Chapter 74 – The Best Laid Plans

A/n – Hello everybody! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter because I know I enjoyed writing it. Sorry for not updating last week, I was stressed about my exam results but I aced them so we're all good now.

Mystic777 – Thank you! I'm rather proud of it. It comes from excessive puzzling and rewatching of movies.

Ro781727 – They are rather rubbish aren't they? Although the Rhodey of this fic has his suspicions.

Masked-Maiden-of-Gotham – This is absolutely true. There are far too many Tony haters out there for my liking.

Quill – I'm rather proud of that line. And thank you for complimenting those sections because I'm rather insecure about them sometimes. Especially Thor's.

Noventia – Wow. I am speechless at how nice this comment was. Thank you so much.

"What?" Toni said when she still received several incredulous looks, "I really do know what I'm doing most of the time. Well, actually I know what I'm doing all of that time I'm just not necessarily doing something sensible."

"I know how to answer when someone asks what you're like Annie," Natasha quipped, "brilliant but crazy. Always brilliant but crazy."

"That's fair I suppose," Toni considered, "although I would like to point out that a lot of my plans fail just because other people can't keep up with me. Including the one coming up, which was admittedly not one of my better plans."

"That's a bit of an understatement Toni," Phil pointed out.

"Well, at least I didn't actually destroy the entire house," Toni pointed out.

Everyone who hadn't been there for this event was now extremely nervous about what was coming. Toni specifically asking not to be judged for her past actions again and her mentioning that at least some of her house ended up destroyed was not a thrilling combination. These things were not comforting to Toni's friends. The next part of the movie might end up being hard to watch.

The scene changed to show the Hammer Industries building in Queens, New York. A limo pulled up outside before the inside of the factory was shown with Hammer giving Vanko a tour. "This is where we do it," Hammer explained, "This is my humble abode."

"Please, that's probably the first time Hammer was in that building for more than ten minutes for years," Toni snorted, "none of the patents from his company are even filed in his name because he doesn't create any of this stuff. He's just the CEO and only because his dad started the company. He was an asshole too but at least he was clever."

"You can work in absolute peace," Hammer continued, "Must be fun to be dead, right? No pressure."

"Considering how often I'm sure Hammer dropped in on Vanko I'm not entirely sure he got any peace," Phil snorted.

"And he wasn't really considered dead to some of the world," Toni added, "I wasn't going to believe it until he never showed up again. The explosion was far too suspicious. I know some other people didn't buy it either."

"SHIELD certainly didn't," Natasha said, "we had the same suspicions about the sudden explosion and the suspicious lack of guards in the area at the time."

"Here they are," Hammer said as they approached his versions of the Iron Man suits, "I'm very excited. They're combat ready. I may have made a few miscalculations and rushed the prototype into production. Sue me, I'm enthusiastic."

"You could have been sued for putting people at risk," Steve commented.

"That would have been hilarious," Clint scoffed, "Toni would have been an amazing character witness at the trial. Much better than Hammer was although his failures are always entertaining."

"Go ahead, take a look around," Hammer told Vanko.

Vanko slipped on his glasses and stepped up to a computer screen and began typing. Hammer saw what he was doing and quickly tried to stop him, "Oh, you don't wanna do that. I uh – You'll be able to access that as soon as we generate some encrypted pass codes."

"It's a lot of fun to watch him being ignored," Bruce said with a smile.

"He's been the laughing stock of the science community for many, many years now," Toni said with a smirk. It went without saying that she had been more than happy to help spread stories of his incompetence.

"Can we generate some encrypted pass codes?" Hammer asked one of his workers after seeing Vanko giving no signs of stopping, "Get some of those encrypted passcodes Jack."

By the time he finished his sentence Vanko had retrieved the password for the Administrator's account and was in Hammer's system.

"That was perfect timing," Thor commented, "it makes Mr Hammer look even more foolish than he already did. If he had not tried to kill Lady Toni then I think this man would have done great things. But he should not have tried to kill anyone."

"Never mind," Hammer muttered quietly, "I…"

"His security is so bad it would be easy to crack," Toni mused, "but there's nothing on their worth stealing and even he's not stupid enough to keep anything illegal on file. Which is a shame. That would have been a lot of fun to leak."

"Wow," Hammer said as Vanko booted up the suits, "Okay. Good stuff."

"He sounds less and less clever the more he's allowed to talk," Natasha quipped.

Vanko muttered in Russian causing Hammer to ask, "Sorry?"

"Software shit," Vanko translated.

"Yes, you can find better software than Hammer's while starving in Russia," Clint said happily, "he's that bad."

Hammer looked shocked that Vanko had dared to say that out loud before hurrying to explain himself but Vanko had already turned back to the screens. Hammer settled for complimenting him instead, "you're good. You really blasted past the firewall there. Uh…"

"I think he's had a moment of realisation about just how much he sucks at everything," Toni snorted, "shame it won't change anything. How can someone be that arrogant without a single thing to justify it?"

"It's a mystery Lady Toni," Thor replied.

Vanko started pulling a ladder over so he could climb up and get a better look at the suits and Hammer tried to distract him, "Let me show you where you're gonna be working primarily."

"He really didn't see this coming," Steve laughed, "He should know better than to try and communicate with people who are smarter than him. And ordering them about is definitely a no-no. I learned that one the hard way."

He would not be trying to get Toni to come upstairs for dinner anytime soon. The last time he had ended up with one of Toni's disgusting chlorophyll shakes dumped on him by Dummy. Toni hadn't appreciated being interrupted in the middle of a brainwave.

Vanko continued to ignore him and climbed the ladder so Hammer tried to make it look like it was his idea by saying, "go ahead, take a look."

"That was painfully unsubtle," Phil commented.

"Get a good look at that," Hammer continued as Vanko began inspecting the suit, "That's something, isn't it?"

"They look so clunky in comparison to yours," Natasha said with a smile, "I remember thinking that the last time I saw them too. And that was after they got an upgrade courtesy of Vanko."

"You know, those are really just for show and tell," Hammer said realising that the suits were probably not up to Vanko's standards either, "They're $125.7 million a pop so…" he abruptly realised that Vanko was about to tear the head off the suit, "WAIT! Oh gosh, uh…" he cried out but he was too late.

"Oh, that's hilarious," Toni snorted.

"Those pieces of crap cost that much money," Clint said with a whistle, "either Toni is richer than I thought or Hammer is seriously being cheated by his suppliers."

"Probably a bit of both," Toni and Natasha chorused.

"Jesus Christ," Hammer whispered turning to the man behind him to tell him, "Get somebody up here."

Vanko looked inside the neck of the suit as if studying the systems. "Um, that's where the pilot goes," Hammer told him.

"Well duh," Clint deadpanned.

"I'm having a tough time finding volunteers," Hammer laughed nervously.

"No wonder," Steve snorted, "not even your employees are likely to want a go in one of those after what happened to the last person brave enough to try. I understand why you don't have a munitions department anymore Toni but I can't help but feel sorry for the soldiers who have to use his weapons in the field."

"There's a reason I opened a defence department," Toni told him, "to offer protection to those poor people. Why they went to Hammer I have no idea. There were better options than him even if they didn't have a prestigious name behind them. I guess they just wanted someone they could bully into doing things for them without a massive protest."

"I'll take care of that just leave it," Hammer told Vanko who was shoving the head back onto the suit.

"What do you want them do?" Vanko asked in broken English.

"Well," Hammer said, "long term, I want them to put me in the Pentagon for the next 25 years. I want to make Iron Man look like an antique."

"Good luck," chorused the room who knew that considering how many suits Toni was still making that that was harder than it sounded. And there was no way they would be pulling it off.

"I want to go to the Stark Expo and I want to take a dump in Toni's front yard. You know what I'm talking about?" Hammer continued. Vanko had climbed down and was now facing him.

"That didn't end so well for him," Natasha said with a smirk receiving laughs from Toni and Phil who knew what had happened.

"I can do that," Vanko laughed, "no problem."

"Yeah?" Hammer said with a smirk.

"This is so much more fun when you know how it ends trust me," Phil told everyone who seemed to be eyeing the trio in shock at how happy they were about the villains plotting.

"Hey, fabulous!" Hammer declared, "I love it. Hey, this is our guy? Didn't I tell you? I had a feeling."

"I look forward to witnessing the moment of Mr Hammer's defeat," Thor boomed.

"Believe me, the look on his face was one of the best things I have ever seen," Toni declared.

The scene changed to show a long line of cars driving up to the Malibu mansion. Inside Toni was looking at herself in the mirror in only her bra to get a good look at the patchwork of poison decorating her chest.

Steve looked away from the screen for two reasons. One, seeing his friend in only her bra was very awkward. Especially since he felt like he didn't have permission since this wasn't shown with Toni's permission. And secondly, the visible reminder of Toni's poisoning was unsettling his stomach and he couldn't be sure that he wouldn't throw up if he continued looking. Clint on the other hand just whistled earning a slap on the back of the head from Natasha although the woman did say, "you've got excellent taste in underwear Annie."

"Thanks," Toni said, "like I said we're about the same size for everything so feel free to raid my drawers and closet with me anytime. God knows I have far too many clothes. When I'm not buying them then I'm getting them as gifts from people."

Toni quickly pulled her cocktail dress on as she heard footsteps coming her way. "Do you know which necklace you'd like to wear tonight, Annie?" Natasha said as she walked in.

"Oh," Bruce sighed, "we missed you bonding if you're already using nicknames."

"Don't worry," Natasha said, "we did promise to tell you anything that wasn't in the movies. I'm sure we can tell that story without being too traumatised. It was a lot of fun after all."

"Yes it was," Toni said with a grin.

"I'll give them a look," Toni told her as she smoothed at the creases to try and make it look like she wasn't hovering.

"Even if I wasn't already aware you were dying I probably would have caught that," Natasha said, "although it is annoying that you heard me coming. I was planning on spilling if I ever caught you and that would have been a much nicer way for you to learn of it than what happened. Disregarding the fact that you already knew of course."

"You're right," Toni said, "that would have been nicer. I'll keep that in mind if I ever get the opportunity to go back in time but I seriously doubt it because I'm not going in anything made by Reed Richards and he's the only idiot still studying time travel."

Natasha reached for the cocktail shaker on the bench next to the jewellery box and began shaking it up.

"I should cancel the party, huh?" Toni sighed.

"I really should have," Toni said, "I mean the plan depended on it but I was not in the mood for a party. I should have come up with something else."

"Probably," Natasha said as she walked over with the drink.

"Right, cause it's…" Toni started.

"Ill-timed," Natasha finished.

"Aww, how cute. You're finishing each other's sentences," Clint cooed only to receive a slap from both the girls. He would probably manage to rein his impulses in a bit better next time around. Probably. Alright, in truth he would probably not be able to but he could hope.

"Right, sends the wrong message," Toni continued.

"Inappropriate," Natasha agreed.

Toni took the drink and shook it a little before taking a sip.

"And for the record, I only had one more drink that night," Toni said, "so you can't chide me too much for irresponsibility."

"I'm taking note of the words 'too much' in that sentence," Steve said worriedly.

"Well this is me and you," Toni snorted, "you're bound to do it at some point and it might as well be here. It's the most appropriate point for it."

"Is that dirty enough for you?" Natasha asked flirtily.

"Oh but if you really wanted to I so would," Toni sighed, "that would be awesome."

"Although we'd probably also end up destroying the world," Natasha said with a smirk, "Clint looks scared at the mere thought."

"I do not!" Clint insisted but he couldn't hide the look on his face.

"Um… Gold chain, ruby studded. The Chopard," Toni said to change the subject, "I'll give that a look Tasha."

"Please tell me the offer of sharing clothes also extends to jewellery. Oh and shoes," Natasha sighed wistfully.

"Yes, it does," Toni said causing Natasha to look like she was trying to hold back a squeal. It was an odd look on her.

"Bring them over here, please," Toni asked as she took a seat.

"Ah, so you can be polite," Phil said with a smirk.

"Only when I want to," Toni said mischievously, "which is almost never. So don't get your hopes up just yet."

Toni said, "I'll take that," and took the box and put it on the side table, "Why don't you…?"

Before Toni could finish Natasha had sat down on the arm of the chair.

"Please tell me there is kissing in this scene," Clint said only realising how stupid that was to say after it was already out of his mouth.

Not only did he get slapped on the head but he also got pounded by deadly accurate pillows. He needed to learn when to keep his mouth shut.

Natasha retrieved a compact of concealer and began applying it to the bruise on Toni's eye. "I gotta say it. It's hard to get a read on you," Toni said with a slight quirk of her lips, "Where are you from?"

"Oh you sneaky…" Natasha muttered, "Deliberately trying to get a reaction out of me. And I thought I'd been oh so clever when I heard that."

"Legal," Natasha quipped.

"Can I ask you a question, hypothetically?" Toni asked, "Bit odd."

"If one of you smartasses says 'you already did' I will kick your ass," Toni told them.

Natasha closed the compact and nodded.

"If this was your last birthday party you were ever gonna have," Toni said rubbing her face in her hands, "how would you celebrate it?"

"I'd go out and have much merriment and ale with my friends and attempt to talk to my brother once more," Thor declared and everyone else looked set to contribute too before a look from Toni shut them up.

"I'd do whatever I wanted to do," Natasha told her, "with whoever I wanted to do it with."

"That was a bit hampered by the forced guests but it was definitely a good suggestion," Toni said.

"That's better than what I was going to say," Bruce admitted, "it encompasses more options."

"That sounds like freedom," Toni said with a slight smile, "which is of course the most important thing in my life. I think I'll borrow your answer in the future Nat."

"Of course Annie," Natasha said as she stood up and walked out of the room as Toni downed the rest of her drink and put on the ruby necklace.

"This is going to be bad," Phil sighed.

A/n – There you are. Up next is the party which should be exciting.