UPDATE: 06-06-2017

I'm just gonna… rewrite everything. Yeah.

Chapter 2 - Iron Man

September 2008

After the helicopters found her, after she cried and passed out clutching Rhodey in a jet, Toni found a phone for herself and arranged for an emergency press conference. Seven years as CEO, and she'd never done that before.

The media went wild. Especially over the cheeseburgers she stashed in her arm sling. She barely registered the hug Obie gave her, but wink at him cheekily when he asked about the burgers.

People clapped as she walked inside, and Toni could only think of Yinsen and pretend they were applauding him.

She wore loose trousers and sat on the floor. Toni was twenty seven, but that didn't mean she knew how to give a real press conference, so she may as well run it the way she wanted to.

"Can everyone just… sit with me? It's cool, this is going to be casual." She ignored the questions until everyone was seated. God, did it feel good to eat a hamburger. The People Magazine rep was already furiously taking derisive notes.

Across the room, Virginia Potts smiled charmingly at another reporter, and accepted a business card. Then Pepper caught Toni's gaze, and shot her an annoyed look for being kept out of the loop.

Toni looked away. Obie chuckled nervously as he sat beside her, and gave her a subtle, concerned frown.

Obadiah was, in a way, her oldest friend. They'd been butting heads ever since Toni took over the company, but he was family, and he knew what the company meant to her. What her legacy meant to her.

"I never said goodbye to him," Toni said quietly, not knowing where else to start—not knowing if she was even talking about Howard or—"

She cleared her throat. Yinsen said his goodbyes, even if Toni hadn't been ready for it. "I never got to say goodbye to my dad. There's… questions I would have asked him, I would've asked him how he felt about what this company did. If he was conflicted, if he ever had doubts."

To Toni, Howard was a far off dream, an image projected to be larger than life even before he died. They had hardly known each other.

"Or maybe he was every inch the man we all remember from the newsreels."

Toni wasn't sure how she sounded as she said that, but Rhodey was staring at her.

"I saw brave men and women die at the hands of weapons I built to protect and defend them." She could feel Obie looking at her now. He was angry, but surely he would understand. They all needed to understand. "And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability."

She paused, and the reporters murmured their questions—

"Newmark," Toni nodded at Ben in the front. He was always respectful, even when he asked shitty questions.

"Ms. Stark, what happened over there?"

Humvees. Soldiers. Her name on the missile.

She quickly got her her feet, got herself under control. "I had my eyes opened," Toni said, loudly, so she can't hear her heartbeat. "I came to realize that I had more to offer this world than… just… making things blow up."

The press stirred, scrambled to their feet, leaned in to hear it from Toni Stark herself.

Fuck, I'm really doing this.

"That is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries—" Toni doesn't budge when Obie wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Her arm ached, and she reveled in it. "—until such a time as I can decide what the future of this company will be. What direction it should take—"

Obie was trying to salvage things, and Toni did not care. She kept talking as she was excused from the podium.

"One that I am comfortable with, a direction that is consistent with the highest good for this country as well!"

She needed to stop this from becoming her legacy. She was good at making weapons, but she could do so much better. This was the first step towards making things right.

Obie didn't understand, but he would. They didn't need to build weapons to keep the company alive.

—

It was weeks later, as Toni was lying paralyzed on her couch, that she realized she had never stopped making weapons. The Mark III was just a floor below, repaired after she'd flown into a warzone with it. And right in front of her eyes, the most powerful weapon she'd ever created was being slowly dragged out of her chest, by Obadiah Stane.

Obie, who had been by her side ever since she started working for Stark Industries––ever since her parents had died. Who helped her learn about the business, and eventually dominate the business world.

Stane, who hated her, who thought she wasn't worthy of her position at SI, who only encouraged her so far for that quirky brain of hers and all that she created.

It was him, it was all him. Her oldest friend. Betrayal wasn't new to her, but this was different. Business was ruthless—hell, Obie taught her that—but to kill her? To kill her, because she was no longer useful?

It felt like more than that to Toni. Kill her, and you kill what she stood for. Kill her, and you kill her genius. Kill her, and kill her chances of making things right.

The reactor left her chest with a metallic click, a ringing in the air that added to the paralytic frequency driving into her eardrums. She was pretty sure he said goodbye, but it didn't matter. Whatever Toni had with Obie, whatever friendship she thought she had, it was dead already. It was never real to begin with.

It was naïve of her to think she could have friends in this business. It was naïve of her to think she could right her wrongs.

Is this your legacy?

Her blood was boiling. "Fuck, no."

—

"...It's been awhile since I've been in front of you," Toni admitted, addressing the reporters at large. She brought her her hand, ready to scratch at her bruised cheek, but remembered the makeup. "Guess I'll stick to the cards this time," she held up the cards in her hands, but couldn't really fake a smile while the reporters murmured with polite humor.

She tried to find Pepper or Rhodey in the back, but ended up making eye contact with Phil Coulson instead. Toni didn't know much about him, or his employers. SHIELD had always been in contact with SI, but their contracts were never that high-profile that Toni needed to handle the work personally.

This whole 'Iron Man' thing would change that, though.

Toni cleared her throat. "There's been speculation that I was involved in the events that occurred on the freeway, and the rooftop of—"

"I'm sorry Ms. Stark," Christine Everhart interrupted. Fuck, did she hate that woman. A total tease. Toni would never speak with Vanity Fair again. "But do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a bodyguard in a suit, that conveniently appeared, despite…" blah blah, snooty tone, self-assured posturing, obvious question that would've been answered by now if Toni had been allowed to just talk.

Would it shut her up faster, if Toni threw away her talking points and told them all it was her in the suit?

Phil Coulson caught her eye again. He was… spectacularly blank-faced, and yet, Toni felt the teensiest bit threatened. Like he knew her soul, and would taze her if she didn't stick to the damn cards.

She could still tear up the cards and say whatever she wanted. She could. She should.

Obie had been her oldest friend. And he tried to kill her over the little reactor in her chest.

Maybe….

"I know that it's confusing, Chrissy, but there's not much to say."

Maybe it's for the best if….

She took a deep breath. She knew the drill. "—Ever since my return, I've been jumpy. The man responsible for last night's events—as the media calls him, 'Iron Man'—is someone that I trust implicitly, and that will protect me and my own. And in return, he trusts me not to reveal his identity to the public."

Maybe it's for the best that they don't know it's me.