Notes: In this chapter there is a mention of rape. It is not a scene and nothing graphic, but it will be mentioned.

Once again, I want to thank you my lovely beta. She is a miracle worker. I guess writing is the only time I doubt my English...

Chapter 4

The whole forest situation made Toni remember all the reasons why she worked alone. It was exactly because of that she left, leaving the two idiots to deal with Loki and went back to her Tower.

She needed two things: a triple glass of whatever (1) and a little something she developed with love for Nick and SHIELD. She has been suspicious of Fury for a while now and this whole Loki thing was ringing alarm bells all over her head.

"Madam, a call from Miss Potts." Jarvis voice alerted.

"Pass her." she said finishing her glass in one go. "Pepper, love of my life! How was your day?"

There was a pause and then… "Toni, you are drinking!"

"You can bet your sweet ass that I am." Toni said sitting in one of the stools close to the bar, finishing some little details in his present for Black Beard.

Pepper sighed on the other end of the line. "Okay. I called because I saw the news about Germany. I guess you deserve a drink."

"Try a few..." Toni murmured, refilling his glass.

"Toni! Don't get drunk."

"Of course I won't, Peps." She said calmly, getting up and putting the small devices in her pocket. "I will be flying out in a couple of minutes and I don't want to crash against the Statue of Liberty".

"Where are you going?" Pepper wanted to know.

"I'm gonna see Phil." Toni teased "Wanna send a message? You never told me if you abused him in the car."

"Toni! Of course I didn't."

Toni rolled her eyes, knowing that Pepper wouldn't see it.

"Well, you should have. Who knows? Maybe I'll try my luck today…" she sang.

"Don't you dare." Pepper said seriously.

"Then do something, woman! I made you my CEO for a reason, you know? Don't be such a pussy."

"Hey! That kind of language is not acceptable, Toni." Pepper said, but Toni could hear the smile in her voice "But… Yeah, okay. You're right."

"Of course I am. Now I gotta bounce. When are you coming back?"

"Tomorrow, around the end of the day."

"I'll be waiting."

XxX

SHIELD's Helicarrier was... Well, massive. Toni didn't see anything that interesting on it, besides finding the whole thing unpractical. Now, if she had been the one to design it… Oh man. It would be a masterpiece.

She had called Phil on her way over and the Agent had promised an open hangar for her to land on. It wasn't hard to find it and, getting there, she noticed he was the one waiting for her.

"Hey, Phil!" She greeted, lifting her face plate.

"Miss Stark." He was still the most unexpressive man Toni knew. What did Pepper see in this guy? "We arranged a place for your suit."

"Very nice of you, Agent." Toni saluted him.

Phil just gave her a deadpan look, then turned and started walking. Toni followed him, sometimes waving to the agents passing by.

Coulson took her to a door that he opened by pressing a small control. Phil indicated that Toni could go ahead. She got inside what looked like a closet and then walked out without her suit.

"What?" She asked when she saw Phil arching an eyebrow.

Actually, she knew exactly why he was making that disapproving face. She was wearing a long sleeved Black Sabbath t-shirt, cutoffs and cowboy boots. And, okay, maybe the shorts would look better on a 15 year old girl, but she wore it just to see Phil and Fury's face.

She was having fun already.

Phil opened his mouth and Toni had the impression that he would start this whole lecture on appropriate attire on SHIELD's sacred ground, but he changed his mind at the last second and said instead, "This way."

Pepper thought that Toni was jealous of Coulson, and that was the reason why she kept pestering him. Pepper was wrong. Sure, Toni was jealous of many people when it came to Pepper, but that was because she considered the other woman one of the most amazing people on Earth. She didn't believe that anyone deserved the redhead. Because she – Toni Fucking Stark – didn't deserve Pepper, who else in the world would?

But that was not the reason she loved to annoy Coulson. Deep down, she liked him. The Agent was a good man and he fought for what he believed in. Toni annoyed him because it was fun. That was it.

"You know, Pep is in DC." She offered suddenly.

Phil threw her a wary look. "I know. I dropped her at the airport." He said.

"Well, maybe you should visit her." Toni offered. "I can lend you a limo! Then you can be all Kevin Costner in 'No Way Out', say 'show us the monuments' and then…" Toni wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. (2)

Phil blushed but it seemed he was fighting a smile. "I believe Sean Young was the one to say that.," was his answer.

"I'm just saying that you…"

"Iridium." Someone said at the end of the corridor "What did they need the Iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent." Toni answered, because she loved knowing more than everybody else, but she couldn't just forget about Phil yet. "I can take you there, buddy." She said to him quickly. "We need to make that spark between you to explode." She gave him a wink before going back to addressing the rest of the room "Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did on SHIELD."

Now that the whole gang was together things were bound to get interesting.

"No hard feelings, Point Break." She said patting Thor's arm "You've got a mean swing." Then she stopped and squeezed his arm, because that couldn't be real. "And wow, keep working out, darling."

She made a dismissive gesture when Thor opened his mouth to say something.

"Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long as Loki wants." She walked to the bridge, where Black Beard stood "Hm, raise the mizzenmast. Jib the topsails." All the agents working stopped to look at her, but she didn't care, because… "That man is playing GALAGA! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." She made a pause and covered her left eye with her hand. "How does Fury even see these?"

"He turns." A brunette said. Hm, who was that?

"Well, that sounds exhausting." Toni decided "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source." She slipped one of her presents to Fury without anyone realizing it, putting the small device on one of the monitors. "A high energy density, something to kick start the Cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" The Icy Agent wanted to know.

"Last night."

The brunette arched an eyebrow, obviously impressed.

"The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers." Toni looked around and saw a bunch of confused faces. "Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Cap asked.

"He'd have to heat the Cube to a 120- million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb Barrier." Bruce Banner, who was really cute when he wasn't green and angry, said.

"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect." Toni completed, because now there was someone to play with.

"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet." Bruce finished.

"Sexy and smart" Toni smiled "Finally, someone who speaks English."

"Is that what just happened?" Steve said, but Toni was not worried about him in the moment.

She got closer to him and offered her hand. "It's good to meet you, Doctor Banner. Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled." She said, since it was the truth. "And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Bruce looked disconcerted. Sometimes she had that effect on people. It was a gift.

"Thanks." He said hesitantly.

"The 'crazy scientist' style is also kinda sexy." She felt it was only fair to add this, since it was also true.

Bruce looked really close to asking for help when Nick came out of nowhere.

"Doctor Banner is only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you might join him, Stark." He asked.

"Let's start with that stick of his." Cap suggested, "It may be magical but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the Cube." Nick said "And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor asked confused. "I do not understand."

"I do!" Steve said suddenly, looking damn proud of himself "I understood that reference."

"Cute." Toni rolled her eyes. "Shall we play, doctor?" She asked Bruce, passing her arm through his, and resting her head on his shoulder.

The doctor seemed really uncomfortable with such proximity. Toni couldn't blame him, it must have been a while since anyone who knew exactly who he was came so close without fear. Bruce was about to learn that she had no interest in keeping a distance.

"Come on, Doc. Let's play." She prompted, pulling his arm.

Bruce smiled shyly. "This way, ma'am."

XxX

Steve watched Toni take Bruce to the labs and sighed.

She was trouble. Steve admired and respected her to a certain extent. Toni had a privileged life and she had no need to do what she did. The Iron Lady was her choice, and it was admirable.

However she was irresponsible, arrogant and wasn't taking any of this seriously. Maybe leaving her alone with Banner was not a good idea.

"Stop worrying, Captain." Natasha, who had been observing him, said. "She is not nearly as bad as you think."

"I have my doubts, Agent Romanoff." He replied honestly.

"Did you know that she was kidnapped on the orders of the man she trusted the most? And then that she was then kept on Afghanistan for months, but instead of building the missiles they wanted she designed the first suit?" Natasha asked him.

"Yes." Steve answered, of course he knew that. "It is all on her files."

"Do you know what is not on her file? What she must have been through when she was there." Natasha arched an eyebrow, but wasn't showing any emotion. "A beautiful woman in a cave full of armed men? I can guess pretty well what happened to her."

Steve felt his throat dry. He knew exactly what Natasha was talking about. How many victims had he rescued from HYDRA's facilities? Women who were there for no other reason than… Being made as playthings for disgusting men.

"Do you think…"

"I am almost certain." Natasha cut. "This would also explain why all her relationships since then have been with women."

Steve had read somewhere that Toni was bi and one of the biggest supporters of same-sex marriage and adoption rights for gay couples.

"Wait a second. How do you know all of this?" He asked.

"I worked for her, while undercover. That was how I prepared her profile for SHIELD."

Natasha said this last sentence in the exact same tone she said everything else, in that blasé way that was so hers, but this time, there was something…

Steve's eyes became saucers. "Did you and Toni…"

"That is classified, Captain Rogers." Natasha got up, but Steve had the impression that the spy was hiding a smile.

Wow…

XxX

"The gamma radiations are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract." Bruce said while he is passing a sensor over Loki's magic wand "But it's gonna take weeks to process."

"If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops." Toni called from where she was, eyes on a screen.

Bruce gave a dry chuckle. "All I packed was a tooth brush."

Toni laughed and got closer to him. "You know, you should come by Stark Tower some time. Top ten floors all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land." She carefully picked on of the instruments left in one of the tables.

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke… Harlem." Bruce said embarrassed.

"Well, I promise a stress-free environment." Toni said walking behind him. "No tension. No surprises." She used the small tool to shock Bruce.

"Ow!"

"Nothing?" She asked looking into his eyes, looking for any trace of green.

"Hey! Are you nuts?" She heard Captain Boring asking as he was coming into the lab.

"Jury's out." She didn't even spare him a glance "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums? Huge bag of weed? Tantric sex?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve insisted.

"Funny things are." Toni shrugged.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny." Then, being the good boy he was, Steve turned to Bruce "No offense, doctor."

"No, it's alright." Bruce looked ridicously resigned. "I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things. " He threw an amused glance to the object on Toni's hand.

"You're tiptoeing, darling. You need to strut." Toni declared, dropping the small tool and picking up a small bag.

"And you need to focus on the problems, Miss Stark." Cap said tersely.

"You think I'm not?" She started picking blueberries of her bag and eating them. "Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked.

"He's a spy. Captain, he's The Spy. His secrets have secrets." She threw another blueberry in her mouth. "It's bugging him too, isn't it?"

Bruce, suddenly seeing himself as the center of attention, stuttered, "Hum… I just wanna finish my work here and…"

"Doctor?" Steve gently prompted.

Bruce took off his glasses and sighed. "'A warm light for all mankind', Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube."

"I heard it." Steve said.

"Well, I think it was meant for you." Bruce pointed at Toni. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."

Since he had been such a good boy, Toni offered him a blueberry and Bruce took it. She had to resist the impulse to scratch him behind his ear.

"The Stark Tower?" Steve asked, "That big ugly…" Toni threw him a glare. "Building in New York?"

"It's powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source." Bruce explained. "That building will run itself for what? A year?"

"It's just the prototype." Toni shrugged once again. "I'm kind of the only name on clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at." She explained to Steve.

"So, why didn't SHIELD bring her in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?" Bruce finished. Yes, he also had his doubts.

"I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files." Toni said easily, checking on her cellphone for the progress on said program.

"I'm sorry, did you say…" Steve started saying, but Toni was kind of tired of him now.

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide." She said, finally looking at Steve. "Blueberry?" She offered, because she knew how to be polite. Sometimes.

"Yet you're confused on why they didn't want you around?" Steve said, not even looking at her offering.

Toni just rolled her eyes. "An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome."

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them." Boy scout said firmly.

Toni yawned "Following is not really my style."

"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Steve arched an eyebrow.

"Of the people in this room, which one is; a) wearing a spangly outfit, and b) not of use?" She retorted also arching her eyebrow.

"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" Bruce tried to reason.

For a second, it even looked like Steve might agree, but the good soldier won.

"Just find the Cube." He ordered before leaving the room.

"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" Toni made a sound of disgust. "Wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."

"The guy's not wrong about Loki." Bruce said, fairly, moving to work on another screen. "He does have a jump on us."

"What he's got is an ACME dynamite kit." Toni said, going back to the place where she started, to check something else on the screen. "It's gonna blow up in his face, and I'm gonna be there when it does."

"And I'll read all about it." Bruce said.

"Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us." Toni said turning to him.

Bruce gave another of those dry humorless chuckles he used to use when he was the topic of conversation. Like he was a bad joke.

"Ah, see, I don't get a suit of armor. I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare." His voice was covered in bitterness.

"You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart. This stops it." She touched her finger to the arc reactor, hidden by her shirt. "This little circle of light. It's a part of me now, not just armor. It's a... Terrible privilege." She got closer to him again, looking at him through the screen he was trying to hide behind.

"But you can control it." Bruce argued.

"Because I learned how."

"It's different." He went back to looking at the screen, trying to ignore her.

"Hey, I've read all about your accident." Toni said, pushing the screen out of her way "That much gamma exposure should have killed you."

"So you're saying that the Hulk…" Bruce's eyes went to the ground "The Other Guy… Saved my life? That's nice." He said, but his tone was mocking, "It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?"

"I guess we'll find out, honey." Toni raised her hand and held Bruce's chin gently.

"You might not enjoy that." He warned.

"You just might."

Notes:

(1) I know many fans of Iron Man complain about the movies not talking about his alcoholism. Well, I will not talk about that either, for a very simple reason: alcoholism is a very serious subject. It is a problem that can destroy families and lives, and brings a lot of pain. I don't want to make this fanfic too heavy, what the subject would do. I also don't think I can treat it with the severity it requires. Toni will still drink way too much, but won't cross that line.

(2) The movie, "No way out" is a very good movie. Highly recommended.

So I truly Love Bruce and Toni as BFF's.
Thank you all for the cudos and comments. They make me very happy.

See you all next Monday!

xoxo