Chapter 70 – Whiplash

A/n – Hello everyone! Welcome to the part where more of the main plot kicks in.

Quill – It's alright, you didn't know it would make me uncomfortable. I'm glad you like the character comments because those are the parts I like writing the most.

Mystic 777 – It is isn't it. I didn't have to do any work at all to make it creepy to be honest.

DaLantis – Thank you! The characters seeming in character is something I'm always worried about so I'm glad you think they do.

"I think we're getting to the part where Vanko shows up now," Natasha sighed, "so you've all been warned. This is about to get ugly again."

"Do we really have to keep watching?" Bruce asked, "Because I for one do not want to have to watch Toni get hurt again."

"While I would be cool with that because I don't want to relive this part of my life all over again, I'm pretty sure this is the most efficient way of answering all your questions," Toni admitted, "I can't talk about some of this stuff in a way that's coherent for lay people."

"Plus we've gotten this far," Steve added, "I think we need to see this through. Especially since there are apparently two more movies after this and judging by the timeline they won't be about Toni. I don't think we should only watch the ones with Toni in. That wouldn't be fair to her."

"There's no way I'd let you get away with that," Toni said, "someone else has to be tortured too because this woman has it in for me for some reason. Probably because I'm calling her by her name to be honest."

"That is a reasonable assumption Lady Toni," Thor noted.

"Well, that's not going to stop me," Toni said with a shrug, "she's easier to beat when she's annoyed anyhow."

Toni checked her blood toxicity again; this time it read 53%. She winced slightly as she removed her finger from the needle shaking it a couple of times before getting rid of the blood. She sighed and looked in the mirror and asked herself, "Got any other bad ideas."

"Really Toni," Clint sighed, "you have to go for all the bad ideas. I understand the whole 'well I'm dying anyway' state of mind but really!"

"If I had to go out then I was going out in style," Toni quipped, "I can't let things get too boring. Otherwise the press has nothing to talk about. Plus, you know I survive all this shit so can we please move on."

The shot changed to show Toni walking out to the racetrack dressed in the overalls of a driver and surrounded by a horde of men and women who were clamouring for autographs. She was accompanied by a couple of police officers trying to stop the crowd from getting too close.

"What?" Toni said at the incredulous looks from the rest of the team, "I'm an excellent driver and it's not like I knew Vanko would be there. I just wanted to have some fun. Jeez! I admitted at the time that it wasn't my best idea and everything so can we just leave off or I'm going to have to start drinking again."

Toni signed a quick autograph before jumping over the barrier and walking towards her race car. The scene changed to Hammer still stuttering away to Christine as the TV showed footage of Toni in the background, "Toni and I… Toni… I love Toni Stark. Toni loves me. We're not competitors."

Toni who had decided to have a small drink on hand just in case spat most of it out at that comment. Normally everyone would be scolding her for it. Especially Clint who ended up with a lot of it all over him. But they couldn't really deny that it was an appropriate reaction to that statement.

"He's delusional," Natasha snorted, "completely insane. I'd pass it off as spin to recover from the damage Toni has obviously done to his article at this point but I genuinely think he might just be that stupid."

"We agree there," Phil chimed in, "the man is even more of a moron than I thought. Which is probably the only impressive thing about him."

"Her being out of the picture created tremendous opportunities for Hammer Industries," Hammer continued while Christine stared over his shoulder at the TV, "everything that Toni and I do…" Here Hammer stopped as if finally noticing that Christine wasn't interested in what he was saying.

"He knows nothing about women," Natasha scoffed, "I'm surprised even Christine Everhart agreed to be anywhere near him."

"Sometimes it's part of these people's jobs to talk to people they don't like," Toni sighed, "if it wasn't Everhart then the woman forced to interact with him would have my sympathies. But it is. So I don't care."

"Well," Toni told the interviewer, "what's the use in having…"

"…is a healthy… competition," Hammer continued half-heartedly.

"…and owning a race car," Toni finished, "if you don't drive it."

"Okay, you do make a fair point," Phil admitted, "I have a really nice car that it would be criminal if I didn't drive it often. I'll have to retrieve it before we leave SHIELD. I'm not abandoning Lola."

"You named your car Lola," Steve said baffled.

"It's a perfectly good name for a car," Phil defended, "plus she can fly so what does it matter what she's called."

"I see SHIELD have been messing with my father's old designs again," Toni said, "well, at least this one is fairly harmless. I had to take away the ones about improved atomic bombs. They'd made a lot of copies of those."

The fans cheered as Piper looked up from the book he was reading at another table upon hearing the noise and he looked incredulously at the screen. The original driver of the car threw his helmet to the ground in a fit of anger and stormed off.

"To be honest, while he's an excellent driver, the fact that taking over pissed him off was a delight," Toni snorted, "I might have done it even if I wasn't dying. There was also the bonus of being the only woman driving one of the cars. People still underestimate me for my gender all the time. It's always nice to prove them wrong."

"Anyone who thinks either you or Lady Natasha is weaker than them because of your gender is a fool Lady Toni," Thor commented.

"You should never underestimate someone based on a stereotype," Bruce snorted, "that never ends well. As I'm sure you know Toni considering you basically started the recent boom of women entering science courses just by existing."

"One of the accomplishments in my life that I am most proud of I assure you," Toni said with a smile. While there were several large drawbacks to being a prominent female celebrity for something other than acting or singing – not that those professions didn't have drawbacks also – they were nothing when compared to the good it had done for influencing other women. After being told for so long that science was a boy thing during her childhood, especially by her father who had clearly wanted a son, she had only become more determined to change everyone's perceptions. And nowadays she was commonly considered the most famous modern scientist. Amazing what you could do when you put your mind to it, especially when that mind was as capable as hers.

"Natalie. Natalie!" Piper called panicked.

"I have no idea what he thought I was going to do," Natasha muttered.

"Yes Mr. Potts," Natasha said when she walked over.

Piper gave her a look and a sigh clearly wondering if she had known about it beforehand. Natasha responded, "This is the first I've heard about this."

"And it actually was," Natasha huffed, "you're ruining my reputation as SHIELD's best spy by being impulsive Annie."

"Hey!" Clint and Phil chorused.

"Please tell me we're not going to get into a 'I'm better than you because I said so fight' right now," Toni sighed, "can we just watch the damn movie. You can have your argument in private later if it's so important. But I vote for Tasha."

"Me too," Steve, Thor and Bruce chorused.

Natasha smirked at the boys who looked rather sullen at being ganged up on. Clint was even pulling off a fairly convincing pout directed at Toni who was immune because she clearly enjoyed the reaction she was getting. Phil just looked like he was upset Steve didn't think he was the best at least.

Piper sighed, "this… this cannot happen."

"Absolutely," Natasha said quickly, "I understand. How can I help you?"

"And there's you politely finding out what exactly he thinks you can do about it," Clint said seemingly recovered from his slight hissy fit.

"I would say that being obliging and still getting what you want to know out of people comes from spy training but you can basically get it in any job where you deal with the public," Natasha sighed, "I know my job is harder than the job of someone working in retail but from what I've heard retail is a close second."

"And being a female head of anything is up there too," Toni chimed in.

"Where's Happy?" Piper asked.

"He's waiting outside," Natasha told him.

"Okay, get him. I need Happy," Piper said relieved.

"Right away," Natasha said.

"He wasn't exactly thrilled to see me," Natasha said with a smirk, "I wonder why."

"These movies do explain exactly why he jumps a few feet in the air every time he sees you," Steve acknowledged, "I always did think he was awfully jumpy for a bodyguard."

"He does it when there are mice around too," Toni told them, "there are never any in the tower but you should see him when he spots one when we're out and about. Sometimes he does the highest pitched shriek I've ever heard from a man with a voice as deep as his."

"Toni's… she's… you know," Hammer said trying to get Christine's attention again, "we're not competitive. You know what I mean?"

"So not only is that man slimy, he's also desperate," Bruce said in a slightly concerned tone, "normally I wouldn't be bothered by that but considering your life Toni…"

"I would have gone with smarmy actually," Toni said shrugging off his concerns. He'd find out that he was right soon enough. She felt a little bad that she was glad that he'd probably be too mad at Hammer and Vanko at the time to confront her about it. She'd had enough lectures for one lifetime but she would settle for at least a week without another one.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Christine said dismissively pulling out her phone, "can you excuse me for just one second?"

"Just read me what you wrote," Hammer tried to insist but Christine was still insisting on being excused.

"Oh, he's one of those people," Steve said, "won't let any kind of press be published about him unless he has control over what's printed."

"That's because he knows that if he doesn't do that everything is going to paint him in a bad light," Toni snorted, "at least when I'm portrayed badly in papers it's libellous. He can't even claim that."

"I will. I will after," Christine agreed to get him to stop talking, "But I have to make one quick phone call."

"I understand that she genuinely needs to make a phone call but she should also take her chance and run," Phil stated, "I don't like her but nobody deserves to be subjected to that creep for long. I pity whoever he spends most of his time with nowadays."

Toni sniggered slightly. She wasn't sure who Hammer's current cellmate was but they had to be dealing with a whole lot of whining. She was fairly sure that he was the type to never shut up about how horrible it was in jail even when it alienated everyone else there. He'd tried to get out on parole recently. She didn't think anyone had thought he was serious about it. Honestly, she wasn't even sure what he thought he would be doing once his sentence ended. His company had long since merged with another conglomerate and he was a disgraced businessman who nearly killed a lot of people. Nobody was going to hire him. For anything! Even if he found something he was good at which was unlikely. Normally she protested the fact that jail time impeded your chances of getting a job afterwards especially for minor infractions but she was quite happy to see Hammer suffer thank you very much.

"Minor point," Toni said, "kind of offended that she has a flip phone. I had much better phones that that out there at this point. Flip phone! Honestly!"

"Where are you going? I've got some caviar coming," Hammer almost whined.

"This is great stuff," Christine told him insincerely as she darted off, "I'll be right back."

"Look!" a woman exclaimed in the background pointing at the TV which now showed Toni sitting in the race car with her helmet on. Hammer glared at the screen as if considering it responsible for all his misery.

"Aw, no more making fun of Hammer," Clint sighed, "now we have to move on to the bit where Toni's life is in danger. Yay! NOT!"

"You only have to watch it," Toni grumbled, "I'm the one who had to live it."

Toni revved the engine on the race car as the pit team did their final checks on everything. She gave a thumbs up to the crew as they finished up and set off as quickly as she could when the signal to go came. As the cars raced by the marina Vanko was shown walking towards the track dressed in one of the uniforms the safety crews were wearing.

"It really should not be that easy for people like that to sneak into these things," Steve sighed.

"Yes but unfortunately if the security teams are good enough to catch the bad guys they sometimes catch the good guys too," Clint pointed out, "it makes it much easier for spies on any side of a given conflict if people are idiots. And conveniently for us they seem quite content to remain that way and make our jobs easier."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," Steve muttered.

Christine watched the race intently while Piper continued panicking and looking around for Happy and Natasha. Toni zoomed out of one of the tunnels on the track overtaking the driver in front of her to make it into third. Meanwhile Vanko had made it to his destination as he pushed one of the barriers aside and made his way out onto the track.

"Why couldn't someone have just hit him at full speed?" Natasha exclaimed, "Everyone would have been terribly sad about there being an accident at the Grand Prix but we wouldn't have had to deal with him. If evil people insist on doing reckless things then they should suffer the consequences of their actions."

"That would have been nice," Toni mused, "but the universe is a bitch so it's never going to happen. Ever."

The crowd exclaimed as Vanko casually strolled out right into the middle of the track and removed his helmet. Piper stared agape at the television rising slightly out of his chair to get a better look.

Hammer eyed Vanko speculatively as the man strolled forward ripping open the front of his overalls to reveal the arc reactor chest contraption he had made.

"Stupid… fine with palladium… doesn't have to make it not poison him…" Toni muttered darkly glaring at the image on the screen. She would admit to having felt a bit annoyed when she realised that someone else had succeeded in miniaturising the arc reactor. It had been her crowning achievement up until that point. But she regularly consoled herself with the fact that she had had to make hers interact with all of her bodily functions and eventually create a whole new element to stop it poisoning her. She would have liked to have seen Vanko do that no matter how clever he thought he was.

He powered up his whips with electricity and the heat burned off the top of his overalls.

"Well that's flashy but impractical," Bruce said, "he could have seriously burned his skin or gotten rid of all of his clothes entirely. Even Toni's not that bad when it comes to dramatic entrances."

"I generally like to keep my clothes on in public," Toni quipped, "except on special occasions."

He lashed out with the whip at the next race car approaching and sliced the front section of it off. This sent the car flying, it flipped through the air before crashing spectacularly a considerable distance away.

"I take it the driver…" Thor said sadly.

"He didn't make it," Toni confirmed, "he was heavily burned and even with his helmet… Well his head got banged around too much. Poor guy."

Happy finally burst into the room where Piper was carrying Toni's suitcase. The minute Piper saw him he sprinted towards the door and they both clambered into Toni's car and sped off.

"Why exactly is Piper going?" Clint asked.

"Don't ask me to explain how his brain works," Toni said with a shrug, "and he scolds me for putting myself in unnecessary danger. He doesn't even have basic martial arts skills to fall back on."

"Hang on," Happy told Piper as the people guarding the blocked off gate warned him off. He ignored them however and crashed straight through it and onto the race track. He was going the opposite way from the race cars and had to quickly swerve to avoid a collision with one.

"I don't see why they haven't all abandoned their cars and run for it at this point," Steve said puzzled.

"Those cars go really fast so it takes a while to slow down," Toni explained, "plus I'm pretty sure most of them were too freaked out to think logically."

The police were quickly escorting everyone in the stands out of the vicinity as the cameramen stayed to capture the scene. Toni continued driving towards Vanko who lashed out and chopped the entirety of the nose of her car off causing it to start flipping.

"You were hoping to hit him to at least knock him out weren't you," Bruce said.

"That and I wasn't a hundred percent sure what was going on until I got around that corner," Toni revealed, "You can't look at the camera screens when you're driving one of those cars. There's too much power to get distracted. And the smoke up ahead could have only meant that someone had crashed in front of me. Unfortunately, that's fairly common and doesn't always involve a madman with electric whips. By the time I was around the corner it was too late to stop and slowing down was just going to give him more time to line up a shot. Either hitting him or just managing to get past him was my best bet."

The car's descent was slowed by crashing into a fence so when it finally landed upside down Toni was able to unfasten her seatbelt and pull her helmet off but she was still stuck and she watched Vanko stroll leisurely towards her. The other cars in the race pulling to a grinding halt behind him.

"Seriously, I recognise one of those cars as one Happy tore past," Clint sighed, "they had to know something was up."

However, some of the cars behind them weren't fast enough to stop and they crashed into those in front causing an explosion when the ones in front flew into the air. Vanko just calmly kept walking. The shot switched back to Piper and Happy. "Give me the case," Piper demanded.

"Here. Take it," Happy told him passing it back.

"At least help is coming to you Lady Toni," Thor said although he didn't sound all that comforted by the thought really.

"Where's the key?" Piper asked.

"It's in my pocket," Happy told her as he negotiated his way around yet more incoming race cars with Piper letting out a scream of, "CAR!" as the first one approached.

"That was possibly the most dangerous route to have taken to get to Toni," Phil sighed, "but they probably wouldn't have been better off following the race cars considering the debris from the crashes and explosion on the track behind Vanko."

The police continued to usher people away from the scene while the fire brigade tried to put out as many of the fires as they could. Meanwhile, Vanko had reached Toni's car to cut the cockpit off but stared baffled when he realised Toni was not inside.

"That was an impressive escape," Clint whistled lowly, "it's probably a good thing you're so skinny and short or you never would have made it out."

"The one time I'm thankful for my lack of height," Toni admitted.

Toni appeared behind Vanko and whacked him over the head with a bit of debris she'd retrieved from one of the crashed cars. Unfortunately it didn't knock him out so he lashed out with his whip and landed a glancing blow that sent Toni flying backwards. Once, she was on the ground he took several more swings at her which she dodged by shuffling backwards.

"Do you know how truly horrible it was knowing I could be helping with this and being stuck acting like a PA?" Natasha huffed, "There are some things that really suck about undercover work."

Toni managed to flip herself back up onto her feet but the next strike with the whip was close enough to send her flying into one of the car wrecks winding her. She also now had a cut on her face that was beginning to bleed. Taking note of the gas leak from the crashed car Toni used the wing mirror in front of her to determine Vanko's position.

"Nice use of available materials," Clint complimented.

He began winding his whips around himself to build up some power but just as he got close enough to strike Toni she dived out of the way and his whips hit the gas causing another explosion. Toni was close enough that some of the force of the explosion sent her flying again but she wasn't caught up in it.

"As much as I hate it that you always end up in these situations you are always rather resourceful at figuring them out in the end," Phil sighed.

"My specialty," Toni commented drily.

She rolled through a small patch of fire to get up but quickly doused the flames that sprung up on her arm. Vanko smirked at Toni but Happy arrived on the scene just in time crashing into Vanko from behind and jamming him up against the fence.

"Nicely timed," Natasha admitted.

Toni had jumped up onto a higher section of the fence to get away from the car but quickly jumped down and moved away from Vanko.

"Are you okay?" Happy exclaimed.

"Yeah," Toni sighed. Piper appeared to be starting to hyperventilate in the back of the car.

"Who were you heading for, me or him," Toni added testily, "cause I can't tell."

"My emotions were running a little high at the time," Toni exclaimed when she got an incredulous look from Steve for complaining about her rescue.

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!" Piper screamed.

"Better security," Toni exclaimed.

"GET IN THE CAR RIGHT NOW!" Piper continued unperturbed.

"I was attacked, we need better security," Toni sighed annoyed.

"And here's where your crusade to never let anyone know where you'll be unless it's completely necessary begins," Bruce commented.

Vanko began to shift slightly as the three continued to argue although Toni did walk around the car as if to get in. Toni muttered to herself darkly as she pulled the door open but was cut off when Vanko lashed out with one of his whips and sliced off part of the door as Toni was yanking on it.

"Somehow I knew this fight wasn't over yet," Clint sighed, "it's never that simple."

Piper and Happy both started screaming as Happy backed up and rammed back into Vanko again exclaiming, "I got him!"

"Hit him again," Toni said knowing that they would need it, "hit him AGAIN!"

"Considering the first hit at full speed didn't knock him out that is sound advice," Steve said.

Happy continued to ram back and forth into Vanko as Piper screamed for Toni to take the case but the movement made it hard to pass it to her. The ramming stopped when the airbag was set off and Vanko sliced through the hood of the car destroying the engine. Vanko continued slicing at the car but once he'd taken a whole side off Toni was able to get Piper to throw the case to her.

"So he's good for one thing," Bruce snarled.

"That and target practice," Clint said his face showing that if he'd had his arrows on him, well he'd be replacing Toni's TV.

Toni clicked her foot into a slot on the case and the boot of the Iron Man suit began attaching itself to Toni's body. It folded up to cover her torso and arms and finally after everything else was fastened the helmet came up. Toni immediately kicked the car away from the line of fire.

"Good idea, since they're not going to be helpful anymore," Steve said with a nod, "a lot of people have died already in this fight. There's no need for more."

Toni powered up a repulsor blast but in the time it took her Vanko had already landed a whiplash on the arm she was holding out. She tried another one but yielded the same result. Finally, she got enough distance between them to start firing. Her shots were slightly off giving Vanko time to swing again but Toni was able to catch the whip this time. Unfortunately, she wasn't prepared for the second one which managed to latch onto the other side of the armour.

"Despite the fact that this is currently not going so well I feel so much better now that armour is back in the picture again," Phil sighed.

Vanko yanked on the chains and used it to haul Toni towards him and eventually past him and onto the ground. Then before she could recover he threw her the other way onto the hood of the car. Toni managed to disconnect one of the whips when he pulled her down onto the ground but the other was still sending electricity through her.

"Didn't you say that you believed electricity would give your suit more power Lady Toni?" Thor said confused.

"Yes, but that whip got into one of the grooves on the suit where it was capable of doing more damage. Plus there's a physical object there too which is slightly different from getting hit by a bolt of lightning," Toni explained.

Toni simply looked up and as she couldn't disconnect the whip began wrapping it around her as she made her way towards Vanko who tried to lash out at her with the other whip but missed. Eventually she was close enough to get in two good punches and use the whips to throw him to the ground instead. Then she yanked out the arc reactor powering Vanko's suit to the cheers of the crowd as the police rushed in to take Vanko away. Vanko laughing hysterically and babbling in Russian all the way with the only English being, "you lose, Stark, you lose."

"The guy's resilient I'll give him that," Steve said, "it's not just any person who can survive being hit repeatedly by a car and then have to be take metal punches before he's too battered to fight anymore. He didn't even get knocked unconscious."

Meanwhile back in the bar Hammer had gained an extremely calculated look in his eye.

A/n – There you go everyone. See you next time.