So: last update, (sorry about the slow updates by the way, I have way too many WIP's!) I somehow managed to type things wrong into my master document and ended up with the previous chapter as the first half of last chapter. So if you read it when newly published, do go back and read about Claire's and Steve's talk, as that wasn't fixed until a while after publishing (when I noticed).

Slight warning for unintentional violence. Sort of. Things get a tiny bit bloody in this chapter, so to speak. Almost.

I do not own Iron Man, Avengers, ACDC or anything else you recognise. Unless what you recognise it from is earlier in this story, in which case it might be mine.

TapTap

ACDC was blasting from the stereo as Tony finally figured out where the feedback formed an unintentional loop in the newest model of Starkphone, shorting out on the outside casing like some sort of badly maintained car from the nineteen-sixties, and set to fixing it so he could hand the prototype over to Pepper's capable hands.

Pepper had set to preparing for a maternal leave no one thought she'd actually take with gusto, and that meant being even more of a nagging force at Tony than usual. He chose to take it with grace, though, as Clair said she was merely practising on him before the baby came, and he had to admit that was fair. Not the least because he (contrary to popular belief) had enough self-insight to know that he was practising on Claire, and she was graceful enough not to call him out on it. He was grateful that she didn't call him a mother hen in anybody's hearing, too.

Speaking of Claire, Tony rather hoped it would be what she'd definitely helpfully christened as "normal people hours" by the time he finished with the casing; as he had come up with this gorgeous new Iron Man Mark around 100 prototype idea and needed her tiny hands in order to make it work. No matter what he invented to help with the process, nothing beat just having small hands when it came to dealing with the suits and arc reactor. Nothing.


Claire walked into the lobby of Stark Tower around eight am, carrying a duffel bag with spare clothes. She spent more hours in the tower than in her own apartment, these days, and so when she did go home, she always brought back spare things, because she knew she'd stay a minimum of forty hours every time. For all of his percieved flickeryness, she found Tony Stark very predictable.

As such, she was not in the least surprised when Jarvis told her, as soon as she'd entered the private lift, that Sir was expecting her in his workshop. Privately she wondered if Tony had slept at all while she'd had a day off. Somehow, she didn't think so.

Stopping only briefly to dump her duffel on a bed in a spare room, Claire made her way down to the workshop, to find an (as usual) overly excited genius engineer working simultaneously on at least four projects which she could see; and she was briefly jealous of how effortlessly Tony Stark worked.

That was when he noticed her, and they got out the newest Ironman suit to do some "absolutely minor, awesome and totally necessary upgrades." That, of course, was where everything went straight to Helheim.


"I am sorry to interrupt," Jarvis distinctively cultured and accented voice cut across the kitchen conversation, "but Miss Thomas has safe-worded in Sir's workshop."

"Safeworded?!" Pepper looked up towards the disembodied voice in shock, before turning her neck back into a natural position to ask a similar question of the room at large; only to discover that except her and Clint - who was still still sitting at the bar with his breakfast cereal - the room was emptying as Steve, Bucky and Bruce were all almost at the door, seemingly having reacted to the subtle distress call on literally a moments notice. Clint, however, looked as bemused as she felt herself.

Muttering to herself about how much trouble Tony was absolutely in, Pepper followed the three men at a more sedate pace, followed in turn by a now very amused archer. When she arrived at the workshop a few minutes later - more than adequately worked up to hit Tony - Pepper did not see what she expected to. She was not sure what she had expected, but it was not this.

Claire (fully dressed, somewhat against at least Clint's expectations) was sitting on top of a work table, leaning into Steve, who was seemingly helping her sit upright, while being checked over by Bruce. "There doesn't seem to be internal damage, no," the doctor was saying as they entered, "whatever safety protocols were in place seems to have been sufficient. Of course, both weight and time of exposure will matter when it comes to..."

"Safety protocalls which I will update now!" Tony Stark cut in, from where he was pacing the other side of the room. "They're clearly not enough." With a slight smile, it was Claire who responded. "I am alright, Tony. It is a risk which comes with the job, after all." Before Tony Stark - so careless for his own safety - could pitch in something about it definitely not being alright at all, Clint cut in instead.

"Can anyone explain why Claire safeworded and what the arrows that means?!" Bruce rolled his eyes, Bucky snickered and Claire smirked. "Green, yellow, red," she supplied as an answer. "We use that system, and a safeword, if Tony needs to let me up right away. It's because of the work on the suits," she elaborated, being met with two vacant stares.

"Tony's hands are too large to reach half of the componants, so he uses me as a tool, sort of. As a result, I end up in odd positions during a build, or half-crawled in under heavy machinery. That's what's happened, this time - I knocked the suit we were working on off its supports and it fell over me. It is way too heavy for me, but luckily, Jarvis has safety proceedures in place and Steve and Bucky helped get it off of me."

"And they were aware of this system and not me because...?" Pepper's voice was still dangerous enough to make Tony wince. "Well, I don't think pregnant women are supposed to lift heavy weights more than assisting engineers, so it was less urgent that you'd know really. It must have slipped our minds," Claire admitted somewhat sheepishly.

"Goodness," Pepper rolled her eyes, "you are so alike Tony. Is she going to live?" The question was directed at Bruce. At his nod, Pepper Potts barely resisted an eyeroll and went straight back out the workshop door, because she was far too hormonal for this shit and now she needed ice cream.