UPDATE: 07-15-2017
I'm alive. I'm posting. I'm sorry if you read all this ages ago, but enough of the plot has changed with this rewriting that you might wanna read it all again… heh.
Feel free to yell at me in the comments, I know I've been gone a while
Chapter 3 – Barton
March 2009
Toni breezed past the office desk in her Malibu home, vaguely acknowledging its presence. Pepper was the only one to ever use the office. But now Toni realized that it hadn't been Pepper sitting at the desk, and she slowly backtracked until the desk was in her line of sight again.
A man sat at the desk, organizing papers and digital files on the computer. He was dressed impeccably, like Pepper always was and Toni never was, and seemed wholly focused on his work (also like Pepper, not like Toni).
Toni cleared her throat, and was answered with alert grey-blue eyes and an apt look of polite surprise. Cute. I swear I've seen that face before. Were they all beginning to blur into one?
"Ms. Stark," he stood, setting aside his work to address her. "Ms. Potts said I'd be meeting you soon." He held out a hand, and Toni didn't shake it.
Her eyes narrowed. No, for sure, she knew him from something. "Name?"
The man knew how to keep up, that was for sure. He retracted his hand smoothly, and said, "Clyde Bates. I'm your new PA."
Oh. Right. Toni nodded. She had liked his resume among a group of twenty applications—the twenty that Pepper had seen fit to propose to Toni. She was in need of a new personal assistant, now that (as of two days ago) Pepper was acting CEO and Toni was head of R&D.
"Pepper works fast. I only picked you a day ago," Toni commented. She beckoned him forward, resisting the urge to snap her fingers like she did to get DUM-E's attention. She'd done that to Pepper once, and the response had been legendary. She missed Pepper's shouting voice already.
A tendril of heat curled through Toni's chest, painfully reminding her why she'd made Pepper her successor.
Of course, Toni would name Pepper her successor. With Stane gone, there was no one else she trusted more than Virginia Potts. Of course, resigning only six months after shutting down all weapons manufacturing plants had baffled everyone…
"You're twenty-seven, Toni, why would you resign?" Pepper had demanded, and Toni rambled for twenty minutes about being an inventor, how she didn't want the board to hold her back, how Pepper knew the ins and outs of the company better than Toni did anyway.
It didn't have to be all true. As long as the company survived, and Pepper supported the clean energy initiative, Toni was content. It was okay.
Clyde was talking to her, telling her the agenda for the next few days, but off to the left Toni imagined a bloody figure in glasses, asking about her legacy again as her heart burned away.
Toni had plans. She had a strong idea of where she wanted her company to go, and she had intended to see it through. She would've stayed CEO, she would've done it all by herself, but she couldn't, and that was okay. Her plan was in place, and Pepper was already a better CEO than her. Her legacy was safe with Pepper. That was all that mattered anymore.
The burning sensation intensified, spread, bit into her lungs. I'm going to die.
Shut up, Toni.
"And after the race is the meeting with Mr. Pancietto, so—"
"—Well, I'll meet up with you on the private plane to Monaco in two hours, then," Toni cut him off, "You can call Happy, he'll give you a lift."
With that, Toni escaped to her basement lab to replace her reactor.
Again.
The palladium core was leaking into her body. For the past few months, Toni had been looking for a solution, but it was useless. The longer it took to find a cure, the worse her chances of survival were. She spent so much time looking for something that didn't exist, pushing her energy plans further back and back….
But at least she had Pepper. Pepper could make sure the projects were funded and researched thoroughly like they should be—and Toni could…fuck, what could she do? She'd skirted death once by building this reactor, she couldn't do it again.
Then there was Yinsen again, always talking in the back of her mind. She would be dead any day now, yes, but that made every day more important than the last.
Even with all her plans for Pepper and the company, Toni hadn't done enough. Not yet. She didn't want to die yet.
Toni eyed the melted palladium core in her palms. About thirty percent of the core's mass was lost to the reactor's heat, and of that, ten percent leaked into her bloodstream with each core. And it was frightening, to see the evidence right there in her hands. Evidence that her invention wasn't perfect. Proof of her mortality.
She squeezed the metal chip tightly, and didn't let herself cry. There was no point.
—
They arrived in Monaco a day early. The last time Toni had been early for something was when she was born. And even then, she'd given her mother a hard time during birth (according to her old butler, at least).
Not only was Toni early, but Clyde had planned everything out already. So she had nothing to do but kill time. Which would be fine––in fact, Toni was happy to go off and explore the city––except that Clyde had orchestrated her driver's disappearance and the valet's inability to get her a damn car. She was on total lockdown, stuck in her Radisson hotel room.
The only upside was that she was rooming with Clyde, her tasty PA. The suite had two separate bedrooms, but they didn't need to use them both, right? Or maybe she could convince him to go swimming, so she could get a better look at his arms. She just knew they'd be delicious.
She wasn't sure why she was thinking about Clyde so much. There was no way in hell she'd be going in the pool, but…. Well, it was nice to not think about death for a little bit.
Except now she was thinking about death again.
Toni flopped onto the cushioned lounge chair on the patio, and huffed in frustration. She hadn't brought anything to do besides work on her equations for the reactor research, and that was just one depressing dead end after another.
"Bates, are you sure you don't want to go out? It's a beautiful evening."
He didn't look up from the Starkpad he was working from. "You have an early start tomorrow."
She scowled, and prepared to explain that she could still make it to brunch if she went out bar hopping, but then a sharp pain stifled her response. Toni snapped her jaw shut, and from the corner of her eye she saw Clyde look up.
Rubbing at her neck calmly, Toni sighed as the pain disappeared as quickly as it came. She supposed it would be harder to hide the effects of palladium poisoning if she poisoned her blood further.
I'm going to die, she thought to herself morosely. No need to expedite the process.
No alcohol for Toni.
She could stop drinking, right? It wasn't that hard. Yes. For the rest of Toni Stark's brief life, however insignificant a blip it was in time, she would not drink. Easy.
Toni sighed, and settled her gaze on the city of Monte Carlo. But now she really wanted a drink, because she was dwelling on the fact that her life was some trivial little grain of sand in the grand scheme of the universe. This was depressing.
"I spy something green," Toni spoke abruptly. She craned her neck to look back at Clyde for his reaction.
He simply looked at her, scanned the view from the patio, and said, "The Vert de Mer." It wasn't even a question.
Toni whipped her head back to the boat she'd been staring at in the bay. "Nope, try again," she lied.
Clyde turned to stare at Toni. "It was the boat," he said confidently.
"Lucky guess," Toni said, disgruntled. She let her eyes flicker around the city again. "I spy something small and red."
Again, Clyde obliged without a hint of protest. "Billboard blonde's ring," he replied in a heartbeat.
Toni's eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement. "I spy a white sail," she countered. He couldn't be that good, all the sails were white––
"The yacht, Fantôme Sur L'eau."
She pretended to look out over the porch again for a while, before she resolutely looked back at Clyde. "I spy something gray and blue," she said firmly.
He paused, tilting his head. He didn't even bother looking out the window. "I'm flattered," he grinned, and pointed to his eye.
Okay, she'd already known there was something serious funky about Bates, but seriously? She didn't realize that Master of I-Spy was a thing. And it wasn't just that he was looking very far––it was how he was watching her eyes and following her train of thought at the same time.
"Bates, what's your deal?" She couldn't take it anymore.
"What do you mean?" He asked coolly.
"I mean you're definitely in the wrong business. How's your eyesight? You've got the eyesight of a––I don't know, a bird of prey. Or a Mantis shrimp."
"20/20," he answered smoothly, raising an eyebrow.
"So's mine, but I can't guess what you're thinking for a game of I-Spy," Toni frowned.
Clyde leaned back, staring at Toni with unreadable eyes. "I like playing I-Spy," he said. It didn't sound like a lie, but Toni knew it had to be one.
There was absolutely no indication that Clyde had done anything suspicious at all. Obviously, this meant that he was a liar and a fake and probably an assassin that would eventually kill her. Toni predicted it would be by sniper rifle.
"How's your aim?" She asked, interestedly. "Come on, Bates, work with me."
Clyde hesitated, before looking at Toni plainly and saying, "I never miss."
She considered this carefully. "What's the longest shot you've ever made?"
"About 2000 meters," Clyde said frankly. Toni's eyes narrowed. She had a feeling that was an understatement, but she let it slide. She could snoop later.
For now, she just wanted to stop thinking about palladium substitutes.
"What's the longest shot you've ever made… with a marshmallow?"
Clyde had opened his mouth to answer, but stopped himself, and chuckled. "Never tried it."
"Huh," Toni said haughtily. "Technically, I'm the better shot then, in this case."
She stared at him, challengingly. Clyde stared right back.
"Are you challenging me to a marshmallow shooting contest?" He asked, and there was a definite eagerness in his tone that Toni had never heard before.
"Yes."
"Oh, you're on."
—
Monaco is a disaster, but at least Toni doesn't regret the time she spent goofing off with her PA.
—
CLINT
"How much can you bench?" Stark inquired in an idle voice.
Clint blinked, knowing that this was one of those question he should answer with caution. In fact, when dealing with Stark, everything was supposed to done with caution, because every report with Antonia Stark's name on it included the word 'volatile'.
Not that he really cared.
It wasn't often that his op included tossing marshmallows at strangers while a smart, beautiful woman flirted with him all day. He never got paired up with Nat anymore, and Stark… despite all her eccentricities, she was a lot like Romanoff. (He would never tell either woman this, of course).
He looked down, realizing that he'd rolled up his sleeves subconsciously to muddle through some paperwork. Stark wasn't very subtle about her ogling. Oh well. He was pretty sure he was picked for this mission for his looks anyway.
"Dunno, why?" he deflected offhandedly.
She frowned, shooting Clint a doubtful look, before shaking her head and standing. She had been lounging on her bed, already dressed for her birthday, while Clint answered calls and arrange Stark's meetings.
Stark had been quiet since they'd come back from Monaco, but that was expected after Ivan Vanko showed up to mutilate anything with her name on it. It was sheer luck that she'd rolled out of the car before Vanko sliced it in two with the help of his very own arc reactor, and even luckier that Stark had brought a new suit. And yeah, Clint––or rather, Clyde Bates––got to be one of the few people that knew about Toni Stark's alter-ego. He'd had to sign a lot of forms that Pepper Potts produced out of nowhere, and act surprised when Ms. Potts sat him down and told him, but it was done.
A sort of camaraderie had emerged between him and Stark. Clint could honestly say that he liked the woman, for all her narcissism and showboating. Maybe it was because she could talk about Iron Man with him, or maybe it was because Stark seemed to always pick out the Clint Barton parts of his made-up identity. She was childish at times, but Clint was no better. It was why he'd humored her when she started asking about his eyesight.
He almost felt guilty for lying to her about himself.
Coulson was still complaining about how much his tech team had to work to make a believable false identity that could fool SI's systems––but damn, were they good. Stark still didn't know he was with SHIELD.
Or maybe, Clint thought, watching Stark busy herself with circuit boards and shaky fingers, Stark's too preoccupied to watch her six.
For someone who was paranoid enough to make a suit of armor and an alter-ego, Stark was incredibly oblivious to the world around her. Sure, they were all surprised by Vanko, but wasn't Stark supposed to be a genius? She still hadn't bothered to take a closer look at SHIELD, but Clint knew that she'd be able to hack them in minutes if she tried.
"Do you think they're right?" Stark asked suddenly.
Clint blinked, trying to remember if she'd been talking about anyone specific.
But she shook her head, and elaborated. "Stern. Senator Stern, and the rest of those old assclowns. You must've watched the hearing."
The congressional hearing about the Iron Man technology.
Clint raised his eyebrows. Stark had talked circles around the senators trying to get her to give her tech to the military. "Right about what? You didn't let them get a word in."
"Yeah," Stark agreed unabashedly, "But we all know what they were getting at. They don't think Iron Man is enough to keep us safe. One Iron Man, that is. All I proved was that I was the only one with this tech, so we didn't need to worry about other people that could match the suit."
"And… now there's Vanko," Clint said, and she looked away. "Who has his own arc reactor––"
"He's in jail," Stark cut him off quickly, "He's in jail, and his reactor was just a shitty copy of mine, despite all the bitching Hammer's been doing since then."
Despite her dismissal, Stark was rubbing at her collarbone, where bluish veins were creeping up from her reactor. It was hard to see, but Clint wasn't called Hawkeye for nothing. "If you say so," he said nebulously.
He stood, and scooped up her foundation and concealer from her dresser. Stark looked surprised for a moment, before she moved to an armchair and let him cover up the sickly veins on her neck and the bruising over her cheek. Clint had helped Nat do it a hundred times, so it wasn't difficult.
What was difficult, however, was doing it while Toni Stark made eyes at him and bit her lip; he was leaning over her already, and she kept him in place by tugging on his tie.
"I do say so," she insisted, her voice suddenly breathy and low. "No one's made a better arc reactor than me, so I have nothing to worry about."
Clint only held her eyes for a moment, before he dropped his gaze back to her neck, brushing a thumb over her veins lightly. "If there's nothing to worry about, why do you look so sad, Ms. Stark?"
Her hold on his tie loosened. She looked away, at his shoulder rather than his face. "If you're as smart as I think you are, you already know."
Clint stilled, watching her expression closely. He'd had his suspicions, as did Coulson and Fury, but Toni Stark played these sort of issues close to the chest. "You're not just sick. You're dying."
She was silent.
"Do you know how long you have?"
Brown eyes settled on blue. "If this was your last birthday party, what would you do?"
Stark stared at him. Her bruises were neatly concealed and her makeup made her look exquisite, and yet Clint thought she looked more vulnerable and open than ever. Toni was a piece of work… but if you asked Clint, she didn't deserve any of this.
He crouched down, lowering himself to get closer to her eye-level. It was uncomfortable in a suit, but Clint was uncomfortable in a suit anyway. "I would… do whatever I wanted to do," he admitted, knowing it was something Nat would say, but… "With whoever I wanted to do it with."
It was something Nat would say, not something Nat would do. But then again, he wasn't Nat. When Toni lunged forward, and he let her kiss him, Clint couldn't help but think he really wasn't right for this op.
He also really didn't care.
—
"What's your name?" Toni gasped out, some time later. "Your actual name?"
"Clint," he breathed, kissing her shoulder, "My name is Clint Barton."
He really wasn't right for this op.
—
Clint watched as Toni trashed her own house, fighting her best friend for no reason. He sent a message to Fury when Rhodes flew off with the War Machine armor. But the next morning, Toni got up, dusted herself off, and dragged Clint into her basement lab.
She flipped through digital files stored on her computer, while Clint was instructed to take down walls. "You know, I don't think remodeling was in the job description," Clint called out to Toni, grunting as he arranged some huge pipes through the hole he'd just made.
"Shush, Clint. You don't get a say in this, you've been lying about your identity this whole time." Toni said it like he needed to make up for his deception, but she still hadn't asked him who he was, or who he worked for. They were skirting the issue for now, and Clint was okay with that. He hadn't told Coulson that detail yet anyway…
Toni gave up on the files for the moment, and came over to check his progress. Or check him out. A little of both, really. "Is it level?"
With a practiced hand, Clint placed the leveler on the constructed portion of the particle collider, and frowned. "No, this part's too low."
Toni nodded. "Move on to the next part—if it's too tight the I won't be able to level it out later."
Clint obliged, and lifted another portion of the machine into place, maneuvering it around the hole in the wall that Toni had made to make room for the collider. As he did so, Toni went back to her desk.
Clint had to wonder what she was doing. As far as he knew, Toni hadn't yet come up with a replacement for palladium, but she had asked him to help with her research anyway.
"Where are they?" she muttered to herself, scowling at her holographic screens. "J, what happened to Howard's stuff?" She flipped through more files, and Clint noticed now that they were all empty or redacted.
~There seems to be a problem retrieving Howard Stark's research, Miss. I'm afraid they do not exist on my servers.~
"But you're connected to all the SI servers!" Toni protested. She pointed to Clint haphazardly. "Don't stop what you're doing, sweetheart, I'll still need that collider. Eventually."
Clint rolled his eyes, but continued to assemble the cylindrical structure. He got a message from Coulson while he worked, but it was only a few minutes' notice.
~Miss, it seems that you have an unauthorized visitor.~
"Don't let 'em in."
~My apologies, but I am being ovERridDEn—~
"JARVIS?" Toni asked in alarm. She checked her monitor, and gave it a quizzical look. Clint came over. Lo and behold, Fury was making his way to the basement with a group of men carrying storage boxes.
Looked like Clint's 'espionage' mission was over. He quickly unlocked the door to the basement just as Fury appeared at the bottom of the staircase.
"Clint?" Toni looked between him and Fury, bewildered.
"Sir," Clint muttered, standing aside as Fury gave him a swift nod and passed him.
Clint watched, expressionlessly, as Toni realized what was happening. She noticed the insignia on the black boxes, and scowled at Fury and Coulson.
"You're fired, Clint," Toni said belatedly, though there was no real fight left in her voice.
"'Clint'?" Agent Coulson repeated, suddenly alert. His eyes narrowed.
Shit. Clint shrugged. "Ms. Stark uncovered my secret identity." Toni glanced at him quizzically, but said nothing.
"I see," Coulson deadpanned. "And when were you planning on informing your handler of this?"
"...Right now?"
"Okay, enough about Clint's shitty acting," Toni exclaimed, trying to block the agents bringing in boxes of stuff. "What's going on here? Who's the pirate?" She stared, and then shook her head. "I'm sorry. I don't wanna get off on the wrong foot. Do I look at the patch or the eye? I'm a bit hung over. I'm not sure if you're real or…"
Fury smiled coldly. "Oh, Ms. Stark, I am very real. I'm the realest person you're ever gonna meet."
Coulson handed Clint a syringe as Toni spoke, and Fury gave him a short nod. Clint acknowledged the direction wordlessly, clamping down on the objection on his tongue. He didn't want to blindside her with this, but that seemed to be the Director's style.
"I'm here to return Howard's research. Did you know that your father was one of the founding members of SHIELD, Stark?" Fury asked.
Toni blinked. "That would explain why they've always been a pain in my ass."
Fury scoffed. "What do you remember about your father, Toni?"
She took a step back, retreating towards her lab bench with a frown.
Clint stepped up to Toni, and touched her arm. She turned, looking confused but not alarmed. "Clint, what's––what the hell is that?" She twisted away from the needle instinctively.
"Toni," he said quietly, soothingly, "Do you trust me?"
She stiffened. "Until last night I didn't even know your name," she pointed out, tugging her arm away.
"But do you trust me?" he asked patiently, holding her firmly. "Because this is going to counteract the palladium poisoning." Toni paused. "It's a lithium dioxide solution. SHIELD's been working on it for a while now. It's not a permanent fix, but it'll give us more time."
She didn't say anything, but stared at the syringe.
Clint could've injected her at any time. But he waited. "Toni, can I?" he asked again. "Please."
"...Fuck. Okay. Hit me up, Secret-Agent-Man. Apparently I still have work to do."
—
TONI
The wrench in her hands clattered to the floor, but Toni didn't care. Her eyes were glued to the center of her particle collider, where she had just synthesized a new element.
She synthesized a new element.
"Can't believe he was right," she muttered to herself, ducking under the collider's metal tube to get a closer look. "Dead for twelve years, and Howard's still taking me to school…"
Granted, it was Fury's help that kick-started this little experiment, but she'd already come up with the hypothesis when the Director of SHIELD showed up with boxes of Howard's incomplete research.
Damn Clint Barton and his super secret spy ring.
Toni knew that 'Clyde' wasn't real, that there was something up with his muscle-y arms and occasional outbursts of dry humor––not to mention that 'Clyde' wasn't a very normal name to begin with––but even after he'd admitted that he'd faked his identity, she hadn't expected him to be a freakin' SHIELD agent.
And yet, she kind of liked Clint. Maybe she was biased because, well, he was also pretty damn hot, but Clint was a terrible spy. He was too honest. And he managed to put up with her for months, of course she wanted to keep him around.
She still hadn't let Clint in the lab since meeting Fury, which was a month ago. But now that her particle collider had created starkium, she had to share.
"J, get the PA down here!" she called out, already placing the new element into a reactor and switching out the one in her chest. The effects weren't instantaneous, but Toni was already feeling much, much better.
~Miss, may I remind you that he is not on your payroll?~
"He's supposed to be watching me, right? If he wants to know what I'm up to, he needs to get down here," Toni explained, wondering if Clint could hear her from wherever he was.
"You needed me?"
Toni whirled around, and found Clint stepping through the glass sliding door to her basement lab, casually strolling in like he hadn't just appeared out of nowhere in two seconds flat.
"Yeah—were you in the military?" she asked impulsively, striding over to her revamped suit, fitted to be powered by the new energy source she'd just synthesized.
"For a little while, yeah. Best marksman in the unit."
"Ha! Knew it…" Toni offered no explanation of her exclamation to Clint, so he let it drop.
He came closer, looking over the suit curiously. "I've been meaning to ask...why lie to the media about Iron Man?" he asked, his eyes still glued to the suit being fitted around Toni.
Toni checked her watch briefly, and then allowed for her gauntlet to be fitted over her forearms. She needed to get to the Stark Expo to humiliate Justin Hammer… among other things.
"Uh—well, Coulson suggested it, and it gave me an excuse not to answer questions—I hate stupid questions." She also hated assholes that tried to steal her tech, and assholes that tried to kill her, so those were other, more relevant reasons for not revealing herself…
Clint gave her a disbelieving look, but said nothing of it. "I'm supposed to be evaluating you," he admitted nonchalantly.
Toni raised an eyebrow, the faceplate held just above the rest of her helmet by a robotic arm that would move at her will. "Evaluating me for what?"
Clint looked around, and shrugged, "It's called the Avengers Initiative. Fury doesn't want you to know about it yet."
Now it was Toni's turn to give Clint a disbelieving look.
"So... why are you telling me?"
Clint shrugged again, leaning against her worktable and examining the suit idly. "I'm a little biased at this point, I know, but I gave you a positive report, Toni." She snorted inelegantly, but Clint went on. "If I were going on your most recent actions, I'd call you volatile, self-obsessed and narcissistic."
"Stop, you're making me blush," Toni deadpanned. Clint ignored her again.
"C'mon, Toni. You and I both know you did all that shit—give Pepper the company, the race in Monaco, giving away War Machine to Rhodey––you were dying, it was your last hurrah."
Clint paused, and looked at her. But he doesn't mention anything else.
"I'm going with my gut on this one, Stark. You're healthy again. So shape up and kick some ass."
Toni grinned, exhaling in a soft laugh. She gave him a pensive look, and Clint raised his eyebrow.
"... I was dying, but I don't regret any of it, you know." Toni admitted frankly.
Clint just laughed. "Coulson's gonna be a bitch, but I don't regret it either, Toni."
"Ugh, you're going to report on me?"
He shrugged helplessly. "No, but I think he might be psychic."
They giggled, and then let the silence build up around them again.
Toni bit her lip and looked at Clint, considering. She was kind of stuck in the suit, so it was up to him. "One more for good luck?"
"Oh, that was lame," Clint leaned forward and kissed her anyway.
After a moment, though, Clint made a weird noise, and drew back with an odd expression on his face.
"Why do you taste like… coconut and aluminum?"
"You taste it too?" Toni asked, incredulous. "I thought the starkium was messing with my nerve endings." She paused, wondering if that theory should've worried her more than it did.
Clint raised an eyebrow. "You named it starkium? I take it back, you're still narcissistic."
"Agreed." She stepped back, and pressed a button to clamp on the faceplate of the suit. "I'll see you later, 007. I've still got work to do."
He rolled his eyes. "So do I, Tinhead. And the name's Hawkeye!"