CHAPTER 9

October, 2011: Afghanistan

Pepper coughed and adjusted her khimar (head scarf) so it covered her mouth. Smoke from leveled buildings enshrouded the small band of Stark foreign aid workers like an anaconda squeezing the life from their lungs. Pepper had been here a good 20 minutes, but she had yet to get a good look at the village due to all the smoke. The road was impassible, so they had to walk. Her eyes stung as she attempted to wipe the soot from her eyes and noticed her hands had already turned a disgusting gray.

"Where have they set up the medical station?" she asked one of the armed Stark Industries security guards. 20 armed security guards (some might call them mercenaries) surrounded Pepper and the small band of Stark Industries personnel who had volunteered to accompany Pepper for the new Stark Charitable Trust foundation.

"About 15 minutes walk from here, Maam," the security guard drawled with the long, drawn-out dialect of someone from the deep south. Jack, she recalled, was his name. "This part of the village has too many hiding places for insurgents. SHIELD recommended we set up in a house at the other side so we'd have better visibility."

Pepper coughed and stifled the urge to vomit as a particularly obnoxious odor assailed her senses. "What –is- that awful stench?" she asked.

The security guard, Jack, hesitated a moment as if deciding how much to tell her, then solemnly replied, "Maam, they're still cleaning up the bodies. In this heat…" He didn't finish his sentence. He didn't need to.

Pepper threw her hand to her mouth as she just barely managed to contain the urge to retch. She tried not to glance at the rubble that had once been a home, but her eyes betrayed her as they took in the image of a hand reaching out of the rubble for salvation even though life had long since left the owners body. The Stark Charitable Trust volunteers murmured and huddled together in horror as they passed the partially entombed body.

"How many casualties?" she asked.

"They counted 21 insurgents and at least 71 civilians dead so far, Maam," the guard, Jack, drawled. "We won't know the final count until they've dug through the rubble and recovered the rest of the bodies."

"Were any civilians caught in the crossfire when the Avengers intervened?" she asked.

"One of the terrorists shot his human shield when Thor appeared," another guard, she believed his name was Ron, midwestern accent, stated. "An old woman. She never stood a chance."

One of the Stark volunteers, Janice, from the medical research division, started to uncontrollably sob. "Those monsters!"

Tears stung Peppers eyes as she surveyed the village and noticed pockmarks of bullets and blood peppering the side of one of the buildings. "What happened here?" she asked.

"The insurgents lined up all the men in this part of the village and executed them in a firing squad, Maam," Jack drawled. His voice was soft and solemn, but a catch in his throat and feverish gleam in his eyes betrayed the anger laying beneath the surface of his forced calm. Pepper noticed his finger caress the trigger of his M-16 rifle as though shooting the butchers in his minds' eye. "SHIELD already moved the bodies to the mortuary tent until they could be identified by the survivors."

"Fucking insurgents!" shouted Steve Wright, an engineer from the prefabricated buildings division. "We should fucking –NUKE- the fucking bastards! Teach them the fucking MEANING of terror!"

One of the other Stark volunteers pointed to Pepper and shushed him, but Pepper couldn't help but notice the other Stark volunteers nodded their head in agreement. Steve had just put into words the way most of them were feeling right now.

A flock of crows menacingly circled and cawed as they approached the village square. Half a dozen regular military personnel, Army, by the look of the insignias on their uniforms, moved as though sleepwalking picking through the rubble. Not rubble, Pepper realized. Bodies. Body parts. The soldiers slowly picked up each piece and carefully placed it into a body bag, placing whatever artifacts were laying near the body into the bag with them. "Sometimes it's the only way the family can identify them, Maam," Ron-the-security guard quietly stated. "We're almost there."

Vomit assailed her nostrils as several of the Stark volunteers lost it and retched. She took fast, shallow breaths to clear her head of the dizziness which tried to consume her, fighting the bile rising in her throat as she tried to block out the smell of death. "What killed all these people?" she asked, taking shallow breaths to prevent herself from joining them on the ground.

"Insurgents. The men tried to protect their families, so the insurgents made an example of them. Threw a couple of grenades into the crowd and then shot every man, woman and child."

"Oh, God, STOP him!" she heard Bill from Intellicrops cry out. As her eyes peered through the smoke, the image of a crow plucking the eyeball out of a dead young woman's face was burned forever into her brain. A gunshot rang out as one of the security guards pulled his sidearm and shot the crow. Pepper fell to her knees and began to vomit uncontrollably. Sobs wracked her body as her stomach continued to heave long after the lunch she had eaten earlier had been heaved onto the ground.

"There, there, it's okay," a familiar voice soothed in her ear. Gauntlet-clad hands gently wrapped around her waist and held her hair out of her face as she knelt and clawed the earth. She hadn't heard him approach, but Tony was at her side, protecting her, as always.

When the heaving subsided, she choked out, "is it always like this?" Her throat hurt from the hydrochloric acid aftermath burning her throat and lungs.

"This mission was relatively tame compared to most of them or I would never have allowed you to come," was his quiet reply. He had lifted the visor of his helmet so she could see his face, but the arm which surrounded her was cold and mechanical. She desperately needed some skin-to-skin contact right about now.

Pepper squared her shoulders and signaled the others to get moving. More than one Stark volunteer had blown their cookies into the sterile Afghan soil upon witnessing the carnage. "Let's get to the triage area so we can do some good," she ordered. The little group was strangely quiet as they walked the rest of the way, although more than one employee gave Tony an awe-struck glance as he walked amongst them in his Iron Man suit.

As they approached the building, a wave of human misery undulated and washed around them like the tide breaking around a boulder as several hundred villagers surrounded them, some crying, some reaching out to touch them saying "Asalamu alaykum!" (peace on you) as they moved through the crowd.

"Alaykum asalam," (and on you, peace) Tony murmured in reply to each greeting, reaching out to occasionally tossle the hair of a young lad or old woman who wished to touch their savior.

Pepper couldn't recall Tony mentioning he spoke Dari, but it made sense he had picked some up during his captivity. Pepper mimicked his reply as villagers reached out to touch her, the Stark volunteers, the security guards, anyone who they could touch and plead with and thank for whatever had gone on here before Pepper had arrived. Although Iron Man was obviously the recipient of many thanks, the villagers appeared to hold all who walked amongst them with the same high regard as the superheroes who had blasted away the terrorists.

"In here," Tony herded her into a crowded doorway with a line of people snaking out into the crowd. The villagers stepped aside to allow their passage and then closed back around them.

As her eyes adjusted to the low lighting in the room, she recognized a long line of injured civilians patiently waiting their turn to see the doctor, many rocking and reciting verses from the Quaran. A makeshift hospital had been set up for the most grievously wounded, if it could be called that. Patients huddled together on mats on the hard dirt floor, the finest house in the village, and quietly moaned as other villagers tended their wounds. Flitting amongst them like butterflies, two Air Force medics monitored for signs of medical distress and gave what aid they could. An elderly woman pulled a blanket over a man's head and began to cry. At the head of the room, David Blake (aka Thor) was engrossed in surgery on a small boy, attempting to stem the bleeding from what was left of the boy's arm, blown off by some type of explosive device. She was horrified to realize the boy was awake and not under anesthesia, but quietly watching the doctor cauterize what was left of his arm without making a sound.

"Janice, take your personnel and help out Dr. Blake, please," Pepper shakily ordered. "Get that boy some anesthesia!" Janice appeared to calm down as she slid into her comfortable medical doctor role and assumed command of her team.

Order! Pepper needed order. She was here to bring order to this situation. "Steve, take Ron and eight security guards to set up those temporary shelters we brought to house these patients," she continued. Steve instantly jumped at her command, visibly relieved to be given something to do to help.

"Bill, see about getting these people some food. Coordinate with the military personnel about getting those pallets of MRE's up here, will you? The road is impassible. They're going to have to come up with another solution." Bill grabbed several volunteers from his division and bustled off, leaving Pepper there alone with Tony. He was quietly watching her, an unreadable expression in his dark eyes as he watched her take control and snap orders.

"These people have serious injuries," she observed, pointing to the long line patiently waiting their turn. "Why don't they cry out or demand to be seen faster?"

"They will wait their turn without protest, even if it means they slowly bleed to death in the process," Tony replied, his voice quiet. "We have to be very diligent about making sure the triage team diagnoses the severity of their injuries properly because they won't make a fuss."

Pepper thought about how vocal the Board of Directors was, screaming and tantrumming about the smallest delay, and had to admire this stoic people. "My god, Tony, I had no idea…"

"Of course you didn't," he replied, still regarding her with that unreadable expression. "How could you? It's not the kind of thing we see in the Western world."

Pepper felt the dragon skin armor itch underneath her dress. She had worn long sleeves, a long skirt, and a head scarf in deference to the culture she would be walking into, but the armor was definitely not what a traditional Muslim woman would wear. Behind her, Jack the security guard stood sentinel, carefully guarding the red suitcase Tony had given her before she had left. She had refused to try it on, but now she was glad she had it with her as she realized how tenuous peace could be in this barren land.

She reached up to touch Tony's face and was surprised as he pulled her in for a hungry kiss. Embarrassed, she realized the Afghan patients were smiling and nodding as they murmured something in a language she couldn't understand.

"What are they saying?" she asked Tony.

"They say they are glad Iron Man has a wife," he said, smiling down at her. "They say you are strong woman like Khadijahah, the Prophet Muhammad's wife. They are very pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Tony," Pepper startled, a flush reaching all the way up to her ears, "we're not married."

"Don't tell them that. In the Islamic culture is forbidden to display public affection unless you are married." Just to highlight that point, Tony bent in and kissed her again. "Now why don't you go and introduce yourself to the people your new charitable foundation will be helping? I've got to go help the military secure the perimeter while you guys are here so the bad guys don't come back. They like to target foreign aid workers."

"Okay," she said, not protesting. "You know where I'll be."

Tony smiled proudly at her as the visor to his Iron Man suit snapped shut. "See you soon…" he stated, his voice distorted by the mechanical projection.

"See you soon," she replied.

Turning towards the security guard, Jack, she requested, "Jack, could you please help me translate what they are saying."

She approached the first patient and greeted them, "Salaam!" Although she was no happier at the prospect of Tony putting himself in danger than before, at last Pepper finally understood why Tony was so obsessed with being Iron Man.