Storm ≛ Tony Stark ≛

33.

'Miss Storm! Have you had any contact with Tony Stark?!'

'Miss Storm! What can you say about the destruction of the Stark residence?!'

'Mr Storm! How did you feel when you saw your sister in the same hospital as you?!'

Johnny grabbed the reporter's microphone and burned through the foam top. Sinders fell to the floor and the reporter dropped the handle with a yelp, a spark forming into a small fire. The reporter's camera man rushed to stamp it out while Johnny caught up with Sue. He grabbed the passenger door and opened it, waiting for Sue to step in. Once she did, he got in the backseat with one last glare to the reports that surrounded the car. The wheels screeched and the car left the reporters running after it for even a lick of a news story.

'How are you?' Pepper asked as she drove. 'You still look a little beat up.'

'I'm fine...' Sue mumbled as she looked down at her hands. Scratches and scrapes scabbed over her face and she felt less weak and fatigued. But the uncertainty of Tony's whereabouts was affecting her. She knew he was alive, but what if he was hurt? What if he couldn't get back to Malibu because of his injuries? What if the suit's system malfunctioned?

'And you, Johnny?' Pepper looked in the rear-view mirror to the backseat.

'I'm dandy,' he grinned and leaned forward to speak to her. 'Thanks for the flowers. Didn't know you liked me so much.'

'They were for Sue...'

'Yeah, but I knew they were really for me.'

Pepper rolled her eyes at the playful Storm and Johnny sat back with a smirk on his face. The two were growing to like each other through all the chaos. Pepper went to the hospital a few times to visit Happy and the siblings, and she found Johnny to be charming. He was like Tony in the way of sarcasm and narcissistic comments, but he showed more of a heart to Pepper. She was sure that Tony did the same to Sue and Sue only, but Johnny had captured her with his lop-sided smirks and curly hair.

The car rolled up the long driveway and stopped at the small roundabout that once held a water feature. Once it was parked, all three of them stepped out to the barren cliffside. Nothing was left of the Stark mansion. There was rubble sitting in random places, the rest was at the bottom of the ocean. All of Tony's luxurious possessions were gone and the man himself was nowhere.

Sue walked to the edge of the cliff and looked over. The ocean was undisturbed with its depths containing sportscars and advanced technology from the house. Chunks of the cliff had been taken out from the falling debris, but everything lay intact. The land under the house was flat and bare. It hurt Sue to think of everything that happened in that house, and how it was all gone.

She met Tony for the first time in the workshop and he had thrown a screwdriver at her. He created her suit and displayed it alongside his own in the house. She saw his downfall from the invasion in New York in the workshop and was attacked by a rogue suit in the kitchen. Some memories were bad, but most were good.

Pepper and Johnny stood next to car. They gave her time to look over the damage and take a moment to breathe in the fresh air. It was upsetting for Pepper to see the house gone. She was Tony's assistant for over ten years and had been there through everything. When he promoted her to CEO of Stark Industries, she spent less and less time at the house. But she was glad that Sue was there to keep him in line at least to the point of keeping him sane. But Tony was gone, and the house was no more.

'I'm going to drive Maya Hansen home tonight,' Pepper said to Johnny while they waited. 'What could possibly have been so important that she would turn up to the house like that?'