"We've finished the full analysis of the nanovirus, Miss Potts. Sorry it took this long, but the people most qualified for this aren't here anymore," Laura Rivera, formerly research assistant, now junior researcher, explained apologetically.

"Don't worry too much about it, Miss Rivera," she smiled encouragingly. "We're not in a hurry. What have you got?"

"Lots of interesting details," the young researcher indicated the computer on the desk near them, so they sat down in front of it. She opened an image of the nanovirus on the screen. "We managed to take it apart entirely, and recognize the different components. The biological component," she clicked open another file, which showed a black and white picture with sets of horizontal lines, which said nothing to Pepper, "that is, the DNA we could find, which is analyzed here, mostly comes from a strain of hantavirus that is found in Brazil."

"So, whoever made this could've found it right here, just like that?"

"Yes, and that's probably why they picked it. Now, the technological part was mostly beyond our comprehension, but we could point out the electronanotechnological component which made the whole virus susceptible to EMPs. It's exactly the design we were going to use here, invented by Doctor Santos himself."

"Which really makes me wonder who's side he was on," Pepper said thoughtfully. "Anything else?"

"We also studied how the virus functions, and found out that it's transmissible from person to person, extremely contagious, but quite shortlived when it's airborne. So, if you happen to stand right next to someone who has it, you will get it too. If you stand on the other side of the room, then you probably won't - and if you come back an hour later, it's all gone. Which kind of makes sense if you want to use it as a weapon, I guess."

"I don't know anything about that sort of stuff."

"Me neither," Rivera admitted. "You know, what little I do know about biological warfare says that this nanovirus is a weird thing. I can't understand why they created it to begin with. There are plenty of disease they could've used without all this trouble and work they've put into this thing."

Pepper nodded. "Anything else?"

"Lots of stuff, but it's all in the files," she pointed at the computer.

"And I probably won't understand half of it anyway... Well, thank you very much, Miss Rivera," Pepper reached out a hand to shake Rivera's. "I'll see to it that Mr. Stark gets this information as well. Good work."

Pepper left the room feeling more than a bit strange. The way Rivera looked up to her and did her best to please her was something she was not used to. She should get used to it, now. At the moment, Pepper was basically Tony's stand-in here at the biotech complex, while Tony was away hunting the bad guys as Iron Man. She wasn't used to being in charge like this. On the other hand, she found it surprisingly easy. As it was, most of the scientists here were a lot easier to deal with than Tony.

Pepper walked across the shiny new corridors of the complex towards Tony's office - or rather, her office at the moment. The complex was airy and full of light, with lots of windows everywhere, but with enough air conditioning to keep it cool despite of all the bright sunlight. A nice place, and a perfect symbol for the new direction Stark Industries had taken, moving away from weapons technology. She entered the office and sat down behind the desk.

"Jarvis? How's Tony?"

"Mr. Stark, or Iron Man, I should say, has just crossed the border between Brazil and Colombia. Vital signs are within normal parameters, as specified by Doctor House, and the arc reactor is working optimally," the AI answered, and the corresponding data blinked on the screen in front of her.

"Worrying for me, Miss Potts?" Tony's voice came through the speakers, relayed by Jarvis.

"Who, me? In your dreams, Mr. Stark. I'm just checking in on you because I've got news for you," she said, and had Jarvis transmit the new data on the nanovirus to him.

"Good, thanks. And don't worry, mum, I'll be back home for dinner. I'm approaching target now. Iron Man out."

"Shall I inform you of any changes, mother?" Jarvis asked her in his perfectly emotionless voice.

"You're just as bad as he is!" she told the AI, trying to sound angry, but grinning nevertheless. "And no, he's a big boy, he can take care of himself. I'm not going to waste the whole day sitting here and worrying. Just let me know if there's a real emergency."

She opened the nanovirus data on the screen, but found her thoughts straying to other matters all the time. To Tony. After the few intense, passionate moments in the strange setting of forced cohabitation in the hospital room, she had taken a time out. He had tried to continue like they had started, but she had pushed him away gently, and he had gotten the message quickly enough.

It was five days since they'd left the hospital, and things were "back to normal", again, sort of. He kept flirting at her, she kept returning his flirt with wit and nothing more than that. They slept in separate rooms, she was his assistant, he was her boss - with the slight change that, after she had given him several angry lectures on the subject, he was less overprotective and let her in on all his Iron Man stuff. At times, they touched, they had even ended up kissing a few times, but it wasn't the same, when she felt so uncertain.

She couldn't decide where to go from here. Even though he had changed, even though ever since Afghanistan he had been slightly more responsible than before and no longer carried a new girl to his bed every night, she knew a relationship with him was a bad idea. Iron Man's girlfriend? That was a crazy position to put herself in. He was always in danger, whether it was a nanovirus, an enemy trying to beat the living daylights out of him, or something even stranger, like a former friend wrenching out his arc reactor. Of course, being near to him would also be dangerous to her, it would make her an easy target that his enemies could use to get to him. There were lots of downsides. Then again, he was one of a kind, he was brilliant, and how likely was it that she should ever run across a man like him and find mutual feelings?

So, did she love him? Yes. Was it wise? Absolutely not. What should she do? She had no idea.

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

"So, how was the neurology conference?" Taub asked Foreman, as the four doctors sat in House's office, waiting for him to show up.

A new day at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, Kutner thought, and a new difficult case waiting for the Diagnostics Department. Back to business, as usual.

"It was great, felt like a vacation. Several interesting lectures, a good party, lots of old colleagues to meet," Foreman described. "And no House."

"So, you don't regret it at all that you didn't get to treat Iron Man?" Kutner said. He, for one, would have. It had been the most exciting case he had ever worked on, no doubt about it.

"Dealing with both Stark and House at the same time?" Foreman shook his head. "My head would've exploded."

"Stark really wasn't that bad," Kutner declared defensively.

"Oh yes, he was!" Thirteen exclaimed. "Every bit as bad as House, or worse."

"Just because you walked in on him and his assistant..." Kutner started, without thinking what he was saying.

"Hey, who told you about that? I never told anyone!"

"Apparently, somehow, House found out about it from Stark, and then told pretty much everyone," Taub explained, looking amused at Thirteen's horror.

"See? That was my point. Those two in one place at the same time," Foreman was shaking his head again. "Not good for your sanity."

"So, you probably haven't heard the rumors yet?" Kutner asked him. "That House is going to be Stark's medical advisor or something like that?"

"Oh, come on, it makes no sense. They couldn't stand each other," Thirteen said disbelievingly.

"House probably started those rumors himself," Taub added.

"Well, even if he did, why would he lie about it?" Kutner insisted.

"You're right, actually," Foreman agreed. "House doesn't care what other people think about him. He wouldn't start a rumor to make himself appear cool. He would definitely start a rumor just to addle our minds, though. If it's true, he's probably going to have to keep it low profile anyway, or Iron Man's enemies will try to get information from him... So, I guess we'll never know for sure."

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

Even though Tony was only some five hundred feet away from his target, he still couldn't see it. Without the exact coordinates and GPS and Jarvis to guide him, he would never have found the place. It was a tiny biological research outpost, deep in the Colombian part of the Amazon rainforest. It would take several days to reach it on foot from any larger settlement, there were no roads, and not enough space to land a helicopter. For Iron Man, it was naturally no problem at all.

Five days after House had cut him loose from Princeton-Plainsboro, Tony was still technically a convalescent, but he wouldn't let that slow him down. He didn't feel sick anymore, the only residual effect from the nanovirus was that he got tired faster than normally. He was clearly somewhat out of shape, and would be for days, maybe weeks, but that didn't matter when he had the suit on. In his armor, he was as formidable as always, faster and stronger than any ordinary man. As long as he stayed in the suit and kept his days short enough that he wouldn't get too exhausted, he was fine.

Tony had already checked two places today, one of which had been a false lead, the other, a cold one - the target had been there, but had left days ago. This would be the last one for today. It was also the most promising one. The biological station was funded by the same university where Doctor Jordan, the missing SI researcher had studied, and it was so small, so remote and unimportant that it had taken even S.H.I.E.L.D. days to learn about it.

Iron Man landed with a flourish, punching the ground in front of the derelict hut that was the only building of the station. He looked around, but couldn't spot anyone instantly. There were only two people working here, a married couple, who spent most of their days roaming the rainforest, so it was no wonder the place seemed abandoned. He switched to the suit scanners, which were much more accurate than the naked eye, and walked a circle around the hut, scanning the surrounding forest. There! He caught sight of someone running away from the hut.

He ran after them, the thick plant growth slowing him down, and making it impossible for him to take off and fly after the fugitive. His suit was clumsy in such a setting, and his target was moving faster than him. He was already starting to feel the extra stress on his body. He stopped. A change of tactics was in order. Aiming carefully, he shot several blasts into the canopy ahead and around of his prey, and then leaped forward with a measured burst from his boot jets, rushing through branches and leaves and vines.

Iron Man reached his target, who had stopped, cowering against a thick tree trunk. She was an early middle-age woman, wearing khaki shorts and a black T-shirt, her dark hair cut so short that she was almost bald, forming a strange contrast to the feminine eyeglasses she wore. "Facial recognition confirmed: Doctor Emma Jordan, senior researcher, Stark Industries biotech, current status: missing," Jarvis told Tony.

"It's all right, Doctor Jordan," Tony said to her. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Jordan relaxed somewhat, lowering her hands, which she had been holding protectively in front of herself, and sat on the ground, her back against the tree. Then she took a good look at her pursuer, and her hands flew up again, in a fist covering her mouth. After a while she uttered, "Iron Man? Tony Stark? But it can't be! You can't be alive, you can't have survived it!"

"The one and only. Sorry to disappoint you," Tony said, stepping closer to her, knowing full well how menacing he was in the suit. "And I want some answers."

"Please, just leave me alone! They'll find me, and they'll kill me, like they did the others, like they did Brian!"

Jarvis spoke up without asking at the mention of the name: "Doctor Brian McPherson, senior researcher, Stark Industries biotech, current status: deceased," and the data on McPherson appeared on the HUD. Tony muttered a "yes" to the AI. He had figured as much already. Doctor McPherson had been the other missing SI scientist, supposedly a friend or a love interest of Doctor Jordan, and he had been found dead in a staged car crash.

"You're safe enough with me as long as you cooperate. If you don't, well, then you might be happier with 'them', whoever 'they' are. Which is one of the most important questions I want answered," he told her. Of course he was just bluffing, of course he wouldn't hurt her. She was possibly a key witness, and no matter what she had done, they needed her safe and sound enough to tell everything she knew.

"I don't know, I don't, I really don't," she shook her head, still panicky. "They approached Brian first, just a job offer, something extra that he could work on while still employed by Stark Industries. He didn't care about the money, he went in for the chance to work on something practical right away, unlike at SI where we were just doing theoretical stuff and running simulations. Brian asked me to join in too, because they could use my skills, and I went in mostly for the money - they promised to pay a lot, ridiculously, really - you know, Stark Industries pays us well enough, you do, but that was much more. I liked Brian and I trusted him and I thought, what the hey, easy money, so I joined in."

"You didn't answer the question. I'm not here to blame you for anything right now, Doctor Jordan, you don't need to explain your actions. Just tell me who hired you."

"It was weird, really. When we joined in, they said it was a company, they even had official forms and all. It was called Decatech. But it wasn't a real company, it was a coverup for something else. There was this one guy we saw once or twice who was running the whole operation, a bald guy who had this ring which sort of stood out because it didn't fit in, a guy like him wearing a ring like that."

Tony felt his jaw drop and was glad he was wearing the suit so his stupefied expression wouldn't show. A bald guy with a ring? His mind was flashing with vision of Afghanistan once again, of the villainous man called Raza who had been leading it all. "Can you describe him more closely?"

"I just saw him a few times... He looked Chinese, I think, he was pretty short and had a round face, he was called something like Liu, I think."

Tony frowned, perplexed. Could it be that it wasn't Raza, after all? "Chinese, not, say, Arab, by any chance? You absolutely sure?"

"Definitely not Arab. Why would you think that?" Jordan shook her head. "And I heard from some of the other researchers who they had hired that we were actually working for someone called 'The Ten Rings', who may have been a terrorist organization, or something, but that was more like a rumor, though, of course, by the time I heard that, we were already sure that we shouldn't have joined them and that we were working on something bad, but we couldn't help it, because those who didn't follow and tried to go to the authorities got killed," she rambled on.

"Damn!" Tony cursed, turning away from her for a while, walking around in a small circle, frustrated. The Ten Rings. The same group that had captured him in Afghanistan. Who the hell where they, and what were they doing here? They were clearly after him again, even though Obie was out of the picture already. They'd attacked Stark Industries and they'd attacked him, and now they had probably fled the scene again. "Can you tell me where you worked?" Tony asked Jordan, not really hoping to get an exact answer.

Sure enough, she shook her head. "No, we were taken there with jeeps through the jungle, it was a remote place, impossible to locate. Santos almost did it, he was following us and had a GPS, but they noticed him and caught him and forced him to work for them too."

"Santos is dead now," Tony told her gloomily. "He shot himself. I still don't know why. Was he loyal to the company or wasn't he?"

"He shot himself? Well, he was going to die anyway, he had no chance," Jordan muttered. "He was loyal. They caught him and held him at gunpoint and said that he could either work for them or die, so he said he'd work for them, but while working, he installed a failsafe in the nanovirus we were working on - and tried to send messages out to let you know about the operation - and they caught him again, and this time, they said he would die, and he would suffer, because he had betrayed them, so they sent him to go to SI biotech to infect you."

"Loyal to the end... Without the failsafe, I'd be dead now. Santos was one of the heroes of the story, then," he said, mostly to himself. Now, he finally had a good theory for why Santos had killed himself. He had had the nanovirus, and he had been sure he would die anyway, that the nanovirus would spread and kill countless people. Santos had known he had failed to stop the bad guys, and that it looked like he had been working for them. He had been desperate. He had killed himself to escape it all. It sounded credible, but since Santos was dead, Tony would never hear the whole truth from him. "What about you, then, and the others? Where did your loyalties lie?"

"I was just loyal to Brian," she shook her head. "Of course, it was clear from the start that we were working on biological warfare, and it didn't put me off. But honestly, we didn't know it was going to be used like that, so soon, and on you - we never would've done a thing if we had known, and when we learned about it, it was too late and they would've killed us if we hadn't finished it. And it was really just an etude, an exercise - the hantavirus-based nanovirus, the one they tried to infect you with. They wanted more, they wanted even more lethal stuff, and a few people actually agreed to do it. Brian and I, we weren't going to, so, the day Santos had been sent out, before they realized what we were planning to do, we escaped. I've been on the run ever since. They found us once - the car crash - but I survived it, and I kept running, and I'm still running, because if I stop, they'll kill me..." Jordan was speaking in a continuous flood now, her eyes wide, tears running down her face.

Tony had heard enough. Though he was boiling with anger and frustration at the damn terrorists that had fled him once again and who had used people like this and killed them off just like that, he forced his voice to stay casual and told her, "Hey, it's all right. You're safe now, I promise. Stark Industries looks after its own. Everything's going to be all right. Let's get out of this jungle now, before my suit starts to rust in all this humidity."

He grabbed her in his gold-titanium-clad arms and took off, heading back to base.

Soaring through the air carrying this rescued maid, casually flirting with her just because he couldn't help it and because he hoped it would make her feel more at ease, Tony found his thoughts straying to Pepper. She would be waiting for him back at the biotech complex, wearing a look of well-covered worry, but worry nevertheless. Maybe he would kiss her as a greeting, and maybe, just maybe, today would be the day when she would kiss him back and not flinch away. He didn't know what he had done wrong, why she was acting so distant and reserved again. For all his experience with girls, he couldn't figure her out, because she was different from the others - that was the very reason why he loved her so much, but it made things complicated, too. He already missed the moments they'd had in the hospital. Hell, it had almost been worth suffering the nanovirus just to share those moments with her.

Maybe today would be the day, and if not today, maybe tomorrow. He wasn't a very patient man - actually, he was the very opposite of patient - but he would be patient for her. He knew she loved him, and she knew he loved her, and that was enough, for now.

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

House unlocked the door and limped in to his apartment. It was the evening after yet another pointless and dull day at the Princeton-Plainsboro Department of Diagnostics. The patient of the day had been a very boring guy with Churg-Strauss syndrome, and the only bright side of the day had been a confrontation with Cuddy about the home theater system Stark had left behind. House was so going to have it.

Crouching awkwardly, he picked up the mail. Several bills, the latest issue of the Journal of Renal Medicine, and, well well! A thick letter-size envelope with the Stark Industries logo on it. Suddenly feeling like a kid at Christmas, he tore it open right away.

There was a bunch of official-looking papers and a few forms - the contract for his consulting job as Stark's medical advisor. Among the stack of papers, there was something that didn't quite belong. It was a picture, a large photo of Iron Man soaring among the white clouds in an azure sky, sunlight reflected from his red and gold armor in a lens flare. Written in a corner of the picture in a golden marker was an inscription:

To Superdoc & Sidekicks,

Thanks,

Tony Stark

House stared at the signature. "Thanks?" That was all Stark had come up with? Had he even written this himself, or had he just had some PR guy write it for him? Feeling more than a bit disappointed, House flipped over the picture, and there, on the blank other side, were two more lines of text.

P.S. I'll call you about that date.

P.P.S. You were wrong and I was right.

House grinned. That was more like it.

Sure, House had been wrong about a lot of things on this case. He had been wrong about the diagnosis, not once, but twice, which he was greatly annoyed about - though the second time he couldn't have helped it, because the nanovirus had been something he couldn't possibly have expected, and it really had been almost identical to HPS. More importantly, he had been wrong about Stark on many accounts. Sure, the man was a jerk, but he wasn't quite as selfish as House had thought, and he really was as smart as the media claimed, maybe even smarter. House still wasn't prepared to admit that Stark was a hero, let alone a superhero, but he could admit that Stark might be one. For someone as cynical as House, just the idea that there actually might be such a thing as a superhero, who might possibly be even half as heroical as they were supposed to, was something really special and extremely cool.

This once, House was more glad than ever that he had been wrong.

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

Author's Endnote: There, all done. For end credits: Agent Sitwell of S.H.I.E.L.D. was borrowed from the old Iron Man comics, and the Extremis-storyline of the current volume of Iron Man comics gave me some ideas. The biggest source of inspiration, though, were you, readers, and all the nice reviews. Thank you once more for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. :)

As you probably noticed, the last chapter let a lot off stuff unfinished and open, so there's plenty of room for sequels, though I'm not planning on any right now, but maybe some day... (And if anyone feels crack-ish enough to write such a thing, I think Tony/House slash would be absolutely hilarious :P)