There were too many of them. Tony had no chance of fighting them off, not on his own. And he didn't think anybody would be showing up to help him anytime soon.

He was surrounded, surrounded by vaguely humanoid shapes with evilly glinting eyes. Big fat ears, too. A sea of the little ugly bastards.

Ugly and not too strong either. One at a time was no problem, and at the beginning he simply took a leaf out of Hawkeye's book, hovered a couple (ten) feet off the ground, and used them as target practice.

Then things grew more complicated. His right repulsor needed a second longer than usual to recharge and one of the Gremlins—it was as apt a name as any—latched onto his left leg.

"Shit," he said in an embarrassingly high voice and fired.

It was pure luck he didn't take his own leg off. Instead, the blast fractured his knee and possibly his ankle, diagnosis courtesy of Jarvis. Then the possible ankle fracture became definite as his left leg jets went offline and Tony slammed sideways into the wall, lost control of his right jet, and fell.

And then it was just him limping in a fearsome circle, trying to hold some amount of ground while sending repulsor blasts outward.

"Jarvis, is firing at one's own leg a good idea?" Tony said, hitting one of the Gremlins right between its three eyes.

"I don't know," came Jarvis's cool voice from beside his ear. "Is it, sir?"

Smartass. Tony loved Jarvis sometimes and hated him other times. This time was in a category all its own. "The correct answer was no, and I hope you realize that next time."

"I hope the same for you, sir."

Using both of his repulsors at once and knowing it would leave him vulnerable for a few precious moments, Tony blasted the Gremlins on both sides. "Fuck you, Jarvis," said Tony and the lack of response made him feel a little better—at least until a Gremlin took a flying leap for his faceplate.

The Iron Man suit, despite all of its enhancements, had not been made for hand to hand combat—so while he was wrestling with one Gremlin, he felt the pressure of one, two, three more on his back and arms.

Tony hit the floor in an undignified sprawl, sending shooting pains through his leg. "Jarvis, cut all power except for armor, order three five volleyball—"

Everything went dark. Even the lights of his suit console blinked out for a moment. The pressure of the Gremlins disappeared.

Tony froze. "Jarvis?"

"Tony," said a voice from somewhere in the dark.

It took Tony a second to realize it was Pepper, a second because she sounded so angry she had passed anger and moved on to disappointment and, well, the last time she had sounded like this he'd done his best to block the memory from his mind.

Ton decided to aim for easy, light conversation, stuff that was no trouble broken leg or not. "Oh, hey, Pep. Mind turning the lights back on?" He thought about asking Jarvis to nullify her override codes but decided it was probably not the time.

"Jarvis, authority nineteen-five-nineteen-double-five-twenty-one, lights."

The lights came on, illuminating the gray room that looked so much bigger when empty. Tony flipped open the faceplate and held up one arm. When did he make the lights so fucking bright?

"Tony," Pepper said again, arms folded. "What is this?"

"An advanced simulation utilizing the suit's full-body sensitivity functions and the visual capabilities of the faceplate. Meant to quicken reaction times and prep for real-life scenarios, ergo, future invasions from extraterrestrial forces and or threats on this Earth." And damn, he should have known better than to try that tactic on her because the look she gave him said she was buying none of it.

"You can either say that again, slower, or tell me what it actually is," Pepper said, carefully level, with her jaw set.

Tony sighed. "It's a fancy-ass video game system that's more realistic than is strictly healthy. Can I go now, Mom?" He made an attempt to roll over before remembering his leg. Shit. More realistic had not been the best way to go.

"What happened to your leg?" Pepper said, her voice lifting up a little at the end like it always did when she was worried. She crouched down next to him. Her blonde hair tickled his nose and smelled like artificial vanilla.

"Guess what, being realistic sucks," Tony muttered and struggled to sit up, relying on Pepper for an emasculating amount of support.

"What Mr. Stark is trying to say is that his knee and ankle are fractured due to human error and a large amount of attention to detail in the programming," chimed in Jarvis smoothly, voice no longer in Tony's ears but from the speakers embedded in the ceiling. "I suggest he obtains the proper medical attention immediately."

Tony protested at that. "It wasn—"

"I don't want to know, Tony. I don't even want to know why you were planning on activating three five volleyball. Jarvis, how long has it been since Tony ate?" Pepper said, cutting him off.

"Approximately three and a half hours, Ms. Potts."

"See?" Tony said, rolling his eyes. At least she hadn't asked how long it'd been since he slept. "I'm fine, Pep. Jarvis, can you send Dummy—okay, maybe not Dummy, but something down with gauze?"

"No. You're not doing this. Tony, I thought you'd been doing better." And there it was, the disappointed, you've-let-me-down-again, kicked puppy voice (not like that made sense, but whatever). Tony shrugged. Not like he hadn't heard it before.

When she'd found out blowing up his suits and 'burying his past for their future' actually meant temporarily burying them underground. When she'd found out he still woke up from nightmares. And now, now, he had the feeling this was the worst of them all.

"So this is why you're still getting nightmares? I'm not stupid, Tony. I'm going to get a doctor." Pepper walked him over, slowly, to the wall and let him sit against it. Tony was tempted to point out that Jarvis could easily call a doctor, just to spite her, just to make her acknowledge that she was trying to get away.

But instead he watched her retreating back and counted out precisely three minutes before calling Jarvis.

"Hey, Jarvis? Get something down with the gauze and probably some hard cast material, the one I made myself. Pull up the Youtube video I used when I broke my arm—yeah, that one, user name papaya something." He shifted his leg and winced. "You can get the McKinney scotch too."

"Yes, sir," said Jarvis.

"So what did we learn from that ordeal, then, Jarvis?"

"Not to trust you in battle, sir?" pointed out Jarvis as dryly as an AI could.

"Good man. Pull up my Gremlin game design. I need to change some things."

Jarvis hesitated. "Sir, you have a call coming through, would you like to take it?"

"Do I look like I would like to? Tell them I'm busy. No, wait, if it's Pepper, say to go to Dr. Delhmi and nobody else—"

"Sir," said Jarvis with calm purpose. "It's from Director Fury on SHIELD's highest security line."

Twisting his wrists in an attempt to stretch, Tony paused for a moment. "Put him through," he conceded finally. "But let it ring once or twice first."