Battle Scars {An Iron Man FanFic}

Chapter 38: Might As Well Be

A/n: This is dedicated to @xx_StarkStruck_xx, an old reader of mines :)

. : ☼ : .

Chapter 38: Might As Well Be

Andy POV

I wiped the back of my hand over my sweating forehead as I looked up and saw Tony hard at work. He was sweating profusely, clad in only a black muscle shirt and gray sweats. We had gotten to work since the early morning, both unable to sleep and eager to get our hands dirty. He was pounding down heavily on a piece of metal and then going over to a holographic diagram of our project and typing in complicated configurations with delicate fingers. I paused in my work, shaving off layers of the gold titanium alloy with an incredibly hot chisel like tool.

"You... alright... there?" he asked as he continued to beat down the flaps of alloy. Jarvis could have taken this to the construction room easily, assembly it all with robotics, but we just couldn't pass up the chance. He had asked me if I wanted to build a suit.

"Yeah" I said breathlessly, looking around the lab room. It was crazy how all of his complex contraptions could be in the same vicinity as all this hot work.

"Still thinking of your name?" he asked, breathing heavily as he placed down the mallet.

"Uh huh" I said, walking over to him and wiping my sweaty hands on my black pants. I was wearing a black muscle shirt like him and a green tie I had found in place of a bandana, to keep my hair back. In the end, I looked like some strange Rambo impersonator, I think.

"That part is usually the trickiest" he muttered, drinking heavily from a water bottle. The room was incredibly hot, the alloy needing to be at a high temperature to be soft enough to work with. Incredibly, tony had set up this closed off space near the back where we were, glowing walls entrapping us so as to keep the heat in and away from all his expensive machines. The one he had here, a simple desktop model, was bearing through it but Tony was already complaining for its growing slowness.

"I honestly have no idea, iron girl, iron woman, all like those sounds stupid." I admitted blatantly.

"Well its cause its only stealing the awesome 'iron' out of 'ironman'. Which by the way, I've copyrighted, so don't think about stealing it."

"Right, because I'm going to be called Iron Man from now on" I retorted sarcastically. Tony stepped out away from all the boxes of tools that we left lingering around and came near me. On his way he grabbed a dirty towel and rubbed his hands on it. As he passed by me he whipped the cloth at my back and I flinched.

"Ouch!" I complained a smile on my face. It hadn't really hurt. He merely made a mocking face and then walked over to the edge of the wall.

"Jarvis, shut off the incinerator and disable insulated defensive barriers" he said while still gasping for air. As soon as the walls went up and relatively cool air hit us, I felt dizzy.

"Well that's a shock" Tony said as he shook his head and then walked forward, as if it weren't a big deal. I tried imitating the same and managed to do so successfully, but my body suddenly ached.

"Alright kid, progress is going slow and we have plans tonight" he said determinedly.

"We do?" I asked, oblivious.

"Yeah, so go upstairs. Take a nap or whatever, and be ready by 6" he demanded and then Dummy and other robotic hands reached for the alloy we had worked on and started to take them who knows where. I nodded slowly in agreement and moved slowly to the door. Just as I opened it, I heard Jarvis say there was an incoming call from some Mr. with a weird last name. As the strange name buzzed through my tired brain, I trudged upstairs slowly and managed to make it to my bed before collapsing.