Chapter 55 – Corporate Espionage

A/N – Still loving all of your comments so please keep leaving them for me :D I am so tired having gone back to school for more of the day… I hate school sometimes.

LianaDare8: Hope you enjoy that scene when we get to it :)

nessa11997: You're welcome :)

youwannabekate: Yeah, I'm from Scotland. Pretty sure I've mentioned that before. And I am an insomniac; just a staying up to 5am one :D Believe me the only cool that the UK is bloody freezing because of the low temperatures. I would much rather live somewhere hot. I'm glad that you liked my take on that comment because that's my genuine opinion on it so I'm glad you liked it.

Booklover2526: Hope you enjoy this chapter :) And sounds like Obie would be well punished in your capable hands.

LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: Forgiveness and hugs all round here :) This is a pleasant space. Glad you liked it.

moonyrocks13: Yep, I was on holiday for a while and so was she so she slept in but now she wakes up and I'm like I haven't gone to sleep yet and if she finds me I am so screwed.

XxxBellaBellaxxX: They are totally going to lose it :) And I mean really :D

ReadPaxJoy: Going to take that as a compliment. I'm glad that you liked it :D

babyliss12: Angry Avengers are so fun to write so I'm looking forward to it. Especially since between them they have a lot of ideas for threats.

Post U Later: I'm glad you liked that bit; I kind of thought she might admit to it as long as she was able to tell them straight away that wasn't considering it anymore.

Dragones: It's a really pretty dress isn't it :) I'm pretty sure most people would look good in it. Glad you're liking the chapters so far :D

"At least Piper stepped up and decided that he would help you out once you gave your explanation," Steve said glad that eventually Piper had come around. He knew that while Piper was overprotective his earlier statement about how he would do anything for Toni wasn't really that far off the mark. Within reason Piper had proved that point several times but the thing was that the one thing he couldn't do was stop being overly worried about Toni. And that was what ultimately drove him to become more overprotective of his now former girlfriend. Maybe someone else would be flattered by the fact that someone cared enough about them to be so protective but Steve knew that for Toni it had to be sign that he thought she wasn't capable of making her own decisions.

"After that speech I would bloody well hope so," Toni muttered softly knowing that while she was known for her speech making prowess that was the best explanation she had ever given of anything not related to science. Purely because she didn't have to lie even a little to appease someone and in the moment she hadn't even wanted to hold something back with was rare for her. It had just been too important to risk that.

The elevator doors at the Stark Industries building opened and Piper walked out with his hand clenched into a fist looking around a little nervously as if wondering if anyone could tell that something was up with him.

"Now I see why you don't send him in to do scouting missions for you more often," Natasha sighed, "his poker face is lousy and if you look guilty then everyone around you will want to know what you're really up to as they know everything can't be as it appears."

"Exactly," Toni said, "I was around when he attempted to get information out of someone for me once and it was very nearly a train wreck. If I hadn't managed to step in and save the situation it wouldn't have ended well for anyone who was at that party."

"I hope he doesn't panic if someone confronts him," Clint said worried that if Piper got into trouble it would have far reaching consequences for Toni as well as for himself. Of course he didn't wish anything bad on Piper despite their disagreements but he was more worried about what Obie would do to Toni if he found out she was onto him in more than one way.

Luckily the floor was empty and Piper's suspicious behaviour went unnoticed as he approached Toni's office. He opened the door cautiously obviously making sure that Obadiah wasn't using the office before he walked in.

"Why would he need to look around because I'm pretty sure that has to be your office considering where it's placed?" Phil asked. Surely it would be empty unless Toni was there and she clearly wasn't seeing as she was working on the Iron Man suit back in one of her many labs.

"It's officially the office of the CEO of Stark Industries which meant before it was my office it was Obie's office and since I was never in there he enjoyed violating company policy and using it as his office even though he was given a new one. I knew about it I just didn't really mind it. Except when he drank my alcohol at which point I did get angry with him," Toni explained, "especially since he didn't ask first."

Piper neatly closed the door over before making his way rapidly over to the main desk where Toni's computer was located. As he sat down Toni's screensaver showing a multitude of sports cars was visible before he moved the mouse and the screen popped up a window asking for a password. Piper retrieved the drive from his suit pocket and plugged it in so that it could begin bypassing the security. As it connected a flashing message appeared on the screen warning of a security breach.

"What went wrong?" Bruce said wondering why Toni's tech had triggered had that reaction when Toni had to know about the security systems on it seeing as it was her own computer.

"It was meant to do that," Toni told him, "have faith please! The easiest way into the system does trip an alarm on the computers setting off a string of alerts so you can easily pinpoint the source of the intrusion. But what the drive did was set off the alarm then immediately mute it so it became localised to that machine and couldn't set off any alerts in the system. Then it's easy to get in to the system without waiting for too long and it's much harder for people to figure out that anyone was ever in the system."

But the driver quickly loaded up a string of codes and pinpointed the one that Piper needed causing the message to change to a green box telling him that he now had access to the systems.

"We really shouldn't make assumptions until we've seen the result," Steve sighed, "or we just end up looking stupid when Toni pulls something else out of nowhere."

The software then proceeded to scan all of the inputs to the computer and only took a few seconds before it indicated that it had discovered the ghost drive that Toni had been talking about.

"I'm surprised that Mr Stane thought he could hide anything from Lady Toni in her own systems," Thor said wondering how Obadiah Stane could have been so reckless with top secret information that he needed to keep hidden.

"I'm guessing that seeing as Toni barely ever came into her office as he said earlier he was assuming that she wouldn't come in just to do a scan of the systems herself and anyone she would hire to do it wouldn't be able to find it in the masses of code that make up Toni's computers," Bruce speculated looking to Toni for confirmation.

"Well, that's partially correct. I don't let anybody else scan my systems as there are too many people who would like to get their hands on that coding so they could attempt to get into the markets that I pretty much have cornered. Too many opportunities for sabotage come with outside technicians coming in so I don't allow them. But you're right in that I don't run scans when I come into the offices as usually I spend the time I have there in meetings and just stop of to get a drink between the boring conversation," Toni clarified, "I run a check on my systems from home but they searched for external interference at the time and this was of course internal. They do both now and I do sometimes do in person checks as well. And my staff are all personally interviewed by me before I will let them anywhere near any of my buildings other than in the visitor areas."

Piper scrolled through the folders that were contained on the ghost drive finding invoices for weapons that had been sold to Afghanistan and other countries like it and information on Sector 16 as a schematic of a larger version of the Iron Man suit popped up on the screen. "Sector 16?" Piper questioned wondering what all of this was about, "What are you up to, Obadiah?"

"Nothing good," Natasha spat out glaring at the designs for the suit Obie had been planning on building taking due notice that this suit was definitely a weapon. Anything that wasn't occupied by essential mechanisms that made the suit work had a gigantic gun or explosive strapped on to it.

He clicked on the next folder and up came footage of Toni surrounded by the Ten Rings from the video they had seen being made at the beginning of the film. As the burlap sack was pulled away from Toni's face Piper flinched back probably at seeing the state her face was in.

"I feel sorry for him having to see you like that," Clint said sympathetically, "because it must have been a shock because by the time you came back most of your injuries were covered up and you looked relatively fine aside from the gash on your cheek and the fact that they made you wear a sling on your right arm."

He neatly typed a 'translate' command into the computer wanting to understand what was being said and it wasn't pretty, "you did not tell us that the target you paid us to kill was the great Toni Stark. As you can see, Obadiah Stane…"

"Oh my god…" Piper exclaimed suddenly confronted with the blatant fact that it had been Obadiah who had instigated Toni's kidnapping.

"And I don't envy him having to find out that way either," Natasha sighed, "at least we had our suspicions before it was officially revealed that Obie was behind the kidnapping plot but Piper must have been totally blindsided by the news."

"…your deception and lies will cost you dearly," the spokesman continued , "The price to kill Toni Stark had just gone up."

"Nice to know my life is worth a lot," Toni said sarcasm simply rolling off her tongue as she rolled her eyes exasperatedly.

Piper seemingly unable to watch anymore of the video initiated the process of copying all of the files that were on the ghost drive over to the drive that Toni had given him so she could see them.

"So," Obadiah said from the doorway shocking Piper so much that he visibly jumped, "what are we going to do about this?"

"Very bad timing," Bruce said with a scowl, "Piper needs to get out of there as soon as he can without it looking suspicious or there is going to be serious trouble."

Piper's eyes followed Obie's movements as he walked over to the bottle of scotch that Toni had sitting on a table and poured himself a glass.

"Can't keep his bloody hands off my alcohol," Toni said angrily, "sometimes I wonder if I really should lock it up to stop people getting their hands on it so easily."

"That would make drinking nights with me slightly more complicated though Annie," Natasha pointed out.

"I know what you're going through Piper," Obie told him as Piper glanced nervously at the screen that still showed that the files were being copied over. Obadiah took a deep breath before taking a sniff of the scotch and saying almost affectionately, "Ah Toni. She always gets the good stuff, doesn't she?"

"He is a worryingly good actor," Phil said glad that Obadiah Stane was dead otherwise he probably would have gone on to cause a lot of problems for the world in general. Not to mention that Toni and Piper would probably be dead too and there was the distinct possibility that he might have ended up that way too.

Piper smiled and nodded trying to act like he wasn't perturbed by Obadiah's sudden entrance and attempt to make conversation as he moved the newspaper of the day as subtly as he could over the drive so that Obie wouldn't be able to see it. And as Obie began to move around towards him he carefully managed to click on a button that reset the screen of the computer back to the screensaver.

"At least I've managed to teach him something about covering things up I guess," Toni said with a sigh knowing that at some point Obie had figured out that Piper was working in cahoots with her because of what he had said to her when he was ripping her heart out.

Obie took a look at the screen before he made his next comment sounding almost completely genuine, "I was so relieved when she came home. It was like we got her back from the dead. Now I realise," here he took a seat on the desk staring intensely at Piper, "well, Toni never really did come home, did she? She left a part of herself in that cave. Breaks my heart."

"Yes, the bad part," Toni said freely admitting that she had lost something in the cave. But it had been any genuine arrogance that she had once had over what she could do that she had left behind. It had not anything that made her a worse person than she was before she left.

"That last comment was overdoing it a little," Natasha said wincing about how out of place it sounded coming from the slimy man that was Obadiah Stane. She didn't think he had a heart that could break.

"Well, she's a complicated person," Piper reasoned, "She's been through a lot. I think she'll be alright."

"You are a very rare man," Obie told him sincerely, "Toni doesn't know how lucky she is."

"Says the man who didn't want to hire him in the first place," Toni scoffed, "that one was my idea as usual. Nothing he came up with ever worked out long term and it was always my plan we went with in the end. I only ever went along with his briefly to give the appearance that I still valued his opinion on business matters."

"Thank you," Piper said giving a realistic smile, "Thanks," and the he rose from his chair with a quick, "I'd better get back there," using the newspaper to remove the drive from the USB port so that Obie wouldn't see it and folding it over so that the drive was concealed inside before making his way towards the door.

"Is that today's paper?" Obie called after him.

"Oh no," Clint realised, "he's on to him. It had to be some of the expressions that he was making earlier because he looked uncomfortable with the situation whereas before he would probably have been more comfortable with it."

Piper stopped dead and turned back to face him saying, "yes," as Obadiah got up and walked over asking her, "do you mind?"

"He's checking up on him thinking that he won't have enough time to hide anything if he goes right over and gives an excuse for doing so," Phil analysed.

"Not at all," Piper said smoothly handing the paper over and neatly sliding the drive into her hand where he clutched onto it tightly so it wouldn't be visible.

"Puzzle," Obadiah told him by way of excuse which Piper answered with a quick, "Of course," before exiting the room as casually as he was able to so as to not attract any more suspicion from Obie who told him to, "Take care," before making his way back over to the desk.

"The information will probably still be up on the screen," Bruce said worriedly because Piper hadn't had nearly enough time to get any significant amount of distance between them yet.

He threw the paper down on the desk and dismissed the screensaver only to see a dialogue box saying 'download complete' and cursing before pushing himself back up from his chair.

A/N – Yay, I am officially done with this chapter and you know what's up next :D