Beacon.

The Mechanic

Rosehill Tennessee

"Sir. Sir!" JARVIS's voice finally breaks through the fog of unconsciousness and Tony startles awake.

"Alright, kill the alarm. I got it." He responds referring to the emergency noise echoing through the suit.

"That's the emergency alert triggered by the power dropping below five percent." JARVIS informs him and Tony notices that he's flying through the night sky and the power is indeed failing. Abruptly the boosters cut out and he begins to fall to the ground. He narrowly misses a lone truck traveling along the deserted highway and crashes into the ground in the middle of a forest. With a painful groan he rolls over and removes the face plate of the helmet as he lies on the ground catching his breath.

Tony frowns as he takes in his surroundings. "It's snowing, right? Where are we, upstate?"

JARVIS responds. "We're five miles outside of Rose Hills, Tennessee."

Tony is actually speechless for a split second. "Why?! Jarvis! Not my idea! What are we doing here? This is thousands of miles away, I gotta get to Kindle, I gotta..."

"I prepared a flight plan. This was the location." JARVIS reminds him.

"Who asked you? Open the suit." Tony demands and the armor peels back allowing him to sit up.

JARVIS's voice starts to cut out and lose volume. "I... I think I may be malfunctioning, sir."

Tony looks around the snowy and isolated landscape "That's brisk!" He comments and blows on his hands as he immediately starts to feel the cold weather. "Maybe I'll just cozy back up for a bit."

"I actually think I need to sleep now, sir." JARVIS tells him as the suit loses power and goes dark.

Tony sits in the silence for a beat. "Jarvis. Jarvis? Don't leave me, buddy." Tony glances down at his arm where he had torn away the armor to access a missile and sees that he has small shards of metal embedded in the skin. He grabs a handful of snow to clean it off and with a sigh climbs to his feet and starts making a sling to pull the suit with.

Half a hour later he is standing in a phone booth, who knew they still existed, and has hacked into the phone company to make a collect call.

"Stark Secure Server: Now transferring to all known receivers." The computerized operator tells him.

"Kindle, it's me. That was smart shutting down comm's, but then you've always been the smart one. I've got a lot of apologies to make and not a lot of time. So first off, I'm so sorry I put you in harm's way. That was selfish and stupid and it won't happen again. Also, you're right, you're not a giant bunny kind of girl, I know that. Should have gone with my first instinct which was the CERN Collider, see if you can get that stupid thing working correctly. And I'm sorry in advance because... I can't come home yet. I need to find this guy. You gotta stay safe. That's all I know. Also, I just stole a poncho from a wooden Indian." Tony admits eyeing the now poncho-less Indian carving outside the Texaco station.

After he hangs up Tony drags the suit to an isolated looking farmhouse and picks the lock on what looks to be a detached garage/workshop. Inside are a letting wagon and a even older couch but there are tools and it is warmer than outside. He places the suit on a couch and slumps down next to it. "Let's get you comfy." He tells the suit as he places its hands by its side and eyes the face mask. "You happy now?"

Tony rummages through a tool box and locates a pair of pliers to remove the shrapnel from his arm and then to try to see if the micro-repeater implant underneath was still functioning.

Suddenly the door to outside flies open and a boy of about 10 stands by the doorway and points a pretty well put together potato cannon, despite the fact that appeared to be made from a hamster cage, at Tony.