Chapter 11
She saw on the news of the Fire Fighter Fundraiser happening and frowned at the mention. She might have been busy for the last few weeks, keeping a low profile as Obie attempted to smooth out the press, but she was certain she would have heard something for the event from either Obie or Pepper. But Pepper had barely had time for her since Toni's return, blaming it on the mountain of paper work that Obie had suddenly thrown her way. And Obie, well he was trying to overthrow the injunction filed against her.
She hated sitting like some sort of invalid, waiting until the work had been done. She had never been one to sit back and wait for things to just fall into place. As a woman in an engineering field she'd never had that luxury.
And even with the work that she had done on her suit, it wasn't the same since she was loocked out of her own company. She hated not being able to do anything. She hated being left out in the dark.
So she dressed up, wearing a flashy red gown with gold heels that Pepper had bought for her for some gala or the other that she hadn't been able to attend due to her absence, and she showed up to her own party.
She never liked doing the expected anyways.
She smiled on in front of the press, ignoring the questions they threw her way about the future of her company and her health, giving a one of statement about how they were all there today to support the firefighters. They were who was important today, after all.
She didn't say more than a few words to Obie; she was grateful to him for everything, but she didn't want to air out her frustrations in front of the press. Not when they already had so many things to speculate about for her. She definitely refused to give them any more stories. She brushed off his attempts at getting her to go back home as she entered the party; her party.
"Ms Stark," she heard a voice call out as she grabbed a whiskey; she had a feeling she definitely would need it today more than ever.
"Yes?" she said, turning and recognizing a familiar face.
"Phil Coulson," he said, "From the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division."
She kept her face passive, pretending she didn't know all her life what exactly SHIELD was and what they did for a living.
"You need a better name for that," she said offhandedly, and she saw Coulson's lips turn up.
"We're working on it," he said, "Listen, I know this must be a trying time for you, but we need to debrief you. There's still a lot of unanswered questions, and time can be a factor with these things. Let's just put something on the books. How about the 24th at 7:00 p.m at Stark Industries?"
She nodded despite herself; SHIELD was proving to be persistent in learning about what happened to her during her time in Afghanistan. And she knew that Harry must not have told them anything, for otherwise they wouldn't be trying too hard to get her version of events.
She excused herself shortly after, seeing Pepper in a silk blue dress.
"You look beautiful," she purred slightly, and saw Pepper's face light up at the sight of her.
"What are you doing here, Toni?" Pepper asked her, surprised. "Are you by yourself?"
"I'm avoiding government agents," she grinned, recognizing the dress as a past gift to her friend. "Nice dress."
"You have good taste, Miss Stark," Pepper laughed.
"Do you want to dance?" she asked, extending her hand and Pepper looked around, feeling slightly self-conscious. Toni rolled her eyes, "They're going to talk about me anyway. Might as well give them a reason to. But only if it makes you comfortable."
"I forgot to wear deodorant," Pepper sighed, "I'm wearing a dress with a back far too low cut. And I'm about to dance with my boss."
"You look and smell great," Toni said smiled at her, as she moved along to the music, holding Pepper close. "I could fire you if that would help?"
"I don't think you could tie your shoes without me," Pepper smirked, and Toni protested, "What's your social security number?"
Toni pouted slightly, "Five?" and as Pepper made fun of her, she argued. "I am a genius. I remember genius things. I don't need to know my social security number. I have you for that."
As they went out for air, she heard the rumours begin to circulate once more. There was a time in her life when she might have tried to have made a move on Pepper, but she respected the woman. While Toni might enjoy the company of women, she knew that Pepper had no such inclinations. And the woman was one of her best friends; she was hardly going to push her away over something trivial as her feelings.
So when Pepper expressed her concerns, she backed off, deciding to get them both a drink.
She sighed in that moment, finding herself back at the bar for the second time that night.
It was a lot to taken in, the music, the people, the dancing. It was the most social interaction she had in months and she was exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl under her blankets. But now was not the time.
And when Christine Everheart shoved the pictures of a town called Gulmira in her face, she found herself unable to breath
"When were these taken?" she demanded, as Christine glared at her.
"Yesterday," Christine said, searching her face for any knowledge of it.
"I didn't approve any new shipments," Toni shook her head.
"Your company did," Christine shot back.
"Well I am not my company," Toni reminded her, before weaving her way through the crowd, holding the picture so tightly she was sure it was going to be damaged.
She nearly laughed when Obie called her naïve as she shoved them asked him about it.
"I was naïve before when they said 'Here's a line. We don't cross it,'" She fought back, stopping him from leaving.
"You're being hysterical," Obie told her, "You're being far too emotional right now, Toni. You cannot afford to think like a woman, you know that better than anyone else in this field. This is how we do business."
"If we're double dealing under the table, I need to know," she warned him, "Are we?"
Obie straightened his back and her jaw tightened as she got her answer as the reporters screamed at her for her picture.
"Let's take a picture," he said, sliding his arm around her waist. She wanted to push him away, to tell him the discussion was far from over. "Toni. Who do you think locked you out? I was the one who filed the injunction against you. It was the only way I could protect you."
He walked away from her, leaving her silent in his wake and she wanted to throw something, wanted to break something, to destroy anything.
So, she took a deep breath, not wanting the reporters to spin her as a woman who lost her mind under torture, unable to cut it, and she went home.
Instead of going to bed, like she so wanted to, she suited up.
And she flew straight to Gulmira.
"Ma-am are you certain?" JARVIS' voice called in her ears, "We have never tested flight for this long. We do not know anything of the conditions there, nor do we know what we are flying into. Perhaps we should at least plan it out slightly. Bring in Mr Rhodes or Mr Carter-Sousa as they have training in this sort of thing."
"No can do, J," she told her AI. "I created this mess, one way or another. It's up to me to fix it."
"With all due respect," JARVIS shot back, "The weight of the world does not lay solely on your shoulders alone."
She let his words wash over her slightly as she landed on her feet, in front of a terrorist. He began shooting at her immediately and she wanted to laugh. She wasn't dumb enough to let her suit be breakable by something as simple as bullets.
She threw him into the air and shot her repulsors at the others, before turning to see them pointing it at women and children.
She wasn't a religious person; not by a long shot. But there was a special place in hell for men who hurt women and children. She carefully powered down her repulsors, and lowered her arms, as she scanned the faces and locked on just the terrorists, as her suit shot them down.
A boy ran towards his father and she smiled from inside his suit at the relief on his face that his son was alive; that he was alive.
She wasn't done yet, as she carefully removed each of the terrorists, one by one, knocking them out, t and destroying all her weapons in the area before flying off again.
Her weapons might have terrorized this village, but she had kept them safe.
She should have known it wouldn't be that simple.
Of course she couldn't just fly straight into an active war zone without the US Airforce finding out.
She was alerted about the US Raptors appearing behind her before the call came through, flashing on her screen as Honey Bear.
"Sour Patch?" she answered as she tried to calm her voice.
"Is there something you need to tell me?" he asked her, keeping his voice steady, "Particularly about Gulmira. "Where are you right now? What's that sound?"
"I'm driving in the convertible," she lied, "The top's down."
"I need your help right now," Rhodey said, seeming to believe her, "We got a weapons depot that was just blown up, a few clicks of where you were held."
She winced at the reminder, "Sounds like someone stepped in and did your job for you?" she lied, not wanting to bring him into it, not until she knew what she was dealing with. She had done a lot of reckless shit in her life, and she didn't want to bring him down with her desire to save the world.
He called her out about her breathlessness a moment later, before pausing.
"You sure you don't have any tech in that area I should know about?" he asked he,r and she knew she'd have to tell him eventually.
"Nope," she lied again, and he let out a sigh.
"Okay, good, 'cause I'm staring at one right now, and it's about to be blown to kingdom come," Rhodey said, clearly not believing her.
Well.
Fuck.
She wondered in that moment if she'd made a mistake. If she had flown too close to the sun, too desperate to redeem herself, and too drunk on power. Had she tried for too much, bitten off far more than she could chew? Would this be the end of her story?
Not like this.
"Turn on super-sonic mode, Baby Boy," she told JARVIS and she didn't need him to respond to sense his dissatisfaction with the entire endeavour.
The shot comes a moment later, as she struggled to avert it.
And like Icarus, she fell.
If it weren't for JARVIS stabilizing her through constant calculations, she supposed she would have hit the ground already.
She flies back up avoiding the shots and she knew in that moment the time for lying was done.
"JARVIS call Rhodey back," she sighed, knowing he was going to be less than pleased.
"Hi Rhodey," she said, as soon as he picked up.
"Please don't tell me you have anything to do with this," he sighed at her, and she sheepishly grinned, despite knowing he couldn't see her.
"It's me," she said simply, and she could hear the disbelief.
"What do you mean it's you?" he asked, taking in a deep breath. "No, see, this isn't a game. You do not send civilian equipment into my active war zone."
"I mean it's a suit," she said quickly, as the pilots got closer. "It's a flying suit, Rhodey. I'm inside of it."
"For fuck's sake, Toni, please tell me you're not serious?" he asked her, and she wished she could.
"Rhodey it's me inside it and if you shoot me down, I will fall," she told him, and she heard him pull away the phone as he talked to his superiors.
"Toni, listen to me," he told her desperately, "Get out of there. Get out of there now. And when you get back here you come find me, you understand? We need to have a long talk about this and discuss why in God's name you thought this would be a good idea."
She wished she could. She held herself back as the planes flew past her, before latching herself onto one of them. She clutched on desperately, hoping they wouldn't see her.
Of course, it hadn't been her smartest move and the plane began spinning in circles to throw her off.
It wouldn't have been a big deal if she didn't crash into the other plane, destroying its wing and sending the pilot out of the damaged air craft. She flew after the pilot and deployed his parachute as she pulled it free with as much strength as she could muster.
As horrible as it sounded, the pilot freefalling had given her the distraction to get away without a continuous chase.
Safe to say, by time she landed, Rhodey was waiting for her, with his arms crossed, and a less than pleased Pepper Potts standing behind him.
"What were you thinking?" he asked her, as JARVIS began to dismantle her suit for her.
"I was thinking that Obie is double dealing weapons to terrorists and that I was going to stop it," she told him, and saw his eyes widen in surprise, "And if I cannot do so from inside my company, then I was going to find another way to do so."
"Are you sure?" Pepper asked, looking shocked. "Toni, what you're talking about? It's treason. Are you certain that Obadiah is doing this?"
"He confessed it to me," she spat out, "At the Gala. How was I supposed to sit back and watch? I wanted to make weapons so I could make a difference in the world. Instead, I was making things worse. He locked me out of my own company and used my weapons to hurt others."
"We need proof," Rhodey closed his eyes, "We can't just make these accusations without it."
"I can get it," Pepper nodded, "I still have full access to Toni's office and all her files. I can go in and get whatever files it is that we need."
"What if he finds you?" Toni protested, "I can just get JARVIS to hack the servers. It's all my own systems anyways. Besides, Obie doesn't know how to prevent JARVIS from getting in. I can't put you at risk; not for this."
"But it would take longer," Pepper reminded him, "I can get it within the hour. JARVIS, how long would you need?"
"I'd have to be able to do it without detection, Ms Potts. It would take me a few hours to find out what I was longing for," JARVIS responded. "However if it is on a remote drive not connected to the main server it would be harder to track."
"Toni," Pepper took her hands, "Let me do this for you. You don't need to fight against the entire world on your own. You have friends who love you and will fight with you."
"I'll talk to the Air Force," Rhodey nodded, "If anyone suspects him selling to terrorists, I can find out what they know."
"Thank you," she breathed, as she talked through Pepper on what she would need to look for. The two took off on their respective missions, leaving her to her thoughts, and she knew she would need to be ready for whatever it was that was coming her way.
She'd fixed up her suit and was going through pass transactions that she had access through on her StarkPad when she heard the call come in from Pepper.
She answered the phone before a strong pulse shot through her and she felt herself unable to move.
She knew all too well what it was; the sonic taser that rendered its victims paralyzed temporarily. Whatever had she been thinking? Trying to create a weapon so harmful?
For the second time in so many months, she felt her own technology turn against her as she was rendered immobile.
"Breathe. Easy, easy," She heard Obie tell her soothingly, as he lowered her head onto her couch. "You remember this one, right? It's a shame the government didn't approve it. There's so many applications for causing short-term paralysis."
She wanted to yell back at him as she was forced to watch him move over. He was her family; her godfather.
"Toni, when I ordered the hit on you, I worried that I was killing the golden goose," he said, and she would have cried out if she could. Of course he had. She wanted to laugh or cry or scream, but she was unable to even blink. He was her godfather, but he had tried to have her killed. He pulled out a metal extractor, aiming it over her heart, "But, you see, it was just fate that you survived it. You had one last golden egg to give."
He pushed it in, and she felt her heart begin to convulse, as the pain surged through her, and Obie removed her arc reactor from her chest.
"Do you really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you?" he spat at her, "Your father, he helped give us the atomic bomb. Now, what kind of world would it be today if he was as selfish as you?"
She struggled to breath, feeling the shrapnel begin moving once again toward her heart.
"Toni, this is your Ninth Symphony," He sat beside her, leaning in close so she could feel his breath on her face, "What a masterpiece. Look at that. This is your legacy. You've shown the world that women can succeed and cause as much destruction as men. A new generation of weapons with this at its heart. Weapons that will help steer the world back on course, put the balance of power in our hands. The right hands. I wish you could've seen my prototype. It's not as... Well, not as conservative as yours. Too bad you had to involve Pepper in this. I would have preferred that she lived."
No.
NO.
She wanted to scream.
How dare he turn her heart into a weapon of mass destruction? How dare he rip it out of her chest leaving her weak and vulnerable? How dare he mention Pepper and try to hurt her?
She struggled to stand, trying to move through her house and to her lab.
She needed her backup; the arc reactor that had gotten her through Afghanistan. She could feel her heart squeezing tightly, as the pain flowed through her body.
She moved slowly though her house, leaning on walls and grasping at every surface.
She could do this. She was so close. She just needed to get to the reactor.
Please.
Just give it a few more minutes.
The doors of her elevator opened and she all but threw herself out of it, heading to where Pepper had encased her old reactor for her.
She crawled across the floor, unable to stand any longer, as the pain filled her and she lay on her stomach, unable to move.
She closed her eyes.
Was this how she was going to die?
On the ground of her lab, surrounded by her bots, as her heart gave out?
What would her legacy be?
That of a murderer? Of a villain? Of a woman who singlehandedly brought destruction wherever she turned?
She heard familiar beeping and saw DUM-E lower the reactor to her and nearly cried out. When JARVIS hadn't responded to her, she knew Obie must have disabled him, using the codes she had given him out of pressure when she made him. And now more than ever she had regretted it. JARVIS could have called for help, could have stopped Obie from leaving, from hurting Toni. And instead Obie had hurt her son.
"Good boy," she said tiredly, and DUM-E looked down on her, almost with a look of worry.
She smashed the reactor, before trying to shove it into her chest carefully as she connected back up all the wires.
She was still on the ground, unable to move, as Rhodey and Ava barrelled into her lab, screaming her name. Rhodey helped her up and she grabbed onto him.
"Where's Pepper?" she asked desperately, knowing Obie was going to go for her.
"She's fine," Ava said, examining her older arc reactor, and trying to get the full extent of her injuries. "She's with five agents and Harry."
"They're about to arrest Obadiah," Rhodey added, "Are you okay? Did he hurt you? I swear to god I'm going to kill him."
"It's not enough," Toni shook her head, cutting him off. "He has my reactor, Rhodey. He has the old suit too; somehow he got it from Afghanistan. They don't have a chance against him in it. I need to go face him. I need to put an end to this."
"You were just dying," Ava argued back, "You're still not even fully recovered. Leave it to Harry; he'll take care of this. Rhodey can go too now that he's here. But you need to rest, Toni. You can't fight him, not like this."
"I'm the only one who can," she shook her head, "This is my fault. It's my technology that he's using to cause all this harm. I have to be the one to put an end to it. I just need the suit."
Rhodey didn't say anything and she knew he wasn't happy with it.
"Honey Bear," she said softly.
"Okay," he said softly, "I'll help you suit up."
She went over to one of her screens, getting JARVIS back up and running.
"Miss?" JARVIS called for her desperately, "I tried to warn you, I tried but-"
"I know Baby," she soothed him, "I'm fine, Jar. But I need to go stop Obie, so can you begin initiation sequence?"
"Yes Miss," he said, and the bots around her began whirring as the suit slowly attached onto her body.
"That is so cool," Ava said breathlessly, "How could you keep this from me?"
"She flew into my war zone without warning me," Rhodey said dryly. "But it is the coolest thing I've ever seen."
"Let's do it," she grinned at both of them.
"Do you need me to do anything else?" he asked her, and she shook her head.
"Keep the skies clear," she told him simply, before jetting off.
Somehow the flight to Stark Industries felt longer than the flight to Gulmira. Knowing Pepper was in danger, that Obie wanted to kill her simply because she knew the truth. That Toni had put her in danger, broke her.
She would not let Obie hurt Pepper the way he had hurt her.
"Pepper," she called her, and her friend answered.
"Toni! Thank god you're okay. Obie, he's gone insane. He's built a suit!" Pepper said quickly, and Toni tried to go faster.
"Pepper you need to get out of there now," Toni said, with a tight voice.
"Where do you think you're going?" she heard a familiar metallic voice, and Toni felt dread flow through her.
"Stane!" she screamed as she crashed straight into him, blocking him from shooting her, as they both fell into the ground.
How dare he?
How dare he try to kill her assistant? Her friend? The woman who had become family to her?
How dare he try and hurt her because of money?
She flew straight into oncoming traffic from the impact of the fall, as she fell out of her warehouse, and into a truck, and she could hear the crashes and screams around her.
Obie lifted a car filled with a family, holding it over her.
"I love the new suit," he screamed through, in his metallic voice.
"Put them down," she demanded, seeing the fear on their faces.
"Collateral damage, Tony," Obie said, as she instructed JARVIS to re-allocate power in her suit.
She shot him out of her reactor as she carefully caught the car and set it back down.
Only for the lady to run her over and drag her through the highway. She pushed the car carefully off of her, as Obie crashed back down in front of her, and threw her at another car.
"For 30 years, I've been holding you up! I built this company from nothing! Nothing is going to stand in my way. Least of all you! Not an overprivileged girl who had no place in this world. I should have got the company when your father died. And instead, he entrusted it to you. Do you have any idea how furious that made me? To know that I had worked hard day and night. And he hated you. He hated everything about you. And yet he gave the company to you; the least deserving person of it all. I tried so many times to destroy you, and somehow, you always got back up."
He flung her to the ground, stomping on her.
He shot a missile at the bus behind her, throwing her into the air from the explosion, but she used her thrusters to steady herself so she wouldn't fall straight to the ground.
"Impressive! You've upgraded your armor! I've made some upgrades of my own!" he yelled back at her, before taking off.
Well.
Fuck.
She instructed JARVIS to take her up to maximum altitude, despite his protests.
She flew higher into the air, gaining altitude, knowing fully well that her suit probably couldn't handle it.
"You had a great idea, Tony, but my suit is more advanced in every way!" Obie taunted her, as he grabbed her foot.
"How'd you solve the icing problem?" she smirked back, as his suit glazed over.
"Icing problem?" he asked, unsure of what she was saying.
"Might want to look into it," she grinned, as he let her go and fell straight back down, before she slowly followed as her suit reached two percent power.
She crashed onto the roof of her company.
"Pepper," she said, calling her friend, as Pepper gasped. "I'm almost out of power. I've got to get out of this thing. I'll be right there."
"Nice try," she heard as Obie crashed behind her. She raised her arm and grimaced. as she realized her glove had come off.
He threw her back, but she flew into him, punching him with the fist that was still covered, as he held her tightly between his arms, crushing her suit.
"Weapons status," she gasped.
"Repulsors offline, missiles offline," JARVIS reported.
"Flares!" she said, struggling to breathe, as they shot out of her suit and Obie dropped her.
"Very clever, Toni," Obie said, seeming unimpressed.
"Pepper," Toni called her quietly. "This isn't working. We're going to have to overload the reactor and blast the roof."
"Well how are you going to do that?" Pepper sounded worried.
"You're going to do it," Toni told her. "Go to the central console, open up all the circuits. When I get clear of the roof, I'll let you know. You're going to hit the master bypass button. It's going to fry everything up here."
Now she just needed to buy herself some time.
She jumped onto her godfather's back, as she pulled out a series of wires.
"Did you hate me all this time, Obie?" she asked, "Every time I came to you as a kid with an invention? Every time you read to me when Howard was gone? When you came to my graduation when even my father couldn't make it? Did you hate me through all these years, when I considered you to be family?"
"You were a good for nothing girl who didn't understand her place," Obie sneered through the mask, "You might have brought in some valuable weapons, but the company was always meant to be mine. I stood by your father's side. I helped him build it up to where it was today. You just took what was never yours."
"Stark Industries was always meant to be run by a Stark," Toni shook her head. "My Grandfather knew it, my father knew it, and I know it. It's our legacy, and it's my legacy to decide what to do with. Who are we helping by selling weapons to terrorists? We're just lining our own pockets. Even if you kill me today, the world will know what you've done. Stark Industries can and never will belong to you. It's over Obie."
He flung her off his back as his suit powered off, straight to the glass roof.
Obie opened up his suit, holding her helmet in his suited-up hand, "I never had a taste for this sort of thing, but I must admit, I'm deeply enjoying the suit! Stark Industries might have your name in it, but that doesn't mean you have the right to it than you think you did. You should have just died in Afghanistan, Toni. It would have made all of this so much easier for us all."
He threw the helmet to where she was laying, and Toni lifted her head carefully.
"You finally outdid yourself, Toni! You'd have made your father proud!" Obie laughed at her.
She wanted to scream. If this is what it took to make her father proud, she didn't want it. She didn't want him to be proud of her for making a super powered suit for Obie to misuse. She didn't want this to be her legacy. This was not what she would be remembered for.
"It's ready, Toni! Get off the roof!" Pepper yelled into her ear, and Obie opened fire on her.
She lifted her arm up and created a shield, but the floor under her gave out and she fell.
She clung on tightly to the metal bars above her, as glass rained down on Pepper and the arc reactor below her.
"Toni!" Pepper screamed and she winced.
"How ironic, Toni! Trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it its best one ever!" Obie leered at her, "And now I'm going to kill you with it!"
He sent out a shot and it hit the building behind her.
"You ripped out my targeting system!" Obie glared at her.
"Time to hit the button!" Toni told her and Pepper protested.
"You told me not to!" Pepper argued back.
"Hold still, you little prick!" Obie raised his weapon at her again. Of course he compared her to male genitalia when insulting her.
"Just do it," Toni yelled.
"You'll die," Pepper screamed.
"Push it," Toni dropped, so only one arm was holding on. Pepper shot her a worried look but pushed the red emergency button on the console as she ran out of the way. The arc reactor began to overload, as the blue energy shot out, pushing Toni off to the side.
She watched in sorrow as Obie fried from the energy.
He had been her family, her father figure when Jarvis had died, and her father had passed. He had been there for her when Uncle Daniel and Aunt Peggy were busy and Rhodey was off in the military.
But he, like everyone else in her life had left her too.
He fell straight into the arc reactor, and it set off an explosion through her building. She knew that there was no way that he could have survived it.
She supposed she should have been more upset; he was her family. But in that moment, she simply closed her eyes, as her reactor flickered in her chest, trying to start back up again.
She sighed to herself, looking over the cue cards that Harry had given her on behalf of SHIELD, carefully crafted to give her an alibi for the explosion to prove that there was no way that she could have been there.
They were giving her a way out. A way to return to her regular life without raising any further suspicions about what it was she had been doing in her free time.
It gave her a way to protect her identity if she wanted to continue to be a superhero.
She picked up a paper as she heard Rhodey speak on the television.
"You've all received the official statement of what occurred at Stark Industries last night. There have been unconfirmed reports that a robotic prototype malfunctioned and caused damage to the arc reactor. Fortunately, a member of Tony Stark's personal security staff was on hand to help," Rhodey spoke.
"Iron Man," she scoffed, "Just because I didn't put breast plates on the suit, they automatically assume I'm a man."
"How else would anyone know it's a woman?" Ava asked, "Unless she was explicitly being sexualized."
"You have your alibi," Pepper told her, "Stick to the cards, Toni."
She looked over at her cousin, and Ava didn't say a word. She knew Ava disapproved of what SHIELD wanted her to do, but how many other options did she really have?
She walked out to the podium, as Rhodey stood behind her. Pepper was off in the crowd, and Harry stood by Coulson off to the side. Her Uncle Daniel sat in the audience as Ava took a seat beside her father.
"Been a while since I was in front of you. I figure I'll stick to the cards this time. There's been speculation that I was involved in the events that occurred on the freeway and the rooftop," Toni said, taking a deep breath.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Stark, but do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a bodyguard in a suit that conveniently appeared despite the fact that you," Christine Everheart interrupted her.
"I know that it's confusing," Toni stopped her, "It is one thing to question the official story, and another thing entirely to make wild accusations, or insinuate that I'm a superhero."
"I never said you were a superhero," Christine argued.
"Didn't? Well, good, because that would be outlandish and fantastic," she laughed awkwardly. "I'm just not the hero type. Clearly. With this laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I've made, largely public."
She watched the audience, grasping over her awkward words.
"Just stick to the cards," Rhodey said exasperatedly.
"Yeah, okay. Yeah. The truth is-" She paused, thinking carefully over the words she was about to say. The words her company needed her to say. The words the world wanted to hear.
But she looked at her Uncle Daniel and thought of Aunt Peggy, who had fought hard her entire life to have a place at the table. Who stood up to men her entire life who tried to put her in her place where they thought she belonged. How Peggy had decided to re-write the rule book so that it worked out in her favour.
She thought about Steve Rogers, who simply wanted to fight in the war, despite being an underdog, with a weak body. She thought about how he fought hard his entire life and had ultimately sacrificed himself in the end to try and save the entire world.
He had been her father's personal hero, so much so that he had dedicated his entire legacy to Captain America.
She wasn't a hero; she knew that. She was a flawed human with so many defects, it could fill an entire shelf of books; hell probably an entire room.
But she needed to do what was right.
She wanted accountability. She wanted to have less secrets and lies.
She knew what she was about to do would forever change her life as she knew it.
But she needed to do it.
"The truth is," Toni started. "I am Iron Woman."
A/N: Hope you all enjoyed this chapter! I don't want to re-write the series as it is with just Toni as a woman. There will be canon divergences in events that happen in the series. However certain characters we still cannot meet until certain events unfold, and other characters we'll meet far sooner. Thank you so much for all your reviews! I truly enjoy hearing what you have to say.
