Priceless | Antonia Stark

Heartache and Realizations.

Slowly.

The word irritated Toni, who was anything, but slow. She was the goddamn Iron Woman for a reason. She boosted the world's technology by leaps and bounds.

But nobody, nothing could boost the healing of a broken heart, and that was a fact that she was yet to cope with.

Still, it did give her some relief, because the word meant something else.

Surely.

Even with how she was irritated with the process of healing, it gave her a little bit of joy that one person was there to make sure. That she was surely healing from her broken heart.

"Ms. Stark, I think I found a metal suitable for the nanobot particles." Called out Peter, as he held something that scared Toni. The male was holding a chitauri gun.

Toni's head perked up at Peter, as her breath hitched a little. "Jesus, kid. D-don't just go holding that shit... still... not a bad find... the power core can clearly withstand massive amounts of energy output." She nodded, her breath a little bit shaky, she never wanted to see that damn thing anymore. But she had to for the sake of the nanotech.

"Strip the gun to the core and the energy transmitters... let me handle the framework, just make sure you stabilize it." Toni nodded as Peter quickly went to work on disassembling the weapon.

"I heard that when Cap was hit by this, it kind of nullified his healing a little... was that right?" Peter raised a brow as he stripped the weapon to it's core.

"It's highly radioactive when not synthesized properly. So it changes the biology of cells to replenish at a slower rate." Toni nodded, "I think synthesizing it with palladium will do the trick."

-----

"Ms. Stark? I-I have some news." Peter called out to Toni, who was taking a call.

"Yeah, Hill. I know the situation... it's not like Zeke can have any breakthroughs... he's just like Hammer. A copycat." Toni spoke, not noticing Peter.

"Ms. Stark?" Peter called out just a little bit louder.

Toni then turned to look at Peter, her eyes slightly widening in surprise.

Peter had a handful of nanobots enveloping his arm.

"Hill, gonna have to take this conversation somewhere else, I just made a breakthrough." Toni quickly muttered before hanging up and walking over to Peter, "This is amazing... what... how did you get it to work?"

"Well, I made the communication synapses work collectively... and inverted the framework." Peter nodded before handing over the headset, seeing as the nanobots basically went limp.

"That's... curious to say the least." Muttered Toni before placing on the headpiece.

The two basically spent two hours, just messing around with the nanobots and tinkering, with the occasional coffee break.

-----

Waiting was something Toni was never accustomed to, though it seemed every day as time went on, waiting was all she was going to do. She had to wait for Peter to get his classes in order, she had to wait for Pepper to say something, anything, to her ever since their break. She had to wait for an update on the rogues. She even had to wait for Rhodey to get used to the braces.

It's very common knowledge that Toni was an impatient person. But what other people didn't know about was if she waited for too long, she would send herself on a spiral of self-destruction. And, back then, she had the Avengers to pull her out of it.