With one hundred and twenty four stitches in your back, there is only so much a person can do without pulling them out accidentally or knocking yourself out with the pain when they jolt. So Sarah was stuck at her house, in her room, confined and banned from doing practically everything (they were close to telling her that she wasn't allowed to walk, but she shut that one down pretty quickly). So instead she sat at her new computer/desk for most of the day, and programmed her new tech.

Bruce had given her state of the art gear, and she realised she had to brush up on some of her skills if she was going to make this work. Kicking herself (mentally) that she had let her knowledge slip, she hacked into her dad's hard drive (well it wasn't really hacking, the password was her birthday plus her initials in a certain order; it was only a matter of time until she got it, really; nothing too illegal) and brushed up on the codes that she needed to know. Pepper, Rhodey and Tony dropped into her house every afternoon straight after school. She got some of the coursework off of them, while she was getting minimal from the actual school, who thought it was in her best interests to actually 'rest and heal and not exert her mentally', Sarah didn't agree. So she had her friends bring her the coursework that they did in class, and she photocopied most of their notes (she downloaded onto the computer afterwards, they didn't know about her setup yet). Tony tended to stay longer than the others, saying to Rhodey that he would always catch up to him later and that he'd be home in time for dinner. Sarah didn't mind.

So after an afternoon of tears of laughter and after Rhodey and Pepper had headed home, Sarah decided to show Tony her room. Following her up the stairs while maintaining a hand on her waist to steady her (she questioned whether the rate that her heart was going at that time was good for her healing capacity), she lead him into her room.

They paused at the doorway, and Tony had to say, he was extremely impressed with what Sarah had. He didn't even have the rhodium plated touch screen glass setup that she had, but then again he preferred to use a certain type of hologram for most of his functions. He saw the small wires that were around the room, but he could tell they were there for backup as the whole system ran wirelessly.

"Sarah, I'm impressed." She stuck her tongue out at him, and took her seat by the computer.

"Bruce dropped some stuff around for me to fiddle with, and I decided that I needed a system to work from, and I hate using other people's setups, too many bugs and faults and general mess-ups."

"Yeah, I know the feeling." He watched as she fiddled with a part of the table. She really was quite amazing. Someone that matched his skill in engineering, as much as she denied it. The only reason he hadn't told her about the other side of his life was to protect her.

She was already in too much danger.

Tony's phone beeped, alerting both the teenagers that Tony really did need to get back to his place for dinner, or Rhodey's mother was going to have him in pieces. Tony pulled the phone out and saw a warning text from Rhodey. Tony gave Sarah a sad smile.

"I have to head off. Rhodey's giving me the warning text." Sarah smiled. Tony shrugged his backpack onto his shoulders and clipped it up. Sarah started to slowly get up from her seat but Tony gave her a glare. She matched his glare with hers, but lowered herself back into the seat. Tony's phone beeped again.

"Okay, gotta run". Leaning forward, he paused to give Sarah a kiss on the cheek. Sarah resisted the shiver that ran through her as his lips touched her skin. He tucked a strand of her hair that was floating around her face behind her ear, gave her a cute little smile and then disappeared out of her room.

Sarah wasn't too sure her heart was working.

Tony was kind of freaking out as he rushed down the stairs of Sarah's house, gave Leilani a quick wave and dashed out the front door. He powerwalked to the closest enclosed area he could find, powered up the suit and then was in the air.

"Computer, autopilot."

What was he thinking, honestly? That was the thing, he wasn't thinking when he leaned down to kiss her cheek, or when he brushed his fingers against her face to tuck the misbehaving strands behind her ear. He wasn't even sure that she liked him!

"You know, your cute little freak out is rather amusing. What did you do, make out with her or something?" Tony choked on air as Pepper interrupted his thoughts over the intercom. "The spluttering really isn't attractive Tony, I think we're going to need to work on that before you try anything more with Sarah."

"Pepper, I didn't make out with her!" He heard her sigh.

"Why not, I would have had something great to talk to her about. Girl stuff, finally! So what did you do then?"

"Pep why do I need to tell yo-"

"Tony why wouldn't you tell me! I'm like your best friend and your only friend that is a girl apart from Sarah." He heard her mutter something about Whitney but he didn't comment on it.

"Okay okay." The armour pulled into the armoury and went through the process of folding back into his backpack. Pepper sat in her chair expectantly.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Tony walked slowly up to where she was and leaned against the stand.

"I kissed her on the cheek." He mumbled the words out but Pepper's hearing was like a hawk's sight.

"You did! YAY oh my god this is brilliant something is actually starting to happen this is brilliiannnntttt!"

"Pepper I don't even know if she likes me what if I crossed a line?" Pepper danced up to him.

"Tony Tony Tony, really? You are really blind sometimes." With that, Pepper practically danced out of the armoury. "I'm off to dinner with Dad, he got the night off. Seeya tomorrow!"

And so she left Tony standing there with only her words to think about.

While she had Tony, Rhodey and Pepper visiting her during the afternoon, she also had another visitor most evenings. Bruce had decided that while she was incapable of defending herself to a reasonable extent, he would spend the majority of the evenings with her. Leilani didn't know of this, of course, and even though her mum was a super awesome agent, she didn't have supersensitive hearing that was needed when Bruce decided to sneak around. Sarah had gotten used to pretending not to be surprised when he appeared in her window. Most nights she would be working at her computer and suddenly there would be a shadow standing over her. Before she would be able to jump, he would very lightly hug her, plant a light kiss in her hair and take a seat next to her. He always treated her like fine china, but this was a bit on the extreme end. Her back was on the mend, the improvements to medical technology were amazing these days, and besides, she had access to some of the doctors at S.H.I.E.L.D. She was close to being, most likely, better than it had been before.

Fury had seen to that. He owed her mother that much.

At least when her friends were here she was distracted. When she was alone, her head ran a million miles an hour, her vivid imagination running wild. All she knew was that it was a terrible, terrible idea to think about Tony or Bruce in any way other than friends. Unfortunately, she needed the brain cells that she would rather lose banging her head against a wall. The coding for the programmes she was running was technical, and her plans were not any easier.

She did not expect to change things overnight, but she was definitely going to be able to defend herself next time some sort of attack happened again. Whom was she kidding; it was going to happen again. Her mother had too many connections and too many enemies. She pulled up the screenshot that she had hacked from the CCTV that was in the street that she had been pulled from. There was the multiple ninja's throughout the street, distracting from the commotion of her being dragged into the shadows. However, they were not what she was interested in. It was the figure on the distant rooftop, the dark shadow dressed in complete black armour, watching the attack. The figure who had a match on multiple conspiracy databases and one rather significant hit on a peripheral SHIELD database.

The Mandarin.

This was why her mother was requested from her station and dragged to America, the reason why SHIELD and Fury were up in arms. Theories are that the Mandarin was a man with altered DNA from the Makluan, an ancient species of alien. But that's all they are; rumours. Sarah wasn't sure if she believed in alien life forms, but all the weird and interesting things that happen around the world couldn't always be explained by pure science. Another thing she knew was that the Mandarin held rings – rings of power, once again rumoured to be ancient out of this world technology. Again, she still wasn't sure if the rumours were true.

She shut down the screenshot and pulled up her design program. This wasn't ancient tech, but it would help her defend herself. If Bruce found out what she was doing with the gear he had gave her… he would probably murder her, she accepted. He'd take it as her trying to get into the hero business.

Well, there was always the option. The tech would be last resort if they knew her identity, but if they didn't know, then she'd have more of an ability to investigate.

She checked her phone, then sighed as she saw that it was close to 2am. Shutting down her system, she hobbled over to her bed and climbed under her covers, shaking out the pins and needles from her leg. Shutting her bedside lamp off, she closed her eyes, and quietly hoped that the nightmares would not make an appearance this time.