So thank you to Nerdy-Tomboy for reviewing! Great, thank you, it's really great to know that at least there's someone out there appreciating my work(and of course all of you who normally review, haven't forgot you yet). Seriously, the rest of you, YOU'VE GOT SOME WORK TO DO! And btw... did you understand where i got the inspiration from the last chapter from? There was this picture i randomly found, and now I can't find it again :( But, well, those of you who understands, underdstands!
"Hey, Tony, listen to me! Calm down!" One of the adults said through gritted teeth.
Harley stood by and watched as Tony struggled to push himself away from the man bending over him to scoop him up. He was weak, however, and the man had no problem with lifting him up. He must've been right when he said it would hurt a lot, because a loud, panicked scream escaped Tony as his eyes grew wide with pain and he clenched to the man's T-shirt. The woman started to stroke his hair and hush him, but there was something wrong going on in Tony's head, he didn't trust anyone. He didn't know what to do when he wanted to get away from the lady and the man, so he just buried his face in the man's chest and started shaking incredibly as sobs shook his body even more. Harley saw the woman shake her head and a frown appeared on her face, so he decided these guys actually cared about Tony, that they were friends of him.
"Steve…" The woman said with a sad tone and the man looked up at her face. "The arc reactor… It's flickering" His eyes went to the light in his colleague's chest, and his facial expression went totally stiff.
"We need to get away as fast as possible" Steve's stressed face met Pepper's and she nodded quickly in agreement.
She sent him away out of the tunnel to reach the helicopter waiting for them outside, while she slowly turned around to find the other woman Steve had knocked out when they came in. She was still lying on the ground unconscious, but Pepper didn't take any chances. Her feet moved slowly and lightly over the floor too not wake her up or something in case she was still conscious. First she picked up Steve's shield who lay a few meters in front of her, and then she used it to move her body to assure herself that she wasn't awake. When she didn't move, Pepper slowly rolled her over to her back and put her arms under her armpits and started dragging her out of the tunnel. In fact, Justine was very pretty, Pepper couldn't help but thinking of it, it was something she obviously hadn't got from her father, that jealous little creep. With the shield on her back and the unconscious woman in her arms, she had to take a few breaks on the way. It was a silly idea not to bring several men, but it could've gone worse than this, Pepper had been prepared for a combat. Suddenly Steve was by her side, taking Justine in his hands and almost running towards the helicopter with Rhodey waiting outside. Now that she had the opportunity, Pepper ran towards the helicopter in the highest speed she had ever reached running and quickly sat down next to the bed Tony was in. He was already unconscious, probably because of exhaustion, but his whole state was incredibly bad. She remembered how she had removed the big glass from his side, and how it almost didn't stop bleeding until Bruce had stitched it, now it seemed like it had never been stitched. The arc reactor flickering was definitely not a good sign, everyone knew that it was there for a reason, and the reason was probably keeping him alive in some horrible way. Otherwise his body looked totally broken down, battered and broken down, and he was both sweating and shivering even though he wasn't awake. Pepper sighed heartbroken, this was all her fault. If she hadn't ran away from him because… no, she didn't want to think about that now, what was important now was to get Tony home.
"There's been an accident" All of the avengers who sat around the table felt their heart jump a little when they heard it. "Stark has been captured by Justine Hammer, I'm sure all of you are known by the name. The outcome isn't too good. We know he has been… unstable the last weeks occurring to all the recent events, and this will probably just worsen things…" The black box on the middle of the table went silent.
Nick Fury didn't know what more to say, he himself didn't care all too much about Tony, but he knew the avengers did, that was why Steve wasn't there.
"You said you had an eye on him all the time" Bruce mumbled angrily.
"Excuse me?" Fury spat back.
"You said you had an eye on him!" His voice was now loud and clear and the others could see some green in his eyes.
"Bruce…" Natasha had rose from her chair and laid her hand on his left shoulder, but he pushed it away with his hand.
He crossed his arms and stared with a hard expression on the box Fury's voice sprung out from. There was always someone who wanted either of them, and the fact that they had had a few missions going great didn't mean that everything would be good. They should've foreseen that something bad would happen soon, it was naïve to believe that things could actually be good over a long time period, life didn't work like that, and if anyone knew, it was Bruce.
"So what now?" He asked a bit calmer.
"We wait" Was the only reply he got.
A quiet whimper was heard from the end of the helicopter and Pepper quickly got on her feet. Tony lay restless on the stretcher, but he was strapped to it to keep still, to not hurt himself. She gently laid a hand down on his arm and started stroking it back and forth, and it caused him to wake up from his nightmare. He quickly understood where he was and tried to get away from her, but he understood it didn't work because of the straps and he panicked. Pepper tried to calm him down, but he just closed his eyes shut and winced, as if he hoped to just disappear out of thin air. His breathing was very labored, and he struggled to get air down his lungs. The aircraft was noisy, too noisy, and Tony groaned hopelessly of the everlasting sound, which caused him to panic even more, afraid that someone would punish him. He squeezed his eyes even more shut and just waited for what was to come. Pepper sat by with a frown on her face, this was not the Tony she knew, the rude and childish Tony Stark was lost, and she would do anything in her power to get him back. Tony couldn't think, couldn't remember, all his senses was gone leaving only the ability to feel pain left. It was excruciating and so exhausting he would much rather like to die. If he could just remember anything at all, but he was blinded by fear and discomfort, couldn't it just stop? He let out a struggled sob when he finally could remember something, two faces in the other end of the aircraft. The only thing he could remember about them was pain, panic and… these guys were evil, but they seemed to be asleep or something, and they had handcuffs on. Tony felt how his own wrists hurt when he thought about it, and a picture started to form in his head, bit by bit. Suddenly his eyes flung up and he remembered everything.
"P-pep-pep" He whispered with a broken voice.
"I'm right here, your safe, it's okay now" Tony wanted to stretch out his hand, but the straps stopped him and once again he panicked. "Hey, don't you remember? You have to lie still or it's going to hurt" And it did just that, it hurt to get panic like that.
He held his breath for a few moments and then slowly and shakily let it out. Not until now was he able to part the pain, to feel where it hurt and where it didn't hurt so much, but fact was… his whole body was totally battered. With every heart beat, a sting was sent through his whole body, he knew his blood was partly stopped by the arc reactor, he could see through the blankets covering him that it was flickering. All the thinking made him tired, and he just wanted to close his eyes and go back to sleep. Then another thought hit him and he quickly scanned the place for people. Pepper saw this and tried to hush him, to push his head back down on the pillow, but he needed to see who was in the helicopter.
"Ha-rl… Ha" Tony closed his eyes in frustration as he understood that he couldn't express his thoughts.
Pepper took his hand fast and squeezed it tightly. Why had she got her hopes up? She should've just kept her feelings on ice until she was sure of that he was mentally right.
"No Tony, he's not here, he's… dead… You killed him, didn't you?" Pepper asked insecurely with a trembling voice.
Tony's eyes got big and tears started to roll down his cheeks. Why didn't he remember that happening? Why didn't he remember killing someone so… important to him, someone so kind and friendly? He helped him during his worst days of darkness, and he had tried to help him in the hell hole he was in just… how long ago? There was no possibility of him killing Harley. Tony's wild eyes met Pepper's as even more tears made his chins wet. He was just a little child with a big heart for mechanics. Eventually he calmed down and he was sobbing again. The sobs shook his body, sometimes little and sometimes enormously, either way sent pain through each little bone in his body. Pepper was sitting by, crying a little herself at her stupid boyfriend hurting himself so much he was whimpering, and stroking his hair with gentle strokes. After a while he stopped sobbing and Pepper understood he was sleeping. She sighed tiredly and walked back to her chair next to Rhodes. She rubbed her eyes with her palms and looked over at Tony's best friend with pain painted all over her face.
"Has he shown any sign of waking up yet?" He changed between looking at her and the aircrafts instruments.
"He was just awake, for a few minutes… but he's exhausted, and it seems like he is in a lot of pain… I can't watch him like this, I need to do something" Silent tears rolled down her cheeks as she looked out into the small snow blizzard starting to form around them.
"When we get him to the hospital, everything will be all right, ok? And he's going to live until then. He's a bit disoriented, yes, but what else do you expect right now?" Rhodey said with a calming, comforting voice and laid a hand on Pepper's shoulder.
"Yeah, you're probably right" Pepper nodded and sent a glance back to Tony, Steve and the two bastards being responsible for Tony's discomfort.
Suddenly the aircraft started to shake slightly, and Pepper didn't like it at all. It felt like sitting in a car on a worn road. Pepper didn't understand anything of the instruments in the dashboard, but she saw them starting to move more and soon enough, Rhodey was speaking to someone on the radio. She had a headset on herself and heard everything that was said. There was several words that were unknown to her, but she was fully capable of understanding the words snow blizzard, storm, hard to land and try your best. This was not good, she had no idea how long Tony could keep up. She knew about why it wasn't good that the arc reactor was flickering and she saw his pale, almost purple skin, his hand was also cold as ice when she grabbed it, being airborne right now was not good. She sent another look his way, a concerned one this time. He was still sleeping, but it was definitely a restless sleep, his whole body was twitching from time to time, telling Pepper that he had another nightmare. The brave Captain walked from his seat between Tony's two captors and over to the stretcher. He sat down on the ground next to it and did nothing else but to watch Tony sleep. Another shake to the helicopter made Pepper actually jump a little from her seat, and it made her look straight over to Rhodey, her eyes full of important questions. He was very busy trying to control everything and get on top of the situation, but she could see that even the best pilot had difficulties right now. They couldn't see anything outside, snow was crashing into the windshield and there was nothing else to see but white, thick dots. A warm hand was suddenly placed on Pepper's shoulder, and she jumped, but then she saw the wrinkle between Steve's eyebrows. Her heart sunk as thoughts started to spin, was he dead already? Pepper didn't take off the headset, she just followed after Steve as the blizzard made her walk unsteady. She sat down next to Steve on the ground again, just next to Tony. She hadn't ever thought it would be possible, but his skin had actually become even paler, grey almost, and it was hard and cold. He was shivering and crying in his sleep, so Pepper laid another, warm blanket over him. She sighed hopelessly and pulled away from him. Her eyes met Steve's and she felt safe enough to lay her head on his shoulder and just stare at the fragile figure shivering in front of them.
"They have landed!" Bruce stormed into the meeting room where Natasha, Clint and now also Thor, sat, or actually they almost slept.
"Is our friend safe?" Thor asked with a slight tone of concern in his voice.
"Not yet, he's in a… critical state, they're going to take him into surgery as fast as possible, and then we'll see. I know that we all want to stay here to hear how it's going, but we have a mission guys" Bruce said sadly.
"Bring it to us!" Natasha said, realizing a moment too late it sounded to ecstatic, but to be honest, she knew it would go well with Tony, it always would, so sitting here was only a waste of time.
Bruce sent her a warning look, but continued. "As the Director said, Justine Hammer was the one doing this to him, and she left us a great cleaning job. There's droids spread all over Central Park, nothing dangerous, but we don't want people start asking, right?" Bruce crossed his arms.
"Can't we just get messages about Tony over the earpieces?" It was as if Clint hadn't heard anything about the mission.
Bruce had to smile a bit at him, Tony, Clint and himself had become great friends after the events in New York, but they had been very careful about showing it in public. Clint saying this out loud, and in front of Natasha, meant a lot.
"Unfortunately, that would make us unfocused on our job, if we're going to listen to S.H.I.E.L.D" Bruce sent him a sorry look. "Well, there's about two hundred of these droids, so this is just a waste of time"
His eyes were filled with angst and fear, she could've seen that on a hundred meters distance. He didn't understand anything when a whole team of doctors woke him up from sleep by carrying the stretcher out of the helicopter and inside to the hallway with blinding, bright lights. Pepper walked as fast as she could together with them, and Cap and Rhodes were right behind. He looked up at her, sending her a pleading look with those still fear filled eyes, she shook her head slightly in response, and that was enough to make him panic again. What were they going to do to him? Who were these guys? Of course he understood that they were doctors, but he didn't need them, he didn't want them. He felt his throat itch and tried to clear it up, all it ended in was a coughing fit shaking his whole body and stopping the doctors in rolling the stretcher further. Blood started to make its way out of his mouth and one of the doctors quickly loosened the straps and helped Tony sit up. Pepper could see that the whole movement sent pain shooting through his whole body and he gritted his teeth and clenched to the stretcher. By gritting his teeth he tried to fight of the coughing fit, but blood splattered out of his mouth shortly after and Pepper could see it starting to stream down his cheek in a pattern there had already been streaming blood in. This had been going on for a while.
"We don't… we don't have the time" She whispered, and all the doctors looked up at her.
Then they also saw what she had seen and they were quickly on the move again. Pepper tripped after them and held Tony's now loose hand, he was still sitting up, coughing, but he tried to tell her something.
"Helll-p" He got out under the coughing.
"Tony, I can't, you have to do this" She whispered, she was so afraid her voice couldn't bear it anymore.
Tony got panic once again, what was about to happen? He didn't want to do anything out of his control. He was scared to death, almost crying. He felt… abandoned. Suddenly the coughing stopped, just as he felt Pepper's hand slid away and the environment changed. A mask ,much like the one Harlan had, was placed over his mouth and nose, and very slowly his brain started to calm down. The last thing he saw was the happy face of a ten year old boy.
Woooo, things are heating uuuuup! At least it is in my head, I actually feel like I've tricked you know, unless you are smart kids who understood what I did. Did you? In that case... COOL! NOW REVIEW!