Chapter 38 – A Missed Meeting

A/n: Thank you all for the well wishes those of you who gave them because I really was feeling pretty awful when I was writing the last chapter. Still not the greatest right now but I'm feeling slightly better. This chapter has my first furrow into Thor's mind. PLEASE COMMENT ON IT! I just still think I suck at writing him so /shrugs

ReadPaxJoy: Glad you still liked it. And I love Dummy; and the other AI's but especially Dummy and his fire extinguisher. Yeah, I've seen other stories treat it like it's nothing but funny and while I recognise that it looks funny a hit like that to just the right spot on your head could easily kill you so I decided to address that. 9 HOURS! I'm lucky if I get 2 cause I have chronic insomnia. That's partially why you guys get chapters every day.

HockeyGal09: I'm glad you're liking it and no I'm not purely because it wouldn't work with this timeline as it isn't canon in relation to this story.

paisley15: I'm glad you liked it and thank you. Thinking like me is cool :) Honestly! I'm only slightly crazy

XxxBellaBellaxxX: I'm glad you liked it and here is some more for you

Booklover2526: More mishaps coming right up :D

nessa11997: You're welcome!

Post U Later: I'm glad you liked it as I always see Toni/y as being very protective of the AI's because come on they are basically her children.

Dragones: Yay, I'm not going to get killed. Have some more

Avengers-Are-My-World-23: A) most of the reasons will be explained later on in the story, b) one scene from TIH will be shown and c) mainly because I would find it hard to tie it in to the story.

ReenReen: I'm glad you appreciate my updating speed :D To be perfectly honest I have no idea considering the fact that I don't know how long any of them are going to be so it could be a while.

LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: I'm pretty sure I am mostly nocturnal really :D Yeah, it is. Not sure about brain damage but it had to bloody hurt and I thought the scar was realistic too.

Blink-182-98: Hey! I'm so glad you like it and thank you very much for the compliment :D I love Deadpool too and I'd love to bring him in which means he'll probably make cameos in the sequels just because I can. He won't be in this story though

The plans for the repulsors were soon turned into a working model that Toni closed over her arm and began fine tuning as Piper could be seen beginning to come down the stairs to the lab.

"Okay," Natasha said, "I'm betting Piper's going to be confused because I have a feeling that the power in the repulsors is enough for them to be used as a weapon as well as a flight stabiliser even at this stage and you've only just quit making weapons."

"Well," Toni said with a shrug, "half the world still assumes that I'm going to eventually use the suit as a giant weapon anyway or that it already is just a weapon instead of a shield as you know very well Tasha."

"Yeah," Natasha acknowledged, "mind you I think most of them are too scared to really come after you for it anymore. You're too good at humiliating them when they try."

"If they try and take my tech they deserve it," Toni muttered softly but darkly. Bruce was the only one who really heard all that she was saying and the tone kind of scared him. He was extremely glad that it had been Steve who had immediately gotten on Toni's bad side and had to work up to being her friend rather than him. He was quite content with never doing anything to anger his first true friend since the accident who hadn't left him either by choice or because they had been forced. And it wasn't like Toni hadn't been under significant pressure to abandon her protection of him so that the military could take him in for testing. Bruce would always treasure the memory of her punching General Ross in the face for the mere suggestion that she would leave Bruce behind and talking her way out of any punishment for it. It was one of the many aspects of Toni that people didn't expect; she could be extraordinarily loyal to people but only if you let her analyse you so she could see for herself that you were worth it. Most people Bruce knew would not meet Toni's standards of worth it for good reason. And looking at these movies and events that had happened whilst watching them Bruce knew that even people Toni was loyal to hardly ever awarded her the same courtesy putting their loyalty elsewhere. Rhodey's loyalty was to the military first and foremost which was understandable due to the job he held but going so far as to tell Toni that something was wrong with her just because she did something he didn't particularly like was a huge display of distrust. He highly doubted that Rhodey and Toni had the same level of trust now that they did before Toni was captured in Afghanistan even though Toni was in her own words 'a better person now.'

Toni spared Piper a glance as he entered the room balancing a cup of coffee on top of a brown package and then Toni returned to her work muttering, "up two. Alright, set that!"

"That must take some getting used to when someone first starts working for you," Steve said matter-of-factly.

"Trust me it's a little strange to go looking for her at 5am and find that she's done seven more projects since you left her at 2am," Natasha informed the group.

"What were you doing going to see Toni at 5am?" Clint said confused.

"Couldn't sleep and I knew that Toni didn't (and still doesn't) sleep so I figured I would go and see if she had made any more progress on the designs she had been working on when I left. Saw she was finished with them and asked to see them and ended up seeing all the other ones on the completed list," Natasha explained, "We spent a lot of early mornings talking about things when neither of us could physically go to sleep."

"By talking you mean drinking and talking," Clint said accusingly receiving a synchronised, "so!?" from the women in the room which immediately shut him up.

"Everyone ends up drinking with Toni at some point Clint," Phil informed him.

"You too Agent Coulson," Bruce said shocked.

"She has good alcohol, I was off duty and she was willing to talk to me about Audrey," Phil explained his voice betraying a hint of sadness towards the end knowing Fury would have talked to his girlfriend and told her he was dead just to cut all ties with his old life despite the fact that he was still alive.

"Oh yeah," Toni said remembering something, "I got in contact with Aud and told her you weren't dead. She's coming back from Portland to see you soon and seeing as you don't work for SHIELD anymore…"

Phil seemed to have been made speechless for the first time in his life opening and closing his mouth in a rather realistic goldfish impression as he tried to think about what to say. Clint however seemed to have something to say about this revelation, "You talk to Phil's girlfriend so often that you have a nickname for her?!"

"Well Phil introduced us once and she didn't know anyone else who knew Phil because he couldn't let her meet any of his colleagues obviously. So we ended up talking for longer than Phil thought we would and then she gave me her number," Toni said with a shrug, "it's nice to talk to Aud when Tasha's not here and I actually need to talk to a women who'll understand some of the things I'm saying."

"True," Natasha said understanding the logic, "I usually just call you anyway. And listen to you typing as we talk."

"Well, I can't stop working for a phone call," Toni pointed out, "I basically have four jobs so I need to work on at least one of them at a time so I can get everything I need to do done before people start shouting at me because I'm behind my usual rate which is coincidentally slightly unreasonable. After all anybody else would take at least three days longer and probably charge more than my usual rate and my rate in getting things to you is extended because I sometimes finish something and then get so caught up in working on the next things I'm needed for that I don't send it off straight after I've finished it. Well, SHIELD isn't getting anything from me anymore so that cuts it down to three jobs. I might get bored with less to do actually so maybe I should start working on some of the projects that I thought up when I was younger and see how I can tweak them with my new technology. Should probably upgrade the StarkPhone a couple more times too!" By the end of this speech Toni was speaking in a quiet mutter making updates on her StarkPad as the others turned back to watching the film. Toni had been there for all of this so there was no point in telling her to be pay attention besides she was beyond capable of multitasking and they didn't want another 'Toni lecture' which would last for ages just because one of them was stupid enough to piss off an already on edge Toni Stark again.

"I've been buzzing you," Piper said irritated, "did you hear the intercom?"

"Probably," everyone but Toni said in unison.

"Yeah, everything's…" Toni said focusing on working out any glitches with the arm, "what?"

"Obadiah's upstairs," Piper informed her.

Steve frowned, "I really hope he doesn't show up too often. At first I was offended that we hadn't been introduced but now I really don't want to be introduced to him. He just makes me feel uncomfortable for some reason."

"A very good one," Toni said but refused to elaborate on what exactly she meant by that so the others decided to leave it. They knew the drill. If it doesn't come up you can ask later.

"Great, great, I'll be right up," Toni muttered using her other arm to raise the one encased in the repulsor housing and keeping it as level as she could.

"I thought you said you were done making weapons," Piper said disapprovingly obviously wondering why Toni was making him do a complete overhaul of the company if she was just planning on returning to her old ways.

Bruce frowned because this was just another person who didn't believe that Toni would keep to her word to stop making the weapons she had made for so long. Didn't they realise that while yes a traumatising experience could give you serious issues, it might also make you take another look at your life and realise that the things you were doing with it weren't what you truly wanted. Especially when the experience was one like Toni's where you were shown up close and personal that the people who admired you for your work were terrorists and were using your work to kill innocent people. The very people that you had built those weapons to protect in the first place. He didn't believe for a second that Toni didn't have issues related to her kidnapping and torture no matter how effective a front she presented but he knew that Toni would never have let it mess with her important decisions because she was far too stubborn for that even against her own thoughts. Just like she was stubborn about anything else in her life including making friends just because they might see through just one of her masks and begin to decipher the whole picture. That was why Bruce had been so surprised that Toni had let them all – plus Erik, Jane and Darcy – move into the tower in the first place because the more people she surrounded herself with (whether she became friendly with them or not) the more people there were to put together the pieces of the puzzle which was Toni Stark. And that was the last thing that she wanted but it had already begun.

"I am," Toni said defensively, "This is a flight stabiliser. It's completely harmless." She didn't back up this statement very well because the moment she pushed the button to activate the stabiliser it powered up and blasted her backwards from the sheer amount of power put in it. Piper clutched at his ears from the noise looking horrified.

Thor found this display most amusing but knew better than to say this in front of the Lady Natasha. Of course he understood that any of these incidents could have seriously hurt the Lady Toni and if that had happened he would have been resisting the urge to hurl Mjolnir through the screen instead of resisting the urge to laugh but as he could see no evidence of grievous wounds on Lady Toni today it was hard for him not to find the situation terribly humorous. And the actions of Mr Potts are also highly amusing but his shield brothers were sure to assume that he was laughing distastefully at Lady Toni's suffering and his explanations took time that they did not have. So he refrained from his laughter and fought to keep a straight face.

"I didn't expect that," Toni sighed as Piper shot a worried look at the place where she was lying on the floor. In the next shot the piano could be heard playing as Toni walked up the stairs from her lab arc reactor shining out through her purple tank top. "How'd it go?" she asked as it was revealed that it was Obie who was playing the piano.

Toni shuddered a little at the thought of Obie's fingers being the last to play one of her much beloved pianos. Mind you the new one that she had bought was exactly the same and if she hadn't crashed through that one in her suit she would have eventually trashed it to get rid of any trace of Obie that remained in her house. Maybe it was for the best that destroying it was an accident because she really did love her musical instruments and destroying it would not have been easy for her.

Toni suddenly spotted the pizza box sitting on her coffee table, "It went that bad, huh?"

"How is bringing you pizza bad?" Steve asked confused. He thought Toni liked pizza; she certainly ordered it in for the whole group often enough and she quite happily ate it. Of course he found the pizza slightly weird because it tasted very different from how it was in the 40's but there was nothing really wrong with it so why was bringing pizza a bad thing?

"Obie… well let's just say pizza is comfort food," Toni said stiltedly, "he only brought it back when something went wrong."

"Just because I brought pizza back from New York doesn't mean it went bad," Obie insisted still focused on his playing.

"Sure doesn't," Toni said sarcastically before she opened the box and exclaimed, "oh boy!"

"It would have gone better if you were there," Obie told her as she picked up one of the slices of pizza choosing not to focus on him.

"I thought he told you to lie low," Clint said confused, "is he changing his mind and expecting you to instantly know that he's made a different decision?"

"No," Toni said shortly, "however he is assuming that I actually look at my schedule when I get caught up in a project which is a big mistake. Piper makes sure I actually stick to things I absolutely need to be present for and seeing as he knew I was keeping a low profile he didn't bother telling me about it. Besides Obie didn't really mind that I wasn't there. Not really!"

Yet another person who didn't know Toni very well was Natasha's first thought on the subject. Mind you it was probably a good thing in the end that Obie didn't know all that much about the real Toni because it meant that whatever happened that night at Stark Industries Toni's movements hadn't been totally predictable to Stane. Natasha was almost certain now that they were going to see that scene and find out what had really happened. They'd already seen the suit being rebuilt in Afghanistan and these movies seemed to be running at the standard length for a particularly action packed feature film which meant there was still a lot of this one left giving them plenty of time to get to that point in Toni's life. It also meant there probably wasn't enough time for her to show up and for the movie to cover all the events surrounding Toni dying slowly of palladium poisoning including the big battles against Ivan Vanko. Natasha knew there were two options as to what would happen about that data. Either Amora hadn't included it because she thought none of it was incriminating enough to turn them against Toni and they wouldn't see it or they were going to have a to watch a second feature length film of Toni suffering in complete agony and Natasha betraying her trust on one of the worst ways possible. Natasha had a sickening feeling it would be the latter. Poor Toni! And it wasn't that great for her either.

"You told me to lay low," Toni pointed out as Obie came down from the piano. She was much more interested in eating her slice of pizza than hearing Obie complain something that they had already covered, "that's what I've been doing. I lay low, and you take care of all…"

"Hey, come on, in public, the press," Obie said sitting down opposite Toni, "this was a board of directors meeting."

"And nobody told you about it," Bruce exclaimed.

"Piper probably assumed that Obie had told me about the meeting and that I'd just chosen not to go because I couldn't be bothered being responsible or something," Toni said knowing this was the most likely reason.

"What about Mr Stane?" Thor inquired, "did he assume that Mr Potts had told you?"

The silence that met this question was eerie and so the others quickly turned back to the television and watched the movie to get some noise in the room to get rid of it. They also avoided eye contact with Toni whose expression had darkened drastically.

"This was a board of directors meeting?" Toni said surprised.

"The board is claiming you have posttraumatic stress," Obie informed her solemnly, "They're filing an injunction."

Bruce muttered a few choice words under his breath upon hearing this. Idiots! Everyone was just assuming that because Toni had finally realised that she didn't like what she was doing and wanted to end it that she had lost her mind. Rhodey, Obie, the board even Piper to some extent. Okay so she had PTSD but it wasn't interfering with her work. In any way and that would have been the first clue that something was seriously wrong yet she still had her work ethic. This was Obie's fault for telling her to hide away because people thought that she wasn't fit and that's why she wasn't appearing. Everything bad in the company seemed to be Obie's fault at this point actually. Was that on purpose or was he just ignorant? But hadn't he been the CEO before Toni and so he should know what to do in business? Something was extremely fishy about Obadiah Stane but Bruce just couldn't put his finger on the exact problem.

"A what?" Toni exclaimed angrily.

"They want to lock you out," Obie told her.

"How do they have the authority to stop you going to work in your own company Lady Toni?" Thor asked.

"There's no point in explaining the whole business system right now Thor," Toni told him, "I'll send some files to Jane for you and she can show you how to access them. Would that be okay?"

"Of course Lady Toni," Thor said most pleased that he would get to spend more time with Lady Jane when she wasn't working on one of her science projects and he felt like a nuisance for staying around her.

"Why," Toni said her words getting more and more heated as she continued speaking, "'cause the stocks dipped 40 points? We knew that was going to happen."

Piper looked over to Toni sadly and stared blankly at her before saying in a monotone, "Fifty-six and a half."

"That's not going to help Piper," Phil sighed exasperatedly. They didn't need the specifics that Piper dealt in right now when Toni was trying to make her point against something that was preventing her from changing the world for the better. He knew why Obie had done it of course having gotten the full report from Toni (although he suspected it was in actual fact an abridged version) but it still frustrated him that Toni was getting blocked at every turn by a mixture of foul play and complete ignorance.

"It doesn't matter," Toni said turning her anger on Piper for pointing out the discrepancy, "we own the controlling interest in the company."

"Toni," Obie attempted to reason, "the board has rights, too."

"Not as many as I do," Toni said with a scowl, "I kicked most of that board out anyway," the next part was said so quietly that not even Bruce could hear it, "most of them were in league with Obie anyway. No double dealing in my company. I am not my father."

"They're making the case that you and your new direction isn't in the company's best interest," Obie told her matter-of-factly.

"I'd like to see their faces now that the stocks are the highest they've been for Stark Industries ever as well as all of her sub-companies. I'm betting they withdrew their stocks when Toni had them removed," Natasha said amused.

"I'm being responsible!" Toni stated angrily, "That's a new direction for me, for the company," when she saw Obie's unconvinced look she tried to explain it in terms he would get, "I mean, me on the company's behalf being responsible for the way that…" Here Toni appeared to give it up as a lost cause and sprung to her feet with a muttered, "this is great," taking the pizza box with her.

"That's the best way to get revenge," Clint said sarcastically, "withhold pizza!"

"Oh, come on, Toni, Toni," Obie said attempting to get Toni's attention back but she was already more than fed up with the conversation, "I'll be in the shop," she told him as she wandered away.

"Hey, hey!" Obie tried again actually getting up and walking over to Toni putting his hand on her shoulder, "Hey, Toni. Listen! I'm trying to turn this thing around but you gotta give me something. Something to pitch them."

"He had better not be suggesting what I think he is," Steve said knowing that it was probably something to do with the arc reactor and getting the plans of it.

"Let me have the engineers analyse that," Obie said pointing at the arc reactor in Toni's chest, "You know, draw up some specs."

"Completely ignoring the fact that removing it for long enough would end in her death because Piper's incinerated the other one and it can't be removed for more than twenty minutes," Bruce spat out his skin becoming alarmingly green tinged but Toni grabbed a hold of his arm silently telling him that she was still there and his skin reverted back to its original colour.

"No," Toni exclaimed, "no, absolutely not!"

"It'll give me a bone to throw to the guys in New York," Obie said throwing in what had to be his most convincing voice.

"This one stays with me," Toni told him firmly, "That's it, Obie! Forget it!"

"All right, well," Obie said petulantly taking the pizza from Toni, "this stays with me, then."

"Seriously," Clint exclaimed, "what is this obsession with withholding pizza as if it's some kind of supreme punishment when you can order some in just as easily and have an entire one to yourself.

"Go on, here," Obie said opening the lid for Toni, "you can have a piece. Take two."

Toni snatched her pieces with a quick, "thank you," and began running down the steps towards her lab.

"You mind if I come down there and see what you're working on?" Obie asked hopefully.

"I've never let him down there and the thought that after pissing me off I'd be more inclined to let him is ridiculous," Toni scoffed incredulously. Sometimes it surprised her how ignorant Obie seemed to be of human emotions. Mind you aside from anger, reluctant admiration and jealousy he didn't seem to have any genuine ones of his own so maybe that was it.

"Good night, Obie," were Toni's final words on the matter as she hurried back downstairs.

A/n: This one is longer again yay! And the plot keeps sneaking in as I think again there is more dialogue and internal thoughts than scene! Please please please tell me what you thought of Thor's section cause I rewrote it like four times and I'm still unhappy with it.