"What are you up to?" the terrorist leader breathed in Arabic a few days later. I struggled to keep my teeth clenched, eyes fixed on the red-hot coal that was only a few inches away from my nose.

See, I'd been stupid that particular day. I'd forgotten to activate our security loops when Tony and I had been testing the leg hydraulics of our escape ticket. Now I was paying for my arrogant stupidity. Oh well, it happens to me a lot, and my ego hasn't really learned its lesson.

"We're building your damn missile!" I snapped as one of the leader's goons pressed the side of my head against the anvil we'd had brought in. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tony trying to get to me, but he was being held back by more of my assailant's lackeys. But my view was obscured as that coal got closer. Oh, hell.

"What are you up to?" he asked again.

"We're building your Jericho missile!" I insisted, though not lacking in an extremely strong swearword. Doesn't make sense to include such a strong emotional outburst, does it? Totally mars the meaning of the phrase. But he didn't appreciate that particular bluntness, and I felt the heat crawl close to my teeth. Time for me to be bold.

I reached up and managed to snap one of my holders' thumbs. He and his compatriot were so startled I managed to squirm loose, and I managed to slam my fist into the leader's face. He staggered back, cradling his nose for a few seconds and dropping the tongs in his hand. I kicked some sand over the coal before retreating towards Tony.

"We're building your missile," I spat when the leader had recovered. I was pissed off, and I was through with being penned up like some animal. Maybe that fueled my whole emotional issues. I don't know. But he glared at me viciously as he recovered, and I made sure to command him and his thugs, "Get the hell out."

Of course, he didn't like it, but he did it. Oh, and he issued his own ultimatum: give him the missile tomorrow. Great. I lunged toward him, ready to really cause some damage, but he finally got smart and beat it.

"Y'know," Tony said once the metal door to our cave had closed and locked behind our host, "guys like him really…"

He didn't finish the thought. That was okay. But I was still on a stretched nerve, running off an emotional high, and I kept glaring at the door before turning and muttering, more to myself, "No worse than Stane."

I was about to set down on my cot when I noticed that Tony had stiffened, eyes fixed on me in shock. I cursed myself as I sat heavily, tapping at my reactor, while he edged towards me.

"What did you say?" he asked weakly. I looked down at the floor.

"Nothin'."

"Liar. What about him?"

"Who him?"

Tony gave me a glare that I sensed instead of saw. He was playing too close to it, now. Now I really wondered if this was when I told him what it was that Stane had done to me so long ago. Tell him… don't tell him…

"You know who," Tony pushed, sitting down next to me. "Obi."

I couldn't help but snarl at the nickname I had given that man. Obi Bouldy, I'd coined, because he was as big a boulder, and, when he lost all his hair, he looked like one, too. My fists clenched a little, but I managed to keep myself from exploding.

"If you mean Stane," I spat coldly, "then yeah. There's something about him."

Tony was quiet, trying to figure me out. Usually, he could figure out what was in my head before I had to say a thing. But, being separated for a few years intervening, he looked at me firmly.

"Then this time I'm getting you to talk to me."

"You'll be trying for awhile," I murmured before flopping onto my side, turning so that I was staring at the near rock wall. I felt his hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. I don't know why it worried me, that he was tryin' so hard to find out. Maybe I was scared I would lose him when I told him, and really be left alone for the rest of my life.

"You've never been this uptight, Andy," Tony murmured softly, his thumb rubbing at my shoulder gently. "C'mon, tell me. What'd he do?"

I closed my eyes, fighting back the rising words in my throat. Even with my eyes shut, I still saw the look on Tony's face, the disbelief, then the same cold look Dad had always, always reserved for me. I saw Stane leering at me triumphantly behind him, laughing menacingly with his eyes. A few tears leaked out as I struggled. I didn't want to tell him and lose Tony. He was everything to me. Tony kept rubbing my back gently, before he lowered his voice and pulled me tight to his chest.

"Look," he sighed softly, his cheek on top of my head, "if he did somethin' to you, I promise, I'll go after him the second we get out of here. He hurts family, he hurts me. That's not in his list of privileges."

A sob choked out of my throat. I felt all of my reluctance drop as I stammered out the tale: how I'd gone to Dad's funeral and Stane had cornered me afterwards; how he wanted my hacking interface, Trinity, and my protests, because it was a virus in any other refined form than the basic one I had; how he had just given me his usual half-persuaded look and told me to visit his hotel room that night. I didn't have to say what happened. The flash in Tony's eyes I made out as I finished, looking up at him as I rubbed at my eyes, told me that my worry was for nothing.

"I – I didn't tell you," I finished after a few beats of silence, "because you….you and him always got on well, and I didn't want you to suddenly….suddenly turn on me…call me stupid…."

"Andy," Tony said firmly as he took my shoulders and looked me right in the eye, "how many times do I have to tell you? You're not stupid."

He pulled me in tight again, and I hugged back with all my might. I felt like I was a little kid again, five years old, after Dad had put me down again, and I'd locked myself in Mom's room to cry myself out. Tony used one of the secret passages we'd found to make it inside, and he'd grab me tight and tell me fervently that I was the best little sister ever.

I always made sure to tell him he was the bravest big brother, and I'd always love him. And I mumbled it softly to myself, and I know Tony heard because I felt his smile on top of my head.

"Okay," I sighed, pulling myself back together, "let's go home. Then we'll go murder Stane."

Tony beamed at me before firmly kissing my forehead.

"That sounds like a damn good idea."

So we worked. And worked. And worked. Of course, it took a lot more than just finishing the escape mechanism; we had to perfectly recall the route through the caves to the outside, otherwise we'd never make it out alive, rig a trap for when they came for us in the morning, and make a secondary, not-super-charged version of our ticket home for whoever didn't get to drive the big one. The last major argument boiled down to who got to ride in the big monster. Amazingly, Tony played it safe and let me climb into our major ticket home.

Of course, it was heavy.

"Did you add extra armor when I wasn't looking?" I grumbled as Tony helped me get secured into our creation. He gave me a look and rolled his eyes.

"Do I look like someone who'd skimp?"

"You know I designed it for escape, not internal assault..." I groaned before heaving a sigh. I'll give our terrorist hosts this, they had excellent timing. The door was pounded on heavily, and both me and Tony froze as we realized that we'd pulled yet another mistake. No loop had gotten activated, and the yelling on the outside wasn't Arabic.

"Tony, I'd like the power-up sequence activated now," I moaned. Tony bolted for the laptop, and typed in the commands as I barked them out. All I could do at this point was wait, watching the green bar of the program filling slowly and precariously. Tony, in the meantime, flung on the secondary option and secured all the buckles.

Then they tried to open the door. The entire wall nearly burst out from our jury-rigged bomb, and I cringed away from the searing hot debris. I could hear the echoes from the now-open cave of the explosion.

"Well," I deadpanned, "that'll attract attention."

"Lovely," Tony added, equally deadpan as he skittered towards one of the singed machine guns and grabbed it up. I hoped Tony knew how to use it, but I immediately felt a cold chill run down my spine. I didn't want him to die for me. I couldn't live with that, not now, not that he knew.

"Remember to stick to the plan, okay?" I insisted from my perch. "Keep to the back, all that smart stuff we've been figuring out, right?"

He gave me another glare for my worry.

"I'm a little more selfish than going out to get myself killed, thank you," he noted wryly before he attempted to load the gun.

"The little lever on the side," I added in snidely as I waited, watching the bar. "Faster, now, faster..."

Tony managed to load the gun, just as the first of our captors appeared and rained bullets down the tunnel. I bit back a yell of shock, but Tony managed to dive out of the way, taking cover like a pro. Thank God. He popped off a few rounds, trying to buy time.

And I grinned broadly when the bar filled. And all the lights went out as the mechanical, near-six-foot tall suit of hydraulic-maintained and arc-reactor powered armor rattled to life. Tony slipped away from his post in the shadows, and quickly put the helmet on my head.

"Kick some ass, And-ster."

I shot him a grin that he probably couldn't see, and, y'know what? I totally smacked those punks down. I even got a little bit of a jeer in when I fired off a wrist-mounted rocket at the leader of the merry band that had been holding us for who knows how long. But it was when we – yes, Tony was staying behind me, letting me take the heavy hits, which really wasn't fun – headed outside of the caves.

I was working pretty well at roasting the crates and crates of Stark weaponry until some of the remaining terrorists got to a heavy machine gun. That wasn't fun. They even managed to blow out one of the compensating belts on my knee systems, which flung a buttload of weight onto my shoulders and getting me to collapse. Not fun. At all.

Tony managed to bolt through the conflagration and get close, and I knew it was time to bail. I grabbed him tight, managed to get to my feet, and barely had time to warn him to hang on before I punched the button that turned on the special reason the boots were almost a foot and a half thick on the sole. The rockets activated, and I heard Tony whoop in delight as we sailed through the blast of all the ammunition I'd set to burning.

And we made it out. I had my eyes shut, since I've got a fear of heights and my claustrophobia was setting in the most imaginable way, and because I knew what came with vertical motion: the descent. And my stomach twisted as we started falling like a stone. I made sure to have my back towards the ground, Tony on top of me, before my back slammed into sand.

Then came a few waves of pain. And a lot of groaning.

"Owwww," I moaned after a few seconds after the landing, "this was a stupid idea..."

"Agreed," Tony mumbled in reply as he rolled off me. I was half-buried into the sand, and I managed to pull off the helmet and start squirming loose, despite pain in my knee and the rest of me feeling like general crap.

"Still," I noted once I was loose and Tony was propping me up as we started making our way away from the mountains and remains of the suit, "not bad."