I accidently overwrote the original chapter four. I almost fucking cried. I tried to recreate it but obviously there is a difference. I was super satisfied with that chapter too! :'(


("Get in the bed goddamnit!" Toni tried to push him, albeit unsuccessfully and had to bite back the grin that wanted to take over her face. "If it makes you feel better, you can sleep closest to the door!")

(He does just that, it was his job to protect her. No matter what she said. It felt right.)


Winter, he recalled he had once upon a time called himself—when he had the memories that is—wakes up first. He did not require as much sleep as a baseline human, he could run off only a few hours' sleep with little problem.

However, he thinks he could remember a time where he was pushed too far by a Handler and collapsed. He certainly remembers the punishment.

It doesn't take Winter long to realise the position he is in. Curled up behind Toni, her head tucked under his chin where she clutched her pillow, his arms were wrapped around her waist. He could feel each breath she took, could feel the patter of her heart.

Winter took a moment to let their position sink in, strangely if felt right. He was unsure of how else to describe it other than just right.

She fit perfectly against him.

She seemed so peaceful compared to the previous night, where she had tossed and turned, whimpered and shivered with her night terrors.

(Ironically the only thing he could not protect her from.)

(The thought leaves an uncomfortable heavy feeling in his chest.)


Upon entering the kitchen, carrying the box of clothes she'd order for James, Toni found him sitting at the breakfast bar, waiting for her.

He blinked at her in confusion as she set the box down on the chair beside him.

"I went ahead and brought you some clothes. Can't have you living in that outfit, can we?" She flashed him a grin.

He blinked again, taken aback. "I—thank you?"

Toni smiled at the uncertainty in his voice. "No problem, James."

"Winter."

Toni blinked owlishly at the word—what did the season have anything to do with their conversation.

"My name, I mean." He added quickly, seeing the confusion. "I call myself Winter, the other's name is James."

Toni's eyes widened in realisation and snatched the StarkPad off the counter. "I wasn't expecting that. DID, huh?"

Winter tilted his head. "Did?"

"No, D-I-D. Dissociative identity disorder, where someone isn't alone in their head." She handed him the tablet with a website she'd brought up. Winter took it with a look of wonder.


"...Effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark International until such a time as I can decide what the future of the company will be."

By the sheer reaction of the reporters alone, Winter knew whatever Hand—Toni (ToniToniToni) had done was big. But the hard look in her (familiarfamiliarfamiliar) umber eyes showed no plan to retract her statement, instead, it showed her determination and drive to right her wrongs.

As she moved off the stage, Winter shifted to shield her from the loud and bombarding people.

He heard the quiet hitches in her breathing and he brushed his knuckles against hers.

Her fingers slipped between his.

(He kind of liked it.)


"Toni!" The redhaired assistance called with an exasperated sigh.

"Pep." Toni returned her greeting with a sheepish smile.

Hand—Toni (ToniToniToni, just Toni) and he had arrived two minutes prior.

(Note: Toni drives fast, skilful behind the wheel. (The voice liked that fact.) If an escape is required, Toni would be most suited to drive.)

Behind the assistant, Pep, a nickname Winter logged for future reference, the man who'd interrupted Toni at the press conference, enters.

Toni released Pep from the greeting hug and turned to the man. "Obi."

Winter also logs the name 'Obi'. Unlikely to be the man's name, he concludes, he doubts anyone would name their child that.

"Toni." His voice is honeyed, his smile false. Winter takes grate care in watching the man, especially when he turns to him with a smarmy smile from the severe frown he had worn moments before he had schooled his features.

He was untrustworthy.


Toni was busy fiddling with the Mark II designs, eyes half-lidded with exhaustion that no matter how much coffee she drinks, will do nothing for.

Her mind keeps wondering, unable to stick to the task. It keeps wandering back to the phantom feeling of hands digging into her chest, Yinsen bleeding out, the fact those terrorists had her fucking weapons and how it should have been impossible that they got their disgusting hands on them and how they even knew she had been in Afghanistan unless—someone sold her out.

Someone sold her out. Someonesoldheroutsomeonesoldheroutsomeonesoldheroutsomeonesoldherout.

"Toni."

Belatedly, Toni realised JARVIS had been calling her name, but it isn't until a hand gently wraps around her elbow that she manages to ground herself enough to crawl from the edges of a panic attack.

That was the second time Winter had seen her have one now. It was embarrassing.

She'd be embarrassed later, she was too tired to feel it now.

"Just breath."

She does and turns her focus towards JARVIS. "How far are you into SI?"

"Just the basics, transferring blueprints and the such." JARVIS paused. "Would you like me to intergrade further?"

"Yeah." Toni nodded. "I think there's some double-dealing happen under the table."

"Then I'll do everything to find just who it is." JARVIS promised.

JARVIS words draw that familiar smirk on her face.

But the pad of a thumb running across her lip jolts her back.

Winter was staring, thumb resting on the edge of her lip before drawing back, something akin to recognition on his face.

"There was a man… he smirked like that."

Of course, out of everything Toni had inherited from Howard, his smirk was one of them. He really liked to fucking haunt her from beyond the grave, didn't he?

"He wasn't as pretty as you, though."

That pulled a surprised pronounced beat of her heart that hit the Arc-Reactor casing, and like a fucking schoolgirl, she blushed. She felt the way her ears and cheeks warmed. Jesus Christ.

She has blushed like this since her MIT years. Not since Patricia. Thinking about that woman was nostalgic. Damn.

"Howard, my father. James knew him." Toni explained, watching as Winter blinked slowly.


Winter flicked through the images of James—how, despite how he was at war, fighting for his life, he looked so free.

It showed—while he might never have been a free person, his other half had been—and Winter, he craved the chance to understand what that freedom felt like.

He knows had he still been with HYDRA that they would have already put him back into the chair—emotions, actions that are frowned upon—he had become compromised in the eyes of his former captors.

But—Winter likes that idea. Likes the idea of becoming compromised, because there is only freedom.

Freedom and liberation.

At the sound of Toni stumbling, he glanced up just in time to see her grinning to herself. His chest aches—it's not painful, at least not completely, it feels…nice. He wonders what it means.