Chapter 12 – A Friendship Begins

A/n: Yay for positive responses to the last chapter. These scenes are my favourites from the movies so I'm really hoping I'm doing them justice. Even more Bruce/Toni to come in this one

paisley15: Glad I didn't disappoint for like I said these scenes are my faves :D Yeah I thought about it for a while and then realised that she would have to wear something like that just because skirts etc… are so inconvenient when she's in a hurry

Booklover2526: I'm glad that you think so :)

XxxBellaBellaxxX: It's okay as long as you review it's fine :) I love that bit too and I'm pretty sure I did that at some point so we have that in common

LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: I've always kind of pictured Toni as more spy like than Tony. Plus do you really think Tasha and Toni spent all that time together without Toni picking up a few spy moves. That'll come to light later. And I'm not hating on Galaga, no siree!

Harm Marie: Glad to hear it

The exterior of the helicarrier was displayed once more before the scene changed to the lab where Bruce was scanning Loki's sceptre. "The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports of the Tesseract," Bruce confirmed, "but it's going to take weeks to process."

Toni simply shrugged this off turning to a Stark Industries computer screen she had obviously brought with her. "If we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster," she explained typing the password to access the screen in, "we can clock this at around 600 teraflops."

"I have a feeling I'm not going to understand much of this scene," Steve said quietly. He wasn't going to enjoy being made to feel like an idiot again but maybe it didn't matter too much because compared to Toni and to a lesser extent Bruce everyone was an idiot.

"All I packed was a toothbrush," Bruce laughed.

"You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime," Toni suggested, "Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it. It's Candy Land."

"You were right about that," Bruce laughed, "when I first got here I had every intention of leaving again but those labs and the chance of having some company for once trapped me."

"You're not exactly unhappy about it so who cares," Toni said shrugging.

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke Harlem," Bruce said hesitantly.

Steve looked alarmed at this mention but quickly wiped the expression from his face and prayed that Bruce hadn't seen it. He didn't want to alienate his friend.

"Well, I promise a stress-free environment," Toni said.

There was general laughter in the room at that comment as Stark Tower was far from stress-free. But they had to admit that Toni did know how to liven things up in a good way as well as in an annoying one.

"No tension, no surprises," Toni continued before using the electrified stick in her hands to poke Bruce.

"I've always wondered; why did you do that? Why have that much faith in me we had only just met?" Bruce inquired.

"Because nobody else did," Toni said simply but on seeing everyone else give her significant looks she expanded on her statement, "look you do know that Piper used to be jealous of you right."

"Jealous," Bruce almost stuttered out, "of me!"

"Even before I met you although it got worse for a while afterwards," Toni confirmed, "he didn't like that yours were the only scientific papers I actually read seeing as I swore off reading papers in general when I kept spotting mistakes. So my first impression of you was that you had the intelligence to keep up with me in more than one area and finding out about the Hulk couldn't take that away. Plus I never trust SHIELD's files without a second opinion; I delete things from my file all the time plus Piper's alterations as just some examples. So I reserved judgement and then I met you and you clearly had a lid on it and I just wanted to convince you of that fact so I went out of my way to 'provoke' you so you'd have more faith in yourself."

"Thank you," Bruce muttered seemingly out of words other than those.

The other Avengers just sat there watching with varying looks of astonishment before JARVIS restarted the movie to break the awkward silence.

"Ow!" Bruce shouted clearly shocked that someone had decided to do that to him of all people.

"Hey!" Steve shouted as he came into the room but Toni blatantly ignored him keeping her focus on Bruce saying, "Nothing?"

"Are you nuts?" Steve said trying to get her attention.

"Jury's out," Toni said simply as Bruce turned back to his work openly chuckling, "you really have got a lid on it, haven't you?"

"I can see that you were trying to big him up now," Steve said, "sorry Toni."

"Will you please not apologise for everything you said back then because honestly you've already apologised for half of it and there is literally no point to it because the stuff I actually held a grudge against you for is the stuff that you already apologised for," Toni sighed exasperated.

"What's your secret?" Toni asked teasingly, "Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?"

"And that's the second time someone asked me," Bruce laughed clearly having gotten over the shock of Toni's speech.

"It does seem to have been a popular conversation topic Friend Banner," Thor confirmed.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked incredulously.

"Funny things are," Toni stated.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny," Steve said bitingly before quickly adding, "No offense Doc."

"Didn't really help Toni's cause there Steve," Bruce joked. Steve's comment hadn't really offended him as he was used to comments like that and knew very well that he could be very dangerous. But it had taken away a little of the novelty of someone being there who had at least some faith in him and his control over the other guy.

"It's all right," Bruce muttered, "I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things," as he said that he threw Toni a significant look.

"You're tip-toeing big man," Toni said trying to salvage the situation, "you need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem, Miss Stark," Steve snapped.

"Do you think I'm not?" Toni asked, "Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"I thought you weren't focusing because you were talking to Bruce, didn't realise that your brain is even better than Howard's at processing more than one thing at once," Steve said candidly.

Toni stiffened briefly upon hearing Howard's name but promptly shook it off and tried to make it look like she hadn't reacted. Bruce was the only one who noticed the brief change in her body language and frowned at Steve because everyone knew that Howard Stark was taboo in Stark Tower. He hadn't thought his statement through thoroughly enough.

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve said incredulously.

"He's a spy," Toni said giving as good as she was getting, "Captain, he's 'the' spy. His secrets have secrets," in between words she threw a blueberry into her mouth before gesturing to Bruce, "it's bugging him, too. Isn't it?"

"Uh…" Bruce said hesitantly clearly not wanting to admit to it, "I just want to finish my work here, and…"

"Doctor?" Steve interrupted clearly recognising Bruce's tone for what it was.

Bruce gave Toni another nervous glance before sighing and removing his glasses. "'A warm light for all mankind,'" he quoted, "Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube."

"I heard it," Steve said.

"Oh I see what you're getting at," Natasha said coming to a sudden realisation.

"Well, I think that was meant for you," Bruce said turning back to Toni who simply sighed and offered him a blueberry.

Taking it Bruce continued, "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."

"It's nice being on the news for good reasons," Toni said with a smile, "well my definition although I'm sure many members of the military would disagree. Screw them!"

"The Stark Tower? That big, ugly," Steve's tone was humorous until he was met with a glare from Toni and he hastened to finish, "building in New York."

"You have to be careful to avoid Toni's glare," Clint said with a shudder as he had been on the receiving end of that glare too many times in his opinion. Once was really too often with that look.

"It's powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source," Bruce informed him, "that building will run itself for, what, a year?"

"It's just the prototype," Toni confirmed before turning to Steve, "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."

"So," Bruce said getting to his final point, "why didn't SHIELD bring her in on the Tesseract project? What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

"I guess we should have figured you two would figure out that something was up," Natasha sighed.

"I should probably look into that once my decryption programme finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files," Toni said matter-of-factly walking around the lab bench and pulling out a miniature computer screen from somewhere within her outfit.

"Where was that exactly?" Clint teased but he regretted it almost immediately as it earned him a glare from Toni and another whack across the head from Natasha.

"I'm sorry. Did you say…?" Steve said clearly taken aback by this change in direction.

"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge," Toni interrupted, "in a few hours; I'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?"

"At least those not related to you which you already knew," Natasha muttered as everyone else laughed at the abrupt offer made at the end of Toni's statement.

"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around," Steve said pointedly ignoring the offer.

"An intelligence organisation that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome," Toni pointed out.

Clint and Natasha winced at the comparison for while they knew it was accurate it wasn't something they really wanted to hear. They were already rapidly losing faith in their employers due to this film but despite Amora's intentions it only seemed to be bringing the team closer together. Making them watch this had been a serious error in judgement.

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up," Steve retorted, "this is a man who means to start a war and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them."

"Following's not really my style," Toni said innocently whilst still eating blueberries.

"Got into too much trouble by following people like my dad and realised I was better off doing things my own way cause nobody gave a damn about me," Toni said matter-of-factly ignoring the pitying glances that she got as a result of the comment.

"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Steve jibed.

"You don't start a war of words with Toni," Natasha said with a smirk.

"Of the people in this room, which one is A) wearing a spangly outfit, and, B) not of use?" Toni retorted.

"Because that happens," Natasha finished as the Toni on screen gave a perfect example of her wit.

"Steve," Bruce intervened, "tell me none of this smells a little funky to you."

"Always the voice of reason huh Bruce," Clint said with a smile.

"Well someone has to be and I don't think Toni or Steve were really qualified for the job when they kept antagonising each other even if it was very entertaining to watch," Bruce laughed.

"Just find the Cube," Steve said as he walked out. Once outside though Steve was clearly torn as to whether to believe them or keep trusting in authority as he hurried off.

"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" Toni muttered bitterly to Bruce, "I'm wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."

"Was I…?" Steve began but wasn't sure how to continue.

"Part of the reason that my dad and I never really got on?" Toni finished on his behalf, "yes!"

"Huh," Bruce said in acknowledgement and began to work once more, "the guy's not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us."

"What he's got is an Acme dynamite kit," Toni said making her way back over to the Stark Industries screen, "it's going to blow up in his face. And I'm going to be there when it does."

"Right on both counts, and on the next one," Bruce said with a smile. The others were confused but figured if it was the next point they'd understand soon enough.

"Yeah. I'll read all about it," Bruce said sliding some information across to her screen.

"Uh-huh," Toni said sceptically, "or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us."

Bruce let out a nervous chuckle before responding, "You see, I don't get a suit of armour. I'm exposed. Like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

"You know," Toni said, "I've got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl its way into my heart."

"WHAT?!" the team minus Bruce and Toni shouted as one.

"How did that happen?" Clint asked nervously.

"I'm sure it'll come up," Toni muttered reluctant to get into it until she absolutely had to. It wasn't something she enjoyed reliving.

"This stops it," she continued tapping the arc reactor and making her way over to Bruce, "This little circle of light, it's part of me now, not just armour."

Steve felt a horrible jerking sensation in his chest as he thought about his remark to Toni later on during these events. Sure, he had apologised for it but he now realised that it had to have cut deeper than Toni had let on.

Toni was now standing directly opposite Bruce on the other side of the computer screen, "it's a terrible privilege," she said almost nervously clearly not all that comfortable talking about it.

"But you can control it," Bruce pointed out.

"Because I learned how," Toni emphasised.

"It's different," Bruce said shrugging her comments off and attempting to go back to working with the computer but Toni wasn't having any of that. She cleared the data on the screen away to the side so Bruce had to look directly at her and said, "Hey, I read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you."

"So you're saying that the Hulk…" Bruce began.

"Wait you slipped," Natasha said incredulously, "you were so resolute about calling him the other guy I just thought you never called him that."

"I got comfortable around Toni and it sort of slipped out as I am sure was her intention," Bruce replied earning a nod and a satisfied smile from the woman in question.

Bruce looked down as he realised his slip of the tongue and corrected himself, "the other guy saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?"

"Lots of things," Toni said defensively clearly offended that Bruce didn't think his life was worth anything.

"I can see why Piper was jealous of Bruce," Clint whispered in Natasha's ear attempting to make sure Toni wouldn't hear and glare at him again for simply telling the truth.

"I guess we'll find out," Toni said simply before walking back over to her own computer screen as Bruce brought back up the data on his.

"You may not enjoy that," Bruce warned.

"And you just might," Toni retorted quickly as they both returned to work.

The scene changed to show a metal door with words on it reading, 'Secure Storage 10-C.' On the other side of the door Steve was struggling to force it open until the seal broke and he was able to slide it open and walk through. He quickly leapt up from the floor onto the access route higher up.

"Your comments bothered me because I was used to people in authority being reasonable," Steve admitted.

"Nobody in power is ever completely reasonable Steve," Toni said sadly, "nobody in general is reasonable 100% of the time."

A/n: Sorry it's later than usual guys but here's the chapter :D