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When she turns twenty one, Antonia officially becomes head of Stark Industry, even if she's been secretly running the company with Pepper for over three years now. Less than five months after that, she is kidnapped in Afghanistan, creates her first suit and manages to get out of her cave alive – yet abandoning a part of her there for ever, along with memories of her friend Yinsen whose death she feels responsible for.
In a way – a very sad and twisted way, but this is how her life has almost always been after all – she is not that surprised when she discovers Obadiah is behind this and paid terrorists to kill her. He had always been looking at her like she was some kind a pretty toy and never looked very happy every time she turned his attempts at seduction down – in short he never judged her capable of being a CEO.
She kills him, tells the whole world that she's the one inside the suits (and gets the surname of Iron Woman – how ironic now that her heart is an arc reactor, it's like taking away another part of her humanity) and tries to go on with her life. At first it works, she goes back to partying, creating new stuff (no more guns) and letting Pepper makes sure that she remembers to eat and take showers.
Then, she discovers that she is dying because of the very thing that's keeping her alive – and all hell breaks loose. She gets drunk as much as she manages to, gives to charity most of her art collection and overly expensive clothes and one night, when Rhodey visits her because « Pepper called and she thinks something is happening and you're not telling her. Are you okay ? » Antonia gets drunk with him and they end up having sex, not remembering half of what they did on her couch, and act like nothing ever happened the next morning.
She goes to Monaco, drives her F1 and almost gets killed by Vanko. It should scare her but she's just glad for the adrenaline rush provided by this creep that makes her forget for an hour that her blood toxicity keeps on getting higher and higher.
On her 22 birthday party, she lets Rhodey take a suit and doesn't give a shit about her ruined living room. If there is one person in this world worthy of her suits, she knows it's Rhodey and knows that it's better if he's angry at her – that will probably make things easier for him for the day she dies.
Except that she does not.
Eye-patched guy does not let her die, and Pepper's brand new assistant, Clark Rushman, happens to be a double agent from SHIELD sent to keep an eye on her. His real name is Clint Barton, she doesn't like him and tell them all to fuck off. Of course they don't listen to her and give her stuff from her father that are supposed to help her.
It works, she discovers a new element, saves her ass, takes Vanko out, Rhodey says he is sorry, Pepper is furious but hugs her for half an hour and life gets back to what it was.
Until aliens decide to attack Manhattan.
***
Drinking very expensive champagne with Pepper in the penthouse to celebrate the fact that her big brand new skyscraper isn't killing the planet anymore is Antonia's favourite thing in the world right after sex, good whiskey and electronics. Unfortunately, the moment is cut short when Agent Coulson gets out of her elevator, hands Pepper a pile of homework for her and leaves with her bestfriend.
Sighing, Antonia is too curious to pretend that she is really mad and starts to read the files.
A sleepless night and seven coffees later, she is a hundred percent convinced that this ''Avengers Initiative'' thing is totally stupid. She doesn't trust SHIELD and these people they want to put in a team with her – plus she does not do team work. Last time she worked with someone, the guy took her arc reactor out of her chest and left her to die on the floor, smiling the whole time.
She does not want to work for or with SHIELD and does not give a fuck about the other losers in the team – especially fucking Clint-the-double-agent-she-regrets-ever-flirting-with and even more especially fucking Captain America, a man her father cared more about than her. However, when Jarvis tells her about things going south in Stuttgart, Germany, she does not hesitate to put on a suit and flies to Europe.
People are kneeling and Captain America is on the ground in front of a dude with a ridiculous helmet when she arrives but Antonia likes to make an entrance so she asks Jarvis to play some real music for her – and the SHIELD agents there – and lands like the fucking boss she is, knocking the douche-with-a-helmet on the ground.
“Miss Stark” salutes Captain America – smaller than she thought he would be.
“Captain” she nods.
***
Antonia is furious but doesn't say anything. Her ears are still ringing from what happened in the forest, she has a lot of fixing to do on her suit, her back hurts like hell and she doesn't remember what day it is. Also SHIELD does not own any good coffee and that is almost enough for her to lose it.
Instead, because she is smarter than that, she makes fun of Thor (who really looks like a god, she has to admit), bugs Fury's computer, ignores Capsicle and shakes hand with Dr Bruce Banner.
“I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster” she tells him, smiling brightly.
“Thanks” is his only reply but Antonia can feel that she will like him (and his awkwardness – it's almost cute).
Unfortunately, every other living soul on the helicarrier is boring as hell and she hates them all so she shuts herself in a lab with Banner as soon as possible, curious about him.
He is all about work and looks genuinely sheepish when he tells her he “broke Harlem” and therefor would like to avoid going to New York.
“Don't worry” she says “my tower is a stress-free environment” and pokes him with the first pointy thing she finds.
“Hey ! Are you nutts ?” exclaims Captain America, entering the lab.
He looks mad, but Antonia has better things to do so she ignores him.
“You really have a lid on it, right ? Do you take anger management issues classes ?” she asks Banner.
“Do you think this is funny ?!”. It's Capsicle again, and she is forced to look at him this time. “You're threatening the safety of everyone in this ship – no offense doc. Stop playing around and do what you are here for.”
“That's exactly what I am doing” she replies, feeling all the anger that slowly melt away while she was working with Banner coming back full force. Punching his stupid face suddenly seems like an excellent idea but she takes her starkphone out instead and waves it in front of said stupid face. “I'm just waiting for my encrypted program to finish breaking into SHIELD and tell me exactly why I am here for.”
This time, it's Captain America who looks like he could punch her in the face and she almost smirks at that thought. Surely the grandpa wouldn't raise his hands against a woman, he's too chivalrous for that.
Banner seems to sense that things are getting out of hands because he speaks up to explain why her presence here is so weird and proves to Antonia that she was right : she will really like him and he is really smart.
Apparently, Capsicle is not pleased by the idea of SHIELD hiding things, and he leaves the lab with one last “Just stop playing around Miss Stark” and she can't believe this is the man her father used to never shut up about.
***
The next morning, after three blissful hours of sleep and a terrible coffee, Antonia is not surprised to find eye patched Fury guy entering the lab, asking her what the hell she is doing. He does not look happy at all when she answers his question at the same time as a ''Phase 2'' window appears on the screen next to her.
“What is phase two ?”
“This is phase two.” replies Capsicle, entering the lab like he owns it and dropping a huge gun on the first surface he founds.
Things get out of hand approximately twelve seconds later and before she realizes what is really happening, Antonia is face to face with Captain America, both looking down to the other.
“Little girl in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you ?” he spits out.
“Genius billionaire maneater philanthropist.” – from the corner of her eyes she can see Barton nodding.
“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you.”
“Too bad they're all dead.”
The room falls silent and Captain America takes a step back, looking like Antonia just slapped him. She wishes she did – she damn well knows how much these kind of words can hurt – but she does not regret what just got out of her mouth. Nobody has the right to call her a little girl and question her capacities.
“I've seen the footages you know. The only thing you fight for is yourself.”
Hatred creeps its way into Antonia's body and she has to open and close her fingers several time in order to stay where she is and not strangle him right on the spot.
“You're not the kind to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the others crawl over you.”
For a second, the lab disappears and is replaced by a dark dark cave and Antonia finds herself stuck in the very first suit she created, desperately calling Yinsen name as he takes a gun from the ground and runs toward the terrorists.
She blinks and meet Capsicle's blue eyes again.
“I think I would just cut the wire.” she tells him, voice deadly calm, heart thumping erratically against her ribs because of everything she is trying to keep inside : all the rage, the hurt, the desperation and the hate.
Capsicle smirks at her reply and decides to rub it in : “Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.”.
The movement is so sudden, she only realizes that she punched him once he brings a hand to his reddening cheek, visibly astonished – by her action or her force, she doesn't know but hopes it's both.
“You're the only hero here, right ? The poor guy who came out of a bottle. You are nothing be a fucking experiment and–“
There is an explosion and half the floor collapses on itself.
Without thinking, Antonia gets back up from where she was thrown by the blast, grabs Capsicle's shirt to help him up and runs to get to her suit when he tells her that they have to go check on the damages.
***
Antonia does not cry when Coulson dies nor does she panic when she arrives in New York and see a giant portal to another universe opening right over her penthouse. The first thing she does is to swear (a lot) and insult the motherfucker who did that. Then, she lands on her balcony, takes the suit off and enters her living room where said motherfucker is pacing back and forth, a satisfied smile on the face.
“Lady of Iron, it's too late” he tells her, almost purring in self-satisfaction. She wants to strangle him but knows she can't and settles for kicking him in the balls.
“This was for the guy you killed earlier today. No matter what happens to Earth today, don't worry, we will fight right back and we won't stop until you stop breathing. Trust me, no matter what happens we will avenge every single person you hurt in any way.”
He laughs, like the fucking maniac he is, and punches her right back in the face. She stumbles backward and is caught by the neck before she can do anything. For a second, she can't breath and the next one, she is thrown out of the window and free falling.
She should probably scream but she is way smarter than that and tells Jarvis to hurry the fuck up, waiting for her spare suit to fly its way to her and when she is in the familiarity of the metal armor, she authorizes herself a sigh of relief before flying up, straight to the portal. She tries to kill as many of the aliens coming out of it as she can but she is quickly out numbered – they are too many and she feels like the more she kills, the more come out of the portal.
She rapidly feels overwhelmed but when Banner arrives, hulks out and Capsicle starts to bark orders, it feels like a huge weight is lifted from her shoulders.
The fight seems endless, Barton has to reuse every arrow he throws, Natasha's nose is bloody and she is limping while Capsicle gets down hard and needs Thor's hand to get back up. Only the demigod and Hulk don't seem to need a break and Antonia tries to pretend that it is her case too. She ignores the fact that her sight is blurry because a fucking alien threw her at a building and kill the motherfucker.
That's when the nuke arrives.
She's a hundred percent sure it's some politicians peacefully sitting in front of their tv in L.A or D.C who ordered this and she doesn't think past « fucking morons » before flying to the damn bomb and taking it on her back.
“How long do I have JARVIS ?” she asks, trying to keep the anxiety out of her voice.
“Three minutes and twenty two seconds madam. Do you want me to set a countdown ?”
“Yes please, do.”
Natasha says that she can close the portal but Antonia tells her to wait and ignores Capsicle's “You know it's a one way trip ?”
Time seems to be ticking way too quickly in front of her eyes yet these are the longest seconds of her life. It strangely reminds her of those two days and nights she spent walking in the desert hungry, thirsty, tired and crying Yinsen and all the torture she went through. The same desperation is creeping into her heart and the fact that she has absolutely no idea of what is on the other side does not help at all.
She has to blink away tears when JARVIS asks if he should call Pepper and says yes, wanting to tell her bestfriend that she is sorry and that she can have the Stark Tower, not only twelve percent of it.
The phone rings as she watches the little 40 of the countdown become a 39, 38, 37, and when Pepper doesn't answer the phone – probably too busy considering the fact that they are in the middle of an alien invasion – Antonia puts all the energy she has left on the suit to the propulsors and with exactly 17 seconds left before the bomb's explosion, she enters the portal.
The other side is dark and empty except for the enormous ship and the hundreds of aliens floating around. The suit informs her that there is no oxygen outside and the gravity seems weird, but the young woman does not care. She can't bring herself to look away from the ship, and knows that she should think about nice things as a last thought, like maybe the fact that yay, she is saving the world ! but she is past emotions at that point – even fear can't reach her.
Oh my god, I am too young to die, is the last thing in her mind before she blacks out.
***
She is startle awake by a frightening scream that kicks all her instincts in.
“What the hell ?!” she yells, meeting Capsicle's eyes.
Thor is beaming, his smile probably the cause of realms destruction, Antonia is sure of this, and Hulk screams again, this time with what sounds like delight.
“Did we win ?” she asks, “cause if yes, yay, let's all go grab something to eat. I'm starving.” Her face plate was ripped away but she already knows without it that she broke at least three ribs in the fall and therefor, doesn't even try to get up. “You know what ? We should get shwarma. Shwarmas are the only restaurants still open during an alien invasion. Probably.”
“We are not finished yet” interrupts Thor.
“Fine” she sighs, extending a hand “we'll get shwarma after, help me up.”
***
The sun rises the next morning like every other day.
Watching it coloring the sky in pink and yellow, Antonia can almost pretend that nothing ever happened and that she is not sitting in the middle of what used to be her living room, still in her suit after a sleepless night spent calculating the damages done to New York and building a case capable of holding the tessaract. She is immensely glad that her coffee maker survived the whole thing.
She hears footsteps coming her way and ignores Capsicle when he sits on the floor right next to her.
“You should take the suit off and let medics look at you” he says in a quiet tone.
Loki – that's apparently the name of the douche with a stupid helmet who wanted to take over the world – starts to grunt upon hearing Cap's voice.
Thor had put his hammer on his chest and some kind of muzzle on his face once they all came back to the penthouse and promptly left the douche alone while they all went out to eat shwarma. That was probably ten hours ago and Antonia does not see any good reason for anyone to bring him any kind of food. She'd rather see him die right there on the steps to her kitchen.
“And you should get some sleep” adds Cap after few seconds “you look really tired.”
And she is. She is so tired that she is not sure if she can walk or not, her sight is blurrier than during the fight and all her body is aching – but she won't give in to sleep, not when every time she closes her eyes just to blink, she sees the nuclear explosion inside the portal again, sees Pepper's picture fading as the suit stops working and sees all that light and fire coming her way, bringing destruction.
The fact that her arc reactor was touched and damaged during a fight with an alien also convinces her to stay awake. She needs to find time to shut herself in her workshop and make sure no bone around the reactor was touched before putting a new one in her chest.
“I'm fine”
“You don't look fine.”
“I fucking hugged a nuclear bomb to kill fucking aliens yesterday. I'm fine. I've seen worst...”
It seems to shut Capsicle up as he looks down at his shoes or laps or whatever. She doesn't care and just wants to be alone.
“Madam, Colonel Rhodes is asking entrance” announces JARVIS, putting an end to the awkward silent.
“Let him in.” she mumbles.
Capsicle stares at her the whole time she waits for the elevator to go up to the penthouse and once the doors finally open and Rhodey comes out of it, she doesn't move.
“Oh thank god you're still in one piece !” he cries out, crossing the distance between them in a record time and dropping next to her to engulf her in a bear hug. “don't you dare do that again, you hear me ? Don't you dare play the hero ! That's my role, not yours !”. He does not seem disturbed by the suit as he presses against her even more when she tentatively puts her arms around him.
Somehow, it feels like Afghanistan – that fateful moment when she saw a helicopter from the US army and suddenly she was on her knees, her body giving up on her and Rhodey holding her, telling her he will never let her travel alone again and everything will be okay, she was safe now.
“I don't care how many strings I have to pull but I'm going to make sure the people who ordered that will realize the mistake they've made”
“Don't bother Rhodey, I'm okay. I just need to know if Pepper died from a heart attack or not.”
“You know she is tougher than that. Happy however... he probably won't talk to you for the next six month.”
For the first time since all that madness started, Antonia smiles.
***
After two stressful hours of sweat and some irrepressible tears, Antonia comes out of her workshop, a brand new arc reactor glowing under her shirt. She immediately takes a long and hot shower before finally going to the kitchen where everyone is seated.
They all look at her when she enters but she chooses to ignore them and goes straight to the coffee maker – she is in desperate need of caffeine after her terrible morning spent fixing her ''heart''.
“Did you actually eat at all these past few days ?” asks Rhodey.
She takes the chair across from him and shrugs.
“We had shwarma yesterday.”
Loki grunts, still under the hammer, and Barton puts a plate of pancakes in front of her.
“What is that ?” she asks, gulping half of her coffee at once.
“Eat.” he simply says in the same tone Pepper sometimes uses on her. It is weird but she complies, too hungry now that food is right under her nose to pretend to be offended.
She engulfs two pancakes in total silent before Capsicle decides to ruin her morning – or afternoon, she is not so sure anymore – by telling her : “I'm glad to see you took the suit off”. He even tries to smile but the words he told her on the helicarrier still ring in the not-so-quite-back of her mind. She is still too hurt by what he said to pretend to be polite.
“Yeah, well I needed a shower anyway” she grumbles “not everyone can walk out of this kind of fight with a flawless brushing like you”.
Thor laughs and Loki grunts again but Capsicle doesn't reply. He just frowns and leaves the room.
Antonia would like to care and feel sorry, but the truth is that she does not give a shit if he leaves the building and decide to never ever meet her again. In fact, this is exactly what she wants him to do – and if he could take the others with him except Banner, she would be immensely grateful.
“Tony...” starts Rhodey but she holds up her hand.
Rhodey bites his lips but nods, understanding – he will ask her later.
“By the way Banner, there's a lab on the 80th floor that you will absolutely love. JARVIS will let you have access to it.”
Banner smiles to her and goes back to drinking tea – Antonia didn't even know there was tea in the tower.
It's weird, but she doesn't want the scientist to leave. He kind of saved her life and she considers him her science bro : for the first time in a long time she can talk about science to someone who is not a dumbass or rolling his eyes at her. It feels nice.
“By the way” she adds, turning to Thor “where do we dump the wannabe dictator ?”
“We will both go back to Asgard today, Loki needs to answer to his crimes as soon as possible and this is not something midgardians are capable of.”
“Right. Let's say in an hour okay ?”
Loki grunts and she takes it as a yes, finishing her coffee in one last gulp before getting up and heading back to the workshop.
***
“JARVIS, save every data the suit could managed to catch while I was on the other side of the portal in an encrypted file. Triple password it.”
“The usual passwords madam ?”
“No.” she replies after a few seconds. She takes her time choosing new passwords that nobody could know about and type them in slowly. “Now delete everything from the suit, even the recordings of the fight.”
“Are you sure madam ?”
“Positive. I don't want anyone knowing about what I saw until I know what the hell exactly was happening.”
“Data deleted madam. Do you need anything else ?”
She stops in front of the door and smiles lightly.
“No JARVIS, thanks for everything.”
***
Sending Loki and Thor back wasn't that difficult and Antonia really is not surprised when the first person she sees when she comes back to her penthouse is Fury (with his usual accessories : eye-patch, frown, the jacket he probably stole from Darth Vader and all).
“Go put some damn real clothes on, you have a press-con to attend”
“Hello to you too sunshine” she replies “how was your day at work ?”
“Stop playing Stark, the world is on fucking fire right now and everybody wants to know what happened. Unfortunately for you, you are the only Avenger whose identity is public. Now go put something nice on and go work your charm to the cameras. This is an order.”
Antonia smirks and does as she is told just because for once, she can't wait to see what the journalists are going to ask her.
She arrives to the press conference hall thirty minutes late in a short red Gucci dress with Louboutin stilettos at her feet, making her fifteen centimeters taller than usual. She washed her hair before coming and put blood red lipstick in the car on her way and it helps her feeling good despite her sore muscles and the fatigue caused by the battle.
“What are the Avengers going to do after yesterday's events ?” is the first question asked after everyone stop screaming unintelligible things at her.
“I can't talk for the others but in my case I intend to crush the patriarchy, invent another groundbreaking toy that will save the world and maybe go to the spa.”
Everybody start to scream questions at the same time again but Antonia doesn't pay them attention, smirking at Fury who is face-palming in the back on the room instead.