Chapter 36 – Talking To Rhodey

A/N – I was almost overwhelmed when I saw the sheer amount of reviews I got for the last chapter and I nearly started crying. I just… I love you all so much. So, I came up with two new ways to reward you with oneshots. Up until I hit 400 reviews everyone can leave an idea for a oneshot they want to see written for this verse in their review and once we hit 400 I will choose the one I like the best and write it. There's also a poll on my profile for the one that will be written when we hit 450 so you should all vote on that.

Tranquillity's Chaos: Updating! /scaredface

paisley15: I know it's like you acknowledged that is keeping him alive but you're not putting it in as fast as you can! Aww… you can help me somehow :D

ReadPaxJoy: Aww, that's sweet. Still going to get it up asap because it would annoy me. Yeah, sentiment has to be very carefully used and Piper/Pepper didn't do very well with that concept. I might if I was any good at writing Thor but I'm not. I'm glad you liked the extra info in IF :)

XxxBellaBellaxxX and Harm Marie: I'm glad you liked it.

FudoTwin17: I'm very glad that you do.

SparkleNicole: I'm glad you liked it and I hope you like this one too.

LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: She should definitely get Tasha to do it :D Bet she wishes she had Tasha back then :D I'm glad you really liked it and yes sentiment has its good and bad sides.

ReenReen: Well maybe I'll write it in future but right now it's obsolete because it's not out yet. I'm glad you liked it.

ReaderoftheBooks: I'm really glad that you're liking this story so far. And it's okay; I understand people don't always have time to review.

nessa11997: You're welcome

Booklover2526: I'm really glad you liked that scene because I always found it really stupid because NO everything is NOT going to be alright at this particular moment because the arc reactor isn't in because you're not putting it in.

twilightjazz: I only tend to post a short chapter if I'm working on a TAAC oneshot or I literally do not have the time to type anymore but I try my best to keep them as long as I can and I'm very glad that you want more of this story after you read.

Post U Later: Yeah, Piper is ridiculously slow in that scene.

A change of scene to some sort of military base with a fighter jet rolling along the runway as Rhodey's voice could be heard giving a speech, "The future of air combat," here the scene switched to inside the hanger where Rhodey was giving a speech to some airmen, "Is it manned or unmanned?"

"If he says unmanned I will punch him the next time I see him," Clint informed Toni and was puzzled when instead of the glare he was expecting she instead gave him a shrug. The truth was that she had still never forgiven Rhodey for the theft of what had eventually become the War Machine armour but hadn't been able to bring herself to punish him for it in any real meaningful way. Maybe Clint punching him would have made her feel better. Not that he would because Rhodey believed that manned aircraft were better anyway. Maybe she could come up with an excuse to get him to punch Rhodey anyway. That theory was far too good to not test.

"I'll tell you," Rhodey informed them, "in my experience, no unmanned aerial vehicle will ever trump a pilot's instinct, his insight, that ability to look into a situation beyond the obvious and discern its outcome, or a pilot's judgement."

"Thank god," Clint said, "because I was serious about punching him if he'd said unmanned. Everything he said there is true."

"Colonel?" Toni said appearing from behind one of the planes, "why not a pilot without the plane?"

"Which is basically what your suit is," Natasha realised, "you told him that early!?"

"What I want to know is why he looks so guilty now that you've appeared," Steve asked having recognised the look of guilt on Rhodey's face because he'd been seeing it on his own in the mirror a lot lately whenever he thought about the irrational things he'd said to Toni on the helicarrier.

"Because he basically parroted a speech I made to him back at MIT and he didn't think I was there to see that he turned it into a keynote speech for new recruits that were fortunate enough to end up under his tutelage," Toni informed her, "I didn't really mind him using it but he didn't tell me he was going to. It's why I ended up making fun of him shortly after this."

"Look who fell out the sky," Rhodey quipped, "Miss Toni Stark."

"Hello ma'am," one of the pilots shaking her hand as Toni began to tease Rhodey, "Speaking of manned and unmanned, you gotta get him to tell you about the time he guessed wrong at spring break. Just remember that, spring break, 1987."

"I can forgive the transgression as long as it was that long ago," Clint said although he was still frowning obviously wondering how anyone could ever think that unmanned crafts would be better. Even Toni knew that manned crafts were better and as far as he knew she could only fly her suit and the quinjet. Mind you these films had already proven that he didn't know as much about the real Toni as he thought he had.

"That lovely lady you woke up with," Toni kept teasing and Rhodey immediately realised what Toni was about to say and quickly intervened with a, "don't do that!"

"Like that's going to stop Toni if she's cross at you," Natasha scoffed, "honestly! I know you much better than all of people who claim to be your best friends."

"Best friends, only friends," Toni said with a shrug, "same thing!"

"What was his name?" Toni continued undeterred causing the airmen to laugh raucously as Rhodey repeated, "Don't do that."

"Was it Ivan?" Toni still wasn't at all bothered by Rhodey's protests, "Don't do that. They'll believe it. Don't do that."

"Of course they would believe it," Toni said, "that was the entire point. It was true anyway. That did happen even if he fervently tries to claim that it didn't. Maybe I should be offended because he denies sleeping with me just as much as he does waking up next to a guy."

"Wait," Steve said confused, "you slept with Rhodey too."

"You know just for the sake of all of our sanities you should probably assume that anyone I knew before Afghanistan is someone I've slept with," Toni told him matter-of-factly, "Rhodey was one of the few who actually wanted a relationship with me afterwards but as you can clearly see I'm kryptonite for relationships so I turned him down. Settled for letting our friendship go back to the way it was."

"How could you have known that it wouldn't work?" Bruce said in a carefully blank tone, "you might have been able to get something stable in your life which I know you want even if you won't admit to it. That's why you let Piper into a relationship with you in the first place even though you were worried about how the public would view it."

"Maybe it would have worked," Toni admitted, "but back then the age gap between us was much more obvious. Besides nowadays I'm pretty sure those feelings are long gone so they would have faded even more quickly if he'd actually been subjected to a pre-Afghanistan me in a relationship."

"Okay," Toni said now clearly annoyed by Rhodey's repetition of the phrase which he used another time not realising that she had stopped teasing him.

"He's being a bit slow on the uptake there," Clint commented.

"Pleasure meeting you," Toni told the airmen sincerely as Rhodey asked them to, "give us a couple of minutes, you guys."

As the pilots wandered off to different parts of the base so they could avoid being within earshot of the conversation Rhodey laughingly told Toni, "I'm surprised!"

"Seriously," Natasha sighed, "why on Earth do these people claim to know you? Maybe you're not the most predictable person on the planet but that action was fairly predictable but if you needed to see Rhodey then you needed to see Rhodey." Natasha couldn't help but worry about Toni especially since out of all the Avengers including Bruce she probably knew Toni the best as a consequence of knowing her the longest and having been her friend for almost the same amount of time. Sure, they still had overwhelming trust issues because Natasha had gone along with Fury's plan once they had found out about the palladium poisoning even though Toni had confided in her that her freedom was the most important thing she had left. Natasha regretted that she took the choice away from Toni as to whether she should live or die even though she was obviously happy that Toni hadn't died in the end. She had figured out a while back that there was no way someone as intelligent as Toni hadn't figured out that she could synthesise a new element which would save her from her fate a lot earlier than SHIELD had seeing as the people there had absolutely no common sense. Something that Toni had in abundance even if she didn't always use it. But she felt bad about wanting to break through Toni's masks when she still had ever so many of her own that she didn't want the other woman breaking through. They were the ones that hid her experiences before she joined SHIELD and some from afterwards. She knew Toni suspected some things just as Natasha suspected that some things were hiding behind Toni's masks but that didn't mean either of them wanted to give the other confirmation of what they suspected. Their self-preservation was too strong for that. The problem was the others were going to want to get through Toni's shields and Natasha knew that it was likely to drive Toni even further away from them and she couldn't lose the only female friend she had.

"Why?" Toni asked.

"I swear, I didn't expect to see you walking around so soon," Rhodey said with a smile.

"I'm almost convinced you two are actually strangers at this stage," Bruce said incredulously. Mind you maybe Toni's bad habits with hospitals had only started after she had been hooked up the arc reactor and become afflicted with constant pain every hour of every day. Bruce winced at that thought; he didn't like the thought of his friend suffering just for managing to survive a situation that would have killed practically anybody else. They would either have resisted for a shorter amount of time than Toni and then given in or given in straight away and as soon as they were done they would have been killed. Even if they had been strong enough to refuse for that length of time they wouldn't have been intelligent enough to trick their way into an escape. Well, nobody else would have been able to build the arc reactor anyway so would have died in the week after the electromagnet stopped working correctly. In a way maybe Toni had been the best person in the world to be stuck in that situation. Even in his head Bruce knew that sounded cruel but he couldn't help thinking that it was true because anyone else would never have gotten out of the situation alive and it was possible that the terrorists would have ended up with the weapons in the end. Then Iron Man would never have existed and Manhattan and the Avengers would have been completely wiped out by a nuclear bomb. Well, actually several of them would have died when the helicarrier crashed before they reached that point.

"I'm doing a little better than walking," Toni scoffed offended that he thought she was an invalid because of what had happened to her in Afghanistan.

"Even I know you shouldn't treat Toni like an invalid," Steve said incredulously, "and this guy claimed he would always know you better than I would when we first met in return for the comments I made. I was wrong about Toni but he was clearly wrong about that!"

"Really?" Rhodey questioned and Toni answered with a quick, "yeah! Rhodey, I'm working on something big. I came to talk to you. I want you to be a part of it."

"He's going to assume you're going back on your word at the press conference," Clint predicted, "although to be fair to him you didn't specify what you wanted him to be a part of. Still it's just like Natasha has been saying. He should know better than to assume you would go back on something that you announced so publically and with such conviction."

Rhodey smiled more genuinely this time saying, "you're about to make a whole lot of people around here real happy, cause that little stunt at the press conference, that was a doozy."

"What is a 'doozy,' Lady Toni?" Thor inquired.

"It's not even worth the explanation Thor," Toni told him, "It's not complimentary. Let's just leave it at that instead of making the situation more complicated than is absolutely necessary."

"This is not for the military," Toni said considering each word for a moment before she spoke, "I'm not… It's different!"

Rhodey's face instantly fixed itself into a half-puzzled half-frowning expression as he spoke again in a less positive tone, "What? You're a humanitarian now or something?"

"I need you to listen to me," Toni insisted but Rhodey was no longer listening to Toni, "no! What you need is time to get your mind right."

"And here we go…" Toni sighed.

"How dare the Friend of Toni say such a thing to the Lady? You should demand retribution from your so called friend for such a grievous insult to you."

"Everyone thought I had PTSD," Toni snorted, "not like he was the only one. I'm over it already."

'No, you're not,' was Natasha's first thought on the matter. She knew that Toni really did have PTSD when she came back. Well, she suspected technically since she wasn't a doctor but it was one of the things that she had seen through Toni's multitude of masks and so was probably an accurate conclusion. Plus, her distrust of Rhodey was probably influenced by this moment as well. Because one of her other memories associated with both Rhodey and the Iron Man suit was of him telling her that she didn't have any clue what she was doing because she had been in a traumatic situation. Weren't army types briefed for these situations and told the first thing to do was to let the person live as normal a life as they could? идиот!

Toni's forced a painful smile as Rhodey told her, "I'm serious!"

"Okay," Toni said bitterly before Rhodey began to walk away telling her, "It's nice seeing you, Toni!"

"Could he be a lousier liar?" Phil muttered. He had quite liked Rhodey the last time he had met him but he wasn't sure that he liked the man anymore. The last thing you said to someone with suspected PTSD was that they had a problem before they were willing to talk about it. Maybe that was why to this day Toni never admitted to anybody that she had in the past suffered from PTSD. But then again, was it in the past? Or was she still suffering from it? Phil couldn't really tell.

"Thanks," Toni muttered sadly as the scene cut to an exterior shot of the Malibu mansion before changing to Toni's hands sliding across a holographic keyboard to switch it on revealing it was all in code.

"I've been meaning to ask for a while," Bruce remembered, "but all of my keyboards are the only ones in the Tower with English characters. Why?"

"The code that I use on the keyboards is the code that Dummy, You, Butterfingers, Peggy and the rest speak in. So I put it on my keyboards to make it easier to update their programmes. Occasionally I just use it in its spoken form when I want to communicate with them on a more one-to-one level," Toni explained.

"Peggy?!" Steve said quietly.

"Well, yeah," Toni replied gently, "she is my godmother after all and the only real role model I had in my younger life. The Peggy that lives in my Malibu mansion is the coffee maker. Almost every appliance in this house is at least partially sentient as you all should have gathered by now."

"No higher honour than being allowed to make Toni's coffee," Phil quipped, "sometimes I think she's surgically attached to her coffee mugs."

"Coffee is the most amazing invention of the planet," Toni said darkly, "do not hate on my coffee because I am not above withholding it when I'm being cranky."

"I would shut up," Clint whispered to Phil, "if Toni's being cranky you need either coffee or alcohol and she locks up all her alcohol when she's not drinking it. You do not want her to follow through on that threat and she really will."

"I sense the voice of experience," Phil said raising his eyebrow.

"She makes really good coffee okay!" Clint exclaimed and it came out much louder than he intended it to meaning that almost everyone in the room burst out laughing at this statement except for Steve who was still getting used to the fact that there was something in that house modelled after his ex-flame.

"JARVIS, you up?" Toni asked quietly.

"For you, ma'am, always," JARVIS responded.

"Your AI seems much politer back then than he does now," Clint said frowning confused. Wasn't JARVIS the same in every single one of Toni's residences or was there a separate JARVIS for every building?

"I've added some new sarcasm upgrades since then," Toni said nonchalantly with a shrug, "he wasn't giving witty enough responses to my jokes."

"I'd like to open a new project file," Toni told him pulling up images of the Mark I Iron Man suit and picking up some sort of pen, "index as Mark II." Here she used the pen like device to pull the schematics for the Iron Man Mark II suit towards the holographic board as JARVIS asked, "Shall I store this on the Stark Industries Central Database?"

"There's no way Toni's going to do that with the designs for her suit," Phil said, "there's never been any trace of the designs that I know of on the Stark Industries Central Database. Not that anyone's ever gotten very far into the coding because Toni came up with it. The only things that are more secure are her personal files and the coding to get into JARVIS. And I only know this through guesswork," he concluded before Toni got angry at him.

"Please," Toni said dangerously, "I already destroyed most of what the two SHIELD idiots who attempted to break into JARVIS had to their name. Still haven't confronted Fury about it because I can't think of a punishment severe enough that it fits the crime."

Natasha blanched. JARVIS was for all intents and purposes a person and Fury had tried to get at him which was probably something akin to rape in Toni's mind at least. And she had no doubts that Fury was going to regret the utter failure of that attempt for all time. She was just grateful this was the first she had heard about it because no doubt Toni would be talking to Phil about his loyalties and probably shout at him for about half an hour about his transgression before forgiving him. For some reason she really had a soft spot for Phil.

"Actually," Toni said walking over to the hologram of the Mark I suit, "I don't know who to trust right now. Till further notice, why don't we just keep everything on my private server?"

"Working on a secret project are we, ma'am?" JARVIS said knowingly as the components of the hologram slid into place displaying the complete Iron Man suit that Toni had used to break out of her captive situation. She instantly flipped open the helmet and began discarding parts of it into the holographic trash bin telling JARVIS, "I don't want this winding up in the wrong hands. Maybe in mine, it can actually do some good." With this last phrase she sent the hologram spinning.

"And you did!" Steve said jumping on the give Toni more self-worth bandwagon, "we never could have saved the world without what you did. And I've seen the newspaper articles about how you stabilised the East-West relations."

"Thank you," Toni said quietly.

A/n – I know it's short but so is that scene in the movie. Coming up next is the testing of the Iron Man suit :D