The Last Chronicle

by Miss Starfire

After years of struggling to build their lives together, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts have lost everything. But as all-out war looms, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance, Tony and Pepper are ready to take it all back. It has all come down to this. Story 8 of 8. The epic finale to The Last Chronicles Saga.

2. Chapter 1

Guest Review Responses

Guest: have no idea how long i've been checking in here to see update soon. – Well, check no more: a huge update here for you :D

faithful reader: i have a million things to say but after reading all books in this series and finally catching up i have one thing i need to say i wish i had read this earlier the books are amazing and butiful and even gave me my name they have made me mad cry happy sad but being the faithful reader i have learned to always be faithful and never give up on you and i have waited in agony for this story but while i was waiting i read all your imaa storys and they were lovely butiful and undescribable so to end it here never stop writing and keep making people mad happy sad and cry. – Holy moly! Like, oh, my God! I am SO honored that you have such faith in me, and I can assure you that you won't be disappointed. You may get a heart attack here and there while reading this fic, but like I've done and said before: I will fix it. And jeez! 'Faithful Reader'? You sure know how to make me nervous! :P I will do my best to make you happy and glad that you invested so much time in these stories ^_^

Someone: Ok 1st: Yay that was quick :) And your welcome! And 2nd:

Gaaaaaaaaah, I'm really trying hard not to attack you with an angry review right now. Ugh there are so many questions that need answering! D: Update as soon as you can! (Ahem...please..._) – Please, don't attack me! Or at least not with Brussel sprouts or rabid pit bulls. I'm still recovering from that ;)

Pepper210: Ese maldito de Furia, me tiene cansada... Hug... si pudiera lo aria pedasos! Otro gran capitulo, no se como le hases... son geniales tus historias. Te adoro, actuliza pronto porfa... la intriga me esta matando! – Nick Fury es un patán de primera, pero es tan divertido hacerlo enojar y hacer corajes. LOL! Muchas gracias por tu review, y bienvenida al club :D

apps: Heyy..how are you?... Missed you dear!...I want to trust you with this story but still saying I will cry a lot if anything happened to pepperony as it has been marked with angst and tragedy,not with any romance...breaking my heart.. Why? –Errr… so, you noticed that the story is marked tragedy, huh? Yeah… there will be some deaths in this story… yes: DEATHS :(

Toni: 'What she's made for.' WHAT?! What is Pepper made for? Who MADE her and why? Fury better have some convincing evidence. Looking forward to reading what those are and to finally, FINALLY getting some answers. Thanks! – You will get some answers here, but the bulk of the answers you're searching for will be posted in the next chappie :D

apps: Heyyy...where are you?..long time no see! – I'm here! Sorry! Life sucks and I was trying to finish another fic for Arrow. But here I am now!

Pepper210: Dios la intriga me esta matando. Estoy releyendo los libros (Voy por el Cuarto año) y me quede pensando en quien es ese enemigo oculto en el atico de Satrk Solutions... Mi unica teoria... hasta haora ...es que posiblemente sea ese virus Tecnivoro, porque en teoria nunca fue destruido, una partecita de el se quedo con Jarcof y talves logro evolucionar y convertirse en una persona y al mismo tiempo en un aparato tecnologico inofencivo. Y claro todo el mundo sabe que Tony se la vive rodeado de tecnologia... haci que es muy probable... no se tu, pero me estoy quemando el cerebro pensando. Maldicion! actualiza pronto porfaaaaaa... la intriga me come viva, tengo que saber quien es ese maltido (O maldita, eso depende) para que trate de hacerlo picadillo con mis propias manos... Nadie se mete con mi pareja favorita si tengo algo que decir al respecto... -_- (Amante enferma del Peperony... jusgenmen si quieren, asi soy yo :D) – ¡JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJA! ¡Ya somos dos! Tus teorías son buenas… y de hecho, una de las que mencionas aquí es la base de la otra historia que estoy preparando para cuando termine estas crónicas. Espero verte ahí también :) ¡Ah! Y en este capítulo por fin sabrás, ¿quién es el maldito que buscas? :P

Iron kid: Plz update this I can not I really want to see me becausei want see if they get James back – Hello, Iron kid! Welcome to the club :) I think Elinorwrites and you would be best buddies: she adores James, too. And who wouldn't? He's such a loveable little boy!

Guest: Please update! This story is amazing and I must know how it ends. – Here it be! The first chapter of the crazy conclusion of The Last Chronicles Saga ^_^

A/N: This story will revert to the timeframe of The Last Month, meaning that it won't follow the same pattern as its predecessors: each chapter won't be a month, but a period of time that could be minutes, hours, days, or even weeks. There's LOTS to cover, and I'll try to do it as thoroughly as humanly possible.

I'm sooooooooooooooooo sorry about the delay in getting this chapter out. My Arrow fic and life in general delayed me in completing it. But now, we are full speed ahead! Get ready for your heads to explode, my Faithful Readers! Lot of answers for you here in this chapter! I HOPE YOU LOVE IT!

*DRUMROLL*

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Chapter 1

After so many months without using Extremis to his heart's content, it was odd to be woken up before the alarm went off, by the alarm's internal computer system itself, nonetheless. He could feel the alarm clock somehow beeping within him, precisely counting down to six in the morning, as if tempting him to oversleep and call itself the victor. But if there was something that Tony Stark knew first hand, it was the value of time.

And the value of second chances, at that.

He had wanted to wake up before the alarm went off, anyway, to have some time to think about what would happen if Fury failed to convince him and Pepper to join him in whatever clusterfuck the Head of S.H.I.E.L.D. had put himself into. Knowing Fury, he had probably caused half of the issue by trying to prevent it. Tony could not deny that he himself had some experience in that regard. But it was one thing to clean up after you own mess, and quite another to clean up after someone else's – especially someone else whom he would not trust with a bucket of water near a lake.

How could he trust him, anyway? Ever since Iron Man had come to life, Fury had been breathing down his neck trying to outsmart him, find out who he was, feel as if he could control what Tony did with his armor. The only time he had enjoyed working with the man had been when the Makluan had invaded. At this point, Tony figured that it was because neither of them had had any choice in the matter. He had even respected Rescue for the rookie she was during the invasion. If Fury had seen how well the redhead had fared inside a brand-new suit of armor against the lizards aboard the alien ship, he would have more quickly believed the ginger to be a worthy ally in this absurd, super-secret cause of his – whatever it may be.

His eyes wandered to his chest, where Pepper still rested, her arms around his sides, her legs tangled with his. He ran a hand down her soft mane. It had grown again, he now realized, which made him wonder how long it had been since Gene had blown up the jet with them inside. Had it been a few days, a couple of weeks… or was it much longer than that? Granted, Pepper's hair was not as long as she used to have it before grief made her hurt enough to cut it herself, but it was definitely longer than it had been in high school. In fact, it had somewhat lost the style she had acquired when he had sent Matilda to her, months ago. He should have realized that yesterday, when they showered, but he had been more concerned about making sure every other part of her body was in good shape.

His gaze then shifted to the space she had left on her side of the bed, and he held back a chuckle at remembering what he had done yesterday when Nick Fury had shown them to their living quarters.

"Alarms go off for everyone at six in the morning," Fury told the couple that trailed behind him, following him to where he had told them everyone else rested for the night. He had been very vague about how he meant by "everyone else," but right now all they wanted was to wash off, talk about what they had gotten themselves into, and sleep the day away. There was no replacement for a real restful night – not even the coma-induced slumber that Tony suspected had been forced upon them.

"Breakfast is served at seven. Do you want the briefing to be before or after?"

"Don't care," Tony said and stopped when Fury did so in front of a metal door. "It depends if you want me to kick your ass before or after you can have your last meal."

Fury's only response was to sigh. "Whatever, Stark. Here's Miss Potts' room. The code is–"

"Whoa!" Tony shook his head. "Did you just say: Pepper's room? Don't you mean our room?"

"No," Fury replied and pressed in a code on the keypad to the left of the door, causing the automatic door to open up and reveal a single twin-sized bed inside. "This building was not intended for it to be a couples' retreat spa, Stark. It was built for soldiers."

"Soldiers with no wives?" Tony asked.

"Yeah. Exactly," Fury retorted in a bored tone. "Now, why don't we let Miss Potts do her own thing here and I'll take you to the other floor where you can–"

"Other floor?" Tony chuckled mockingly. "You seriously think I'm going to let Pepper out of my sight? And you want us to help you?"

"Tony, these rooms are small, built only for one person and only have one bed. What are you gonna do? Sleep sideways on the floor between the bed and the wall? There's only 200 square feet in there! And 50 of those are for the bathroom!"

"He can sleep on me," Pepper said with a smirk and a wink that showed she was purposely trying to make the situation both uncomfortable and even more difficult for the General. "Wouldn't be the first time."

Nick closed his eye, exhaled deeply, and then opened it up once more. "There are no other empty rooms nearby. So, if you just get over yourself and follow me upstairs…"

Fury began, turned around to walk away, but Tony had other plans. The narrowing of his eyes told the ginger he was pushing the limits of whatever capped version of Extremis he still had inside, and when a smile crept up to his face, Pepper held back a chuckle at what unfolded before her. Without saying a word, Tony walked around Fury, hacked opened the next door, and then walked inside. Fifteen seconds later, the inventor dragged out of the unused room the bed that was inside, hauled it with him to the room that had been deemed for Pepper's use, and then threw the second twin-size bed next to the original one, all the while grateful for his returned superhuman strength. It was a cramped space for sure, but Pepper just shrugged coolly to Fury's questioning look as she walked past him to stand inside their new room.

Tony spared his redhead a glance, his back still to Fury. He then winked playfully at her before he made sure the door closed in Fury's face without even looking back. The door instantly locked itself, and he removed the override code he knew S.H.I.E.L.D. had programmed inside. Now only he and Pepper would be able to open that door… unless Fury decided to blow the whole fucking thing up.

"Guess we would've been able to manage with the one bed," he whispered to himself and then kissed the top of Pepper's head. He slowly rolled her over and away from him, and decided to bathe one more time before meeting Fury even though they had done a thorough cleaning last night. Cold water helped him focus and think, and he had much to ponder about right now.

Just like whether or not to believe that their son was alive.

He stripped down on his way to the shower, and he did not even bother to turn on the light. He stood under the cold stream of water, closed his eyes and weighed in pros and cons. He knew by personal experience that it was not unheard of to come back from the dead, even after a long time had passed. He himself had been found a week after the plane crash of the Stark International private jet. His father had been found more than a year after that. Besides, if anyone was crazy and proficient enough at faking someone's death, it surely would be S.H.I.E.L.D. in tandem with Gene Khan. Tony was not aware of what the situation was outside wherever they were right now, but it must have taken a lot to convince their families and friends that they were really gone.

Had there been a funeral for them? Were they still mourning them? Would they ever see their families again?

Could their son still be alive?

Back to square one.

If baby James was still alive, and if they were still remotely close to the day their plane had exploded, he was nearly a year and a half of age. If their son was in fact still breathing, he had been without his parents for at least eight months, which was enough time for one so young to forget about them. And it was also enough time to exploit him into the weapon he knew his son could be.

James Howard Stark had some variation of Extremis in him, of that Tony no longer had any doubt. His son was stronger than other infants – and most other adults – at seemingly random times, which he had seen with his very own eyes. He had also seemed to understand certain things with much more clarity than any child his age should have been able to, suggesting that he had a natural level of intelligence that would at least rival his father's, and likely even surpass it one day. And there was something else in him; the ability to see beyond what anyone else could see… the ability to read people's… people's…

Darkness, Tony's eyes snapped open and he aimed his gaze at the closed door that led to the bedroom. He swallowed hard, shook his head lightly, and then exhaled deeply and slowly, as if forcing his mind not to rush to conclusions about his wife. Yet, he found that he could not.

What if whatever James had had, it had been given to Pepper too? What if S.H.I.E.L.D. was lying to them again and they were simply testing out their version of Extremis on his wife? On him? On their son? What if they were nothing but lab rats in the grand scheme of things? The goal of Extremis had been to revive the admirable, yet fallen soldier of many decades ago. So far, however, none of the attempts at bringing back Captain America had been fruitful at all. It was only reasonable, in scientific terms, to explore all variations of the small dosage of Extremis he had successfully transferred to himself, all those years ago.

So… was it possible that their son was still alive, in the name of science? 100%. Was it possible that he was here, at this same facility, but just on another floor? Yes. Completely plausible in his eyes.

Would Nick Fury bargain the execution of his plans and the inventor's full and unquestioned cooperation in them, for the cost of James' freedom and life?

Yup, Tony thought bitterly. The fucking bastard would do that, too!

Yet, if this were the case, why had Fury not just saved himself some time by showing them their son and then demand whatever he wanted from him, yesterday morning or even last night? Why was he holding back? Perhaps it was because their son was not truly here, or maybe he was here but was not in any condition to be seen. Or maybe it was just because holding their son for ransom was the highest card he could play in this screwed up game of life.

Tony closed his eyes once more.

The shower stall he was currently in was all too small, yet yesterday he and his wife had managed to somehow fit inside it at the same time. Their preferred shower activity had taken a backseat, however, and not because of the lack of space – he knew they would have made it work – but because their minds had been busy both at taking care of each other and at accepting as truth that they had once more defied all odds.

Her hands were practically everywhere on him, as his had been on her when it had been his turn to check every pore on her body. So far, the only marks they had found belonged to previous adventures, or misfortunes, and nothing out of the ordinary seemed to stand out to them. Yet, they both knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. would have not passed on the opportunity to run tests on them that they would have never agreed to be a subject of had they been awake all this time.

Once she was satisfied with her examination, his redhead looked up to stare at his eyes for an instant, and she then pressed herself against him, her hands surrounding his waist. The steam building around them made their skin more slippery than it would normally have been, and it was slightly uncomfortable for the inventor as well, but he was just so happy to have her with him again that he had not even argued with her when she had cranked up the hot water in the stall.

"Are we dreaming, Tony?" he heard her ask in a timid voice he had not heard from her in a long, long time. "Are we going to wake up now?"

He surrounded her back with his arms, rested his chin on her head, and then closed his eyes.

"No, Pepper. I don't think it's like that."

"I don't know what to believe anymore," she gulped. "I'm so confused… and scared… and I don't want to get my hopes up…"

She did not have to explain her words; he knew exactly what she meant, because he was feeling the same… and more. Fury had said their son was alive, but both parents remembered the feeling of the little boy's cold figure in their arms. Tony still remembered having to sedate Pepper to take the dead body from her iron grip. He still remembered the funeral and the burial of his son, as if it had all occurred just seconds ago.

"What are we going to do?" she asked after she pulled away from him, but only a few inches, and only to rest her forehead on his.

"Listen to the prick," he whispered now that she was even closer to him. "See what he has to say and then act."

"Act, how? Are we going to work with him… or are we going to put a bullet in his head?"

"We have no guns, Pepper."

"We don't need them. We'll manage. I just… I just don't have the strength to be played with again. I just… I don't…"

Once again, the redhead did not have to finish voicing her thoughts – similar ones were crossing his mind as well. All this time, they had thought that their lives were theirs and theirs alone. But the more they thought about what they had survived, and what had occurred to them in the past five years, the more they realized that perhaps their life choices had been made for them way before then.

Near silence engulfed them, save for the sound of streaming water, and it was not until a few minutes had passed that Tony spoke once more.

"Let's see what happens today and then tomorrow morning. It's still too early to decide what to do… let's see what we can find out for now. But let's stay inside this room until then. Is that OK, Pep?"

"Yes," she pulled back from him and rubbed her face with her hands. "I don't know why, but I'm actually kinda tired. I wouldn't mind napping throughout the day."

"I wouldn't mind either… as long as it's with you."

Her smile was almost automatic and he knew that nothing in the world could have prevented it from shining through. Even after everything that had been said and done, she was still here with him – she was his only constant; the only stable point he could rely upon and use for support. Even if tomorrow Nick Fury royally pissed them off to the point of inciting a major attack, he knew she would have no regrets bringing the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. down as long as it all ended with the duo joining the afterlife together.

He opened his mouth to tell her he loved her, but he immediately realized there was no need for words at this point. She knew it to be true. He knew it to be true. And if being here was any indicator at all, everyone else that knew them in some way, shape or form, also knew that love was the single most essential emotion that existed between the two of them.

Otherwise, Nick Fury would have not kidnapped them both.

Otherwise, Nick Fury would have nothing on them to use for imposing his will on them.

Otherwise… they would have never agreed to sit here and wait to see if they would allow Fury to tell them what to do.

xxxXXXxxx

He had a plan, a lousy one that had sprung out at the very last moment, literally seconds before Tony and Pepper had walked in the door to the meeting room, but it was still worth a shot. Fury knew the value that Tony and Pepper placed on family and friends, and this was going to be his last card to play to steer the duo in the direction he wanted them to take: joining the armed forces he had put together to save the world, no matter the cost.

And now, while Tony and Pepper spoke in soft voices in each other's ears and nodded along to a conversation only they were privy to, Nick Fury felt as if all the years of undercover work and passive intervention on his part had all come down to this: sixty minutes of veiled revelations; an hour of providing enough information to reel in the heroes' cooperation, but still keeping the bulk of the precious data to himself – at least until it was appropriate for them to know the truth, all the truth and nothing but the truth…

…so help him Odin.

Yes, Nick Fury had a plan… but so did Pepper Potts and Tony Stark.

The current seating arrangement reminded the redhead of the many SI board meetings she had had to endure in the past – meetings she did not miss by any extent of the imagination. The table was rectangular, easily giving away the rankings of the people present in the conference room. At the opposite edges of the table, where the equally important typical powerhouses rested, were Nick Fury on one end and Tony and Pepper on the other end. Maria Hill sat to Nick's right, and to his left sat Black Widow and Hawkeye, the three of them with somber expressions on their faces, all internally praying for the meeting to go the way they had planned.

For their part, Tony and Pepper's postures reflected how much bluffing experience they had acquired during the SI meetings, over the years. Their faces gave away nothing of their thoughts or intentions. What was scarier to Nick than to suddenly see them be so still and quiet, was the fact that it was evident that the duo had had some lengthy conversations by just looking into the other's eyes. The head of S.H.I.E.L.D. sometimes wondered if the two were something close to being psychic.

"You've already wasted five minutes, Nick," Pepper said in a petulant tone, tapping her right index finger on her left wrist even though she was not even wearing a watch. "I hope you don't really believe that stalling will help."

"And I hope, Mrs. Stark, that you don't really believe that your current attitude will speed up the process."

"I'm not the one within an inch of my life, Fury, remember? I'm already dead."

The head of S.H.I.E.L.D. gave pause to Pepper's words. But this time, his face remained unchanged. He knew he could not prevent the redhead from seeing right through his façade – he had come to terms with that – but he refused to further clue-in his team of his internally ticking clock. Up until this moment, he had not been certain if Pepper had already had an opportunity to share her insight with her husband. Yet, the quick, almost imperceptible look of confusion on the inventor's face as he gazed his redhead from the corner of his eye had not been swift enough for Nick to misunderstand that Tony was in the know.

"Very well," Fury began with a curt nod towards Maria Hill to silently command to her that the first phase of their plan be placed in motion. Said woman immediately stood up and left. "Might as well get this over with."

Nick Fury stood from his chair and rested his weight on his knuckles on the table. He leaned forward a tad, briefly stared at Tony and Pepper, both of whom stared right back. After taking in a deep breath and hoping against hope that the shit would not hit the fan with his next words, Fury spoke in an uncharacteristically soft tone of voice.

"I know that the first thing you want to know is who's behind this clusterfuck of a threat – behind the bounty, actually, too. But that I can't tell you. At least not yet."

The look of incredulity on the heroes' faces was priceless, and had the situation not been grim and easily flammable, Nick would have laughed aloud.

"The FUCK, Fury?" Tony spat and slammed his fists against the table while Pepper simply shook her head and rolled her eyes at Fury's words.

"You're not off to a good start, Nick," Pepper stated, her hands now crossed over her chest. "This is SO not the way to convince us to help your ass."

"Don't misunderstand me: I will tell you who's in charge… just not now. Trust me: you don't want to know yet."

"The hell we don't!" Tony stood up from his chair and pointed towards Nick. "You better quit stalling, Fury, or this meeting is over… NOW!"

"Settle down, Stark," Fury retorted and straightened his back to give an appearance of confidence he truly did not feel or have. "If I tell you who's been fucking around with you, you're gonna leave this very instant to try to stop him without knowing everything you need to know, and the only thing you'll accomplish with that is to end up killing yourself, your wife AND your kid!"

"Of course we will!" Pepper began. "Why the hell wouldn't we chase after him? Whoever this is, he's tried to kill us for YEARS! And since you didn't have the balls to stop him before, we will stop him now!"

"Stop him before? With what?" Fury raised his voice. "A giant slingshot?"

"What do you mean 'with what'?" Pepper scoffed. "You're S.H.I.E.L.D.! You're supposed to have a plan, and then a backup plan… and then a backup for your backup!"

"We had no weapons!" Fury screeched. "You and your husband took a good chunk of our weapons and we never got more! If there's any reason beyond our control that barred us from acting more than we've tried, is because you two stopped making weapons!"

"Bullshit," Tony rolled his eyes and sat down again. "Stark Solutions was not the only manufactured of weapons."

"No," Fury agreed. "But Hammer Multinational was the next best thing… until you bought it out."

Pepper stared at Tony for an instant, narrowed her eyes a tad and then returned her attention to Fury.

"If you're trying to guilt trip us into helping you, it ain't gonna work," Pepper shook her head. "Now stop going around in circles and tells us what we want to know."

"Your son is alive," Nick deadpanned. "That's all you really need to know. He's been kept in isolation, but he's been well taken care off. We will plan and execute his extraction, but not before the time is right."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Tony asked and rubbed his face with his hands in obvious exasperation. The duo had known in advance that obtaining information from S.H.I.E.L.D. was as painful and slow-moving as pulling teeth at the speed of a snail, but that did not mean they were in the mood to put up with it for long. The implementation of their own agenda depended on the information S.H.I.E.L.D. provided them, and so far, they were yet to take on the bait and release the crucial piece of info that Tony and Pepper needed.

"Why is the right time not now?" Tony continued. "What proof can you give us? Have you seen him? Have you spoken to him? Do you have any actual evidence at all?"

"Yes… and no."

"What?" Tony shook his head. "Which one is it? Yes or no?"

"Both," Fury answered as honestly as he could. "Look, it's… complicated, but –"

"But nothing," Pepper argued. "How can you make claims of something so serious, without any proof? How do you expect us to believe you if you don't sound too sure yourself? I mean, how do you even know that James is alive?"

Fury opened his mouth to retort, but when he received the cue he had been waiting for from Maria Hill standing by the door, he bit back his words. Instead of responding right away, he exhaled deeply, as if anticipating a large confrontation, and a second before both Pepper and Tony almost called off the meeting altogether, Nick answered their inquiry with a question of his own.

"Why don't you ask the person who took him? She knows more than I do about his well-being."

"She?" Pepper was taken aback, brows furrowed, her look of confusion almost a mirror image of the blue-eyed boy's. "Who took him? Who are you talking about?"

"Me," a voice said from behind, prompting the couple to inhale sharply and tense up. "He's talking about me."

Turning around was unnecessary to know who had just spoken aloud as it was obvious, just by her voice, that whoever they were going to see as soon as they turned to face her, was someone they had known and had trusted for a long time: someone they had actually forgotten about, given the circumstances, but who had at some point played an important role in their lives – most especially, in Tony Stark's.

Pepper swallowed hard but did not turn to face her just yet and instead clenched her eyes shut, as if willing all of this to be nothing more than a very bad dream. She needed a moment to gather her bearings, to adjust to this new development neither of them had anticipated. But before Pepper could utter the words that were screaming to be let out, Tony turned around to face the brunette and beat her to the punch.

"You… you took my son?"

Had it been any other time, Pepper would have been so proud of the icy and bloodcurdling tone Tony had just used to address his former fiancée. Yet, for now, all she could do was to run through different scenarios in her head of how this conversation could go, and think about all the possible ways she currently wanted to personally assure the demise of the woman she had once called her friend; a woman that was now revealed to have betrayed them in the worst of ways.

"It wasn't part of the plan – for me to take him with me, that is." Maya clarified. "My actual assignment was to kill him… or at least try to."

A screech coming from the feet of a chair on the concrete ground was the only warning that anyone got before Maya Hansen's back was slammed against the back wall of the room, her feet dangled about a foot above the floor, and her windpipe was being constricted by the left forearm of none other than Pepper Potts-Stark.

"Stand down, Potts!"

The sounds of multiple lock and loaded guns aiming to her back meant nothing to Pepper. The shouting of every agent present in the room, Nick Fury included, that she needed to release a choking Maya and take a step back went in one ear and came out the other. Her completely dilated eyes and every muscle in her body had one single concern at the moment, and it was nowhere in the vicinity of paying heed to the warnings she was currently receiving from the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"For the last time," Fury snarled. "Let her GO!"

The redhead further narrowed her eyes, and the brunette could only simultaneously both admire and fear the look in her normally and otherwise hazel orbs. Before her was not the girl with whom she had spent years of her life, befriending and sharing secrets with. Before her was not the woman that had inadvertently charmed her way into the heart of the only man the brunette had ever truly loved, and who she had eventually married despite the odds. Before her was not Pepper Potts, superhero to the rescue. Before her was a woman scorned, angry and ready to kill whoever stood in her path.

Before her was Patricia Potts: the warrior she had been destined to become, and not by her choice.

Tony slowly walked over to his wife, almost as if he was simply taking a walk in the park, but also with pronounced determination. He then stood a foot behind her rigid form that still held Maya's life in her hands and allowed the redhead to continue to injure the brunette for just one more moment. He waited a few more seconds after that to allow his being there to become a reality to the redhead, and before the brunette had to be revived by the use of CPR, Tony's eerily calm voice resonated in the room.

"Wait until after we find him," Tony's eyes never left Maya's pleading and scared ones. "Then we'll decide what to do with her."

It took no more than two seconds and one blink of an eye for Pepper's pupils to return to normal after hearing Tony's command, and an extra second for the sound of Maya's body hitting the ground to follow. Coughing and gasping sounds trailed Pepper taking a step back from the so-called botanist, and not half a second later, everyone in the room let out a breath they did not know they had held inside.

And that moment, this exact instant when Pepper turned around to stare at Nick to share with him a silent promise of inflicting pain onto him sooner rather than later, was when the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. knew that his plan was not going to work out.

xxxXXXxxx

"Well, that went great," Clint Barton joked as he led a very quiet Tony and Pepper to the location of Maya Hansen's lab. "You sure know how to make a point, Potts."

Pepper did not spare the man a glance and kept her sight focused on the path before her. Her mind was still trying to refute what they had just learned and seen during what had turned out to be the shortest-lived meeting of all time, but the evidence to the contrary was damning. Fifteen minutes after everyone had cooled their jets following Maya's near-death experience at the hands of the redhead, Pepper was yet to say a word to anyone, Tony included, and the only hint that she was still aware of her surroundings was her hand currently linked to the inventor's.

The walk from the meeting room to Maya's very own command center had been lengthy and unexciting, but it had served a greater purpose for them in the long run. Thanks to the change of plans in the course of the meeting, Tony and Pepper now had a better idea of the resources that were available to them. They had learned in the past few minutes that the location they were presently in was enormous, extremely underground and was of a military, research and development nature that was not in line with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s typical schematics and blueprints. The two heroes had practically memorized the agency's modus operandi and common building patterns amongst S.H.I.E.L.D.'s varied facilities around the world, and this particular one did not fit the bill of what it should have resembled had it been a true and pure S.H.I.E.L.D. location.

They're working with someone else.

This had been one of Tony's only two thoughts since the moment they had been forced to take multiple elevators and walk down several staircases to bring them to a lower, private and typically off-limits level of the underground facility. The intricacies of the building itself made him feel as if he was back at the Maggia's hideout – although, this place was actually clean and well-kept. The simple reminder, however, that the last time he had been escorted to a forbidden area of a large structure his life had changed, simply did not sit well with him at all.

Someone else is hosting them here. Who else is working with them? Who the hell can it be?

Gene was yet to be seen, but Tony believed that it was safe to assume that he was here, somewhere, waiting for the best opening to make his actual whereabouts known. The wealth of the Khan family rivaled his and his father's, and it was not outlandish to come to the conclusion that perhaps the Mandarin was one of the many sponsors needed to support a state-of-the-art facility such as this. Tony and Pepper had been kept here for no more than 36 hours since awakening, but in that short amount of time they had both been in awe at the advanced technology that was hosted here.

How had such a place stayed off of their radar for so long? Was this a new facility or had it been salvaged by S.H.I.E.L.D.? Who was providing the tech for it?

The blue-eyed boy knew that there were plenty of opportunities for improvement for some of the devices in here, but there were some others that he wanted to further analyze and even pull apart to learn their components. Had this been a social visit, he would have already pranced around the building, hacking into everything that caught his curious eye. Nonetheless, their presence here was everything but friendly or mutual, and the more he thought about it, the more concerned he became of their continued stay in the edifice.

This realization brought him back to his second thought: the status of his redhead's mind. He was still surprised yet grateful that his voice had broken whatever anger-filled spell she had been in, and while he could not blame her for reacting the way she had, he was still plagued by questions he knew everyone had to be asking themselves about her now. Pepper was strong and agile – she had been like that before they had even met. Throughout their years together, she had picked up several tricks of the vigilante trade from him and she had also been briefly trained by Gene Khan himself. Yet, none of these reasons justified what she had been able to do moments ago: lift a woman that weighed more than she did and just about ended her life – all without any indication of remorse.

The manner in which Pepper had reacted towards Maya reminded him so much of the way she had treated Mitch Richards after he had insulted them and had threatened Tony when they had ended their partnership with SI. Just as then, it was as if a switch had been flipped within her and the Pepper he knew had been sent to the backseat only for an evil version of her to take control of the wheel. He knew he suffered from the same issue whenever he was angry or someone he loved was in danger, but he had never seen Pepper react that way until the past few months.

And it scared him more than he wanted to admit.

Even though he did not want to think about it, the fear that whatever he still suspected that S.H.I.E.L.D. had done to her to change her behavior could have possibly transpired once more when they had been unconscious was overpoweringly present in his mind. He did not want to believe it, not even consider it, but the reality that Pepper was acting odd at the moment made him feel uneasy. It was not as if he was afraid of her or anything of the sort, it was more the fact that a recurrence of her fate in their jet could be in the offing for her… and he would probably again not be able to do anything to prevent it. He had not been able to do anything when he had had his lab and tech at his disposition. What good would he be to her when they were trapped?

I can't lose her. Not again. Not like that. Not if our son is alive. Not ever.

"Here we are!"

Tony's eyes shifted from side-staring at his wife to eyeing the entrance before them. Hawkeye wasted no time in unlocking the double-doors for them, and the instant the archer motioned for the duo to walk inside, they immediately did, yet only for the inventor to become infuriated by the fact that not only was Maya Hansen already present in the lab, but that Nick Fury had brought Gene Khan with him as well.

"How the hell did you manage to beat us here?" Tony asked, his right hand still holding on to Pepper's as he practically led her closer to the trio, and this being the only reason why he did not jump Gene where he stood to give him a large chunk of his mind. Tony knew that all his typical and natural reactions to upsetting news had to be contained at the moment, as he strongly believed that Pepper needed him sane and levelheaded more than ever, right now. He would have thought that seeing Gene here would have snapped her from the daze she seemed to be in, but she was yet to react to any outside stimuli at all. It was a miracle, in fact, that she was still holding on to his hand as tightly as she was.

"You just took the scenic route," Nick said and nodded to Hawkeye to dismiss him. "We needed to get here first and you needed to cool down."

"So, in other words: you needed to waste more of our time. And you," Tony then eyed Gene. "You have some balls showing up in here. You owe me a jet… and an apology to Jonas' family."

"Mr. Clark is alive and well," Fury interjected. "We made sure your pilot was not harmed."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Tony replied. "But knowing you, I should probably not believe shit, even then."

Gene's snarky retort to Tony never made it past his lips when it dawned on the Mandarin that Pepper was staring intently at him. This was the first time she was seeing him since their inappropriate kiss months ago, and after certainly being made aware of his involvement in her arrival here, he was not sure what to make of her reaction to seeing him again. Her face looked neutral and her eyes were soulless, something that was out of character for the redhead, which hurt him more than if she had gone off on him right now. He knew that what he had done had been a betrayal of the highest order, and he also knew that he owed her better than that. Nonetheless, Fury had made it very clear to him that the unorthodox manner in which Tony and Pepper had been placed under house arrest had been the only way to extend their already shortening lives.

And for Pepper, just like Tony, Gene would do the impossible and beyond.

"Anyway," Maya finally spoke up, her words carefully chosen and measured so as not to set off the redhead's wrath again. "The reason why we're here is because this is the best clinical and computer lab of the entire facility. And we need for you to reactivate the Iron Man operation; servers, systems, suits and all."

"You want us to what?" Tony shook his head to make sure he had heard her words correctly. "You want me to just hand you our weapons? Did Pepper burst a vein in your brain or what?"

"You've been hacking into our servers," Pepper finally spoke, surprising everyone with her sudden return to reality, although her voice was not as angry-sounding as before. "Or at least tried to, with no luck."

"Yes, we did and have… tried," Fury admitted. "But no one here has been able to establish a connection to the Makluan Temple, secure or otherwise."

"And you won't be able to," Tony informed them, for now ignoring the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. knew of their base of operations. "Pepper and I secured the crap out of the servers in the temple. Not to mention the fact that everything was automatically wiped out the moment we were reported dead."

"Told you, Fury," Maya said and crossed her arms over her chest. "They wouldn't just leave all that tech at the mercy of anyone."

"Least of all you," Tony said and no one there was sure if he had referred to all three of them or just one of them in particular. "Is this why you kept us alive? Because you need us to get my suits?"

"No. We never wanted to kill you," Fury answered. "I don't know how many times I have to repeat that. We just woke you up sooner than we wanted to because we got tired of not being able to reach the Iron Man specs and data."

"And you think we're just going to give you what you want?" Pepper scoffed, sounding more and more like herself with every word that came out of her mouth. "You're still to tell us anything useful, Fury. You promised us answers and you've yet to deliver."

"I have some answers," Maya said before Fury could reply. "Not all of them, but I have these."

Maya walked over to her laptop and after a few taps and clicks, a projector turned on behind her. Seconds later, images of James Howard Stark appeared on the screen, and it was then that Tony and Pepper realized that their freedom was not the only thing that had been snatched from them without consent. Something far more precious and irreplaceable had also been taken away – something they could never get back: time.

Pepper pulled her hand away from Tony's and slowly walked towards the screen. Her palm landed on the reflection of her son, smiling for the camera, dressed in clothes that she knew he had never worn or had been bought by them, and she held back a sob. He looked otherwise healthy and happy, a rosy color highlighting his tiny cheeks and his blue eyes more dashing than usual, but what hurt the redhead the most was the fact that he was so much older than she remembered him to be.

"How long?" Pepper turned around to stare at Fury as she began asking the question she knew was also crossing Tony's mind. "How long were we asleep?"

"Pepper," Gene began, his palms raised in a conceding motion. "We had to keep you like that. We had to make sure that –"

"HOW LONG?!" the redhead spat.

"Six weeks," Maya replied. "Your plane blew up six weeks ago. These pictures," the botanist-turned-geneticist pointed to the screen, "they were taken two weeks ago. That was the last time I saw him, but I know he's still alive."

"Who…" Tony swallowed hard, not wanting to lose the opportunity to get some answers while they were willing to provide them, but he still felt his heart swell in all kinds of emotions at piecing together what had been done to them, to their son. What he now knew meant for so much time to have gone by: James, if truly still alive, was now almost 18 months old. And Tony did not really have any doubts about his son's survival any longer, looking at these images. "Who's watching over him now?"

"My stepfather," Maya exhaled nervously. "Aldrich Killian."

"Why?" Tony's hands clenched into fists. "Just… how… WHY?"

"Because our employer needs him alive, your son. He… he changed his mind about killing him…"

"Your employer?" Pepper asked as she took small steps towards Maya, her mind racing and making the scientist gulp. "Your employer is the one who set the bounty? You… you've been part of this ALL ALONG?"

"Not entirely, no," she defended herself and took a step back. "I tried to warn you. I really did… I… I didn't know what I'd gotten myself into until… until I couldn't get out of it."

"You tried to warn us?" Tony scoffed. "How and when exactly did you do that?"

"The crows," Maya replied almost instantly, her hands pointing to a table nearby that held samples of black feathers, blackish-looking long beaks and red, formaldehyde-preserved bird's eyes. "I-I sent the crows… to your apartment. I… the message… kill it or we will… that was me. I did that."

"You…" Pepper pointed to the brunette, anger oozing out of every word that came out of her, yet she kept her distance from her for the sake of her son. "You... CREATED the damned birds that wanted to poke my eyes out?!"

"Pepper, calm down…" Gene's words did nothing to stop the slowly building volcano within her that was about to erupt. "There's more to it than –"

"YOU broke into our home?" it was Tony's turn to state aloud the many emotions and thoughts that were currently running wild inside of him. "You destroyed our belongings, some things we couldn't replace… risked Pepper's pregnancy… you… you put us… put HER in danger to WARN us?!"

"That was the only way I could do it!" Maya began. "I… I-I tried to reach you… but with him watching, with everyone watching me, I just couldn't make it too obvious. Your apartment was already rigged and targeted… he knew where you lived… I… I just had to get you to go somewhere else to buy some time!"

"Who did? Your stepfather?" Tony asked. "Your stepfather set up the bounty?"

"No," she shook her head. "But-but… but he… we… we were part of it… we were on the list of invites… for it…"

Tony's eyes widened at the memory her words triggered, and he had to hold his weight against the edge of the table where the damned crow body parts lay.

Rhona's eyes looked up at the inventor and tears returned to her eyes when she heard his irritated words and saw him walking up to her again. This time, he grabbed her by the top of her head and pulled her up until her feet dangled in the air. She did not even have the nerve to try to release herself from his tight grip.

"For the last time, Erwin: Why did you send those crows to my apartment? WHY?"

"I-I…" she whined. "I don't know what you're talking about. I-I…I didn't send anything to your apartment. I swear!"

"Stop lying!" Tony spat, increased his hold on her head and made the girl whimper in pain. "Who wants us dead? Who?"

"I don't know who! I don't!"

"LIAR!" Tony said, closed his faceplate and tightened his grasp on her. "WHO? Who is it?"

"I DON'T KNOW! All I know is that there's money involved! I… I didn't even care all that much about the money… all… all I wanted was revenge!"

"Revenge?" Tony scoffed. "You want to talk about revenge? I'll show you revenge!"

"Stark, stop it!"

"SHUT UP!"

"Please, no," Rhona begged. "Please, please don't kill me."

"Then tell me who put a hit on us!"

"I swear I don't know! I just got the invitation! I don't know who it is!"

"The… the invitation?" Tony was taken aback and, for a second loosened his clutch on her head. "What invitation?"

"A video… I got a video… It was sent to the institute. The voice… it was distorted… and there was no face… the voice… the voice said that there was a bounty out for your head… and Pepper's… and when the news said she was pregnant, the baby was added to the list… That's all I know. That's ALL I know!"

"Where's the video? Do you still have it?"

"No!" she sobbed. "The instructions said to burn it… so I did…"

Tony's anger returned with that. "Who else is in this group? Who else is out to get me?"

Rhona blinked back a few tears, took in a deep breath and replied. "Everyone… it was sent to everyone."

"Everyone? What do you mean 'everyone'? Who is everyone?"

"Everyone you've ever hurt. Everyone you've ever crossed paths with. And… and you should not even be here. You-you should just let me go. You should be with Pepper because… because the highest bounty is for her head… for her dead, detached head."

"I…" Tony swallowed hard. "I killed Rhona… because I thought… she said… she told me… and I thought… I…"

Tony closed his eyes tightly and cursed his luck at no chairs being nearby to sit down. This day was turning out to be too much for him, more than he had anticipated it would be, and he was now starting to see why Nick had informed them that neither he nor Pepper were ready to face the truth. He was not blind to the fact that an operation of this variety, one that required him and Pepper to be removed from the map in such a complex way, was one that needed to be carefully planned and executed. What he had not envisioned, however, was that he had allowed whomever Maya's employer was to play him for a fool, all this time.

He had literally slept with the enemy, welcomed her into his home – a home he had shared with Pepper, nonetheless. And on top of that, he had almost married her. Married her! He had almost tied the knot with the woman that had sent mutated killer crows to his house! He had opened the gates for her, let Maya Hansen in and befriend him, Pepper and his family. He had given her free access to everything he knew and almost everything he had. Almost everything, not all, but whatever he had let her see, learn and use of his had been more than enough.

Just as he had done with his son to S.H.I.E.L.D. when they checked him for Extremis, he had handed her the keys to his life on a silver platter, little to no questions asked.

"Tony," Pepper's whispered voice made him hang his head in shame. "Tony, look at me, please."

He wanted to, but he could not. He just could not face her right now. He knew that she had already come to the same conclusion he had concerning how he had permitted this bounty to carry on for so long. He had believed that he had been doing anything in his power to stop it, but instead he had played as much part of its development as everyone else who had signed up for it. He might have not received the video invitation and he had not been offered the money, but he had been a player of this game as much as Maya Hansen and Rhona Erwin were.

"Tony, you didn't know," Pepper pleaded with him, but he was still unable to open his eyes or speak. She was now standing in front of him, pinning him between her body and the table behind him, her back to the silent trio observing the scene. Her hands were softly tracing his face and her lips were leaving small pecks on his mouth, begging him to not carry the weight of his guilt all on his own.

"There was no way we could've known," the redhead continued in a higher voice when Tony continued to disregard her words. "She played you, Tony. Played us. She lied to both of us. We trusted her and she betrayed us."

Maya bit down her lower lip and looked away from the couple – even after all these years, seeing them together still hurt. She knew she had no right to be jealous, no reason to believe that she had been cheated out of something she never truly had, but there was still a part of her that became irritated when she saw them like this, caring for one another, shutting out the world and just being themselves: concentrating on the needs of the other. This was all she had ever wanted to have, with Tony at that, but that battle had been lost before it had been given a chance to start.

"Played us," Pepper's words echoed in Maya's mind. She wanted to defend herself, tell them both how things had really turned out for her and how she truly had not had a say in what had been done, but she knew it was not yet the time. This was not even the tip of the iceberg, and she could already see the toll learning what had been done to them all these years was taking on them. They were not ready, not physically, mentally or otherwise, to carry the burden that Nick and her had been fully carrying for almost four, long years.

And they don't even know yet… the worst revelation of all… they're yet to find out that…

Maya's thoughts dissipated the moment she heard Gene clear his throat and she then felt herself being pushed towards the exit by the Mandarin alter ego himself.

"Let's give them a moment," Gene said and stared at a still unmoving Nick Fury with a face that told him he was not making a suggestion, but giving a command. "Just a few minutes. They won't go anywhere right now."

Nick opened his mouth to tell Gene where exactly he could put his order, but when he eyed the young married couple for an instant and saw Tony hold onto his wife for dear life while his forehead rested on her shoulder, he knew that they did need a few moments to process what they had just found out. There was no way that Tony and Pepper could leave the premises of their own accord for now, and while Tony's Extremis continued to be remotely influenced by Maya Hansen – just as it had been all this time – it was safe to leave the two of them alone.

"Five minutes," Fury said as he began walking towards the door. "But that's all they get. We've got lots to do."

"Ten minutes," Gene said and flashed his mind reading and manipulation ring towards the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. "Or they won't be the only ones to find out everything they need to know before they're supposed to."

Nick narrowed his eyes but relented to Gene's plan. He was yet to tempt his fate with the leader of the Tong, and now that it had been confirmed to him that there was very little that S.H.I.E.L.D. could do against Makluan technology without Tony or Howard Stark's help, Fury had no choice but to play along with Gene's actions and thoughts.

"Time them," Nick told Maya once they were all outside. "And tell the others that their presence will be needed soon. Very soon."

xxxXXXxxx

Tony sat in front of a computer screen in Maya Hansen's lab, acting as if he could accomplish what he promised he would even though he knew his best efforts would be in vain. Both he and Pepper had known in advance that what Nick and Maya had wanted them to do was impossible to complete from their current location, but they did not need to be aware of that just now. In fact, they did not need to know about it ever, if that was at all possible to remain the case.

After they had been left alone, Tony and Pepper had spent a few minutes in silence, simply holding on to the other while they watched the rotating pictures of their son. Even though James was still James, they could tell he had continued to develop just as nature mandated he did. He was still a baby with his full life ahead of him, but they could also see that he was starting to become his own person. His face was much more defined, and he was definitely taller and leaner than the last time they had held him in their arms. He almost looked like a small version of Tony, save for his lighter-colored hair, and the smile that their son had had in one of the pictures truly spoke that he was his father's son. It was the same smile that had melted her heart several times – that playful smile that told the world that he knew something that no one else knew about.

No more secrets, Tony thought as he continued typing random lines of code that he knew would not get him into the Makluan Temple's already powered down servers. Very soon, S.H.I.E.L.D. won't be able to keep secrets from us.

He knew that he and Pepper were gambling the very little freedom they had at the moment, but the circumstances had really not left them with any other choice. He was risking his life and she was risking hers, but if there was a chance that they could save their son from Maya and Aldrich, they would gladly do whatever it took to make it happen – even if they lost their lives in the process. They knew that baby James would never truly be alone; there were many people that loved him and would take him in, but they also knew that if they did not bring down with them whoever had been stalking the pair for years, their sacrifice would not guarantee their son's safety and well-being.

"Are you sure about this, Pep?" Tony remembered asking his wife, little over an hour ago, when she had told him what she wanted to do. "Do you think he'll agree to it?"

"He'd better," Pepper had responded to him, seconds before Nick Fury, Gene Khan and Maya Hansen had returned to the lab to continue their talk. "I'll make him agree to it. It's the least he can do for us."

And it truly was the least he could do to redeem himself. Yet, Tony could still only hope that she had been right.

"Tony?" Maya's voice carried over from where she sat, a few feet away from him, and he could not help to look up and glare at her. "Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, we're pressed for time, but you seem to be making no progress over there."

"I'm fine," he replied and returned his eyes to the screen. "It'll take a few hours, but I can do this. I'll get the servers back online."

"Are you positive?" Maya tilted her head to the right, guilt still eating her up inside and trying to make this entire ordeal somewhat comfortable for him. "Maybe you should take a page out of Pepper's book and go rest for a while. You… you both have been hit with so much grief today. Maybe… maybe you should wait until tomorrow to hack into the temple?"

"No," Tony shook his head. "I have to do it now," he added after a pause before he looked up from the screen to her face once more and continued his end of the plan. "Although, I don't know what the point of doing this is if we can't go get our suits. It would be so much easier to just go to the temple and do it from there. It would take ten minutes, tops, to reboot the system from over there. That's how it was originally designed to work."

"No, Tony," Maya shook her head vehemently. "You heard Fury: you can't leave this place. We'll go get the suits whenever we can. But you and Pepper cannot return to the surface yet."

"Why the fuck not?" Tony argued back. "People think we're dead and no one's gonna be looking for us at the temple. You-you've said it yourself! We've been 'dead' for six weeks! SIX WEEKS! They… they've buried us… they… No one's looking for us. Our families think we're gone."

Maya sighed loudly, scratched the side of her head with her right hand, rose from her chair and then walked over to where Tony sat to stand before him. She did not dare to get too close to him, even if he clearly and urgently required comfort right now. She had long ago learned that she could never give him what he wanted or needed, no matter how desperate for it he was or how hard she tried to help him. Only Pepper could ease the troubles of his heart and mind. Only Pepper could speak to him without uttering a sound and touch his soul with her eyes. And the redhead's actions and words were the only ones that the inventor wanted to be consoled by, anyway.

"Tony, look. I… I know, believe me, I know that I'm the last person on Earth that you trust right now. I know… I know what you must be thinking of me. I know that I have no right to ask anything from you, but… but I'm still going to, so: please… please do not go to the armory. Do NOT go outside. Don't try to find a way around it… just… don't. Please. Please, don't."

Tony silently eyed her with nothing but distrust for a moment, briefly stared at the table he had rested against when he had found out about his indirect involvement in the bounty, and then stole a quick glance at the location that had once held a sample that was now nowhere near the lab. His eyes then returned to the computer screen, pretended to read the gibberish he had been typing on it, and when he continued to be silent, Maya sighed and resumed her speech.

"I know that what I did wasn't the best way to help you and Pepper, but that's really all I wanted to do. It's… it's just like when you had Gene erase Pepper's memories of you two together. You thought that was best… and I thought that I was doing was best for you, too."

"Excuse me?" Tony's head recoiled and he almost choked at how pathetic her words sounded to him. "You thought it was best to let us think our son was dead?"

"Of course not!" Maya shook her head again. "But I had no say in that!"

"Will you stop saying that?" Tony screamed, even angrier at her than before as it now appeared to him that Maya had not been chastised enough. "People always have a say in what they do! There's always a choice!"

"No! You're wrong!" Maya's voice rose, as well. "There isn't always a choice! Sometimes the choice is made for you, even before you knew you had to decide what to do!"

"And you thought it was OK to support the murder of a baby? Of MY son?"

"It was already going to happen, Tony! I decided to be involved in it to make it less painful for him!"

"Less painful? LESS painful?" Tony threw his arms in the air. "Oh, please, let me apologize to you. How rude have I been? Thank you, so much, for making my son's premature death LESS painful for him!"

"Tony, please…"

"Please, nothing!" Tony stood up from the chair. "You kept my son from us. You almost caused Pepper and me to take our own lives because of it! You… you're a horrible, horrible monster! You… I think you've even topped Gene Khan! Congratulations!"

"Tony–"

"No, shut up," Tony slammed his fists against the table and leaned over it so that his face was closer to hers. "I don't care what you think you prevented with this. I don't care what Fury said about me and Pepper leaving. We WILL find a way out, and once we do and we suit up, you're going to be the first one I take down, you cold, heartless, murderous bitch!"

"NO!" Maya returned the hard tone he was using now. It was all she could to not let him see how much his last words had hurt her. "You HAVE to listen to me! You have to get it out of your stubborn mind that you can return to the world! To the armory! You just CAN'T do that!"

"Why not?" Tony contended. "Give me ONE good fucking reason for us not to try to escape from this place, right now."

xxxXXXxxx

She had not traveled via Mandarin Express that many times before, but the very few times she had, she had noticed the existence of the same tingly sensation all over her body that she felt throughout the quick trip, just as now. She was not certain where the goosebumps could be coming from, but she had a suspicion that the process related to whatever quantum-dot science principles had gone into creating the rings, was responsible for them. She was not going to stand here and pretend that she knew more than Gene or Tony about Makluan science, but she did not need to be a genius like them to know that it was probably closely associated with the act of literally beaming your molecules from one place to the next.

And that was not even including the dizziness and nauseated feeling she was left with if she did not close her eyes during the magic voyage.

"You can open your eyes now," Mandarin said behind his armor after he landed them at the entrance of the Makluan Temple. "Better make this fast."

"I'll try," Pepper said and took a step back from Gene after he returned to his regular form. "But it's gonna take a few minutes to get everything back on and then about ten to fifteen more to activate the servers."

"Activate the servers?" Gene was taken aback. "I thought you said you only needed to run some tests. I thought Stark was the one turning on the servers from S.H.I.E.L.D."

Pepper stared at Gene with a raised eyebrow, a tilt of the head and a light shrug, and a second after that, Gene realized he had been played.

"Great. Just great."

"He's buying us some time," Pepper said while she got on her knees before the main entrance door and began patting the ground around her with her palms. "The servers and their data cannot be restored using a remote connection. They need four of Tony's or my registered biometrics to even initiate the process of accessing the disk image of the OS from the hidden drive partition."

"What?"

"The servers aren't worth shit until I bleed into to them."

"Oh-kay," Gene furrowed his brows. "I think I preferred the technical explanation better."

"You asked!"

Gene watched intently as Pepper took turns pressing and moving what seemed like random pieces of the bricks on the ground and on the walls adjacent to the entrance doors. A couple of minutes after she had hit the ground the first time, she finally stood up, wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her left hand, and then smiled in satisfaction when the doors opened up.

"You know I could've just teleported us inside, Pepper."

"Perhaps," Pepper said as she took out a small flashlight from her sweatpants' front right pocket, turned it on and then aimed inside the darkened hall of the temple but did not step in. "But after protocol 3YE-W0R7D took place, the entire temple turned into a giant landmine."

"What?!"

"The temple!" Pepper said in an exasperated tone. "When Rhodey and Happy started protocol 3YE-W0R7D after we… died, I guess? Everything shut down. All the suits were deactivated and the Mark II armor that Happy used and the War Machine suit flew back to the temple on their own. There's a specific sequence that must be followed to reactivate everything – from the circuit breakers to the computers – so that nothing bad happens. No biggie. I can get it done."

"No biggie. Sure," Gene said with a hint of incredulity and loads of distress. "And what happens if you don't do it that way? What happens if you mess it up?"

"The self-destruct system activates and we get blown up inside."

"Well, that's… nice. You know what the correct sequence is, right?"

"Of course I do!" Pepper scoffed and waved her right hand at him. "Tony and I designed it… and practiced it… one time…"

"One time? And were you paying attention that one time, Pepper?"

"Uhm…"

"Pepper?"

The redhead's eyes shifted left and right, and despite the situation, Pepper could not hold back the nervous chuckle that escaped her mouth.

xxxXXXxxx

"How about seeing your son alive again?" Maya suggested and walked back to her seat. "Isn't that a good enough reason for you?"

"It would've been, if I could trust your words," Tony replied and sat down in his chair once more. "I don't understand, Maya. Why did you do this to us? Why did you get involved?"

"I already told you why!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know what I was doing! I thought I was doing something else… and then… and then I couldn't just quit. Not when I was that deep into it."

"Couldn't or didn't want to stop?" Tony snarled.

"Take your pick."

xxxXXXxxx

"Are we almost done here, Pepper?" Gene asked, trying his best to hide the anxiety that had suddenly invaded him. He was not certain why, but the moment Pepper had been able to restore power to the temple and the computers and the lights had come on, he had felt a chill run down his spine. He could not pinpoint its origin no matter how much he kept staring everywhere around them, but the fact that even with his rings he could not see what he could feel was nearby, it did not mean that his fears were not justified.

"We should really go back to S.H.I.E.L.D. before they realize we left."

"Hang on. This is the last biometric the operating system and firmware need to restart," Pepper replied as she kept her eye open for the scanner to read her left iris. So far, she had placed all ten fingerprints on a machine to verify her identity, had punctured her right index fingertip on a small needle to provide a blood sample to match her DNA strand, and just seconds before her eye was to be scanned, she had uttered a nonsensical sentence into a microphone to a voice recognition device. Gene's head was spinning at the level of security protocols the heroes had established to keep their weapons safe from abuse, and he now realized that Nick Fury had been correct: their false death would be exposed if they tried to get out.

"Pepper, please."

"Just wait, OK? It will take about ten minutes for the process to be completed."

"Can't you just let it run its course? Do we have to be here for it to finish?"

"No, we don't. And I totally could, but I won't."

"Why not?"

"Because," Pepper said as she pulled the front of her blouse, reached inside her bra and pulled out a small bag. "I need to run some sample analysis, right now."

"What is that?" Gene asked as he walked closer to where she stood but the redhead did not reply. "Pepper, what is that?"

"Bird feathers. Mutated bird's feathers."

xxxXXXxxx

Several minutes had passed since he had last spoken, and the more he stared at the clock, the more nervous he became. Now that the mix of intensified emotions was disappearing, Tony was having second thoughts about what he had let Pepper do on her own – about what she had suggested she could do with one of the crow feather samples at their very own lab. At this point in time, and since she was yet to come back to Maya's lab like she had stated she would if Gene did not agree to take her to the temple, he could safely assume that she and the Mandarin were off site.

Now, as he thought about Maya's words and the fact that he had no way to communicate with his redhead from where he currently was, he began having a feeling of dread invade his very bones. What if Gene double-crossed them, too? What if this was all just a farce to get their suits up and running, and the moment Pepper chanted that Iron Man was back in business, Gene killed her on the spot? What if nothing was as it seemed and Nick Fury was actually still trying to kill them?

Pepper, Tony clenched his hands and closed his eyes, praying for a moment that he was wrong. Be safe, Pepper. Please, be safe.

He wanted to trust her – he did trust her. But he was not sure if she could hold her own against a full attack from the Mandarin without her suit. Just as he was not sure if James could survive living with Aldrich Killian and whoever else was in on the bounty, too. The two most beloved people in his life were both out on their own, fending for themselves against enemies and the world, and all he could do for them at the moment was sit here and silently pray to a deity he did not believe in.

"No luck?" Maya asked from back in her seat, noticing how even more distressed Tony looked by the second. "Servers giving you a hard time?"

"Nothing I didn't already expect," he replied calmly, to her surprise. "But now, I was just… I was thinking about my son. How… how was he… the last time you saw him?"

Maya gave him a small smile. "Like always: all over the place. He… he has a difficult time staying put. He wants to see everything and everyone. He just wants to be in the middle of it all and wants to know how things work and why they work. He's… he's wrecked my lab a few times, actually, moving stuff around or flipping switches that he was not supposed to touch."

Tony chuckled at her words. He could picture it – all of it: a little version of Pepper with his eyes, intelligence and curiosity; a little version of himself with her hyperactivity, daringness and spunk.

Yup. Sounds about right!

That kiddo sure was his and Pepper's son.

"Does he…" Tony's eyes focused on his screen and he gulped, his gaze showing how difficult it was for him to state the words, to have this conversation, especially with the person who had taken James from them. "Does he remember us?"

"He does," Maya replied with a nod. "I… I've never let him forget who you are."

"And you?" Tony once again looked up from the screen to stare at her eyes, her response triggering hope in him. "Do you remember who you are?"

"Tony…"

"Do you?" the inventor insisted. "Do you remember what we used to be? What you and Pepper used to be? Did it ever cross your mind when you took our son from us? Where is he, Maya? Where is James?"

xxxXXXxxx

Pepper stood waiting with her arms crossed and her foot tapping on the floor of the lab as she waited for the results. She and Tony had agreed that they would use their equipment at the temple to run their own analysis on the bird samples from Maya's lab, figuring that the young woman had most likely created the mutant fowls at the location where she had been staying the past couple of years since she and Tony had broken up. If they could find out where the original, non-mutated habitat of this species of crow was, maybe they would have an idea of where their son was being kept. At least, this was the hope.

As she continued to wait, she began running down her mental list of all of Iron Man's major enemies who may have held this much of a grudge against Tony to put out the bounty on the two of them to begin with. Some of the possible candidates had already been dealt with before the bounty had been placed, and some had been apprehended or killed while trying to collect on it. She was trying to figure out who the mastermind was through process of elimination.

MODOC had been permanently deactivated quite some time ago, and probably torn to pieces and sold as scrap on eBay. Ghost and Rhona were both dead as well, courtesy of Tony Stark himself. Whiplash was dead thanks to the Mandarin, and Sasha Hammer had been killed in the chaotic event that was the undoing of the entire Maggia organization. Justin Hammer, Count Nefaria, Killer Shrike and Blizzard had all been zombified long ago, and then killed again by Scott Summers a few months before Sasha's demise. Agent Mallen had been dead for some time, from a similar Extremis complication as the one Tony had been dealing with over a year ago. Who else was dead? Mr. Fix? Was it possible that he had had a backup copy of himself stored away? Was he not really dead as Tony had believed, and was really the one behind the bounty?

Then there were the enemies she knew were still alive: the Controller, Unicorn and the Black Knight were all still imprisoned on the Helicarrier, which Fury had informed them was currently docked in a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. hangar in the American Midwest. AIM was unaccounted for ever since Unicorn and Black Knight, along with Whiplash, had been sent to kill Pepper. Did AIM have a new leader who had been the one to set the bounty, or had they merely received the invitation? Former Project Pegasus leader, Anton Harchov, had not been heard from by Team Iron Man for years; was he the one behind all of this? Obadiah Stane was still in a coma… or was he? Could he have awakened, somehow faked his continued comatose state by using a decoy, and tapped into some hidden supply of funds that he had kept and used it to put out the bounty? It did kind of seem his style.

She looked over her shoulder at Gene Khan as an idea came to her, and she noticed her companion had an uneasy look in his eyes.

"Gene, whatever happened to your stepfather, Zhang?" At this, the Mandarin seemed to shake his head to clear it, and then looked at her with his habitual scowl.

"After I had acquired the first five Makluan rings, and then found out that there were five more out there, I decided to go find Zhang before I began my quest for the remaining rings with Howard Stark." He said this with a fierceness and contempt that caused Pepper to feel a little bit of her old sympathy for him, knowing that his life with his stepfather had been very difficult for him.

"And… did you?" she asked, hesitantly. Gene nodded to her inquiry.

"Yes. Rhodes had left him in the countryside only a few miles away from the Peruvian temple. I found him, and… I avenged my mother."

Pepper nodded in understanding, not prying for further details, knowing he needed to explain no more. So that was out: Xin Zhang was not the one to set the bounty.

Was it possible that someone who they did not even know, or did not remember ever meeting and upsetting, was the one responsible for the bounty? Could it have been intended for Tony Stark and Pepper Potts specifically and not their Iron Man and Rescue hero identities? Someone who held a grudge against Tony for something other than busting their ass for committing crimes? Someone who then put out a hit on him and his redhead to all of their supervillain enemies in order to completely destroy them? She even remembered now, from the footage Fury had shown her of Tony killing Rhona, the goth girl telling Tony that the highest price was on her head, most likely to increase the likelihood that she would be targeted first and that Tony would be left to mourn over her death until they finally came for him and collected the price on his head.

Who was it? Who could it be?

At that moment, the computer alerted Pepper to the fact that the test results were done, and she moved closer to the holographic screen, her arms uncrossing as she did so.

"Well, I'll be," Pepper said, a frown on her face while she stared at the results of the quick analysis she had done on the mutated bird feathers. "This… this can't be right."

"What can't be right?" Gene asked as he too stared at the large screens from behind her standing form. "Did you find what you were looking for? Can we go now?"

"In a minute," she replied before her fingers hit the keyboard and she began digging deeper than she knew she had time for. "I just want to double-check something and we can go."

"Two minutes, Pepper," Gene said to her with a stern voice, the chills on his skin increasing with every second that passed by. "Two more minutes and I'm teleporting us back to S.H.I.E.L.D. whether you're ready for it or not. This is not what you told me we would be doing here. They're gonna find us out."

"Yes, I know. We'll leave in two minutes but… huh. Well, that's… odd…"

"What's odd?"

"The crows… the birds…" she pointed to the screens. "They're not from the States, or this continent for that matter. They're from…"

xxxXXXxxx

"Europe?" Tony asked and stood up from his chair. "What is my son doing in Europe? Are you sure he's there?"

"Tony, trust me. He's there…He…"

xxxXXXxxx

"Europe? What were European birds doing in my apartment?"

"Pepper," Gene swallowed hard and began shaking. The energy that was now surrounding them had finally been recognized by his senses. He did not know who or what it was, but he now definitely remembered when and where he had felt this way before, years ago. "I think… I-I really think we should…"

xxxXXXxxx

"Which part of Europe, Maya?"

Maya pursed her lips and gulped, prompting the blue-eyed boy to ask his question one more time.

"Maya, where in Europe is my son?"

xxxXXXxxx

Then, just like that, it finally dawned on him and her, what was truly happening as they stared at the blinking red dot on the map – the only location where these types of birds originated from. Pepper felt the blood in her entire body rush to her feet, draining any color from her face. Gene's mouth hung. Finally, and for the first time since Nick Fury had showed up at his home in China to request his help, he understood why the man had been ready to do anything to get him to hide Pepper and Tony from the world.

"No," Pepper whispered, her right hand suddenly landing on her mouth, wanting to deny the evidence before her. "No, it… this can't be true…"

But it was. It was true. No matter how much she or Gene wanted it to be a lie.

And now, as she started to piece together all the clues their enemy had inadvertently left behind, the clues her own son had given them throughout the few months he had been in their lives, she felt as if the world was turning too fast for her taste. How could she have been so blind? She was recon – she should have known!

"He warned us…" she shook her head, closed her eyes and began pacing the room. "Jimmy, he… he…"

They had thought, all this time, that the only five words that baby James had known and uttered around them were four names and one random word. A word she and Tony had assumed had meant something else. But now, as the computer's analysis of the crow samples revealed where Maya had really been all this time, the puzzle pieces were finally in place, and Pepper realized the truth that had been in front of them all along.

It had not been four names and one random word; it had been five names.

He, James Howard Stark, had told his parents what he saw, what he heard, WHO he saw… he had told them by crying for hours nonstop; by pointing and staring at something only he could see; by uttering the one word that most closely resembled the intruder's name. The name of the man who had placed the bounty on them. The name of the man that had haunted their home.

"Boom," was all that Pepper said before she heard Gene scream her name at the top of his lungs.

xxxXXXxxx

"What?" Tony felt himself lose control of his own body and almost collapsed on the floor. "Can you… did you… did you just say 'Latveria'?"

"Yes."

"What… what is my son doing in Latveria?"

"What do you think?" Maya replied, almost regretting telling Tony the truth and knowing that Nick Fury was going to throw a fit for it.

"But-but… but how… does he… how does he know…"

"He knows everything. You know that already. And that's why you need to stay away from the armory. Because he knows about the armory and that's the first place he'd look for you if he received any indication that you came back to life. Any use of the systems at the temple would be an instant red flag to him."

Tony's eyes widened and he felt the air leave his lungs. He stared at the clock, which showed him that two hours had gone by since he had last seen Pepper, and he asked the only question that came to his mind even though he knew what the answer was going to be.

"How does he know? How does he know about the temple? About what's hidden there?"

"Because I told him," Maya replied without missing a beat. "Because I told him that it is Iron Man's base of operations."

Whatever retort Tony was going to give was silenced by the alarms in the facility suddenly going off. The lights turned red and began blinking, the sirens came to life, and a pre-recorded female voice blasted from the speakers in the building, urging the inhabitants to seek shelter in the lowest level of the underground facility, and before Tony was able to fully process what these signs meant for him and his redhead, he saw Fury slam the door open and head his way at a quickened pace.

"Stark!" Nick Fury yelled from halfway to where Tony stood in an almost catatonic state, but the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. did not continue his statement until he was close enough to the inventor for his voice to carry over the sound of the blaring alarms.

"It's your lab: your lab just blew up!"

---

A/N: Told ya there would be a lot of answers in this chapter. Although I didn't come right out and say it, I made it pretty clear who it is that is out to get Tony and Pepper. Yeah, that's how bad things are about to get. But, these were only half of the big answers. The rest of them will be revealed in the next chapter. Now let me know with an awesome review how much you love this, so that I can finish the next one that much sooner!