HIATUS

"Alfred, where are they?", Ethan said as he teleported himself inside the Lighthouse.

"All of them are inside the infirmary, sir. Would you like for me to announce that you've arrived sir?", Alfred asked.

"No need. I'll go towards them", Ethan said. He was about to walk towards the infirmary when Bucky appears beside him.

Ethan immediately noticed the wet clothes of Bucky and with an amused look on his face, he said, "Did you went on a swim with your clothes on, Bucky?".

Bucky snorted with a smile forming on his face and said, "Something like that". He then looks towards the hallway and said, "I'll walk with you towards the infirmary".

Ethan nodded and the two of them began to walk, "So, you have something to do with why Tony is inside the Lighthouse, huh?".

Bucky didn't look at Ethan, his eyesight was always in front of him and he replied, "I owe this to him, that much I know. I couldn't just let his son die due to a terrorist attack".

Realizing that it was because of the event happening with the Mandarin, Ethan replied, "...I see... But you do realize that you could have just called me or had Catherine heal him, right?"

This time it was Bucky who had an amused look on his face and replied, "You had been busy with that woman of yours. I thought there was no need to call you, besides we had everything under control".

".... but you shou--"

Before Ethan could continue talking, Bucky cut him off and said, "As I said, we got everything under control. The moment Tony appeared in the Lighthouse, Alfred began hacking Jarvis so that no information leak would happen. Plus Tony is still unconscious, he will never know what happened to him. Unless if you tell him though, then that's on you, not me or Howard".

Ethan sighed and said, "Fine you win. So, how is Howard taking it?".

"Last I check he hasn't left Tony's side. He also ordered the Chronicoms to help to fix Tony's suit".

The two of them soon arrived in the infirmary. In the middle of the room was Tony, he was currently inside a medical pod, a machine that the Chronicoms used to heal people. It looks like a large cylindrical tube, where the injured patient will be placed inside so that he could be healed.

Howard can be seen intently looking at his son as his injuries were being healed by the machine, while Enoch was busy calibrating the medical pod so that no injuries were left unattended.

The two of them only noticed Bucky and Ethan when Bucky made some coughing sounds. After that was done, Bucky said that he will be in his room to get change, thus living the 3 conscious people in the room

"How is he?", Ethan said as he walks towards the medical pod.

"Tony Stark will be all right. His injuries ain't that bad, so he will be fine in 2-3 hours", Enoch replied.

"That's good to hear", Ethan said. He then walks towards Howard and said, "Howard,--"

"I don't want to hear anything about you telling me that I did something wrong. All I know is that my son's life was in danger, and as a father, I needed to save him. So, I asked Bucky to get him. He owes me that much", Howard said with anger and fear in his voice.

Ethan could understand what Howard was feeling. He wasn't a father now or in his past life, but he knew the pain of loss. So, he wasn't angry at Howard, he just didn't like the idea that Tony was sent inside his secret base. Tony is an incredibly brilliant man, Ethan just didn't want him to figure out the location of a base that he had kept hidden for so long. It may be a farfetched idea but Ethan just wanted to cover all his basis.

"I'm not here to be mad at you Howard, not anymore at least. At first, I admit that I was mad at you for bringing Tony here but I decided against that while I was coming here", Ethan said.

"You can teleport.  So you basically change your mind in a matter of seconds if not minutes"

"A lot can happen in a matter of seconds", Ethan replied as he placed his hand on Howard's shoulder. "I'll leave you here then. I have something I need to place in Tony's suit", Ethan said. He then went towards Enoch and said, "Come on Enoch, come with me. Let's give Howard and Tony a few moments with themselves". The Chronicom nodded and together the two of them left the room.

A FEW HOURS LATER:

"AH! What the!", Tony said as he suddenly woke up. Right now he was still wearing his Mark 42 Iron Man suit. The first thing he notices were the stars in the night sky, he then looks at his surroundings and he could see numerous trees encircling him, it seems that he was in a forest.

"Jarvis? Jarvis? Hello, anyone home?", Tony said. Eventually, Jarvis began to wake up and be operational again.

"Nice to have you back buddy. What happened after we were in the ocean?", Tony said as he stood up.

"I'm not sure sir"

"What do you mean?", Tony said with curiosity in his voice.

"Well, the last thing on my system was a man came to save you from being drowned. I don't have anything recorded after that event sir"

"You mean you were de-activated?", Tony said with a mild shock in his voice. "Scan everything, the suit, my body, leave nothing untouched. I want to know that everything is okay", Tony ordered.

"On it, sir", Jarvis said. Then multiple loading screens and graphs quickly began to appear in front of his face.

"Sir, it seems that there is a total of 4 hours that wasn't accounted for".

"Really?"

"Yes sir, but that's not all sir. It seems that in the span of those hours, you were healed from all your injuries and all the malfunctions that had plague Mark 42 had been fixed by someone", Jarvis stated.

"...Who could do that?...S.H.I.E.L.D....perhaps Zero...I'm not sure if he has the technology and the know-how in figuring out my suit though?....", Tony stated, still unsure about what happened to him. Since Zero and the masked man were part of the same team, Tony's assessment could mean that the teleported took him to see Zero.

"Sir, aside from that, there seems to be a file in my system that wasn't there before. Should I open it, sir?"

"Open it", Tony ordered.

"Sir, the file contains all information about the Mandarin, AIM, Extremis program, and all of this connects one man, Aldrich Killian. It even has information connecting the Vice President with Killian himself"

Tony skimmed through the files and said, "Damn Killian, you have been busy this past couple of years".

"Hello Tony"

Suddenly a voice was heard inside Tony's suit, "What is that?", he asked his AI.

"It seems to be a voice recording sir".

"Hello Tony, I know life can often be hard but always make sure to reach out to people when that time comes. God knows I didn't do that...Take care, my son".

The moment he heard the voice recording, Tony was shocked cause he knew whose voice it was. It was his father. He would have never thought that his stern father would have a recording of him being emotional.

"How did Zero even get this recording?", Tony said as he flew in the air. Just like last time, it was Zero who gave him something that came from his father, so based on these two facts. Tony believes that Zero gave him the audio.

But now wasn't the right time to think about his father's message. So he disregarded that audio and he decided to immediately act on the information that he got. He can't allow Aldrich to kill any more people, but first, he needed to make sure that Pepper was okay.

And because of this decision, Tony was able to find Aldrich while he was in the middle of kidnapping Pepper. Their fight caused a huge burning explosion in the area but Tony's suit wasn't just fix, no!.

Ethan had secretly placed a seal that made Tony's suit fire-resistant. It was because of this seal that Tony was able to clutch the win. Tony then shared all the information he had to the public and to S.H.I.E.L.D. This led to the Vice President of the United States being captured and the Mandarin being found the next day. Even if the latter was only used by Aldrich as a scapegoat.