HA-HA! I bet you all thought I was dead. I assure you, I was not dead. I was distracted, busy, and without focus or inspiration. It's a terrible combination. However, I appear before you today with new chapter! And an idea of where I'm going with the next chapter. Hypothetically, you shouldn't have to wait so long for the next chapter. Hypothetically.

I want to take the time to thank all of you who stuck with me, continued to review and like and follow and everyone who continued to have faith in me that I would upload a new chapter. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

On a side note, who was a little disappointed in Iron Man 3? And who is so uber sad that RDJ is done with the Iron Man movies? So much sadness. Luckily, the new Star Trek made up for everything.

THANK YOU ALL AGAIN!

As always, read, review, and enjoy!

"What the-Tony? Tony!" Bruce moved forward, quickly putting a gentle hand on Tony's chest to get him to settle down. The air Tony drew into his lungs sounded clear, not like the rasping breaths he'd drawn before. The monitor told him that Tony's brainwaves had returned to normal, like the man hadn't been dead only a minute ago. Finally, Tony's restless eyes caught his.

"Bruce." His voice was harsh with disuse and abuse, but Tony pushed through anyway. "Bruce, where's the team?"

"The team? Tony, what the hell? You were dead!"

Tony pushed himself up, despite Bruce's restraining hand. He shook his head, but Bruce could see that he regretted it. The change in altitude was catching up with him. Bruce pushed a glass of water in his hands and he took a long drink from it. "A.I.M. deals with mechanics. The body is just another machine to them. It was a reboot drug."

"A-a what?"

"It shuts the systems down one by one until the whole body acts dead. A minute after death, it jump starts all the systems to reboot the body."

"How did you figure this entire thing out?" Bruce asked. It made sense though. Tony's body had acted like each system was turning offline. And honestly, he had seen weirder things. He turned into a giant green monster. Thor used a rainbow bridge, as Tony liked to call it, to move between worlds. If Tony said there was a drug that could treat the body like a computer, he believed him.

Tony shied away from mention of the knowledge. "I was aware for most of it. Up until the last couple days."

"Damn it," Bruce muttered. Tony had probably been in intense pain. He had given Tony pain medication, but he hadn't given him a lot or anything strong in case it reacted with whatever drug A.I.M. had given him.

Tony clapped him on the shoulder. "Not your fault buddy. Now, where's the team?"

Bruce decided not to even ask how Tony was so aware. Tony had managed to defy the laws of biological systems long ago. "They went after A.I.M. Jarvis found something in their computer system before he shut down and stored it on a ghost drive where Fury couldn't find it. Pepper activated the ghost drive for them and they found a location."

"And then you lost contact with them," Tony guessed.

"The last time I talked to them, they were just arriving. I should call them and tell them you're alive. Oh, and Pepper's on her way."

Tony grimaced. "You won't be able to. The whole thing was a trap. A.I.M. wants me to make weapons for them and they knew kidnapping me wouldn't be encouragement enough. So they put this elaborate plan into play that would lead the team to them, where they would capture them which, in turn, would lead me to them where they would capture me and use the team as ransom to get me to build weapons."

"That is…quite the elaborate plan."

"Good afternoon sir," Jarvis' voice intoned.

"Jarvis! I missed you," Tony said with a large smile.

"And I you sir."

"I'm going to guess you lost contact with the team?"

"I'm afraid so sir. I apologize. I should have seen the trap in advance."

"They worked really hard to make sure none of you would see it coming and made sure I wouldn't be able to tell you. Well, at least we can get to work now," Tony said as he hopped off the bed. Bruce was at his side in seconds, grabbing his arm and hauling him up with an impressive amount of strength Tony didn't know the doctor had.

Bruce shrugged when Tony looked at him. "I have the big guy on a tight rope. We're really close right now. Also, you literally just came back from death. You've been lying on a bed for five days. You had to have known you wouldn't have the strength to stand. You shouldn't even be able to manage this much!"

"Sir, Ms. Potts is here," Jarvis said.

"Crap," Bruce and Tony responded together. Said redhead arrived a few seconds later, rounding the corner and freezing.

"T-Tony?" she whispered.

"Yeah, so situation solved?" Tony asked hesitantly. He and Bruce were still standing together, Bruce's arm wrapped around Tony's chest. Pepper ran forward and threw her arms around him, Bruce just managing to get out of the way in time. She buried her head in his chest, actually enjoying the blinding blue light for once. After a few minutes she looked up to Bruce and he was astounded by the joy and happiness in her eyes.

"Bruce did you-did you?" Her voice was soft with wonder and Bruce wished he could say yes.

"No Pepper."

"The drug wasn't designed for permanent death. Just momentary death. They needed me out of the way."

"Whose they?" Bruce wondered if Pepper had learned from Tony how to recover from the bizarre so quickly. Now that she was assured of Tony's life, she was all business, although he noticed she still kept a hand against Tony's side.

"A.I.M. They work in black markets weapons and they want me to build weapons for them."

"Well I'm sure that the team will take care of it." When nobody responded, Pepper looked between the two of them, then sighed. "They got captured, didn't they?"

"We think so," Bruce tried to say gently.

"And now you two have to go get them?"

"Relax!" Tony said with his smirk that he always saved for his friends. "I've got a plan…kind of. And I'll even let you keep Dr. Banner to yourself Ms. Potts, as long as you promise to behave."

"Tony, you can't seriously mean to go alone," Bruce demanded. "We should tell Fury about where they are and he can get a whole team together and we can raid the bunker and overwhelm them."

"And while we fight our way to the team, they can kill our teammates off or move them to a new location. No, I think my plan is way better. And besides, I won't be completely alone."

-o0o-o0o-o0o-o0o-

"So…" Clint said into the silence of the white walled room they were being held in. Steve was leaning against the wall, trying to absorb the cool of the walls to ease his pounding head. Whatever drug they had given him had made it virtually impossible to move. Thor had been convinced to remain powerless, lest A.I.M. decide to take their anger out on Clint or Natasha. Although the guards were wary of Natasha and Clint, they had been allowed free range of the room, free of drugs. They both suspected that the minute they showed any sign of violence, they would find themselves drugged as well. "Bad plan then?"

Natasha paced in front of them, her hands gently running through her hair. "What's their end game? They've made it clear that they don't want anything from us. We thought they wanted Tony, but Bruce said he was going to…that he was close when we got here and there wasn't anything else they could do. So why take us captive?"

All the occupants of the room froze as they heard footsteps down the hall. Natasha moved quietly in front of Steve as the locks on the outside were forced open and another person was shoved into the room, the door quickly latched behind them.

"Sheesh. They act like I'm crashing a party I was invited to," the person said. "Hell, I'm the freaking guest of honor. They could show a little more respect!" The person's voice rose, clearly directed to the guards on the other side of the door. He turned around and saw everyone staring at him. "Really? This is the best greeting you can give me?"

"Tony?" Natasha practically whispered.

Tony gave them a blinding grin. "That's me!"