Kidnapped

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Pepper averted her eyes, folding her arms behind her head to shield herself from the debris raining from the ceiling. When she hesitantly peeked through her squinted eyelids, she was ecstatic to see the hulking figure of War Machine standing on a mound of rubble, swiftly glancing from the armed thugs to Tony's unconscious figure. When the black-clad men finally regained their senses and finally began to fire at him, he was all too happy to return the favor, his repulsors humming with energy before he aimed and took fire.

Pepper instinctively kicked back into survival mode as gunshots and lasers whizzed past her head. She crawled over to Tony, wincing as she felt a pang run through her sprained ankle, laying him flat on the ground and wrapping her arms around his chest, half-pulling, half-dragging him under the desk, away from the gunshots where a stray bullet could mean death. As she cradled the unconscious inventor in her arms, Pepper felt her eyes burning as she felt her heart bursting with hope at the arrival of her friend. Now they had a chance... She buried her head against his chest and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the sound of firing to end.

Rhodey fought with all he had, brown eyes blazing as he punched and fired and kicked, repulsed that these men were the cause of his best friend's-his brother's- current condition. For once he could almost see the way Tony did when it came to his friends; although he was usually one to keep cool, he wanted nothing more than to cause these men the same pain that the inventor had gone through.

After what seemed like an eternity, only one opponent was left on his feet in the room. Rhodey snorted as he watched his eyes widen in terror before he high-tailed it out of there, nearly tripping over the unconscious body of one of his accomplices by the door, the teen not bothering to chase him. He was probably going straight to his boss, but it didn't matter as they undoubtedly already knew of the security breach. Replacements were probably already on their way now to take him down.

As soon as he caught sight of a familiar redhead peeking timidly out from under the desk against the wall, her cheeks smeared with dried blood, all of the adrenaline from the fight he had been engaged in vanished, replaced by a freezing, biting anxiety for his friends. His faceplate slid back, revealing his distraught expression as he dropped to his knees, watching as Pepper pulled his friend from beneath the desk. He felt his insides squirm as he saw his best friend's mangled, bloody shape. His face, neck, arms and chest, and really anywhere not concealed by his shredded clothes hanging on his limp frame were smeared with blood, and in some places it seemed as if his skin had simply been burned away. Welts and deep cuts marked his arms, which were so caked with blood it seemed as though someone had poured a bucket of red paint on them, and his left leg seemed to be broken. Rhodey could only stare in horror for a moment before he realized the clock was still ticking on his heart. He slid the backpack off of his arm by the straps, handing it to Pepper.

"Get it on him. I can't, my armor's too clunky."

Pepper nodded enthusiastically, her matted red hair whipping around crazily, and she knelt over the inventor and carefully slid Tony's bruised and battered arms into the straps of the backpack, favoring her left arm, as blood was gushing from her right shoulder. She connected them over his chest with a clink and pressed the button, and almost immediately the armor began engulfing his body with the metallic clangs of metal meeting metal, encasing first his chest, then his arms and legs, and then finally his face. After a moment, the helmet and arms and legs retracted, leaving only the chest plate covering his torso. Pepper and Rhodey watched with anticipation, hoping against all odds that the armor would be sufficient enough to keep his heart going. They breathed a sigh of relief when a small moan escaped Tony's bloodied lips as warmth spread through his chest and into his body, rejuvenating his aching limbs and chest. Rhodey sat back on his knees, closing his eyes for a moment in relief, only to jerk in surprise as he felt Pepper fly into him, hugging him as best as she could in his bulky armor.

"I-I thought w-we were going to d-die," Pepper hiccupped, her cheeks damp with tears. Rhodey only loosely hugged her back, not wanting to crush her hope by saying they weren't free yet, or that Tony was still in critical condition.

"Yeah, well, not yet," Rhodey mumbled, gently pushing her back. He stared into her eyes, grim determination meeting hopefulness. "But this isn't over yet. We need to get out of here, and Tony can't take any more fighting. I think that I might be able to create a diversion-"

"You're leaving us alone again?" Pepper cried, the terror evident in her voice. But-but he'd just gotten there! He couldn't leave them now, what if something happened to Tony and she couldn't save him?

"Pepper," Rhodey whispered gently, comfortingly, "you'll be fine. I'm just going to distract them while you and Tony escape."

Pepper closed her eyes for a moment, trying to picture sweet, sweet freedom, which was beginning to seem like a foreign concept, in her mind's eye. She didn't like this, but did she have a choice? "O-okay."

"Good. Now let's see what we can do about your arm."

IMAAIMAAIMAAIMAAIMAAIMAA

He was alive. Why was he alive? He shouldn't be alive.

The metallic taste and scent of blood was all that he could smell and taste, and his limbs ached terribly as though he had taken a plunge off of a thirteen-story building. The air was shockingly freezing meeting his nearly bare chest, as most of his red shirt was in tatters and barely hanging on his lanky frame, turning the blood on his skin to ice. And his heart... His heart felt as though it was slowly, agonizingly, being ripped from his ribcage. Although it wasn't as awful as before, it still was enough to make him nauseous and dizzy from the pain of it all.

Tony's thoughts were jumbled, fragmentary, making little-to-no sense. He could feel the hard metal of the chest plate of the Iron Man armor cocooning his chest, but how did it get there? Whose voice was that he heard besides Pepper's? Was Pepper okay? Why was he not dead?

He felt Pepper's cool touch on his forearm, and he instinctively relaxed as he heard her murmur reassuringly in his ear. He wanted to force himself to full consciousness, help out in some way, figure out what was happening, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to move more than a foot without collapsing. He was close enough to death as it was.

He closed his eyes, drifting off to the sound of Pepper's voice and the feel of her warm hand entwining with his own trembling one.