Rating: PG-13

Genres: Angst, Romance (Tony Stark/Pepper Potts), Character Study (Tony and Pepper both) Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Humor, Friendship (Tony/Rhodey/Pepper, Tony/Happy/Pepper), Action (mild)
Summary: Pepper's been away for a week, and Tony is anxious for her return.
Spoilers: The Iron Man movie.
Length: 2 chapters, over 8,500 words — 18 pages
Notes: Sequel to my fic "Aftermath" — read that one first.

DISCLAIMER:<h6> Iron Man, Tony Stark, Virginia "Pepper" Potts, James/Jim Rhodes/Rhodey, Obadiah Stane, and Harry "Happy" Hogan, all © Marvel Entertainment, Inc. This is not a licenced story, and no profit is being made from it by the author. </h6>


Chapter One


Harry "Happy" Hogan wished his boss were a dog. Dogs listened to what you told them. Dogs were happy to see you. And to medicate a dog, all you had to do was hide their pill in a hot dog or a slice of cheese.


The first day, Happy had tried sneaking a pain pill into Tony's beloved cheeseburger. Tony had noticed — quite vocally, in fact, as he ranted that he could have choked or broken a tooth on it. Next, Happy tried crushing it up and putting it in applesauce. Except he should have known better — since when did Tony eat the healthy part of any given meal? So Happy tried sprinkling it in the condiments on another burger. Unfortunately, the pills apparently tasted terrible, and Happy ended up on the receiving end of a burger-laden spit-take.


Happy wasn't feeling much like living up to his namesake at that point.


Happy tried very hard to stick to the schedule Pepper had given him, and his efforts did not go unrewarded: they turned out to be his salvation, in fact. Tony was in the middle of a conversation with someone when the alarm went off on Happy's watch, reminding him that it was time to force another pill at Tony. He handed his boss the pills right then and there, attracting the notice of the Board-member that Tony was talking to; Tony tried to refuse it, but the woman he was talking to wouldn’t hear of it. It was then that Happy realised the way to ensure Tony took his medicine was to approach the situation in front of witnesses — particularly female ones, who, it seemed, would insist upon Tony taking care of himself ....


~  * . *.  * ~


Tony looked on the long table and the people surrounding it. He had just announced his plans to make small Arc reactors — though a bit larger than the one he wore in his chest — to power cars. He'd come up with the plans on the way over, desperate for something that would wow them so much that they couldn't say no and wouldn't try to get rid of him, something that would distract them from war-mongering. Yes, the units would be expensive (it was going to take a decade or two to make them affordable — and probably a year or two to even make them mass-producible), but far less dangerous than using hydrogen power. Far cheaper and better for the environment than gasoline, too.  For cars owners that couldn't afford to have their own Arc reactor, they could still "recharge" special batteries at "reactor stations", making the concept of an entirely-electric car more feasible — those kinds of cars would cost the same as a hybrid, and he would do everything he could to get them cheaper as fast as possible (without sacrificing quality, of course). And the whole prospect was certainly a more effective means of crippling insurgents than actually fighting them — this would strike them in their major source of income. So Tony should have found gratification in the Board-members' awed expressions and quiet exclamations of his brilliance, should have worn a smug smile of his own in reply. Instead, he felt oddly ... empty. As hollow as his Iron Man suit currently was.


Was there something wrong with him, that he would prefer to be facing down insurgents in said suit than facing down these men (and women, who, in general, were even scarier than their male counterparts), here and now? Were these board-members so very dangerous that he had reason to want the armour? Were they really so fearsome that he felt naked without it? Even when, Obadiah's passing had, ironically, left his heir Tony as the primary shareholder? Even when Tony had so obviously won the Board over with his pitch?


Yes, apparently they were. Or maybe it was just that he wasn't used to dealing with them without Obadiah and a glass of scotch to act as a buffer. Now he had neither.


Pepper had called Happy after they had left the airport, with further instructions regarding Tony's medication: namely, that it was not to be consumed with alcohol. Every drop, from the wet bar in his living room to the wet bar in his office, had been placed into protective custody. Pepper, it turned out, had done the same with the Japanese sake on his private jet; when he'd gone to work on it, he'd intended to ransack the bar on it, only to find it a dry well. Granted, he could try to buy some whiskey somewhere — save for that Happy had also confiscated all of his keys, leaving Happy himself as Tony's only means of transportation. And if Tony tried to take a taxi, Happy was unerringly at his side, frowning in disapproval, as if in direct opposition to his nickname. Tony was starting to think he should have called the man Sourpuss.


Tony wondered if Pepper had brought the Board into the conspiracy: at one point during the meeting, he had reached for the bourbon-filled glass of the man seated to his left, but the man had snatched it from him with a heated glare and looked pointedly at Tony's glass of Coke. Coke with a sad lack of Captain Morgan. Well, at least it had grenadine in it.


And to add insult to injury, when Tony was already finding himself unable to bask in the awed glow of impressed board members, Happy chose that very moment to walk in and unceremoniously plunk a glass of water and a couple of pills in front of him, declaring, "Time for your meds, boss!" Well, at least the man seemed happy now.


The meeting ended soon after. On his way out the door, Tony started to speak Pepper's name, thinking to ask her to make a note about a follow-up meeting, but caught himself before her name fully escaped his lips. And that was when he realised it: it hadn't been lack of Obadiah, or scotch, or even the suit that had left him feeling naked and vulnerable, it had been the lack of Pepper.


Her reaction to his announcement would have been the only one he would have actually cared about.


For the first time in his life, he looked forward to Friday as eagerly as the bulk of his employees did.


Friday was the day Pepper was coming home.


~  * . *.  * ~


Pepper secretly disapproved of using the private jet, as it was bad for the environment. Usually she did, anyway, so it was something of an irony that those environmental concerns had led her to be stuck on a passenger plane instead (in coach, no less, as first class was shockingly full this flight), when she would have given her favourite pair of stiletto heels to be alone for the flight. She'd had a not-terribly-pleasant week, helping her mother through her grandfather's death, making funeral arrangements, and attending said funeral, and the annoying little boy next to her was just adding insult to injury.


"Are you going to eat those?" he asked, eyeing her miniscule "biscotti" (which reminded her more of graham crackers, just yummier).


"Yes," she growled at the impudent youth, ripping open one of the tiny packages for emphasis (and, well, because they were fairly hard to open) and shoving the contents — all two crackers — into her mouth. Her eyelids fluttered in pleasure. They were very good, practically melting in her mouth. Not to mention that she hadn't eaten since early the evening before, and it was now nearly noon the next day. They'd gotten to the airport too late for her to eat, and, after being delayed on the tarmac, they'd arrived too late in Chicago, then Kansas, for her to take advantage of the layovers. She cursed the terrorists who had changed the airline industry so dramatically, causing the airlines to cut meals in order to cut costs.


The little boy seemed to sense her hunger (or hear her stomach growling), and ate his own cracker-cookies just as rapidly, as if fearing to lose them.


Pepper sighed and stopped herself from hitting her forehead on the seat in front of her in frustration. The kid had been kicking the seat ahead of him repeatedly (causing their own row to shudder with the impacts as well), and she didn't want to disturb the poor folks in front of them any more than the boy already had.


She did want to kick herself, though. Tony had told her excitedly about the meeting with the Board, and how they were going to develop the Arc reactor for the car. She had made the offhand comment, after enthusiastically complimenting him (because she really was impressed) that they should look into using the arc reactor for jets, too, as she always felt guilty when they used his private one. He'd said he'd get right on it, and hung up. Now the private jet was in pieces, because obviously he hadn't gotten everything worked out yet. She appreciated that he'd wanted to make her happy, but if only she'd waited until she'd returned to actually make the suggestion ....


~  * . *.  * ~


"You're acting like she's never flown anywhere before," Rhodey complained to his eccentric friend, wondering (and not for the first time) if, as a billionaire, Tony Stark had any grasp of reality whatsoever. People flew in planes all the time, and Pepper Potts was a grown woman, fully capable of seeing herself on and off of a passenger jet. The plane was due to land in about an hour anyway, so why was Tony so anxious about this? They were going to be late for the meeting with the Secretary of Defense, at this rate. Well, at least Tony was showered and in good clothes — Rhodey had been certain he would find the man still in a grease-covered tank-top.


"She hasn't flown commercially before!" Tony insisted. "Not since I announced I was Iron Man, anyway," he elaborated before Rhodey could deny the statement.


"You announced it about a week ago!" Rhodey pointed out, exasperated.


Tony went on, apparently choosing to (surprise, surprise) ignore the statement. "She was on my jet when she left — no one besides myself, Happy, the pilot, and Pepper's mother knew she was going anywhere last time!"


"And no one really knows she's travelling this time, either, Tony! I mean, it's not like airlines publish their flight manifests online! The US military is not going to give your personal assistant a military escort just because you're paranoid," Rhodey replied, rolling his eyes.


"I'm not asking for an escort," Tony replied through clenched teeth. "I'm simply asking to postpone this meeting. Send someone to my house in the middle of the night again, if you want, I don't care! It's my fault Pepper's not on my private jet, and I just need—"


"Wait, what? Middle of the—what are you babbling about, man?" Rhodey asked, afraid Tony really had cracked and was seeing Men in Black everywhere.


Tony gave him a wary look. "They didn't tell you? ..." He gave Rhodey a long look, then nodded. "Well, they didn't make me sign any nondisclosure agreement, so if they don't want me telling you, that's their problem — you tell them that from me, okay?"


"Wait, wait, slow down, man — who didn't tell who what ...?"


"The head of that SHIELD thing — Nick Fury? He came to my house the night Pepper left."


Rhodey had a vague notion of what SHIELD was — mostly thanks to Pepper's complaints — and Fury's name sounded only vaguely familiar. "So? What did he want?" And why couldn't it have waited till morning?


Tony stared again. "You know what? I think I left the important part out: he was waiting in my house, Rhodey. I found him here after we dropped Pepper off. And he didn't break in, either."


"What?" Rhodey asked, reeling. "... Wait, you don't think I brought this guy here, do you? I don't even know a Rick Fury!"


"Nick," Tony corrected absently. The man began pacing as he continued, "And I know you didn't, Rhodey — you would have waited here for me if you had. Even if the man ordered you out, you would have waited for me outside, warned me." Tony gave him a reassuring smile.


Rhodey relaxed, marginally. "I wouldn’t give out your door code, either — not even to the brass! Hell, they don't even know I have the code! And what about the scan, or the voice-match?" Rhodey was more than a little alarmed, not to mention feeling betrayed. Why hadn't this SHIELD group gone through him? Why break — sneak, whatever — into his friend's home?


"Fury has some interesting acquaintances: a superhero team he calls The Avengers," Tony explained. "I wouldn't be surprised if he's got a psychic among his circle of friends, someone who could pluck the code right out of someone's thoughts — mine, yours, Happy's, Pepper's. Maybe a shapeshifter who could copy one of our retinal scans or voice commands, too."


Ah, so a government operative hadn't broken in; Tony was just losing it. Rhodey should have known better; Tony had been through a lot, after all; it was understandable that he would have become so paranoid. Rhodey wondered if he needed to call a mental health facility right now, or if he could wait for Pepper to return and let her handle it.


"Or perhaps I just let Fury in," JARVIS suggested with an unsettling amount of dryness for something which had no true throat.


Rhodey blinked, looking to the ceiling as if he would find JARVIS up there, with an expression that could be read.


"You what??" Tony snapped at the disembodied voice of the AI.


"You seem to have forgotten about installing the emergency override protocol for the police and fire department, Tony," JARVIS gently chided.


It was all true, then, this talk about psychics and shapeshifters? Well, Rhodey knew about mutants, but would they really work for the government after the fiasco with the anti-mutant legislation Henry Gyrich had lobbied so hard to pass? And would government really use them to sneak into Stark's house, of all things? Was there some reason the brass needed to keep this all a secret from Rhodey, some emergency that prompted the invasion?


Tony rolled his eyes and plopped down onto the couch, putting his head in his hands. "Great. If I want to not die of a heart attack or whacking my head in the shower, I have to allow the government unlimited access to the house. What do I have security for again? ..."


Rhodey scowled. "Well, I'd hope not for keeping out the US government," he pointed out tightly. Regardless of how he felt about the government's behavior at the moment — and to be sure, he was angry — Rhodey was firmly of the belief that, if one had nothing illegal to hide, one had nothing to worry about. (The problem was, Rhodey would not be at all surprised if he were to learn that Tony did have some sort of contraband in his place ....)


"Well, I do like to walk around in the buff sometimes, you know," Tony quipped. As if that were a worry for a man whose walls were already made of glass ....


Rhodey shook his head; Tony had managed, once again, to completely sidetrack him. Granted, he was glad Tony had finally told him about Fury's visit, so that he could look into this mystery himself .... "Look, Tony, I promise I will look into this, but right now—"


"Tony, I think you'd better see this," JARVIS interrupted. The television popped on, tuned to the news.


"—repeat, authorities are unable to reestablish radio contact with flight 815 of Pegasus Airlines, who last reported problems with their navigational controls as they were halfway through the heavy storm currently covering much of California, Colorado, and Nevada," a newscaster informed them.


Tony paled as he looked out the window. "Pepper ...." he whispered, then bolted from the room, hurrying towards his workshop.


Fear clawed at Rhodey's gut — not just for Pepper, but for Tony, too. "You can't just fly out there, man — it's a storm, and the suit is made of metal!"


"I've compensated for that, Rhodey," Tony explained, sounding irritated by the distraction and grimly determined as he started to gear up. "Static wick, just like what they have on airplanes. Well, okay, not just like, but the principal is similar. Besides, JARVIS can guesstimate where lightning might be a problem — and with more accuracy than a weatherman ...."


"So what, you're gonna go play Rudolph and guide the plane in?" Rhodey asked, ready to pull his hair out, if only it wasn't too short to get a grip on.


"Yup."


Rhodey stared at Tony in disbelief.


Tony caught him staring and sighed, never stopping in his task. "She—they could crash into a mountain at any moment, Rhodey. I'm not going to let her—all those people die!"


Rhodey knew then that there was no point in trying to convince Tony — how could he ask the man not to save the woman he obviously loved? And as Stark was sealed into the suit, Rhodey's disbelief was slowly converted to certainty. The suit had top-of-the-line navigational equipment, right? Rhodey then realised that it wasn't that he believed the task was impossible, anyway. It was just that he didn't believe in Tony, hadn't come to grips yet with the changes that had occurred in the man since the incident in Afghanistan. Rhodey decided it was past time he did face the scars on his friend's soul — and accept that, while in some ways Tony had been crippled by it, in other ways the billionaire had grown stronger. Tony had been shaped and tempered by his ordeal like iron from a fire.


Rhodey had a sneaking suspicion, though, that losing Pepper would break Stark again — and the man had already been shattered and welded back together so often, Rhodey didn't think the man could be put back together again if that happened. Pepper had always been Tony's solder, after all.


"The brass ain't gonna like this," Rhodey muttered to himself, shaking his head. In doing so, he noted the other suit hanging off to the side. "Hey, Tone, man ... how's about I join you?" he asked, pointing to it.


Robots finished screwing the suit's faceplate on, but Rhodey could swear that he could sense Tony smiling behind it. "Still have to work some bugs out of it," Tony's distorted voice came from a speaker that Rhodey couldn't see, somewhere on the suit. "Maybe next time." And with that, Iron Man shot like a bullet down the tunnel leading out of the garage.


~  * . *.  * ~


Pepper gasped and gripped the seat with whitened knuckles, freckles standing out in stark contrast. The pilot had just warned over the intercom that they were hitting turbulence, but he'd sound oddly strained. And the lightning outside the window wasn't helping her nerves, which were charged with energy of their own. She'd wanted to close the window's blind, but the little boy next to her had insisted he wanted it open, so that he could watch the storm.


Pepper had never been so glad that she couldn't have children.


"Whoa, did you see that?" the kid asked excitedly, his shrill cry making it through her headset. "A robot just flew by!"


~  * . *.  * ~


It had all turned out to be much easier than Tony had feared, though no less frightening. He gave JARVIS control of the suit, and the AI did all the flying. Far better able to make split-second changes in direction. That being said, there were a few close calls with lightning, and the sudden jerks were going to leave him sore for days.


Looks like I'm going to be on those damn pain meds till the end of time ....


He (well, JARVIS) had actually circumvented the plane in the effort to avoid a bolt of electricity, and had to swerve back now, sailing past the windows of the cabin. He resisted the urge to peek into the windows along the way. Of course, with JARVIS in control, it wasn't like he could have done so even if he'd wanted to. It occurred to him that he could just have let JARVIS do all this, and stayed home. But no, he wasn't going to leave Pepper's welfare to anyone else — not even someone he had created.


JARVIS got him into position near the windows, startling the daylights out of the man and woman in the cockpit, who then gave him a relieved smile. And then Tony wowed them with a display of his holographic tech, emitted from the suit's "eyes": at Tony's instruction, it projected the words Are there terrorists on board? onto the window, in green light.


The shook their heads vigorously, and the woman grabbed a clipboard and a marker, flipping over a sheet. We're not being threatened, our nav & comm are just down, she wrote, showing the clipboard to Tony.


I'll guide you home, Tony assured them, then turned the messaging over to JARVIS, who was able to keep in touch with the control tower. JARVIS didn't actually fly the suit out in front of the plane; he just continued to project instructions to them, staying with them even as they pulled up to the gate. Well, almost — Tony then directed him to fly the suit into the opening of the gate, so that he could greet Pepper ....


~  * . *.  * ~


As they pulled into the gate, Pepper let out a sigh of relief. The pilots had never announced a problem, but she'd just had a bad feeling the entire trip, like something was wrong — and for once, that feeling wasn't applied to Tony.


Tony. She couldn't wait to see him, popping the seat belt open the split-second the light of the sign overhead went out and scrambling out of her seat. She told herself that her hurriedness was simply a fierce desire to get far away from the spawn of Satan whose company she'd been forced to endure the last leg of her journey. The pilots hadn't even given her a reprieve by letting the kid come up to see them.


The hellspawn's phone rang.


From under his seat.


Pepper grabbed the kid's phone from him as he went to answer it. "Are you his parent?" she snarled into the device without preamble.


"... Who is this? What are you doing with my son's phone??" came a confused woman's voice.


"Confiscating it for a violation of federal law!!" Pepper snapped. She dropped the offending device on the floor and stomped on it, the stiletto heel cracking the glass. "There is a reason they tell you to turn these damn things off while we're in flight!" she then barked at the boy. She'd endured a long diatribe on the subject once when Tony had insisted a Board-member turn off an iPhone on his jet. All right, so there wasn't really any definitive proof that cell phones messed with a plane's navigational systems, no, but she was going to trust the scientific genius: if he was worried about the possibility, that was good enough for her.


The silence after her outburst seemed to accentuate it. She realised the entire cabin was staring at them. And then the silence was broken by the boy's delayed wail. "My momma tooooold me to keep it oooooooon!" he informed everyone. The crowd then proceeded, it seemed, to frown and tsk at her. Never mind that the kid could have killed them all. She felt the fragments beneath her heel and sighed. She'd never had to figure a way out of a mess of her own making of this magnitude before. Surely it couldn't be any different from cleaning up one of Tony's messes? But she was stumped. The straw couldn't break the camel's back, because the camel was already roadkill: flat as a pancake and a week dead already.