Leaning back against the sofa, she gazed upon the crowd before her.
Reporters, journalists, photographers, news channels, she catalogued, a flicker of amusement crossing her lips. FBI, CIA, even ex-SHIELD agents. How ironic.
She shut her eyes beneath the red-tinted glasses, disappointment simmering just beneath the surface. Toni Stark had taken in those SHIELD agents after the "data dump." How could she forget?
The voices in her head started to churn.
"Dr. Stark!"
"Toni Stark!"
"Iron Queen!"
The cacophony overlapped, cutting through her focus like shards of glass. With a deep sigh, she rose to her feet and approached the stand, leaning forward slightly over the microphone.
“Did you know you came here for me?” Her voice carried an almost playful edge, daring anyone to interrupt.
The room fell silent.
“No, seriously—did none of you think about that?” Her tone turned icy, freezing the murmurs before they could even begin.
Ice crawls up red-gold armour that's coated in Stark's blood.
"I'm going to say this once and you all better be listening," Her icy tone shifted to something darker.
'Merchant of Death,' didn't they know Toni Stark held that title for more decades than she had before she crowned herself the Iron Queen?
"You have all come here for Toni Stark. To listen to Toni Stark. To question Toni Stark. I will not stand for anyone who thinks they can shout at me or be rude towards me. So this is your only warning. Sit down and wait until I ask questions, or leave this room now if you know that you can't behave yourselves."
Like the fear-controlled sheep they were, they all rushed to seat themselves once more and didn't dare to breathe another word to each other until the woman at the stand had spoken.
'Speak only when I speak to you Antonia,' Toni Stark's father - Howard - would hiss at her when she was but a child wanting her father's approval more than anything his money could buy.
ToniI'm IronQueen-TOni Stark=HOneYBear:Tones;ANTONIAELLASTARK
She shook her head, forcing the fragmented memories down. The room was hers, and she wouldn’t let anyone take it back. She leaned back slightly, her expression unreadable.
This was the world that she loved so much?
"All of you may be wondering what is Toni Stark doing. Where has Toni Stark been for the past three months? Why has Toni Stark been missing after the 'Civil War'?"
There were nods and murmurs of agreement, but no shouting.
Good.
ELLA-antonia=Bambino;STARK'MErchantoFDeAth-TONI
She continued, her voice steady despite the chaos inside her mind. “I will allow one question from a reporter before I show you the reason I’ve called you here.”
Her gaze landed on a familiar figure—a blonde in the crowd.
Blonde--Reporter-VanityFair-GraduatedFromBrown-Everheart-'Wow. You ever lose an hour of sleep your whole life?"
Her lips twitched. A shark among minnows.
"Christine Everheart, Vanity Fair. Right?" She wasn't asking the blonde.
"Dr Stark," The raven-haired beauty hummed her approval at the title that Toni Stark deserved after fighting to get those degrees in a sexist time, "You're correct and since further introductions are no longer needed, should I ask my one question?"
Ooh, the woman at the stand cooed in amusement at the disdained look the reporter was putting on yet concealing well.
"You may," The woman with red glasses said as she twitched her lips in amusement at everyone in the room looking between the two women as if they were having a tennis match.
"You said at a Gala in 2008 that you wanted to be held responsible for your actions and be accountable for the destruction that you caused indirectly with your weapons."
The woman at the stand slightly tilted her head in an almost predatory movement and replied, "I'm not hearing a question."
Christine didn't look deterred by the movement and continued her talk, "Does that policy that you have followed diligently over the years not apply to the rest of the superheroes?"
Laughter tore from her throat before she could stop it. The sound startled the room into silence.
The woman waves a hand delicately, "I apologise, I forgot how you always go for the jugular Christine. It's refreshing to know that there are people who can still get shit done without being a nuisance in their line of work."
She brushes a strand of hair that had fallen across her face and replied, "I can't give you an answer to that question Christine because you're asking the wrong person."
Murmurs of confusion began to fill the silence that she and Christine had created but the woman at the stand doesn't look away from the blonde that was now sporting a confused look, even though she quickly recovered and asked, "Can you elaborate on that?"
She only replied with a, "I would advise extreme viewer discretion as the contents of this video are extremely graphic and harrowing." before lifting her finger ever so slightly and turning on the big screen so it could run the video that held the contents of the last moments of Toni Stark.
The image is cut to a video of a bunker near snow-covered mountains,
"I know that road."
The road that Toni Stark inspected so thoroughly when she was a teenager.
The road Toni Stark wept on with alcohol in her system, cursing at nature for taking her mother from her.
That road held no significance to Toni Stark when she was a child, thrust into the world of snakes with smiles of greed and tongues of lies.
Not until the 16th day of December in the year 1991.
The woman at the stand assessed all of the reactions in the room.
The horror of watching the Winter Soldier (who had been revealed to be James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes), repeatedly punch Howard Stark in the face and inevitably crush his skull with his cybernetic arm.
The gasps the audience released at watching the Winter Soldier strangle Maria Stark (who had been America's darling long before Toni Stark had embraced the cameras) with his flesh hand until her neck snapped and she stopped breathing.
The protests and swears and shouts that came out of the audience (mainly the Steve defenders) when Toni had turned to Steve, rage and pain and vengeance burning in her eyes when he stood in front of her and she had to ask, "Did you know?" and ignored Steve's attempts of avoiding the question, "Do not bullshit me, Rogers. Did. You. Know?"
The silence that followed when Steve Rogers admitted to knowing that the Winter Soldier had murdered Howard and Maria Stark (Toni Stark's parents).
The footage continued, showing Toni—human, grieving, outmatched—facing off against the super-soldiers. The crowd flinched at every blow.
But what amused the woman at the stand was watching how the room fell silent when the Merchant of Death had been fighting to take control over Antonia Stark.
"I don't care. He killed my mom."
The raven head woman muted the voices outside and went inside her mind to focus on the radio signals and check if the entire world was watching through the nearest devices, be it their laptop or even their smart refrigerator.
Her lips twitched at watching the fallout between 'Team Cap' in Wakanda and her interest peaked at the genuine tears from the witch's eyes.
She came out of her mind to see that the entire room had begun to move their gaze from the screen to stare at her in pity.
"Dr Stark-" Christine began, her voice shaky after watching Captain America slam the vibranium shield onto IronQueen's armour.
The woman at the stand took off her red glasses to stare at the crowd, who now stared in horror, "I thought you were smart, Christine. Are you telling me that you still haven't figured it out yet?"
With the microphone trembling in her hand, Christine tried to mask her horror but she couldn't.
Not after seeing icy blue replace the doe brown eyes that Toni Stark once had.
"Toni, what did you do to yourself?" she managed to whisper out, but the words had been whispered into the microphone so everyone could hear her question.
The woman at the stand sighed and shook her head in disappointment, "Let me make this very clear since all of you are idiots. Antonia Ella Stark is dead."
“To prove it,” she continued, her voice now clinical, “let’s review the facts,"
Files and past news reports replace that image of a dead Toni Stark lying down, slumped against the walls of an ex-HYDRA base in Syberia that now served as her tomb.
The not-Toni at the stand tapped the microphone before speaking in a professional voice as if she served a lifetime at a mortuary, "The cause of death has been reported as cardiac arrest following a severe blow to the chest which destroyed the IronQueen suit and arc reactor," the woman began, her hands tightening into fists by her sides.
"Viewers will recall that in 2008, Dr Stark was kidnapped after being struck by shrapnel from bombs that terrorists had illegally obtained from her then second in command, Obadiah Stane. Dr Stark was given open heart surgery without anaesthesia to insert a magnet connected to a car battery into her chest to keep the shrapnel from entering her heart. While being tortured for several months, she replaced the car battery with the arc reactor and built the first IronQueen suit before escaping. After that, the arc reactor remained in her chest, keeping her alive."
In her chest? Christine knew it had been necessary but hadn't realized the arc reactor was keeping Toni alive.
As if hearing her train of thought, not Toni continued. "In 2012, following the AIM attack on both Dr Stark and the President, led by Aldrich Killian, Dr Stark underwent surgery to have the shrapnel removed. However," here, she took a breath (just to be dramatic), "the arc reactor was placed back in her chest."
What?! was the thought that passed through everyone's minds.
"Because of the damage already done to her chest--including 20% reduced lung capacity, a mostly artificial rib cage, and extreme strain on her heart due in part to it being displaced by the reactor--the doctors decided that the arc reactor was the only option that would not shorten her lifespan to only a few years. When announcing the reason for the decision, Dr Stark also noted that having the arc reactor embedded in her chest was the only reason she could continue piloting the IronQueen suit without it causing too much damage to her already heavily damaged chest."
The not-Toni finished speaking only showing images and short news clips to back up the facts that she had stated.
Silence covered the room, taking over every space it could fit in.
"Dr-," Christine cut herself off trying to remain professional, even though a teenage girl was crying in her chest over the loss of her friend, "What do we call you then if you are not Toni Stark?"
A thoughtful look replaced the previous cold mask, bringing nostalgia to wash over Chrsitine like a wave since the look reminded her of a time when Toni would ramble to her about theories and ideas for Stark Industries.
“I’m not sure,” she mused. “I was Toni Stark when I was human. But Toni Stark has been murdered. I cannot claim a dead woman’s name.”
The tension in the room was suffocating. A reporter sitting next to Christine raised his hand tentatively, "Why did you use the term 'human' when you are also human?" He trailed off, his voice becoming quieter at the smile that grew bigger on not-Toni's face.
"Ben, the reporter from Toni's first press conference when she came back from Afghanistan. Right?"
The reporter 'Ben' nodded shyly, both at being remembered by such an important woman and for having her whole attention placed on him.
“To answer your question,” she said with deliberate slowness, “I’m not human. Not anymore.”
The silence was now becoming too comfortable in the room.
All the reporters had deemed Christine as their representative to talk as they all turned to her so she tightened her grip on her microphone and asked with all the professionalism she could muster, even though something inside her was screaming to run because the danger was in front of her, "Can you elaborate on that statement?"
A mischievous glint appeared in the not-Toni's icy eyes, almost making her resemble the woman she once was, "I could. But what if I didn't? What would you do then Christine?"
Christine's reply was all honesty and no bullshit, "I wouldn't push you on it. I would move on to the next question because even if you're a celebrity and hero, you're still human. And you deserve privacy, like the rest of us."
The glint disappeared and a cruel smile appeared on not-Toni's face, putting everyone on edge, "Then why did the world not accept that before?"
Not-Toni continued to talk as if knowing that no one in the room had the guts to reply to her (except for Christine), "When I held the name Toni Stark, the world despised me. But Toni had loved the world so much that she changed herself for it. Loved the world so much that she died for it."
Not-Toni relished in the flinch this gained from the entire audience, "The Civil War had been built because of the Accords. The Accords were established by the United Nations and ratified in 2016 by 117 countries, and they served as a legal response to international concerns over unsanctioned actions and consequences by enhanced individuals and members of the Avengers."
She paused, leaning back to look upon the entire room, "Let that sink into your head, America. 117 countries. Be honest, did you think that you were the only country in the world?"
At no reply, she scoffed slightly and returned to her previous point, "The Accords was an idea that the world had wanted to see in action because they wanted to be safe. Toni Stark loved the world so she was obviously in favour of the Accords. Steve Rogers had been against them. And despite being 'friends' with Toni Stark, he chose the man who was accused of the bombing at Vienna and set fire to the world to protect that man. Steve Rogers chose one man over the world and you all still dare to state that Toni Stark is the selfish one?"
Not-Toni ignored some sobs that had begun in the audience and tilted her head to find one of the journalist's cameras and addressed it as if it was the person she was talking to, "Captain America. Steven 'Steve' Grant Rogers. I've had the past three weeks to decide what I'm going to do with you. And I made my decision after you sent that letter." She spat the last words with poison dripping from her crimson lips, "Stay in Wakanda and don't leave. Stay there and you will live, Steve Rogers."
She closed her eyes momentarily because when she opened them again, they were burning with so much rage, that the temperature dropped in the conference room, "But if you come back," A cruel smile graced her lips, "Steve Rogers if you come back to America, I will rip your heart out with my bare hands,"
The smile dropped into a snarl and it stayed there with not-Toni staring at the camera for a few more seconds before returning to her cold composure.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Turning back to the crowd, she gave one last, chilling smile. “And as for what you call me...” She slipped her glasses back on and strode away from the stand.
“Call me Superior.”
