Chapter 56 – Left To Die
A/N – I'm back people! I know almost everyone was looking forward to something that's in this chapter which kind of makes me nervous about writing it but I'll give it a whirl :) Hope you guys enjoy it. And congrats to AliseEve who was my 700th reviewer and can request a oneshot in this verse. Next one is at 800.
youwannabekate: I'm telling you it does kind of suck here and I would love it to be that hot and we can totally swap if you want. I'm sick of it being freezing in summer. And I know that's commonly a Briticism but I told myself when I began this story that I wouldn't stress about them because I just need to get the chapters out. No need to wait anymore
XxxBellaBellaxxX: It's like oh hello Phil! There you are again :) Have some more action :D
LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: Uggh, there's always one I don't catch I guess. That's a little annoying. And I do it much more often with Piper. Keep calm babe :D
babyliss12: Basically everyone in this film gets in trouble at some point :D Glad you liked it.
Post U Later: At points she kind of was that nervous or at least from my analysis I would definitely know that something was up if she gave me that look. Enjoy the chapter!
nessa11997: You're welcome :D
LianaDare8: I wish I could make them longer but that would mean lessening the frequency of my updates.
Harm Marie: I'm glad :)
orangepaint: Aww, but I have to put some suspense in :) But I'm glad that you are enjoying this fanfiction and read it every night. Yay!
"I knew that was going to happen," Bruce said nervously. He wondered if Piper had gotten more involved in the situation than he had anticipated because now that Obadiah knew that Piper was in the know about the things that he had been hiding. It had been risky getting another person involved but Bruce knew that Toni hadn't had much of a choice. Because of the injunction that was being filed against her at the time she couldn't go into the office without Obie knowing immediately. This was probably why Obie had told her to stay out of the spotlight rather than proving that she was fine to the general public because he needed to lock Toni out of the company to proceed with his plans.
Piper made his way down the stairs once again walking away as fast as he could as Phil was shown sitting in a chair waiting on him to appear. "Mr Potts?" he said attracting Piper's attention, "We had an appointment. Did you forget about our appointment?"
"You do seem to have the timing thing down to a tee Phil," Toni said with a smile, "that was the perfect moment for you to be there."
"I would say it would be you who had perfect timing then Toni," Phil pointed out, "seeing as it was you that picked out the time of the meeting. And set the place despite knowing that you probably wouldn't be able to show up due to the injunction that was filed against you."
"Well I was hoping that would get cleared up by then," Toni said, "I didn't know that Obadiah wasn't fighting for my side for sure at that point. I was hoping that by the time we had the meeting that I would be cleared to be back in the building again."
"I still say you were trying to avoid the debriefing," Phil accused knowing that Toni would avoid meetings with people in any way that she could. Especially people she had only just met as she didn't trust them one bit. But of course refusing to meet with them meant that she never trusted them at all and the cycle continued without end.
"Nope," Piper informed him, "right now. Come with me. We're going to have it right now. Walk with me."
"Okay!" Phil said springing from his seat and following Piper obviously wondering what was so urgent and why Piper kept looking around like he was afraid something was going to jump out at him.
"I'm going to give you the meeting of your life. Your office," Piper told him sincerely as Obadiah watched on from the top of the stairs unable to intervene because Piper had found someone to walk with.
"It was an interesting meeting to say the least," Phil admitted, "probably one of the more interesting ones I've had although I've had slightly stranger ones at times."
"The ones about aliens existing were interesting," Natasha interjected adding her own opinion on the subject, "half of the people in the room were questioning everything that Fury said even though they're supposed to look at the facts first which made it glaringly obvious that what he was saying was all true. People just don't want to believe what's right in front of them."
"To be honest if I hadn't been in New Mexico I would have had trouble believing it too," Clint admitted, "no offense meant Thor."
"I do not take any Friend Barton," Thor informed him, "it is understandable that when other worlds became evident to the people of Midgard that there would be many sceptics who did not believe the evidence that was presented before their eyes."
"I bet conspiracy theorists had a field day though," Bruce said with a smile.
Obie stormed into a room flinging open the door so that it slammed into the wall behind him as one of the scientists who was on the phone talking to someone on the other end of the line, "Yeah, we've been working our best to do it. Absolutely we're…" suddenly he noticed Obie storming into the room and abruptly cut off his train of thought, "I'm going to have to call you back."
"Poor man," Steve said, "I would not want to be faced with the wrath of that man when he's just been tricked. Especially since they probably haven't been able to replicate the arc reactor in its small form. Which is obviously a good thing but it's not exactly his fault." He clearly tagged that last bit on the end after he came face to face with Toni's glare at the mere suggestion that the man should be pitied because he wasn't able to create a weapon that would be used to kill people and one man might be a little angry with him for that reason.
"Mr Stane?" the scientist said attempting to get his speech out there before the other man could start talking, "Sir, we've explored what you've asked us, and it seems as though there is a little hiccup. Actually…"
"A hiccup," Stane said angrily shifting his hands to his hips and staring down the poor man.
"I may not pity him but I certainly don't envy him," Bruce commented upon seeing how angry Stane was getting even though he didn't know the particulars of the situation yet. He was the kind of person that nobody in the world would wish for in a boss because he didn't care why something was going wrong. If it was going wrong then you were culpable and he would punish you for it. And if you caught him when he was already in a bad mood then you were the unluckiest person on the planet because any reason you might have been able to get him to see had he been in a good mood went out of the window. The best thing you could do was not do anything wrong in that situation. Unfortunately the only way it would go your way was if everything was perfect and nothing was ever perfect.
"Yes," the scientist said nervously not sure how Obadiah would take the news that something obviously wasn't going well, "to power the suit, sir, the technology doesn't actually exist."
Toni smiled a little at that because technically the only place that the precise technology on how to make those arc reactors existed was in her head. And while some people were also able to make arc reactors that were miniaturised they weren't the same as hers.
"So it's…" the scientist continued but Obie quickly cut him off, "Wait, wait, wait. The technology? William, here is the technology," here he pointed at the arc reactor that was powering the factory, "I've asked you to simply make it smaller."
"He just doesn't get that it has to be impossible for anybody but you does he?" Clint said with a smirk revelling in the fact that Obie was outright failing at replicating Toni's designs.
"Well, that exact design is," Toni said knowing that with her luck they would probably be shown Ivan Vanko at some point and while he hadn't replicated her arc reactor he had succeeded in making one of his own. And he had the advantage of being able to use palladium to power his because it wasn't inserted into his body.
"Okay, sir," William said quickly trying to get through to Obadiah, "and that's what we're trying to do, but honestly, it's impossible."
"It may be true but that wasn't the most tactful way to reveal it to Obadiah," Natasha said wincing a little, "he's already out for blood. You don't want to have him decide that your blood will do until he can get to who he really wants."
Obadiah rounded on him finally reaching the limit of his patience, "Toni Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!"
"Well, I'm sorry," William said trying to placate Obadiah, "I'm not Toni Stark."
"And thank god for that because the world does not need any more Toni Starks wandering around the place," Bruce said with a smile, "one is quite enough."
"I agree," Toni said nodding, "I think the world can only cope with one of me before it implodes."
"I'm pretty sure it has trouble handling just you at times Annie," Natasha joked good naturedly grateful that the matter seemed to be settled. The best scientists that Toni employed couldn't recreate her innovation so Obadiah's suit would never work. Yet that sickening feeling that something would still go wrong hadn't left her and she knew that Obadiah had to die somehow. She now had the distinct feeling that there was no way he had died of natural causes after all he had done. Yet any suspicious circs would have been reported on heavily and there had been nothing but the news reports the week he died about the 'plane crash.' Something was wrong. She just wanted this movie to be over with even if it meant moving on to another one which was likely to include her.
Back at the Malibu mansion Toni was making her way across her main sitting room as one of her many phones was heard ringing. She looked around not quite able to tell where the sound was coming from before taking a guess and lifting the white cushion off of the sofa revealing the phone.
Clint couldn't help but smile at this semi-domestic action which seemed to make Toni a little more human. The amount of things that everyone else had to do that Toni had just made obsolete with some of her inventions left her seeming a little unreal at times. So seeing her have to physically look for a phone instead of just summoning it with a magnetic device was comforting. Mind you knowing Toni it probably had one now for convenience seeing as she had to take a few seconds out of her busy schedule to find it a couple of times.
Checking the caller ID carefully to confirm that it was someone she wanted to talk to before she picked up Toni answered Piper's call. "Toni?" queried Piper but Toni was unable to reply as the buzz of the paralysation device filled the air and blue veins became prominent on Toni's face.
The atmosphere in the room changed in a heartbeat. Before that moment the people in the room had finally managed to settle down upon hearing that the scientists had been unable to replicate Toni's invention. But the moment that she was visibly in danger the room erupted with anger and Toni was the sole person left seated as the others leapt to their feet. Toni's primary concern was that Bruce's change into the Hulk was clearly imminent and that she doubted she'd be able to stop it this time.
That meant that someone needed to get Bruce out of the room and into one of the Hulk-proof areas in the house preferably before he changed. Unfortunately she couldn't do it herself because if he changed before they got there Toni was vulnerable without her suit and Bruce still had trouble controlling the Hulk if he didn't instigate the change. It didn't matter that the Hulk liked Toni because it might not register that she was someone he liked until after she had gone flying into a wall. That meant Natasha, Phil and Clint were out as well because despite their super spy status they didn't have the physical power to restrain the Hulk especially since he still didn't trust Natasha after the helicarrier incident.
Which left Thor and Steve as the only ones who could get him out safely and as Thor looked pretty close to destroying some valuable property himself with his lightning Toni knew that Steve had to be the one to deal with it. Of course that would require him to stop destroying her furniture for long enough to actually do something. "Steve," she called out keeping her voice as steady as possible, "I know you're busy destroying my $900 armchair even more than you already have – which you will have to pay for by the way – but could you please escort Bruce out before I have to replace everything."
It might have been the mention of the expense or just her tone of voice but she managed to snap Steve out of his furious state momentarily and the super soldier darted across the room towards the door pulling Bruce along with him. This left Toni with just Thor to deal with because she reckoned that Phil, Tasha and Clint could refrain from shooting anything valuable with the help of their spy training. "Thor," Toni said, "we've never actually proved the theory that I am immune to your lightning because of the arc reactor so I would appreciate it if you didn't succeed where Obadiah obviously failed."
Unlike with Steve her speech wasn't an immediate trigger for Thor calming down as he had a more volatile personality but her taking several steps towards him until she was dangerously close to the bolts of lightning did. "Lady Toni," he exclaimed, "you shouldn't have gotten that close. I could have finished what that foul man started."
"But you didn't," Toni pointed out, "and he didn't manage it either and as I've said before he is dead! So there is no point in needless destruction of my property in some sort of preparation for revenge against a man who is long since dead."
"Have you ever actually talked about what happened to you after this?" Clint said concerned knowing that Toni's answer would probably be no. It was one thing for her to ignore her feelings about actions committed by strangers but for someone whom she had been close with to betray her like that had to have been devastating.
"No," Toni said, "that would mean telling someone what actually happened and according to SHIELD I wasn't allowed to muck up another one of their cover ups."
Phil flinched at this knowing that it had ultimately been him that had pulled her aside and told her that since she had insisted on telling the world that she was Iron Man that she shouldn't tell anyone about Obadiah. Of course he hadn't known about all of the particulars and he certainly hadn't known about him paralysing her.
The silence in the room seemed to be impenetrable for quite some time as Toni was refusing to talk about what had happened and the others were a little too scared of her reaction to try and press the issue. For the only one of them who didn't have any significant physical advantages she was still an extremely terrifying woman. Eventually Steve came back into the room followed by a rather dishevelled looking Bruce and they took their seats as Toni reached across and squeezed Bruce's arm as if to reassure him of the fact that she was still there. Of course nobody really wanted to watch the next part of the movie as their minds kept concocting more and more sinister scenarios about what would happen next. Eventually it was Clint who plucked up the courage to tell JARVIS to restart the movie.
"Toni, are you there?" Piper asked as Obadiah pulled the phone from Toni's grasp, "Hello?"
"Breathe," Obadiah told her sarcastically as he gently lowered her back onto the couch, "Easy, easy."
"So that bastard actually had the gall to act as if you're the one that's doing something to hurt yourself," Natasha snarled and Toni began to think that her screen was not going to survive the next few minutes.
"You know if everyone would just watch this without saying anything until the end that would be greatly appreciated," Toni said trying not to sound like she was pleading. It was hard enough to watch this without storming from the room but the constant commentary was beginning to become more than she could bear.
That seemed to stall any further comments that any of the other Avengers might have wanted to chip in about Obadiah's act so in the short term she was going to call it a success. Only time would tell if they would actually remember what she had said when it got to some of the worst parts of the event.
"You remember this one, right?" Obadiah said showing off the paralysing tool, "It's a shame the government didn't approve it. There's so many applications for causing short-term paralysis."
"You invented that thing," Steve said accusingly. At least this time his accusation was based on something realistic even though he was still wrong. "No," Toni told him, "my father did!"
That immediately stopped Steve dead as he wondered why he was suddenly trying to think of a good reason for the device to be created when he learned that his friend had invented it. Toni was his friend too yet he had automatically assumed the worst about her. Maybe he should stop rationalising things he heard about Howard but the problem was he tended to focus on first impressions. And Toni hadn't made a very good one. At first he had just wanted to get to know the last remnant of Howard and had been disappointed when she hadn't turned out to be very like him. But it was time to let go and get to know Toni as her own person before he ruined whatever traces of a friendship they had.
Obadiah walked around the couch so that he would be visible to Toni and turned her head towards him saying, "Toni. When I ordered the hit on you," here he paused to open a briefcase he had brought with him and pull out a threatening looking device, "I worried that I was killing the golden goose," he attached the device to the arc reactor and smoke began to billow from it as it worked.
Clint and Natasha had taken to muttering curses against Obadiah under their breath in a tone that was quiet enough that Toni couldn't hear any specifics. Thor and Steve were obviously focusing very hard on not destroying more of Toni's furniture as Bruce's eyes flashed dangerously green once more.
"But, you see, it was just," Obadiah told Toni as he pushed the handle of the device down causing Toni to groan in pain, "fate that you survived that." With that he neatly turned his device and pulled the arc reactor from her chest, "you had one last golden egg to give," he finished.
Clint wanted to spit out his hate for the man because more than anything he hated those who let people live only because they wanted something from them and then they executed them. When he had first been starting out as an assassin on the wrong side of the tracks he had a few problems with killing but when he saw what some of the people he was killing were willing to do he became desensitized to it. Only he went too far and started killing innocents for little to no reason and that was when SHIELD found him and changed him into the man he was today. Only underneath it all; they were all as bad as he had once been. Some of them were worse; some of them were like Obadiah Stane. Although there were some good eggs in there. Hopefully they could get them out.
"Do you really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you?" Obadiah asked her as he leaned over her to look into her eyes.
"It does if you patent it," Toni said with a smirk, "and I did the moment I got home through private channels so nobody who would leak it to the press would find out about the arc reactor."
"Your father," Obadiah said obviously determined to hit as many of Toni's sore spots as possible, "he helped give us the atomic bomb. Now, what kind of world would it be if he was as selfish as you?"
"One where Hiroshima and Nagasaki never happened," Toni muttered. Theoretically she knew that America had developed the atomic bomb and dropped it on those cities because Japan was in the same race and would probably have dropped bombs on American cities. But all she remembered was seeing the photos of what they had done when they were little and being horrified. There was a reason none of her weapons had been nuclear despite pressure from Obadiah to make them that way.
With one final tug he completely severed the connection between the arc reactor and Toni's body and Toni began to die as the shrapnel resumed its journey towards her heart. Obadiah disconnected the arc reactor from the device he had used to remove it and looked at it admiringly telling Toni, "Oh, it's beautiful."
"I've never really thought about any kind of technology being beautiful," Steve said recognising the phrase that Toni tended to use often to describe her bots. Personally, he couldn't understand how an interlocking system of nuts and bolts could have any form of beauty which was a term he reserved for things created by god and not by humans.
"Everything has a form of beauty," Toni told him, "sometimes people just can't see it."
Obadiah smiled widely at Toni telling her, "Toni, this is your Ninth Symphony," he took a seat beside her sliding his hand around the back of her head as if they were just having a casual conversation, "What a masterpiece. Look at that. This is your legacy."
Everybody in the room flinched the moment Obadiah chose to use that word in particular because all of the memories attached to it were ones of Yinsen in that cave telling Toni that she needed a new legacy. And now Obadiah was attempting to steal that away from her once more in an attempt to get rid of his opposition and revert to the path that Stark Industries had once been on.
"A new generation of weapons with this at its heart," Obadiah told her knowing that there wasn't anything she could do about his plans while paralysed and that she would be dead shortly after, "Weapons that will help steer the world back on course, put the balance of power in our hands."
For Phil that was one of the worst things Obadiah Stane could have told Toni in that moment because he knew how much she had struggled to obliterate the presence of her weapons from the face of the earth. And here was someone she had once trusted telling her that she was in the wrong and he would always be in the right. The fact that it wasn't true made it almost worse because there was nothing Toni could do to stop him. Of course she had managed to live through this attack as he knew full well since she was here and as he had been there when she fought Obadiah the second time even if he hadn't witnessed the whole thing. He wished he'd had a bigger part in bringing the man down now after seeing all the things he had done to Toni.
"The right hands," Obadiah insisted staring down at the arc reactor before picking up his briefcase and opening it to get ready to leave, "I wish you could see my prototype. It's not as…" he paused for a minute as he put away the arc reactor, "Well, not as conservative as yours."
"I never thought I'd hear the word conservative used to describe that suit," Bruce said with the barest hints of a smile. It was hard to think of anything positive when they were watching Toni die on screen but as Toni had obviously survived it was probably a good idea to stop the room from sinking back into chaos by lightening the mood a little.
"His would never have worked long term," Toni told him, "it was ostentatious to the point of being extremely difficult to operate and the overly mechanised nature of it would have caused it to become inoperable. But there was always the chance he would improve his design and that needed to be stopped at all costs."
Toni's breaths were obviously becoming more difficult for her to take as Obadiah delivered one last cutting remark before leaving, "Too bad you had to involve Piper in this. I'm sure you would have preferred that he lived."
If it hadn't been Lady Toni's wish that they stop cursing a dead man Thor was pretty sure he would have thrown Mjolnir through the screen. Because it was one thing to try and take someone's life away from them but to promise them that the ones they loved would follow them was another matter entirely. He wondered if Lady Toni had felt responsible for Obadiah's threat towards Piper. It was likely as he knew that Lady Toni often blamed herself for things that weren't truly her fault.
A/n: Okay, this A/N is going to be really fucking long so feel free to skip it if you want to. I'm not going to go into specifics as to why I was ill for several reasons. I didn't get out of hospital that long ago and since then my mother restricted my computer time making it very hard for me to type this chapter out and get it to you. Below is a thank you to everyone who wished me well. And to the coward; I think you got smacked down enough already :) I don't know how many of my other Guests are the same person so I will address you all separately.
NalaNShinobi (I'm so glad that you like this story. And no, IM3 was incredible but it just doesn't fit in with this verse and none of the others will either so they don't exist here.)
chibi heishi (I think I squealed out loud several times when reading the nice things you said about this story. Thank you so much)
Guest #1
amy (Those facts made me smile a lot so thank you :) And thanks for the teddy bear and balloon)
AliseEve
MRose5 (That will happen in one of the sequels :) )
Guest #2 (Did you read my mind and find out one of my plans? Don't reveal all my ideas now. No, but they will find out eventually)
kits-hold-their-tears
Guest #3
ReenReen
Guest #4
Guest #5 (The device paralyses you but doesn't kill you. Toni was only dying because of the arc reactor being removed. So, I've always seen it as him being the only one left alive.)
Guest #6 (They won't come in until the sequels but they will technically be MCU fics so they're all the same verse so I'm keeping them in. And I always see Tobey Maguire as Spiderman still so TAS doesn't exist.)
Alexandria-reid-Winchester (I don't think anyone could chew out that coward as well as you just did :D As a demisexual woman thank you very much)
Guest #7 (I'm not sure yet but it may be a pairing I will look into. Sif will come into this fic primarily as a friend for Natasha and Toni at first)
Domergal'16 (No! While it was amazing IM3 is not canon in this universe)
Guest #8
HockeyGal09
Worried
Guest #9
Stiles Holmes
anon reader
ccsakurahime
exileena
Guest #10
XxXSilverShadowXxX
Maeleana
Bubblesturtles (Thank you that means a lot :) And the films after this will be IM2, Thor & Captain America)
The Dark Lady55 (Don't die! And please don't hit me with a fish I was ill)
Guest #11
ladynarutochan
twilightjazz
CatherineS (Hey fellow Scot :) I'm really glad you like this story)
Orangepaint
kiwipoker
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ficlover106
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ReadPaxJoy
iantoharkness4ever
Smiles123
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Dragones
Post U Later
babyliss12
LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books
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WayToPretty
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fiction reading chick
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youwannabekate
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XxxBellaBellaxxX
I'm crying again because I never thought the list would be that long at all. You guys all rock. Okay, so this has been very long and I will end it with this. I may not be able to update daily until I fully recover and I hope you can forgive me for that but I hope it will never rest for that long again.
Yours So Happy To Be Back,
Karma xxx