This is the first affected chapter of my chapter reshuffle. It contains parts of the old chapter four. Reviews left prior to April 25, 2021 may not make sense. I did this in an attempt to correct for a feeling that the plot was dragging thanks to the short chapters. This does mean that some later chapters were removed, including their reviews. I apologize for the inconvenience.
NOTHING SUBSTANTIVE HAS CHANGED. In very rare cases I adjusted chapter transitions.
Chapter Three: 73 75 6E 6C 69 67 68 74
Stark is delivered back to the cave by a posse of six armed men. He's got a rice sack covering his face and he's soaked with water all the way to his waist.
As soon as she sees him, Emory's scanning the room for things that can be used as a towel. Just standing up to look around draws the attention of all of the guards, something she hadn't intended to do. After hearing Stark screaming like that, seeing that he's wet, she can only imagine what they tried to do to him and why. Right now it's not hard to approximate what Rory would do in this situation: be completely terrified. She sits back down on her own cot and wishes she could blend in with the wall.
Objectively Emory knows that Rory would never be able to mentally or physically stand the stress she's currently under. Her friend would have long-since shattered like a stomped CD- able to hold the shape it's formed into, but fractured internally, unplayable.
Stark collapses onto his cot, and the stout, bearded man who seems to be in charge makes a few pronouncements for Yinsen before turning to face her. He beckons her to approach.
She can't help but wonder if they'd have even remembered her if she hadn't stood up, earlier. Instinct tells her that looking over at Yinsen would do neither of them any favors as she walks over as requested.
The man gestures to her.
Yinsen rattles through a quick statement that sounds like he's arguing. Sure enough, the bearded terrorist responds with anger. He gestures to her, and then Yinsen, and at his own mouth.
"He wants me to tell you what I'm saying, but you were unconscious when we had to remove your clothing. I was trying to spare you that detail."
Emory nods at to show she understands, her hands buried in the opposite sleeves of the oversized clothes they'd dressed her in. She likes the way she can hide in them, honestly. Earlier that day she'd realized her pants are Stark's, part of the suit he was wearing when she met him. Emory looks over at him. He's got his arms handcuffed behind his back, lying on his side on his cot, which is soaking up the water from his shirt.
"He is offering you…" Yinsen pauses as if searching for a word. She wonders if the pause is for her benefit, rather than his. He doesn't strike her as needing time to translate. "Feminine clothing."
"These are-," she breaks off. Rory wouldn't call the clothes fine, but she wouldn't want to have to change in a room with a camera even if they were in LA rather than Afghanistan. "These work, I don't need them to talk some poor woman out of her clothes when I have these." As Emory speaks, she's still looking at Stark, who has started coughing. It comes across like it might be surprise, like he might not have known she was even in the cave with them. His movements while coughing highlight the fact that he's got part of his body attached to a car battery, and being wet is probably a very bad state of being right now.
"We need towels," she says to Yinsen in a frightened whisper.
Before she can stop him, Yinsen translates this to their captor, and to her relief, the terrorist's reaction isn't anger. Unfortunately, he seems delighted, instead. He steps forward once, twice, as if trying not to spook her, saying something with a huge grin on his face.
Yinsen blanches, closes his eyes for a second, and then turns to her. In a voice very different than his usual subservient tone when speaking around the terrorists, or the unnerving cheerfulness at other times, he says, "He will trade towels for Stark for the thing you're using to hold back your hair."
"No deal," Emory says. She darts back to her cot to grab her blanket, heart pounding, mind practically screaming at her for doing something so insubordinate at a time like this. It's the next best thing to a towel, that's all she's thinking about. By the time she's on her way back, both Yinsen and the bearded terrorist are already bickering with each other in a foreign language. The terrorist moves to block her path to Stark, grinning.
"I'm still handcuffed, if anyone cares," Stark says.
Yinsen and the terrorist have another exchange, after that, as Emory clutches the blanket to her chest and tries to do some deep breathing to calm down. The one comfort is that Rory wouldn't be able to make fun of her for getting shot helping one of Rory's flings if she's dead.
"Autumn," Yinsen says, apologetically.
"Hair holder for his handcuffs?" Emory whispers, having seen the terrorist gesture at her and touch his hair multiple times during his exchange with Yinsen.
"We may be able to fashion something with sock elastic," he offers. "He is adamant."
It's not hard to act like Rory now. "I legitimately have zero reason to comply, you know that, right? No way do I want to give up keeping all this hair off my neck in the middle of a cave in Afghanistan!" she whispers in a furious, last-terrified-straw kind of voice.
"Is this thing supposed to stay dry, given that it's, you know, embedded in my chest?" Stark asks, somehow managing to sound arrogant as well as nervous.
Emory is cornered, scared, and getting upset that these incompetent terrorists have kidnapped the wrong woman and are now about to electrocute the only person in the cave actually worth any ransom money. She could give lectures on the reasons why it's bad to act like Rory Fall, and needing to do so in an attempt to save her own life is maybe going to make her insane.
But doing so might be to her advantage, right now. Screw your courage to the sticking place!
"How about this," Emory says, grateful the pain meds have kicked in. With exaggerated movements, she reaches up and tugs her hair out from the special bun-creating hair device she'd been wearing. Holding it up, she says, "You can have this in exchange for towels, getting him out of the handcuffs, and a pair of shoes for me." Yinsen looks at her like she's kidding. "Tell him?"
There's a brief, tense exchange, and Yinsen makes an unhappy noise.
"He says, shake your hair out and leave it down for the men to see in the video, and you can have what you asked for." Yinsen moves to help Stark out of the wet spot on the cot where he'd been laying, sitting him up. He pulls Stark's makeshift blindfold off, checking his face and tutting over a new cut.
"All right," Emory sighs. She leans over and shakes her head, loosening the coils that her hair had been bound into for over a day and a half. When she straightens back up, she rolls her neck a little so the hair doesn't end up plastered all over her face. Her red hair falls in large and small curls on her shoulder, some still slightly damp from being bound in the tight roll at the back of her neck for more than a day after her shower.
"Okay," Stark says, the word basically coughed out in surprise as he looks at her.
"Towels?" she says with teeth gritted into a smile for their captor.
The bearded terrorist grins, walking over to a metal filing cabinet and opening the lowest drawer, pulling out multiple towels. He hands them to Yinsen and offers them to Stark, who makes an exasperated face. Emory assumes he wishes he had known to look there. Then the terrorist leans over and does something with Stark's handcuffs, which he tucks into his pocket. Gesturing to her feet, he says something to Yinsen.
"He'll do what he can for shoes," the doctor translates. Seconds later, there's an addition, and Yinsen sighs. "And the clothes, if you want."
"Shoes? yes. Clothes? too expensive for the unfortunate villager," Emory says. She picks up her blanket from where she'd set it beside Stark's cot, watching him towel himself off. After she wraps herself in the blanket again, using some of it as a hood just like she had before the strange screaming ordeal had started, the bearded terrorist shouts something at Yinsen.
"Hair out, he says."
Emory swears under her breath. "Okay, okay," she says, dropping the blanket to her shoulders and pulling her hair out where it can lay overtop instead of underneath. She offers her fakest smile at the bearded terrorist, who turns and heads for the door. Emory shifts her attention back to Stark, in case Yinsen needs help.
He has unzipped and removed the soaked long sleeve shirt, and seems to be working out with Yinsen the best way to remove the thin wet t-shirt from underneath. It's been imperfectly cut with scissors to make space for the device in his chest. Emory's eyes skitter over the circular chunk of metal in horror.
She really just wants to hide in the blanket again, but her stupid, predictable need to rescue people has made that impossible, now. In retrospect, she should have taken the clothes, though. Rory would have hated to be stuck in clothes like these. This is all scary enough now, when they think she's actually worth a ransom. Emory wonders who they've contacted about her, or if they even have, yet. She'll find out when they do, because they'll be told Rory Fall is safe and sound. Emory Autumn is living on borrowed time, and she can't even take out a loan to balance things out.
"It'll have to go," Yinsen says, and she refocuses on the two men. Stark takes two handfuls of the wet fabric of his shirt underneath the chest apparatus and rips it apart.
Emory bites her lip. Stark is handsome, and even beat up as he is, that action was unexpectedly attractive. She watches, helpless to look away, as he pulls the rest of the shirt off over his head. Definitely attractive, holy shit, she thinks to herself. Almost in self defense, she turns away and starts back towards her cot.
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Getting the wet shirt off is a relief. The dunking had been scary enough, especially when factoring in the question of whether the idiots even knew that his life-saving body modification was incompatible with water! It was almost more horrible to be restrained and left wet, imagining the cot slowly soaking it up, wondering when his chest piece would spark. Tony's glad the next thing he got to see was the redhead from the hum-vee unleashing all that hair of hers. He had no idea she was even in the cave.
Tony knows he's a selfish asshole sometimes, and today is one of those times.
He's glad she's here.
He'll never vocalize it, because that? is a depraved point of view. She's obviously terrified, and there's a very solid chance she's not the person the terrorists think she is. But his initial assessment of his situation was dire as fuck (He's being kept alive by a car battery. There's zero chance he'll get away or be released, so why even bother doing anything they tell him? Save them the money feeding him, save him the grief of a long, drawn-out confinement), and, well. Tony likes life. He'd like to keep living it. If he has to work something else out because he feels a sense of responsibility not to give up because there's a short, hot chick to keep alive, he'll take it.
"There are no more shirts that I can find," the translator says.
"None?" Tony asks, frowning.
"Here," Boots (what had the other man called her? He can't remember) says. Tony turns to see that she's left her blanket on her cot and is unbuttoning the dark, long-sleeved shirt she's wearing. Each sleeve has a huge chunk of the fabric rolled up, so it may actually fit him, given how far down it hangs on her hips.
"Are those my pants?" he asks, leaning over to examine the black dress pants she's wearing. They too are rolled up, high enough not to hang over some white cloth tied to her shins.
"You want those too?" She pauses in the act of unbuttoning, her face a mask of irritation.
"Hey, I didn't ask for anything," Tony says, holding his hands up. The action pulls the towel away from his bare torso, and he notices her noticing that. Her lips part, prompting him to hope she'll wet them. Now that he can see her more clearly, Tony is certain she's not Rory Fall. He'd remember kissing lips that full on a woman that short. Especially as well endowed as she is.
Boots finishes unbuttoning the long-sleeved shirt, stripping it off and unrolling the sleeves with short, angry movements. Under the black men's shirt she's got on a white one, also oversized. The sleeves are pushed back in many, many gathers, still loose on her small arms.
"Wait. There's this."
The translator is holding up a white, button-down dress shirt. Given the suit he's wearing, Tony guesses it's one of his. The two men aren't the same body type at all; Tony's more muscular, his arms larger around, chest deeper. It wouldn't fit him, but it might fit her.
"I'll ask them for more clothes for him. It will free up some for you," the translator tells Boots, his tone placating. "He should wear both, more protective of the wound."
She looks down at her shirt, then smiles wryly as she shakes her left arm a few times to show them how far the white long sleeve actually falls past her hand. "Okay."
All three of them look around to see that there's really no privacy at all, nowhere for her to change as Tony has, given that she wouldn't want to uncover her chest.
"I could face away and hold up the blanket," Tony suggests. He wonders if he could convince her to do it near enough to where the older guy has his mirror mounted.
To his surprise, she smiles slyly and shakes her head. "Theater kid," she says, which means absolutely nothing to him. Boots comes over to him to hand off the black shirt, which he sets on the table on top of the battery. Interpreter guy gives her the dress shirt, which she patiently unbuttons. "Be right back."
Tony watches her walk over to her cot. He'd offered her the chance to hide behind the sheet, and her back is to him, so he feels absolved from feeling the same instinct the other man seemed to have had, to turn away. Besides, he has to take what joy he can get, right now, right?
Boots (he's not going to call her Rory even to keep up the deception. That relationship had been a train wreck, if it could even be called a relationship at all. When he's the more mature one, it never turns out well) sets the white dress shirt down on her cot, and pulls her arms free of the large white shirt she's going to give him. She slides her right arm into the sleeve of the dress shirt, reaching back to put her other arm through the other sleeve, drawing up the one she's changing underneath. He catches a glimpse of the very bottom of her bra before she covers her back.
It's red.
Tony covers his mouth with his hand to hide the giant smile he's sporting. She'd been wearing all black, he remembers, but she didn't match the bra to the blouse, even though black is a common bra color. He likes knowing this about her.
Her movements are entirely obscured, now, but he assumes he's buttoning up the shirt. Would the red bra show underneath it? Even if it didn't, he'll know it's there. His expression is schooled back to a proper one by the time she comes back over to hand him the warm white shirt she'd removed. Tony can tell that she's a little self-conscious. The translator's shirt fits better, but the button right at the swell of her breasts is pulled tight.
"If you tug the hem, it might even out at your back?" he suggests. It's his good deed of the day, because it does, and the shirt lays a bit less suggestively, now.
Since he's already been standing there half naked, Tony pulls the white shirt she gives him on right away without turning around. Dragging it over his face sends a flood of genuine desire through him. It smells like her. He'd been planning to go back to his plane and have sex, and he didn't get the chance. Now he's in a cave where he'll probably die before he ever gets to again, and this beautiful, half-shy woman in front of him has given the shirt off her back, and it smells like her.
Tony can't decide if it's torture or comfort. Maybe it's both? The black shirt smells like her too, he finds.
"All decent now," he calls out to the other man, keeping his eye on Boots. Tony knows he should ask her name, but he also knows she's trying to pretend she's Rory Fall, and something inside him resists calling her either of those names. She's already shown she's worth ten of the petulant, selfish singer just by virtue of giving up her clothes. Whatever this woman will be to him, he wants it to be something new.
Their doctor/interpreter/cook speaks from his corner of the cave as he walks over. "They'll be back, then. They've stockpiled supplies, and want to show you." The man examines the drag of Tony's new shirt along the wires of his connection to the battery, nodding his approval. "I begged them to let you dry off, first."
"You should have told me, I could have drawn it out," Tony complains.
"Not safely, you couldn't."
He wonders what's up with the man's odd friendly demeanor. It's not consistent, so that means it's something he's putting on, mostly for Tony. It's ever so slightly uncomfortable, but after what he said about the weapons, it's probably meant to be.
Is Tony's safety this man's responsibility? Does he resent that? How does Boots fit in?
"Wait, is she meant to come too?" Tony asks, looking for her and finding that she's laying out the wet clothing he took off in front of one of the brightest, warmest lamps in the room.
"That would be a bad idea," the interpreter says. "Especially with her hair down and in that shirt," he adds, too quietly for her to overhear.
"I agree," Tony says. "But leaving her alone here?"
The two of them exchange a look.
"Maybe put the blanket back on?" the man suggests to her.
She looks down at the shirt and adjusts it so it's not pulling against her breasts again. "I could put the black shirt you took off-"
"Wet against white? Bad plan," Tony says, stopping himself from mentioning her red bra at the very last minute.
She presses her eyes shut in embarrassment and scurries over to where the blanket is. It's barely wrapped around her when the group of angry armed men comes back. The fat bearded man who had said he was honored to meet him because of his mass-murderer status holds out a pair of sandals and yells over to where Boots is pressing herself against the wall.
"He wants you to take them," the interpreter says.
Boots walks slowly across the cave floor, standing as far away from the fat, smiling man as she can while reaching to take the shoes. The terrorist pulls them up out of reach and beckons.
The interpreter lays a hand on Tony's arm, and Tony realizes that he is upset, yes, but he expects Tony to be upset.
He supposes that he is? The terrorist is drawing Boots closer, reaching toward her to pull her hair out from under the blanket before shaking his finger at her. The interpreter's hand on Tony's arm tightens. Tony understands that he could foresee the terrorist's actions in a way Tony couldn't, saw the signs of his future behavior where Tony hadn't. It's illustrative, and the interpreter's unhappiness fuels an unease that Tony might not have felt as strongly, otherwise.
Tony recognizes himself far more in the terrorist's actions than the interpreter's, and it bothers him. He would never have done it with these power dynamics, but Tony's definitely tried to get closer to women in almost that exact way. And really, when you're a billionaire, aren't your power dynamics with regular people pretty far out of whack?
While he's busy figuring out this new revelation, the fat terrorist yells out something, and a group of men advance on Tony, forcing a new sack onto his head.
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Every muscle in her body screams at her to back away from the man who just touched her hair, but while that is something Rory would have done, it's not wise. Instead, she kneels to put on the shoes, trying not to think about whether he's looking down and enjoying the view. When she stands up, testing the fit of the sandals (not great, not terrible), he gestures, and a group of armed men move toward Stark and Yinsen.
"Please," Yinsen says, turning and grabbing the first rice sack and coming to stand beside her. He says a few words in the terrorist's language, holding up the sack.
The man jerks his head to indicate that they need to leave, points a fat finger in Yinsen's face, and nods.
"This is safer. Keep the blanket on," Yinsen says. Then he covers her face with the sack, hooking her arm into his, and they start walking.
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Tony can see shapes, impressions really, through the woven fabric of the bag, at least until he gets outside. Then they rip it away and he's completely blinded by the harsh, warm sunlight.
He'd never thought of sunlight as something that could bring hopelessness with it, but what it illuminates is the complete fucking futility of ever getting out of their situation alive. There are soldiers and weapons everywhere, and their cave is situated in exactly the right place to afford no chance at escaping. Tony clutches his battery and stumbles down the path toward the stockpile, looking over to see that they haven't even bothered to take Boots' sack off.
That's a good thing. There are probably at least fifty men that Tony can see, and the less they can see of her, the better. The interpreter's got her arm hooked into his, and Tony gestures at his neck, implying he should keep the sack down. Tony hopes the man can understand intent and body language as well as he seems to catch language. As for her, the stumbling gait she's forced to adopt while making it down the incline has dislodged her blanket. He risks reaching over and drawing it tighter across her chest.
"It's me," he says when she startles, as if he's at all comforting, as if Tony touching her would be anything other than an intrusion, just like the terrorist's had been.
The sheer amount of their stockpile is alarming. He doesn't sell his weapons to these people! Tony isn't naive, he knows there are ways, but this is egregious.
The bearded asshole in charge of this charade stops, looks between Tony and his interpreter, and speaks.
"He wants to know what you think."
"I think you've got a lot of my weapons," Tony says quietly.
Boots lets out a tiny sound of dismay. Out of the corner of his eye, Tony can see her hand fluttering at her side as if she'd like to reach out and stop him from being so reckless.
Their host starts pontificating. Tony doesn't have to understand it to know that's what he's doing. The exchange that follows is a complete fucking farce.
Set him free? Fat chance.
Tony smiles and shakes the man's hand. As he does so, he can see Boots drift in his direction out of the corner of his eye. He thinks he may never have met someone with as much capacity to want to help another person, any person, in his life. Even to her own detriment. It's probably as concerning to him as his determination to show defiance to this fat maestro is to her.
Maybe they're even, then, because Tony's not going to do a damned thing to build a missile for that guy to hurt people with, and she's going to have to watch him reap the consequences.
On the way back up, the terrorist pulls away the interpreter, but shoves Boots on toward the incline, his hand just a little too close to her ass for Tony's comfort. Tony's hampered by his wiring, as it catches on an outcropping of rock, and once that's untangled he sees the reason for the terrorist's actions.
He's pulling her hand onto his arm, as if she's too stupid to tell the difference between the thin, spindly arm of their fellow cave dweller and this fuck's greedy one. Tony looks back and catches the interpreter's eye. He gives a tiny shake of his head, which Tony takes to mean that he doesn't have the clout to do anything, not without risking retaliation.
Tony's 90% clout, though, so he shoulders his way past the people between them. They want him to build something for them, they need him, at least for now.
"Here, hold this, will you? Keeps getting in the way," he says, shoving his battery against her chest. It's a gamble, but he's not going to let go of it till she can take it, and if that means they have to stand there and wait for her original guide to catch up, that works, too.
Boots is quick, though. She figures it out right away, Tony can tell. There's something about the swiftness of her movements, the way she speaks, that implies physical gratitude but verbal irritation. It's clever, engaging, attractive.
"Jesus, Stark, you really are the most-" she says, but rips her hand from the terrorist's grasp and cradles the battery, pressing it to her chest with that arm and reaching out for Tony with the other. He hadn't intended that, he'd meant to stick by her, but he's starting to understand the way she thinks. If he's not nearby, she'd be hurting him by moving, since the battery is literally affixed to his chest. So she reaches for him, and he grabs her hand with his and squeezes.
I've got you, he sends, through the grasp. She squeezes back ever so slightly, so lightly that it could have been an accident, but Tony doesn't think so. Thanks.
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Emory rips off the sack as soon as the goons shut the door behind themselves. It had been hot in the sun, but she's not as warm as she'd expected, probably because she's not wearing the two thick shirts anymore. She knows she'll miss them when the temperature lowers again, which is why she'd put Stark's wet ones close to the lamps. Better than nothing, basically.
"I apologize," Yinsen says to her, looking past her face with an odd expression. "That was not my intention."
She looks down to see that the shoulders of the white shirt she'd borrowed from him are soaked, probably because when Stark had been wearing the same bag, he'd been wet. Emory looks past Yinsen to see that Stark has a smirk on his face. Her bra straps are showing. Her red bra straps. She makes eye contact with him.
"I wasn't going to say anything," he tells her, his lips curved into a smile that makes her insides twist a little. There's a challenge to it, too. He's daring her not to cover up, she thinks. Emory turns her back on him, but Stark lets out a little chuckle that tells her that they're probably visible from that angle, too. She wants to wipe the smirk from his face somehow, but the only other clothes she knows about are Yinsen's suits and Stark's wet clothes. Yinsen has already done enough.
After a subtle search of the room, she takes the pillowcase off of her pillow and drapes it over her shoulders.
"One point for you," Stark tells her when she comes over to the table to eat.
"I half expect them to bang on the door and tell me to take it off. I'm terrorist eye candy, don't you know?"
"Isn't that your job anyway?" Stark asks. "Looking and sounding pretty?"
Yinsen had put her bowl in the middle of the table, but Emory freezes in the act of reaching for it. "You can't see the difference between someone paying for a show where a musician deliberately dresses to perform, and being locked in a cave and ordered to display yourself?"
"That's just power dynamics, isn't it?" he asks, eating a spoonful.
"'Just?' Spoken like a true insanely rich man," Emory scoffs.
"Eat," Yinsen tells her.
"I will. I need to swallow the bile I just disgorged first." She sits back in her chair. Stark, of course, doesn't seem bothered by her reaction at all.
"Fine, there's a difference. Just pretend they're fans," he says, waving his hand.
"Sure, why not. Fans with the power of life or death over me," she grumbles, grabbing her bowl to appease Yinsen, who set his down with a fatherly look of disapproval. Emory had heard his stomach grumble when they were outside, and she's willing to be manipulated if it means he can eat.
"Not to get dark, but don't they always? That's why there are bodyguards." Stark tips his head to the side, pressing a light hand to the center of his chest. "My bodyguard is probably going to dig me up and kill me again himself, after all of this. I left him at home. Figured the US military would be enough, go figure."
"This might be shocking to you, but it's different for women," Emory says, putting all her powers of condescension into her tone. Stark should be able to figure this out! He has more fans than the regular CEO anyway, many of them women. He can't want them all, can he?
Emory doesn't say that out loud because he probably does. Ugh.
"You're saying that you can't pretend this is a performance even if it means feeling better about yourself in the deception?" Stark asks her, incredulous. "What good does feeling objectified and superior do, at that point?"
Emory stands up, leans over, glares at Stark, daring him to drop his gaze to her chest while she's holding his attention. "The majority of her fans want what's best for Rory. Most of them are preteen girls. Those men out there? They want what's best for themselves. Whether I want that or not. If you can't see the difference? Then you're one of them."
She pushes back from the table and her chair falls over.
"You really should eat," Yinsen says.
"I'll probably never be hungry again," Emory spits out, throwing herself into her bunk. She'd completely forgotten about her leg injuries, and one of them has almost certainly started bleeding again. Her temper always was her downfall.
The pain helps her hold onto her outrage at Stark, and she enjoys letting both fester as she hears the two of them talk, the words hazy and indistinct from the distance and over the roaring of her angry pulse in her ears.
The worst part about it is that Stark has the glimmer of a point. If she had Rory's experience? Maybe she would be able to pretend like that. But she's just the prototype. She's not the real thing.