Chapter 78 – Toni and Howard
A/n – I'm really enjoying writing again :) To those who were surprised that I'd been doing this one handed the explanation is that three years ago I lost practically all function in my right hand which happens to my dominant one.
Minerbuilder12 – I'll probably tack on the end scene with Toni but other than that I didn't like the movie so no it won't be included.
"Nicely phrased Phil," Toni acknowledged, "I appreciate the double meaning that you used there."
"Thank you Toni, I'm glad you liked it," Phil replied.
Most of the other people in the room looked a bit puzzled about what exactly that phrase meant although Natasha was smirking away as she found it just as funny as Toni. They really should get someone to say that to Hammer in prison just to see the look on his face. She would pay quite a bit of money for that recording. She could only assume that Toni would pay even more.
Rhodey was shown with his commanding officer as a metal door was slid open revealing the Iron Man suit within.
"Unbelievable," the commanding officer said, "This ought to get the Senate off my ass."
"Yeah, the senate really are assholes," Toni said simply, "I would give some of them the benefit of the doubt except they're politicians so I'm just not going to bother."
"It's not going to help the military's attitude towards you certainly," Steve brought up, "they're going to take out their frustration with the senate on you because you're part of the reason that the senate is coming down on them in the first place."
"It's functional?" he continued.
"Fully mission-capable," Rhodey told him.
"Except for fact that the icing problem hasn't been fixed for that one," Bruce scoffed remembering Toni almost plummeting to her death in that suit.
"Good," the commanding officer continued, "Get Hammer down here to weaponise it."
"Oh that is not going to end well," Clint said with a flinch, "especially since the suit already has all the weapons that it needs to be effective. Adding more is going to cause those problems you were talking about earlier isn't it?"
"Yep," Toni confirmed, "you can't make the thing too heavy or in the long run it's going to become too much for you to carry. Rhodey already has a harder time flying long distances than I do because of it."
"The military's solution to everything seems to be add more weaponry to it," Thor interjected, "sometimes in warfare it is best to use simplicity and intelligence rather than brute force. It is a lesson that it took me a while to learn."
Rhodey immediately looked concerned and followed the officer with a questioning, "Sir?"
"Justin Hammer's making a weapons presentation at the Expo," the officer explained, "We'd like this to introduce it."
"Well, if they're trying to make it look like Hammer created it then they're going to fail big time," Natasha snorted, "after all there were dozens of witnesses to Rhodey stealing that suit so actually it was illegal to present it at a Hammer Industries section since they didn't invent it or hold the patent for it."
"Like that was going to bother the higher ups in the military or Hammer," Toni scoffed, "most of them really don't care about the law until I end up suing their asses over them breaking it. They certainly care then."
"Sir," Rhodey protested, "I don't believe that the Expo…"
"Colonel," the officer interrupted, "the world needs to see this fast. We've got to make this happen."
"The world," Bruce scoffed, "more like the government so they stop annoying him. The world doesn't really give two shits about who has the Iron Man armour. "
"Yes, General, but…" Rhodey tried again.
"It's also an order," the General told him firmly.
"Yes, sir," Rhodey said reluctantly.
"And this is the point where he should have flown it straight back to you and damn what the military thought about it," Phil interjected, "he clearly knew that this shouldn't be happening."
"Good work, Colonel," the General said offering a salute and getting one in return, "You've made your country proud."
"Thank you, sir," Rhodey said but he cast a doubtful look back over in the direction of the Iron Man suit as if he was suddenly regretting what he'd done.
"Well, I'm glad that he realised he was being a complete jerk fairly early on," Toni said, "even if he's never going to admit it to my face."
The scene changed to show Fury and Toni sitting in the centre of one of the wrecked rooms in the Malibu Mansion. "That thing in your chest is based on unfinished technology," Fury said.
"No, it was finished. It has never been particularly effective until I miniaturised it and put it in my…" Toni started explaining.
"No," Fury interrupted, "Howard said the arc reactor was the stepping stone to something greater."
"Well my father's definition of something greater and mine differ so hearing that wasn't exactly reassuring," Toni sighed, "plus everything is a stepping stone to something else. That's how production works otherwise nothing new would ever be invented. The arc reactor as a product was finished at least until I improved upon it."
"He was about to kick off an energy race that would dwarf the arms race. He was on to something big, something so big that it was gonna make the nuclear reactor look like a triple-A battery," Fury insisted.
"Uh-huh," Toni said sceptically, "and when was he going to actually do it? Because he finished quite a few weapons projects when he was alive and the next one he took up was also always to do with weapons."
"There are differences between saying you're going to do something and actually doing it," Bruce agreed, "and he didn't really show any initiative in actually progressing that project."
"Just him," Toni said sceptically as she poured out some alcohol, "or was Anton Vanko in on this too?"
"Anton Vanko is the other side of that coin," Fury explained, "Anton saw it as a way to get rich. When your father found out, he had him deported. When the Russians found out he couldn't deliver, they shipped his ass off to Siberia and he spent the next 20 years in a vodka-fuelled rage."
"Doesn't sound all the different from my father really," Toni said with a shrug, "the version that he was around me I mean. I'm sure he was as nice as he can be around Fury and other people like him but that didn't stop him from being an asshole to me and my mother."
"Not quite the environment you want to raise a kid in," Fury continued, "the son you had the misfortune of crossing paths with in Monaco."
Steve shifted uncomfortably at this sentence. Since Toni had acknowledged the similarities between Anton Vanko and Howard he couldn't help but feel guilty again at his judgment of Toni. He knew that if he said it out loud she would justifiably tell him to stop worrying about it but he couldn't. He had just never considered the option that Toni was the way she was because of Howard and not in spite of him and that rankled quite a bit.
"You told me I hadn't tried everything," Toni said bringing them back round to the point of the conversation, "What do you mean I haven't tried everything? What haven't I tried?"
"Nice acting there Annie," Natasha said, "You would almost think that you didn't know what he's just about to suggest."
"I could have gotten a drama degree if I wanted but that would have spoiled the whole illusion," Toni agreed.
"He said you were the only person with the means and knowledge to finish what he started," Fury said using a frankly rather superior tone.
"And I'm betting it was extremely grudgingly," Toni snorted, "he never did get over the fact that I wasn't a boy."
"He said that?" Toni said sceptically.
"Mmm," Fury confirmed, "Are you that person? Hmm. Are you? Cause if you are, you can solve the riddle of your heart."
Toni shook her head disbelievingly and told him, "I don't know where you're getting your information but he wasn't my biggest fan."
"I'm not even sure I have a biggest fan," Toni mused, "Tasha do you want to be my biggest fan?"
"I can roll with that Annie," Natasha said.
"Great, that's that sorted out then," Toni said with a smile.
"What do you remember about your dad, huh?" Fury asked.
"He says that like you were a child when he died and not a teenager," Steve interjected, "after all I'm sure you have plenty of memories of him."
"Yep, especially considering my memory retention rate," Toni said, "although I don't have all that many pleasant ones. In fact none are coming immediately to mind so there mustn't have been any."
"He was cold, he was calculating," Toni started quite happy to list off his bad traits, "He never told me he loved me. He never even told me he liked me so it's a little tough for me to digest when you're telling me he said the whole future was riding on me and he's passing it down. I don't get that."
"You were quite clever with that statement," Phil realised, "you got across exactly how much you disliked him but didn't go into too many personal details that would have revealed things you definitely didn't want Fury to know."
"That's my speciality," Toni said with a smirk, "I always did enjoy a good half-truth. They're much more fun than the real thing."
"You're talking about a guy who happiest day was when he shipped me off to boarding school," Toni finished.
"That's not true," Fury insisted.
"Oh like he has insider knowledge that you don't have about how your father acted," Bruce scoffed, "I would easily trust your word as someone who had to live with him over someone that he had to be nice around because that was his job."
"Well, then clearly you knew my dad better than I did," Toni said sarcastically clearly not believing a word he was saying.
"As a matter of fact, I did. He was one of the founding members of SHIELD," Fury said.
"That's not exactly a point in his favour considering that a lot of SHIELD's founding members were HYDRA scientists," Toni muttered.
"WHAT!?" Steve shouted.
"I see they didn't tell you about that," Toni said not at all surprised, "they offered practically all the HYDRA agents clemency if they came to work for SHIELD so there are quite a few 'former' HYDRA members working for SHIELD."
"The next time I see Fury…" Steve muttered under his breath. It had taken everything out of him to stop HYDRA back then and now he found out they had basically been given a free pass and the perfect opportunity to rebuild.
"What?" Toni declared.
"You knew about that beforehand didn't you," Clint said not really asking since he thought he already knew the answer.
"Yep," Toni confirmed, "it was in some of the files that I had access to."
"I got a 2:00," Fury said getting up to leave as his men brought in a box.
"Excuse me," Toni exclaimed, "What's this?"
"Okay, you're good, right?" Fury asked, "You got this? Right? Right?"
"She would probably have been a lot better if you'd actually explained instead of just dropping what you thought was a bombshell and leaving," Steve snorted.
"Got what?" Toni asked, "I don't even know what I'm supposed to get."
"Natasha will remain as a floater at Stark with her cover intact," Fury continued, "and you remember Agent Coulson right?"
"I really don't like how he is telling you what is going to happen instead of asking you Lady Toni," Thor said.
"Yeah, well there's a very good reason for that," Toni said huffily sending a mild glare over at Natasha and Phil who flinched guiltily. They had known that despite what she said Toni was not over what had happened.
"Yeah," Toni replied clearly resigned to the vagueness of what was going on.
"Oh and Toni," Fury said as he walked away, "I got my eye on you."
"And yet he still missed everything," Toni said with a smirk.
Fury left and Toni turned to face Natasha raising an eyebrow at her, "we've disabled all communications. No contact with the outside world. Good luck."
"That's an awful thing to do Nat," Clint said outraged, "it's exactly what Stane did to her in the last movie. And I don't care if it would probably be easy for her to get around it because it's still inhumane."
"I know," Natasha burst out, "I am aware of all of that. Excuse me."
With that she ran from the room into the elevator and they heard her asking JARVIS to take her to one of the bars. Since Toni had given her permission to do this nobody batted an eyelid although when Phil asked to join her he got a few odd looks. But Toni let him leave and the rest settled down to watch the next bit of the movie.
"Please," Toni said as she turned to face Phil, "First thing, I need a little bodywork. I'll put in a little time at the lab. If we could send one of your goon squad down to The Coffee Bean, Cross Creek, for a Starbucks run, or something like that, that'd be nice."
"And there goes Toni showing off exactly how pissed off she is," Clint said with a snort.
"I'm not here for that," Phil told her, "I've been authorised by Director Fury to use any means necessary to keep you on premises. If you attempt to leave or play any games, I will tase you and watch Supernanny while you drool on the carpet."
"I'd have been dead if I wasn't allowed to leave the premises by the way," Toni told the others, "so Fury is once again a complete idiot and an asshole at the same time. It seems to be a talent of his."
There was not a small amount of outrage in the room after this comment which Toni had expected but honestly had wanted so she could be absolutely sure that she was justified in feeling so mad at the people involved. Even for her it was nice to have validation sometimes.
"I think I got it," Toni drawled, "but to be clear the last person who did that to me was Obadiah Stane and we all know how he turned out. Something to think about while you act like assholes."
Phil got a guilty look on his face as he walked away and Toni turned to look at the case which was marked 'Property of H. Stark."
"I have the distinct feeling that this is going to end terribly," came the chorus from around the room.
A/n – There you go guys. Hope you enjoyed and get ready for the video which is coming up next. That should be interesting.