"Isn't it a little sad that an AI was one of your only friends for, like, three months?"

I look back at Clint and shrug slightly. "He want that bad of a friend. He's more family than butler, really. He's more of an odd mix between brother, uncle, best friend…" I frown at the ceiling. "In fact, I think he's legally one of my godfathers."

"What? How did that get passed?" Bruce furrows his brow.

"He can be a suitable guardian if it comes to that." I shrug. "He can make me eat, sleep, and take care of myself, and he can lock me out of the lab if I don't."

"Okay, true." Clint concedes, before pausing. "And a little creepy."

"Maybe." I admit. "…a little."

"See? You admit it!"

I lightly hit my boyfriend on the shoulder. "Let's get on with it, shall we?"

A~A~A

Taylor and Happy are shown waiting by a black Rolls Royce, Taylor tapping out a range of songs on the hood with her fingertips as she leans back against the front of the car, with Happy waiting stoically by the driver's door.

"What time are they supposed to be here again?"

"3 o'clock, ma'am."

Taylor checks her watch nervously before going back to tapping the hood. "Are we in the right place?"

"Mitchell Air Force Base, ma'am."

"Right." she sighs, glancing around at the assembled ambulances and medical personnel before sighing again and dropping her head to her chest.

People shouting orders makes her glance up again, and her eyes light up at the USAF C-17 taxing towards them, and she leans slightly forward as the cargo ramp on the back of the plane slowly lowers.

She perks up fully as Tony is assisted down the ramp by Rhodey, hair mussed, face scratched and bruised, and with one arm held in a sling.

But he's alive, and Taylor is beaming.

Tony, of course, protests the ambulances and EMTs. "Are you kidding me with this? Get rid of them."

Taylor lets out a half sob, half laugh as her dad scans the crowd for someone, a familiar face…

"Dad!"

"Taylor." He sighs in relief, bee lining towards her.

"Your eyes are red." He notices as soon as he gets close. "Tears for your long lost dad?"

"Of course." she chokes, "You scared me for a while there."

Taylor takes one last step forward and latches onto her dad, arms closing carefully around his waist as she cries into his non-injured shoulder, mumbling incoherent worries as Tony strokes her hair and profusely apologizes.

They eventually untangle and make their way towards the car, Happy helping Tony in before starting the car. "Where to, Sir?"

Taylor speaks up before Tony can get a word out. "The hospital, please, Happy?"

Tony huffs. "No."

"No?" Taylor looks at Tony in shock. "Uh, dad, you should probably-"

Tony raises an eyebrow. "No is a complete answer."

"I'd feel better if you-"

"Taylor, I've been in captivity for three months. There are two things I want to do. I want an American cheeseburger, and the other..."

"If you say a stripper, I swear I will hurt you."

"...is not what you think. I want you to call for a press conference now."

Taylor blink at him. "Call for a press conference?"

"Yeah."

"Um, what for?"

Tony sighs. "Hogan, drive. Cheeseburger first."

"In that case, I want one too."

.

The car pull up in front of Stark Industries main factory, and Obie immediately comes around and open's Tony's door, practically pulling him out and leaving Taylor to get out by herself.

"Look at this! Tony. We were going to meet at the hospital."

Tony waves him off. "No, I'm fine."

"Look at you!" Obie glances at the paper bag in his hand. "You had to have a burger, yeah? Well, come on. You get me one of those?"

"There's only one left. And it's for her." Tony tips his head towards Taylor, and a shadow crosses Obie's face before he smiles again, turning to the assembled crowd. "Hey, look who's here! Yeah!"

Taylor sighs lightly and helps inside, falling in step with him and standing just behind his uninjured shoulder.

"You still do that, by the way." Clint tells me.

"I do what?"

"The behind the shoulder thing. It's a classic second-in-command thing. I think."

I shrug. "Well I'm not the leader between us, so who else will do that?"

"Point."

Inside, Taylor helps Tony up to the podium before migrating to the back of the room, where a slightly balding man in a suit approaches her.

The entire room freezes, and Natasha and Clint lean forward attentively in their seats. "Coulson!"

Steve turns to me, confused. "You knew him before we assembled?"

I nod, my eyes never leaving the screen. "I did. And I really wish I had hugged him or something."

Clint just runs a hand along my spine.

"Miss Stark?"

"Yes?" Taylor replies, uninterested, as her eyes never leave the crowd of reporters.

The man raises an eyebrow. "Can I speak to you for a moment?"

Taylor finally glances his way. "I'm not part of the press conference, but it's about to begin right now."

The man nods. "I'm not a reporter. I'm Agent Phil Coulson, with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."

Taylor raises an eyebrow and scoffs slightly. "That's quite a mouthful."

"I know." Coulson sighs. "We're working on it."

Taylor tilts her head thoughtfully. "Try S.H.I.E.L.D."

"That was you?!" Clint and Natasha look at me incredulously.

"Well, yeah." I blink. "Who did you think it was?"

Clint shrugs. "Nobody knows, Coulson never told us."

"You know, we've been approached already by the DOD, the FBI, the CIA..." Taylor trails off.

"We're a separate division with a more specific focus. We need to debrief Mr. Stark about the circumstances of his escape."

Taylor studies Coulson for a moment before nodding definitively. "I'll put something in the book."

Coulson nods gratefully. "Thank you." He turns to leave, but pauses about two feet away before turning back. "Oh, and Miss Stark?"

"Yes, Agent?"

"I look forward to working with you in the future. You seem to be more agreeable than your father."

Taylor shrugs. "I'm just not as cynical. Yet."

Coulson sucks in a breath. "I'm not going to lie to you, ma'am, the world you're about to enter is dangerous. Very much so."

"Well that's the understatement of the year."

"And so, would you do me a favor and keep this?" Coulson extends a small dagger towards Taylor hilt first.

Taylor takes the small blade, carefully inspecting it for a minute before nodding again. "Alright. Thank you."

"My pleasure, Miss Stark." Coulson nodes one more before slipping back into the crowd, and Taylor slips the dagger into her back pocket just as the press conference starts and Rhodey walks up.

Up on stage, Tony takes a seat at the base of the podium. "Hey, would it be all right if everyone sat down? Why don't you just sit down? That way you can see me, and I can... A little less formal and..."

Rhodey turns to Taylor. "What's up with the love-in?"

Taylor just shrugs. "Don't look at me, I have no idea what he's doing."

Tony looks at Obie. "Good to see you."

"Good to see you too."

Tony looks thoughtful. "I never got to say goodbye to dad."

"Howard?" Steve looks puzzled. "Tony never got to say goodbye?"

"Apparently not." I shrug.

Tony turns back to the press. "I never got to say goodbye to my father. There's questions that I would have asked him. I would have asked him how he felt about what this company did. lf he was conflicted, if he ever had doubts. Or maybe he was every inch the man we all remember from the newsreels. ... I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them," Taylor inhales sharply, horror spread on her face, "and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability."

A reporter waves his hands. "Mr. Stark!"

Tony nods at him. "Hey, Ben."

"What happened over there?"

Taylor looks on with interest as Tony replies. "I had my eyes opened. I came to realize that I have more to offer this world than just making things that blow up. And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division," Taylor pumps a fist in the air, "until such a time as I can decide what the future of the company will be. What direction it should take, one that I'm comfortable with and is consistent with the highest good for this country, as well."

The press goes wild and Obie hustles Tony off stage and takes control of the conference as Taylor quickly hugs Rhodey and goes off to join Tony.

"What we should take away from this is that Tony's back! And he's healthier than ever. We're going to have a little internal discussion and we'll get back to you with the follow-up."

.

Obie enters a separate part of the factory to see Tony, alone, staring up at a full-size version of the arc reactor.

"Well, that... That went well."

Tony doesn't move. "Did I just paint a target on the back of my head?"

"Your head?" Obie demands. "What about my head? What do you think the over-under on the stock drop is gonna be tomorrow?"

"Optimistically, 40 points."

"At minimum." Obie agrees.

"Yep."

"Tony," Obie sighs, "we're a weapons manufacturer."

"Obie, I just don't want a body count to be our only legacy."

"That's what we do. We're iron mongers. We make weapons." Obie explains as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"It's my name on the side of the building." Tony points out.

"Our name." Taylor corrects as she approaches through a side door. "And Obie, that's what we did."

Obie ignores Taylor, brushing her off like a fly. "And what we do keeps the world from falling into chaos."

"Not based on what I saw." Tony insists. "We're not doing a good enough job. We can do better. We're gonna do something else."

"Like what?" Taylor asks at the same time as Obie asks "You want us to make baby bottles?"

Tony addresses both of them. "I think we should take another look into arc reactor technology."

Taylor looks excited as Obie snorts. "Come on. The arc reactor, that's a publicity stunt! Tony, come on. We built that thing to shut the hippies up!"

"It works." Tony counters.

"Yeah," Obie snorts again, "as a science project. The arc was never cost effective. We knew that before we built it. Arc reactor technology, that's a dead end, right?"

Tony narrows his eyes mysteriously. "Maybe."

"Am I right?" Obie pushes. "We haven't had a breakthrough in that in what? Thirty years."

"That's what they say. Could you have a lousier poker face? Just tell me, who told you?"

"Who told him what?" Taylor asks from the side.

"Never mind who told me." Obie waves them both off mysteriously. "Show me."

"It was either Rhodey or Pepper." Tony proclaims, looking at Taylor. "Which one do you think?"

Taylor just stares at him, extremely confused.

Obie points to Tony's chest. "I want to see it."

"Okay, Rhodey." Tony decides, unbuttoning his shirt to reveal the reactor.

"Wow," Taylor whispers as she steps forward, "can I touch it?"

"Go ahead."

Her slim fingers ghost over the surface of the reactor, the blue glow adding to the wonder in her sapphire eyes.

Obie, on the other hand, just studies the reactor briefly before roughly batting Taylor's hand away and buttoning Tony's shirt. "Okay?"

Tony looks at him oddly. "Okay? It works."

"Listen to me, Tony." Obie sighs. "We're a team. Do you understand? There's nothing we can't do if we stick together, like your father and I."

"I don't like this guy." Steve declares. "He seems shifty. Is he a spy of some sort?"

I just quietly chuckle. "Something like that. Wait and see."

Tony sighs. "I'm sorry I didn't give you – either of you - a heads-up, okay? But if I had..."

"It's okay." Taylor assures him, just as Obie opens his mouth after sending Taylor a dark look, unnoticed by Tony.

"Tony. Tony, no more of this ''ready, fire, aim'' business. You understand me?"

Tony frowns. "That was Dad's line."

Obie looks Tony in the eyes. "You gotta let me handle this. We're gonna have to play a whole different kind of ball now. We're going to have to take a lot of heat. I want you to promise me that you're gonna lay low."

Tony nods, and Obie claps him on the back and walks away, never once acknowledging Taylor.

Taylor turns to Tony. "You're going to explain everything, right?"

Tony nods. "Almost everything, sweetheart. Almost everything."

A~A~A

"Was anyone else feeling uncomfortable with Obie?" Bruce speaks up.

Everyone, besides me that is, nods quickly.

Clint looks at me. "He's going to explain, right?"

"Dad? Yeah…yeah, he will, soon enough. I can't wait."