Chapter 23 – Stop Hiding
A/n: I'm still in shock that the Avengers movie is over and I'm at the first interlude to be honest. The ride so far has been amazing and thank you all for joining me. I don't know how I got yesterday's chapter out actually because AVPSY came out and I was watching that at the same time as typing.
ReadPaxJoy: I'll do my best but Thor is really not very easy to write. You're welcome
XxxBellaBellaxxX: Yes, looking forward to doing Iron Man. Poor Toni it'll probably be very traumatic for her as well as the fact that the events of her life equal two movies and nobody else has two. I had to keep Phil around :)
paisley15: Someone is happy about Bruce/Toni interaction :D It's not over yet; I'm putting all the movies in the same story so Iron Man will be in here too. So this story will probably end up rather long. Yeah, come on Hill, speak ENGLISH!
Booklover2526: I'm glad I wrapped it up well
NatalieNamikaze2006: They're not going to like Iron Man believe me. Any of them who had lingering thoughts about Toni building her suit for no reason are going to get a cruel wake up call.
LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: Well it technically is incorrect plus it just sounds clumsy and I'm like no… I'm pretty sure most people would.
Dragones: I know right; I'm really excited.
3 Avengers: I don't know who is more excited about that part of the story me or you guys :) Enjoy :D
ladynarutochan: /lol/ I'm afraid you'll have to settle for conversation :)
Harm Marie: I'm glad.
youwannabekate: I would try and read them aloud but it's typically past midnight here when I begin writing so it's probably not a good idea. I have my headphones in and everything to stop any noise disturbing people.
The screen that JARVIS has been displaying the movie on went blank after the shawarma scene as the AI spoke, "Ma'am, I am detecting four more films of similar length on the Digital Versatile Disk. May I advise that you take a brief rest before resuming your viewing?"
"Of course JARVIS," Toni said glad of an excuse not to get anywhere near a movie that might possibly show some of her own life in more detail, "that is if the others wish to."
"I think it sounds like a good idea," Phil interjected, "from what I've heard you have just finished a battle and you jumped straight into watching these movies without any real recovery time so you should probably eat and check on any minor injuries."
"Agent Coulson is right," Bruce said not comfortable with calling the other man Phil having never really met him until he had come to join them today, "I know Steve and Thor will both be fine by now and I don't have any injuries myself but I need to check with Natasha, Clint and Toni to see if they do."
"I guess we will adjourn temporarily then," Steve said finally and the group went their separate ways. With much protest Bruce and Phil escorted the three Avengers without super powers to the medical bay with all three protesting in one way or another along the way. Steve and Thor chose not to follow and instead took the second elevator (which Toni had built when the renovations had been happening) to the gym. They had a feeling that venting their anger at SHIELD through punching things would be more productive than talking right now.
~#~#~
Thankfully the only injury that Bruce found on any of the unwilling patients other than superficial cuts and bruises was a first degree burn on Clint's leg that hadn't really been bothering him unless he put direct pressure on it. Relieved that he hadn't neglected anything serious Phil asked for a word with Natasha and Clint about SHIELD matters which left Toni alone in the medical bay with Bruce.
"Okay," Bruce said seriously, "now that there's nobody else here we're going to have a proper discussion about how you're still hiding things from me that the others know about."
"Bruce do we really have to have this conversation now?!" she responded quickly. She was very keen to put it off as long as possible.
"Yes," Bruce insisted, "I know you Toni and you'll deflect this conversation for as long as you can and if I let you off now you'll get more confident about your ability to blow this conversation off and I'm not letting that happen."
"Can we at least take this somewhere more private Bruce? This place isn't sealed off for obvious reasons," Toni sighed giving in somewhat. She still had time to talk him out of interrogating her if at all possible.
"Fine," Bruce compromised, "Lab 10?"
Toni nodded and walked back into the elevator followed by her friend and typed in the access code that would get her into that particular lab. Each individual lab in the building had a separate access code. Everyone knew how to get in to 1-3 as they were weapons development and Toni would only be found in there if she had been working on something to aid them in the next battle they got themselves into. 4 was the lab that Toni had allocated to Erik Selvig and only Thor was the only person with the access code to that room other than Toni so he could visit his friend. Number 5 was similar although it was of course Jane and Darcy's lab instead of Erik's. Then numbers 6-8 were dedicated to biology and were primarily Bruce's labs although Toni could sometimes be found working in there as well if she felt like it. Everyone knew the emergency code for those labs but otherwise couldn't get in to disturb the pair whilst they were working unless you were Piper. Labs 9-11 were Toni's personal labs and worked on the same principal as Bruce's. Anything higher than 11 was so highly classified by Toni that the Avengers doubted that even Piper knew if they existed.
It was a good thing that the elevator ride wasn't particularly long due to the sophistication of the machinery because neither person within it seemed to know what to say to each other. But when they were finally in the lab Bruce found his voice once more, "okay, so why are you hiding things from me Toni?"
"I basically explained why I was hiding the one thing I was only hiding from you back when you saw it on screen," Toni said exasperated, "anything else I've been hiding basically nobody knows about. I mean you're the only one that knows that the arc reactor keeps me alive and the only one other than Piper who knows how to replace it."
"You still won't tell me how you came to need it though," Bruce said.
"And if dear Amora," Toni said sarcastically, "doesn't see fit to tell the room about the incident I promise afterwards I will tell you at least some of what happened but I seriously doubt she won't have meddled there too."
"Was it really that bad?" Bruce said suddenly worried.
"It's a time of my life that I would rather forget but I know I can't," Toni admitted.
"Why not?" he said although he had his suspicions.
"Because it made me who I am today," Toni informed him, "before the arc reactor, before Iron Man. I wasn't the nicest person in the world. At times I had good intentions that didn't work out the way I wanted them to and at times I was just a bad person in general. If I forget that I might relapse to being that person and I can never go back. I promised myself I wouldn't."
"And that's exactly why I think you never could," Bruce said softly.
Toni scoffed a little at this statement. She was still the same person she was back then she had just had her eyes opened a little by her experiences. There was still so much she had to atone for in her life and she could never go back to being the arrogant billionaire who tried to pretend she was happy having nobody really give a damn about whether she lived or died. She had been incredibly touched by Piper's red eyes when she had come back after those three months in captivity because it meant someone cared even if he didn't want to admit it.
"Aren't you the one that's been telling me to have faith in myself?" Bruce asked rhetorically, "well I'm telling you that you need to take your own advice. The only reason you were able to become the person you are today at all is because back then you actually at some level wanted to be this person. From what you've said about your family and especially your father they had a big influence on your behaviour so if I'm not allowed to beat myself up about my bad decisions then neither are you."
"Okay," Toni agreed only half-believing what Bruce had said. She could see the logic behind his words and knew that they could apply to her situation but did they really? She was still more inclined to believe the moniker that the media had so 'affectionately,' given her. The Angel of Death indeed!
"Then we don't need to talk about this anymore but please for me. Stop hiding! You need to let somebody in and it might as well be me," Bruce relented.
Toni gave him a nod of acknowledgment before the pair returned to the elevator which this time had a much more relaxed atmosphere as Bruce had gotten the answers he wanted and Toni had at least managed to strike a deal which meant she didn't have to deal with all of her issues at once.
"JARVIS engage elevator mode 2-Alpha-6-7-Echo-4 allowing two separate access codes to be entered at once," Toni told her AI.
"Elevator Mode 2-Alpha-6-7-Echo-4 engaged," JARVIS responded.
Toni punched in the code for Lab 2 which contained the fabricator which would now contain the recall device she had designed for Clint as well as a new quiver of arrows identical to his old one but with the recall implants included. She could update all of his old arrows as well which would give him spares to keep in storage. Bruce then typed in the code for Lab 6 informing her that he had an experiment in progress that he would like to check on. Of course this led to an in depth discussion about Bruce's hypothesis as the elevator zoomed upwards.
~#~#~
Upon exiting the medical bay the three SHIELD agents had gone up to Natasha's rooms to have a private discussion about their future with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. Clint was now of the firm belief that they should leave the agency because of how manipulative and in some cases downright idiotic their superiors were even to those who had proved they had the interests of the agency as their priority. Phil hadn't seen the extents that SHIELD had gone to first hand having come in too late in the movie for that but the second hand account had alarmed him enough that he was beginning to doubt his long term friendships with Maria Hill and Nick Fury. Especially after hearing how callously Fury had ruined his prized possession as a 'motivation tactic,' when it had really just been a low blow and a dig at both Steve and Toni. And to make matters worse he knew Phil was alive and that those cards meant a lot to him. Natasha had her own conflicts about the issue because she had definitely been a bad person before Clint had saved her although that hadn't been part of his original mission of course. But SHIELD had contributed to her reforming and it had basically become her whole life. That was until she had met Antoinette Stark and somehow ended up her friend. And Annie deeply distrusted government organisations especially ones that kept threats secret from people who needed to know about them and made nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Annie had twisted her views significantly enough coupled with watching this movie that she had her doubts. But what would she do when she didn't have Avengers missions to deal with without SHIELD.
"We really should leave you know," Clint said breaking the proverbial ice, "we've got the Avengers now and I'm pretty sure Toni would love it if we left. That way we don't have to deal with the manipulation and the missions. No more forced seductions because you know you'd have to volunteer for something like that under Cap, no more killing people without knowing why you're doing so and no more putting ourselves in danger without a good reason."
"Well," Natasha considered, "when you put it like that it sounds very tempting but you're forgetting that at the moment SHIELD controls all minor Avengers missions so our input for the team would lessen which I'm not complaining about because they run us off our feet for things SHIELD agents should be able to deal with but then we wouldn't be doing much most of the time."
"I wouldn't say that," Toni said entering the room having used the override code to get to Natasha's suite, "if you say were to quit SHIELD Natasha well I might just have to give you back your position as an assistant only to me rather than to Piper. And then you could have all the stuff you had then back and also get to kick the asses of anyone who bothers me which preserves my image of being useless outside my suit."
"You'd give me my alias back?" Natasha said actually thrilled by the offer. It had been one of her more pleasant assignments and the promise of adding on being a bodyguard to that position made it all the more pleasant.
"Well, you look a little different now but I think we could manage it," Toni replied with a smile.
"Okay, then I say why not then," Natasha changed her tune now that she had a guarantee that she would not be sitting around bored when not fighting with the Avengers.
"Well, I'll leave you to talk Phil into it then Tasha," Toni said before turning to her original purpose for coming up to the suite, "Clint I have something to show you."
Clint joined her in the elevator puzzled as they had only begun talking more often when the films had been produced by Amora so what did she possibly have to show him right now.
"Here," she said handing him a wrist band identical to the ones that he always wore in a fight, "replace one of your wristbands with this and it should recall your arrows to you. Remember this is still a prototype so there could still be some bugs but just come to me about any and I'll find a way to fix them. Now I also made this," here she passed over Clint's new quiver, "all those arrows are fitted with the recall device and I've kept the quantities of the different types of arrowheads the same as the previous configuration and I'll eventually get around to stripping those down to make them recallable too. You can never have too many spares."
"Wow, this is just…" Clint said lost for words, "Where will I test them out? I doubt you want me to rush into battle and use a prototype."
"Of course not, that's part two of what I have for you," Toni said punching in a code to the elevator systems, "okay; you just need to remember 1-Charlie-3-Romeo-Delta and you'll get access to this room."
Clint quickly committed this to memory. It was one of the advantages of training to be a SHIELD agent. You had to have the ability to train your memory so you would remember every tiny detail about an alias which meant remembering a passcode to a place you would likely use often was no trouble at all.
When the elevator doors opened Clint was once again reduced to stunned silence at the sight before him. There were moving targets flying across the top of the space which began moving the moment the elevator doors opened. There were also standard targets but these were distinguished by the fact that they were emblazoned by pictures of one of the people Clint hated the most in the world; Loki.
"How…?" Clint managed to say breathily.
"Well I know you've always wanted to put an arrow in Loki and doing it to him literally doesn't seem like it would be a good idea at the moment so I figured you could take it out on him in this way," Toni explained.
"That's brilliant," he exclaimed, "but how did you set this up so quickly?"
"Well, the idea has been in the works practically since you moved in and I had everything programmed before today. It just needed the finishing touches and I told JARVIS to do them whilst watching the movie once I got my hands on a StarkPad so you wouldn't find out earlier than I intended," Toni revealed, "I wanted it done so when we inevitably took a break I could show it to you."
"Well, I see no reason not to try it out right now," Clint said with a smirk loading his quiver onto his back and programming his bow to let the shaft of the arrow pick up an ordinary arrowhead. Quick as lightning it was loaded onto his bow and he fired it at one of the fixed targets hitting the picture of Loki directly in the eye causing the smirk to become even more pronounced. It took a few seconds but the arrow dislodged itself from the target and flew neatly back into the quiver ready for another use.
"Before you ask, anything that isn't activated immediately won't be returned to the quiver until you activate it and I made it so one of the chemicals in the exploding arrows neutralises the recall effect so you won't get an explosion pulled back to you," Toni informed Clint who had indeed planned to ask those questions next. It seemed Toni had covered all of her bases.
"Well, have fun," Toni told him heading back to the elevator but JARVIS interrupted, "Mr Barton may wish to accompany you ma'am for Mr Rogers has assembled the rest of the team as well as Agent Coulson within the lounge room and they are waiting for you two to be done before they resume the observation of the Digital Versatile Disk."
"Thank you J," Toni said, "Come on then Merida, time to go see what Amora's concocted for the next round."
A/n: This chapter is fairly long for me seeing as I haven't included any of the movie sections in here and this is all original. It's still an interlude though so not a main part of the story but I decided to put in a Clint/Toni scene too to set things up for the parallel sequel :)