Chapter 73 – Not Really Fine
A/n – We're getting to some of the really interesting stuff to right now so I hope you're excited because I know I am.
Charminghex99 – You'll see when I get there. But there are plenty of things for her to get mad at too.
Rose Hathaway Potter – If you search for Avengers communities there are some for both female!Tony and watching the movies.
TigerLily1818 – The sequel will have plot points from those but they won't watch the movies. More details on Tumblr.
"I've got a feeling that I'm going to need to do a lot of explaining for the next bits," Toni sighed, "so I have two things to say before we get started. One, all my previous statements about not judging me until you know all the answers will absolutely come up now. And two, this is going to be hard for me to talk about so if I don't seem as eloquent as I normally do that would be why."
"Believe me," Natasha added, "I didn't know half the reasons she was doing things at the time and deciphering reasons behind actions is my job. I had to have her explain them to me later. So trust me, you really haven't deciphered all the layers even when you think you have."
"Also, I would like to extend the not judging Toni point to not judging other people who appear after this as well," Phil interjected, "we all had to make a series of tough choices at this point in our lives. Being mocked for them now will not change anything."
"As long as we can still make fun of Hammer I am totally okay with all of that," Clint said.
"I don't think there's any way I could stop you," Toni snorted, "and I wouldn't want to. Now that's out of the way we can get the rest of this damn movie finished and someone else can suffer this torment for a change."
"Are you entirely sure the next one won't be about you as well Lady Toni?" Thor asked.
"I don't think there's much material left for another one," Toni admitted.
"Oh thank god," Bruce and Steve chorused.
The scene changed to show Piper and Natasha working back at the mansion. "Yes, but the fundamentals of the company are still very, very strong," Piper insisted to the person on the other end of her line, "despite the events in Monaco."
"Yes, of course," Natasha said into her own phone before leaning over to talk to Piper, "the AP wants a quote."
"I think it was around this time that I truly appreciated how busy you always are Annie," Natasha commented, "what with Monaco and your birthday party coming up I was practically never off the phone. And it wasn't like I had a consistent statement to give as everyone wanted to know something different."
"Yes, that's how it goes with running a Fortune 500 company and also taking on side projects," Toni admitted, "if I wanted free time I would be miserable. But I'm not all that fond of the concept so all in all it works out well. I do still do a lot of the work myself despite no longer being CEO."
"Don't tell him," Piper whispered, "Fax them… Fax them…"
Rhodey could be seen approaching in the background interrupting both women to ask, "Where is she?"
"You've been hiding again," Bruce sighed.
"I'm very good at hiding," Toni said with a smirk, "although most of the time I'm in my lab. So I'm not really hiding. I'm just inaccessible. I have made very good use of that loophole over the years."
"We know," the rest of the team chorused.
They'd all had at least one time when they were searching for Toni and headed straight for one of her labs only to find access had been denied. Sometimes it wasn't even about trying to get her to eat more often. Okay, most of the time it was since she never ignored an Avengers call but still.
"She doesn't want to be disturbed," Natasha told him at the same time as Piper told him that she was downstairs.
"Thank you for having my back Tasha," Toni told her friend.
"Trust me, I know what it feels like to not want to be bothered," Natasha replied, "and unless there's a really good reason that should always be respected."
The news in the background was reporting on the Monaco incident as Piper went back to his phone call, "Yes, but…"
"But her continued erratic behaviour may lead many people to ask themselves, can this woman still protect us?" the reporter finished.
"Well, considering every time she puts on the suit she's killing herself faster I'd say that she certainly still cares," Steve hissed. Sometimes he wondered why people couldn't be more grateful. That was not to say that superheroes should be beyond criticism but people should at least acknowledge that despite various setbacks they do their best to keep the city safe. And he'd started to notice that while Clint and Natasha in their Hawkeye and Black Widow personas openly admitted to having been used as assassins it was still always Toni who was demonised by the press the most. He was kicking himself from never seeing before how his warped opinions of the woman had affected how he saw her.
"Iron Man never stopped protecting us," Piper insisted, "the events of Monaco proved that." Rhodey just stood looking at the TV with a slightly dismayed look on his face.
"I know that's also the official company line but it's good to see Piper defending you to people," Bruce admitted, "sometimes he doesn't seem very supportive of your decisions which must suck sometimes."
"Our minds work in very different ways," Toni explained, "he's very analytical and he believes in taking the path that has the least risk. While I also can be analytical at times I also lean more towards creativity. And I love to take risks as I am absolutely certain you know. In the beginning it was sort of charming. The traditional 'opposites attract' narrative and all that. Eventually though we clashed over it too much and well you were here when we broke up. Our work styles will still clash but we've had that down for years. Adding a relationship to the equation was just too much. Although on the other hand I think we both had to know for sure that there wasn't something there before we found someone else. I wish him all the best in doing so."
"And people say you aren't mature," Phil teased.
"Well there's no need to be insulting," Toni said in a mock offended tone causing the others to start laughing.
Toni was shown sitting in one of her classic cars staring at a holographic display. "Query complete, ma'am," JARVIS told her bringing up the relevant files, "Anton Vanko was a Soviet physicist who defected to the United States in 1963. However, he was accused of espionage and was deported in 1967. His son Ivan, who is also a physicist, was convicted of selling Soviet-era weapons grade plutonium to Pakistan, and served 15 years in Kopeisk prison. No further records exist."
"Giving him plenty of time to work out a plan to get out of one if he happened to acquire some help," Natasha sighed.
"You were right about Howard not really being to blame for Anton Vanko being deported," Bruce commented, "if he got caught being a spy then he's really only got himself to blame. And Howard didn't really have the authority to deport him. He must have just been a witness for the prosecution."
"Yes, although trying to ignore the fact that he was involved in any of Stark Industries inventions altogether was a bit harsh," Toni mentioned, "he should have still gotten credit. Lord knows there's enough of a problem of excluding the Rosalind Franklin's of the world without adding more excluded parties."
Rhodey let himself into the lab saying, "Toni, you gotta get upstairs and get on top of this situation right now."
"Well this is a little more supportive than he was last time," Steve admitted.
"He has his moments," Toni said, "Otherwise I never would have befriended him in the first place. Well, that and the fact that he was the only person at MIT who would even talk to me helped his case a bit."
"Listen," Rhodey told her, "I've been on the phone with the National Guard all day trying to talk them out of rolling tanks up the PCH, knocking down your front door and taking these." Here he indicated the Iron Man suits.
"That would almost have been amusing," Toni snorted, "without my instructions or I suppose Vanko to help them out they would be screwed. And even when they got their hands on one it was only because I was training my replacement."
"They're gonna take your suits, Toni, okay?" he continued, "They're sick of the games. You said nobody else would possess this technology for 20 years. Well, guess what? Somebody else had it yesterday. It's not theoretical anymore."
"He's really not seeing how completely checked out you are, is he?" Bruce sighed, "I mean I understand the reasons for it as he's trying to help you but you haven't moved a muscle since he got there. Normally you would already be bantering back."
"I wasn't in the mood for banter," Toni muttered, "besides it would have done me little good to point out the differences to him. He was already on a roll."
"Hey you listening?" Rhodey asked concerned finally getting Toni to turn and look at him. The bruise around her eye had seriously darkened and her eyes looked empty and cold.
"God, I hope I never see that again," Natasha muttered. The image was a haunting one for sure. She'd never seen Toni look so defeated. Even when she was around at this exact time in Toni's life she managed to somehow stop her eyes from looking that dead. She guessed this was the Toni beneath all the masks. The Toni that she didn't want people to see in case they ran away as a result. Everything else was flash and intelligence. She'd wanted to know what was underneath all that showmanship. She'd never before truly understand how careful you had to be of what you wished for.
Bruce flinched visibly as his eyes briefly flashed green. He recognised that look. He'd seen it on his own face enough times when he was mentally checked out. He was almost certain that it had been on his face right before his suicide attempt. He mentally thanked every deity he could think of that Toni had been kicked out of this slump eventually and found a cure for her condition because the idea that he might never have met his best friend was too awful to bear.
Steve recognised the look however. He'd seen it on some of his fellow soldiers during the war. Of course there had never been an official name for it other than shellshock which obviously didn't apply in this case. He didn't know if there was one now but frankly it didn't matter. It was the face of someone who had seen too much and he privately complimented Toni on how flawless her deception was. After all who loved living life more than Toni Stark?
"Are you okay?" Rhodey said softly obviously realising for the first time that something was really wrong.
Toni grunted softly in acknowledgment before sliding over to the other side of the car to get out with a smile back on her face and a, "let's go."
"That was practically seamless," Clint said with a whistle. On the one hand he was impressed. If Toni wasn't such a well-known figure then she would have made a good spy. After all a person had to be able to feel differently than how they looked to infiltrate places. On the other hand he was deeply worried by yet more evidence that for Toni hiding her pain was effortless but telling someone about it was impossible. He understood her reasons but it really didn't make him any less concerned. And he wanted it fixed but he knew that despite his instincts to just make her talk to him that it would never work. In fact being pushy would probably only make it worse.
She grunted in pain as she pulled herself to her feet but quickly fell due to her legs giving out beneath her and she barely caught herself using the car door.
"A combination of the poison shutting down some of my systems and just general bruises from the fight," Toni volunteered knowing that someone was about to ask.
"Hey, hey," Rhodey said worriedly quickly running over to pull her up and give her something to lean on, "you all right?"
"I think I'm starting to like him a little Lady Toni," Thor said which was something since Rhodey hadn't exactly come off all that well the first time he met the rest of the Avengers.
"Yeah," Toni said weakly, "I should get to my desk."
Rhodey kept his hold on her as he helped her over, "see that cigar box?" She asked.
"Yeah," Rhodey said.
Rhodey quickly opened up the cigar box to reveal the palladium cores as Toni removed her arc reactor and opened up the core compartment to take the palladium out.
"You must really be in a bad way if you're letting him help," Clint said worriedly. Considering how diligently she'd been hiding her illness up until this point the pain must be much worse than she was showing for her to consider giving Rhodey clues as to her physical state.
"Is that supposed to be smoking?" Rhodey asked.
"If you must know, it's neutron damage," Toni told him, "it's from the reactor wall."
"That was a very smooth excuse," Natasha complimented even if she wished there hadn't been a good explanation. Obviously she'd known that Toni hadn't told anyone but still.
"You had this in your body?" Rhodey said stunned as he pulled the degraded piece of palladium out of the reactor.
Toni simply ignored him and turned away from him again. Unfortunately for her this gave Rhodey a good view of her neck causing him to ask, "And how about the high-tech crossword puzzle on your neck?"
"Always wondered why he went for that explanation," Toni mused, "I always thought they looked more like tree branches since they were my highlighted veins after all."
"Road rash," Toni deadpanned.
Rhodey didn't look like he entirely believed her explanation but he handed her the arc reactor for her to put back in and didn't say anything else. Toni breathed slowly before grabbing her chlorophyll shake and popping open the lid. "What are you looking at?" Toni asked when she saw Rhodey was still staring thoughtfully at her.
"I still have to drink that stuff every now and then," Toni said with a frown, "to deal with the displacement of my organs by the reactor so please don't freak out and assume I'm being poisoned again if you see me drinking it now."
There were nods all around except from a frown from Natasha who had already had this explanation after walking in on Toni drinking the stuff. It had nearly given her a heart attack just like the first time she'd seen Toni take her reactor out.
"I'm looking at you," Rhodey told her.
Toni took a swig of her shake and pointedly didn't look at her friend. "You want to do this whole lone gunslinger act," Rhodey continued, "and it's unnecessary. You don't have to do this alone."
"I think I took that a little bit to heart since now I'm stuck with you dorks," Toni quipped hoping to bring the mood up a bit.
She got weak smiles from Bruce and Steve, a chuckle from Natasha and Phil plus cries of mock outrage from Thor and Clint so she was going to consider it a success.
"You know, I wish I could believe that," Toni sighed, "I really do. But you've gotta trust me. Contrary to popular belief I know exactly what I'm doing."
"Most of the time," Toni tacked on as an addendum to avoid the comments that were about to come from both Natasha and Phil.
A/n – Alright guys. There's the possibility that I won't be able to post next week so be prepared for that. Hope you enjoyed.