A/N: So, I rather gave the idea of "female Tony Stark" a try and after I unlinked the image of Robert Downey Jr. from Tony Stark, I was able to consider how Toni would look like, etc. and now I am addicted to it.
Toni to me is still as dysfunctional as Tony is, she drinks just as much as him, and the Ten Rings still held her hostage while in Afghanistan. She has slept around with a bunch of people and she still has panic attacks. Most important of all, she still had Howard as the dysfunctional father that he was – who did not serve as the best role model for her future at all.
Steve and Tony(i) are like Kirk and Spock, they are meant to be BFF's, and something else. OTPs.
So, this story is part of That Song Project and the song used was Lean On, by Major Lazer & DJ Snake feat. MØ.
Achtung! This story contains descriptions of torture and rape. Please be warned as it is not my wish to trigger anybody. Also, it contains a detailed description of an anxiety attack and I don't want to accidentally trigger anybody because having panic attacks is not funny, at all. Anxiety attacks are very personal in the sense of how they happen from person to person, I don't know how other people go through anxiety attacks, so this is all based on my experiences.
On a side note: This story has a floating timeline, which explains why Toni and Steve are around 28 years old and the story is still set in 2015. Marvel's comics have a floating timeline – that is why everything has been made possible for the last fifty something years and why every plot still makes sense.
Another good example is Simpsons… Maggie has been a baby since the show started, and Simpsons exists since before I existed.
Lean On
"Wake up."
The voice sounded distant, like an old memory. No, like a whisper, Toni thought. She frowned, knowing that she was returning to consciousness and not really wanting to.
The memories were starting to come back to her, and as if by instinct, she knew that she would not like the situation once she became fully conscious.
"Wake up!"
She wrinkled her nose and the pain hit her at once. "Argh."
She felt water hit her right in the face and for a couple of moments she was not able to breathe. For a split second, she remembered Afghanistan, but the recent memories of what had happened before she lost conscious clouded that memory. She had been in a fight… no, argument, with Pepper and that turned into a fight with Steve.
She was not entirely sure what had sparked the fight between her and Steve – and it was probably something stupid and not worthy of a fight as big as the one they had had. She remembered saying some things that she felt ashamed of, looking back now.
Toni was always the worst when she let her mouth run loose with no filter. That is when she hurt people the most, she knew. "Words are weapons of the terrified." She spoke softly and knew it would not be audible to other people even if they were struggling to hear what she was saying; at least, this made her feel somewhat in control.
She frowned and once again felt her head pound. She had beat a hasty retreat after Steve matched her shouting insults, which in return had earned him a slap in the face.
She had slapped Captain America in the face; she had motive, of course, who would go around slapping Steve Rogers in the face without reason after all? He had told her there was a reason no one ever was there for her, because she was always pushing people away, and that when the time came that she needed some back up, the backup would never arrive, because people would have had enough of her attitude. Slap.
Well, she had previously shouted at his face that he was no better than the bullies he claimed he wanted to protect people from. She winced at that memory that was coming back to her.
"I have read your file, Steven Grant Rogers! The file that S.H.I.E.L.D. never dreamed existed! The one that my father kept away from the greasy hands of the system." She breathed harshly, the words wanting to leave her body faster than they should. "You have a nasty habit of always picking up fights. Do you remember how many times you went to the hospital because of those fights? Did you know that your friend Bucky did a full debriefing with Howard about your behavior before they gave you the serum?"
By his shocked expression, she could tell that he did not know about that. She could see that he was opening his mouth, but she kept on speaking, not giving him time to say a thing, the words leaving her mouth like venom.
"My father kept this information from Dr. Erskine and that is the only reason why you are standing here right now. You like to say that you fight the bullies and you think you have a moral compass that guides you, as if you know a great truth that other people do not but in reality, you are not different at all from those people you used to fight. You are nothing more than a self-righteous bastard. You are not always right, Rogers, and you have a deep serious problem accepting that and that is why you are always picking up fights! You had this problem when you were growing up, during your time with the Howling Commandos and now with me. Man up, Captain. It is about time you take your head off your ass and realize that."
After the slap, she just stormed off from her lab, not looking behind. She ignored Jarvis' shouts and pretended that she did not hear when he told her to calm down. She just kept moving, walking briskly until she reached the elevator and angrily pressed the button to the ground floor.
She looked up, rage and hurt in her eyes, and saw Steve's enraged expression. The doors of the elevator closed and she let out a scream that conveyed the emotions that were in there. She kept ignoring Jarvis' calls for her to calm down and efficiently walked outside of Avengers Tower and into the street.
Toni kept walking, which soon turned into a jog and in no time into a run and when she realized, she somehow found herself bordering on the East Village – a very long walk from the Tower. She stopped, panting and fully aware of the looks she was receiving. She could see some onlookers quickly figuring out who she was. The shirt she was using was not doing much to keep the arc reactor much hidden and the light coming from it was like a beam. She started running again, going through avenues as if they were streets; her destination was the west and for some reason she had her Malibu home in mind.
She entered a store after running for a while, feeling that it was safe to stop as the street she was in somehow was almost empty.
"Miss Stark, welcome. It is a pleasure to see you again." The attendee was quick to figure out who she was and the state she was in as she stormed into the store. Toni looked around and noticed it was a shop she had entered a few times in the past. Go figure.
They were almost closing, but for Toni Stark they would stay open as long as she wanted.
"I need a sweater, a hoodie, or something." Her tone was urgent, but her anger was gone, she just felt hurt now and she wanted to keep running. Running away, her brain screamed at her.
"Of course, let me take you to the appropriate section." The attendee was all business and Toni much appreciated. She picked the hoodie the other woman showed her, took off the tag and put it on. She was opening her mouth to ask if there something more to disguise her but the woman was already handing her a hipster beanie and sunglasses. It was already dark outside, but that would do the job. She now had the complete civilian-superhero starter kit.
"Send the bill to my tower." She sent the woman a tight smile, turned around and walked outside, realizing she had no money on her and had even left her Stark phone back home. She shrugged it off and started walking again, going north because she knew she would not be able to cross the country on foot and not really in the mood to hitch-a-ride all the way to Malibu. She wanted to be incognito and she would be until she got a grip on herself.
So she walked and walked, trying to clear her mind in order to put her thoughts in order. Around 23rd Street she began to feel the tiredness creeping in and the cold started seeping through the fabric of her hoodie as the wind picked up. She vaguely remembered that there was a tropical storm approaching the island, it had been all over the news for the past week. She pushed that knowledge back to the back of her mind and kept walking.
Despite her better judgement she kept moving forward, her body was starting to get numb and it was not due to the cold weather, but from the pain she felt inside, pain from the words Steve had spoken to her. She found that that was the worst part, if he had shouted the words then she figured she would not be feeling as bad, but he spoke with a calmness that cut her like a knife would.
She had kept walking, and when she looked up again she was already a few streets up in Central Park. She knew it was not the best idea since it was probably around midnight already and that was not the safest place to be in during nights, but again she kept on moving. In her mind, she felt as if her pain would never end. Steve Rogers had no idea how his words had affected her. He was Steve Rogers, Captain America, the role model she was supposed to follow.
She was thinking about this when she felt something hitting the back of her head. Her last thought before darkness took over was how she was a disappointment, first to Howard and now to Steve.
"Wake up, you little bitch!"
.-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-..-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
Do you recall, not long ago
we would walk on the sidewalk.
Innocent, remember?
All we did was care for each other.
.-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-..-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
Toni felt weird, she felt as if she was sitting up but at the same time, she had a vague feeling that she was in a horizontal position. It took a while but her mind provided the explanation that she was strapped to a chair which was currently being held back. She felt someone grabbing her hair roughly and putting a towel over her face. Before she could fully process what was going to happen, the people holding her started throwing water on the towel, making it impossible for her to breathe.
It felt like they were torturing her for ages, though she knew that was not plausible, so she forced herself to count the seconds to keep herself grounded. She tried to struggle but they had bounded her arms and legs to the chair she was on. Her body was convulsing due to the lack of air and the water painfully entered her nostrils and trickled down her throat. It felt like she was burning up, and she if had not enjoyed that particular paradox the first time in Afghanistan then she certainly was not enjoying it now.
Her mind was soon full of flashbacks to her time in captivity at the cave, nothing really being able to take her focus away from the fact that she was being waterboarded. Again.
"Daina!¹" Toni could not place what language the man spoke, but she knew immediately what it meant as whoever was throwing water on her stopped. She still could not breathe because they kept the towel on her face, but as soon as they released her hair, she frantically shook her head.
The towel fell to the ground with a very wet sound as they pulled the chair up and Toni knew in that moment that that wet sound would never leave her mind. She looked wide-eyed at her surroundings, and shivered at the sight of the men around her. They were not even trying to hide their identities, no one was wearing a mask and that was never a good sign. They all had the same tattoo though. Some had it on their hands, or arms, or the side of their necks, but there was no mistaking it. Ten circles with drawings inside forming one bigger circle, two crossed swords in the middle. It was the Ten Rings tattoo.
A man stepped forward and punched her roughly in the jaw, succeeding in knocking her to the ground. Toni took a sharp intake of breath to keep from screaming from the fall on top of her right arm. She could feel it was not broken – thank the heavens she did not weight much – but that did not stop it from hurting.
She steeled herself for the questioning but she was more than surprised when the man made a signal towards her and the other men around the room moved to get the towel from the floor and put it back on her face. Before she could say 'star spangled man with a plan'², they were throwing water down on her. Her body was convulsing and Toni blacked out when she reached the number forty-three.
She came back to reality not long after; she started coughing to get the water that had traveled to her lungs but the coughing soon turned into a fit which ended with her trying to throw up. She felt exhausted already being awake for sixty-three hours on top of four hours of sleep; with the stress of the fight with Steve and now her kidnapping she just wanted to be left alone, or at least understand what they wanted from her this time. You would think they could take a hint from the first time. Toni did not surrender, ever.
She felt hands moving her chair so that she was on her back. The position was weird, especially with her hands tied to the side. She heard murmured voices in languages she did not recognize, but she knew they were speaking more than one language as the words sounded so different. She continued to look around and noticed that the men seemed to be from various ethnics. There were at least fifteen that she could see and bring her brain to count. She lost count on her task after hearing a single word being shouted from a man at the end of the room.
"Falaka!¹" The voice held a tone of authority and after a short silence the whole room erupted into a festive chaos that made a shiver run down her spine.
She first heard the sound of something being smacked before she felt the sharp pain under her feet. That was a completely new sort of pain for her and the thought that someone would consider using this as a torture technique was barbaric. She tried to hide her feet as she saw a man drawing his arm back, what worried her was the fact that he had a piece of wood on his hand, the first hit had hurt and she did not wish to repeat the experience.
Her thoughts of rebelling were soon halted as she heard a sharp hiss and felt sharp pain on her bicep a millisecond after the sound. She looked at the man next to her and briefly noticed a leather belt on his hand. Before she could process what was happening, her feet were being assaulted again. She could not help but letting strangled cries leave her mouth.
She could not say for how long that went on, she was briefly aware that after the fifth hit the man had changed the piece of wood to another leather belt. She lost consciousness after uselessly trying to think of something else. She was brought back to reality with ice cold water thrown down on her, leaving her undeniably cold and making her drown a little bit more.
Toni breathed heavily and she watched in horror as hands strong as iron (and the irony did not escape her) released her from her handcuffs and started undressing her. She struggled to get away but the hands started groping her as she did so, an action which made her freeze immediately. Her clothes were taken away from her and she felt tears coming to her eyes as humiliation started to set in as she saw her garments thrown far away from her in a corner of the room. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to steel herself for what would come next.
There was more groping and she forced her eyes to remain open to know what they were going to do. She froze once again as she saw an electric prod and this time cried aloud as she felt the when it first made contact with her body. They started on her stomach and went down her legs, trying to intimidate her even more by pulling her inner thighs apart and burning them.
She cried out for her teammates, wishing they would magically appear to save her. That is what they did, after all the Avengers avenged. But no one came for her, no matter how loud she screamed, no matter how hard she prayed for.
"I know this isn't your first rodeo, Stark." The man that seemed to be the leader spoke with a chilling voice after while of the torture. "We all know what Raza did to you during your stay in Afghanistan."
Toni heard the men around her snickering at his statement, some even dared to touch her body and laughed more as she tried to flinch away from them.
"We all know how much fun you had at your rodeos and I can honestly say that I want to experience some of that fight you put up with our friends." He slapped her face to see her reaction, but she only looked back at him with hatred. "Dame riƙe ta, amma bari ta gwagwarmaya.¹"
Toni did not understand what any of the words meant, but she felt the men holding her arms tighten their hold, nonetheless she recognized that she still had room to wiggle. She knew immediately what the man wanted. He wanted to see her struggle and to see her fight as she had struggled and fought when the Ten Rings first kidnapped her, however Toni was anything but compliant when she did not want to be. She took a deep breath and set her gaze to the ceiling.
After a while into the assault, her breath hitched and she began to sob softly as they combined her torment with the electric prod but her gaze continued glued to the ceiling, and she kept her body as still as she could, not giving into the need to separate herself from the man raping her. She was determined into not giving him the satisfaction of appearing that she was broken.
The torture became almost too much when she felt the leader turning her body around with the help of the other men – some were masturbating with the scene, which was a very disturbing knowledge – and felt the prod on her backside right after he came. The men laughed as she cried and tried to move away from them. When she bit down on an arm that stayed close to her mouth, they retaliated by smacking her upper thighs three times with the wood that had previously hit her feet. She passed out soon after that.
They did not try to wake her up but Toni came back somewhat quickly after blacking out. On one hand she wanted unconsciousness to surround her again, but at the same time it scared her to think of what they might due to her without her being awake to protest. She kept quiet and forced her body to relax as if she was still passed out. She tried to make her mind work and analyze her surroundings without her sight. She was half-pleased, half-surprised when she noticed that nothing and nobody was holding her down. She almost snorted at the stupidity of the group.
She gathered all of the forces she had and struggled to think of what the team would do. She almost grimaced when she thought of them but she kept quiet and motionless. Ignoring the stickiness that she felt on her thighs and the pain radiating from her entire body, she used her big brain and thought of a plan and by the sound of the voices she was hearing, she created a mental rundown of what was going to happen³.
Using more strength than she thought she had and moving quicker than anyone in the room thought she was capable of, she got up and leapt into a man's back, grabbing his machine gun, pointing it to the front and shooting as the man turned around attempting to get her off his back. As he turned, she managed to wound many and kill some of the men in the group.
The leader shot the soldier Toni was on top off and she had to leap to the ground and move. For a civilian – as SHIELD liked to call her – who had been through all that she had been, she was moving with a lot of agility. She did not hesitate to grab knives when she saw them, even if it had been from the closest body. The guy would not be needing them anyway.
Her expression turned into one that would rival Natasha's, her face only showed coldness and the few men that were standing tried to scurry away from her. She moved quickly with the knives as she had seen Natasha and Clint do many times and was able to hit two men fatally. She used a fallen table as a shield as she charged the gun she got from a different body. She waited until they stopped shooting at her and started shooting, with no regrets, nothing being able to stop her. She fired every shot until her gun was empty and no man was standing.
She breathed heavily and fully got up. Her body was shivering with the adrenaline rushing through her and the endorphins that her nervous system was creating and Toni knew she did not have much time before the shock settled in. She rushed over to the place where she had seen her clothes and thankfully found a spare, somewhat clean, shirt – probably from one of the men that had attacked her. She roughly balled the shirt, braced a hand against the concrete wall and tried to get rid of whatever was running down her legs, all along knowing she would lose her grip on sanity if she looked down to figure out what was what.
Toni then dressed quickly – her multiple injuries making her pause several times to cry out loud –, thanking a higher entity when she found her sneakers and she briefly noticed that her hoodie was still damp from all the waterboarding that had been done. She left the room and found an exit off the building. She ran down streets, barely acknowledging the cold wind, until she reached an avenue with traffic.
She constantly had to remind herself that it had been over four days* since she slept last and that she was just hallucinating when she thought she saw someone with a Ten Rings tattoo or someone holding a machine gun in the middle of the street.
The light from the sky indicated her that dawn had just broken out on the sky. She kept her hoodie up and hailed the first cab she saw.
"Where to?" The cabbie was all business and Toni was grateful he did not even glance at her.
"Stark Tower."
.-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-..-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
But the night was warm
we were bold and young.
All around the wind blows
We would only hold on to let go.
.-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-..-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
Toni had arrived at her Tower and directed the cabbie to get payment with one of the employees in front of the building. She ran inside, hoodie up and entered the first elevator that opened. She kept her face down, not wanting someone to see the bruises that her clothing could not hide. She felt as if her injuries were dulled, and they probably were due to the adrenaline still pumping through her veins.
"No one rides with me. Take me to the shop, Jarvis." Her tone of voice was enough of a warning for the A.I. and he avoided answering her, his answer clear enough as the elevator's door closed and took her to her shop.
Toni wanted to freak out but she kept her body under control until she was safely away from prying eyes; that was the reason why she wanted the solitude of her workshop. She had found out on the cab that she had been kept away for two days. Two days full of torture added to mind games of silence.
When the elevator doors opened, Toni rushed out and reached the toilet just in time to throw up. Her body did not have anything to throw out, so she ended up with a mix of dry heaving and throwing up a white foam that she did not think she should be throwing up.
"No, no, no." She got up from the floor out of sheer willpower as she felt her body wanting to surrender to the shock since she was in a safe environment. She washed her mouth without allowing her gaze to wander to the mirror and moved back to the shop.
She pushed in the code for one of her many trusted suits and stepped inside.
"Take me to the Mansion." She said through gritted teeth, trying to control herself and stop the panic attack that wanted to break.
"Miss Stark-" Jarvis sounded so concerned and it brought her back so many memories from the real Jarvis.
"Shut up, J!" She closed her eyes, feeling her chest constrict with all the tension and emotions. She did not want to blow out at Jarvis, because she understood that he was worried – he had probably already run thousands of tests on her ever since she stepped back in the Tower. "Just- just take me home. Please."
She felt the suit moving, and she finally allowed herself to let go, trusting her co-pilot more than anything.
"Hang on, Miss Stark." Jarvis' voice sounded distant to her ears, but she tried to lift the corners of her mouth to signalize that she understood. She may not have been successful.
It was very much a coincidence that all of the Avengers had gone to the Malibu house after Steve and Toni's fight. After Toni left, Steve got out of the shop and bumped into everybody on the way to his room. They could all tell how furious he was and knew that the only person who could elicit such deep emotions from him was their very own Toni Stark.
Steve ended up saying that he was leaving the Tower for a while and would go to Toni's Malibu Mansion – because as much as he was mad at that moment, he still had a sense of self preservation and knew that staying somewhere else would draw too much attention. Natasha shrugged and said that she had a free schedule and would be going with him.
She was very nonchalant about it, but Steve knew she was worried with him. Clint got all excited after that, saying that it had been a while since he had been in California – only to be reminded by Natasha about a mission they had done together in that state. Thor agreed that he would go, but mentioned that he would take a little detour to check in with Jane, whom was doing some research with Darcy and Erik in Texas.
Bruce felt torn, he wanted to be at the Tower when Toni returned, because he knew just by looking at Steve that harsh words had been spoken by both parties and she probably should not be left alone. But Natasha threw her arm around his shoulders and steered him towards his room to pack. They all ended up leaving before the sun was down.
Bruce wanted to call Toni as soon as they landed, but during the flight he had a strike of clarity about an equation he had been working on and got immersed in science. Steve did not make any attempts to contact Toni. In fact, he specifically told Jarvis not to mention Toni's name or anything related to her while they were there.
If Natasha or Clint found weird that Toni had not contacted any of them – or appeared in the tabloids, for that matter – they did not comment. Thor spent a blissful day with Jane but left her so that she could continue her research and he went West to regroup.
The flight with the suit took her a little over one hour, Jarvis had pushed the suit to the limit, mindful of security concerns but also of her need to feel grounded and home.
"Wake up, Miss Stark. We are home." Jarvis' voice again showed so much more feeling than what should be possible that it efficiently woke Toni up from her semi-sleep. "I must recommend-"
"Don't, J… please. You know I have no fatal injuries. Just land me on the workshop." She closed her eyes as she felt herself shivering from the memories that were so fresh on her mind.
Again, it was a complete coincidence that Steve was there as well. He had not been able to sleep that night – something that was not uncommon but that happened with more frequency after a fight with Toni. He had wandered down to the living room and stared through the glass wall into the sea, not really able to see anything due to the early hour. The sun had yet to start rising, he thought in another three hours he would be able to start seeing light breaking in the dark sky.
He made coffee in the kitchen and found himself walking down the steps to Toni's workshop, the one that was so different from the one in New York, but that felt more like Toni than any place should be able to feel. He spent his time there, watching some of her cars – only one Cadillac to be seen – and some motorcycles that she kept there for him to use.
He set his coffee down next to his favorite motorcycle and got some tools out to make some improvements and give the bike some love. Toni had rubbed off on him more than he would ever admit. During that time, he relived the fight again and again and felt himself start feeling angry once more with what had happened.
And then Toni arrived in her suit, flying in from the tunnel that led to the outside. She walked out of the suit and felt herself begin to shake, her control slipping as the sense of security and home entered her mind.
She felt herself freeze when she noticed that Steve was there – of all the places he could be. She could see that he had been working on his favorite Harley Davidson but he had stopped as soon as she rushed in. He got up from where he was and she tensed up as she noticed his expression. He had his back slightly turned away from her, his head just turned so that she could see his eyes but he did not look directly at her. She could tell that he was still pissed off.
That alone time he had spent in her garage had clearly not been such a good idea after all.
"You know what, Toni?" She flinched at how he said her name, but he failed to notice that. "It would be great if you could talk like a fucking adult for at least once in your life. I am your Captain! If you have unresolved issues, you fucking talk them out. If you want to hit me then just say the word and we can hit the sparring room right now."
It was ironic how Toni had made modifications to her houses to make the team feel at home. Even at her Malibu house she went out of her way to create a living room that felt cozy to them, rooms that almost mirrored the original ones from the Tower and even sparring rooms so that they could blow off energy if they needed. It was ironic because none of them had ever gone out of their league to try to make her feel more welcomed to the team.
His eyes held a sparkle that told her just how pissed off he had been with her words and her slap. Toni could not even stop as anger from what had happened to her piled up on top of the anger she was feeling for being shouted at. She felt too vulnerable, and vulnerable Toni was just as quick with her tongue as sleep-deprived Toni was, and in that moment she was a little bit of both.
"My name is Anthonie, Steve! My father wanted a boy and he never failed to remind me of the fact that I wasn't the child that he wanted!" Toni wiped the tears that started falling without permission. "Though I am pretty sure that he would still have some excuse to find a flaw in me even if I was the precious boy he wanted to have."
Steve did not know what to do at her sudden outburst, so he just waited, for he knew she had not finished. He was the one that had asked her to talk about her issues.
"I spent my entire childhood listening to how I was a failure and would never compare to how fucking perfect Captain America was!" She was fuming now, but mostly because she was quickly losing control of her emotions. She turned around and started picking up greasy tools from a nearby desk with shaky hands. "So forgive me if I have negative feelings towards you sometimes."
Steve shook his head; anger disappeared, as he was once more discontent in hearing how his friend had screwed up while raising his only daughter. He turned around completely and watched Toni's back for a few seconds before he decided to give her some space to calm down.
Toni closed her eyes as she heard his retreating footsteps; she instantly felt as if she could not breathe and noticed how her hands were shaking. She had the drilling machine in a death grip while the other hand held tight to the counter.
She knew what was going to happen; she had been avoiding the panic attack for hours already. She started feeling hot and she heard a buzz in her head, it made her feel weird and she let go of the drilling machine – in fear that she might get hurt. She shakily pushed her hoodie away and put a hand on top of her arc reactor as she felt her knees buckle under her.
Steve heard the noise the drilling machine made as he was climbing the stairs. He stopped and shook his head, assuming that Toni had thrown the appliance away as she tended to do when she was mad at something or someone. He was taking another step but stopped again as he heard her hard intake of breath. It sounded so different than Toni that he walked back down to see what was going on and he immediately started cursing himself for his slowness when he saw her falling down to the ground, hand around her arc reactor.
He reached her in no time and wanted to instantly look for her injury – which was impossible due to her hoodie – half expecting to find out that the arc reactor magnets were not properly connected, but after a second, he realized that was not the problem. He gasped as he saw a purple mark on her right cheek and chin and noticed that Toni was not listening to him. Judging by her glazed eyes, he assumed that she did not even seem to know that he was there, next to her.
Her breath intakes were coming fast and shallow and Toni felt dizzy. She wanted the air to enter her body and got even more anxious when that did not seem to happen. She could not see the arc reactor, but knew that the light coming from it should have been brighter than usual considering how her heart seemed to be pounding inside her chest.
For a moment, the world seemed to stop and then it all came crashing down at her at the same time. In a damned chronological order, her brain provided the images that she never wanted to relive again. First, she remembered Howard and the times when he would lose his patience during a shouting match and ended up hitting her, saying how worthless she was. Then, she remembered her time in captivity, in Afghanistan and this alone shook her to the core, she had felt so hopeless, scared and alone in that cave with only Yinsen as a friend. Yinsen.
"Toni, breathe!"
Next, she remembered how she took the nuke to another world, what she saw on the other side and how she pegged out after that. Another memory came – and she could not help but start shivering –, she remembered Aldrich Killian, how he had almost hurt her Pepper and how she had nearly screwed things up with her actions. When she thought she could not take it anymore, she remembered Ultron, and this by itself was scary enough but her mind provided the minimal details of the things she avoided thinking of when she could control herself.
Lastly, her mind provided the images of the past days; she briefly relived her attack and the killing of the Ten Rings members. Ten Rings… she could not understand their interest in her after all the time that had passed since their first encounter.
"Toni, you have to breathe!"
She could swear she could hear someone telling her to calm down, but who would be there with her? No one, her brain provided the answer, she thought no one would care about her because she constantly screwed things up. She remembered her father calling her a failure and as she did during these moments, she believed that he was right.
She felt annoyed that she could not calm down and started seeing dark spots in her eyes. She winced and her body got tense in advance, as she expected to feel the impact of the floor against her head, but instead was surprised when she felt softness and warmth. Before she could dwell on that thought though, the world turned black.
"Calm down, I've got you."
.-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-..-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
What will we do when we get old?
Will we walk down the same road?
Will you be there by my side?
Standing strong as the waves roll over.
.-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-..-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
Toni felt as if she had received an electrical shock, as she suddenly regained conscious after passing out cold again. A moan escaped her lips as she felt her head pounding and it was strong enough to make her feel sick.
Steve knew immediately from her expression and the way she put her hand around her belly that she would throw up, having seen her one too many times drunk off her ass. He gently held her sideways and took her hair off the way. He was relieved that she was awake but he was still on the edge and would only start feeling better after she spoke to him.
Toni's body tried to expel whatever she had in her body, but again there was nothing in there. The result was the same from before, she ended up vomiting bile, the white foam and feeling the unpleasant way her stomach constricted. She put both hands to the ground to steady herself and only then, Toni felt someone touching her body.
Her eyes widened and she scurried away. She half turned around to see who was there with her – her mind half conjuring up a mix of the images she had seen before passing out and her body got tense, as if preparing for another panic attack. She effectively managed to hide the bruise in her cheek, by letting her hair fall halfway through her face, even if it was unconscious at this point and diminished her sight – which in turn made her feel more on edge.
"Toni, hey, it's me." Steve put his hands up, showing he meant her no harm.
Steve did not need anybody to tell him that he had just seen Toni suffering a panic attack. If there was one thing in this crazy, futuristic world, that was the same as it was on his time than that thing would be PTSD. And Toni had all of the reasons to have post-traumatic stress disorder.
"When was the last time you ate?" He said eyeing the spot on the floor where she had attempted to throw up. He looked back up at her and his frown deepened, as if only now fully comprehending her disheveled appearance. "And when was the last time you slept?"
Toni tried to scowl at him, but only managed to form a grimace as her body started trembling, as an aftershock of what her mind had endured. She tried to get up but her limbs felt like jelly. She settled for laying back down and awkwardly removing her sweatshirt, trying to cool down her body and calm her mind. She needed a drink.
"What the fuck happened to you?" Steve's startled voice made her remember that he was there with her and frown at the swearing that he generally avoided like the plague, but clearly not today. Not for the past few days. Her mind was having trouble keeping up with her and therefore could not come up with an explanation for his outburst and she resigned herself to stare at the ceiling until she found power to move again.
"Language." Her retort was weak, as if she had been tired of doing the same joke repeatedly – which she truly had been. It felt like years since they faced Ultron and not months, she frowned and moved one hand to rub her forehead.
"Toni." His tone was warning and she moved her gaze back to him when he knelt next to her. Next thing she knew he was turning her face towards his direction, mindful of her chin and gently running his thumb across the ugly purple bruise in her left cheek. He immediately moved on to her split lip after he saw her wince at the contact. Steve took a sharp intake of breath and grabbed her right arm, pulling it closer to his face, as if examining it and that is when his penny dropped. "What happened to you? What did you do last night?" He sounded concerned as he grabbed her other arm and proceeded examining it, troubled as well for the handcuff marks on her wrists. "And the night before for that matter."
Steve had a confused expression on his face, one that made Toni very angry. She could see he was trying to figure out what could have happened to her, but his expression sometimes leaned more into the one he used when she appeared in the tabloids with another man from her galas or when she got home completely hammered after a night out. He could not decide if Toni had been attacked or had some weird rough sex with somebody she probably did not even remember the name after. The twenty-first Century still confused him. A lot.
"Stop manhandling me." She pulled her arm back and frowned at him. "Would you be grabbing my arm like this if I was a guy? Would you be asking me these questions? I can take care of myself and I don't need anybody else meddling with my life!" Her voice had risen again and she shook him off her, feeling herself freak out again.
Finally getting back the strength in her legs, she got up and rushed up the stairs, clearly moving away from her sanctuary to the other corner of the house where she could let go, her room. She made a detour at the bar and got the closest bottle of whisky before reaching her final destination. She had attempted to pour some to a glass but after draining it, she figured the glass was only slowing her down.
Unlike her room at the Tower, this one was tidy. Well, as tidy as it could get with her. She could see stacks of books all around it, some of them in weird places – such as almost underneath the bed, but not quite under –, but other than that there were no clothes laying around. No, they were all stored neatly at her closet.
The thought of seeing her room so tidy when she was experiencing such an emotional turmoil made her angry. Toni carelessly put the bottle dangerously close to the edge of the bedside table and started moving around the room in a flash and threw her hoodie, not caring where it landed. Then she removed her sneakers and threw each of them in a different corner of the room. Next was her shirt, which was quickly followed by hasty removal of her pants.
Just as she was reaching for the bottle, she caught herself in the mirror – seeing herself for the first time ever since the attack. Steve was right – she thought sadly –, she indeed looked terrible. Her hair was messier than usual, the dark bags under her eyes looked like they had been camping there for the last century, her lower lip was swollen around the split and she looked pale in comparison to the ugly purple bruise on her cheek and chin. What shook her to the core was the look in her eyes. They were wide and she seemed lost and scared. Fragile, her brain provided the word she was looking for.
She looked at her arms and noticed they had bruises, but it did not look that absurd as the Captain had made her think they looked. Sometimes she got bruises that looked roughly like that when she was creating something, around her workshop or the lab.
Sometimes she got sloppy after two days without sleep and running on fumes and sheer willpower, she could admit to that. She brought herself back to reality when she touched one of the purple marks on her biceps. No, this was nothing like the bruises she usually got from work, she thought darkly.
She got the bottle and quickly drank from it. Her fluctuating emotions were making her crave more and more of the amber liquid. She turned once more to the mirror and steeled herself to gaze down. The sight of her other bruises made her stomach churn but she took a deep breath, barely able to keep herself somewhat calm.
The right side of her stomach was purple and she was lucky that her ribs were not broken. She saw several round burn marks marking the skin on her taut stomach and two slightly different ones that were high enough that they were above her arc reactor – and was that cigarette burns? They were shining an angry red that she did not like. The other round red marks ran down her legs and marred her backside as well, along with the horizontal purple bruise forming just underneath her bum.
Seeing the last bruise made her remember the similar torture of her feet and it was as if she was not feeling pain there before because she had stored that memory away. Remembering now made her feel pulsing waves of pain and it took more willpower to remain standing. Fleeting images from her recent past came to haunt her and she shook her head, trying to clear them out. She could feel her wounds throbbing and she forced herself not to throw up. No one likes whisky when it is coming back up.
She stumbled backwards but managed to keep standing. The need to drink to forget hit her harder than before and she took the bottle to her lips, taking two somewhat large gulps before catching her reflection on the mirror. The image that she saw somehow reminded her of Howard – the man that made her turn to the bottle for the first time after an argument that had turned into him beating her. Thinking about it, she could pin point it as the turning point in her life regarding drinking excessively. The worst part was that she could not even remember what the argument had been about, which made her conclude that her decision to drink in the first place had been pathetic.
She snorted as she took the bottle to her mouth but this time did not drink, she was too angry. Angry with herself, angry with Howard, angry with the Ten Rings. The reason was the same though; they had all messed up with her life.
In an annoyed fit, she threw the bottle towards the mirror and barely had time to protect herself from the shattered glass that flew in her direction.
She considered in the back of her mind that maybe Steve would go check on her after the noise, but she was definitely not prepared when all of her team came barreling inside her room. Steve was there, of course, but the rest of the team walked in just as quickly. Toni was confused as to what the hell they were all doing there, but most of all she wanted to be mad at Steve again. Steve, the Super Soldier her father wanted her to be, the one whom she always blamed for the mess that was her life… but she knew that her anger would be misplaced.
She lifted her eyes to meet the team and only saw genuine concern there as they took in the clear signs of torture in her body. No one knew what to do, it seemed, because everybody was just frozen in place.
"Steve-"
.-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-..-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
When the nights are long,
longing for you to come home,
all around the wind blows.
We would only hold on to let go.
.-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-..-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
"How do you feel?" The voice was barely a whisper but she heard it nonetheless. She would always be able to hear Bruce's voice – he was the only one able to ground and guide her even through her panic attacks.
"Like somebody beat me and attempted to rape me. Not in that particular order either." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, in an attempt to get clean from her honest reply; she did not want them to realize how accurate the attempt had been. She sank further into the mattress with a grimace. "Can I get some Advil? Maybe with some whisky? And a shower would be nice."
"Toni." Steve's voice held a warning tone but she managed to smile lightly, knowing fully well he would have this reaction after hearing her words. In truth, she did not want the booze, but she really craved the mild painkiller and the prospect of having a scalding shower. Her body felt like hell but she did not want to pass out cold from medicine and she was feeling dirty.
"Chill." Her voice continued in a soft tone, it seemed like she did not have strength to talk louder than that, which she really did not have. "Just get me Advil, please. My body hurts like a motherfucker; it's even difficult to breathe."
She maintained her eyes closed, knowing that Bruce would guide her when necessary. When she felt his hand behind her head, slightly lifting it up, she promptly opened her mouth; he rewarded her with two pills and water to wash them down. She felt Bruce leave for a second before he attached a nasal catheter to help her body receive more oxygen.
She felt her body begin to slump as she felt the heat of the fluffy blanket surrounding her. She was utterly exhausted. Steve saw that and slowly moved away from Toni, clearly wanting her to rest. Nonetheless, before either he or Bruce were able to leave the room, they heard her speak one more time.
"You were right, Steve. No one came when I was screaming for help." Steve was going to say something but Bruce stopped him when he saw Toni turning to the side and curling up, her hands going up to protect her arc reactor and broken heart. She had her eyes closed, but she knew both men were still in the room with her, listening to her words as if they were their lifelines. "No one was looking for me and that is why I try not to rely on anybody because I know I can only count on myself. That is why I keep everybody far away from me, because I know that it will not matter if I have friends at the end. At the end, I am always on my own."
"Toni, you can't think like that." Steve started saying ignoring the rest of the team that had walked into the room just in time to hear her words. She cut him with her next statement, which was now combined with an angry glare.
"I was gone for two days, Steve." His name sounded harsh but she had not raised her voice. "I had no phone and made no contact. I do not do off the grid and still no one bothered that I had disappeared from the face of the earth. So yeah, I do think like that."
"Toni, what happened to you?" Natasha moved inside the room at that moment. Her tone of voice made it perfectly clear that she was not talking about her ordeal; she was talking about the mental state Toni was currently in.
"Please, just let me sleep." Her voice was lazy and she felt herself slipping away from the room, not even noticing when thunder sounded from the outside and lightning started striking what had been a peaceful Californian morning. "Just… let me go."
Unconsciousness took over Toni's beat up body and the rest of the Avengers moved over to the living room. Bruce made sure to leave the door of the infirmary open and Jarvis announced in a very reproachful voice that he would be monitoring her. Jarvis sounded very pissed off with all of them, Steve and Bruce in special.
Two hours had passed since they left Toni to sleep. The team was sitting down at the living room that Toni had remodeled just for them, but no one dared speaking. Steve startled when he saw Sam walking in with purpose– as if he had been there before and knew where he was going.
"Sam-" Steve stepped forward, for a moment forgetting all about Toni as he thought Sam had found a new lead on Bucky.
"I asked for Sam's help." Natasha interrupted the Captain and gave him a harsh look that spoke volumes. That was the reason why Toni thought she was on her own, because people close to her were always putting other things above her. She turned to look at Sam, approvingly. "You were fast."
"Toni would also be if it were any of us." Sam received a nod of approval from Bruce and noticed that Clint and Thor looked more relaxed with him around, as if he had passed some sort of unknown test. "By the looks you are giving me, I can see that the situation is more delicate than I had previously thought." He shook his head to clear his thoughts. He wanted to help Toni, but first things first.
"What did you find, my friend?" It was the first time they were hearing Thor's voice sound so grim.
"I tracked down the place they kept her. It was in Queens." Sam felt a slight shiver run down his spine as he remembered what he found. "Everybody was dead; the place was a slaughterhouse. I noticed cameras so I searched around and found a control room."
Sam lifted his hand and showed the group a common black flash drive. He gave it to Natasha who quickly connected it to the table in the living room, so that they could see the content on the television.
"I got the information and wiped everything out before calling SHIELD, so they are now handling the place and sweeping everything under the rug. No one should be able to catch wind of what really happened."
.-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-..-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
Blow a kiss, fire a gun
we need someone to lean on.
Blow a kiss, fire a gun
all we need is somebody to lean on.
.-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-..-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-.
The group had been gathered around the infirmary and kept quiet, trying not to disturb Toni's sleep. She had been through a lot already and needed as much rest as she could possibly get. The mood was tense as everybody remembered and the group was haunted by the images of what had happened during the time Toni had been held captive.
Natasha grounded herself by the foot of the bed, her posture tense as she showed that she would not leave Toni unprotected. She kept thinking of her first evaluation of the woman in front of her. The spy had thought she was weak and irresponsible, unlike Iron Man, which was why she told Fury Toni Stark should not be invited to the Avengers Initiative.
What she saw on that video was bugging her. She had always seen a look on Toni's eyes and she just assumed it was a look of resignation and/or carelessness but as she remembered the images of the attack and understood the reasoning of her actions, Natasha realized the look Toni had when she was staring at the ceiling was a look of quiet determination as she analyzed her options.
Another two hours passed before Toni started moving around the bed. It was clear that each movement sent shots of pain over her body judging by the way that she grimaced at every toss and turn.
Natasha got up from the bed soon after Toni's foot hit her body. The impact had seemed to make Toni even more frightened in the middle of what was obviously a nightmare. The group started to close in around the bed, concerned about her but Sam forced them back.
"D-don't leave me." Of all of the things that could be hurting her on that moment, it really struck a chord on the group that she was suffering over being left behind.
Steve moved closer, clearly intent on shaking her awake from the nightmare and Sam quickly intervened by throwing his arm in front of the super soldier.
"Are you crazy, man? After all she has been through, how do you think she will feel when she wakes up with somebody holding her when she was unconscious?" His harsh whisper was enough to give everyone pause. He turned away from Steve and spoke in a much softer tone. "Toni, wake up, you are having a nightmare. Come back to us, you are safe."
He kept saying the soothing words like a mantra and as if like magic Toni's eyes shot open and she shot up on the bed. She looked completely alert and looked around the room in a second, taking note of where she was and who was there with her. The pitying looks they were giving her told her plenty. If the situation were reverse, she would move heaven and earth to find out what had happened to her teammates and avenge them.
"You are safe." Sam sat next to her and continued with his soothing voice. "I know that things may not feel fine, but you are safe."
She let out a heavy shaky breath and surprised everybody by hugging Sam tightly. He was the only one that did not seem surprised by the action and immediately, yet carefully, held her back. Every once in a while, he continued whispering soothing words to her ear as she cried on the crook of his neck.
The gang started leaving the room, in attempt to make her not feel crowded and only Steve and Bruce stayed behind with the two, waiting patiently for Toni to calm down and after she did, she let Sam wipe away the left over tears from her face. She beckoned Steve to sit on the other side of her.
"I'm so sorry about what I said earlier, Steve." She laid against the bed, wincing in pain from her bruises and more tears left her eyes as she remembered her words.
Steve gently touched her left cheek and lowered his head against hers. Their touch was so intimate that what little doubt Bruce and Sam had about the two had just vanished. Their relationship was obviously a dysfunctional one with all of their fighting, but there was something in there that was more than just friendship.
The Captain touched their noses – and that alone was something that spoke so much of the trust they had in each other – and spoke so softly that it was barely audible. "You are not a disappointment and I will never leave you again. I'm so sorry, Toni."
She choked up on a sob and grimaced in pain. She felt as if her body was killing her slowly as the painkiller lost more and more effect.
"Toni, I need to examine you." Bruce noticed her discomfort and wanted to check up on her. They had let her sleep but he could not ignore her pain anymore. He wanted to at least fix her body since fixing her mind would take much more time and work.
"No-" The word sounded choked as she felt tears coming back to her eyes. She was in pain but she did not want Bruce to look at her any different. She feared he would treat her like a fragile person that needed to be taken care of. Bruce understood her without the need for words.
"You never treated us differently, Toni." He smiled his sad smile. "I would never break your trust in return. None of us will."
Toni understood by his words that he meant more than what he was saying. It was an unspoken promise of never letting her go again. She looked at Sam for guidance that she could trust again and after what seemed like hours, she slowly nodded her head.
She slipped into to two panic attacks while Bruce examined her. Both times, Bruce immediately stopped what he was doing and Steve and Sam would coax her back to reality. When she looked at their expressions, she expected to see pity but instead, she was surprised to find that they looked at her with admiration.
"You are so brave, Toni." Steve whispered to her a few days after. He was trying to be mindful of the others, they were all in the living room, watching Beauty and the Beast – as requested by Toni – but he knew they could hear him anyway. Steve was holding her against his body on the big couch. "I'm so, so sorry about our fight. If I hadn't said that than you wouldn't have left the Tower and none-"
"Please don't. They were planning this for a while. I think it was just a matter of time before they found another way to kidnap me." She hugged Steve with more determination when she felt a shiver run down her body. She breathed in his scent and it was effective to ground her back in the present.
She breathed deeply and steeled herself, remembering that she was a Stark and she was a survivor, but mostly that, for what seemed to be the first time, she knew that she had the full support of her family.
"My dad was right, Steve." She looked up as she felt him tense up. She smiled softly. "Starks are made of steel and I refuse to be broken."
He kissed the top of her head and could see the pleased smiles that the rest of the team had on their faces. They were going to help Toni and she was going to let them.
¹ Daina means "stop" in Hausa, which is a language spoken mainly in Niger and Nigeria.
Dame riƙe ta, amma bari ta gwagwarmaya means "tighten the hold on her, but let her struggle" also in Hausa.
Falaka is how foot torture is referred to in Arabic, or at least that is what Wikipedia and a quick search on Google told me.
² I'm pretty sure I'm not the only who believes Toni would be thinking about Steve during her ordeal.
³ Sherlock Holmes, ladies and gentlemen! I loved how in the movies with RDJ they would show the fight in slow motion before showing the fight in actual tempo. Kudos to Guy Ritchie for that!
* So, theoretically, humans can stay awake for up to two hundred and sixty-four hours (eleven days) without sleeping. That record was set by a 17-year-old boy, named Randy Gardner at a high-school science fair project in 1965, according to the Huffington Post. Obviously staying up for more than forty-eight hours already takes a toll on the body and mind, as your mind automatically starts shutting your body down sporadically in an attempt to rest. At seventy-two hours, people already start experiencing hallucinations.
So yeah, this story was never supposed to contain rape. *VERY BIG sigh* Like, I honestly have no idea how that happened.