Chapter 28 – I Refuse

A/n: What is it with you guys and these 'cliffies?' They're not even cliffies /lol/. Seeing as people are interested I will put up the character study. And I'm finding it extremely amusing the Jeremy Renner (Clint) is in a film that just came out starring opposite Gemma Arterton (Toni).

XxxBellaBellaxxX: Please, it's not life any 'cliffie,' lasts very long when you update every day :D There's going to be a huge amount of shock going around I can guarantee that.

youwannabekate: That sounds like me to be honest. For some morbid reason I really like inflicting angst on my favourite characters be it canon or fanon. Maybe it's because after that people actually see them for how awesome they are generally. Haha, Doctor Who catchphrases. I can deal with morbid :D

ReadPaxJoy: Ooookay! Is this supposed to be a good thing or not? /lol/ Thank you :)

LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: Not even a real cliffie /shrugs/ Yeah, Tasha's an assassin but she's a friend too. Well her ulterior motive is an attempt to tear the team apart so she can take over.

paisley15: And it will probably be just the headcanon discussion we had in a more ordered format. I always forget about Thor and then I'm like hang on Thor is here so he gets the next comment; I try my best :) Thank you for your review on The Iron Façade as well, I'm glad you liked it

4n6gurl: I can't help it if it's 4:30 am and my insomnia is finally letting up so I stop typing can I :D Enjoy!

Maeleana: It probably will but it'll only worsen it first /sorryI'mnotsorry/

Dragones: I'll put it up whenever I get it finished :)

Ashtree1165: Yeah, Mark Ruffalo is Bruce Banner. Just saying, sorry other people who have played Bruce. It's like you can't replace RDJ as Tony. But the Hulk movie isn't in this story for partly that reason and partly another concept that I came up with which comes into play near the end of this story.

Harm Marie: I'm glad

skywright: I'm glad you liked the missile scene as I always saw it as quite symbolic and I've read a few of these myself and always wondered why nobody went into it. I figured if anyone was to notice it would be Thor who is entirely comfortable with the forces of nature himself.

Post U Later: Thank you for all of your reviews :) Don't want to take up too much space here replying to them all.

"I don't want to watch this," Bruce said quietly to himself. It didn't matter to him if the others heard him because he knew they would agree with him. Especially Toni. It must have been horrific for her to live through these moments at all and now she had to relive them. He had noticed she kept shutting her eyes whenever she knew anything particularly traumatic was coming up and he almost wanted to close his too. Unfortunately in some ways that would actually be disrespectful to Toni. She had the right to not suffer through this again but after all she had done for them he thought she was overdue some compassion over what had happened to her. But first he had to know what had happened and he wasn't at all ready.

"Stand up," Yinsen hissed pulling Toni roughly to her feet as the bolts on the door clicked open, "come on, put your hands up."

Toni didn't question Yinsen's order because she had figured out that it was important for her to do as he said in this situation. She neatly folded her hands behind her head just as the door swung open.

Just when Toni thought the room couldn't have any more tension in it without someone choking on it the atmosphere seemed to thicken even more. She didn't see how it was possible and why were they getting this angry on her behalf? This was over and done with and she was attempting to stop it from affecting her now since it was in the past.

"Those are my guns. How did they get my guns?" Toni said panicked as one of the leaders of the group entered flanked by two armed soldiers.

"You really were horrified that your weapons had ended up in the wrong hands," Steve realised his voice faltering in the middle of the sentence. He had a feeling that he had another flaw that he had never acknowledged until now and that was that he judged people too quickly based on the first impression he got of them. Toni was so much more than what she appeared to be on a frankly terrifying level. It was like she was two different people existing in the same body. Wasn't there a name for that nowadays? But Steve didn't really think that Toni had a medical condition; she was just a very good actress.

"Do you understand me? Do as I do," Yinsen said quickly trying to stop Toni talking as yet more soldiers came into the room as the leader continued to walk forward beginning to speak in Arabic.

"Why don't we have subtitles for this anymore?" Natasha asked, "Did they turn off because we changed movie?"

"No," Toni told her, "Yinsen translated for me even if I didn't need it. So JARVIS probably didn't feel the need to put on subtitles for this section of the movie. I'm sure if someone isn't around to translate he'll resume his use of them."

"That is correct Miss Stark," JARVIS informed the group before playing the movie again.

Toni's expression darkened noticeably as the man spoke before he gestured to Yinsen for a translation, "He says 'Welcome Toni Stark, the most famous mass murderer in the history of America.'"

"Even I know that isn't true," Toni scoffed although the term mass murderer had gotten to her at the time. Seeing as she never actually was behind the weapon when it killed someone up to that point she now knew that she hadn't been a mass murderer when she went into that cave. When she came out however that was a different matter.

The man spoke again and Yinsen translated it to, "He is honoured."

The only word of the speech that the man gave next that wasn't in Arabic was the word Jericho and Yinsen confirmed he was referring to Toni's missile when he translated, "He wants you to build the missile. The Jericho missile that you demonstrated," another string of Arabic and a photo was handed over, "This one."

Toni looked at the picture darkly before directing the look at the spokesman. "I refuse," she said firmly throwing the full weight of her glare at him.

"Toni!" Clint shouted not wanting to know what they did in an attempt to break her. It was always worse for women for they were in some ways easier to humiliate and debase for people who had no morals. Natasha was the exception to this as she had been trained for it but Toni had just been a civilian at the time. Yet he couldn't help but be impressed by Toni's courage in not just giving in after knowing full well that they could kill her by simply pulling the car battery electromagnet out if they wished to and that they were cruel enough to deny her anaesthetics during open heart surgery.

The others were similarly scared and impressed by Toni's actions. She was just as brave without her armour and they hadn't quite realised it until they saw her flat out refuse to cooperate with terrorists. Steve was also unsurprisingly feeling guilty which had become his overwhelming emotion whilst watching these movies. How could he have been so stupid?!

The spokesman looked bewildered and the shot changed to show Toni being shoved face first into a bowl of water unable to close her mouth if she wanted to be able to breathe.

The others watched in horror as Toni was subjected to something that they didn't know if they would be able to cope with. And yet she'd come home and she'd refused therapy. Refused. Point blank! Toni however was not focusing on how 'stupid,' it had been for her to choose not to be analysed by doctors who knew nothing about her true experiences because all she could feel was the memory of what it had been like to suffocate under all that water. Or was it a memory? She didn't even know any more. Her throat felt like it was closing up and her breaths became short and laboured. It was all she could do to keep them quiet enough that the team wouldn't hear her. Even Clint who was sitting right next to her.

"What is that?" Steve said appalled.

"It's called waterboarding," Natasha said weakly, "It's the only way that you can drown someone no dry land. I suddenly understand why there are no bathtubs in this tower except for the one Toni bought me for my birthday from my suite."

Suddenly Toni leapt to her feet muttering a 'sorry,' and fled the room. Clint only got a brief glimpse of her face before she was gone and it looked like she was beginning to cry. Natasha was about to take off after her but Clint had a feeling Toni would put on a brave face around someone she knew well which really only left him and Thor. And Thor definitely wouldn't know what to say to an emotional Toni Stark. Well, neither did he but he had a feeling he'd do a better job than the demigod. "I'll go," he told the group, "JARVIS where is Toni?" he figured Toni wouldn't have had time to forbid her AI to reveal her location.

"Miss Stark is in Lab 11," JARVIS informed Clint obviously relieved that Toni hadn't forbidden him from getting her help this time around.

Clint quickly ran into the elevator and typed in the emergency code for Toni's labs so that JARVIS could take him down to the lab without having to override everything and alert Toni to the fact that he was coming. Once she recovered she'd probably give him hell for using his emergency code for this but it would be worth it if he could stop her crying. Toni crying was almost impossible to process. She never let go like that around anyone.

"Toni," he said quietly as he stepped out into the lab but when she didn't reply he had to follow the quiet choked up sobbing to find her sitting in the corner of the room as far away from the lift as she could get. "Oh god!" he muttered. He wasn't qualified to deal with this but then again nobody was.

He didn't try and put his arms around her knowing from his observations of the team that she was uncomfortable with physical contact she didn't initiate. He was invading her privacy enough by just being here and he didn't want to do anything she wasn't comfortable with. In the end he didn't have to grab hold of her because as he was the nearest thing Toni grabbed hold of him. And that was how he knew that Toni had hit her absolute lowest because she didn't seek out human contact. Plus she certainly didn't want to appear weak to her teammates who underestimated her anyway due to her status as the non-trained and non-super powered member of the Avengers. Yet here she was completely broken because nobody was ever meant to know about the things the Avengers had seen on that screen. If they had ever been told at all it definitely wouldn't have been in that much detail.

Clint wasn't sure how long he was sitting there but he knew when Toni was beginning to get back to her old self for she pushed him away from her and caught off guard Clint flew back a bit. He had to give Toni a couple more minutes to stop crying for long enough to speak but eventually she managed to choke out, "You shouldn't have had to see me like that. Or like this for that matter."

"No, I shouldn't," Clint agreed, "because all of this should never have happened to you. I don't care that if it hadn't you wouldn't have become Iron Man or you might not have been the person you are today, nobody should have to go through that. Especially without the training that Natasha and I have or the powers that the others do, it wasn't fair."

"Life isn't fair," Toni parroted obviously having heard the phrase many times before, "sometimes I think I deserved it."

She didn't give Clint the time he needed to get over that statement and formulate a reply because Toni was already up on her feet and heading back to the elevator clearly dismissing the topic as dealt with. She had gone back into her shell and Clint knew no matter what he did he wouldn't be able to pull her out of it again. So he sighed and followed her into the elevator and punched in the code for the lounge. "JARVIS there had better be a drink – no wait make that at least three drinks waiting for me when we get back up there," Toni said pulling out a tissue to wipe away the mascara lines which had run down her cheeks.

As soon as the elevator doors opened Toni strode confidently back into the room and downed one of the glasses of whiskey on the table in one go. Then she turned to Phil and asked, "Would you mind swapping with me? We can make the couch the ex-SHIELD member couch."

The others knew this was clearly a tactic to get away from Clint after their discussion down in Lab 11 but Phil didn't see any reason why he shouldn't move that wouldn't offend Toni so he agreed to it. Toni proceeded to curl up on the couch next to Bruce sipping on the second glass of whiskey.

Toni was only given a second to spit out as much water as she could before under the watchful eye of someone who was probably the real leader of the group she was shoved back under. As she was shoved back beneath it sounded like she could hear Piper screaming her name.

Bruce flexed his fists dangerously with a glint of green entering his eyes but he knew that Hulking out in the Tower wouldn't enable him to find the men who did this and crush them. And he supposed the Hulk knew that too because he was able to calm down without any assistance for once.

"I shall find these mortals and punish them with the worst that Asgard can offer!" Thor boomed in anger. He didn't like seeing Lady Toni dealt with so brutally by men who had no right to touch the Lady of Iron.

The men surrounding her spoke in Arabic again the only word in English being Jericho. They dragged her from the room and shoving the bag back over her head escorted her towards the cave mouth.

Natasha really hoped that just before Toni was shown being waterboarded there was a massive time skip that hadn't been confirmed because otherwise this was only the beginning and Toni wouldn't be taking advantage of being out of the cave to escape. It was unlikely but Natasha could dream. They could have done anything to her friend with three months to do it in.

Once they were outside the bag was ripped off Toni's head and she blinked in the Afghanistan sunlight which blinded her momentarily for all she could see was white light. But her eyes managed to adjust and she saw the full scale of the camp with box after box of weapons piled up under rudimentary tents. The spokesman beckoned Toni to come down and one of the soldiers pushed her to get her to move nearly knocking the car battery from her hands.

"How did you escape with that in your hands?" Bruce wondered not quite able to believe that even Toni could have invented a replacement for it in such rudimentary conditions. The Jericho missile maybe but not an arc reactor or anything similar to it. He didn't think this group would even have half the equipment necessary.

Toni very carefully made sure none of the soldiers had their hands on her and made her way down the slope by her own power. She made sure to take in everything that was around and couldn't help but notice that 'Stark Industries,' was written on almost every box and missile.

"It's not your fault," Clint was quick to point out still scared by her admission during their earlier conversation, "you had no control over who the company was selling your weapons to. You just designed them. It's not like everyone who manufactures a gun is responsible for the deaths that might be caused by it."

The spokesman turned to Toni once more eyeing her dangerously talking briefly in Arabic. "He wants to know what you think," Yinsen informed Toni.

"I think you've got a lot of my weapons," Toni deadpanned determined not to let them see that they were getting to her.

Yinsen promptly translated this for the spokesman who went back into another speech in Arabic that Toni wasn't letting on that she understood. "He says they have everything you need to build the Jericho missile," Yinsen said in a resigned tone.

"No they didn't," Toni spoke up surprisingly, "not really. I could have improvised one maybe with a little bit of work but that wasn't my plan."

"Then what was your plan?" Phil asked but they got nothing else out of Toni.

"He wants you to make a list of materials," Yinsen continued and paused to let the spokesman speak once more, "He says for you to start working immediately, and when you're done, he will set you free."

Toni reached out and took the spokesman's offered hand and said matter-of-factly, "no he won't."

"No he won't," Yinsen agreed.

"But if Lady Toni did what they wished why would they hold her for ransom any longer?" Thor asked confused.

"They were planning on killing me once I was done Thor. The Jericho would have been worth much more to them than keeping me around," Toni sighed.

The spokesman beamed clearly thinking Toni had agreed as Toni's eyes caught sight of the real leader of the group standing on a rock face not far away.

"Well done," Natasha said more out of habit than anything else, "you spotted who's really pulling the strings."

Back in the cave Toni was staring empty eyed into the fire not bothering to acknowledge the fact that Yinsen was speaking from his position behind her, "I'm sure they're looking for you, Stark. But they will never find you in these mountains."

"True," Toni said bitterly, "I ended up having to find them."

"Look," he said softly crouching down beside her, "what you just saw, that is your legacy Stark. Your life's work in the hands of those murderers. Is that how you want to go out? Is this the last act of defiance of the great Toni Stark? Or are you going to do something about it?"

"Why should I do anything?" Toni asked clearly looking for some sort of confirmation of conclusions she had already come to, "They're going to kill me, you, either way."

"You wanted him to tell you that you should fight and it wasn't useless defiance," Phil stated understanding why Toni seemed to have given up all of a sudden.

"And if they don't I'll be dead in a week," Toni concluded.

"Well, then," Yinsen told her, "this is a very important week for you isn't it?"

A/n: Yes, this is quite short. Don't lynch me okay it just seemed like the best place to cut it before we got into Toni really fighting back. And if you want more of this verse please go and read The Iron Façade and tell me what you think because it's the character study of Toni that I promised y'all