Pepper arrived back at the mansion in Malibu to find both Tony and Ruby fast asleep on the couch, the TV playing an old Disney film that she hadn't seen since she was a child in the background. Both of them looked exhausted, and judging by the pizza boxes spread all over the place, Tony may have actually been able to get Ruby to eat something.

She had come over to talk to Tony about someone who had approached her, an Agent Coulson from some division that she had never heard of or could really remember the name for. Now that she had seen the two of them so sound asleep, she didn't want to bother them. Tony was lying there on the couch, his daughter wrapped up in his arms.

It wasn't a sight she ever thought she would see, Tony Stark actually showing that he cared about someone other than himself. It was clear to see how much the man had changed since Ruby had came into his life, and it was good change. So instead of waking him up, she quietly made her way to one of the bedrooms, grabbed a blanket, and tossed it over them when she returned.

Instead of sitting there and watching them sleep, Pepper made her way into the kitchen to get on and do some work. She wanted to check on Ruby again to make sure she was okay, and to let her know that Liam had called her. Not once did Pepper have to apologise to him for Tony's behaviour and the way he spoke to him, not that she would have, Tony was right to be defensive about his daughter.

It also meant that she was close by if Tony needed or anything. She knew he wasn't going to leave Ruby alone, so she was going to be running around getting everything for him.

It must have been about an hour later when someone shuffled into the kitchen. Pepper looked up from her work and saw Ruby, her hair sticking up all over the place and her eyes a little red. "Hey, Ruby, are you okay?" She asked her softly, watching as she stumbled towards the refrigerator.

She stopped and froze when she heard Pepper's voice. "I… I was just…" Ruby whispered, seeming very nervous and anxious.

"You don't have to explain anything to me, Ruby. This is your home, you live here, you can do what you want." Pepper told her, looking at her with worry in her eyes. Something was wrong, something was so very wrong with the younger Stark.

Ruby just gave Pepper a slight nod, before slowly pulling open to refrigerator door and pulling out a bottle of water. She had just twisted the cap off the top, and put it to her lips when there was a shout coming from the other room. "Ruby? Ruby!?" Tony's voice cried, causing her to instantly drop the bottle to the floor.

"She's in the kitchen, Tony." Pepper called, hearing the panic and worry in his voice. A second later he was standing in the doorway, one hand on his chest as he panted slightly with his eyes fixed on Ruby. "She was just getting herself a drink of water, Tony."

Ruby was just standing there, the bottle of water now spilled at her feet. She knew that her father was worried about letting her out of his sight, but she never expected him to panic as much as he was. "Sorry. I just… I was getting…" Ruby managed to mumble.

Tony didn't say anything, he just stepping across the room and wrapped his arms around his daughter. "No, no, no. I'm sorry. I was just worried, that's all." He told her, holding onto her tightly.

"Tony, why don't you both go back to the living room, and I'll bring in some tea, okay?" Pepper said, ushering the pair out of the kitchen and back towards the couch.

He just nodded and sat himself back down on the couch, dragging Ruby down with him. "How you feeling, honey?" He asked her quietly, knowing that there was something wrong, but not knowing how to find out exactly what it was.

"I'm okay." She whispered to him, her eyes firmly fixed on the ground. "I only went to get some water. I didn't mean to worry you. I wasn't going anywhere."

"I know. I'm sorry, Ruby." Her father replied, making sure to wrap an arm around her. "I just… I'm worried about you, Ruby. I know that things have been difficult, and I wish I could change what happened. If something is wrong, you need to talk to me about it, honey. You can't keep it all to yourself, you need to talk to me about things, okay?"

She nodded at him a little, understanding that he was just as shaken up by everything that had happened. "I'm okay, really. It's just… difficult, you know?" Ruby told him, as they waited for Pepper to bring them some tea. "What happened, what we saw… we're never going to be able to forget that. Not a single second of it."

"I know, honey, I know." Tony said, letting out a sigh. He was glad that she was finally starting to talk to him, but until he saw her back to her old self a little more, he was going to keep on worrying.

"And… although we got out, and you pretty much destroyed that camp, there's still more of them out there." Ruby told him, trying to figure out everything she wanted to say to him. "We don't know how they got a hold of those weapons. We have no idea how many more camps there are like that."

Tony just looked at her, hearing what she was saying, but not fully understanding it all. "Okay, Ruby, what are you getting at here?"

She let out a sigh. "They need to be stopped. That's what I'm saying. We need to find out how the hell they got those weapons, find them, and destroy them."

"I'm sorry, we?"

Ruby nodded at him. "Yeah, we. Like you said, it's our name on the side of the building, our name on those weapons."

"No, Ruby. No." Her father replied sharply, his eyes wide. "You can't get involved in this. I won't let you."

"I already am involved. Those men left me for dead in an abandoned town." Ruby told him, taking him even more by surprise. "Before that they held both of us captive, where I was beaten and tortured. I am involved, dad."

Before Tony had a chance to say anything else, they heard Pepper gasping from the doorway, where she was holding two cups. "What… what did you just say, Ruby?" She asked, clearly not wanting to believe what she had just heard.

"Pepper, don't." Tony warned, not wanting Ruby to have to retell everything that had happened to her. It already made him uneasy to know what had happened to her, and he didn't want Pepper to slap him some more because of what his daughter went through.

"No, dad. It's… it's okay. Pepper deserves to know." Ruby told him, knowing that it was only right that she told Pepper what had happened. "My dad protected me, when the weapon exploded. But… I'd been shot in the leg, ended up with broken ribs and some pretty bad bruising." She told her, as the woman came and sat down on the couch with them both. "I was being kept away from him when we were there at first. It gave them the perfect opportunity to come and beat the hell out of me. I… I brought some of it on myself, I fought back and tried to get out."

"Ruby, you don't have to…" Tony said, knowing what was going tot be coming up next.

She shook her head. "Yes, I do. They… uh, they plunged my head into a barrel of water, to convince him to make the missile." Pepper gasped once more, and a few tears escaped her eyes. "Then they took me away, saying that dad wasn't working fast enough. I got beaten again, and left for dead. I managed to pull myself together, I had a punctured lung and some more battered and bruised ribs, but I made it to a village where the military regularly visited. And that was when Rhodey came for me." She finished, only just managing to keep herself together. Thinking back over it all wasn't fun, and she couldn't help but curse at herself for not acting like the agent she had been trained to be.

Ruby knew she could of handled the situation better, that she should have handled it better. She knew that with all her training, she should have been able to protect them and get them both out of it before they had even been captured. There was a lot she was blaming on herself, but she could never admit it to anyone else.

"Oh, Ruby." Pepper cried, before wrapping her arms around her and pulling her closer. "Ruby, I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry."

Ruby didn't really know what to say, and she didn't know why Pepper was so sorry. She hadn't had anything to do with it, it hadn't been her fault, she wasn't to know what was going to happen. Ruby knew she should have been more prepared, that she should have worked harder to keep her father safe. "It's over now. Dad and I are both home, and we're both alive." Ruby managed to whisper. "Just don't blame all of it on my dad, it wasn't his fault, honestly."

Pepper let out a small chuckle as she sobbed a little. "So, he's finally your dad then? Not Tony or Mr Stark?"

"Yeah, after what he done to try to protect me, I thought he had finally earned the title of dad. Not that he's going to get the dad of the year award or anything any time soon, but it's a work in progress." Ruby mumbled, as the woman continued to hold her tightly.

"That's right, I'm going to knock them all out of the park and walk away with that title next year." Tony said, a big grin on his face. It seemed that letting his daughter tell Pepper what had happened, might just have been the thing she needed. He knew she couldn't really talk to anyone else, and there was no way he was going to let her talk to Liam any time soon.

Pepper eventually let got of Ruby, wiping her eyes dry. "Well, I best leave you two to drink your tea." She said quickly, not wanting to intrude on them any longer. "I've got work that I really should be doing."

"Uh, actually, Miss Potts, can you wait a second?" Tony said, stopping her from leaving. "Ruby, you still need to eat something. Now, I'm willing to make you a deal. You have something to eat now, and I mean more than just a few bites of a slice of pizza, and tomorrow you can go shopping with Miss Potts."

Ruby looked at him, eyeing him up suspiciously. There was something about his little deal that she wasn't too sure about. "And why would you let me go out shopping when a little while ago you were freaking out because I was in the kitchen?" She asked him, looking forward to hearing whatever excuse he was about to spin her.

Tony let out a sigh. "Because I want you to be happy. Look, going out and shopping is normal, and you deserve it after everything that's happened. And I need to get used to you not being in my sight all the time without panicking."

She didn't really know what to say to that. There was something telling her that he was up to something, that there was a plan forming in that head of his, and most likely one that she wasn't going to like. "I don't really want to go shopping. There's nothing that I want, or need."

"Well, maybe we can just got out for a few hours?" Pepper suggested. "We don't have to go shopping or anything, maybe we can just go out and grab something to eat."

"Yeah, how about that?" Tony said, nodding and liking Peppers offer. "You and Pepper can go out for lunch or something tomorrow."

Ruby shook her head at him. "No. I don't… I don't want to go out. I'm okay staying here." She had her reasons for not wanting to go out anywhere, for not wanting to leave the safety of their home.

"Honey, it's okay. Nothing bad is going to happen, I'll make sure to send Happy along with you to keep an eye out. You'll be fine." Tony assured her, hoping that she would just listen to him and go out for a few hours.

Once again she shook her head. "No. There are other things that need to be done." She told him quietly. "Please, dad, I just don't feel up to it. Maybe another day, but not tomorrow. Please?"

Tony let out a sigh, knowing that he was beat. "Okay, sure. When you're ready, you and Pepper can go out shopping or for lunch or whatever else you want to do. That sound better to you?" Ruby nodded at him, glad that he had finally gotten the message. "Well, now we have that sorted, are you going to eat something now?"

"I'm really not hungry. I just want to go and have a bath and then go to bed. If that's okay?" That little spark of the old Ruby Tony had seen had disappeared in a flash, and she was going back to being quiet and closed off.

He didn't really want to let her go to bed without eating something properly, but he was learning that there really was no arguing with her. "Sure, I hope you sleep well, honey. And you know where I am if you need me, okay?" He said to her, reaching over to her and pulling her towards him.

"Yeah, and you make sure you get some sleep too. You look absolutely dreadful." Ruby muttered to him and he hugged her almost a little too tightly. "Night, Pepper." She said to the woman who was still beside her, before stumbling away and off to her own room for some proper sleep.

"I'm worried about her, Pepper." Tony admitted the moment she was gone. "She really needs to start eating properly. She hardly ate anything when we got back, and she was hardly eating anything when we were with Rhodey. I don't know what to do."

All Pepper could do was give him a soft smile. "You need to give her time, Tony. She has a lot to cope with, and everyone copes with things differently." She told him, already seeing that they were both handling everything differently. While Tony was able to just go straight back to acting the billionaire he was, Ruby was different. "Give her a few days, let her get settled again."

He let out a sigh as he leaned back on the couch. "Yeah, you're right. I just hope that I get my daughter back properly soon."

While Pepper began to fill Tony in on the newest person to approach her with regards to his capture and escape, an Agent Coulson, Ruby was in her room. The bath was already starting to fill, so she was making use of the time she had to wait.

"SWAIN, put me through to the pirate, please." She asked her AI, placing another of her small buds into her ear.

"You do not wish for me to hack, Miss Matthews?" Came the reply, clearly shocked at her request to call and not get through to the pirate in another way.

She let out a sigh. "Just do it, SWAIN. And JARVIS, I'm sorry." Ruby said, before tapping away at her computer and disabling JARVIS in her room so that she could have a little bit of privacy.

"Agent Matthews, you actually decided to contact me the normal way, for once." She heard a gruff voice call in her ear.

"I thought it would be more appropriate now, sir."

"Romanoff and Barton are currently tied up with a mission. It was last minute and they were the best for the job." Director Fury explained to her. "The moment they are back, they will be with you."

"That wasn't why I was calling, sir." Ruby told him, not having really noticed that she hadn't heard anything from Tasha or Robin Hood since she left them. "As you may have heard, Tony Stark has shut down the weapons division of Stark Industries. He plans on looking more into the arc reactor technology, which is a good thing. There's a lot that can be done with it."

"Wasn't that your area at Stark Industries?" Fury asked her, wondering what the point of her call was.

"It was my area in that cave as well, sir. Director Fury, I want to request more eyes and ears at Stark Industry." Ruby said, finally cutting to the chase. "How they managed to get so many Stark weapons is still a mystery, and while I fully intend to investigate it from here, I think it's bigger than any of us realise."

There was silence on the other end of the line, while Fury thought about what she had just said. He knew not to doubt her, and what she said did make sense. "So, you think it could be someone on the inside?"

"Yes, sir. Now, I know Tony Stark is an arrogant genius, but I also know he had nothing to do with this." Ruby told him, making sure to defend her father before Fury even thought of putting him in the firing line. "And I'm not just saying that because he's my father. He is genuinely concerned with all of this, hence why he shut down weapons."

"Okay, granted. But I hope you know what you're doing, Agent Matthews. Like you said, we don't know how big this really is. I'll inform Agent Coulson of this as well." Fury told her, even though she already knew Phil would be told all about it. "He is still trying to get to speak with both you and your father."

"I know, he approached Miss Potts at the press conference. I doubt he will get very far at the moment with speaking to him, his mind is elsewhere." Ruby admitted to him. She knew that her father was worrying about a lot of things now, not just her, but everything that had happened.

"Anything else, Agent Matthews?"

"No, sir. I'll keep you and Agent Coulson update. I plan on using some of the data collected during the search to discover more." Ruby told him, before he said goodbye and the call was ended. She had to admit, it went rather well, better than she thought it would. She had a feeling that he was going to just refuse her request and demand she get her backside to HQ to give them everything they were after, but he hadn't.

When she thought about it, she knew they wouldn't really do that. Technically, she was still working a mission, although not the same as before. Initially it was her mission to find her father and get him out alive, with that accomplished, it had now moved on to finding those who took them and finding out how they managed to get so many Stark weapons.

That was what worried Ruby the most, the weapons. There was no way that her father would have authorised a shipment to terrorists, but it was clear that someone did. There were very few people in Stark Industries who had the power to do that, so it made her wonder who could be trusted within the company. That was why she wanted eyes and ears on the inside, to gather information and feed it back to her. She knew she couldn't go in there and start digging herself, that really would be suspicious, but she could do some digging with SWAIN from home.

An hour later, and Ruby was finally getting herself tucked up in bed. She had spent a little longer in the bath than she had anticipated, and it just left her even more exhausted. She was just pulling the covers over her when there came a light knocking at the door. "Come in, dad." She called, knowing that it would be her father coming to check up on her once more.

"Hey, you okay?" Tony asked, opening the door and creeping into the room. "JARVIS said you've locked him out of your room."

Ruby knew that the AI was going to turn her in for what she had done, but she didn't really mind too much. "Uh, yeah. I just wanted a little space, you know. I got SWAIN watching over me as it is, I just… needed time by myself." She told him, hoping that it was a valid enough excuse for her father to not question it any further.

"Well, I wish you wouldn't do that, honey. How am I meant to know if anything is wrong if you lock him out?" Tony asked her, perching himself on the edge of her bed and looking at her. She still looked a mess, even after a nice bath. She was pale and underweight, and Tony didn't like it one bit.

"I'm sorry. SWAIN would let you know if something was wrong, I just needed to be alone, if you know what I mean." She told him, starting to get a little nervous with the questions that he was probably about to ask.

Lucky for her, he dropped the matter and left it alone. "Okay, but next time, at least let me know you're going to do it, yeah?" Ruby nodded at him, mumbling a small apology at the same time. "Anyway, last chance to have something to eat before you go to sleep. You really do need to eat something, Ruby."

"I'm really not hungry. I just want to curl up in bed and go to sleep. Maybe I will feel up to eating properly in the morning, but right now I really don't." She replied, pulling her legs closer to her chest while she was still sitting up in her bed.

"You promise?" Tony asked her, his eyes just filled with worry and concern.

She nodded at him once more. "I promise. I'll try to eat better in the morning."

"Okay. Well, I'll let you get some sleep now. If you need me, I'll be down in the workshop, all right?"

"What are you going to be doing in the workshop? Because you're not allowed to touch Maggie-May without me there, you know that, right?" Ruby asked him, not too sure she liked the idea of him going down there and working on something. He needed rest just as much as she did, maybe even more.

Tony shook his head at her, a slight smile on his face. "Nope, I'm not going to touch her, we work on her together or not at all, that was the deal." He told her. "I'm going to look a little more into the arc reactor. This thing was only a quick fix, I'm going to see what else we can do." He said, tapping the blue light that was glowing through his shirt.

"Oh, well you better take a look at some of my stuff then. I'll, uh, get the boys to show you it all." Ruby told him, knowing that he was probably going to save time by looking at the work she had already done with it all. "I saved most of it to SWAIN's server, because I wanted to make sure you didn't go snooping around at it all."

Her father couldn't help but chuckle a little at her. He had tried to find it himself at one point, but there was nothing anywhere that JARVIS could find that was really anything new and ground breaking. "Yeah, I did wonder where you were keeping it all. But don't worry, I'm not going to really start anything without you. We're working on this together, yeah? It was your project to play with, you're going to see it through, okay?"

"Sure. JARVIS will be able to access it directly, but you need the password." Ruby turned a little nervous, wondering what her father was going to think of the password she had set for that particular set of files. "RedCobra92RM. Capital R for red and C for cobra and capital RM at the end."

Tony did actually chuckle a little at hearing her password. It was certainly unusual, at least it was to him, and it wasn't something he would have guessed. "Awesome password. Is that your password for everything?"

Ruby frowned at him a little. "No, of course not, I'm not stupid. That will only give you access to the arc reactor files on SWAIN's server. You should know I have some rather high security, just like you do."

"Oh, so there are other files on there that you don't want me to see then?" He asked her, only meaning as a joke, not knowing that there actually was rather a lot on there that she didn't want him or anyone else to see.

She scoffed at him. "As if. I got nothing else on there. The only reason I put it on there was because it was easier for me. I had other notes about the arc reactor, was easier to compare them all."

"Okay, honey. Well, you get some rest, and I'll see you in the morning." He said, leaning over and kissing the top of her head.

"Night, dad. Don't stay up too late, I got JARVIS and SWAIN watching you."

Tony couldn't help but chuckle at her as he left. He had managed to see a few sparks of her old self once more, but he didn't know how long that was going to last. He wanted his daughter back, the one that had called him an old man and caused him to chase around the kitchen. The daughter who liked to talk back to him and wasn't afraid to stand up to him. He wanted his Ruby back, but he didn't know how to reach her.

A/N: Hello guys! Going to keep this short and sweet this week. Sorry that this chapter is later, been a busy week.

Thank you to everyone who has favourtied/followed, I'm glad to know you like it so much. And all you lovely people who review, thank you so much, and have a few hugs from me as well. I love reading your reviews, and yes I do read all of them.

Until next time you lovely people!

Pippa.