Chapter 31 - The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree

Peter's life had gone to shit. It really had, not slowly but swiftly and thoroughly. In just a couple of weeks, he had gone from supported friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and happy Stark Industries intern to swiping toiletries, canned food, and cereal over the scanner of a cashier point while he worried about his comatose superhero mentor whose life was hanging in the balance. This was a nightmare. And it was only his first day of his new summer job. With everything that had happened the week before, with what had happened to Mr. Stark, he had almost forgotten about the upcoming change in his routine.

This had been a horrible idea. It might be giving him some breathing room with Aunt May complaining about the internship, but he wasn't all that sure anymore, that this would be worth it. All the beeping, all the people talking around him, the weird smells that came from the fast-food counter close to the exit. He had picked Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays to work just to be sure that it wouldn't clash with his internship days. So, of course his first day had fallen on the first day of his summer recess. All that planning around his timetable with Mr. Stark now seemed a little redundant. His mentor was still unresponsive the last time he had been at the Compound, which had been the previous night. They hadn't even taken him off the breathing machine. Peter's heart gave a tight squeeze as the images of his mentor lying motionless in that room all alone flickered in front of his eyes. All wasn't well. It really, really wasn't.

"Hey, those aren't mine!"

Peter shook himself out of his thoughts. "Sorry!" He stared at the monitor. There were a couple of cans with sliced pineapple on the older ladies tally now, that belonged to the next person in line. Heat shot in his face and his hands started to sweat.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit!

"Erm... I'm so sorry, Ma'am, I don't really know..." He turned around, looking for someone he could wave to for help, but nobody was paying any attention to him. His supervisor, who had shown him what to do, had her back turned to him and Peter was completely blanking on her name. You'd think those checkout registers should be super intuitive, but Peter would probably have an easier time programming one of these things than remembering which colored button did what. Nope, he wasn't going to wing this.

It took him forever and just before he was about to leave his booth and actually walk down to talk to her, his supervisor did notice him at last. People were already switching to other checkout counters and both ladies, that were waiting for his mistake to be corrected, were getting rather impatient.

"Just concentrate a little better, Peter." Zoey, that's what it was, Zoey told him. "You have to be a lot faster than this."

6 hours. It wasn't even the maximum a minor was allowed to work on a non-school day by law, but it was long enough. It was still a short day compared to the time he would usually spend working at his internship, but time just didn't want to pass at all while he was sitting behind that counter. So different to his time at the lab, which had always been everything but tedious. Not recently of course. Those past few days had been hard. He had gone back to the Compound every single day. To see Mr. Stark, obviously. Peter stayed with him as much as he could, not just to be there if he— when, when he would wake up. There was another issue he had been dealing with: his suit. He was still without an acceptable way to access the technology that was supposed to help him keep people safe. Sure, the suit itself would probably work even if Mr. Stark had been worried. That had just been him freaking out about the incident in Leipzig. And who could blame him? But there had been a different problem that had emerged that last Friday night.

He had sat by Mr. Stark's bed for what had felt like hours, just staring at the ceiling, the walls or the man himself. His mentor's skin was incredibly pale. The only color came from the dark red wounds on his forehead, on the bridge of his nose and an array of smaller cuts on his cheekbones just above the mounting of the breathing tube. They blended in with the dark purple color of a bruise just below the man's left eye. There was nothing Peter could do to help. He'd been trying to at least say something, talk to him in an effort to, well, to what? He probably didn't even hear him. Still, there was a desperate urge in Peter's heart to have him know that he wasn't alone.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a shallow tingling of his senses. By sheer instinct, his back straightened and he shot a glance over his shoulder. That was right, there were still people out there. He still had no official authorization to be in that room, unless you'd count FRIDAY's trust that Mr. Stark would allow it. Odds were that the Compound personal or even Miss Potts would absolutely positively not count that. A quick glance to his phone made him realize that it had been less than an hour that he had spent in the room. An hour. That's what Pepper Potts had asked for. Mild nausea rose from deep down in his guts. She might come back. She would definitely come back and when she did, he'd be discovered after all.

"Is there another way out of here, FRIDAY?"

"I'm afraid not, Peter."

He blew out a deep breath. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide in those hallways. What if he were to run into someone, anyone? Compound personal or even Miss Potts herself? Or that other lady, Maria, who didn't look like she'd ask too many questions before she'd want to put him in a holding cell somewhere until she figured out how Peter had weaseled his way into the medical wing.

He slowly got off the floor. "How about the windows, FRIDAY? Can't you just open one and let me out? I could like... crawl back into Mr. Stark's office or something."

"I'm afraid all windows at the Compound are triple enforced and bolted. Plus, the alarm on the exterior wall would give you away as you lack the superiority to have me disable them."

"Great," he muttered. "Well, the hallway it is then." His gaze was fixed on his mentor for another moment. "I'll be back, Mr. Stark."

His walk back to the lab was quiet and thankfully a lot less eventful than he had feared. The Compound seemed almost abandoned and now he knew why. They must have sent people home, made sure that as little people as possible knew what had happened. How vulnerable they were with the Avengers gone, Colonel Rhodes injured and now Mr. Stark, who's recovery seemed to be unclear.

"He's gonna be fine," Peter muttered to himself.

The door to the lab opened for him and with his first glance around the room his breath got stuck so deep in his throat, it felt like invisible hands were choking him. Just at the lefthand wall, only a few steps into the room lay the suit. Mr. Stark's Iron Man suit, or, well, what was left of it. The armor looked like an empty sardine can that had not been opened with the designed hedge but instead been peeled apart with sheer force. Like someone had taken a crowbar and peeled away layer after layer.

There was a fire, anger that started burning in his stomach as he stepped closer to the remnants of what had been meant to shield his mentor. What had failed to keep him safe for after all, underneath all that titanium he was only human. Peter's ears were ringing, the blood in his veins raging. He didn't even know if he wanted to cry at the sight or bash away at the useless heap of metal instead. Anger won out as he spotted Captain America's shield just behind the ruined suit, propped up against the wall

Rogers had really been there then. Rogers could have stopped this and he didn't. Peter built up momentum as he rushed forward and kicked the damn shield once, twice, three times, ignoring the sting in his knee as the shield held up against his ambush without as much as a wiggle. He cursed in frustration and turned away from both the shield and the ruined armor. His suit was what was important now. Maybe FRIDAY could check it and if she couldn't figure out how, well... he would just have to go for it. He couldn't sit back now. With Vision bound by the Accords, there was only Peter left. Nobody else in town could do anything about the threats looming out there. He just had to—

His blood froze in his veins. His backpack. He had dropped his backpack on the couch in the middle of the lab and now... now it was gone. A sudden rush of dizziness almost floored him. People had been in here dropping off the armor and now... and now his backpack, his suit—

"FRI—" Peter's voice was shaking, he was possibly hyperventilating. "FRIDAY, wher—where's my backpack?"

"Miss Potts took it and put it in the office upstairs."

His body reacted on instinct. In five long jumps, he was all the way across the room and took three stairs at a time ascending to the office. FRIDAY turned on the lights for him just as he made it up the stairs. He stumbled through the room, just couldn't see it. Where could it be? Where could she have put it?

His heart was pulsing like crazy. If she had opened the bag... If she had seen the suit...

A wave of dread overcame him. Something was happening. Something wasn't right.

"FRIDAY, lights off."

She did so right away and not a moment too soon. The buzzing of the lab door echoed all the way up into the office.

"It's not that we wouldn't try it if—"

"I don't understand why Helen doesn't just use the cradle? She used it on Clint and from what I heard he looked actually better than before."

Peter had sunken to the floor and slowly made his way around the desk. This was getting out of hand. He could have very well still been down there. If they had shown up a few minutes earlier— He had to stop. He was freaking himself out when he really had to keep his pulse to slow down. It was hammering away like a freight train. Mrs. Potts and the Maria lady, he could tell that much. Just the two of them. Well, just...

"Pepper, the cradle grafts tissue. It's nerves and synaptic connectivity that were snapped in the Colonel's back. It's the injury to his neck, the resulting low oxygen levels Tony's brain had to deal with that keeps him in the coma. We can't graft synthetic nerves. Not yet. We certainly can't graft brain cells."

Miss Potts' breathing was heavy, even without his sense he'd be able to hear her clearly despite hiding up there. "There has to be something. We need to do something."

"Helen is doing—"

She interrupted Maria again, her steps loud and fast as she paced in the lab downstairs. "—everything she can. I know that."

"We just have to wait this out."

Miss Potts' voice was strained, her breathing heavy. "I can't just do nothing. There has to be something we can do."

"You can help me deflect. Help me find out what happened. Steve might still be out there somewhere. So is the Winter Soldier."

"And how could I do that?"

"I will go and debrief Sharon Carter tomorrow."

"Sharon Carter?" Miss Potts' tone changed to a higher, almost surprised expression.

"You know her?"

"I know of her. Peggy Carter was the only family Tony had left."

"Well, Sharon is under arrest. They are flying her into New York to stand trial."

"What?" She stopped pacing after all. There was very little movement in the lab at all. "Why?"

"She is the one that took the shield and wings. Presumably, she handed them over to Steve."

"My god, what is it with these people?" Peter crouched a little further into himself behind that desk at the harsh words echoed all the way up to him. "What do they think this is going to do? That the Accords will change if they box their way through a bunch of military and police department?"

Maria sighed. "It doesn't matter, does it? We know the shield ended up with Tony in Siberia. She might have known where Steve was heading."

They both stayed quiet for a moment. A torturous long moment. The longer Peter waited for them to continue or leave the louder his own breathing sounded to him. He could not be busted in Mr. Stark's office.

"What do you want me to do then?" Miss Potts asked.

"We need to know more about what happened in Germany. I know, the Colonel is still in bad shape, but this might be time-critical."

"Fine. I can... I can try to talk to him. I just... he doesn't know yet. About Tony. But I guess... I guess he'll notice and ask for him soon enough. What else? Can't FRIDAY find them? Can't we track them somehow?"

"I already looked into that. I looked into Sam's Wings and Natasha's Bites, but they seemed to have turned the trackers on the equipment off. I couldn't access any of the earlier recorded data either. That was all corrupted. I assume Natasha found a way into the system."

Peter's heart had jumped in his chest. Mr. Stark put trackers on the equipment he designed. Of course, he would. He rubbed circles into both his temples. Of course, he fucking would. If the Maria lady could access those, she would likely be able every piece of equipment. Including his suit. Peter swallowed hard. The Widow had messed with them? That was... odd. In the end, it didn't matter though. If Colonel Rhodes would tell them that Peter had been in Germany, they might start looking for him as well.

Of course Mr. Stark would put a tracker on him. Peter hadn't even thought about that but it made perfect sense.

He couldn't use the suit like that, not while other people had access to a tracking system that could expose him. That meant... he blew out a deep breath, trying to get his frustration in check. That meant, no Spider-Man-ing. His web-shooters were integrated into the suit now. He'd... he'd have to destroy the suit to get to them. Mr. Stark would kill him. Unless—

Miss Potts' voice rang through the rooms once more. "That's it? Rhodey and the data?"

"Anything you can do to keep Ross out of our hair..."

"I think we should be good for now. He can only demand Tony's presence for a code B2 or higher. I did stress that on the phone. If something big were to go down. Well, I could look into flying out a suit remote, but that will take a bit of time to organize."

"Thank you, Pepper. I'll leave you to it then."

The door to the lab buzzed open and Maria's footsteps slowly faded out. One set of footsteps. That meant... that meant, Miss Potts had not left the lab. There was a low shuffle, rusty squeaks that followed. Mr. Stark's battered sofa. She had sat down. Then there was more silence. Peter had to strain his ears to hear it over the loud throbbing of his own pulse, desperate to know what was happening down below, but once he had picked up the sound, he couldn't unhear it. Couldn't ignore it even though he wanted to. Heavy breathing, a series of short and shallow sniffs. She was crying. Peter's own eyes stung at the realization. She was alone with this, scared for Mr. Stark, just like him.

He had to pull himself together. There was a strong impulse in his soul that urged him to go down there. To keep neither of them alone in this. That was a pipedream though. He didn't even know her. There was no telling what she would do. If she would even believe him or give him the benefit of the doubt, time for him to explain. And what was he going to explain? That he was Mr. Stark's intern? That he was Spider-Man? Or both? How Mr. Stark had flown a 14-year-old with superpowers to Germany? No normal adult wouldn't be impressed by that story. None of them could ever understand.

So instead he stayed put. His tears were his own and nobody had to know about them as he was hunched behind Mr. Stark's desk in the dark. There was time for him to pull himself together while he waited. And he had to wait for quite a while. With no way out of there except through the lab he was trapped once again until finally, Miss Potts asked FRIDAY for an update on Mr. Stark.

"Heart rate at 45 BPM, blood pressure and breathing are stable. No change in his general condition."

"Alright." She sighed and cleared her throat. "Alright. Order me some dinner, will you? Pasta, FRIDAY. You know, from the place. Have it send to Tony's quarter."

"Of course, Ma'am."

Peter sat in his hiding place for a few more minutes after the doors had buzzed open and close before he got up and stretched his aching legs.

"FRIDAY, a heads-up would have been great."

"My apologies, Peter. There is no protocol for me to warn you from other people's movements within the Compound."

"Come on, FRIDAY. If someone were to find me, it's not just me who would get into trouble. Mr. Stark would get into trouble, too. So, if you help me, you're really helping Mr. Stark."

"Agreed."

He looked up at the dark ceiling in the general direction of where on the cameras was. Well, that would be helpful.

"Thanks, FRIDAY."

"Of course, Peter. Mr. Stark would want you to be safe."

He shot another glance up at her cameras, not really sure if she was making fun of him or if she was sincere. In the end, what did it matter? At least this way he could move a little more comfortable around the Compound.

"Hey FRIDAY, where exactly has Miss Potts put my backpack?"

"On the back wall, the second wardrobe from the left."

FRIDAY put the light on a low setting for him. He could make out the general layout of the room, but a little light would go a long way for him. There it was. His heart rate had picked up again as he pulled open the zipper on his backpack and a giant wave of relief washed over him. There is was, right where he had left it. That had been a close call. A couple of deep breaths and he felt better right away, anchored with that crucial part of himself back in his hands. He had stuff to do. They could not find out about him. They couldn't find him! That suit had been in his house for quite some time. If they found the data, they would find him.

Peter carefully tiptoed down the steps back into the lab. He leaned down and checked but Miss Potts really had gone and there was nobody else lingering there either. It took only a few quick strides for him to get across the room to Mr. Stark's main workbench. He would need a bit of stuff, a couple of cables. He had a soldering bolt at home that should do if he would really need one. A couple of the mini screwdrivers would come in handy too. They were a lot more delicate than anything he had lying around. Quickly he stuffed everything in his backpack then stopped for a moment and looked down at his loot. This was madness. The suit would be encrypted somehow. There was no way that he could just go ahead and get to all that data.

"FRIDAY, erase all the data that my suit recorded over the last couple of months."

"You have no authorization to access that data."

Peter bit his lip. "If people find out about Mr. Stark's—"

"You have no access to that data. Only Mr. Stark can access those protocols."

His eyebrows shot up. "Only Mr. Stark? Nobody else?" That might mean he wouldn't even have to hack the suit.

"Only Mr. Stark has access to the data unless the emergency protocol is activated."

"What's the emergency protocol?"

"You have no—"

"Alright, alright."

He waved her off. Fine. He didn't think that would work but he had to at least try. There was a good chance that Mr. Stark had implemented a safety protocol that would alert someone if something happened. He had to be sure, to be safe that nobody could track him. It was past 7 pm already and if he wanted to make his curfew he'd have to leave rather sooner than later.

"I'll meet the car at the western exit, FRIDAY." He pulled the zipper shut and strapped the backpack securely in place. "Tell Mr. Stark..." There was a lump in his throat and no amount of swallowing could make it go away. "When nobody else is in the room, tell Mr. Stark, I'll come back. I'll come back every day till he wakes up, okay?"

"I'll tell him, Peter."

And he had been. Every day since, he had gone to the Tower and had one of Mr. Stark's cars drive him all the way out to the Compound. Even after he finished his first day at the new job despite the fatigue that stuck him to the bones, he went to spend some time sitting next to that bed. Nothing had changed since that first day. The room looked the same. Mr. Stark looked the same. Some of the bruises on his face might have faded a bit, but only slightly. May was at work. During the summer break, the hotel she was working at was always busy with tourists. With the 4th of July just around the corner they had at least two people on staff 24/7 which was stressful for his aunt for sure but it also gave him some breathing room in explaining where he was at any given time. It also gave him some space to work on the suit. Not that he was getting anywhere.

Peter sat on the floor next to Mr. Stark's bed. Legs spread out in front of him, the back of his head was resting on the mattress, eyes on the ceiling above.

"I get that you wanted to keep the coding safe but did you have to make it so complicated, Sir? I've tried everything. Well, everything that I could think of so far. And everything that google could think of so far as well."

He sighed. He wasn't getting anywhere. Every time he thought he might have found a back door. Bam. Access denied. Every trick in the book, every tactical decoding attempt failed. It was like Mr. Stark's tech was operating in a different universe than anyone else's. He arched his back and then swung around. His legs folded underneath him just as his arms did and he rested them on the bed, his cheek cushioned on top of them. The man still looked as pale as ever, breathing tube still fasted on his face. Even the flowers and fruit basket that surely Miss Potts had left on his bedside table didn't add much life to the room.

"It's almost like instead of speaking English you just made up your own language. As if you just came up with something that nobody—"

His jaw fell open, eyes fixed on the apple that was balanced on top of that ridiculous fruit basket. Newton.

"Fuck," Peter whispered. He sat up straight. His eyes shot over to his mentor's face. "You're... you're like Newton. Diagonally. Linear. Chaos structure. Implemented in combination with each other. Holy Shit." He grasped the man's hand and squeezed it tight. "I... shit. I gotta go, Sir."

FRIDAY had the driver wait for him at the western gate of the Compound. His hands were shaking and he could hardly keep himself in his seat. This had to be it. It just had to be.

The drive back to town felt like it took an eternity. Back in his room, he pulled out the suit and his laptop from the hiding paces spread out across his room. Shaky fingers connected the cables and fitted every output carefully before he connected them to the mainframe. A deep breath. He had no idea if this would work. Every time he had sat down to try something new to crack the encryption, his pulse would spike. Mr. Stark might have added any number of alert systems and self-destruct buttons and he was bound to press one by accident at some point. It didn't matter though. He had to disable that tacker.

Diagonally. Linear. Chaos structure. How had he not remembered that crazy day in the lab?

His fingers brushed over the keyboard, entering one line of code after the other. This was it. Peter held his breath and pressed enter. Right away the room was flooded with light. Peter shrunk away, his first thought that he really did trigger some kind of alarm system. On second glance though it was the intertwined webbing all over the suit that had lit up. His laptop screen lit up in a similar blue light and an extensive file system had popped up.

"Holy shit," he muttered. "What the hell am I looking at?"

There were all kinds of folders, many many file names he didn't recognize at all.

"Holy shit," he muttered again.

Aerial Escort

AES03

Beta Testing Deadends

Iron Man

Iron League

...

He had found a backdoor alright, just not to his suit. Or not only the suit. This was Mr. Stark's server. His private server.

Peter pulled his hands away from the keyboard as if it was hot lava. Shit.

The suit had been a backdoor to Mr. Stark's private server. He had just hacked Mr. Stark's private server. His heart was racing, his pulse throbbing in his ears. He jumped up to his feet, shook out his hands and took a few steps back from the laptop. Holy shit. Mr. Stark would—

Peter shook his head, forcing his breathing calm the fuck down. Mr. Stark would never find out about this. And Peter... he would just not look at any of these files, only the programming of the suit. This was going to be fine. Everything was totally under control. Two steps and he was back at his laptop. It was quite an extensive list and he had to scroll for a bit until he found what he had been looking for.

Project Sojourner

He ignored the shiver that ran down his spine and clicked on the folder. What did it matter? He had to turn off that tracker, get rid of the data that could expose him to people that couldn't find out about him. About how much Mr. Stark was involved in his vigilante work.

The folder contained a little more than he had anticipated. There weren't just plans of the suit, the program code and collected data on his location. There were video files. A whole battery of video files. How... how was this possible?

He scrolled through them, then clicked on the last one of the list. His face was numb, eyes wide as he was looking at the familiar view of the Leipzig airport. The suit had recorded the fight. His body was frozen in shock, but only for a moment before he shook himself out of his trance and shut the video down. He couldn't watch that. Too much had happened that day. Too much had happened since. He had to get his head back to what was important.

The tracker.

There was a subfolder that contained the script. Three scripts actually. Hm. He pulled up the first one which turned out to be the basic skeleton of coding.

"Holy shit, Mr. Stark," he couldn't help but mumble. This was ridiculously advanced. Well, duh. Mr. Stark wrote this. Peter's coding skills were alright, but it had definitely always been his weakness compared to the engineering part of robotics. Mr. Stark had let him help with that part of the suit's creation, had talked him through the structure and the materials he was using. Not the coding though. The man had been weirdly secretive about it which, well, now made a lot of sense.

Peter didn't have to understand all of this though. He just had to find that one line that controlled the tacker. There were a million different coding languages but a lot of them had similar element and once you knew your way around a couple of them, it was easier to learn the next. Sort of like with human languages. He didn't know the exact wording he was looking for, but he still went ahead and used the word search, just in case that Mr. Stark had named the algorithm after something obvious like "tracker" or "surveillance" but no luck. So instead, he scrolled through the lines, simply looking. Quite early on the "8A Training Wheels Program" caught his eye. He stared at the line, for some reason that rang a bell, but he wasn't quite sure why. It took him the better part of 30 minutes to find the line he was actually looking for.

The stress melted off him like an ice cream cone in the hot summer sun. Phew. This had happened a lot quicker than he would have thought. Well, the document wasn't all that long after all. It was pretty short actually. Less than a hundred lines. Peter frowned. That couldn't be all there was to the coding fo the suit. He saved the changes and closed the file, pulled the folder system back to the front of the desktop.

8A Training Wheels Program

It was the second file in that folder. That was probably where most of the actual code for the shooter and stuff was implemented. Peter bit his lip as his eyes wandered down to the third file.

8A part II

Huh. The curser of his mouse was hovering over the file name. Surely, it wouldn't hurt to just... just have a look. Just a learning experience that would give him a bit more insight into his suit. Peter hesitated another moment. Mr. Stark would kill him if he found out about this. He might get away explaining the tracker but this...

Did it really matter now? He just wouldn't ever tell him about this. If— When Mr. Stark would wake up, he'd just replace the line and nobody had to know.

He took a deep breath. Screw it.

##

His eyes were heavy. He'd been in and out of consciousness all day - at least he assumed that it was still the same day. He had only vaguely registered that this wasn't the first time he had woken in that bed. It wasn't his bed. That at least he could tell. Also that this wasn't the first time that he realized that he wasn't in his own bed. His surroundings, yes, his surroundings were familiar. He was at the Compound. The medical wing. Why, well... that was a different question. He had never managed to stay up long enough to enquire that part. Or maybe he did and only forgot. There was something different when he woke up this time though. His brain seemed to be a little more online than before.

He closed his eyes again just for a few seconds and felt out his body. Just a quick check what hurt and what didn't, but other than a little discomfort in his chest he didn't feel much at all. His limbs felt mostly numb and with light nausea stuck in his throat, he concluded they still had him on pain meds. Heavy pain meds in all likelihood. His left arm was propped up across his lower stomach, his fingers intertwined with someone else's. Huh. He couldn't really move his head properly but just a small squint to his left confirmed that it was Pepper lying next to him.

Her head was cushioned by her other hand, face snuggled up against Tony's upper arm. She was lying on her side, knees pulled up to a fetal position. That light pressure on his thigh came from Pepper's shins that were pressing up against him. There was just enough light for him to make out the dark circles under her eyes as well as the tear tracks on her face. He inhaled deeply and then let is lung deflate before he reached up with his right hand to untangle her fingers from his hand and free his arm. But as he reached up, his right arm tugged on something and there was a clash next to the bed. He couldn't help but flinch and Pepper sat up straight right next to him as if shots had been fired.

He looked up at her but her eyes were searching the floor next to his bed. When she did look at him her face softened.

"Hey, you're awake."

"Yeah," he breathed out low.

She quickly got off the bed and walked around it to the other side.

"What did you do? Did you pull out your IV?"

Tony's eyes flickered down to his arm. The cannula was still taped to the back of his right hand. Pepper bent down, picked an IV bag off the floor and hung it back up next to the bed. Well, that explained that noise. Then she took his hand and checked the tube.

"Did you try to get up?"

"No, jus'..." He looked away from her. He had just wanted to put his arm around her, hold her close. But that moment was gone now.

"Tony, look at me."

She crouched down next to the bed. His eyes did find hers but his lids still felt incredibly heavy. She quickly reached for his hand with one hand and cupped his face with the other.

"Hey, you're awake." Her lips pulled into a smile.

"Been up... before," he whispered.

Her fingers softly tugged into his hair, her thumb traced up and down his cheekbone.

"Yeah, they told me." There was a quiver in her voice that he hated. The one where she tried to keep her voice from shaking but couldn't quite manage to. It was a rare sound to hear from Pepper Potts. "I always missed you. By the time I made it here you'd already gone back to sleep."

She'd been here this whole time? Huh.

"Wha' happ'nd?"

She frowned. "You don't remember?"

Her fingers still rubbed small circles onto the back of his hand. The motion was calming but also drawing his attention. What had happened? His mind was blank. In fact, the thought made the right side of his brain throb and he had to force himself not to give in to the urge to rub it.

"You went to Siberia."

He blinked at her, his mind still blank. "Siberia."

"FRIDAY send me a beacon."

A beacon. That wasn't good. That meant... that meant—

"You were stuck, on your own in a HYDRA bunker in Siberia."

HYDRA. A deep gasp left his throat and he twitched from the intensity that almost electrified his bones as the memories started to come back to him.

Siberia.

That HYDRA Bunker.

Steve Rogers.

"Tony..." Pepper held his hand in a tight grip, her voice distinctly panicked. "Tony, calm down for me. It's... It's alright. I got you."

His breathing was heavy and he struggled to open his eyes again. "You... you came an'... and go' me."

"Well, I sent Agent Hill to get you. But yeah. Of course, of course I tried to find you."

Her hand on his face was warm which should probably worry him for Pepper's hands were usually always cold. Either she had changed her circulation or he... or his skin ran even colder than her hands.

"Thank you, Pep."

She bit her lip and visibly fought to keep a smile on her lips. "You really scared me, Tony." Her fingers softly ran over his face. "You were in really bad shape."

Yeah, he would have been. Probably still was judging by the fatigue in his very bones. They had pulled quite the number on him, but it wasn't just him who had suffered at the hands of their former teammates.

"Rhodey?"

She only looked at him for a moment, studying his face. "His surgery went as well as could be expected. He's awake, recovering and annoying the nurses. Demanding updates on you every hour."

That hadn't been the information he was looking for and she knew it. "How's... 's back?"

She didn't avoid his eyes, which he appreciated, because he didn't need to be treated with kid's gloves. She only shook her head. Rhodey really was paralyzed then. Tony was the one to look away from her at that, couldn't stand the sad expression on Pepper's face. She squeezed his hand but he could find no comfort in the gesture. In the end, Rhodey's injury was on him.

He cleared his throat "I... how bad?" His voice was weak, which didn't come as a surprise, it was still a major annoyance though.

"Shhh, you just focus on getting some rest, okay?"

He should have felt a shiver run down his back but his body was simply numb. That didn't help to ease the dread in his heart. It might just be the pain meds, it might be something else. He made sure to look straight at her when he asked again. "Pep. Please."

Her hand ran softly through his hair and her head gave a subtle shake of reluctance.

"Aside from the gazillion cuts and bruises..." Her eyes were on his forehead, one finger softly tracing the side of his face. "There is a bit of frostbite in your left foot, a dislocated kneecap with partial tears in a couple of the surrounding tendons. Severe concussion. Your neck is..." She took a deep breath and let her hand wander down the side of it until her hand came to rest on his left collarbone. "There was a lot of swelling, heavy bruising of the upper cervical vertebrae. It was pressing on your nerves and..." She paused again, her face solemn as her eyes found his. "And they were worried about the amount of oxygen still going to your brain."

"So 'm dumb now?" He raised an eyebrow at her, assuming his body actually followed any of the cues he gave it.

"It's not funny."

No suppressed smirk, no twinkle in her eye. This was entirely serious then. She had been properly scared. Still was. He swallowed a testy remark and couldn't keep his face from flinching at the weird feeling.

"Tony, are you in pain? Where does it hurt?" She had come closer, both hands now cradling his face, like she wanted to take off some of the burden his giant head put on his neck. Not that she could and he was in bed, his head resting on a pillow. She was just scared.

"No. Jus' numb." He squinted down at his body, then back up at her. "My chest. Feels..." He frowned, not sure what he felt. "Feels weird."

Pepper's hand let go of his face. She picked up his hand again. "Your suit was... was quite severely damaged around the arc reactor and... well, some of the... of the metal bent..." She swallowed hard. "It bent towards your chest and your sternum... it didn't take it so well. They had to reconstruct a part of your ribcage and... well." She sighed.

"Hm," he couldn't really nod with his neck wrapped up like that. He did turn his gaze away from her though, then closed his eyes briefly as a wave of nausea hit him.

"You alright? Should I get the Doctor?"

He kept his eyes close, determined to keep his body under control. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Pepper squeezed his hands.

"Tony? What do you need?"

"Think I'm..." His brain was getting foggier. "Think 'm gonna sleep."

"Alright, darling." The pressure on his hands tightened. "Just rest, okay? I'll be here."

Tony couldn't quite find the strength to answer, to tell her not to worry. That he'd be fine. Probably.

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(author's note: Thank you guys so much for reading, the likes and your comments.

Have a lovely weekend. Next chapter will be out some time next week.)