Chapter 58 – The Real Fight Begins

A/n – We're finally getting into the fight scenes again so I hope that you enjoy the way I'm going to write them. I'm hoping that this will go up pretty soon so you don't have to wait too long :)

XxxBellaBellaxxX: Glad you liked it and hope you enjoy the start of the fighting in this chapter.

TwilightNewMoonEclipseMidnight & Cry-Pom: Thank you :)

BrendaBanner1234: I'm glad that you liked this story :D

ReadPaxJoy: As long as it doesn't injure the pillow pet XD I'm glad that you liked it and honestly surprised that it made you emotional as I didn't think it was my best.

moonyrocks13: I know and that's why I love writing her so much because it fills in a gap in fics where I feel there shouldn't be one.

ThatOneFan: Those are the bits I probably enjoy writing the most so I'm glad that you're looking forward to them. I might have enjoyed Hulk more if it was Mark Ruffalo doing it but alas it wasn't. And I already had plans to put that bit in as an extra in between IM1 and IM2 although I'll probably put it through some editing to make it fit with my Toni :)

Post U Later: I figured I had to have that realisation at some point or it would get really annoying for the rest of the movies. Hope you enjoy this chapter.

Mythfan: Don't worry I'm a stickler for continuity so Betty will definitely get a mention she just won't appear onscreen. Glad that you liked it.

babyliss12: I'm pretty sure anybody who's ever hurt one of the Avengers who made it out alive is trembling in their shoes at this stage.

rianess: I just prefer replying on the story itself to be honest and sometimes everyone needs to see some of the things I say. I'm glad that you like this story :)

ladynarutochan, LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books, Harm Marie & nessa11997: Glad you liked it

TricksterOfPanem: Yay! I'm glad :) That sounds accurate because my reactions were similar too

chibi heishi: Dummy appreciation is always good :D Toni is perhaps the most calm of them outwardly because of her masks but there will be a couple of times when she gets really angry.

LianaDare8 & BlueRoseRabbit: Hopefully I will :)

JazzNProwl's sparklingAriaFyre: Dummy's always been one of my favourite parts of the IM movies :D

twilightjazz: I've got so many projects right now that I probably won't be able to but if I do get a chance I will. I probably won't though so don't count on it.

domergal'16: Thank you very much; I'm glad to be back :) And thank you for the huge compliment you gave this story. It means a lot to me.

amy: Yep, I am back :) Hopefully this will be a little longer.

Kimichan13: I'm very glad that you like the fic :) I'll do my best to update quickly but you came in at a bad time for update speeds.

Toni knew that what was left of this movie wouldn't be easy for her but at least from now on the attempts to kill her were now more blatant. Obadiah started using missiles instead of words and trickery which meant he became just like every other villain they had ever faced off against. She didn't know how close the others had been to those they fought against personally but she hoped none of them had been as close as she was to Obadiah and Thor was to Loki. For the worst sort of betrayals were ones that were close to home as she knew well from this and several other experiences. Everyone around her seemed to give up on her and betray her at some point. Natasha, Rhodey, Obadiah and her mother and father were only a few of those. Was it something to do with her that meant nobody considered her actions to be the right ones?

The scene changed to show the back of a suit that resembled the Mark I only it was much bigger and bulkier and obviously built primarily for weaponry. Obadiah was shown standing in front of it staring reverently as he held Toni's arc reactor in his hands.

This didn't help the tense atmosphere in the room because it was just another reminder that they hadn't actually seen if Toni had the strength to put the old one in yet. It was also a sickening reminder of what Obadiah had done to Toni and that wasn't what any of them needed right now as they attempted to stay calm. Honestly their only motivation for not getting angry enough to destroy things again was the glare that Toni would give them if they did after she had specifically asked them not to. That would not be at all pretty.

Eventually he stopped staring and stepped forward towards his version of the suit and carefully slotted the arc reactor into the chest piece. Instantly the noises of machinery powering up flared to life and Obadiah smirked satisfied at his work.

"As if he did anything but take the arc reactor," Bruce snarled when he saw the expression on Obadiah's face, "he has shown no evidence of having any technological skill at any point so far. And the fact that he got scientists to do everything for him and couldn't understand why they weren't moving quickly proves it."

"Why do you think I was still around at this point?" Toni said bluntly, "He needed me. But once he had the Jericho missile he thought normal scientists would be able to make progressions from there that I was unwilling too. That and he probably incorrectly assumed that JARVIS would release my other plans after my death."

Natasha flinched a little as she heard Toni refer to events that might have happened after her death so callously. She was sure it unnerved everyone else in the room as well but perhaps it affected her and Phil the most. They were the ones who had been with her when she had actually been dying of palladium poisoning and she hadn't been doing all she could to save herself. Natasha wasn't fooled into thinking that Toni hadn't come up with the idea of trying to synthesise a new element herself after all of the currently known ones had failed. She was a lot smarter than the agents at SHIELD who had come up with it after all. She just hadn't bothered because her life didn't have that much meaning to her. That was worrying. But Natasha was still not in favour of a plan where they would go rushing in to destroy Toni's walls because she knew that would do so much more harm than good. No matter how frustrating it was they had to keep going at Toni's pace or they might drive her to do something really stupid like leave the Avengers.

Back at the Malibu mansion all was quiet until Rhodey entered calling out, "Toni?" repeatedly. He quickly noticed the silence of the mansion which clearly worried him because usually JARVIS would reply or you would hear Toni's music blaring from the lab. Upon seeing the empty living room his first instinct was naturally to head straight down to the lab.

"At least he knows that," Natasha admitted glad that Rhodey seemed to know at least some facets of Toni's personality. But she knew that you didn't have to spend long with Toni to pick up that she was hardly ever out of her lab so it wasn't all that impressive.

He called out Toni's name again as he stepped through the shattered glass wall of the lab and was immediately struck with worry as he spotted Toni lying motionless on the floor clutching onto the podium of the first reactor surrounded by shattered glass.

Clint swore under his breath at the image as it honestly looked like Toni was dead. He of course knew that she wasn't (she seemed to have a propensity for being near death but avoiding it by an inch) but it was an image that he never wanted fixed in his mind. Now he knew that every time Toni fell on the battlefield even if she was within her suit that image would be all he could see. And that would be problematic given that if Toni knew they were stressing about her on the battlefield it would affect their team dynamic and not in a positive way. It would be like the Piper situation all over again.

Rhodey instantly sprinted over to her side and rolled her over startling Toni who flung her arms up in the air to push Rhodey away revealing the old arc reactor had been placed in her chest.

The sigh of relief that came from everyone in the room but Toni was clearly audible as it seemed to happen in unison. Toni rolled her eyes at it but inwardly she was slightly touched that they were so worried about her. She couldn't say that about many people before she ended up with this gig and despite her reluctance at first she was rather pleased to be part of something for once.

"Toni!" Rhodey exclaimed after getting a good look at the state Toni was in, "You okay?"

"That's was a bit of a stupid question," Phil scoffed. It was obvious that Toni was not okay but the important thing was that she was alive at all. From the look on Rhodey's face when he discovered her Phil could guess that he had figured out that Obadiah had made another attempt on Toni's life so he probably should have been checking Toni over instead of asking questions which had obvious answers.

Toni clung onto Rhodey's arms and used them to pull herself back up off the floor as she was obviously still too weak to do it herself as she asked urgently although her voice was obviously cracking, "where's Piper?"

Steve smiled a little at that admiring Toni's concern for her friend. Of course it meant the return of the guilt he had been feeling a lot of earlier about his comments to Toni about her not caring about anyone. She had nearly died and yet her first concern was for her friend rather than for herself. Mind you she had already shown that she didn't care about her own life as much as she should. What worried Steve the most was how she had got to that point and how much his old friend had been responsible.

"She's fine," Rhodey reassured her knowing he wasn't going to get anywhere otherwise, "She's with five agents. They're about to arrest Obadiah."

"That's not going to be enough," Toni told him seriously as she scrambled to her feet.

Bruce frowned a little at seeing Toni's haste to get back in action. Of course he knew that it was necessary for her to stop Piper being killed and rid the world of Obadiah Stane but from a medical standpoint he would have been reluctant to allow it. She had nearly died and by the looks of it the shrapnel must have been very close to her heart before she managed to get the arc reactor back in. It was inadvisable for her even to try and walk let alone fly an extremely heavy piece of machinery. He didn't even want to know what shape she had been in after the fight was over.

Phil cut off his train of thought when he chimed in with, "it wasn't but we never expected a man with no defence training and no significant technological know-how to have succeeded in making a halfway decent weapon."

The array of SHIELD cars pulled up outside the doors to the Stark Industries factory building and Phil climbed out of the lead car with Piper in tow. Piper used his card to let them into the building and they all filed in behind him. Piper muttered, "Section 16," a couple of times as he looked around before spotting it and exclaiming, "there it is."

"Why doesn't Mr Potts know the way to that Section Lady Toni?" Thor asked puzzled. He had assumed that Piper would know his way around if he was Toni's PA because that was where Toni worked.

"Piper doesn't have access to every room in the premises," Toni told him, "some are sealed off because it's dangerous for someone without training to go in there and some are sealed off because they're private areas. I have access everywhere but I'm rarely in the factory because I prefer to work at home so Piper doesn't exactly need to know where those areas are."

Piper used his pass on the reader next to the door but it didn't grant him access. He decided to try again just in case but got the same result so he turned to Phil and told him exasperatedly, "my key's not working. It's not opening the door."

"Obviously," Clint muttered under his breath. He made sure that Toni couldn't hear him but he wasn't bothered about anybody else. Despite Toni's hopes the Avengers and Piper were not as friendly as she thought they were going to be. They did their best to get along in front of her but the truth was his first impression had been bad because of his overprotectiveness and that had only continued afterwards.

Phil held out his hand and another one of the agents handed him something as Piper inquired, "what's that? It's, like, a little device that's going to pick the lock."

"I don't think SHIELD has managed to go that advanced with lock picking," Toni scoffed, "they're more likely to blow the thing up first."

"You might want to take a few steps back," Phil told him and led him over to where the other agents stood as Piper covered his ears. He was the only one that did so as the noise that came from the explosion turned out not to be very loud. It did however succeed in successfully opening the door.

"See what I mean," Toni said rolling her eyes. She had invented a fair amount of tech supported lock picks in her time that would have been able to pick that lock (not that they would have needed to had she been there because she had her card key). She hadn't actually created any great amount of them because she didn't want to commercialize something that could help thieves get their hands on peoples belongings more easily. She had made a few for personal use but she was the only one who knew how to work them so it was no use stealing them from her.

Obadiah turned alarmed to the door obviously hearing the explosion and quickly activated the power to his suit and ran towards it.

Back at the mansion a similar process was beginning as the boots of the Mark III suit were fastened onto Toni's feet by JARVIS. As the final touches were put in place Rhodey walked around exclaiming wildly about the suit, "that's the coolest thing I've ever seen."

"For once I agree with him," Clint said still somewhat in awe of just how complex Toni's suits were.

"Not bad, huh?" Toni told him with a smile, "Let's do it." She aimed a repulsor blast at the wreckage of the car she had destroyed earlier when she fell through the roof to clear it out of the way and walked over until she was under the hole in the roof.

"You need me to do anything else?" Rhodey asked her.

Toni's mask clicked shut and she told him in the very different voice that was emitted through the voice changer of her suit, "Keep the skies clear," before blasting her way out of the building through the unintentional pathway she had created to the roof.

"I hope you closed that up," Bruce joked half-heartedly, "because it may be California but it does still occasionally rain there."

"Of course," Toni said using a similar tone only sounding more genuine about it, "I turned it into a route out of the lab for the suit only with a cover that could be placed over it. It was too convenient to just plaster over."

"Damn!" Rhodey said impressed and turning to eye the Mark II suit which was suspended nearby obviously in the midst of repairs saying, "Next time, baby."

Natasha and Toni both stiffened up at this comment struck by the irony that Rhodey had indeed stolen that very suit when he lost his trust in Toni. But now they were being forced to consider that he might also have been motivated by a desire just to have the suit in general and that was worrying. Because they hadn't known that until that very moment which meant Rhodey had decided to leave that aspect of it out of his apology.

He clambered into one of Toni's cars and tore off out of the garage on his way to ensure that Toni didn't get shot down by the military for flying again. Back at Stark Industries Phil followed by Piper and his fellow agents opened up the inner door to the lab area of Section 16. As he entered he drew his gun and so did the others as they entered looking around cautiously.

"At least they have enough sense to deal with hostile situations I guess," Toni said rolling her eyes, "I would hope they would but there's clearly no guarantee with SHIELD agents these days."

As they rounded a corner they came across the original Mark I suit and marvelled at it. Phil turned back to Piper telling him, "it looks like you were right. He was building a suit."

"Well he was," Phil added, "just not that one. He was copycatting that one."

"I thought it'd be bigger," Piper responded obviously puzzled as to how Obadiah would fit into a suit that looked like it was built for someone a lot smaller than he was.

"That would be a problem for someone trying to steal your suits," Steve realised, "on top of the security they'd have to send in someone pretty small to be able to fit in them."

As Phil and the other Agents stood looking over the Mark I suit Piper heard a noise in the background and turned to see if he could see what it was and began to wander towards the sparking electrical cables that hung down from the ceiling where Obadiah's suit had been. Meanwhile Phil and one of the other agents leapt over a barrier onto the walkway down below to try and search the building effectively.

"I have a feeling this isn't going to end well for everyone in that room," Clint interjected, "especially since Obadiah is in a gigantic suit designed for war and you only have handguns with you."

"For once actually all of us managed to get out alive," Phil assured him, "we had a couple of pretty bad injuries but Obadiah wasn't really interested in what we were doing."

Two others got a glimpse of the schematics for Obadiah's suit on a nearby computer screen but shrugged it off as they didn't see it around anywhere and figured it was just a plan.

"How do you pick your employees at SHIELD?" Bruce said incredulously, "They shouldn't shrug off anything in a potentially hostile situation. You were in a lab where it was obvious something like that could possibly have been created. There were detailed blueprints of it and no evidence that they hadn't attempted to make it and yet they still left the screen alone."

"If it had been me I would've looked into it," Phil said, "but I can't control the actions of agents who have decided to go against SHIELD policy."

Piper was now right next to the sparking cables and looked up curiously until he was distracted yet again by another noise behind him in the midst of the chains that hung down from the ceiling.

"Oh," Natasha exclaimed realising where Obadiah was hiding in that giant suit. She was wondering how he had concealed himself so effectively in so little time as Phil, Piper and the Agents had been busting in at a rapid pace. But those chains provided a perfect cover for something metal and unfortunately gave him the perfect opportunity to sneak up on Piper. He thought Toni was dead and that there was nothing stopping him from killing off Piper too after all. Natasha hoped that Piper hadn't been too badly injured for while she didn't particularly like him she had gotten a better impression of him than the others. Plus she wouldn't wish grave injuries on someone who had done not much wrong in comparison to the person delivering them. A person whom she would gladly deliver the same injuries to herself if he was still among the living.

Piper walked over to the very edge of the collection of chains and stared into the blackness of that corner of the room that was quickly illuminated by the eyes of Obadiah's suit. They rose up higher as the suit pulled out of its crouched position and the target of its version of the HUD fixed itself on Piper who backed away his expression a mixture of fear and shock before screaming and running off.

"For once a sensible reaction," Clint admitted, "you wouldn't believe how many people there are that just freeze up in the face of danger and get themselves killed because they don't know seem to know that they're going to die because they aren't running."

Piper came sprinting as fast as he could through the agents that were milling around the screens in the main area of the lab as one of the shouted, "Take him out," upon spotting Obadiah and began to fire on the suit. It didn't do them much good as he simply swiped the nearest one out of the way and caused an explosion near Phil that knocked him aside. Piper just kept running not looking back as he tried to save himself.

"How badly injured were you two Friend Coulson?" Thor asked clearly concerned for the man he was slowly getting to know better. It was a relief for him to even have Phil in the room considering the fact that he thought he had seen the other man die in front of him partially due to him being fooled by his brother.

"Agent Kingston had several broken ribs from the collision of the arm with his chest and a shoulder injury from his collision with the wall but made a full recovery," Phil informed Thor, "he now works outside of America. I had a few first degree burns and a couple of scratches but nothing at all serious."

As Obadiah leapt into the air his suit flew dangerously close to Piper causing massive explosions in its wake destroying the passageway behind Piper but he managed to get out of the way just in time.

"That was far too close for comfort," Clint exclaimed knowing that if Piper had been any slower he'd have been dead for sure.

A/n: I hope you guys liked this chapter. The fight scenes are coming up next. To test who actually reads these there is a prize for reviewers of this chapter. I am offering to send parts of my notes on this or any of the one shots in this series to you if you ask for them in a review. It's your choice what you want to see.