oOoOoOo

Malibu, CA
June 13, 1999

Toni's second child is born without fanfare or notice at the end of the spring of her 19th year.

This time, it isn't the creation of frenzied days of nonstop coding, but the slow, careful labour of six months' worth of filing paperwork, obtaining appropriate permits, interviewing potential employees and retrofitting an old lab complex in Culver City to bring it up to all applicable standards and codes. The dance to satisfy regulations is a pain in the ass, because the regulatory bodies that oversee biotech and biomedical companies all seem to have different ideas of what comprises safety, but with the help of JARVIS, it's accomplished freakishly quickly. One by one, the EPA, the FDA, the USDA and the State of California send their inspectors to her facility and sign off. And then Star Solutions Inc. is open for business to produce biomedical and cutting-edge neuroengineering technology to the world.

Toni celebrates the milestone by getting kidnapped.

She is on her way to meet Clint at Miceli's, and is running behind schedule. Her morning had been spent interviewing the final pool of applicants to fill out the administration staff, and her last interview – a woman named Virginia Potts, who goes by Pepper, whose personnel file she purloined from Stark Industries; seriously, the woman was wasted in the secretarial pool over there, MB from Harvard, years of management and retail experience at a variety of upscale chain stores, and they have her taking dictation and fetching coffee – ran overlong. But since she managed to grab Pepper as her Chief Operating Officer, she's counting it as a solid win and an excellent excuse to present to Clint for her tardiness.

Clint isn't going to care, because their relationship isn't one of deadlines and absolutes, but Toni respects him almost as much as she adores him (which is almost as much as she wants to murder him in his sleep some days), and she hates being late to meet him without a good reason.

She doesn't have her usual driver, because Marvin called in sick with a family emergency, but the fill-in her usual temp agency sent over seems to be at least minimally competent. The car is clean, at least, and he doesn't try to ogle her much, despite being bent forward to fiddle with her stiletto heels, revealing an ample spill of cleavage in her red dress.

She's fixing her hoop earrings in her ears, wiggling everything into place in the cramped confines of the back seat when the car slows down. She glances up, meets the driver's eyes in the rearview mirror, and apprehension crawls down her spine. He looks scared.

"Is something wrong?" she asks, deliberately keeping her voice light, a bare touch of concern coloring her tone.

"No, Miss Stark," he says, and that crawl is now a colony of fire ants marching up and down her back. He's nervous. His eyes keep flitting back and forth, darting around like koi in a pond. "Just traffic. I think there's an accident ahead. I'm going to have to take an alternate route. Is that alright?"

Toni tenses. She wants to tell him no, she'll wait in traffic because she has the awesomest boyfriend ever. Something is going to happen, and she'd much rather prefer a pleasant meal spent playing footsie with Clint than whatever it is this guy's been coerced - threatened? blackmailed? - into. But she forces herself to sit back and say absently, "Yes, that's fine."

The driver pulls off onto a side street and cruises slowly past houses and into less populated area, industrial warehouses and storage facilities. She's expecting it, but it still takes her by surprise when one minute, the driver is making a left-hand turn onto a one-way street, and the next three men fling the doors open and drag her kicking and screaming from the back seat.

Strong hands pin her arms back by the biceps, two on each side, and a third set has her by the ankles. She gets a foot loose, snaps a vicious heel into the nose of the man holding her other ankle. There's a cry of pain – the man falls backwards, gloved hands splaying open and down, and eyes wide, surprised, under the balaclava – and starts to struggle, trying to pull her arms free. Something slaps over her mouth and nose, sharp and sick-sweet. The world goes fuzzy and starts to fade.

Toni's second-to-last thought is Clint is going to have motherfucking kittens. Her last thought is, He's going to kill them all.

oOoOoOo

Natasha
Somewhere over Eastern Europe, 2012

"Kittens," Clint says through gritted teeth, and his hands are white-knuckled on the yoke of the quinjet. "I am going to have motherfucking kittens . A big litter of stripey, polka-dotted kittens. And then I'm going to kill her."

Natasha reaches out a hand, strokes it through his hair, strokes down the back of his neck until stopped by the edge of his tactical vest. "I know," she murmurs, knowing that Clint is far more likely to smother Toni to death in hugs and fussing than inflicting any pain on her. "And she'll deserve it."

Clint's shoulders loosen as she continues stroking his neck, but the tension in his hands and voice do not go away. "I told her to wait," he says, pained. "I fucking told her that running off without a plan was suicide."

"I know," Natasha murmurs, and she also knows that Clint isn't paying attention to her words.

"But Toni fucking Stark can't wait for anyone," he seethes, absently tipping his head back so her hand runs further up his head. "Doesn't she trust us? Doesn't she trust me ? I had it all planned out, you know. We were gonna be ninjas. It was gonna be epic . But no, Toni fucking Stark has to hare off on her own like some sort of commando-"

Natasha tunes the rest of the rant out, letting the words wash over her in angry waves, and keeps petting Clint's hair and neck. She glances out the window of the quinjet, watching the clouds sail past, watching the land crawl steadily by beneath. She murmurs supportive noises when Clint pauses to take a breath, scratches lightly at his scalp to take the edge off the anger - which she knows is not purely anger at all, but is an admixture of rage and sheer terror - but is lost in her own thoughts.

She should be enraged that another person has such a hold on her soulmate, and if it were any other person but Toni Stark, she would be. Any other person but Toni Stark, and Natasha would creep quietly into their room in the dead of night and slit their throat. She is cold and practical, and no one who wounds Clint, who drives Clint into the depths of near-panic, deserves to keep breathing.

Except for Toni. Toni...is different.

Toni has spent more than ten years in a stable, open relationship with Clint, and there is a bond there that even Natasha, with her soulmarked arrowhead mingled with the red hourglass above her left breast, cannot ever hope to approach. Natasha knows how to look at things, how to take someone's true measure. She knows that, at times, Clint was all Toni had. She knows that, at times, Toni was all Clint had. If Natasha had ever had that sort of relationship with another person, she would fight to the death to keep it, to hoard it, even from that other person's soulmate. Natasha doesn't share. She is greedy, and the good things she has, she deserves to keep all for herself.

But Toni… Toni had done none of that. When Clint came to kill Natasha on the orders of SHIELD, when he instead saved her, when they completed their soulbond, he had gone straight to Toni and asked for help. Asked for a place for Natasha to be safe. Asked for understanding.

And Toni had given it without hesitation. She, who cherishes Clint above all other relationships, had been happy for them. She gave them a bedroom, gave them privacy, accepted Natasha without question because Clint needed her to. Been prepared to let Clint go, been thrilled that Clint had found one of his soulmates. Given Natasha affection and friendship from the moment Clint said, "This is Nat, and she's the red hourglass".

Because that's who Toni is. Selfless, considerate, compassionate.

Natasha doesn't share her soulmate with anyone. Except Toni Stark. Natasha doesn't bond with people easily, and it took more time and effort than a saint would have the patience for, but Toni was persistent, never gave up on Natasha, even when Natasha knew she should have.

There is more than just their shared name and shared love for Clint. There is movie night and lunch on the boardwalk and late night texting and ice cream and hours in the gym beating each other up. There is laughter and friendship. There are nights curled with Clint around Toni, because she dreams of IEDs and torture and palladium poisoning and loneliness and a nameless cold, a freezing, drowning dark, and needs the comfort of warm bodies to remind her she is alive and free and well.

Natasha listens to Clint rant as Eastern Europe soars away underneath the quinjet, and touches the hilt of her favorite blade. Toni is hers, now. Hers and Clint's. No one is permitted to harm her and walk away unscathed.

Gradually, she realizes that Clint has gone silent. She turns to look at him, and he is staring at her with naked fear. "What if she dies, Nat? What if we get there, and we're too late? What if-"

Natasha tightens her grip in his hair, then relaxes her fingers with effort. Her hands do not shake. They are steady as stones. "She won't, because Toni is resourceful and smart, and despite her breathtaking lack of self-preservation, she knows how to take care of herself," she says with firm assurance, and meets his eyes. "But if she dies, if we're too late, we burn the world until all those responsible are ash and dust."

oOoOoOo

Unknown Location
June 13, 1999

She wakes sometime later, swimming back to consciousness to find herself tied to a chair in the middle of a room. It's cold and damp and she doesn't have her shoes, but she still has her dress on, always a good sign. Experimentally, she wiggles, shifts her legs, feels the sheaths still tied to her upper thigh, under the curve of her left breast.

She's still armed. They didn't search her.

She and Clint have spent months cultivating her image, setting up a public persona that sets the bar very low. A party girl and her wastrel soulmate, drinking and dancing and sleeping their way through high society, sex-addled fools with too much money and free time. They have spent months making sure that no one takes her terribly seriously, but it still stings a bit to realize that her captors have bought into the legend of Toni Stark so well it didn't even cross their minds that she might be dangerous.

She flexes her hands against the rope, checking the give, spider-walking her fingers over the coil until she gets to the knot. She frowns as she explores it with her fingertips, mapping the curves and ties in her mind. If she can figure out what knot it is, she can get out of it. On her second pass along the ropes, she blinks. "Oh my god," she says, scandalized and thoroughly insulted. "I've been kidnapped by incompetents. A handcuff knot? Are you freaking kidding me? Ashoelace knot would be more secure, for fuck's sake!"

She wiggles her right hand until she catches the opposite edge of the knot with her fingernails and drags it as tightly as she can to the right. It's uncomfortable and threatens to cut off her circulation, but there's more than enough slack to pull her left hand free. Seconds later, she has her right hand free, and grimaces as she massages feeling back into her wrist.

"A handcuff knot," she grumbles, and pulls her feet up to rub some heat back into the ice cubes she calls toes. "It doesn't mean what you think it means, you inept amateurs."

She reaches under her skirt, shaking her head to clear the lingering effects of the chloroform, and pulls her knife free. Thus armed, she stands and pads on silent feet towards the door.

There's a window, tiny and grimy, but enough to show her part of the hallway. No one's outside. "Oh my god, I don't even get a guard! I want a fucking recount of this kidnapping."

The door squeals loudly, and she pulls it open with gritted teeth and a constant wince. She immediately puts her back to the wall beside the door, knife in hand, alert for anyone to come investigate the noise. After a few minutes, it's clear no one will.

She chances a move into the hallway, creeping along the concrete floor with her back to the wall and her knife reversed along her forearm. All she can hear is dripping water, and a scuffling scurry that is more likely rats than it is masked men. She isn't even sure she's going the right way, but she isn't going to sit there in a cold room and wait for someone to save her.

(She has absolute faith that Clint will be along, because that's just the kind of guy he is. But if he finds her sitting down on the job and waiting for a hero to pull her ass out of the fire, she'll never hear the end of it.)

The hallway is endless, she thinks, as she crawls down it at a pace a snail would think is slow. Eventually, she hears the faint sound of voices speaking. She flattens herself again, this time into a convenient patch of shadow, as the speakers come around the corner and into view.

The right side of her chest starts itching like a swarm of bees, and she bites her tongue so hard she tastes a hint of blood.

Red Star is walking beside someone who looks incredibly familiar, and she'd place him right away, but she's too busy gaping at the tall, broody brunet with his half-mask and greasepaint eyes, because it's been over a decade since she saw him and he looks exactly the same.

"-I don't want the bitch to die, of course," the other man is drawling, gesturing with his hands as they near her hiding place. The voice is what pulls her attention away from Red Star, because it's Tiberius Stone, and that is so jarring andunexpected that it breaks the hold Red Star has on her. "Her old man is due to kick the bucket any day now, and when she inherits, Toni's going to run the business into the ground. She's an idiot, honestly. Gorgeous, but not much there."

Oh, you absolute fucker. Toni's jaw hurts from clenching it so hard, and her knuckles are white on the hilt of her blade. Ty Stone, the useless asshole who told Toni when they were both 12 that she would marry him, their fathers were in talks, and he would merge Stark Industries and Viastone while she looked after the kids at home. Ty Stone, who flounced off to Europe when his father ran the family business into the ground so hard future generations will use the remains as oil, back again and still thinking he deserves the world on a silver platter.

She sees red, white, and furious star-core blue as he prattles on about forged marriage paperwork and how he can't wait to sit in Howard Stark's chair and spend Howard Stark's money. She thinks she can hold it together long enough for Ty and Red Star to get out of sight. She bites the inside of her cheek to hold it together long enough.

And then Ty says, "I tell you, though, I'd love to get between her thighs."

And Toni loses it.

She steps out into the light, feeling like rage is snapping in sparks from her eyes. "You want to get between my thighs, Ty? Well then, let me oblige you."

She launches herself at him, a few running steps to give her a jump. ( It's a good move, Toni, says the memory of Clint. It doesn't work for me. But you're fast and you're light and you will absolutely destroy anyone who isn't expecting it. Just because you saw it on wrestling doesn't mean you can't use it. ) Her legs have months of strength training. It's child's play to leap, slide her legs over his shoulders, lock his head in her knees. She has a second to relish the look of utter shock on his face, and then she throws her weight back and down.

Ty smashes into the floor, in a loud whuff of deflated lungs, and Toni rolls with him, ending up knelt on his upper chest, a knee on his throat as he turns purple and flops like a fish for air. "How do you like being between my thighs now, jackass?" she snarls. His nose crunches under her fist in a very viscerally satisfying spray of blood, and his eyes shutter closed.

A hand grabs her shoulder. Adrenaline jumps. She hisses and slashes with the knife still in her hand, cuts in. The hand jerks away as the sharp tang of blood fills the air. Red Star is watching her, expressionless, his hand dripping blood onto the floor.

Toni skitters back, stepping into a defensive crouch and flipping the knife back to rest along her forearm. "Make a move, Terminator," she snaps. She's pretty sure Red Star can - and will - mop the floor with her, but she isn't going to beg for her life and she isn't going to give up. She's going to go fighting.

But he doesn't make any kind of move, just stands statue-still, watching her.

Under her dress, under the nano mask that shows an arrowhead, the red star burns .

"Your name is Toni." His voice is harsh, guttural, rusty. And he reaches out for her again.

Something sings past Toni's ear, passing so close to her head it snicks through a lock of her hair. Red Star's hand sprouts an arrow, and he recoils away from her.

"Don't touch the lady," comes Clint's easy drawl from somewhere behind her, and Toni's knees want to buckle with relief. "She's got a nasty bite when you piss her off, and you don't look current on your rabies shots."

Red Star looks past her, looks back to her, and then steps away, turning on his heel and disappearing back down the hall and around the corner. Toni's legs quit the second he's gone, and only Clint's rush forward to catch her saves her from collapsing on the floor.

She tilts her head back to rest on his forearm, looking up at him. His forehead is pinched, furrowed, and she raises a hand to smooth the lines away with her fingers. "I'm okay," she says quietly.

"If you didn't want to go to dinner," Clint says, eyes flooding with relief, "you could have just said so. Didn't have to get all dramatic on me."

Toni smiles and cups his cheek. "You're just that kind of asshole," she says fondly. "It's not me, it's you."

There's a moment where he just looks at her, and then nearly smothers her in a crushing hug. "Don't do that to me again," he says, muffled in her shoulder. "Scared the shit out of me. I love you, moron."

Toni's breath catches, and her pulse flutters in her throat. She hadn't doubted, not really, because he was more physically expressive than verbally, but it's the first time he's said it out loud. "Aw, Clint, I love you too," she says. "If I'd known this is all it would take to get you to admit it, I'd have had myself kidnapped ages ago."

oOoOoOo

Siberia

JARVIS informs her quietly that a Hydra goon still unaccounted for managed to restore communications, and there are reinforcements confirmed to be on the way. Toni's too tired to throw much of a panic fit, but it's still not good news.

"How long until Clint and Tash get here?" she asks, and if her voice is flat, well… she doesn't have the energy to put into locating an appropriate tone either.

"Still approximately twenty minutes, ma'am." JARVIS sounds apologetic.

"Fuck. No news but shit news. Options." Her damaged HUD flashes, a path outlines, stairs and hallways and more stairs, and then a smallish chamber, the interior or which streams information she can't focus on. Toni just blinks wearily, and it takes her a worrisomely long time to open her eyes again. "What am I looking at, J?"

"In your current condition, you will be unable to fight for any sustainable length of time, ma'am," JARVIS says, "and your… companion is an uncertain element, due to the Hydra conditioning to which he's been subjected. Your best option is to-"

"Hide."

"Precisely, ma'am."

Her mouth twists in a sour frown. "I hate running away," she says.

"Yes, ma'am. But, as the saying goes, discretion is the better part of valor. I beg you, be discreet. Wait for Clint and Natasha."

She blinks again, and it's even harder to keep her eyes open. "Fine," she says, and turns in the direction the blinking path on her HUD indicates. "I suppose it's too much to ask if there's any coffee in this hellhole." She shuffles along, one hand scraping along the wall in an effort to keep herself steady. Behind her come the footsteps of the Winter Soldier, trailing her like an imprinted, murderous duckling. If it wouldn't have been absolute agony on the ribs she definitely hopes are just bruised and not broken, she would laugh at the mental image.

There's resistance as she descends into the lower levels, full of shouting and gunfire and the kind of energetics that she usually lives for, but just can't dredge the fucks to give about now. Her arms are leaden, try to refuse to lift, but she keeps raising them, and the whine of her repulsors keep jolting her out of the fog settling in her thoughts.

Finally, the door of the room JARVIS wants her to hide in looms in front of her, and she stumbles through it. Her head is splitting, trying to fly off her shoulders, and bile surges in the back of her throat. She slams the door almost before the Winter Soldier is through, and locks it. Her throat spasms, and she scrabbles at her releases. "J, let me out," she says thickly.

"I really must object, ma'am. Should the Winter Soldier be tasked with your death—"

"He won't hurt me." Her stomach pitches, rolls, yaws. "Don't make me use my overrides."

JARVIS's silence is damning, but the hiss of the armor panels shifting, retracting, reforming is answer enough. Toni falls out of her armor, landing hard on her hands and knees - and boy doesn't that make her ribs feel just swell - and heaves up everything in her stomach.

Out of nowhere, a warm hand brushes her hair back, gathering it loosely at the nape of her neck. Another hand, warm, but unresisting, settles awkwardly between her shoulder blades. She glances up, and the Winter Soldier is kneeling beside her, looking vaguely shocked at himself. "What are you doing?" she asks scratchily.

"I… don't know," he says uncertainly. "I…"

There are two of him, no four, no, now there's just the one, and Toni grinds the heel of a hand into her eye. "Shit," she mutters, feeling the trembling in her arms, the wheeze of her lungs, the sharp twinge in her chest, the inconsistent flutter of the arc reactor. "Fucking concussion. Fucking Hydra. I shouldn't have come here."

"Why did you come?"

She laughs harshly, coughs, tastes a hint of blood. "For you, asshole," she says, exhausted, and pushes herself onto her ass away from the puddle of vomit. She's near enough to the wall that she can lean against it, which is good because sitting up on her own is not in the cards. The knot under the red star on her chest is throbbing tightly. She wonders if the blue circle on his is doing the same. "I came for you . Do you even know who I am?"

"Stark, Natasha Antonia," he says immediately. "Daughter of Howard and Maria Stark, both deceased. Current CEO of Stark Industries, founder and CRO of Stark Solutions Inc. Injured in Afghanistan, 2010, during a business trip to demonstrate weapons for the US military. Genius-level intellect with expertise in engineering, neural computing and cybernetics. Also known as the Iron Maiden, a vigilante known for—"

"Not what I meant." The red star pulses again. She closes her eyes, recenters her fading thoughts. Opens her eyes. Tries again. "Do you know who I am to you ?"

There's a long silence. "No," he says finally.

"Of fucking course not," she mutters, and lifts her hands to pull at the seals of her flight suit. Blessedly, there are seals on both sides, meaning she can just drag the material down and let gravity do the work. She peels back the skintight fabric all the way to her waist, exposing her scarred chest, modesty preserved by a sports bra. "Take a goddamn good look," she says, and her hands fall back into her lap.

The Winter Soldier's eyes drop to her chest, where her arc reactor glows softly, bracketed on either side by a star. One red and silver, one white and blue. Hesitantly, his natural hand reaches out to ghost over her collarbone, rest on the red star. She shivers. He's barely touching at first, but gradually presses more firmly. Instinct makes her reach her own out, slide her palm against his skin, covering the blue circle with its white hollow triangle.

Awareness surges, recognition screams, triumph blares trumpets in her head. Something lightning-bright and blazing-hot and almost-visible snaps into place between them, and it really fucking hurts .

Toni loses her breath, loses all sensation of everything but the burning sparks jumping between their bodies. White light erupts behind her eyes, and the pressure in her head pushes down until her sinuses feel like they're about to explode.

The Winter Soldier jerks backwards, then forwards, and his hair falls into his eyes as his shoulders bow. When he raises his head again, his eyes are clear and there's a person staring back at her. Not the Soldier, not a mindless Hydra assassin, but a real person. "Your name is Toni," he says, sounding surprised.

"Yep," she says when she can breathe again.

He smiles. It isn't much of a smile, just a twitch upwards of the corner of his mouth, but it may as well be the Grand Canyon of happy expressions compared to what was on his face before. "My name is Bucky."

She gives him a look, patented Toni Stark exasperation, though she's not sure her eyes are focusing properly. "I'm not drunk and I'm not twelve. I'm not calling you Bucky . I give no fucks how hot you are."

The smile twitches, widens marginally. "My first name is James."

"Hi James." Her vision is turning grey and fuzzy around the edges. It hurts to breathe. "I really am thrilled to finally meet you properly. But if it's all the same to you, I think I'm going to pass out now."

And the world goes solid and black for a long time.