Aftermath
Toni Stark was having a no good, very bad week.
And, with the way things were looking, it seemed like that week would become a no good, very bad month, or even year, if the past was any indicator of the future. (Unfortunately, Toni knew that it pretty much always was.)
Up until around two and a half years ago, Toni might have even said she had a no good, very bad life. Well, to herself, maybe, never to anyone else. Except Jarvis.
She smiled as she had to remind herself that there was no need for the automatic twinge that went through her chest. Not anymore. Not for almost a year now thanks to her other very smart little children. They were, collectively, probably more than sixty percent of the reason the recent years hadn’t been so bad. In fact, she was confident enough to say they had been good. Brilliant even.
And nothing could take that away from her. Not even the reason her life, her family, had ended up like it was.
---
Toni gasped. It was pretty much the only thing she could do, since her lungs were too full of metal from her own suit and blood from her own body to work properly. According to her estimate, she’d been stuck here for forty-five minutes and the damage had only gotten worse over time.
“Boss!” Friday’s frantic voice yelled in her ear. “Please. Just hold on. Help’s on its way. Just stay awake.”
Toni’s lips quirked upward, her body too tired to smile. “I’ll try, Fri, but it’s not looking good.”
She was feeling more exhausted by the second and it was already too hard to keep her eyes open. She can’t believe she ended up here. Well, she can. She’d always thought something similar would end her, she just never predicted the who in the equation. Even after the last few days, the ending had shocked her once the shield hit the ground and the reality dawned on her.
Oh, god it was so cold.
But, even the permeating ache of the temperature couldn’t compare to the agony in her chest, both physically and emotionally.
In the end, even after everything she’d tried, everything Yinsen had tried, her heart would kill her. She was so stupid. Of course, they – the team – didn’t really mean it. The smiles. The comradery. The happiness. Of course, he didn’t really mean it. The kisses. The caresses. The love.
And now she was gonna die because of it.
Her eyes fluttered. Her breathing slowed.
“Don’t you dare close your eyes on me,” Friday yelled. “Stay awake. Only a little longer. Please, Mum.”
Toni’s heart twisted in a way that was even more painful than the heartbreak. Her little baby had never sounded more vulnerable. More frightened.
But Toni knew she couldn’t comply. She was too far away from home. Well, she’d never really had one of those. She was too far away from help.
“I don’t think I’m gonna make it, baby girl.” She knew she wasn’t going to. “They’re too far away.”
“I called for an extra suit as soon as you left the helicopter, Boss. And I notified Vision. They’ll be five minutes, at the most.”
Tony mustered the energy to fully smile this time. Thank God it’s Friday.
“That’s my girl. You’re growing even faster than Jarvis.”
“Only because he paved the way for me. He’d have done the same thing. He never trusted Rogers. Not completely.”
The ache in her heart at the mention of her lost child wasn’t as bad as it usually was. But that might just be because she was dying.
She focused on breathing.
“Two minutes, Boss.”
“Thanks Fri,” she replied, barely above a whisper.
“Anything for my mum.”
Toni must have blacked out after that, because the next thing she knew Vision was shaking her awake as Friday instructed him through getting the suit off safely, another suit helping him do it as gently as possible.
Vision looked at her, his gaze full of many emotions, all of them negative.
“Miss Stark, Friday told me I could do this, but I would like confirmation from you first.”
In his hand he held a syringe of fiery liquid.
“It’s the only way,” her daughter whispered, her voice dripping with an apology she shouldn’t be making. None of this was her fault.
Toni could feel the truth of that statement all too well. She’d never wanted to be enhanced and almost considered just letting everything go. But then her thoughts turned to her bots. And Friday. And Pepper and Harley and Happy. And Rhodey, if he would still have her when he woke up. And the hope in the Spiderling’s voice as he thanked her profusely. And Vision, who hadn’t turned his back on her even when his closest friend, the closest thing he’d felt to love, opposed him. And Jarvis. He would never have forgiven her if she didn’t try. Neither would Yinsen.
As firmly as she could, she nodded, even as she internally sent her strongest curse at the men who forced into becoming something she didn’t want to.
Vision pressed his lips together as he pushed the syringe into her neck.
And then all she felt was agony.
---
That was the shitty, shitty bottom of what had been a rapid uphill trajectory for her life over the past few years.
Things had been shaky at first, and she’d pushed people away. But then Rhodey had forced her into therapy. And therapy had actually really helped.
Things fell into place. She got closer to Harley and the Spiderling after the whole Vulture fiasco, pulling them to her tighter when Pepper and Happy made her realise how happy she felt with them.
Two months after the Raft breakout and seven weeks after she found out where her former teammates were hiding, Princess Shuri reached out to her. The teenage genius didn’t beat around the bush. Didn’t try and bullshit her. She only offered her an apology for her brother’s actions in a form much more meaningful than words. Her Platypus could walk again.
Then Hope Van Dyne and Doctor Strange and the Defenders reached out. And she started networking in the superhero community. Anyone trying to muscle the Accords into control and registration were fiercely torn down by the terrifying combination of Matt Murdock, Jennifer Walters and Toni’s impeccable legal team. Between them, she’d also been able to slingshot Ross straight into the prison cell he deserved.
The sting of Bruce not coming back after that was dulled by the love surrounding her.
There was a bit of a bump in the road when Peta had been poisoned by some magic user whilst fighting alongside Dr Strange. The girl had progressively become sicker and would have been dead in less than a week if, Toni, Doctor Strange and Helen Cho hadn’t found a solution. They’d found a way to combine Extremis with a purging spell Dr Strange had discovered. The filtered solution combined with the strong magic had led to a change in the petite figure’s eyes, which now kaleidoscoped through colours, and a huge shift in her powers.
Between helping Peta, Charles Xavier and his X-men had approached her and his help, but also the help he needed was what she blamed for not noticing Friday, Harley and Peta spearheading a group that included pretty much everyone in her life including the Bartons and the Langs (whom were living in the Tower with Toni and more than happy to switch to the Compound with her when needed since she saved them from Ross and had stayed even after the man was in prison). This group was dedicated to one goal: find Jarvis. Toni was pretty sure Peta and Harley had called it Project Baymax Backup Drive.
They had eventually located him at a small SI building in Australia of all places. This discovery, and a few days of Jarvis updating and reorientating himself, led to a morning where Toni was shocked by her oldest friend’s voice and received the best gift she ever had. If Australia was suddenly Toni’s go-to vacation destination now, whenever the kids insisted on her taking a break, no one pointed it out.
The fully revised Accords, which had come through two months ago, had lifted a weight off her shoulders which was not nearly as heavy as it could have been, but ended up being a double-edged sword. For, not even a month later, there had begun to be talk about the retun Team Cap or the Exvengers on good days and terrorists on bad ones – although, Toni’s family liked to debate if those days could actually be qualified as bad.
Toni understood. His Pantherness, whom had warmed up to Toni and vice versa, despite rocky beginnings (although, they would never be as friendly as Shuri was with Toni and her kids) couldn’t justify keeping what his sister immediately, his country quickly and he eventually realised to be burdens within his borders and needed them gone as soon as possible. And it wasn’t like they were forgiven. Most of the world still hated them. And they were on probation. And they had to do a frightening amount of what Amelia Page, the British Ambassador and head of the Accords Council, assured her was very unappetising community service.
But those consolations didn’t help the bitterness Toni felt when she realised she would have to actually be around them again, since there was no doubt they would be ordered to stay in the Compound.
Although, Vision moving into the tower and Pepper ordering the UN to pay SI the rent money (reduced, of course, to affordable prices since Toni had grown to like most of the ambassadors, especially Page) for the soon to be pardoned criminals did help a lot.
“Ma’am, I would like to inform you that you have been down here for three hours, and that you agreed Miss Potts that you and Miss Parker wouldn’t overextend yourselves,” Jarvis’ comforting voice informed her through the Compound speakers.
(Toni hadn’t forgotten about Friday. Her baby girl had wanted a body and Toni and Helen had been happy to comply. The red-head – who Pepper had proudly proclaimed their daughter, despite their relationship only having lasted two weeks, before they both came to their senses and realised they didn’t love each other that way and that they shouldn’t be together even if they did for the sake of SI – now controlled the tower and acted as Pepper’s secretary whilst Laura Barton acted as her PA, with Maggie Lang handling student relations in Toni’s Junior Scientists program.
Toni scowled. Fuck this.
She locked eyes with Peta, who was glowering at the door, and grinned viscously.
“Wanna go flying?”