I Will Not Cry For You (you don't want me to)

The thin blades of the repressor pierce through her skin, drawing blood as it enters.

She should be used to this pain. Elizabeth Stark has been dampening her powers ever since she was seventeen and her father had shoved a poorly constructed neuron repressor into her neck. She was inconsolable the first time, enough for Tony to eventually take it out and ice her wounds before she made him put it back in again.

Nearly nine years later, she still winces whenever the thin blades (a carefully improved design created by Tony and herself named the Infinity Dampener 201) sink through the open wound that's been penetrated through so many times.

Breathing in and out a couple of times, she hides her discomfort and gets accustomed to the familiar shocks in her system, preventing her brain from signalling her body to exert the fire, ice, electricity and water she is somehow able to produce thanks to a stupid lightning bolt.

She walks out the bathroom door to the spacious lab meant for both her brother and herself and finds Tony arguing with Pepper Potts, his ten-year PA and friend who, unknowing to him, he is so far gone for.

Liz is used to the familiar bickering between the two; the way they talk over each other but somehow manage to meet at a single point in the conversation. It used to fascinate her in the beginning. Now it just amuses her and serves as a form of entertainment.

She makes herself known when there's a lull in the conversation and Pepper smiles at her warmly before zoning in on a spot on her hand and frowning, "Is that blood?"

She looks at the single drop of red in her hands and wipes the liquid away, exchanging a glance with her brother.

"Tony and I just got into some trouble with the car. It's nothing."

There are only five people that know about her powers; three of which are dead. She does not plan on anyone else knowing. Plans to take this secret with her to the grave. Tony won't tell anyone either, she trusts her brother with her life.

When Pepper leaves the room, Tony looks at her and then at the spot on her palm where the red used to be, "Just to be clear, I'm still not okay with you putting that thing in your system."

"I know."

He's never been okay with it; was prepared to fight their dad when he first saw the schematics during his brief stay at home for Christmas. He was running the company at the time; Howard had given him and Obadiah the reins in favour of spending time with his wife and looking for Captain America. Howard Stark and Maria Stark died a year and a half later, leaving two orphaned kids and a weapons company that Tony Stark owned.

"Are you sure you won't come with me to the Jericho presentation?"

"100 percent. Not sure if you remember, because you never remember, also probably because you were really drunk when I told you but I have two surgeries scheduled tomorrow and a stupid board meeting right after that. Honestly, I don't understand why the hell they invite me to the hospital budget meetings, even though it is my hospital because I know they know that I don't pay attention but they still want me to come. Anyway, I'm busy and even if I weren't, I still wouldn't come. You know that SI isn't my favourite company in the world."

Tony Stark smiles. He knows that he's not the best person in the world. He knows that the mistakes he made, the mistakes he makes, might never receive atonement. He knows that there is a bottle of whisky in his cupboard and a clawing hole in his heart and a load of daddy issues that he doesn't ever think is going to go away.

They all seem worth it when he remembers that, by some luck, Elizabeth Stark was born as his sister.

"But SI's owner is your favourite person in the world?" He cheekily asks her, relishing in the way her eyes narrow and she smiles at him in exasperation.

"Unfortunately he is. He will also be dead in a moment by the hands of one Pepper Potts if he doesn't get his ass moving."

Tony's chuckle echoes through the workshop, feeling the warmth in the spot in his ice-cold heart reserved for his favourite person in the entire world, "Love you, Lizzie."

She smiles back at him; the pain seeping through her system lessened a notch, "Love you, Tony."

She's still in her office at Stark Med, the hospital, her hospital that took everything to accomplish when she gets the phone call.

It's from Obadiah. Obadiah who never calls her unless Tony's passed out on some street and Pepper won't take his calls. Obadiah who doesn't really talk to her unless it's to ask her to convince Tony to stay behind for some charity organization. Obadiah who never interacts with her unless he needs something from her involving Tony.

She answers the phone and only registers the words "gone", "bomb", and "kidnapped".

He stays on the phone with her out of some kind of courtesy until Rhodey shows up in her office, face dry with tears. She knows he's waiting for her to break down and sob the way she did when her parents died.

She's just waiting for the numbness to leave her body so that she can work on finding her brother. He's not dead; she knows it with every atom in her body. She won't cry. Tony won't want her to cry. Tony never liked it when she cried, hated it if he thought he was the reason behind her tears. He'll be upset at himself when he comes back and realizes that she's cried because of him.

So she won't cry.

It takes her a moment to pick herself back together. She doesn't remember how she got on the floor, but she gets back up and dusts the lint off her jeans.

"What are we doing to find him?"

Rhodey starts explaining immediately. She's thankful for Rhodey, always has been, always will be. He made Christmas in the Stark household happy again. He gave her another family member, gave her brother a friend.

She asks him to meet up at the house to discuss further details. She knows that Pepper will also want to be a part of the conversation so she asks him to call her. She makes a few calls of her own. Rearranges things so that her two Co-CEOs will be able to take over until this whole thing is over, however long it takes. Charlotte McCoy and Damien Scott are happy to comply.

Happy's there to pick her up when she walks out of her building, her white coat and ID thrown over her arm. He pulls her into a hug; another member of her carefully constructed family, and she feels the tears threatening to break out again.

Tony won't want you to cry over him.

Tony won't want to make you cry.

The mantra is her lifeline. It's all she has until she gets her brother back.

The next three months are spent in the desert. Obadiah has given up. He's taken over the company as if her brother is dead and she hates him for it. Sometimes she wants to rip off the device on her neck and burn him alive, it's a reminder of how important that device is to her.

She scours the desert for months. Treks through Afghanistan. Gets in trouble with several authorities and has to pay a shitload of cash to get them off her back. Rhodey helps her the entire time; accompanying her, providing her with gear and resources. Pepper helps in any way she can, covering her back with the press, keeping her updated on everything going on in the home front, calling routinely for an update.

The PA has been staying in the Malibu house, sleeping in Tony's bed. Jarvis told her one night when she asked the AI about the state of the house. Liz knows she's not going to tell Pepper she knows, she's not going to tell Tony when she finds him. For the first time, Liz is beginning to understand that her brother's affections are not unrequited and the thought brings her a spark of happiness that she hasn't felt in a long time.

She's flying solo through an uneventful part of the desert when a spark of light catches her eye, almost like an exploding of a bomb. The helicopter she's flying makes a stop for a moment as she considers her possibilities. She and Rhodey have split up, deeming it the best way to cover more land. She has a gun in the backseat of the chopper but she has no intention to use it on any human being. She weighs in on the possibilities of her diving headfirst into a war zone or something before she remembers Tony and the chopper is flying at full speed and there is something new pounding in her heart.

It's hope.

Hope, Tony Stark thinks, as he walks through the hot desert, the suit blown to pieces but his adrenaline on an all-time high.

Its hope he feels as he walks through the empty desert, free from his captors, free from death, one step closer to getting to his sister.

It's hope that disappears when a set of goons surround his wilting self, adorned with guns, making him want to scream in despair and fold his hands and pray to whoever the hell calls the shots.

He cannot have Yinsen's sacrifice be futile.

He cannot die on Lizzie. It'll crush her. She'll break.

They shoot but he cannot feel a single thing.

Presumably because of the large ice wall that has wrapped around him, providing him with a strong cocoon that breaks apart and sends the men with guns flying through the sky and hitting the sand unconscious.

It's the first time he's seen his sister use her powers in ten years, and it's the most beautiful thing he's ever had the privilege of witnessing. He wishes his sister could see that for herself.

She runs to him, and it's the first time in three months that he's seeing her face outside of his dreams and she collapses on the ground with him, choking out a sound that is a cross between a sob and laughter.

"Did I make you cry?"

She makes the sound again, only this time; it's more of a laugh and less of a sob.

"No. No, you didn't."

Then somehow Rhodey is also there, and the two of them are helping him up into the helicopter; two of the four most important people in his entire world.

He meets the next two getting down from the plane, stepping foot on American soil for the first time in three months walking towards the smiling bodyguard, and tear-streaked assistant alongside his sister and the closest thing he has to a brother, and he thinks he answered wrong in the cave.

He's not a man with nothing.

These four are enough for him.

These four are everything.