Please enjoy Iron Man: Heart of an Avenger as I post all the chapters to participate in self care.

Music

Friends talking - Banishment from Thor soundtrack

Chapter Eight: Spritely Stark

Marching in anger toward the bridge, Iron Man did not bother to remove his suit. Due to the anger that he was feeling, he was about ready to use it to blow apart the Helicarrier bridge.

His wife was missing, abducted by God knows whom and SHIELD was unable to secure her in time.

Granted, yes Abby should have stayed at home, but Romanoff was with her. She should have been able to follow the kidnappers and secure his wife's safety.

Disengaging the helmet clamps, he pulled off the helmet as he entered the bridge and gave it a huge throw; shattering one of the computer screens on someone's terminal.

"What the Hell Fury," he shouted. "You were supposed to be taking care of her. You were supposed to have her secured with your agent."

"Agent Romanoff did what she could," Fury replied back in his cool tone. "She fought to the point of submission, which as you know does not happen often. Even with a dislocated shoulder, she still managed to steal a car and traverse Manhattan traffic until she was smashed by oncoming car. Barton, Wilson, we had many agents out there and we were unable to save your wife."

"That is not the point!"

"That is entirely the point," Fury countered. "You think that I dispatched you to the point that your wife's safety was in jeopardy. I had confidence in Agent Romanoff."

"You could have contacted Foster's man Thor," Tony interrupted.

"We cannot get hold of him at this time," Fury countered. "We were securing Doctor Selvig. Especially with his knowledge of portal traveling. His mind is just as dangerous as Doctor Foster's."

"And so my trophy wife is expendable," he threw in there.

"Hardly," Natasha Romanoff appeared with her arm in a stationary brace against her body. Bruce Banner was walking with her. "Your wife is a technological genius. She could be acquired for that reason."

"We went to VonDoom after Doctor Selvig was secured, but we found his palace ablaze," Hill added. "Then we received the alert from the facility where Doctor Foster was working."

"You were the closest person who could have gotten to her if she was in danger," Fury told him. "And judging by your analysis of the Aeronautics Lab, they knew where to find her."

"We're still cleaning up the footage from the lab," Hill told everyone. "Hopefully we will catch a glimpse of who grabbed Jane Foster or what has become of her."

"She's not dead if that is what you are wondering," Tony interjected again. "One of the techs was chattering on in panic as I took her to the hospital that they took her. I couldn't get the name out of them before rescue showed up. All I am going to say is that if you knew that these bad guys were mobilizing, why wouldn't you have gotten this Avenger's Wives secret club going sooner."

"We did not feel that it was necessary at the time," Fury said.

"Well, it is now!" Tony shouted. "Two of the girls who just happened to be involved with Avengers are gone, and unless you want that group to get bigger, you better lock them all down."

"Most of them are being acquired now," Hill said. "We have Agent May and her Agents on the move." She put the image from her tablet up on a 3D screen. "So far we have Betty Ross, Sharon Carter, Elektra Natchios..."

"Natchios is being locked up?" Tony asked.

"She's being recruited because of her relationship with Daredevil, but she is going also as kind of a last line of defense," Romanoff said. "They wanted to lock me up because of my relationship with Banner here..."

"...but we found that she is more useful in the field than locked up," Fury finished her statement. "Stark, we will find your wife and Doctor Foster and make the facility a complete set. Right now, we need you to clear your head and assist us."

Tony looked down and then looked back up at Fury. "Go to hell," he said and marched for the exit to the bridge.

As he was about to pass through the doors, Steve Rogers appeared from around the bend.

"Stark, hey," Steve spoke. "I could use a man like you right now. I have to go to Wakanda on special assignment..."

"Find someone else," Tony growled as he went walking passed him.

"Stark," Romanoff came around the corner.

"Dear lord, what happened to you?" Steve asked.

"Nothing I can't handle," she replied. "Leave Stark be Steve."

"Why?"

"His wife just got grabbed," Natasha spoke. "He's no good to us or you in his distracted state."

Tony walked out onto the back of the Helicarrier's deck, staring into the dark waves that parted behind the massive vessel.

He wanted to jump into the icy water, hoping that it would mask his pain. Vanish into the dark void of the ocean.

However, his heart or at least the emotional side of him kept his feet thoroughly planted in place.

Reaching into his nylon black and silver shirt, he pulled on the chain that held his wedding ring. He remembered the inscription of his and her initials on the bottom of the band.

It would be so he would be able to carry her devotion against his heart always.

Tony's hand nearly destroyed and strangled the ring, but restrained his rage; once he knew he was not alone.

Bruce Banner, his fellow scientist walked up from behind.

"You want to be alone?" the human persona of the Hulk asked.

"You know Banner, for the longest time, I thought I did. I thought that I was doomed to be alone. Free and devoid of any relationships for fear I would hurt them or bring harm to them. But then I had to meet her," he answered choking on tears. "Initially, it was a game to us. I did not plan on falling in love with her."

"Love is a strange feeling," Bruce replied. "It is why science will never be able to understand it. Take Betty for example. I love and care for her, but there is no way we can ever be together. I fear that I could hurt her in the way I hurt others. It's better that I stay away. Now she is locked up safe and sound where no villains are going to find her and she is safe from the other guy as well."

Tony and Banner faced each other. "You choose to stay away when Betty draws closer to you," he said. "You push her back out of fear for her life. My Abs...she helped me to quit drinking, I look forward to seeing her every chance I get, and to ice off the cake she is the target every terrorist whackjob because she has Stark at the end of her name. She does not deserve the danger I put her in."

He looked back over the edge.

"You know the last thing we were talking about was?"

"What?"

"Abby thought that she might have been pregnant."

"Was she?"

"She said it was a week off, but then she wasn't carrying my baby," Tony turned to face him again. "She is only seven months out after her heart transplant. I do not want the stress of a pregnancy to hurt her."

"Is that the only reason?" He looked away from Bruce's gaze. "It isn't, is it? You are using it as an excuse, aren't you?"

"I just do not want my kids to grow up resenting me for the choices I make in being Iron Man. My old man did not even tell me he loved or liked me until I saw it on some home movie he hid away. I just do not want to be an absent father because I am dead and I do not want to be a single father because their mother could not carry them to term."

Banner's hand came to clasp his shoulder. "You need to stop using her condition as a crutch. When you get Abby back, not if but when, you need to tell her the truth. If she is locked up with Betty and the other girls and kids, who is to say that that stress-free environment is not going to be the ideal place for Abygail to carry your baby to term."

Tony thought that his friend had a point.

"You are so right Banner," he told him. "You are so right. If you will excuse me, I have a wife to go find."

They shook hands. "Good luck my friend, and if you need me...or the other guy, you know where we will be."

Though he did not have a helmet, it would not be the first time he had flown without it.

He was just going home and begin searching the world for his wife.

And so the search begins...