A/N: I was going to wait until tomorrow, but I hear rabid Pitbulls scratching at my front door, raw Brussels sprouts are being thrown at my windows, and I can't wait that long to make you happy. So here it is: the ending to The Fifth Year.

Enjoy!

Epilogue

"3, 2, 1… Aaand now."

Expectant eyes watched closely.

xxxXXXxxx

Electric blue eyes suddenly opened to be confronted by the artificial, blinding white lights above him. He could feel his pupils rapidly retracting and then dilating until they became accustomed to the sudden change in brightness intake, and even when the eye pain stopped and the quietness around him persisted, he did not move an inch; not because he did not know where he was – but because he did not known who he was.

He shut his eyes again to center his thoughts, but a dense blanket of darkness filled his brain. He furrowed his brow, fisted his hands until his nails pierced his skin, and he exhaled deeply through his lips. Just when he felt he was about to mentally fall into an abyss of confusion-induced despair, a single word barely escaped his mouth.

"Tony," he sharply exhaled. "My name is… Tony."

Still with closed eyes, random voices and images pieced themselves together inside his head. They all appeared to be disconnected, unrelated even, but he knew better than that. He knew that his mind was trying to tell him something, trying to give him the tools he needed to find himself before long, and he knew the cause of it to be the sense of impending danger that was now filling his chest.

"Stark," he said with more confidence and opened his eyes. "I am Anthony Edward Stark."

He pushed his body slightly upwards on the bed by resting his weight on his bent elbows. He then ventured a cursory glance over his body and found it strange that, even though the large, white padded room he was currently in much resembled a hospital (or a sanatorium), he was not wearing a patient gown. He was barefoot and shirtless, wore a simple pair of black sweatpants, and no medical devices were attached to him – not even an IV line. In fact, there were no immediately useful electronic devices nearby either.

How do I know that? He asked himself as he pushed his body to a sitting position on the bed. How do I know there're no handy computers around?

With his right hand, he rubbed his forehead, hoping against hope that the push on the frontal lobe would accelerate the rate at which he was remembering everything. Against all odds and all the scientific knowledge he had of how the human body worked, more pieces of the puzzle began making sense to him the more he physically stimulated his head.

My father's name is Howard… my mom's name's Maria. She's dead. My best friend's name is Rhodey. We go to school together… or… or we did? My father… he was dead… but he's alive… my heart… it was damaged… in a plane crash – I survived a plane crash and… I… I… I am Iron Man…

His right hand then landed on his chest and he scratched the skin there. It was warm and soft and there was no easily discernable trace that his body had ever suffered the effects of an explosion in midair inside an aircraft. He gulped hard, closed his eyes again, and held his head between his hands. After hyperventilating a few more times to catch his unstable breath, he finally pulled his hands away and gazed at them.

And his heart nearly stopped at the sight.

He stared at the ring on his left hand and, for a moment, he wanted to rip it away from his ring finger as he was confused as to where it had come from and what it meant for him. The fingers on his right hand even made it to the piece of jewelry to pull it off, but when another single word came to him and a wave of memories followed said word, he felt as if he had been hit in the gut with an anvil at short range.

"Pepper."

He shut his eyes again and covered his face with his hands. Images of the last few years of life came crashing back to him, all culminating with the last memory he had of his life: the moment he had held his wife's dead body in his hands, seconds before he had been attacked by Gene Khan, in his own plane, all in order to fulfill the bounty that had haunted the inventor and the ginger for nearly half a decade, though only known to them until a couple of years back.

Pepper's dead. He slammed his fist on the bed. Why aren't I dead? Why am I still here?

Then he remembered. He still had work to do. He still had to avenge her death and their son's. He could not die just yet. He could not let her down once more.

I need to get out of here. I need to find a way out. I need to…

His thoughts were cut short when he snapped open his eyes at feeling a small computer near him. He became eerily still for a moment as he pinpointed its location and purpose, and when he finally did both, he jumped off the bed towards it, but only for his legs to give up on him.

"Ugh!"

He expertly prevented his face from hitting the cold concrete floor by stopping its downward path with his arms, and it was here and now that he wholly believed and realized that Extremis was back online in him. He could literally feel it coursing in his veins, forcing his numb legs to come out of their atrophied state. He could almost hear the virus in him demand him to tear Nick Fury limb by limb for what he had done to his family all these years. For what he put Pepper and him through.

Nobody threatens her. Nobody touches her. Nobody ends her life. Only me.

He let his entire body completely fall onto the floor at hearing his own words repeat in his mind. He briefly feared that he was going batshit crazy due to his mourning to say that if anyone was to kill the redhead, it would be him. But when he remembered that he had promised – and had failed – Pepper that he would kill her before S.H.I.E.L.D. did, he decided to put his worries to rest. For now.

Get it together, Stark. You need to think with your head, not your heart.

He crawled his way up from the floor by using the bed as a crutch. After he stretched his limbs and heard his bones pop, he began scanning the room again. There was nothing there that he could use as a weapon, but he could now feel there were cameras hidden all throughout the place. Someone somewhere was watching him, like a lab rat, possibly already executing a contingency plan to stop his upcoming rampage. Against everything he knew he should live by to accomplish his revenge, he could not give two flying fucks if the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. army was on its way to where he was.

His eyes landed on the corner of the room, where he could feel a small working microchip was embedded in the wall, and began walking to it. The closer he came to it, the more he confirmed his suspicions were true: the room was not all walls – there was a hidden automatic door in it, too. He thought he would have to hack into the door's computer to get it to open. To his surprise, the door was not only unlocked, but it opened automatically when he was two feet from it, making Tony Stark stop in his tracks.

He took a moment to think about his options, to try to find any other computers around him that would help him find what was coming, but even with Extremis active in him, he could sense something was jamming his ability to feel anything beyond the room where he was. He waited a few seconds to see if the door would close or if someone would come out of it, but when neither happened and his patience began running thin, he forced himself to cross the threshold of said door.

And his heart nearly stopped for the second time in a day.

He rubbed his eyes vigorously, took small steps towards the bed before him, and just when he thought that he was staring at nothing but an illusion – a mirror image of the place he had woken up himself just minutes ago, he placed a trembling hand on her warm face… and he witnessed, in awe, as her chest rose and fell at a steady pace.

Pepper Potts was alive. And she was lying before him.

"How…?" he cleared his throat. "Pepper… I thought… I thought…"

He opened and closed his mouth to continue his rambling. But when it dawned on him that this might be a dream, he pinched his left arm hard enough to bruise his skin. He waited another long moment in stillness to see if he would suddenly wake up, but when instead he saw her eyes fluttering open and she groaned in annoyance, he nearly lost the feeling in his legs.

She opened one eye. With it, she monitored her attempt to pat around the bed to find what she was seeking. When her search proved fruitless, she opened both eyes, stared at the genius with a pout, and then groaned even louder than before.

"Did you take my blanket again, Tony? What gives?"

He was too shocked to say anything, and for her that was a good thing, as the time it took him to find his voice was more than enough for her to comprehend her current state. He watched as she went through almost the same experience he had just lived. He wanted nothing more than to speed it up for her, but he could not. He had to let her arrive to the same conclusion as he at her own pace. He could not force that amount of shock on anyone, least of all onto her.

"Pepper? Are you alright?"

Her eyes scanned her body and she then frowned at the black pants and white tank top she was wearing that she did not remember ever buying or owning. She sat up in bed, looked left and right to see that nothing and no one else was around, and Tony could almost see the moment her brain put everything together when her eyes widened in surprise.

"Tony!" she yelled and jumped off the bed to hug him. "Where are we? What's going on?"

"I don't know," he hugged her tightly. "I really don't know."

She pulled away from his face to say something, but he stopped her words by kissing her lips. His kiss was desperate and hungry, but it was also full of the words and emotions he could not easily verbalize and share with her right now. Just moments ago, he had feared he would never be able to kiss his redhead, to be with her, to hold her tight, ever again. Just an instant ago, he had almost broken down in mourning at remembering her passing, but yet here she was: alive and well, calling his name and seeking the comfort of his touch.

And if this was a dream or a sick joke or both, he was sure as hell going to take advantage of the opportunity he had in his hands. And he did until he could not hold his breath any more.

"Tony," she whispered his name in between deep breaths. "This… this is not the time… we need… we need…"

"To get out of here," he finished for her and she nodded, her hands still around his neck. "I know it's not the time, but I just had to do that, Pep. I'm sorry."

She opened her mouth to reprimand him on his poor timing, but when the lyrics of the song he had sung to her however long ago returned to her mind, she decided against saying anything else on the matter at all.

"Okay, so," she cleared her throat. "What's the last thing you remember?"

He let out a sound that resembled the beginning of a response, but when he realized that the news would be a shock to the ginger, he closed his mouth, held her face in his hands, and stared directly to her eyes. Pepper wrinkled her brow and dropped her shoulders in anticipation. She did not know why, but she could almost feel the bad news she knew he was about to relay to her just now.

"You died, Pepper. I-I woke up and you were dead."

"But I'm not dead."

"I know. I don't know how or why, but you're alive now. But… but after you died… on the plane, something happened. And I thought… I thought I'd died too."

"What happened?" she asked, gulped, and then forced his face to stare at hers again when he briefly looked away. "Tony, just say it, alright? What happened on the plane?"

"The plane… the plane blew up… because of Gene. Because he showed up."

"W-what?" she pulled her hands away from his face but he caught them in his own hands to keep the contact between them. "That… that can't be!"

"But it is, Pepper," he said slowly and massaged her hands. He knew that Pepper held Gene in high esteem, and even though he did not hold the man in such high regard as his wife did, he still felt even more betrayed by him than he ever had in the past. Even after living through his initial betrayal and surviving the alien invasion the rings had caused, Tony had still trusted – deep inside him – that if the time came, Gene would be the one to protect Pepper at all costs. He had not expected the man to be the cause of their demise.

The Mandarin still loved the redhead, did he not?

"It's the truth, Pepper," Tony continued. "He… he pointed his rings at me. He said he was there to fulfill the bounty."

"NO!" she shook her head. "Gene… he… he'd never hurt us, Tony! He would never…!"

"But he did, Pepper! I told him you were gone and he didn't even care!"

"He WOULD care… He… he-he… why? Why would he do this?"

"Because I asked him to," a voice behind Tony said and the inventor immediately turned around in place, pushed Pepper behind him and narrowed his eyes at the newcomer. The one-eyed man simply scoffed in return, raised his hands to either side of his head to show that he was not armed, and then gave Tony a small shrug.

"Well, I didn't really ask him to. He had to do it… or else."

"Fury," Tony all but snarled. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I live here," he said and lowered his hands. "And now, you two do as well."

"What?" Tony asked and slowly began shifting his position, making sure Pepper stayed behind him, so that he was in a location in the room where he could react quickly enough if someone else showed up from any of the other three hidden doors Extremis had just helped him find.

"What are you saying?"

"That you two are dead to the world," Nick said. "You two died on that plane. And it needs to stay that way for now. At least until the time comes for you to be Iron Man again."

"What?" Pepper asked and tried to go around the genius, but he stopped her by placing an arm in her way. The redhead stared at his arm and then at him, and when Tony shook his head at her, she sighed loudly in response.

"Fury," she began. "You made me sign a contract stating that Tony would never be Iron Man ever again. You said that if he put on the armor one more time, you would kill him where he lay."

Tony's eyebrows rose to the ceiling.

"Kill me? I thought I'd spend the rest of my life on the Helicarrier."

Pepper shook her head.

"No. That's what I told you, but the contract stated he would kill you. That's why I never let you put it on again. That's why I blocked you from logging in to the systems and banned you from the temple. It didn't work for long because you found out about it, but at least you never tried to put on the suit again."

"Well, that contract is now void," Fury stated. "It's no longer active, actually. Its usefulness has ended. Just as any other contract or paper I ever made you sign."

"Why?" Tony asked. "What happened that changed your mind?"

Nick Fury stared at the inventor and then at the redhead, and the moment his smug face turned somber, Tony and Pepper wanted to make it so that their question had never been asked.

"I didn't change my mind. This was always the plan. It had to happen this way, because the world is going to hell very soon, Tony, and we need your help. Everyone does. And also because…"

Nick paused to give Pepper an apologetic look, stared at the floor beneath him for a second, and then finally looked up to face the woman's forthcoming wrath.

"Your son is alive."

THE END

A/N: Whoop, there it is! Many, many, many, MANY thanks to everyone who has survived the long period of time this endeavor has lasted (more than a year, I think!). I really could have not done it without you, and even though there's still the final story to come, I wanted to take a moment to say that you're all my inspiration and reason for being here. I'm going to take a break from this fandom to go finish the abandoned story I began for the show Arrow, but once that is complete, I will come back to make everything right. I know this last chapter and Epilogue has left you with even more questions than answers, but I promise that answers will bombard you in C1 of the next story. There will be so many answers, your heads are gonna spin!

Anyway: Enjoy the holidays, rest and drink plenty of fluids, my Faithful Readers. You don't want to miss what's to come :D