Rhodey woke up to someone bellowing for help. It sounded like Happy.
"What's going on?" he mumbled.
Normally, he was able to come around, fully alert, at the first sign of trouble, which was an often-needed skill in his line of work. Clearly, having a head injury, and being pumped up with pain meds thanks to that plus two broken legs, made waking up more of a challenge.
He was still rubbing sleep out of his eyes when Happy answered him with "Someone took the arc reactor," and rushed out of the room.
Right after Happy had left, a nurse entered the room. "Someone called for help?" she asked.
"Yeah," Rhodey said, and motioned at Tony's bed. When he turned to look at Tony himself, he saw that just like Happy had said, there was no sign of the trademark glow of the reactor.
The nurse walked over to Tony, took one look at him, called a "code blue" on the intercom, and started giving him mouth-to-mouth. It didn't take long before several more medics hurried into the room with a crash cart, and Rhodey found himself witnessing a scene straight from ER.
"Patient's completely unresponsive. Airway should be OK, but he's not breathing," the first nurse briefed the others. "Pulse at 160, BP 140 over 90."
"We need to intubate," a blond, middle-aged man in a lab coat ordered - he seemed to be taking the charge.
"Going in now," a younger man with long, dark hair in a ponytail answered him, already working on putting a tube down Tony's throat.
"Any idea of the cause?" the first man asked.
"He was admitted for heatstroke 40 hours ago. ARDS?" a nurse said, reading Tony's chart.
"Might be. What's that thing on his chest?"
"Nothing here about it."
Of course, Tony always wanted to give out as little information about the arc reactor as possible, because of the top secret nature of the technology, so he had only explained it to his attending. Since it wasn't on his file, none of these medics would realize how important that metal-lined hole in his chest was.
"Hey," Rhodey shouted, trying to catch their attention. "I think someone tried to murder him. Whatever you do, it might not help. Someone's taken his arc reactor. That device in his chest. If he doesn't get it back, his heart's going to stop."
"We'll do what we can," the nurse told him, and closed the curtains around Tony's bed, blocking Rhodey's view. Of course, that didn't keep him from hearing everything. It wasn't very encouraging to listen to, since things were spiraling downwards just as fast as he could've expected.
"He's not stabilizing."
"I don't think it's ARDS. He was attacked - poisoned, maybe?"
"Let's run a tox screen."
"BP's crashing!"
"Doctor Bright, look at the EKG."
"That makes no sense. What did that other patient say about this one's heart?"
"Something about the device in his chest, I'll go and ask him."
Well, finally, Rhodey thought, as one of the medics, the long haired young man, emerged from behind the curtains and approached him. He didn't wait for the doc to ask anything, because he already knew the question.
"He has shrapnel lodged in his chest, close to his heart, and that device was keeping it in place," Rhodey told him.
The medic's eyes widened a little at that, and he nodded. "That could explain some of his symptoms," he said, and turned around quickly. "It's cardiac tamponade," he shouted at the others, as he disappeared behind the curtains.
"From what? Pericarditis?"
"Bleeding, from penetrating trauma. We need an echo to -"
"What good's an echo going to be with that thing in the middle of his chest?"
Rhodey heard a phone ringing, and one of the medics answered it, but he missed the conversation, because suddenly, there was a hand on his shoulder. He jumped in surprise.
"Sorry. It's just me," Pepper greeted him, sounding tense. He hadn't noticed her enter the room at all, but there she was, standing by his bed.
"What happened?" she asked.
"I have no idea, really," Rhodey shook his head. "Someone took the arc reactor, and Happy went after them. He hasn't returned yet."
She breathed in sharply. "God... Is Tony..."
Rhodey shrugged. "They're doing their best."
Pepper sat down next to his bed, resting her elbows on his mattress and her chin on her folded hands. She was blinking hard, her even normally pale face completely colorless except for the freckles.
"Lost the pulse," someone shouted behind the curtains.
Rhodey felt Pepper's hand clasping his tightly.
"That's PEA. We can't wait, I'm going to do this blind."
After a few moments of charged silence, one of the medics said, "Got a pulse again," and Rhodey could start breathing again.
"Looks like pericardial bleeding, all right. Good call. Neal, alert trauma, we'll be there in five."
A minute or two later, the medics wheeled Tony out of the room. Pepper stood up and literally grabbed the sleeve of one of them.
"Please, can't you give us anything on his condition?" she asked.
The medic - the same young man who had talked to Rhodey earlier - humphed, looking displeased. "So far, all we know for sure is that there's bleeding around his heart, which is keeping it from working like it should. We've drained some of the blood to relieve the pressure, but we're going to have to crack open his chest to see what's going on. I've got to say, it doesn't look good," he explained matter-of-factly, and left the room to follow the rest of the medics.
Pepper ran after them, leaving Rhodey alone.
When the noise from the hallway had just died out, a scrub-clad woman entered the room, looking around, confused.
"I was told to bring this here," she told Rhodey, and showed him the arc reactor.
"Yes, Happy, what is it?"
"Someone's tried to kill Tony. I'm following them right now."
"Kill him? Oh God, what happened? Is he all right?"
"I don't know. You better get over here." Click.
Pepper had to stare at her Blackberry for a good long time after Happy had hung up on her, trying to reassure herself that she hadn't just imagined the whole phone call. It had been something straight out of a nightmare - getting a call in the middle of the night about something bad happening to Tony. No matter how hard she stared, the screen still showed that she really had received that call.
She dressed in the first clothes she could find, got in her car and drove to the hospital as fast as she could, speeding almost like Tony always did.
The woman at the information desk told her that the visiting hours were over long ago. Pepper waved her Stark Industries ID at her like a police badge. "I'm Tony Stark's personal assistant, and he needs me right now. You're not going to stop me," she told her firmly, and kept walking.
Apparently, she had been convincing enough, because she was able to make her way through the quiet nighttime hospital to Tony and Rhodey's room without anyone trying to stop her. The room was anything but quiet, with the medical team working frantically around Tony's bed, hidden from sight behind a curtain.
Pepper walked over to Rhodey, and sat with him for a few nerve-racking minutes, listening to the doctors fight for Tony's life. Once they took him out of the room, she followed them. Of course, she couldn't get in the same elevator, but she managed to get the directions for where they were headed.
Finally, she found herself sitting all alone in a waiting room, feeling surreal. Less than half an hour ago, she had been lying in her bed at home, fast asleep. Now, she was staring at a wall in a room almost identical to the one where she'd sat earlier, when they'd brought in Tony and Rhodey after the accident two days ago - it might've even been the same room, she couldn't be sure - only this time, the situation seemed even more dire.
She had thought that after the latest trouble, Tony would be out of danger for at least a few days, but someone had been cruel enough to strike him when he was already down. Pepper had no idea if it was even possible for him to survive without the arc reactor, and she was almost certain he had already spent so much time without it that getting it back wouldn't help anymore.
She really hoped Happy would catch the sick bastard who was behind this. She tried calling Happy, but he didn't answer.
The room wasn't as quiet as the rest of the hospital had been, there were nurses and doctors walking by every now and then, occasionally wheeling patients past her. She didn't really pay much attention to them.
She'd only been sitting there for around fifteen minutes, when a scrub-clad young woman stopped by, asked if she was Pepper Potts, and gave her the arc reactor. Apparently, the doctors hadn't had any use for it. That was all she could tell about Tony. Pepper couldn't stand looking at the device, just muttered a thank you and hid it in her handbag.
She didn't even feel like crying anymore. She had already cried more than once during the previous days, but now, all she could do was stare at the wall in disbelief. Tony had been fine when she'd left the hospital this evening - he had been improving so fast that she'd expected them to let him return home soon. She couldn't believe this was really happening.
She called Happy a few more times, but he still wasn't answering. After a few hours of lonely, worried waiting, she was approached by a doctor, a balding man she hadn't met before.
"Evening. You wouldn't happen to be Miss Potts, would you?"
"Yes, I am," she said, standing up, her heart in her throat. "Did he make it?"
"Yes, he's stable. The bullet nicked his liver and he lost a lot of blood, but -"
"What?" she said dumbly, frowning. "His liver? What bullet? I don't understand. He wasn't shot, it was shrapnel."
"I recognize a gunshot would when I see one, Miss, and that's what Mr. Hogan had in his side."
"Mr. Hogan?" she repeated, understanding even less.
"Yes, Miss. Harold Hogan. I thought you knew him, seeing as he gave us your name. You are Pepper Potts, right?"
Feeling faint, Pepper sat down again. She felt like she needed to pinch herself to make sure she really wasn't still asleep. Happy had been shot? It must've been the same villain who'd tried to murder Tony. Oh, God. Not Happy, too!
"Yes, yes, I am Pepper Potts, I do know him, I just wasn't expecting - I thought you were - I had no idea he was..." she rambled. Putting together a sentence that made any sense felt barely possible. "He's going to be all right?" she finally managed.
"Take it easy, Miss. As I was trying to say, barring complications, he should be fine," the doctor said reassuringly. "He's still in post-op, but someone will inform you as soon as you can see him."
"All right. Thank you," she said softly. She was shivering all over, although it wasn't even cold.
"Miss, are you all right?" the doctor asked her sympathetically.
No, she wasn't, not when everyone around her was injured or dying, but she wasn't sick, either, so she nodded.
The doctor left. She sat there in a stupor, no longer paying any attention to the passage of time.
Later on - maybe it was an hour, maybe five - a nurse took her to see Happy.
He was lying in a hospital bed, looking pale and sick, just like Tony and Rhodey had been. He had a huge bruise on his cheek, one of his eyes was swollen shut, and he was dazed because of the pain medication. Still, the first thing he asked her was, "How's the boss? Was I fast enough?"
She knew for a fact that he hadn't been fast enough, since the reactor was in her bag, but she couldn't bring herself to say that to him. "I don't know," she said instead. "He's still in surgery."
Much, much later, when bright daylight was filtering into the room through the blinds, a doctor finally showed up to give them the news.
"Mr. Stark is alive, but I'm afraid there were some serious complications."