Chapter 14

Most of the night had passed with peaceful sleep, as far as JC was aware. That all ended when a nightmare invaded her dreams. She had been doing well since their return about not having dreams about anything that happened during their captivity. But after what happened with Gulmira, it must have stirred enough memories to replay their escape in a horrible distortion of reality. Raza with his hands all over her, being unable to stop him; everything exploding around her; and worst of Yinsen's death replaying even more gruesomely than she remembered. When she finally woke from the dream, she was covered in a cold sweat, her sheets tangled around her limbs.

She groped around for her water glass on her bedside and drank greedily from it before looking to her clock. It was nearing noon. She groaned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She knew she had been tired, but not that bad. She had wanted to be up when Darren left for school, but that was out of the question now. She knew she needed to do something to make amends with him, but she wasn't sure how to do that. She couldn't tell him the truth, but it was starting to become more difficult to keep lying to him.

Figuring she wasn't going to find a solution in bed, she got up and changed into something clean before heading down to the kitchen in search of food. With nothing looking particularly appetizing, she settled on some of the pizza Darren had gotten and went to her studio. She hadn't been there since she had started working for Tony. There hadn't been time for it, and she hadn't felt the need that she usually did. Work on the suit kept her mind and hands busy, but since they were temporarily grounded for repairs, her art was the only thing she could do, and she desperately needed to do something to do with her hands. The thought had crossed her mind to work out in her private training area, but that wasn't the kind of release she wanted. Not yet, anyway.

She looked around the studio trying to decide what it was she was really craving. She still had her glass Celtic knot to finish, but she didn't really have a desire to cut up her hands on glass. There was another glass piece ready for soldering, but she had already been doing enough of that kind of work with the suit. She wanted something different. Moving to her canvases, she looked at her most recent oil piece. It was an abstract of swirled blue and green colors, a play piece really, but it had been ruined a long time ago when Tony came to visit. She passed a finger over the perfect thumb print in the lower corner that was now permanent in the dried paint. If it had been an acrylic, she would have been able to paint over it, but he had stuck his finger into a thick glob of the paint, and now that it was dry, there was no way to cover it up. Had she noticed it the night he did it, she might have been able to scrape it off, but it was too late. She couldn't help but smile. Somehow it just seemed like a Tony Stark thing to do, which made it endearing in an odd way.

Grabbing a marker, she wrote along the side of the frame with an arrow pointing to the print, "Tony Stark's Imprint on the World." Now at least she had something she could use against him one day. It was weak, maybe even petty, but he knew what her art meant to her. After setting the painting on a rack with other completed canvases, she pulled out a clean one and started squeezing out paint onto a palette. Deciding she wanted something easy, she stuck to her acrylics.

Pulling out her MP3 player, she stuck her earbuds in and turned the volume up. She wanted to forget the rest of the world existed for a little while. With no clear direction, she dipped her brush into the paint and started moving color around, letting the paint decide what it wanted to make.

The only problem was the more she let her mind try to wander absently, the more it wandered to unpleasant thoughts, unpleasant memories. Trying to keep everything in check, she tried to push it all aside and focus on something more pleasant. And the more she tried to fight it, the more her anxiety started to rise, and the angrier her strokes became on the canvas. When she finally really looked at what she had created, the enormous mess it was, she threw the brush at the canvas before tossing it and the easel to the ground in a fit of rage.

She fell to her knees, tangling her fingers in her hair. She didn't understand why she was so angry. She thought she had already worked through all the rage, the guilt she had felt for what happened the past few months. Their capture wasn't her fault. She had done everything right, performed admirably given the circumstances. Their injuries and subsequent physical state wasn't her fault. She had tried to pull him away as soon as she saw the mortar, but there was nothing else she could have done. They were lucky to have even survived that. Yinsen's death wasn't her fault, and neither was her surviving when he couldn't. She had tried to help him, but there were too many. It was out of her control. He didn't survive, but his memory, his legacy, was living on in the suit. She had rationalized everything. So why couldn't she let it all go?

Because, she reminded herself, even though it wasn't her fault, why should she get to move on and try to be happy? It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for her to be able to have the chance to move on and forget everything that happened. Someone had to remember, and someone had to be punished.

But why? Hadn't she suffered enough punishment for her past? Hadn't she spent enough time punishing herself for what happened to Brenan? How many years would have to go by before she stopped punishing herself for what happened to Yinsen? No. She couldn't do that to herself, not again. She had spent enough time torturing herself. No more. If she was ever going to make things right with Darren, she had to let it all go. It was like Tony had said. No more punishments. But that also meant no more hiding, and wasn't that what she was doing? Burying herself in Tony's project had been a way to avoid everything. If she wanted to salvage whatever was left of her relationship with her son, it was what she had to do. She had to let Tony go.

She laid out flat on her back remembering some of her relaxing techniques she had learned from her yoga days. As soon as she got the call that it was time to fix the suit she would go to him and tell him that it was over. She could call him or go see him now, but she needed time to find the words, and when she did, she needed to say it to him face-to-face. He deserved that much.


When Tony finally regained consciousness around 8:00 the next morning his first thought was that his body was sore in places he didn't realize were possible. And then he remembered that going to bed had not been his choice. She had actually drugged him! Of all the things he could have imagined from her, drugging him was the last thing he thought JC would ever do.

Rolling gingerly out of bed he grabbed his phone and dialed her cell. Since she wasn't going to be back for a couple days he couldn't berate her in person, and he wasn't going to call her in just for that. As soon as she came back, he was going to have to tell her that she shouldn't be on the project anymore. He was going to need a few more days to think of the best way of saying that.

He lost count of how many times it rang before it went to voicemail. Well, that was odd. It was a bit early, but he would have expected her up already to get Darren to school. He tried not to worry himself since she was prone to forgetting her phone. He'd give her another hour to get back home and try again. She was not getting off that easy.

After a few shots of espresso and more pain relievers–this time from his stash in his bathroom, since he didn't trust any of the pills in the garage–Tony went to work on diagnostics and starting the few repairs he could do without replacement parts. There was also the bathroom issue. That was a serious need, especially since getting in and out was not a quick process.

After a couple hours he tried calling JC's cell again. This time he could hear the vibrations down in the garage. How he had missed it before he wasn't sure, but there was her phone on one of the desks. Well, a whole lot of good that was going to do. Pulling up her information, he found the number for her home phone. And once again he got an answering machine. That was definitely weird. It was past noon now. She had to be up by now, and she would have known by now that her phone was missing. Even with traffic, she would have already been by to pick up her phone.

Tony tried to convince himself that he was overreacting, but he couldn't shake that feeling of worry. She hadn't slept well the past few days and things with Darren seemed pretty shaky. He didn't think she'd do anything crazy, but going out of communication was definitely not normal behavior. He knew he was probably going to feel silly about it later, but better safe than sorry.

Hopping in his car he drove over to her house. If everything turned out fine, which it inevitably was, he was just going to say he was there to bring back her phone. It was a perfectly legitimate reason to be there.

As he pulled into her driveway and started walking to her door, he tried to convince himself that this was a bad idea and he should just walk away. What if she didn't believe that he was just there giver her back her phone? He had a good poker face, but she had the uncanny ability to see right through it. Maybe it was a mom thing. And if she did suspect something else, could he go through with telling her that she was off the project? He wasn't so sure.

Quelling his last bit of fear he knocked on the door. After nearly a full minute and no sounds of any movement he started to get a bit anxious. There were no windows near the door for him to peer through. Peering over at the garage door he could see there were small windows on the upper panels of the door. He knew that if there were any neighbors watching, he was going to look like an idiot for trying to sneak a peek to look for her car. Not really caring at the moment, he popped up on his toes to check.

Her maroon SUV was still there. So if she was home, why was she not answering the door? A knot started forming in his gut. That wasn't normal for JC. Moving back to the door he pounded several more times, this time louder to try getting her attention then pressed his ear to the door to listen closer. Still nothing.

The knot tightened as his mind started to race. Getting desperate he jiggled the door handle. Of course, it was locked. He started feeling around the upper part of the door frame for a spare key. Knowing JC, she would keep a spare somewhere outside, but she would be smarter than to leave it in some obvious fake rock by the door. Finding nothing around the door frame, he looked around at the flower plot. It wouldn't have been obvious if you were looking at it from the street, but looking from the front door he could see one of the edging stones had been painted black. It was as good of a guess as any other. Digging around near the brick, he found a a plastic hide-a-key box. Jackpot.

Taking the key, he unlocked the door and went in. If it turned out JC was simply occupied in the shower, he knew he was going to get an earful about breaking and entering, though he technically hadn't broken in; he had used the key, after all.

"JC?" he called up the stairs. He couldn't hear any sounds from a shower or bathroom being used. There was no answer to his call either. "JC?" he called again as he made his way through the living room area to the kitchen. There was still no sign of her. As he turned the next corner to her studio, he froze, his heart feeling like it had stopped cold in his chest. One of her easels was knocked over, her brush and paint scattered on the ground, and JC was lying on the ground.

He didn't have time to think. He just ran to her side and took her by the shoulders. "JC!"

Her eyes suddenly flew open and she screamed, flailing at him as she tried to get away. Tony yelped and jumped back when she started slapping at him. When they were both back on their feet Tony only noticed then that she had been wearing earbuds and rock music was blasting out of them. That at least explained why she didn't answer the door.

"Tony?" JC finally asked when she finally gathered her wits. "What the…How the hell did you get in my house?"

"I…uh…" He fiddled about until he found the key discarded on the ground and picked it up to give to her. "Found your spare key."

She stared at the key, a puzzled look on her face before she finally accepted his answer and set the key down on one of the work tables. "Okay, that's the how. Why are you in my house?"

"I wouldn't be here if someone would actually remember to keep their phone with them," he said, pulling her phone from his pocket and tossing it on the table next to the key. "Then you wouldn't answer your house phone. When you didn't answer the door either…I got worried, okay?" he finally admitted. "And then I find you here like that," he motioned to the area where she had been laying. "What am I supposed to think? You on the ground unconscious has never been a good thing. That either means you're dead, dying, or otherwise severely injured."

She looked like she was going to make some sort of smart remark but thought better of it when she saw how disturbed he was. "I'm sorry, Tony. I didn't mean to make you worry. In my defense, I can't hear a thing with these in," she said holding up her earbuds.

"That still doesn't explain what you were doing." He looked to the art supplies that had been strewn about then back at her.

"My project was being naughty, so I may have lost my temper with it and then did some yoga to calm down." He looked at her skeptically before crossing his arms and waited for a better explanation. "Acrylics go through a love/hate period, and the hate portion was giving me more trouble than usual. So I tried to teach it some manners and lost my cool."

"Uh huh. Last I checked, lying on the ground was not yoga."

"It's a relaxation technique. It works better when you put your feet on a wall, but…wait, why am I trying to explain this to you? It doesn't matter. Now that we have established that I am alive and well, could you please leave so I can get back to fighting with my canvas?"

He looked down at the mess again. Some her abstracts, odd as it sounded, made sense to him. There was purpose to the colors, the brush strokes. But the mess he saw on the ground looked more like the pieces she had shown him that she kept hidden away, the ones she used for venting. The strokes were angry, the colors a jumbled mess. This was more than a love/hate phase, of that he was sure.

"You sure you're okay?" he asked, looking back to her. He hated that she refused to say anything when she was upset, that it had to reach the boiling point before she finally got whatever was bothering her off her chest. He wasn't much better, he admitted, but he'd never had anyone to talk to when things were bad, never had a bad experience that he needed to talk about. Even now that he did, he still didn't know the first thing about sharing. But she did. She'd been through therapy before. He imagined she hated it, but it gave her the opportunity to vent to another human being. She even had her mother for a time. But she didn't have any of that anymore, and he wondered just how self-destructive she could get, if she wasn't careful.

"Tony, I'm fine. Now, unless there's something else you need, get out of my house."

"Since you brought it up, there is one more thing. Like the fact that you drugged me last night."

She rubbed the back of her neck as she tried desperately to hide a smile. "You can say thank you any time now."

"Thank you?"

"You're welcome," she said, no longer hiding her smile.

He shot her a bemused glare. "If I tried something like that, you would rip me a new one. What makes it okay for you to do it?"

"For starters, you wouldn't have to. If I had just been flying around in a tin can, I'd be drugging myself. Second, how did you feel this morning?"

He was going to start off on a rant, but he paused and considered it for a moment. Considering how he had felt the previous day, he had expected to be practically incapable of moving. Since he had managed to get up with only mild soreness and was able to stand there glaring at her without wincing at every movement, maybe the drugs had done some good.

"I rest my case," she said when he refused to answer. He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of hearing she had helped. "Now, would you mind?" She motioned toward the door.

"Fine," he conceded. "But I am keeping an eye on you, crazy drug lady," he muttered as he made his way to the door. He heard as she snickered at him.

As he made his way home, he couldn't help but think that what he had just seen was further confirmation of his decision to let her go. She might not admit it, but she was falling apart. Whatever she was feeling about everything that had happened recently, she hadn't been dealing with. She was burying herself in the armor, allowing herself to run away from her problems, and he had been enabling her. He knew he wasn't much better, but he also didn't have a kid depending on him. From what he could gather, Darren had a lot of potential, but without JC in his life, he would just become another Tony Stark. He couldn't let that happen, not if he could prevent it.

The next morning the parts for the suit arrived and Tony went to work applying them to the suit. He debated calling JC over when they arrived, but he still needed more time. Somehow there were no right words to get rid of someone who had become a dear friend that didn't sound like he was a complete ass. JC had told him he should think things through before making a decision and then acting on it, that things were supposed to turn out better when he thought things all the way through. So far, that advice hadn't really been working. The more he thought about it, the more he hated it, and the more he wished he had just broken it off when he went over to her house.

As the hours went by into the late afternoon, he had nearly completed the torso section when Pepper came down to the garage for the first time since finding him in the suit. She still looked upset, but not nearly as hysterical as she had been. He had half expected her to submit her letter of resignation days ago, but she had texted him earlier that day that she would be by to do some of her regular duties.

"Hey," he greeted her as she walked over, eyeing the armor warily. With JC soon to be gone, he was going to need Pepper. And since she was still in the good graces with the Stark Industries Board of Directors, there was something that he could only trust her to do.

"Are you busy? Mind if I send you on an errand? I need you to go to my office," he said, getting up from his stool and looking through most of the junk that had wound up on his desk until he found the box he needed. Since he had deduced that the only way the Ten Rings could have so many of his weapons was if they had been given the tech, the logical way of tracking his weapons was through none other than the Star Industries servers. "You're going to hack into the mainframe and retrieve all the recent shipping manifests. This is a lock chip. This'll get you in," he said, handing her the small USB device. "It's probably under executive files. If not, they put it on a ghost drive in which case you need to look for the lowest numeric heading."

"And what do you intend to do with this information, if I bring it back here?"

"Same drill," he said, looking over the monitors that had various displays of what still needed repairs. "They've been dealing under the table, and I'm gonna stop them. I'm going to find my weapons and destroy them." It was the only way he would ever be sure that no one would use his tech against innocent people anymore.

"Tony, you know I would help you with anything, but I cannot help you, if you are going to start all of this again."

"There is nothing except this," he said sternly, "There's no art opening; there's no benefit; there is nothing to sign. There is the next mission and nothing else."

"Is that so?" she challenged. "Well then I quit," she said and tossed the USB back on the desk.

"You stood by my side all these years while I reaped the benefits of destruction, and now that I'm trying to protect the people I put in harm's way you're going to walk out," he said in disbelief. Of all the people in the world that he would have expected that from, Pepper was not one of them. Throw a party in a foreign country at the last second? No problem. Walk out every one night stand for nearly a decade? Sure thing. Go pick up a few documents of illegal sales? Not a chance.

"You're going to kill yourself, Tony. I don't know why JC is trying to help you, but I'm not going to be a part of it," she said and began to storm off.

"I shouldn't be alive," he said, his voice sounding small surprising even him, "unless it was for a reason." He slumped back in his chair as Pepper turned back to him, a look of curiosity on her face. "I'm not crazy, Pepper. I just finally know what I have to do. And I know in my heart that it's right."

He sat there twiddling his fingers as Pepper stood there silently. If that didn't convince, he wasn't sure what, if anything, could. It didn't take long for her to make up her mind as she walked forward and took back the lock chip. "You're all I have too, you know," she said.

He smiled at her, remembering what he had said some weeks before when he had first come home and had to replace his arc reactor. At the time, Pepper was the only one he had. She had been with him through thick and thin and had never truly questioned him. But now JC was here. Yes, she had questioned everything that he did, but somehow she had understood his reasoning and even encouraged him to keep going on his apparent fool's errand. He had someone else he could lean on. At least, he had. Sooner or later JC was going to come through those doors and he was going to have to ruin it. Might as well rip the Band-Aid off.

Once Pepper was gone he called JC and told her the parts had arrived and they could get started on the repairs. She was going to be angry he hadn't called sooner. Then she was going to be pissed when he finally told her to leave and not come back. She had sat there in his garage and said that no matter what, she wanted to be part of the project, part of his mission. The whole thing had been his road to redemption with her, and he was throwing it away. He told himself it was for the best. So why did it feel so wrong?

When JARVIS alerted him to her arrival, he left the suit and made his way up to the living room. Better that she not even get near the damn thing again. That would make it easier, he hoped. He started pacing as he waited for her to finally get inside the house. As she came in, he couldn't help but notice she looked nervous as she fidgeted with the jacket over her arm.

"Hey," he greeted as she came toward the living room.

"Hey," she said, setting her jacket down on the front entry table.

"So," he said nervously as he rubbed his hands together, "there was something that I needed to tell you, but…" he trailed off when he noticed she wasn't really paying attention. "You look like you've got something on your mind. Care to share with the rest of the class?"

"Yes, it's just that…wow, where do I start?" She started playing with her hands as she paced about the room. "You see, the past couple weeks have been incredible, to say the least. I mean, what we've built…there aren't words to really describe it properly. And I wouldn't trade the time spent on it for anything. The thing is, though…um…"

He waited patiently for her to continue. "I mean, we had no idea where this was actually going to go or when it was going to end, and now that we're here, we've gotten to this point, and…well, we…um…"

Now he was getting confused. He had expected her to come clean about what had happened the day before in her studio. This apparently had nothing to do it; at least, he didn't think it did. He wasn't really sure. JC rambling on without making a point was not something he knew how to deal with.

"JC, you're not making sense."

She sighed in frustration as she raked a hand through her hair. "Damn it, I thought I could do this, but I can't! I can't do it!"

He held up his hands in surrender before she decided to turn her wrath on him for whatever it was he had done, which he was entirely sure what it was he had done now. "Do what? What are you talking about, JC?"

After taking a beat to compose herself, she finally looked at him. "I came here to tell you that I have to quit the project, that I need to distance myself from all of this; but the truth is I can't do that, Tony."

That was the last thing he had expected. Here he was agonizing over how best to fire her, and she was here to quit. At least, she was. She had just said she couldn't do it. It was up to him to do it then. First, though, there was something he needed to know.

"Why?"

"I tried to tell myself that it was for the best, that you didn't need me anymore for the project, that I should be devoting all my time to Darren, that I was using it all as an excuse to get away from everything. I have been trying to find the right way to tell you all of this, and now that I'm trying to, I realize that I would just be lying to myself, that walking away from this would be the biggest mistake I've ever made, and I would be making it out of fear."

"JC," he said calmly, hoping it hid how terrified he was. "It's just a piece of tech. It's not some higher calling, some grand purpose. It's a fool's errand, and we both know it." It was a bald-faced lie, but if it helped get her back to her son, he would say whatever he needed to.

"That's not…I wasn't talking about the project, Tony."

Tony could feel his heart pounding so hard in his chest he thought it might burst. This was definitely not what he was expecting. He stayed silent, waiting for her to continue.

"At first I tried to write it off as PTSD related. We shared a very terrifying, life altering experience. It's only natural to feel some sort of deeper connection than what's really there. But that isn't what this is. I'm sure of that now. I know I should just forget this whole thing, but the thought of walking away without knowing one way or the other…Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I…uh…I'm trying to," he stammered as he waited for his thoughts to catch up with what she was trying to say.

"Oh, screw it." Before he could say another word she closed the distance between them faster than he thought possible, grabbed his face with both hands, and pulled him down into what was the most electric kiss he had ever experienced.

He had kissed literally hundreds of women–not that he kept any kind of track of that sort of thing–but none of them had felt anything like this. They were all just a practiced routine, an act of going through the motions in comparison. This was one of those cosmic moments you only read about in stories. It felt right. In that moment, he knew there was no other woman he would ever want to kiss more than her.

When she finally pulled away from him, her breathing had gone ragged as she stared up him, her eyes searching, hopeful and terrified at the same time. He stood there absolutely speechless. Had that really happened? It all felt so surreal, like a dream that someone was going to come interrupt at any moment.

"Well," she finally said after the prolonged silence, "say something."

Say something? What did a man say after such a mind altering event? Words didn't feel like it would do his thoughts justice. He reached out tentatively with one hand and cupped her face. She closed her eyes as she relaxed into his touch, her hand reaching up to cover his. Any thoughts he might have had of sending her away were gone. How could he ever let her go after that?

He drew her closer to him, resting his forehead against hers. "If this is a dream," he said softly, "I don't ever want to wake up." He lowered his mouth to hers softly, savoring the moment. Gentle was quite the foreign concept for him. He had never had the inclination to take anything slow, but this was something he wanted to enjoy for as long as he could. She had healed something in him that he hadn't realized was broken, and he wanted to do the same for her, if he could. For her, he wanted to be more.

Her arms came around his neck as she pulled him deeper into the kiss. He wrapped his arms around her torso, holding her close for fear that something would come and take her away. Nothing else existed except them in that perfect moment. It felt like nothing could come between them now.

"Mom?" a voice said from the front door.

They broke away and looked over to see a very hurt, angry Darren standing in the foyer. Okay, so something could come between them.

"Darren? How did you…" The words were caught in JC's throat. Even Tony was at a loss for words.

"I took a cab. I came to…" he trailed off and Tony only now noticed the boy was gripping two file folders like a vice. "How could you? After everything he's done, how could you work for him again? And now this?" he said.

"Darren, none of what happened to us was his fault. This–"

"I know what happened in Japan, Mom!" he shouted. "I know what he did to you!"

Both of them were taken aback by the outburst, but JC looked more shocked than Tony. Part of him had assumed that she had told Darren everything about what happened in Japan. That had been a stupid assumption. No mother in her right mind would have shared something like that with her kid. If that was the case, how did he know?

"What are you talking about? What are those?" she demanded, looking to the folders in his hands.

"The report of what happened in Japan. Not the official report, your personal accounts," he spat, tossing the files to ground at her feet. Some of the papers went flying from the folders, and Tony couldn't help but notice at the top of one of the papers had headings for the U.S. Army on them. Picking up the page, he saw that this one wasn't about Japan; it was part of the mission report from the operation where his father died.

JC saw the page and looked disbelievingly at her son. "How did you get all of this?"

"I knew you were keeping secrets from me. When you called about your sudden plane trip, I talked to Pepper. She had no idea what I was talking about, said you two had been here all day. So I did some digging to see what else you were hiding. You've been lying about everything! Dad is dead because of you! And you get together with a piece of crap like him? What the hell?"

"Darren," JC said calmly, "you don't understand. It's not–"

"Don't try to tell me I don't understand you lying, murdering bitch!" he exclaimed.

"Hey!" Tony shouted. "You are way out of line, kid."

"You stay out of this!" Darren spat at him.

"Both of you, that's enough!" JC exclaimed as she stood between both of them.

"I wish you'd never come back!" Darren's eyes started to mist over as he glared daggers at both of them. "I wish you'd died in that desert!" He then stormed out of the house.

"Darren!" JC called after him, rushing to grab her coat to chase after him and knocked over half the nick knacks from the table.

"JC, wait. I'll come with you."

"No, Tony," she snapped at him. That effectively stopped him in his tracks. "I'm sorry," she said more gently when she saw the look of shock on his face. "I can't do this. I thought I could, but…I'm sorry." With that she ran out the door after Darren.

He wanted to chase after her, tell her that everything was going to be okay. Had that really just happened? One moment he felt like he was as close to heaven as he would ever get, and now she was just gone. He wanted to believe that she would come back after she had straightened things out with Darren, but he knew better. He should have known that it was all too good to be true. People like him didn't get together with someone like JC, not seriously.

He shuffled back downstairs to the basement and slumped on the couch, forcing himself to hold back tears that wanted to come. He figured they weren't worth it. She was out of his league and now out of his life, permanently.


AN: Hope you guys are enjoying the story! Don't forget to leave a review :)