Vengeful thoughts were chasing each other in my brain as we were walked back to the cave, burlap sacks and all. I went to keep the fire going, pulling on a hat as the temps started dropping. Once the blaze was back, I glared into the fire, stewing silently.

My brother was even more than a jerk than I'd thought. He'd sold weaponry to the US military for years, now, and only now I realize what absolute hypocrisy he'd fallen into. Double-dealing. Selling to both sides of a war. Nothing more than…what was the term…an iron monger. That was it. And his guns had killed men meant to protect us. Rhodes, the soldiers in our humvee…my first date. Ever. And, in a way, Tony had killed them. And I was really, really pissed off.

It was silent for a long, long while, me glaring into the flames, stewing with all sort of nasty thoughts in my head, before Tony decided to speak.

"It's not what you think it is."

"And what is it you think it is?" I snarled back, grabbing up a stick and poking it into the fire so I wasn't tempted to give Tony a punch. "Oh, I don't know, maybe it's you selling to these losers, and all you ever openly said was that you were helping protect the country…you hypocritical, insensitive…..moron!!"

I threw the stick away, nearly grabbing up the battery to toss at Tony. Of course, maybe I was only acting like this because…well, it's complicated. I wasn't pleased with the situation – I don't think anyone would be – not to mention I've got a slight complex that makes me really not happy at being dependent on somebody else. At the moment, that was the battery, and Tony, a little.

Then again, it was also the little kid inside me, that bruised and battered tween that hoped and pleaded that Tony was still a good person. But that was the thing. For all I knew, my brother had changed in the years we'd been apart, becoming a stranger, someone I wouldn't know. I mean, Tony's pretty damn close to the only family I've had my whole life: brother, father, mother. Mom died when I was five – cancer, I think – and Dad…well, Dad had never really liked me all that much. Tony was all I had.

"That's not what I'm doing, I swear," Tony pleaded, and he got up, grabbing some of the pages he'd been scribbling on and crossed around to me, crouching down and tried to show me the papers. But, me being me when I'm in certain moods, I just gave the pages a cursory glare – hacker, not engineer, remember – and waved Tony off.

Right about then, I really, really wished I had a hole to crawl into and wall off for the rest of my life.

"Look," Tony sighed, voice steeling over suddenly, desperately. "I know I've been a jerk, but I – I need you to believe me, just this once! I'm not playing a traitor, I'm going to get us out!"

"Sure, like leaving me out of the loop really helps," I bit back. "Thanks for the high opinion on my intelligence."

I don't know why I said this next bit. Maybe I just felt so hurt and alone and I was just so damn moody that I couldn't help it. And the bit in question?

"You're becoming just like Dad."

Now, coming from me, this is not a compliment. When the press compares Tony to Howard Stark, it's in praise and adoration. When I compare Tony to Dad…it's about close to the absolute worst insult I could throw at him. And, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the flicker of pain on Tony's face. He knew what I meant.

"I'd think you'd let me try to make it up to ya," he muttered softly, and that about did it. I twisted to face him, felt tears in my eyes. Right then, I didn't care that I'd broken a five-year-old's promise on her mother's grave to never cry and always be tough and strong. Right then, I'd been hurt, I'd been insulted and played, and I was through with hiding it.

"I've been trying, you jerk! Every damn day since I moved in, I tried to ignore the antics, tried to act like everything was just fine and back to normal! But this?! This's too much, and, dammit, Tony, I can't take it anymore!"

I refused to sob. Just let my chest heave before turning away and planting my chin on my knees, arms wrapped around my folded legs as tears streaked down my face. But I was totally surprised and off my guard as Tony suddenly reached out and wrapped his arms around me, shushing me quietly as he rested his chin over my shoulder. That was when I felt totally awful for yelling at my big brother and leaned my head into his neck, all of me shuddering as I fought down the sobs.

"I don't wanna die, Tony," I mumbled eventually, voice cracking a little. "I don't wanna die, don't leave me alone, please don't die before I do…"

Tony squeezed tight, softly massaging my arms.

"Hey, sh, I've got an idea there, too," he soothed quietly. "Don't'd cry, Andy…don't cry, sis…."

He loosened his hold on me a little, reaching into a pocket of his pants and pulling out another piece of paper. I rubbed my eyes dry as he unfolded it and showed it to me. Even though he quietly pitched it to me – there was no getting rid of that salesman, I figured – I realized what it was, just from the shape. I knew what it was, because, all those years ago, I'd helped Tony build a larger version of this back home. Of course, once my memory kicked into gear, I slowly took the page, sniffling still, just a little.

"Are you sure?" I asked, not wanting to look at Tony. "I mean, can we –"

I paused. Not we. One hacker plus one engineer did not make for this project taking off. Cue a mental erase and edit.

"Can you make two of these within the week?"

Tony sighed, lowering his gaze a little and running a hand through his hair. I didn't know how his mind was working, even though I used to. I hoped this insane plan of his was going to work.

Finally, he spoke.

"I can try."

I took a deep breath and nodded. Good; trying was good. Trying was the best I could hope for. So I dried my eyes and got to my feet, finding a clean scrap of paper and snatching a graphite stub, giving it a quick, painless lick to make sure it would write legibly.

"Guess I need to make a grocery list," I said, opening up my mental catalogue of every Stark product made since Tony's rise to the CEO-ship. "Unless we can conjure all this stuff out of thin air, meaning we could call Rhodes and have them bomb this place to hell while we run away."

It got Tony to grin faintly.

"We wish. A'right, ready?"

I nodded, after scribbling down a few items, along with, plus the other things Tony listed, a computer, a graphing calculator (hopefully), and, just for grins, a stereo and a few choices of the classics. Tony himself wanted butterscotch cookies – didn't blame him – and, of course, all the other techie stuff he'd get to cannibalize. Of course, after front-and-back on two sheets of paper, the flow from both of us finally stopped, and Tony peered over my shoulder to look it all over.

"That should keep them busy," he chuckled with a nod, before I bounced toward the door, knocking firmly before passing the list through the slot.

"I hope you Muslim radical idiots read English!" I snapped as the slot slammed shut, almost on the tip of my nose. I sniffed a little and marched back into the larger part of the cave, cradling my battery with a sigh. Today had been a long day, and my body clock was insisting on recharge. So I dropped onto my cot with a grunt, dropping my battery with a solid thunk before flopping back. The wires tugged slightly, and I frowned at the obnoxious black cylinder poking disgustingly out of my chest. Sooner Tony got his project done, the better.

"You know," Tony said eventually from his worktable, "we've never really...talked these past few years. Guess it was my screw-up, more'n likely...."

"No," I snapped gingerly. Now, after all these years, he wanted to talk?! I couldn't help but feel slighted. "It's not your fault. You've been busy with the company, and I've been having fun with my semi-legal activities."

I knew it was half a lie, and so did he. Neither of us spoke, and it got my mind to wandering back to when we'd been kids living in a house too big for us on Long Island. Sometimes, when we played hide-and-seek, after Tony had found me, he'd hug me hard and tickle me until I was screaming and laughing and crying all at once. Then Mom had died. Then Tony had left for MIT. I was left alone with Howard Stark, my unfavoring, unloving father, for two painful, lonely years. My separation from Tony ended when I'd hacked MIT's mainframe and enrolled myself, and, at ten years old, I ran to be with my brother.

Two years had been long enough to change Tony irreversibly. Gone was the tickling. Gone was the fun and laughter. So I'd buried myself into my computer science studies, and the gulf had grown. And after Dad's death in that car accident – which I don't think was an accident at all – I had been plunged into a living nightmare, one that had never really ended. And all of my luck was gone. Not to mention I severely doubted Tony had any left, either.

"I'm sorry," Tony suddenly mumbled. It made me look up at him in surprise. "For not...bein' like you need me to be. For not talkin' to ya....and getting you into this whole mess...."

In a sudden anger at himself, Tony shoved away from the table, grabbed a rock, and chucked it into the nearest corner. I swallowed a little, slowly getting upright.

"It's my fault, too," I croaked. Great, a second meltdown today. "Didn't try to stay in touch after.....after Dad...."

That was the best way I could put it. No way was I going to admit what Stane had done to me that night. I couldn't. Besides, what if Tony was so swayed by Stane's outwardly mask of our loving uncle that he didn't believe me, his kid sister?

But I knew, right then, that if the true monster that Obadiah Stane was behind this mess, he'd pay, not just for this, but for what he did to me. Trust me on this.

"Could've done something," Tony huffed before he paced to the fire, stabbing at the glowing embers. Then he glanced up at me, his dark eyes fixed to me.

"Guess I can't...make it up to ya, can I? I don't mean buying you all sorts of crap you don't need, I mean...getting back to where we were."

The tiny girl inside me glowed a little. He still cared. He still loved me. Very gently, I rolled onto my side, meeting his gaze. In those dark brown eyes of his, I saw my big brother, my eternal protector, at long, long last.

"Sounds a'right to me."