Scarlett set about trying to access the wiring to the door by searching for panels in the wall. Still, without a device she couldn't really do much. Not unless it was as easy as hotwiring a car which she highly doubted. Jarvis warned her there was no way to access him from the room.

There had to be more that she could do than sit in another prison, albeit a much fancier prison.

Unsure of what else to do, Scarlett sat on the lush carpet beneath the bed and leaned against its frame. She stared out at the dark ocean beyond the windows. It all seemed less inviting in the darkness of her new prison. A panel above her opened and descended next to the bed. A plate of warm, freshly sliced pumpernickel alongside a variety of dips and spreads accompanied by a glass and a bottle of sparkling water waited for her. Scarlett took the tray and set it on the floor next to her.

The panel in the ceiling closed after slipping back into place. She briefly considered breaking that panel to climb out. But it would be too dangerous. Then she admired the ocean. No going out that way either.

The aroma of bread was overwhelming. She took a piece and stared at the door. So much for trying to ambush a waiter or whatever. She tried one of the spreads. A mellow, smooth whipped butter. She buttered the bread and ate a little. Might as well sober up. That and her stomach was pissed. This has been too much. All of it.

"I apologize for not having it delivered by hand, Miss Damien. I could not take the risk."

"You're clever, Jarvis." Scarlett smiled. "I wouldn't have opened the door for me either."

"I'm glad you understand. Is there anything I can do to make you feel more comfortable?"

"A prison is a prison, Jarvis. No matter how luxurious."

Scarlett stood, using the bed to help her. Her leg was miserable. She picked up the tray and set it on the night table. Then she laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She itched at the gauze. There was no rest. Just like there hadn't been rest in South Africa.

"Can you at least let me know if it's going okay?" Scarlett drank some of the sparkling water.

"Mr. Stark has arrived at the site of the car accident. It appears that Miss Potts and Mr. Hogan are hiding." Jarvis responded in a strangely comforting tone.

"Hiding from what?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Damien. I've been instructed not to involve you."

"You already know that's impossible." Scarlett sat up in frustration. "If they're after me then I'm already involved."

"I am certain that Mr. Stark will fill you in upon his return." Jarvis reassured her. Great, another thing for Tony to leverage over her head.

"Right. Because he's been so forthcoming with me so far. At least MedCo told me I was a prisoner." She shivered, folding her arms over her chest. She felt so lost. Was this all that was left? Escaping from one prison only to be held in another?

The bigger picture was no longer clear. Revenge didn't seem possible.

"I have a bad feeling, Jarvis." Scarlett sat back up. She slipped her heels back on. They really were nice. "A really bad feeling."

"Do you require medical assistance?"

"No, no. Not like that" Scarlett sighed and then approached the door. "You have to let me out. I won't go after Stark. I could at least help if you let me into the computer." And she could find her answers.

"Mr. Stark…"

"I don't care what he wants!" She was so frustrated. Something was wrong. She couldn't shake it.

"I know you don't trust me, Jarvis. I know he doesn't trust me. You have no reason to trust me." Scarlett knew that. "Hell, I don't expect you to. Lock me out from everything else. But if there's even a chance I can help… and if they are there for me then he doesn't know what he's getting into." Jarvis didn't respond.

"I… Jarvis, they would kill them if they thought it meant getting to me. I thought if I escaped I'd be free but I'm beginning to think that maybe… just maybe I pissed them off to a point where they'll hunt me down until I'm dead." She ran her fingers through her hair in frustration. God, she was so annoyed with herself for saying this. She was annoyed with herself for being worried about Tony. She couldn't handle this.

"I know he's got me in here because he's worried. He thinks he can keep me safe in here, but I can help. He can't keep me locked up forever. This is not safety, this is a prison. I won't try to escape. I won't try to break anything. I don't even want… what's in you. I mean maybe I did at some point, but not now. I just want to help." Scarlett was making big confessions. "Please, Jarvis."

Much to her surprise, the door unlocked, the doorknob came back and the door swung open. Scarlett breathed a sigh of relief.

Jarvis had disobeyed orders. Thank god he was on their side.

"Mr. Stark has stopped responding."

Oh. He was afraid.

"Well, let's see what we can do to help him." Scarlett placed her hand on the wall and then made her way down the stairs. Everything looked different in the dark. That and she was still struggling through the muddle of liquor. "Uh…"

"This way, Miss Damien." Jarvis lit up a path for her to follow.

"Thank you, Jarvis." She rushed down the stairs and then stopped as the locked glass door stood in her way. But much to her surprise, that swung open too. Everything was a little fuzzy. Scarlett sat at the computer desk and looked at the intimidating system. "Oh, this is going to be hard, isn't it? Why did we down an entire bottle of scotch?"

Scarlett found the keyboard only appeared when she went to type, so she began to search through files that Jarvis provided for her. As promised, she didn't dig through anything she wasn't allowed access to. "What's going on with Stark?" Scarlett could see the backup camera from the Audi. It was upside down. Never a good sign.

"The Mark VII is offline."

Scarlett touched the maps that appeared to show the area and they expanded alongside her in a hologram. It was incredible.

"Can you patch me through to him?"

"Communication is impossible. I'm afraid that I can only offer you the images before the shutdown." Scarlett covered her mouth as she saw blood splattered all over one of the images from the suit. She could do this. He wouldn't be dead. She could do this.

"Can you download all the data from the Mark VII before it crashed?"

The screen flickered and a stream of data appeared before her. She slammed her fist as she read the data. This wasn't fast enough.

"Patching through a call from Miss Potts."

Scarlett nearly leapt out of her skin. A video to her right appeared. Pepper had a scrape on her forehead. Scarlett kept her eyes on the data. Happy held a cloth to her forehead. Pepper swatted him away.

"Jarvis! Jarvis, what are you doing?" Pepper's eyes went wide and wild upon realizing where Scarlett was and what she was doing. "What is she doing?"

"I'm helping." Scarlett scanned the screen.

"Tony's not responding! The suit's dead!"

Scarlett shook her head. "No, it's not dead, it's still there. And I can still get into it…" She furrowed her brow in confusion. "Did you see what happened?"

"The reactor is still glowing!" Pepper shouted and Scarlett sighed with relief. He was still alive. Pepper smiled softly at her, as if realizing that Scarlett must have been worried. She cleared her throat.

"Then he's alive." Scarlett searched through the lines of code that sped by so fast it made her head spin. "Did you see exactly what happened? I need to know." Scarlett tapped away at the keyboard. Look for what was abnormal. Look for an anomaly. Something had gone wrong. It wouldn't look like the rest of this. It would be easier if she had an exact moment of what caused the error.

"They shot him! But when it struck? There was this awful… awful sound! It fried Happy's phone! He was trying to call. Mine was still in the Audi! I snuck back and grabbed it. It seems to be fine. Scarlett, please! He's dead weight out there! We have to do something." Pepper was desperate. But what could they do? "Even the eyes on the suit aren't glowing!"

"How heavy is that suit, Jarvis? Can he be dragged to safety?" Scarlett considered and grimaced as he brought up the weight. Nearly 400 pounds. He might want to rethink that later. She stood up. "Stop." The data stopped and she highlighted a string. "Keep it and show me more." The highlighted code flew aside. She recognized that. It happened every time there was an impact. The shields had gone down shortly after that impact and an unknown anomaly appeared with it.

"It's too heavy and they're still firing at him!" Pepper's eyes were glassy.

"How long can he handle that, Jarvis?"

"Not much longer, Miss Damien."

"Okay, I'm… they used something to disable the electronics in the suit but not… not everything shut off. I'm still getting readings and I can still communicate with it." Scarlett knew exactly what it was. A modified EMP. And she knew what had done it. Her heart was racing. How did they have a bullet she designed five years ago? One she'd never made? One she'd scribbled in a notebook while on a mission and then discarded?

"The armor dropped twice but picked back up. Resilient technology. But that… third blast…" Scarlett scanned the code in front of her and in her mind's eye she could see every movement of the armor. It was beautiful, unlike anything she'd ever seen before.

"We have to do something!" Pepper's calm broke. Tears streamed down her freckled face.

"I know! I'm trying, I'm trying…" Scarlett searched around the room. Even if she could get into one of the suits and fly to him she couldn't get there in time.

"Oh my god, there's blood, Happy, there's blood!" Pepper covered her mouth as Happy tried to quiet her. Pepper buried herself against Happy's shoulder and sobbed.

"There's blood coming from the suit. I don't think he can take much more." Happy was keeping his cool.

"Jarvis, I need you to let me remotely into the Mark VII's mainframe." She could recognize the error from the downloaded data. She could do this.

"I can't do that, Miss Damien."

"I can get it back online. Please. Save the data you extracted, the highlights, and get me in there." The screen refused to change and she bounced on her heels. "Jarvis!"

"I cannot allow anyone access to any of the suits without Mr. Stark's…"

"Jarvis!" Pepper shouted.

"Please, I'm trying to save him. You can lock me out again the moment he's up!" Scarlett pled.

"Jarvis, do it! Now!"

"Only Mr. Stark is…"

"Dammit, Jarvis! If you don't do this then Tony will die and no one will be around to pilot the damn suits!" Scarlett slammed her fist on the desk in frustration. She had a chance to let him die and she was saving him. Apparently, she'd made enough of a choice to do this. Maybe she'd get her other answers if she did.

It would take too long to hack into Jarvis' system. She stepped back and could only watch in horror.

"Please, Jarvis." She whispered. "I know you don't trust me. I know he doesn't trust me. Don't trust me, okay? I'm not worth trusting. He saved my life. Let me save his." She felt the tears in her eyes and blinked them away. God, was this Stockholm Syndrome? What was happening to her?

But then the screen changed and the data loaded and much to her surprise, she had access to the Mark VII. She began at the keyboard immediately, sitting again in the office chair.

"Those highlighted bits, find them again for me." Scarlett glanced back and forth and muttered what she saw the Mark doing. And then the error appeared. Bright and glowing. No bigger or any different than any of the rest of it but it had set the Mark VII into an error loop, shutting it down. "Thank you, Jarvis." She smiled a little.

"Hurry!" Pepper whined. "I can't watch."

"I got it! I got it." Scarlett found it and she could fix it. She could fix it! Scarlett laughed, leapt out of her seat and began typing. "Jarvis, reboot the system, and do it… now." She finished typing. "He's back online!" Scarlett pulled her hands back from the keyboard and turned to Pepper hopefully.

The view from the Mark VII's visor appeared. She could see what Tony could see. There were men in black, wearing ski masks and they were firing their weapons relentlessly at the armor. Flashes of warnings appeared in front of her. Was she too late?

"Charge chest repulsor." Tony's voice made Scarlett nearly collapse. He was alive. The Mark VII got up and jumped into action. Pepper was sobbing with relief. Then a huge beam of light flew from the suit and knocked two of the men in black away. Without speaking, Tony dodged blows. The men in black were fleeing. The suit marched after them, and fired from the left and right. Then the suit lifted into the air and he let the thrusters go mid-leap, crashed to the ground and crushed one of the men in black.

Tony was furious.

Sirens were screaming in the distance, on their way to the site of the car accident. Pepper and Happy emerged from their hiding spot. "Jarvis. Full system report." The computer rattled off statistics to show the damage done to his suit but Tony was barely listening. He'd basically been a sardine for the last twenty minutes.

"Tony! Are you okay?" Pepper ran to him.

Scarlett was watching through a screen in his office.

"I'm fine, Pepper. I just couldn't move." Tony spoke through the suit. "Cut the visor feed to the house. Patch me through." Tony was angry. What the hell was she doing on his computer? "What have you done, Jarvis?" Much to his surprise, the video feed of Scarlett positioned itself into his view.

He was flustered. He'd been grounded and unable to fix it from within the suit, unable to communicate with Jarvis or do much of anything. And now Jarvis had disobeyed orders. "What are you doing on my computer?" Tony snarled. She looked disheveled and upset and for some reason that only made him angrier.

Scarlett looked suddenly flustered before she hardened her expression. "You're welcome." Her hand returned to her chest and his eyes darted down to it as she fiddled with her hair between her fingers. "They used a modified EMP. But it caused an error in your system. I was able to repair the error and reboot. You weren't completely offline."

"Of course I wasn't." Tony cursed. "Jarvis, what have you done? What has she had access to?"

"Sir, I was careful. She was only working with what was broken." Jarvis assured him. "There was no other way."

"There is always another way." Tony then pointed to Pepper. "You're going to the hospital with Happy."

"What?" Pepper seemed surprised.

"You're bleeding." Scarlett reminded her.

"Tony, you're bleeding. You need to go to the hospital."

"I'm fine." Tony popped open the helmet and nodded to her phone. "Hold up the phone."

"Don't be cruel, Tony. She saved your life." Pepper did as she was asked.

"What did you do?" Tony was furious. But his anger was misguided. He was angry with himself. He didn't know what else to do except for take it out on her. She was the cause of this, after all. It was her fault he'd been shot. It was her fault they were after his friends. It was her fault he was this drunk.

"All I did was find out what broke in the suit. If I hadn't gotten into it then you would have died!" She argued, sounding defensive.

"How the hell did you get down there in the first place? I thought I had you locked up tight."

"Tony, you can't keep a human being held hostage in your house!" Pepper argued behind him.

"Is that really what matters? I saved your ass!"

"I would have been fine. I told you to stay put!"

"Right, because being pumped full of lead was all part of your master plan! I told you to bring me with you! I could have helped, Tony!" She was so damn stubborn, he wanted to grab her arms and make her see that she wasn't safe.

"And then I'd be covered in your blood instead of mine!"

"Aren't you the least bit grateful not to be dead?" Was it his imagination or was she trembling?

"Now you know what it feels like to save someone's life and only get grief for it." Tony's heart was racing. She'd gotten free of the guest room and she hadn't done any harm to his systems. She'd saved him. And on top of that, she'd called him by his name which made his heart flutter. There was no time to be soft or to taunt her. That was for later. The police would be there in just a few minutes.

Scarlett had turned away.

"Jarvis, patch me through to the police. I've got a mess to clean up. Get a car to come and bring Pepper and Happy to the hospital." Then he frowned. "Scarlett?"

"What?" She sounded angry.

"Sit your ass in that office chair and don't move. Jarvis, make sure it happens this time. If you don't, then I'll disable you." Tony snarled.

Scarlett was disappointed. Why was she disappointed? Had she expected him to leap into her arms with gratitude? A little. With Tony's order, the entire basement shut down. The lights turned off, so did the computer. She was left alone in the basement. Utterly alone. Yet another prison.

Tony's face disappeared and the room felt dark and cold without Jarvis. Dim lights appeared around the floor so she wouldn't trip all over herself. God, dammit! Dammit! She gripped her hair so hard that her nails dug into her scalp. This couldn't be happening. She was losing her damn mind on top of everything.

No matter what she did she was wrong.

In a rage, she turned, grabbed the small desk lamp and threw it across the room. The lamp made sparks as it crashed against the hood of the nearby convertible, leaving a large dent and scratching the paint. She cursed under her breath, kicked the chair away from her and then crouched on the floor and grabbed her hair.

Trapped.

Again. Finally, she thought she'd done something good but here she was. No condolences or comforts given to her by Jarvis. Why had she bothered? She should have disabled Jarvis, searched for the data she needed, and left Tony to die. But no. Her stupid heart had mistakenly felt connected to him. She had terrible taste. She was incredibly foolish. This wasn't her. God, she felt trapped even in her own damn head!

Her leg throbbed. She sat and leaned against the desk, closing her eyes.

She'd wasted her chance. She just didn't want anyone else to die because of her. How had MedCo gotten ideas she'd created years ago in a quiet moment alone in a hotel? She was so stupid.

"You're in way over your head this time." She glanced at the bandage on her arm. It was bloody. She'd clearly hurt herself trying to escape. Feeling heavy, she stood, grabbed the chair, wheeled it back, and then sat in it. She found the first aid kit Tony used earlier and changed the dressing on her arm.

She had to become the woman she was before all of this. Before Afghanistan. Before MedCo. Before Scott.

But as she thought that, she realized something awful.

She'd died in Afghanistan. They'd killed the woman she was. And then she tried to do something good for once and now here she was. Ruining everything she touched.