ext_71178 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
jynx.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
cap_ironman2008-09-20 12:40 am
jynx.livejournal.com) wrote in cap_ironman2008-09-20 12:40 am
[FIC] A Different Perspective [Avengers, PG, Steve/Tony, 1/??]
IT'S NOT DONE YET! ....so any ideas and comments and so on would be worshipped.
A Different Perspective
Jaelawyn Noble [ Jaelawyn@gmail.com ]
Disclaimer: Love 'em, dun own 'em.
Warnings: girl!Tony
Fandom: The Avengers
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Archive: http://nobelia.envy.nu ; http://blackfireink.livejournal.com
Summary: What if Iron Man wasn’t exactly a man?
Feedback: ‘m a whore for it.
Notation: Okay, so a lot of the info I got on Stark Industries was all from Invincible Iron Man #5. Let me just say, I love tour guides~
Antonia Stark, age twenty-five, was one of the top ten richest people in the world, and one of the smartest, as well. When her parents had died in a car wreck (not an accident, and she had been the one to prove that), she had inherited the company her father had built up from nothing – Stark Industries.
Her father's company had begun as a simple defense contractor, whoring themselves out to whoever had the biggest dollar. Since Antonia had taken over it, it had now breached out into nearly every technological aspect that the world needed and depended on. The factories that had once made bombs and land mines and sold death in every disguise demanded now crafted everything from toasters to advanced medical equipment and beyond. As the tour guides loved to say, “Stark International provides us all with tomorrow, today!”
Despite all her ideas for reinventing almost everything but the kitchen sink (and even there she had some ideas), the Board of Directors still believed that she was nothing more than a very beautiful woman who was marriage bait, and could do nothing more than give birth to good, strong sons to take over the company. There was no end to the anger she felt every time she set foot in that meeting room. So, playing by their rules, she had recruited one of her dumber engineers, Joshua, and made him a deal: she allowed him to put his name on the majority of her ideas and let the Board think they were madly in love, and he didn't speak a word of the truth on pain of death. It worked, a little too well, though. Almost every day, a member of the Board would smile at her, and leer at her, and congratulate Joshua and wonder aloud when the two of them would get married.
Part of the deal Antonia had made with Joshua was that he never touch her, in any way, shape, or form. The man gave her the creeps on so many levels, but he was easy to manipulate, almost easy to control. All she wanted, honestly, was to be allowed to stay in her shop (which she had to hide, on her own goddamn property) and to invent and design. Unfortunately, it seemed like that was too much to ask. Even if she were allowed to do as she wished, the Board would just dismiss it all out of hand. The Board had never accepted any of her proposals on the basis that she was a woman and therefore couldn’t honestly be a decent engineer. They hadn’t even looked at the proposals, as made evident by the fact she had simple stamped Joshua’s name all over them and suggested them to the Board. It had taken exactly thirteen minutes and fifteen seconds for them to agree to “Joshua’s” plans.
There were reasons why, at every public event, she was chained to the bar and always had a drink glued to her hand. Her father was an alcoholic, and she knew the signs and yes, she would admit that she too was an alcoholic. She honestly couldn't care less, at this point. The stress and demand on her life, and the thinly veiled patronizing and leers, the insults to her intelligence because she was female, all of it staked up and overwhelmed her. At least she never went for drugs, all she wanted was the sweetness of liquid forgetfulness and blessed numbness.
Out of restless frustration, she toured Stark International’s factories. Until the factory in the Middle East, and the kidnapping, and the shrapnel. Her heart had been seriously injured and the only thing keeping her alive was an electromagnet that held the shrapnel in place. The only downside? She needed to charge it at least once a day.
Out of a sheer need to prove herself worthy of her new lease on life, she had created a suit to serve two purposes – to help keep her heart beating as it should and to make sure that she could protect the people her weapons had put in harm’s way. It helped server another purpose, one she hadn't realized she needed in the first place – it gave her the chance to be anonymous, to be free of of a life defined by gender.
She had shaped the suit to look like a man for a reason – she was sick and tired of being treated like some frail, fragile creature that needed to be wrapped in cotton and stored away. She wasn't just marriage bait, she wasn't a pre-pregnant woman. She could, and would, protect herself and anyone else who she came across. And she had proven that, quite successfully, helping found the Avengers and bringing Captain America back from suspended animation.
Not that anyone knew that it was Antonia that had done this.
They all thought it was Iron Man.
Antonia had resented the name at first, but now it did nothing but amuse her. “Iron Man” was now her personal bodyguard (although Happy Hogan had resented it at first, now he just laughed over the idea of his tiny little boss protecting herself), and she was merely the one who bankrolled the Avengers.
It was the first time since her days at MIT that she was truly happy.
~
Antonia was happily in her armor, in the library, reading Le Morte d’Arthur and relaxing. It was night and the Avenger’s Mansion was quiet and relaxing, something she needed after the night she had had.
She still had a reputation as a socialite to maintain, and every time it left her with a strong urge to go crawl into the shower and scrub her skin raw before locking herself into the armor for the rest of the night. The men she flirted with made her skin crawl, but they were who she was expected to associate herself with. Rich, playboy slime.
She swore the press had headlines and articles printed and pinned to a board, just waiting to be used, with every possible combination of her name and every man she had ever smiled at, just waiting for her to announce an engagement. She was twenty-five, she was expected to already be on her way to her first divorce, with at least one screaming brat in tow. She’d be damned if she ever gave any man the time of day who wouldn’t respect her for who she was, and wouldn’t let her run her own life. The rich bastards who ran in the same circles as she did were hardly even the type she would let between her legs.
After a night of pretending to be wined and dined, of dancing and smiling at cameras (while internally rolling her eyes), she had gone to the Mansion, taken a painfully hot shower before slipping into the armor and enjoying a good book.
It wasn’t long before Cap walked in, dressed in civvies (jeans and a white t-shirt that looked unfairly good on him), obviously looking for something to read. Since they had thawed him out, the nightmares had driven him from his bed and often enough into the library. It was there that Antonia had filled Cap in on all that he had missed while striking up an easy friendship.
Of course, he didn’t know who she was. He fascinated her, not just as a superhero, but also as a man, and she couldn’t help but always be willing to set aside whatever she was working on to ease the current torment that held him in it’s icy cold grip.
“You should read Ian Fleming’s books,” Antonia suggested softly, the armor’s filters masking her voice and making it sound strong…and male. It was only lately, and around Cap, that she had started to resent the way the armor made her “just another male” in Cap's eyes. Then again, it was really her and Thor who had been the ones who had forced the “respect secret identities” rule. She had no one to blame but herself.
Cap chuckled a little, “I’ve heard they’re better than the movies.”
“He has the best gadgets, and always gets the girl,” Antonia said with amusement. “It’s a guilty pleasure. I know Ms Stark has tried to actually invent bits of Bond’s equipment that would actually work.”
Cap laughed, browsing the shelves, not even bothering to hide how worn he was looking. “That sounds like Ms Stark. I don’t understand, though, why she let’s someone else take credit for her inventions.”
Antonia shouldn't have been surprised by that comment, she really shouldn't have. She was the one who had brought it up, speaking about her frustrations as a 3rd party member looking in on her own situation; what did surprise her though, was that Cap had actually brought it up. For the most part, Antonia talked when Cap was startled from his sleep, about anything and everything that came to mind. It touched her, a little, that Cap actually listened and remembered things she had said.
Unfortunately, that couldn't suppress her sigh and she turned her head to look over at him. “In 1944, would she have been able to be CEO? Would she be able to do anything except what her father, or husband, said she could do?”
Steve winced, “You have a valid point.” He rubbed the back of his head and ruffled his own hair, obviously a little uncomfortable. He drifted over to the bookshelves, obviously looking for the Ian Flemming books.
“The glass ceiling is crushing, at least from what I’ve heard,” Antonia said, turning back to her book. “She barely cares about the credit, she just wants to do what she loves. All else aside, I pity anyone who tries to get between her and her shop.”
Steve sat in the chair across from her and started reading one of the Bond books, as Antonia had recommended. Time passed, as it generally does, but it wasn’t long before she started feeling twinges and pains in her chest. Ignoring it, thinking it was merely the remains of her vigorous shower, she continued reading, shifting against the comfortable padding of her suit and wondering why she was suddenly so warm. Before much longer, she was acutely uncomfortable, and there was definitely something wrong. Her extremities tingled enough to send her into distress, especially when it seemed her vision was swimming.
When she tried to stand, the weight of gravity and the suit sent her crashing to the ground. She barely heard Cap swearing and trying to rouse her, eyes rolling back in her head as she passed out.
Hunh. It seemed the electromagnet was no longer working as well as it had originally.
Charming.
~
Antonia awoke in a very uncomfortable bed, the thread count in the sheets under her so low that she could practically feel each one imprinting themselves on her skin, chest hurting viciously. With a soft moan, she brought her hand up to rest over where the electromagnet was. Instead, however, there was a thick wad of gauze covering the entire area, breasts included. Too weak to do more than just let her hand rest there, she tried to figure out where she was without opening her eyes.
Steady beep of several machines nearby.
The nauseating smell of antiseptic.
The steady, relentless squeak of shoes on cheap linoleum.
There was an IV and several wires plastered to her body.
“Fuck,” she croaked, voice rough with disuse. “I'm in the hospital.”
“Ms Stark,” came the startled voice. “H-hold on, I'll go get the doctor.” A chair was pushed back with a loud shriek and there were hurried steps as the speaker rushed from the room.
Slowly opening her eyes, Antonia looked out toward the door tiredly.
There was nothing more she hated than hospitals.
It was the matter of minutes before a doctor materialized with a nurse, with an anxious Cap behind both.
“Ms Stark,” the doctor greeted as the nurse took her vitals.
“Why am I here?” she asked tiredly, attempting to yank her arm away from the nurse. Unfortunately, it was like a toddler trying to swat away the Greek smith god Hephaestus. The nurse allowed her a few tries before taking her arm back and continuing her job.
“You suffered, for all intents and purposes, a heart attack. It seems like your....magnet? It malfunctioned somehow and the shrapnel was pushing further into your heart,” the doctor explained.
Antonia gave him a bland stare, “Then how am I still alive?” she asked in annoyance. From how Yinsen had explained it, it wouldn't take very long before the shrapnel pushed too far in to be stopped.
“A Dr Don Blake did something in the OR to keep the shrapnel back long enough for Lt Colonel Rhodes to bring some prototype to hold the shrapnel in place.”
Antonia winced. Rhodey; shit, she was so never going to hear the end of this. Rhodey would tell Happy, and Happy would tell Pepper, and oh god...
“That was two days ago. We were starting to worry if real damage had happened.”
Antonia gave him a withering glare, “Get out of my room. While you're at it, call Mr Hogan and inform him that I will be leaving this godforsaken place and require his services.”
“Ms Stark,” Cap began, looking worried, but very stubborn, “I believe it would be best for you to stay here.”
“And I would rather be able to make sure that the prototype I designed is functioning properly since it was never ready to be used in the first place,” Antonia countered. “I rather like the idea of living, Captain.”
“You're staying exactly where you are, Toni,” a stern voice said from the doorway. “I checked it over, it'll be fine. It's worked for the past two days, so you don't have to worry.”
Antonia scowled at the uniformed man in the doorway to her room, “Rhodey, if you don't get me out of the goddamn hellhole—”
“St Vincent's is not a hellhole,” the doctor sighed. “Your dislike of hospitals aside, Ms Stark, we really need to keep an eye on you and your heart.”
Antonia really wished she was the sort of woman who could grab something and hurl it at the doctor's head. As it were, she simply laid there, scowling and picking at the cheap blanket. The doctor finished his inspection before shooing both Captain America and Rhodey out the door and carefully removing the gauze from her chest to check on the wound.
“This is a brilliant piece of machinery,” the doctor said, running his hand over the outside curve of her breast, no where near the new arc reactor holding the shrapnel in place.
“Move your hand, or I break it,” Antonia snarled as she glared figurative daggers at the man, cursing the fact she was too weak to smack him away.
The doctor flinched back so fast he stumbled over his own feet and feel on his ass.
Rhodey and Cap came in just as Antonia was pushing herself out of bed, intent on doing some sort of harm to the bastard. Cap, upon seeing her gown open (lucky her, all she had on were a pair of panties), had gone bright red and averted his gaze. Rhodey, on the other hand, swept her off her feet, closed her gown in one move, and put her back on the bed.
“Stay,” he instructed her, before turning and raising an eyebrow at the doctor. “You are aware that even attempting to molest Ms Stark comes with some... health hazards, correct?”
The doctor went pale, “I wasn't doing anything of the sort!”
Antonia shuddered and pulled the gown tight around her body, “Now can I go home? Before I've got the press in here with the perverts as well?”
Rhodey cracked his neck and sighed, “We’ll see, all right?”
Antonia sulked, “That’s about as good as I’m going to get, aren’t I?”
“Hole in one, Princess,” Rhodey said with a teasing grin.
Antonia grabbed her cheap, flat hospital pillow and tossed it at him with a snarl, “I hate that name!”
Unfortunately, Rhodey ducked (he was way too used to her antics), and the pillows hit Cap in the face instead. Pulling it away from his face, Cap looked amused, and a slightly less red. “We should work on your aim, Ms Stark.”
Antonia scowled at him and flopped back on the bed, arms crossed, “Laugh it up while you can.”
~
Rhodey offered Cap a cold bottle of beer with a wicked grin, “Threw you for a loop, hunh?”
Cap accepted it with a bewildered look as he leaned against the wall, “I’m sorry?”
Rhodey snagged a chair, turned it around and straddled it backwords, propping his chin up on the back rim of the chair with a lazy grin. “Toni.”
Cap looked slightly uncomfortable, “She… She’s Iron Man.”
Rhodey took a swig off his beer, “Yeah, I know. Made me want to throttle some sense into that head of her's when I found out. Little brat’s got all of us constantly worried she’s gonna do exactly what just happened.” He grinned, though, at Cap’s lost expression.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Cap sighed, fiddling with the bottle and slowly peeling the label off. “Why?”
“Why ‘Iron Man’ or why in general?”
“Both?”
Rhodey took another swig, thinking, “Toni is not exactly you’re typical woman. You probably already know about the sham with Josh, right?” At Cap’s nod, he went on, “She’s too smart for her own good, if you ask me. She’s got too many ideas and can’t keep them in her head, so she spills it out on papers and plans, and because she is sure she knows best, she stamps Josh’s name on the things and tosses them at her Board.”
“She used some phrase,” Cap said with a frown. “Used it and never explained it.”
“‘Futurist’?” Rhodey asked wryly; Cap nodded, still picking at the label of his beer. “Essentially, her mind is always thinking at least three hours from now, if not years. Something simple for us – oh, look, the price of gas went up, damn – will mean something like, gas prices soaring mean running out of natural resources leads to the need for alternative energy and green energy isn’t really going anywhere right now because there's not a large demand, so let’s make it go somewhere with a large demand.”
Cap smiled a little, “I have noticed that much, though more from Iron Man than from Ms Stark.” He paused, looking conflicted, “That’s going to be weird to make the two images fit in my head.”
Rhodey snickered, “Don’t let Toni hear that, she’d go all pigheaded and stubborn on you. And possibly toss various bits of scrap metal at you when she does.”
“It’s not that she’s, well, a woman. In the War, Spitfire was a good ally, and Jan can fight just as well as any of us, not to mention, Ms Stark’s proved it time and time again that she can hold her own in a fight,” Steve said, finally taking a sip of his beer. “But, what I don’t understand, is why hide it? Why Iron Man?”
Rhodey raised an eyebrow, “Are you saying that Toni – out Toni, Ms I-Don’t-Take-Orders-From-Anyone Toni – could've joined the war front back in the 40s? Are we talking about the same country here? Yeah, things have improved a lot in the past fifty years or so, but not that much. All you have to do is catch Toni after a Board meaning and you’ll see why she made the suit male. Why she spends more than half her free time in the suit. Aside from that, the suit is nigh invincible…saving any direct hits from a few nukes. If you had literally hours, if not minutes, to live without a big magnet in your chest, wouldn’t you want something like that?”
Rhodey watched as Cap just sat back, thinking, and silently finishing his beer.
A Different Perspective
Jaelawyn Noble [ Jaelawyn@gmail.com ]
Disclaimer: Love 'em, dun own 'em.
Warnings: girl!Tony
Fandom: The Avengers
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Archive: http://nobelia.envy.nu ; http://blackfireink.livejournal.com
Summary: What if Iron Man wasn’t exactly a man?
Feedback: ‘m a whore for it.
Notation: Okay, so a lot of the info I got on Stark Industries was all from Invincible Iron Man #5. Let me just say, I love tour guides~
Antonia Stark, age twenty-five, was one of the top ten richest people in the world, and one of the smartest, as well. When her parents had died in a car wreck (not an accident, and she had been the one to prove that), she had inherited the company her father had built up from nothing – Stark Industries.
Her father's company had begun as a simple defense contractor, whoring themselves out to whoever had the biggest dollar. Since Antonia had taken over it, it had now breached out into nearly every technological aspect that the world needed and depended on. The factories that had once made bombs and land mines and sold death in every disguise demanded now crafted everything from toasters to advanced medical equipment and beyond. As the tour guides loved to say, “Stark International provides us all with tomorrow, today!”
Despite all her ideas for reinventing almost everything but the kitchen sink (and even there she had some ideas), the Board of Directors still believed that she was nothing more than a very beautiful woman who was marriage bait, and could do nothing more than give birth to good, strong sons to take over the company. There was no end to the anger she felt every time she set foot in that meeting room. So, playing by their rules, she had recruited one of her dumber engineers, Joshua, and made him a deal: she allowed him to put his name on the majority of her ideas and let the Board think they were madly in love, and he didn't speak a word of the truth on pain of death. It worked, a little too well, though. Almost every day, a member of the Board would smile at her, and leer at her, and congratulate Joshua and wonder aloud when the two of them would get married.
Part of the deal Antonia had made with Joshua was that he never touch her, in any way, shape, or form. The man gave her the creeps on so many levels, but he was easy to manipulate, almost easy to control. All she wanted, honestly, was to be allowed to stay in her shop (which she had to hide, on her own goddamn property) and to invent and design. Unfortunately, it seemed like that was too much to ask. Even if she were allowed to do as she wished, the Board would just dismiss it all out of hand. The Board had never accepted any of her proposals on the basis that she was a woman and therefore couldn’t honestly be a decent engineer. They hadn’t even looked at the proposals, as made evident by the fact she had simple stamped Joshua’s name all over them and suggested them to the Board. It had taken exactly thirteen minutes and fifteen seconds for them to agree to “Joshua’s” plans.
There were reasons why, at every public event, she was chained to the bar and always had a drink glued to her hand. Her father was an alcoholic, and she knew the signs and yes, she would admit that she too was an alcoholic. She honestly couldn't care less, at this point. The stress and demand on her life, and the thinly veiled patronizing and leers, the insults to her intelligence because she was female, all of it staked up and overwhelmed her. At least she never went for drugs, all she wanted was the sweetness of liquid forgetfulness and blessed numbness.
Out of restless frustration, she toured Stark International’s factories. Until the factory in the Middle East, and the kidnapping, and the shrapnel. Her heart had been seriously injured and the only thing keeping her alive was an electromagnet that held the shrapnel in place. The only downside? She needed to charge it at least once a day.
Out of a sheer need to prove herself worthy of her new lease on life, she had created a suit to serve two purposes – to help keep her heart beating as it should and to make sure that she could protect the people her weapons had put in harm’s way. It helped server another purpose, one she hadn't realized she needed in the first place – it gave her the chance to be anonymous, to be free of of a life defined by gender.
She had shaped the suit to look like a man for a reason – she was sick and tired of being treated like some frail, fragile creature that needed to be wrapped in cotton and stored away. She wasn't just marriage bait, she wasn't a pre-pregnant woman. She could, and would, protect herself and anyone else who she came across. And she had proven that, quite successfully, helping found the Avengers and bringing Captain America back from suspended animation.
Not that anyone knew that it was Antonia that had done this.
They all thought it was Iron Man.
Antonia had resented the name at first, but now it did nothing but amuse her. “Iron Man” was now her personal bodyguard (although Happy Hogan had resented it at first, now he just laughed over the idea of his tiny little boss protecting herself), and she was merely the one who bankrolled the Avengers.
It was the first time since her days at MIT that she was truly happy.
~
Antonia was happily in her armor, in the library, reading Le Morte d’Arthur and relaxing. It was night and the Avenger’s Mansion was quiet and relaxing, something she needed after the night she had had.
She still had a reputation as a socialite to maintain, and every time it left her with a strong urge to go crawl into the shower and scrub her skin raw before locking herself into the armor for the rest of the night. The men she flirted with made her skin crawl, but they were who she was expected to associate herself with. Rich, playboy slime.
She swore the press had headlines and articles printed and pinned to a board, just waiting to be used, with every possible combination of her name and every man she had ever smiled at, just waiting for her to announce an engagement. She was twenty-five, she was expected to already be on her way to her first divorce, with at least one screaming brat in tow. She’d be damned if she ever gave any man the time of day who wouldn’t respect her for who she was, and wouldn’t let her run her own life. The rich bastards who ran in the same circles as she did were hardly even the type she would let between her legs.
After a night of pretending to be wined and dined, of dancing and smiling at cameras (while internally rolling her eyes), she had gone to the Mansion, taken a painfully hot shower before slipping into the armor and enjoying a good book.
It wasn’t long before Cap walked in, dressed in civvies (jeans and a white t-shirt that looked unfairly good on him), obviously looking for something to read. Since they had thawed him out, the nightmares had driven him from his bed and often enough into the library. It was there that Antonia had filled Cap in on all that he had missed while striking up an easy friendship.
Of course, he didn’t know who she was. He fascinated her, not just as a superhero, but also as a man, and she couldn’t help but always be willing to set aside whatever she was working on to ease the current torment that held him in it’s icy cold grip.
“You should read Ian Fleming’s books,” Antonia suggested softly, the armor’s filters masking her voice and making it sound strong…and male. It was only lately, and around Cap, that she had started to resent the way the armor made her “just another male” in Cap's eyes. Then again, it was really her and Thor who had been the ones who had forced the “respect secret identities” rule. She had no one to blame but herself.
Cap chuckled a little, “I’ve heard they’re better than the movies.”
“He has the best gadgets, and always gets the girl,” Antonia said with amusement. “It’s a guilty pleasure. I know Ms Stark has tried to actually invent bits of Bond’s equipment that would actually work.”
Cap laughed, browsing the shelves, not even bothering to hide how worn he was looking. “That sounds like Ms Stark. I don’t understand, though, why she let’s someone else take credit for her inventions.”
Antonia shouldn't have been surprised by that comment, she really shouldn't have. She was the one who had brought it up, speaking about her frustrations as a 3rd party member looking in on her own situation; what did surprise her though, was that Cap had actually brought it up. For the most part, Antonia talked when Cap was startled from his sleep, about anything and everything that came to mind. It touched her, a little, that Cap actually listened and remembered things she had said.
Unfortunately, that couldn't suppress her sigh and she turned her head to look over at him. “In 1944, would she have been able to be CEO? Would she be able to do anything except what her father, or husband, said she could do?”
Steve winced, “You have a valid point.” He rubbed the back of his head and ruffled his own hair, obviously a little uncomfortable. He drifted over to the bookshelves, obviously looking for the Ian Flemming books.
“The glass ceiling is crushing, at least from what I’ve heard,” Antonia said, turning back to her book. “She barely cares about the credit, she just wants to do what she loves. All else aside, I pity anyone who tries to get between her and her shop.”
Steve sat in the chair across from her and started reading one of the Bond books, as Antonia had recommended. Time passed, as it generally does, but it wasn’t long before she started feeling twinges and pains in her chest. Ignoring it, thinking it was merely the remains of her vigorous shower, she continued reading, shifting against the comfortable padding of her suit and wondering why she was suddenly so warm. Before much longer, she was acutely uncomfortable, and there was definitely something wrong. Her extremities tingled enough to send her into distress, especially when it seemed her vision was swimming.
When she tried to stand, the weight of gravity and the suit sent her crashing to the ground. She barely heard Cap swearing and trying to rouse her, eyes rolling back in her head as she passed out.
Hunh. It seemed the electromagnet was no longer working as well as it had originally.
Charming.
~
Antonia awoke in a very uncomfortable bed, the thread count in the sheets under her so low that she could practically feel each one imprinting themselves on her skin, chest hurting viciously. With a soft moan, she brought her hand up to rest over where the electromagnet was. Instead, however, there was a thick wad of gauze covering the entire area, breasts included. Too weak to do more than just let her hand rest there, she tried to figure out where she was without opening her eyes.
Steady beep of several machines nearby.
The nauseating smell of antiseptic.
The steady, relentless squeak of shoes on cheap linoleum.
There was an IV and several wires plastered to her body.
“Fuck,” she croaked, voice rough with disuse. “I'm in the hospital.”
“Ms Stark,” came the startled voice. “H-hold on, I'll go get the doctor.” A chair was pushed back with a loud shriek and there were hurried steps as the speaker rushed from the room.
Slowly opening her eyes, Antonia looked out toward the door tiredly.
There was nothing more she hated than hospitals.
It was the matter of minutes before a doctor materialized with a nurse, with an anxious Cap behind both.
“Ms Stark,” the doctor greeted as the nurse took her vitals.
“Why am I here?” she asked tiredly, attempting to yank her arm away from the nurse. Unfortunately, it was like a toddler trying to swat away the Greek smith god Hephaestus. The nurse allowed her a few tries before taking her arm back and continuing her job.
“You suffered, for all intents and purposes, a heart attack. It seems like your....magnet? It malfunctioned somehow and the shrapnel was pushing further into your heart,” the doctor explained.
Antonia gave him a bland stare, “Then how am I still alive?” she asked in annoyance. From how Yinsen had explained it, it wouldn't take very long before the shrapnel pushed too far in to be stopped.
“A Dr Don Blake did something in the OR to keep the shrapnel back long enough for Lt Colonel Rhodes to bring some prototype to hold the shrapnel in place.”
Antonia winced. Rhodey; shit, she was so never going to hear the end of this. Rhodey would tell Happy, and Happy would tell Pepper, and oh god...
“That was two days ago. We were starting to worry if real damage had happened.”
Antonia gave him a withering glare, “Get out of my room. While you're at it, call Mr Hogan and inform him that I will be leaving this godforsaken place and require his services.”
“Ms Stark,” Cap began, looking worried, but very stubborn, “I believe it would be best for you to stay here.”
“And I would rather be able to make sure that the prototype I designed is functioning properly since it was never ready to be used in the first place,” Antonia countered. “I rather like the idea of living, Captain.”
“You're staying exactly where you are, Toni,” a stern voice said from the doorway. “I checked it over, it'll be fine. It's worked for the past two days, so you don't have to worry.”
Antonia scowled at the uniformed man in the doorway to her room, “Rhodey, if you don't get me out of the goddamn hellhole—”
“St Vincent's is not a hellhole,” the doctor sighed. “Your dislike of hospitals aside, Ms Stark, we really need to keep an eye on you and your heart.”
Antonia really wished she was the sort of woman who could grab something and hurl it at the doctor's head. As it were, she simply laid there, scowling and picking at the cheap blanket. The doctor finished his inspection before shooing both Captain America and Rhodey out the door and carefully removing the gauze from her chest to check on the wound.
“This is a brilliant piece of machinery,” the doctor said, running his hand over the outside curve of her breast, no where near the new arc reactor holding the shrapnel in place.
“Move your hand, or I break it,” Antonia snarled as she glared figurative daggers at the man, cursing the fact she was too weak to smack him away.
The doctor flinched back so fast he stumbled over his own feet and feel on his ass.
Rhodey and Cap came in just as Antonia was pushing herself out of bed, intent on doing some sort of harm to the bastard. Cap, upon seeing her gown open (lucky her, all she had on were a pair of panties), had gone bright red and averted his gaze. Rhodey, on the other hand, swept her off her feet, closed her gown in one move, and put her back on the bed.
“Stay,” he instructed her, before turning and raising an eyebrow at the doctor. “You are aware that even attempting to molest Ms Stark comes with some... health hazards, correct?”
The doctor went pale, “I wasn't doing anything of the sort!”
Antonia shuddered and pulled the gown tight around her body, “Now can I go home? Before I've got the press in here with the perverts as well?”
Rhodey cracked his neck and sighed, “We’ll see, all right?”
Antonia sulked, “That’s about as good as I’m going to get, aren’t I?”
“Hole in one, Princess,” Rhodey said with a teasing grin.
Antonia grabbed her cheap, flat hospital pillow and tossed it at him with a snarl, “I hate that name!”
Unfortunately, Rhodey ducked (he was way too used to her antics), and the pillows hit Cap in the face instead. Pulling it away from his face, Cap looked amused, and a slightly less red. “We should work on your aim, Ms Stark.”
Antonia scowled at him and flopped back on the bed, arms crossed, “Laugh it up while you can.”
~
Rhodey offered Cap a cold bottle of beer with a wicked grin, “Threw you for a loop, hunh?”
Cap accepted it with a bewildered look as he leaned against the wall, “I’m sorry?”
Rhodey snagged a chair, turned it around and straddled it backwords, propping his chin up on the back rim of the chair with a lazy grin. “Toni.”
Cap looked slightly uncomfortable, “She… She’s Iron Man.”
Rhodey took a swig off his beer, “Yeah, I know. Made me want to throttle some sense into that head of her's when I found out. Little brat’s got all of us constantly worried she’s gonna do exactly what just happened.” He grinned, though, at Cap’s lost expression.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Cap sighed, fiddling with the bottle and slowly peeling the label off. “Why?”
“Why ‘Iron Man’ or why in general?”
“Both?”
Rhodey took another swig, thinking, “Toni is not exactly you’re typical woman. You probably already know about the sham with Josh, right?” At Cap’s nod, he went on, “She’s too smart for her own good, if you ask me. She’s got too many ideas and can’t keep them in her head, so she spills it out on papers and plans, and because she is sure she knows best, she stamps Josh’s name on the things and tosses them at her Board.”
“She used some phrase,” Cap said with a frown. “Used it and never explained it.”
“‘Futurist’?” Rhodey asked wryly; Cap nodded, still picking at the label of his beer. “Essentially, her mind is always thinking at least three hours from now, if not years. Something simple for us – oh, look, the price of gas went up, damn – will mean something like, gas prices soaring mean running out of natural resources leads to the need for alternative energy and green energy isn’t really going anywhere right now because there's not a large demand, so let’s make it go somewhere with a large demand.”
Cap smiled a little, “I have noticed that much, though more from Iron Man than from Ms Stark.” He paused, looking conflicted, “That’s going to be weird to make the two images fit in my head.”
Rhodey snickered, “Don’t let Toni hear that, she’d go all pigheaded and stubborn on you. And possibly toss various bits of scrap metal at you when she does.”
“It’s not that she’s, well, a woman. In the War, Spitfire was a good ally, and Jan can fight just as well as any of us, not to mention, Ms Stark’s proved it time and time again that she can hold her own in a fight,” Steve said, finally taking a sip of his beer. “But, what I don’t understand, is why hide it? Why Iron Man?”
Rhodey raised an eyebrow, “Are you saying that Toni – out Toni, Ms I-Don’t-Take-Orders-From-Anyone Toni – could've joined the war front back in the 40s? Are we talking about the same country here? Yeah, things have improved a lot in the past fifty years or so, but not that much. All you have to do is catch Toni after a Board meaning and you’ll see why she made the suit male. Why she spends more than half her free time in the suit. Aside from that, the suit is nigh invincible…saving any direct hits from a few nukes. If you had literally hours, if not minutes, to live without a big magnet in your chest, wouldn’t you want something like that?”
Rhodey watched as Cap just sat back, thinking, and silently finishing his beer.
no subject
Ooo, I do like it. Antonia is great - I like that you've played around with things in keeping with the gender change rather than just straight retelling. Steve also works for me - you definitely have that all-around good guy vibe going with him. I don't know Rhodey very well as character, so I can't really comment on him, sorry!
Umm, also I'm a bit of a grammar whore so I hope you don't mind that I picked out some typos that need correcting:
"had now breached out into nearly every technological aspect" - branched out?
"It helped server another purpose" - serve
"that held him in it’s icy cold grip" - its
"I don’t understand, though, why she let’s someone else take credit" - lets
"to throttle some sense into that head of her's" - hers
"Toni is not exactly you’re typical woman" - your
"Are you saying that Toni – out Toni" - our
Hmm, so what would it take to get you to continue?
no subject
And yeaaaaah. The straight retelling just....I dunno, I don't think it would have worked. It HAS to be Tony, just, ya know, female.e And he would HATE having the door slammed in his face cuz he has tits. Steve is a good guy....with a crush.... I'm trying to play him Marvel Adventures Avengers style because, oh I have no idea. it just seemed to fit. And Rhodey is just fun. And exists to push Tony/Toni's buttons.
no subject
Don't supposed you'd like to beta?
no subject
Ummm, I'll comment with my email and then once you've dropped me a note, I'll delete it. (I don't like leaving my email so openly available) That work?
no subject
actually, my email is listed in the fic. if you feel edgey about putting your email out, just email me that way :D
no subject
no subject
no subject
I love genderswitch, and since Iron Man is my new obsession, genderswitched Iron Man is double great.
I'm definitely interested in seeing more of this. Rhodey's awesome.
And, to agree with cygna_hime, Steve is very doomed.
no subject
And YAY that Rhodey is awesome. His and Steve's voices have been making me act like Marvel and rewrite the scenes at least 4 times each. Posted it, so can't do it anymore, which is good for me.
And zomg I made someone stay up for my fic. I'm gonna go squee now.
no subject
As far as I've ever seen, Rhodey's always bitching at Tony for doing stupid things or getting himself hurt. Rhodey with Toni would be 10 times worse because, well, she's a she and I just see Rhodey as having a protective streak a mile wide for her, even if she can handle herself. Comes from being best friends.
:) I was going to go to bed at five, then a couple of characters started arguing (my co-writer and I were trying to wrap it up for the night and our characters had been in the middle of a loud argument) and then when we finally stopped them, I turned to my other screen, realized I still had this up, and couldn't make myself go to bed until I had finished, and made sure to FB because I do so want to see more of this.
no subject
Well, Rhodey does have a little sister. I can see him doing that tough older brother act for Toni.....while wanting to throttle her. I love the dynamic relationship the two have. Actually, sadly enough, I came home from seeing the movie, dragged out my Civil War books, and then started looking for Rhodey/Tony slash. In May, I couldn't find any, and I somehow stumbled into Steve/Tony and it just...clicked. So Rhodey and Tony are veeeeery interesting to me. Especially when it would involve Toni. If Rhodey ever figures the mutual crushes out, he is so gonna chew Steve out for it. Like a proper big brother.
*squee* Yay. It's kind of a pet project right now. I've got another AU for Kingdom Hearts going on(eeeepic) and I just...really needed to play with Tony. Especially since he threw a fit that he only gets screen time when me and my friend's other muses aren't being divas.