Sorry this took a while guys, I had to wait til I'd researched the next bit of the plot properly to write this. Also, as with most of my Extremis stories, I've slightly altered the format of the suit, I know he doesn't 'bleed' it. Finally I have nothing against Irish people, I've got Irish relatives, I'm just working with a family stereotype. Apologies for the abrupt ending to this chapter, but everything will be explained in the next one!

"Well this is just fantastic." Tony growled, pacing the living room, phone pressed to his ear as he tried for the fifteenth time to call Pepper. "She probably thinks we're doing it, and now she's not picking up her phone. This is all your fault, you know." He pointed at Natasha, who rolled her eyes.

"You're the one who insisted on flying into a mountain." She sighed from where she sat on the couch, typing up a report on Tony's last mission. "Besides, she clearly can't trust you all that much if she so quickly put two and two together to come up with five."

"Shut up." He snarled, hanging up the phone and immediately dialling Pepper's number again. "I told you, something's wrong with the suit, I didn't fly into the damn mountain on purpose."

Natasha rolled her eyes again and closed the laptop, standing up. "How can something be wrong with the suit if you are the suit?" she asked. "Didn't you say it's in your bone marrow or something?"

"Damn it." Tony sighed as Pepper's voice mail picked up yet again, shoving it angrily in his pocket. "Look, I don't know why it's behaving the way it is, you guys haven't given me much of a chance to do any diagnostics in a while."

"Well you'll have plenty of down time for the next few days." Natasha replied, glancing at her own phone. "Fury wants you in for a debrief and-"

"Hell no!" Tony said indignantly. "I've got to fix this mess with Pepper before it gets any worse! She's already ignoring my calls."

"Take it as a hint." Natasha suggested. "Look, this is a little more important than trying to get laid, Stark. Besides, you're not in any fit state to be going anywhere." She reached out and poked his ribs, causing Tony to fold instantly. "Hazards of flying into a mountain I guess."

"All the more reason not to go up to that flying ship of death." Tony huffed, arms wrapped around his ribs protectively. "Sorry, Nat, but this time there's something more important than the mission."

Natasha was just about to open her mouth and argue when Tony's phone rang and he jumped, fumbling in his pocket for it and glancing at the name.

"It's Pepper." He said, answering the call. "Pep, listen, what you saw before-"

"Ooh, this sounds juicy." A male voice that Tony knew all too well came through the receiver and Tony froze. "Tell me more, Anthony."

"How did you get Pepper's phone?" he asked, trying his level best to remain calm.

"Same way I got the woman herself, you know for a genius, you're not all that bright." The man laughed and sighed. "Ah, Tony, how I've missed our banter."

Tony's jaw tensed and anger flared inside him. Natasha noticed the change in his demeanour and tried to ask what was going on, but Tony brushed her off. "I swear to God, Hammer, if you even so much as touch her-"

"Oh yes! Here come the threats!" Justin Hammer laughed. "'I'll kill you, I'll beat you to a pulp, I'll take away everything you love', well guess what Tony?" Tony heard a definitely female whimper come from the background and Justin laughed again. "I'm going to get there first this time. Pepper will die here, now, unless you hand over your suits and your tech."

Tony was panicking now. He ran a hand through his hair and looked helplessly at Nat. "You know that'll never happen, Hammer." He said.

"I thought you might say that." Justin sighed. "Shaun, go ahead and pick a finger to break." He said to someone else, and before Tony knew what was happening, Pepper screamed.

"Hammer!" Tony yelled, but Justin interrupted him with a manic laugh.

"You've got a choice, Anthony! Do you want an empty life, or a meaningful death?" Justin hissed before hanging up the phone. Tony pulled his away from his ear, staring at it in shock.

"Hammer has Pepper." He mumbled before Natasha had a chance to ask. "He wants my suits. He's hurting her."

Natasha was typing away furiously at her laptop. "I've traced him…back at his old warehouse. Original." She looked up at him. "This is a trap, you know that right?"

Tony nodded. "I'm not leaving her there."

"You're sure as hell not taking any tech over there either." Natasha snapped, standing up. "A lot more is at stake here that your girlfriend. If Hammer gets his hands on our tech-"

"My tech, I think you'll find." Tony growled, squaring up to her. "You've got a damn nerve, Nat. How many times have you put Barton before the mission, hmm?" he smiled inwardly when Natasha's lip twitched, a sure sign he was getting to her. "And you're preaching to me?"

Natasha glared at him, but instead of responding verbally, she reached out and poked his ribs again, making him fold over again and yell in pain. "You're not exactly in a fit state to be doing anything heroic." She spat. "You need to report to base, and we'll handle this."

Tony shook his head and looked up at her, panting. "Make me." He growled and straightened up. Before Natasha could do anything, Tony was encased in armour, it having flared out of nowhere, and within seconds he'd blasted off through a hatch in the ceiling, headed straight for Hammer's warehouse. "Jarvis, I think its Last Resort time." He said to his AI as Hammer Industries came into view.

"Very good, sir. Dialling now." Jarvis replied and dialled a number. The inbuilt phone rang a few times before a familiar voice answered.

"I need your help." Tony said. "I wouldn't call unless I was desperate."

The other voice laughed. "Well that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."

Tony slowed down his flight path to a stop, hovering about a mile from Hammer Industries as Jarvis scanned the building. "Look, can we just put the past behind us? Hammer's back. He's…he's taken my girl…I need your help, man. Please?" he begged. "Please, I can't do this alone. I can't lose her."

The man on the phone sighed and Tony waited anxiously for an answer.

"I'm still keeping the suit."

Tony landed outside the warehouse a few minutes later. It was desolate, SHIELD having removed everything of worth when Justin was imprisoned after the Expo disaster. Several big warehouses stood in the yard, but Jarvis had tracked the signal from Hammer's call to one specific one, the largest. Jarvis had cleared the area of any weapons, but he was still wary.

"Hammer! Get out here!" Tony bellowed through the loudspeaker. There was silence for a moment before the warehouse doors slid open, creaking heavily. Tony waited a few moments until the door was properly open and a man stepped out into the light. Tony blanched and stared at him in shock. "Daniel?" he asked, bewildered.

"It's Shaun, actually." Shaun replied with a smile. "Mr Hammer told me to show you in, he's entertaining a guest at the moment. Oh, and if you could strip out of the armour, that'd be great." He waited for a moment and when Tony made no move to do as asked, he shrugged. "I could always ask Pepper to persuade you?"

At the mention of Pepper's name, rage flared inside Tony, but he instructed the armour to recede and stood before Shaun in his shirt and jeans.

"Good boy." Shaun said, beckoning him inside. "Right this way, Mr Stark." He instructed, getting Tony to walk a few feet ahead of him as he pulled out a gun. "For security reasons, you understand." He said, jabbing the gun in Tony's back to get him moving. They walked further into the warehouse and through another door leading into the main section, a huge open space. Weirdly, but completely Hammer's style, he had a dining table set up in the middle of the room, white cloth and all. Pepper was sitting in a chair, tied to it with a full plate of food in front of her. Hammer was half way through his own meal and made a pleased noise when he spotted Tony.

"Tony!" he said jovially, wiping his mouth with a napkin and standing up. "Tony Stark, nice of you to come on such short notice." He walked up to Tony and looked at Shaun. "Is he clean?"

Shaun blinked and then cleared his throat, to which Hammer sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Shaun, you always, always pat them down!" he spat. "Come on! Sorry about this." He said to a baffled Tony as Shaun quickly patted him down, checking for weapons. "He's Irish, what can I say? Please, come sit down, take a load off." He led Tony over to the table and pushed him into the chair, taking his own seat while Shaun tied Tony's hands behind the chair. Tony gave Pepper a look and swallowed. She was bedraggled, hair a mess, tears still streaming down her cheeks.

"You okay?" he asked softly. Pepper nodded and forced a smile.

"This is nice, isn't it?" Hammer asked, starting on his meal again. "Us three together." He smiled up at Tony as he chewed and then looked at Pepper. "You haven't touched your meal, Virginia. Something wrong?"

Pepper swallowed and glared at Justin. "Sorry, I'm not used to being kidnapped, it must have done something to my appetite."

Justin laughed loudly at this, coughing slightly as some food went down the wrong hole. "Oh, Virginia, Shaun's told me about your sense of humour. He's also told me a lot of other things, but we can talk about that once I've finished with Tony here, hmm?" he smirked and reached out to brush Pepper's hair from her face.

"Don't you fucking touch her." Tony snarled, looking at Hammer like he'd love nothing more than to rip his head off.

"Ooh, aren't you a feisty one?" Justin chuckled. "I think you'll find that I can do whatever I want to Pepper, and she'll let me, won't you?" he turned back to Pepper and grabbed her hair, yanking it back hard so that she let out a cry of pain.

"You're about five seconds away from me tearing these cuffs off and ripping you to shreds." Tony growled, to which Justin laughed again.

"I'd love to see you try, Anthony." He said quietly, staring Tony down.

"You asked for it." Tony sighed and focussed all his energy into activating the suit.

Justin laughed and released Pepper for a moment to cross his arms over his chest. "Oh, this'll be good. Watch this, Pep." He nudged her shoulder and she jerked away from him. They both watched as Tony closed his eyes for a few seconds…and then opened them in confusion. "Something wrong, Anthony? Performance anxiety, perhaps?" he slammed his fist on the table, causing Pepper and Tony to jump. "Nope! You're just not as smart as me!" he barked out a laugh and stood up, grabbing the back of Pepper's chair, tipping her back and dragging her along the floor. "You see, Tony, I've been doing a lot of thinking while I was in jail, and when I broke out of jail, and it all revolved around you, isn't that nice?" he let go of Pepper's chair when they were a good distance away from the table and he turned to face Tony again. "I managed to pick up a few more contacts, including Shaun here, and we've been working very hard." He clicked his fingers and Shaun tossed him a small touchscreen device. "We discovered your little secret, about Iron Man, spoiler alert!" he yelled and looked over at Pepper. "Not really a bodyguard!" he jammed his thumb against the screen in his hands and Tony's entire body immediately went rigid. "You see, Pepper, Tony here has been keeping a pretty big secret from you, naughty boy." He pressed another part of the screen and Tony's arms snapped out to the side, breaking free of his handcuffs with a yell of pain. "Oops, teething problems." He shrugged and tried again, making Tony stand up. "There we go. What's the line Tony? 'I am Iron Man'?" he tapped the screen a final time and the armour flared all around Tony at once, encasing him inside it. Justin grinned manically and Pepper gasped, staring in disbelief as the man she'd come to know so well, turned out to be someone else entirely.

"Tony?" she breathed.

"Surprise!" Justin yelled in glee, pressing random parts of the screen and making Tony react to it like a puppet on a string. "Hang on…hang on…there we go." He retracted the armour around Tony's face and made him hover forwards towards them, hands plastered to his sides. "Have I ruined the mystery between you?" he asked, chuckling as he pocketed the device and walked over to Pepper, untying her hands. "See, Tony here isn't your regular run of the mill superhero, oh no! He figured out that suits, actual big bulky metal suits, they can be stolen, damaged, but a suit that is built into you? Into your DNA? That's pretty much indestructible, right Tony?" he grabbed Pepper's arm and yanked her to her feet before walking over to Tony and rapping his knuckles against the metal of Tony's head. "Only problem with that being the updates are a little trickier, you gotta wire yourself into the system. And that's what our Anthony did! He backed up his entire brain! And you know what? I've got it all right here." He pulled out the touchscreen device again and waved it around. "See, the problem with using a computer is, no matter how tough your security, they can be hacked, and unfortunately for you Tony, my man, Shaun is a nerd. A big nerd. The nerdiest nerd to ever nerd." He laughed at his own joke. "Shaun hacked into your brain data, Tony. He hacked it, and we hacked you." He pressed the screen again and Tony's arm started to rise, pointing at Pepper.

"No!" Tony yelled, seeing what Hammer was doing and trying his best to stop himself raising his arm as Pepper started trembling with fear. "No, Hammer! You said you'd let her go!"

Hammer frowned and turned to Tony, then to Pepper. "Did I? Did I say I'd let you go? Shaun?"

"Don't think you did, boss." Shaun said with a smirk.

"No, didn't think I did." He shook his head and made Tony raise his arm again. "Pretty sure I said she'd die unless you handed over your suits and your tech, and I'm also pretty sure I don't see all your suits or all your tech, so…" he shrugged and smiled as Tony's hand aimed at Pepper.

"You think he's gonna keep you around now, Shaun?" Tony asked, trying with all his might to lower his arm again. "You served your purpose, Hammer's not exactly nostalgic."

Shaun laughed softly. "Mr Hammer and I have an arrangement, Mr Stark, but thanks for your concern."

"Yeah, about that." Justin sighed, turning to Shaun. "I'm gonna have to rescind our deal, if you don't mind." He smiled at Shaun, whose mouth opened in shock.

"Pardon?!" Shaun asked incredulously. "You what? No, no you can't do that! We made a deal, a deal you need to stick to if you want me to help you!"

Justin shook his head and pressed the touchscreen, causing Tony to spin around so his arm was pointing at Shaun instead. "You did help me, Shaun. But I don't need you any more. You're fired." And with that, Justin flicked the screen and Tony's gauntlet fired, blasting Shaun with a direct hit to the chest and sending him flying across the room, crashing into the wall on the other side with a clang. Pepper screamed and covered her mouth with her hands, crying again as she watched Shaun killed in front of her.

"No!" Tony yelled as he was spun back around to face Pepper. "No, Hammer, please, I'm begging you-"

"Shush!" Hammer bellowed, glaring at Tony. "You destroyed everything I'd worked for! All I ever wanted was to be your equal, to have people look up to me the way they look up to you, but you couldn't handle that, could you Tony?" Justin was seething now, barely containing his rage. "Now you're gonna know what it feels like to lose everything!" he tapped the screen and Tony lunged forward grabbing Pepper around the waist and pressing his gauntlet to Pepper's head. She let out a cry of desperation and shook with sobs. "Say goodbye, Tony."

He could feel Pepper's hands trembling as they grasped at his waist, staring up at him. "Pepper, listen to me." He mumbled, trying to get her attention as she shivered. "Someone's coming to help, okay? You'll be safe, but I need you to know…" he closed his eyes and swallowed. "I love you."

"Aww, how touching." Hammer sneered, laughing as Pepper's reaction to Tony's words stopped her crying. "But you'll never find out if he was really telling the truth, what a shame." And with that, Justin flicked his screen again.

There was a pause, and then a terrifying scream. But the scream came from Tony. Justin stepped back, startled as Tony kept screaming. He flicked the screen again, jabbed at it with his finger but nothing happened. Finally, somehow Tony managed to wrench his hand away from Pepper's head, flattening it to his side again. His chest heaved and he gave Pepper one last look before crumpling to the floor, armour disappearing as fast as it had appeared on his body. Pepper gasped and crashed to her knees beside him, trying to revive him.

"Tony!" she screamed, shaking his shoulders, tears dripping from her eyes.

"What the fuck?!" Justin bellowed. "That's not fair! That's not fair!" he launched his device across the room with an angry yell, pacing around Tony. "He shut himself down, he killed himself. That was my job!" he ran over and kicked Tony's lifeless body before running over to Shaun and grabbing the gun from his limp hand, aiming it at Pepper as he stormed back over. "You make sure you let him know that this is his fault!" he screamed, pulling back the hammer on the gun, but before he could fire there was a tremendous crash, and another suit of armour burst into the room, black and grey in colour with an enormous turret on one shoulder, and very recognizable to Hammer. Pepper shrank away and grabbed onto Tony, trying desperately to revive Tony.

"What up, Hammer?" the new suit greeted.

Justin shook his head and raised the gun again, firing at the suit. "No!" Justin bellowed, growing angrier as the bullets merely bounced off the suit. "No!"

"Yup." The suit said cheerfully before it raised its arm and fired the gauntlet right into Justin's chest, sending him flying across the room much like Tony's had done to Shaun. Justin landed with a thump on the ground, skidding a few yards before coming to a rest in a smoking pile, dead.

"Dang." The suit said, lowering its arm and lifting its faceplate to reveal someone Pepper recognised from a very long time ago. "I've been waiting a long time to do that."

"James!" Pepper gasped. "Oh my God, you have to help me!" she had Tony's head cradled in her lap and he wasn't moving. Rhodey jumped into action, striding over and picking Tony up, throwing him over his shoulder and leading Pepper out of the warehouse. "What's going on?" Pepper asked, totally confused as she followed him. "Is he going to be okay? He just…he crumpled, what happened to him? Justin said he shut down-"

"Pepper, you gotta calm down." Rhodey said before frowning and turning his head towards her. "It is Pepper, right? He wasn't pulling my leg?"

Pepper shook her head and then gasped as military vehicles appeared in the distance, speeding towards them.

"Ugh, he's not gonna like this when he wakes up." Rhodey sighed.