Howdy-ho everybody! I'm going to start off with a quick thank-you and welcome to my new followers! Welcome aboard! I'm glad you're sticking around to see what is in store for Tessa! I'm so excited to see the traction this story is making! With that said, I'll throw out that same old disclaimer. Yup, no rights have been obtained since the last chapter. And now I'll let you get to it! Enjoy! Xoxo-NickyLynn
Tessa and Tony spent the next few weeks hashing through the final stages of the suit and after one last, joyfully successful, test on the propulsion system, they were ready for the final step. Tessa stood staring at Tony as he stood with his arms out to the side, displaying the fully completed suit. The silver metallic surface reflected back the workshop around them as he turned in a small circle, like a child trying on a new outfit for their mother.
"Well?" He asked, his voice being projected out through the speaker system of the suit.
"Could use a paint job." She said with a shrug. Truthfully, it had looked amazing to her. The metal plates all connected with each other perfectly, the propulsion system had had the kinks worked out of it, J.A.R.V.I.S. had been integrated into the control system, and overall….it was a piece of art.
"I'm not painting a star on my chest." Tony deadpanned.
Tessa rolled her eyes. "Not asking you to." She responded, stepping up to him and circling around him, checking connections here and there. "How's J.A.R.V.I.S. responding?" she asked him.
"As perfectly as always." Tony told her. "Initiating check on control surfaces." He said and Tessa took a step back as the suit's plates began shifting open at the joints. They glided open and closed again as J.A.R.V.I.S. ran his internal diagnostic checklist, ensuring everything was functioning properly. Tessa walked back over to the computer, watching the information come through as J.A.R.V.I.S. sent over the information he worked through. She watched the display read 'Test Complete' and she began running through the numbers. "Okay, go ahead and power it down so we can run a full diagnostic." Tessa called over to Tony.
"Uh, yeah. Tell you what, why don't you do that, and I'll take this baby out for a little test drive." He told her, causing her to pause in her typing and look over at him in alarm.
"Tony, we still have to run through the calculations before any flights are made." She insisted.
"Sometimes you gotta run before you walk." He called back to her.
"Yeah and sometimes you fall into the Pacific before you fly over Malibu Beach." She called back, but knew considering Tony's determination it was pointless to try to argue with him.
"Well, then you can be on standby on I-told-you-so duty." He tossed back at her. "Ready in three…two…one." The propulsion system fired into power, sending Tony hovering into the air. Tessa let out a defeated sigh as Tony leaned forward and suddenly flew through the room and out the exit that led up to the driveway, disappearing from view.
Tessa pressed the necessary buttons on the screen to connect her to the live feed coming in through J.A.R.V.I.S. She watched and listened as Tony flew out of the garage and into the air above the home with an excited yell. He let out a loud whoop as he tore into the night sky, the ground below him growing smaller by the second. He twisted through the air for a moment before stabilizing himself back out as he moved over the water and gained a handle on the flying machine. "How's it feel?" Tessa asked, knowing J.A.R.V.I.S. would relay her into the suit and to Tony.
"Handles like a dream." He said back and she could tell from his voice that he had a huge grin plastered on his face.
"Well, keep it low and local." She told him as she watched him soar in towards the Santa Monica Pier. "I'm still not comfortable with pushing the systems too hard." She told him.
"Oh, come on. I want to see what this baby can do." Tony said back, redirecting his thrusters and shooting straight up into the sky. "What's the SR-71's record?" he asked J.A.R.V.I.S.
"What ever happened to listening to your elders?" Tessa asked him with a sigh.
"What ever happened to your sense of adventure?" he called back to her. "Now watch me break this record!" he said before pushing higher into the sky.
"That suit is not designed for high-altitude flight yet!" she yelled out, frustrated with his insistent need to push the limits. J.A.R.V.I.S.'s systems began sending off a warning of ice build up and Tessa's frustration transformed into fear. "Damn it, Anthony!" she nearly bellowed. "You're going too damn high!" Tony ignored both her and J.A.R.V.I.S.'s warnings as he pushed higher into the sky. "TONY!" she yelled again as J.A.R.V.I.S. began warning of system failures. "TONY STOP!" she screamed before the screen went black and the audio cut. "Tony!?" she called out, only to get no response. "TONY!"
"I'm sorry, ma'am. It appears my connection with Mr. Stark has been lost." J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice filled the room.
"Well re-establish it!" she hollered back, her fear exploding into full-blown panic. She knew that without J.A.R.V.I.S. to control the system, Tony would be nothing more than a man in a metal suit, free-falling through the thousands of miles of open air. "Come on J.A.R.V.I.S.! You've got to get back into that system!" she told the A.I.
"I'm trying. The ice seems to have caused a failure in the system." J.A.R.V.I.S. responded.
Tessa could feel her heart plumet as the seconds ticked by. Suddenly, the screens before her lit back up with the visual feed from Tony's suit and his loud yell of excitement filled the room again. "Oh, thank God." She said, dropping herself down onto the chair in relief. "Do me a favor and get your ass back here before you give me a heart attack." She told Tony, rubbing at her temples and the headache that was beginning to grow beneath them.
"On my way." He said as he made a wide turn and began making his way back towards the mansion. Tessa watched the home come into view on the screens as Tony flew back towards her. He slowed down and came to a hover above the roof. "Kill power." He instructed and as J.A.R.V.I.S. complied Tessa shot up in alarm as loud crashing sounds could be heard above her as Tony fell through the several layers of floor above her.
She swiveled around as Tony fell through the ceiling of the garage, but before he could fall onto his priceless car collection Tessa reached out with her powers and stopped him mid-air. She watched the rubble fall down around him, scratching the paint of the vehicles it fell on. Tony was stuck floating in the air in her grasp as she moved him over until she had him hovered over the bare concrete. She dropped her hold on him and let him fall the few feet remaining to the ground with a heavy thud.
He let out a groan of pain as Tessa walked over to him, arms crossed. The face plate of the suit lifted open, revealing Tony's pained face. "Good catch." He muttered as he tried to even out his breathing again. Tessa came to a stop over him, looking down at him in frustration. "Okay, you can say it." He relented.
"I told you-" she began to say before Dummy sprayed out another round of fire suppressant onto Tony's prone form. She watched the robot spray Tony, suddenly feeling less upset. "Good job." She told the robot when it was done, giving it a pat on it's arm. "I need a break." She then said, stepping over Tony and moving back across the workshop, in desperate need of some time away from the worrisome man. "Do me a favor and try not to kill yourself again while I'm gone." She called back as she walked away.
Tessa scooped up her stuff before looking back at Tony who was still on the floor. "I'll see you in the morning Superman." She told him before walking to the door and making her exit.
By the time Tessa made it back to house the next day, after such much needed sleep, instead of finding Tony working on the suit like she had assumed she see upon entering the workshop, she instead stared down at the piles of shattered glass. "Jarvis?" Tessa called out in concern, stepping over the glass and moving over to her work station where she pulled up a screen. "Where's Tony?" she asked.
"Mr. Stark's location has been set to restricted." The A.I. system informed her.
That caused her to freeze in her movement and look up in confusion. There was only a handful of reasons Tessa could think of why Tony wouldn't want anyone to be able to locate him, and none of them were good. "Override code zero-seven-zero-four-seven-zero." She said, hoping to override the block.
"Access code accepted. Override complete." J.A.R.V.I.S. responded. "Redirecting the coordinates now."
Tessa looked down at the screen and she felt her heartrate picked up. "Jarvis, patch me through to him." She said, suddenly wishing she hadn't left Tony to his own devices last night.
"Hello?" came Tony's voice after a moment.
"Care to explain why you're currently flying over the Atlantic Ocean?" she asked him harshly.
"Oh. That. I'm just tying up some loose ends." He told her, as if it was just running a simple errand.
"Tony." Tessa groaned out, dropping in her seat and rubbing her forehead.
"Stark Industries has been double-dealing." He said then, catching her off guard.
"What?" she asked, sure she had heard him wrong.
"Obie has been selling our weapons to terrorists." Tony told her in explanation. "He's been single-handedly fueling a genocide and I'm going to stop it."
Tessa reeled back from the news. She had never liked Obidiah, but that didn't mean she thought he would be capable of that. And as much as she agreed that something had to be done, she didn't like the idea of him heading straight into battle after only having less than a full day's time working with the new suit. "Tony, get back here and we can devise a plan together." She said in worry.
"I have a plan. Attack." He said before the line went silent.
"Tony?" she called out.
"Mr. Stark has requested radio silence." J.A.R.V.I.S. told her as she was met with no response from Tony.
"Damn it, Tony!" she said, slamming her hand down on the table, leaving a dent she would have to pry out later. "Jarvis, can you get me a visual feed?" she asked.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark has restricted all access points." J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.
Tessa leaned back into her chair, her nerves shot from Tony's seemingly never-ending suicidal tendencies. She sat there, watching the image of his last known location blink before her, and just had to wait. Wait and just pray he wouldn't be stupid enough to actually get himself killed. It wasn't until late in the afternoon that Tony returned. When her ears picked up the sound of him soaring in through the large driveway opening, Tessa shot up. The worry that had been fueling her shifted to full on anger now that she knew he was okay, and she burned with rage. She burned so fiercely that she began to glow with traces of blue as her control began to slip on her powers.
As Tony came into view, dropping himself down on the concrete floor gently, Tessa lifted her arm up and used her power to grab hold of his suit-covered body and throw it into the concrete wall behind him. The wall cracked out like a spiderweb with the impact and Tony let out a grunt. Tessa transported herself in front of Tony in a bust of blue energy, glaring over the small space separating them. Her skin and eyes radiated the anger she felt as her jaw dropped open and she tore into him.
"NEVER DO THAT AGAIN ANTHONY STARK!" she bellowed at him.
"You're pretty scary when you're mad, you know that?" his altered voice called back before the face plate of his suit hissed open and drew back, revealing his startled face below.
"Oh, I'm not mad. I'm furious!" she told him. "Are you insane?! This suit hasn't even been fully tested and you take it across the globe to fight a group of terrorists?! And then you have the nerve to block me out! I've been worried sick!" she screamed out, her eyes burning brighter with every second.
"Okay, point taken. But, it worked and I'm fine so can we maybe put some water on this fire?" he asked her with wide eyes.
"That depends." She shot back. "Are you done making reckless decisions?" she asked him with a raised eyebrow.
"If I say yes, will you stifle the crazy light show?" he responded.
Tessa let out a sigh before taking a calming breath and focused on bringing her emotions back down to a controllable level. The glow faded and she was left suddenly more tired than she should have been. "Never again." She reiterated, pointing a finger at him.
Tony pushed himself off the wall, raising his hands in defense. "Nope, never." He told her in agreement.
Tessa took a step back before her eyes drifted down to the suit, taking it in properly for the first time. It was covered in scorch marks, bullet holes and dents from his time overseas, which she did her best not to get worked up over that. Most notably, it was no longer silver. "You gave it a paint job." She said, noting the red and gold colors covering the metal surfaces.
"Yeah, turns out sometimes I listen to your advice." He said as he walked closer to the center of the room. "Now, come on glow worm, if you help me out of this thing, I'll tell you everything that happened." Tessa rolled her eyes at the name but followed him none the less.
She began prying the pieces off of him, but some of the joints had been locked together tightly after obtaining damage and it was harder of a task than it should have been. She was working on trying to get the bottom half of the torso plate disconnected, finding it warped at the hip joint, so she ended up fighting with it more than she was expecting.
"Hey watch the goods." Tony said as she gave a particularly harsh tug, growing frustrated as she pried against his frame.
"Yeah, well.." Tessa began her voice strained as she worked on freeing him. "Your goods could use with a little damage. Maybe it'll stop you from passing on that bull-headedness trait that seems so prominent in the Stark genes." She told him as she successfully pulled off a side piece on his hip and moved onto the center frame of his abdomen.
Tony let out a grunt of pain as Tessa attempted to bang it loose at the joint it was bent at. He tried to keep himself still as she pounded against the metal, but the force from her blows caused him to sway about. "Hold still." She admonished. "This more you struggle, the more this is going to hurt."
"Be gentle with me, this is my first time." Tony said back, unable to help the innuendo.
"And here I thought it was putting the protection on that was the hard part, not taking it off." She sassed back as kept prying.
"I designed this thing to come off so-" Tony said, finding it hard to believe it was this difficult to get out of the suit.
"Well, obviously you need to re-evaluate those designs." She told him as she managed to pry off the large pieces, the sudden movement jarring Tony forward.
Tony let out a hiss of pain. "I'm beginning to think you like causing me pain." He told her as she moved onto the next piece.
"And I'm beginning to think that you need to design a machine to do this for you so I don't have to be on my knees and-" she was telling him before another voice filled the space, causing Tessa to stop in her actions.
"Uhh…am I interrupting something?" Pepper's voice called over to the two. Tessa peeked out from around Tony's body to find Pepper standing in the shattered glass that was once a door, looking over at them in alarm and confusion. Tessa looked up to Tony and it dawned on her how her position, kneeled down in front of him, struggling against the machinery, may have looked from Pepper's perspective. "What's uh…what's going on here?" she asked, stepping into the workshop.
Tessa and Tony looked from Pepper to each other, neither one of them being able to come up with an adequate excuse. Tony looked back over his shoulder at Pepper. "Let's face it, this is hardly the weirdest thing you've caught me doing." He told her.
Tessa took that moment to pull off one of the larger chest pieces. She examined it's damaged surface, shaking her head as she did. "Are those bullet holes?!" Pepper asked, looking at the piece Tessa had been holding up.
"Congratulations, Ms. Potts." Tess said, dropping the piece onto the growing pile of removed plates. "Your job just got infinitely more complicated." She commented, knowing there was no way in hell Tony could keep her in the dark about what he was planning any longer.
So, after Tessa managed to get the remainder of the suit off of Tony, she excused herself in order to give the two some time to talk. She left to grab dinner, which Tony had requested be from a restaurant nearly thirty miles away, but Tessa didn't mind the long drive, as it just gave Pepper and Tony plenty of time to talk things over. She drove to the Italian restaurant, picked up the food, and while she was on her way back, she hit traffic that slowed her down even more. Her phone rang as she sat in the built-up traffic and she looked down to see Pepper's name come across the screen.
"How'd it go?" Tessa asked as she flipped open the phone and pulled it up to her ear.
"Are you with Tony?!" came Pepper's frantic voice.
Tessa was instantly on alert and sat up higher as she took in Pepper's nervous tone. "I thought you were with him." Tessa said back.
"I was, but he sent me to the office to copy some files. Look, It's Obidiah. Obidiah's the one who took the hit out on Tony! He-he was here in the office, and I think he knows. And now I-I can't get ahold of Tony, and I'm scared-" Pepper's voiced rushed out.
Tessa's body went stiff and her grip on the phone tightened. "How long ago did you see him?" she asked Pepper in a hurry. "How long ago was Obidiah at the office?"
"I-I don't know, I left maybe ten minutes ago." Pepper told her. Tessa looked down at the clock on her dash. With how far away she still was from the mansion, she knew Obidiah could make it there before her. "I'm on my way to the mansion now, I was just hoping that you-" she began.
"No!" Tessa told her. "I'll get to Tony. You just stay somewhere safe! I'll let you know when I find him!" she told her before snapping the phone closed and throwing it down on the passenger seat. She took hold of the wheel and twisted it, moving herself onto the sidewalk. She pressed down on the gas pedal, blaring the horn at the people running out of her way as she sped down the side of the congested road.
It took her just over fifteen minutes to make it back to the mansion, even with the vast amount of laws broken in the process. By the time she skidded to a stop in the driveway and threw the door open, her heart was pounding heavily in her chest. She took off running towards the door and used her powers to transport herself into the home, landing in the main living room. "TONY?!" she screamed out, twisting around, looking for him. When her eyes and ears didn't pick up any trace of him, she then transported herself into the workshop downstairs.
As she reappeared downstairs, she found Tony laying in a motionless heap next to her work station. He looked in terrible shape and was surrounded by the smashed glass of the display box she had kept his original arc reactor in. "Tony!" she cried out, rushing towards him, dropping herself down next to his unconscious form. Tessa was painfully aware of how shallow his breathing was, and by his flushed pallor, she knew something was very wrong. As her eyes scanned his body, she discovered that there was one vital piece missing. The spot in his chest where the arc reactor sat, was empty, leaving nothing but a hole. She panicked as she realized he was going into cardiac arrest.
She quickly realized that he must have been going for the old reactor, so without letting a moment go to waste, she reached across the floor to where it had slid away from him before scrambling back over to him. She slid the device back into the chamber, clicking it into place. The reactor began to glow as it connected to the base, and she reached up to check his pulse.
She could feel the steady thrum of his blood moving under her fingers growing stronger and she let out a shaky breath. She began smacking lightly against his cheek, trying to rouse him. "Hey, come on kid, wake up. Come on, Tony!" she called out. Suddenly, Tony's eyes snapped open, and he drew in a loud gasp of air before letting out a round of coughs. "Oh, Thank God." Tessa sighed, leaning down and drawing his head in next to hers in a hug. "I told you not to go having heart attacks while I was gone." She told him as she held onto him.
"Yeah, didn't really have a choice." Came his strained voice as Tessa pulled away. "Obidiah-" he began to tell her before she interrupted him.
"I know. Pepper called." She told him, saving him from having to explain. Now that she knew Tony was okay, the anger that had been being kept in check by her worry, tore back through her unbridled. She could feel her control slip as she let herself fully process everything that the man had done and put Tony's through. She began to illuminate the area around them as she pictured all the ways she was going to make him suffer.
"We have to stop him." Tony said, pushing himself back up.
"He's going to regret the day he chose to move against you." Tessa said, looking down at Tony. "He's going to suffer more than he could imagine." She seethed.