"When nothing goes right, go left."- Martha Cecilia

Percy's POV

The mansion was amazing. Of course, I knew that Tony had an amazing mansion, he had mentioned it once or twice, but the way he talked about it didn't give it enough credit for how it looked. I was given a quick tour before Tony and I headed down into his car garage, which also happened to be his workshop. That was where I met JARVIS.

"Jar, can you recognize Percy as someone who can freely come into my workshop?" Tony spoke to the ceiling. If I hadn't been expecting the voice, I might have been a lot more surprised than I was at what he was doing.

"Of course, sir. Shall I write more safety protocols about your new condition for you to completely ignore?"

"You do that, Jar and I so will be ignoring them."

"You're really letting me in here any time I want?" I asked him, my confusion clear in my words. The way he had talked about his workshop before made it seem like it was his safe space, the place where he can go when he needs to get away from everything else. Being let into a space like that is surprising.

"Yeah, it's as much your workshop now as it is mine." He said as he waved it off, going over to a wall which had some kind of advanced technology computer faces on it. "You don't have to stay in it if you don't want, but after you've been around for us building things," He tapped on the faint glowing circle that emanated from behind his shirt. "It'll be almost incomplete without you at least being able to be there if you choose to be."

Him tapping on the ARC reactor reminded me of what I wanted to talk to him about earlier. "You should probably look into new materials to use instead of the palladium for the ARC reactor." I told him, and I couldn't stop an undertone of worry from entering my voice.

He turned away from what he was pulling up on the computer screens to me. "Does it have anything to do with how you said that the people were right when they said ARC reactor tech was a dead end?"

I slowly nodded my head and an apologetic look came over my face when I looked at him. I pointed at the circle of light and told him. "Palladium in the chest? It's a very painful way to die. So, unfortunately, the device that's keeping you alive is also slowly killing you."

Tony took that in for a few seconds before saying, "You've got that, right Jarvis?"

"Yes, sir. I'm searching for compatible alternatives for it as we speak."

Tony then turned to me. "In the meantime, I'm going to need help making another one. It's nice to have an extra set of hands."

I smiled a small smile and together, we both set to work making another ARC reactor. It was maybe three hours later that it was done and Tony had decided to put in the new ARC reactor now.

"Tony," I said, my face one of concentration as I felt the danger lurking in his blood. He turned to face me as he was about to sit down on the chair. "There's residual leakage from the palladium in your blood." I told him and he took on a thoughtful expression.

"How do you know? Is that like, a thing you can do?" He asked. We both spoke while doing what was needed for this, me placing the pads across his chest where he indicated. I just shook my head.

"I actually don't know how, but I can feel it moving around in your blood. It's not a lot of it, but if it's left there, it can be dangerous." I told him before looking at him in the eyes. "I might be able to remove it, but it's going to be tiring and it could hurt you if I lose concentration."

"You mean like how you manipulated the lava back in that cave. You can do that with more than just lava." He asked, though it was more a statement than anything. I just nodded. "Alright then, lets do this." Tony turned the ARC reactor in his chest and I looked down inside it.

"Uh. I wouldn't remove that just yet." I told him as I stared at the copper wire that was down there, completely exposed. He paused in what he was doing and looked at me briefly. "There's an exposed wire down there touching the socket wall, it's going to need to come out before we can put the new reactor in."

I heard Tony mumble 'Sh!t" under his breath before looking at me. "Do you think you'd be able to get the wire out?" I shook my head.

"Once the wire is out, the new reactor will need to go in immediately, that wire has the magnet that's keeping the shrapnel from going into your heart. I won't be able to remove the palladium residue then." I explained, not caring to remove the worry from my tone, this was something to be worried about!

He looked down at the metal cylinder that the ARC reactor was housed in and looked at his hand, cupping them and looking between them and it. He shook his head and looked up to the ceiling. "Jarvis, put me through to Pepper, would you."

A second later, a click signaled and we could hear what sounded like a news cast. "Pepper. How big are your hands?" Tony spoke up.

"What?"

"How big are your hands?" He repeated.

"I don't understand, why-"

"Get down here. I need you," Tony told her and a second later the sound of the news cast disappeared.

Only a minute later, Pepper had made her way down to the workshop and came in.

"Hey," Tony said and I waved slightly to her. "Let's see them. Show me your hands." He told her, holding up his own slightly. She held them up and a confused look overcame her face before a look of fascination placed itself there as she looked at the glowing circle in Tony's chest.

"Oh, wow. They are small. Very petite, indeed." He said. "I just need your help for a sec."

Pepper just looked on as she came closer. "Oh, my God, is that the thing that's keeping you alive?"

"It was. It is now an antique." Tony said before picking up the newer ARC reactor. "This is what will be keeping me alive for the foreseeable future." I noted how he didn't mention that it would also potentially kill him to her. "I'm swapping it for an upgraded unit, and I just ran into a little speed bump."

"Speed bump, what does that mean?"

"It's nothing. It's just a little snag." Tony assured her. "There's an exposed wire under this device. And it's contacting the socket wall and causing a little bit of a short. It's fine."

"What do you want me to do?"

"put that on the table over there."

"That is irrelevant." Pepper said, sounding done with Tony but still worried.

"Oh, my God! I want you to reach in, and you're just going to gently lift the wire out." Tony said as he took the old ARC reactor out.

Pepper looked over to me then back at Tony and went forward to him. "Is it safe?"

"Yeah, it should be fine. It's like Operation. You just don't let it touch the socket wall or it goes 'beep.'"

"What do you mean, 'Operation'?" She said, obviously confused. I had to say that I was confused about what Operation was too, but I didn't share that.

"It's just a game, never mind. Just gently lift the wire. Okay? Great." Tony said as Pepper nodded and came forward, readying her hand for the task of going inside Tony's chest cavity and taking out the wire. I readied myself to take the palladium residue out along with whatever else was left there by the reactor.

"Okay." Pepper said under her breath, as if to tell herself this would be fine. She suddenly took her hand away and backed up half a step. "You know, I don't think I qualified to do this. Why is Percy not the one doing this, she might be able to, right?" She said, looking at me with a pleading look.

"Hey, hey. You're one of the most capable, qualified, and trustworthy people I've ever met. You're going to do great." Pepper looked to Tony when he said this, but then back to me. "You can do this, right?"

I shook my head apologetically. "I've got a different job to do, and I need to do it with all of my focus or it could hurt Tony."

"What is it that you're doing that might hurt him?" She asked, sounding alarmed. Tony started to wave it off but Pepper continued, shooting Tony a look that said she would get her answer.

"Um... I have abilities that will help me to..." I put my hand up to my face in a thinking pose. "How should I phrase this... Ah, Abilities that enable me to sense and get rid of any residue that that device left inside of Tony's chest. I need to get it all out, so... It'll either be uncomfortable or things could go wrong, but it's better than leaving it all there."

"You two are just talking over me as if I'm not here." Tony said, looking between the two of us. Pepper shot him another look before looking back at me.

"What happens if you just leave it there?"

I just rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly. "It would cause significant injury, um, hardened arteries, possibly muscle spasms followed by total organ failure when the stuff hardens in his blood stream?" It sounded more like a question as I rushed through the possibilities and didn't leave any room for either of them to talk. I just went right back to it. "So, are you going to be able to help us with this?"

"Yeah," Tony said, helping to steer the conversation back to the hole in his chest. "Is it to much of a problem to ask, 'cause I'm(Okay, Okay) I really need your help here."

"Okay..." And Pepper put her hand straight into the socket. She looked away disgusted as she said her next words, "Oh, there's pus!"

Tony was quick to correct her as I focused on getting a hold of it. "It's not pus. It's an inorganic plasmic discharge from the device, not from my body."

"It smells!"

"Yeah, it does." Tony agreed with her. "The copper wire. The copper wire, you got it?"

"Okay, I got it! I got it!" She exclaimed in slight relief.

"Okay, you got it. Now don't let it touch the sides when your coming out!" Tony said as the computers around us made a buzzing sound and Tony yelled the last part of the sentence as the copper wire touched the sides.

I didn't really focus some of the conversation as I started to draw the plasmic discharge from his body and what had leaked into his blood stream. I did, however, notice when I felt about six sharp fragments start to slowly move towards his heart, so I got the stuff out of his body quicker and flung it at the wall. I was covered in sweat, but I turned back and stopped the fragments where they were so they didn't move at all.

Then, just as suddenly as it happened, the pull towards his heart by the six pieces stopped and I collapsed to my knees, panting heavily. I faintly heard the other two talking from my position on the floor, but since I felt like I had just been thrown into Mt. Saint Helen's again and then dumped in the Alaskan waters by the Hubbard glacier immediately after, I didn't particularly pay attention to the words.

That was, until a hand was placed on my shoulder. I looked over to them and found Tony, with Pepper standing off to the side looking at us. "You okay, Percy?"

I just breathed heavily for a few more seconds before responding, sounding like I had just run a marathon. "I will be once I pass out." Then I looked away before turning my head back. "That was a lot harder than I thought it would be."

"Alright." Tony said as he helped me to my feet and supported most of my body weight. "Think you can walk? I've got, like, twelve spare rooms. Or, if you want to pass out sooner rather than later, there's a couch over there." He said, gesturing over to the couch in the corner of the workshop.

In the end, I was helped over to the couch and once I was down, I was out, Hypnos pulling me into the realm of sleep. As I tipped over the edge, I stored away the knowledge that what I had just done was a very dangerous stunt, pulling all of the plasmic discharge from Tony's blood in an instant like I had. It was lucky that he hadn't died from that. A very dangerous stunt indeed.