Warning: Foul language follows. Can you blame them, though?

Chapter 21

At least her eyes were closed now.

At least she was not pregnant.

At least she was still alive.

And yet, the blue-eyed boy failed to see the silver lining in all of this.

The inventor rubbed his tired eyes even though he knew that it would not help with the straining of them or the painful throbbing of his head that refused to fade. Although he had been awake for nearly thirty-six hours, and a third of those had been spent playing super hero and saving kittens from trees, the young billionaire refused to sleep.

He had spent the last eight hours arguing with JARVIS – even though it made him sound insane for arguing practically with himself – about what to do about Pepper's condition, and reprogramming his protocols to remove all exceptions for medical procedure notifications. Plus, despite his promise to Rhodey, Tony was reinstalling security measures in the facilities; it just was not worth the risk of not having them in there when the rest of his home was already under Big Brother's watch.

Pepper had been right all along – he was a jealous paranoid, more paranoid than jealous, he wanted to believe, and frankly right now he could not find a damn to give if he was acting like a freaking obsessive, stalker-type kind of guy.

"Let's go over this again, JARVIS," an exhausted inventor said. "You're telling me that Pepper's symptoms appear to be signs of schizophrenia? Why is that, again?"

"Based on your logs and her conversations, it appears that Miss Potts is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Catatonic states are common in patients experiencing PTSD, and catatonic states are a type of schizophrenia."

"But, I thought one is born with schizophrenia," Tony argued back.

"Not necessarily, sir. Most patients are not diagnosed until they reach their teens since it is not until then that they experience hormonal imbalances on a daily basis. Brainwave imbalances can also occur at this point."

Tony exhaled loudly and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. "How long is she going to be like this? Catatonic, I mean."

"It varies and depends on the treatment and the brain function of the person. It can typically last between a few hours to a month."

"A month?!"

"That is correct, but only without proper treatment."

Tony held the weight of his head by resting it against his laced hands. He felt like an idiot for never considering that the experience Pepper had lived through could cause long-term effects that neither of them could control. He had been so worried about her physical comfort and helping her move on that he never stopped to realize that her mind would be the one affected the most by whatever events occurred while she was under Makluan house arrest.

"Sir, if I may suggest," the AI interjected. "I believe we are beyond our area of proficiency and have now reached a point where it might be prudent to seek expert advice."

"What are you saying?"

"That perhaps Miss Potts would be better cared for at a specialized facility."

"You mean a psych ward?"

"Among others, but not necessarily that particular one."

"No fucking way, Jarvis." Tony slammed his hand on the table. "I'm not dumping her in a crazy people PLACE!" He raised his voice with very word he said.

"Her continued presence may not be required but…"

"No," Tony deadpanned. "I said no."

"Sir, may I remind you that you're not the legal proxy for Miss Potts, and that you may be held liable for not taking her to a proper medical facility."

"Isn't legal counsel beyond your area of expertise, too?"

"It's not when it conflicts with carrying on my original programming of serving you, sir."

Tony's eyes landed on the sleeping girl whom he had somehow managed to get dressed despite her condition. The rest of the blood tests were still taking place as only half had been completed so far, although none of them helped much in uncovering the cause of her illness since most of them were coming back as negative or normal.

What did she see? What scared her so much? The inventor thought as he stood up from the chair and walked over to review the footage of Pepper's day while he was gone. He had replayed and re-watched the footage more times than he could count now, but nothing stood out to clue him as to what had occurred. Pepper had not shown any signs of stress other than when she was helping him with the blackout, and she had not eaten or drank anything out of the ordinary or poisonous.

Whatever happened to trigger the shock, it had to have happened when she was in the bathroom.

Right when she was in a place that had no surveillance whatsoever.

"JARVIS?"

"Sir?"

"Can you get a hold of Dr. Yinsen?"

"Would you like me to schedule an appointment for tomorrow? I believe it is quite late to find him in his office."

Tony looked down at his watch and saw that it was in fact the wee hours of the morning, and as much as in a hurry he was to help Pepper, waking up the only doctor he trusted was not going to improve matters any. "Yeah, as soon as he has an opening."

"Would you like me to relay to him what occurred?"

"Yes. And send him the medical file of what we have so far."

"Very well."

"I can't think straight," the scientist said to himself. "I need to rest and Pepper needs a comfortable place to sleep it off. Is it OK for me to unplug her and take her to bed with me?"

"Her vitals are stable. I don't see any reason why she would be in any danger if the sensors are removed from her."

"Alright." Tony took a deep breath, pulled himself up from the laboratory table, and then felt a sharp pain course through his right shoulder.

"What the hell?" His left hand flew to his back and when his eyes looked behind him, he almost forgot how to breathe.

The sharp pain had been caused by a scalpel that was now embedded in his shoulder blade, and the attacker stood behind him, angry eyes piercing his form. "Pepper?"

The redhead's single blink of her eyes was the only warning Tony received before she launched herself at him. Tony sidestepped and was able to dodge her attack, but the surprise move appeared to only confuse her for a few seconds. Tony took a few steps back and placed a considerate amount of distance between them and with his left hand he removed the scalpel she had just stabbed him with. He bent it in half with his left hand, and threw it far away from either of their reach.

"Pepper, when did you wake up? Why…" he stared at his bleeding shoulder. "What….What's wrong?"

"Die," Pepper deadpanned and lunged towards him again, this time with a faster speed than before. Tony hardly had enough time to avoid her punch and instead grabbed her fist in his right hand, and used his left arm and leg to keep her at bay without actually hurting her.

"Pepper, snap out of it! What are you doing?"

"Die," she repeated to him before she jumped up in the air and pushed the inventor away from her by kicking his solar plexus with both of her feet. The boy felt the oxygen being pounded out of his lungs as he fell down on the floor while the ginger performed a back handspring to ease her landing on the concrete floor.

Tony rubbed his stomach and chest with his left hand and slowly rolled onto his right side to try and get up, but he was suddenly kicked on the side of the face, causing him to twirl in place and he ended up sprawled on his back again. The inventor coughed and groaned in pain as he waited for his brain to piece together what was happening around him, but the ginger did not give him time to think.

"I'll kill you," Pepper said before she bent down to grab him by his wrists, picked him up by them, and twirled them both in place and sent him flying off to hit the side wall of the temple. Tony screamed in agony caused by the force of the impact and his body then slid down to the floor like a sack of potatoes. He knew he had gained some extra inhuman strength when he had injected himself with Extremis, but compared to what Pepper was doing to him right now, he felt as if he might have as well just reverted to being an average Joe.

"Pepper…stop," he spat blood to the side, his face already swelling, and lifted his right hand toward her. "It's me…Tony. Why are you doing this?"

"It appears that Miss Potts is not responding to stimuli, Mr. Stark. You may have to resort to physical restraining maneuvers."

"You mean hitting her?"

"Incapacitating her with a well-placed punch will keep her from hurting you and herself. Her brainwaves show she is hallucinating, sir."

"Another sign of schizophrenia?"

"The opposite spectrum of catatonic state, yes."

"Dammit," Tony mumbled and used the wall behind him to pull himself to a standing position. "Is the Mark II ready?"

"No, sir."

"Shit," Tony said between clenched teeth and excruciating breaths as the redhead slowly approached him. He pressed his back toward the wall to keep himself steady, but without attacking back he knew he probably did not stand a chance against her. "I don't want to fight, Pepper. I don't want to hurt you."

The ginger narrowed her eyes at him but stopped in her tracks, and for a moment Tony thought he had gotten through to her.

"Hurt me?" Pepper said with a chilling tone before she scoffed. "You can't hurt me, Gene. You can't hurt me or Tony. I won't let you. I won't let you touch him."

"Gene?" The boy's eyes widened in surprise. "You think I'm Gene?"

"Shut up and die!" Pepper cried and ran toward Tony. The scientist felt corralled in his own lab, eyeing everything around him to try to come up with a plan that would not involve hitting his confused girlfriend. His eyes finally landed on an old piece of metal that used to be a tabletop he had recently replaced and had intended to recycle. He rolled over on the floor in the direction of the metal to avoid Pepper's incoming kick, grabbed the piece of table in his hands, and held it in front of himself as a shield.

"Pepper, stop!" Tony begged but she had none of it. He saw from above the metal he held that Pepper was running toward him as if he was not protecting himself with a thick metal piece and aimed a punch at him. Tony maneuvered the metal to avoid the contact, and was even more shocked to see that she had made a dent in the shape of her fist in the make-believe shield.

"Holy crap!" was all Tony could utter before he had to adjust the position of the metal to avoid a kick and then another punch from the redhead, all of which resulted in more noticeable dents on the old table top. "How is she doing this?"

"Adrenaline rush, perhaps," the AI suggested. "It is not uncommon for humans to develop exorbitant amounts of strength when faced with imminent danger."

"But she's not in danger!" Tony spat as he again avoided another kick from the ginger. "Pepper! Listen to me! It's Tony; stop this!"

"You won't hurt Tony!" Pepper yelled at the top of her lungs and bent the tabletop out of shape with a punch.

"I AM TONY, Pepper! You ARE hurting me!"

"You won't touch me again, Gene! You won't hurt me again!" The girl responded and snatched the metal from Tony's hands. She then continued to bend it out of shape with her hands and then tossed it behind her back.

"Adrenaline rush, my ass, JARVIS!" Tony ran toward the opposite corner of the room and called on the gauntlets of his Mark I armor. "This is more than that!"

"Come back, Gene!" Pepper growled and ran in the direction where Tony stood as he waited for his gauntlets to surround his arms. She then propelled herself so that she landed in a handstand on the worktable separating the two of them, and then pushed herself toward Tony, kicking him in while still in the air. Tony lifted his right hand in front of his face, stopping the attack with his armor, but the impact still made him stumble and he had no option but to take a few steps back.

"I'm sorry, Pepper," he mumbled before the entire Mark I armor covered him. "I'm really sorry."

Now with his suit protecting him, the inventor began an offensive attack toward the redhead, trying his best to restrain her long enough to be able to sedate her. However, the ginger was not done with him. Tony surrounded her from her back and held her arms down with his. Pepper responded by planting her feet on his thighs and pushed them backwards at the same time she propelled herself forward, causing Iron Man to flip over in the air while still holding on to her form and landed on his back with Pepper's elbows hitting him on the sides.

Pepper then jumped off him and ran toward the scrapped metal table remains and grabbed one of the circular legs that lay nearby. She twirled the stick in her hands like a baton and charged at Tony again.

The inventor crawled backwards on the floor and used his gauntlets to prevent being hit with the sticks but when Pepper found an opening in his defenses, she was able to land a hit on his upper left leg. The pain caused the scientist to react rather than to think, and he kicked her in the stomach with more force than was needed to keep her off him.

The girl landed on her back near the pile of table legs, and with a spring she got back on her feet with two sticks in her hands now. Tony propelled himself to a standing position, and in the quick second it took him to call on other parts of his Mark I suit, she ran toward him, weapons in hand and began expertly maneuvering the batons against him.

With every move he made to avoid her hits, more parts of the armor covered him, but he soon realized that she was becoming faster and was beginning to predict his moves. A second later, Pepper crouched down and used the right stick to hit Tony's legs, flipped him over, and then used the left leg to hit his armored chest.

Tony landed a few feet away from her, glad that the chest piece provided him with some protection. However, his breath then hitched in his throat when Pepper twirled both metal legs in her hands, and glared at him again. "You won't have your way with me again, Gene. I'll make sure of that."

Damn you, Gene! The inventor thought. You aren't getting the best of her! Without hesitation, Tony used his sonic disruptors to stop Pepper where she stood. The attack worked better than expected, and Pepper dropped the batons to hold her head in her hands.

"Now or never," Tony whispered as he called on his Artic Armor and his Space Armor. The two suits immediately appeared and flanked the redhead, holding her down by her arms while she was still dealing with the effects of the sonic disruptor that should have knock her unconscious but it had not. Tony slowly stood up from the floor and walked over to the medical table – or what was left of it – and grabbed one of the sedative syringes.

"NO! LET ME GO!" The ginger screamed as she pulled on the suits to try and free herself. Iron Man ran back toward her and kneeled before her. He aimed the syringe at her neck but before he could press the trigger, the ginger lost all control.

"NO!" she screamed again and pulled herself away from him before she dug her fingers in the armored hands that held her down. She back flipped using the arms as pulleys and took them down with her. Once she landed on her feet, she twirled and threw both armors toward Iron Man, and all three armors scrapped the floor on their way to the wall. Pepper's tired and wobbly form slowly approached him, her hands bleeding from the embedded metal in them.

Tony managed to command the obsolete armors to fall off him and as he tried to stand up he suddenly realized he could not move. He looked down to his now exposed right hand where he had been holding the syringe only to see it had punctured him with the force of the impact of the suits on him.

Worse of all, the orange liquid was now coursing through his veins.

"Oh, shit…JARVIS…"

"Sir?"

"Override…protocol…352." The inventor demanded, feeling his head beginning to spin.

"All of it?" The AI asked with a tone similar to one of concern, knowing the full impact of overriding the only thing that was keeping him from intervening in the fight between the two teens: Tony's command that excluded Pepper from the implementation of the AI's basic programming clause: protect the user at all costs.

"Not lethal…just…constrictive…but not lethal. Don't kill her…please…" Tony's eyes began to close.

"As you wish," JARVIS responded and the temple went into lockdown mode. Red lights flashed at the same rate the safety alarm blared in the building, and the vents released a rather potent tear gas. The AI then took control of the operations of all the suits and components of the system, and activated the filter inside Tony's suit to prevent the chemical from harming him.

Pepper closed her eyes when she felt the effects of the chemical and she began to cough. Once the redhead was on the ground, a shield activated and surrounded her, keeping her in place and away from a helpless Tony. The move was tailed by a small electric shock to the girl – similar to a TASER attack – which caused her to lose consciousness where she lay.

Once both teenagers became unconscious, JARVIS commanded the suits to begin clean up duty, and a very important call was made by the AI.