Chapter 34 – Disapproval

A/n: And my 350th reviewer is LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books :) So pick a storyline for your one-shot :) I will be doing something slightly different for the next prize so stay tuned :D

youwannabekate: I was wondering where you had got to Kate :) No, Howard is definitely not being dealt with until the big scene in Iron Man 2 about him just because by that point nobody will be able to stop themselves from asking anymore. I'm glad you liked the treatment of Piper because I agree; they had to be good for each other at some point. I'm hoping that it will at least reference the others because it's after New York.

ReadPaxJoy: I always thought it wouldn't just be Bruce who had to get a handle of his temper just in case because Thor's power is probably influenced by emotions too. Hopefully AoA will be up today :)

Neit Kitten: Piper and Toni broke up back in Chapter 18 – The Lies Are Ending :) If you need an explanation just re-read that chapter

whitetigerwolf: It's a shame you weren't the 350th reviewer but who knows you might win the next competition which will be slightly different.

XxxBellaBellaxxX: I'm glad you liked it so much :)

LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: Congrats! This was review 350 :) Looking forward to hearing what you come up with. Bad Obie and I love Phil :D

Dragones: I'm glad you like the detailing; have some more :D

ReenReen: I've already decided that this isn't a Stoni story sorry :( Hope you keep reading anyway though

Tanin: There are going to be several different reactions and Toni's going to get a bit huffy about the teasing :) Hope you enjoy the scene

Booklover2526: Naïveté is just going to get them in trouble :D

paisley15: Hahaha, it's okay :) You've reviewed now :D And I'm glad you liked the additions and studies

Harm Marie: I'm glad! And we'll have to agree to disagree on that point because he was smiling before he said it.

Post U Later: No, because with this story Iron Man 3 would no longer be canon and as such wouldn't work within this story. I'm not doing the Hulk movie for a reason so…

Obadiah pulled up in front of the Stark Industries factory on his Segway. Also present was Happy who stood by Toni's car smoking with a bored expression on his face.

"Happy never did like Obie all that much," Toni muttered. She had a feeling that there wouldn't be much comic relief in this section of the story because of things that Obie and Rhodey had said to her about her decision to follow through with shutting down the weapons department. It had been risky move and she had known that; she did the math but she wanted to do something to save the world instead of destroying it by giving Stark Industries weapons idea after weapons idea from the ones she had in storage. Well, they were stored in her brain anyway.

"Where is she?" Obie boomed his tone dripping with disapproval already.

"She's inside," Happy said in a clipped tone as he reached over to take the Segway. Obie sighed and used his security pass to let himself into the building where he found Toni staring up at the massive arc reactor that powered the factory.

"I know you said that it was much bigger back in the cave but I didn't realise…" Bruce said shocked, "I mean… to downsize that amount of technology into something so small. That's beyond genius Toni because the only example you had was something that would never work in a million lifetimes as something smaller and you made it happen."

Toni's thoughts immediately went to Vanko who had also managed to produce an arc reactor. Mind you; his didn't have to be sterile and air-tight enough to run his heart. Just his suit. That meant Toni's was probably a greater marvel of engineering than the other even if not by much. Especially given that she had to create a new element to get it running purely because it was actually within her body whereas if Vanko and Obie had continued using palladium to power their suits they would never have suffered any side effects from it.

Obie took a puff of his cigar and didn't bother to remove it from his mouth before he spoke, "well, that… That went well."

"Did I just paint a target on the back of my head?" Toni quipped unable to meet Obie's eyes and she instead took to running her hand across the barrier between the arc reactor and her. It was clear she didn't want to have this conversation.

"You didn't want him to be disappointed in you," Natasha realised. She couldn't help but feel a little sad about this realisation though because Obie clearly didn't like Toni that much from the looks they had seen him give her so far even when she was accommodating his wishes. And the coldness in his looks spoke of someone who didn't know how to approve of anyone anyway unless they thought and acted exactly like him. Which was worrying because by all accounts he and Howard Stark had gotten along exceedingly well; it didn't bode well for Toni's childhood being a good one. There was absolutely no chance that she was lying about her father in any way.

"Your head?" Obie snorted, "What about my head?"

"I do not like this man Lady Toni," Thor stated, "for he only seems to care for himself when others are also important."

"What do you think the over-under on the stock drop is going to be tomorrow?" Obie continued clearly looking to get Toni to change her mind.

"Optimistically," Toni said slowly, "forty points."

"That's a pretty big drop," Bruce said wincing even though he knew that Stark Industries had recovered from the hit.

"It was a risk that needed to be taken because there was no way I was staying in weapons manufacturing after what I saw happen in Afghanistan," Toni said coolly, "besides the stocks nowadays exceed what we had back then because ordinary people are more likely to trust their money to a company that is saving the world from pollution than one that is without a doubt contributing to it. Publicity is very important."

"At minimum," Obie emphasised angrily.

"Yep," Toni said softly clearly ignoring the fact that Obie wasn't at all pleased with her.

"I did the right thing," Toni muttered softly.

"Toni," Obie said settling into trying to talk her out of this 'crazy notion,' "we're a weapons manufacturer."

"Obie," Toni interrupted quickly, "I just don't want a body count to be our only legacy."

"Amen," Clint and Natasha muttered knowing what that was like. When they had joined the Avengers it had been the first time that they had been asked to do something that didn't end up with them killing in cold blood. Sure, some of the people they had been sent to kill were truly awful and the world was much better off without them on the planet. But in some of their combat situations they knew that some of the people on the opposite side had been coerced (read forced) into fighting instead by the people the assassins really needed to kill. And it would forever weigh on their consciences which despite what many people thought were still fully functional. They just couldn't afford to listen to them too often. Maybe now they were leaving SHIELD they could truly begin to atone for the red in their ledgers.

"That's what we do," Obie insisted, "We're iron mongers. We make weapons."

"It's my name on the side of the building," Toni pointed out dismissing any further argument that Obie was sure to come up with.

"You have a point," Steve admitted, "It's your company. He was only running it until you came of age and then he gave over all his rights to you."

"That was the problem wasn't it," Bruce realised, "he resented the fact that you came back from your self-imposed exile and took over the company when he thought that you would permanently giving over control to him. I mean you could have taken over at 17 when your parents died but you decided not to so he thought it was a sign that you weren't interested in running it. Then he had trouble letting go of the power that it gave him so he attempted to influence all of your actions."

"Hit the nail on the head there Bruce," Toni informed him her voice oddly tense. This made Bruce wonder if he had managed to hit on something that would cause some sort of larger conflict later on. He hoped not.

"And what we do keeps the world from falling into chaos," Obie attempted capitalising on the fact that Toni was trying to protect people but Toni wasn't that easily swayed, "not based on what I saw."

"Never back down from something you feel passionately about," Phil said approvingly. There had been times when he compromised about similar situations and in the end he always regretted it. If you really needed to do something and it wouldn't harm anyone you should go for it. And in this case it would end up saving innocent lives.

"We're not doing a good enough job," Toni said making good use of the fact that Obie had stopped interrupting, "we can do better. We're gonna do something else."

"Like what?" Obie exclaimed frustrated unintentionally paraphrasing Toni's words from before Afghanistan, "You want us to make baby bottles?"

"That's a little too close to your words to be a coincidence," Clint observed, "He was the one that you got the phrase from even if you adapted it a little for your own tastes."

"I think we should take another look into arc reactor technology," Toni deadpanned.

"And off she goes on her clean energy crusade," Natasha quipped not knowing that actually aside from talking about the arc reactor within Toni's chest there wouldn't be many other mentions of the 'clean energy crusade,' within this particular film. There was far too much plotting from Obie from this point onwards for Toni to even get started on creating any of the new arc reactors other than the updated one for her personal use. Especially since she was also creating the Iron Man suit and destroying all of her illegally sold weapons on the side which she considered more important at that point in time than making sure that her company wouldn't be destroyed because she had enough money to build the company up again if it hit rock bottom but money couldn't save the lives of those that stray weapons she had made might kill.

"Come on," Obie scoffed waving his arm at the massive reactor behind them, "the arc reactor, that's a publicity stunt! Toni, come on. We built that thing to shut the hippies up!"

"No," Toni said with a smirk, "we built it because I wanted to see if I could make something other than weapons and I could. And I don't think there was really a 'we' involved seeing as it was just me that built it; Obadiah was never really a scientist never mind on that scale."

"It works," Toni said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah," Obie said callously, "as a science project. The arc was never cost effective. We knew that before we built it."

"Yet another thing that is amazing about the fact that you made it out of scraps in a cave," Phil pointed out joining in on Bruce's crusade to get Toni to see that she was worth something. He had noticed it way back when he had first met Toni but it was even more evident to him now that the woman hid behind a layer of masks that hid everything that was good about herself. This was because whatever Howard Stark had done to her had battered her self-worth until she truly believed that she wasn't worth anything other than making things that would kill other people. He had no doubt that it was Howard's fault. Toni's reaction whenever someone mentioned his name outside of this viewing was proof enough as were the snippets that they had gotten during it. The problem was that to get to Toni's insecurities you had to break through her masks and saying that there were a lot of them was the severest understatement of the century. Phil had once believed it would be impossible to bring all of them down; impossible to heal the broken woman that Toni actually was behind her iron façade. But these movies had proven that it was possible because only a short while ago Toni had run from the room crying and her immediate avoidance of Clint suggested that she had let her masks down around him and now couldn't be near him in fear of him rejecting her. Phil needed to talk to Clint about that as soon as they took another break. Getting him in on the crusade when he had seen the real Toni might just be the push that they needed to get Toni to live up to her potential. The fact that some of the things she was doing anyway weren't living up to her true potential were shocking and quite frankly frightening but it didn't really matter because those things were for the benefit of the team.

"Arc reactor technology, that's a dead end isn't it?" Obie said moving to stand behind Toni.

"He's lousy at pretending that he doesn't know something," Natasha scoffed. It just added to her dislike of the man and made her think he should be quite thankful that he was dead or she might have increased his suffering a thousand fold. Maybe he could get Thor to include Obadiah Stane in his request to Hel if he actually went through with using it.

"Maybe," Toni said softly not turning around.

"Huh, am I right?" Obie said becoming more and more transparent causing Toni to turn to face him just so she could give him an incredulous look, "We haven't had a breakthrough in that in what? Thirty years."

"I thought you said that you produced the arc reactor yourself," Bruce said confused.

"I did," Toni said, "I just didn't tell him that the original plans that my father drew up for it would never have worked long term and that I may have made several fairly drastic alterations to get the thing to actually work at a level that could power a factory."

"That's what they say," Toni said quickly her eyes narrowing as she inspected Obie's face before sighing, "Could you have a lousier poker face? Just tell me, who told you?"

"His poker face really is abysmal," Steve commented upon scrutinising Obadiah. He really didn't like the man with how he appeared to be goading Toni and he knew he was guilty of the same thing at times. But at least he knew that he did it to attempt to keep Toni out of danger. He had the sickening feeling that Toni's so called friend was planning on doing the opposite.

"Never mind who told me," Obie said dismissively, "Show me!"

"He's seriously asking you to show him it there. That's awful considering the position it's in," Bruce said incredulously as Steve's super strength began tearing up his armchair as he clenched his fists into the material in a fit of sheer anger. There were many things you did not ask a lady to do and that was one of the most heinous.

"It's Rhodey or Piper," Toni said stalling.

"I want to see it," Obie reiterated.

"Okay," Toni said before confidently stating, "Rhodey."

"How did you work out which of your friends told him the secret Lady Toni?" Thor asked curiously.

"Piper wouldn't have asked Obie to hide that it was him which was obviously what Obie was doing but Rhodey is more afraid of my temper and so just in case I got angry about it he decided to ask Obie not to reveal it was him," Toni informed him, "I just made a judgement based on their personalities."

Toni neatly unfastened her sling and let it fall to the floor so she had the use of both of arms and neatly looked around to check if anyone was looking before carefully lowering the neckline of the dress enough that it wasn't excessively revealing but the top of the arc reactor could be seen before letting go of the dress.

"Steve!" Toni shouted, "Stop ripping up my $900 armchair! I will make you get a job so you can pay for it. Don't think I won't." Steve's hands immediately flew up off of the chair as if he had been electrocuted. It wasn't that he objected to doing some work it was just that he was sitting on an armchair that cost more than most of the possessions he had back in Brooklyn in the 40s put together and he still wasn't used to such luxurious items just sitting around for anyone to sit in.

On the bright side despite his embarrassment it did make the team laugh including Toni and Steve didn't really mind that much as long as he was no longer destroying the expensive chair.

"Okay," Obie sighed.

"Okay?" Toni said sarcastically as Obie chuckled shooting a glance at the big arc reactor.

"One of the few times I ever managed to shock him," Toni commented.

"It works," Toni told him firmly.

Obie took in a deep breath and threw his arm around Toni's shoulders before starting in on his next ploy, "Listen to me, Toni. We're a team. Do you understand? There's nothing we can't do if we stick together, like your father and I." The minute her father was mentioned Toni looked anywhere but at Obie and rolled her eyes.

Natasha's eyes narrowed as she watched this scene disturbed that the minute Obie had seen Toni's arc reactor he had changed his tune and was suddenly all for cooperating with Toni on her latest 'whim.' Sure it was an engineering miracle but he was a little too curious for Natasha's tastes. Something was off and maybe she would finally be able to get the real story about Stane's death rather than the one SHIELD had circulated about him being in a plane crash. Well, she had always known that was a false report since it had come from SHIELD but now she was beginning to suspect that some of the theories she had come up with about how he had really died were way off the mark. She didn't like it when her analysis of situations was off and it was slightly off this time and it was annoying her. She had to figure out what Stane's real motives were before they were shown on the screen or she might lose all faith in her abilities as a crack profiler.

"I'm sorry I didn't give you a heads-up, okay?" Toni said bluntly clearly annoyed now Howard had been brought into the conversation, "But if I had…"

"He would have stopped you," Phil said finishing her sentence.

"Toni," Obie interrupted, "Toni, no more of this 'ready, fire, aim,' business. You understand me?"

"That was dad's line," Toni said bitterly.

"What?!" Steve exclaimed.

"His philosophy was that you got the weapon ready, you fired it and it didn't really matter where it landed since you could look afterwards," Toni reiterated, "we are talking about the man who helped kill thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki Steve."

"You gotta let me handle this," Obie insisted, "We're gonna have to play a whole different kind of ball now. We're going to have to take a lot of heat. I want you to promise that you're going to lay low."

"Probably not such a good idea," Bruce realised, "people will start making assumptions about what happened when Toni was in captivity."

"It's a good thing that it didn't take long before she stopped listening to Stane then isn't it?" Phil laughed. In the room he was the only one who knew what had really happened at Stark Industries that night other than Toni because he had been there. Of course that didn't mean he knew everything because he hadn't been present when Piper and Toni had collaborated and brought Stane down for good. He was particularly interested in seeing what had actually happened for the bits of the fight that he wasn't present for.

A/n: Yes, it's short again but I've been busy writing the oneshot which will probably be up tomorrow rather than today due to how late/early in the morning it is right now. Hope you enjoy it anyway :)