Inseparable: Ashley's Frozen Secret

March 24th, 2024

Tony, Bruce and Ashley had fallen into a routine and once again that morning started just like the lasts. Spending all the time they could revamping Howard's cure. But by lunch, Tony had had enough. He felt he was smarter than this. Being a genius, he thought he could fix this cure for Ashley within a day.

(Tony) She's gonna die, and I couldn't stop it.

He found himself sulking in the kitchen after lunch when everyone went their separate ways, and his mind wandered off to the day he was on Titan.

I don't wanna go Mr. Stark.

Please...I don't wanna go.

Peter P. turning to ash in his arms as the two of them collapsed to the ground played like a movie real, over and over and over in his head. Until the room itself seemed to be turning into ash and leaving him in the deep black abyss of space.

"Honey..." A faint voice called to him, but he didn't answer or move to see what direction it might be coming from. Then it repeated again. "Honey..." The word was said over and over. That one sentence, becoming more of a statement than a question as Tony slowly came back to the Compound.

"Honey, are you okay?" Pepper was standing next Tony. Her hand rubbing circles on his back until it came to the top of his shoulders, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Tony. What's wrong?"

"I still think about it." Tony said after a small while. Not looking his wife in the eye. "The day we failed."

Pepper's eye's softened towards her husband. Even though he wasn't looking, he could feel the sadness radiating off of her. Like she knew every single painful moment and all the guilt he had held onto. "And I just keep thinking. What if I do that to her? She's barely been here a week, and she's already become like a sister to me."

"Honey..." She took a seat and grabbed his hands. Making him look at her. "...look at yourself. You're stressing yourself out. You're a genius honey and you know it. Nothing could have changed that day on Titan and nothing is going to stop you from doing your best at saving Ashley. I believe in you....Everyone out there believes in you."

The room was silent for a while. The words that Pepper spoke lingered in the air and Tony was slowly soaking it in.

"Thank you, Love." He kissed Pepper as he left the room. "You know how much I appreciate you, right?"

Pepper just smiled as Tony disappeared out of sight and made his way back to the lab. A new found sense of pride and a new idea for the cure.

Ignoring the tension in the room, upon walking into the lab, Tony got straight to work. "Freeze her blood and thaw it again. I want to see what happens to it."

"Have you gone stupid? There is no way you're going to get proper results from that." Ashley snaps. "You can't just freeze my blood on a whim and expect to see how the poison activates."

"I'm pretty sure I can. That's how science works. Besides, it's an idea. So I'm running with it."

Taking a sample of Ashley's blood and some Liquid Nitrogen, he poured the two into a small petri dish and the blood instantly froze. "Let's keep it frozen for a few hours. Let the blood have time to adjust to the change. Then we can slowly thaw it like we did with you and see if we can pinpoint what exactly is killing you."

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A few hours later Bruce and Ashley's attention shifted as the test results came back. "Oh my god." Bruce said, dumbfounded.

"Oh my god, what?" Tony had been tinkering with his suite while waiting for the results and was still going at it.

"Look Tony...You're stupid idea was right." Ashley said, annoyed with herself that she didn't think of something like that sooner.

"We have the answer." Bruce said.

A/N:

Did I totally skip over proper science?

Yes...yes I did.

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Have fun reading!