Pepper was as good as her word. The simplest prototype for Iron Man arrived on the next mail train. Winry expected it to be heavy, as it was entirely built of metal, so she was surprised when Stark picked it up without any help.

Gears started turning in her head. If the whole suit was light enough for just one man to lift, albeit a very muscular man, then the arm and leg themselves had to be super light. Then again, they were also hollow, so that could decrease their weight. But if they were as durable as Tony said, they had to be made of high quality steel. That meant they should be heavier than Ed's current limbs, even if they were hollow. Had Tony used some alloy she didn't know about? And would it work with Ed's limbs?

Her head kept spinning as they walked towards Tony's shop, which had been sufficiently repaired from his last explosion by now. He was rather proud of the fact he hadn't had any mishaps for a while, and seemed to have forgotten that the time without accidents correlated with the time he'd been training under Winry. He put the crate containing Iron Man on his workbench and began packing with Winry leaning over his shoulder.

Pepper had put the suit in semi-prepared mode so that it had traveled as major pieces, not as bolts and plates. He internally thanked his wife. This would make explaining things to the overeager puppy next to him much easier. He pulled out a leg portion. "This is one of the boots of the suit. It has thrusters on the bottom of the foot to enable flight, but should be used in combination with the ones on the hands." Then he placed the boot on the bench and pulled out said hand. "These thrusters can also be used as weapons, to knock someone back or blast a hole in something. It depends on how strong the blast is. I control it through the helmet with the suit, but we'll have to think of a different way if it's going in automail."

"Right." He looked over, expecting her to be going giddy with so much technology around her. To his surprise, she had picked up the boot he'd left on the bench and was examining the plates surrounding the top. "What's this metal? It's not steel, it's too light, but it's too tough to be anything else."

He was surprised she'd picked up on it. He took the boot back from her and said, "It's a mixture of different materials, most of them very rare. You wouldn't be able to replicate it." Her face fell at his words. This was where Pepper's influence came into play. The old Tony would have brushed off such an expression, but after all Pepper's talks about feelings and noticing things, he couldn't just let it slide. "It's made primarily out of titanium, but that can be substituted with carbon fiber and steel with other alloys like chrome thrown in to prevent rusting. You can get the three main components for the replacement easily. It won't be as light, but it should be close." Pepper would have proud of him. Winry's smile was back and she was digging her hands through the crate like he'd expected.

She picked out what looked like the front half of the upper torso. "What's this?" She poked her hand into the triangle shape.

Stark removed the piece from her hands. "Slot for the arc reactor." He returned the chest section to the crate and picked up the boot. "Pick up the arm. We need to compare its build to automail."

She yanked out a wrench and hit him squarely in the forehead. "Not until we've finished unpacking. It's not good to leave machinery boxed up like this, or in pieces. We should put it together." So they did.

It didn't take very long, due to the fact that it was already semi-put together, compliments of Pepper. Once they finished, Winry asked Tony to detach an arm from the shoulder down, and get a leg just above the knee. He lugged them over to her stall since that's where she kept her work. She put the armor down on the worktable and said, "Wait here. I'll go get the automail."

Stark leaned against the table. He was a little excited, although he would never admit it. He was finally going to see the automail she always was bragging about, the reason she'd made the deal in the first place. He also hoped to meet to boy it was made for someday, the one who made the fearsome young lady blush. Again, Pepper rubbing off on him, but he didn't totally dismiss it. If the kid would need weapons like his shock system, he had to be a fighter. And Tony Stark liked fighters.

She came out with the leg and arm held reverently in her hands. Their size made him pity the intended customer. The arm was built from the shoulder down, not smaller like he'd thought. Did the kid have any arm left or was the prosthetic attached directly to his shoulder? The leg was almost as bad, although it only went up to above the knee. So the kid did have a stump on his lower half. But what was with the length? They were way too short for anyone, let alone a fighter. How short was the kid?

Then he remembered her reaction to the lightness of his suit. Maybe she'd wanted to make lighter automail so it wouldn't weigh down her crush so much and he could put on a couple of inches. He made up his mind to make the adjustments as light as possible. As she laid them on the table beside the armored limbs, he stroked the arm down the center, just below the middle of the palm. It broke down the center and exposed the delicate wiring inside. He did the same for the leg and she removed the outer plating on the prosthetics so she could get at the inner workings of her own creation. Then Stark settled down for an afternoon of teaching, and Winry got out her notebook, pen poised to take note of everything. They didn't resurface until it was dark outside.

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