Here is chapter 3!

Not as long as I would have liked, but longer than the previous 2 chapters, so that's a plus.

This one took a little while longer to get out than I had hoped, but I'm hoping you all enjoy it nonetheless.


Toni had just finished the last of the boxing up for her trip, having spent the past few days preparing.

She'd looked into Jane Foster's interest in coming to Culver, and it turned out she was hoping to snag some interns for an off-site field study in astronomy and astrophysics.

Toni had been surprised to see the Jane of this world, and how she differed from the one from her original Earth. While she had only known Jane in passing mostly, not having spent too much time with her, the most noticeable difference was that the version of Jane from her Earth had been a Medical Doctor.

Still though, she let curiosity and boredom get the better of her and applied for the internship. When meeting the Astrophysicist, she could tell Jane had not been all too impressed that a Political Science student had applied for her internship position, but Toni had managed to snag her interest with also being studying computational biology, and she'd through in a few small teases of her being smarter than she looked.

She wanted to impress Jane, but not to the point where she'd ask too many questions.

Toni wasn't sure she'd get the position however, given the two week waiting period that followed. But to her surprise, no one else had even bothered to sign up, meaning that by default she had the internship.

Tomorrow would be the day she'd head off to New Mexico, to the small town of Puente Antiguo. Heading out the front of her apartment she saw her car had already been loaded up with the rest of the stuff she was taking with her, and saw the one responsible turn and offer a smile.

"All done"

"Thank you so much Lou, I really appreciate the help" she said to the hulking security guard, who merely waved it off.

"It's fine really, glad to help," he said, stepping back up onto the curb.

Toni had befriended him soon after she began studying at Culver, the security guard having a likeable personality as well as genuinely looking out for the students, as well as having stepped in on Toni's behalf when some drunken frat bros had thought of getting a bit too handsy, despite Toni assuring him she could have handled it, the gesture was appreciated.

"So you are excited for your internship?" he asked, causing Toni to nod.

"Yeah it'll be a interesting for sure , we'll either be making some amazing astronomical and astrophysics breakthroughs, or we'll find nothing and I can spend all semester kicking back and getting a nice tan, either way it's a great opportunity" she said with a grin causing him to shake his head, still smiling at her.

"Well you should make the most of it, you're a smart kid. And it'll look good on your resume if nothing else"

"True" Toni said as she checked over the car before returning to the curb. "Well I might go out for some dinner, seeing as it's my last night in the city for a while. There's some great places to eat downtown" Toni said as she checked her messenger bag.

"You should be careful if you're going to stay out late, there's always the chance of some unsavoury types hanging around" Lou said with concern, causing Toni to smirk.

"Don't worry, I have done some self defence training before, I'm not just a pretty face you know. Plus I always got this bad boy" she said, pulling out her modified taser from her bag, letting out a light spark before returning it.

"But I appreciate your concern. Who would have thought the big tough ex-marine is really a big softie" Toni said lightly elbowing him, causing Lou to let out a snort.

"Trust me, you just haven't seen me get really mad." Lou said jokingly, causing her to roll her eyes.

"Ok, well I gotta get going but I hope your trip goes well" he said causing Toni to nod before she brought her hands up and signed 'Thanks, and again I appreciate your help ' to him, causing the older man to grin.

"You picked up ASL so quickly"

"What can I say, I'm a woman of many talents" she said before bidding him good night, she then took off into the city for some food, all the while thinking over her departure the next morning.

~0~

Toni was sitting cross legged on her bed in her pyjamas, hours having passed since she returned from dinner and she was once again browsing the net.

She still found it strange how similar, yet at the same time how different this world was to her Earth.

When she first began gaining the lay of the land, she'd been shocked to find some of the people and groups she knew so well were non-existent here. One major one was that there were no Mutants on this earth, at least in the same vein as the mutants back on her Earth. There was no Charles Xavier, no X-Men or School for Gifted Youngsters, no Magneto or Brotherhood.

Yet another pang of sadness had hit her when she learned this, having hoped to eventually connect with their counterparts here. She had fond memories of them from back home, even if for instance Logan in particular had been a bit of an ass, his gruff demeanour had hid a genuine care for his friends and younger members of the team, kind of like a grouchy Uncle.

Despite not being a mutant, she had found comradery among them and the Institute, and had even been asked to give a lecture with Hank Mccoy to one of the classes once, which was amusing due to the fact she was the same age as the students.

So many people she would never see again…

Thinking on more personal notes, she recalled her research into her older male self and the recent events that had occurred when she first arrived. Looking into the occurrences that happened leading up to the fight with Vanko including Tony making Pepper his CEO, the Monaco incident, the party fight with Rhodey, and all the other data she'd been able to look into made her instantly aware of the reason.

Palladium poisoning.

A rather unfortunate side effect of placing a chunk of palladium into your chest cavity that she herself had gone through, albeit at a younger age than her male counterpart.

She'd gotten into similar erratic and difficult situations, partially due to the heavy metal poisoning affecting her, plus her belief that there was nothing she could do to stop her inevitable death.

She'd done much like Tony had, and kept it from her friends and those close to her, though it hadn't lasted when she'd finally been found out one day…


Toni was lying beside the toilet, bottle of vodka in one hand as she stared blankly at the bath to her left. Her eyelids flickered weakly as she turned to stare down at the dark veins spreading out from her chest in a gruesome pattern, mixing in with the scarring from the initial cave surgery to insert the crude electromagnet.

She was glad every day that they hadn't been forced to perform a mastectomy in the cave, which she'd been told had almost happened.

The sound of a door opening downstairs loudly caught her attention, followed by a familiar male voice.

"Toni….Toni, are you home"

Oh no, she couldn't let him see her like this.

She fumbled around and tried to stand, but in doing so bumped her shin harshly against the bath and let out a curse, her uncoordinated movement causing her to trip and fall over forward onto her stomach and let out a pained cry, the bottle rolling across the floor as she did.

"Toni" the voice now said, obviously close to the bathroom before she heard the door open, followed by silence for several seconds as she desperately tried to right herself.

"Toni…" the voice now said in a softer tone, she could swear she could hear the pity, the condescension and worse...the disappointment in that tone.

But as she weakly looked up to see Phil Coulson standing above her, she could only see genuine concern etched onto his features as he reached down and gently helped her to her feet, scooping her up afterwards despite her weak sounds of protest, which died down as she realized how drunk she was and how futile it was in that moment to try and fight him.

Phil placed her in her bed after getting her to drink some water, bringing back some more and set it beside her bed with some aspirin which she found when she awoke hours later, her head absolutely pounding.

What was worse was the conversation that came after she had partially gotten over her hangover.

Phil had seen the damage she'd been trying to hide, the black veins and side effects of the Palladium core. He put it together and deduced her behaviour recently had been affected by the heavy metal poisoning, as well as the inevitable conclusion that was coming.

"Toni, why didn't you tell me, or anyone else for that matter" he said gently, causing Toni to shake her head and let out a bitter laugh.

"The damage is too severe, too prolonged and leached into my system at this point. And besides, the Arc Reactor couldn't be removed at least not with current surgical techniques without an over ninety six percent chance of me dying on the table, I wasn't in a rush just to die….but instead death creeped up on me anyway, just slower" she said bitterly.

"Don't talk like that, there's always a solution, there has to be. Have you tried alternative power sources, like-" he began only for her to cut him off.

"I have, whatever you're about to say, whatever you could even potentially say I have looked into it. I have tried every alternative fuel method for my miniaturized Arcs, nothing works as efficiently as Palladium. The other simulations and tests I've run all had the Arc either not work, or caused catastrophic damage due to malfunction. I have also looked into alternative elements….I did Phil, ok I ran out of ones to test. I have tried every combination, hell every permutation of every known element we have on the periodic table….nothing works...and whatever kooky space elements out there beyond the stars aren't available, or at least too far out of reach…" Toni said as her eyes were glaring down at the reactor, the object of her salvation and continued life, was also the reason she would soon be dead.

"Toni, you shouldn't have been dealing with this on your own. I know you want us all to think otherwise most of the time...but you're still just a kid, you shouldn't be shouldering all of this by yourself" Phil said softly, moving beside her.

Toni merely scoffed and folded her arms. "Haven't you heard, I'm Iron Maiden. I can do anything"

"So the media likes to let people believe, and maybe Iron Maiden can. But Toni Stark is still very much a mortal made of flesh and blood, and she needs to remember she has people in her life who care about her, who will support and help her through anything, including this" Phil said firmly as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

She stared at him for several seconds, mulling over his words before turning away.

Her body language stiffening as Phil couldn't make out her expression, this was until he felt her body shake slightly and heard the tell tale sign of a sob. She turned to him again, tears now freely flowing down her cheeks as she looked at him, in that moment looking far younger and smaller than she'd been in quite some time as she stared at him pleadingly.

"I don't want to die…." she tearfully pleaded before another sob lurched free and Phil brought her into his embrace, allowing the brunette teen to cry and grip hold of his shirt.

"It's going to be ok Toni, we'll find a way to fix this. I promise….I promise"


Bringing herself back to the present once more, Toni reached up and wiped the lone tear that had rolled down her cheek.

She still had occasional bad days, days when she didn't feel like getting out of bed. Days when going outside and being surrounded by so many people seemed like a nightmare, one which brought back all of the loss and pain.

But she tried to focus on the good days, which lately she'd been having more and more of.

Grabbing a tissue from her bedside table she wiped her eyes and blew her nose before tossing the now soiled tissue in a small waste basket. She then closed her laptop and set it aside, getting under the covers and trying to clear her mind and let sleep overtake her. She had a long trip starting tomorrow, and needed to rest.

Hopefully good things would come from this internship.


There you have it! Chapter 3.

(And yes, I did put that cameo in XD)

I was contemplating originally which flashback scene to put in, but decided on choosing that one.

More flashbacks will come in future chapters, not all of them in chronological order (for instance, the flashback where Toni/Darcy met Phil back in her world, will come later)

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if so please leave a review down below. Your comments and feedback are very much appreciated, and I am always happy to see people taking the time to let me know what they enjoyed.