Ahh! I didn't expect this to be so popular! You guys are amazing!

Thanks to Archer83, Lunatic's Lament, bandnerd2669, shikakiwi, kakashiluckyblackcat, Ravenclaw Slytherin, HeirxxOfxxMerlin, Kazane Sayuri, Naxbetissa, Nyssa the Anime Queen, elizabeth14, SeranadingSerendipity, Firewolf27, First Lady Lestat, s.g.w.97, and KiwiRainbowStorm for reviewing! I love you guys! ^_^

I'm going to follow the movie (with some minor changes/additions) for now, and we'll see what happens. :D

Toni had always been an intensely smart young woman (and she was going with that; she'd be damned if she admitted out loud that she was thirty-five), even if some of her decisions could be considered questionable. Or kind of tasteless. Or both.

So, naturally, she didn't completely believe the entire shtick that S.H.I.E.L.D wanted her to buy in to. Why would they need an alien power source? What the hell could they possibly have going that needed that big of a battery to power?

Toni Stark was officially going to make it her business, if she was going to cooperate with them.

As she entered the bridge, she had a plan of attack ready and her game face on. Said game face had become more like a mask, but it would be a cold day in hell before she admitted that.

She talked herself up, commanding the attention of all the people in the room, and even called one poor crewman out on playing Galaga. All of her efforts created a distraction while she slipped a microchip that would allow JARVIS to get into S.H.I.E.L.D's mainframe under one of Fury's monitors.

The billionaire took a quick head count of the people in the room, and her stomach knotted just a little when she saw Spangles sitting there. God, he was a beautiful creature, with those baby blues and that chiseled face. Even though she felt heated jealously toward the super soldier (and, hell, possibly a little hatred), she was undeniably physically attracted to him. Her body, and possibly some messed up part of her mind, wanted him.

Who wouldn't?

...Damn her libido.

She had always had a little crush on him as a child, from all the stories her dad had told her, before things got...bad.

However, her thoughts potential sexual conquests would have to wait. Toni turned her sights to Dr. Banner, grinning and extending her hand.

"Dr. Banner, it's a pleasure to meet you. I hear you're the leading expert in gamma radiation. And, I have to admit, I'm also a fan of the way you...y'know...turn into an enormous green rage monster."

"Ahh...thanks...I think." The much more humble, taller genius took her hand. She was the shortest one of almost all people in the room, slightly lower than eye level with the Black Widow.

The two began to discuss how to track the tesseract when the deadly red-head chimed in. "When did you become an expert in gamma radiation, Stark?"

Toni's grin widened. "Why, last night, when Coulson decided to ruin my night with homework." She had indeed read everything, even though she had to admit the Captain's file intrigued her the most. She took the question as a rather poor attempt at a jab at her ego from the Widow.

Dr. Banner interrupted the stare down between the two women, clearing his throat. "I've already gotten Fury to get ahold of any lab with spectrometer and have them placed on the roofs, calibrated to track gamma rays. It won't pinpoint this thing but I think we can get close."

Toni paused, thoughtful for a moment. Maybe this wouldn't be so horrible after all, this man knew what he was talking about.

"Finally, someone who speaks English!" She couldn't contain her excitement.

Captain Rogers finally piped up, looking confused. "That was English?"

Toni looked at him, fighting the overwhelmig urge to make a dumb blonde joke.

However, that deep, authoritative voice made her knees just a little weak.

She kind of wondered what that voice would be like whispering scandalous little nothings in her ear.

...She'd never admit any of that either, though.

Toni and Dr. Banner had been working in the lab for some time in almost total silence after the good doctor had politely declined her offer to work and have free reign at Stark Tower. At this point, the billionaire thought she was going to go mad. Plus, he felt like a sort of kindred spirit to her, so she wanted a chance to pick the non-green doctor's brain.

Most of all, she hated the quiet.

When she was growing up, everything being this eerily quiet meant she was about to pay for something she did or didn't do, mostly from her father.

She winced a little, the physical pain caused in those memories still fresh in her mind, to this day.

Finally breaking the silence for fear of insanity, she asked the unspoken question. "So...what's your secret?"

Silence.

"You know. How do you control...the Hu- the other guy? What's your secret? Yoga, bongo drums, big bag of weed...?" She was genuinely curious.

"Oh, that..." He trailed off, seemingly lost.

Toni didn't like it when people did this to her. In what may have been a bit of a reckless, impulsive decision, she gave a light (and literally shocking) poke to Bruce's side with the small electric prod she'd been holding. She was satisfied with the little yelp of pain and the following laugh and smile she got from him.

"Huh. You really do have a lid on it." She was impressed. Toni had thought that might have upset him a little or at least evoke a little more of a reaction.

Before Bruce could say anything, though, a third party decided to enter the conversation.

"What do you think you're doing?" The woman sighed. Spangles had come off so straitlaced and uptight it was stifling to her.

"Relax, gramps. It was all in good fun." Toni came around the table and stood in front of the Captain, arms crossed in an attempt to make her one hundred and twenty-three pound frame seem a little more intimidating. He was easily double her size, and probably had upwards of a foot on her.

"Really? Endangering the lives of everyone on board this ship, when you should be looking for the tesseract, is 'funny' to you?" Steve's frown deepened and his gaze remained intense, staring down at her with disdain.

That shook her to the bone.

Toni loathed that look and the following shame it caused. Her father always gave her that look, and the same look was now gracing the face of his greatest creation, her childhood hero. The person she wished she was some nights, when she was tending to new bruises. It hurt.

It pissed her her off, of course, but deep down it hurt more than anything. Bad.

Had she been at home (and God did she wish she was right about now), she'd have drank herself into oblivion to stop thinking about it.

Back in her facade, she raised a ridiculously perfect, manicured eyebrow at him and pressed her self closer so that they were chest to chest. She noted to herself that he felt like leaning into a brick wall.

That made Steve falter a bit. He'd never been quite so close to a woman, and Toni was definitely a woman under that short, thick mop of shaggy hair. If the feminine, heart-shaped face didn't tip him off, the skin tight Black Sabbath t-shirt and the equally tight skinny jeans sure did. They left almost nothing to the imagination. He could also see a soft blue circular glow from underneath her shirt.

He found his cheeks tinging the faintest of reds for looking at her like that.

"Look, Captain." He did not miss the traces of venom on her voice. "Of all the people in this room right now, who is: A.) wearing a skin tight, Spangly outfit, and B.) not of use? You're the one holding us up."

Toni wasn't backing down. He was a jackass, walking in like he owned the place. This wasn't the forties and she wasn't going to just sit there and take it.

And that was her job, damn it.

Steve softened slightly at Toni's unwillingness to back down. She was stubborn, just like his Peggy had been. She even looked a little like Peggy. Her resemblance to Howard was undeniable, though. She definitely had her father's eyes, as well as his trademark smirk.

He sighed, a little annoyed by the insult and the goose flesh she gave him by being so close.

The arguing continued, and eventually Toni thought she had finally breached that thick skull of his. At some point during it all, Bruce threw his hands up in defeat at the heated conversation and turned back to his work.

"Look, Spangles, do you really think Fury is telling us everything? He's the spy of spies. His secrets have secrets. And I intend to find out just what the hell is going on." He was on Toni's last nerve. She was practically glowering at the super soldier at this point. Couldn't he just stand there and look pretty?

Steve ignored the insult, and decided to be the bigger person and leave. That was the easiest way to get the best of people like Toni.

"Just find the cube." He turned on his heel and didn't even bother looking back at her.

After the door shut, Bruce finally decided to chime back in. "You two are a match made in heaven." He kept a straight face, teasing her.

Toni looked at Bruce, doing her best look of exaggerated shock-horror.

"Don't even go there, Banner. Don't."

And on that note, she excused herself. The confrontation had shaken her, to say the least. She needed a second to recompose herself.

...And double up on her anxiety medication.

Second chapter's done. Hope you all like it, and hope to hear from ya! Fem!Tony is way too much fun to write. X3

xBreeze