'Johnny?' Sue's voice drew his attention from the news report. He turned to the kitchen and saw Sue grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. She was dressed in cotton shorts and a navy-blue t-shirt, undoubtably made to disappear with her abilities. The roots of her hair were growing the same blonde she naturally had before the Marvel-1 mission. Johnny's hair was beginning to do the same, and the two were yet to find out how.
The cosmic radiation altered their DNA. Their hair was just one of the changes they experienced. Their abilities were the most obvious, but the siblings' hair was something that was growing back to its original colour. It wasn't worth the research to find out why, so the two dealt with the blonde that was peaking through more by the day.
'Hey! Are you heading to Tony's?' Johnny asked as he put his beer down and shovelled more popcorn into his mouth.
'Yeah. Pepper's nearly given up on him. I don't think he's slept in days,' Sue said and put the water bottle down on the counter. She sighed and leaned her palms against the counter's edge. 'He's not been doing so well, lately.'
'Potts, hey?' Johnny grinned. 'Do you think she'd fancy me?'
'No. Now, pick up that popcorn you're spilling all over my sofa,' Sue headed for the elevator and looked at the TV that talked nonstop about her. 'And turn that crap off. If I hear one more rumour that I'm signing the company over because of Tony's wishes, I'll scream.'
'Remind me why you're signing it off again?'
'You try running a research company while babysitting Tony Stark and being 'The Invisible Woman',' Sue pressed the elevator button and waited for the doors open. 'I'll be back later. Don't burn anything.'
'No promises. And ask Tony about some clothes for me! I'm down to my last lot.'
---
'Miss Storm, it's great to see you, once again,' JARVIS was the one to greet Sue. The key she was given by Pepper was a life saver as Tony almost never ventured out of his workshop. With Pepper running the company, there was no one to man the Stark house. Sue was resistant against Pepper's advance to give her a key, but faltered when Pepper explained the current situation.
'I know that you can get through to him. Even if it's just a little,' Pepper had pleaded. 'I can't run the company while calling home to make sure he's eaten something in the last twenty-four hours. Please, Sue. He needs help.'
Sue closed the door behind her as she greeted JARVIS. The hallways were empty yet pristine thanks to the cleaner Pepper hired to come to the house. She made her way through to the kitchen and didn't bother to call out for Tony. She knew where he was.
Tony groaned as he pulled the helmet off his head. It was the last piece of the suit that hadn't flew off his body from the last piece he ordered to assemble around him. It sent him spinning and landed on his back, the lack of sleep not helping his strength to get up from the floor. He gave up in getting to his feet and forced his upper half to lean against the table leg behind him.
'As always, sir, a great pleasure watching you work,' JARVIS said. The workshop was covered in pieces of the Iron Man suit that answered to the micro-repeater implants in Tony's arm. Blood lined the circular incisions that dotted up the underside of his arm. The robot with a cone hat with 'DUNCE' written across it started mopping up the drops that made their way onto the workshop's floor.
Tony sighed and used the balls of his palms to rub his eyes. Although the Avengers were mighty and powerful, their fight to protect the Earth came with consequence. Tony couldn't close his eyes for a wink of sleep without being terrorised with the image of the Chitauri mothership. His experience through the portal that led to the other dimension of space haunted him daily. All he could do was busy himself with the thing he was best at, working.
He looked to the glass panels that separated the workshop from the staircase. The shadow that casted over the wall of the stairs made his eyes narrow before widening at the sight of Susan Storm. She took her time on each step of the free-standing staircase and was yet to look into the workshop where Tony panicked. He jumped to his feet and winced at the pain that shot up from his back. His vision blurred from the quick movement, and he caught his hand on the table's edge, steadying his swaying figure. Being awake for seventy-two consecutive hours was getting to him, but he wouldn't ever admit it.
'JARVIS? Why didn't you tell me Sue was here?' he said as he watched Sue type in her passcode on the keypad at the door.
'I must have forgotten to inform you, sir,' JARVIS replied, the smug tone hidden beneath his voice.
Sue stepped into the workshop with a smile to greet Tony with, when she saw the disarray around him. The mess made her stop on her pursuit, and she saw pieces of Tony's suit sprayed as far as his luxury cars on the back wall. His worktable held screwdrivers, pipes, anything and everything needed to make Iron Man suits.
'Tony, what is all this?!' Sue turned her gaze to the man who leant against the table. He made sure to keep the arm that held the micro-repeater implants behind him and out of sight.
'I was testing some things,' he said nonchalantly, forcing himself off the table. 'What are you doing here?'
'I came to check on you,' she walked towards Tony as he tried to avoid her. He walked around his table and made the mistake of reaching out his arm to grab his screwdriver.
'What's that on your arm?'
Tony turned around to face her and took a step backwards as her hand treached out. His back collided with a wall and he looked over his shoulder, seeing that the closest wall was four metres away. The force he collided with shimmered with a sheen of blue and he felt Sue enclose her fingers around his wrist. She didn't bat an eyelash as the forcefield that prevented Tony from getting away from her vanished. He cursed her extraordinary abilities and turned his gaze down to the woman that held his arm up to her eyes for a better look.
'You should get your eyes checked,' Tony tried to change the subject.
'What are these?' Sue looked up from the bloody circles that lined up his forearm. Her gaze was hard, and Tony swallowed at the way she looked through him. Her frown pulled her entire face down and he was sure it was the expression he least liked to see on Sue's face.
'They're just some... implants,' he was careful.
'Are these...' Sue ran her finger over the circles. Blood smeared across Tony's skin and the man looked at the crown of her head, dreading the moment she looked up. And when she did, her eyes were a mix of horror and anger.
'They summon the Mark 42,' Tony ripped the Band-Aid off.
Sue dropped Tony's arm and stepped back. Her hands flew up to her face and ran them down it in frustration. Her fingers covered her eyes as she turned away to wonder away from Tony, the action hurting him inside. He didn't want to worry Sue, but he was failing miserably. He tried hard to keep her away from him and his obsessive hobby. He thought that with Johnny being back and living with her, she would have too much to deal with at home to find out what he was doing.
'I can be anywhere in the country and have the suit ready in seconds,' he tried and made his voice high to encourage enthusiasm from Sue, who was yet to pull her hands away from her face. 'Iron Man can be anywhere and I don't even have to-'
'Listen to yourself, Tony!'
Sue ripped her hands away to reveal red eyes that looked at Tony from across the room. The yell that left her mouth caused the robot mopping to halt and look up at the two. Tony dropped his façade and pressed his lips together at the gloss that flooded her lashline. Sue blinked three times as she stared at the man who she thought was intelligent, strong and logical when he wanted to be.
'You're putting the suit into your skin! You're, y-you're, you're sitting down here day and night killing yourself!' she couldn't control the volume of her voice. 'You're not even Tony more! You're just...'
Sue didn't know how to finish. She threw the arm that she had stretched out to gesture to the pieces of the suit on the floor down by her side with a loud slap. Her outburst had been building up for a while. The stress of Johnny moving in and the signing over of the company was bad enough and she could handle it to an extent. However, knowing that Tony was injecting machinery into his body was too far for her.
'You're a mess...' she whispered, turning her gaze to the floor with her hands on her hips. The tears that glazed over her eyes threatened to leave, but Sue had the decency to hold them back.
'I am,' Tony found himself saying. 'I am a piping, hot mess.'
He took long strides across the room to be where she stood. His arms wrapped around Sue and pulled her into his chest, careful of the arc reactor that was known to knock into her jaw when embracing. Sue didn't wait to wrap her arms around Tony's middle and lay her cheek against his collarbone, noticing the faint smell of cologne that lingered on his shirt that displayed a heavy metal band's logo. The cologne wouldn't have been from a recent application, but it comforted Sue in combination of Tony's natural scent.
'I'm sorry,' Tony said softly, the side of his face resting on top of Sue's head. 'I'm sorry I'm doing this to you.'
'It's not about me...' Sue whispered. 'It's about what you're doing to yourself...'
Tony grimaced at the whimper she let out and pressed his lips against her hair, strands sticking to his beard that needed shaping. The way Sue clung to him made his heart break. He wasn't much of a hugger, but when she followed the step he took backwards to pull away, he couldn't resist squeezing her tighter. They never talked about New York. He had been too selfish to think how much the invasion must have affected her, as well.
'No... it's about you, too. It's always about you...'