Chapter 9

Lucky for me, marrying rich means having an elevator in your home. Before Afghanistan, we really only used it when we were either too drunk or sleep deprived to use the stairs. Now I use it to get down to our lab. Tony was working on building a replacement arc reactor, the one he built in the cave wasn't reliable enough for him. I was working on creating a cybernetic leg that would have full range of motion like a real leg. I wanted to be able to release the leg to the public along with other prosthetics. Cybernetic technology was my planned contribution the future of Stark Industries as we take the company in a new direction.

"Hey, pop tart, how big are your hands?" Tony called to me from the side of the room. I guess he finished the reactor because when I looked up he was hooked up to a heart monitor. I wheeled my way over to him, showing him my hands.

"You know how big my hands are, fruit loop." I raised my eyebrow suggestively.

He gave me a dirty smirk, "Yeah, I do." He grabbed my left hand, playing with my fingers. "I need to replace the reactor and I can't do it by myself. There's an exposed wire that I can't reach."

I give him a disgusted look. "There's gonna be discharge...that stuff smells." He pouted at me and I caved. The things I do for this man. "Your lucky I love you. You'd suffer without me."

He removed the old arc reactor, handing it to me to put on the table. Then he handed me the wire sticking out of his chest. It was only then did I realize that I couldn't see into the cavity. "Houston, we have a problem." I muttered.

Tony gave me a very concerned look, fitting considering I had my hand stuck inside the thing keeping him alive. "What? What is it? What happened?"

"I can't see all the way into the cavity from the chair."

"You can't see! I wish you would've told me earlier, before I took out the thing that's keeping me alive." He took a deep breath. "Okay, you'll be fine. I believe in you. Just go slow."

Despite what Tony seemed to think, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing so of course I accidently pulled out the magnet that was keeping him alive. "OH SHIT! That wasn't supposed to happen! What do I do?! Tony, it's going to be okay. Once I figure out what I'm doing."

Tony shoved the new arc reactor in my hand as all the machines beeped about his imminent demise. "Connect it to the base plate before I die." He surged up as I connected the new power source and the machines stopped beeping. "Yeesh, if you wanted a divorce, you didn't have to try and kill me." I was breathing kinda heavy, a little stressed after that, and Tony noticed so he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his chest. "I love you, pop tart. Thank you for helping me not die."

"I love you too much to let you die, fruit loop." I felt him kiss the top of my head. We sat there for a moment, drawing comfort from one another until I moved back. "Come on, let's go snuggle with our daughter. She might be 19 but both her parents almost died and she's been stress eating ice cream so I think she needs some hugs." I started towards the elevator but the old reactor sitting on the table caught my eye. "What should I do with this?" I questioned, picking it up.

Tony just shrugged, "It doesn't matter. Destroy it, incinerate it, I don't care. It's garbage."

But I had another idea, because this little machine had kept my husband alive through some of our darkest times and sometimes Tony needed the reminder that he still had a heart. So when I went upstairs, I tossed the arc reactor to Darcy, "This thing was keeping your dad alive. Remind him that he still has a heart and do something cool with that."

Darcy smiled at me and the reactor, "I know just the thing."

Apparently Darcy's thing was to put the arc reactor in a glass case and surround it with the words "Proof Tony Stark has a heart" with a photo of Darcy and I set inside the glowing part of the reactor. It was exactly what I was thinking and I knew Tony was secretly going to love it while grumbling about it.

Tony was meeting up with Rhodes somewhere while Darcy helped me with the prosthetic I was making for myself. The house wasn't very maneuverable in the wheelchair and current prosthetics left something to be desired. The idea for my leg was to make it as fully functionable as possible while not being clunky and uncomfortable while also keeping the prosthetic cost efficient for the general public. I was starting to understand what it was like to live in a world that wasn't accessible to everyone and as Stark Industries shifted away from weapons, I wanted to focus on making the world more accessible.

The leg would connect to the neural pathways in my body, allowing for full range of motion without any discomfort. Darcy was also helping me design skin like sleeves to cover the prosthetic for people who didn't want the cyborg look. I thought the cyborg look was pretty cool but I was a total dork, according to Tony. The leg was almost complete, it just needed to be fitted with a small arc reactor to power it. Darcy thought it needed a cool paint job but I liked the silver metal.

Tony's sudden entrance into the lab startled us and Darcy dropped the tiny screwdriver she was holding. Tony was clearly not happy, apparently Rhodey didn't like Tony's idea very much. Rhodey was not taking the news of Stark Industries leaving the weapons sector well but Tony and I felt that it was a necessary change after the horrors of Afghanistan. There was a need for change in the world and we wanted to be the catalyst for it.