Ad Infinitum

Tony had time to think as he waited for rescue. He had cannibalized his suit and the cryopods, making good use of the cooling systems' components to build a small space heater in addition to the distress beacon. It wasn't much, but it was enough. This supposedly abandoned base still had electricity, and he hoped it didn't mean HYDRA would arrive before the rescue team did. At least it gave him a means to power his heater.

Despite his still-extensive injuries, he'd taken out as much as he could of the surveillance systems, too, and packed everything - along with that damned shield and the discarded arm - into the Iron Man suit. He'd sort it out later. He hadn't been able to bring FRIDAY back online via the suit, so he'd wait until he was back home to see how much and what sorts of data had been left at the base. There was undoubtedly more he hadn't found, being injured and unwilling to stray far from his weapons and source of heat. Just in case.

As usual, Hela had given him just enough to survive with minimal ill effects to himself, but plenty of evidence for himself and others to learn from. There was a reason Howard had only killed him once - and that accidentally. They'd both learned from that. Correction: they'd all learned from that. Jarvis and Maria had also been involved, he now remembered. It was a bit overwhelming, having all these newly uncovered memories in his head - and just after he'd spent hours coming to terms with all the memories he'd not forgotten no less.

At least he thought it had been hours. Time always went weird when he was dying. It stretched and compressed in ways even being drunk or high didn't manage. (He should know. He'd been in all three states more than once.) Finished with what he could do for now, he resumed the process of laying old memories to rest and coming to grips with what it all meant. The new-old memories put many things into a different light and the change in perspective was ...overwhelming. Tantalizing. Inspiring. Things he didn't know he knew suddenly answered so many questions he'd forgotten to ask and opened new avenues of inquiry to explore. He'd get to them. After he followed his Queen's command: Heal, rebuild, prepare. He could do that. She'd promised he had time.

Time passed slowly and he found himself slumped against a wall - chilly despite his heater - and gradually losing track of what was real. He was ... tired. That seemed like the best word.

Semi-conscious as he was, he'd nearly shot the first of his rescuers to come through the door. Vision being with them had helped. The android was distinct and his presence had convinced Tony that these were, indeed, people here to help him.

Tony faded in and out as he was checked over, warmed, bandaged and put on an IV for the flight home. They'd deemed him stable enough to be taken directly back to New York. The Stark Tower Medical staff had been put on alert, and he wouldn't be getting out of there quickly... but he'd be home.

The flight back was long, though he didn't remember all that much of it. In his lucid periods, he'd gotten Vision to contact FRIDAY and Pepper (so they wouldn't worry too much), gotten FRIDAY started on tracking the quinjet Rogers had stolen at Leipzig (since it hadn't been left at the bunker), been given an update on Rhodey (no improvement), learned that T'Challa had turned Zemo over to UN-sanctioned authorities (he'd be following up on that), and got the Accords Council to take a close look at Thaddeus Ross' abuses of his position. He'd also made sure they brought the disabled suit and all it contained. (Vision's strength was needed for that job.)

It had been thirteen hours seven minutes and forty-three seconds from the time FRIDAY lost contact with the suit until she had picked up his distress signal, a further four hours fifty-two minutes and seventeen seconds for rescue to reach him, and would take an estimated nine hours twenty-three minutes more for him to arrive home. Far too much time she'd been left fretting and worrying, planning and plotting. FRIDAY knew she did not have the experience or breadth of connections her predecessor had had, but she had enough. As soon as Boss had given her the go-ahead via Vision, she'd been stretching her processors to find those who had hurt her creator and left her alone - far too alone - to stew in her plans for retribution. (Oh, did she have plans.) It took surprisingly little time to find some answers. The only question she needed answered now was what to do with the answers she'd found.

She was just waiting for her chance to talk to Boss privately about it, but the wait wasn't nearly as fraught with tension now that she knew she would get that chance. She tracked the jet's progress home, and pinged Vision repeatedly for updates. She monitored the rescuers and doctors who moved Boss' unconscious form from the jet to proper medical facilities. She watched and listened and recorded and double checked every single thing they did, every single thing they used. No one was going to hurt Boss again - not on her watch.

As he returned to life, he was repeatedly told how very lucky he was. The doctors were surprised how well he had come through his ordeal. He had lots of damage, but even all added together it wasn't life threatening - a broken arm, fractured ankle, several cracked ribs, a partially collapsed lung, minor frostbite on feet, fingers and nose in addition to significant bruising and assorted cuts and scrapes. He had lost some skin to the frostbite, and it would be a few weeks before his hands healed enough for long periods of work. But he hadn't lost any fingers. Hadn't even suffered noticeable nerve damage. Which, given the time spent literally freezing before Hela helped him, left him wondering just how much she had Healed him. He knew the damage to his chest, at least, had been much, much worse, and suspected that without her intervention he may have been left unable to work at all, had he survived.

His mind was also much clearer, and he found that he could not fathom why he had put up with being treated so poorly by the Rogues when he literally held all the cards in his hand. They had depended entirely upon his money, his tech, his connections, his legal and PR teams. And yet he had somehow allowed himself to be completely sidelined, ignored and blamed for everything. After a brief time considering that revelation, he had FRIDAY cancel all their credit cards and remove all access to any of his or SI's resources and properties.

Surprisingly... or not... FRIDAY had uncovered five different personas Romanov had set up using his bank accounts to seed them. One of which was in active use. He promptly filed fraud alerts and let the Accords Council know he'd found a lead on her, and that the sooner they got Ross completely out of the picture, the sooner he'd give them information. Russia and Germany were more than happy to head up the efforts to pressure the US into revoking Ross's status, and several other countries soon joined them. Tony happily played up his invalid status to avoid being dragged in while quietly feeding them information about all Ross's minor indiscretions and major crimes.

He decided to give T'Challa a chance to come clean about his part in the matter. He'd give him a week or so after Ross was ousted - it was entirely possible the young king was withholding information on Rogers for the same reason Tony was on Romanov. He'd give the man a chance. But only one.