THIS CHAPTER HAS BEEN REVISED. IT CONTAINS PARTS OF OLD CHAPTERS TEN AND ELEVEN. Reviews left prior to April 25, 2021 may not make sense. I did this in an attempt to correct for a feeling that the plot was dragging thanks to the short chapters. This does mean that some later chapters were removed, including their reviews. I apologize for the inconvenience.
NOTHING SUBSTANTIVE HAS CHANGED. In very rare cases I adjusted chapter transitions.
Chapter Eight: نور خورشید
By the time twenty-four hours have passed, Emory wonders if it's possible for a simple injection to raise her body temperature permanently. She doesn't think she has a fever, as much as she can tell that she's just overly warm, and that the feeling is not going away.
It would be too much irony to be desperate enough to take a strange doctor's injection and discover that the powers she develops from them are fire-based, something that will do basically nothing if the goal is to use them to escape. By the time she could burn her way through the metal doors that keep them imprisoned, the cave temperature would be so high they'd probably be baked alive.
She has kept to herself, away from both Yinsen and Tony, since the big screaming fight that she'd had with Stark. Emory hadn't really meant to accuse him of making callous decisions to kill civilians, but his sanctimonious comment about making life or death decisions had infuriated her. Ever since then, he's been silently welding, no backgammon with Yinsen, no easygoing conversations, no smiling.
It's only been a day, and Emory really misses his smile. The kind of missing that makes a bit of an ache.
She doesn't even really miss Rory's smile like that, and they've been friends for over ten years. Then again, she doesn't have any feelings for Rory, and Emory's got to admit, she's starting to feel something for Tony. She feels like there are a thousand complimentary attributes about Tony painted on her insides, and just thinking his name calls them forth to flutter around, begging to be spoken and acknowledged. Handsome, witty, strong, vulnerable, heroic, sexy, gentle. Does he have any idea she has such a high opinion of him? Probably not after yesterday.
It is almost evening, and they haven't come physically near each other. That risks her survival, given the expectations the terrorists have about his wants and needs, but she'd known Tony was a stubborn asshole before she ever knew what it was like to touch him. It will be up to her to go over there and initiate something. It will be up to her to bend.
It is always up to her, Emory knows. Even when she is being lectured on bending too far and too often.
Emory gets up and stretches her arms high above her head. Last night she'd taken one of the white shirts from the rag pile in a desperate attempt to cool off. It's almost a crop top on her because the sleeves and everything ten inches from the neckline had been cut off to make a bandage for Tony's chest during the surgery. In a bid for some kind of decency, she tied two little knots, one under each arm, so it didn't gap so much that her bra could be seen if it shifted too far back. Stark's dress pants are rolled up as far as they will go, which is about four inches above her knees. That measurement reminds her of having to measure her shorts and skirts in high school for 'indecency.'
Incongruously, she laughs. She'd be kicked out of high school faster than you could say 'in-school suspension' if she'd ever tried to wear something like this to class.
When he sees her coming over, Tony turns his body and thus the spray of his welding torch. Getting anywhere within six feet of him would risk burns on any exposed skin- and she's basically all exposed skin, right now.
"Tony?"
"Busy," he grunts.
"Wow, I think hell just froze over. Tony Stark saying no to fooling around with a woman? Mark this date down in history," she says, deliberately lowering her tone, pushing it into the sultry register that the recording execs tried to get Rory to speak like in interviews early on.
The torch shuts off.
Tony doesn't turn around. "I thought I bathed in the blood of innocents?"
"All evidence to the contrary, I know, but I kind of would like to stay alive, and kissing you is a perk to that end," Emory says flippantly.
"A perk?" he asks, turning his head and lifting the ridiculous welding glasses he's wearing up onto his forehead. With the leather jacket protecting his arms and his damned glasses lifted up, Tony looks like a steampunk engineer and it is working on her right now, even though she's pissed at him.
"Like you don't know your power over women?"
"Power? Over you?" He sets down the welding torch and makes sure to disconnect the power. His hands are filthy. Wherever he might (will) touch her will show the evidence of it. "Prove it. Come here."
"So demanding," Emory says, but she's already walking over.
Ordinarily, the two of them would be smiling, teasing, laughing at the ridiculousness of this back and forth, but thanks to the gravity of what happened the day before, they're both straight-faced and serious. The flirting that Tony does as easy as breathing seems so much more impactful when he's not softening it with smiles and humor. Emory feels like the constant heat she's dealt with over the past day is nothing compared to the flames of anticipation in her bloodstream now.
When she's about six feet away, he shoves both the section of armor he was working on and the disconnected welding torch across the table so they're out of the way, his expression still serious, brown eyes dark and intent as he looks at her.
"Sit."
Emory would have preferred he help her up, but instead, she has to half jump onto the table, which makes her breasts bounce.
"You made me do that on purpose," she says, crossing her arms against her chest, accentuating the way they strain against the material.
"Mm hmm," he says. "I bet you wouldn't even be wearing that if you knew how easily I can see that you're wearing a red bra. Which, let me tell you, I heartily approve of. Black outfit with a hidden red bra? You sure you weren't trying to show off a little for Rory's friend?"
Emory is immediately furious, all anticipation and excitement spiraling away to be replaced by genuine hurt feelings. "I don't have to take that kind of shit from you, you're not my boss." She hops down.
"Yes! There, see?" he says, clapping. "Not a doormat."
"You don't have to imply I'm maybe trying to steal Rory's boyfriend in order to 'bolster my confidence,' jerk!" Emory can't believe he's looking at her with any kind of surprise on his face.
"What's supposed to happen is, you refute the thing that isn't true, you get mad because you're better than that, and then you're glad because you stood up for yourself."
She glares up at him. "You really think you were trying to do me a favor there?"
"Yes! I was just going for authenticity, with the red bra thing." He pushes the goggles farther up into his messy hair.
"Because women only wear colored bras for men, not for their own edification?"
"It's possible that my experience on the matter is… skewed by confirmation bias?" he says, clearly choosing his words very, very carefully.
"I like this bra. It makes me feel beau- Pretty. It makes me feel pretty." Emory flushes, hating that her insecurities are on display in front of this man in particular. "You can really see the bra through this shirt?" she asks in an embarrassed whisper.
"Just the edges, where the fabric is… particularly stressed. Here," Tony reaches out and traces a line unerringly across the edge of the cup, which because of the cut of the bra and the way it's designed to highlight cleavage, dips down in the front. Emory feels her nipples immediately harden, and remembers her thought about his hands being dirty.
"You might as well draw a blueprint on the fabric, Stark," she says sarcastically, gesturing to the dirty line he'd traced across her white shirt.
"Well, if that's the case-"
Tony's lip curls up into a predatory smile as he brazenly cups her breast with one hand, stroking across her nipple through the fabric with his thumb, spreading the dust and dirt just as she'd suggested. The undeniably sensual act jumps the line from parking in the ballpark lot straight to first base, but Emory feels like it's a triumph for her home team, it feels so good, even if it does make her catch her breath with how shocking it is.
"You should be slapping me by now," Tony says, leaning over to whisper the words into her hair.
Emory's smile has a vicious edge. "I figured the knee to the groin would be much more-"
He's backing away before she even finishes the sentence. Tony shakes his head at her, his hand positioned not unlike it had been on her body, but clearly in surrender and placation, now. Then he straightens, tipping his head to the side and frowning.
"You really should have slapped me. That wasn't the first time you were in that position, was it?" he asks, all teasing gone. In place of the sexual tension is a different kind of tension, one where he's upset on her behalf.
"I think I'm going to have to wash this if I ever want to wear it again, it's kind of suggestive right now," Emory says, looking down. She's trying to ignore what he said. He's right, but she doesn't feel like thinking about that right now.
"Emory."
"Yes. Big boobed consolation prize. Kind of a downer when she says no all the time. Moving on?"
"I'm sorry. I should have gotten more of an indication from you that I could touch you like that," Tony says, his face pale, jaw rigid.
"The part where I'll get taken out and shot if you don't seem taken with me seems like consent to me?" she says, gathering up her hair and lifting it off of her neck. The heat of embarrassment so soon after being sexually keyed up is adding to the pre-existing heat from whatever the serum is doing to her, and she's roasting, now.
"It isn't."
"Tony-"
"I'm not like that. That's not how I behave at parties, with strange women, with familiar women. I want you to know that," he says, stepping forward, letting his hand drop. He looks like he really cares whether she would make that assumption about him, and it's touching in a really strange way.
"Don't worry, I assumed you would never have to. I figured that women were usually all over you to the point where consent was never an issue," she says.
Tony frowns and comes over, reaching out to touch the back of his hand to her forehead. "You're too warm." He takes off the leather jacket he is wearing, revealing the black shirt with the circular glow at his chest, and then tries again. His frown deepens.
"Yeah," she admits. "Starting to be a bit scared."
"Well, we can at least try to keep you from doing a Joan of Arc from the inside out. Come with me."
He takes her over to the water barrel, scooping out some water with one of the metal cups. Then, with two fingers dipped into the cool water, refreshing their wetness often, he paints wide swipes onto the back of her neck, behind her ears, at her wrists, behind her knees, and at her ankles, all while Emory stands there in utter amazement and watches him. This man is one of the most wealthy in the world, and he's crouched down to help mitigate the side effects of her stupid choices?
"Wow, that really helps," she admits after he backs up and they stand looking at each other for a full minute.
"It would probably be even more effective if you were naked, and I could draw little wet hieroglyphs all over you, but then again, I shouldn't have said that out loud, not after the conversation we just had," Tony says, seamlessly transitioning from suggestive to apologetic.
"How about I give you permission to touch me and kiss me without worrying that you're sexually harassing me, within reason?" Emory blurts out, fighting the image he's just conjured up in her already overwrought brain.
Instead of answering right away, Tony slips his hands into his pockets and walks slowly over to her, his gaze fixed on the floor. When he stops just a few inches away and looks at her, his expression is nearly glowing, and Emory bites her lip. He's pleased. She's pretty sure he's trying to repress it or hide it from her. It's arresting, complimentary, exciting.
"I'd like that," he finally says, and his studied indifference is transparently false. "With reciprocal permissions, of course," he adds, an impish expression of challenge in his eyes.
Emory's stressed out, and the roller coaster of the past day has completely fucked up her priorities and her restraint. If she'd just slapped him, ten minutes ago, would they be sharing this moment? How does a person change away from being a spoiled, somewhat sexist jerk, if not like this?
"Well," she says, reaching out to trace the edges of the device at his chest with a light fingertip. "You did call me Joan of Arc." Then Emory tangles her fingers into his neckline and tugs, pulling him down so she can lift up on her toes to kiss him.
He evades her just long enough to say, "That was atrocious. I'm going to draw up an NDA that says you're completely disallowed from ever saying that again." Then he captures her lips, scraping his teeth against her lower lip to soothe the sting with his tongue. Emory holds herself up after that with sheer stubbornness and a death grip on his shirt. When the kiss ends, she has to compose herself with much the same pretence of indifference as he'd shown earlier.
"Contracts require consideration, Mr. big-shot businessman," she tells him. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to change my shirt, my friend with benefits got it all dirty."
Walking away from him after saying that feels like it requires summoning the sum total of all the confidence she'd ever exhibited.
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Emory spent the whole week after the shot overly warm and uncomfortable, and nothing Tony could think of to do really helped more than putting water on her pulse points. Yinsen remained over by his cot and ate the food that Tony made when Emory brought it over to him, staying silent and keeping to himself until the fourth day. That was the first day the interpreter could dress fully in his characteristic suit, and Tony could understand that there was something symbolic in that, something the man considered protective. The previous day, Tony had seen him attempt to pull the undershirt over his injured nose, and stop when it seemed to be too painful.
It hadn't occurred to Tony that maybe Yinsen was always on guard, that his suit was his own kind of armor. It was something familiar, yes, but also defensive, in a way. They had all settled into a kind of routine in the cave over the three or so weeks they'd been imprisoned. Tony's routine is, of course, nothing like how he behaves at home, but he at least has things that make him feel like himself- something to build, the tools to do so, or the raw materials to create a reasonable facsimile. Emory sings and does vocal exercises, and the amount of time she spends just sitting and thinking is somewhat impressive to Tony. Recently, she'd found a notebook among the supplies he'd been given to build the Jerico, and she's been writing in it.
But Yinsen has never settled, and Tony just… hadn't noticed until now. Ordinarily, someone else's uncomfortability wouldn't feel like his responsibility, and it galls him to feel culpable now, but for some reason, he does. It's probably because, despite how furious Tony is about the serum, Yinsen is clearly more ally than enemy, and not just because he'd saved Tony's life. Yinsen knows that no Jerico missile is being built, and hasn't revealed that to their captors. Yinsen knows that Tony and Emory aren't actually sexually involved, despite what the terrorists believe. Yinsen hasn't once complained, for fuck's sake (though, his passive-aggressive comments are biting if you catch them, and Tony totally respects that).
It's with this understanding that Tony watches the older man sit Emory down on his cot for the second injection. The time to stop this from happening was a week ago, he knows. He doesn't like it, but Tony doesn't do anything to prevent it.
He does stop welding to watch, though.
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"The warmth you report feeling is good. Shows it has been working," Yinsen says to her as he sets up to inject the second shot in her right arm.
"It certainly made me worry I would develop some sort of weird flame powers!" Emory laughs nervously. "God, I don't know what I was thinking," she whispers, suddenly serious.
"I understand. I spent most of this week regretting my choices. Not for safety reasons, I did much research into the scientist I purchased this from, since it was for my son," Yinsen says. "The man was not particularly ethical, but a genius, yes." He injects the needle mid-conversation, which startles Emory, but it's better than last time, at least. "I do not enjoy uncertainty. It did not occur to me that it would be so difficult to watch your body cope with what it must now go through. It would have been a thousand times worse, to watch Hamid- Well. It is done."
"You miss your family," Emory says. She'd initially meant to ask, but then felt the stupidity of such a question, and altered it into a statement.
"I do. But I will see them, when I leave here," Yinsen says confidently. "You should go lay in your cot, I think."
"Is there anything else you can tell me about what is meant to happen? What you hoped would happen, for Hamid?" she asks, standing and turning to look at him.
"Here," Yinsen says, pulling a square of ripped paper from his vest pocket. "My address. When you leave here, perhaps you can visit. There was a whole folder, orange, filled with pictures and descriptions from the scientist I bought this from. It was just the vagaries of fate that led me to set it in the file cabinet before I was taken."
On the paper is an address, the notation foreign, though she does recognize what it's meant to be. With nowhere else to put it, knowing the terrorists have plans to replace her clothing, Emory nods, holds it to her chest, and heads to her cot. Once there, she tucks the paper in her bra.
"You doing okay there, Pincushion?" Tony calls out.
His flippant reference to something that he'd punched Yinsen over and yelled at her about just seven days before seems like such an obvious coping mechanism that Emory laughs. She'd never thought of Tony Stark as someone she'd enjoy having around until she was trapped in a terrorist cave with him, but the idea that that was hardly the strangest thing she was going through in the last ten minutes was what had her reeling.
"I'll just be happy if my arm doesn't turn gangrenous and fall off," Emory tells Tony.
"It won't, if you spend every waking moment focusing on developing healing powers! Get to it!" he says, pretending to be exasperated.
"That wouldn't actually work, would it?" she asks Yinsen, across the cave.
"No, I do not believe so," is the reply. "The evidence provided was that of a young man who became incredibly strong, and an elderly woman who was attempting to develop the ability to self heal. She instead became capable of influencing the life cycles of plants, accelerating them. Before her death a few years later she revitalized the agriculture of her village."
"So she could turn out to be able to control mineral deposits on the moon, and we'd never find out? Great serum," Tony snarks.
"You should be nicer to me. Seems like mind control isn't completely off the table, and I'm just mean enough to do it in a way you'd never figure out," Emory tells him. She yawns. "Okay, if I don't make it, Scarecrow, you'll take care of Tin Man, won't you?"
The exhaustion she's experiencing is actually a lot stronger than she'd expected. Even though she isn't in the ideal comfortable position, Emory feels sleep overtaking her as soon as she lays her head down on her pillow, the sounds of Tony's laughter acting like a strangely comforting lullabye.
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Emory wakes to a hand shaking her shoulder. She opens her eyes and sees that Tony is crouched over her, a look of deep concern on his face, which she only catches a glimpse of, because he turns and shouts out that she's awake.
"What?" she tries to say, but her mouth is very dry for some reason, and it comes out garbled.
"Had me really worried, Dorothy," Tony says. His expression is harried, wild, and it's freaking her out a little bit. Emory's confusion deepens when he reaches out and touches her face before straightening up to speak to someone behind him. It's… tender, and even though she's strangely weak and very thirsty, she is strongly affected by it.
Yinsen comes over and takes her hand, impersonally checking for her pulse. The sounds of a foreign language spoken at a rapid pace tells Emory that all these strange events are probably related. This is confirmed when the bearded terrorist comes into view, brow furrowed.
"You were sleeping for two full days," Yinsen explains.
Emory gasps. "I'm sorry," she says, meaning it. This has undoubtedly caused inconvenience to Tony, meaning he's had to hide his work if their captors have come in to fuss over her. Yinsen translates this, though she's not sure she'd meant for it to be relayed to the terrorists as much as to Yinsen himself, and Tony, of course. She cranes her neck to see where he might be standing, but all she can see is a large group of men with guns.
For a horrible second, she wonders if they'd been summoned to remove her. To dispose of her.
On hearing what Yinsen says, the terrorist beams, turning to his companions and saying something in a clearly happy voice. He looks back at her and nods multiple times, before tipping his head sideways and asking Yinsen something.
Yinsen's eyes widen. "He asks if you might be pregnant."
Emory immediately understands that she shouldn't refute his question too quickly. She pulls her blanket up, both to hide her blush and to lean into the behavior she assumes she ought to be exhibiting- embarrassment, perhaps even shame, as basically a 'kept woman.' She shakes her head.
After a quick exchange, Yinsen squeezes her hand and lets go, saying, "He wishes you to be sure."
"Give me a week?" she says, the words difficult to form with her dry lips. Yinsen dutifully translates. Somewhere across the room, Tony starts coughing, and the bearded terrorist laughs uproariously. He shouts something to his men.
"He says he'll find you enough work for another nine months if he can end up with such a valuable bargaining chip," Yinsen says to Tony. After over a month spent with Yinsen in this place, Emory thinks she can hear horror in his voice, though she's certain the other men do not.
"Just when I thought the situation couldn't get worse," Tony says, sounding shaken.
The bearded terrorist looks down at Emory and says something. It sounds almost like a benediction. Then he turns and leaves, waving his arm in a wide arc that tells her he's rounding up his henchmen.
"What did he say?" Emory whispers, hearing the hoarseness in her own voice. "You left a few things out." She wants to know exactly what he's said, because it feels really important to know what they expect of her, even if relaying it would make Yinsen uncomfortable. Holding her head up to talk to him is tiring.
"Just now, a prayer for your health. It… could be construed as one of encouragement. If he expresses any more such desires, I will dissuade him. I do not wish to-" Yinsen breaks off.
"I can't get pregnant. I have an IUD," Emory says in a low whisper. "I could- I mean, if we had to, I imagine I could approximate symptoms, if we need more time." She leans over to get a glimpse at the workstation, starting to cough when the movement seems to remind her throat how dry it is.
As if he could somehow predict what she needs, Tony comes over with some water in a couple of metal cups. Though, as Emory greedily sips ("Small ones, at first," Yinsen cautions), she reminds herself that it would only make sense to be so thirsty and physically on edge if she truly did sleep for so long. She looks over at Tony and sees that he'd brought over a chair. Since he also has two cups, this is confusing.
"What?" he asks.
"How did you carry two cups and a chair?" she questions him after shifting her pillow around so she can sit up against the cave wall with the pillow at her back so she's not as worried about spilling. The water's doing its job already, psychologically if not physically. She feels stronger, somehow. It can't be that Tony's nearby, Emory reasons. That would be melodramatic.
Tony looks up at Yinsen and then back at her. "Chair's been here for a bit," he says.
"I was really asleep for so long?"
"Yes. You weren't restless or anything. Just slept in a lump. Had me- had us, worried."
"You had a fever, but no other symptoms, but for the deep sleep. We could not rouse you," Yinsen says.
"Next time, no jokes about dying," Tony tells her sternly. "How are you feeling?"
"Not pregnant," Emory teases.
Tony pulls a relieved face. "They'd have me building a version of the space station with weapons pointing at whatever world leader they want to hold hostage, with that much time." He leans forward, resting his arms on his spread legs, clasping his hands in between. "Is- do you have family, someone you might want me to talk to, if something does happen?" He's not looking at her.
"I-" she breaks off. She wants to say nothing's going to happen, but that's pretty ridiculous as a sentiment. "It would probably be fastest to just tell Rory? She knows all of my-"
"Goddamnit, Emory, you can't be that naive!" he explodes, slapping his hands on his legs in frustration.
"What?" The reaction is so outrageously disproportionate that Emory slides her legs up and hugs them, almost frightened. Self-consciously, she reaches up and touches her hair. It's snarled, a rat's nest of tangles, thanks to her week of sweat and days of sleep. She's used to hiding behind it in uncomfortable situations, but it's almost symbolic of the struggles she's been going through, lately, and is essentially no help right now.
Tony's jaw is working as he seems to be searching for the right words. Finally he looks at her, and he seems upset, but his eyes are less angry than sympathetic. "Be realistic with me for a minute. Do you think Rory has contacted your parents at all in the past three weeks?"
Something about that look makes her do what he asks, about being realistic. Emory thinks about how Rory had reacted when they had been in Virginia on the same day as the Virginia Tech shooting. They hadn't been in the same part of the state, but Rory had been so stressed out she'd made everyone in their entourage stay at a fancy hotel for a week after chartering a plane at high expense to get out of the state as soon as possible. Emory, Rory's PR manager, and the recording company's Public Relations firm had needed to work overtime to ensure that the public hadn't taken her reaction as some sort of self-serving, attention-seeking one.
When it came to this situation, Rory had survived the attack itself, and her close friend slash assistant had been involved.
"No, she probably hasn't," Emory says, the truth of her statement hitting her painfully. "She- God, I can't even imagine. They… they had to have hired someone else, as an assistant. The longer this takes, the more likely it is she'll be angry at me for it, even if it's not my fault." She lets her feet slide down, her legs falling flat against the mattress, in stunned shock. "I'm out of a job."
"Good," Tony says flatly. "You needed a reality check."
"There's no one in your life that you give extra leeway to?" Emory asks, affronted, even as she knows he has a point to some extent. "Someone you've known for a long time, who you let get away with stuff you wouldn't take from anyone else? I feel-felt, responsible for Rory. It's not, I mean, you act like it should be as easy as-"
She stops, frustrated, and just looks at Tony. He seems to have taken what she said to heart, sitting up and leaning back, tipping his head up toward the ceiling, thinking.
"Obie," he says. "Obadiah Stane, family friend. Partner in my business. He was there for me when I lost my parents, took over for a while, but he's never pulled back, not really. After all these years. It's like I'm still a 20 year old punk kid to him, no matter what I design, whatever ideas I bring to the table and make millions with." Tony shakes his head. "He called me right before the attack, must have set an alarm. God fucking forbid Tony Stark's across the world making demos without him checking up on me."
"At least you're not out of a job," Emory says, offering him a tiny smile.
"Yeah, about that," Tony says, his eyes widening as he makes a worried face. "I wouldn't put it past him to have made some kind of move. A month in captivity? 'PTSD, Tony, you gotta get your mind right. I'll take care-a all this,'" he says, changing his voice into a gruff drawl.
"I tell you what, I'll give him a piece of my mind, when we get out of here, and you can be witheringly sarcastic to Rory, and we'll be even, okay?" she offers.
He laughs and stands up, taking her empty water cup. "I'm glad you're okay. But I can't picture you and Obie in the same room."
Tony gives her a nod and heads back to his worktable. Emory spends some time thinking about why his saying that bothers her so much. The only conclusion she can draw is that she's let Tony Stark worm his way into her sense of normalcy, but he doesn't seem to have done the same. She doesn't like the way it feels, but Emory can't deny that it's probably the truth.
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Tony's almost finished with the front chestpiece from the shoulders down, but he's man enough to admit to himself that he is distracted by Emory's illness and the implications of it. That means he really shouldn't start with the arms of the suit, given how complicated the air hydraulics and controls for the weaponry is. He starts on some of the leg pieces, setting them up so that he can beat them into shape like he'll need to do with the helmet itself, later.
He laughs to himself wryly. If he'd known she would sleep so deeply, he could have worked on them just fine, but it had taken almost the full first day for him and Yinsen to realize that she was just… not waking up. Tony sighs, wincing and scratching the side of his head, trying to stop himself from constantly looking over at her cot like he'd done about every fifteen minutes or more, for the last whole day. It helps (it doesn't, really, unless the concern is her knowledge, rather than his growing obsession) that with his dark welding glasses on, she can't see where he's actually looking, so he can look over in the guise of examining his handiwork.
Tony's been trying to rationalize his concern with various truths: she's partly his responsibility. Her small size and inexperience with weapons means she is at a disadvantage, and it's only natural that he'd want to protect her. He's gotten used to her company.
They're all true, but they're not the sum total of his reasoning.
Bottom line, he wants her to feel better, and that's all that matters, right? And not just because he wants to kiss her again, he reminds himself. Even though he does.
It takes a couple of days for Emory to get back to what he'd call 'normal' behavior for her. Where the first shot had made her overheated, operating at a higher base temperature, the second one seems to have sapped her energy. Today is day five since that second shot, and Tony thinks they're at a few days past a full month of captivity.
Yinsen announces it's time to eat, and Tony's pleased to see that Emory gets up and starts over. She's been eating at the cot for the past few days, so she must be feeling better. He's almost done with the join between the two pieces he'd shaped earlier, so he keeps the torch on, focusing on the last inch.
Suddenly, his welding torch goes out.
He looks over, but neither Yinsen nor Emory are near the power cord. She's crossed within a few feet of him, but not on the side that it's trailed across from the power source. Tony knows better than to look into the place the flame is meant to come from, so he shuts it off and checks all of the connectors. He can't see anything amiss.
"Something wrong?"
"Nope, just a snag," he answers Emory.
"Might as well come eat, now," Yinsen points out, so Tony does.
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Emory wakes up on the sixth day after her second injection feeling reinvigorated. She lays there and simply enjoys the difference from the past few days. Her worry that she might never experience a rested night of sleep ever again had been a really present one, but today she feels like she could run a marathon. It's a chilly morning in the cave, so she pulls on one of the long-sleeved shirts that she'd hemmed the sleeves on, and 'makes her bed.'
She's never woken up this early before, and Emory decides that it might be worth figuring out how to set some kind of alarm. It's early enough in the morning that Tony's just sitting in his cot adjusting to being awake. He's sincerely adorable; his hair is mussed, and despite the chill in the air, he's wearing a black tank top with the center cut out for the ARC reactor. She can't help but stare as she makes her way to the water barrel. The man is cut.
"Woah," Tony says.
"If that's snark about my being awake so early, I'd like to simply remind you that you sat there for five minutes staring at your hands as if trying to figure out what they're for. I watched you," she says, her back to him.
"Wow, hostile."
Emory bites her lip trying not to grin and turn around so she can see the look on his face. Her heart is full, this morning, and it's his fault, and the worst part is she's not even mad about it.
"For the record, though," Tony continues. "I was reacting to the way the entire fire flickered out for a minute."
She spins around and looks, but sees nothing different about the fire. "It was out?"
"The whole thing," he confirms. "Exactly how much time did you spend dwelling on not wanting to be a fire wizard?"