Chapter 45 – Justifiable Anger

A/n – I know some people were looking forward to this chapter so here it is :) Enjoy y'all! XxXSilverShadowXxX, ReadPaxJoy has chosen not to have a second oneshot so you can PM me what oneshot you want for this verse or give it up if you wish.

McGriddle96 and Harm Marie: Glad you liked it :)

youwannabekate: Karma thinks talking in third person is epic :) Glad you liked it and that it helped you feel better. Well, there was a lot of it implied but I would run out of bad things to say about Stane if I wrote them all out every time.

ReadPaxJoy: Have some more because Toni can get very angry when she wants to :) Every 100 is the plan after the one for 600 is selected just so I actually have time to write them /shrugs Karma approves sneaking things away from your mum because I'm typing this when my mum is asleep for a reason :D

princessabbie10: Hello new reviewer :) Thank you very much for your lovely review and I'm glad this fem!Tony story has you interested :D

XxxBellaBellaxxX: Glad you liked the chapter and revenge is fun :D

Post U Later: I know right. That scene grated on my nerves in canon too so I tried to portray that through Toni. And yeah. Literally the first name I clicked on :)

LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: I can, I take classes :) I did mention a while back Toni is basically me and Tony mixed together so technically it's the other way round :)

ReenReen: Tada! Hope you enjoy it

nessa11997: You're welcome.

Alexandria-reid-Winchester: I'm really glad that you like it :) And this isn't a Stony fic but Bruce/Toni is a pairing :)

"GUYS!" Toni finally shouted over the ruckus of everyone in the room hurling threats at the representation of Obie on the TV screen, "he's already dead. So your threats aren't going to do anything more than embarrass you when you look back on them later."

Phil and Natasha both looked rather abashed when Toni pointed this out because they were the only two in the room who knew first hand that Obadiah Stane was dead although only Phil knew the particulars. They never thought that they would ever get so caught up in watching a movie that they would forget a simple overwhelming fact. That was their job for a long time after all; not to get so caught up in the moment that they forgot about the facts.

"Oh yeah," Clint said also embarrassed although not for the same reasons, "I think I vaguely remember. Plane crash or something."

"Well I can't say I think that's what he really deserved," Bruce snarled angry that anyone would attempt to mess with a person whom he basically considered the closest friend he had ever had even though he did have friends before the Hulk had come into existence. Like Toni he had been looking for someone who understood what he was going on about when he talked about science although he had the added requirement that he needed someone who could at least learn to tolerate the Hulk until he could get rid of him. He never expected to end up with Toni filling that position especially since she ended up exceeding his expectations by far. For a start she was the Hulk's fiercest defender and was the only one who had been able to talk him into working on finding ways to control the Hulk's emotions which according to her were only uncontrollable for him because they were bigger than his own so if he let the Hulk out more and figured out his motivations then he would be able to reign him in. That had proved to be true and Bruce often wondered if soon her theory that if he accepted the Hulk enough he would begin remembering what happened when he was the Hulk would prove correct too. And in science terms; well Toni was far and away more than he was expecting in that field.

Back in the lab the television was playing the news once more only this time it was tuned in to a more depressing subject, "The 15-mile hike to the outskirts of Gulmira can only be described as a descent into hell."

"How hard was that for you to hear?" Steve said sympathetically knowing that if it had been him in that position he would have started in on a punching bag and probably ruined more than he ever had before. Being accused of being behind it even if Christine Everhart seemed to have seen the error of her ways there couldn't have been easy either because Toni was more than intelligent enough to figure out that if Christine had assumed that then so would many more. And she didn't have the time to contradict them before it got out of hand.

"Very," Toni said simply not wanting to reveal the depths of her anger at Obadiah until they saw it on screen. She was willing to admit that she had let her anger get the better of her at that point but she had felt like Obie had been personally disrespecting Yinsen's memory through his double dealing. Of course she knew that it had been Obie from the minute she knew it was going on because he was really the only reasonable candidate. The final nail in the coffin was when he admitted to being the one who filed the injunction against her. Toni had known she could never trust him again after that but never suspected that all that time he wanted her dead. That was the one moment that had assured that she would never bring even one of her walls down again without one hell of a fight to get her to do so. And even then they would probably get one of the walls down that held back a lot of repressed anger and get torn into for she didn't appreciate people who badgered her into being the person that she didn't feel she could be even if she sometimes wished she could.

"Into a modern day 'Heart of Darkness,'" the news reporter continued, "simple farmers and herders from peaceful villages have been driven from their homes," the view finally drew far enough away from the TV screen that Toni was visible as she worked on one of the gloves of the Mark III suit.

"Why were you watching this Friend Toni?" Thor asked, "It is clearly making you angry and uncomfortable. Why would you put yourself through it?"

"Because it was a reminder of what I did," Toni told him, "and what I had to stop at all costs because what my company was doing in my name was not okay. Plus I needed to know all of the particulars that the news knew because JARVIS doesn't really bother accessing them because they're so biased. But in this case any little detail was important especially since JARVIS had never seen any of the members of the Ten Rings."

"You went out to confront them," Bruce realised slightly worried not just for Toni's welfare as she had obviously come back alive but because it had to be mentally taxing to go out there and face the people who had tortured her for three months. Mind you in a way it could also have been therapeutic for her as ridding the world of those who hurt her so badly might lessen the impact of it as revenge at times could heal wounds that you thought would never close over. And it wasn't like those monsters didn't deserve anything Toni could do to them in her suit because in many ways they deserved a lot more than even Toni could come up with on the spot. As he knew Toni would want to just get it over with because despite being a former weapons manufacturer she hated killing. So if there were any members of that organisation left on the Earth that Toni had missed in her crusade then Bruce could guarantee that from the reactions to Toni's imprisonment earlier on in the movie that they would wish Toni had gotten to them first.

As the news report continued Toni's fist tightened dangerously as her eyes took on a murderous tint in a few of the shots as she spotted men she obviously recognized as the news reporter kept on speaking, "displaced from their lands by warlords emboldened by a new-found power. Villagers have been forced to take shelter in whatever crude dwellings they can find in the ruins of other villages."

"I can honestly say that I wouldn't want to be anywhere near you if you showed even a hint of that expression on your face," Phil said bluntly because the mere sight of it made him think that Toni would follow through on her promise to burn anyone that got in her way.

The others all nodded in agreement suddenly realising that while each of them thought they had seen Toni at her angriest they hadn't even come close because the glint in her eyes was one of pure rage. Anyone who dared to mess with the billionaire when she was in that state was probably suicidal or just had no sense of self-preservation. He would say that they could also just believe that they could take Toni but he didn't think anyone who saw Toni in action and also knew that she was that angry would actually believe that they could take her unless they were certifiably insane. He was pretty sure that look could send any of the Avengers running and some of them had superpowers which would make it almost impossible for Toni to kill them but it was Toni and god knows if you pissed her off enough she would find a way. She was inventive like that.

The words of the report appeared to drift right over Toni's head as she continued tuning up the glove as the repulsor in the centre of it glowed electric blue, "or here in the remnants of an old Soviet smelting plant," as the Ten Rings was shown shooting at fleeing civilians the repulsor powered up as if Toni wanted to shoot an energy beam at the TV, "Recent violence has been attributed to a group of foreign fighters referred to by locals as the Ten Rings." Toni flinched a little as a shot of Raza smoking was shown.

"It was the first moment that I knew he had managed to survive the explosion," Toni muttered, "I started building him up in my head you know after that because it was such an impossible feat to comprehend that he was just another member of the Ten Rings when he survived when the others fell."

"As you can see," the voiceover said as a shot of the Jericho missile was shown, "these men are heavily armed and on a mission. A mission that could prove fatal to anyone who stands in their way," here Toni pushed herself to her feet and walked forward as if to get a better look at the screen, "With no political will or international pressure, there's very little hope for these refugees."

Steve took one look at the refugees of the attack by the Ten Rings and felt sick to his stomach because here was something else unpleasant that he unfortunately recognised. They reminded him painfully of the millions of refugees that had flooded into America from Germany and Poland the minute they could get away to escape the war. Thin, ragged, hopeless, starving and utterly haunted from the loss of loved ones and from the horrors they had seen in war torn Europe. It wasn't an image he ever wanted to see again as he had been told they had won the war. But they had lost so much of their humanity in a war that had been supposed to preserve it and more and more atrocities kept coming and Steve wasn't sure what he had fought for back then if it just ended up in an endless cycle of people like that ending up without two cents to rub together.

Toni threw aside her equipment as she walked away from the sitting area the news still playing in the background, "Around me, a woman begging for news on her husband, who was kidnapped by insurgents." Toni her eyes cold as ice raised her iron glove and pointed it at her work bench and accompanying the phrase, "either forced to join their militia…" she fired the repulsor resulting in an explosion on that workbench.

"This is really bad," Natasha muttered Toni's anger hitting home even more now that she seemed to be willing to destroy her beloved lab just to vent some of the pure rage that was rushing through her body from seeing the report and being blamed for the deaths.

The news faded into background noise as Toni admired the loose beam from the ceiling that the repulsor had caused from its pure destructive power however one phrase still came through loud and clear, "there's very little hope for these refugees, refugees who can only wonder who, if anyone, will help," at the end of this sentence Toni caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass wall of the lab.

"That was the moment when you decided you had to help no matter what the cost," Phil deduced knowing that the military had complaints that day about a bogey flying over restricted flight space that must have been Toni in her suit. That was not a pleasant thought as Toni being stalked down by jets was not an image Phil wanted in his head.

Suddenly Toni completely lost control of her temper and spun around firing three separate blasts that took out every single one of the panes of glass that were there and she stalked away her movements almost fluid.

"She looks like you when she moves like that Nat," Clint said amazed as everyone else stared at the destroyed wall that used to be a barrier between Toni and the outside world.

A/n: This is basically a filler chapter before we get back into the real action but I hope you liked it anyway. I love y'all!