A/N: Hey guys, the next chapter is here! I've been on a bit of a streak with this story and have managed to knock out several chapters in the past 2 days. So, enjoy!
It had been almost three days, going by Ruby's sense of time, since she had finished modifying her earpiece and started to plan a way to get it outside. She had several options, the first being the obvious and most stupid one of all, to plant it on one of their captors and hope for the best. No, if she was going to do this, she was going to do it properly.
While her father had ben working away with Yinsen, melting down the palladium and putting together something small and delicate, she sat by the fire on her own making use of whatever she could find. Scraps of metal from the weapons they had taken apart became daggers, and she now had a large supply of them. All hidden, of course.
"That doesn't look like a Jericho Missile." She heard Yinsen saying, clearly having finally paid enough attention to what Tony had been building.
"That's because it's a miniaturised arc reactor. I got a big one powering my factory at home. It should keep the shrapnel out of my heart." Tony told him, trying to concentrate on the last few fiddly bits on the device.
Yinsen seemed slightly astonished. "But what could it generate?" He wondered, looking at it in awe.
"If my math is right, and it always is…" Tony started, only for Ruby to call out and interrupt him.
"Three gigajoules per second. And that's my math, and I know it's right." She called over to them, getting a smirk from Tony and a still awestruck look from Yinsen.
"That could run your heart for 50 lifetimes." The doctor commented as Ruby came over to look at the small device as well.
She nodded at him a little. "Yeah, or something big for 15 minutes. And this, my friend, is our ticket out of here." She told him, carefully picking it up from the workbench and inspecting it more.
As she did, Tony grabbed a pile of papers, that all had mismatched lines and writing all over them. "Flatten them out and look." Tony told him, watching his daughter out of the corner of his eye.
Yinsen done as he was told. "Impressive." He breathed, seeing the designs for a mechanical suit that really could be their way out. "And who's idea was this then?" He asked, looking between the two Starks.
Tony and Ruby both shared a little glance. "Well, I came up with the arc reactor, you can claim the suit if you want." She said, putting the arc reactor carefully back down on the workbench. "I mean, sure it was my idea, but since you're the one who will be in it, I let you design it."
"Oh, you let me, did you?" Tony asked her, a smirk trying to work its way onto his face.
"Uh, yep. I'm the brains of this outfit, you're just the… I guess I have to call you the brawn." Ruby said, knowing that it was going to annoy him a little. "Anyway, moving swiftly on, we're wasting precious time. It doesn't matter who came up with what, all that matters is getting the hell out of here."
Both the men just looked at her, noticing a little hint of something that they couldn't identify in her tone. Tony had noticed the way she had been acting, the way she had been constantly moving around. He just put it down to her being a bit restless and just needing to do something so she wouldn't go crazy, only now he was starting to think it was something else.
"Yeah, you're right, honey." Tony told her, giving her a one armed hug. "We still got a lot of work to do."
"Exactly, so let's just get on with getting this fitted, and then crack on with the suit. Anyone have any objections to that?" She looked at both the men, just waiting for one of them to say something to her, but not a word was said. "Right, let's do this then." She said, before wandering over to a pile of waste from the dismantled weapons.
"Oh, I don't like this." Tony mumbled to Yinsen, getting the man's attention. "The longer she is in here, the snappy she seems to get." He pointed out.
Yinsen nodded in agreement as they watched her sort through some of the materials. "It is understandable. It is clear she is worried about you, and she is doing everything she can to get you both out of here."
"No, to get all of us out if here. She's planning on dragging you along with us, you know? Ruby isn't likely to just leave you behind, not after everything you've done for the pair of us." Tony corrected him. Ruby had already told him that she was dragging Yinsen, kicking and screaming if she had to, when they finally got out of there. He had just agreed with her, because the man had actually saved his life and looked after his daughter.
"Either way, your daughter has a lot on her mind. For a young woman of her age to have been through what she has, and still be able to smile and laugh, it shows she is strong. But eventually, she will break." The doctor warned her, knowing that Ruby was putting on a good façade, but that it would soon crack completely. He had noticed it slipping at times, so he knew it wouldn't be long until the inevitable came.
Tony couldn't help but nod in agreement. He had seen it as well, especially at night when he could hear her muffled sniffling from the silent tears that kept falling. "Then we need to get working, like she said. The sooner she's out of here, the better."
Hours had passed, and Ruby had basically been ordered to get some sleep, not just by her father, but by Yinsen as well. They were both concerned for her, and Tony had a sneaking suspicion that she was up to something as well. He already knew there was a lot she wasn't telling him, but he was sure that this was something serious.
But that wasn't the only reason they wanted her to sleep, they didn't want her to see when Yinsen disconnected the car battery and inserted the arc reactor into her father's chest. If something went wrong, neither of them wanted her to see it, they didn't want her to blame herself if it failed. They were thinking of her more than anything.
Everything went perfectly fine, and Tony had to admit that he felt a lot better now that he wasn't carrying around that stupid battery. The pair of them sat by the fire, playing a game of backgammon while Ruby continued to sleep. "Good roll, good roll." Yinsen said, as they played.
"You still haven't told me where you're from." Tony commented, quickly glancing over at Ruby and noticing her tossing around a little. He wasn't too worried just yet, he had spent enough time watching her sleeping in that cave to know when she was having a nightmare now. So far she was just getting a little restless, most likely because of how comfortable those little cots were.
"I'm from a small town called Gulmira. It's actually a nice place." The doctor answered, looking over at Ruby as well.
Tony turned his attention back to the game they were playing. "Got a family?"
"Yes, and I will see them when I leave here. And you, Stark? Do you have anyone apart from your daughter?" The man asked him. He had not pried into who Ruby's mother was, and if she would be worrying about them both, he knew it wasn't his place.
A sigh slipped past Tony's lips. "Just Ruby. Her mother she… she died a little while ago now. The last time I saw her was over 17 years ago, before Ruby was even born." There was so much sadness in his voice as he spoke about Jasmine. There was so much that he wished he could have changed, that he could have done better. He wanted nothing more than to go back in time and change who he had been, the way he had acted. Tony wanted to stop her from leaving, to have the family that they should have had. Yet he knew that was impossible, but it didn't stop him from wishing it.
"So, this is what you mean when you said you have only known her for a few months." Yinsen said, watching as Tony nodded his head in response. "You can be in your child's life forever and still not really know them. The time you have spent here, the two of you have grown, I have seen it."
At that comment, Tony frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well, just look at how you made sure she was asleep before we done this." He said, pointing at the arc reactor. "You thought of what could happen, of what could go wrong and how she would respond to that. Can you honestly say that would of happened if you had not been in here?"
Tony thought about it, about everything that they had been doing. Back at Stark Industries he had not taking too much interest in her work, he had let her get on with it because it was something she wanted to do. But now, in the cave, they were working together, and they were working together really well. It had made him see that he wanted to be involved with her work, to see what she was up to and not just let her get on with it. He wanted to be there for her and be a part of it all, for her. "No, I guess not."
"Ruby wants to be close to you, she wants to make you proud of her."
"I already am proud of her, from the moment I saw her I was proud of her. She doesn't need to do anything else." Tony told him quickly.
Yinsen nodded, a small smile on his face. "Yes, but she will always strive to be the best she can at everything to impress you. You're a new person in her life, she still has everything to prove to you in her eyes. To her, she still has to prove that she is worthy to be the daughter of Tony Stark."
"No. She doesn't have to do anything. I knew she was my daughter the moment I saw her standing over her mother's grave. I didn't need the DNA test to prove it, I didn't need to know how great she was with technology. She doesn't need to impress me, or prove anything to me." Tony replied, completely missing the small glance Yinsen made to where Ruby was.
"Even if there are things in her past that she is not proud of?" Yinsen asked, looking back at Tony and raising an eyebrow. He knew there were things that Ruby was keeping secret, he could see it on her face. But there was also that feeling that she was ashamed of something from her past, something she regrets and would rather forget about.
"I don't care what she's done in the past. I already know she got into a lot of trouble, she didn't have the greatest of childhoods, I know that. But that doesn't change anything, she is still my daughter, and I will still love her, no matter what." And he meant it, he really did. He had done things in his life that he wasn't proud of, most if it centring around Ruby's mother.
"Do you really mean that?" A voice whispered from behind him. Tony whipped his head around to see Ruby standing there, looking at him. "That the things I've done in the past don't matter?"
Tony reached out to her and pulled her over to him as he stood up. "Of course I mean it, Ruby."
She took a deep breath as she prepared herself to put his words to the test. "Even… even if… if I've killed people?" She managed to whisper to him.
That shocked him. That was not exactly something he had been expecting to hear from her, especially since she was only 17. "Have you?" He asked her, getting a small nod from her as an answer. "Ruby, I saw the way you were when we were taken, you were trying to defend yourself, to defend us." Tony told her, thinking that she meant the men she had killed when the convoy had been attacked.
"I've done some pretty terrible things in the past, but I'm not that person anymore. I don't want to be that person again. I don't like her, I don't want to go back." Ruby told him, before completely breaking down in his arms. She had thought about telling him that she had almost killed before then, when she had been younger, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She had never wanted to do it in the first place, but it was the way she had been trained, kill or be killed. Sometimes that instinct still takes over.
"Hey, come on honey, I know you don't. And you're not that person, you're never going to be her again, I promise you." Her father whispered to her, gently stroking her hair as he tried to sooth her. "A fresh start. Yeah? You and me."
"And SWAIN, and JARVIS." She mumbled, making him chuckle a little. "I, uh, notice you upgraded the battery without me. That wasn't very nice." Ruby said, noticing the blue light coming from her father's chest, and the fact that he no longer had the car battery anywhere near him.
Tony rolled his eyes while Yinsen just smiled from where he was still sitting. "Well, like you keep reminding us, the sooner we get everything done, the sooner we can get out of here."
"Well then, we really need to make some more progress on the next phase then. Did you manage to get any of that done at all?" Ruby asked him, looking over to the workbench and seeing that it was just in a complete mess. "Judging by the mess, I'm going to say no. What have you both been doing?"
"Uh, playing a game and talking?" Tony answered, preparing himself for what he knew was going to come from her next.
"Well, you can go and clear all that lot up so that…"
"Nope. You can stop right there, Ruby." Tony said, holding up a hand and stopping her from speaking. "We all need a break, all three of us. You've either been working with me, or on your own, you need to just stop for a while and take it easy."
"I agree with your father. We both know you have not been eating, no matter how much you pretend to have eaten, we can still see it." Yinsen told her. "You have headaches and dizzy spells, all because you are not eating."
Ruby just raised an eyebrow at the man. "Is it any surprise that I'm not eating much? The food is disgusting in here. Give me a steak and I will eat it in no time at all. Oh, a nice juicy steak."
"And the rest, Ruby?" Tony asked her, giving her a very firm look. Clearly he wasn't happy, even though he understood how disgusting the food really was. "Why didn't you mention the headaches and dizziness?"
She shrugged her shoulders at him a little. "Didn't think much of it. Not like this lot are going to care if my blood sugar is low. If I end up unconscious because of it, they won't care."
"Why did you not mention this before?" Yinsen asked, slightly scolding her for not bothering to mention that she had a slight condition that involved her blood sugar levels.
Tony just looked at her, a firm look on his face still. "That's what I'd like to know as well." He said, folding his arms across his chest.
Ruby let out a sigh, knowing that she was backed up against a wall. "Because I wasn't thinking about it. I was worried about if my dad was dead or alive, while trying not to panic over being trapped in a cave with a bullet in my leg. Then I had to go and get myself beaten up by some terrorists, oh and then, you know, tortured." She said, her voice growing as her rant went on. "After, came the worry of the car battery hanging from an electromagnet in my father's chest, which was then followed by the threat of either making a weapon, or being killed on the spot."
By this point, both the men were looking at her, shifting a little uncomfortably. "Yeah, Ruby…" Tony started, only for her to glare at him.
"Oh, I'm not finished yet." She warned him, before getting back to her little, or rather big, rant. "So then, under the pretence of making the Jericho Missile, it was taking weapons apart to get all the materials to make a miniature arc reactor, for you, my dad." Ruby said, pointing to her father. "The next task came in the form of trying to fix something to get the attention of the outside world. So please excuse me if it slipped my mind that I tend to suffer if I don't get enough sugar into my system."
Somehow, Tony knew what was coming next. He quickly put his arms out just as Ruby's legs gave way. "You finished now?" He asked her quietly as he held onto her tightly. She nodded at him a little, regretting it as it made her head spin. "Right, so now you can go back to bed. Got it?"
"What, because my legs fell asleep?" She moaned, as her father gathered her up in his arms properly.
"Uh, no, because you only slept for about 2 hours. And like you pointed out, there's been a hell of a lot going on. So bed, no arguments." He told her, carrying her to the cot and gently placing her down on it. "Please, just go back to sleep."
Ruby simply mumbled something at him, as she closed her eyes. She was out of it in an instant and curled herself up into a ball like she usually did. Tony grabbed the blanket and tossed it over her, giving her a kiss on her forehead before going and sitting back down with Yinsen.
"Your daughter, she suffers from hypoglycaemia?" Yinsen questioned, looking over at her now sleeping on the cot.
"Uh, yeah. She usually just stuffs her face with jelly beans and gets on with it. First time I met her, she showed up at my home, had a dizzy spell whens she tried to leave and then blacked out." Tony told him, remembering that evening clearly. "Usually she is okay if she eats properly. The first few days were a struggle with her, I was having to make her have sugar in her tea and coffee. She hated it."
The man opposite him nodded at him a little. "This environment has not helped. She is not getting the nourishments that she needs, and the longer she is here, the worse it will get."
Tony knew that he was right, and that he needed to get her out of there fast. She had already suffered so much, and he couldn't bear to see her suffer any more. "Exactly, so now we need to get on with the next task." He told the man, before getting up and heading over to the workbench.
Yinsen watched as Tony started to clear everything off, making space and looking at the plans for the suit that had been created. He wasn't going to waste any more time, not when his daughter was being put through so much. Tony had seen her work with determination in her eyes, and now it was his turn. She done all that for him, and now he was doing the same for her.
"You might as well get some sleep." Tony called over to the man watching him. "Tomorrow is going to be a long day, if it's not day already. I've lost all sense of time in this place."
"And you should also rest." Yinsen reminded him. "You will be no good to anyone, especially not your daughter, if you are too exhausted to do anything."
"As soon as I have this lot cleared up. Seriously, once this is done, I'll sleep." Tony assured him, not bothering to turn and look at the frown the man was giving him. Of course, Yinsen didn't believe him, he knew that Tony Stark was likely to stay up until he passed out now.
"Well, make sure you do. Your daughter needs you, Mr Stark." The doctor replied, before heading over to his own cot to sleep.
Tony had been at the workbench for several hours, clearing off everything he didn't need and tidying it all up. He was in his own little world, until the sound of the bolts being pulled back brought him back to reality.
His eyes shot over to his daughter, who was still asleep, as was Yinsen, before they fell on the group of men that had entered the room. They were speaking in a language that he didn't understand, their eyes seemingly searching the room for something. Tony felt his heart drop when one of the men pointed to Ruby.
"Hey! What are you doing? Leave her alone!" Tony shouted, quickly moving across the cave to get to his daughter, only to be stopped by a gun.
The sound of his panicked voice woke up both Ruby and Yinsen. "Dad? What's going on?" She muttered, sitting up and rubbing her eyes a little. Before her father could reply, strong hands had grabbed hold of her arms and were pulling her up. "Get off me!"
"Wait! What is going on?" Yinsen shouted, trying to find out why they were manhandling the young Stark. "Where are you taking her?"
The man pointing the large gun at Tony replied in a language that both Yinsen and Ruby understood. Her glare hardened as she struggled once more to get out of the vice like grip she was stuck in.
"What is it? What did he say?" Tony asked, not taking his eyes away from his daughter.
Yinsen cleared his throat, glancing between Ruby and Tony. "They say, you have not been working quick enough. That the girl is distracting you." He told him, looking very nervous as he spoke. "They have been ordered to remove her, to encourage you to work quicker. He says you will see her again when you have shown you can work."
"Take my daughter away and I won't work at all. Take her away and you may as well just kill me now." Tony spat at the man before him, staring at him hard, testing him.
"Dad, no. It's okay." Ruby called to him, stopping her struggling and deciding to just go with it. "It's fine, yeah? You just get on and make that missile. Then we can go home, right?" She told him, her eyes pleading for him to just go along with it all. She knew that they had lied, they lied about the reason why she was being taken, and she just knew it.
"Ruby…"
She quickly shook her head at him. "It's fine, I'll be fine." She told him, before turning to the men holding onto her and speaking their language to them. They looked over at the man in charge, who simply nodded, causing their grip on her to disappear. Ruby rushed over to her father and gave him a hug. "It's okay, this is my chance to get help." She whispered to him.
That was when he realised that she was going to take that opportunity to try and get out and send out a signal for help. He knew she wasn't abandoning him, she wasn't just leaving him there, she was helping their escape. "Be careful, Ruby. You're my little girl, and… I love you, honey." He whispered back to her.
She couldn't help but chuckle at his comment. "Love you too, old man." She said, before finally letting him go. "See you both in a few days then." Ruby nodded at them, and then walked back to the men who had taken hold of her so roughly.
This time, they didn't hold her arms quite so tightly, since she was going with them willingly. She gave her father one last look before the door closed behind her, and she could have sworn his eyes were glistening with tears, but then again, so were her own. She really only had one shot at this, at getting out and into the open. If she didn't get it right, they would all be dead.
She was thinking so much on her plan that she failed to notice the direction in which she was being taken. Ruby had just assumed that she would be taken to the same room she had arrived in, but it appeared that was not the case. They had gone in a completely different direction, and she finally noticed that they seemed to be heading towards the front of the cave.
A large door was pulled open, and Ruby was tossed inside the room, before the door clanged shut behind her. She closed her eyes and listened to their footsteps, trying to get anything she could to help her. But the footsteps quickly changed, and there was a heavy pair heading towards the door.
Ruby pulled herself up off the dirty covered ground, brushing herself off and making herself look strong and completely in control. She was trying her best to keep her cool and keep it all together, she was not going to fall apart now, not after everything she had just been through with her father.
The door opened and a large, tanned skin man walked into the room, his eyes fixing on Ruby and never leaving her. "So nice to see you again, Miss Stark." The man said, stepping further into the room. "Do you know why you are hear?"
Ruby just shrugged at him, the same man who had come to see her when she had first been taken. The same man who told her she would be tortured and what they were going to ask her father to do. "No idea. Is it… because Tony Stark is my father?"
"You, Miss Stark, were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time." He told her, making her frown a little. "I am not a monster. I know that you are just a child, that you were just born into this world." The man told her, taking her slightly by surprise. "You are sick, Miss Stark. Do not think we haven't noticed."
That probably surprised her even more. "Yeah, I have this thing with my blood sugar levels." Ruby told him with a shrug. "No big deal."
"But it is. I have children of my own, Miss Stark."
"What are you getting at here? I mean, you've taken me away from my father because apparently he wasn't working fast enough. Now you're reminding me that I'm slightly ill at the moment, oh and that you have children. Why should any of this matter to me?" Ruby asked him, getting to the end of her tether. None of it was really making much sense to her at the moment.
"I had hoped that it might explain my next actions." The man said, before two other men came into the room. "Goodbye, Miss Stark." He told her, making her heart drop. Ruby had a fairly good idea of what was going to happen next, and she wasn't looking forward to it.
Suddenly, a sack was placed over her head, her hands grabbed tightly so that her wrists could be bound together. The men were shouting, giving orders, as she was thrown over someone's shoulder and carried out of the room she had been in.
'Keep it cool, Ruby, keep it cool.' She told herself. 'This is the best chance you are going to get, go with it, and do whatever it takes.' Ruby knew that she was going to be taken even further away from her father, she just didn't know where.
She felt a breeze on her arms, and soon enough Ruby could feel the sun on her skin. It was an amazing feeling, and she couldn't help but smile at it. Then she was brought back to reality, she had a job to do. She could enjoy being out in the sunshine later, right now she needed to get on with her plan, to complete her part of the mission to save her father. This time she was prepared, she may not have had the comfort of her gun in her pockets, but she had something that was going to cause her captors a lot more pain than a bullet.
A/N: I'm glad that so many of you like this story and are enjoying reading it. I've actually been having a really good time writing it recently, not that I haven't before, it's just been so much easier recently and constantly flowing.
I wonder if anyone can guess what's going to happen next?
A little bit more about Ruby's past, but there is a lot more to come, trust me. The next chapter is pretty good, if I do say so myself.
Anyway, thank you to everyone who has favourtied/followed the story, I'm glad you all like it. And a massive, gigantic, huge thank you to every single one of you that has taken the time ti review. I really do love to read them, and I really do read them, several times in fact. So please keep reviewing.
Pippa.