Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry! I feel really bad for giving you guys such a long wait. Especially because this chapter is kind of a filler. Maybe that's why it was harder to write...I don't know. School's been really busy, lots of essays...anyways, here's the chapter, I hope it's okay!

The day after the disastrous press conference, Fiona was in her room surfing the internet and scanning the news sites. All the headlines screamed about the weapons shutdown. Some were objective, others just downright nasty. She sighed, lacing her fingers together and leaning her chin on the small platform she had created by doing so.

"Tony, why are you so impulsive..." Her phone buzzed. She picked it up and read the message displayed on the transparent screen.
How big are your hands? It was from Tony. Her brow furrowed. She began typing a response but another message popped up as she typed. Come down to the lab. Fiona shook her head, set her phone down and left her room.

She typed in her lab password and the door opened. Tony was reclining, shirtless, on a chair like you'd see in a dentist's office. Several electrodes were attached to his chest, and a screen behind him displayed vital signs. One of his robots, Dummy, was rolling around near the chair. Fiona's eyes were drawn to the bright blue-white circle in the center of his chest. It was weird and somewhat unnatural, but it was kind of beautiful, in its own way. She raised her eyebrows. Admittedly, it was not the strangest thing she had seen Tony doing.

"Do you need something?" she asked

"Hold up your hands," Tony said. Her brother's sanity beginning to fall into question, she held up her hands. He nodded, taking something from the table next to him- another mini-reactor, different than the one in his chest. It was less bulky, newer looking.

"I thought I'd ask Pepper, but your hands are even smaller."

"Tony, I don't know if I like where this is going. What's with the second reactor? What's wrong with the one you have?"

"It's an antique, I'm updating it." Fiona shook her head.

"I'm still not seeing where I come into this..."

"Well, I would have done it myself but I ran into a little...speed bump," Tony said.

"Go on...

"There's an exposed wire under the device, it's contacting the socket wall and causing a bit of a short." He twisted the device, pulling it out slightly. Fiona's hand shot out, covering her brother's, preventing him from pulling the reactor out any further.

"I really don't think I should be helping you with this, I'm- I'm not a doctor, I wasn't even a bio major. Maybe we should just call Dr. Langdon-" Tony stopped her.

"No. This isn't public. You can do this, Fi. It'll be easy." Fiona sighed, but kept her hand on the reactor.

"Okay. But you have to tell me what I'm doing before I do anything." Tony smiled and lifted his hand from the reactor.

"All right. After I take out the reactor, I need you to reach in and grab hold of the exposed wire. Get the end of it out here so we can work with it, okay?" Fiona swallowed and nodded. Tony lifted the reactor from the socket and handed it to Fiona. "Put it on the table." Fiona quickly set it down and turned back to Tony. "Now get the wire. Don't let it touch the sides of the socket." Fiona tentatively reached into the socket. She grimaced at the wetness she felt inside but kept feeling around for the wire.

"Got it," she breathed, carefully drawing it back up out of the hole. Tony smiled. Dummy was circling faster, making nervous beeping sounds.

"That wasn't so bad, was it? Now-" One of Dummy's frantic circles connected with Fiona's legs. She stumbled sideways, the wire still in her hand. It- and the circular magnet on the end- lurched from the socket with a wet schlick. Tony gasped and the monitors began beeping faster. "Okay- not part of the plan- put this one in-" Tony voice was strained. Fiona forced herself to remain calm as she took the end of the wiring in one hand and reached back into the hole, fingers finding the small connection port that she had felt the first time. She attached the wiring, pulled her hand out and twisted the reactor into place. Tony shut his eyes, breathing heavily. Slowly, the monitors lost the red readouts and the beeping slowed down.

"Could have gone worse," Tony said after a moment, pulling the electrodes off of his chest and sitting up. The tension broke and Fiona began to laugh. She was crying a little bit too, and Tony wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. "Hey, shh, it's okay. We did it. I'm still alive. You did great. We're a team." He glanced down at Dummy. "And you have been demoted to fire extinguishing duties for the next month." Dummy's "head" drooped sadly. Fiona giggled and began walking towards the lab door.

"No more near-death experiences, please," she said over her shoulder. Tony was pulling a shirt over his head.

"Yeah, I'll try," he replied. Fiona passed the table on which the old arc reactor sat and she picked it up.

"What should I do with this?" she asked. Tony didn't hesitate before answering.

"Destroy it," he said firmly.

"Are you sure-"

"Fiona, you've known me for eighteen years. Am I a nostalgic person?" Fiona shrugged and left the lab. She had no plans to destroy it, though. Tony might not think he was nostalgic, but Fiona was convinced otherwise.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

That night, Fiona had a nightmare. For some reason, there had been none in the three months that Tony had been missing, but the first one about the experience was horrible. She was back in the middle of the firefight in Afghanistan, tumbling out of the jeep after Tony. The missile landed in the dirt next to them. The siblings were thrown backwards- and that's when the dream turned from a memory to a nightmare. She watched as scarlet began spreading across Tony's shirt. He was gasping and shuddering- then went still. Fiona was shaking him, screaming his name, blood was dripping from the corner of his mouth and he wasn't moving and she was trying to wake up and her body wouldn't let her...

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

"Sir, your sister appears ill. Her breathing and heart rates are elevated." Tony looked up from the new armor he was designing.

"Thanks, J. I'll go check on her." Tony minimized the plans with a pinch of his fingers and left the lab.

He pushed open the door to his sister's room. Moonlight spilled through the window, illuminating his sister who was curled up, taking hitched breaths through her nose and whimpering with each breath out. Suddenly Tony was 21 again, comforting his baby sister. Tony hurried to the side of her bed and placed a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently. She jerked awake with a cry, tears threatening to spill over her lower lashes. She seemed disoriented, breathing rapidly, until her eyes found Tony's and she threw her arms around him. Tony gave her a gentle hug, making little shushing noises until she stopped trembling and let go of him.

"Sorry," she mumbled. She wiped the tear tracks off her cheeks with the back of her hand and hugged her knees to her chest. "I'm okay now." Fiona doubted she would be able to go back to sleep and Tony seemed to know it as well.

"Come down to the lab with me, I wanna show you something." Fiona tugged on the shorts and oversized t-shirt she wore to bed, straightening them, and followed her brother back to the lab. Once inside, Tony sat down at his workstation and pulled up a project. Fiona cocked her head as she stared at it.

"Is that thing that you built to free yourself?" Tony nodded.

"Well, yes and no." As he talked, he expanded the project on the hologram and started pulling out parts, dropping them into a holographic trash can.

"And...you're remaking it?" Tony nodded. "Any particular reason?" Tony tossed a piece of the armor into the trash can and sat still for a moment.

"When I was...over there...I saw some things that I sorta wish I hadn't seen. But in a way, I'm glad I did." Fiona began to ask for clarification, but Tony kept going. "Fiona, people died because of our weapons. I almost died because of our weapons. That's why I don't want to keep making them. The people that had me...they had tons of our stuff. I destroyed it but some of those bastards got away. Who knows how much more they have somewhere else? I want to make sure that they are ended. Permanently." Tony had a weird expression on his face, like a cross between determination...and regret? Fiona leaned a little closer and spun the dismantled armor around with a flick of her finger

"Then let's get started.

The siblings planned and charted and designed and built all night. The first thing they built were pairs of metal boots. Dummy tried to help quite a bit- he seemed very apologetic about the incident he had caused earlier. The next morning, the siblings were ready to test the boots. They clanked out onto a large square platform. Since Fiona didn't have an arc reactor, she had built a larger version of the kinetics device powering her brace. Tony had the robots manning the camera and fire extinguisher- although Fiona suspected that Tony was just trying to keep Dummy occupied.
"You, roll it. We're gonna start off nice and easy, see if ten percent thrust capacity achieves lift."

"You call ten percent starting off small? I'm going with two percent." Tony shrugged.

"Suit yourself." The two stood a good distance apart. "And three...two...one." Tony shot off the platform, smacking into a wall above them. Fiona was wobbling a foot or so off the ground, but she burst out laughing and fell back to the platform, stumbling and sitting down, continuing to laugh. Dummy doused the spot where Tony had landed with white foam. Tony clambered up from the floor, a bruise beginning to form on his forehead. He spat out some foam and glared at Fiona.

"I won't say...actually...I will...I told you..." she gasped around her laughter, wiping a tear off of her cheek.

"Whatever," Tony muttered. "I think we're gonna need flight stabilizers or something..." He reached down and triggered the release on his boots, stepping out of them. Fiona, laughter subsiding, did the same, and she followed him back over to one of the workstations

~.~.~.~.~.~.

Pepper found the two siblings in the lab later that day, working on a device strapped to Tony's arm. Fiona was working with some wires on his palm while Tony was fiddling with a part on his forearm. Fiona looked up first, hearing Pepper's heels tapping on the floor.

"Hey, Pepper, what's going...what's wrong?" she asked as she noticed Pepper's slightly disapproving frown

"Obadiah's back, I've been buzzing you. Didn't you hear the intercom?"

"Uh..." The siblings glanced at each other before shaking their heads. Pepper sighed

"Are you coming up?"
"In a minute," Tony said distractedly. Fiona finished soldering two wires together and sat back

"My end's done," she said

"What's that? I though you guys were done making weapons," Pepper asked.

"First, only Tony said that, but I have to go along with it, and second, it's not a weapon, it's a flight stabilizer," Fiona explained. "It should be pretty harmless." Tony was finished with his end of the stabilizer and lifted his arm to test it. The circle on the palm glowed briefly before a blast of energy exploded from the end of it, tossing things off of the desk and sending Tony flying backwards into the wall. Pepper had clapped her hands over her ears and seemed to be in shock. Fiona was choking with suppressed laughter as she set her tools down and followed Pepper back upstairs. She heard a series of clattering noises before Tony came after them. Fiona picked up the aroma of cheese and spices as they approached the top of the stairs

"Hey, pizza!" she cried, making for the box and taking a slice. Obie was playing the piano that sat off to the side.

"How'd it go?" Tony asked as he came up the stairs. Obie didn't respond, turning away slightly. Fiona winced.

"He brought pizza from New York, Tony. I'd say not good."

"Just because I brought pizza doesn't mean-"

"Sure it doesn't. Oh, boy," said Tony, grabbing a slice of pizza.

"It would've gone better if you were there-"

"Yeah, well, we were 'laying low,'" Fiona cut in.
"I meant in public, the press. This was a board of directors meeting, guys." Fiona felt somewhat guilty.

"Oh...really?"

"The board is claiming you both have some sort of post-traumatic stress," said Obadiah.

"That's ridiculous," said Tony, though Fiona caught the glance that came her way and the slight coloration of Tony's cheeks.

"Well, ridiculous or not, the board is filing an injunction."

"A what now?"

"They want to lock you out, guys." Fiona and Tony both began protesting.

"They can't do that-"

"It's our company-" Obadiah raised his hands.

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger. Guys, the stocks dipped fifty-six and a half points. The board has rights too, and they don't think you and your new direction are in the company's best interest." Tony sighed and stood up. For a moment, his shirt was pulled tight against his chest, strengthening the blue glow of the arc reactor. Tony made for the stairs.

"Hey, hey, Tony, listen! I'm trying to turn this thing around but you gotta give me something. Something to pitch them. Let me have the engineers analyze that, you know, draw up some specs. He nodded at the blue glow. Tony's expression hardened.

"No. No. Absolutely not."

"It'll give me a bone to throw to the guys in New York!" pleaded Obie.

"This one stays with me. That's it, Obie. Forget it." Obadiah turned to Fiona, and she new what was coming.

"Sorry, Obie. The stuff we've got right now...the world isn't ready for that kind of tech just yet." Obie scowled.

"Fine. Then this stays with me," he said, scooping up the pizza box. He offered it to Tony and Fiona as they began heading back down to the lab. They each took another slice. "You mind if I come down there and see what you're working on?"

"'Night, Obie!" Fiona called as she descended.

So, yeah, filler chapter...the next few should be way more fun to write, with the first flight and the benefit party thing. I'll try and get the next chapter out faster- I'm alternating updates with this story and my other ongoing one. The good thing is I'm at an exciting or fun part to write in both, so update should hopefully be faster. Review?

Ooh, by the way, has anyone seen Thor 2 yet? Tonight is the midnight premiere in my country and I'm going to see it this weekend! (So no spoilers!)

Until next time,

Ophelia