Tony's house was still in disarray. Sue parked her car next to the water feature and stepped through the window frame that was once filled with glass. It was now spread across the tiles that were also chipped and uprooted from the floor. Sue's shoes crunched against the shards as she made her way through the lobby and past the broken piano.
'Good afternoon, Miss Storm,' JARVIS's voice rang out. Sue would have jumped, but she was used to the system by now.
'Hi, JARVIS. Is Tony home?'
'Not at the moment, ma'am. Mr Stark broke his house arrest order an hour ago.'
'Is it okay if I go down to the workshop?'
'Of course, ma'am.'
Making her way down the staircase, the woman typed in her passcode that Tony had let her set on the keypad. She slipped into the workshop and saw the boxes that Nick Fury said Tony had been given. She assumed since he was on house arrest that he would be home, but when has Tony ever listened to what he has been told.
Sue looked around at the mess that covered the desk. She added to it by dropping the files she gathered from Reed's archives about anything she thought would be relevant in helping Tony. Her foot hit something that then rolled away, making her look down to see a stress ball rolling away from the desk.
She went to pick up the stress ball after following it across the floor, when she caught sight of a reflection in the polished tiles. The light displayed the two suits that sat in display cases, one empty as it was in the hands of the US government, thanks to James Rhodes. But next to it was what attracted the woman's attention.
Sue straightened up and stared at the case. The hot-rod red matched Tony's suits right down to the belt that sat around its waist. The black gloves matched the black shoes that when they caught the light, reflected a dark blue. A small nabla shape sat on the left breast; outlined in the same dark blue that reflected on the black accents. A zip ran down from the top of the collar down to the middle of the chest; the only feature that Tony chose to keep from her own design.
'JARVIS?' Sue called out without taking her eyes off the suit. 'Did Tony say what this was?'
'It's your suit, ma'am. Made of unstable molecules that can adapt to your abilities. It will allow you to be completely invisible to the eye and from infrared wavelengths. It's also bullet-proof and equipped with continuous data updates of your vitals, which I can access,' JARVIS explained.
'Wow...' Sue was lost for words. The fact that Tony displayed her suit in a case like his other suits made her feel important. Never had she thought she would be seen as on level with Iron Man. Even though the media called her just a 'sidekick', Tony saw her as an equal. At least that's what the placement of her suit alluded to.
'Could you please open the display, JARVIS?'
'Yes, ma'am.'
The glass case opened and retreated into the wall behind the display. Sue got the suit off the outline of a mannequin and held it up in front of her. The material was thick, and the red changed to blue when she moved it away from direct view. She decided to test out the adaptability of the material to her powers. She felt the surge reach her hand and her empty sleeve was all that remained. Sue used what would be her hand and grabbed the shoulder of the suit, watching as it disappeared from sight.
'I can make some clothes for you to be like that, if you want?'
Sue looked up and saw Tony carrying four panels of long pieces of wood on his shoulder. He dropped them on the floor with some care, not a lot, but some. Sue noticed how dark the bags under his eyes were even from the distance she stood at, and they were worse when she walked to stand in front of him.
'You finished it without me?' she asked as she held up the suit that was now visible.
'Yeah,' he shrugged his shoulders. He walked over to his desk and grabbed the box that held his father's research.
'I was gonna tell you when you showed up to my party last night but Houdini decided to blow it off.'
'Houdini?-oh...' Sue went to question but caught on with a nod. 'Wait, I did come to the party last night. Not willingly but... do you not remember?'
'I don't remember a lot from last night. Rhodey made sure of that,' Tony let out a scoff. 'I know why my house is destroyed, though. But that's a regular occurence.'
Sue forced out a fake laugh but dropped the façade when Tony turned away. She hoped to talk with him about last night and find out what he really meant, but maybe it was best to leave it. Maybe he was just drunk after all.
---
'Your father was really something.'
Tony hummed as he started assembling the pipes and equipment. He would need an extortionate amount of power to produce the element his father had mapped out for him. The whole workshop was turned into a construction site.
Sue was in the red suit for the first time and worked on achieving full invisibility for longer than a few minutes. It was getting easier but would take a while for her to have full control over it.
'Still taking me to school even when he's six feet under,' Tony said. 'What about you? Who was your father?'
'Oh, my father wasn't anything to be talked about, really,' Sue cleared her throat and let out small laughs that were pathetic at hiding her reluctance to speak. Tony looked up from his work and raised an eyebrow at Sue's tone. He waited and Sue sensed his stare on her side, making her sigh and put her hands on her waist.
'My father was a doctor. A successful one at that,' she started. 'But when my mother died in a car accident and he couldn't save her in the operating room, he lost it completely. He drank most days and gambled away all we had. Johnny and I were only young and when the debt collectors came knocking, my father wasn't... himself anymore. He didn't mean to, but he... killed one of the men at our door.'
'Geez,' Tony mumbled. He put down his tools and stood listening to Sue's childhood. The tears that gathered in her eyes were ones he knew all too well. The death of his parents always brought back memories that even he, as an adult, found hard to deal with.
'He went to prison and Johnny, and I were sent to live with our Aunt Marygay,' Sue finished, and Tony walked over to be beside her.
'Johnny was your brother?' he confirmed, and Sue lowered her head in a nod. Tony nodded back and looked down to the floor, thinking of what to say.
'Your aunt's name was Marygay?'
'Yeah.'
'That's rough.'
Sue looked up to him through her glazed eyes and let out a small laugh. Tony went to send a lopsided smile when a spike of pain shot up from his chest. He let out a groan and leaned his hand on the trolley of tools next to him.
'What's wrong?' Sue asked as she heard the trolley's wheels move from his weight. She was worried when she saw Tony's eyes scrunch shut and his breath came out through coughs and splutters. His skin thinned to an ashy grey and Sue cupped her mouth when she saw the black veins in his exposed neck.
'I'm fine,' he forced, his hand slipping from under the trolley and send him towards the floor. Sue shot her arms out and took hold of him before he could drop completely.
'Tony? Tony, you're not fine,' Sue cried and pulled him to stand up straight. He leaned his weight onto her and Sue felt his arm sling around her shoulders to support him. She wrapped her own arm around Tony's waist in return and panicked when Tony started panting.
'Get me to my desk... please,' he gasped, and Sue's chest hurt at the pain in his voice. She didn't think she had ever heard Tony Stark say 'please'.
Sue helped him into the chair, and she watched as Tony scurried for a box that he opened with shaky hands. He pulled out a thin battery and reached under his shirt to pull out the reactor from him chest. Sue's lips parted as she saw a flaming, rusted battery appear from inside it. Tony pulled it out and replaced it with a fresh one before putting it back in his chest.
'I've gotta finish this vibranium,' he said after letting out a gasp of relief. 'I've just gotta get this all set up.'
'I'll help you,' Sue piped up and Tony turned around in the chair. She noticed how the black veins that once sat at his neck had sunken down beneath his shirt. His skin returned to a somewhat normal colour, but his eyes still gave away the agony he was in almost every minute of the day.
'Thank you...' he said as he ran a hand down his face with a loud sigh. 'Sue... I'm sorry.'
'What for?'
'For everything...' Tony started and stood up from his chair to look down at her. 'I'm sorry for bringing you into all this. All you wanted was a suit, which you look great in by the way. I'm such a genius.'
Sue rolled her eyes and snickered at his usual self-importance. But she couldn't ignore the returning flutter she felt in her stomach from his compliment. It was like she was a teenager again and she couldn't believe she was a thirty-nine year-old woman feeling this way. But his dark hair and finely trimmed beard shaped his handsome face all too well. She saw why women fell over for him, and she was beginning to join them.
'But you shouldn't have to deal with all this. My problems are my own. You and Pepper and Happy and everyone are dealing with my crap,' Tony surprised Susan by reaching down and grabbing hold of her gloved hand. She resisted the urge to gasp as he squeezed her fingers in his palm and she felt herself falling into his dark brown eyes.
'You shouldn't apologise,' she was able to say. 'I'd say I've put myself in this as well. Please, don't blame yourself. You're dying, remember?'
'Right, yeah, dying.'