5 Chapter 4

The driver looked at Toby strangely.

The professional sharp photojournalist that Jonah Jameson told off was no one to be seen.

Instead, "it" looked like a normal American Tourist with a pair of vintage sunglasses.

"Was I duped?"

"Hello." He smiled uncertainly

"Hi."

Toby was annoyed by the set time to leave, but unfortunately, he had to keep a little sliver of responsibility and get there on time, as the gorilla boss had required.

He was going to try a new dumpling shop he had just stumbled across, but sadly, duty calls...

They got into the car before driving out the city gates, into the hard rocky terrain.

He took a swig of the soda that he bought earlier.

Looking out the window, As the car drove, Toby looked out.

"Rocks, rocks, oh a shrub!"

"Some dirt too, a wonderful view out here…."

"Wish I could have just stayed in Kabul, and ate some more delicious dumplings. "

"Oh! Another shrub!" He exclaimed to himself, in a mocking sarcasm.

"Well, I heard that some areas could be pretty, but ones near a military base are not really….

The car continued moving, but the atmosphere inside was quite awkward.

Toby looked out in boredom, before, after a while, in the distance, he could see a large metal building surrounded by barbed wire fences.

As the car grew closer, he noticed the giant quantity of guards around. Some were positioned in towers, some guarding the gates, and some were just patrolling around the perimeter.

Figures, since a few bigshots were here for the unveiling of the Jericho missiles. Also a lot of press.

[What is your purpose in coming here?]

The driver handed a guard at the gate some papers.

[You may enter.] The guard said sharply, before telling someone in the background to let them in.

The gate slowly opened before the driver opened the side door, and Toby stepped out.

The first thing he was greeted with was the smell of… vodka?

Toby looked around before sighing.

In front of a crowd of people, was the one and only Tony "Tin-can" Stark.

Wearing his trademark sunglasses and a sort of well-trimmed beard, arrogance seemed to radiate from him, as he chugged some more vodka from a bottle.

(A/N: In AU, Tony likes chugging vodka, Why? I dunno...)

"The old chump seems to be doing well, can't wait to see his face when he almost gets blown up by his missile."

"I'll take a photo for commemoration when that happens."

"Genius." Toby smiled.

He quickly blended into the crowd of reporters.

The media, was, as normal, clambering on about his latest scandals, or the new "Jericho" missile.

"Mr. Stark, are you-"

"Mr. Stark, what are your thoughts on the new-"

"Mr. Stark, please marry me!"

"Mr. Stark is this missile safe-"

[Mr. Stark, what will happen if these missiles are used against us?]

"Mr. Stark, I heard you dumped-"

"Mr. Stark, I heard your ex-husband say that you dumped him for a one-eyed chihuahua." A nasal voice squeaked out.

Total silence.

This, of course, was Toby, just being toxic. He was a photojournalist, but as a "reporter" and part of a news outlet, he fit right in, sort of.

(A/N: How could he come up with such a bad insult, so lame right?)

It would have been better if he was not wearing that neon "Viva La Kabul" t-shirt.

Pretending that he was taking photos of that stunning dirt floor and had not just antagonized Tony for no apparent reason, he hummed a small tune.

Though Stark was not that bad of a person, he wanted some payback for a few past incidents, and he would not be Tobias Macguire if he was not a complete and utter jerk of a bully.

But then again, these were not past incidents anymore.

"Seriously?" That was all Tony could say.

No one had ever asked him this so he was pissed, and sort of shocked, actually, mostly pissed.

"By the way, not supposed to be homophobic… Don't want to get canceled..." The nasal voice once again sounded.

Murmurs soon rose through the reporters and their camera crews.

As newspapers and broadcasters were keen to insulting celebrities and such, they could not do much and kick the reporter or whoever said that because they'd get canceled.

Hard.

Also, the newspapers would for once unite. A scary thing indeed, and start roasting Stark, well the tabloids at least.

After the buzz died down, Tony began explaining all the details behind the rockets and different scientific stuff that Toby could understand but, he missed the part where that was his problem.

For some reason, the boss did not send anyone else on the trip, Toby mused, it may have had something to do with himself.

An hour passed, and the main event had finally arrived.

Begrudgingly, Toby wished that he could just ditch his responsibility, go back too the city and eat some Afghan-style dumplings.

Positioning the camera, he zoomed into the distance as Tony began to count down.

"BOOM!!!" Missles flared into the sky, their trails of smoke spiraling and twisting, before homing in and completely decimating a whole area.

All that was left was smoking and collapsing cliff face, and possibly a few recently deceased lizards or whatever unlucky creature made its home there.

Toby had, with his millennia's of camera experience, photographed the exact moment the missiles had taken off, was the clearest in the air, and, when they had just hit.

"Tomorrow, I'll be able to take a picture of the MAIN scoop."

Cackling evilly, he plotted the complete downfall of the only rival of his that could compete with him in terms of irresponsibility a few others could compete, but….

There can only be one.

"Driver, are you almost there?" He picked up his phone, waiting for the ride back to Kabul.

"Hello, there is traffic at moment, I will arrive in maybe 1 hour?"

"How is there traffic? This military base is, literally, surrounded by plain." Toby frowned.

"There was bad thing happened, camels imported from Arabia nation got loose, blocking the road." The driver expressed his bewilderment too.

"..." Speechless, he hung up.

It would be a long rest of the day….

Staring up at the slowly setting sun, he once again sighed, before taking out another dumpling.