MLIAT 20 | (Best) Friends Hello readers, I'm- *sees incoming tomato* That was rude! *many more tomatoes are thrown at thewriterstory* AHhh! Spare me! I'm an innocent civilian, you guys! Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Marvel characters and movies. This is just leisure writing!

Before we begin, I'd like to thank for those who gave me the 26 reviews since the last chapter, 177 follows & favs I received in total.

Special thanks to StarkSkyWalker05 for remind me to write previously and Chatote motivating me for this chapter. Hope everyone enjoys!

The multi-talented Personal Assistant of the CEO of Stark Industries, 'Pepper' Potts, was sitting in one of the living rooms of Tony's home, TV screen switched on.

"Stark industries!" A man on aTV broadcast exclaimed.

"Stark raving mad," Steve muttered and chuckled, having noticed a sign on the TV broadcast.

"It's a good one, but you don't even know what this guy up to Steve."Clint remarked, a bit sympathetic, for someone?

"I've got one recommendation! Ready? Ready? Sell, sell, sell!"

The screen twisted, all sorts of sound effects were played. Pepper let out a sigh of long suffering.

Thor looked at the screen with a mixture of worry and shock, but didn't question it because he didn't expect himself to understand some local entertainment that soon.

"What is that programme?" Bruce asked quietly, foreign to it.

"A commentary show no one in their right mind should be watch-yeow!" Tony realized his mistake too late as he was smacked by Pepper.

"And look whose talking about sanity." Natasha countered smugly.

"Abandon ship! Does the Hindenburg ring any bells?" A tiger animation jumped at the screen, growling, before disappearing.

"Ouch, cold." Tony remarked.

"Let me show you the new Stark Industries business plan!" The guy got his bat out and swung it at a cup., shattering it.

"Look! That's a weapons company that doesn't make weapons!"

A loud ringing sound was heard, originating from the living room. The TV was muted and Pepper turned, awaiting the message being played via a tablet.

"Pepper. How big are your hands?" Tony demanded suddenly.

"Now do you realize how prepostorous it sounds?" Pepper glared at Tony.

"What?" She asked back, unable to hear his muffled voice.

"No, why what's wrong?" Tony shrugged nonchalantly as Clint laughed outrightly, Natasha shaking her head in tow this time.

"How big are your hands?"

"I don't understand why you-"

"Get down here. I need you." Tony declared causing Pepper to make her way downstairs.

"Smooth Stark."

"I don't think I want to watch this." Pepper inputted, "And I think it's not that sightly for them too."

"Hmm…" Tony made a small noise, pondering over it.

"We are SHIELD agents, we've seen so much more than you guys. Right Coulson?" Clint grinned, nudging the quiet Agent beside, who in turn only glared back. Bruce not far away, hand on his forehead, shook his head at how Clint boasted about the sights he had seen.

"I guarantee, this is one of a kind. You'll never forget this scene." Tony smirked.

"Ever. Unfortunately." Loki added, sighing, dodging a blow from Tony.

Upon entering, the sight of shirtless Tony, resting against a chair, with several electrons hooking him up to various machines, greeted her.

"Really Tony?" Rhodey asked, raising an eyebrow and casting a half-hearted judging look at said friend. Said friend only raised his arm and tilted Rhodey's face towards the screen.

"how did you hook yourself up to the machine?" Steve inqured, a bit awed while a bit hesitant due to the state of dress.

"Eh it's quite easy, if you know how the machines work around here." Tony replied with an air of confidence.

"And you had us fooled for a sec, we all thought you hated hospital settings."

"No worries Clint, one less patient to attend to." Bruce responded, receiving in another groan from Tony.

"This is getting harder to sit through guys. Barton! When were you this talkative!?"

"Hey, let's see them, show me your hands." Tony instructed, his tone a little gentler than usual.

"Oh wow... they are small; very petite, indeed. I just need your help for a sec…"

A sudden realization struck, "Is that the thing that's keeping you alive?"

"It was, it is now an antique." He stated, shifting a new, sleeker reactor in his hands. "This is what will be keeping me alive for the foreseeable future. I'm swapping it up for an upgraded unit… and I just ran into a little speed bump…"

"Speed bump; what does that mean?" Pepper found herself asking.

"It's nothing. It's just a little sng; there's an exposed wire under this device." Tony explained. "And it's contacting the socket wall and causing a little bit of a short."

The mechanic flinched as he pulled on the old reactor; the action resulting the heart rate monitor to jump a little as he pulled it out. The wires were taken out, revealing the gaping hole in his chest.

"That's where… your bone, and skin.. should be..?" Steve asked without thinking through the question, the scene starting to get disturbing.

"I thought you would know a human's anatomy well by now Captain." Loki replied when no one else attempted to respond to him.

"Loks he has a name." Tony chided, playing mother hen. Loki simply rolled his eyes.

"It's fine."

"What do you want me to do?!" Pepper raised her voice, creating more stress in her room, while Tony twitched in pain and annoyance, hurried to get the operation done.

"Put that on the table over there. That, is irrelevant." Tony handed over the reactor.

"Oh my gosh." Pepper cried out, nearing a hysterical state.

"I want you to reach in, and you're just gonna' gently lift the wire out."

Avengers and the supercool guests watched with various levels of shock, trauma and digust.

"Is it safe?"

"Yeah! It should be fine." If not for his unreaasonably deeper voice he would have sounded very relaxed. "It's like Operation, you don't let it touch the socket wall or it goes 'beep'"

"What do you mean 'Operation'!"

"It's just a game, never mind."

"Just gently lift the wire." He looked at her.

"Okay…"

"Okay? Great."

"Okay," she steadied herself. Her hand inched forward but before long panic overwhelmed her once more and she pulled her arm back. "You know, I don't think that I'm qualified to do this." Her voice pitch rose once more.

"No. You're fine. You're the most capable, qualified, trustworthy person I've ever met. You're gonna' do great. Is it too much of a problem to ask? Cause I'm…"

Snickering was heard. Rhodey stifled his laughter and nudged Tony, who in turn brought a hand down his face, groaning.

Loki bent forward and whispered, "About time you asked her out, right?"

Tony looked up, obtaining an upside-down view of the critic. Not that hard to interpret that view thought, as expected, a teasing smirk was present on the latters' face.

"Shut up Reindeer Games."

"Okay, okay!" Pepper breathed, nearly a whisper, and closed her eyes a sec.

Tony stared at her, almost with a pleading look ,"I really need your help here…"

"Okay…Oh, ohh! there's pus!"

Pepper gave up on trying to stand it and buried her face in Tony's neck, seeking her boyfriend's comfort.

"And it's not even a horror movie." Tony diverted his attention to her for a few moments and readjusted his position to let his arm swing around her protectively.

"It's not pus. It's an inorganic plasmic discharge from the device, not from my body."

"It smells!"

"Yeah, it does…the copper wire. The copper wire- you got it?" Tony asked, relief in his eyes as Pepper gave a nod, obviously close to breaking down.

"Okay, I got it! I got it!" She announced in a whispered tone.

The terror of the incident flashed back in her mind and she reached out for Tony's hands, interwining his with her own; still not looking up. To her pleasure she felt reassuring squeezes.

"Okay, you got it? Now, don't let it touch the sides when you're coming oUT!" There was a loud buzzing sound from a machine and "Ahh!" "Ahh!" (from Tony of course).

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Pepper cried out, eyes threatening to release tears.

"That's what I was trying to tell you before…okay, now make sure that when you pull it out, you don't-" He stops when he spots the wire and a metal disk out of his body; soon after the monitor's start to beep incessantly.

"There's a magnet at the end of it! That was it. You just pulled it out." Tony deadpanned. Of course his mind was racing with back-up plan, but only irritation and something else showed on his face.

"Oh gosh oh gosh!"

"Okay, I was not- Don't put it back in! Don't put in back in!" Tony cried in alarm as she swung the magnet near him again.

"Okay, what do I do? What do I-! What's wrong?" She asked again, noticing his hand which was tensing and relaxing while his jaw ground itself.

"Nothing, I'm just going into cardiac arrest,"

"Heart attack." Present Tony clarified.

"cause you tanked it out like a-"

"What? You said it was safe!"

"Yeah Tony!"

"We got to hurry. Take this, take this."

"You got to switch it out really quick." He supplied, and she nodded, grasping one of his hands.

"Okay, okay…Tony? It's going to be okay." She stopped, wasting some time to give some support. "It's gonna' be okay. I'm gonna' make this okay…" she chanted; however it seemed it was to calm her than the chairperson.

"Okay, you're gonna' attack that to the base plate, Make sure you-YEOOWW" he yelped once more.

And Pepper snuggled into Tony's neck more.

"…Was that so hard? That was fun, right?"

"Here, I got it. I got it." Pepper breathed in relief and dutifully helped him sit up, while he surveyed at the reactor.

"Nice," he congratulated.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I feel great." He smirked, and she stared at him.

"You okay?" And the next moment he broke into a short hysterical laugh., making Pepper smile.

"Don't ever, ever, ever, ever ask me to do anything like that ever again."

"Aren't you underpaid for this job, Miss Potts?"

"See, even he sees the problem here!" Pepper exclaimed, glaring at the man beside her. "That has to be the most stressful thing I had done in my life. I'm nor a nurse Tony," at the last line, more flashbacks of the crazy things he had her do appeared in her mind.

"I only wanted you to be the first with the knowledge of how to revive my heart, was that so wrong?" Tony questioned, paused, raised his eyebrows and smirked.

The frustration in Pepper's eyes dissipated before she relaxed again, Tony bringing her back into his arms.

"I don't have anyone but you." He said seriously, the truth dawning on everyone, before he shot Pepper a 'what-can-I-do-look'.

"Anyway…" Tony took the electrodes and the 'blanket' off before smartly hopping off the chair.

"What do you want me to do with this?" She inquired..

"That?" he turned and asked needlessly, while putting his shirt on. "Destroy it."

A few of them frowned or reacted slightly but the rest did not find it too alarming, been already acquainted with Tony's nature.

"You don't want to keep it?"

"Pepper, I've been called many things, 'nostalgic' is not one of them."

"…will that be all, Mr. Stark?" Pepper asked, trying not to let disappointment leak into her voice.

"That will be all, Miss Potts." He nodded and watched her leave, her heels clicking in tow.

Looking at his desk with a frown, he summoned his trusted labhand - "Hey, Butterfingers, come here." The AI turned and beeped, staying at its master's side.

"What's all this stuff doing on my desk? That's my phone, that's a picture of me and my dad. Right there- in the garbage, all of that stuff."

Tony's expression changed ever so slightly, before he got distracted by someone else's question.

"You didn't really throw away that kind of technology, right?" Natasha questioned.

"No, don't worry." Pepper replied.

"Ever the nostalgic one." Tony concluded, sighing.

"What did you do with it?" Bruce spoke up for once. Arc reactor technology was not to be taken slightly, ever. The very complexity of it never failed to arouse Bruce's interest, though it didn't fall into his field of science.

"You'll see. Patience!" Loki cut in dramatically, and suspenseful silence fell over the room, right before the sounds of an airplane's engine interrupted it.

(Meanwhile Thor: 'Yes brother you are the most patient man I've seen', laughs sarcastically in his head)

Rhodey stood in front of a group of military personel, leading them somewhere.

"The future of air combat. Is it manned or unmanned?"

"Really? Unmanned vehicles?" The man of the past inquired, skeptically.

"You've yet to see the future Steve." Clint repiled, shaking his head at the very suggestion of driving unmanned vehicles into combat.

"I'll tell you, in my experiences, no unmanned aerial vehicle will ever trump a pilot's instinct, his insight, that ability to look into a situation beyond the obvious and discern its outcome, or a pilot's judgment."

"Colonel Rhodes, I salute you sir!" Clint declared, receiving a thank you.

"Colonel? Why not a pilot without the plane?" Tony smirked, walking across the hanger towards Rhodey who sighed.

"Look who fell out of the sky. Mr. Tony Stark." He introduced.

Tony reached out and shook hands with one of the men.

"Hello, sir."

"Speaking of manned or unmanned, you gotta' get him to tell you about the time he guessed wrong at spring break. Just remember that, spring break, 1987."

"When's that?"

"Back in our MIT days - we were roommates for a while." Rhodey supplied and Tony nodded.

"That's a long time ago, old man." Clint teased.

"I'm not that old!" Tony retaliated, taking offense just as Steve started laughing.

"Welcome to the club, Tony."

"Hey!"

And Jarvis resumed the movie before a proper rebuttal could be made.

"That lovely lady you -"

'Don't do that!"

"What was his name?" By this time everyone in the group was laughing.

"Don't do that."

"Was it Ivan?'

"Don't do that."

"Eh, they'll believe it."

"Don't do that."

"Okay," Tony sighed.

"Don't do that." Rhodey repeated, warily.

"Pleasure meeting you." Tony acknowledged the rank of men and women who were watching the duo intently.

"Give us a couple minutes, you guys." Rhodey ordered, though a bit informally. Those under his charge dispersed shortly after.

"I do not understand, Friend Rhodey was working was not he? Then why is Friend Stark allowed to march in?" Thor interrupted.

"Thor?"

"Yes brother?"

Loki sighed. "Not. Brother. Two, this is America."

"Meaning?"

"They are not too strict in working policies. Humans don't like to work anyway."

"Stereotyping will lead you to trouble, Loki. Thor, don't listen to him." Coulson corrected.

"Like I care." Loki huffed.

"I'm surprised." The smile on Rhodey's face was strained. Tony turned to look at him fully, with a curious expression on his face.

"Why?"

"I didn't expect to see you walking around so soon."

"I'm doing a little better than walking."

"Really?"

"Yeah." He breathed.. No joke. All humor drained from his face.

"Rhodey, I'm working on something big." Eye contact remained firm. "I came to talk to you. I want you to be a part of it."

"You're about to make a whole lot of people around here real happy, cause that little stunt at the press conference, that was a doozy.." Rhodey laughed, hoping Tony was here to make 'amends'.

"This... is not for the military…I'm not- It's different." Tony tried to find words to explain, his throat sounded all choked up.

The colonel tilted his head, foliding his arms. "What? You're a humanitarian now or something?"

The atmosphere tensed up again, both in screen and in reality. It was a stark contrast to the playful mood during the banter only a while ago.

Rhodey was reminded how he had never resolved the on-screen tension after it took place, both him and Tony caught up with their respective work and clean-up after Obadiah's betrayal.

"I need you to listen to me."

"No. What you need is time to get your mind right." The military friend took a step back. "I'm serious."

"Okay."

He nodded his head twice. "It's nice seeing you, Tony."

"Thanks…" Tony muttered almost inaudibly.

Amidst this a certain avenger was questioning the foundations of the duo's friendship, suspecting it was materialistic.

Meanwhile Tony was joking around..

"So who needed to get his mind right huh?" Tony laughed, elbowing where Rhodey's ribs were.

"You missed out a golden chance to be the first pilot in the Iron Man armour to make the news." Tony smirked. "Red and gold baby. Red. And. Gold."

"Sorry man, the heat of the situation got to me then. You know how the big guys get when a seemingly unreasonable decision is made." Rhodey whispered, trying to justify himself to Tony.

"I know what you're saying. Don't worry." He swung his other arm around and patted Rhodey on the shoulder and gave a huge grin.

No offense to anyone in regards to anything this chapter! So I say, stereotyping can lead you into trouble! The huge grin implies that Tony had forgiven Rhodey for not being there to help Tony really find his 'way in life' and rebuild his company, whilst recovering from captivity and facing another betrayal :) This whole chapter's scenes are about friends. Pepper's was very hard to watch and write because of the disgusting parts.. Review, fav, follow if you liked/have something to share/suggest!

-thewriterstory

4(3) Dec 2015