Fic: Iron & Irony: Second Encounters, chapter 3/10
Title: Iron & Irony: Second Encounters
Author: Veldeia
Fandom: Iron Man/House MD
Series: Sequel to Iron & Irony. (Has nothing whatsoever to do with Malt & Mockery.)
Spoilers: Late season 4 for House, but before the finale, so nothing big. Spoils all of Iron Man and Iron & Irony, of course.
Pairings: Tony/Pepper
Rating: PG-13
Beta: btsxbeta <3
Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing, except for a messed up mind that likes playing with other people's characters and universes.
Summary: Working for a superhero is dangerous business. When House and Pepper get kidnapped, they learn this the hard way. Of course, the part of the hero who needs to find and rescue them isn't all that easy, either.
3. "I need to do something!"
Tony had just landed on the roof of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s California headquarters - a remarkably unremarkable building, the rooftop helipad about the only detail that was even remotely interesting - when he got the day's second phone call. It came from Rhodey. Again, Tony answered with a "What?" in his most annoyed tone.
"Happy called me, I was just wondering if I -"
"The best thing you could do right now would be to leave me alone. I'm taking this to S.H.I.E.L.D., they've got better resources for this sort of stuff than I do."
"Not that I want to depress you or anything, but I'm not sure they'll be that eager to help. As far as we know, this could be just a regular missing person case."
"They're going to take the case," Tony said grimly. He didn't see the need to argue that further.
"All right, fine, if you say so. I sure wouldn't want to be in their shoes right now. But hey, Tony, really, if there's anything..."
"Yeah, yeah." Tony hung up.
Rhodey's prediction turned out entirely accurate. Tony marched into Coulson's office, and the first thing the agent said was that he should contact the regular police. Putting to use all his skill and his considerable force of personality, Tony argued that he couldn't do that, because this was a superhero problem, and as such, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s problem.
Coulson replied like a true politician, going around in circles, neither promising nor denying anything. He knew Pepper, and Tony could see that he wanted to help, but all his professional instincts were against it. He wanted Tony to turn to all other possible alternatives first, even though it was a fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. had better resources than anyone else in the country, partially thanks to Tony himself.
He wasn't going to waste his - and more importantly Pepper's - time in such totally useless, pointless bullshit. He grabbed Coulson by the shirtfront, lifted him in the air and put him literally up against the wall. "I've done so much to help S.H.I.E.L.D. already, it's about time you did something for me! I'm not going to listen to this crap. You will do anything in your power to find her, and that's it. Otherwise, our cooperation's over, for good."
The damn thing about these S.H.I.E.L.D. agents was that they were incredibly difficult to intimidate. Even pinned to the wall, faced with Iron Man in all his menacing red-and-gold glory, Coulson looked only slightly uncomfortable. He gave Tony an emotionless half-smile, and said, "Yes, I'll do what I can. Believe me, I want to find her as bad as you do. It's just not that easy."
Tony felt like he was seconds away from going berserk and blasting holes in the wall. If he were the Hulk, he'd have turned huge and green already. He dropped Coulson on the floor, gently enough that the agent was able to stay on his feet. Then, he ignited his thrusters and shot out through the nearest window.
He pushed the suit as high as it would go, and stayed up there, just floating around, staring at the dream-like skyscape around him, trying to calm down enough that he'd be able to come up with some kind of a plan of action. Finally, he called Rhodey and asked him to pull any and all possible strings, to claim that this was a threat to national security or whatever, to get them to search for Pepper too. Then he called Happy, and asked him to go to Pepper's place, and start interviewing the neighborhood to find out if they'd noticed anything out of the usual.
Tony headed to Pepper's place as well, and got there before Happy. No matter how carefully he scanned the surroundings, he found absolutely nothing unusual. Pepper's car was parked in the driveway, her front gate was closed, and the house seemed empty. As much as Tony wanted to blast his way through the front door and start searching the house for clues, he decided against it. It'd rid the S.H.I.E.L.D. people of any chance of finding clues.
Unable to think of anything he could actually do, Tony returned home and got out of the suit. He was surprised to learn that it was only early afternoon. He desperately wanted to do something useful. Just sitting and waiting would drive him nuts in no time. He felt like calling through all possible contacts to ask for their help, but he knew it wouldn't be wise, since he wanted to keep this from going public.
He tried to concentrate on the suits. He had a few new ideas for his own, and Rhodey's armor - silver-and-black, with the working title of War Machine - could still use some fine tuning. But concentrating was difficult for more than one reason. He kept being interrupted by phone calls. It was no longer his friends calling about Pepper, but some of the people he'd been supposed to meet, complaining about the abrupt cancellations with no mention of rescheduling. He ignored half the calls, and when he did answer, he needed a huge amount of self-restraint not to make things worse by insulting the callers or just plain hanging up on them in the middle of things. He wished he could've just turned off his phone, but he couldn't do that, because sooner or later, someone would have to call with news about Pepper.
The day went on, but there were no news. He stayed in his shop until midnight, when Jarvis started complaining that he should get some sleep. Tired of the AI's nagging, Tony took the Roadster out for a ride.
Once he got back a few hours and at least a dozen moving violations later, he told Jarvis to shut up and continued working. Still no calls about Pepper.
He must've fallen asleep at some point, because for the second time in as many days, he woke up in his shop. This time, he was lying on the cold floor, feeling so sore that it was almost as if he'd just returned from a mission. He definitely needed a shower, and he couldn't even remember when he'd last had anything to eat.
Pepper had gone missing on Saturday evening, and Jarvis informed Tony that it was Tuesday now. She'd been gone for two whole days, and he was a complete wreck. If his friends had felt like this when he'd been stuck in Afghanistan, he couldn't even begin to understand how they were still sane.
The day's first phone call came just after he'd woken up, at 7AM - and from an entirely unexpected direction.
"Mr. Stark? This is Lisa Cuddy, from Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. I heard the news about your assistant's disappearance. This may be far-fetched and completely unrelated, but I just thought you might be interested: House is missing as well."
House would rather have been stuck with Stark himself than with the man's assistant. Her constant concerned stare was incredibly annoying. There was nothing she could do to help him, and being worried wouldn't change that. Besides, House knew she didn't even like him. It was hypocritical of her to try and seem so anxious, when she really didn't feel that way.
He was almost glad he didn't have a watch. The flight was obviously a long one, hours and hours - intercontinental, by the feel of it. The waiting wasn't made any easier by the mild but constant nausea and the slowly worsening pain in his leg.
They quickly ran out of anything to say, and ended up just sitting on the floor, staring at the walls, or each other, like she did almost all the time.
When the background hum finally changed and the floor tilted, clearly signaling that they were about to land, House actually felt relieved, even though he knew that they were most likely going out of the frying pan into the blazing inferno.
Not long after they had touched down, the door opened, and a group of thugs in generic black uniforms came to take House and the girl out of their prison. Since House had trouble walking on his own, two of them grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and half-dragged him across the floor.
"If you idiots gave me back my meds and my cane, you'd save yourself a lot of trouble," House groaned to his captors. They could've been mute and deaf for all the attention he got.
The cronies no longer wore hoods, but seeing their faces told House absolutely nothing. They were a mixed bunch - House thought he could see at least European, Asian and Middle-Eastern features. No clues from languages, either, since they weren't speaking.
House was too busy struggling to stay on his feet to get a very good idea of what the rest of the plane looked like. There was a bigger room which was stocked with crates, then a smaller room with a hatch and a set of stairs leading out. There was a van waiting for them right at the foot of the stairs. The cronies threw House and the secretary girl in there, and slammed the door shut. So much for figuring out where they were - all House had seen was the landing strip. At least the bright sunlight coming from right above them had revealed the time of the day: around noon.
Then, they were moving and waiting again, now in an even smaller space that was completely dark.
"I never knew getting kidnapped would be this boring," House said.
"You can't even walk because your leg hurts so much and you call that boring?"
"Pain doesn't make things interesting. It just makes them painful."
"I wish there was something I..."
"Oh shut up, you don't really mean that."
She was smart enough to actually stay silent and let House suffer in peace.
The ride grew bumpier as it progressed, but at least the trip was mercifully short compared to the endless stay in the plane. House knew his sense of time was completely off thanks to jet lag, but he was prepared to bet it took less than an hour. Then, they were taken out of the van.
They found themselves in a huge, hall-like garage - House could see several military-style trucks and jeeps. Again, the as-good-as mute guards grabbed House and hauled him forwards, with the assistant girl walking in front of them, two cronies close by her sides. They were led through a series of corridors, stone-walled tunnels excavated into rock, some of them lined with metal, and they even went several stories up in an elevator.
Finally, they reached the end of their very long road. The cronies pushed House and Miss P. into a small room, and closed the thick steel door behind them. He fell heavily on one of the two bunks, curling up and grasping his thigh. He couldn't remember when it'd last felt this bad.
"The hotel's really nice and the natives seem friendly, but I think I'd like to go home now," he muttered.
The headline read "Iron Mystery? Stark's Secretary Missing". The page-long article included comments from an unnamed worker at Los Angeles International Airport, and from some of the secretary's neighbors, who claimed that someone working for Stark had interviewed them about the case. There was also a list of several sightings of Iron Man during the previous day. From these clues, the author had come to the conclusion that Miss Potts had disappeared and Stark was looking for her.
"It's quite a coincidence if this is unrelated," Wilson told Cuddy, looking up from the newspaper she had given him. "We know that House was doing some work for Stark, after all."
"That's what Stark thought, too," Cuddy said. "I've already called him, and he's on his way. He should arrive at around two."
"Thanks for letting me know," Wilson said, and folded up the paper.
Cuddy left his office, and Wilson had to get to work, as hard as it was to concentrate at the moment. He'd been worried to begin with, afraid that House had done something stupid, or gotten into an accident, but this raised things to a whole new level. If House had really been captured by Stark's enemies, who knew what sort of trouble he was in. Sure, House was resourceful, and no doubt would annoy his captors out of their wits, but he was no superhero.
It wasn't exactly a good thing to have a constant worried expression on one's face when one needed to give people life-and-death news. "I'm happy to tell you the operation was a success" somehow had a little less weight when it was said in a clearly distracted manner, and "I'm afraid the mass was malignant" sounded even more like a death sentence than it should.
Wilson ended up rescheduling the last few hours of his day. He didn't like doing it, but he saw no other way. At quarter to two, he walked to Cuddy's office, to find that Stark was already there - or not exactly Stark, but Iron Man, in full armor, although he had the faceplate open. He was accompanied by a man Wilson had never seen, a blond youngster with round glasses, wearing a suit and a bow tie.
"I don't think you've met? Mr. Stark, this is Doctor Wilson, a close friend of Doctor House. Wilson, Mr. Stark," Cuddy made the introductions routinely, as unnecessary as they were when it came to Iron Man. Then, she nodded at the young man. "And this is special agent Sitwell, of..."
"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division," Sitwell recited. "Pleased to meet you, Doctor Wilson," he said, and shook Wilson's hand energetically. "From now on, I'll be in charge of the investigation concerning Doctor House's disappearance."
"But we already called the police and reported him missing," Wilson said.
"Ah, you did? We'll, that won't be a problem, we'll contact them and find out what they've already done," Sitwell told him, with a somewhat nervous sideways glance at Iron Man.
"So, what've you got?" Stark asked, looking from Cuddy to Wilson.
"Not much, I'm afraid," Cuddy said.
"The last time anyone saw House was when I was out with him last Saturday night. He gave me a ride home, and after that, no one knows. His car was parked in front of his place, so it seems he got back there at some point. He left a note in his car, saying that he may have been kidnapped," Wilson explained.
"Well, where is it?" Stark said, as if expecting that someone would hand the note to him right away.
"We gave it to the police, of course," Wilson said.
"Oh, great. Maybe you should've -"
"It's all right, Mr. Stark, we can get it from them," Sitwell said quickly. "Look, there really isn't much you can do here - no offense, sir, but this is a detective mission, and you're not exactly the best choice for something that calls for subtlety."
"Damn it, I need to do something!" Stark exclaimed.
Wilson could imagine Stark felt exactly like he did at the moment. Looking at the lines of worry on Stark's face and the bags under his eyes that spoke clearly of too little sleep, Wilson felt like he was facing a mirror.
Stark flipped down his faceplate and stormed out of the room.
"Um... I..." Sitwell stuttered, looking after him. "I'm sorry. Superheroes, you know. They tend to be a bit temperamental."
"Don't worry, Mr. Sitwell. I understand perfectly," Wilson said.
Their cell wasn't actually as bad as Pepper might've expected - it was almost comfortable. They had two bunks with thin mattresses, enough space that she could pace to and fro, and a sink and a hole-in-the-floor toilet in a niche in the back wall, with a plastic curtain for privacy. Of course, there was also a surveillance camera in the ceiling.
House was currently crouched over the toilet, throwing up.
Pepper paced on, her arms crossed. House was outright refusing any help. On the one hand, he kept downplaying his problems, on the other, he complained a lot. Of course, the truth was that there was nothing she could actually do for him, but it still made her angry that he claimed her compassion was phony. Sure, she didn't exactly like him, but she couldn't watch anyone suffer like that without feeling some sympathy.
Suddenly, the door was flung wide open. Pepper froze.
Three men entered the room, two of them obviously the bodyguards of the third one. He was a short, bald man with mixed features, maybe half-Asian, half-European. He was dressed in a dark blue suit, against which the heavy golden ring in his right middle finger stood out clearly.
"Sorry, could you wait a while, I'm not done here yet," House mumbled from where he was, his back towards the door.
"Ah, Doctor House. Enchanté. And Miss Potts. Welcome to my humble home. My name is Liu," the bald bad guy said, his voice pleasant, with a refined British accent. He reached out a hand to take Pepper's, but she didn't give it to him. "No need to be afraid, I'm not going to harm you. I have no need to."
"Fine, then you can give me back my meds, because you're already harming me," House said, now facing the cronies. He was sitting on the floor, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"I'm afraid we don't have them, but don't worry, unless you choose to cooperate, a painful leg will soon be the least of your problems."
"Torture us all you want, we won't tell you anything!" Pepper exclaimed. She thought she sounded far braver than she felt. She knew what Tony had gone through in Afghanistan, and she had no idea whether she'd be able to take anything like it.
"Torture you? Oh, no, that would be cruel. No, we'll do no such thing. We're simply going to wait and see. I believe you are familiar with a certain nanovirus? Based on a Brazilian strain of hantavirus? You were both infected, soon after you were captured."
Pepper shivered, pressing her crossed arms tightly against her sides. The nanovirus. Out of all the things the bad guys could've done to them.
"Don't be stupid," House said bluntly, sounding unconcerned. "All your cronies would have it too by now, and so would you."
"Believe me, Doctor House, I'm far from stupid. You see, this is an all-new version - two-point-zero, if you wish. It isn't transmissible from person to person, and is faster-acting. It's also far more deadly than the first one. Stark may have managed to survive the previous strain, even though it was supposed to be lethal in seventy-five percent of cases, but you won't be so lucky. My researchers assure me that this latest strain has a mortality of ninety-five percent. However, there is a cure that will save you. All you need to do is tell us everything you know about Iron Man. Otherwise, within a few days, you will die."
Chapter 4
Author's Note: Not that I'd like to sound whiney, but, um, how about some feedback? To let me know whether anyone's even reading this? Pretty please? *puppydogeyes*
Author: Veldeia
Fandom: Iron Man/House MD
Series: Sequel to Iron & Irony. (Has nothing whatsoever to do with Malt & Mockery.)
Spoilers: Late season 4 for House, but before the finale, so nothing big. Spoils all of Iron Man and Iron & Irony, of course.
Pairings: Tony/Pepper
Rating: PG-13
Beta: btsxbeta <3
Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing, except for a messed up mind that likes playing with other people's characters and universes.
Summary: Working for a superhero is dangerous business. When House and Pepper get kidnapped, they learn this the hard way. Of course, the part of the hero who needs to find and rescue them isn't all that easy, either.
3. "I need to do something!"
Tony had just landed on the roof of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s California headquarters - a remarkably unremarkable building, the rooftop helipad about the only detail that was even remotely interesting - when he got the day's second phone call. It came from Rhodey. Again, Tony answered with a "What?" in his most annoyed tone.
"Happy called me, I was just wondering if I -"
"The best thing you could do right now would be to leave me alone. I'm taking this to S.H.I.E.L.D., they've got better resources for this sort of stuff than I do."
"Not that I want to depress you or anything, but I'm not sure they'll be that eager to help. As far as we know, this could be just a regular missing person case."
"They're going to take the case," Tony said grimly. He didn't see the need to argue that further.
"All right, fine, if you say so. I sure wouldn't want to be in their shoes right now. But hey, Tony, really, if there's anything..."
"Yeah, yeah." Tony hung up.
Rhodey's prediction turned out entirely accurate. Tony marched into Coulson's office, and the first thing the agent said was that he should contact the regular police. Putting to use all his skill and his considerable force of personality, Tony argued that he couldn't do that, because this was a superhero problem, and as such, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s problem.
Coulson replied like a true politician, going around in circles, neither promising nor denying anything. He knew Pepper, and Tony could see that he wanted to help, but all his professional instincts were against it. He wanted Tony to turn to all other possible alternatives first, even though it was a fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. had better resources than anyone else in the country, partially thanks to Tony himself.
He wasn't going to waste his - and more importantly Pepper's - time in such totally useless, pointless bullshit. He grabbed Coulson by the shirtfront, lifted him in the air and put him literally up against the wall. "I've done so much to help S.H.I.E.L.D. already, it's about time you did something for me! I'm not going to listen to this crap. You will do anything in your power to find her, and that's it. Otherwise, our cooperation's over, for good."
The damn thing about these S.H.I.E.L.D. agents was that they were incredibly difficult to intimidate. Even pinned to the wall, faced with Iron Man in all his menacing red-and-gold glory, Coulson looked only slightly uncomfortable. He gave Tony an emotionless half-smile, and said, "Yes, I'll do what I can. Believe me, I want to find her as bad as you do. It's just not that easy."
Tony felt like he was seconds away from going berserk and blasting holes in the wall. If he were the Hulk, he'd have turned huge and green already. He dropped Coulson on the floor, gently enough that the agent was able to stay on his feet. Then, he ignited his thrusters and shot out through the nearest window.
He pushed the suit as high as it would go, and stayed up there, just floating around, staring at the dream-like skyscape around him, trying to calm down enough that he'd be able to come up with some kind of a plan of action. Finally, he called Rhodey and asked him to pull any and all possible strings, to claim that this was a threat to national security or whatever, to get them to search for Pepper too. Then he called Happy, and asked him to go to Pepper's place, and start interviewing the neighborhood to find out if they'd noticed anything out of the usual.
Tony headed to Pepper's place as well, and got there before Happy. No matter how carefully he scanned the surroundings, he found absolutely nothing unusual. Pepper's car was parked in the driveway, her front gate was closed, and the house seemed empty. As much as Tony wanted to blast his way through the front door and start searching the house for clues, he decided against it. It'd rid the S.H.I.E.L.D. people of any chance of finding clues.
Unable to think of anything he could actually do, Tony returned home and got out of the suit. He was surprised to learn that it was only early afternoon. He desperately wanted to do something useful. Just sitting and waiting would drive him nuts in no time. He felt like calling through all possible contacts to ask for their help, but he knew it wouldn't be wise, since he wanted to keep this from going public.
He tried to concentrate on the suits. He had a few new ideas for his own, and Rhodey's armor - silver-and-black, with the working title of War Machine - could still use some fine tuning. But concentrating was difficult for more than one reason. He kept being interrupted by phone calls. It was no longer his friends calling about Pepper, but some of the people he'd been supposed to meet, complaining about the abrupt cancellations with no mention of rescheduling. He ignored half the calls, and when he did answer, he needed a huge amount of self-restraint not to make things worse by insulting the callers or just plain hanging up on them in the middle of things. He wished he could've just turned off his phone, but he couldn't do that, because sooner or later, someone would have to call with news about Pepper.
The day went on, but there were no news. He stayed in his shop until midnight, when Jarvis started complaining that he should get some sleep. Tired of the AI's nagging, Tony took the Roadster out for a ride.
Once he got back a few hours and at least a dozen moving violations later, he told Jarvis to shut up and continued working. Still no calls about Pepper.
He must've fallen asleep at some point, because for the second time in as many days, he woke up in his shop. This time, he was lying on the cold floor, feeling so sore that it was almost as if he'd just returned from a mission. He definitely needed a shower, and he couldn't even remember when he'd last had anything to eat.
Pepper had gone missing on Saturday evening, and Jarvis informed Tony that it was Tuesday now. She'd been gone for two whole days, and he was a complete wreck. If his friends had felt like this when he'd been stuck in Afghanistan, he couldn't even begin to understand how they were still sane.
The day's first phone call came just after he'd woken up, at 7AM - and from an entirely unexpected direction.
"Mr. Stark? This is Lisa Cuddy, from Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. I heard the news about your assistant's disappearance. This may be far-fetched and completely unrelated, but I just thought you might be interested: House is missing as well."
House would rather have been stuck with Stark himself than with the man's assistant. Her constant concerned stare was incredibly annoying. There was nothing she could do to help him, and being worried wouldn't change that. Besides, House knew she didn't even like him. It was hypocritical of her to try and seem so anxious, when she really didn't feel that way.
He was almost glad he didn't have a watch. The flight was obviously a long one, hours and hours - intercontinental, by the feel of it. The waiting wasn't made any easier by the mild but constant nausea and the slowly worsening pain in his leg.
They quickly ran out of anything to say, and ended up just sitting on the floor, staring at the walls, or each other, like she did almost all the time.
When the background hum finally changed and the floor tilted, clearly signaling that they were about to land, House actually felt relieved, even though he knew that they were most likely going out of the frying pan into the blazing inferno.
Not long after they had touched down, the door opened, and a group of thugs in generic black uniforms came to take House and the girl out of their prison. Since House had trouble walking on his own, two of them grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and half-dragged him across the floor.
"If you idiots gave me back my meds and my cane, you'd save yourself a lot of trouble," House groaned to his captors. They could've been mute and deaf for all the attention he got.
The cronies no longer wore hoods, but seeing their faces told House absolutely nothing. They were a mixed bunch - House thought he could see at least European, Asian and Middle-Eastern features. No clues from languages, either, since they weren't speaking.
House was too busy struggling to stay on his feet to get a very good idea of what the rest of the plane looked like. There was a bigger room which was stocked with crates, then a smaller room with a hatch and a set of stairs leading out. There was a van waiting for them right at the foot of the stairs. The cronies threw House and the secretary girl in there, and slammed the door shut. So much for figuring out where they were - all House had seen was the landing strip. At least the bright sunlight coming from right above them had revealed the time of the day: around noon.
Then, they were moving and waiting again, now in an even smaller space that was completely dark.
"I never knew getting kidnapped would be this boring," House said.
"You can't even walk because your leg hurts so much and you call that boring?"
"Pain doesn't make things interesting. It just makes them painful."
"I wish there was something I..."
"Oh shut up, you don't really mean that."
She was smart enough to actually stay silent and let House suffer in peace.
The ride grew bumpier as it progressed, but at least the trip was mercifully short compared to the endless stay in the plane. House knew his sense of time was completely off thanks to jet lag, but he was prepared to bet it took less than an hour. Then, they were taken out of the van.
They found themselves in a huge, hall-like garage - House could see several military-style trucks and jeeps. Again, the as-good-as mute guards grabbed House and hauled him forwards, with the assistant girl walking in front of them, two cronies close by her sides. They were led through a series of corridors, stone-walled tunnels excavated into rock, some of them lined with metal, and they even went several stories up in an elevator.
Finally, they reached the end of their very long road. The cronies pushed House and Miss P. into a small room, and closed the thick steel door behind them. He fell heavily on one of the two bunks, curling up and grasping his thigh. He couldn't remember when it'd last felt this bad.
"The hotel's really nice and the natives seem friendly, but I think I'd like to go home now," he muttered.
The headline read "Iron Mystery? Stark's Secretary Missing". The page-long article included comments from an unnamed worker at Los Angeles International Airport, and from some of the secretary's neighbors, who claimed that someone working for Stark had interviewed them about the case. There was also a list of several sightings of Iron Man during the previous day. From these clues, the author had come to the conclusion that Miss Potts had disappeared and Stark was looking for her.
"It's quite a coincidence if this is unrelated," Wilson told Cuddy, looking up from the newspaper she had given him. "We know that House was doing some work for Stark, after all."
"That's what Stark thought, too," Cuddy said. "I've already called him, and he's on his way. He should arrive at around two."
"Thanks for letting me know," Wilson said, and folded up the paper.
Cuddy left his office, and Wilson had to get to work, as hard as it was to concentrate at the moment. He'd been worried to begin with, afraid that House had done something stupid, or gotten into an accident, but this raised things to a whole new level. If House had really been captured by Stark's enemies, who knew what sort of trouble he was in. Sure, House was resourceful, and no doubt would annoy his captors out of their wits, but he was no superhero.
It wasn't exactly a good thing to have a constant worried expression on one's face when one needed to give people life-and-death news. "I'm happy to tell you the operation was a success" somehow had a little less weight when it was said in a clearly distracted manner, and "I'm afraid the mass was malignant" sounded even more like a death sentence than it should.
Wilson ended up rescheduling the last few hours of his day. He didn't like doing it, but he saw no other way. At quarter to two, he walked to Cuddy's office, to find that Stark was already there - or not exactly Stark, but Iron Man, in full armor, although he had the faceplate open. He was accompanied by a man Wilson had never seen, a blond youngster with round glasses, wearing a suit and a bow tie.
"I don't think you've met? Mr. Stark, this is Doctor Wilson, a close friend of Doctor House. Wilson, Mr. Stark," Cuddy made the introductions routinely, as unnecessary as they were when it came to Iron Man. Then, she nodded at the young man. "And this is special agent Sitwell, of..."
"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division," Sitwell recited. "Pleased to meet you, Doctor Wilson," he said, and shook Wilson's hand energetically. "From now on, I'll be in charge of the investigation concerning Doctor House's disappearance."
"But we already called the police and reported him missing," Wilson said.
"Ah, you did? We'll, that won't be a problem, we'll contact them and find out what they've already done," Sitwell told him, with a somewhat nervous sideways glance at Iron Man.
"So, what've you got?" Stark asked, looking from Cuddy to Wilson.
"Not much, I'm afraid," Cuddy said.
"The last time anyone saw House was when I was out with him last Saturday night. He gave me a ride home, and after that, no one knows. His car was parked in front of his place, so it seems he got back there at some point. He left a note in his car, saying that he may have been kidnapped," Wilson explained.
"Well, where is it?" Stark said, as if expecting that someone would hand the note to him right away.
"We gave it to the police, of course," Wilson said.
"Oh, great. Maybe you should've -"
"It's all right, Mr. Stark, we can get it from them," Sitwell said quickly. "Look, there really isn't much you can do here - no offense, sir, but this is a detective mission, and you're not exactly the best choice for something that calls for subtlety."
"Damn it, I need to do something!" Stark exclaimed.
Wilson could imagine Stark felt exactly like he did at the moment. Looking at the lines of worry on Stark's face and the bags under his eyes that spoke clearly of too little sleep, Wilson felt like he was facing a mirror.
Stark flipped down his faceplate and stormed out of the room.
"Um... I..." Sitwell stuttered, looking after him. "I'm sorry. Superheroes, you know. They tend to be a bit temperamental."
"Don't worry, Mr. Sitwell. I understand perfectly," Wilson said.
Their cell wasn't actually as bad as Pepper might've expected - it was almost comfortable. They had two bunks with thin mattresses, enough space that she could pace to and fro, and a sink and a hole-in-the-floor toilet in a niche in the back wall, with a plastic curtain for privacy. Of course, there was also a surveillance camera in the ceiling.
House was currently crouched over the toilet, throwing up.
Pepper paced on, her arms crossed. House was outright refusing any help. On the one hand, he kept downplaying his problems, on the other, he complained a lot. Of course, the truth was that there was nothing she could actually do for him, but it still made her angry that he claimed her compassion was phony. Sure, she didn't exactly like him, but she couldn't watch anyone suffer like that without feeling some sympathy.
Suddenly, the door was flung wide open. Pepper froze.
Three men entered the room, two of them obviously the bodyguards of the third one. He was a short, bald man with mixed features, maybe half-Asian, half-European. He was dressed in a dark blue suit, against which the heavy golden ring in his right middle finger stood out clearly.
"Sorry, could you wait a while, I'm not done here yet," House mumbled from where he was, his back towards the door.
"Ah, Doctor House. Enchanté. And Miss Potts. Welcome to my humble home. My name is Liu," the bald bad guy said, his voice pleasant, with a refined British accent. He reached out a hand to take Pepper's, but she didn't give it to him. "No need to be afraid, I'm not going to harm you. I have no need to."
"Fine, then you can give me back my meds, because you're already harming me," House said, now facing the cronies. He was sitting on the floor, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"I'm afraid we don't have them, but don't worry, unless you choose to cooperate, a painful leg will soon be the least of your problems."
"Torture us all you want, we won't tell you anything!" Pepper exclaimed. She thought she sounded far braver than she felt. She knew what Tony had gone through in Afghanistan, and she had no idea whether she'd be able to take anything like it.
"Torture you? Oh, no, that would be cruel. No, we'll do no such thing. We're simply going to wait and see. I believe you are familiar with a certain nanovirus? Based on a Brazilian strain of hantavirus? You were both infected, soon after you were captured."
Pepper shivered, pressing her crossed arms tightly against her sides. The nanovirus. Out of all the things the bad guys could've done to them.
"Don't be stupid," House said bluntly, sounding unconcerned. "All your cronies would have it too by now, and so would you."
"Believe me, Doctor House, I'm far from stupid. You see, this is an all-new version - two-point-zero, if you wish. It isn't transmissible from person to person, and is faster-acting. It's also far more deadly than the first one. Stark may have managed to survive the previous strain, even though it was supposed to be lethal in seventy-five percent of cases, but you won't be so lucky. My researchers assure me that this latest strain has a mortality of ninety-five percent. However, there is a cure that will save you. All you need to do is tell us everything you know about Iron Man. Otherwise, within a few days, you will die."
Chapter 4
Author's Note: Not that I'd like to sound whiney, but, um, how about some feedback? To let me know whether anyone's even reading this? Pretty please? *puppydogeyes*