Work Text:
Soul Meets Body
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“In my head, there's a Greyhound station, where I send my thoughts to far-off destinations.
So they may have a chance of finding a place where they're far more suited than here.”
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Act I
Toni could feel her heart beating madly inside her chest. She couldn't see the arc reactor’s lights because she was lying on her stomach, having her life fucked out of her, but she knew it should be bright as hell. She couldn’t move from the position she was in; both her hands were being held by one of his – above her head, being pressed into the soft mattress – while his other was squeezing her hip, grounding him as he pushed roughly against her. She mildly wondered how many bruises she would be walking away with.
Her cries echoed in the room, almost drowning the sound of his breathing, heavy with the beginning of exhaustion. The air in the room was starting to get dense with the smell of sex, even with the air conditioning on.
She felt the pressure from her hip let up as he moved his hand to shift her right leg, pushing it up towards her body, probably trying to pound deeper into her.
She let out a grunt at the sharp pain she felt as he began hitting her cervix with the new position, a deep cramp went with the new feeling, leaving her nauseated. "N-no, s-stop." She didn’t know if she said the words out loud or if they were only echoing in her mind.
"Whores don't get to say no." Her breath hitched. "Whores take it."
She couldn't seem to find her voice. Breathing was difficult from the activity and position, but it became painful from the oncoming panic attack. She tried to take a breath, she couldn’t breathe. She just needed a little bit of air to be able to speak louder. She pressed her face against the sheets, forcing herself to try to regulate her breathing pattern. She just needed a few seconds to control it enough to be able to draw a proper breath. "Stop! Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Safewording. Stop. Just stop. Please, s-stop."
Her voice cracked. The movement stopped.
“Toni? What happened?” He carefully but surely removed himself from her and it was the motivation she needed to move away from him and into the headboard. She didn’t think she could stand up even if her life depended on it, and at that moment, it felt like it did. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
He tried to close the distance between them, to comfort her, to do something, anything.
"No... just, uh... no." Her words barely heard if not for his super hearing. Her shaking arms were trembling in front of her, trying to keep space between them. She did not look at him, in fact, she looked nowhere near him. She seemed to be avoiding lifting her head at all costs.
“FRIDAY, call Rhodey, ASAP.” Bucky’s voice was shaking, but Toni didn’t seem to hear. She had pressed herself against the headboard and her body was thoroughly shaking.
It took less than three minutes for the Colonel to arrive, but it felt like an eternity to the tense couple. Bucky had put on a pair of pants and stationed himself closer to the door, conscious of the fact that Toni could interpret that as a sign that he was blocking the way out of the room, but choosing to be somewhere where he could still have a clear view of her shaking form while staying as far from her as he could without actually leaving the room.
He was almost hit by the door as Rhodey opened it forcefully.
“What the fuck is going on?”
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“And I cannot guess what we'll discover when we turn the dirt with our palms cupped like shovels.
But I know our filthy hands can wash one another's and not one speck will remain.”
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Act II
Rhodey took in the scene as he rushed inside the room. Toni was cowering against the bed, she wasn’t even trying to cover herself, she was on the verge of trying to be submissive and trying to edge off panic; unsuccessfully by the looks of it.
"P-Platypus." She finally looked up as she heard his voice and spoke brokenly. She made grabby hands with a shaking bottom lip before letting out terrifying sobs that were awful to hear and letting herself completely succumb to her panic attack.
Rhodey moved to the bed and cuddled her as best as he could in the awkward position. Five minutes passed by and it did not seem to make any difference to her state and Rhodey suddenly was struck with clarity.
“I think we need to get her out of the bedroom.” He looked over his shoulder at Bucky, who was still awkwardly positioned next to the door, too confused to do much. He pressed. “I need your help.”
“Are you sure you want me to do this?” Bucky was nervous. “I can get someone else.”
“I really don’t want to involve anyone else if we can.” He looked down at Toni’s shaking naked form. “Besides, she’s naked.”
They paused for a second before Bucky moved quickly to the closet and grabbed a soft throw blanket to wrap around her body. He moved slowly as Rhodey spoke softly but clearly that he needed help to get her out of the room. The choices were extremely limited if Toni panicked even more with Bucky’s presence near her.
Steve would be completely out of question, as she still had the scar in her chest from Siberia as a reminder of their fated encounter. Peter would be able to carry her, but both men doubted she would want her protégé seeing her in that situation.
But luck was on their side, and she didn’t seem to react to Bucky’s approach. He made sure to touch her only with the fabric and was able to lift her out of the bed and carry her to the living room without too much trouble.
FRIDAY being the goddess AI that Toni programmed her to be, had cleared the area of the other Avengers, who left without too much questioning after she stated that there was a situation happening with the three of them and that they would need the space for the foreseeable future.
Bucky set Toni down on the big couch to be nestled by Rhodey and he sat at the same couch to be near them but as far as physically possible, worried about what had happened and feeling like he had crossed some unspeakable line. Rhodey knew that anything could have triggered this panic attack and only Toni would be able to explain what had happened. They waited with baited breaths for her to calm down.
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“I want to live where soul meets body and let the sun wrap its arms around me.
And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing and feel, feel what it's like to be new.”
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Act III
Toni did not know how much time had passed by since she had last been super conscious. She just felt floaty, the type of floaty she felt when she had a panic attack. She scrunched her eyes and tried to take stock of what she could feel.
1- Her head felt full of cotton balls.
2- She could feel pressure around her eyes.
3- Her throat hurt.
4- She felt very warm.
She opened her eyes slowly and was pleased to see that the lights were dimmed. She looked up and saw Rhodey looking down at her. She smiled softly at him and half turned in his lap, intent on hugging his midsection but finding herself in a cocoon of an incredibly soft throw blanket. She settled with nuzzling his belly. She was grateful that he was there, even though she still had no idea what had happened.
She moved to loosen the blanket and noticed that she was pretty much naked. Continuing to take stock of what she could feel, she noticed that her feet were pressing what felt like a leg. Her eyes moved in that direction and found Bucky squishing himself against the other end of the couch. She wiggled her toes against him and smiled softly again.
“What happened?” She grimaced at her scratchy throat and tried to sit up, grateful for both men’s help. She nodded her thanks at the glass of water that Rhodey held in front of her.
“What do you remember?” Rhodey answered with a question of his own, trying to see how deep she had gone.
“I- I don’t know, honestly. Why am I naked?” She snuggled herself against the couch as her body felt pretty much offline still. Whatever had happened had been bad. She hadn’t felt like this in a really long time. She could tell because of the way she craved alcohol and she had been sober for three years already.
“We were having sex.” Bucky was unsure how to mention what had happened. “And then you were panicking, and I called Rhodey. I don’t know what triggered you.”
“I don’t know either. I honestly don’t even remember us having sex.” Toni had a lost expression on her face as she looked at the men beside her.
“Whatever triggered you was bad, Tones. I haven’t seen you have a panic attack this bad since…” Rhodey cut himself from speaking what he really wanted to say, in fear of triggering her again. “… in a really long time.”
“FRI?” She whispered brokenly. “Uh… What happened?”
“Would you like me to access the video records, boss? I am not entirely sure what triggered you either.”
She looked at Bucky and asked if he felt comfortable with that, before closing her eyes and taking a steadying breath.
“Yeah, FRI, code 90264, show us the video, please.”
“That is a very random override code.” Bucky couldn’t help but mumble.
“It’s not. It’s actually-”
“Malibu’s zip code.” Rhodey finished for Toni and she smiled nodding, before turning to look at the TV.
She tried to brace herself but seeing what triggered her from a different perspective also ended up triggering her again. She began hyperventilating without even realizing and it took Rhodey’s hands holding and squeezing her own to keep her somewhat grounded. To keep her from floating away again on the bad trip down memory lane she was having.
“O-Ob-bie.”
The whispered name was all she was able to get out before she collapsed on his arms, shaking and crying. At some point she loosened the grip she had on the blanket and catapulted herself into her best friend’s lap, trying to get as much comfort as she possibly could.
Rhodey sighed heavily. The name explained a lot. In fact, the last few times Toni had had a panic attack as bad as this one the reason had been the ghost of Obadiah Stane.
It took nearly fifteen minutes for her to calm down again and when she did, she suddenly remembered that Bucky had been in the room too. She pulled away from Rhodey slowly and looked over at her boyfriend. Bucky was clearly trying to give her enough space. He still did not understand what had triggered her and was beating himself up thinking that he had done something wrong that ended up hurting her.
“I’m sorry.” Her soft voice reached his ears, and he was pulled out of his own thoughts.
“What? Why-? No-” He stumbled a bit to find his footing. He picked the blanket up and very slowly wrapped it around her naked body. “I’m sorry, Toni. I don’t understand what happened but something I did clearly triggered you. Twice.”
“It happened a long time ago. I thought I was over this already.”
“Toni.” Rhodey’s voice held a warning tone. “Your feelings don’t grow less valid the longer time goes on. I know it’s been many years, but what happened… it was intense. And extremely fucked up. And there is no right or wrong on the path of recovery, you know that.”
She nodded her head at the words; having heard them many times before, it was easier to allow them to ring true. She looked up at Bucky and bit her lip. She felt a reassuring squeeze on her side and disentangled herself from her friend to be able to face her boyfriend better.
“It happened right after Afghanistan.” She hiccupped and brushed away the first tear that fell from her eye that wasn’t directly caused by a mind-numbing panic attack but from the painful memories. “You already know that Obadiah was the one who orchestrated the attack on the Humvees. That when I came back, he removed my arc reactor and left me to die.”
She paused for a few seconds, and Bucky offered her his hands, as support. She took them and relaxed a little bit with the motion of his thumbs, one cold, one warm, against her skin. He knew the basic information, but never would he ask her for the details.
“I just never told you that he raped me before getting the arc reactor out. Kind of cruel if you think about it.” She looked at their entwined hands. “But hey, that was Obie for you.”
“Oh, Toni.”
“He paralyzed me with some tech he had been developing at SI behind my back and threw me on the floor. I could feel his weight on my back and to this day I’m not sure I would have been able to fight him back even if I had been physically able to.” She felt Rhodey softly embracing her from behind in a gesture that was so different from that night that she relaxed herself against his chest. “At some point he pushed my leg higher, like you did earlier, that’s what triggered me.”
“I’m sorry. For everything.” He squeezed her hands gently and when she looked into his eyes, she could see that he meant every word. She looked away.
“The effect started to ebb away somewhat I think, for at least at some point I could speak, and I asked him to stop. I begged him to stop, told him that he was hurting me, that he didn’t need to do that.” She laughed bitterly. “He just said that whores didn’t get to say no. Whores took it.”
She felt a full body shudder and took comfort in the way they both held her.
“After he was done, he just turned me to be able to get the arc reactor out, gave his best villain speech and left laughing. I managed to get down to the lab and reach the arc reactor I had built in the cave. Pepper had it framed and given it back to me after I told her to throw it away. Rhodey found me a few minutes after putting that first reactor back in my chest. I honestly just wanted to give up so many times that night.”
“Why didn’t you?” Bucky reassuringly kept running his thumb over her skin.
“Yinsen told me about the people of his village, the ones that were hit with the shrapnel of the missiles. The walking dead. That’s what those people were called, because it takes roughly a week for the shrapnel to reach vital organs and for them to die.” Toni shivered again. “I couldn’t let Obie keep SI down that path. I couldn’t just die knowing that I could prevent so many people from suffering because of him. Hell, Obie left me after telling me he was going to kill Pepper.
“So Rhodey found me and it was extremely difficult to lie to him about what had happened with all the blood, semen and finger marks on my body, right honey bear?”
It was Rhodey’s turn to shiver at the memories.
“Toni.”
“Well, I tried anyway.”
“That you did.”
They talked for a few more minutes about the subject before Toni deemed it closed.
“I’m feeling better now, baby.” She smiled softly at Bucky. “We can still have amazing rough sex, just don’t push my leg that way again, okay? And probably don’t call me whore when we play with name calling now that I think about it.”
“Woah, TMI about your sex life.” Rhodey playfully complained, throwing a pillow at Toni, who out of reflex ended up redirecting to Bucky’s direction.
“Come on, Platypus. We used to live together at MIT, you know all there is to know about my sex life.”
“Wait, weren’t you like, fifteen when you entered MIT?” Bucky held the pillow in his hands, frowning.
“Don’t remind me of the fights I got into because of this rascal, Barnes.” Rhodey’s face was a mix of fondness for Toni and anger because of all the men he had to fight to keep away from her. He wasn’t successful with all of them; it was Toni they were talking about.
He rose from the couch and left after being reassured by Toni that she would be fine. Bucky picked her up bridal style one more time and took her back to their bedroom, to set her gently on the bed. She stood up with his help, testing how steady her legs were and took a step to the ensuite bathroom before feeling the deep cramping again. Her knees buckled up, Bucky holding her up before she fell to the ground.
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“And I do believe it's true that there are roads left in both of our shoes, but if the silence takes you, then I hope it takes me too.
So, Brown Eyes, I'll hold you near, ‘cause you're the only song I want to hear, a melody softly soaring through my atmosphere.”
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Act IV
“Shit.” She put a hand against her lower belly and held on to Bucky with the other.
“What’s going on?” Bucky became nervous one more time, thoughts running around his head, trying to figure out the problem.
“Can you help me get to the bathroom? I think I can walk if you keep me steady, no need to pick me up-” her voice was cut off as he picked her up bridal style and took her to the bathroom. “-again. Thanks, babe.”
With his help she sat down at the toilet, the pain of the cramp more noticeable now. She noticed she was spotting – which made Bucky instantly panic.
“Fuck, Toni. I’m so, so sorry. I-”
“It’s okay, Bucky, I think you hit my cervix when you moved my leg up, I’m just cramping a little.” That was a lie, the cramp was deep and she could fully feel it now that she was coming more into herself, but it would pass and she didn’t need him to feel more guilty about something that had been an accident. “It-it happened with Obie too, but it was much, much worse with him.”
“What can I do for you?” His eyes had unshed tears.
He ended up drawing a bath for her, the bath salts would help her relax from the panic attack and the warmth would also help with the cramp she felt. They sat in the bathtub quietly for a few moments until Toni turned around and sat on his lap facing him. She sat there for a few moments, just looking at this face, cataloguing the worried lines.
Bucky noticed the redness of her wrists and lifted them to his mouth, pressing a soft kiss against the bruised skin. His metal hand immediately caressed her right hip as well, knowing she would be bruising there too. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Toni noticed it and when she tilted her head, she could see the tears he was trying so hard not to let fall.
She ran her thumb against his cheeks, and his wetness fell alongside hers. He couldn’t hold a sob and she hugged him tightly, letting more tears fall from her eyes.
“It’s okay, it’s going to be okay.” She whispered softly to him, running a hand through his wet hair and another down his back. He squeezed her tightly against himself and snorted.
“I should be the one comforting you right now, Toni. I should be apologizing.”
She softly created space between them and their gazes met. She smiled another one of her soft easy smiles and kissed him tenderly.
“There is nothing to apologize, you were incredible for calling Rhodey and keeping me safe.” She touched their foreheads and closed her eyes. “You’re the best person that I could be with. You’re perfect for me and I’m grateful to have you.”
“We’ve had our differences, but you’re the best thing that happened to me. I hope I can always have your back. I love you, Antonia Stark.”
“You will always be safe with me, James Barnes.” She smiled brighter at his smile. “I love you too, more than words can express.”