Fic: In Another's Eyes (Chapter Thirteen)
Title: In Another’s Eyes
Fandom: The Avengers (AU-Cinematic Universe)
Characters: Antonia “Toni” Stark, Steve Rogers, others.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Toni/Steve
Warnings: Mentions of Non-Con, bondage
Summary: A stalker is targeting Toni, which skews how she sees herself and how she allows others to see her.
Author's Notes: Just so everyone knows, I haven't the slightest idea what the element Tony synthesized in Iron Man 2 is called. I was going to go with "Starkanium", but a website I found while searching suggested "Starkonium", which I felt sounded better. If anyone knows the official name, please don't hesitate to tell me!
EDIT: I've fixed it! Thanks to everyone who let me know that the core is made from Vibranium! :D
( Chapter One) ( Chapter Two) ( Chapter Three) ( Chapter Four) ( Chapter Five) ( Chapter Six) ( Chapter Seven) ( Chapter Eight) ( Chapter Nine) ( Chapter Ten) ( Chapter Eleven) ( Chapter Twelve)
Chapter 13:
Getting into a fight with a robot at least fifty times her size hadn’t been part of Toni’s plans for the rest of the day. The plans did include leaving Pepper to have some alone time with Natasha-that involved sneaking out, but was worth it-figuring out what to say to Steve-she was saying Steve more and Cap less and wasn’t sure what that said about everything-getting more coffee-her favorite not-Starbucks café was less than a block from the penthouse and they made the most delicious White Chocolate Caramel lattes and orange chocolate chip scones-and maybe even do some shopping at Atlantic Center. She wanted a new set of running clothes and sneakers; she burned her old ones after the first kidnapping.
The giant robot made her burst out laughing in the middle of Atlantic Avenue. It was almost like someone wanted to give her the most outlandish situation they could think of and make her deal with it herself; some sort of a twisted apology for the past few days.
“Okay,” she said with a chuckle, reaching for her phone. “This I can deal with.” She pushed the voice dial button on her phone. “Dread Pirate.”
“Stark, I told you to change that voice command.” Toni’s already wide smile got wider; one day she’d figure out how he knew what her voice commands were.
“Good morning, Director!” she said cheerily. “Holding up my end of the deal; I'm not allowed to fight anything more than twice my size on my own without calling for backup; consider this a call for back up!”
“We’re calling the team right now,” came Nick Fury’s equally cheery reply (please note, this is sarcasm). “Smile, you’re on camera.”
“And I still called! Aren’t you proud of me?”
“You’re on your own for at least five minutes. Try not to get anyone squashed.”
“That only happened once and it was really mostly Hulk’s fault…” The line went dead. Fury never liked listening to her excuses when she needed to be suiting up and destroying a giant robot.
Toni had gotten into the habit of carrying personally carrying her briefcase suit whenever it was practical; having anyone else carry it only put that person in danger and she wasn’t going to do that. She grabbed the suit as she left that morning, despite the fact that originally she was only going to see Pepper. As she suited up, she was glad she started doing so.
“Jarvis, you with me?” She was in the air by now; she couldn’t help smiling at the children pointing at her and screaming happily. She needed to start visiting kids in the suit more.
“Hello, Miss Stark,” came the reply. “Have you remembered to call Director Fury in regards to the metal monstrosity before you?”
“Yes, Jarvis,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “I already called him.” The robot was stepping on cars as it walked down the street, swatting at her like she was a fly. She was faster than it was, but her repulsor beams were barely denting it. “Jarvis, I need you to scan the thing, find weak points!” She saw the scans on screen, indicating the back of the neck as the weakest point. In theory, she should have been able to fly around to the area in question, blast it and be done with it. Iron Man saves the day and the rest of the Avengers can deal with the clean-up.
Of course, that was when the robot’s arm-which was apparently faster than the rest of it-stretched out and the hand clasped tightly around her. She let out a yell as it squeezed, barely managing to move her arms out of the way before the fingers closed around her. She did her best to try to blast the arm, hoping to at least get it to release her, but the blasts weren’t enough; she was rubbing this into the faces of everyone who said that she didn’t need more fire power.
“Start the party without us, Iron Man?” The voice came over Toni’s intercom system, causing her to groan.
“Fuck you, Hawkeye,” she replied, just before getting another squeeze. “GAH! Where the hell is everyone else?”
“Widow’s getting civilians out of the way,” Barton replied. “Cap’s still en-route. Anything you can tell me about that thing?”
“Weak point at the back of the neck… you got those new arrows I made you?” Toni and Clint’s first meeting involved a rude comment and him having to ice his nuts for a week. As an apology, Toni made him a nice set of arrows; C4 with a blasting cap built into the shaft, able to be remote detonated from a distance of up to five hundred yards. They would be perfect for this. “Hawk?”
“…”
“Barton, I made you those arrows so you could use them! Not for them to look pretty on the wall!”
“They are made with C4, Toni! There is no way they’re safe to carry!”
“I used to make weapons for a living, Barton! If I wanted to kill you, I would not do it with the most stable explosive compound known to man!”
“That’s enough, you two!” Natasha’s voice sounded over the com.
“Clint started it, Natasha!” Toni insisted.
“I did not!”
“I don’t care who started it, I’ll finish it!” If she wasn’t getting squeezed to death by a giant robot, Toni would have laughed harder than she already was. One of these days, she would figure out exactly when her life became a freaking comic book.
“I hate to be a pain!” Toni cried as the robot tightened its grip. “But someone needs to get this fucker off me!” She could hear her armor crunching, meaning this thing was stronger than Hulk… “Where the fuck is Hulk?!”
“Language, Iron Man!” The new voice calmed Toni down slightly.
“Captain, good of you to join us! Where the hell are you?”
“On the ground behind the thing, are you alright?” She could hear worry in his voice, more than normal.
“I’m alright, can you hit the back of his neck with your shield?”
“Will that stop him?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?” Toni let out another yell. How the hell was that thing still able to squeeze her?
“Less talk!” she demanded. “More shield throw!” She heard a loud clang and watched as the robot’s head came clean off and flew past her. She let out a sigh of relief, glad the thing wouldn’t be squeezing her anymore…
“It’s falling!” Clint’s words sent chills through Toni’s body; people were on the ground behind the robot. Steve was one of those people.
“Jarvis!” she yelled, pointing her hands and feet at the robot as it teetered backwards. “Divert all power to thrusters, now!” She activated her thrusters before Jarvis could acknowledge the order; the falling didn’t cease, only slowed slightly. “How heavy is this fucking thing, Jarvis! Jarvis, divert power now!”
“Miss Stark, your current course of actions is depleting the vibranium core at an alarming rate.” Well, there was good news. “Any changes could…”
“I don’t care, Jarvis,” she yelled, louder this time. “Just fucking do it!” Her thrusters shot to life within seconds and she felt the robot stop falling. She wasn’t pulling it upright, she was just keeping it steady. Her power meter was on screen-Jarvis knew better than to shout percentages to her-and it wasn’t good; she was at seventy five percent and it was dropping fast. “Hawkeye! Can you shoot ropes around it or did you forget those arrows too?”
“I’m on it!”
“Iron Man!” Cap yelled. “Civilians are out of the way, let it fall!”
“And have to listen to Fury lecture about damage costs?” she cried. “No fucking way!” She didn’t care about the money, of course; she’d pay for it out of her own pocket if she had to. She wasn’t going to take the chance that someone didn’t evacuate and ended up getting crushed… or that Cap wasn’t far enough away to remain unharmed. She could see arrows flying past out of the corner of her eye. As long as they held, everything would be fine…
“Hulk’s here, he’ll catch the robot when it falls!” Cap’s voice was pleading with her now. “Toni, you can’t put that much strain…” She didn’t let him finish; she didn’t have to.
“Fuck, did Rhodey tell you?! Jesus Christ!” She was going to kill him. Oldest friend or not, if she lived through this, James Rhodes was dead. “I can handle it!”
It was at that moment that Toni saw her power level drop to ten percent. The last thing she remembered was Steve yelling her name as her world went completely black.