes of the bystanders widened when they saw the scientist's hand open again to see that only dust remained of the once precious device. "She can't be…she can't…"

Tony closed his eyes and screamed loudly, and something that he was not aware he could do occurred. His Extremis inadvertently hacked into all the electronic devices in the building and short circuited every single one of them, including the only means he had to continue watching the aftermath of the fight.

"Dude," Lewis stared at the now smoking television. "Did you just…kill everything?" he asked, failing to carefully choose his words and causing Tony to glare at him. The scientist opened his mouth and pointed at the scared man but his words died in his mouth when he heard a loud beep.

All four of them froze for a moment before they began patting down themselves, looked around, and wondered what could have possibly survived the blast of Tony's unleashed energy. When they confirmed that their cell phones were indeed fried, Tony's mind reminded him that there was one item in the apartment that could have sustained his uncontrolled energy discharge.

Tony extended his left hand toward his room and in the blink of an eye the appropriate gauntlet appeared before him, closely followed by the rest of the armor as it began attaching to the scientist's body. The teens had only seen Tony using the suit on television, and this was the first time they got to see the genius' alter ego in action before their very eyes. Had they not been scared that Iron Man would go off on them and the fact that all electronic devices were no longer in service, they would have begun taking pictures and video of the incredible sight.

Once the suit was completely loaded onto the blue-eyed boy, the screen inside the helmet came to life, showing him the coordinates of the beacon Pepper's pod had sent.

"She's alive," he said to no one in particular and ran toward the front door that Ray already held open for him, and everyone in the building who had left their dorms due to the lack of electric power in them saw Iron Man take off into the skies.

A/N: OK, so you didn't have to wait five days :) I have guests and I didn't think I could write anything but here you go ^_^