Prologue

Her teeth bit on her lower lip, chewing the flesh nervously. “Tony, we can’t, we… we’re
going to need more time.”

At her words that are uttered with a faint─ but still there─ British accent, his brown
eyes flickered away from the constrictive suit, clashing with the pale color only inches
away. As close as he was to her, sharing the air she breathed, he could see the
frightened gleam behind the concern. He could see the way she quickly tried to hide it
behind a brittle smile while all teary-eyed, and it made his chest─ heart, his mind
supplied─ constrict uncomfortably.

There was absolutely nothing about their situation that he could say to make her smile
genuinely. Nothing he could say that would make the darker shades of her beautiful
eyes light up in content or happiness. The irony of it all almost made him laugh out
loud─ since when did he run out of clever comments?

With a numb smile, Tony gave a mute nod.

The unusual shade of green─ or was it blue? Even with all his genius he could never
tell─ snapped across their dark workspace. “Yinsen,” she called out, lifting her hands
and wringing them together. “We’re not going to make it in time… it’s powering up too
slowly.”

The elder male hesitated at her voice, eyes flickering between the genius in the bulky
metal suit and the other genius standing uselessly in the empty space around it. Yinsen
had barely paused for a second before his face brightened at an idea forming in his
head, a smile tugging at his lips. “Stay here,” he instructed firmly, leaning over to
whisper in the woman’s ear. “You stay safe for me, yeah?”

Feminine features contorted in sadness as the man pulled back, planting a sound kiss on
her temple. Tony waited for the man to face him, but he never did, instead the elder
man turned on his heel and walked towards the entrance of the dark place they had
come to associate with as their home away from home.

“Yinsen, where are you going?” Tony frowned, unable to turn his head and follow where
the elder man was heading. “Where are you─ where is he going?” he demanded,
directing the question to his beautiful fellow genius hovering before him anxiously.

She looked back helplessly as his words were answered, by the thundering thuds of
gunfire and loud yelling echoing around them. He wanted to cover his ears, to block out
the noise and chant that if he couldn’t hear it or see it, then it wasn’t happening. That
if he didn’t acknowledge that the man had run from the room, then the man wasn’t
bleeding, but instead safe in the shadows across from him.

The logic had worked when he was a child─ what with his parents either ignoring or
screaming at him or each other─ it couldn’t fail him now.

Through the hellishly long seconds, he saw her lips move to create words he couldn’t
hear over the pounding of his heart. As the screaming dies down, her voice started to
carry over to him, making him realize he was ripping against the iron bonds. “─need you
to stop moving! Tony, please!” A delicate hand pressed against his chest, hiding the blue
light for a few seconds. “You need this; you need to get out of here! And this suit? This
suit is your one-way ticket.”

Tony shook his head, trying to clear his mind at the same time. “This is our ticket,
Quinn,” he stressed. “Ours.”

The woman smiled back, the curve lacking its usual cheerful edge even as she nodded
her head in agreement. Her lips parted, throat moving as she started to reply, but her
reply got cut short as more yells sounded from the hallway, the suit beginning to rumble
as though it detected the incoming threat. The previously bright eyes dulled in
confusion as they both moved to look over her shoulder, taking in the computer’s screen
and the progress’ percentage flashing across it.

Hopelessly, she looked back to meet brown eyes. “Tony…”

“Hide,” he commanded urgently, gesturing to the darkened corners of the room. “Come
on, go! Follow when I’ve cleared the check-points. Just like what we talked about,
remember? Just like what we talked about.”

Quinn sucked her lower lip in between her teeth. “Just like what we talked about...” she
whispered, hurrying away and searching the room for a place to hide.

He tried to follow her with his eyes, to watch and make sure she was safe, but then the
lights went wild. They flickered brightly and then dimmed spastically, blocking his view
of the petite build with slim shoulders and raven locks that turned a beautiful reddish
brown when the sunlight─ or any light, really─ hit them. Between one flash of light and
the next, he lost her to the shadowy corners of the room. “Hide,” he whispered, closing
his eyes as the voices reached them, and the scent of smoke became sickeningly
prominent. There were more echoes of bullets, more flashing lights as the idiots shot
into the room, and he prayed to whatever entity above that would listen. “Don’t let her
get hurt, I’m begging you, please, don’t you dare…”

As the man took in a shuddering breath, the suit moved with him, whirling to life.
The clomping footsteps echoed, almost louder than the gunshots as he moved towards
the door, one hand lifted. “Quinn!” he shouted, barely acknowledging the men gathering
to enter their prison. “Follow when it’s safe.”

The previously raised arm spewed out bullets from the shooting device installed there,
provoking screams from the terrorist group flunkies that had gathered outside the
darkness. With the screams as a cue, he trudged forward, his free hand reaching back
to maximize momentum as he delivered a powerful punch to a wayward body. He kept
walking, attention torn, not bothering to stop and watch as they flew backwards into a
stone wall.

Because if he stopped, Tony knew he would hear bones crack or skin tear under the
pressure of the bullets. He knew he’d hear the muffled cries of pain the men were
letting out. He knew he’d wonder if the woman behind him could hear him murder
increasing dozens every second and counting…

Shaking his head, he moved as hurriedly as heavy metal would allow, stumbling into a
brighter and larger area than the tunnels he’d been tearing apart. A man went
screaming by, gun lost somewhere in the mess of a fiasco, and the genius watched him
run; eyes trailing after the fleeing figure before they fell on another.

“Yinsen!”

The man managed to let out a weak warning, one hand fluttering uselessly in the air.
“Look out…”

The billionaire stopped just in time to avoid what would’ve been a well-aimed missile,
the projectile instead whistling past his head and crashing into the stone behind it. The
metal monster turned as the thick slab of stone exploded into rubble behind him, his
own fist lifting to deploy a counter attack.

Tony waited for the man to dare show his face again, but the burning rack of ammo he’d
shot didn’t move. “Yinsen?” he clumsily stumbled to the man’s side, trying to avoid
falling to his knees. “Come on, we’ve got to go. Move for me, come on! We got a plan, and
we’re gonna stick to it, yeah?” he rambled on breathlessly, eyes searching for the
source of blood staining the man’s shirt that’s incessantly increasing in amount.

Yinsen somehow cracked a short smile. “This was always the plan, Stark…”

Whatever hope had been curling in the man’s chest died with those words, brown irises
refusing to look up into knowing eyes. “Come on,” Tony tried instead, pretending he
hadn’t heard a peep of what Yinsen had just said. “You’re going to see your family again.
Get up!”
“My family is dead.” The soft whisper was almost ethereal already, and the billionaire is
absently grateful for the metal mask and its ability to hide the tears threatening to
fall from his eyes anytime now. “I’m going to see them now, Stark,” Yinsen continued,
his always focused and attentive features slackening.

Tony tried to speak, to open his mouth, to apologize, to just say something…

“It’s okay,” Yinsen reassured with a faint, brittle smile. “I want this. But you─ you get
Quinn out of here, Stark,” he commanded, the firm words still sounding dangerously
weak, like whispers. “She’s too pure and good to die here in the dirt like me. You get
her… you get her out… of here…”

The metal head slumped at the same time the body did lifelessly, a small noise that
sounds suspiciously like a sob leaving its clenched teeth. “Damn it,” Tony murmured,
stretching out to his full height as he swallowed back sorrow. His fists clenched as
movement flashed in the corner of his blurred vision, and he turned with a lifted hand,
ready to let out the anger burning in his chest.

“Tony!”

The small voice drained the fury better than spilled blood would’ve, and the hand
slipped back to collide with an iron side. “Quinn,” Tony nodded, stepping back as the tiny
body walked out of the shadows. “Yinsen, he… I tried to… but he…”

As the man mumbled while trying to clear his head, to disregard the lingering pain, the
woman staggered closer. “Oh God, please no…”

“You need to stay here,” Tony instructed, biting back his emotions as he watched her
hesitantly pick up a cold hand. “I’m going to stick to the plan, and─ and I’m going to
clear a path. I’ll do as much as I can, and when there’s a way out; I don’t wanna see you
pause okay? You take it. I’ll follow you, and even if something stops me, there are
people looking for me and…” he tried for a smile, and was almost pleased the iron mask
hid his failure from her. “I promise you’ll be safe.”

Quinn turned to watch the suit move, the absent whirling quiet compared to the
thunderous beating of her own heart. “I know, and I believe you,” she allowed, giving
him nothing more as she focused back on the body by her side. “Please be safe.”

With a determined nod, the genius stormed to the cave entrance, not even hesitating
as he moved into the daylight. The other men outside, with their weapons and ill will
only stared before releasing hell on the metal suit in their midst, screaming as they let
loose everything they had.
Tony, protected within the belly of the beast, found he almost wanted to chuckle when
the bullets bounced away, rebounding on them. “My turn…” he decided after a few more
seconds, bored of the new game as he lifted both his hands