Hi, everyone! Thank you for all the comments for the first chapter and for coming back to see this series continue!

Understanding the Real Hero: Iron Man 3

Two

At Stark Industries, Happy Hogan walks through the lobby passing other employees, telling them to display their badges, saying he had even put a memo in the toilet.

"I get the impression he is a bit overbearing…" noted Sam. "Maybe taking his job a bit too seriously."

"Try telling him that," quipped Tony. "It never goes over well."

A short while later Happy was walking with Pepper, who is wearing a white suit. Happy has made the suggestion that they should replace all the janitorial staff with robots as Tony has them in his basement and they are put to good use.

"Not a bad idea but not practical," said Tony. "I'm not going to displace my workforce and replace them with robots when people do a better job!"

"Happy has spent far too much time around you," sighed Rhodey. "You've influenced him too much with all this tech you've created."

Tony chuckled. "I influence a lot of people, most of the time I do not mean to. Maybe back in the day, I meant to… but now…" He shook his head. "I don't want to influence a lot of people. I just want them to consider every aspect of the choice they are making before they do it. I've learned a lot these past few years." His shoulders sagged. "Though, admittedly, I was trying to get you all to make the same choice with the Accords."

"Tony, I'm sure when we get to watch about the Accords, we will all come to an understanding of each other's viewpoints," said Steve. "Perhaps we can even devise a way forward."

"It's what I would like to happen," sighed Tony. It would be easier if they were united rather than apart.

"We are all going to look at the Accords with fresh eyes, aren't we?" Steve glanced around the room, meeting the eyes of everyone who had been against them. "We may not change our opinions but we can at least try to understand."

There seemed to be a resounding agreement around the room, and relief poured through Tony. For the first time in a while, he began to have a little hope that the Avengers could be united once more.

"What I'm saying is that the human element of Human Resources is our biggest point of vulnerability. We should start phasing it out immediately."

Pepper cannot believe what she is hearing. Happy calls someone Bambi and then points to his badge again. Pepper looks exasperated by his comments. "Okay, I am thrilled that you're now the Head of Security, okay? It is the perfect position for you."

Happy is thrilled she thinks so.

"However, since you've taken the post…" Pepper continues, even as Happy interrupts her several times pleased with the praise. "We've had a rise in staff complaints of three hundred percent."

"Wow." Bucky looked impressed. "He's definitely doing a bad job if he's had that many complaints. How long had he been in the job for?"

Tony considered the question. "He was still technically my bodyguard until after New York… From what I recall, Happy had been employed by Pepper for around two or three months by this point? He was still new to the role and being very overzealous. He did calm down, though it did take a while."

Happy doesn't register the negative impact of this statement.

Pepper is surprised at his response. "That's not a compliment."

"It is a compliment!" retorted Happy. "Clearly somebody's trying to hide something."

Steve snorted. "So, a rise in complaints equals there is someone trying to hide something?" He shook his head.

"Happy's logic," shrugged Tony, grinning.

Pepper is prevented from replying as her assistant informed her that her four o'clock appointment had arrived. Happy asks whether Pepper had cleared this four o'clock appointment with him.

"I don't think she needs to clear every appointment she has with you," noted Sam. "He's become a bit… What's the word I'm looking for?"

"Obsessive?" Bucky suggested.

"No, that's not it… Controlling!" Sam sighed. "He appears to have become controlling. He's head of security. Probably feels he needs to protect Pepper because she's the boss and Iron Man's girlfriend, so he's more stringent on everything in his role, which is having a negative impact on the workforce in general. He's good at what he does, from what we've seen in other movies, but it looks like here he is trying to prove a point."

"He was," answered Tony. "And nearly got killed for it. He was right to have suspicions. And…"

"Tony?" Rhodey asked concerned, noting the change in demeaner.

"He told me about his concerns and I didn't take them seriously. I just thought it was Happy being his usual paranoid self," explained Tony, running a hand through his hair. "If I'd just listened, maybe what happened afterwards wouldn't have happened."

Rhodey sighed quietly. "Tones… you do not know that. Happy could still have been hurt."

"He probably wouldn't have been following Killian's men though," noted Tony, more to himself than to Rhodey.

"Happy, we'll talk about this later. But right now, I have to go deal with this very annoying thing." Pepper started to walk towards her office. Happy asked her how it was an annoying thing. "I used to work with him, and he used to ask me out all the time. So, it's a little awkward." Happy opened the office glass door, muttering that he didn't like the sound of that as they entered.

They see Aldrich Killian, looking handsome and fit in a business suit. He has changed. He looks healthy, well, as if all his medical problems had been solved easily. Pepper is stunned by his appearance.

"Ok…" Sam was surprised. "His appearance… Extremis… Maya took him up on his offer, right?"

Tony declined to comment.

"It makes sense," interjected Clint. "There is no way Killian looks like that now without intervention from an unapproved substance. He and Maya are in cahoots."

Killian tells her she looks great, really great. Pepper stammers for words, surprised by how good he looks. She asks him what on earth he has been doing. Killian explains its nothing fancy, just five years in the hands of physical therapists. He tells her to call him Aldrich.

Natasha mutters under her breath. "Physical therapists… doubt it very much."

Happy notes Killian was supposed to be issued with a security badge however Pepper waves him away. Happy isn't sure but Pepper orders him to stand down. Happy tells her he is going to linger outside, and Pepper thanks him. Happy steps out of the office and closes the office door. Pepper tells Killian it is very nice to see him.

"Though she didn't really want to have this meeting in the first place," grinned Bucky. "She's a good actress if she can convince him otherwise."

"Pepper has a specific game-face when it comes to her role as CEO," said Natasha. "I saw a lot of it when I was working at Stark Industries."

Tony wanted to mention her work had involved spying on him but he didn't have the heart to cause an argument.

As Happy waits outside Pepper's office, he sees one of Killian's men sitting in the waiting area. He gets his attention and taps his security badge. The other man picks up his badge from the table next to him and holds it up to Happy to show him. Happy watches the man suspiciously as he wishes an employee 'Merry Christmas'.

"He really doesn't trust this guy…" observed Wanda, tilting her head lightly to the side.

"He had a good reason to in the end," explained Tony. But he really should have listened to Happy's concerns instead of brushing them away like he had done so.

Back in Pepper's office, Killian is explaining his research to Pepper. "After years dodging the President's ban on "immoral biotech research", my think tank now has a little something in the pipeline. It's an idea we like to call Extremis. I'm gonna turn your lights down." He darkens the room and holds out three metallic balls which he rolls across Pepper's glass table. "Regard the human brain."

Steve glared at the screen. "Whatever he is doing is illegal then. And, he's trying to get your company to be complicit in it."

"Pretty much," said Tony. "If we supported the idea of Extremis, it is likely the President may have authorised it as legitimate biotech research, furthering Killian's goal to get it out into the market."

"Pepper is smart though," pointed out Bruce. "What he says to her doesn't make her jump at the chance to be in partnership with him. Otherwise, we would have heard all about it before now."

Tony shot Bruce a quick glance. He had tried to tell Bruce about this but he'd fallen asleep in his chair and had subsequently missed the majority of the story. He knew Bruce wasn't a therapist but sometimes it was good to talk to friends as it helped with your own mental health.

When the balls stop rolling, they projected a 3d imagine into the room. It depicts the universe. Killian fiddles with a projector control, changing the 3d image to show the inside of the human brain. Colour's flash into the room, showing all the neural pathways of the brain. Pepper watches in wonder. He tells her is it his brain, that they are seeing inside his head. He taps behind his ear, referring to something situated or embedded beneath the skin. "It's a live feed." Killian offers to prove it to her and stands up on the table, offering his hand to her. He helps Pepper to stand on the coffee table next to him as they stand directly in the 3d image.

He tells her to pinch him. When she does, a flash of light erupts across the 3d image of Killian's brain. Pepper asks what it was.

Sam's eyes widened. "That's impressive. Not many people have mapped the neural processes of the brain before and been able to show them in so much detail before."

"The brain is one of the most complex organs," said Tony. "It's difficult to really show what is going on inside it. But Killian managed it, even if it was only his own brain."

"Jealous?" Rhodey quirked an eyebrow up.

"Of Killian?" Tony looked slightly thunderstruck. "Definitely not!"

Rhodey chuckled quietly, enjoying the tease.

"It's the primary somatosensory cortex. It's the brain's pain centre. But this is what I wanted to show you." He turned Pepper around and pressed his projector control and starts changing and moving the image with his hand. "Now, Extremis harnesses our bioelectrical potential and it goes… here." He magnifies to a specific area in the brain which appears blank, empty of any connections whatsoever. "This is essentially an empty slot, and what this tells us is that our mind, our entire DNA in fact, is destined to be upgraded."

Pepper is impressed.

"We're always evolving though," pointed out Bruce. "Not one of us are the same. Unless you are identical twins. People are evolving. The human race is evolving. Every living organism is constantly evolving, finding new ways to survive. Some people are born without an appendix. We may not see the changes in humans quickly, and it could be thousands of years again before there is evolutionary change, but it's there, always ready to change. For Killian to imply it isn't something the human race already knows… its derogatory against all the scientists across the world already working on research to do with human evolution."

"He is trying to sell a product though," observed Sam. "Easier to believe your audience might not know this."

Bruce sighed. "Very true."

As Happy sits outsides Pepper's office, he gets a call on his tablet, answering it. He holds the tablet high so the camera monitor shows his forehead and eyes. It's Tony, asking if he is the forehead of Security. Happy tells him he's got a real job now and he's working, and he has something going on here. He asks Tony what he wants.

Tony is pacing in his lab and jokes that Happy's job is to harass interns.

"To be fair, it sounds like he is..." mused Clint. "With all the complaints he's managed to garner."

Tony grinned. "Pepper had been telling me all about the complaints they'd been getting. Surprisingly, a lot of the complaints were from interns but majority were from full-time workers."

"Let me tell you something, you know what happened when I told people I was Iron Man's body guard? They would laugh in my face."

"To be fair, when you had a suit to protect you, you didn't really need a bodyguard," said Natasha. "You also had JARVIS monitoring you all of the time too."

"That is true," agreed Vision. "JARVIS always knew where Mr. Stark was. He could always send suits to his location if needed."

"Apart from when he disappeared for three months in Afghanistan before the suits were even invented," pointed out Rhodey. "JARVIS couldn't find him then. And we tried."

"It was after that Mr. Stark did implant a tracker so his location would always be known," revealed Vision. "Though there were times when it simply did not work."

"Most of the time it did," pointed out Tony.

Tony chuckled as he walked down some stairs into his wine cellar as one of the Iron Man suits descends into the holding area beneath.

"I had to leave while I still had a shred of dignity. Now I got a real job, I'm watching Pepper."

Tony asks him to tell him what's going on. Happy is surprised at this and Tony confirms he wants to know. Happy tells him that Pepper is meeting up with this scientist: rich guy, handsome. Tony remains not fussed. Happy tells him he couldn't place his face at first, and Happy is good with recognising faces which Tony agrees with.

"So, I ran his credentials," explains Happy, "I make him Aldrich Killian. We actually met the guy back in… where were we in '99? The science conference?"

Tony confirmed it was in Switzerland. He didn't remember Killian.

Clint rolled his eyes. "I bet you remembered Maya though."

Tony winced. He deserved that comment.

"Of course, you don't. He's not a blond with a big rack. At first it was fine, they were talking business, but now it's like getting weird. He's showing her a big brain." Tony asks him what he means. "Big brain, and she likes it. Here, let me show you. Hold on. See?"

"Doesn't he need to turn it around?" asked Thor. "You'll only see the top of his head like that!"

He held up the tablet and points it towards Pepper's glass office, where Aldrich and Pepper are standing close together on the coffee table watching the 3d imagine of the brain, but all Tony sees is Hogan pointing the tablet camera at himself. Tony tells him to flip the screen but Happy gets flustered. He tells Tony he isn't a tech genius like Tony is, and to just trust him and get down to Stark Industries.

"I'm not sure how flipping the screen is that hard…" mooted Sam. "If he's spent years with you, he should have picked something up, right?"

Tony shook his head. "A lot of the technology went over his head. Happy preferred the simple aspects of tech. He only had a very simple phone and Stark-pad as the more technologically advanced versions were out of his depth." He sighed. "Happy was better suited to Microsoft than Stark tech but he stayed loyal to me, no matter how advanced my inventions got."

Tony tells him to flip the screen again. Happy reiterates that he doesn't know how to flip the screen, and to not talk to him like that as Tony wasn't his boss anymore.

Tony uses his small tablet device to look up Killian's details and finds his photo. Happy tells him he doesn't trust this guy, and the other guy with him is shifty. Tony tells him to relax. Happy is surprised by Tony's response. Tony explains he was asking him to secure the perimeter, and to tell him to go out for a drink or something.

"You didn't see him as a threat at all, did you?" asked Rhodey, watching Tony carefully.

"No. Killian's file didn't give me anything to worry about. I'd seen a lot of his research hadn't been approved. There was nothing Killian had done that gave me cause for concern but I knew Happy still would be no matter what I said."

Happy is frustrated. "You know what? You should take more of an interest in what's going on here. This woman… this woman's the best thing that ever happened to you, you… you're just ignoring her."

Tony mentions the giant brain.

"Yeah, there's a giant brain, there's a shifty character. I'm gonna follow this guy. I'm gonna run his plates and it if gets rough, so be it."

Rhodey rubbed Tony's shoulder. "You regret it, don't you?"

"A lot. I should have looked into Killian myself before things grew out of my control." Tony couldn't change the past but he could reflect upon it. "It may have all turned out differently. People could have been alive today who died back then." He was thinking of Maya and how she had been dragged into Killian's schemes.

She hadn't wanted Killian to use Extremis the way he had but she had been powerless to stop him. He had given her the means to continue her research when other intuitions had turned her away.

Tony laments that he misses Happy.

Happy reiterates but he misses the way it used to be. Now Tony is off with the 'superfriends' and Happy doesn't know what's going on with Tony anymore. The world is getting weird. Tony interrupts, asking if Happy has a taser on him. Happy asks why and Tony replies that there is a gal in HR who is trying to steal some printer ink, and he should probably go over and zap her. Tony puts his small tablet in his wine fridge, closes the door and walks off with Happy still online.

Steve frowned. "Rather rude."

Tony couldn't argue with Steve's assessment there. He had been rude, cruelly cutting off Happy when he shouldn't have done. "There are a lot of things here I could have done differently. Dealing differently with Happy's concerns should have been a priority for me. But I brushed him aside. I had a lot on my mind. Other things concerned me more than simple domestic incidents. Or what I presumed they would be anyway."

Back in Pepper's office, Killian is explaining more of his research to her after turning off the hologram. He asks her to imagine what it would be like if they could hack into the hard drive of any living organism and recode its DNA. Pepper says it would be incredible. However…

"Unfortunately, to my ears it also sounds highly weaponizable. As in enhanced soldiers, private armies, and Tony is not…"

Killian interrupts her. "Tony. Tony. You know, I invited Tony to join AIM thirteen years ago, he turned me down. But something tells me now, there is a new genius on the throne who doesn't have to answer to Tony anymore, and who has slightly less of an ego."

"It doesn't matter," Rhodey said, "Pepper may be CEO but a lot of the creative decisions still went through Tony, and Pepper knew what he'd want his company to be involved in. What Killian was proposing could be used as a weapon and Stark Industries didn't stand for that anymore. She wasn't going to go back on all the changes Tony had started just to placate an old work colleague, no matter how much he tried to flatter her."

"And insulting Stark probably didn't help either," murmured Clint.

Rhodey grinned. "It didn't."

Pepper lets him down gently. "It's gonna be a no, Aldrich, as much as I'd like to help you."

"She was just trying to be nice there," chuckled Tony. "Trying to let him down easy."

Pepper and Killian are leaving the building. Killian turns to face Pepper. He says that he can't say he's not disappointed and then quoted something his father used to say: 'Failure is the fog through which we glimpse triumph'. Pepper notes that it is very deep but she has no idea what he means. Killian says his old man was an idiot. Pepper laughs. Killian tells her he is sure he will see her again, and he kisses her gently on the cheek. She watches as he walks off.

Steve frowned. "That's rather ominous. Why does he think he will see her again?"

"Because he was likely already planning on coming after me," said Tony. "Either way I was going to dragged down into his schemes. And if I am…"

"Pepper would be too," finished Steve, swallowing the hard lump in his throat.

She starts when she notices Happy walking towards her. She looked flustered. Happy tells her the car is ready if she is ready to leave. Pepper glances over to Killian as he walks towards his car.

Still flustered, Pepper says she forgot her other thing and walks back into the building. Happy watches Killian's car as it drives away and he takes a photo of the license plate.

Sam shook his head. "I know Happy is concerned but he really should have reported it to the authorities."

"With what evidence?" pointed out Natasha. "Killian wasn't doing anything wrong there."

"Technically… he had. We just didn't know it," pointed out Tony. "Extremis had been denied use in humans and for all clinical trials. It hadn't been ethical. But…"

Natasha sighed, understanding what Tony was saying. "He did it anyway."

"If I'd listened to Happy, I could have burrowed deep enough and uncovered the truth," explained Tony, leaning back in his seat. "I chose not to listen to Happy. That was my big mistake here and I make plenty more throughout this."

Pepper pulls up outside Tony's home. As she gets out of the car, she sees a large stuffed rabbit outside the house that Tony has bought for her as a gift. She sighs and walks inside the house. She calls out she's sorry she's late but then stops when she notices Tony in his Iron Man suit, sitting on the couch. Pepper asks if he's wearing them in the house now, and was the suit Mark 15. Tony looks at a small number marked 42 on the suit, showing that he had made more than fifteen suits already.

Clint whistled, amazed. "Wow. You made a lot of suits in a short space of time."

Tony shrugged. "It's what happens when you see an alien army coming towards you, ready to obliterate everything on Earth. I wanted to defend it, and if that meant creating hundreds of suits I would have continued."

"If you had 42 a few years ago, you must have hundreds now," whistled Thor. "Impressive."

Tony raised a hand. "Ah… no. I don't. My suits do not number that high yet." He leaned in close to Rhodey, whispering in his ear. "In fact, I've barely reached fifty."

"Well, you did destroy all your suits and did try to retire," retorted his friend. "You got dragged back in."

Tony could only agree with that assessment.

Tony says that everybody needs a hobby. Pepper comments that he had to wear his hobby in the living room.

"Why do I get the feeling you may not be in the suit?" asked Sam.

Tony rises and walks toward her, explaining he is breaking it in since its always a little pinchy in the gooey bag at first. Tony shook his backside and Pepper laughed. He asks her if she had seen her Christmas present. Pepper says she did and asks how it will fit through the door. She's looking at some of the fan-mail Tony has received. Tony considers it and then he says he's got a team of guys coming tomorrow and they're gonna blow out that wall. Tony asks her if she had a good day. He walks up behind her and starts massaging her shoulders.

He didn't want to harp on about it but he wanted to know if she liked the custom rabbit.

Clint chuckled. "I'm not sure Laura would be very impressed if I bought home a custom rabbit as her birthday present." He leaned forward so he could look at Tony. "You need to figure out what is acceptable presents to buy the woman you love."

"Women like stuffed rabbits?" Tony tried.

"Kids like stuffed toys, Stark, not women." Clint shook his head, amused at Tony's lack of knowledge on the subject.

Rhodey folded his arms across his chest. "Trust me, I tried telling him that. He didn't believe me. Sometimes its better to let Tony drown in his own mistakes before he finally comes crawling to you for help. He's a lot better with presents now… though there are still some mishaps."

"Present buying is hard!" admitted Tony. "I'd rather give my card to Pepper and she goes out and buys herself something that she will like! It always worked when she was my PA."

Clint grinned. "That's the point of having a girlfriend, Stark. You're supposed to know what they like and treat them to nice things. They shouldn't have to buy this stuff themselves with your money!"

Tony sighed, rubbing a weary hand down his face. "I've got a lot to learn about relationships, haven't I?"

"Yep!" Clint seemed quite gleeful about it but Tony couldn't blame the archer one bit.

Pepper swivelled round in the chair, looking up at him as she rose to her feet. "I appreciate the thought very much. So, why don't you lift up that face mask and give me a kiss?"

Tony knocks the metal helmet with his hand. He said he couldn't and wondered if she just wanted to kiss him on the facial slit.

Sam nodded eagerly. "You're definitely not in there. Otherwise, there would be no hesitation to lifting the helmet up. You're stalling her for a reason."

Pepper had the better idea of running down to the garage to grab a crowbar to shimmy it open. Pepper started to walk towards the stairs where Toy's lab was located. Tony followed her, telling her there had been a radiation leak. Pepper didn't care and was happy to take her chances. Tony said it was too risky as he followed her down the stairs.

"Even I know you're making things worse for yourself," noted Bucky. "And I haven't dated anyone since the 1940's."

As Pepper arrives at the lab, she finds Tony exercising, controlling the Iron Man suit remotely which had followed Pepper down the stairs into the lab.

Tony tried to keep up the pretence. "At least let me get you like a Hazmat suit or a Geiger counter of something like that." He was straining as he lifted himself up. "Busted."

Pepper is not impressed. "This is a new level of lame."

Tony scratched the back of his head. "I shouldn't have done that to her. I should have been honest straight away."

Steve raised an eyebrow at him. "You think?"

Tony apologised. She notices the food tray in the corner and accused him of eating without her on date night. Tony referred to Mark 42 as he replied, that he had been hosting her whilst he finished up a little work. He said he had, had a quick bite to eat as he didn't know if she was coming home or if she was having drinks with Aldrich Killian.

"Oh, so you were worried about Killian then?" smirked Wanda.

Tony shook his head. "Not in the way Happy was concerned about him. I was thinking more of the romantic sense… I kept thinking Pepper was late because she was hanging out with Killian."

"You let Happy get into your head and your faith and trust in Pepper waivered," said Rhodey quietly.

Tony felt ashamed. "I know I'll end up saying it a lot, but there was a lot on my mind. I know it isn't an excuse."

Pepper gaped at his audacity as the Mark 42 turned to look at her accusingly. "What?" She asked Tony is he was checking up on her now.

"Happy was concerned," defended Tony.

Pepper didn't believe it. "No, you're spying on me."

Sam waved his hand in the air. "To be fair, Happy was watching out for her. He did tell Tony."

"I wasn't!"

Pepper turned around. "I'm going to bed."

"Hold on. Come on. Pep!" Tony called after her as she started to walk up the stairs. "Hey, I admit it! My fault! Sorry."

Sam frowned again. "But it wasn't. Not in the way Pepper believes it was. Sure, you did a shitty thing by deceiving her with the suit but you did have a reason to be suspicious because of what Happy had said."

Tony was thankful for Sam's support and reasoning. "It was better I take the blame in this case. I shouldn't have eaten dinner without her and I shouldn't have pretended I was in the Iron Man suit either. Another mistake I made. Pepper had every right to be angry with me."

Sam wanted to say more but decided against it when he saw Rhodey's minute shake of the head.

Pepper stops and looks at him.

Tony sighed. "I'm a piping hot mess. It's been going on for a while, I haven't said anything."

"But she'd noticed," pointed out Rhodey.

Pepper walked back down to face him.

"Nothing's been the same since New York," he revealed.

Steve felt his shoulder's slump. Tony had been suffering all that time and they hadn't known. They hadn't even bothered to check up on him, yet he'd made the effort to keep in touch with Bruce. He'd really let Tony down.

"Oh really? Well, I didn't notice that, at all," she said sarcastically.

"You experience things and then they're over and you still can't explain 'em. Gods, aliens, other dimensions. I… I'm just a man in a can. The only reason I haven't cracked up is probably because you moved in. Which is great. I love you, I'm lucky. But, honey, I can't sleep. You go to bed, I come down here. I do what I know, I tinker." He sits down. "But threat is imminent, and I have to protect the one thing that I can't live without. That's you." He pointed to her. "My suits, they're uh…"

Bucky gasped softly, realising he had a lot more in common with Tony than he had originally assumed. He recognised the man was suffering from Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder. It was also enhanced by the occasional anxiety attack too.

"Machines," she finished for him.

"They're part of me."

"A distraction," she observed.

"Maybe," he admitted.

Sam nodded quietly. "They are. Your suits help you cope with your trauma but its also an unhealthy one when you build so much in a short space of time."

"I should have been a better friend," sad Steve. "I should have stayed in touch. I didn't. I just made the assumption you would be fine. I'm sorry, Tony."

Tony inclined his head.

Pepper walks towards Tony and they hold each other closely. She rests her chin on the top of his head, holding him close as he nuzzles close to her chest. She removes his headband that controls the Iron Man suits.

"I'm gonna take a shower," she told him.

"Okay." Tony watches as she walks off, before she stops and looks at him seductively, almost teasingly.

"And you're gonna join me."

"Better."

Tony followed her.

Clint pulled a face. "I sincerely hope we don't see what you got up to in that shower."

Tony waggled his eyebrows. "If not, I can always describe it…"

"Oh god, no! Clint objected, shivering, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. "Definitely not!"

Tony barked a laugh, enjoying making Clint feel uncomfortable.

Later that night, as Tony and Pepper are sleeping, Tony starts to have nightmares about when he was in New York with the Avengers and had to take the nuke into space. Flashes of the event appear on screen. Tony is grunting and whimpering in his sleep. Pepper wakes up, noticing Tony is stuck in his nightmare and tries to shake him awake, calling his name over and over. "Tony! Tony! Tony! Tony…"

Tony shivered in his seat. "It was difficult to wake me up. Even if I fell asleep peacefully, the nightmares soon started. Trying to wake me up out of them was difficult. They sucked me in, kept me drowning in the horror of what I had been forced to see." He closed his eyes, trying to clear his head.

"Tony?" Rhodey asked quietly.

"I'm fine," Tony gritted his teeth, though he could feel his heart beating faster in his chest. He was not going to have an anxiety attack here of all places. That was the last thing he needed.

Her wrist is suddenly grabbed and she is pulled off Tony by the Mark 42 suit, yelling in fear. This wakes Tony who scrambles out of bed and raises both his hands. "Power down!"

The suit immediately shuts down and Tony forms an invisible weapon with his hands and makes the suit fall to pieces. He looks over at Pepper who is in shock.

Bruce looked shocked by the events, his face pale.

Sam chewed his bottom lip. "The trackers in your wrists. You summoned it, didn't you?"

Tony confirmed numbly.

Pepper puts on the light. She is still gasping, as is Tony.

"I must have called it in my sleep. That's not supposed to happen. I'll recalibrate the sensors. Can we just… just let me… just let me catch my break, okay?"

Pepper rises and starts to leave.

"Oh no…" whispered Sam. "Last thing you need now is for her to leave though I get she is terrified…"

"Don't go, alright? Pepper?" he begs her, looking distraught.

"I'm going to sleep downstairs. Tinker with that."

Pepper left the room, leaving Tony alone to his thoughts.

"He really needs you right now…" Sam sighed. "You should have talked."

Tony shifted in his seat. "Maybe. I didn't sleep for the rest of that night. Neither did Pepper."

Unsurprisingly, everyone was not surprised sleep had eluded them both for the rest of the night.

Especially after what had happened.

To be continued...

Please let me know what you think!

I never really liked how Pepper just left Tony in the bedroom alone after his nightmare though I can understand why she still slept downstairs. The suit nearly did harm her and it only advanced because Tony didn't think of the trackers in his arms would react to his dreams. I didn't want to criticise Pepper too harshly there either.

The next chapter will be posted next Sunday.

Until then,

the-writer1988