MAYBE I'M NOT THE HERO OF THIS STORY
MAYBE I'M NOT ENOUGH TO SAVE THE WORLD
BUT I'LL BE YOUR HERO AND I'LL SAVE YOU EVERY TIME
"You look pretty good for a dead girl." Natasha Romanoff says when she's at a hearing distance.
There are suits blowing up every inch of the place and Extremis soldiers are attacking left and right. Tony has yet to check in, Rhodey's status is unknown, and Liz might as well be losing her mind keeping track of her family.
Natasha reminds her of another member of said family, reminds her that almost every news outlet had pictured her brother and herself as deceased and that she had forgotten to call and reassure the people that mattered that she was all right.
"Oh God, Nick."
Clint, decked in arrows and his signature bow, jumps slightly to the left in order to avoid getting hit by the blast of one of the suits, "He lost his mind for a bit. Went crazy looking for the two of you. When he found you, he told us to let you do your thing and told us to be ready when you needed us."
He jumps to the right this time as another blast from the suit hits too close for comfort, Liz presses the button on her earpiece and yells, "Cut that out Bones."
The silver, somewhat blue suit lands gently next to her, cocking its head in a way that Liz presumes is supposed to be cute. Liz just narrows her eyes at it, knowing what it wants,
"No, I'm not using you. Now go save our asses."
At that, the suit she herself named Bones flies into the air to join the others as they fire blast after blast at the soldiers with lava in their bones and volcanoes in their nature.
She turns to the SHIELD agents, two of which she hasn't seen in seven months,
"Nick briefed you?" It's a futile question, one she already knows the answer to, Nick Fury is nothing but prepared.
They nod their heads, as she knew they would and she's left in a conundrum, unable to decide what to do with this situation, worrying about Pepper, Tony and Rhodey, three of the five people she has left in this world.
Steve somehow understands. Somehow he always understands and takes over for her, "Liz and I will take North, Clint, Natasha you take south."
When Clint and Natasha are out of sight, Liz and Steve turn around to face the burning people who are kept occupied by the many suits of Tony Stark.
"Thanks," she says to Steve Rogers. She's thanking him for saving her and for taking charge and she hopes he understands.
He does.
He nods back at her before they run towards the fight and the fight runs towards them.
Elizabeth feels the heat crackle through her veins; she doesn't know if the heat is coming from the port that is quite literally on fire or from the orbs of flames she throws at the burning men and women, causing them to absorb enough heat for them to explode.
Steve fares well on his own, the shield easily knocking down the Extremis soldiers and soon enough, they're fighting together; hiding behind his shield at every explosion and bouncing balls of fire off the vibranium disk.
"You had me there for a second when they said you were dead."
She can see the worry there, but she doesn't want to think too much of it, not when it'll only end up in her heart being broken.
"And you had me there for a second when you said I'll see you around."
It took her two weeks before she found out he joined SHIELD and was staying in Washington. After that, she stopped going to the park where they had first seen each other, roaming the streets of New York trying to spot the rumble of his motorcycle, and she had moved back to Malibu with Tony, deeming it for the best that he left.
He looks at her from behind the SHIELD, away from the last two soldiers who are kept busy by Bones and Gemini.
"I shouldn't have said that I'll stay. I knew I wasn't going to. I had nothing in Manhattan."
She doesn't respond. He doesn't know what she would have said suppose she had responded. He doesn't know what he wanted her to say. Knows that the odds of her telling him that he has her in Manhattan are extremely slight, judging by the way they barely know each other.
They stop fighting when one of the suits, of which Liz does not know the name as it must fall under the Mark 30 and up category; a category she was not aware of until today, manages to disarm the final soldier in their side of the fight. The port would have been silent if not for the occasional sound of the many suits that are flying in the air.
She clicks on her earpiece, which had somehow miraculously stayed intact and calls for her brother. "Tony."
All she receives is silence.
"Jarvis, tell me my brother isn't dead in some ditch in this port because he got blown up."
She's joking because she knows that if Tony were in any real trouble or was on the verge of death Jarvis would have informed her immediately.
"I'm sending you his location right now Ma'am."
She nods her head, pulling up the map, easily locating the funny looking Iron Man helmet only a minute away from her.
Steve follows her as she makes her way to her brother, Natasha and Clint appearing out of nowhere and joining her. She wants to laugh at the image she imagines they project. There is soot covering their faces and she has a large gash on her cheeks from being caught in a house that blew up.
Her brother looks worse. So does Pepper. Liz can see the remnants of the Extremis coursing through her veins but Pepper's hugging Tony and they're both alive. She knows that Rhodey saved the president and he's okay as well.
The toll of the past two days finally crash and she rubs her face roughly with her hands, letting out a harsh breath and finally feeling the ache in her bones and weight on her legs. Natasha grips her shoulder and they share a smile, Liz appreciating the redhead, not for the first time in her life.
She catches her brother's eye from where he hugs his girl and he lifts up his hand, pointing up, telling her to look up.
She does, as do the rest of them and they watch as the several Iron Man suits burst in the air, signalling the end of Tony's reliance on the suits to chase away his trauma, signalling Tony's acceptance that the suits don't always make everything better.
Elizabeth Stark watches as the suits blow up in a planned manner, lining up and bursting to create the words in the sky.
Merry Christmas Lizzie.
She doesn't know whether she should be affronted or pleased to see the words in the sky. Doesn't know whether to be worried about her brother's choosing of presents. She touches the miniature arc reactor that hangs off her neck and decides that she likes that he dedicates the endings of his unhealthy obsessions to her.
She doesn't know, doesn't ask, and doesn't figure out until much later, that he'd always known that he would blow up the suits. He'd always known that he would figure out one day that both she and Pepper didn't need the suits to save them. He'd always known that they would be enough to save themselves. He'd known that they'd save him in the process.
He gets rid of the shrapnel in his chest. Stops being Iron Man. He focuses on being Pepper Potts' boyfriend, Happy Hogan's friend, James Rhodes' brother.
He doesn't need to focus on being Elizabeth Stark's brother. He has that covered. It's the one thing he's never going to mess up. Loving Lizzie is easier than breathing, being her brother is less complicated than wires and numbers and building.
So it's ironic when the one person he gave up being Iron Man for ends up shoving the suit back into his arms, her words to fast-paced and panicked for the calm CEO she is, the calm woman she always was.
One of the factories SI owns had blown up. Pepper received the call a few moments ago, received the news that the firefighters that went in have yet to return, received the news that there are family men and women in there, the news that the workers are someone's mom, dad, sister, brother.
The workers in there are someone's Tony.
She knows her boyfriend misses being Iron Man. Knows that donning the suit had given him the kind of euphoria unlike any other. Knew that being Iron Man was his mark on the world, knew that being Iron Man helped so many people.
She knew that the second he destroyed those suits that day in the port. Knew it so well that three days later, when they were in bed after both their surgeries, she had told him that she would not stop him suppose he was to put on the suit again.
He didn't.
She didn't realize that he needed a push from her, a push to indicate that she was certain in her decision that she was fine with dating Iron Man.
She supposes she had forgotten that he was very much still Iron Man when they had their first kiss. She supposes she's ought to learn how to stop differentiating the two, now that it seems as if Tony Stark is about to become Iron Man once again.
Pepper Potts and the world learn soon enough that Iron Man is now a packaged deal. Elizabeth Stark accompanies him to most, if not all, his missions, under the alias Infinity.
The name gives Liz a semblance of the control that was taken away from her when Loki, of all people, revealed that he was given orders to kill her from an unknown someone up in space. Calling herself Infinity, the person that everyone wanted dead, makes her feel as if she's one-step forward; one-step ahead
Whoever this someone in space is, she's willing to bet that they didn't expect her to embrace the name that created a bounty on her head.
With Liz with him, Tony no longer makes a show. There are no cameras, no interviews, no fireworks. They get in, get the job done, have at least one laugh before they go home and have dinner with his girlfriend and their driver.
Months go by and this is their new normal. She's still a CEO surgeon, he builds cool shit for Stark Industries and occasionally a mission would fall onto their laps and they'd be suiting up and kicking ass.
La Roste Paradise is a small, cozy restaurant that's located on the eastside of Los Angeles. It has mediocre food and better entertainment and its customers are of the middle class. Steve Rogers only briefly gets to see the nicely decorated interior of the restaurant before he's jumping down vents into the lower level, where the notorious weapons gang holds their headquarters.
SHIELD had good reason to believe that a weapon of mass destruction created by the engineers of the organization had fallen into the hands of this gang and resides in a safe in this building. Steve knows that the only reason that he and Natasha are leading this operation is because Fury is paranoid with the number of agents exposed to the new weapons SHIELD manufactures.
Natasha, whose been going through the information they have concerning the mission, whispers quietly to Maria Hill, whose overseeing the operation from SHIELD headquarters. "Aren't these the people involved with child trafficking?"
Before Steve can mention prioritizing the children over the mission, Hill's voice clarifies the situation to an extent, "Don't worry, we've got people on that."
Steve doesn't see any people doing anything from where he's hiding behind two large pillars, "What people?"
Hill's response is confident and slightly smug, "The best ones."
As if on cue, the two SHIELD agents hear a loud commotion from what used to be the quiet setting of the restaurant upstairs. Shouts and yells are louder than the ballad playing on the speakers and the bulky men downstairs grab the many machine guns and leave their post to protect their home base.
They don't go too far before there's a hole in the ceiling that divides the first floor from the second and Elizabeth Stark lands gracefully on her feet, smoothing down her hair as she looks at the many guns trained on her.
"Sorry, I think I blew your cover."
They shoot but it's ineffective, not when they're going up against the girl who has a large wall of ice encase her and cause the bullets to bounce off as if they were rubber balls.
The ice breaks and goes flying, breaking glass and piercing skin just hard enough to cause the men to fall to the ground but not enough to cause permanent damage. They watch as she kicks, flips and punches her way through the gang and then she's hiding behind a bar as each member hold one gun in each hand and shoot with everything they've got.
Looking at the numbered men all firing non-stop at a woman half their size, Steve tries to rack his brain and think of a time when he's seen more cowardly individuals than these ones.
"Hold for a little bit. Your backup is busy with the codes." A voice says over the comms attached to Liz's suit.
The voice is indisputably Bruce Banner's and Steve and Natasha wonder when the scientist came back from his expedition in India and how long he's been living with the Starks since they rebuilt and moved back into the Tower.
Steve can hear Liz yell through the sound of the gunfire that doesn't seem to stop. "My backup will have nothing to back up if he doesn't show up soon."
He knows he has particular instructions to stay hidden and wait until the Starks clear up the coast so that they can retrieve the guns with no interferences. Steve's always been good at following orders, responding to a call, but he prepares to jump out of his spot and throw his shield in order to protect the girl that had once smiled at him like he was something more than just a soldier.
He's ought to realize that orders and calls and superior officers don't mean much when Elizabeth Stark is thrown into the equation.
The gunfire ceases as the Iron Man suit fires a particularly large blast at the attackers and Liz gets up from behind the bar, her eyes streaked with the gold that Steve Rogers loves to see.
Tony points to a large metal door sealed shut, the light that was previously red now lighting green. Liz runs towards the door without hesitation, trusting her brother to protect her.
The children, some of which are too young to understand that they've been kidnapped, marvel at the sight of Iron Man and Infinity, the former throwing the bodies behind the bar and cleaning up the dingy basement to the best of his ability as his sister coaxed the kids out of the rooms they were shoved into.
Liz clicks on her earpiece and informs Pepper Potts, "We have the kids. Did you track their parents?"
The answer satisfies both Starks and they lead the kids out of the basement, Tony cutting the tense environment, "I think both Liz and I deserve Bruce's attempt at Indian food again since we clearly deserve it."
Elizabeth looks up from where she's succeeding in trying to make a little boy laugh and seconds her brother's opinion.
The Stark's leave the opposite way they came; slowly and calmly leading a group of children that should be scared but are not thanks to Elizabeth's kindness and Iron Man's popularity.
They leave and Maria Hill tells Steve and Natasha through their earpiece before urging them to continue their mission. "I told you so."
Steve just finds it amusing that this is the second time that he's seen Elizabeth Stark and she doesn't notice him.