So what if you can see the darkest side of me?
No one will ever change this animal I have become
Help me believe it's not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal I have become
Three Days Grace, "Animal I Have Become"

oooooooo

Whookay. This one's a monster. It's actually only half the chapter I originally intended it to be, because Things Happened, and they happened with a lot of words.

This chapter is a bit of a departure from the style I've been writing in so far this fic. For one, the timeline is played straight: it starts the morning after the end of Ch 5, and goes on for about five weeks of time-crunching. There are no flashbacks in this. It's also told completely written from Bucky's POV.

CONTENT WARNING - Angst, Jealousy, Rage, Perceived Infidelity, PTSD, explicit sexual content.

Yes, indeed. Ahead be smut, mateys. Be gentle, it's my first time publicly posting such material.

For the record: I am polyamorous myself. I attempted to write in a poly-realistic manner, as I perceive it to be. In a universe with multiple soulmates possible, poly kinda goes with the territory. Things get terribly blown out of proportion really easily without communication, though. They really, really do.

oOoOoOo

Stark Manor, New York.
March 4, 2012

When Bucky wakes up, it's the first day of the rest of his life. He doesn't consciously think of it like that immediately, won't start counting from this date until long after he's stopped worrying he's still in cryo, dreaming of a life he'll never have with a woman far too good for the likes of him. But somewhere deep in the back of his mind, he recognizes that this morning is the morning that everything changes.

He can't remember the last time he woke slow and lazy, buried in pillows and puffy blankets, warm and comfortable and with the scent of a woman in his nose. He opens his eyes, blinking blearily, hand reaching out to curl around the curve of a warm, smooth thigh. Shapely, strong muscles under the skin, a distinctly feminine noise of pleasure accompanying the stroke of his fingers as he moves his hand down to the knee. Am I on mission? he wonders hazily. I don't remember.

"Good morning, James," the voice murmurs, and ends with a soft hiss of pain. "Careful where you're poking. I'm still bruised."

He raises his head, squinting at his bed partner. For a moment, he doesn't recognize her, only sees long black hair and bright blue eyes and pale skin edged with soft blue, and panic spikes.

He pins her to the mattress with a hand around her throat, teeth bared and other hand reaching for a knife that he can't find. When was he disarmed? How did he get here? He doesn't know his mission parameters, can't remember his assignment. Is he on mission?

Her eyes are wide, and he can feel her heart hammering beside his palm, and she goes still under him, very still. "James," she says, deliberate and clear, though it's strangled and harsh. Her throat spasms under his fingers. "You're safe. You know me. What's my name?"
"Toni." The word slips out automatically, and then he remembers. He throws himself away from her, scrambles off the bed and onto the floor. He presses his palms into his face, panic and fear and guilt punching him in the gut as she starts coughing and sucking in air. "Jesus, Toni. Jesus fucking Christ, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," she says, and crazily, she sounds like she believes that. She coughs again and clears her throat. "I should have gotten out of bed before you woke up. My mistake, not yours. You with me now?"

"Yeah," he breathes, after a moment of taking stock. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, tries to get the panic under control. "Yeah, I think so."

"Where are you? Do you remember?"

"New York," he mumbles. "Your bedroom, your house, New York City."

"What date is it?"

Jesus, he just tried to kill her. How the hell is she so calm? "March 4th. 2012."

"What's your name?"

For a moment, he doesn't know how to reply. He doesn't know if he's the Asset, the Winter Soldier, Bucky, or someone else. Panic surges, brings bile, and he swallows hard, forces it back down. "Bucky," he says, after thinking about it for too long. "James Buchanan Barnes."

"Who am I?"

"Toni," he says harshly, seeing her wide eyes and her throat under his hand. "Natasha Antonia Stark. You're my soulmate."

"That's great, honey. That's really good." Her voice is soft, encouraging, and there's the sound of a body sliding off a bed. "Is it okay if I come over to you?"

No, he wants to say, because he can still feel her pulse fluttering against his crushing grip. "Yeah," he says instead, and hates himself for the weakness. He raises his head to watch her approach, seeing the bruises and the scrapes and the dark circles under her eyes. Sees the careful way she favors her left side, drowns in shame because he's the reason she's injured. He pulls his knees up to his chin, hugs his arms around them.

She sinks down to her knees beside him, telegraphing her movements. He tenses, but holds himself still. Her palm slides over his shoulders, slow and careful, stroke broadly down his spine, smooth back up. It feels solid and real, like an anchor in a shitstorm, and he slowly relaxes.

"It's okay, James," she says and, still telegraphing her gestures, cups his cheek, rubs her thumb along his nose. "You're safe. Just breathe with me. You're safe."

His eyes are blurry and his face is wet and he doesn't know why, not until her thumb gently brushes away the tears streaming down his face. "I'm sorry," he says, thick and choking. "I woke up and I didn't know where I was or who you were. I just reacted and I didn't mean to fuckin' hurt you, Jesus Christ, I'm sorry."

"I know," Toni says gently, and she leans in to kiss his forehead. His hand fists around her shirt, and she stills again, but her hand continues that steady stroke up and down his back. "You still with me?"

"Yeah," he says, and buries his face in the material, breathing her scent. "I'm still with you."

"Good," she says softly, and they just sit there for a long time, as he cries into her shirt and she strokes up and down his back soothingly.

His life suddenly becomes inundated with choices.

It's a new and frightening concept, because he is used to going where he's told and killing who he's told. His weapons, his armor, his money, his accommodations, those are all provided for, arranged ahead of time and presented to him as a done deal. He eats what he's given, exercises by rote. He doesn't decide things, he just accepts them and moves on.

The simple act of putting breakfast on his plate shouldn't stall him in his tracks. He should eat food, because it's fuel for his system, but there's too much choice and he's paralyzed by the sight of fruits and pancakes and bacon and breads and cereals and juices set up on the counter.

Toni's hand slides up his back again, her other hand wrapped around a mug of steaming, creamy coffee. "You with me?" she murmurs.

He sucks in a breath, realizes he hadn't been breathing, and leans forward on his hands. "Yeah," he says, frustrated. "I'm the Winter fuckin' Soldier. I should be able to handle breakfast." He scrubs his hands over his face, blows out an irritated breath. "I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me."

Toni makes a sympathetic noise into her coffee. "Do you want me to make you a plate?" she asks. "I don't know what you like, but I can just pile it with what I usually grab, and you don't have to eat anything you don't want. How's that sound?"

He shouldn't be this grateful. Toni shouldn't need to tiptoe around him, she shouldn't need to do the simplest fucking things for him. "Yeah, that'd help," he says grudgingly. "Thanks."

"No sweat." She beams up at him and sets her coffee aside to fix him a plate. She piles it with fruit and bacon and toast, pours him a glass of juice and carries everything to the table. "I usually sit there," she says, nodding to the chair at the end of the table, but stops at the one next to it, on the side. "Here good?"

"Yeah," he says, and thinks it's goddamn pathetic that it's another decision he can't make. His hands tighten on the back of the chair. "What would you have done if I'd said no?"

She shrugs, doesn't lose her smile. "You're a grown-ass man, James," she says easily. "You want to sit beside me, I'm seriously all for that, but nobody owns you anymore, so you sit wherever you want." Her hand drifts along his back as she moves around him. "I'm going to go put on another pot of coffee. Do you want some?"

"Nah," he says, not sure if he actually does or not, but it's a simple question and he's determined to answer it himself. "I'm good with juice."

"'Kay," she says with another of those happy smiles, and disappears back through the kitchen door.

He blows out a breath, and stares down at the plate, wishing it didn't seem to be mocking him. "Man up, Barnes," he mutters to himself. "It's fuckin' breakfast. You can handle breakfast." And deliberately, he pulls the chair out, sits down, and starts to eat.

As the days pass, he learns the rules of the Stark home and the quirks of these weird people he finds himself living with.

He learns to never hand Toni things, because someone somewhere damaged her ability to trust enough to reach out and take an item from another hand. He learns that, if he's holding something she needs or that he wants to give her, he should lay it down beside her and let her pick it up.

He learns that Natasha rarely talks about herself and rarely shows affection, but her eyes are hard and alert and she has a protective streak a mile wide for those she loves.

He learns that Clint and Toni are handsy fuckers, full of casual touches and affectionate nudges from knees and shoulders and elbows. He learns that they are incredibly conscious of him, and make special effort to never startle him with their touches. He learns that a light hand on the arm from Natasha is the equivalent to an affectionate hug from Toni, or a companionable arm around the shoulders from Clint.

He learns that Clint has been Toni's lover and partner for half of their lives, and that even though they are not linked by soulmarks, there is no power in the universe that will ever break their bond. He learns that knowing about their relationship is an uncomfortable knot in his chest, but he learns to adapt to it.

He learns to tolerate Clint's biting remarks, slowly relearns his own sharp humor in response. Learns about Toni's quick wit and Natasha's deadpan delivery, so dry it's hard to tell sometimes when she's joking and when she's not.

He learns that they will snap and scrap, fight like animals sometimes, tearing at each other's throats and loudly listing each other's faults, but it's another way they show affection.

He learns to get used to a disembodied voice talking to him at odd moments. Learns that JARVIS is his own person. Learns that there's nothing JARVIS wouldn't do to protect Toni, who created him. Learns that he wholeheartedly approves of this purpose.

He learns that everyone takes a turn cooking, and learns that after a couple of weeks, he's included in the roster on the nights when they'd previously ordered takeout Chinese or pizza or picked up Thai from the deli Natasha likes. He learns that he likes cooking, once he can make himself get started. Learns that he's good at it. Learns that he's probably the best cook out of the lot of them.

He learns that Toni is far more accepting of the flaws and mistakes of others, but holds herself to impossible standards. He learns, after the first time she disappears for two days into her workshop, that he shouldn't take it personally, because she is powered by insomnia and caffeine, and always emerges tired and happy and carrying some new device she swears is going to revolutionize the world.

He learns to interpret the vague, fuzzy sensations that resonate in his soulmark. Learns the hum that means Toni's happy. Learns the dull ache that means she's upset. The angry buzz that means irritation, which is different from the angry buzz when she's contemplating murder. Learns when she's tired, or hungry, or aroused. Learns to listen to the pulse of their bond before he's even conscious when he wakes up in the middle of the night or the middle of the morning, in her bed - which has become their bed, he thinks - and let it tell him that the person beside him is not a threat, not a danger, not a target.

Learns that she wants him, learns that she craves his touch. Learns that he wants her too, but that he's afraid he'll hurt her. He learns that she will never say anything about it, will never push. Learns she's waiting until he trusts himself enough to do more than curl around her and sleep tangled together.

Learns, unsurprisingly, that he's pretty much well head-over-fucking-heels in love with her. Thinks she loves him too. Hopes she does.

He learns that they are all just as fucked up as he is.

He learns that Clint will sometimes look very far away and stop responding to questions, but that Toni and Natasha will talk to him as though he is still part of the conversation. He learns that it's because Clint is an assassin, has a very bloody past, and is sometimes lost in bad memories of haunting jobs.

He learns that Natasha will disappear into the gym with a grim look in her eye, and punch the heavy bags until her hands bleed. He learns never to try and engage her when she's in these moods, but to make his presence known because she takes comfort in knowing that she isn't isolated and alone.

He learns that Toni grows still sometimes at the mention of Afghanistan, goes cold sometimes and shivers violently. He learns that she doesn't like the sound of bombs exploding, and sometimes panics if a car backfires too close to her. He learns that she needs a hot drink, a warm blanket, and a quiet voice to bring her back from the dark.

He learns their quirks, and their rules. Learns their coping mechanisms and their strange way of orbiting around each other. Learns that, as tight-knit and close as the three of them are, there is plenty of room for a fourth person. Learns that they are happy to make room for him, learn his quirks, his rules, his coping mechanisms.

Learns, surprisingly, after more than a month of doing nothing but adapting to this family unit, that he likes them. He likes them quite a lot.

Learns that he has a place he belongs, a place he calls home.

oOoOoOo

Stark Manor
April 20, 2012

Bucky's putting together a sandwich in the kitchen when his phone buzzes with the chime that means he has an incoming text message. He glances quizzically at the counter, where he left it when he decided to make himself something to eat. He pops a few cherry tomatoes in his mouth, and sets the container on the counter to scoop up his phone.

Everyone who would possibly text him lives with him, and they're all home. If they wanted him, they'd just come get him, or ask JARVIS to relay a message.

Except… Maybe it's from Toni. He hasn't seen her for two days, except to bring her coffee and food, because she's on an engineering binge and there's only so long he can sit and pretend to look interested in what she's soldering together. She likes sending him weird things she finds on the internet on her microbreaks, though, stuff she thinks will make him smile. It usually does.

He's smiling as he opens the chat messenger, wondering what silly thing she's found for him this time.

The message is not from Toni. In fact, it's not a message his phone at all. It's Toni's phone, which he must have taken by accident the last time he brought her coffee, because their StarkPhones are identical. And the message is for her.

[clint] haha yeah god that was a hot night. im pretty sure i still have bruises from the handcuffs. i know my dick has never really recovered. youre an animal. ;-D

He stops mid-chew, the sweetness of the tomato suddenly tasting sour and ashy, and his fingers feel numb around the phone. Some distant voice in the back of his head is telling him that he should put the phone down now, because there is absolutely nothing good that will come from this. But that voice is drowning under the tidal wave of rage and hurt screaming through his brain.

He scrolls through the messages, and each one he reads sinks needle claws into his chest. Message after message, full of old memories and blatant flirting, sexual innuendo and open invitations. There's a dull roaring sound in his ears that reaches a painful pitch when he realizes that all these messages are from the last month.

The phone vibrates in his hand again, automatically scrolling to the bottom with the new messages. This time it's on the other side, meaning Toni's texting Clint right now.

[toni] haha yeah. master dick wrangler, that's me :-)

[toni] fuck. dont tell tash but i just burned my f'in finger again

[toni] shes gonna think im a disaster and give me the disappointed eyes

Another buzzing. Another message pops up.

[clint] you are a disaster

[clint] you deserve nats disappointed eyes

[clint] want me to come fuck it better? :D

The phone shatters in Bucky's hand, and the world behind his eyes burns white and hot.

The next thing he knows, he's standing outside Toni's workshop, still holding the crushed remains of the broken phone. He's half-expecting Clint to be inside, and his imagination helpfully provides all sorts of images drawn from the messages he read that make him want to scream and punch something soft and Clint-shaped until it isn't Clint-shaped anymore.

But Toni's alone inside, like he's seen her a dozen times, barefoot and wearing ratty old jeans and a black tee-shirt, safety goggles pushed to the top of her head. She's hunched over the central work table, feet tapping rhythmically on the rungs of her stool, surrounded by the glow of her holographic screens.

"JARVIS," he says through clenched teeth.

"Yes, Sgt. Barnes?"

"Tell Toni I'm here."

"Of course, sir."

He watches through the window as Toni's head comes up, as she turns around and sees him through the window. Her whole face lights up with a wide smile and she slides off the stool to pad over to the door. "Hey, James," she says, eyes bright the way they get when she's been awake for too long and has guzzled too much coffee. "C'mere, I want to show you what I've been working on."

He lets himself be led in and babbled at, because he's still trying to formulate what he wants to say. He can't even register that she's making him a new goddamn arm, which is lying half-assembled on the table and which she is cheerfully ranting about, because he's caught in feedback loop that begins with want me to come fuck it better? and ends with the sound of the phone crunching in his fingers.

"-not done yet," Toni's saying, "but it's going to be about a thousand times better than what you're currently having to tote around. Pounds lighter too. I swear by titanium. It's perfect for almost everything."

"Swell," he says flatly, and that gets her attention.

For the first time, she seems to see him, take in his expression, his posture, the tension in his shoulders. She blinks and a hand touches her soulmark lightly. "Jesus, that's what that is," she murmurs, and raises her eyes to his. "What's wrong, James?"

Mutely, he hands her the phone.

She takes it from him, turns it over in her hands, frowns a little. "It's okay," she says soothingly. "It's just a phone. I mean, it's a pretty fucked-up phone, but I can fix it, no sweat."

He barely recognizes his own voice when it snarls out of him, "Maybe Clint can come fuck it better."

She freezes, blinks up at him. "What?" she asks carefully.

"You heard me. Sorry for invading your privacy or whatever it is you're going to yell at me for, but I just wanna know somethin'... which one of us are you jerking around, me or him?"

He's expecting anger, he's expecting guilt, he's expecting any number of things. What he gets… is quizzical confusion. "Neither? He's my best friend, you're my soulmate. There's no jerking around happening in either direction."

"You're fuckin' him."

She blinks again and shakes her head. "No," she says. "I'm really not. I mean, I used to. Might again in the future. But right now? That's really not happening. Jesus, James. I'm not going to do that to you."

"Oh yeah? Kinda hard to get that from the text messages I saw."

That gets a wince, a flinch, a spike of guilt. It doesn't make him any happier. "Yeah, shit. I got nothing there." She runs her hands through her hair, blows out a breath. "Yeah, that's on me. No excuses, honestly. It's just something we've always done. I didn't even stop to think, and I really should have."

"How long's it been going on?"

"What, the texting, or me and Clint? Actually, doesn't matter. We've been doing that since we first got together, so...Thirteen years? Yeah."

"I've been sleeping with Clint for thirteen years, James," Toni says, eyes on the circuit she'd been soldering before he barged into her workshop.

Bucky's chest is tight, like there are bands around his ribs squeezing the breath out of him. Thirteen years, he thinks wildly. They've been together thirteen years. He can only imagine all the shit they've been through. All the ways they've fucked. He's seen them cuddling on the couch, seen them give those intimate fucking looks to each other. It eats at him, gnaws at him, deep down in his gut. It takes everything he has not to go find Clint and punch him bloody.

Toni presses a hand to her soulmark, frowning in concentration. Then, she takes a deep breath, sighs through her nose. "He's my best friend and I love him more than almost anything else in the world. We've been through a lot of shit together, and I never have even considered giving him up. But I will," she says softly. "Cos you and me? That's something I need more than I love Clint, and if you can't deal with it, then all the flirting and texting and reminiscing stops. Right now."

It takes him a moment to process that, because he almost can't wrap his brain around it. "You're gonna just toss away something you've had for thirteen fuckin' years because I don't like it? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Toni just eyes him steadily. "A great many things," she says, "but this isn't one of them. You're my soulmate. That trumps everything else. In fact, here. JARVIS," she says, raising her voice.

"Yes ma'am?"

"J, bring up my most recent chat logs with Clint, would you? I want James to read them."

"Of course, ma'am."

"I don't want to fuckin' see you text-fucking him," Bucky snaps. "I got enough of that by accident. Not really interested in seeing it on purpose."

Toni blinks tiredly. "Just read the fucking logs, James. You only got part of the conversation. You should really see the rest."

She gestures at the screen and steps out of the way. Against his better judgement, he looks up at the screen.

[clint] want me to come fuck it better? :D

[toni] pass. Been there done that. T-shirt wasn't worth saving.

[toni] youre old news, darling. its not me its you.

[clint] traded in for the latest shiny toy. ouch. youre a sadistic woman.

[toni] what can i say? i finally met someone who can do what you never could

[clint] and that is?

[toni] satisfy me :-D

[clint] youre so fuckin gone on him. its adorable

[toni] stfu clint

[clint] what, i can't be happy youre happy? hes good for you. youre smiling more. youre so giddy around him its kinda gross :-D

[clint] plus hes really fuckin hot, so thats working for you too

[toni] i know right?

[clint] he must be something if youve gone this long without sex

[clint] seriously, your libido needs to be in the world records or something. i don't know how youre doing it

[toni] you did it for tash

[toni] also i live vicariously through the noises you make when tash makes you yowl like a cat in heat

[clint] hey… nats the one who howls like that

[toni] right

[toni] theres no way that woman bottoms for you.

[clint] one day, youll pay for this

[clint] youre going to be horny at some point

[clint] desperate

[clint] begging 'please clint, let tash whip me'

[clint] and im gonna say nope. suffer.

[toni] im happy waiting for james

[clint] you utter sap :-)

[toni] hes worth waiting for

His head is reeling, brakes screeching his fury to a halt and whiplashing him from one extreme of emotion to the other. He isn't sure what he expected when he came down here - a shouting match, maybe. A cold fuck off, asshole. To be told that she was sick of waiting for him to get his shit together. To be told to get the fuck out of her house. Lies or denial or anything else. He certainly wasn't expecting any of this. He wasn't the ultimate answer to "want me to come fuck it better" be "he's worth waiting for."

"See," Toni says softly, "this is why I'm not yelling at you for invading my privacy, for reading stuff you were never meant to see. I wasn't thinking, and I was very fucking inconsiderate. I broke the Poly Prime Directive, I wasn't open in my communication, and I am so very fucking sorry, honey."

He puts his head in his hands, breath hissing in and out of his clenched teeth. The rage and betrayal and anger aren't going away, they're still surging in his gut, nowhere to go but inward. He's sick and he's unstable and he was ready to kill someone who's been nothing but a friend to him over a goddamn misunderstanding. Toni should have left him in fucking Siberia or, better yet, just put him out of his fucking misery instead of bringing him home and thinking he's worth saving.

Toni's still talking. "I know it might be a stretch for you to trust me, so JARVIS? I want you to give James full access to all of my email accounts, social media accounts, and text messages. If I get a new number, if I have a new email address, a new Twitter account, add them to his access level."

There's a pause. "Shall I include your accounts with Stark Industries, Stark Solutions and your private servers, ma'am?"

"You know what, go ahead and do that. Give him everything. Iron Maiden. Prototype tech specs. My goddamn iTunes purchase history. Everything. Full access to my entire life. And make it a Skynet protocol."

"...Ma'am? Under the Skynet protocol, you won't be able to revoke his-"

"Skynet, J."

"Of course, ma'am."

He can't handle this. He doesn't know how to handle her. She's disarraying her entire life for him. She's opening doors, giving him permission to take whatever, go wherever, do whatever. She's pissing away relationships that have lasted almost half her life just to make him happy. She shouldn't be doing this, any of it, because there's no chance in hell he isn't going to fuck this up. He's holding the keys to her entire kingdom, and he's a ticking goddamn time bomb.

Her hand touches his back. "James, you with me?"

He jerks away from her, spins on a heel, feeling like he's careening towards a cliff and the brakes are gone. "You utter, fuckin' stupid goddamn moron," he snarls, angry and vicious. "Do you even realize what you just fuckin' did? I'm never going to be myself. I'm fucking broken, Toni, but you're too much of a dumbass to accept that. You just handed me top-level clearance to everything you have. You fucking stupid goddamn idiot. Are you that fucking desperate you'll just open wide for whatever freak of nature you feel like bringing home?"
Toni blinks at him, frozen with her mouth open in a slight O of surprise. "Okay," she says slowly. "I thought… No, it doesn't matter what I thought. But I will say this: I'll own the shit that I'm guilty for, but I'm really not in the fucking mood to be called names."

Distantly, he's horrified at himself, wants desperately to stop, but the words are pouring out, cruel and careless. "You're supposed to be a fucking genius, but you're the dumbest fuckin' person I've ever met."

She sucks in a breath, lets it out slow and steady through her nose. "James," she says, in the same tone she used when he woke up the first day and tried to kill her, the calm and careful one. "I don't think you're yourself right now."

"This is the only self I've got! You can't take it, fine! Don't take it! Just run back to your fake soulmate already. You think you can fix me, make me better'n him." He watches every flinch, every twitch, every blink, and something dark and twisted and knotted revels in the hurt and the pain he's inflicting. "You're too fucking stupid to realize that you can't fix everything. I don't fuckin' want you to fix me. It's not possible, so just fuck off and leave me the fuck alone, wouldja?"

Deathly silence falls.

"Not possible," she echoes, distant and odd. "Not possible."

Bucky swallows hard as sanity suddenly reasserts itself, slaps him with cold, hard, sober reality. She's sheet white, huge-eyed, tight-lipped. And he knows that he's badly fucked up, knows that she's taken a whole lot of shit from him and his bad days, but that this has just shoved her way past her limits. "Oh fuck," he says, miserably, and reaches for her. "Jesus Christ. Toni, fuck, I didn't mean-"

She slaps his hand away, hard enough to hurt even him. Her eyes are chips of ice, cold and hard. "I am Toni Stark," she says softly, dangerously. "I am Toni fucking Stark. I earned three doctorates and a master's degree before I turned 18. I became the youngest-ever CEO of a Fortune 500 company before I was 25. I built power armor out of a box of fucking scrap metal in a fucking hole in fucking Afghanistan. I rediscovered a new fucking element, built a fucking jury-rigged particle collider in my fucking basement and saved the world from a goddamn army of knock-off Iron Maidens while I was dying of heavy-metal poisoning."

"Toni…" he whispers, sick and reeling, but Toni ignores him.

"My companies design medical prostheses for amputees that are better than their real fucking limbs!" Her voice rises, sharp and snapping, and color floods back into her face. "My arc reactors will solve the energy crisis in five fucking years tops! I revolutionize whatever fucking industry I have the whim to dabble in within a week! You don't get to tell me what's not possible! Get this through your thick fucking skull, James: I don't recognize the existence of 'not possible'. Because I am Toni fucking Stark," she thunders, punctuating each word with a jab of fingers into his chest, "and 'not possible' just means I haven't had my fucking coffee yet!"

Abruptly, she turns and slams her hands onto the top of her work bench, the half-finished arm rattling. Her shoulders hunch, heave with deep, shaky, angry breaths. Bucky stares at her back, mute and wretched. Shame and self-loathing make a sick swirl in his gut, and he wants nothing more than to find a dark hole to crawl in and die.

"You are not broken," Toni says tiredly, still hunched over her hands. "Because you're not a fucking clock. You're a human being. And even if you were broken, it doesn't even fucking matter, because fixing things is what I do for a goddamn living." She straightens and turns, scrubbing her face with the palms of both hands. "God, I can't do this right now," she mumbles. "I've been up for thirty-six hours. I need to go to bed. I can't fucking think straight."

Bucky stiffens, feels the knot of dismay and dread tighten and tangle. "Okay," he says, stands there for another moment, trying to think of something to say. Some way to repair what he's just fucked hideously up. He can't. "Okay," he repeats, then slumps and turns to leave the workshop.

He doesn't even get a full step away before Toni's hand snaps around his wrist. He stops dead, half turns quizzically back towards her. "Let me be clearer," she says gently. Incredibly, her hand is soothing up his back, like it does when he's in the middle of a panic attack or a flashback and she's trying to anchor him. "I need you to take me to bed, because I can't fucking think straight."

He can't have heard her right. "I… What? Even after all that?"

"Yes, after all that." She goes onto her toes, running her hand right up his spine and curling it around his neck in a gentle squeeze. A groan rumbles deep in his throat, and his eyes half-close, because it feels good. "Especially after all that."

He turns fully around, hauls her in by the waist and buries his head in her shoulder, shudders in relief when she loops her arms around his neck. "I'm going to wreck this," he says into her hair. "Whoever gives out soulmarks really fucked up when they saddled you with me."

"Nah," she says, and threads her fingers through his hair, and he has to resist the urge to purr like a goddamn cat. "Sooner or later, you're going to realize that I got the better end of that deal. Too bad, though. I've only got a master's degree in metaphysics, but in my limited understanding, these soul bonds are for life, so you're stuck with what you got, I'm afraid."

"Good," he says, heartfelt, and kisses her neck, murmuring, "I'm sorry it got so fuckin' out of hand, Toni."

Her breath hitches, and her hands go still in his hair. "S'okay, James. We all have really shitty days. I forgive you." Her voice has dropped a few notes down the octave, comes out husky.

It sends a visceral thrill down his spine. He moves up to the underside of her jaw, brushes his lips over it. "M'sorry," he says again.

"Uh huh," she says, a little breathless, a little dazed, and her hands start running through his hair again. "Still forgiven."

"M'sorry," he says again, against the pulse point behind her ear, which he nips with his teeth.

She shudders hard against him with a thready little moan. Her head tips away, hair cascading over her shoulder, presenting him with the lines of her neck and throat. He stares at her skin for a long moment, fascinated by the pulse jumping just under her jaw, then squeezes his eyes shut and swears savagely in Russian. He sucks in a long, shuddering breath and presses his forehead to hers, tightening his hold on her waist. She just said she needs to sleep, he tells himself. Don't be an asshole.

"Why'd you stop?" she asks, and Jesus Christ, her voice alone might be his undoing, be enough to break his shaky self-control, all lazy and throaty and practically purring.

"Because," he says through gritted teeth. "You're tired. You just said you wanted to go to bed."

She pulls his head away from hers, and stares up at him with eyes gone deep and dark. There's a flush high in her cheeks that spills down her neck and chest. Her eyes flick to his mouth, and she licks her lips with a quick dart of her tongue. "Yeah, bed," she says, in a tone that makes it crystal clear it isn't sleep she's thinking about, and his chest aches like she just socked him in the ribs with the suit on. "That's definitely a place we should go."

Christ, she's going to end up killing him. He's too raw, it's been too long, and the damned bond between them is singing with a whole bunch of emotions he thought he'd long since lost. He forces himself to step back, take a deep breath, turn around, keep his goddamn hands to himself. There's nothing gentle in him right now, no romance, nothing she deserves.

She needs better than an animal. He's not going to hurt her, not again.

"James." He turns in time to catch her, staggers back a couple of paces and slides his arms under her ass as she jumps. Her legs wrap around his waist, feet locking at the small of his back, and her hands fist in his loose hair, gripping tight. "I don't fucking want romance right now," she says, with the underscore of a snarl, and it occurs to him that he didn't mean to say all that out loud, but he apparently did. "I don't want gentle, I don't soft kisses and slow touches and whatever other bullshit you think I deserve. Try asking me what I want."

His mouth is dry. His higher thought processes are sliding away, because he's had a lot of time over the last few weeks to think about what it would be like to have his arms full of a squirming Toni, but somehow, reality trumps everything. He fumbles for words and manages to find them. "What do you want, Toni?"

"I want you to fuck me," she growls, and does something with her thighs that brings her groin against his, at the same time she leans forward to nip his ear. And fuck, but the heat of her sex sears his cock, makes it jump, makes it ache, even through the double layer of sweat pants between them.

He isn't conscious of moving, but her back slams against the wall a few seconds later and she grunts, a little pained. That might have been enough to break through the addled haze, except she yanks his head down, bites his lip with a savage little snarl, and he is just gone.

Things clatter and clang across the floor as he sweeps the work table beside them clear. He drops her on the table, and hauls her shirt and her sports bra over her head at the same time. The glow of the arc reactor brightens, dances over her skin, throws shadow across her breasts. The mark above her right breast, his mark, glitters in the blue light. A shock of lust and something deeper, more solid, more terrifying, jolts through him. "Jesus Christ," he says hoarsely, reverently, and has to close his eyes because seeing her sprawled out for him is just too goddamn much.

"Even my arrogance won't let me call myself the Messiah," Toni murmurs, and her fingers are at his waist, tugging upwards on the hem of his shirt. He bends to let her strip it off him, hears it land somewhere off in the corner of the workshop. Her hands spread across his chest, and a muffled noise rumbles in her throat, strained and abrupt. "Fuck, James. Look at you. Jesus fucking God, I could touch you all day."

His spine spasms when her tongue licks hot and wet across their soulmark. Lightning slaps him, hard and fast, and his tenuous self-control disintegrates as their bond slams open. He yanks her off the table, and her pants tear between his hands. She smells so good, so fucking good, just like she should smell, light vanilla shampoo and the faint tang of metal and a hint of motor oil and ozone underneath it, all wrapped up in a cloud of arousal and something he can't define by any other name but Toni.

Somewhere in there, he loses his pants as he pins her to the wall again, bending his head to suck hungrily at her breasts and neck. Her breath judders noisily, high and soft and keening. "James," she breathes, and her nails rake up his back as her hips roll, sliding the soaking lips of her sex along his shaft.

"Toni," he chokes, forehead rolling against hers. He palms her ass, readjusts her position until the head of his cock is nudging her entrance. Then he snaps his hips forward, sinking all the way in with a single thrust. Wet, velvet heat engulfs him."Oh, fucking Christ," he says, squeezing his eyes shut and feeling sweat pop on his forehead.

Toni grunts, a sharp, surprised hhnnn, and her fingers tighten on his shoulders, clutching herself . "Holy fuck," she breathes. Her thighs flex on his waist, heels in the small of his back jerking him forward, forcing him deeper. "Oh Jesus fucking Christ, you feel so good." Her whole body shudders, tightens, arms and legs and hands and sex, until it feels like slick fingers rhythmically squeezing his cock.

Bucky's brain misfires. He slams her against the wall and fucks into her, fast and hard and brutal. His hands are locked on her hips, hard enough that he knows they'll bruise, knows he's too rough, knows he's hurting her, knows he'll feel guilty later, when lust is sated and reality sets back in. But he can't find a shred of care right now, because she's crying out, babbling nonsense in Italian and English, calling his name in an utterly destroyed moan, begging harder, jesus bucky, fucking god, yes right there, harder. He growls, broken and guttural, kisses her like he's trying to crawl inside her mouth, swallowing her noises. He's not going to last long, the pressure's already building in his balls, and he desperately tries to fight it back. He wants to see her come first, shake apart, slam into her while her world explodes.

He gets a hand between them, twists his wrist until it feels like it's going to break, slides his thumb over her clit. She thrashes and howls into his mouth, moans hard and fast and stuttering through clenched teeth. He pulls back to watch her face as her orgasm takes her and breaks her apart.

He's never seen anything more beautiful.

Her eyes open, dazed and lost and gorgeous, focus on him, jolts him from coiling need right to the edge. "I love you," she rasps shakily. And oh fuck that's it for him. He raggedly grinds into her, a series of pulses that jolt his whole body, kissing her desperately as everything goes staticky and bright.

"Hey guys," comes Clint's voice from the door beside them, "there was a lot of screaming and things slamming around and hey," his voice cants up an octave, "wow, you guys look super involved in what you're doing so never mind me, my bullshit can wait."

It's like a shot of cold water down his spine. The intense pressure drops away, and Bucky shudders out a breath, hips jerking slowly. He pulls his head back from Toni and glares. Clint is leaning against the doorjamb, so close he could reach out and touch them if he wanted to. Bucky really doesn't like the way he's looking at them. Looking at Toni. "Go the fuck away," he snarls, dark and possessive and angry.

Clint backs out of the door with his hands up, but he's still watching them with a speculative gleam. "Just admiring your technique," he says.

"Y'r bein' rude, Clint." Toni's voice is less angry, but just as dark and possessive, hoarse and ruined and lust-drunk. Her hands roam Bucky's shoulders, rake over his skin. "Go 'way. M'busy."

"If you can still talk, he's doing it wrong," Clint says, and it's the smirk that snaps Bucky's temper, still frayed and threadbare with lingering irrational jealousy.

Bucky's fist slams into Clint's face, knocking him back on his ass. Later, he knows he'll be grateful that it was his real hand, not the metal one, because Toni would be furious with him if he inadvertently kills Clint, but right now, he just wants him to shut up and go the fuck away. He slams the door closed, shutting out Clint's complaints about that's my fucking eye, asshole! and buries his head in Toni's neck until the urge to commit murder has passed.

"M'sorry," Toni slurs, and kisses his ear gently as she rocks her hips in a slow and lazy rhythm, riding him until he softens and slips out of her. "Shoulda locked th' door. Y'with me?"

"Yeah," he murmurs, and if he feels a tiny bit of smug satisfaction that he got to punch Clint after all, well. He's only human. "Yeah, I'm with you, sweetheart."

"Good," she says, and leans her head into his chest, tucking under his chin. "I'm with you too."