And it's good to know that you'll drive away
From this car crash nightmare
And I'll be there to help you again
There's no danger, we're just killing time again
While they order up new parts

Our Lady Peace, "In Repair"

oOoOoOo

Stark Tower, New York
April 24, 2012

Toni swears as something inside Bucky's arm singes her fingers, jerks her hand out and sucks the burn with an irritated glower. "Ow," she complains, pops the finger out of her mouth to examine her fingertips. Her index and middle finger are red and stinging, but it doesn't seem to be too bad. She reaches in, more cautiously, and feels her way along burned out circuits, blindly rewiring by touch and gut feeling. "Try now. Anything?"

Bucky concentrates for a moment, then shakes his head. "Still nothin'."

Toni closes her eyes and leans her forehead against the smooth, cool metal of his shoulder. "Then it's functionally dead," she says. "If Hydra gave half as much of a shit about their craftsmanship as they do their convoluted evil plots, the EMP disk wouldn't have even dinged the paint job."

"It's fine," Bucky says, and his voice sounds stronger, steadier. Whatever they gave him is finally wearing off. "Still got one good arm and a fuck of a lot of heavy weaponry sitting in your lockers. I'm good. I'm with you."

The last dregs of the insane fury drain away, leaving a hollow, tired feeling behind. She links her fingers over his shoulder, sags a little while she has the time to close her eyes. "I'm so pissed at you," she says, feels him go tense under her palms. "There are rules, James. And one of those rules is that only I get to be kidnapped to avoid going out to dinner. It's my thing, you can't have it, so don't fucking do it again. Mi capisci?"

His shoulder loosens in a soft huff of amusement. "Si, cara. Capisco. Next time I'm fighting off a goddamn army, I'll just ask them to pretty please wait until I can text you for permission."

"Good," she grumbles. "See that you do." She pushes away from his arm, and looks blearily around her workshop. It's disturbingly empty, only stocked with the very basics. She hasn't had time to properly equip any of the rooms in the Tower yet. JARVIS isn't even online yet, is still busily uploading himself onto the servers, because while it had always been her intention to shift everything to the Tower, it hadn't been planned for weeks to come. She thought she'd have more time.

She swipes at the air, pulling up a holoscreen and opening a channel direct to Coulson, who is still at the Manor directing cleanup and security operations. "Any word on when we might be able to come to the manor, boss? There's shit I need there."

"Make a list," Coulson says through the earpiece, and Toni makes a face. "The Manor is too compromised for safety right now, Toni. We can't risk either of you being here for any length of time."

"Incidentally," she says to Bucky, bending over his arm again to fiddle futilely one more time before giving up and closing the open panel, "this is why it takes me going psychotically off the rails before I submit to authority figures. I don't do well sitting on my ass, and half the time, that's all they want me to do."

"And the other half is full of exciting explosions and bad guys," Coulson says mildly. "It's a fair tradeoff. You did good today, Toni. You'd make a good agent."

Toni rolls her eyes, discomfort churning in her stomach. "Whatever, boss," she mutters, poking at one last wire before glancing up at Bucky. He shakes his head and she makes a face, closing the panel. "Fact is, I'm not a team player. In fact, I'm fairly certain there's a report floating somewhere in the SHIELD servers that states exactly that. Iron Maiden, yes. Toni Stark, not recommended. Teamwork gives me hives anyway. I don't respect people who are supposed to make the calls. It was temporary, boss. I don't want it to be anything more permanent."

"And yet, there you are," Bucky says with a smirk, "still calling the man 'boss'. Real subtle, sweetheart."

Toni stops, blinks, runs through her last few statements in her head. Closes her eyes. "Well, fuck." Shoots a glare at Bucky. "He might not have noticed that if you didn't bring it up, you know."

"I noticed," murmurs Coulson.

"He noticed," Bucky says at the same time.

Toni throws her hands up in exasperation. "Fine, you want me to say it? Yeah, it was great. I appreciate the backup, Phil. Wish it could happen like that every time." She drops her hands onto her face and rubs tiredly. "But that isn't going to happen. My life doesn't work like that, and you know it. It never has. I don't get to have cooler heads prevail. I don't get to have angels on my shoulder telling me how lethal I can be. I don't get the voice of God in my ear, the one I know I can trust to make the right call. It's just me. And sometimes Clint and sometimes Tash, and sometimes JARVIS, but it's mostly just me, me, me, and I have to do it all on my own, crunch everything, second-guess everything, try not to fuck up, try not to die, try not to climb into a bottle when I get home and my brain won't shut off and-"

She can't catch her breath, and panic slams into her throat. She hitches and flails, claws at her chest, vision going spotty and grey...

"Breathe in, Toni. In, not out." Bucky pulls her into his chest, and the solid warmth is enough anchor her. Her lungs fill in a gasping rush. "Out again. Slowly, Toni. Again. Slow, deep breath, sweetheart, c'mon," Bucky says, ghosting his hand up and down her spine, keeping her eyes on his, keeping her focused. "Just breathe with me. In and out, Toni. You're doing good. Just keep breathing. Get control of it, there you go. Deep breath, out again. You got this."

Toni feels her breath slow, settle, steady, breathes in the rhythm he's tracing on her spine. Breath in when his hand goes up, out when it goes down. The frantic hammering behind her eyes, the fist around her heart and lungs, eases. She drags in a shaky breath, closes her eyes, lets it out in a slow, slow sigh.

His palm, broad and warm, curves around the back of her neck. Squeezes gently, solid and real. "You with me, Toni?"

She sags sideways, into him, under his chin, forehead and temple pressed against the warmth of his throat. "Yeah, James. I'm with you."

"Good. Now… Close your eyes, sweetheart," Bucky says, and turns his head to rest his cheek against her hair. "Been a rough day, and you're on overload. I gotcha. You can let go."

"You're the one who was kidnapped," she mutters.

"Raincheck. I'll take my breakdown later. We'll trade 'em off. Right now, it's your turn, so shut up and close your eyes already."

She struggles half-heartedly to sit back up, but puts no serious effort into getting away. "Too much to do. I have to make lists of what I need. Gonna have to practically port the entire workshop here in order to connect your arm."

"JARVIS will let me know," Coulson says. Fuck, he must have heard everything. "I'll handle it from here."

"But-"

"Stark, do you trust me?"

"Yes." Again, no hesitation. Scary.

"Then take a break, Toni. Get some sleep. You've earned it."

Bullshit, I'll sleep when I'm dead, she wants to say, but Bucky is warm and she's too drained to argue with either of them. It's easier to just close her eyes and do what they say for a little while.

oOoOoOo

Malibu, CA
May 29, 2011

"Ma'am, Colonel Rhodes is at the door."

Toni glances up from the prototype prosthetic on the table, snaps off the mini-blowtorch and shoves her goggles to the top of her head. "Tell him I'm busy," she says grumpily. "If he needs repairs, he can get in line, right behind my bio-engineering department. He, at least, can find his ass with both hands. They apparently cannot."

"It's your birthday, ma'am," JARVIS says calmly. "He says he's here to make sure you join the festivities."

Toni blinks, scrambling for the date in her mind. "It is? Really, already? Didn't I just have one of those?"

"Yes, ma'am, you did," JARVIS says, a long-suffering note in his voice. "Three hundred and sixty-five days ago. You celebrated by getting drunk and having a fight with Colonel Rhodes until he stole the War Machine model from you."

"Ah yes." Her mouth twists. "How silly of me to forget." She swivels the chair back, pulls her goggles back down and reignites the torch. "Let him in, I guess."

The door opens behind her. "Hey, birthday girl," Rhodey says cheerfully. "I thought we agreed after '01 that you were never going to lock yourself in the workshop on your birthday again."

"I'm the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation, Rhodey," she says archly, squinting at the seam of the artificial leg in front of her. "I'm also the Chief Robotics Officer of another multi-billion dollar corporation. Neither of which seem to be able to keep engineers and technicians who are actually worth the ridiculous amount of money we pay them, since I end up fixing all their numerous fuck-ups. I don't have time for birthdays."

"I made double fudge brownie cake," says a new, female voice, and Toni jerks in surprise. The torch flies out of her hand, automatically shutting off the second her finger leaves the trigger, and only Rhodey's quick catch saves it from bouncing off into the darker corners of the workshop.

"Jesus," she says, as she presses a hand to her racing heart, fingers splayed against her arc reactor, and turns around. "I have a fucking heart condition, Rhodey. Warn me if you're bringing company so I don't keel over and die, would you?"

"You fly at speeds up to mach 2 and perform insane maneuvers not even the most fearless stunt flier with the world's biggest death wish would consider trying," Rhodey says serenely. "You only pull out that heart condition bullshit to try and guilt me. Fuck your heart condition."

She sticks her tongue out at him, and nudges her goggles back up into her hair, turning her attention to Rhodey's date. She's tall and blonde, not pretty in the same manner most of the girls Rhodey's introduced her to are, but striking and handsome, which is far better in Toni's opinion. Toni's first impression is, So that's what a Valkyrie looks like. Huh, Valkyries are fucking hot.

The second, deeper impression is that this is a woman who's been through some serious shit, and recently. Her face is hollow in that way that suggests it used to be rounder, more full. Crinkles at the corner of washed-out blue eyes, lines of laughter turned to lines of pain. The dark shadows beneath smoothed and dulled by concealer, but Toni's hidden enough of her own sleep-deprived bags to know the signs. Toni's eyes flick down briefly. Clothing just a touch too big, suggesting rapid weight loss. Her legs in an awkward, unnatural stance, white-knuckled grip on the handle of of a cane.

Toni's worked with enough amputees to recognize those signs too.

The woman opens her mouth, but Rhodey's suddenly there, clearing his throat nervously, wrapping his protective one-armed hug around the woman's shoulders. "Toni, this is Carol. She's my soulmate."

Toni does not miss the utterly filthy look Carol side-eyes him with, and the corner of her mouth curves up into a smirk. Oh, she and Carol are going to get along just fine. She can already tell.

"Soulmate, huh? Congratulations, Rhodey. Carol, my condolences." She dusts off her most pleasant smile, and holds out a hand. "Toni Stark. And you are..?"

Still glaring at Rhodey, Carol reaches out and grasps Toni's hand. Her shake is firm, warm and solid. "Colonel Carol Danvers," she says, and her smile is tired but it reaches her eyes. "Retired Air Force. Or so they tell me, anyway."

Toni's tiny smirk widens into a genuine grin, and slouches back in her swivel chair. She tucks one leg under her, and uses her other foot to gently swing the chair from side to side. "Not your call, I take it?"

"Not exactly."

Toni snorts. "Figures. The boys-only bullshit isn't dying fast enough, in my opinion. What happened, were they afraid a woman with one leg was still too much of a threat to their masculinity?"

"Toni!" Rhodey's hiss is vicious and horrified, and he turns to face her with fluttering hands and apologetic tones, shooting Toni his dirtiest look as he does so. "Carol, honey, I'm so sorry. I should have warned you that Toni doesn't really stop to think about what she's saying before she opens her mouth."

Carol's eyes don't leave Toni's, seems to be taking Toni's measure. Carol has an amazing poker face. Toni can't read a goddamn thing from it. "No, it's fine, Jim," Carol says, and the side of her mouth lifts into a smirk of her own. "It's actually kind of refreshing for someone to not dance on eggshells around me."

Yep. Gonna get along just fucking fine. God help Rhodey, is all she can say.

"So. Training accident, or combat injury?" Toni asks.

"Toni, for fuck's sake…"

Neither one of them are looking at Rhodey, they're looking at each other with the kind of conspiratorial commiseration that Toni's loving. She's had this instant connection so rarely, she treasures it every time it happens. "Jim, if I don't want to answer, I'll tell her." Carol's eyebrow goes up. "You'd stop if I asked, right?"

Toni spreads her arms and hands in a casual shrug. "Of course. I'm an unapologetic asshole, not an obnoxious douchebag."

"It happened in combat," says Carol, clipped and short. "I'm not giving you details."

"I won't ask," Toni says. "You fly?"

Shadows and darkness and something scarily close to apathetic resignation blows through her eyes. "Not anymore."

"Were you good?"

Pride and fire flash, just for an instant. "The best."

Toni takes a moment to think, gives herself cover by yawning and stretching and scratching through her scalp with both hands. "I'm always looking for good pilots," she says off-handedly. "Well, good everything, really. But pilots, especially ones I can trust, are very hard to find."

"My physical therapist says I'll never fly again," Carol says, and Toni's not sure, but she thinks there's a hint of mutinous defiance in there.

Toni smirks, hooks a thumb into the neck of her t-shirt, pulls it down to spill out the blue glow of the arc reactor, flash a little of the twisting scar tissue marring her chest. "My physical therapist told me I'd never do hands-on prototype design again. Fuck what your therapist says. I wanna know what you think."

"I'm thinking," Carol says, deadpan. "What's the pay?"

"Ridiculous amount of zeroes."

"Job duties?"

"Mostly sitting around. Some flying, mostly exotic locales. Occasionally, gunfire and explosions. I usually handle those in the suit, but it's been known to follow me back to the airport."

Carol's actually looking intrigued and tempted. Toni might be in love. "Perks and benefits?"

"All sorts of goodies and swag. You wouldn't believe how comprehensive they are." Toni flashes her a real smile. Gets one back in return.

They are breaking Rhodey's brain. It's obvious from the way his eyes bounce back and forth between them like he's watching a tennis match, the increasingly ashen hue of his skin, the increasingly horrified widening of his eyes.

He clears his throat firmly, shoots Toni with the Rhodes Death Glare of Lethal Doom, and says, "Why don't we go on up, Carol? Clint should have the barbecue going by now."

"Sure," Carol says easily, and her eyes finally leave Toni's as she glances to Rhodey. "Let's go. I want to get a burger before you start hoarding them all." She shoots a look back at Toni. "See you upstairs?"

Toni nods, still grinning. "I'll be up in a minute. Just let me put stuff away down here first."

Rhodey pins Toni with a look that promises yelling and recriminations and attempted guilt trips at a later date. She just bares her teeth in a smarmy grin and wiggles her fingers goodbye at him.

The smile fades when the door closes behind them, and Toni stares at the door, hip cocked and hand on her chin. She watches through the glass as Rhodey and Carol make their way down the hall towards the elevator, noting how Rhodey's hovering, walking half a pace behind Carol, one hand palm forward behind her back, probably not touching, but ready to lend support at the slightest hint of trouble.

Has to be driving Carol fucking batty.

Rhodey is a champion fretter. She learned that one the hard way while still in college. Anything someone did to themselves, hangovers or sleep debt (or that one time she managed to cut her arm nearly to the bone when she had the brilliant idea to supercharge the can opener, which she and Rhodey have mutually agreed to never so much as think about ever again because Rhodey says he'll hear the dying shrieks of the fridge in his nightmares forever), none of that ever wins sympathy points with James Rhodes. Accidents, illnesses, and no-fault injuries, on the other hand, bring out the super-protective mother hen from deep within his psyche. It's only because he cares, and it's only because he wants to help, but if she learned anything post-Afghanistan, she learned that Rhodes in hovering-protector mode is fucking annoying nearly as often as it is appreciated.

For only having met her ten minutes ago, Colonel Carol Danvers strikes her as a woman who detests being treated as an invalid.

Solidarity, sister, Toni thinks, and gets the same kind of grin Rhodey would recognize, Rhodey would shudder at, Rhodey would feel a primal shock of fear at, down in the corner of his mind that echoes with the sounds of a maniacal whirring and a brutally-murdered kitchen appliance screaming its last.

"Hey, J?" She turns back to the still-open holoscreen and swipes up the War Machine specs. "If I were to ask you Carol's exact body dimensions, would it be a terribly inappropriate thing to do, since I just met her?"

"Dreadfully so, ma'am," JARVIS replies dryly. "Even if I had such information, perhaps hypothetically obtained by analyzing video capture of Colonel Danvers as she entered and moved through the manor, it would run counter to my personality matrix to provide such information to you without sufficient cause."

Toni waves a hand dismissively. "Yeah," she says, and chortles as her hands fly on the specs, tweaking, streamlining, fiddling things around. "That's what I thought. By the way, completely unrelated… how fast have we made the fabrication process now?"

"Mark V rolled out of assembly in four hours, twenty two minutes, ma'am."

"Sweet," she says, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one is on their way back down to drag her bodily from the workshop. "Let's do a full dress rehearsal, see if we can't shave some more time off that. Still seems a bit long to me. Use this." With the flair of a master signing her name to a painting, Toni spins the altered specs out to rotate in 3D, draws with her finger the outline of the paint job she wants. "Give me…. Hm. Oh, I dunno. I'm feeling whimsical today. Blue and red. Some yellow for contrast. But not a gross washed-out yellow, more like…"

"The color of Colonel Danvers scarf is a lovely shade, ma'am," JARVIS says blandly, and Toni cackles.

"Yes, yes it is. Anyway. Use any old biometric data you feel like, J. I'm certain I'll never wear it. Pepper'll bitch at me about cost and waste, though. It's a shame."

"As I understand it, ma'am, when one is as rich as you are, one often develops unfortunate eccentricities that occasionally results in monetary loss. I'm sure Ms. Potts will understand."

"Alright, J. Run that fab process, let me know how it goes. I'm going to head up and let them know the guest of honor is ready to celebrate her birthday now."

ooooooooo

JARVIS quietly informs Toni that Project Warbird has finished the fabrication, assembly and paint cycles in four hours, six minutes. Toni tells him to park the armor right next to Rhodey's, and then finds a moment to sneak off and tape a note on the bright yellow stripe-and-starburst bifurcating the red shoulders and head from the blue torso and legs.

Carol: The universe may expect you to deal with James Rhodes without any hope of compensation, but I am not so cruel. Unretire. Rhodey needs someone on missions to cover his ass. He has a tendency to get shot in it.

Alternately, you can totally take the Warbird armor as an obnoxiously huge bribe. I'm serious. I need good pilots. - T

oOoOoOo

Stark Tower, New York
April 25, 2012

When she wakes up again, she's in the living room tucked under Clint's chin, wrapped in a blanket. His arms are loose around her, with a game controller snug against her hip. "Morning, dear," he says distractedly. The black eye has faded to yellow and purple, which means it looks way worse than it actually is. "Sleep well?"

She stays still for a moment, because she's never been the best at waking up and recognizing what's going on. "You're not Bucky," she says.

"Good eye," Clint says, eyes still on the TV. "Can't get a thing past you, huh?"

She closes her eyes, burrows back down under the blanket. "Fuck off, it's too early. Why'm I in your lap?"

Something bounces on the couch cushion beside them. She cracks an eye to see the discarded controller. "Ask your cyborg boyfriend. He dumped you on me, snarled that I better let you sleep, and stalked off somewhere, hopefully to shower, cos goddamn, that was a lot of blood. That was two hours ago." His arms snake around her, fingers linking on her hip and chin resting gently on the crown of her head. "Feeling better?"

She doesn't want to uncurl from her ball, making checking her physical condition a challenge, but her head is clearer, her thoughts steadier. "Yeah. I think so, anyway. What time's it?"

"Asscrack of the morning. Around four, I think. It's dark anyway. You were asleep a while." He readjusts his head until his cheek is on the back of her skull. "Bucky said you had a panic attack. You need a walkthrough?"

"No," she replies, because she always refuses. Then, grudgingly, "Probably. But I'm here, I'm present. I haven't had coffee. So I'd really rather not right now." She shifts and burrows tighter in a ball. "How was Bolivia?"

"Hot, humid and full of mosquitoes. We were in the Amazon running down leads on a Hydra base when Coulson called." He sighs deeply, and it shudders his whole body. "Sometimes I wonder if my life would be like if I hadn't answered that ad for a personal assistant, you know. I picture kids and a farm and a tractor that doesn't work somewhere out in the middle of fucking nowhere where terrorists and hired goons and superhuman assholes can't find me."

"Yeah? Sounds really lovely. You'd be bored to fucking tears in a few days."

"Sad but true." He drops a kiss on the back of her neck and then manhandles her off his lap. "Go get some coffee. Coulson wants a meeting around ten, and Bucky's looking pretty pathetic and lopsided with only one arm working, so I know you've got a busy day ahead."

Once she's up, she stretches head to toe, yawning with enough force to make her jaw click. "Do we know how bad it is yet?"

Clint's eyes are dark and pained. "I couldn't even tell you, Toni. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that Jasper fucking Sitwell, who I've had dinner with, run ops with, sat and shot the shit with, sent more'n fifty STRIKE members into our goddamn home and attacked us. It was authorized from somewhere, cos that much paperwork? Yeah. Someone had to rubber-stamp it somewhere. It's just not Fury's style, though. And that is what's worrying."

Toni nods a little. "Cos if it isn't Fury, then who? That occurred to me too, when Phil said it wasn't greenlit on or off the books." She pauses, then says quietly, "I came really close to losing my shit today, Clint. Like, really, really close."

Clint sprawls back against the couch, tucking his arms under his head. "Yeah, but you didn't. You asked for help, you reached out to Coulson. I probably know better'n anyone how many people have burned you, Toni, so I'm just fucking proud of you. And so is Nat." He closes his eyes, flops a hand around until he finds an edge of the blanket she discarded, and drags it over himself. "Me and Nat'll work you into our team. I've been meaning to try some more aerial maneuvers in combat. Hard to do that without someone who can fly."

Toni scoffs softly. "You're assuming I'll catch you."

"If you love me, you'll catch me."

ooooooooo

Toni reaches down, tucks the blanket more securely around him, and smirks. "Nah. I've always heard, 'if you love something, let it go. If it bounces, it's a wizard. If it's road pizza, it was never meant to be'."

The shower goes a long way to making Toni feel like a human being again, washing away aches and doubts with the filth and blood, swirls it down the drain in a froth of vanilla-scented shampoo and Irish Spring soap.

Her day gets even better when a soft chime rings from the ceiling, and JARVIS's welcome voice announces, "Good morning, ma'am. I have successfully completed my installation in the Stark Tower servers, and am linked to Starkcom satellites on JVS priority channels. All functions are fully operational."

"Good morning, J," she says, scrubbing another round of shampoo through her hair because she can still smell the smoke from the burning van. "That took longer than I expected it would. Did you run into any problems during the installation?"

"Stark Tower is significantly larger than either the Manor or the Malibu mansion, ma'am," JARVIS says, and Toni grins a little. He sounds offended. "Your estimated time frame did not take into account the complexity of the security systems, nor did it consider the number of individual work stations and access nodes that required additional installation of protocols to be compatible with my program."

"Well, you're online now. That's all that matters."

"I adapted," JARVIS says. Pauses. Deadpans, "I have added your technological distinctiveness to my own."

Laughter bursts out of her throat. "Resistance is futile," she agrees. "Just let me get a cup of coffee before you start with the pasty-faced drones and the nanovirus, huh?"

"Quite, ma'am. Agent Coulson has requested I add a meeting to your schedule for 1pm, topics to be discussed will include the SHIELD assault on the Manor property. Ms. Potts would like a conference call when you have a free moment."

"Thanks, J. Appreciate the updates." She slicks her hair back from her face, and reaches up to adjust the shower head to it's hard massage setting, jacks the faucet left until the water is almost hotter than she can stand. She slumps under the spray, head bowed forward, and groans in sheer bliss as the scalding pulses pound the knots out of her neck and shoulders.

She's just about ready to start thinking about getting out when JARVIS makes a soft noise, his version of clearing his throat. "Ma'am, sir wishes to inform you that he's en route to the penthouse."

"Thanks, J," she murmurs, eyes still closed and bent under the spray. She hears the door out in the suite open, footsteps that come in and pause.

"Toni?"

"In the shower!" she calls back, and turns to let the water batter at the scars surrounding the arc reactor, the chest muscles that never truly lose their dull ache. Cold air swirls abruptly as the bathroom door opens. A silhouette stops in front of the frosted glass door, appears to hover there. She watches as he reaches for the sliding door and hesitates. "You can join me if you want," she says, and ducks her head beneath the spray.

The door slides back, and she turns to watch him. Someone, probably Natasha, has tucked his useless arm up into a sling, and he's found a change of clothes. Toni shivers at the cooler air suddenly blasting into the sauna-like shower stall. "Hi," she says, teeth chattering. "Either get in, or wait for me to get out. You're letting the heat escape."

His eyes rake downwards over her wet body, linger on her hips, then come back up to her face. "In," he says, eyes dark and glittering, and reaches for the tie of his sweatpants. "Definitely in."

It's awkward and fumbling, feet skidding on the wet shower floor. Toni screeches like a cat when her back hits the cold tile wall, twisting hard enough to jar her hip. Bucky overbalances trying to lift her with one arm, tries to correct and bangs his temple into the showerhead, swears mightily. Somehow, they manage to not kill themselves as they scramble and slip, end up sprawled on the shower floor, her legs around his hips, his hand splayed across her back, her fingers threaded through her hair, joined together and laughing their asses off with the water pounding down on them.

oOoOoOo

Bucky
Toni's Workshop, Stark Tower

Just looking at the chair is enough to make him want to run as far away as he can. Toni's workshop looks nothing like the dim labs he's woken up in before. It's bright and futuristic, clearly meant for an engineer and a machinist, not butchers and sociopaths, but it still makes him want to flee. The thought of lying back and letting someone fiddle with his arm, do things to his body, has his skin crawling and his pulse pounding.

Toni is bent over his new arm on the bench beside the chair, doing her final checks and making sure that the SHIELD agents that ferried it and the rest of Toni's very long, long list of equipment from the Manor didn't fuck it up. The team is vouched for by Coulson, but Toni isn't taking any chances. Bucky can't blame her. Even though it's been the same four agents moving boxes and machines, making more than a dozen trips back and forth under the flinty, watchful gazes of Black Widow and Hawkeye, Bucky doesn't trust any of them to play things straight.

"Not to blow my own horn or anything," Toni says critically, leaning back and eyeing the readouts on the holoscreen above her head. "But this is probably the finest piece of technology I have ever made. You know, except for the arc reactor. And Iron Maiden. Okay, it's one of the finest pieces of technology I have ever made."

Don't look at the chair. If he doesn't look at the chair, he's okay. "Humility and modesty are some of your best features," he says with a smirk, turns his back to the chair and tries to cross his arms before he remembers that one of them isn't working at the moment.

Toni eyes him, shakes a tiny screwdriver in his direction. "I am a genius, and that 'aw, shucks, really' false modesty shit gives me cavities. I'm brilliant. And I made a fucking awesome arm for you. End of story."

She's cute when she's indignant. Focus on that. She's looking at him, clearly expecting one of his snarky retorts, but his mouth is dry and his brain is frozen. His lungs keep trying to stop. Slowly, the amusement fades from her eyes and the smile falls. "Bucky," she says softly, "we don't have to do this right now."

"I'm fine," he lies through gritted teeth. She just sits there, hands on her knees, and arches an eyebrow at him. "I'll be fine," he says. Her other eyebrow goes up, joins the first, expressing whole sentences of disbelief expressed in a single, delicate twitch. "I'll be fine, Toni, Christ. You and Steve, man. You could both give complete fucking speeches with your facial tics."

Belatedly, he realizes what he said when her eyes shutter over and her expression goes speculative, and he snaps his mouth shut. Steve Rogers is a topic they have been successfully avoiding talking about since the first day he woke up and was himself again. He knows she has a white star opposite his red, but hasn't seen it since Siberia because she keeps it hidden with makeup or tech or something. But he knows it's there, thinks sometimes about if her mark, bright and clear, means Steve's still alive, somehow, somewhere. And he catches her eyeing his other soulmark, white star nestled inside the red, wistful shimmer in her eye, knows she's wants to touch it but won't because it isn't hers, knows she's also wondering if there's a chance.

She doesn't ask, and neither does he. They don't talk about it, because they can't.

She turns away puts the screwdriver down, and the tiny click of metal on metal is nearly deafening in the silence. "So," she says tightly. "That just happened."

He winces. "Toni…."

"No." She closes her eyes, softens her tone. "No, it's fine. It was going to come up sooner or later. I mean…" She draws in a breath and blows it out, opens her eyes. "It's pretty fucking obvious it was going to come up at some point. I don't even know why-" Her hand scratches at the left side of her chest, hooks her fingernails under skin, claws until it separates and shimmers into a panel of fine mesh.

The white star limned in blue is loud and accusing between them, and he hates that he can't look away from it.

"We're going to have to talk about it at some point," Toni says softly. "I know that. We're supposed to be a triad, clearly-" Her hand sweeps between his mark and hers. "-but we don't…" She sighs again, runs her hands through her hair rhythmically, shakes her head slowly back and forth. They're all signs Bucky's come to learn mean she's shoving shit in a bottle, locking it away because she needs to focus on something else. Someone else. "We can't do this right now," she mutters. "You need an arm, and Coulson has a meeting."

Suddenly, he's angry. Not the out-of-control, reckless anger of last week, not the fight-or-die rage from yesterday's assault. This is deep and smouldering and completely in his control. "Yeah, alright," he says. "But this conversation ain't done. Sooner or later, you're going to run out of shit to do for other people, and you're going to have to do something for yourself for a change."

"Go fuck yourself," she says calmly, "and sit the fuck down so I can get your arm on."

He's not pissed enough to stomp out in a tantrum, to tell her to stick it up her ass. But he's pissed enough that the chair isn't scaring the fuck out of him anymore.

At least that's something.

ooooooooooo

Two hours later, he's wishing like fucking hell he'd told Toni to shove it up her ass and stormed out of the lab, because as much as he wants his arm to work, he's not sure it's worth this much pain.

It's hard to keep the present separate from the past, and his vision keeps splitting between Toni's workshop and cavernous facilities with shadowy figures muttering German around him. The pain makes everything blur together, run into each other, bleed between Hydra and Stark.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," he says hoarsely, as fire and acid shriek through his nerves again. He wants to scream, thinks he might have been since his throat is so raw and Toni's face is so pale and tight, but swallows it back. "How much longer?"

Toni glances overhead to check the readouts of the holoscreen monitoring the tiny machine inside his arm, stitching man to machine with what he's privately sure are tines carved from Lucifer's pitchfork. "Halfway done," she says, looks down at him with eyes gone too wide and washed-out. "You should have let me put you under. It's not too late. I can get Tash-"

"No," he gets out through clenched teeth. "Spent too much time under. Bad enough I let you stick a paralytic in me."

"I had to," she says softly, unhappily. "One twitch, one shift, one flutter the wrong way, and you're damaged in ways I don't think even you can heal from."

"Which is why I- jesus fucking christ fuck, fuck fuck - which is why I let you do it." He squeezes his eyes shut, feeling sweat pop, go cold, go clammy. He doesn't know if he can get through this and still be sane once he's out the other side. "Talk to me," he says desperately. "I don't care. We can be pissed later. Just fucking talk to me. I'm gonna fuckin' snap if you don't."

She's silent for a moment, and that moment lasts forever with the endless stabbing in his shoulder. Then, she settles in the stool beside the chair, takes his hand and rubs her thumb along the back of it. "I was seven when my soulmarks manifested," she says. "I didn't know who they were supposed to be, but Mama did. I'm almost positive she did. She said, 'don't even tell your father, passerotta', because she knew Howard's obsession with Captain America would make him latch onto me as legitimate proof he survived. I don't know if Mama thought she was protecting me, or if she thought it would make Howard neglect her - though twenty-five years ago, I would have believed the former, no questions - but she was the only one who knew my soulmarks for a long, long time."

"Steve'n me were the same," he says, and his hand goes tight on hers. "They showed up early. 13 or so. Not as - fucking hell - early as 7, mind, but still pretty young. We knew we were gonna share a soulmate. Didn't have a fuckin' clue why we were stars, not back then, anyway. Minute I saw him in that ridiculous fucking suit, it made sense. Guess the other makes sense now too."

Toni's palm is cool and welcome on his forehead. "It's how I knew you," she says softly. "I fell out of a tree when I was eight. You caught me."

"I don't… don't remember." Though maybe he does. Dark hair, big eyes, hi, i'm Toni. Memories stir, meeting a big, bald man, targets of interest. It's fragmented and hazy, makes no sense. His shoulder is melting, flaying to the bone, and the torment hits a new intensity. Fire washes across his mind, burning and searing and filling everything with dark, thick, choking darkness.

He slides into it, vaguely grateful that it doesn't hurt as much anymore.

Something slams into his chest, solid and warm and real and alive, and everything hurts again.

"-ky! Bucky! Come on, Barnes! Look at me! Open your fucking eyes, Bucky!"

It takes immense effort, but he does so. Toni's blurry above him, bloodless-pale and terrified. "That's it," she says with a trembling smile, one hand holding his to her cheek, her other shoved tightly into their soulmark. His anchor. "Tell me about him, huh? C'mon. Tell me about Steve, Bucky."

"He… you and him …. are a lot alike," he gasps. "Stubborn asses. Hit your limit and just blow up. Tempers like Satan himself." He chuckles, rusty and croaking. "God, the grief he usta give me, keeping his ass from getting beaten up. Thousand pounds of attitude in a hundred pound body." He blinks, tries to bring her into focus. "He'd like you too. He draws. C'n see you two, you know, down here. You, lost in your wires and fuses, him, lost in his sketching. God, that'd be somethin' to see." He blinks hard, swallows hard, tries to wet his lips.

Toni's eyes dart up, then focus down again. They're red-rimmed and wet, and tear tracks streak her cheeks. Her voice is shaky. "Eighty-five percent, honey. Home stretch. We're almost done. Keep talking. Tell me…Tell me about something before the war. Brooklyn, right? You two had an apartment? Tell me about it."

He laughs, shakily, and even the fact that he's having an arm soldered to his body one nerve at a time isn't enough to prevent the soft warmth her words create. "Goddamn, Toni, right there. That's what makes you a fuckin' fine woman." The fire banks off, dies down, becomes an unbearable itch that makes him want to howl and claw at his arm, electricity crawling under his skin and snapping off sparks. He grits his teeth, pushes through it. "Most girls, fellas too, I suppose, would want to hear a story about the war. They want to know about Captain America. You… you're asking about Stevie. Jesus Christ."

"I know all about Captain America," she says. "Howard was his number one fan. He didn't really say much of anything about the man inside the spangles, though."

"We… he… We used to wonder about you," Bucky says, eyes closed tight again. He isn't sure, but it feels like the torture is starting to abate. "Used to talk about what you might be like. If you were a girl or a fella. I didn't care one way or the other, but Steve… Steve was convinced you'd be a girl. Just a feeling he had, he said. Night before I went off to Europe, we're lying in bed and he turns to me. Gives me this look, this determined fucking look, and he says, 'If you find her over there, Buck, don't tell her anything. She hears what she's got waiting, and she won't come back with you'. I told him not to be fuckin' stupid, but that was Stevie. 'No one wants a sick, scrawny, short soulmate', he said. Never fuckin' realized that he was saying it to someone who did."

"I wouldn't have cared," Toni says, and he's got just enough presence of mind to register that her breathing is sharp and shaky. "I wouldn't have cared. Ninety-eight percent."

It's fading rapidly now, the spiky intensity dialing down to a dull ache and a throb. He laughs like he's drunk, knows it's because of endorphins or something, doesn't matter to him. "I know, sweetheart," he says and, with a lot of concentrated effort, slides her hand from where it's pressed against their soulmark to the double star on the other side.

"No," she says, tries to tug her hand back. "I can't. It's not mine."

"It is," he insists, and pins her hand under his. "You think Stevie'd begrudge you this? You two are the biggest fuckin' idiots I know. Knew." Swallows. Voice is getting slurred now, a pleasant numbing tingle spreading where stabbing and burning had before. "Shit. You both fight and fight and fight, but once someone's past your walls, there's nothing you wouldn't do for them. Touch the fucking mark, Toni. Have at least that much of him. I don't mind, and neither would he."

Her fingers are violently shaking under his hand, clenched in a fist, but he feels them spread, slow and tentative, until they're flat against his skin. Hears her suck in a breath, sharp through her teeth, feels warmth and exhaustion stream through him, a bone-deep chill. And then...

...blond man lying in a bed hospital equipment around him steady beeping drip of medication voices in the background calling on the PA… sleeping dreaming of ice and water and a man falling from a train… eyes open, blue as summer sky, hazy with pain and confusion… close again...

And Toni is sobbing in his ear, deep, racking, hysterical sobs that shake her entire body. He's sitting up, clutching her with two arms, protective and tight, shocky and wobbly and incredulous. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph," he breathes. "That little shit."

"He's alive," Toni whispers.