Her teeth worked at her lower lip, chewing the flesh nervously. "Tony, we can't, we… we're going to need more time."

At the words, his brown eyes flickered away from the constrictive suit, clashing with the pale colour only inches away. As close as he was to her, sharing the air she breathed, he could see the frightened gleam behind the concern. He could see the way she quickly tried to hide it behind a watery smile, and it made his chest tighten uncomfortably.

There was nothing he could say to make her really smile for him. Nothing he could say that would light up the darker shades of her eyes with content. The irony of it all almost made him laugh out loud – since when did he run out of clever comments?

With a numb smile, Tony gave a mute nod.

The unusual shade of green – or was it blue, even with all his genius he could never tell – snapped across the room. "Yinsen," she called out, hands lifting and wringing together. "We're not going to make it. It's powering up too slowly."

The older male hesitated at her voice, eyes flickering between the genius in the metal suit and biologist standing uselessly in the empty space around it. Yinsen had barely paused for a second before his face brightened in purpose, a smile tugging at his lips. "Stay here," he instructed firmly, leaning over to whisper in the woman's ear. "You stay safe for me, yeah?"

Feminine features contorted in pain as the man pulled back, planting a sound kiss on her cheek. Tony waited for the man to face him, but he never did, the elder instead spinning on his heel and walking towards the entrance of their little home away from home.

"Yinsen, where are you going?" Tony frowned, unable to turn his head and follow the older man. "Where are you – where is he going?" he demanded, directing the question to the beauty hovering before him.

She looked back helplessly as his words were answered, thundering screams of gunfire and loud yelling echoing around them. He wanted to cover his ears, to block out the noise and chant that if he couldn't hear it or see it, then it wasn't happening. That if he didn't acknowledge that the man had run from the room, then the man wasn't bleeding, but instead safe in the shadows across from him.

The logic had worked when he was a child – it couldn't fail him now.

Through the hellishly long seconds, he saw her lips move to create words he couldn't hear over the pounding of his heart. As the screaming died down, her voice started to carry over to him, making him realise he was ripping against the iron bonds. " – to stop moving! Tony, please!" A delicate hand pressed against his chest, hiding the blue light for a few seconds. "You need this; you need to get out of here and this suit? This suit is your ticket."

Tony shook his head, trying to clear his mind at the same time. "This is our ticket, Quinn," he stressed. "Ours."

The woman smiled back, the curve lacking its usual genuine edge even as she nodded her head in agreement. Her lips parted, throat moving as she started to reply, before more tortuous voices sounded from the hallway, the suit beginning to rumble as though it detected the threat. The previously bright eyes dulled in confusion as they both moved to look over her shoulder, taking in the computer screen and the percentage flashing across it.

Hopelessly, she looked back to meet brown eyes. "Tony…"

"Hide," he commanded urgently, gesturing to the darkened corners of the room. "Come on, go! Follow when I've cleared the check-points. Just like we talked about, remember? Just like we talked about."

Quinn sucked her lower lip in between her teeth. "Just like we talked about…" she whispered, hurrying away and searching the room for a place to hide.

He tried to follow her with his eyes, to watch and make sure she was safe, but the lights went wild. They flickered and dimmed spastically, blocking his view of chocolate brown locks and slim shoulders. Between one flash of light and the next, he lost her to the shadowy corners of the room. "Hide," he whispered, closing his eyes as the voices reached them, and the scent of smoke became sickening. There were more bullets, more flashing lights as the idiots shot into the room, and he prayed to whatever entity would listen. "Don't let her get hurt, you son of a bitch, don't you dare…"

As the man took in a shuddering breath, the suit moved with him, whirling to life.

The clomping footsteps echoed, almost louder than the gunshots as he moved towards the door, one hand lifted. "Quinn!" he shouted, barely acknowledging the men gathering to enter their prison. "Follow when it's safe."

The previously raised arm spewed out gun fire, provoking screams from the terrorist group flunkies that had gathered outside the darkness. With the sounds, he moved forward, reaching back his free hand to deliver a powerful punch to a wayward body. He kept walking, attention torn, not bothering to stop and watch as they flew backwards into a stone wall.

Because if he stopped, Tony knew he would hear bones crack or skin tear under the pressure of bullets. He knew he'd hear the muffled cries of pain the men were letting out. He knew he'd wonder if the woman could hear him murdering dozens…

Shaking his head, he moved as hurriedly as heavy metal would allow, stumbling into a brighter and larger area than the halls he'd been tearing apart. A man went screaming by, gun lost somewhere in the past, and the genius watched him run; eyes trailing after the fleeing figure before they fell on another.

"Yinsen!"

The man managed to let out a weak warning, one hand fluttering uselessly in the air. "Look out…"

The billionaire stopped just in time to avoid what would've been a well-aimed missile, the projectile instead whistling past his head and crashing into the stone behind it. The metal monster turned as rubble exploded into being behind him, his own fist lifting to deploy a counter attack.

Tony waited for the man to dare show his face again, but the burning rack of ammo he'd shot didn't move. "Yinsen?" he clumsily stumbled to the man's side, trying to avoid falling to his knees. "Come on, we've got to go. Move for me, come on. We got a plan, we're gonna stick to it," he rambled breathlessly, eyes searching for the source of the blood littering his shirt.

Yinsen somehow cracked a short smile. "This was always the plan, Stark…"

Whatever hope had been curling in the man's chest died with those words, brown irises refusing to look up into knowing eyes. "Come on," Tony tried instead, pretending he hadn't heard a peep. "You're going to see your family again. Get up."

"My family is dead." The soft whisper was almost ethereal already, and absently the billionaire praised the metal mask and its ability to hide the tears gnawing at his eyes. "I'm going to see them now, Stark," Yinsen continued, his always focused and attentive features slackening.

Tony tried to speak, to open his mouth, to apologize, to say something…

"It's okay," Yinsen reassured with a barely there smile. "I want this. But you – you get Quinn out of here, Stark," he commanded, the firm words still sounding dangerously like whispers. "She's too pure to die here in the dirt like me. You get her… you get her out… you…"

The metal head slumped at the same time the body did, a small sound suspiciously like a sob leaving its teeth. "Damn it," Tony murmured, stretching out to his full height as he swallowed back sorrow. His fists clenched as movement flashed in the corner of his blurred vision, and he turned with a lifted hand, ready to let out the anger burning in his chest.

"Tony!"

The small voice drained the fury better than blood would've, and the hand slipped back to collide with an iron side. "Quinn," Tony nodded, stepping back as the tiny body pushed out of the shadows. "Yinsen, he… I tried too…"

As the man tried to clear his head, to eliminate the lingering pain, the woman staggered closer. "Oh god, please no…"

"You need to stay here," Tony instructed, biting back his emotions as he watched her hesitantly pick up a cold hand. "I'm going to stick to the plan, and – and I'm going to clear a path. I'll do as much as I can, and when there's a way out; I don't wanna see you pause okay? You take it. I'll follow you, and even if something stops me, there are people looking for me and…" he tried for a smile, and was almost pleased the iron mask hid his failure from her. "I promise you'll be safe."

Quinn turned to watch the suit move, the absent whirling quiet compared to her own heart. "I know, and I believe you," she allowed, giving him nothing more as she focused back on the body by her side. "Please be safe."

With a determined nod, the genius stormed to the cave entrance, not even hesitating as he moved into the daylight. The other men outside, with their weapons and ill will only stared before releasing hell on the metal suit in their midst, screaming as they let loose everything they had.

Tony, protected within the belly of the beast, found he almost wanted to chuckle when the bullets bounced away. "My turn…" he decided after a few seconds, bored of the new game as he lifted both his hands. Instead of letting go of more ammo however, he moved to his other option, feeling almost gleeful as he watched the flames rip away from his gauntlets.

He ignored their screams – apparently burning hurt, who would've thought? – and instead turned and lit up everything burnable within reach, tearing their base of operations down as much as he could. The men scattered at the sight of orange and red, their tails between their legs as they ran to hide within stone that wouldn't and couldn't burn down.

The reprieve and apparent surrender didn't last long however, and soon the pressure of bullets was bearing down on the suit again.

"Tony! No – look out!"

The garbled and desperate voice made the man turn in horror, narrowly avoiding the heavy artillery of a tank as it fired at him through the flames. It took him less than a second to return in kind, to watch the machine blow upwards into the sky before he was spinning towards the woman. She was shielding her eyes from the fire fight, features twisted in displeasure and absently he remembered that she wasn't meant to be there.

She needed to get back inside.

Tony stumbled as he moved towards her, the warning hanging on his tongue when the bullet came, seemingly out of nowhere.

And he watched, his heart dropping ten feet to hell, as she clutched her stomach and fell backwards against the stone wall. Wide crystalline eyes looked up in shock, disbelieving even as they reflected the crimson pouring out to stain her once white tank top. He took a step forward – the wound wasn't fatal, not if he got to her in time – and then spasmed when another bullet hit her with a bruising intensity, slamming her shoulder back.

By the time he found it in himself to step forward, one hand reaching out for her, the third bullet exploded in his ears and her pained scream bounced from the cave walls.

"Quinn!"