Chapter 61 – A Brush With Death
A/n – So the good news is that my Mondays now have the period where I lose internet again so maybe I'll actually get a chapter done a week. But I still unfortunately can't make any promises what with my wrist problems. Still this is a good thing :)
Orangepaint: Aww, that's sweet. I'm glad you liked my story enough to decide to review for the first time. And as my 900th reviewer I owe you a one shot to be added to the list of things I should be writing.
chibi heishi: A typo for the main character of my novel. I'm trying to type two things at once and I guess that one slipped by me. I caught all of the others.
Booklover2526: There will be a break episode between all of the movies. Let me know what you guys want to see in it. I'm interested in hearing about it.
dri-dri93: I'd probably have gotten kicked out of the room too. And there's not much of a reprieve with Iron Man 2 which is constant drama basically. Phil is one of my favourite characters and to think he wasn't originally going to be in this story, I'm glad I changed my mind on that. I'm glad that you like my interpretation and wait until I get Sif, Jane and Darcy involved in the sequel. It will be a girl power overload.
Gruffard: I'm glad you like the twist I've put on these. I've tried to keep them interesting by having a plot through them and changing a few things up. I'm glad it's working. I'm trying to get there but this story writes itself at times and it wants more commentary.
"Trust me," Toni said, "I doubt it will be as interesting as you think. In fact it will probably just involve a lot more fighting."
"Styles of Midgardian fighting are of great interest to me Lady Toni," Thor told her, "I am interested to see further examples of how you fight when not accompanied by another."
Toni's suit disappeared into a layer of black cloud with Obadiah's following closely behind. Toni was pulling away due to her lighter weight but Obadiah wasn't being left too far behind her.
"So now we prepare for the air battle," Natasha sighed. The tactics for fighting off the ground were much harder to pull off especially when you had a larger opponent. But Toni was the expert on iron suits not Obadiah and had the advantage with manoeuvrability because she had the smaller of the two suits. Hopefully that would give her the upper hand despite the fact that her reactor wouldn't hold out for much longer.
The scene switched back to the military base as the radar blips representing Obadiah and Toni rose up a screen. "Sir," the soldier monitoring the screen said, "you're not going to believe this. That thing is back."
"Here's hoping Rhodey does the job that you assigned to him," Bruce commented. Rhodey hadn't shown himself to be particularly reliable yet at dealing with things where Toni and the military were both involved. His loyalty seemed to be to the military first and to Toni second. Someone like Steve might see his willingness to put his duty in front of everything as admirable but all Bruce could see was how it had helped lead to this situation. If Rhodey had been involved in the project then maybe Obadiah would have been incapable of getting to the arc reactor. Rhodey would probably have been there that night. Him or Piper and Obadiah had only struck when he knew Toni would be alone.
"Get me Major Allen. Scramble the jets!" his superior ordered.
"Anytime now Rhodey," Clint muttered.
As the man began to type in the number to reach Major Allen a hand reached out to stop him typing. Rhodey looked over at the officers and told them, "not necessary, people. Just a training exercise."
"Well I suppose he's good for something," Natasha sighed. She hadn't gotten on with Rhodey particularly well during her time spent at Stark Manor. Although he was arguably the reason that Toni hadn't been madder at her because Rhodey's crime against her had been much worse so she supposed she should thank him for that.
"Yes, sir," the soldier said quietly lowering the phone.
Back in the sky Toni was zooming upwards at a great speed but Obadiah was still hot on her heels and put an extra burst of speed into his thrusters quickening his pace. Behind him a giant billowing cloud of smoke was emerging.
"Thirteen percent power ma'am," JARVIS informed Toni.
Everyone in the room flinched at that. None of them knew exactly how much power the suit needed from the arc reactor to run but they were sure that only thirteen percent was pushing it significantly. And the arc reactor couldn't be drained completely anyway because it was still also being used to keep Toni alive.
"Climb!" Toni told him firmly as Obadiah gained on her even more. JARVIS put a little more power into their repulsors and Toni sped upwards away from his reach.
Phil was wondering how Toni planned to fight Obadiah that high in the sky with very low power. Having an air battle was a perfectly stable plan but not at that altitude when you had no idea when you'd have to stop using power and one hit at the right moment could send you crashing down thousands of miles with no way to stop yourself from doing so. Then suddenly he remembered the previous time that Toni had attempted this move in the suit made of the old material. Obadiah only had access to the original plans so his would be made of the original material instead of the one Toni had switched to. Now he just had to hope that Toni's power had lasted long enough for her to put her plan into action. Honestly she needed to stop leaving important encounters like this out of mission reports.
"Eleven percent," JARVIS said almost strained as the moon came clearly into view on the HUD.
"Keep going!" Toni said the pain that she was obviously feeling showing in her face and voice for once. It was clearly excruciating for her to do this.
Seeing Toni looking so in pain felt like actual pain to Bruce. Toni was always so strong and determined to hide anything that ailed her even when she knew nobody could see. And while it was a potentially dangerous trait it was one that he had learned to associate with his friend. To see her actually discard that mask meant that he didn't even want to imagine how much pain she must be in.
Obadiah continued to pursue Toni as the arc reactor light in her chest began to flicker.
"This plan is far too risky for my liking," Steve said in a strained voice. He hadn't factored in how hard it would be to watch things like this even after the fact when he had agreed with the plan of just going forward with watching them. Of course he hadn't expected Toni to have gone through anything this severe although he probably should have considering some of her comments.
"Well it obviously worked," Toni said almost haughtily, "so stop questioning my judgement if you please."
"Seven percent power," JARVIS said haltingly.
"Just leave it on the screen," Toni said irritated, "Stop telling me!"
Natasha sighed in relief. The constant reminders of how low Toni's power was getting were stressing her out more than the situation was. Yes she would still worry but not knowing specifics would definitely help her to worry less. She knew their constant worrying was annoying to Toni but it was a reflex that was highly difficult to suppress.
The two machines were blurs in the sky they were moving so quickly although Obadiah was still leaving behind a massive trail of smoke and flames. His suit was much less elegant than Toni's.
"I'd much rather have your suit Toni," Clint said cautiously knowing she could be a little touchy about statements like that, "his is far too bulky and must be a nightmare to fly in. Besides you said it was over-mechanised."
Obadiah's suit crackled with the thin layer of ice that was building up on it as he reached out to grab Toni's suit. He managed to grab a hold of one of her boots. Ice flew away at the contact as Obadiah pulled Toni back down into his grip and squeezed hold of her suit tightly.
Most of the others were stressing out too badly to notice that Toni's plan was succeeding but Phil wasn't. He was keeping in mind what he had figured out and had noticed that ice was already building up across the surface of Obadiah's suit. Soon enough it would be too clogged up to fly and hopefully at that point Toni would be able to break free.
"You had a great idea, Toni," Obadiah boomed as he got his hand around the neck of the Iron Man suit, "but my suit is more advanced in every way."
"Technically maybe it was," Toni chuckled, "but even if I hadn't found out about it and he had kept running his secret tests it would have failed eventually. That's what happens when you try and do too much without introducing things gradually or realising when you need to stop. The failure would have been sooner rather than later."
"Especially since he would have run into the same problem he's about to run into here," Phil interjected.
"So someone did notice what I was doing," Toni said with a smile, "well done Phil. Although I'm honestly kind of disappointed that nobody else figured it out as well. It was rather a good plan."
The rest of the Avengers didn't see any point in asking about what the pair was talking about. The answer was going to be revealed any second now and they'd waste precious time when they could already be finding out how Toni had gotten out of this difficult situation.
"How'd you solve the icing problem?" Toni asked pointedly.
"Oh!" The Avengers sighed as one. They felt slightly stupid for forgetting about previous parts of the movie in relation to this battle. They had all been leading up to this after all so they should have suspected that they'd have some influence. They made a note not to do that in any future movies and try to remember every detail as anything could become important either in them or in the future.
"Icing problem," Obadiah asked confused his entire suit now covered in a very thick layer of ice. Without an inferior HUD and no JARVIS to inform him about external issues he had obviously not noticed the fact that his systems were being impaired.
"That explains why JARVIS is such an integral part of your suit," Bruce said.
"You can't have a suit-based computer monitor everything as it doesn't have enough power to do that and sustain flight and target weaponry," Toni agreed, "because JARVIS is a separate system he's able to do more than focus on internal systems which while arguably the biggest problem are far from the only thing that can go wrong with the suits."
Obadiah's HUD blacked out completely and the light from the eyeholes of the suit also faded. The hunk of ice and metal began to fall slowly as Toni quipped, "might want to look into it," as she delivered a solid hit to the head of his suit that not only dislodged some of the ice but triggered the beginning of a more rapid free-fall descent.
"It's a good thing he didn't run more extensive tests or with the amount of scientists he had on the project someone might have figured out what he was doing," Bruce pointed out.
"If I didn't figure it out then it's unlikely they would have;" Toni said with a shrug, "besides Obadiah never did have any sort of patience."
Toni remained hovering in the sky staring down at the falling Obadiah until JARVIS muttered, "two percent," and the repulsors began to falter.
"That is the problem with this plan," Phil said worriedly. There always had to be some sort of flaw that made it dangerous for Toni otherwise it wasn't really one of her plans.
They cut out completely momentarily and Toni plummeted a few feet until they kicked in once again and she was able to maintain a steady hover. After a few seconds they blinked out again and Toni fell even further as JARVIS told her, "We are now running on emergency backup power."
"So now it is actively interfering with the function of pulling the shrapnel away from your heart basically," Bruce said knowing that there had to be some power reserved for maintaining the arc reactor's basic function in an emergency but that it was now being used to stop Toni from falling from the sky which would kill her just as easily.
Toni wished he hadn't pointed that out because now they were back to worrying about her again. And if she thought that was bad she didn't know how they'd react to her giving up on trying to heal herself from the poison. Especially since the thing killing her was also keeping her alive in a way and hadn't been able to be removed.
Toni managed to slow her descent every so often when her repulsors kicked back in but they never stayed on for long.
"That was probably actually the quickest way to get down and was actually convenient," Toni told them with a shrug, "because it made sure I got back down to the city as quickly as I could because I was in free-fall but I was able to steady myself at intervals. I might have done that anyway albeit in a more controlled fashion even if I had power at the time."
As she neared the ground the power flickered giving her just enough control to get herself over the roof of the Stark Industries factory. Then she lost control of it and went skittering over a barrier landing heavily on her knees.
The room collectively breathed a sigh of relief as Toni landed glad that it hadn't been in the middle of the street again. It was difficult enough fighting with that little power but being struck by enough cars would injure both Toni and civilians. And while they hoped that the fall had killed Obadiah they knew Toni was never that lucky so it was likely the fight was about to continue.
"Potts!" Toni said immediately getting back in contact with Piper knowing he needed to be reassured that she was okay.
Piper's hand flew immediately to his earpiece and he exclaimed, "Toni! Oh my god, are you okay?"
"It's nice to know that his concern for you isn't always as irritating as my brother's pranks Lady Toni," Thor exclaimed speaking up for the first time in a while. Before he had been watching the fight with interest taking note of the particular fighting styles Toni was employing against Stane noting that her use of trickery was alarmingly similar to his brother's. Then again she was very similar to her brother in a lot of ways which both worried and reassured him. It meant she was clever and knew what she was doing but there was the fact that their similar backgrounds had led Loki to almost destroy New York.
"I'm almost out of power," Toni relayed as she threw one of her handplates aside and raising her faceplate, "I've got to get out of this thing. I'll be right there."
"You suspected that Mr Stane had not survived the fall," Steve surmised.
"I figured that if he had it would have been very lucky for him if he had and even luckier if his suit was still operational and he'd landed close to the Stark Industries building," Toni agreed, "it was worth the risk to start getting out of the suit as it was beginning to drain the essential power."
As she spoke Obadiah landed heavily behind her and Toni turned to face him at the loud thump as the man boomed, "nice try!" Toni neatly lowered her faceplate again and ducked his blow throwing out her hand to try and blast him only to realise it was the one without a metal glove.
"And there's the downside to that decision however logical it was," Natasha sighed. Why couldn't Toni's luck just go one way with her plans which were normally excellently laid out not having a catch? Because they did. Every single time.
Obadiah swung his other fist and caught Toni off-guard hitting her in the face and sending her flying. She managed to stop herself before she went flying off the edge of the roof by digging her heels into the concrete and scrambling back up.
"You must have been exhausted," Steve said noticing that Toni's reactions were a lot slower than they normally would have been.
"It was more that the suit begins to feel heavier as the power used to support its weight is diverted elsewhere," Toni told him, "I was beginning to take the entire weight of the suit on top of the strain on my heart and it was a bit much."
She managed to get a burst of power to leap into the air and use her remaining glove to strike Obadiah across the face but it didn't really affect him all that much. He was able to grab her around the middle and start to squeeze causing sparks to fly from the suit.
"When does this мудак die?" Natasha asked growing impatient.
"We're much closer to that point now, don't worry," Toni laughed.
"Weapon's status?" Toni enquired in a strained voice.
"There's not going to be enough power for that," Bruce said worriedly. While he was starting to get less panicky over the movie because he was focusing on Toni sitting next to him he was beginning to wonder how messed up she had been after this battle.
"Repulsors offline. Missiles offline," JARVIS relayed as the glass screen of the HUD began to crack as Obadiah smiled.
Natasha called Obadiah a few nasty names in Russian under her breath that Toni wholeheartedly agreed with. Although the first couple were perhaps a little mild for the situation.
"Flares!" Toni shouted. Instantly the shoulders of the suit span out of the way and began firing sparks of light.
"That on the other hand was a good plan without a drawback," Clint sighed, "can they all be like that in future?"
There were enough flares to form an impressive amount of sparks which bounced off of Obadiah's armour. They weren't really damaging him all that much but they caused enough disturbances that he let go off Toni letting her fall to the ground.
"I agree with Clint," Phil said, "definitely one of your better plans."
Obadiah groaned as the screen of his HUD flickered trying to recover from the brief attack. "Very clever, Toni," he boomed once he had managed to get his bearings back.
"I can't believe he's still trying to mock you," Bruce chuckled, "you're still consistently proving yourself superior to him and he's acting like he hasn't noticed."
Toni peered out from behind the piece of machinery she'd managed to hide behind to see Obadiah looking in the wrong direction and decided she could risk talking again if quietly, "Potts?"
"This entire fight is a battle of brute strength versus calculated risks," Steve said.
"Toni!" Piper exclaimed relieved to be back in contact with Toni again.
"This isn't working," Toni whispered inspecting a couple of factors on her cracked HUD screen, "we're going to have to overload the reactor and blast the roof."
"And just when you thought your plans couldn't get any more risky they do," Clint sighed, "that's the most dangerous move you've been planning yet. Getting off of the roof in time can't have been easy." Toni had said this was going to end soon which meant that this last plan had to have worked and as Toni wasn't dead – as she kept pointing out – she couldn't have been in the way of the blast.
"Well, how are you going to do that?" Piper asked knowing Toni wouldn't be able to distract Obadiah and overload the reactor at the same time.
"Obviously she isn't," Natasha said rolling her eyes at Piper, "you'd think he'd be able to figure out that you were going to get him to do it."
"You're going to do it," Toni told him beginning to relay instructions, "go to the central console, open up all the circuits. When I get clear of the roof, I'll let you know. You're going to hit the master bypass button. It's going to fry everything up here." As she spoke Obadiah span around to face the correct direction although he hadn't spotted her yet.
"Hopefully your communications device will remain operational until then," Thor said having noticed the fact that as well as the crack the entire screen was occasionally flickering with interference.
Piper hesitantly made his way across the broken glass from the doors and back towards the factory building as the arc reactor within crackled with energy. "Okay," he told Toni, "I'm going in now."
"Let's hope he remembers what you've told him," Bruce said worriedly, "we've seen that he panics under pressure. That could end up being a serious problem."
"Make sure you wait till I clear the roof," Toni repeated, "I'll buy you some time." Immediately after saying this Toni had to shift her position as Obadiah approached grabbing hold of the machinery she'd been hiding behind.
"That was far too close for comfort," Phil sighed. Toni really should have been able to move earlier but she had been rather preoccupied.
Inside the factory Piper had made it to the controls and began to pull them down one by one. As he was doing this Toni crept up behind Obadiah and leapt up onto the back of his suit.
"Sure let's add even more risk to the situation because there wasn't enough already," Natasha muttered.
Toni heard but decided not to comment because for one Natasha didn't know why she had done it yet and also she knew that Natasha was only saying things like that because she was concerned.
As Obadiah tried to shake her off Toni was scanning the man's suit to try and find a weak point and zeroed in on something, "this looks important," she cried as she ripped it out.
"Okay I see why you did it but still," Natasha admitted.
The light in Obadiah's eyes flickered and went out as his HUD began to warp before blacking out almost completely. All that was left was a black screen with a red target dashing across it and the message, 'optical connection lost.'
"Looks like you got exactly the right mechanism there," Phil sighed, "sometimes you're so lucky and yet you still manage to get yourself into these situations in the first place."
"It wasn't really luck," Toni said almost offended, "I analysed the mechanisms that I could access and isolated the most important one and made sure that was the one I cut. That's not luck. That's skill."
Piper had made his way to a different panel and was pushing all of the buttons on it. On the roof Obadiah was flailing about wildly with his arms trying to grab hold of Toni who was clinging on for dear life. He tried spinning to loosen her grip but she somehow managed to keep a hold of him. Eventually though he got lucky and seized her by the helmet flinging her using that grip.
"That little move could have easily broken your neck," Bruce snarled.
"I think that was kind of the point," Natasha said just as darkly.
Toni went sliding across the glass part of the roof her helmet gone and her hair flying out around her.
"And that's why I normally try and tie it up beneath the helmet if I have the time no matter how uncomfortable it is," Toni sighed, "my hair just gets in the way if I have to take the helmet off."
Directly below her now Piper had moved onto the dials and was clearly nearly finished with what Toni had instructed him to do.
"You don't have that much time left to get off that roof Lady Toni," Thor said concerned.
As Obadiah no longer had visual with his helmet on he carefully opened up the front of his suit raising the helmet as he clutched at Toni's own. "I never had a taste for this sort of thing, but I must admit I'm deeply enjoying the suit!" Obadiah boomed crushing Toni's helmet with his hand.
At this point the entire room scoffed. He had already proved that he most definitely had a taste for this sort of thing. He took far too much pleasure in using the paralysing device for that.
He tossed the sparking squashed helmet over by Toni's head as Toni forced herself to look up at him as he stepped towards the railing separating where he was from the glass roof. "You finally outdid yourself, Toni!" he told her, "you'd have made your father proud!"
"I highly doubt that," Toni scoffed. No matter what he said she didn't think her father ever really gave a damn about her beyond what she could do. And even then he still acted as if she were lesser there too.
Toni pushed herself up onto one knee with her non-gloved hand managing to get her other foot beneath her. In the factory Piper finished up the final few buttons and opened up a glass container which housed the master bypass button. "It's ready Toni," he shouted, "get off the roof!"
"There's no way you got off in time," Bruce said shaking his head, "how on earth did you manage it?"
Toni was back on her feet facing Obadiah as he primed his machine gun and began to fire. Most of his shots went well wide and the few that were near Toni she managed to block with a form of shield inside one of the arms of the suit.
"I guess it's a good thing that he's such a bad shot," Clint said, "because that makes taking out his system of targeting was an even better move."
Upon realising he wasn't hitting Toni Obadiah redirected the bullets towards the glass at her feet which shattered sending her falling through it only just managing to cling on to the frame.
"He had to pick now to use his one intelligent move," Steve sighed.
Below Piper ducked his head urgently as some of the glass clattered across his back. Nearby electricity from the arc reactor was already beginning to jump out of its housing. Toni managed to pull her torso back above the frame with a tremendous effort. Then Obadiah once again focused his efforts on her only it was as bad a shot as ever only hitting the surrounding glass.
"I am almost offended by how bad of a shot he is," Clint scoffed and after a look from Natasha hastily added, "I mean it's still a good thing that is a bad shot but when I say bad I mean abysmal."
The glass rained down on Piper again as he kept his hand hovering over the button and stared up at Toni. "Toni!" he shouted worriedly.
"I don't see how that's going to help," Natasha sighed.
"How ironic, Toni!" Obadiah continued, "Trying to rid the world of weapons you gave it the best one ever."
"The suit isn't primarily designed as a weapon you just made it that way," Toni muttered to herself following it with a whole load of unflattering terms to describe Obadiah.
"Piper!" Toni shouted as she struggled to maintain her grip on the ledge.
"Oh god Toni," Bruce said realising that she had decided to go for the suicidal option again. He really needed to talk to her about that although he wasn't a psychiatrist so he wasn't sure how helpful he'd be there.
"And now I'm going to kill you with it!" Obadiah gloated.
"Does every villain we meet have to monologue?" Toni sighed, "Every single one just monologues before they put their plan into action and it is fucking annoying. And some of them keep doing it once their plan is in action and that's even worse."
"Now that I think about it they really do don't they," Clint said, "wow. That is really annoying."
Obadiah primed a cylinder full of missiles and fired his first though it landed several feet away from where Toni was.
"You'd think somebody who works in weapons would learn how to aim at a target," Clint muttered smirking. It was hard to worry about Toni as much now that the man attacking her had proved himself to be totally incompetent.
"You ripped out my targeting system," Obadiah said needlessly.
"You should still be able to hit a human target from that distance," Natasha scoffed, "your making excuses for being lousy at handling a weapon of any kind never mind one that beefed up."
"Time to hit the button!" Toni shouted.
There was a gasp echoing around the room as everyone aside from Bruce finally realised that Toni had changed her plan. Steve couldn't help but feel even guiltier for the things he had said now that he knew that the missile hadn't even been the first time that Toni had made the sacrifice play. Maybe Piper was right and it really was her signature move.
"You told me not to," Piper protested.
"While I agree that trying to kill yourself alongside your villain is just as bad of an idea as it was the last time Toni did this Piper's argument isn't very good at all," Bruce sighed, "people are capable of changing their minds."
"Hold still, you little prick," Obadiah drawled firing off another missile. This one missed even more badly sailing into the wall at the edge of the roof instead of going anywhere near Toni.
"He really couldn't think of an insult other than prick," Phil said, "because there's been plenty used here that I'm sure would have worked perfectly well for what he was saying."
"Just do it!" Toni shouted knowing that she wouldn't be able to hold onto the roof much longer.
"You'll die!" Piper shouted desperately.
"And she doesn't care about that," Bruce muttered under his breath unhappily.
Obadiah fired again landing a shot on some of the remaining glass this time the resulting explosion almost touching Toni. She lost her grip with one hand as a result and was left hanging by a single hand from the roof.
"At least that actually makes you harder to hit," Steve said, "you're less of a target." He was really trying to convince himself of that because he knew that a fall could still be very dangerous with all that glass lying around and she'd be safer up with Obadiah the bad shot.
"Push it!" Toni shouted not taking no for an answer.
Piper gave in and slammed his hand down on the button immediately having to run as the sparks coming from the arc reactor increased in number and became fully fledged bolts of energy.
The atmosphere in the room could hardly be tenser as not only was Toni about to possibly be extremely badly injured by the electricity surging through the roof but Piper could get hit by it too. They might not particularly like him but being injured was not what they wanted for him at all. Especially since it would also hurt Toni who not only still cared about him now but had definitely cared about him back then.
The arc reactor glowed with all of the excess energy and finally it became too much for the housing to contain and a beacon of blue energy began to soar up the way. It hit Toni and immediately lit up the suit and sent her flying upwards into the roof.
"Ouch!" Clint hissed sympathetically. He wasn't the sure what the energy itself had done to Toni (for all he knew the brief hit of energy had helped power her own arc reactor as it worked the same way) but the collision was sure to have injured her somehow.
The energy hit Obadiah full on and he screamed out in pain as his suit crackled and he himself got an amazingly powerful electric shock. The light shot up like a beacon into the sky creating lightning in the clouds.
"It almost looks like the portal the Tesseract formed," Natasha pointed out a little alarmed by the resemblance. Comparisons between the arc reactor and the Tesseract were not what she wanted to think about.
Then the light faded leaving only remnants of lightning behind in the dark clouds. An already dead Obadiah slumped forward in his suit and toppled into the factory crashing into beams on the way down. Finally he fell into the arc reactor and the whole thing went up in flames.
"While very very dangerous," Clint said tacking on the first part so Natasha didn't hit him… again, "that was also an awesome explosion."
Up on the roof Toni lay beside the former glass roof and turned her head away from the explosion as it ripped through the hole. Pretty soon the flames and smoke had engulfed almost the entire building.
"Yeah that's why we remodelled," Toni said flippantly receiving glares from everyone as they were still too worried to appreciate Toni's brand of humour.
Toni lay unconscious on the roof looking like she was just sleeping if it wasn't for the arc reactor in her chest ominously flickering weakly trying to do its job with very little power remaining. Piper's voice in the background could vaguely be heard crying, "TONI!"
A/n – Sidles in like it totally hasn't been a while since I updated this story. I'm so sorry but health issues, school, my hand and general writer's block prevented me from writing this sooner but hey at least it's a long chapter. And like I said I have my Mondays back. Also I have something for my reviewers. The next chapter will be the last of Iron Man and there's a filler chapter before Iron Man 2. If you leave me what you want to happen in that filler chapter in a review it may end up in the actual chapter. Love you all.