Wake Up, Make Up
(Tony’s Extremis Chamber, Stark Tower, Manhattan, New York City)
When Tony woke up, for the first time in about 3 decades (give or take), his body felt good. Well, except for his throat. It felt like an electric sander and an industrial-grade grinder just used his throat as a showdown arena.
What in the name of hell just happened.
And suddenly, memories of 12 hours of pain and screaming almost jolted him out of his stupor.
Oh, wow. Okay, that’s why his throat was so ragged.
Dimly, Tony wondered how that kind of pain didn’t just stop his then compromised heart. But then again, Tony’s always been too stubborn for his own good. Perhaps his body was stubborn enough to stay alive out of pure spite and luck. If he didn’t know any better he’d say some form of higher-being was making sure he stay alive no matter what, for some unknown cosmic reason or two. But that would just be ridiculous.
So, just like he had done in Siberia (and it looked like his brain still decided to give him a panic attack from that thought), Tony tried to calm down and asses the situation.
The memory told him that extremis was a success. At least, from what he could tell. His restrained hip, but freed limbs meant that he was still locked inside the special chamber he designed to withstand the explosion from a failed extremis-host integration. F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s silence meant that he probably have a few minutes still before she called…
Who?
Rhodey? He knew he went through a coma for a period of time before he was injected with extremis, but he didn’t know how long. Was Rhodey out of hospital yet? Was he okay? Damn it… if anything happened to him… no. Tony wasn’t sure he wanted to open that hypothetical can of worm just yet, so he didn’t.
Well, Pepper and Happy’s got to be here, at least… right? Happy was still the head of SI’s security and his bodyguard, technically, while Pepper was… well, she had been his girlfriend. They did… take a break from their relationship, but… she’s still his friend, at least. Right?
Tony didn’t want to imagine a life where Pepper would drift away from his life. Girlfriend or not, Pepper was one of the very few people in the world (now even fewer) that he would trust with his life. If she wouldn’t take him romantically ever again, he would settle for a friendship without any hesitation. It’s going to hurt, of course, but he was ready to pay any price to stay as close as he could with Pepper.
Unable to reign In his emotion any longer, Tony opened his eyes.
Only to be assaulted by the sight of all three of his oldest friends… and more.
“Tones….” Rhodey said as leaned in as far as his wheelchair allowed, and hugged him, hard.
Happy broke down almost immediately after that. The man knelt beside Tony’s bedside and joined the hug. Followed by Pepper, who was spectacularly failing at holding her tears back.
Tony couldn’t find his own voice. He looked around the room, seeing the sobbing heap on his left side. The tremulous smiles of Harley and his mom. The gaping Peter Parker, alternating between swaying on the spot like he wanted to join the hug, and clenching his fist like he was trying not to cry. Even Vision was there, too. Hovering a little further back from the group, smiling sadly.
“whuh…?” Tony stammered dumbly.
“What? You expecting to wake up alone Tones?” Rhodey joked, even if his voice was suspiciously wet.
“Uh….”
Hannah Keener quirked her mouth lightly. “Are we sure we’re not going to scan his head? He’s being pretty incoherent.”
“Hey!” Tony protested. “Don’t pick on the injured!”
Peter, the little twerp, let out an audible sigh like he’d been honest to god worried about Tony having a brain damage.
Tony narrowed his eyes towards him. “I find your lack of faith disturbing, Spider-ling.”
Harley let loose a watery laugh at Peter’s indignant ‘Spider-man!’ and leaped into Tony’s bed and cuddled him.
What?
“Um… Harl?”
“...nk you,” the boy mumbled.
“Har… ley?” Okay, maybe Tony’s brain really was short-circuiting a little bit. Was Hannah snickering?!
“Thank you,” Harley said again, softly.
Tony blinked, confused. “Uh… yeah, sure…. For… what, exactly?”
“For staying,” Harley confessed. “For not leaving me too.”
Harley’s words felt like jabs to his gut.
‘I’m not going to leave, Harl,’ Tony remembered promising to Harley once. ‘I’m staying with your irresponsible angst-filled teenaged butt until you tell me otherwise, OK?’
‘But you’re irresponsible too, Tony,’ Harley had said.
‘Yeah, I know…. Good thing I’m an adult so I can order you around anyway.’
Without even thinking, Tony felt his arms lifted for the first time, and suddenly he became very aware of how weightless Harley’s body was on top of his, and how… powerful his arms felt. Carefully, Tony wrapped his arms around Harley’s bony frame, feeling how the boy was shaking minutely.
As confidently as he could manage, Tony rubbed soothing circles on Harley’s back. Apparently he was doing it right, seeing as Harley tightened his arms around Tony and buried his head deeper into the crook of Tony’s neck.
“I never break my promises, do I?” Tony murmured into Harley’s ear, and just received a head shake in return.
“Good, glad to know we’re still on the same page,” Tony smirked and looked up to see Peter and Vision standing (or floating, in Vision’s case) awkwardly.
“You know… since I’m going to break out in hives and possibly die from my allergy to emotion and tears anyway, you two might as well join the hug.”
“I think I would like to take that offer, Mr. Stark,” Vision smiled wanly, floating to his bedside to join the hug
“Tony,” he corrected gently, “and the same goes to you, Arach-kid, no more “Mr. Stark” business. Call me Tony and join the cuddle-pile before Hannah throw you in. She’s dying to take a picture already.”
“You know I will, Peter,” Hannah remarked cheerfully. “Now go hug the man, or else.”
Peter shuffled awkwardly for a few seconds before visibly steeling his nerves and join in the group-hug by Vision’s side.
God, his shaking is even worse than Harley’s… I wonder if the kid’s blaming himself for all this cluster fuck.
“Peter,” Tony began, as gently as his still ragged throat can manage, “you know I don’t blame you for anything right?”
“B…but…. Mr. Stark, it really was－”
“Nope. You did good, kid. All of us would’ve get squished if you didn’t bring down that bug-dude,” Tony interrupted. “But that’s besides the point. I shouldn’t have brought you to Germany in the first place, kid… and for that, I’m sorry.”
Peter shook his head adamantly. “I join in on my own, Mr. Stark, you didn’t force me to.”
“It’s Tony, and yes, I kind of do, actually. I wasn’t really going to tell on your aunt, but, still… that was a pretty jerk move from my part…. Speaking of your aunt, by the way…” Tony trailed of, not really sure how to best break it out to the kid that he was making him spill to his aunt.
Apparently he didn’t have to though, because the smart boy already made that leap for himself. “No! No no no no… I can’t tell Aunt May, Mr. Sta－Tony. I already told you… she’s gonna freak out, and then I’m gonna freak out… and… and….”
“Whoa, calm your eight-limbs－”
“I don’t have that.”
“Shush. Calm your eight-limbs and think for a second here. Do you honestly expect your aunt to stay in the dark indefinitely? No. Sooner or later, she’s going to find out, and then… depending on how long you’ve been hiding this from her, your problem’s going to be bigger than it has any right to be.”
Peter fidgeted nervously, looking anywhere but at Tony’s eyes. “Mr.－Tony… I can’t… I just－She’s going to－”
“Peter, you don’t think I’m going to sic you on your aunt alone, right? I’m coming with you. I have a lot to apologize to your aunt too.”
Peter paled even more, if that was even possible. “Tony, no! She’s going to kill you!”
“Well,” Tony sighed, “in her defense, I brought this on myself. I’d prefer to not be killed, but I can understand her need to assert her justified opinion on me.”
“No, Tony… please, just－she won’t… she doesn’t understand the stuff that I do… the stuff that you do…. You can’t just－”
“Then it’s our duty to bring her up to speed, right? Peter, she deserves to know about this. Especially since I already involved her nephew on a potentially dangerous situation without her consent! You’re a minor, kid… this kind of stuff falls under her jurisdiction.”
“I… I don’t….” Peter seemed to be at lost, eyes wide in a telltale of an incoming panic attack.
“OK, look,” Tony said finally, deciding to spare Peter the nervous breakdown, “you don’t have to do it now. Take your time, I know it’s a big decision. No rush, I got a lot to deal with after this anyway.”
Before Peter could vocalize the gratefulness in his face, Tony noticed Happy wincing slightly and Vision looking away for a fraction of a second.
“Uh… something I should know about, guys?” Tony asked tentatively.
“Yeah, Tony… about that….”
Tony narrowed his eyes at Happy. The man wasn’t the one to stutter or mince words, so seeing him so unsure about what to say was a little suspect. But Vision, bless his logically inclined mind, said with an air of alarming apprehension, “Tony, we need to talk…. It’s about Mr. Ross.”
* * * * *
“So what you are saying is,” Tony said finally, “that Ross is not only a pain in my ass in general, but also a pain in my ass that is actively trying to stay that way?”
Vision looked trapped between a grimace and a wince. “That would be a very… expletive-filled summary, but yes. He is most decidedly going to… "ride on your ass", as they say.”
Tony let loose a long suffering sigh. He’s got to play this even faster than he had first intended.
“Alright then, F.R.I.D.A.Y., initiate protocol These Snitches don’t Get Stitches, post haste.”
Both Harley and Peter choked on their spit at that.
“What?” Peter asked weakly.
“Oh lord…. Tony, that one’s so old! Get a newer meme for the love of Tesla,” Harley chortled.
“Wow, rude. Hannah, ground your son. Peter, stop choking. I’d rather not piss May off any further.”
“Did… did Iron Man just say… snitches get stitches…?” Peter short circuited.
“I said ‘this snitches don’t get stitches’, Spiderling. Pay attention.”
“What does the protocol do, Tony?” Pepper said, ignoring the ‘spider-MAN!!!’ cry Peter belted out.
“Other than releasing all of Ross’ dirty laundry to WikiLeaks? Making sure I’m not detected as the one doing the leaking, for one…. Hacking into the UN Accords Panel and put in all of his overstep of the accords for all to see for the other…. A bunch of different stuff, really… I’m not expecting anything to really stick, I just want to distract him while I come clean to the panel about my… enhancement.”
Tony cringed at the last part. Prepared as he may be about having super-strength, it really didn’t erase the fact that body image was something that he never had to struggle with. Not even after Afghanistan when Yinsen’s got to dig a hole in his chest before having said hole stuffed with a miniature nuclear reactor. It looked like having buffed up was giving him the exact opposite reaction it would give any other person.
Objectively he knew he didn’t look that much different. A little younger, maybe. Face smoothed out, hair thickened out just a little bit. He hadn’t looked this playboy-ish since 2008. The muscles he gained from working odd hours in his workshop and piloting a full metal armor were still there, simply more sculpted, more there. He was still… on the lower spectrum of average height. Not that he was complaining, Tony was used to being one of the shorter guy in the room, he didn’t need excessive posturing to gain the room’s attention. Unlike a very certain someone, Tony didn’t suffer from any Napoleon complex.
And yet… despite retaining most of his physical feature intact, he couldn’t’ help but to feel a little disgusted by himself. The extremis regrew his lost finger tips and renewed his old ones, making them smooth and soft. Looking down at his hands, he’s forced to rethink if losing his fingers was really worse than having this weird unused hands that he didn’t even recognize as the replacement.
And that wasn’t even mentioning all the crazy power-ups he’s got now. Honestly, that was the one thing that threw Tony off the most. Never in his life has Tony been more unwilling to be equated to Captain America, and acquiring super-strength was definitely not the right step to do it.
But if it kept him alive, could he really complain all that much?
“Tony?” Pepper cajoled softly. “Are you serious about telling the whole panel about this?”
That jolt Tony out of his reverie. “Yeah, I can’t afford being seen as going behind the accord’s back. I’ve got to push for some amendments about the registration of super-powered individuals, but it’s still not here nor there. The clauses and points Ross slipped in are all infinitely more dangerous than obligatory record keeping, so they’ve got to go first…. To do that, Ross has to go out of the picture. Any signs of me not complying with the accords to the T is going to get me in so much trouble… especially now.”
“You’re using an awful lot of singular first person pronoun there, Tones…. You know we’d like to help, right?” Rhodey, who up until then was largely silent, told him gravely. Pepper reached for his hand tentatively, as if echoing the same question wordlessly.
Tony furrowed his brow at that and turned his head to Hannah with unspoken request. She nodded once and started to herald the younger audiences out of the room with some difficulties, seeing as one of them was doing a koala impression on Tony, while the other was adamantly insisting that he was ‘grown up enough to listen to the plan, c’mon Mr. St－Tony… I can help!’
“Peter, please… just… go to your Aunt and… I don’t know, prep her for the bomb, maybe?” Tony told the whining teen tiredly.
Seeing the opening, Hannah tried to shake Harley off of Tony. “Harley, baby, I left your sister with Mrs. Johnson when I went here to get you…. She misses her brother, you know?”
Both boys looked at each other in defeat and shuffled out of the room dejectedly under Hannah’s watch. Dear god, there’s two of them now. Rhodey, the traitor, smirked a little at Tony’s exasperated face.
“Right, the tater tots are out, so now spill,” Rhodey said after the boys disappeared from view.
Tony fidgeted and looked down to his lap. Biting his lips, he said, “If I’m telling the panel about extremis, they’re going to ask why such a procedure was necessary.”
Pepper stiffened in realization. She tightened her grip on his hand, and gently asked, “Tony… what happened in Siberia?”
Tony could feel all the rage, all the fear and betrayal that he’s been bottling since Siberia came bubbling out in a rush of panic and terror. His hands started to shook as the room faded out until he’s once again trapped in his broken suit in the Siberian cold. No way out. Alone.
Only to be broken by a foreign warmth that blanketed him from the inside, somehow. He blinked owlishly and stared at Vision’s unblinking stare.
“Breathe, Tony. You are not there anymore. You are in Manhattan, New York City. Outside temperature is no longer below freezing point. You are safe.”
Blinking some more, Tony wondered dimly if Vision was tapping into the stone in his forehead’s power to stave off his incoming panic attack.
“Yes. It would seem that I am capable of such action now.”
Wait, did he say that out loud, or…
“Yes, Tony. You did say that out loud. Reading into one’s mind, even if I could do so, is something that I’d rather not do without the express permission from said person,” Vision answered seriously, although Tony could hear the note of amusement in his smooth voice.
“I…－ thank you, Viz.” Tony croaked, squeezing Pepper’s hand to calm down her fretting.
“Boss, you don’t have to－”
“It’s OK, Hap. Got to tell you guys sooner or later. Just… just promise me that whatever you see here doesn’t get out. Not just yet.”
Everyone in the room nodded their acquiescence.
“Right, uh…. Fri? Could you… you know, the videos…?” Tony mumbled at the security camera.
F.R.I.D.A.Y. was uncharacteristically silent for a minute before she finally agreed. “… Yes Boss.”
(Tony’s Extremis Chamber, Stark Tower, Manhattan, New York City)
Taste of bile was filling up Pepper’s mouth. Her hands were shaking and she could hear blood rushing frantically in her ears. She wanted to close her eyes, cover her ears, block this horrifying footage playing relentlessly on the holographic screen floating in the middle of the room.
How dare they, Pepper’s mind distantly wailed. How could they do this?!
On screen, Captain America was insisting on the Winter Soldier’s innocence. Somewhere deep inside, Pepper could begrudgingly agree with the liar. But all she could see in that moment was the red haze of pure rage. Rage that turned completely into shock and then grief when she saw the cause of the wound in Tony’s chest just a few days ago.
The footage turned into a low quality security tape with no audio near the end. The angle was off, and the image pixelated, but the scene shown on screen was powerful enough to silence the whole room. For a whole 5 minutes.
Vision was the first to break, turning sharply to face the rest of the group before he notified them all about his slipping control on his powers and the gem in his forehead. He then phased down the floor, not bothering to use the door. Happy gripped the armrest of his seat viciously, eyes blazing with murderous anger, while Rhodey was trembling on his wheelchair, growling too low for Pepper to hear, but she caught snippets about ‘that motherfucker’, and ‘blast him dead’.
Pepper herself couldn’t move from her spot. Her mind went blank, and she continued to stare at the empty space where the holographic screen was floating a minute ago. She didn’t even realize she were crying and shaking like a leaf until a hand reached for hers and tugged her down to the sofa. It was Tony. Because of course Tony was worried for her. As though he didn’t just re-watch his parents’ murder. As though he didn’t just relive the betrayal of his childhood hero. And she simply broke down.
She reached one shaky hand after the other towards Tony’s midsection, only to hesitate midair. Before she could take the move back and use her hands to cover her crying face though, Tony simply reached back and pulled her into his embrace. Like he was comforting her. She knew it should be the other way around, Tony was the one who got beaten up by two super soldiers after having more than 3 decades of his life turned upside down. Tony was the one who found out that he was worth less than the truth for Captain America. Yet it was Pepper who broke down sobbing into Tony’s chest, clutching his shirt desperately.
“Shh… it’s OK, Pep…. I’m okay now, see?” Tony soothed, carding his fingers through her hair just the way she always liked it. She cried even harder, more because of shame this time.
“No… no Tony, no. You… you almost died! He almost killed you! He lied to you! You’re－”
“Not dying anymore. Come on Pep, walk it off. I’m alive now, Rogers didn’t kill me. Hell, I was the one who threw the first punch. Not that he didn’t deserve it. But I’m okay now, Really!”
Pepper couldn’t take it anymore. Tony sounded so cheerful, so calm. But she could smell the fake in his voice; he was in pain, and it wasn’t the physical kind. “You’re not okay!” she snapped. “Tony you were dying less than 24 hours ago! Your body is healed now because we were forced to inject you with extremis! Damn it, Tony! Rogers almost took away your life so you traded it with the one cure-all you refused to take because you didn’t want to be him!”
Tony fell silent at her outburst, and she knew she hit a mark. And yet Tony’s next words startled her all the same. “I don’t care.”
“What?”
“I don’t care, Pep,” he said, completely serious. “I still have a lot of things to finish. A lot of people to take care of. I’ve been neglecting you, all of you, for so long. I’ve been a shitty friend, and an even shittier boyfriend, and I’m so fucking sorry.”
“What?” Pepper asked again in disbelief. Both Happy and Rhodey echoed her sentiment and protest.
“No no no, shut up. I am sorry, OK?! Hap, when’s the last time I thanked you for sticking up with all my bullshit? Platypus, when’s the last time I ever told you I’m the god damn luckiest brat in the world for having you babysitting me since I was 14? Pep, Jesus, I don’t even know where to start with us! You just wanted me to be there for you, to stay safe for you, and look at what I’ve been doing! I’m a god damn mess, alright? You guys are the best things that’s ever happened to me, and I took you for granted! And if taking extremis meant I get to make it right, if I could just get one last chance to make amends , I’d take it. I swear I’d throw away whatever piece of humanity left anytime, because you all deserve so much better than what I’ve been giving you.”
Pepper was speechless. In her defense, so was the other two men in the room. Is that… really how Tony view their relationship? Their friendship? A constant failure on his part?
“Boss….” Happy trailed off, sounding completely lost.
Rhodey, however, was not. “So what? You don’t throw away “I love yous” every five minutes? Big deal, Tones! You might not say it all that much, but you damn well show it with your action. And that’s what matters.”
“Honey Bear, I just－”
“You just want to give even more than you’ve already done. I know, Boss. We all do. And here’s me saying that you don’t need to say jack shit for us to know you love us.” Happy interjected.
“What he said,” Rhodey finished smugly, ignoring Tony’s floundering. “Tony, you haven’t failed me. I know you think you’ve never been enough, never done enough. But you are… and you did. You’re my best friend, you crazy, have been for almost half a century now. You think I’d stick around if I don’t actually like you?”
“I… well, you’re all good people…. You’ve gotta have your own reason to stick with me,” Tony mumbled, abashed.
Pepper reached out and cup his cheeks in her hands. “Tony, relationships are two way streets. You can’t take all the blame in this…. Not when I’m the one who was too much of a coward to stand by you when you most need it.”
Tony’s eyes widened. “No no. Pep, you already put up with so much of my fuck ups, you just asked me to lay off a bit and I can’t even do that much…. Shit, Pep, if I failed to give you the one thing men should give their partners, then you should leave me!”
Tony cast his eyes down and bit his lower lip. By then, Pepper was standing squarely in front of him, not saying anything in lieu of waiting for Tony to drop the other shoe. From the corner of her eyes, she could see Rhodey and Happy sneaking out of the room, but all she could care about at the moment was how Tony was starting to look at her eyes, visibly steeling himself.
“Pep… I can’t ask you take me back,” Tony said finally, and Pepper felt her heart caving in. Tony must’ve seen her crushed expression, because he hurried to flutter his arms uselessly. “No no no, Pep, please, it’s not－ it’s not like that…－”
“It’s okay, Tony….” she said bleakly. “I was the one who left you… if anything, I should be the one asking you to take me back. But… but I won’t. I don’t have that right anymore, Tony. I－”
“Wait, what?” Tony asked suddenly. Voice full of incredulity.
Pepper blinked. “What?”
“What do you mean…? You… you want to ask me…?”
“To take me back, Tony? Yes, of course I want to. I want that more than anything. But, Tony－”
“Yes.” Tony blurted out.
“Stop talking over me!” Pepper griped.
“Don’t care, Pep. Yes. God, I missed you. One more chance, Pepper… give me this one more time, please….”
“Tony… I…. Jesus, at least let me apologize properly first.” Pepper didn’t even know what to feel anymore at this point. There’s fear of screwing up again, there’s sadness at how Tony was acting as if Pepper was a gift that he has to fight for instead of a wishy-washy girlfriend that run away when things got too rough. But most of all… she felt hope and happiness. She looked at Tony’s eyes that echoed her own hopes and fear for the future. Tony’s eyes that shone with silent plea for her to come back to him.
Well, Pepper’s always a softie for this man. Slowly, she walked into Tony’s space, reached for his hands and looked at him dead in the eyes. “If you’d be willing to forgive me for leaving you… then, yes. Yes, I’d like us to be together again.”
Tony laughed wetly and flung his arms around her, holding her close. Pepper closed her eyes, and let herself get lost in how free Tony’s laughter sounded.
“Don’t know why you think you have anything to say sorry for, Pep,” Tony whispered between his laugh, “but if you’d forgive me for giving you so much headache, then I’d say we’re even.”
Pepper tightened her hug, and mumbled into Tony’s shirt, “We’re going to a couple counseling.”
“Anything for you, sweetheart. Want to help me find some therapist for my multiple mental health issues in the mean time?”
“Anything for you too. Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”
“Yes, That will be all, Miss Potts.”