Echoes

The phone rang and rang.

No one ever picked up, there wasn't even a place for him to leave a message like their used to be. Tony hung up and leaned back in his computer chair. Scarlett had promised to call him when she'd gotten the chance but it had been too long now and he was worried.

Worried to the point that he'd basically called her every ten minutes for the last hour. After she'd left he'd cleaned up for a few minutes, worked on a few different projects and had ultimately fallen asleep on the couch where Scarlett had left all her blankets. They smelled like her.

They smelled like her and him and while at first this had done quite a number on his imagination it had eventually been a comfort. When he woke up smelling like Scarlett but without her anywhere near him he'd felt oddly sad and alone.

When she hadn't called him at all that afternoon he'd finally resolved to call her instead. He didn't want to be that guy, the needy clingy friend who called at every little thought, but after seeing how she'd bled, after seeing how she'd been so sickly pale, he was worried and he thought he had every good reason to be.

Unfortunately, that worry had only grown worse as time passed. His imagination got away from him. Now in his computer chair, wrapped in the blanket he'd allowed Scarlett to sleep in Tony was running through article after article by Dianne Hendricks about Scarlett and S.H.I.E.L.D. There hadn't been much time for him to ponder her stories.

But now that he could, now that Tony really had time to absorb that Scarlett was very much involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. and she was very much on the run from someone in her past, he kept thinking back to the only articles that held any grain of truth to them and they were all written by the same woman.

Tony had saved them to bring with him wherever he went.

When the phone rang so long that the operator alerted him that the wireless caller he was trying to reach was unavailable Tony at last hung up.

"Redial, sir?" Jarvis chimed in when Tony made no move to do so himself.

"Worried, Jarvis?"

"A little, sir."

"Me too." Tony spun in his chair and leaned back. He was feeling antsy, he wasn't going to be able to sit idly by for much longer. But, he wasn't sure he should have been looking for Scarlett either. There had to be someone he could talk to about it, a way to get word on her without actually talking to her. She wasn't answering her phone, that had to be for good reason. Tony wasn't sure she'd tell him if anything was wrong either.

They were the same sort of stubborn, it seemed. As much as Tony didn't wish to burden her with any of his issues, she had the same wish only it seemed that her problems were more in the physical realm than his currently were.

He couldn't stop thinking about how much she had bled the night before and how quickly her condition deteriorated. The more he'd read through Dianne Hendricks' articles that barely touched on the matter of Scarlett's health the more he thought the reporter was definitely onto something. Whatever it was, it was something that had affected her to a point where she'd asked for S.H.I.E.L.D. assistance. Tony had no doubt that whatever her last occupation had been it was one where she could hold her own. She wouldn't have teamed up with S.H.I.E.L.D. if she didn't absolutely have to.

Plus, whenever Tony had brought them up in the past to feel around for information she had always redirected the conversation. He'd allowed it, but only because he hadn't wished to set off any panic she may feel. Scarlett's secrets were bursting at the seams and Tony was ready to rip them right open whether or not she was. He didn't want to push her but he got the distinct feeling that time was running out.

"Let's try something different." Tony sighed, so bundled up in the blanket that only his face peeked through. "Dial Nick Fury."

"Director Fury, sir?"

"Yeah, maybe he can help." Tony shrugged and waited as Jarvis connected the call.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. Operations, how may I direct your call?" A pleasant sounding man answered on the other line. Of course Nick Fury would give him a number for his secretary instead of one that would lead to him directly.

"This is Tony Stark, I'm calling to speak with Blackbeard." Tony joked.

"…do you mean Director Fury?"

"Yeah, who else would I mean?"

"Because of the eye patch."

"Yeah and the billowing coat and overall evil pirate presence, yeah that's why." Tony was puzzled as to why he was having to explain this to anyone else.

"I'm afraid he's not in the office, Mr. Stark."

"Can you connect me to his cell phone then? I know they're a bit past his time but pretty sure the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to have one."

"I'm not authorized to release such information. May I take a message?"

"Not really something I want to talk about with some secretary."

"I can connect you to his office phone, if you like."

"You just said he wasn't in the office."

"He isn't."

"So you want to connect me to a phone that isn't going to be answered is what you're saying."

"Well, yes I suppose that's true."

"Why don't you just connect me to his cell and we can pretend this conversation never happened."

"I'm afraid that I can't do that, Mr. Stark. I can however connect you to his…"

"Yeah, his office. Does that mean he has a voicemail? Because I have plenty to say to that."

"Yes, sir, you can leave him a message." The secretary seemed relieved that he could end this conversation.

"Fine, fine… but don't ask any favors from me in the future."

"Yes, Mr. Stark." The secretary fiddled with something on his phone before disappearing. Tony was left with nothing but ringing which annoyed him. He almost hung up. It couldn't hurt to leave a message. He had to speak to someone at S.H.I.E.L.D. about it and the only person he had left to contact there was Director Fury.

Finally the ringing stopped and he was prompted to leave a message.

"Hey, cyclops, I need to talk to you about Scarlett Damien. Don't pretend you don't know who that is. Call me back or I'm going to have to get creative." Tony wiped the call out of the air and then spun again in his chair.

It was so damn quiet without anyone else in the house.

He'd been alone in the house for a very long time, months, but this felt different. The whole place felt alien, part of a life that he was no longer living. He'd said it before, but now he was ready to put it into action.

"It's time for a change." Tony sighed, but it wasn't a sad sigh, not a confused sigh, but rather a content one. He was finally ready to move on, to move forward.

"We do need to plan a remodel, sir."

"Whole second floor has to go. I'm thinking about knocking down all the walls, rearranging the whole layout. Paint job, furniture, whole shebang. I need a change… a big change. Something to reflect… well, me! All this white, it feels too sterile."

"A new beginning, sir?"

"Just what I'm thinking. Thinking of connecting this to upstairs so I can look out at the ocean while I work. Elevator? We've never had one of those in Malibu. Overlooking the ocean, make it happen."

"Sir, that sounds like a brilliant plan."

"Are you saying I've been down here too long?"

"I'm saying that much of the world is beautiful and to ignore it for white walls for so long is a crime."

"Wow, Jarvis, that's actually kinda pretty."

"I'm only as capable as my creator, sir."

"Ouch." Tony winced but then laughed, sliding along the walls in his home on the blueprints that Jarvis had pulled up in front of him. "Take these and see what you can come up with. Call that designer… what's her face."

"Very specific, sir."

"You know what I want, do you have to argue with everything I say?"

"Yes, sir." Jarvis responded, but the blueprints disappeared and Tony once again rocked in his chair out of boredom. He couldn't sit still for much longer, he was going to lose his mind. There had to be something he could do.

He had to get out of the house.

Tony got up from his spot in the chair and started over to the line of luxury vehicles at the far end of the room.

"Jarvis, call Rhodey." Tony muttered under his breath. "And transfer it to the Maserati."

"Yes, sir."

Tony checked his hair in the mirror and then got into his car. Rhodey picked up after the third ring, sounding nervous at the sound of Tony's voice. Tony thought perhaps Pepper had spoken to him first, but didn't ask. Rhodey agreed to meet him at the bar Tony liked in an hour's time.

It wouldn't take Tony an hour to get there, but he knew that not everyone could drop everything the way that he could. Most people weren't billionaire CEOs of global corporations who could set their own schedule.

Rhodey walked into the bar about a half an hour later than he wanted to. Tony was seated at the bar, talking animatedly to the bartender, a half empty glass in front of him. It was a far different sight than the one that had met him the last time they'd gone for a drink together. Tony had been a shell of himself then! This was far more what Colonel Rhodes expected when he thought of his friend. Rhodey adjusted his light jacket and sat next to Tony at the bar.

"So she's ignoring me, right?" Tony tapped his fingers on the bar. "And who ignores me? I mean that's not a thing, no one ignores me, I don't let them." With a smirk on his face and a sideways glance at Rhodey, Tony continued. "So I suit up and fly to her office where I crash right through the balcony window. Oh, she was so damn mad…"

"Is that a true story?" The bartender's eyes were wide as he turned to Rhodey, recognizing him from previous visits.

"The fact that Tony's really annoying when he's ignored is absolutely true, so my guess is the rest is probably also true." Rhodey joked and Tony smacked him on the back with a smile. Rhodey returned the gesture and Tony blinked and coughed dramatically like he'd been assaulted.

"You're late."

"I told you I was in a meeting." Rhodey smiled warily at his friend. Despite his good mood and jovial mannerisms, Tony was off. He could read his friend like a book after so many years and knew that there was a reason for his call. Tony rarely just wanted to shoot the shit these days like he had once done every damn day. "Besides, you are the last person on the planet who gets to give me a hard time for being late. I had to deal with ten years, more than ten years, of you being late!"

"Get a drink, come on." Tony nodded toward a table and placed far too much cash on the bar for a tip.

"Just water for me." Rhodey gestured to the bartender before following Tony to the table across the bar where they'd sat what felt like forever ago when they'd last met there.

"Boring. Always so damn boring."

"I have things to do later."

"That girlfriend of yours, perhaps? Or are you still being boring and waiting?"

"Wow." Rhodey laughed.

"Did you miss me?"

"I did, actually." Rhodey took his seat, dragging it a ways from the table and facing his friend. He leaned his elbows on his knees and scrutinized his friend. "What's going on? Is everything all right? You freaked me out calling me like that…"

"Everything's fine." Tony smiled a little, then straightened his face, tapped the table and thanked the bartender who brought Rhodey his glass of water with a slice of lime. "Or I think it is. The line has recently been blurred as to what is actually fine."

"Then what is it? What do you need? It seemed… urgent."

"I broke up with Pepper." Tony said easily and as the words came from his lips he felt a rush of that familiar anxiety with everything that accompanied that statement. He looked away from Rhodey and down at his half empty glass of Jack and Coke. Rhodey stared at his friend for a long moment before leaning back in his chair with a thoughtful sigh. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad. Should he celebrate or mourn?

"What happened?"

"I know what you're thinking. I don't seem like a guy who just broke up with his girlfriend."

"No, I've seen you break up with girlfriends before and this isn't how you do it. Usually there's way more liquor and a lot more women. And most important a lot less me."

"It was a long time coming, Rhodes." Tony leaned against the table and pushed away his drink. He wasn't looking to get drunk. The hangover from the other night had been enough to keep him from wanting that for awhile yet. "It's all thanks to you, honestly."

"How's that?" Rhodey seemed slightly alarmed. He certainly hoped that this wasn't a roundabout way of Tony blaming his romantic woes on him. Tony had a way of doing that, to pass the blame when he knew exactly where it really lay.

"I was uh…" Tony started, not sure how to say what was really on his mind. After Pepper left he'd sat and thought about everything, about how this had all come to be. Sure, Scarlett had really been there for him, had opened his eyes to a great many things but someone else had been too. Rhodey had been there from the beginning. No matter how difficult Tony could be, Rhodey never gave up on him. "You already know this but I've kind of been having a hard time lately."

"Yeah, you kinda have."

"Things are done with Pepper because I… stopped pretending nothing was wrong."

Rhodey didn't have to say anything, Tony knew he understood and already knew how aware his best friend was of the situation.

"Every damn day was a struggle, Rhodes. After… New York…" Tony struggled to even say the words but powered through it. He'd practiced it a few times, had looked at a few pictures. The only way it would get easier would be for him to stop avoiding it. He didn't want to never see Manhattan again. Tony loved Manhattan. He had to start associating it with all those happy memories instead of the ones that had nearly ended his life, that had nearly leveled the entire eastern seaboard.

He shivered.

"After New York I couldn't shake the fear it could happen again and that I couldn't stop it. I saw things that day, Rhodes, things that… I don't want anyone else to ever have to see."

"Tony-"

"Let me finish." Tony continued. "Turns out that feeling was Post Traumatic Stress." It was the first time Tony had actually said that out loud to anyone. Or even to himself. He was suffering from PTSD and it sounded silly, even now, but it was the damn truth. "You knew before I did. I know you did." He glanced at his friend at last who nodded. "I had these… moments where I would be alone and it felt like the world was collapsing. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't… shake it no matter how much I tried. I guess these were panic attacks. When I wasn't having panic attacks I had nightmares. I hadn't slept sometimes for… days at a time. Naps here or there but for weeks I'd just go… and go until I couldn't anymore. I hoped if I passed out then there wouldn't be room for nightmares but there was always room for that. There still is."

"I thought I was losing my mind, honestly." Tony scoffed. "I've never dealt with anything like this before, ya know? I'm… Tony Stark, I don't do anxiety or panic. It's just not my schtick."

"It's not anyone's schtick, Tony."

"I know that now, okay? But it didn't make sense. I guess I refused to believe it. I tried… I tried to tell Pepper months ago when I first started having the nightmares. She didn't get it either. It wasn't exactly her thing and I think I expected her to know more than I did. I didn't try hard enough to tell her and she pushed me away. I just… didn't want to bother her with it. I was lucky that she stuck with me the way she did after some of the choices I'd made and I left it at that."

"Bad idea." Rhodey nodded.

"Yeah, very bad idea." Tony laughed half heartedly. "It only got worse. Compounded until I wasn't me anymore. You… that day we met here. You forced me to get out of the house. Forced me to do something that used to be so easy for me."

"I was worried."

"You're always worried so I just sort of write it off when you are."

"Thanks for that."

"You were right to be worried this time."

"Yeah, you didn't want to go to parties, sure sign something is wrong, Tony."

"I was afraid of what could happen there. What if I couldn't protect anyone? It's why the suit came with me everywhere I went."

"That's a really normal fear after everything you've seen these last few years, Tony."

"Hell if I'm supposed to know. I was a businessman, a playboy, not a… not a military guy. I was never a man of violence."

"Says the world's once largest distributor of weaponry."

"It was about money and power then, you know."

"I know." Rhodey oddly felt sad for his friend. He knew that this moment was a good thing, an epiphany. Tony had come a long way from the man he'd been the last time they'd had a drink here.

"That day I was with you was the first time I thought that maybe what was going on with Pepper and I was a direct result of what I was going through. From there, it was how I realized that it was not only that but the opposite too. I wanted so badly to protect her that I drove her away and she wanted me to be someone I wasn't so badly that she was angry with me all the time. We should have ended it a long time ago, but fear trapped us in this stupid little box. I resented her the more I understood what was happening to me."

"I tried to talk to her about it a few timew." Rhodey whispered hesitantly and Tony nodded his head. "She was in denial, too. You both had it rough."

"I know." Tony tapped his fingers again on the table and shifted in his seat. It was a struggle to keep still, as it had once always been. He felt like he'd done nothing for the last year but sit still and now he wanted to get all this energy that had built up out of his system but finding where to begin was a struggle. His phone beeped and he checked if it was Scarlett or Nick Fury. It was neither and so he ignored it. Jarvis was simply showing him schematics to approve for the redesign and décor ideas. "Funny thing is, as hard as it was for me to see it, as hard as it was for Pepper to admit? Scarlett saw it right away."

"Scarlett?"

"Yeah." Tony nodded with a smile. "There's… a pretty big part of that first meeting that I've left out to everyone I tell." He furrowed his brow and recounted how he'd had a breakdown in the middle of her meeting, how the sight of the skyline in Manhattan had sent the memories of the incident there flooding back and had nearly crippled him. It was difficult to put into words at first but when Rhodey looked nothing but understanding, Tony found he couldn't stop talking about it. Something let go as he did. It was freeing, cathartic, for someone he trusted and cared about so deeply like Rhodey to understand and validate that he had been struggling. "She was the first person to say those words to me, Rhodes. To tell me I had PTSD and that it was okay."

"I didn't know how to say it." Rhodey admitted with a shrug. "I wanted to, believe me I wanted to but…"

"I'm difficult, I know. She didn't care." Tony laughed. "I needed that. I never would have gone to see her that day if I hadn't found out about her from you. If you hadn't sent me home with that magazine I never would have pursued Refuge or Scarlett."

"…I don't suppose she has anything to do with this breakup with Pepper." Rhodey spoke warily.

"No! No…" Tony began but hesitated, pursed his lips and rephrased. "Well yeah, but not in the way that you are thinking. I didn't do anything stupid." Tony knew that Rhodey was already aware of his suspicions of Pepper cheating on him. He'd never confirmed that for his friend, somehow he hadn't even considered calling him after all that. He had wanted to, of course, but he couldn't think that far ahead.

"Okay, then… what?"

Oddly, this was the part that had Tony struggling the most. He recounted his fight with Pepper after Scarlett had left the other day. How she had admitted to kissing Happy Hogan and while Tony had been upset by the betrayal he had been oddly more upset that he had held back for so long with Scarlett to spare Pepper. But the truth was, Tony would never regret having held back for so long. He never wanted Pepper to hurt like that, no matter how sour the relationship had wound up being in the long run. She had been his friend, his confidant and for a short time they really had been happy together. Now they weren't what the other needed, they both deserved more. Tony explained that he had called Scarlett in his upset, that despite her exhaustion she came to him. He recounted some of that night, but left out most of the details.

Most of what Tony focused on was the fight with Pepper that morning and the way Scarlett had defended him. He swore he felt his chest puff out with pride as he described it. And even though the story wound up with Pepper and Tony screaming at each other and parting ways, somehow it still felt like a good story, a good ending.

And the story somehow ended where he'd begun that day. Tony knew what he wanted to do next, but doing it was a bit more difficult than he liked to admit.

"I know there's going to be crazy fallout… press, media… just Pepper and Happy in general but god, can I say that it feels good? Am I awful for feeling good about this?" Tony furrowed his brow and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's been looming over us for so long that it's not as… scary as I expected it to be. I was so afraid of that moment, Rhodey that I built it into something colossally awful. When the axe finally dropped it was… a flood of relief. Nothing's nearly as terrible as I expected it to be. My world didn't fall apart. I'm here and… I feel good and now we can all find a way to move forward."

"No, that's not terrible." Rhodey smiled and drained the remainder of the water in his glass. "That's actually pretty healthy."

"Words I thought you'd never use to describe me."

"Consider us both surprised." Rhodey teased and then nodded toward the television. "So what happens now?"

"You mean… with Scarlett, I assume."

"Yeah, of course I mean with Scarlett. You've got to… take her out right? The fact that you haven't done that yet sort of astounds me."

"Yeah, yeah it's just… Well it's more complicated than that."

"What makes it so complicated? Seems pretty simple to me. You're single, take her somewhere crazy like Paris or Sydney."

Tony looked all around him to make sure no one was listening to them and then scooted closer in his chair and placed a folder on the table in front of him. He didn't let Rhodey take it yet.

"She's in some kind of trouble." Tony whispered and then slid the folder he'd been holding to Rhodey who opened it and flipped through article after article, scanning headlines for more information.

"I've seen some of these. Tabloid journalism…"

"No, no… this lady… this Dianne Hendricks? She knows what she's talking about… for the most part. I think some of it is guess work but she's onto something." Tony whispered covertly.

"Don't add fuel to the fire Tony. Don't look for problems to fix. She's no damsel, trust me."

"Oh, I know she's not but…" Tony drifted off. "She knew I was struggling because she was struggling too and we bonded over that. I'm not trying to be perverse or anything, or obsessed but…"

"Tony this is the folder of a man obsessed."

"I can't stop thinking about it." Tony flipped a few of the articles over and then handed Rhodey a handwritten account of what he'd been through the other night with her. Rhodey paled just reading it.

"You're serious?"

"You can't tell anyone any of this."

"I know." Rhodey nodded his head. "This is bad. If you're saying any of what this Hendricks woman wrote was true then…"

"I know that, I do. It's going to be like making out with a loaded gun."

"That's a weird mental image, but sure." Rhodey tried to joke but closed the folder and pulled it close to him. He was going to read every one of these articles. "Are you hesitating because of it?"

"No." Tony shook his head and answered immediately. "But I think she will."

"Yeah, I could see that." Rhodey leaned back in his chair.

"I know she's in over her head with something she won't tell me about. Whether it's what Mrs. Hendricks speculates in any of these articles with her numerous theories or something completely different, she's in way over her head. I know it sounds silly but for some reason I think that… she wants to protect me from it."

"That doesn't sound silly."

"But the truth is that I don't care." Tony laughed and for a moment he felt like a giddy, stupid teenager. "It's bull headed but I don't care what it is. I've known what I wanted for a really long time and she's at the top of the damn list. I held back because of Pepper, because I thought maybe I was clinging to her because she helped me but it's not it at all. I want her."

"I know how you get when you want something, Tony." Rhodey hesitated.

"I have to do something, Rhodes. I'm done hiding."

"Good." Rhodey nodded with a smile though he stuck the folder into his briefcase after getting a nod from Tony who was more than surprised. "What?"

"I'm not going to lie, I was pretty sure that you were preparing a speech about why I should back off and how I was being crazy."

"You like her, Tony." Rhodey looked to him seriously. "You really, really like her. There are women across this bar in short skirts who you haven't looked at once. You like her."

Tony shrugged then peered around Rhodey and found that there really were three women across the bar, gathered together. On top of that they were very pretty and they were looking occasionally in his direction.

Huh. How about that?

"About to sound really corny but you've got to follow your heart." Rhodey smiled as Tony turned back to him.

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"One more question."

"Go for it."

"Saw the Maserati out there, is it new?"

"Year old, probably getting the next one soon." Tony shrugged.

"Any chance there's a suit hidden in there?"

"Nope." Tony leaned back in his chair, proud that he'd left home without being Iron Man for the first time in a very long time. "We're just out for a drink, Rhodes. If the world starts to collapse while we're in this bar? We'll figure it out when it happens."