Chapter four! Hope you like it and that everything makes sense...
"Happy, the fact that he sent you to talk to me just makes it even worse" Pepper was cleaning up the apartment as she talked to Happy who sat in the sofa.
"He didn't literally tell me to talk to you, I just figured out something was wrong and wanted to find out what, but Tony was in a hurry" Happy was probably the worst liar ever.
"Oh, please, if he wants to apologize or something, he may do it himself, and not send someone to do it" Pepper continued the cleaning, to show that she didn't really care that much, even though she absolutely did.
"If it is of any help, I don't think he's going back to being Iron Man, Jarvis sent me to pick him up and then the suit flew home on auto pilot" Those words silenced Pepper, he had actually been out with it already, despite that she showed what she meant about its reappearance. "When I came to pick him up I had to walk into the house he was in and literally drag him out from there. He was all distant for the whole ride back home and to Stark Industries, then he told me to get back here and talk to you" Happy had seen the dead man in the corner, but didn't want to tell Pepper since it would probably just make things worse.
"I'll talk to him when he gets back here, I want to hear this from his point of view. Thank you though, you can leave if you want to" Pepper gave him a look that meant I need time alone, and so he left.
"Glad to have you back Tony, I've missed you" Nick Fury sat up the most fake grin in the history, and Tony squinted back at him. "If the rest of you didn't catch up with what happened about four weeks ago, I'll give you a little recap. You see, Tony had some problems with anxiety attacks and nightmares, and also the Mandarin, I'm sure you got that part. What none of you know is that after miss Potts were put in harm's way, he weighed it up to her by exploding all of his suits and removing the shrapnel and the arc reactor from his heart. Yes, the arc reactor was in his hart, not just part of the suit, so now you know that too" Fury walked around the table everyone was sitting around, keeping an eye on their reactions.
"I... actually knew that" Bruce held his hand up in the air, but quickly put it down again when no one was even slightly amused.
"Thor couldn't make it, but I'll make sure he gets to know too. Tony, were you planning on leaving us, or didn't you give us one single thought?" There was no doubt Fury was holding with the last option.
Tony sat still for a moment, just watching all of his "team mates" being totally baffled by the information they'd just received. He was the bad guy now, the one who was going to abandon them, for what, keeping Pepper safe? She wasn't even one of them. It seemed like everyone sat in their deepest thoughts, trying to figure out why he did what he did and why he wouldn't answer Fury's question, except from Bruce. He was patiently waiting for Tony to speak, and that's why he opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He was speechless, didn't know what to say, and that was extremely rare for him. There was no doubt he had been thinking about them, he had actually done that a lot. Tony didn't have the best of reputation when it came to loyalty, and what Fury had just said about him made it look like he didn't care at all. What about just telling them that he had actually planned for going back to being Iron Man? He actually had, so it wouldn't be a lie. Everyone looked at him now, waiting for an answer, for answers, but Fury stole his chance.
"That's why S.H.I.E.L.D decided to force you back to work. I can see that you've done some improvement since that night" Fury pointed at Tony's arc reactor and saw the questioningly look at his face. "I stood behind that, you're quite right" Tony lunged towards Fury, but Steve and Bruce held him back and pushed him down in his chair again.
After a few seconds Tony was calm again and the two guys let go of him, but he lunged forwards again as soon as they did, but it only resulted in him being thrown down on the floor. Steve held his hand on his shoulder, pushing him down on the floor and making it impossible to get up again. Natasha and Clint sat silenced by the table, struggling a bit to take in everything that had just happened as they didn't know Tony as well as Bruce and Steve did, at least not on a personal basis. Tony was still being held to the floor, breathing heavily and shaking tremendously. He didn't even believe himself when his thoughts worked with what he had just got to know. He knew that Fury could do bad things, but this... this was of another dimension. Fury had actually forced Tony back to the life he tried to get rid of. Tony took hold of Steve's arm and he let go so that he could get back up on his legs.
"And there wasn't any other more... human way you could do it?"Tony was still furious, but he managed to stay on the reasonable site.
"Of course there's always another option, but asking you weren't one of them" He looked lazily on Tony.
"You had to hit me with a car and then make me suffer and believe that I was going to die?" Tony's almost shouted.
"We wanted to scare you Tony, give you a lot to think about, so that you would at least keep that electro magnet in your body until today. That way I could explain to you first" Fury was getting sick of Tony asking questions and tried to move over to the next subject, but Tony wasn't finished yet.
"I had a plan, I was never going to leave you, I was just taking a break, fixing my life. You knew about the anxiety issue, and the nightmares, why do you think I removed the arc reactor, for fun? I needed to move on with my life and live it like a normal person if only for a few weeks, and then I was going to rebuild the mark 42 and place an arc reactor in its chest. There is no need for me to go around with this in my chest anymore without the shrapnel, I could just put one in the suit and it would work just as nice. Now that it's back, so are the nightmares, and the anxiety attacks, and it's worse than ever. I've got no idea how you think I can play superhero when my mind is everywhere at the same time" Tony was still angry, and he was breathing fast and heavily.
For the first time ever Fury was silenced. Maybe he hadn't thought this that well through, maybe he had actually failed. This made Tony even more furious, if he had the arc reactor in his chest because of one single question not being asked...
"S.H.I.E.L.D found out that planting the electro magnet in your chest would be a more permanent solution. I believe Harlan added his own little touch to it to make it even more permanent, since I asked him to" Fury sighed and raised from his chair, the two men in front of the door stepped aside and Fury opened the door before he stopped. "By the way, thank you for making a vacancy for us, and it's good to see that the car crash didn't harm you too bad, so that you can come back to work even sooner" With that said, Fury walked out of the room. He hadn't cared about anything of what Tony had just told him.
"Well, let's look at the positive side... Giving Pepper that earpiece actually paid off" Steve said to try and lighten up the atmosphere, he failed.
Tony hadn't been this nervous since... he had never been this nervous before. This was a one shot, and he had to say the right things and avoid saying the wrong things. He had practiced for what to say, just so that he wasn't going to screw it up. Even though he went over and over again in his head how he was going to do this, he just knew that he was going to spoil it. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the wall in the elevator as he waited for it to reach the apartment, though deep inside he wanted it to never get there. As said as done, the elevator suddenly stopped and the bells started ringing at the same time as it all went dark. Was it ok if he got one of those anxiety attacks now? Because it was absolutely no problem for him. Tony felt the whole room shrinking, but then the doors slid up and there was a little space for Tony to get out of it. He rushed out of it as soon as possible and once he was out, the wires broke and the elevator raced down to the floor in free fall and collapsed at the bottom. Tony supported himself on the wall behind him, taken aback of what had just happened. He could have been lying squeezed flat on the bottom floor right now if that door opened one second later. For a brief moment a thought hit him; had someone just tried to assassinate him? He shook it off, there was actually possible for something to just be an accident, something could happen all randomly without him having to go all paranoid. Tony took a look around and saw that he was in the gym, four floors under their own apartment. He found the stairs and started walking them, now he could just use long time and then he could still prepare for what to say to Pepper. He was still shaky after the recent incident, which only made things worse, he couldn't focus. The meeting with Fury and the other Avengers was also fresh in his memory. The door to the apartment came way too fast, and Tony drew a quick breath before he opened the heavy door slowly and quietly. He didn't see Pepper, and the stair down to the workshop was right next to him, it was awfully attempting to go down, but he continued walking towards their room. He wanted to yell for her, but didn't do it. Avoid the problem as long as you can... no, that is just so wrong, he thought. He had to do it, it was now or never, it would just grow worse if he continued avoiding it.
"Pepper, are you there?" He yelled a bit unsecure towards the bedroom.
"God, are you okay? Someone called me about the elevator, they said you were in it, I thought-"
"No, I'm fine, I got out just before it crashed" an awkward silence filled the room after he said that, no one knew what to say until Tony finally found courage enough to say what he had on his heart. "Look, I am truly sorry for making the suit behind your back, but I didn't want to hurt you. I was actually threatened into going back to Iron Man, if that helps, and I was afraid that it may put you in harm's way if I refused to do so-"
"Happy told me about what happened earlier today, that he had to pick you up and-"
"Don't make this about me, this is about you and how incredibly sorry I am for hurting you. I went to that meeting and things sort of... made a bit more sense to me after that, even though I have a lot more questions in my mind now. I just want you to know that I'm sorry, and I promise to not hide things from you anymore" Tony held Pepper's hands and looked softly into her eyes, it definitely made her melt and she wasn't angry anymore.
"So what was the meeting about?" Pepper thought she changed the topic, but of course... she didn't.
"It wasn't really a meeting meeting" Tony answered slowly. "It was more of a "sit still and I'll tell you why that electro magnet is in your chest" meeting held by Nick Fury" That name made Pepper wake up, she hated him for always giving Tony dangerous missions. "S.H.I.E.L.D placed it there on purpose, they hit me with that car on purpose, they put me through hell that night I came home on purpose and they threatened me on purpose just to scare the hell out of me so that I would never even think of getting rid of the electro magnet" Tony said it with such a despite in his voice that Pepper couldn't help getting really angry herself.
"So Fury basically dragged you out of heaven and back to the hell you tried to escape?" It was maybe a bit harsh, but it was the way Pepper had interpreted the whole thing. Tony shrugged, as if to show Pepper that it wasn't that a big deal, even though she knew he thought it was. "What now?" She looked hopefully at Tony.
"I don't know, I just want to sit down and think about it, and then we can come back to it tomorrow" His head slowly closed in on Pepper's and he leaned his forehead on hers before giving her a little kiss and walking down to the workshop.
Tony sat all alone in the workshop just staring at the suit, not having the slightest clue about what to do next up. He was so close to actually calling a shrink when it hit him. It's good to see that the car crash didn't harm you too bad, so that you can come back to work even sooner. What if he had been injured? Then he couldn't have been Iron Man, he had to recover first. If recovery from an injury meant that he couldn't be Iron Man... Something appeared in Tony's sight and he immediately grabbed it from the desk it was on. It was a timer, those you often see on bombs, and what if there was an accidental explosion while he worked on the suit, would people buy that? Well, there was only one way to find out...
Yeeep, said I was going to fix them, didn't I? Now we'll just have to fix those 1001 other problems too, no prob... So remember what I said about reviews making my heart beat? Yeah, it's beating reaaaaaally slow now, would you help me?