Chapter 51 – Under Fire

A/N – Thank you all for being understanding about issues that result in short chapters :) The day I typed the longest chapter in this story I really thought my one working wrist was going to break :D

moonyrocks13: Iron Man is probably my second favourite superhero movie :) And Tony is my favourite Avenger period although some of the others come close. I'm glad you think she's well written. The word awesome is awesome

Ganondorf-Lover: Thank you! I'm glad you like my portrayal of the friendship because it truth parts of it make me uncomfortable so I was wondering if I would get it right. Had to add a scene to IM2 and change things up a little bit to make me more comfortable with Rhodey's character. Thank you, it's been 5 months so here's hoping.

nessa11997: You're welcome

babyliss12: Still totally not a genius and I am very glad that you liked it.

XxxBellaBellaxxX: I'm glad you liked it and it should definitely be in this chapter :)

ReenReen: I'm not intentionally being a tease I'm just exhausted and typing with one hand whilst posting them and trying to give you one per day.

LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: I accept your cheers with thanks :D The military in the Marvel-verse do tend to be secondary bad guys :) I'm a big supporter for people who stick their neck out to save innocents in real life even if I'm very anti-war.

Post U Later: Glad you liked it. It always bothered me that Tony who is normally such a great liar faltered there and couldn't think of a believable excuse.

Izzy: Aww thank you :) That's nice to hear :D Glad you can still read through the story in one sitting at this point :)

purple-konan: I'm sorry Iron Man is getting a little long winded and yes Iron Man 2 is up next followed by Thor

"Technically the only one pictured in these events who promised not to use the policy of 'ready, fire, aim,' was me," Toni pointed out even though she was reluctant to defend the military, "although it's not a good policy for anybody to follow really. Especially since it was one of my father's. Generally speaking doing the opposite of everything that he ever told me to do that wasn't just common sense is the best way forward."

Steve wasn't sure if that was Toni exaggerating or not because it sounded like something that couldn't possibly be true. How could everything that a genius of a man said be something that you wouldn't want to put into action at any cost? The man Steve had known had been giving him good advice almost every time that he saw him and yes he freely admitted that Howard could have changed over the time that he had spent in the ice but he didn't think it could be that drastic. Unless something significant had happened to Howard over that time and the only major event that he could think of in Howard's life at that point would either have been something to do with Peggy or it was to do with him going under the ice. Obviously he had still been on good terms with Peggy when Toni was born seeing as Toni obviously remembered her so it wasn't that and he didn't see why him being under the ice would have affected Howard's personality. Mind you Toni had said that her father's disinterest in her was partially because of him which he couldn't help but feel guilty about.

The two jets that were in the area suddenly appeared in Toni's slipstream although they weren't currently displaying guns which was a good thing. "That's my exit," Toni told Rhodey ending the phone call as she swerved to the left trying to keep away from the jets.

"Even if there are no guns get away," Clint said approvingly, "especially since they are obviously military planes and as such are probably packed with as many top of the range weapons as they could get once the Stark Industries weapons were withdrawn."

"I couldn't entirely withdraw them," Toni pointed out, "or the army would have lost most of their weapons supplies and that wouldn't have been done no matter how much I might have wished I could go down that route. It would just have resulted in the deaths of more young Americans who were saved by me allowing the military to use my weapons until they found a suitable replacement contractor. It was only the Jericho missiles that I withdrew from production and the military only had the ones that Obie had managed to sell to them whilst I was in captivity after its demonstration. They couldn't be released to the army until soldiers witnessed the effects of the weapons."

"That was very good of you," Bruce admitted although he too wished that a complete withdrawal of all Stark weaponry from the military had been possible at the time. In some ways Toni's mind was too dangerous for the world they currently lived in. It was bad enough that she was a futurist but she was also a genius and that meant a whole lot of inventions came into being hundreds of years earlier than should ever have been possible and unfortunately some of those were weapons. Although her being a futurist had also saved their lives on many different occasions so he probably shouldn't complain about it as the benefits outweighed the problems by a hundred times.

The jets turned to follow her but her smaller size meant that Toni managed to gain some distance between her and the jets by making the sharp turn. It would have been more effective had the jets been larger but it gained her something at least. "Ballroom, this is Whiplash One," one pilot radioed in, "I've got the bogey in my sights."

"That's not good," Natasha muttered quietly wondering whether she would actually be able to watch this scene all the way through or whether she would end up burrowing her face in her hands as she would no doubt have to do at some point. No doubt around the time of the incident at Stark Industries as she finally found out all of the details about that night. She really did not want to know what had happened in a way because she didn't know if she could take any more of Toni being hurt and betrayed.

"Whiplash one, what is it?" Rhodey said quickly wanting to get a positive ID on the bogey before he jumped straight in for the blow it up plan.

"Thank god," Toni said, "I kind of thought at the time that Rhodey was in on the whole 'just blow it out of the sky without getting a good look at it' plan. Of course it wasn't going to work because the suit is too small and their view screens are not high tech enough. The quinjets could do it and so could the jet that the X-men have because I built that as well. Nut they have superior view screens to anything the military have or anything that is on the market simply because in the case of planes either they are used by people who need much more data than ordinary pilots or they are of course used by air force pilots and while I admire what they do I don't see the need to give them better facilities to get more innocent people caught up in blasts from their weaponry."

"I've got no idea," the pilot admitted clearly not able to make neither head nor tail of the image that he was getting of the suit.

"You have radio contact?" the major asked following Rhodey's lead and making sure that they weren't shooting someone who would be of better use being brought into custody and questioned.

"I don't think they were interested in what you did for them at that stage," Natasha sighed, "they just wanted to find out who was behind it so that they could interrogate them viciously. I should know I sometimes have to do interrogations like that for SHIELD… did have to do them for SHIELD." Natasha still hadn't quite managed to adjust to referring to SHIELD as a part of her past rather than as something that was always present in her life. She had no doubts that Clint and Phil would each have a few slip ups as well because it was a drastic change for all three of them even if it was definitely for the better.

"Non responsive, sir," the pilot informed him.

"Then you are clear to engage," the major told him apparently sealing the fate of the bogey pelting through the skies of Afghanistan.

"Why did you not answer your comm unit and tell them that all you did was offer assistance Lady Toni?" Thor inquired wondering why Lady Toni would risk being blown up by a barrage of missiles that the suit couldn't cope with instead of admitting to being inside the suit.

"I've mentioned most of the reasons separately over the course of this scene but the main one is still that if I did they would demand that I hand over the suit," Toni explained briefly not wanting to reiterate everything she had said about the military recently.

"Hit it," Toni told JARVIS as a flashing warning came up on the screen informing her that missiles were going to impact with her if she didn't do some pretty fancy flying very soon. So she put a lot of power into the thrusters and sped through the sky getting faster and faster by the minute.

"The bogey just went supersonic," the shocked pilot relayed, "I got a lock!"

"Wait," Clint said his own shocked tone mirroring that of the pilot, "you are actually able to obtain supersonic speed that fast in the suit. I mean I had no doubts that you had made it possible because you always have a million back up plans but the time it took you was to use the scientific term negligible."

"I anticipated the need for getting away from explosions at high speed in which case I wouldn't have the time it normally takes supersonic flight to become possible so I shortened it a bit to give me time to get far away from something before it exploded," Toni said, "necessity is the mother of invention and all that."

That pilot despite his shock managed to release a missile which sped after Toni gaining ground because it was less heavy than the suit with the added weight of Toni who while quite light was not lighter than a missile. As the missile drew ever closer JARVIS deadpanned, "Inbound missile," to which Toni ordered, "flares."

"That's a very good plan if it does what I think it will," Bruce commented.

The flares spiralled out from an attachment to the suit and collided with the missile causing it to explode too early and causing her to be propelled forward by the explosion letting out a shout from the pure force that was impacting the suit. "Wait a second," the pilot said realising what had happened, "Bogey deployed flares!"

"Oh! There's someone in the military with a bit of intelligence and some reasoning skills," Clint commented deadly serious, "now that's exceedingly rare these days so kudos to him but now can he use it for something that will actually help people rather than shooting at Toni please."

The repulsors on the suit stuttered as they tried to recover from the blast which meant that for a while Toni was in a mildly controlled fall towards Earth as she attempted to steady herself which had to be difficult whilst spiralling in mid-air.

"I believe that experience would make me throw up," Phil said looking sick just thinking about what it would be like, "it does not look at all pleasant and it also looks frightening for the repulsors are really taking their time kicking in which is not good for my nerves."

Eventually they kicked back in and Toni arced upwards regaining control but this had allowed the jets to gain significant ground on her which was not what she wanted at all. She was darting around so much however that they couldn't get a positive lock on her which was a good thing. One of the pilots attempted to use the machine gun to take her down instead upon realising that the bombs weren't going to work.

"The machine gun I am actually more comfortable with because we have already seen that the suit repels bullets with ease," Natasha said relieved, "and I know that the cat suit Toni wears underneath is bulletproof too or at least it was when I met her."

Toni received several looks of concern upon hearing that in the time frame nobody knew if the cat suit offered extra protection or not but Toni reassured them by saying, "believe me the first designs of the cat suit definitely included the fact that they had to be bulletproof as well as flexible and fairly conductive."

Toni did do her best to avoid the bullets although inevitably some caught her on the back sending bits of the suit flying through the air but Toni managed to get out a strained, "deploy flaps," and the moment her order was followed by JARVIS she went flying backwards exactly the opposite from what the pilots were expecting.

"And that is strategically the best way to go about that situation at that stage," Clint said once again happy that Toni was doing well in dealing with a situation that she had not had the ability to plan ahead for. The fact that she could think through anything in seconds was probably an asset in any situation but still.

"Holy!" one of the pilots exclaimed as back at base it was shown that the suit had vanished from their radar screens completely. "That thing just jumped off the radar, sir," one of the soldiers confirmed.

"That's impressive," Steve said wondering if he would be able to work out how she did it before it was shown. Military moves were kind of his thing even if he didn't quite understand radar as fully as some of the others did. Obviously she wasn't flying along behind them as she would still have shown up on a scan.

"The sat visual has been lost," another added.

"No way that's a UAV," one of the pilots said.

"And finally they cotton on to the fact that some of those manoeuvres are far too complicated for a UAV to pull off," Natasha said, "it was fairly obvious from the way that the missiles were evaded at the last second. Okay so JARVIS could have made that decision for a person so a computer technically could have done it but not any of the computers that the military had knowledge of at the time."

"They don't know about JARVIS now either," Toni tacked on, "One of the few things I convinced Rhodey not to tell them about."

"What is it?" the Major asked exasperated tired of this endless chase against an intelligent opponent.

"I can't see anything," a pilot said as he looked around for any indication as to where the bogey had disappeared off to. Even with a person inside it the immediate disappearance should have been impossible.

"Whatever it was, it just bought the farm," the other pilot added.

"I think bogey's been handled, sir," the other tacked on as Rhodey shook his head not believing that the tech which had evaded their missiles had been taken down by a little machine gun fire.

"Playing dead is always a good strategy in warfare," Thor commented thrilled that for once he knew something about the subject on the screen because the basic underlying concepts of fighting were the same across the Nine Realms.

Suddenly Rhodey's phone began to ring blaring out an unpleasant default ringtone that had probably come with the phone and the caller ID read Toni Stark.

Bruce would never tell Toni but he was thankful that she had gone for help from another person even if they had trust issues. As far as he knew Rhodey didn't want Toni dead so while he might get angry at her he would at least try and stop the attack on her.

He picked it up with a sigh and a, "hello?"

"Hi, Rhodey, it's me," Toni said in a very strained voice obviously the fighting was taking a lot out of her.

"You're using double meanings again," Phil observed, "I'm not sure if Colonel Rhodes will get it this time though."

"It's who?" Rhodey said feigning ignorance.

"I'm sorry, it is me," Toni clarified, "you asked. What you were asking about is me."

"Cryptic and yet truthful," Natasha said with a smile, "just about sums you up doesn't it Annie?"

"The same applies to you Tasha," Toni pointed out silencing any further comments that might have come from the super spy.

"No, see, this isn't a game," Rhodey said anger leaking into his voice obviously thinking she meant it was her tech in the sky, "You do not send civilian equipment into my active war zone. You understand that?"

"That would have been a bad idea if that was actually what you had done," Steve said tagging on the second part as quickly as possible as Toni looked like she might have been about to direct a glare his way for the comment.

The shot cut to show Toni wincing inside her suit and clarifying further as quickly as she could, "This is not a piece of equipment. I'm in it. It's me!"

"That must have been a shock," Phil commented wondering how he would have felt if he had been told that Toni was piloting the Iron Man suit like that. To be honest he didn't know how much help Rhodey was going to be after that revelation.

"Rhodey, you got anything for me?" the Major asked quickly knowing from his side of the conversation that he had a better idea of what was going on now.

"I thought it was only you who called the Colonel Rhodey Toni," Steve said confused.

"It was only me originally but it kind of caught on and he does tell people just to call him that nowadays," Toni told him.

Rhodey lowered the phone from his ear very slowly as if not lowering the phone quickly would delay the explanation he would have to come up with. Major Allen's next move was to radio the jets, "Mark your position and return to base."

"Thank god," Bruce sighed wanting this to be over as soon as possible.

"Roger that, Ballroom," the first pilot responded as the second tilted his plane to the side and Toni was revealed clinging on to the bottom.

"Oldest trick in the book," Clint said his lip quirking up at the corner into a half smile that probably would have been a full blown laugh if the situation they were being shown wasn't so serious.

The first pilot spotted it and exclaimed, "on your belly! It looks like a man!"

"And here comes the beginning of the misnomer," Toni said still rather annoyed that without even hearing her speak through the voice changer that made her sound male they had automatically assumed that she was a guy because she was in a piece of tech.

"Shake him off! Roll! Roll!" was the next instruction given and the pilot with Toni clinging onto his plane complied spinning the plane around as Toni struggled to keep her grip on the body of the plane. It was hopeless though and she eventually had to let go the momentum from the spin sending her flying straight back through the wing of the other plane.

"дерьмо," Natasha exclaimed, "they're really going to be out for your blood after that and I don't think Rhodey can stop them anymore."

A/n: This is later than usual but I was determined to get to this point because I like leaving fake cliffhangers. Longer chapter to so win :) Next up Obie is a traitor plus the end of this scene tagged on the beginning :D