Iron Woman - (Fem Iron man X Pepper)

Chapter 32 - Anxiety

Thor had taken Loki back to Asgard...as prisoner. Everything was better....until the Mandarin happened.

I spent the last six months building suits and working out as much as I could. I couldn't sleep...not after New York.

It paid off though, I had more muscles...I looked great.

I am stronger...and so are my suits.

At the moment I was testing a new way to put on my suits....it wasn't going very well.

"Ow!" I yell as I inject my arms.

"Ma'am, please may I request just a few hours to calibrate..."

"No. Forty-eight." I inject my other arm. "Ah! Micro-repeater implanting sequence complete."

"As you wish, ma'am. I've also prepared a safety briefing for you to entirely ignore."

"Which I will. Right, let's do this." I clap. I look over at the robot cleaning the floor, "Dummy. Hi, Dummy. How did you get that cap on your head? You earned it." I walk towards it, "Hey. Hey! What are you doing round in the corner? You know what you did. Blood on my mat, handle it."

"Ma'am, may I remind you that you've been awake for nearly seventy-two hours." Jarvis says.

I look at my suits in their glass cases, "Focus up, ladies. Good evening, and welcome to the birthing suite. I'm pleased to announce the imminent arrival of your bouncing, bad-ass, baby sister." I smile. "Start tight and go wide, stamp in time. Mark 42 autonomous prehensile propulsion suit test. Initialize sequence."
I raise my hands and motion to activate the new suit. "Jarvis, drop my needle." I start to sway my hips to the upbeat Christmas music, smiling as I point out to the dismantled Iron Woman suit on the table, nothing happens. "Crap." I bite my arm where I injected myself, I point again and this time part of the suit flies over and attaches itself to my hand and extends to my arm and shoulder. I point my other arm and the suit attaches to my arm. "Alright, I think we got this. Send 'em all." I laugh. The leg part flies over and attaches itself to my leg, then as another part flies over it crashes into one of the Iron Woman suit glass cages, then another part hurls itself at me, I deflect it with my arm making it crash. "Probably a little fast, slow it down. Slow it down just a..."
Suddenly another part of the suit shoots over, I duck as it narrowly misses hitting me in the head. "....little bit." The other parts fly over and attach themselves with force to my back and crotch area.
"Cool it, will you, Jarvis?" then all the other parts shoot over and get attached to me, accept for the final face piece, which just hovers, facing me. "Come on. I ain't scared of you." I point. The face piece flies and flips around, I flip over as it attaches and land back down. "I'm the best." I smirk.

At that moment, one of the stray pieces of the suit shoots over to me, knocking me down, which knocks the entire suit, except for the head piece off of me.

"As always, ma'am, a great pleasure watching you work."

I clean up and get into one of my suits and fly over to lunch with Rhodey. I needed to figure out how to make the injections work.

As we start to eat we notice Joan Rivers mocking the new Iron Patriot Suit. "Same suit, but painted red, white, and blue. Look at rhat. And they also renamed him Iron Patriot. You know, just in case the paint was too subtle."

"It tested well with focus groups, alright?" Rhodey sighs.

"I am Iron Patriot..." I mock him.

"Listen, War Machine was a little too aggressive, alright? This sends a better message."

"So what's really goin' on? With Mandarin. Seriously, can we talk about this guy?" I ask, moving closer to him.

"It's classified information, Y/N." He pauses as I wiggle my eyebrows, "Okay, there have been nine bombings."

"Nine." I whisper.

"The public only knows about three. Here's the thing, nobody can ID a device. There's no bomb casings."

"You know I can help, just ask. I got a ton of new tech, I got a prehensile, I got a...I got a new bomb disposal. Catches explosions mid-air." I nod.

"When's the last time you got a good night's sleep?"

"Einstein slept three hours a year. Look what he did?" I smile.

"People are concerned about you, Y/N. I'm concerned about you. You have this new look now." He points.

"New look?" I raise my eyebrows.

"Have you seen your muscles? And you have abs now. It's like all you do is workout, and make suits."

"You're gonna come at me like that?" I ask. "I'm being healthy."

"No. No, look, I'm not trying to be a dic..." He stops as two children come up to us. "...tator."

"Do you mind signing my drawing?" A girl asks.

"If Richard doesn't mind." I look up at Rhodey. "You alright with this, Dick?"

"Fine with me."

I look down and smile at the drawing of myself in my Iron Woman suit. "What's your name?" I ask.

"Erin."

I look at the boy next to her, "I loved you in A Christmas Story, by the way." I smile.

Rhodey leans over to me, "Listen, the Pentagon is scared. After what happened in New York... aliens, come on. They need to look strong. Stopping the Mandarin is priority, but it's not..."

"It's not superhero business, I get it." I nod as I sign the photo.

"No, it's not, quite frankly. It's American business."

"That's why I said I...got it." I start to feel sick as I break the crayon. I place a hand on my face as it starts to get hard to breath.

"Are you okay?"

"I broke the crayon." I whisper.

"Are you okay, Miss Stark?" The girl asks.

Rhodey leans over to me, "Take it easy. Y/N..."

It starts to get hard to hear.

Suddenly the little boy leans over to me, "How did you get out of the wormhole? How did you get out of the wormhole?"

I gasp and stand up, "Wait a minute! Y/N!" Rhodey yells.

"What'd he say?!" I panic.

"Y/N!"

I bump into a man as I hurry outside. "Sorry. Have to check on the suit...make sure...okay." I step into my suit and collapse to my knees. "Check the heart, check the...check the...is it the brain?" I ask.

"No sign of cardiac analomy or unusual brain activity." Jarvis says.

"Okay, so I was poisoned?" I ask.

"My diagnosis is that you've experienced a severe anxiety attack."

"Me?" I ask.

I look up as Rhodey knocks on my head. "Come on, dude. This isn't a good look, open up."

I stand, "Sorry, I gotta split." I fly off.