We are getting sooo close to the end, it almost makes me sad! But then we get to dive into the Avengers! Woo-Hoo! My love for Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr all wrapped together in ONE fan fiction! So in this chapter we start the confrontation between Vanko and the Starks! This chapter is kind of brief, but the next one will probably be longer. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy and as always please REVIEW!


Chapter Twenty-Nine

Tony

I felt like I was twenty years younger with this thing in my chest. I could not believe April had done this for me…that my princess had re-discovered a new element and that it was what was keeping me alive. If I didn't have her here with me I don't know what I would have done. I probably would have, eventually, discovered the new element…but not nearly as fast as April did. She understood my own father far better than I did.

Now that I wasn't dying I would be able to explain to Pepper why I had been acting like such a jackass, I hoped she wouldn't be mad. I turned to Dummy and began giving him instructions on what to do with all the junk that had accumulated in my lab. April was dusting up some rubble for me, and I was doing various diagnostic checks on how the armor would react to the new core.

"Sir, unauthorized telephone call coming through…"

I looked up at the screen in front of me. It had to be Fury…out of all the people in the world, there were only a couple that could hack into my phones…and April was busily cleaning at the other end of the lab.

"Answer it." I sighed. "Hey Coulson, how's the land of enchantment-

-Tony!" a Russian voice cackled. "How you doing!?"

I froze briefly and looked to see if April had looked up as well…she had and she was slowly making her way over to me. I remained silent as Vanko continued to talk over the phone and pressed a button on the screen to mute the call.

"Jarvis trace it."

"Sir."

I watched the screen, eagerly waiting for Jarvis to pull up the location of Ivan Vanko.

"What your father did to my family in forty years…I will do to yours in forty minutes…"

I glanced over at April and then back to the screen. I wanted to beat this guy…I wanted to beat him bloody for what he had done to my daughter and I wanted to show him that his threats held no bearing here. But I didn't want to risk leaving April in Malibu…not when there was a slight chance she could be hurt. So it looked like, for once, she was going to get to suit up with my consent.

"I hope you're ready…" was the last thing I heard Vanko say before he hung up and I lost my trace.

"What do we do?" April asked turning towards me.

I took my hands through my hair. Pepper was going to kill me for letting April do this…but I needed to trust that she could handle herself. She had taken on Vanko on her own and had done a good job of it. Her suit was still in beta…but I knew with the few upgrades we had installed she would be able to hold her own if need be. I had to trust my daughter…I owed her that much.

"Suit up."

I took a moment while April was getting ready to check over her suit and fix some of the armor up. It was still too thin for my tastes, but it would have to do. At least we had managed to upgrade her hand canons and add a bit more depth to certain places on her torso. But she was going to have to spend a lot of her time dodging if she didn't want to take some serious damage…that alone had me nervous.

She came back downstairs, dressed to get her suit on and looked up at me. I gently brushed a red lock of hair from her face and gave her a brave smile. If April knew I was afraid…it might cause her to be nervous. I wanted to show her that I had confidence in her. That I felt she could handle herself out there. But really my insides were screaming that she was going to get hurt.

"Ready to go?" she asked.

"As I'll ever be, princess."


We flew in silence to the Expo center and got there just as Justin Hammer was unveiling his Iron Army to the public. I motioned for April to follow me as I flew down and landed in front of Hammer, April joining me and landing behind him. The crowd roared with applause and I faced Hammer, wishing there was a way for him to see the glare I wore under my helmet.

"Where is he?" I asked, going towards him.

"Where's who man?" he asked, trying to feign cluelessness.

"Where's Vanko?"

The dumb expression he wore on his face was enough to make me want to punch him right in the chops…but I refrained and just continued to look down at him while he tried to figure out how he would answer.

"Um…dad?"

I turned back to look at her and saw that all the iron soldiers had their guns raised and pointed at both April and myself. I pulled her back and kicked on my thrusters, causing her to do the same and we both flew out the upper skylight. The sound of bullets and crashing glass filling my ears as our new friends seemed to trail after us.

"Dad…dad we need to split up!"

I heard April say over our feed. I pursed my lips and shook my head. I couldn't let her take these guys with her…I didn't know if I would be able to see her again or catch her if she got into more trouble than she could handle.

"Dad!" she snapped. "You need to trust me!"

I chewed my bottom lip for a moment but sighed.

"Okay…okay go!"

I watched as April took to the left and half of the drones followed her while the other half stayed with me. I was trying to get them away from the Expo Center and seeing the flashing lights a couple miles ahead of me, April had a similar idea. I turned briefly to blast a couple of them with my hand canon and dodged one that had come up behind me. This was getting to be freaking ridiculous! There had to be a way into their system!

"Jarvis, hack me in!"

"Of course sir."

I strained my eyes to so that I could still see April and decided that I would follow her. I needed to keep her in my view…even though I knew splitting up was a good idea, I had the worst feeling that she was going to end up hurt. I refused to let this fight be the first and last one we teamed up for. I soared after her and followed her down into the green house, hoping that the droids would give us a moment to catch our breath.

"I got a couple to slam into each other…" I heard April say. "But there are still a lot more that are probably on their way."

"Splitting up won't do us any good…we need to take them together, April."

She nodded and came over to me and brought her hands up to be ready for the next iron soldier about to pop into the conservatory. In a way I was actually proud of her…she was holding her own against these robots and it didn't look like she had a scratch on her. At least that I could see…I knew that I got pretty fucked up inside the suit when I was thrown around.

"So…what should we do?" she asked me. "Just stand here and wait? Shouldn't we come up with a trap?"

"Did you have something in mind?"

"Well, standing here in the freaking pit of death doesn't seem like the best course of action."

I lifted the faceplate of my helmet so that April and I could talk more casually. She lifted hers and I could see that she had gotten a busted lip in the apparent scuffle with the Hammeroid robots. It didn't look too bad and I knew April had gotten worse…it was probably better to desensitize myself to her getting hurt at the moment. I couldn't fight off the robots and focus on protecting her at the same time…it just wouldn't workout and she would probably end up getting more hurt that way.

"Okay…so, you should take point over there…" April said, pointing to one of the hills.

"Why should I take point?"

Her arms crossed over her chest and she asked, "Do you even know what taking point means?"

"Psh…Don't change the subject, April Olivia."

"Oh my God…see this is just like you, if you don't know something you want to avoid it!" April laughed.

"I do so know what taking point is! I doubt YOU know!"

"Taking point means you assume the first and most exposed position in a combative situation." April said, cocking her eyebrow at me.

I smirked, "See…I already knew that."

She opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could make out another sentence a loud clank sounded off behind me. When I turned it was to see one iron soldier after the other fall in around us. I guess we were both taking point at the moment.


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