Chapter 7
It had been two days since Tony returned and he was still hiding out in his basement turned personal workshop. He didn't really consider it hiding, but Stane had ordered him to lay low since his dramatic announcement at the Press Conference. This did give him time to finish making the replacement reactors for him and JC. He had just finished his and had Pepper install it. He made a mental note not to let her do the same with JC's. He could survive without the spare magnet in his chest, but JC would need it in case something ever did manage to go wrong. The magnet would hold a charge for approximately fifteen minutes. If she wasn't in his workshop, that much time wouldn't be enough to do anything of note. But if she was at his house with him, he might just be able to do something.
With the final pieces in place all that was left was to find where JC lived. That was the easiest part thanks to his friend the Internet. The hardest part was going to be trying to convince her to come over so he could give it to her without losing an appendage for not telling her the truth sooner. He didn't have any other options at this point, so he decided to suck it up and get it done.
Surprisingly enough she wasn't too far away from him. He found her on the other side of town, the one place he never expected to find her. He thought she would have tried to get as far away from him as possible, like Cambodia. How had he managed to miss that in the past year? He should have known. He'd kept tabs on her for a while after Japan. He should have known she lived in the same city as he did. But somehow that piece of information had slipped past him.
That evening he finally got the reactor finished and headed for JC's home. Along the way he tried to come up with something convincing to say to her. "If I said it was necessary to lie to you, would you still try to kill me? No, I can't say that. She'll try to punch me on sight, if I say that. There must be something I can say that won't provoke her," he said to himself as he drove. There simply was no easy answer to it. He was just going to have to spit it out and pray she didn't try to break one of his extremities.
He pulled up in front of her house and was immediately surprised. Her home looked to be two stories high painted cream with forest green trim. In the front of the house was a flower plot filled with an assortment of various plants that even he did not recognize. He never took her for a plant lover, let alone exotics. What was next? A haunted house in the basement? Somehow that wouldn't surprise him at this point.
Pushing aside any remaining fear in his system he left his car and walked up to the front door. As he approached the door he could hear them running around the house doing who knew what. Taking a deep breath he knocked on the door and waited. A few moments later he heard the voice of boy yelling, "I'll get it, Mom." The door opened to reveal JC's son, and before Tony could even get a word out, the door was shut in his face.
"Okay," he said to himself. He should have expected that. He was sure JC had taught the boy to hate him by now. He deserved it. But JC still needed the reactor.
Figuring he might have better luck if he called first thing in the morning when the boy was at school, Tony was about to walk off when he heard behind the door the boy say to his mother, "It was just a stupid salesman, Mom."
Gaping, Tony began knocking on the door again. He could hear JC asking what was with the constant knocking and her son lying about him. Now this kid was making him mad. He knocked more fervently hoping to get her attention. He heard her say something, but she must have been too far away from the door, since he couldn't make out a word she had said.
The next moment the door was open and a very agitated looking JC was at the threshold, a gun pointed in his face. Tony immediately backed off several feet, his hands going up in the surrender pose, his eyes shutting out pure instinct.
"Don't shoot! I come in peace!" he said quickly.
"Tony?" she asked, her voice seemingly surprised and all of a sudden very calm.
"Yes," he answered, refusing to move.
"Would you stop that before a neighbor sees you," she berated and slapped at his hands.
He cringed away from her assault, finally feeling brave enough to open his eyes to look at her. "You're the one pointing a gun in my face!" he countered.
"It's a toy, moron," she said, holding the gun up to his face and pulling the trigger several times for effect. A red light at the muzzle lit up each time she pulled the trigger. It was only now that he noticed a lit up vest over her chest. The two must have been playing laser tag.
"What are you even…Darren!" she said turning to her son.
"Yes, ma'am?" he answered knowing he was caught.
"You want to explain this to me? Did you shut the door in his face?" she demanded.
"Well, I…um…" he answered.
JC gave a sigh before turning back to Tony. "I'm sorry for my son's lack of manners," she said, grinding out the last word with a parental glare at her son. "What is it you need?"
"Can I talk to you? In private?" he asked not wanting to bring the subject up in front of Darren.
"Is it important?"
He looked uneasily at her son then back at her. "Yes, it is. Please?"
She stared at him for a calculating moment before letting out a defeated sigh. "Sure, come on in," she said and motioned him inside. "Darren, go finish your homework."
"But, Mom," the boy started to whine.
"Don't give me that. I already gave you a half hour more than I said I would. Now, get upstairs and finish."
The boy gave him a glare before grudgingly heading up the stairs.
"I'm sorry about that. He's usually not so unpleasant with strangers."
Tony stared at her with a cocked brow. At least Darren hadn't shoved a laser pistol in his face with a death glare, though it had probably crossed the boy's mind at least once.
"Come on. Let's talk in back," she said before leading him through the house. He followed her to the back of the main level. The door she led him to opened to what appeared to be an art studio. Upon entering her studio he was astonished. Various pieces of art ranging from paintings to sketches to pottery were spread throughout the room. If there was any project that could be done it was displayed in the room.
Graphite sketches were strewn about tables and mixed in with palettes of paints and a stray pane or two of stained glass. He could smell turpentine somewhere in the room mixed with several other smells, including the smell of burnt solder, as well as several others that he could not identify. Above him were several large vents that must have been part of a very good ventilation system. She would need it with number of chemicals he could smell.
Along all the walls were canvases of varying size, each one covered in an array of bright colors. Most of them were an abstract collage of shapes and swirls of color. Some of them were more distinct, landscapes and people and such. There were even a few splatter paintings.
On the table closest to him he found a pattern with pieces of cut stained glass arranged into some sort of Celtic knot. More than half of the picture had yet to be cut, but the few pieces that were done were very well crafted.
"Wow. I never would have guessed you were the artsy type. And you're good, too. Does any of it ever sell?" he observed as he looked over one of the paintings. This was a lot better than finding a haunted house in the basement.
"A few have but not too many. I'm trying to get a few more to go, but–hey, don't touch that!" she exclaimed as he started to touch one of the canvases. "The oil isn't dry yet."
"Oh, sorry," he apologized and pulled back. There was a smudge of paint left on his thumb and a near perfect thumb print on the canvas where he'd touched it. He quickly hid his thumb in his fist and hoped she wouldn't notice the print. "Where did you find the time to do all this?"
"Rehab took a while. Didn't have a lot that I could do, so I'd come here and work on something. It was one of the few things that kept me sane," she said as she leaned back against a counter.
Tony's face suddenly fell. It had been partly his fault she had been injured so badly. It was his fault she'd been stuck here with nothing but her art to do until she was better. While all of her pieces were good, it didn't make the situation any better.
"I know why you're here," she said when he didn't say anything.
He turned to her, trying to keep his reaction neutral. "How do you know?" he asked.
"I know that look in a man's eye. What we went through…no one can ever understand it. You feel like there's no one else you can talk to about it."
He turned away again. It wasn't the reason he had come, but she wasn't wrong either. It had only been a few days, but even so, he was still haunted by nightmares. Pepper had tried talking him into seeing a therapist. He had shrugged it off right then and there. He didn't see any merit in lying on some couch spouting off to some stranger about everything he had seen.
"Tony, you'll have to talk to someone about it at some point. But that person can't be me."
"What?" he questioned. He hadn't expected to hear that. He wasn't sure he'd ever want to talk to anyone about what happened, but if there was anyone he would choose, it would be her. She was the only one who could ever understand. "If this about what happened last year–"
"No, it's not," she said gently. She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck nervously. "You know that I was a soldier. I've seen things just as bad as what happened in those caves. But…Look, maybe this will explain it better," she said and moved to a back wall where larger canvases were stored. She moved several aside before pulling out one of the six foot tall canvases.
The only word Tony could think that described it was anger. Red and black were spattered and smeared across the canvas, and long tears were cut into the stretched fabric. Several areas even appeared to be burned.
"This isn't the first one or the last. You see, I never started doing any of this out of a love for art. It was part of my therapy when I came back from my first tour," she said as she stared at the tortured piece. "I can't help you, Tony, because I can't even help myself. I know this isn't what you were hoping for, but I'm sorry. It's just the way it is."
With that she shoved the canvas back into its hiding place.
"JC, I appreciate all this…but that's not why I came here tonight," Tony finally admitted.
"I don't understand. What other reason could you have?" she asked.
"I don't know quite how to explain this very well without upsetting you," he began. "Listen, your life is in danger if we don't get you to back to my house," he blurted out. There, he'd said it. It was out.
"Slow down for just a second. What do you mean? What are you talking about?"
"It's the reactors. There was a little…hiccup."
"What kind of hiccup?" she asked, her arms crossing over her chest.
"You see, there was a small problem when I was making the two reactors. There wasn't enough palladium to completely make both of them, so I had to cut one of them short," he explained and looked to her to gauge her reaction. She didn't seem upset yet, so he decided it should be safe enough to continue. "In order to run the suit effectively and safely, it was necessary that mine be complete leaving yours only partially incomplete. It was the only way to-"
"Hold it right there," she interrupted. "You're telling me that you put me in danger to save yourself? I should have known you would do something like this. You lied to me. God, I can't believe I was such an idiot! I trusted you! I even–damn it!" She raked her fingers angrily through her hair before kicking the side of one of her work stations, the materials quivering before settling again. Tony flinched, half expecting for her to turn her rage on him next.
"Let me explain. It had nothing to do with my wellbeing over yours. I was trying to make sure we all got out safely, and the only way to do that was to complete the one that would be running the suit. There was no other safe option. I know I lied to you, but with this new one you won't have to worry about it. If you would just come over for a few-"
"No," she interrupted sternly. "I don't want to have anything more to do with you, Tony. I thought I could trust you. Not a lot of trust, but I thought I could at least believe you for something as important as this. Get out of here and don't come back, or I swear you will regret the day you were born."
"JC, please. I know what I did was wrong, and I will let you kill me later if you still want to, but you're in a lot of danger right now," he said, his own temper rising. "That reactor in you could fail at any minute. After that, you'll have about fifteen minutes left to live. That's not enough time for either of us to get to each other so I can give it to you. Now, will you please just-"
"Leave!" she exclaimed pointing at the door.
They stood there glaring at each other for a minute before Tony conceded with a loud huff. "Just think about it. If you won't do it for yourself, you could at least do it for Darren. I don't think he wants to go through the rest of his life without a mother," he said and stormed back to his car.
He drove back home, frustration, anger, and guilt being his only thoughts. Yes, he regretted not telling her the truth in the first place, and he deserved her anger at him, but that was no reason for her to continue putting herself in danger by not accepting the new reactor. He would have been just fine if she hated him forever, if she had only taken the reactor. That only left him to continue what he had started earlier that day.
The next afternoon Tony was hard at work in his shop trying to get the design correct before he started building it. He was in the middle of getting the boots right when a knock was heard at the door. When the knocking did not stop Tony asked, "Jarvis, where is Pepper?"
"She left half an hour ago to run personal errands. Do you not recall giving her such permission?" the electronic, British voice answered.
"Oh, yeah, that's right. Who's at the door?"
"It would appear to be Ms. Alwin, sir," the AI reported.
Saving his progress, he shut down the holographic table and took the stairs up two at a time. He wanted to be excited that she was here, that she had come to her senses. But he had no guarantee of her intentions. For all he knew she had come to berate him some more. If that was the case, he wouldn't stand for it. What he'd done was out of necessity. He would not be sorry about it.
"What are you doing here?" he asked when he made it to the door.
"Look, can we make this quick. I have to be somewhere in an hour and I still have other things to do today," she said nervously.
"You're going to have to be a little more specific than that," he said. He wasn't about to make it easy for her. Not this time.
"Are we seriously going to do this right now?"
"You're the one who threw me out of your house last night for trying to do the right thing," he threw back.
"Look, I thought about what you said, okay? You were right about Darren, and that's all I'll admit to. I'm still pissed off that you lied to me, and I have every right to be," she said jabbing a finger in his face.
"Fair enough. I deserve that," he conceded. That was going to be the closest thing to an apology he would ever get. "Come on in. The shop is in the basement," he said leading her inside.
He opened the door to the shop and led her over to the chair he had used before which he had laid out flat for her. "Okay, take your shirt off. I'm not looking," he said turning around and covering his eyes with one hand.
A few minutes later she gave the okay for him to turn around, and he found her lying down on the make-shift table. "Will you just hurry up? I really don't like you being in the room with me like this."
"Don't worry. It should only take five minutes," he explained grabbing the necessary tools and, of course, the reactor. "I'm warning you now, this may hurt a bit when the new one gets plugged in. Then again, it might not."
"Joyous," she replied sarcastically.
"Just be glad it's me doing this instead of Pepper," he said as he began to remove the reactor.
"I almost prefer her," she muttered.
"No, you don't. She just about killed me when she was helping me," he said putting it aside and grabbing the new one. "This might hurt when I attach it to the base plate, so bear with me."
"When you say it will hurt, do you mean a little or a lo-Oww!" she yelped. "A little warning next time would be nice!"
"Sorry, but it was now or never, and I figured it would be better if you were distracted from it," he answered sheepishly.
"You are lucky I can't stand up right now, or I would hand you your teeth," she threatened.
"Lucky me. I'll meet you upstairs," he said and walked upstairs to give her some privacy.
A few minutes later she joined him in the living room fully dressed. "Thanks, Tony. I should be going now," she said and headed for the door.
"Well, wait just a second. Don't leave yet," he called from his spot on the couch.
"Tony, I told you already that I have things to do today. I really have to-"
"Look for a job?" he interrupted bluntly.
"What? How did you…Are you watching me or something?"
"No. I had to look you up online to find your address and there were a few…things that came up with it. I'm sorry."
She stared down at her feet for a moment before saying, "That's just the way of this business, I suppose. Screw up one too many times and people start to question what you're good for. Besides, no one lasts forever in this business. It was only a matter of time. Anyway, I have to get going. I have a buyer for one of my pieces that I have to go meet with in a few minutes, so-"
"I need your help."
She seemed taken aback for a moment before asking, "What could you possibly need my help doing? Aren't you supposed to be some kind of super genius? And what about that friend of yours Colonel Rhodes? You two seemed to be really close."
"You said no one else could ever understand what we went through. You were right. Everyone thinks I'm crazy for what I'm trying to do. Pepper, Stane, even Rhodey. The way I see it, you're the only one who can help me."
"What are you talking about?"
Tony took a deep breath to calm himself. This would be his only chance to try to make things right with her. He couldn't mess this up. "I have a proposal for you. I'm starting a new project, a potentially hazardous project. I'm going to need help."
"Do I look like an engineer or some rocket scientist? How could I possibly help you?"
Well, it wasn't a no. Not yet, at any rate. This was good. This meant he still had a chance. "You might not be any of those things, but you're not an idiot either. You helped build that suit. You already have all the skill sets I need in a partner."
"A partner?" she questioned.
"Yes. Give me one week of your time, and if I haven't given you a reason to stay on until this thing is finished, I will help you get a new job, whatever it takes," he offered.
"And if I refuse?"
"I'll still help you, whatever you decide. I owe you at least that much." It was true. She'd saved his life more than once. The least he could do was get her out of this rut she was in.
"You saved me twice. If anybody is in debt it's me," she said.
"What do you mean?" he asked, genuinely confused.
"You made these things," she said, pointing to the reactor in his chest. "Despite what you did, if it weren't for these, I'd have died a long time ago."
"And the second?"
She looked uneasy as she thought about her next words. "If it weren't for you, I would have given up in that desert. I was ready to die, Tony. I was ready to give in and die right there. But you just had to be stubborn. I owe you twice."
"No, you don't," he said. "You saved me in Japan, and I almost got you killed in the process. I'd say we're more than even."
She smirked at him. "You keep on thinking that. But I still owe you, Stark. So, I'll do it. I'll do your one week trial."
Tony wanted to jump for joy at those words. She had agreed! He was still in some shock and couldn't even believe he had heard what she'd said.
"That's great. I promise you won't regret it," he assured her.
"That's funny. A friend said that to me right before I took my last job."
Tony was about to ask what that was, but then he realized what she meant and kept his mouth shut.
"Well, let's get to work then," he said quickly, trying to relieve the sudden tension in the room.
"Actually, I really do have somewhere else I need to be right now, and I still have to pick up Darren from school. Fresh start tomorrow?"
He was mildly disappointed, since he'd wanted to get a good start on the project right then and there, but he could wait one more day for her. "I'll try not to kill myself until then," he joked.
"You do that," she said with a smile.
At that, Tony felt a spark of hope. If he was able to work with her, then maybe, just maybe, it was a step toward forgiveness.
AN: Hope ya'll enjoyed the new chapter 7. Don't forget to leave a review :)
