The US Air Force One touched down, Pepper and Happy waiting for it in the airstrip. Pepper's eyes were flushed and her makeup was running.

The ramp lowered, and inside the plane Rhodey pulled Tony to his feet and supported him as he slowly walked down the ramp. He looked worlds better than he had looked when Rhodey had found him in the desert, but still not quite himself. His right arm was in a sling.

It was odd, after seeing the frowning tower of metal that had been the first Iron Man Suit, to watch its maker picking his steps and leaning on the arm of his friend as he came home.

As medical personnel came running up with a stretcher. "Are you kidding me with this? Get rid of that," Tony scoffed, with a dismissive gesture toward the stretcher.

Pepper smiled through her tears as Tony walked up to her. "Hm," he said. "Your eyes are red. Few tears for you long-lost boss?"

"Tears of joy," Pepper replied, staring as if she could never stare enough. "I hate job hunting."

"Yeah, vacation's over," Tony said, looking around and stood still as he spotted Scarlet standing near the limo.

Tony and Scarlet were both frozen in their spots for what seemed like hours just staring at each other. In all honesty, this felt like this was a dream, the two of them were both scared to even blink in fear that this wasn't real. Scarlet didn't even know who moved first, but they slowly started walking towards each other, but then it progressed into sprinting, afraid that something bad might happen. When they finally collided, Tony embraced her like their lives depended on it. Scarlet hadn't even realized it, but she was actually crying.

It made Scarlet realize that she hadn't really cried for a very long time...

Tony kept whispering words of comfort and Scarlet almost felt like she was that little girl again that was afraid to look at her father let alone speak to him.

"It's okay...everything's okay...I'm never gonna leave you again..." Tony pulled away and smiled while wiping his face.

Scarlet's eyes widened in surprise knowing that Tony rarely cried, or at least, he didn't do that in front of her, probably something to do with male pride. It was quite a sight to see let's just say.

"If I can promise you anything, it's that I'm going to be a better friend to you, Silverthorne-Blake-Barnes-Dean. Tony's on the case." He chuckled softly, tears prickling in the corners of his eyes.

Scarlet wrapped her arms around Tony again, afraid to let him go.

Over his shoulder, Scarlet could see Rhodey and smiled at him gratefully as she mouthed the words 'thank you'. Rhodey nodded as he returned her smile and saluted at her, all while walking away. Tony and Scarlet finally pulled apart, but he had his arm around her, pulling her closer to him as they got into the limo.

"Where to, sir?" Happy asked from the driver's seat.

"Take us to the hospital please, Happy -" Pepper began to say.

"No," Tony cut her off.

"No?" Pepper asked, turning and staring at him.

"Tony," Pepper protested. "You have to go to the hospital, the doctor has to look at you -"

"I don't have to do anything, I've been captivity for three months," Tony snapped. "There are two things I want to do. I want an American cheeseburger, and the other -"

"That's enough of that," Pepper interrupted, turning away.

"- is not what you think," Tony replied patiently. "I want you to call for a press conference, now."

"Call for a press conference?!" Pepper seemed completely shocked. "What on earth for?"

"Hogan, drive," Tony said. "Cheeseburger first."

And Happy drove off at once.

_________________________________________________________________

When Happy pulled up to the curb, a number of well-dressed people were standing waiting to meet him. They began to applaud as soon as they saw the car, and Obadiah Stane sprang forward, arms outstretched.

"Look at this, eh?" Obadiah cried, pulling open Tony's door, and then as Tony stepped out still working on his first cheeseburger he flung his arms round the younger man's neck. "Oh, Tony!" He pulled back to look at him. "You didn't meet me at the hospital!" he said.

"Nah, that's fine," Tony replied hastily, and he turned around and fished his other cheeseburger out of the bag that Happy had just walked up to him.

"Look at you!" Obadiah rubbed Tony's arm. "Oh, you have another burger?"

"No, I don't!" Tony shouted out as he began to walk inside.

"You getting me one of those?" Obadiah asked.

"This is the only one left, I need it," Tony told him, and took another large bite of his first one.

_________________________________________________________________

Tony was still eating when he and Obadiah entered the conference room. "Hey, look who's here!"called Obadiah, as the reporters saw him and began to applaud.

Tony made his way up to the podium through a crowd of eager photographers and well-wishers. Scarlet stood beside Tony with a gun strapped to her upper left thigh.

Pepper remained at the back of the room, watching Tony and obviously wondering what on earth was going on.

"Ms. Potts," Phil Coulson was standing beside Pepper. "May I speak to you for a moment?"

"I'm - I'm not part of the press conference -" Pepper pointed. "- but it's about to begin right now."

"I'm not a reporter," Phil replied. "I'm Agent Coulson with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division." He offered her a card.

"That's quite a mouthful," Pepper said, but she took the card.

"I know. We're working on it," Phil told her.

"You know," Pepper replied. "we've been approached already by the DOD, the FBI, the CIA -"

"We're a separate division with a more specific focus," Phil responded with the same inscrutable smile. "We need to debrief Mr. Stark about the circumstances of his escape."

"I'll put something in the book, shall I?" Pepper asked.

"Thank you," Phil replied.

Just then Obadiah's voice wafted up from the microphone at the podium. "Okay, let's go ahead and get started!" he said.

"Ah. . ." Obadiah trailed off, and looked down in some bewilderment at Tony, who had just sat down on the dais in front of the podium and was actually reaching into his pocket for his second cheeseburger.

"Hey, would it be all right if everyone sat down?" Tony asked. "Why don't we just sit down? That way you can see me and I can -" He lifted the cheeseburger. "- little less formal, you know -"

Tony chowed down on his cheeseburger. All the press people looked quizzically at each other, and slowly made their way down to the floor. Obadiah came round from behind the podium and sat next to Tony.

Rhodey came up beside Pepper. "What's up with the love-in?" he whispered.

Tony looked up at Scarlet and offered her his hand. She looked at him quizzically before taking his hand and sat down beside him.

"Don't look at me," Pepper said to Rhodes. "I don't know what he's up to."

Tony whispered something to Obadiah, and Obadiah whispered back. All that could be distinguished was Tony's reply. "I never got to say goodbye to my dad."

Tony raised his voice. "I never got to say goodbye to my father," he began, and in the audience anyone with a camera or a recording device turned it on. "There's questions that I would have asked him. I'd have asked him how he felt about what this company did - if he was conflicted, if he ever had doubts - or maybe he was every inch the man we all remember from the newsreels."

Obadiah's head was bowed in consideration. Pepper watched, as ready as anyone to hear what could possibly be coming. Rhodey's lip twitched.

"I saw young Americans killed," Tony went on. "By the very weapons created to defend them and protect them." Obadiah's eyes slid to his face. "And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability."

Three or four reporters' hands went up at once. "Mr. Stark?" they asked nearly in unison.

Tony pointed at one of them. "Okay, Ben."

"What happened over there?" The reporter asked.

"I had my eyes opened." Tony's voice rose and he stood up and went behind the podium. "I came to realize that I have more to offer this world than just making things to blow up. And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturer division of Stark International -"

The crowd went wild. Hands and shouts went up all over the room. Pepper's jaw dropped.

"Okay, okay," Obadiah was not-so-subtly pushing Tony away from the microphone. "I think we're going to be selling a lot of newspapers - Tony, thank you -"

"- one that I am comfortable with, and is consistent with the highest good for this country as well," Tony finished as he walked away from the podium.

The look on Rhodey's face was hard to decipher. He seemed to be equally shocked, proud, and let down all at once.

Obadiah attempted to take over the situation while hiding his own evident surprise. "What we should take away from this," he said. "Is that Tony's back! And, ah, that he's healthier than ever. We're going to have a little, ah, internal discussion, and we'll get back to you with a follow up. . ."

_________________________________________________________________

Outside what seemed to be the main Stark Industries factory, Obadiah came rolling up on a segway with a cigar in his mouth. "Where is he?" he asked Happy, who was standing next to the parked car.

"He's inside," Happy said, coming to take the segway presumably where it belonged as Obadiah climbed down from it.

Obadiah took the cigar from his mouth, pulled out his keycard, and swiped it at the door, which beeped and let him in.

_________________________________________________________________

Tony was standing by the railing that surrounded the big Arc Reactor, staring into space.

"Well, that went well," Obadiah said sarcastically, the cigar back in his mouth.

"Did I just paint a big target on the back of my head?" Tony asked.

"Your head?" Obadiah walked behind Tony to the other side of him. "What about my head? What do you think the over and under of the stock drop is going to be tomorrow?"

"Ah, optimistically, forty points?" Tony guessed halfheartedly.

"At minimum," Obadiah replied, coming round behind him again.

"Tony," Obadiah added. "We're a weapons manufacturer, we make weapons."

"Obie, I just don't want a body count to be our only legacy," Tony responded, turning around to face Obadiah fully.

"That's what we do, we're ironmongers, we make weapons," Obadiah repeated.

Tony was having none of it. "It's my name on the side of the building -"

"And what we do keeps the world from falling into chaos," Obadiah cut him off.

"Not based on what I saw," Tony sneered, staring his partner dead in the eye. "We're not doing a good enough job. We can do better, we're going to do something else."

"Like what, you want us to make baby bottles?" Obadiah snapped.

"I think we should take another look into Arc Reactor technology." Tony said.

"Ah, come on!" Obadiah scoffed. "The Arc Reactor?" He paced away, gesturing to the prototype in front of him. "That's a publicity stunt! Tony, come on, we built that thing to shut the hippies up."

"It works," Tony protested.

"Yeah, as a science project!" Obadiah snarked, pacing around behind Tony again. "The Arc was never cost-effective, we knew that before we built it." He looked up again. "Arc Reactor technology. That's a dead end, right?"

A smirk turned the corners of Tony's mouth. "Maybe," he said.

"Huh? Am I right?" Obadiah pressed. "We haven't had a breakthrough in that for what, thirty years?"

"What'd they say?" Tony turned around to face Obadiah again.

Obadiah tried to look innocent.

"Could you have a lousier poker face?" Tony asked. "Just tell me, who told you?"

"Never mind who told me, show me -" Obadiah said trying to change the subject.

"Rhodey. Rhodey or Pepper, it's Rhodey or Pepper," Tony said not letting the subject drop.

"I want to see it," Obadiah insisted.

"Okay, Rhodey," Tony replied, unbuttoning his shirt.

Obadiah looked around, as if to make sure no one was watching, as Tony's chest was bared. There sat the Arc Reactor, glowing as bright as the core of its much larger predecessor.

Obadiah gave it one look, shook his head, and hastily began buttoning Tony up again. "Okay, ah, okay," he muttered, glancing around again with a nervous chuckle.

"It works," Tony stated firmly.

Obadiah gave him a considering look. Then he put his arm round Tony's shoulders and leaned in toward his face. "Listen to me, Tony," he said. "We're a team, you understand? There's nothing we can't do if we stick together. Like your father and I. Tony -"

That seemed to annoy Tony. He leaned away from the older man. "I'm sorry I didn't give you a heads-up, okay?" he replied. "But if I had, we -"

"Tony, Tony," Obadiah pulled Tony even closer to his head. Tony turned his face away. "No more of this ready, fire, aim business, you understand -"

"That was dad's line," Tony replied flatly, and he offered Obadiah a wide smile that did not touch his eyes.

Obadiah removed his arm from Tony's shoulders. "You've got to let me handle this," he said as he and Tony began to walk away. "We're going to have to play a whole different kind of ball now. We're going to have to take a lot of heat, and I want you to promise me that you're going to lay low."

_________________________________________________________________

"Stark Industries," the host, Jim Cramer, was saying dramatically, jabbing his finger at the camera. "I've got one recommendation. Ready? Ready?" He punched a button on something that said "Sell-sell-sell!" He spun back around to face the camera. "Abandon ship!" An icon of two angry cartoon grizzly bears roared across the screen. "Does the Hindenburg ring any bells?"

For on a backless chair in some lounge or other of Tony's Malibu mansion, Pepper and Scarlet sat watching the show. Pepper sighed in annoyance as an obvious movie-scream rang from the TV along with a fake crash.

"So here's the new Stark Industries business plan!" roared Cramer, and he picked up a baseball bat and slammed a coffee mug to pieces. "Look! That's a weapons company that doesn't make weapons!"

"Pepper," Tony's voice came from the StarkPad in front of that individual, making her start a bit and look down. "Um, how big are your hands?"

Pepper turned down the TV and pressed the icon that indicated Tony's 'call.' "Uh, what?!"

"How big are your hands?" Tony repeated.

Pepper blinked. "I don't understand - why -"

"Get down here, I need you," Tony said. "You can come too, Silverthorne-Blake-Barnes-Dean."

_________________________________________________________________

When Pepper keyed herself and Scarlet into Tony's workshop, a shirtless Tony was reclining on a chair next to a rather ominous-looking monitor, to which he was connected by way of three cords - one red, one blue, and one white. He was holding another Arc Reactor that looked slightly different from the one he was currently using.

"Hey," Tony said, looking over at his secretary and personal bodyguard as the two entered.

Pepper hesitated when she saw what was going on, obviously not having expected this, and then slowly began approaching the chair.

"Let's see them, show me your hands. Let me see 'em," Tony ordered as Pepper made her way over to him. She lifted her hands as she came up. "Oh, wow," Tony said. "They are small. Very petite, indeed. I just, uh, need your help for a sec -" he looked down distractedly at the Arc Reactor he was holding.

"Oh, my God," Pepper breathed in astonishment as she caught sight of the Arc Reactor already inside Tony. "Is that the thing that's keeping you alive?"

"It was," Tony replied. "It is now an antique. This -" he lifted the second Arc Reactor. "Is what will be keeping me alive for the forseeable future. And I'm swapping it out for an upgraded unit, and I just ran into a little speed bump."

"Speed bump?" Scarlet asked suspiciously.

"Speed bump?" Pepper repeated in some apprehension. "What do you - what does that mean?"

"Can't be good," Scarlet said.

"Nothing, just a little snag," Tony twisted the device on his chest. "There's an exposed wire under this device -" He reached down with his free hand and clicked the first Arc Reactor, sliding it out of its metal casing. "- that's contacting the socket wall and it's causing a little bit of a short - it's -" He jerked out the Arc Reactor, disconnecting the short cable at the back of it from the socket wall with a snap and a buzz.

"Fine," Tony finished, handing Scarlet the Reactor.

Scarlet examined the device carefully. The way it was put together she could clearly see that Tony had welded it together when he was kidnapped. He definitely was his father's child.

"Wh-what do you want me to do?" Pepper asked.

"Silverthorne-Blake-Barnes-Dean. Put that on the table over there, that is irrelevant," Tony said.

"Of course, Sir." Scarlet replied, doing as she was told.

"Oh, my God," Pepper groaned as she turned back to Tony.

"I just want you to reach in," Tony said. "And you're just going to gently lift the wire out -"

"Is it safe?" Pepper asked anxiously, peering down the socket wall and up at Tony's face.

"Yeah, it should be fine," Tony said. "It's just like Operation, you just don't let it touch the socket wall -" he indicated the sides of the hole. "- and it goes beep -"

"What do you mean, Operation?" Pepper asked.

"It's just a game, never mind," Tony explained. "Just gently lift the wire. Okay? Great."

He shot her a look that indicated he was probably just as nervous as she was.

"Yeah, just lift out the wire," Scarlet said sarcastically. "Easy, no hassle."

"Okay," Pepper started lowering her fingers into the socket. She cringed and pulled her hand out. "You know, I don't think I'm qualified to do this -"

"No, you're fine," Tony told her reassuringly. "You are the most capable, qualified, trustworthy person I've ever met." He looked into her worried face. "You're going to do great."

Pepper just looked more worried.

"Is it too much of a problem to ask?" Tony asked. "Because I really need your help here -"

"Okay, okay," Pepper seemed to be recovering her nerve. She took a deep breath and prepared to plunge her hand into the socket again.

There was a sucking sound of some liquid. Pepper was grimacing and wincing. "Oh, there's pus!" she squeaked.

"It's not pus," Tony replied. "It's an inorganic plasmic discharge, it's from the device, not from my body -" His back arched, as Pepper seemed to have got to the bottom of the socket.

"It smells!" Pepper wailed.

"Blech," Scarlet gagged, she felt a bit nauseous as the smell came through her nose.

"Yeah, it does," Tony replied as Pepper's hand began moving and twisting. "The copper wire. The copper wire, you got it?"

"Okay, I got it, I got it," Pepper squeaked, her hand obviously closing around something and then beginning to lift.

"Okay - you got it? Now don't let it touch the s-"

NIZZZZ! went the device.

"Mother-umm!" Scarlet squawked.

"-IDES, ides -" Tony yelped. "- when you're coming up, that's what I was trying to tell you before -"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Pepper apologized, directing the wire away from the metal sides as she lifted it out.

"Oh boy, okay," Scarlet breathed. "Oh, man."

"- now just make sure that when you pull it out that you don't pull out the magnet -" Tony continued.

A donut-shaped magnet came sailing out of the socket, dripping a clear, slimy substance.

The monitor began beeping madly.

"- at the e-end of it - that was it," Tony finished as the monitor began beeping madly. "You just pulled it out - okay, I was not expecting that -"

"Oh God, okay," Pepper was obviously trying not to panic. "What do I do, what do I -"

"Don't put it back in, don't put it back in!" Tony told her sharply as her hand began to descent toward the cavity in his chest. She hastily put it down beside the first Arc Reactor and turned back around. "What's wrong?" she asked, seeing the lines in Tony's face and hearing the monitor screaming.

"Oh, nothing," Tony. "I'm just going into cardiac arrest because you yanked it out like a trout -"

"What?!" Pepper wailed. "I thought you said this was safe!"

"We've got to hurry," Tony handed her the other Arc Reactor. "Take this, take this, we gotta switch it out really quick. . ."

Pepper took the Arc Reactor. "Tony - Tony," she said. "It's gonna be okay -"

"Is it?" Tony grunted.

"I - I'm going to make this okay," Pepper finished.

"Let's hope," Tony replied as Pepper bent over him. "Okay, you're going to attach that to the base plate, and make sure you -"

The cable connected with another nzzz!

"YEOOOW!" Tony yelped.

As the wild beeping subsided and Pepper let the rest of the new Arc Reactor down into the socket, he took it from her. "I got it, I got it," he said, and clicked it in. "Nice."

Pepper stood with wide eyes and dripping hands. "Are you okay?" she breathed.

"I feel great," said Tony, and Pepper sagged with relief. "Are you okay?"

"Don't ever, ever, ever ask me to do anything like that, ever again," Pepper told him.

"I don't have anyone but you," Tony said suddenly, staring up at Pepper with unexpected sincerity.

Pepper gazed back at him for a moment.

The right side of Tony's face puckered. "Anyway," he said, and he sat up and pulled off the monitor wires and climbed out of the chair. Pepper quietly wiped her hands.

Scarlet glanced as the old device. She needed to get some scans of it and send it to Coulson.

"What do you want me to do with this?" Pepper asked, picking up the old Arc Reactor.

"That?" Tony asked dismissively. "Destroy it. Incinerate it." He tapped on the new unit.

"You don't want to keep it?" Pepper asked.

"Pepper," Tony began. "I've been called many things. Nostalgic is not one of them."

"Have to agree with you on that," Scarlet noted.

"Will that be all, Mr. Stark?" Pepper asked.

"That will be all, Ms. Potts," Tony replied.

Tony turned to one of his robots, who had actually been hovering over him all the time he'd been sitting in the chair. "Hey, Butterfingers," he said as Pepper turned and walked away, still holding the Arc Reactor reverently. The bot followed his hand. "What's all this stuff doing on top of my desk? That's my phone, that's a picture of me and my dad - right there, in the garbage." He looked up after Pepper, his fingers drumming absently on his new Arc Reactor.

"I'll go dispose of this for you, Mr. Stark." Scarlet told him.

"Thank you, Mrs. Blake-Barnes-Dean."