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darsynia · 2 years

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Trust Fall | Ch 13b

ARC image by Eury Escodero | image by neverfeltbetter on wordpress

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Summary: Tony/OC, ‘terrorists made us fall in love;’ IM1 timeline. In this chapter, Tony finds out that Emory's been taken someone undisclosed. He won't stand for it.

Length: 3,131

Tags (please don’t hesitate to ask!): @starryeyes2000 @raith-way @arrthurpendragon @starksbf @themaradaniels @chickensarentcheap @tiny-anne

Excerpt:

“Turn the plane around.”

Rhodey closes the file and carefully puts it inside the briefcase beside him before he answers. “Tony--”

“I’m serious. We left someone behind.”

“Sit down and buckle up, will you? Stane and your board will be out for blood if you get more hurt on the return flight than your entire time in captivity.”

“Not until you tell me where Emory Autumn is. I’d also like a detailed report of her physical condition and a clear answer about when I can see her.”

He can’t cross his arms, but Tony knows that his frown carries the weight of his personal fortune and considerable influence, especially with Rhodey’s bosses. In retrospect, his friend’s behavior has been bizarre since the moment they stepped foot off of the helicopters. It’s almost as if Rhodes is being influenced by so many different authorities that he’s disengaged his empathy centers as a self-defense mechanism. He needs the sense smacked back into him.

“You in love with this girl?” Rhodes asks. It’s perceptive, but unfair.

Chapter Thirteen: Big Orange Ball

Emory has got to be the most adorable, infuriating woman Tony’s ever spent time around. Though he has to hand it to her, she’s gotten the last word and done it in a way that means her powers are useful to him even when she’s insensate. The canteen is frozen solid, and after he’s rubbed warmth back into her fingers, Tony rips off one of the gauzy flutters of fabric from her outfit and ties it to the thing so he can drape it around his neck. There’s just enough fabric to stop it from feeling too cold, and the condensation moisture feels fantastic.

After some swearing and repositioning, Tony gets Emory’s unconscious body up onto his shoulders like she’s an overgrown child riding piggyback, and starts walking again.

“When you wake up I’m going to figure out some truly inventive ways you can make this up to me,” he tells her.

He can hear her laugh, in his mind. He needs to hear it again for real.

The water around his neck has warmed to his body temperature by the time he hears helicopters. Tony’s relief saps most of the rest of his strength, and he lands on his knees to watch his best friend run towards him.

“How was the ‘Fun-Vee?’” Rhodey asks.

All Tony can do is smile and hug him.

Emory wakes in a bed so comfortable that she’s initially worried that she’s dead and in heaven. When she goes to open her eyes, though, the bright light actually hurts, which doesn’t quite track with that conclusion. She tries to reach up and cover her eyes so she can ease the transition, but she can’t. There’s some kind of strap holding her arm down. She only has a small amount of movement, maybe just enough to prevent her from waking up from the tightness of the restraint? Her mind races-- Is this the cave again, but with a spotlight shining down on her, just like during Tony’s surgery? What kind of surgery would she need? Who could be performing it?

How much time does she have to figure it out?

A machine starts to beep, and Emory almost groans. Her fear has doubled her heart rate, and that has warned her captors.

“Woah, woah, you’re okay,” a woman’s voice says in unaccented English. “You’re okay.” The light goes out, and a cool hand touches her forehead. “Let’s sit you up, all right?”

Emory shakes her head almost on instinct. She doesn’t want her situation to change, she doesn’t want to see where she is. All she wants--

“Tony? Where’s Tony Stark? Is he--”

“He’s safe, you’re safe,” the same voice assures her. There’s the sound of velcro releasing a few seconds before she feels the restraint around her right arm shake, then come free. That’s important, Emory thinks to herself. Someone who uses a wide, long stretch of velcro does it because they don’t want that velcro to come loose easily. She listens for a second, similar sound to no avail. Carefully, her eyes still closed, Emory lifts her right hand with no resistance. She rubs her face with it and moves her left hand lightly, briefly; the strap holding it down stops her from moving far.

Whoever this friendly-sounding woman is, she wants Emory to remain partially restrained.

It’s with that knowledge that Emory opens her eyes.

She’s not in a cave, which is a plus. The room looks ‘hospital adjacent,’ but there are subtle differences that tell her that it’s either military or private. There’s a nurse standing nearby in scrubs, with a nametag reading K. Harris. Her smile is polite but distant, and something about her body language puts Emory’s guard up. The woman seems like she’s prepared for pushback, though, honestly, she should be, considering that one of Emory’s wrists is still tied down.

“Where am I?” Emory asks. Her throat doesn’t hurt and she’s not thirsty, but what has her really concerned is the fact that when she touches her face, her skin isn’t sore. She definitely got sunburned during their escape and subsequent walk through the desert. That sort of thing doesn’t heal quickly. “How long have I been unconscious?” she gasps, inwardly wincing when she realizes she should have kept that question in reserve. It’s a tell, a hint to whoever this ‘K. Harris’ is that Emory’s aware something’s not right.

Her thoughts are caught in a runaway reaction, each conclusion colliding with various fears in her mind, triggering a physical reaction that builds until her skin is barely holding her together. She’s not a person anymore, she’s a loose collection of fears and worst-case scenarios, and the governing conclusion is that something is wrong.

The blonde nurse steps up to the bed and takes her free hand. “I’m your nurse. My name is Kate. You’ve been through a lot, I hear,” she says gently. “Right now you’re in a medical facility. The US forces involved in your rescue had you moved here due to dehydration and a dangerous electrolyte imbalance.” She rolls her eyes up and makes a little face that looks like it’s supposed to read like she’s glossing over a lot of medical terminology that would be hard to explain. “Let’s just say they saw some signs that were concerning, and decided to keep you out for the flight back, pump you full of the good stuff.”

“What day is it?” Emory asks. Nurse Kate’s expression sharpens into a keen sort of interest.

“What day was it when you escaped?” she asks. The sympathetic camaraderie has completely dropped away, probably because Emory hadn’t seemed to buy it anyway.

“Fair enough,” Emory says without answering. “What’s with the restraints?”

Kate offers her a thin smile, letting go of her hand so she can examine the IV pole. To Emory, this reads as a subtle reminder of their power imbalance. She looks more closely at the woman, notes the way she holds herself. Her build reads more like an athlete than a healthcare worker. Is this because Emory’s trained herself to be frightened and suspicious after months in captivity, or are all these subtle signs of danger she’s picking up real?

Out of habit, Emory tries to brush her hair back with her left hand, and all of her self-doubt melts back away.

“There were some anomalies in your blood tests. It’s just a precaution.”

What would Tony do, in this situation? Emory asks herself. The first thing on the list would probably be to make sure he had two hands with which to do the second thing.

“Is that what this is? A precaution?” she asks, yanking upwards with her left hand before seeking out the velcro and tearing it open with her free hand. “Just like the CIA operative in the room with me, and the lack of windows?”

“The CIA doesn’t deal with domestic threats, Miss Autumn,” Fake Nurse Kate Harris says coolly.

Emory hears Tony’s voice in her head. ‘She’s underestimating you.’ She wishes she could have his confidence, but then again, everyone probably does. ‘So FAKE it,’ she hears next. ‘She’s telling on herself. Drop some hints of your own.’

All of this is just her brain’s coping mechanism, she knows, but it’s working. Too bad her fear about what’s going on is blocking any power generation she might have access to via thoughts of Tony.

That’s something she can practice to overcome, if she has to.

“So I went from terrorist hostage to domestic threat in the space of a day or so?” Emory asks, adjusting her pillows and sitting up as best she can. This covers the way she’s trembling, after saying something so provocative. “That doesn’t sound very realistic. Then again, far be it from me to question the experts.” She lifts her chin and folds her hands in her lap. “I demand to speak to whomever’s in charge, please, and to see Mr. Stark.”

‘Nurse Kate’ smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “‘Demand’ is such a strong word for someone in your condition!”

Emory steels herself inside, mentally donning a version of Tony’s hand-made armor. “I don’t think my condition matters all that much. I think what matters is what you believe your condition might be if I don’t get my way.”

It’s a complete bluff. Emory doesn’t have any idea how long it’ll take for her to prompt the kind of energy generation she’d need to fight someone with actual combat skills. As she’d said the words, though, she’d been thinking about Tony’s attitude when the terrorists had come to kill her. Knowing him as she does now, he never would have let them touch her without doing everything possible to fight back, even if it had been hopeless. Before trying that and possibly failing at it, though, he’d fronted, playing on their assumptions.

Agent-Nurse Kate’s reaction confirms Emory’s suspicions; whoever is holding her here knows she’s got some kind of mutation or abilities, and they’re scared of them.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

If Tony had known that the process of being rescued would separate him from Emory for so long, he would have thrown his influence around more to prevent that from happening. It had happened so gradually, in ways that could be attributed to red tape and miscommunication, that by the time he realized that he didn’t actually know where she was , it had been over a day and a half.

The medics in the first chopper had needed space to revive and care for her, so he and Rhodey had taken the second one. After landing, Tony was seen to by a separate medical team who determined his arm would need minor surgery. That had taken him to the next morning, when he had been told that due to her condition (which was not described clearly, in retrospect), Emory’s flight had left for New York already. Rhodey had then told him that the plan was for her to be treated in NYC and the two of them would meet up with her for the flight back to California.

They are over Pennsylvania when he realizes they’ve overshot that plan. They’re on an empty cargo plane, and though there’s a seat empty beside him, Rhodey is on the other side of the fuselage. Tony’s arm is in a sling and hurts like hell, but he unbuckles and walks over. Rhodes looks up from the file he’s been paging through, a wary expression on his face that pisses Tony off, stripping away any politeness.

“Turn the plane around.”

Rhodey closes the file and carefully puts it inside the briefcase beside him before he answers. “Tony--”

“I’m serious. We left someone behind.”

“Sit down and buckle up, will you? Stane and your board will be out for blood if you get more hurt on the return flight than your entire time in captivity.”

“Not until you tell me where Emory Autumn is. I’d also like a detailed report of her physical condition and a clear answer about when I can see her.”

“You in love with this girl?” Rhodes asks. It’s perceptive, but unfair.

“How long was I gone?” Tony demands, holding Rhodey’s gaze with absolutely no self-consciousness. This interrogation is not going to end the way the other man thinks it will.

“Answer the question!”

“You first!”

“Just under three months. Don’t you think the woman deserves a break from anything and anyone that might remind her of what she went through?”

“Come on, Lieutenant Colonel!” Tony snaps. “Of all the people to lecture me on the wisdom of leaving someone behind, it’s you, in your profession? There were three of us in that cave, and only two of us got out. Now you’re trying to tell me I should be fine with half-assing the rest of the rescue because the only other person left might be tired of my face? Bullshit.”

The plane starts to bank and he almost loses his footing. Rhodes reaches out and drags Tony into the seat beside him, reaching across to grab the buckle and slamming the pieces together. It turns out that he isn’t actually buckled either, and the pieces he’d tried to connect were the same. Tony can’t help himself. He cracks up.

“Goddamnit, Tony, can you be serious for once in your miserable life?” Rhodey complains, but he’s struggling to keep a straight face, too.

“You should know by now that the answer is no,” Tony says, batting his hand away and grabbing the correct belt end. Ostentatiously, he holds the two up with his good hand, loosening them so they’re easily visible, and connects them. “Sometimes, two people just fit. You know that. We fit. Doesn’t have to be romantic,” he says after tightening the belt, nudging his friend with his elbow. “Would you want me to shrug and assume you were fine after the military docs got ahold of you?” Reaching across his friend’s lap, Tony grabs the opposite end of his buckle and connects them despite the pain from his arm, grabbing the slack so he can haul on it. Rhodey snatches it free just in time.

“No. But you can’t deny what it looks like.”

Tony looks him straight in the face. “What does it look like?” It’s not that he doesn’t know, but he wants to hear what Rhodey will say. It’ll help him figure out how to frame the PR fallout from his plans.

“‘Tony Stark Can’t Even Get Kidnapped Without a Side Piece,’” Rhodes says, laying out the words with one hand in the air like he’s pitching the article title. Tony winces.

“It wasn’t like that, it--” Tony starts to protest, but then he stops in horrified realization. After what they’d had to pretend, to trick the terrorists into keeping her alive…

“What?”

“Fuck, it was worse. I can’t-- Look, the truth is, she hated me when we were first in there. I thought she was…” he trails off. He’d thought she was beautiful. He’d wanted her. There’s no way to tell this story that doesn’t sound exactly like the salacious headline Rhodey thinks it is. “We both changed our minds. She’s important to me.”

“How important?”

“Rhodey!” He’d never thought of Rhodes as a gossip.

“Listen to me, Tony,” Rhodey says, turning in the seat and reaching out a hand to grip his shoulder. “You’re asking me to stick my neck out, and I need to know exactly how far.”

He doesn’t hesitate to answer, this time. “All the way.”

“You’re--”

“I need her in my life, James,” Tony says. He’s used Rhodey’s given name precious few times in their lives, only ever at deathly serious moments. This is one of them.

Rhodey squeezes his shoulder and reaches down to unbuckle himself. “All I needed to hear.” He gets up, taking the briefcase with him, and heads for the cockpit.

Tony leans back against the wall of the airplane behind him and tips his head up. Instinct tells him that the injections are behind the strange roadblocks to knowing exactly where Emory is, and maybe even Rhodey’s odd behavior. Until someone comes right out and tells him that they know she’s got unexplainable powers, though, he’s keeping them to himself. That means lying to his best friend, even at a moment when he’s asking that friend to put his career on the line to push back against any possible orders regarding Emory Autumn.

He hopes she’s okay. They haven’t spent any time farther than a hundred feet from each other for 88 days, and her absence makes his heart ache. Tony rubs at the skin beside his ARC reactor, through his shirt. He’d done his best to conceal that, too, but he’d told Rhodey and the medics that it was simply a powerful magnet to protect his heart from shrapnel.

Only three people on the planet knew how powerful an energy source it is, and one of those three is now dead. He’s too worried about Emory to be able to properly mourn Yinsen, but that time will come, Tony knows. He shuts his eyes against the slicing guilt of not having been able to protect either of them from undue influence and unreasonable demands.

The next thing Tony knows, Rhodey’s shaking him awake, and they’re landing.

“The man I spoke to in New York says that her plane should have landed by now, and they’re going to send her to meet your vehicle,” his friend whispers in his ear as they get up and wait for the huge rear door to unfold.

“How credible did he sound?” Tony asks.

“Not very,” Rhodey admits.

He sighs. “Great.” As the doors open, Tony can see that there are two people, a man and a woman, standing next to each other in front of one of his cars. The upper door’s slow swing shows that the two are holding hands, lifting more to reveal that they’re looking at each other with no small amount of emotion before the man steps away, moving around the woman to open the driver’s side door and get in.

Tony’s both stunned and oddly comforted by the unexpected scene, but it shakes him enough that Rhodey feels the need to help him walk down the ramp. It doesn’t sting his ego (though he demurs when some actual paramedics walk up with a stretcher), but he regrets leaning into that as an explanation for his momentary physical weakness when he sees Pepper Potts’s face.

“Your eyes are red,” he says sternly, hoping she doesn’t guess that he’d seen her Moment with Happy. “Tears for your long-lost boss?”

Pepper’s smile lifts his spirits. “Tears of joy,” she teases. “I hate job hunting.”

“Yeah, well. Vacation’s over,” he says, starting for the car. Intellectually he knows that Emory won’t be in there, based on Rhodey’s reaction to his question about credibility. That doesn’t make him less anxious to know for sure, though.

Rhodey opens the door for him, and Tony gets in, miraculously not jostling his arm. “Who’s responsible for the delay, do you think? Military? Someone else? Someone who needs Stark Industries on their side?” he asks his friend.

Rhodes sighs. “Someone else is my guess. And yes.”

“Good. Tell them to switch on their TV in about an hour or so.”

Next chapter, Emory wakes up as a new kind of prisoner, and Tony sets out to piss off everyone around him till he gets what he wants.

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