Chapter 37 – An Early Test Run
A/n: This chapter has been eagerly awaited so I hope you enjoy it and if you haven't already remember to vote for a oneshot you'd like to see after 450 reviews.
Ashtree1165: I'm glad you were looking forward to this scene and I hope it lives up to your expectations.
youwannabekate: They will eventually see Toni without the reactor in but they won't know about it beforehand. Yeah, no me gusta, they need to be careful but most of them don't have experience with dealing with it. Natasha and Phil will talk them out of the direct approach. JARVIS is a person so it's a big no no!
paisley15: Yeah, it's one of the most fun scenes of any of the movies. Toni's AI's are people and they shouldn't be treated otherwise so I thought the analogy was a good one. I guess we're thinking alike again.
nessa11997: You're welcome :)
Post U Later: Yeah, I'm not the biggest Rhodey fan as is probably evident. Peggy is a character I've always liked so I had to put her in somehow.
XxxBellaBellaxxX: I'm glad you enjoyed it and hope this next scene lives up to your expectations.
Dragones: I never know how much of the film the chapter will cover before I type it because it's mostly based on time and where's best to cut it to get it out to you guys.
LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: Yeah, I'm often sighing the word Rhodey when I watch these movies. Yeah, a lot of the scenes in this film feature a self-destructive Toni.
Booklover2526: I hope you'll enjoy it.
ReenReen: No, they haven't and it will probably be a shock to them if I write it how I think I will. Toni doesn't often completely lose her temper but there she did.
ReadPaxJoy: Yes, we're getting into the funny bits before we revert back to angst. Yes shame on Rhodey! Because poor Toni. Aww… thank you that was a really sweet thing to say :D
Harm Marie: I'm glad.
Lupanari: I'm glad that you like the change of Tony into Toni at least somewhat seeing as you don't like genderbenders. Believe it or not I'm a massive Pepperony fan and I adore Pepper but Piper wrote himself the way he turned out in this story. The primary reason for twisting this came down to the fact that I'm a girl and I don't think I write male lead characters very well. That was it. I'm glad that you like the formatting of the movie sections.
Back in Afghanistan the remaining members of the Ten Rings were digging into the sand as a sandstorm raged around them. Scattered across the landscape were scraps of metal that poked out at odd angles as larger pieces were carted around by other members of the terrorist organisation.
"They're going to try and rebuild the Mark I suit," Steve exclaimed suddenly realising exactly what was going on.
"You shouldn't worry too much," Bruce told Steve reassuringly, "Toni built the arc reactor that was needed to power the suit and that went back to Malibu with her. They couldn't even make the missile that they were tricked into thinking Toni was making when she was actually making the Mark I which looks completely different from a missile. They're clearly not technologically apt and so won't be able to build anything that would power the suit. Especially since Toni wrote down the plans for the suit and not the arc reactor so they may be able to assemble the suit correctly (if they even manage to find all the pieces in a desert) but they can't actually get it to work."
That would have been all well and good if they hadn't been working for Obie was Toni's first thought on the matter. It was true that other attempts made by people more technologically apt had failed miserably. See Hammer's attempts without Ivan Vanko there to actually build the things because while Toni hated to admit it he had at least some technological knowledge even if he was a million light years behind Toni in every field and more so in some than others seeing as all he could do was engineer and he didn't even have a Masters degree in it having stopped at a Bachelor's. The military had definitely been desperate once Toni had withdrawn her tech from the armed forces and had just seized upon Toni's main 'competitor.' Maybe they'd been trying to convince her that Hammer could fill her job just as well as she once had and that would convince her to give them access to her projects again. Look how that had turned out; Hammer was in jail, Toni had a medal and she still hadn't reverted to making weapons. Although she did occasionally make things with defensive purposes to try and save the lives of soldiers.
One of the terrorists uncovered the face mask of the suit and held it up as the sand within it trickled slowly through the eyeholes and he shouted out in a foreign language. Nearer to one of the trucks that they were using for transportation Raza turned around revealing a large burn on one side of his head.
"Wow," Natasha said appreciatively, "very nice shot. Of course it would have been better if it had killed him but still. That looks excruciatingly painful," her grin whilst talking about this was slightly disturbing but what was more disturbing to the Avengers was that they were growing used to things like this happening.
Raza shouted over to the man who had found the face mask and he began to hurry over to the leader of the group and handed him the mask which he inspected with a stone cold expression only magnified by the fact that you couldn't see his eyes behind his improvised sunglasses.
"I know it's unlikely he'll build an Iron Man suit but he still gives me the creeps," Clint admitted, "I was hoping he had died when Toni broke out because I have a feeling all he's going to cause in future is trouble."
Toni herself was wondering why she had never seen Raza and his men again in all her trips to Asia which had included several to Afghanistan and even a couple to Kunar Province exclusively. She knew they had been in league with Obie and that was why they had wanted to kill her originally but she had seriously pissed them off when she managed to escape so why hadn't they come after her again? Were they so scared of the Iron Man suit that they had retreated to their caves and never come out? Yet, it didn't seem logical. The only logical conclusion was that Raza was dead or all of his men were dead. Toni wasn't sure which one she wanted more although both would be extra nice. But Toni didn't usually get rewarded with things that were extra nice.
Back in the lab Toni was working on the boot for the Mark II of the Iron Man suit as Dummy assisted her holding a magnifying glass up for her to look through so she got a better look at the details. "Next," she instructed sharply, "up!"
"Short commands work better with the robots when I'm not communicating with them in code so I tend to use them when I can unless I have to actually explain something to them," Toni said cutting off Steve's rant about the fact that she was always saying her AI's were people (which they were; sentient life forms with human level intelligence and reasoning skills are people no matter what they're made of) then she should treat them better.
"What I can't understand is why Dummy hasn't been programmed to understand lengthy commands or speak English," Phil said confused, "JARVIS does both of those things and you built them within a year of each other. Maybe slightly longer but not by much."
"Dummy was my very first AI so I was learning the ropes of something that nobody had ever done before," Toni informed him, "when I made JARVIS I had gained experience in making Dummy as well as You and Butterfingers. Then it felt wrong to go back and mess with the personality of a thinking being even if it gave Dummy an obsession with fire extinguishers."
"I am sure that Mr Dummy wields his chosen weapon with great skill Lady Stark," Thor boomed happily clearly glad to be talking about something positive again, "this fire extinguisher sounds like it is interesting to work with."
"Thank you," Toni said uncertainly not sure she wanted to know the reasons behind Thor's statement. But she had already sworn never to let him near an AI again after he had scorched Addy (her toaster) when making poptarts and nearly broken a section of You's mechanical arm.
"Not in the boot, Dummy," Toni sighed in exasperation as Dummy tried to hold the glass in the wrong place and pointing out the right one, "Right here. You got me."
"I keep meaning to ask," Steve said suddenly, "why are the names of all your robots so insulting?"
"Firstly," Toni said trying to hold back the anger she was feeling from her tone," don't call them robots. They're not just any kind of robot so you should call them AI's and I would appreciate it if you referred to them as such. Secondly; they're not insulting. Every single name that I give to an AI is based off something that I thought about them when they were first created. Somebody called Dummy 'dumb,' just as I was finishing him because they thought he would never work and then he did so my retort was if he's a 'dummy' then I'd like to see a smart robot hence the name. 'You,' kind of picked his own name because one of the delivery men who came to my house in Arizona where I lived until I turned twenty one could never remember my name and always called me 'You.' Well, 'You,' answered the door once and the delivery guy said the same thing and it stuck. Etcetera etcetera have we had our fill of questioning my motives about my naming habits of my robots now? Because I really don't want to get angry at you and I will if this continues!"
"Yeah," Steve said weakly and Toni's expression turned back to a smile and she turned her attention back to the screen.
"Stay put," Toni told the AI when he was in position, "nice!" After this Dummy moved the magnifying glass closer to Toni's face as her tone became exasperated again, "You're of no benefit at all. Move down to the toe. I've got this."
"You really do mother those AI's," Natasha said with a slight smile. She knew Toni often believed that she was a bad at socialising because she had confided that fact in Natasha back when she had been 'safe' Natalie Rushman. Back when she was not the agent of SHIELD who took away her freedom after a heartfelt confession about how that was one of the worst things someone could do to her. She knew that in all those public situations where Toni appeared to be in her element at least a dozen more masks appeared to hide all the cracks in her façade. This was fairly justified for after all most of her experiences with those events had been with people using her either for business or sex. Mind you Natasha hoped that the social event the pair had gone to had been at least semi-enjoyable for the other woman. It had certainly shocked some of the other members of the party but neither of them had given a damn.
Dummy attempted to lower his mechanical arm straight down which meant that Toni had to briefly shift her arms with a quick quip of, "okay, I'm sorry, am I in your way?" that was obviously an answer to something Dummy had said in code.
"You banter with your AI's as well," Bruce said with a sigh, "I'm pretty sure you banter with everyone at this stage including every single one of your enemies and a lot of people who everybody else is scared of just because you can."
"Life is better with a little bit of banter," Toni said with a shrug, "It keeps life interesting."
"You don't need banter to help you do that Toni," Phil pointed out.
Once Toni had finished with the top of the boot she moved down to the toe herself and once again told Dummy, "up!" but when Dummy got in the way again Toni gave it up as a lost cause, "screw it. Don't even move."
"That's probably the best way to go about it from the start on most occasions but I still hold out hope that one day he'll do another useful thing," Toni sighed. Dummy had been amazing in delivering her the old arc reactor realising that was what she needed but that had been one of his flashes of brilliance. The rest of his time was still inexplicably spent by using a fire extinguisher on innocent victims who weren't actually on fire. Namely her!
"You are a tragedy," Toni deadpanned to Dummy as she finished up her work.
"Lady Toni why are you saying that to Mr Dummy yet when someone else criticises him you are his fiercest defender," Thor inquired.
"It's because Dummy is my creation," Toni replied, "I can point out his faults because I don't really mean anything I'm saying. He was my first AI and yes he's not as good as the others but he's still an AI. When anyone else says things like that they genuinely mean them and Dummy knows the difference. Remember he does have a personality. People often think some of my older AI's don't simply because they don't speak English like JARVIS does but they're wrong. In a way their personalities are more defined because they have their little quirks that I wasn't able to spot and iron out of the systems at the time. JARVIS only has a full range of human like responses like sarcasm because I installed upgrades whereas my other AI's are sarcastic because they weren't programmed not to be in the original blueprints."
Toni neatly opened up the back of the boot and the next scene was shown through a video camera of Toni wearing the boots along with some other equipment that was strapped across her chest and connected to the reactor so she could practice with the suit.
"I have a feeling there were a lot of mishaps when you started working with the suit," Natasha said smiling having a feeling that segments of this next section would be highly amusing. Mind you if Toni got seriously hurt during tests it would be as funny and it was always a possibility.
This possibility also seemed to have occurred to Steve and Bruce who both knew either by virtue of their complete ignorance of how the suit worked or through their fundamental knowledge of how complicated it was that it couldn't be easy to pilot and that anyone who would laugh at Toni's possible incidents wouldn't understand just how hard piloting the suit had to be. Toni herself was just resigned to watching the early tests which were the most embarrassing ones for her.
"Okay," Toni said stepping back her footsteps echoing on the marble floor due to the metal boots she wore, "let's do this right."
"Those aren't your repulsors," Bruce said noticing the more primitive flight controls that she held in her hands. Mind you they were primitive by Toni's standards; those were probably some of the most advanced technology in the world at the time other than anything else made by Toni later on. To be honest they probably still were.
"Start mark, half a metre, and back and centre," Toni stated for posterity knowing that every little detail of her account would be important if anything went wrong. Then she turned to her AI who was looking at the ground, "Dummy, look alive! You're on standby for fire safety."
"I'm guessing this is where the fire extinguisher obsession began," Clint said with a laugh. He received a glare from Toni but for once it didn't deter them because the thought of a robot – sorry, AI with an obsession for spraying foam and/or gas over everything was too funny not to laugh at. Although it wasn't nearly as funny when JARVIS did it to him when he was in the vents.
"You, roll it," Toni told the AI with the camera who had actually already started filming the scene prematurely, "Okay, activate hand controls," Here she placed her hands out in front of her an equal distance apart so that she should keep balance in the air. There was a distinct hum of the devices powering up as Toni said softly, "we're going to start out nice and easy. We're gonna see if ten percent thrust capacity achieves lift."
"If it was anyone attempting to fly with that much power I'd say no way but it's you so…" Natasha said trailing off. She had the sickening thought that 10 percent thrust capacity would end up with Toni getting injured from the sheer amount of power Toni put into these things.
"And three, two, one," Toni counted down before pushing down on the lever on the hand controls but it was too much power and Toni flew backwards colliding with the ceiling with an audible thump and collapsing to the ground as Dummy began spraying her with the fire extinguisher.
Thor and Clint were chuckling away at the situation but a quick glare from Natasha accompanied by a barked out statement of, "are you insane? I know it looks kind of funny but Toni isn't wearing any protection on her head which just collided with a stone surface at a hurtling pace. She could have been unlucky enough to need surgery after a hit like that!"
"I was fine by the way," Toni said as the team began to look her over fervently as if some sign of that collision might still show on Toni to this day. Okay, so maybe there was a slight scar on her back from where the sharp edge of that part of the ceiling had dug into it but it hadn't even hurt at the time. She was fine!
The next shot showed Toni typing furiously on one of her keyboards creating designs for what looked like a prototype of her repulsors. Her only pause was to take a sip of her coffee which had probably been made for her by Peggy. The next shot was of her back at her hologram board arranging pieces to form a model of the repulsor.
"So you're going to build that to make flight easier?" Clint said confused, "I thought you said earlier that you had the repulsor technology in the Jericho so wouldn't it have occurred to you when you were first starting out that you should try them for manned flight."
"Variables needed more testing and I had another quicker option that should have worked," Toni told him, "I underestimated my own talent in how powerful I could make the things. Plus, I was aiming for a flight stabiliser and as I initially designed the repulsors to assist with weapons they didn't immediately spring to mind okay."
A/n – Sorry, this is actually very little scene to commentrary ratio but the problem is I feel totally abysmal right now and if I stay up to write anymore I feel like I may faint and probably get in trouble for being up writing at 4:30am so I'm sorry but this one is short. Please don't kill me