Chapter 41

Toni knew something was wrong the minute she came home and saw Rhodey and Steve looking grimly at her.

"What happened?" she asked heart sinking. She'd already gotten enough bad news about May Parker. She really didn't need to get anymore.

And even with May, she had no idea what to do. It was the same thing when her Aunt had gotten sick. She'd thrown money at a bunch of research facilities, hoping they'd be able to do something to help, but the progress they made was nowhere near a cure.

With May, there wasn't much they could do. They were going to put her on medication until they thought they could operate. But there was nothing saying things couldn't go sideways before thing.

Her heart had broken, seeing Peter receive the news. His face had crumpled up and Ben had pulled him into a tight hug, and she knew both of them had started crying. She'd left before they were allowed to sit with May as they kept her overnight for observation, but she'd had a horrible feeling in her stomach the entire time. If it weren't for Happy driving, she wasn't entirely sure she would have made it home in one piece.

"What happened?" she repeated, when neither of them quite responded to her. "Please don't tell me it's more bad news."

"Do you want to tell her?" Rhodey asked Steve, almost challengingly, and she wondered if she should step in. While Rhodey had certainly been protective of her as she got into a new relationship, he'd never outright stopped her from dating him, or claimed she should stay away from him.

"I'll tell her," he said, heavily. "Toni, take a seat, please."

"What's wrong?" she asked again, as no one seemed to be answering her questions. But she followed his instructions, as she carefully took a seat next to him as he took his hands in hers.

"JARVIS found something," Steve said softly, "While you were in the hospital with Peter. And he showed it to Rhodes and I. It's about your parents."

"Did he find out what happened?" she asked, sitting straightly, "J, I told you to let me know as soon as you knew. Why didn't you say anything sooner? What does the file contain? Do you know what happened to them?"

"It's a video," Steve cut in, not allowing her AI to answer her.

"I believed the contents would be better suited if you watched it with people whom you cared about around," JARVIS answered afterwards, "The nature of the video is rather distressing, Miss, and I didn't want you to watch it on your own. I'm sorry if I disobeyed your order, however it went against my primary directive of keeping you safe."

Her heart sunk.

What was on this video that they thought she'd be a danger to herself.

"I need to see it," she whispered.

"Toni," Steve said again. "It's graphic. It contains your parent's actual murder. You don't need to see it. It'll only hurt you if you watch it. Please, I promise I'll tell you everything on it, and Rhodes will verify if I'm telling you the truth or not. But please, don't watch it. You don't need to see that happen to your parents."

His voice sounding pleading, and while she knew he was only trying to look out for her, it didn't change anything. Not really.

"I want to watch it," she said firmly, "I don't care if it kills me to watch it. I need to know what happened to my parents. You can't ask me to know that such a tape exists but not know what it contains. I'll spend the rest of my life wondering what was on it. And I'll imagine all the worst possible cases. Which is even worse than just watching the actual clip. Steve. I need to do this."

He looked down and she took his hand back in hers.

She looked over at Rhodey, who had been silent throughout the entire exchange.

"Do you think I shouldn't watch it?" she asked, needing to know his stance on the matter.

"I think it'll kill you not to," Rhodey said finally. "I see where he's coming from, because Toni, it's brutal. And I don't want you to have to see it. But I know you. I've known you for decades. I know what it'll do to you if you don't know what happened. So I'm not going to tell you what to do, one way or another. I'm going to let you make the decision on that matter. But I do want you to know that I'm here for you. I'll be with you while you watch it, and I'll be here for you after you do. You won't have to deal with any of this on your own, I promise you that much. We'll be with you every step of the way."

She looked back at Steve, squeezing his hand, "I can't promise you I'll be fine," she told him gently, "But I need to watch this, Steve. Please understand. And no matter what it contains, I will always love you for looking out for me. Just know that. This isn't going to change anything between us."

"You haven't seen it," he said, hoarsely. "I won't stop you if you want to watch it, Toni. I have no intention of keeping the contents a lie from you. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to protect you. I just-I don't want to see you get hurt. You know that right?"

"I know, Darling," she said to him. "Of course I know. You would never hurt me intentionally. And I'm grateful to you for trying to protect me. But this is something I need to do. You understand, that right?"

"JARVIS, play the clip," Rhodey said, as he sat on the other side of her. Steve was still holding her hand tightly as Rhodey placed a hand on her leg.

She took a deep breath as the video started play, and she immediately recognized where it was shot. How could she not when she'd memorized that spot? When she'd gone there so many times after her father had crashed the car and stared at the spot her mother was taken from her. At the place that had set up a small shrine for her father and all his achievements to the world.

At the place she'd become an orphan.

"I know that road," she said, a sinking feeling in her chest. Because if it was a clip of the road and HYDRA was involved, it meant their involvement had been far more than simply cutting the breaks on her parents' car.

They'd been there when her parents had died.

The clip was grainy, but it didn't take away from her seeing a man on a motorcycle pull up beside her parents' car. Her breath hitched, and Steve had squeezed her hand tighter as he saw her reaction. She squeezed back, wanting him to know that she was still doing alright, even though she had a good idea of what was to come.

She saw her father stumble out of the car, dragging himself on the ground. He looked disheveled, and she could see why the story had stuck about him being drunk. But it wasn't from the alcohol.

"Help my wife," she heard her father say, "Please, help my wife."

She felt her heart sink.

She'd hated her father for decades. For thinking he'd crashed the car while drunk and took her mother from her. That it was all his fault that she was dead. But there, in the moments before she knew he died, he was thinking about her. Not himself. He was more worried that she was injured. Had been trying to get to her to check on her.

She'd hated him for something that hadn't even been his fault.

She saw the man with them lift her fathers' head up, and the realization on her father's face as he recognized the man.

The one whom she hadn't been paying all that much attention to until that point. But with him on the screen, staring back at her, it was hard not to.

The man with the metal arm. The man whom Steve was currently chasing down across the world. Who had almost brought down SHIELD and killed her boyfriend.

The man who murdered her parents.

The man who Steve promised to go to the end of the line for.

"Sargent Barnes?" Her father said, looking confused, as he recognized the man from their time together in the war. She wondered if he thought he was delusional; a result of the accident having caused him to be out of it. Or if in that moment he was lucid and knew the truth of what was going to happen to him. What it meant for the man who had fallen into a ravine after HYDRA had experimented on him to have been there then. She wondered if he knew what was going to happen to him before it had.

She looked over at Steve, and his face was white. He'd already seen the clip, already had known what happened to her parents. But what he didn't know was how she'd react to seeing them like that. How she'd react to finding out the truth.

"Howard," she heard her mother say, and in that moment her heart broke. She felt a few tears escape her, as she heard her mother's voice. Something she hadn't heard for years outside of old videos from when she was younger. But she never heard her other like that. Sounding so afraid and hurt. Sounding unsure of what was going to happen next.

She wanted to get up and shut it off. She couldn't watch anymore. Couldn't see the scene that was about to play out in front of her. Not when she knew the result. Not when she knew what would happen. But her eyes remained glued to the screen. She owed it to her parents to know the truth. They deserved that much.

Her father might have been an abusive alcoholic.

But he hadn't been the reason her mother was dead.

And despite the hatred she still felt for him, she owed it to her mother to know the truth of her death.

She saw Barnes slam his metal fist into Howard's face, with the strength of a super solider. And she saw him slam it in again.

She shuddered, as she saw his eyes close, knowing that in that moment he'd passed. That it wasn't the result of the accident at all.

Her mother cried out for her father once more, as Barnes dropped her father's lifeless body onto the ground.

The man who shaped the last millennia. Dead on the ground like he wasn't worth a dime.

Barnes dragged his body back, placing it in the driver's seat. And she knew from the position he'd placed her father in, that had been the way he'd been found.

She knew, because she had studied those photos so many times. Photos of the crime scene, wanting to know what had happened to her parents. Needing to know how her mother had died. And she'd seen the shot of him, with his head on the wheel, so many times it hurt. Especially now when she knew the truth. That he'd been placed like that for the world to find. And led to believe his death hadn't been a murder.

She could see her mother's terrified face on the screen. Her mother who had always been so put together for the world to see, and she let out a sob as she saw Barnes round the car. Why wasn't it enough for them that her father was dead? Why did they have to take her mother from her too?

It should have been enough.

If only her father hadn't dragged her mother to the Pentagon with him. Then maybe she'd still be in Toni's life.

Instead, they were both dead and gone. And she was left alone.

Her face crumpled as she saw the Winter Soldier make his way around the car to where her mother had been sitting, knowing what would come next.

She sobbed as Barnes' hand made it's way to her mother's throat, and Steve grasped her hand tighter. She saw the expressionless look on his face as he took her mother's life. Like he didn't even care. Like it meant nothing to him that he just took the life of the only biological parent who'd ever loved her.

She had always been a failure to Howard.

Had always let him down from the moment she'd been born in this man's world.

She'd been a disappointment, and no matter what she'd done, she was never able to prove she was worth it to him. Had never been good enough. No matter what she invented.

Hell, he'd beaten her for making a circuit board that was compact. Something which he'd failed to do for months. And he'd beaten her for being better than him.

She had known long ago that she was never going to win his approval. That she was always going to be a failure to him.

But her mother had loved her. Her mother had always been the one who'd cared, even when her father didn't. She'd sat with her through every broken bone, through every fight she'd had with her father. She came to all of Toni's science fairs and to every award she'd ever gotten.

"You will bring the world down to its knees and show them all in time that you do not fall down to their expectations." Her mother had told her years ago.

And she had. She'd proved the world wrong, time and time again. Even when they told her no. Even when they told her it hadn't been possible. She'd proved them wrong each time.

Her mother had been the first person to believe that she could be more than just a housewife. That she could achieve her own dreams, even if no one else thought she could. Her mother had loved her for years, and she was just another casualty of HYDRA, simply because she was a witness.

She wished all those years ago she had begged her mother to stay with her. To not get in the car with her father. Faked a cold, or just pleaded that she didn't leave her. She wished she could have done something differently. Anything differently.

But she hadn't.

She'd let her mother go with her father, even though it meant she would spend the holidays alone that year. And as a result, for every year afterwards.

She could have stopped it, and she would have, if only she'd known. Because there was nothing she wouldn't do if there was a chance she could have saved her mother.

But there was nothing she could do. There was no going back and fixing it. Her mother was gone. Had been gone for decades.

But seeing her mother struggle to breathe on the screen brought back the pain she'd felt all those years ago. It felt like it was happening all over again. The pain she'd first felt when Peggy had come to her home and told her what had happened.

She couldn't stop the tears anymore, and she wasn't sure she wanted to.

Her mother was dead.

And HYDRA had killed her.

Barnes had killed her.

She saw him face the camera after, like a confirmation to his handlers that the deed was done. The Starks were dead, and any knowledge of HYDRA with them.

If there was any argument that it could have been someone else, it was gone. She saw his face on the screen. James Buchanan Barnes had stolen her mother from her. Had snapped her neck without a second thought.

Simply because she'd been in the car.

He shot the camera then, and the video ended.

"Toni," Rhodey called her gently, "Talk to us, Sweetheart."

"My mom," she cried, "Did you see what they did to her? They killed her like it was nothing. Like she meant nothing. She was nothing more than a witness who needed to be killed, and they did it without a second thought. Like no one would miss her if she was gone. They killed my mom."

"We're going to find them," Rhodey promised her, as he tried to wrap an arm around her, "We're going to find every last HYDRA operative and hold them responsible. The world will know the truth of what happened to your parents. They'll get the justice they deserve."

She moved away from him, not really wanting his comfort at the moment. Not when the pain she was feeling was so raw. Coursing through her.

She had no idea what to do. But she refused to be placated like a small child.

"Toni," Steve said gently. "Please, just let us help you. Let us be there for you. You just watched a clip which was horrifying. At least let us know how you're feeling."

"What do you want me to say?" she looked at him, "HYDRA murdered my parents. And they used your best friend to do it. You saw Howard's face. He knew who it was who murdered him. He recognized your best friend in the moments before his death. And he knew the truth. That didn't stop Barnes from killing him like it was nothing. He barely even flinched when he killed Dad. And he didn't hesitate to murder Mom."

"It wasn't him, Toni," he said gently, "I'm not saying what happened to your parents wasn't horrible. It was, and HYDRA is going to pay for what they did. But it wasn't his fault either."

"I know that," she snapped, "I know it wasn't him who killed them. That HYDRA brainwashed him into doing it. But that doesn't change the fact that he was the last face they saw. That he was the face I saw murder my parents. I know it wasn't him logically, but that doesn't make me feel any better. And you can't ask me to just accept this given what I just watched."

"Of course," he said softly, reaching out for her. But just like with Rhodey, she pulled away. What was the point? Nothing they did or said would make her parents any less dead. They couldn't change what HYDRA had done to them. So why were they even trying to make her feel better.

Her mother had been dead for decades.

And the entire time, instead of doing something to help, she'd blamed her father. She could have brought down the entire organization in that time. But instead she was left in the dark, none the wiser to what had happened. All because her father had come too close to finding out the truth. All because her father was on to them.

She'd lost her mother because of the same villain Steve supposedly defeated in the 40s.

"I need some space," she said, standing quickly, and Steve tried to do the same.

"You shouldn't be alone right now," he tried, "You just learned something horrific. Please, Toni, let us be there for you. Let us help you."

"What can you do?" she scoffed, "My parents are dead. My parents have been dead for decades because your brainwashed best friend was sent to kill them. What's left to do? Nothing you do or say will change anything."

He flinched but didn't waver. "You're hurting right now. I know that, Sweetheart. But it doesn't change the fact that you shouldn't be alone. Please, just let us be there for you. Let us help you. You shouldn't be alone right now."

She shook her head, "You don't own me, Steve. I survived just fine for decades without you, and I'll be fine on my own now. I don't need you in my life to be able to survive. You can't control me just because my pain is inconvenient to you."

He looked hurt at that, and a part of her felt bad for lashing out. but it didn't stop the fact that she didn't want them with her right now, and they refused to accept that.

"I never thought that," he said gently. "But you need us right now, Darling. Please don't push us away."

"I don't need anyone," she scoffed. But she was done arguing with them. She was done with all of this. All she wanted was to be alone and to process everything she'd just learnt. And they were currently stopping her from doing just that.

Her mother had been murdered.

And she'd seen it in front of her, on the screen, choked to death as the life was squeezed out of her. Like it was nothing. Like she was nothing. Like she wasn't the only person in Toni's life who had loved her unconditionally. Like she didn't matter.

Because she was nothing more than a witness who was in the way.

Who needed to die because her father needed to die.

She wondered blandly if she too would be dead if she'd gone with them on that trip.

What would it have meant for her, if she'd been with them?

She hadn't been Iron Woman then. And regardless of what training Peggy had given her, she definitely wouldn't have been able to have taken on the Winter Soldier.

She would have been dead too.

Because her father was onto HYDRA.

She turned and left the room, unable to bear it anymore. She could hear Steve call out for her, but Rhodey stopped him. She felt a small wave of gratitude towards her best friend for knowing her so well. For knowing that she just needed to be alone.

She all but ran to her lab, and closed the door behind her.

"JARVIS, please enable lockdown mode," she asked her AI. "No one into the lab. And no communication."

"Done, Miss," JARVIS said, hesitating slightly.

"What is it, J?" she asked him, not wanting her own pain to hurt her children.

"Was I wrong?" he asked her, unsure, "I didn't want you have seen that on your own. Was I wrong?"

"No," she said, shaking her head, "You were right, Darling. I just need to be alone for a bit. I don't want to see anyone or talk about what I'm feeling. That's not on you, J."

"Okay," JARVIS said, sounding like he didn't quite believe her.

She felt guilt begin to seep in, but she pushed it aside as DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers rolled over to her, all seeming distressed. She wondered idly if JARVIS had asked them to come over and check in on her.

She remembered how it was when she first got the news of her parent's death. Before Pepper or Happy were in her life, and while Rhodey was in the military. When Peggy was busy with SHIELD and her cousins off doing their own things.

She'd survived once, on her own, with no one in her life but her bots. Her family she'd built herself.

She'd survive this too.

She knew that much. But it wouldn't be easy. And she knew she'd eventually have to face Steve and Rhodey. She'd have to apologize for treating them the way she had.

She'd have to face Barnes too. Because she knew Steve, and she loved him. And he'd want to do anything possible to save his best friend. The same best friend that had been brain washed into murdering her parents.

And she knew she would help him bring Barnes home.

But it didn't make it any easier.

It didn't help knowing that the man had still killed her parents.

Even if he wasn't directly responsible.

She would be okay eventually, but for now she would grieve on her own and come to terms with the video she'd just seen.

She just needed some time.


A/N: This turned out a lot angstier than I intended it to, but I wanted to properly convey the pain Toni must have felt dredging up all the pain she'd buried. Hopefully you guys liked it, and for all my fellow Canadians, Happy Thanksgiving! See you all next week.