Update time! YAY! :D :D :D
Happy...Saturday? And happy reading!
Tony reached for his wife's hands, and brought them to his chest. Pepper watched this gesture silently, her eyes filled with trepidation for what he was about to tell her.
He continued, rubbing the back of her hand with one of his thumbs. "I warn you, it's a long story. And not one you're going to readily believe. But I promise you. Everything I have to tell you is the truth," he assured her.
Pepper swallowed hard. "I'm listening," she said softly.
Tony gave her a weak smile, nodded, and then exhaled slowly. "Okay. Here goes," he said.
He proceeded to tell her how the military convoy he was in in Afghanistan got attacked, and how he was taken captive by the Ten Rings, and held in a cave in the nearby mountains for three months- an event orchestrated by none other than Obadiah Stane. Pepper gasped when she heard all of this, and shook her head in disbelief.
"I never would have guessed he'd do something like that! I mean, I knew Obi could be very calculating. But Tony! He was like a father to you," she remarked sadly.
Tony nodded in understanding. "I know," he said regretfully. "But, in hindsight, I should have figured that his jealousy would eventually get the best of him. We'd had countless arguments over how he felt like the work-horse of the company, and how he hated that I never seemed to take my father's legacy seriously." Tony shrugged. "And, in a way, he was right. I didn't take it seriously. For a time. Until I saw what was happening with our weapons over there. That's when I knew I had to do something."
Pepper looked at him with rapt attention. "So, what did you do?" she asked.
"Well," he replied. "I was ordered to build them the same missile I'd gone over there to demo- the Jericho. And they'd said they'd let me go in return. But I knew that wouldn't be what was really going to happen. Besides that, I..." He stopped talking, realizing he'd left out a key detail. "I had a chest full of shrapnel, so..."
Pepper gasped. "You were hurt, too?!" she exclaimed. Then her brows knitted together, and she frowned in defensive displeasure. "What did they do to you?" she huffed in an exasperated murmur.
Tony mused at her sense of concern for him for a moment before he answered. "When I tried to escape the attack, one of our own rockets landed beside me in a rock outcropping. I thought it was a dud at first. Then I realized it wasn't. But by that time, it was..."
"Too late," Pepper finished, her tone a regretful whisper. "Oh, Tony." He could see tears start to well in her eyes, and he brought a hand to her upper arm, rubbing it affectionately, trying to calm her.
"Hey," he told her. Pepper brought her eyes up to his again, and he smiled. "It's okay. I'm okay, Pep," he tried to assure her.
Still, she brought a hand to her mouth, and shook her head in disbelief of the ordeal he'd been through. "I just wish I could remember something about this!" she confessed. "All I can say is I'm sure I was sick with worry!"
Tony smiled and nodded in the affirmative. "Well, from what Rhodey told me, you were," he replied. "On the way home, after I'd escaped, he'd mentioned how much you were on his case every day to find me while I was missing. And when they finally did, he said you couldn't stop crying."
Pepper chuckled sheepishly, her cheeks blushing a deep crimson red at this revelation. "Yeah, well," she said, shrugging. "I hate job hunting, so..."
Tony spluttered in surprise, and started giggling. Pepper gave him a curious look, and started chuckling at him. "What? It wasn't that funny," she began.
He shook his head, and waved a hand in dismissal. "No, it's just that you said the exact same thing when I came home," he told her.
Pepper frowned. "What?" she said, not understanding.
He nodded. "When I got off that plane, and saw you standing on the tarmac waiting for me, I could see you'd been crying. And when I asked you why your eyes were red, you said it was from crying tears of joy that I was back because you hate job hunting."
Pepper then gasped in surprise and started giggling. Tony grinned and chuckled at her in return.
She shook her head. "Well, I guess some things haven't changed," she remarked. They grinned at each other, sharing the funny moment together.
When it had passed, Pepper spoke again. "So on the subject of your escape, " she began. "How on Earth did you manage to do it? And being so badly injured, no less!"
Tony hesitated, realizing he was quickly coming to the moment of truth- giving her the details leading to how Iron Man was created. Take it slow, he reminded himself. Don't overwhelm her.
He took a deep breath before he began. "Well, the shrapnel from the explosion would've have normally killed me within a week's time. And that's being optimistic," he said. "But, I wasn't the only one being held captive in that cave. A doctor from a nearby province called Gulmira was there. His name was Yinsen. And..." Tony paused, remembering the kind man, a lump forming in his throat at the thought of the sacrifice the doctor had made so he could escape. "He save my life, Pep," he murmured reverently, his eyes going glassy with tell-tale emotion.
Pepper stayed silent for a moment, studying Tony's face, her heart swelling at the obvious regard and respect he had for this man. She smiled. "Well, I can certainly see he means something to you," she remarked thoughtfully.
Tony nodded. "He did. He does," he answered. "And somehow, he managed to outfit me with an electro-magnet attached to a car battery, the constant magnetic charge keeping the metal fragments in my chest just far enough from my heart to keep me alive. That is, until the battery would inevitably die. So, my obvious first item of business, once I got my wits about me, was to install an upgrade."
"An upgrade?" Pepper repeated.
Tony nodded. "I needed some kind of portable, sustainable power source that could attach to the electro-magnet. Plus, carrying a car battery everywhere you go is a real pain in the ass," he joked.
Pepper chuckled softly, and smiled. He smiled back, and continued.
"That's when I took apart a bunch of our missiles they'd stockpiled that they'd either stolen or bought off the black market, and built myself an arc reactor," he explained.
Her eyes widened again, but then she frowned in confusion. "Like that giant glowing blue thing at the office? That's what you built?" she asked.
Tony chuckled at the simplicity of the terms she used, and nodded. "Yep. Just like the 'giant glowing, blue thing', as you so eloquently put it, Pep," he teased. Pepper chuckled bashfully in reply. "Only a smaller version that...well..." he trailed off as he realized what he had to do next. Slowly, he looked down at his chest. Pepper watched as he unbuttoned his shirt to reveal the thick circular scar in the center of it, showing her where the arc had once been. "Could fit right here," he finished, pointing to it.
She gasped, and clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes rapidly darting between his face and the scar. "Oh my God!" she whispered in horror. She shook her head, and balled her fist over her lips, as tears once again filled her eyes. She reached a hand out cautiously, but then hesitated, shifting her gaze back up to his as if to get permission to touch him. Tony smiled softly.
"Go on. You can feel it. It's okay. It doesn't hurt," he assured her. But despite his words, she still hesitated. "Come here. I promise it's okay. Let me show you," he said, gently grasping her hand, and bringing her finger tips to the scar to feel it.
She gasped again, and choked out a sob. "Oh my God," she said once more. He watched as her fingers delicately traced the circumference of the scar. And then, when she'd completed the circle, she tenderly laid her hand flat over the spot, after which Tony placed his hand over hers, squeezing it lovingly. They briefly shared the moment in silence before Pepper spoke again.
"So?" she asked, her voice soft and pondering. She lifted her eyes to look at him. "Once this was in place, what did you do next?"
"Well, those missiles I took apart? I basically just welded pieces of the scrap together to make a suit of armor, fitted it with a hydraulic system so I could more easily move the joints under all the weight, attached some of the small repulsors and rocket launchers that were left over. And voila! Oh. And I installed a flame thrower. That part was fun," he joked.
Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Pepper laughed at his comment. Tony smiled at the sound of her laughter before he went on.
"With all of that, I literally blasted my way out," he finished.
He watched as she took a moment to process what he'd told her. "And Dr. Yinsen?" she asked hopefully.
Tony frowned, swallowing hard against the lump quickly returning in his throat. "He, uh...he didn't make it," he informed her, his voice returning to the reverent tone it had had before.
"Oh," Pepper said in understanding. "I'm...sorry."
Tony smiled at her sympathy. "So am I," he replied. "But in the end, it was for the best, I think," he explained. "His family had been killed prior to, and he had no one left in the world, so..."
Pepper gave him a soft, empathetic smile, not missing the parallel both men's lives shared. No wonder you two found comfort in each others company, she mused.
Tony's eyes brightened. "Oh! Wanna hear something crazy?" he asked.
Pepper chuckled. "I think that's a foregone conclusion at this point," she teased.
Tony chuckled back at her, and went on. "You won't believe this, but he and I had met before! Remember that conference we went to in Bern?" he asked.
Pepper spluttered. "I do. But the question is- do you? I don't think you spent even a minute there sober!" she replied. "How you ever gave that speech coherently is a wonder for the ages."
Tony spluttered. "Ha!" he cried. "That's the same thing Yinsen said!"
Pepper wrinkled her nose. "Really?!" she exclaimed. "He was there?!"
Tony gave her an emphatic nod. "He was! Like I said- crazy!"
"Amazing," Pepper marveled. "Small world."
"I know, right? What are the odds?" he said.
"I don't recall meeting him. But he sounds like he was a great man," she lamented.
"He was. You would've liked him," Tony replied. They shared a wistful glance between them.
A moment passed before Pepper spoke again. "So, all of that time you were in the cave, they never suspected you weren't really building them a missile?" she asked.
"Oh they suspected," Tony replied, nodding his head. "They didn't really know what I was up to, but they knew something was up. So yeah. The day came when it got really hard to hide, and that's when the pressure was on. Suddenly, the time they gave me went from a few days to 24 hours to get it built, or they were going to..."
Pepper winced, and then squeezed her eyes shut in reaction to the conclusion she drew. Tony stopped talking and looked at her cautiously. He put a hand on her forearm in concern. "Pep? You okay?" he asked.
"Yes. I just..." she began. She opened her eyes to look at him, her eyebrows knitted together. Another sob caught in her throat, and she brought a hand to her chest in an attempt to steady herself. "I can't believe you had to go through all of this!" she murmured, her voice warbling with new tears.
"I know. It sounds crazy," he replied.
"It sounds terrifying!" she corrected. "I can't imagine what was going through your mind!"
Tony smiled sympathetically. "Well, I do know one thing that helped me stay sane," he said. "You wanna know what kept me going?"
Pepper sniffed, and looked at him inquisitively. "You mean, besides the arc reactor in your chest?" she asked, trying to lighten the moment.
Tony smiled at her joked, and gazed intently into her eyes before he answered. "You," he said simply. "It was you."
Pepper's eyes searched his face. "Me? Why me?" she asked.
"At the time, I didn't really know, if I'm being honest," he answered, shrugging and smiling sheepishly, shaking his head. "But the whole time I was in that cave, I couldn't...stop...thinking about you," he slowly admitted, his sheepish smile accentuated now by his slightly crimsoning cheeks. Pepper gasped again, but this time with a delighted smile spread across her face.
Tony awkwardly cleared his throat, and then teeter tottered his head from side to side. "That, and the fact that I would have to face certain death if I didn't..."
But his words were cut off by Pepper suddenly crashing their lips together. "Mmmmphhhfff," he mumbled in surprise when she kissed him, his hands instantly smoothing around her hips and her back to pull her closer as he deepened the kiss. His insides suddenly felt like someone had submerged him into a deep pool of water after having been parched in a dry, lonely desert for so long, thirsting for her love and affection, his heart soaking in every last drop she could give him. His spine tingled with the sparking fireworks shooting up and down it, and popping off at their final destination in his brain.
He felt Pepper's hands smooth around his neck and her fingers intertwine in his hair as he noticed the sensation of her warmth in his hands, and thanked the heavens above once again for bringing her back to him.
After a moment, the kiss wound down, and they slowly broke apart. "Succeed," Tony mumbled, his eyes still closed.
"What?" Pepper asked, with a confused frown.
He opened his eyes to look at her. "In...completing the suit," he finished sheepishly. "That's what I was gonna finish telling you before we...you..." he stammered. He took a deep breath. "Wow," he breathed. Pepper chuckled, and then gave him a coy smile.
He smiled back, and then shook his head. "You don't know how much I needed that," he confessed.
Pepper smiled, and playfully walked two fingers up his chest. Tony watched, smirking fondly.
"I think we both needed that," she replied, cocking her eyebrow.
Tony's eyebrows shot up in response, and a grin slowly spread across his lips. "Good to know," he replied with a sly smile, before leaning back in and capturing her lips once more with his, this time to kiss her slowly, and deliberately.
Pepper smiled as she melted into the kiss. They continued again for several moments, until Tony noticed Pepper slightly disengage, and let out a quiet whimper. He frowned, broke the kiss, and opened his eyes to look at her. "You okay? What's wrong?" he asked.
She winced. "As much as I'd like to continue, I can't I'm afraid. I'm sorry," she told him. She slid out of his arms and gingerly laid back against the upright part of her hospital bed, sighing heavily as she once again got comfortable.
Tony had frowned when she'd said she couldn't continue, but then smiled in relief, nodding in understanding as he realized she meant she physically couldn't sustain the position she was in- not that she didn't want to. "Got it, Potts. And as much as I'd love to keep making out with my wife, you're tired. Totally understandable," he assured her. He picked up her hand, and held it in his. "So let's take a breather, huh?" he asked.
Pepper smiled. "Thank you," she said. "Although, I'm not too tired to keep listening. Surely there's more to this riveting tale of yours," she joked.
Tony chuckled awkwardly. Oh, you have NO idea, he thought to himself. "Uh, yeah. There's...more to tell you," he answered, his tone cautious. "Quite a bit more, actually."