Glass Heart

“What did you mean, back in the ballroom, when you told me you… designed those things?” Tony held an ice pack to his head as he walked into his living room. Scarlett had her back turned to him, trying to pull the remaining pins out of her hair to get it out of the mess it had been put into during the scuffle at the charity event. “Because while I took that literally out there, I realized it could mean a few things. Or you could’ve been joking which would be pretty… crappy of you. If you don’t mind I could use some clarification.”

It’d taken Tony twenty minutes to maneuver his way back into the collapsed building without causing further damage to the structure so he could free his driver from the place he’d hidden in the stairwell when it’d started to crumble. Afterwards the group had been debriefed, given their statements and denied medical attention. Well, at least Scarlett and Tony had declined medical assistance in favor of allowing others injured to receive it first.

After finding out what Happy had done to help Scarlett, Tony had given his driver the next few days off and sent him to the hospital to get his broken hand mended and taken care of. Tony had also insisted that Pepper accompany him to the hospital to make sure that Happy was taken care of and then sent promptly home. Having been offered a few days off as well to recover from the traumatic experience, Pepper had instead insisted she would be back the next day to continue with her duties regardless of the situation.

Tony could only assume that it meant she’d be there to check on him to make sure he’d taken care of himself by the morning. His track record when it came to his wellbeing wasn’t exactly reliable. Leonard had been taken to the hospital the moment the paramedics had arrived at the scene along with a handful of other people who had suffered more severe injuries during the attack. The paramedics had promised to contact Pepper when they had any news of his condition and to get in contact with his fiancé as soon as possible.

“Well, I designed them. What else could I possibly mean by that?” Scarlett gave up on trying to free her hair and started to dust her gown off. The dress she’d worn to the party was worse than ruined thanks to the men she’d been accosted by. It was a damn shame too because she’d actually been rather fond of it once she’d gotten used to wearing it.

“You know that’s not what I was asking, Scarlett.” Tony unbuttoned what remained of his dress shirt and discarded it onto the floor near the couch before resting the ice pack draped on the back of his neck so he didn’t have to hold it. The undershirt he had on beneath was stained with dirt and blood but still looked better than the tattered dress shirt had.

“What is it you want me to say?” Pretending to continue to dust off her dress seemed easier than actually approaching the problem at hand so Scarlett kept focused on her task.

“What is it I expect you to say? Are you kidding me with that line right now?” Cautiously approaching her, Tony leaned against the wall behind Scarlett and watched the way she stiffened up uncomfortably. It was time for her to give him the answers he’d been seeking since he’d found her but not for the reasons he’s originally wanted them.

People had been seriously injured, chaos had erupted and it was because of something she had done. Happy had filled him in on how the men were pursuing her in the hallway and trying to subdue her then take her away while the robots distracted Tony in the main room of the charity. It was clear that it hadn’t been something that Scarlett had been planning to have happen, but she knew far more about the attack than she was letting on.

Tony couldn’t keep her safe from the men pursuing her if he didn’t have any of the details. He was guessing now that the men he’d fought the other night on the highway had been attempting to abduct her as well. While he’d initially been angry when he’d heard Scarlett confess she’d designed the drones, it had faded quickly into worry and fear.

“It’s not a line. Tell me what you want to hear, Stark and I’ll say it.” Scarlett shrugged her shoulders and leaned the side of her head against the wall. There were no options left for her other than to tell the truth. While she’d always planned to share part of what had happened with her in Africa, she was finding it harder than she expected to bring herself to actually say it. Why should she make herself vulnerable to him?

Who was she kidding anyway? She was already vulnerable to him and far more so than she ever intended to be. In fact, she was sure she’d never been so vulnerable before in her life before anyone.

“Do you think there’s something specific I want to hear? I want the truth, Scarlett.” There was a bite to his voice that he hadn’t meant. Even though he was worried for her, he couldn’t help but feel the smallest hint of betrayal. Why did he feel betrayed? She’d made it clear from the beginning that she wasn’t being honest with him. Perhaps he thought they’d moved past that or that she would want to be honest with him. Why would he think that in the first place? Tony was confused by his own thoughts on the subject.

“Are you waiting for me to tell you some sob story about what happened to me, Stark? There isn’t any sappy story. You’re searching for a damsel in distress to rescue and I don’t need a damn knight in shining armor to keep me on my feet, okay? What I have to tell you isn’t what you’re going to want to hear.” There was still no bitterness in Scarlett’s voice, even though she was trying to find some edge for it. She knew better than to think that Tony was the brat who avoided the situations that didn’t go the way he desired, but wasn’t ready to admit it outside of her mind. Somehow, saying it out loud seemed to make it more realistic than saying it secretly in her head.

“Okay, there are two things wrong with that.” Tony walked away from the wall and around Scarlett, ultimately leaning on it again in front of her so that he could be face to face with her. Talking to the back of her head wasn’t his style. He couldn’t get a read on her even when they were face to face, but he couldn’t hear the anger that she’d expressed when they’d first fought with each other days ago and it worried him. Perhaps she was just avoiding explaining her story to him out of nerves. It wasn’t like he expected it would be easy for her to talk about the chaos she’d created but he needed to know the details.

“Oh really?” Scarlett scoffed, folding her arms over her chest and glaring up at Tony, trying to keep her demeanor cold and hard toward him but already faltering. “Enlighten me, please.”

“I know you’re not some damsel in distress waiting for me to save, Scarlett. Trust me, you’ve made that more than perfectly clear since the moment we met. But you are in over your head and you know it as well as I do! You can sit here and act tough all you want but I can see it weighing on your shoulders! I’m not trying to save you or keep you on some pedestal I just need to know what I’m up against. How am I supposed to figure out how to deal with you if I don’t even know what you’re dealing with?”

“Deal with me? Deal with me, Stark?” Scarlett was half amused by the way that he’d explained their situation and half annoyed at the same moment.

“I phrased that wrong, didn’t I?” A smirk flashed across Tony’s face until Scarlett used what he’d said as a reason to be mad at him. She was taking whatever ammunition she could get in order to avoid talking to him about what she was up against.

“Damn right you did, I’m not some business problem you have to sweep under the rug.” Ranting at Tony was easy enough, considering that half of what came out of his mouth could be twisted into an insult. Why was it so hard to admit what she’d gone through and what had resulted from it? Clearly she’d gone through worse in the past but something about being honest about how bad it had gotten was a struggle for her. Was it because she was afraid to admit that something she had only meant to prolong her chances of escape had turned into a weapon used to harm others? Scarlett was becoming a stranger within her own mind and it scared her, but that wasn’t something she was ready to admit either.

“I never said that you were. There’s no way I could sweep you away under the rug. I wouldn’t want to anyway, you’re much nicer to look at right here.” Tony shook his head, holding his hands up defensively, hoping to get her to back off of that particular comment he’d made. It was clear she was in defensive mode. The last thing they needed was for the both of them to be jumping down each other’s throats simply because the conversation was making them uncomfortable. Granted, Tony wasn’t very good when it came to serious conversation to begin with so this was out way further out of his comfort zone than he’d expected it to be.

“You said there was a second thing.” Scarlett rolled her eyes and looked into the living room at nothing in particular, simply to avoid looking at Tony in general. Even though she’d started the argument over his wording, she couldn’t keep it up. She wasn’t the type of girl to drag out something petty when there were serious matters at hand.

“Yes there was. Stop calling me Stark. It’s getting ridiculous now, really!” Tony slumped his shoulders and winced, recalling the annoying wound that had only been further irritated thanks to his fight against the robots. Fight wasn’t really the word for what had happened until he’d gotten his suit back. It had really been an hour of him running around like an idiot and trying to stay out of the line of fire. Before Scarlett could respond, Tony continued. “You called me Tony earlier! You called me Tony twice out there actually. You obviously want to call me that, so why don’t you just… embrace that urge… and any other urges you may have at that?”

“Stark, I hardly think that really matters right now.” Scarlett scoffed. She’d known that having called him Tony in the ballroom would backfire on her at some point.

“Come on, when we were dancing out there earlier… When I pulled you away from Gatsby, you called me Tony.” He inched closer, his arm against the wall as he glanced back down at her. “Then again on the balcony… you were all worried about me that time, I think. I almost thought I was hallucinating when I heard you, considering how much you love to use my first name.”

Scarlett didn’t bother defending the reasons she’d called him by his first name. When she wasn’t thinking about what she was saying it simply slipped out of her lips. It was natural to call him Tony, not Stark. She was only calling him that in an attempt to keep her distance from him which was a plan that had failed miserably. Instead of responding, she turned her back to him and continued to dust off her dress.

“What is it you’re so afraid of, Scarlett?” Once Tony was sure that Scarlett was ignoring his last request, he continued on to more serious matters.

“I’m not afraid of anything, Stark.” Scarlett emphasized his name, simply to assure him that she wasn’t done calling him that.

“God damnit.” Tony smacked the wall in annoyance, resulting in another annoying sting in his shoulder. “I need to know when you designed those robots, Scarlett, and why. This isn’t a joke anymore!”

“Then maybe you should stop treating it like one.”

“Tell me the truth!” Tony grabbed Scarlett by her shoulder then spun her around to for her face him, holding tightly onto her so she couldn’t turn away from him again.

Instead or recoiling or smacking him like Tony had expected her to do, Scarlett simply stared at him and contemplated how to start sharing her story. She’d made him fight for it long enough and now it was time to come clean. Well, as clean as Scarlett could come in this situation. Telling him what had happened with MedCo hadn’t originally been part of the plan, but as things had changed and developed it had become clear to her that she wouldn’t get anywhere without sharing at least part of her story. Would it be lying if she didn’t tell him everything that had happened? Technically she wouldn’t be making anything up so it wouldn’t be a lie. She’d just conveniently be holding back part of the truth.

Tony found that he’d loosened his grip on her shoulder as he watched something change in her demeanor. Maybe that’s why their fighting had felt off since they’d gotten home. Scarlett looked incredibly defeated. Part of him wondered if he should point that out to her or not. If she would just admit that seeing the chaos unfold in the ballroom because of her had affected her on more than a physical level, then he could help her deal with it or at least offer her a stiff drink.

Then again, if the tables were turned he’d likely be doing the same thing she was. Humor and anger were the greatest defense mechanisms in tough situations. Something told Tony that Scarlett didn’t exactly love to share her feelings or to revisit the things she’d been traumatized by and while Tony understood he couldn’t live in the dark any longer if she planned on staying in his house. And more than anything, for whatever reason he was still trying to figure out, he didn’t want her to leave.

Scarlett pulled away from Tony’s grip on her shoulder and walked to the pristine white couch in his living room, sitting down on the very edge of it. Resting her head in her hands she took a deep breath and then exhaled as she considered her tale. Just as Tony was about to speak to break the awkward silence that had grown between them over the past few moments, Scarlett rested her hands on her knees and cleared her throat.

“I’d had a bad run about a year ago.” Scarlett looked at the floor, finally deciding where to start her story. She wasn’t completely sure of the timeframe. Considering what she’d been through, she thought she could be excused when her days started running together and becoming blurs in her memory. Tony leaned with his back against the wall, his arms folded over his chest. The light of his arc reactor shone through his undershirt, shining brighter than the lights that Jarvis kept dim overhead. “A job I’d taken had gone sour and I’d gotten hurt.” She’d decided it best not to go into any further details on the subject matter. While Tony was curious, he decided it best not to ask about what had happened considering she was barely willing to talk about MedCo. “An acquaintance of mine suggested I take a lower key job to avoid any further danger until I was back on my feet.”

“That worked out well for you, didn’t it?” Tony scoffed, but listened intently sure that she’d had similar thoughts when things for her low key job had gone sour.

“I checked out the company in question the best that I could. They had a pretty convincing front set up. I figured they were a safe temporary situation that I could use to gather my bearings. I was told that I’d be doing work to further advance limb replacement technology. Right now, particularly in the third world, the resources for people who have lost pieces of their bodies is… non-existent. If I could develop something that really replaced a limb… and I mean really replaced it, veins, tissue, feeling… everything… I would have done a great service to the world.”

“Almost like a way to redeem yourself.” Tony spoke knowingly. Scarlett turned her head sharply to look at him. She’d never considered what she’d been hired to do for MedCo as redemption for her misdeeds. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense, and the more her stomach turned with discomfort.

“It was temporary.” Repeating what she’d earlier stated she continued, “I started with the technological side of it because that’s what I was most familiar with. The only catch MedCo had was the list of specifications they required for my prototype. At first it was only benign things like range of motion and reaction time.” Shifting uncomfortably and glancing back at her hands like they were interesting, Scarlett found it easier to tell her story without looking at Tony. “A few weeks later, the specifications list got longer and more conflicting. Every week they’d add something new and try to justify it with some ridiculous story. I became suspicious after the second change that MedCo wanted more than replacement limbs from me.”

“My friend thought I was being suspicious and paranoid. I was told I had spent too much time in the underworld to know when a company was legit. But with my engineering background, it was suspicious that they’d hire me in the first place considering they were supposed to be a medical company. Nothing added up and when things continued to change shadily I did a little digging, if you know what I mean.”

“You did a little hacking.” Tony clarified which was confirmed when Scarlett nodded her head.

“I intercepted a company memo that referred to my project as a weapon.” Sighing and wiping her hand over her face, Scarlett continued with her eyes closed. She could picture the scene unfolding in her mind, the moment she found that memo printed on Stark Industries letterhead that had made her aware of what was happening right underneath her nose. That was one of the truths she’d decided to withhold.

She glanced over at Tony to see if there was any sign of panic over his face but there was none. If he knew about the memo she’d found she would expect to see recollection in his eyes, but he seemed to simply be listening intently. He was either an exceptional liar, or he was being genuine. Perhaps she had become paranoid from spending too much time in the underground.

“I confronted the owners of the company and told them I wouldn’t be completing my work and still expected to be paid for the time I’d spent there working.” Without realizing it, Scarlett had placed her hands on the opposite elbows and shivered, like she was cold from the memory of it. “I was forced into captivity after that and told that I would create a drone weapon, not unlike your Mark suits but unmanned.”

“You don’t strike me as the kind of person to be held prisoner quietly.” Tony had lowered his voice and hadn’t taken his eyes off of her since she’d started talking. He hadn’t even bothered to blink. If he did, he might miss something important in her body language.

“They held my friend prisoner and told me that if I didn’t cooperate they’d be killed.” Scarlett was very careful with her words. There was no reason Tony had to know that the friend who suggested the job was once her lover. It wasn’t like the relationship had ever been that serious to her in the first place. Guilt turned in the pit of her stomach again. Had she ever intended to be serious with Scott? Or had she simply accepted his romantic advances because it was easier than rejecting him? Unable to consider that right now, she shoved it out of her thoughts for the time being. Someday, the things she pushed out of her mind would catch up with her and she had a feeling the end of the road would be coming sooner than she was prepared for.

Tony didn’t respond, but rather stayed stone faced when he realized what had kept her working on the drones. He was reminded of the man he was held with during his time in captivity. While he hadn’t been forced to work for the sake of the life of the man who had saved his, he had felt responsible for him. When she didn’t continue on and simply wiped her hands across her lips, smearing her lipstick just slightly on her chin which distracted Tony immensely for a moment, he decided to prompt her to continue. “What happened next?” The lipstick smear only seemed to highlight her lips further, which didn’t even make sense to Tony but he couldn’t help but think it.

“I couldn’t do it even under those circumstances. There wasn’t a part of me that was okay with what MedCo was up to and you were right, Tony.” Scarlett made no attempt to fix her blunder with his name and turned to instead look up at him. “I’m not the kind of girl to remain under someone’s thumb and keep quiet.” Offering Tony a small smile, Scarlett looked away from him again. Tony’s heart stopped entirely when she used his name and so casually at that. His brain was working in overdrive, interpreting her signals in a thousand different ways, none of which he was sure of. “I spent weeks planning escapes where I could save my friend and make a clean getaway for the both of us but it was hard considering how the odds were stacked against me.”

“But, being held captive by a hostile company requires something to show, particularly when there are cameras on you at nearly all times. I had to build something to keep the sharks at bay.” The memories of what she’d gone through seemed worse than it had felt when she’d been experiencing it. How long had she starved? How often had she gone without a proper night’s sleep? How much pain had she been in after her escape attempts? None of these things mattered now. Scarlett had to keep her focus on the game she was playing or she’d lose her hand.

“So, I started on blueprints for a drone. I made sure that, at all times, the prints would be out of the view of the cameras overhead and that they were not to leave my sight. I didn’t want what I was designing to make it out into the world. That’s why those drones were unfinished.” She was torn mentally on this part of her tale.

Who had managed to get a good enough look at her blueprints in order to replicate the drones that she’d designed in captivity? How had the robots she’d designed as a means of escape come to fruition to work against her? “I never meant for them to be finished. I never added any weapons or anything like that to the drones. I concentrated on defense so it would look like I was working. I filled the bodies with explosives so that I could trigger an explosion that would give me time to get away.”

Tony suddenly understood why the defenses on the drones he’d fought were so extravagant and why the weaponry and targeting seemed so cheap in comparison. Someone had taken Scarlett’s unfinished work and had attempted to complete it. It was a tribute to the beautiful way that Scarlett could design and work to see how well the pieces she’d designed had functioned.

“I made several attempts to get out before I actually could.” Scarlett smiled slightly and shook her head. “None of them went well but I knew they wouldn’t kill me because they needed me. Those attempts at escape were more like… tactical missions to gather information.”

“It looks like they still need you.” Tony frowned, not ready to ask what had been the result of her escape attempts. If it had been anything like his experiences, it was likely too traumatizing to talk about. It would explain why she’d been so unhealthy when he’d found her in the desert.

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?” Scarlett knew MedCo was sending her a message if nothing else. If she wasn’t going to come quietly back to them then they were going to follow her around and destroy every person who tried to help her until she surrendered and did what they said so that no one else would get hurt because of her. But Scarlett wasn’t the type to roll over and do what she was told in any situation as she’d mentioned earlier. “After a few failed escape attempts I knew that I had to leave with a bang. If I could blow up my prototypes remotely while I was on my way out then I could perhaps distract the guards from what I was doing. But, I had to find out where my friend was being held first. And that was the hardest part honestly… The facility was huge as you must have noticed.” Scarlett shrugged her shoulders. This part didn’t bother her to talk about as much as the part about captivity and betrayal did. Her escape attempts had always been under her control so there was nothing to be upset over in her opinion.

“It was and pretty technologically advanced.” Tony wasn’t ready to tell her why he was pursuing the rogue company yet. He’d alluded to his true reasons but had never completely explained why MedCo had been so important for him to eradicate. Just as she had been trying to do, he was on his quest for redemption. MedCo was using his weapons for less than benevolent purposes and against people like Scarlett.

Even if she had done some terrible things in her past, she hadn’t deserved to be held captive and he was certain that her friend didn’t deserve to be used as leverage either. What he was really holding back was the connection to Obadiah Stane and how much of an impact it had made on his life. He’d never told anyone how lost he’d been and how hunting down his lost weapons had given him purpose.

“Yeah, they had some pretty intense security to boot.” Scarlett smiled in memory of Sergei, the guard who had helped her on several occasions. She hoped beyond hope that he was safe somewhere and hadn’t died on her account. The idea that he could’ve been lost because he’d shown her some simple kindness was crippling. Then again, what if he’d used her? What if he was the one who had turned over her blueprints to MedCo? Maybe he’d been the one who had copied her blueprints while she’d been sleeping or injured from her escape attempts.

Her mind immediately rejected the idea of betrayal by Sergei just as it had done when she’d considered Scott as her enemy. The only enemy she faced was MedCo and Tony Stark and telling her story reminded her of why she was there in the first place.

“I can only imagine.” Tony grimaced, only realizing that he’d moved away from the wall to take a closer look at her when he had nothing behind him to lean on anymore which nearly caused him to stumble backwards.

“During a later escape attempt I’d managed to locate my friend but… you showed up first.” Scarlett lowered her head, avoiding looking at Tony more obviously than she had been before. Tony stayed silent even though he had a thousand things to say. Why did he suddenly feel guilty? Hadn’t he saved her? “I didn’t know it was you until I woke up here. But the building was falling apart and the power had failed. I knew it was time to go. I was burning my blueprints so they couldn’t be recreated by anyone when one of the owners came in. He discovered what I was doing and realized the web I was weaving.” Tony winced and considered apologizing but held off. He’d make it up to her in some way or another.

“We fought and he sent the order to kill my friend.” Scarlett gritted her teeth and stayed silent for a moment. She considered telling him that she’d shot one of the three heads of MedCo the moment she’d gotten the chance but decided it was yet another detail she’d keep to herself. It wasn’t important for Tony to know what she’d done and the blood that was on her hands. Even though it was what she considered self defense, she still felt guilty. “He triggered the bombs in my drone limbs by accident and I ran for it. I couldn’t give up on my friend without being sure that the order had gone through. Given the electrical failure that had occurred within the building at the time, I wasn’t so sure about it. Not to mention the havoc you were wreaking on them… I could only assume that security would be all over you and not on top of my friend.”

“They were, trust me.” Tony didn’t smile, but tried to sound his usual optimistic self.

“I didn’t know it was you at the time though. I went after my friend in hopes I’d get there before the building collapsed. They were being held near the chemical labs and well… something went off inside of there after I arrived. That’s when I got the chemical burns. After the explosion I started through the desert and that guard found me and threatened me. That’s when I got shot and you showed up to my aid. I didn’t see you before I passed out.”

“I wasn’t sure you were going to make it when I found you.” Tony stepped closer, pulling the ice pack off of his neck and setting it down on the glass coffee table nearby. It wasn’t cold anymore or helping his soreness anyway so it seemed unnecessary. “You were touch and go at first but you began recovering rapidly once you were finally out of the woods.”

“When I woke up I thought MedCo had done something to me.” Scarlett shivered at the notion of being taken and experimented on by the wicked company. She wasn’t sure if the company did such things but something in her gut told her that they were trying to create weapons of every kind, including super humans. “When I saw those robots attacking you tonight Stark, I was shocked.” Looking up at Tony, she tried to show him just how sincere she was on the subject matter. There were plenty of things that Scarlett lied about or wasn’t completely honest about but this was not one of them.

“I was pretty shocked when you told me you’d designed them. And it’s Tony.” Tony chuckled, finally able to find his humor again. Now that he’d heard her story he wasn’t angry with her. It wasn’t her fault they’d come after him and while she should’ve told him earlier, he couldn’t exactly blame her for not wanting to tell him the whole truth.

“I noticed. You got yourself thrown out of a window because of it.” Scarlett glanced away from him. “I don’t know how my designs were replicated but I never intended those drones to make it into the public. I never thought those defenses would be put to use. God, I was only trying to buy more time to escape. This was the last thing I wanted!” Resting her head in her hands again, Scarlett had little else to say on the matter.

Now that she’d finished her story, Scarlett felt cold and hurt which wasn’t what she had expected. Sharing parts of her story with Tony was supposed to assist her not cause her more struggle. Instead it had backfired in her face like everything else she’d planned to do since she’d woken up. Maybe she was still lying unconscious in a laboratory somewhere, being manipulated by MedCo and this time with Tony was all some elaborate coma dream. Now she’d considered that she’d seen one too many science fiction films and shook off the idea of it.

Still, Scarlett couldn’t help but feel manipulated. For once in her life she’d been trying to work a real job that would do some real good and instead had ended up sending out a weapon of mass destruction upon the world which had been exactly what she’d been trying to avoid.

Scarlett felt cheated by the world. No matter what path she took, good or evil it seemed to backfire on her. She tried to keep herself busy time and time again but she’d either ended up injured, guilt ridden, or doing more evil than she’d ever intended. It left her feeling confused, cheated, and betrayed. These were things Scarlett had managed to avoid feeling for most of her life.

The only times she’d felt betrayal she’d been fueled by it to get revenge on those who had caused her to feel such things. When she’d woken up that had been her plan but the feelings that had budded for Tony had complicated things. Since the fuel for her revenge had started to dissipate she’d been forced to confront feelings she wasn’t yet ready to tackle.

Tony contemplated giving her a hug or offering her some comfort, but she was practically radiating vibes of discomfort. He could tell she didn’t want to be touched and partially worried she would lash out at him if she tried. While he usually wouldn’t mind rolling around with her in that dress, now didn’t seem the right time to push his boundaries.

“I think that after what we’ve been through, we both deserve a drink.” Tony walked across the room to the bar at the other end. While he usually would have had Jarvis prepare the drinks, he longed for something to do with his hands while he considered what to do next. Scarlett had finally been honest with him. Maybe on top of having her work with him on the project for clean energy, he could convince her to help him find the people responsible for her robots and take them out. He worried she would be out for blood for what had been done to her, so he’d have to test the waters first.

“As long as it’s a strong drink.” Scarlett muttered, head still in her hands.

“Honey, I don’t know how to make drinks that aren’t strong. Tony filled two tall crystal glasses with some rum and then finished it off with some coke and a few ice cubes that came courtesy of an ice cooler hidden inside the bar. Once the drinks had been stirred with thin straws, he brought them back over to the couch and sat down right next to her

“Thank you.” Scarlett took her glass and took a long drink out of it. Silence followed while the two sipped their drinks, bloody, beaten and solemn. “I never wanted those things to come after you. I may not have liked you Stark, but I didn’t want to hurt you or anyone with those things.” Scarlett felt conflicted as she spoke. Her initial thoughts toward him had been murderous and here she was practically apologizing for having nearly killed him.

“Don’t worry about that.” Tony shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t know. I considered you might have planned it. My instincts told me better, but to be honest? I can’t get a read on you.” Tony glanced over at the bloodied, but lovely woman next to him. Her dress was torn and no longer fitting properly but in a weird way, it suited her. Then again, he was having a hard time finding something that didn’t suit her. His opinion was becoming more and more biased in regards to her as time continued on.

“I would’ve doubted it too if I had been in your shoes. I wasn’t sure you would trust me at all after I mentioned I’d designed them. Not that I think you do trust me or that… that I want you to trust me.” Scarlett couldn’t believe she was covering up accidental confessions about what she wanted from Tony and took another long drink of her rum and coke. At this point she thought she was going to need many more drinks if the night continued down the rocky path it was on.

“I was just glad that you brought me my suit instead of running off with it.” Tony couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear. Not only had she slipped up and called him Tony multiple times that night, but she’d also admitted that there had been a connection between them that was more than just the physical tug of sexual tension.

“Look, you may be a scumbag chauvinist with the biggest overinflated ego I’ve ever encountered in my life…”

“Oh, you flatter me.” Tony chuckled before sipping on his drink.

“Not to mention you love the sound of your own voice more than anyone ever should…” Scarlett rolled her eyes but a smile played on her lips. “Despite all of that… no matter how tempting the financial opportunity… I would have never left you to die, Tony.” Scarlett turned her head to the side to see Tony’s reaction.

He had been taken by surprise to say the least. Of all the things that she’d said that night, that had taken him the most off guard. Her motives had been unclear since the moment they’d met and here she was confessing that she would never leave him to die even if it meant risking her life to help him. And when he really sat to consider it, she’d stuck her neck out for him more than she ever should have during the battle in the ballroom. He’d been protected by a suit of armor and she hadn’t even been wearing shoes but she’d still stuck around even though she had clearly been the target of the attack at the charity event.

She could have just as easily escaped and gone into hiding but she’d found her way back into the ballroom, which had to have taken some effort considering the ground level exits had all been collapsed and the damage to the rest of the building that he’d surveyed was just as extensive. In the end, she’d saved his life by simply not abandoning him. It was more than what many people had done for him in the past.

Scarlett was still staring at him and waiting for a response. Tony kept his eyes on her, but couldn’t find the words to express what he was thinking. He honestly wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling or how to translate what the burning sensation in his chest was. Was he losing his mind or did the arc reactor somehow feel warmer? It seemed too ridiculous to even consider.

Instead of speaking, Tony took a drink and turned his eyes away from Scarlett. Conflicting emotions were easier to handle with a little bit of booze.