First Spark: Chapter One of the Fireheart Saga

Part Five: The One Where It All Began

Reluctantly, Pepper pulled open the broken door, plastic tarp taped to the gaping holes where glass used to be. Perhaps Amelia had been right, this place had too much glass, so easily broken. She still didn't even know how, or more disturbingly why.

"Hey, you busy?" Tony asked as she entered, tinkering with the red and gold suit strapped to a crank in front of him. He'd cleaned up since yesterday, washing away the grime, the blood, and had changed into a stained shirt, his black hair still slightly damp from the shower.

Tony had been working on the suit all night, cleaning off the dust, the dirt, rubbing away numerous scratches and replacing the bullet ridden panels with fresh plates. "You mind if I send you on an errand?" Pepper said nothing, just watched, so Tony ploughed on. As if he needed to ask her anymore, Pepper just did without hesitation. "I need you to go to my office." He said without waiting for a reply, "You're going to hack into the mainframe and you're going to retrieve all the recent shipping manifests." He picked something out from the cluttered work bench. "This is a lock chip." He explained, passing Pepper what looked like a regular flash drive. "This'll get you in."

Pepper frowned at the chip, running it over her palm. "It's probably under Executive Files." Tony added, already turning away from her and she saw a semi-circle scratch on his neck that had worry rippling through her all over again.

Nine. Nine scratches. Not that Pepper was counting. "If not, they put it on a ghost drive, in which case you need to look for the lowest numerical heading." Pepper only half listened as Tony continued to explain, holding the chip loosely in her palm.

"And what do you plan to do with this information if I bring it back here?" Pepper asked hesitantly, unsure she wanted the answer.

"Same drill." Tony didn't even need to think, "They've been dealing under the table and I'm going to stop them." He wouldn't look at Pepper. "I'm going to find my weapons and destroy them."

"Tony, you know that I would help you with anything." She breathed, a half sincere smile on her lips as the worry bled through onto her warm features. "But I cannot help you if you're going to start all of this again." The obsession, the paranoia and distrust. It ruined the man she'd grown to care about.

"There is nothing except this." Tony exclaimed, "There's no art opening." He kept his back to her. "There is no benefit, there's nothing to sign." He finally turned, taking slow steps towards Pepper until he gave her this mortally human look and spoke with no room for argument. "There is the next mission and nothing else."

"Is that so?" Pepper caught his eyes for a moment, ignoring the overbearing posture, the fingers curled almost to a fist and the deathly stillness of his handsome features, breaking through the false sincerity, the seriousness, and all she saw was fear. Undeserved, inhuman, terror and it left her with nothing else to do. "Well, then, I quit."

Pepper chucked the chip back onto the work bench, holding that gaze all the while until pain pierced through and she turned her back.

"You stood by my side all these years while I reaped the benefits of destruction." He accused and Pepper set her jaw, stopping to look back uncowed. "And now that I'm trying to protect the people that I put in harm's way, you're going to walk out?"

"You're gonna kill yourself, Tony." She predicted, the weight of it falling on their shoulders like an anvil, and she gave a small, definitive, shake of her head. "I'm not going to be a part of it."

"I shouldn't be alive." Tony countered as if those words came as easily to him as a hello and Pepper's lips parted. "Unless it was for a reason." He dropped back into his desk chair, staring emptily at his fingers. "I'm not crazy, Pepper." He glanced up. "I just finally know what I have to do." Shadows danced as his dark eyes shimmered wetly. "And I know in my heart that it's right."