Author's Note: This is me going back to my roots. A very, very traditional hurt/comfort/angst story, the sort I used to write in the Stargate fandom. There are dozens of reasons why this is really completely silly, and I'm sure the technical and medical side make no sense at all regardless of the hours I spent on googling stuff, but anyway. You have been warned. :P

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Shit.

Stupid.

Out of all the stupid situations Tony had found himself in, this one went straight to the top of the list. Not least because it might end up being the last.

This time, he could really only blame himself. He hadn't even saved anyone. It'd been pretty much just a publicity stunt. A pretty blonde scientist had tossed him the idea at some random environmental awareness gala, and he had grabbed it instantly. Fly across the Arctic Ocean in a blizzard and gather data. Sure, he'd do that.

He'd decided to do it because it felt like a good idea. Great PR value, a change of scenery, a chance to field test his latest suit modifications, and on top of that, a real adrenaline rush. Also, he had thought it'd be nice, for once, to do a mission where the only thing he had to fight were the forces of nature. Unfortunately, he had lost. How the press would love that. "Even the mighty genius of Tony Stark had to bow down before the incredible power of Mother Nature." He'd really, really hate to see that in his obituary. Not that he would be able to actually see his obituary, but anyway. Of course, he had every intention of getting out of this situation, so he'd be able to do plenty of other stupid stuff that they could write about when he'd actually buy the farm.

So, it was all his fault. He'd set out into weather so rough that no one in their right minds would've wanted to travel in it, since he wasn't "no one". He was the Invincible Iron Man. Invincible! Yeah, right. Straight from that Monty Python sketch. "I'm invincible! It's just a flesh wound."

He'd set out in the morning from Svalbard, an archipelago belonging to Norway. It was a place so completely in the middle of nowhere that he couldn't understand how anyone could stand living in there. He'd truly enjoyed his flight over the vast expanse of ice. The lack of light of the Polar winter had made the scenery bleak, but he couldn't have cared less about that. Riding the storm in the suit was just plain amazing, pure adrenaline, way beyond any high speed wheels or extreme sports he'd ever tried. Almost better than sex.

After landing at the North Pole, just to be able to say he'd been there, he'd headed towards his target, the north-most point of the US, where Pepper, Rhodey, a group of scientists and a bunch of reporters were waiting for him. He'd never made it there.

Since the weather had been the worst he'd ever seen, he hadn't imagined it could get any worse. It had. He'd had absolutely zero visibility, lots of interference on the radio, and he'd barely been able to connect to any GPS satellites. Then, his right thruster had started failing. Whether it was because of the snow, the cold and the wind, or something else, he still didn't know. Not that it made a whole lot of difference right now.

The wall of ice had appeared as if from nowhere, and he'd had no chance of avoiding it, no time to react. He'd crashed straight into it, and slid all the way down. The only good thing was that he had landed on nice thick ice instead of water.

He'd hit an iceberg, like the fucking Titanic.

Here he was, now, lying on the ice, watching the hypnotic dance of snowflakes on the dim sky above him, the immeasurable power of the blizzard. He felt unreal. It was too peaceful. All that adrenaline, the exhilaration of the flight, the frenzied struggle against the storm, and suddenly, bang! All over. Just the gray haze of the sunless Polar day, the roaring of the wind, the sound of his breathing echoing inside his helmet. Such stillness. Damn, it was anticlimactic.

He also felt far too comfortable. He knew it wouldn't last. Sure, this latest version of his suit had excellent insulation and heating. He'd designed it so it'd protect him in the vacuum of space, so it was more than good enough here. Since he wasn't feeling any chill at all, the heating had somehow come through the fall undamaged. On the other hand, he was sure he hadn't. The moment he'd start moving, he'd probably also start hurting. Maybe he wouldn't try it quite yet.

"Jarvis?"

"Sir?"

"Still there. Great. Nice to know I'm not all alone."

"Technically, you are all alone. I'm just a program."

"Why, thank you. You sure know how to cheer me up. Are you intact?"

"Almost."

"Which parts aren't?"

"As you can see, the HUD is down."

"Master of stating the obvious, as usual. Anything else?"

"Communications are entirely offline, the antennas were damaged in the crash."

Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. All the antennas had been on the left side of his helmet, the side that had had a close encounter with the ice. Stupid. Bad designing. He'd do it better next time. At least the helmet had done its job protecting his head, considering that he was still conscious.

"What about the rest of the suit?"

"Surface damage to most of the left side, all the way from the helmet to the boots, several flaps out of order, but no actual breaches. Severe damage to the left thruster."

"Shit."

"Indeed, sir."

His right thruster had been faulty to begin with, and now he had lost the left one. He doubted he'd be able to fix them in these circumstances. He needed to take a look to see what the damage was like. To do that, he'd need to try moving.

Feet first. Right foot, OK, check, working. Left foot - ow, damn! Yeah, that didn't feel good. He should've known to expect that. His boot was smashed, it was a logical consequence that his foot was smashed, too. Sprained or broken? Foot, ankle or both? No way to know for sure. Jarvis only had his vitals, he had no means to scan for broken bones. If he had, Tony wouldn't have needed to go through this.

Arms next. Right arm, check, no problem. He'd hit the iceberg not head first, but at an angle, left shoulder first. That meant that moving his left arm would -

"Aahh! Fuck!"

- okay, it was even worse than he'd expected. Bright spots were dancing in front of his eyes, mixing with the snowflakes. Probably a dislocated shoulder. Painful as hell, but at least it wouldn't limit his mobility. He didn't need his arm to be able to move around. Good thing it was the left arm, he did need his right hand if he wanted to fix anything.

"Sir?"

He leaned on his good arm and tried to get up, but the first slight attempt of movement made the left half of his upper body flare up in white-hot agony, so bad that his vision went dark for a few seconds. He groaned and lay still again, gasping, fighting the urge to throw up.

"I would advise against moving."

"Yeah, you're just a few seconds late with that," Tony panted. He felt like he was breathing fire.

So much for fixing anything, let alone going anywhere.

No mobility, no navigation, no communications, and possibly life-threatening injuries.

"I'm screwed."

"That does seem like an appropriate choice of wording, sir."

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Pepper paced to and fro in front of the big windows of the conference room at the Arctic Research Center, staring out. Had there been light, she'd have seen the bright white field of ice beyond the small gathering of buildings, stretching all the way to the horizon. But there was just a dim glow that made everything look gray, even the snow flying around and piling up on the ground. In weather like this, Tony might be able to sneak to the complex so that no one would even notice.

Most of the reporters were in the room with her - without doubt, the biggest concentration of media people that Barrow, Alaska had ever seen. They were like a pack of hyenas, she thought, scavengers, or predators waiting for their prey. Some of the more adventurous ones were actually outside, daring the weather in hopes of catching a glimpse and a good shot of Iron Man completing his mission. They didn't seem to doubt for one second that it wouldn't be a success - or then they just didn't care. If he'd fail, if he'd never reach this place, or if he arrive late or hurt, the better for their scoops. It was awful.

Pepper, herself, was worried to death, not to mention seething at Tony for putting his life at risk for little more than kicks. Of course, officially, this "mission" was all about promoting environmental awareness and Stark Industries' new role in fighting global warming, but she knew well enough that that was completely irrelevant to him. It was just an excuse to do something completely reckless and stupid that he thought was fun.

Maybe she should've been happy instead of worried. At least he wasn't out there getting beaten to death by terrorists. Compared to most of his other stunts in the suit, this was among the least dangerous. Still, flying some two thousand miles in that storm...

When the door opened to reveal a very serious-looking Rhodey, she knew her fears had come true. She had seen that exact look on his face once before: when he had announced they'd lost Tony in Afghanistan.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the press," he said subduedly, still standing in the doorway. "As of ten minutes ago, we have lost all contact with Iron Man. It seems likely that something has gone wrong, and we're currently making plans for a rescue mission. We'll keep you informed."

He looked straight at Pepper, eyebrows raised, and turned to leave. She ran after him.

"Who's making plans for a rescue mission?" she asked, as they walked towards the room designated as mission control.

"We are, right now. I'm going to go after him, of course."

"In that weather? Your armor..."

"Doesn't have the latest upgrades, yeah, I know. It's also bulkier and heavier than Tony's. In that weather, I think that's actually an advantage."

"But what happened, exactly? Is he all right?"

"I wish I knew. You'll hear for yourself in a minute."

They reached the door and stepped in. "Mission control" was actually just a small conference room, reserved for their use only. The thing that made it special was the computer Tony had arranged for, one that came with the programs for tracking him, and one particular AI. Pepper and Rhodey sat down at the desk.

"The weather kept getting worse, and he was having trouble with one thruster. Then... Jarvis, play back the last thirty seconds of Tony's radio transmission."

A static crackle came out of the loudspeakers. She could just make out Tony's words as he cursed, "Damn, not steering too well..." There was more crackling for about ten seconds, then a loud and clear "Shit!" and an even louder crash. After that, nothing at all, not even static.

"My God," Pepper said, her breath catching in her throat. "Was that an explosion? Did... Did the thruster blow up?"

"Negative, ma'am," Jarvis answered. "I have analyzed the sound, and the pattern does not match an explosion. Instead, it resembles an impact."

"An impact? With what? A missile? Did he somehow run into enemies out there?"

"I find that highly unlikely. A natural obstacle, such as an iceberg, would be more feasible. However, I can't say for certain. There's so much interference in the data that even this analysis comes with a disturbingly wide margin of error."

"And that's all we've got," Rhodey added. "All we know is that he ran into something, and damaged his communication systems, since we're not getting anything from him anymore. That also means we have no GPS tracking."

She didn't want to think what else he might have damaged, or how badly hurt he might be. "So, he's lost out there?" she asked, unable to keep the fear out of her voice.

"No, not really. Not entirely lost," Rhodey said reassuringly. "We do have the data up to the moment when we lost contact. Even though it was inaccurate because of the weather conditions, we have a rough idea of his location. Jarvis, show it, please?"

An accurate satellite image of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean emerged on the screen. The shoreline where they were at the moment was at the low edge. Some five inches above it, there was a red circle - not an exact point, but a larger area. "Mr. Stark's last known location is two hundred miles to the north from our current position. Mr. Rhodes, I would like to remind you that if he is mobile, his position will have changed," Jarvis spoke up again.

"Well, if he's moving, he may be able to make it back on his own. It really could be just a communications failure, he might be all right, but I wouldn't count on it. He might need help, he might be hurt. So, I'm going to suit up, head to that last known location, and start looking for him."

"The War Machine armor does not have maneuverability equal to that of the latest Iron Man armor, and -" Jarvis began, but Rhodey cut him short.

"I know, I know, all right! Why does everyone keep repeating that to me? Sure, it may not have all the latest gizmos, but that doesn't make it useless. Besides, Tony's the reckless one, not me. I'm not going to try crossing the entire ocean, just a few hundred miles. I'll manage that. I've got to - there's no way I'm going to abandon him out there. If you've got better ideas, feel free to tell me. What would you send out there? A plane? A ship? In that storm?"

Jarvis had no answer to that one, and neither had Pepper.