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veldeiaTitle: Iron & Irony: Second Encounters
Author: Veldeia
Fandom: Iron Man/House MD
Series: Sequel to Iron & Irony. (Has nothing whatsoever to do with Malt & Mockery.)
Spoilers: Late season 4 for House, but before the finale, so nothing big. Spoils all of Iron Man and Iron & Irony, of course.
Pairings: Tony/Pepper
Rating: PG-13
Beta:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
btsxbeta <3
Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing, except for a messed up mind that likes playing with other people's characters and universes.
Summary: "I never knew getting kidnapped would be this boring." -Gregory House
--- "You don't know anything about Tony! I would give my life for him if I had to - but I won't. He's going to get us out of here." -Pepper Potts
--- "Okay, this could be a problem." -Tony Stark
8. "It should work"
Rhodey woke up to a whooshing sound somewhere above him, like an airplane. It disappeared almost as soon as it had begun.
The first thing he became aware of after that was a horrible headache. He felt a bit sick, too. His instant conclusion was that he'd probably been drinking with Tony. Never a good idea.
He opened his eyes and saw nothing but darkness, no matter how hard he squinted. That was probably not a good sign. He also had absolutely no idea of where he was.
He was lying on his side. When he tried moving, he quickly found out that it was a lot more difficult than he'd have expected. It was like he was stuck in a shell of some sort.
There was something weird going on here - he was forgetting something important.
He rolled over to his back and looked up. Now, he could see something: a night sky, full of stars. He was looking at it through two rectangular holes in a mask.
A mask. Right. Right! He wasn't "stuck in a shell", he was wearing armor! The War Machine armor. It all came back to him in a rush. He was in China, with Tony, on a rescue mission.
"Jarvis?" he asked, but there was no answer, and the HUD was down, too. Obviously, he'd been too slow, or rather, Tony had been too fast, and the EMP had wrecked his armor.
He forced his incredibly heavy, armored arms to move, and took off his helmet to get a better view of where he was. He saw that to his left there was a steep rock face, and to the right, against his side, a large boulder or a ridge, which he'd probably collided with, even though he had no memory of falling or hitting anything.
The last thing he remembered was Tony telling him to get the hell out of the enemy base because he was going to launch an EMP, and after that, his mind was blank. He must've lost a few minutes. At least his memory felt all right aside from that. He probably had a concussion, if not something even nastier than that. He pulled off one glove and probed the side of his head. It was definitely bruised, but he didn't feel any blood.
He sat up - the nausea and headache intensified, but they were nothing he couldn't handle. He'd faced worse. He looked down at himself, trying to survey the damage the suit had taken. As far as he could see, there wasn't any. The arc reactor it used as a power source - an exact duplicate of the one that Tony had, except that it was built into the suit instead of into his chest - seemed to be working. In its soft glow, the silvery surface of the armor looked scraped and dented and blackened, thanks to the fall and the hits he'd taken in the base, but it was all minor. He stretched out the hand that was still gloved, and tried firing the repulsor.
The recoil from the bolt almost sent him tumbling downslope again.
He put the helmet back on. The HUD blinked into life, but the image was far from clear, it was fuzzy. He wondered whether the problem was with the display or his eyesight. Probably the display, because it seemed frozen as well, the blurry readings unchanging.
"Jarvis, status report," he tried, but the AI still wasn't answering.
He put on the second gauntlet, tested it, and checked that it worked as well. Cautiously, he stood up, and ignited the bootjets. He rose a few feet into the air. "Yeah! That's more like it!" he said aloud, but instead of just flying away, he landed again, to consider his next move.
Should he head back to the enemy stronghold? If that sound he'd heard had really been Tony, that might be a pointless move. But could he be sure? With Jarvis offline, he had no way to locate Tony, or to communicate with him. His gut instinct said to follow the clue, but could he trust it? What if Tony and the others were still inside, and needed help?
"You would have me believe that you trust me more than your iron-clad savior here?" Liu asked, prodding Stark's side with the tip of his foot.
That was the challenge here, yeah, House thought. They were surrounded by enemies and had a dozen guns pointed at them. Unless they could convince Liu that they were sincere about this, they had just made things a lot worse. Now that he looked at Stark, House realized that they also needed to convince Stark that they were still on his side - otherwise, who knew what he'd do once he got the use of his suit back. Luckily, neither should be too difficult to achieve.
"He was too late," House told Liu. "You see - how sick we are. He doesn't have the cure. You do. We want to live."
Unless Stark had left his brain at home when he dashed into action, he'd figure out the truth from that. Stark knew that they knew an EMP was supposed to kill the nanovirus, and they'd already been hit with one. That should be enough to make Stark realize that they were just trying to mislead Liu. As for Liu, hopefully he'd think that House and Potts had no idea about the whole EMP thing to begin with.
Liu was still eyeing them suspiciously. "I've already got Stark at my mercy, what use could I possibly have for you?"
"For one, we could - get him out - of the suit," Potts offered.
"I can do that just as well without your help," Liu said. "But then again, it would be a beautiful thing if you were to do it instead of me. A fine example of emotional torment - being betrayed by one's friends. Go ahead and do it, if you truly can."
"We will," Potts said, and crawled closer to Stark. She stopped right next to him, staring at him with a convincingly torn expression.
"Do you see that, Iron Man?" Liu sneered. "You are alone and as good as dead, and your friends have abandoned you. Still feeling invincible?"
"You're the one who's as good as dead, Liu," Stark growled. "And my so-called friends can go to hell with you." That was very convincing, too, House thought. He could only hope it wasn't genuine. Stark had to realize they were faking this, hadn't he?
"Okay..." Potts muttered. "Voice authorization: Pepper Potts. Suit, open."
All right, if Stark hadn't figured out the truth before, that should've made it obvious. Nothing happened, since as all three of them well knew, that was no way to open the suit. Potts had lied to Liu earlier that it was voice controlled, and House had to give her credit for sticking to that story.
"What sort of an act is this, Miss Potts? Nothing's happening," Liu said.
"I... I don't understand," she answered. "It should work." She knelt even closer and repeated her earlier command, but of course, it still didn't do anything.
"Hah!" Stark exclaimed, playing along.
"He must've - locked me out," Potts said, shaking her head.
"Let me," House said, casting a glance at the guards around him. Liu nodded at them and him in approval, and he made his way to Stark's side as well. He crouched close, his face inches from the helmet, as if trying to read something from its side.
"Hm. It's obvious," House said, as he sat up straight again. "It won't work - because his - suit computer isn't on. We'll just have to - open it manually."
"Of course," Potts said.
House looked up at Liu. "We'll need - a power drill - or at least a screwdriver."
"I grow tired of this. Either you're lying or you're complete fools - probably both. Whichever the case, you're growing less and less amusing by the minute. I'll get you what you ask for, but that'll be your last chance. After that, I'll have you executed, and begin testing more interesting things."
Liu pointed at a few of his guards, and gave them orders in Mandarin Chinese. House understood enough to figure out that he was sending them to fetch not just the tools House had mentioned, but also a blowtorch and a laser cutter. This wasn't looking good.
"Executing us - won't be - a smart move," House said, just to keep Liu occupied, and to delay the inevitable, if possible. "I could be useful to you. As a doctor."
"Hm, you could, indeed," Liu said thoughtfully. "On the other hand, I can't really trust you, and you are extremely annoying."
"You got that one right," Stark muttered.
"I could - help you - take over Stark Industries," Potts tried, in turn.
"A tempting offer, Miss Potts, but a completely unrealistic one, don't you think, Mr. Stark?"
"Yeah. Still, I'd keep them if I were you. They're good at what they do."
"They've betrayed you, but you still stand up for them?"
"That's the difference between us good guys and you bad guys. We don't just randomly kill people because they annoy us."
"How naive you are, Mr. Stark. Good and bad are a matter of opinion," Liu said. "But perhaps I'll keep them around for a little longer - the nanovirus will kill them soon, anyway."
After several minutes of anxious waiting and useless talking, they could hear the footsteps of the returning guards. House was staring at the door gloomily, when he felt a strong hand grab his wrist. He turned his head slowly, to avoid drawing attention. As he looked down, he saw that the eyes in Stark's mask had lit up.
Tony couldn't believe his ears when he heard Pepper and House stumble into the room and announce that they were on Liu's side. No way. They would never do that. Sure enough, from what they said, it didn't take him long to realize what they were really up to. They were buying him time. They'd suddenly gone from rescuees to rescuers. Even though they were so sick they could barely stay upright, they were still doing their damnedest to help him. He felt like cheering aloud at their sheer nerve and courage, but, of course, he had to play along and pretend he was taken aback by their apparent betrayal. He could see Pepper doing something as amazing as this - this was yet more proof that she was the most incredible woman he'd ever met - but House? Tony couldn't imagine how she'd forced him into putting himself at risk like this.
He'd been expecting Rhodey to show up, rather than the captives they'd been trying to save. He wondered what had happened to War Machine. It was possible that he hadn't gotten away in time, and had been hit by the EMP, too. Then again, Tony was pretty sure that had Rhodey fallen inside the base, Liu's cronies would've dragged him here. Since there had been no sign of him, it was more likely that he'd gotten out. If he'd been hit by the EMP, his suit should restart sooner or later, too.
Damn it, he never should've let Rhodey come here with him in the first place. Right now, all he could do was hope Rhodey was all right. They'd have to get out of this mess before they could start worrying about him.
No matter how amazing Pepper and House were, they couldn't keep Liu distracted forever. When Liu announced that he'd execute them if they failed to get Tony out of the suit, he did his best to talk him out of it, to convince him to let them live. What surprised Tony was that Liu kept insisting that they still had the nanovirus. Was it possible that he didn't know about the EMP's effect on it? Or even worse, could this new version be resistant to it? That was a thought too horrible to consider. Of course, the most likely explanation was that Liu was just keeping the fact from Pepper and House because it gave him leverage over them.
"Sir," a soft voice spoke in his ear. Luckily, the suit covered his jolt of surprise at it.
"Jarvis," he whispered, careful to keep his voice so low that no one else would hear it. "About time. Status?"
"Could be better, sir." The HUD flickered to life, showing that half the systems still weren't working - but he had flight, and he had the repulsors. So far, there were no signs of any effects from the stuff Liu had sprayed him with.
He'd need to be careful here. Simply breaking himself out would've been a piece of cake, but now he had two sick, unprotected people with him, in a room full of goons with guns.
He waited until the return of the guards Liu had sent on an errand. At least some of the people in the room would turn their attention to the door once they arrived. As he heard the approaching footfalls, he reached to grab both Pepper and House's hands. He saw them look at him and realize that he'd finally regained the use of his armor.
"Stay low," he told them. As they ducked to the floor, he flashed into action.
In a movement as fluid as possible, he broke his chains, turned over and placed himself protectively over House and Pepper. Bullets started raining on them. From such a close distance, he could feel them battering his suit, denting it, but he also heard and saw several of the guards get hit by friendly fire in the confined space. It was complete chaos. He pointed his hands out to his sides and shot in all directions, pretty much at random, since his targeting system was still offline. He couldn't see Liu anymore. Damn, he really needed to get that bastard - but he had his priorities. Liu would have to wait. They needed to get out of here.
He grabbed Pepper and House with one arm each, told them to "Hang on!" and activated his bootjets. They zoomed out of the room. Some of the guards ran after them, still shooting, but there was no way they could keep up with the suit.
The steering was barely functioning. Tony did his best, flying through the corridors as fast as he could, with Pepper and House clinging desperately to him. Soon, the sounds of their pursuers were far behind, but he didn't stop, just went on, even when the HUD started filling with error messages, which he didn't bother to read.
When they reached the exit, he landed for a short while, to make sure they'd all survived the reckless escape run. Miraculously, they had - no major injuries as far as he could see. He switched his passengers into a more comfortable position, and took off into the night. He flew low over the ground, because by now, the warnings made it obvious that his suit was practically falling apart.
The triumph and joy Pepper felt when she saw Tony's armor come back online quickly gave way to fear when the room turned into a battle zone, and Tony grabbed her and House and bolted into the corridor. It was all she could do to hang on to the cold, hard metal of his suit, one hand over his shoulder, the other clutching the arm he'd put around her waist, with one leg wrapped around the suit's thigh.
The situation was so hectic that, for the first time in a few days, she wasn't feeling sick, simply because she had no time to think about it when everything else was so overwhelming. She couldn't see anything, the tunnels were still pitch-dark, but apparently Tony knew where they were going, since he took each sudden turn with such speed that it made her stomach lurch. The noise of gunfire kept growing more and more distant, leaving nothing but the rushing of wind in her ears.
They stopped in front of a doorway opening into the night, into a darkness far friendlier than that inside the base, lit up softly by the stars and moon in the clear sky above. Below them, she saw a valley between tall mountains. This, she thought, was exactly what freedom looked like. It was a beautiful view, but unfortunately, they had no time to stay and stare at it.
Tony had her and House grab his shoulders, so that they'd rest on his back when he was horizontal. She and House had to put their arms around each other's backs to keep themselves in place, and they were pressed very close to each other, but in these circumstances, she really didn't care. They took off, flying again at a dizzying speed, low over the side of the mountain, across a valley, through a narrow pass into another valley, and a third one.
All of a sudden, the steady rumble of Tony's bootjets stopped.
They were only some ten feet above the ground, but that didn't make falling any less scary. Again, there was nothing she could do but cling to Tony with every ounce of strength she had left. She let go just before they hit the valley floor, to keep her hands from getting crushed between the suit and the ground.
Since she and House were on Tony's back, he took the brunt of the impact. She was flung away from him, and rolled around a few times on the grassy ground before coming to a stop.
"Pepper? Pepper!" Tony called out.
"I'm okay," she breathed, though she wasn't entirely sure about it yet.
"House?"
"I hurt, therefore I am."
Everyone was still all right. Or, at least as all right as was possible, given the circumstances.
For a minute or so, she just lay there on her back, staring at the starry sky whirling nauseatingly above her, doing her best to catch her breath, waiting for her racing heart to settle, though there was little hope of either of those happening any time soon. She was again starting to register how awful she felt - but she also realized that she wasn't feeling any worse, except for a collection of bumps and bruises. Breathing was difficult, but not more so than before. Maybe the EMP really had done the trick.
She rolled over to her side, facing the direction where she figured the others would be. As always, Tony was easy to spot, thanks to the ever-present light in his chest. He was sitting up, and by the looks of it, stripping off his armor.
She did a double take and had to squint and lift her hand to rub her eyes to make sure she was really seeing what she thought she was: he was tearing off pieces of his suit just like that, with his bare hands. He'd already taken off his helmet and most of the plates that'd covered his upper body.
Guessing that standing up wouldn't be a good idea, Pepper made her way to him on all fours. "What - how can you - how's that possible?" she asked him, perplexed.
"Liu hit me with a metal-eating nano-thing of some sort. If you're up to it, I could use a hand here," he said, and reached towards her with an arm that was still covered in armor from the wrist up.
She grabbed at his forearm with both hands, digging her fingers into seams in the metal, and pulled. A large panel of it came off, just like that. In the dim light, she thought the surface of it looked wrong, dull and streaked with something, like rust, or mold. She held it between her hands and tried twisting it. It bent like rubber, and finally snapped in half with a soft crack.
Chapter 9.
Author: Veldeia
Fandom: Iron Man/House MD
Series: Sequel to Iron & Irony. (Has nothing whatsoever to do with Malt & Mockery.)
Spoilers: Late season 4 for House, but before the finale, so nothing big. Spoils all of Iron Man and Iron & Irony, of course.
Pairings: Tony/Pepper
Rating: PG-13
Beta:
btsxbeta <3Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing, except for a messed up mind that likes playing with other people's characters and universes.
Summary: "I never knew getting kidnapped would be this boring." -Gregory House
--- "You don't know anything about Tony! I would give my life for him if I had to - but I won't. He's going to get us out of here." -Pepper Potts
--- "Okay, this could be a problem." -Tony Stark
8. "It should work"
Rhodey woke up to a whooshing sound somewhere above him, like an airplane. It disappeared almost as soon as it had begun.
The first thing he became aware of after that was a horrible headache. He felt a bit sick, too. His instant conclusion was that he'd probably been drinking with Tony. Never a good idea.
He opened his eyes and saw nothing but darkness, no matter how hard he squinted. That was probably not a good sign. He also had absolutely no idea of where he was.
He was lying on his side. When he tried moving, he quickly found out that it was a lot more difficult than he'd have expected. It was like he was stuck in a shell of some sort.
There was something weird going on here - he was forgetting something important.
He rolled over to his back and looked up. Now, he could see something: a night sky, full of stars. He was looking at it through two rectangular holes in a mask.
A mask. Right. Right! He wasn't "stuck in a shell", he was wearing armor! The War Machine armor. It all came back to him in a rush. He was in China, with Tony, on a rescue mission.
"Jarvis?" he asked, but there was no answer, and the HUD was down, too. Obviously, he'd been too slow, or rather, Tony had been too fast, and the EMP had wrecked his armor.
He forced his incredibly heavy, armored arms to move, and took off his helmet to get a better view of where he was. He saw that to his left there was a steep rock face, and to the right, against his side, a large boulder or a ridge, which he'd probably collided with, even though he had no memory of falling or hitting anything.
The last thing he remembered was Tony telling him to get the hell out of the enemy base because he was going to launch an EMP, and after that, his mind was blank. He must've lost a few minutes. At least his memory felt all right aside from that. He probably had a concussion, if not something even nastier than that. He pulled off one glove and probed the side of his head. It was definitely bruised, but he didn't feel any blood.
He sat up - the nausea and headache intensified, but they were nothing he couldn't handle. He'd faced worse. He looked down at himself, trying to survey the damage the suit had taken. As far as he could see, there wasn't any. The arc reactor it used as a power source - an exact duplicate of the one that Tony had, except that it was built into the suit instead of into his chest - seemed to be working. In its soft glow, the silvery surface of the armor looked scraped and dented and blackened, thanks to the fall and the hits he'd taken in the base, but it was all minor. He stretched out the hand that was still gloved, and tried firing the repulsor.
The recoil from the bolt almost sent him tumbling downslope again.
He put the helmet back on. The HUD blinked into life, but the image was far from clear, it was fuzzy. He wondered whether the problem was with the display or his eyesight. Probably the display, because it seemed frozen as well, the blurry readings unchanging.
"Jarvis, status report," he tried, but the AI still wasn't answering.
He put on the second gauntlet, tested it, and checked that it worked as well. Cautiously, he stood up, and ignited the bootjets. He rose a few feet into the air. "Yeah! That's more like it!" he said aloud, but instead of just flying away, he landed again, to consider his next move.
Should he head back to the enemy stronghold? If that sound he'd heard had really been Tony, that might be a pointless move. But could he be sure? With Jarvis offline, he had no way to locate Tony, or to communicate with him. His gut instinct said to follow the clue, but could he trust it? What if Tony and the others were still inside, and needed help?
"You would have me believe that you trust me more than your iron-clad savior here?" Liu asked, prodding Stark's side with the tip of his foot.
That was the challenge here, yeah, House thought. They were surrounded by enemies and had a dozen guns pointed at them. Unless they could convince Liu that they were sincere about this, they had just made things a lot worse. Now that he looked at Stark, House realized that they also needed to convince Stark that they were still on his side - otherwise, who knew what he'd do once he got the use of his suit back. Luckily, neither should be too difficult to achieve.
"He was too late," House told Liu. "You see - how sick we are. He doesn't have the cure. You do. We want to live."
Unless Stark had left his brain at home when he dashed into action, he'd figure out the truth from that. Stark knew that they knew an EMP was supposed to kill the nanovirus, and they'd already been hit with one. That should be enough to make Stark realize that they were just trying to mislead Liu. As for Liu, hopefully he'd think that House and Potts had no idea about the whole EMP thing to begin with.
Liu was still eyeing them suspiciously. "I've already got Stark at my mercy, what use could I possibly have for you?"
"For one, we could - get him out - of the suit," Potts offered.
"I can do that just as well without your help," Liu said. "But then again, it would be a beautiful thing if you were to do it instead of me. A fine example of emotional torment - being betrayed by one's friends. Go ahead and do it, if you truly can."
"We will," Potts said, and crawled closer to Stark. She stopped right next to him, staring at him with a convincingly torn expression.
"Do you see that, Iron Man?" Liu sneered. "You are alone and as good as dead, and your friends have abandoned you. Still feeling invincible?"
"You're the one who's as good as dead, Liu," Stark growled. "And my so-called friends can go to hell with you." That was very convincing, too, House thought. He could only hope it wasn't genuine. Stark had to realize they were faking this, hadn't he?
"Okay..." Potts muttered. "Voice authorization: Pepper Potts. Suit, open."
All right, if Stark hadn't figured out the truth before, that should've made it obvious. Nothing happened, since as all three of them well knew, that was no way to open the suit. Potts had lied to Liu earlier that it was voice controlled, and House had to give her credit for sticking to that story.
"What sort of an act is this, Miss Potts? Nothing's happening," Liu said.
"I... I don't understand," she answered. "It should work." She knelt even closer and repeated her earlier command, but of course, it still didn't do anything.
"Hah!" Stark exclaimed, playing along.
"He must've - locked me out," Potts said, shaking her head.
"Let me," House said, casting a glance at the guards around him. Liu nodded at them and him in approval, and he made his way to Stark's side as well. He crouched close, his face inches from the helmet, as if trying to read something from its side.
"Hm. It's obvious," House said, as he sat up straight again. "It won't work - because his - suit computer isn't on. We'll just have to - open it manually."
"Of course," Potts said.
House looked up at Liu. "We'll need - a power drill - or at least a screwdriver."
"I grow tired of this. Either you're lying or you're complete fools - probably both. Whichever the case, you're growing less and less amusing by the minute. I'll get you what you ask for, but that'll be your last chance. After that, I'll have you executed, and begin testing more interesting things."
Liu pointed at a few of his guards, and gave them orders in Mandarin Chinese. House understood enough to figure out that he was sending them to fetch not just the tools House had mentioned, but also a blowtorch and a laser cutter. This wasn't looking good.
"Executing us - won't be - a smart move," House said, just to keep Liu occupied, and to delay the inevitable, if possible. "I could be useful to you. As a doctor."
"Hm, you could, indeed," Liu said thoughtfully. "On the other hand, I can't really trust you, and you are extremely annoying."
"You got that one right," Stark muttered.
"I could - help you - take over Stark Industries," Potts tried, in turn.
"A tempting offer, Miss Potts, but a completely unrealistic one, don't you think, Mr. Stark?"
"Yeah. Still, I'd keep them if I were you. They're good at what they do."
"They've betrayed you, but you still stand up for them?"
"That's the difference between us good guys and you bad guys. We don't just randomly kill people because they annoy us."
"How naive you are, Mr. Stark. Good and bad are a matter of opinion," Liu said. "But perhaps I'll keep them around for a little longer - the nanovirus will kill them soon, anyway."
After several minutes of anxious waiting and useless talking, they could hear the footsteps of the returning guards. House was staring at the door gloomily, when he felt a strong hand grab his wrist. He turned his head slowly, to avoid drawing attention. As he looked down, he saw that the eyes in Stark's mask had lit up.
Tony couldn't believe his ears when he heard Pepper and House stumble into the room and announce that they were on Liu's side. No way. They would never do that. Sure enough, from what they said, it didn't take him long to realize what they were really up to. They were buying him time. They'd suddenly gone from rescuees to rescuers. Even though they were so sick they could barely stay upright, they were still doing their damnedest to help him. He felt like cheering aloud at their sheer nerve and courage, but, of course, he had to play along and pretend he was taken aback by their apparent betrayal. He could see Pepper doing something as amazing as this - this was yet more proof that she was the most incredible woman he'd ever met - but House? Tony couldn't imagine how she'd forced him into putting himself at risk like this.
He'd been expecting Rhodey to show up, rather than the captives they'd been trying to save. He wondered what had happened to War Machine. It was possible that he hadn't gotten away in time, and had been hit by the EMP, too. Then again, Tony was pretty sure that had Rhodey fallen inside the base, Liu's cronies would've dragged him here. Since there had been no sign of him, it was more likely that he'd gotten out. If he'd been hit by the EMP, his suit should restart sooner or later, too.
Damn it, he never should've let Rhodey come here with him in the first place. Right now, all he could do was hope Rhodey was all right. They'd have to get out of this mess before they could start worrying about him.
No matter how amazing Pepper and House were, they couldn't keep Liu distracted forever. When Liu announced that he'd execute them if they failed to get Tony out of the suit, he did his best to talk him out of it, to convince him to let them live. What surprised Tony was that Liu kept insisting that they still had the nanovirus. Was it possible that he didn't know about the EMP's effect on it? Or even worse, could this new version be resistant to it? That was a thought too horrible to consider. Of course, the most likely explanation was that Liu was just keeping the fact from Pepper and House because it gave him leverage over them.
"Sir," a soft voice spoke in his ear. Luckily, the suit covered his jolt of surprise at it.
"Jarvis," he whispered, careful to keep his voice so low that no one else would hear it. "About time. Status?"
"Could be better, sir." The HUD flickered to life, showing that half the systems still weren't working - but he had flight, and he had the repulsors. So far, there were no signs of any effects from the stuff Liu had sprayed him with.
He'd need to be careful here. Simply breaking himself out would've been a piece of cake, but now he had two sick, unprotected people with him, in a room full of goons with guns.
He waited until the return of the guards Liu had sent on an errand. At least some of the people in the room would turn their attention to the door once they arrived. As he heard the approaching footfalls, he reached to grab both Pepper and House's hands. He saw them look at him and realize that he'd finally regained the use of his armor.
"Stay low," he told them. As they ducked to the floor, he flashed into action.
In a movement as fluid as possible, he broke his chains, turned over and placed himself protectively over House and Pepper. Bullets started raining on them. From such a close distance, he could feel them battering his suit, denting it, but he also heard and saw several of the guards get hit by friendly fire in the confined space. It was complete chaos. He pointed his hands out to his sides and shot in all directions, pretty much at random, since his targeting system was still offline. He couldn't see Liu anymore. Damn, he really needed to get that bastard - but he had his priorities. Liu would have to wait. They needed to get out of here.
He grabbed Pepper and House with one arm each, told them to "Hang on!" and activated his bootjets. They zoomed out of the room. Some of the guards ran after them, still shooting, but there was no way they could keep up with the suit.
The steering was barely functioning. Tony did his best, flying through the corridors as fast as he could, with Pepper and House clinging desperately to him. Soon, the sounds of their pursuers were far behind, but he didn't stop, just went on, even when the HUD started filling with error messages, which he didn't bother to read.
When they reached the exit, he landed for a short while, to make sure they'd all survived the reckless escape run. Miraculously, they had - no major injuries as far as he could see. He switched his passengers into a more comfortable position, and took off into the night. He flew low over the ground, because by now, the warnings made it obvious that his suit was practically falling apart.
The triumph and joy Pepper felt when she saw Tony's armor come back online quickly gave way to fear when the room turned into a battle zone, and Tony grabbed her and House and bolted into the corridor. It was all she could do to hang on to the cold, hard metal of his suit, one hand over his shoulder, the other clutching the arm he'd put around her waist, with one leg wrapped around the suit's thigh.
The situation was so hectic that, for the first time in a few days, she wasn't feeling sick, simply because she had no time to think about it when everything else was so overwhelming. She couldn't see anything, the tunnels were still pitch-dark, but apparently Tony knew where they were going, since he took each sudden turn with such speed that it made her stomach lurch. The noise of gunfire kept growing more and more distant, leaving nothing but the rushing of wind in her ears.
They stopped in front of a doorway opening into the night, into a darkness far friendlier than that inside the base, lit up softly by the stars and moon in the clear sky above. Below them, she saw a valley between tall mountains. This, she thought, was exactly what freedom looked like. It was a beautiful view, but unfortunately, they had no time to stay and stare at it.
Tony had her and House grab his shoulders, so that they'd rest on his back when he was horizontal. She and House had to put their arms around each other's backs to keep themselves in place, and they were pressed very close to each other, but in these circumstances, she really didn't care. They took off, flying again at a dizzying speed, low over the side of the mountain, across a valley, through a narrow pass into another valley, and a third one.
All of a sudden, the steady rumble of Tony's bootjets stopped.
They were only some ten feet above the ground, but that didn't make falling any less scary. Again, there was nothing she could do but cling to Tony with every ounce of strength she had left. She let go just before they hit the valley floor, to keep her hands from getting crushed between the suit and the ground.
Since she and House were on Tony's back, he took the brunt of the impact. She was flung away from him, and rolled around a few times on the grassy ground before coming to a stop.
"Pepper? Pepper!" Tony called out.
"I'm okay," she breathed, though she wasn't entirely sure about it yet.
"House?"
"I hurt, therefore I am."
Everyone was still all right. Or, at least as all right as was possible, given the circumstances.
For a minute or so, she just lay there on her back, staring at the starry sky whirling nauseatingly above her, doing her best to catch her breath, waiting for her racing heart to settle, though there was little hope of either of those happening any time soon. She was again starting to register how awful she felt - but she also realized that she wasn't feeling any worse, except for a collection of bumps and bruises. Breathing was difficult, but not more so than before. Maybe the EMP really had done the trick.
She rolled over to her side, facing the direction where she figured the others would be. As always, Tony was easy to spot, thanks to the ever-present light in his chest. He was sitting up, and by the looks of it, stripping off his armor.
She did a double take and had to squint and lift her hand to rub her eyes to make sure she was really seeing what she thought she was: he was tearing off pieces of his suit just like that, with his bare hands. He'd already taken off his helmet and most of the plates that'd covered his upper body.
Guessing that standing up wouldn't be a good idea, Pepper made her way to him on all fours. "What - how can you - how's that possible?" she asked him, perplexed.
"Liu hit me with a metal-eating nano-thing of some sort. If you're up to it, I could use a hand here," he said, and reached towards her with an arm that was still covered in armor from the wrist up.
She grabbed at his forearm with both hands, digging her fingers into seams in the metal, and pulled. A large panel of it came off, just like that. In the dim light, she thought the surface of it looked wrong, dull and streaked with something, like rust, or mold. She held it between her hands and tried twisting it. It bent like rubber, and finally snapped in half with a soft crack.
Chapter 9.
