Chapter Text
Why was it "Stark" and then "Tony" in the end?
“Spare her life… and I will give you the stone.”
“No tricks.”
“Don’t!”
“Did we just lose?”
“Why would you do that?”
“We are in the endgame now.”
…
“Something is happening.”
“Quill?”
“Steady, Quill.”
“Oh, man.”
“Toni… there was no other way.”
“Ms. Stark? I don’t feel so good…I don’t wanna go!”
…
Eyes opened with a start, a green light slowly fading, revealing icy blue irises before they closed again.
~*~
“Miss?”
Toni groaned, her head pounding. Breathing hard like she just ran a marathon, the billionaire pried her eyes open and was stunned to see Malibu’s coastline.
“Jay?” her throat was burning too, great.
“Good morning, Miss, it’s May 2nd and although very unusual, you woke up at a reasonable hour, it’s currently eight a.m. so would you care for some breakfast?”
Carefully sitting up, Toni reached for her head.
“Uh, Jay?” she was numb, not even the fact that J.A.R.V.I.S was here and now with her was really computing.
“Yes?”
“What’s the schedule for today?”
“We have the press conference in five hours to explain yesterday’s happenings.”
Toni hissed at the sun in her face, J.A.R.V.I.S dutifully shaded the windows a little, “Yesterday’s happenings being…”
“… your fight against Obadiah Stane. Miss…I am certain of your answer but still, I must at least advice to call for a doctor. Yesterday’s match took a physical toll and you are displaying a sign of concussion… and Miss didn’t even have anything alcoholic in almost five days.”
Toni snorted and then she giggled and then she was laughing, a hysterical sound that didn’t hide one bit her desperation.
~*~
After her breakdown that was full of tears, screams, more hysterical laugher that once again turned into screams and tears, Toni just laid on her bed all day, not answering her phone or the knocks on her door and the threats of knocking down the door.
Her doors were reinforced steel and Pepper, Rhodey and Happy weren’t Enhanced. Toni winced. Before 2012, the word “Enhanced” wasn’t even part of her vocabulary, only for her not to pass a day without saying it for the next six damn years.
With a sigh, she finally got out of bed and went to the bathroom, making a face at her swollen cheeks with tears tracks and the bruises in her body that her short pajamas displayed. Her hair was a tangled mess and her eyes were haunted.
Awesome.
“What time is it?”
“It’s currently eleven a.m., Miss.”
“That… does not make sense.”
“It’s also May, 4.”
“Ok, that makes more sense.” Toni sighed and popped her neck, wincing a little, “Really? Two whole days?”
“May I suggest some nourishment and water?”
“You may and I will take it, I promise.” Toni headed to her bathroom.
“That is certainly a surprise.” She wanted to laugh at the baffled tone.
The inventor let the hot water do its job while she gently and slowly lowered herself into the stone seat, her legs felt like mush as she reached for the soap.
Toni gave a half a smile, “I guess it is.”
“Miss? Are you alright?”
“…No, I’m not. What do I even tell them?”
“If you are referring to Ms. Potts, Colonel Rhodes and Mr. Hogan and you are looking for a plausible excuse, I may have a suggestion.”
And Toni truly felt the absence J.A.R.V.I.S made then. Her friend of so many years, that friend that knew when to be silently supportive and not ask questions that she really had no answers or even words for and when to push until she screamed back.
~*~
Rhodey, Pepper and Happy exchanged concerned glances. At first they were pissed that she blew off the press conference without so much as by your leave, but after ten hours completely incommunicado and they began the threats to wreck the door.
It was one thing for Toni to disappear down in the lab and they only see her again when she feels her stomach consuming itself, it was another for her to disappear into her bedroom and not even give a sign of a life.
The situation was so new and weird that J.A.R.V.I.S himself didn’t have a single protocol in place or past experience to base his decisions on. So he just told them what his sensors told him.
Toni was responsive… sort of, her breathing was normal, heartbeat normal, and she was crying.
The last one is what gave them all pause to truly take in what happened in the last couple of days… in the last three months really.
Their friend was kidnapped, held hostage by terrorists in a cave, operated on without anesthesia or basic hygiene, tortured and then she had to fight to death with the man that basically raised her after her parents died. She just had to kill the man that her father trusted his legacy with until she could take over in self-defense because the lunatic was only seeing dollar signs and here they were demanding that she came out for a press conference.
“We are being really bad friends, aren’t we?” Happy pursed his lips.
Rhodey hung his head a little, “I will… get her MIT sweater, that thing is huge but she used to love it, it’s…back in Stark Mansion.”
“She loves my mom’s recipe of banana pie I just never really have time to bake it. Well, the only thing I can reasonably do with flour.” Pepper perked up at Rhodey’s idea of comfort things.
“Cheeseburgers?” Happy smiled at them.
~*~
Toni blinked, “Oh, my God, J.A.R.V.I.S, that’s… that’s not why… the meltdown happened.” She stopped brushing the tangles out of her wet hair long enough to gawk at the nearest sensor.
“… dare I ask?”
“No. I’m the one who…you have got be kidding me, this is… STRANGE!”
“I gathered as much, Miss.”
Toni paused and smirked a little at that, whispering, she asked, “Do you want to know?”
J.A.R.V.I.S was silent for a few seconds before replying just as slowly, “If Miss thinks it’ll help. Whatever it is, I have never seen anything that would distress…anyone so much, talking about it so soon might not be conductive for mental health recovery.”
The billionaire snorted in grim amusement, “Jay…what happened those past couple of days…they weren’t the result of anything that happened in the last three months, it was the result of what happened in the last ten years.”
“Miss?” he began hesitantly, “There are no records of…unscheduled… duress.”
The brunet gave out another laugher and she honestly couldn’t tell whether they are amused or sarcastic, that couldn’t be good.
“There wouldn’t be. If… if I had foreseen what would happen… I don’t know if what he did is a blessing or a curse. I can fix my life but I also know what’s waiting for us if I fail this time… again. Last time I tried to rally them and I tried to warn them only for…what hope do I really have now?”
“Miss?”
But Toni went on as if J.A.R.V.I.S didn’t say anything, “He said we had one shot out of fourteen million six hundred and five…what kind of odds are those?”
“If Miss allows me…Anastasia Antonia Stark, PhD, possess such an intellect that her IQ is literally, quantifiably impossible to measure. Only another ten people can make such a claim. At last count of 2008, the world has a population of 6.7 billion people, rounding the number, it means that Miss is literally one in six hundred nine million ninety thousand and one. Predictions indicate that by the end of your lifetime, only three others will join in a world population of eight billion.”
Toni raised an eyebrow, impressed despite herself, “That…I…” but J.A.R.V.I.S didn’t let her finish.
“So it seems that Miss has beaten worse odds.”
She sighed and didn’t try to stop the tears, if the last two days were anything to go by, it wouldn’t work, “I will be unbearably emotional so I guess I should at least tell you. Organize it and also, another hard earned lesson, I need help.”
And today marked the day Toni shocked J.A.R.V.I.S speechless.
“I think…I need more data… in the form of your explanation.”
“Very subtle, J.A.R.V.I.S.”
“I believe, from records of conversations between yourself and Colonel Rhodes that the last time you requested help was…”
Toni interrupted him this time, “When I was thirteen, first semester at MIT and…I couldn’t ride a bike so Rhodey taught me. But like I said: I had ten years to learn some very simple lessons that could have helped me now, like knowing that I won’t be able to do everything on my own.”
“…as evidenced by Colonel Rhodes teaching you how to ride a bike?”
The CEO, and oh, God, she was CEO again, laughed, “Right… I’m twenty three… again. Oh, if it was any other situation this would have been the clichè dream of every woman, suddenly being a decade younger.”
“Miss?” and now J.A.R.V.I.S was really alarmed and Toni just laughed.
