Disclaimer: Don't own. Either of them. I just put them in a blender with ice, then poured them in a glass with some salt around the rim. Don't worry. I'm not going to drink it. Probably. I should also probably buy some life insurance.

Chapter 14: Trust and Good Faith

Fleetwood Mac- The Chain

After Angela washed her hands she took the Mark I chest piece upstairs. It hadn't seemed right to destroy it. Even if Tony said he wasn't nostalgic, Angela was.

When she got to the top of the stairs she saw that Pepper was working in the living room and half watching some stock show. Angela rolled her eyes at the host's dramatics. She walked over to the PA and sat down. "I wouldn't bother watching the commentary. It won't be good," she declared.

The red head looked up to greet her but stopped when she saw what Angela had in her hands. "What is that?"

Angela looked down at the piece and felt her lips turn up in a soft smile. "The Mark I miniature arc reactor." She held it up. "Tony's."

"That's the thing that was keeping him alive?" Pepper asked, sounding both concerned and fascinated. "It's pretty," she observed.

"It is," Angela agreed. "Tony wants it destroyed but I just couldn't do it." She looked up at Pepper and shrugged. "It saved his life." She bit her bottom lip and then admitted, "It probably saved my life."

"Oh," Pepper looked at her in realization, obviously seeing the light showing over the edge of her tank top. "No more battery?"

The smile Angela felt pull across her face was wide. "No more battery." Her attention fell back to the reactor slightly humming in her hand. "I thought, I don't know," she trailed off. "He should keep it. A reminder."

Pepper looked between Angela and the Mark I with a mischievous grin on her face. "I know just what to do with it," she claimed. Angela held it out to the red head and the woman cradled it in her palm. "It hums," she observed in wonder.

"I know." Angela put a hand on her own arc reactor. "It's like a little heart."

…...

"The only reason I was keen to avoid the press before was because the electromagnet was obvious." Angela worked the espresso machine in Tony's shop while he sat on the couch in front of the flat screen. "I can handle a hoard of nosey reporters. I'll keep my chest covered. The world will just assume I have a horrific scar from my experience and leave it at that."

She did have a horrific scar from her experience. They both did. It was just a bit more involved than something cosmetic. He didn't bother commenting on it. Instead he quipped, "Twenty four hours to monitor output, Panda. Then I'll release you back into the wild."

He heard her huff, but she still filled two cups. She crossed the room and sat one on the coffee table in front of him. Angela was one of the few people who never tried to hand him things.

"Besides, I need to discuss what's going to happen to your weapons development minions with you. Then I need your opinion on a project." Tony continued.

Angela lowered herself into a chair adjacent to him. She sipped her espresso and answered easily, "Alright. What do you have in mind?"

That was one of the things he liked about Angela. From the moment he'd met her there had been no fawning, just getting things done.

"As of last Monday everyone under you is laid off." He saw her green eyes widen slightly. "You know those people better than I do, think we can repurpose them into a clean energy department?" He leaned back and watched her purse her lips in deliberation.

"I can think of several people employed in the department who would be flexible enough to handle the change over to energy." She smiled softly. "Two that would be very enthusiastic." Tony wondered who she was thinking of that put that affectionate look on her face.

She set her empty cup down on the table and crossed her legs, her expression thoughtful. "Unfortunately there will be turnover. Human resources would need to evaluate everyone."

Tony tapped a finger on the side of his cup. He nodded slowly. "We'll hammer it out with HR."

She folded her hands in her lap. "It might be best to start small," she ventured. "I can think of at least one team of people that would work well together right now." She rattled off a list of names.

He hummed, unconcerned. "Send an email to HR with their details. I want you heading this."

A short grin flashed across her face. "Well I won't say no."

Tony narrowed his eyes. "Co-heading," he amended after some thought. Angela blinked at him. "I want you free to work with me on arc reactor technology." She was really the only one he would allow. He couldn't have all her time taken up by running, what would end up being, a new cornerstone department for his business.

With a flutter of amusement, Tony saw that it took her a moment to respond. He always loved it when he could throw her off. She was hard to rattle.

"I am, of course, always willing to collaborate with you, Mr. Stark." She answered formally.

"Tony," he reminded her. If they were going to partner as much as he wanted, the woman would get used to using his first name.

He tilted his head and regarded the brunette across from him. Tony tumbled his decision to involve her with his idea of the Mark II suit around in his mind again. If anyone would understand his desire to make up for some of what he'd done it would be her. Still, the suit was a somewhat vague idea. There was a lot of design and testing necessary before it came to anything real world.

"I'm laying low," he informed her as much as he reminded himself. "If I send you with the proposal to Obadiah can you lay it out for him?"

"Yes." There was a small pause before she finished, "Tony."

"Great," Tony sat his cup down on the table and popped to his feet. "We'll do that tomorrow. Right now we need to go visit Rhodey." He wanted to talk to the man about some principles of flight.

…...

The car had been quiet since they had left Edwards Air Force Base.

"He thinks like a military man," Angela felt the need to defend. It was a weak defense because Jim was supposed to be Tony's friend. He was supposed to at least hear him out.

To say the talk with the Colonel did not go well would be an understatement. He'd shut Tony down as soon as he realized the man wasn't going back into the weapons business. When he'd tried to get her on side, she'd been forced to disappoint him. Jim may have gotten her to Italy, but there were some things Angela couldn't do. Going back to designing weapons for the government was right at the top of that list.

In the prolonged silence Angela sucked on her bottom lip. "I don't think you need to get your mind right," she assured him. After a few more moments of nothing she admitted, "But maybe my mind isn't right either."

Tony finally spoke. "Because you agree with me?"

"Because I'm angry," Angela corrected. And she was, all the time. She put up a good facade, but underneath she was a bubbling pot.

It had started the moment she woke up at Aviano. Being back in the states, and finally off the battery, hadn't changed it. She was angry at herself for her short-sightedness and irresponsibility. She was even more livid with the people who had stolen, and were illicitly using, her weapons.

From her peripheral vision she saw Tony's mouth give a lopsided grimace. "Yeah," he agreed. Angela gazed down at her hands in her lap and wondered if she could share her thoughts. After a long time Tony muttered, "I thought he'd listen."

She contemplated what it would have been like if Mike had shut her down as hard in Italy. Having him on board with her was probably the difference between her living and dying. Her eyes tracked over to Tony, considering.

The revelations she'd had in Italy were something she didn't want to talk about, but she found she couldn't hold her silence in the face of Tony's dejection. "Jim doesn't understand that there's a responsibility that comes with creating something." She stared hard at the passing scenery, trying not to think about her nightmares and how much of them were someone else's reality.

"You were just doing your job," Tony reminded her, voice clipped.

Angela nodded stiffly. "It was a job I chose. I am responsible for that tech being out in the world." It was a truth that had filled up the hollow spaces in her bones. It made her feel heavy. "It doesn't matter if someone else would have come up with it if I hadn't. It doesn't matter if I didn't come up with it by myself. When it's used against it's purpose, a portion of that blame is mine. Jim either doesn't, or doesn't want, to understand that."

After another long stretch of silence Tony offered. "It's my company. If there hadn't been leaks," he trailed off.

Angela cut into the quiet. "We supplied the US government in trust that they could distinguish the good guys from the bad guys." She thought of how naïve and narrowly focused she'd been with a wince. "But they have lapses in security too. Convoys get ambushed. Shipments get stolen."

Tony sped around a curve and then gritted out, "And what? That's just the way it goes?"

"I'm sure a military man would say yes, that the benefits outweigh the losses. But I won't be a part of that. Acceptable losses of my tech do not exist," she bit out. "If I could, I would destroy every piece of it out there. But I can't." She drew in a deep breath, feeling the molten mix of injured pride, disgust, and disillusionment boiling in her gut. "It makes me furious."

Tony cleared his throat lightly. "What do you do instead?"

"I don't know," she sighed, still feeling raw and ugly. "But I'll keep looking until I find that thing I can do that will make up for the things that I've done."

…...

Angela was able to call Mike while he was home that afternoon. Brandon had taken over the phone in the way only a four year old could. He gabbed to her about the math unit they were doing and how his new friend was teaching him sign language.

Later that night Angela found that the conversation was enough for her subconscious to bring on the really horrible dreams again. By two in the morning she had given up on sleep and tucked herself into the couch in Tony's living room. She was tiredly fidgeting with the leg of her pajama pants, watching a documentary on tsunamis, when Tony's voice came over the intercom.

"Panda, come downstairs," he called.

Her eyebrows rose at the demand. He was still awake? That man had no respect for normal sleeping hours.

Angela stood up, dropping the throw pillow she'd been curled around back on the couch. She brushed her hair off her shoulder and made her way down the stairs to the lab. Upon entering her security code, she glanced around the shop.

"Come take a look at this." Tony was standing in front of the holoprojector table with his back to her.

Wrinkling her nose at the cold concrete under her socks, Angela padded over to his side. She frowned at the image displayed in green light above the table. It looked like a human figure with crude tech on it's arms and legs. "What am I looking at?"

After a moment of quiet, Angela glanced to the side and did a quick double take. Tony was staring at her, his face slightly slack. She opened her mouth to ask what was going on with him, when he blinked and came back to himself.

"The way I escaped," he admitted brusquely.

Angela's gaze whipped back to the projection and then bounced back to Tony. "Did you have body armor?" It was the only thing she could think of, because his entire torso and back were exposed.

He clicked something with his stylus and a more complete version of the armor appeared. Angela leaned forward to study it, realizing why she'd only seen the arm and leg pieces in the first model. It was because the first model was actually a revision of the full suit design. She hummed. "I see why you got rid of those pieces. Can I?" She reached out to the partially disassembled model.

Tony nodded and Angela pushed her hand forward to enlarge the boot assembly. She scrutinized the crude rocket launchers. They wouldn't have lasted long. "Got the specs for the repulsors from the Freedom Line on here?"

Without saying anything he clicked and drug a set of schematics from his computer screen. Angela studied the model of the repulsor and then the configuration of the boots. She was already working through how to combine the two when she thought to stop and really consider what she was doing. She finished tapping out the string of math she'd been inputting before turning back to Tony. "What are you doing?" she asked.

His mouth was tense and his eyes dark as he watched her. "Making a Mark II."

Angela bit her lip and looked back at the suit design. If he didn't want to make weapons anymore, why was he making a suit? "What for?"

"Personal project," he answered evenly.

"You're going to keep this with you?" She checked slowly.

"Yes," he nodded.

"What are you going to use it for?" She wasn't sure if she should push. But if this was the project he had mentioned wanting her opinion on earlier, she wanted to know before she got involved. She hoped she'd learned her lesson on that.

"I'm not." he tilted his head, "Exactly sure yet." He paused, and Angela wondered if he was being completely honest with her. "But maybe I could do some good," he finished lowly.

She crossed her arms, shifting on her socked feet. "This is the project you were talking about earlier?" She double checked.

He nodded again.

Angela looked between him and the green hologram. If he was successful, and Angela had every confidence he would be, it would break the mold for several technological branches. In the wrong hands it could be worse than anything she had ever designed before. When she pulled her gaze off the design and back to Tony, she caught sight of the light from the arc reactor glowing in her chest.

All the lines of thought in her head really boiled down to one question. Did she trust Tony? Angela looked into her boss's brown eyes, seeing the reflected lights of the hologram and the arc reactors. He stared back, his gaze level.

He could do it on his own. He would. But he was asking her, in his indirect way, to work with him. The man needed someone with him. Maybe he even wanted someone with him.

She sucked in a breath through her nose and let it out slowly. Tony had been just as disturbed and angry as she had about the misappropriation of SI weaponry. He'd decided to move away from weapons manufacturing for similar reasons she had.

"I'm going to take this on faith," she said slowly. An eyebrow rose challengingly. "Do not make me regret it."

Tony gave her a quirk of his lips and dipped his chin in acquiescence. "Or angry Panda. Got it."

Angela shook her head sharply. "I'm serious, Tony," she pressed. "You know what this could be. Don't make me regret it?"

His eyes softened and he reached a hand out, flipping a lock of dark hair over her shoulder. "Okay," he agreed quietly.

She straightened her posture before turning fully back to the table. Sniffing at the lackluster booster system, she leaned forward to type in a few more commands. The boots slap dash rockets were replaced with the repulsors.

"If you're going to fly in this thing you're going to need stabilizers," she announced primly. After a moment of thought she added, "And flaps." With another glance down at the design she muttered to herself, "Full control surfaces."

Later that morning Angela fell asleep in the lab for the first time.

…...

Tony glanced across at the woman sleeping slumped over on the desk. She had her face buried between her arm and the keyboard. From the angle he was at all he could see was a mess of dark brown hair and the curve of a shoulder.

Angela was one of those women who could pull off commanding and lovely at the same time. She'd mown through experienced engineers to get to her position. And she'd done so with a mixture of sass and confidence that was wholly attractive.

Tony had spent years peering at her through the keyhole of her sly, and sometimes dry, sense of humor. When she'd come down to the lab with her hair down her back, in socked feet and pajama pants, Tony couldn't stop staring.

The Angela that was in his shop, the one he'd slowly been seeing over the past two weeks, was a woman who had left her door open. He wondered why. He wondered why now. It made him nervous.

Rubbing a hand across his goatee, he clicked to send the finished department proposal to Pepper. His assistant would make sure Angela got it before her meeting. Once again, his thoughts turned back to his decision to bring Angela in on the suit.

Rhodey was out. Pepper and Happy's help would be almost solely limited to moral support. Angela was the only one left he trusted who could actually help him. Truthfully, she was the first person he'd thought about.

There was a moment when he was sure that she was going to turn around and go back upstairs, but she had stayed. He had been as honest with her as he could be. The specifics of what he was going to use the suit for where unknown to him. He wanted to do something good, something that would help balance out what his thoughtlessness had allowed to propagate.

He stared at the top of the sleeping woman's head. She was looking for something similar. Tony allowed that thought to roll around in his head as he tapped his fingers against the desk. Finally, he leaned forward and got back to work.

…...

Raza, leader of the Ten Rings, watched his men dig as a harsh wind whipped the sand around them. The tiny grains abraded the open burn on the right side of his head, a souvenir from his encounter with Stark.

Two of his men passed him carrying a large piece of partially destroyed machinery. From further up the dune, another of his underlings called for his attention. The man held up a familiar silver face mask. Raza beckoned the man to him.

He took the mask in his hand, eyes tracing over the various scratches and dings along its surface. Stark's machine had allowed him to single handedly decimate Raza's outpost. It survived bullets and fire. It could fly.

The sun beat down on the top of Raza's bald head. It glinted off the metal in his hand.

…...

Half an hour before her meeting with Mr. Stane, Happy pulled up to the Stark Industries corporate office. It had been only two weeks since she'd returned to the States, so a few reporters were still camping out on the steps.

Knowing she'd be in public, she'd taken extra care with her clothing so that the glow of the arc wouldn't shine through. She shuffled the fit of the boat neck and made a note to do some shopping. She'd lost weight in Italy.

Happy opened the door for her. "Good luck," he whispered. "I'll be waiting to take you home after."

"Thanks, Happy. I'll call," Angela assured.

Once she turned to ascend the steps into the building, the reporters recognized her. Shouts of her name and a press of questions flowed around her. Thankfully, SI corporate had security guards at the main entrance. Angela powered through the throng without acknowledging them. When the door closed behind her, she had a moment to be grateful the reporters didn't have access to the lobby.

Slight tremors ran through her hands and she balled them into fists a few times. Maybe she wasn't as ready to deal with nosy journalists as she had claimed.

At one in the afternoon Mr. Stane's secretary gestured for Angela to enter his office. She stood and passed a hand over her suit skirt to smooth out the wrinkles. Upon entering the room, which she'd only been in twice before, she was hit with the smell of stale cigar smoke.

The elder man stood from behind his desk, instantly swamping the room with his presence. A large, well manicured hand reached out to shake hers and he gave her a crinkle-eyed smile. "It's good to have you back with us, Angela."

"Thank you, Mr. Stane." She observed the business niceties. "I appreciate the patience and care yourself and Stark Industries has taken with my situation." Truthfully, she was still a little salty about the man locking her out of her lab.

"Of course," he said amicably. He lead her to a set of sofa chairs at the side of the room. "I see you've resolved your medical limitations," he commented as he settled into his seat. "HR informed me Tony had you cleared for work?"

"Yes, I was able to acquire a second opinion once back in the country." She kept her voice smooth but didn't elaborate. Tony had been very clear about his wish the arc reactor not be spoken about with anyone.

"That's wonderful news," Stane smiled. "Independent R&D though," he gestured. "That's a bit of a step back for you."

Angela straightened her shirt. "Mr. Stark assured me it was temporary. He's asked I begin work on the first project for the new department while assisting with the division's set up. As his goal is to absorb my former department into Clean Energy he felt I was suited for the responsibility."

Stane crossed his ankle over his knee and folded his hands. "Indeed you are. I hear you have the proposal from our prodigal son?" He questioned with some mirth.

"I do." With a quick flip, the folder she was carrying opened and she extracted the restructuring proposal from within. She handed the packet to him and began going over the salient points.

By the end of the meeting Stane had agreed with the plan and promised to schedule a meeting with the board of directors. As they stood up and shook hands, Stane's leg brushed against the folder that was balanced on the edge of the table. With a slight flutter, a few papers slid out to land on the floor. Angela crouched down to retrieve them.

Upon standing, she noticed that Mr. Stane was peering at her chest with a look of evaluation. Without her permission a brow arched high on her forehead. She'd never known Stane to look at the female workers like that, but then she hadn't often worked with him either. Dismissing his gaze, she laid the papers back on the folder.

He blinked and seemed to come back to himself. "Thank you, Angela. Have a good afternoon."

"You as well, Mr. Stane. Thank you for your time." With a bit more haste than normal, Angela made for the exit.

…...

Narrowed, thoughtful eyes lingered on the door as it swung shut. After a few moments of deliberation, Obadiah tilted his head back slightly in decision. He strode over to his desk and opened a drawer, retrieving a small, cheap cell phone. Dialing the only number on it, he waited.

"Dooley," a male voice answered.

Obadiah settled in his chair, looking at the door to his office as if he could see through it. "Plans have changed."

…...

Notes: I think this is one of my favorite chapters.