[ Tony moves his jaw a little, his lips, to stop them being caught between the fabric and his teeth, settles into it probably a little easier than he should, because it's actually kind of a relief, not having to worry about whether he's going to talk again or not without meaning to. Right now all his words are doing is push away, and while he apparently doesn't have the self-control to curb his impressively sized id and cut it out, even he's aware that you can't just keep doing that consistently.
And see, there's more of that contradiction, the rough and the gentle right after each other, and you'd think that they wouldn't both be so inordinately necessary at the same time, but there they are. If she's been trying to find ways to catch Tony Stark off guard, she's hit on one of a handful of jackpots. His eyes just keep tracking her, and after the words he wouldn't have known what to say anyway, so it's really just as well that he's devoid of the choice right now. But there's more movement, and fuck, she has such a great memory, it's kind of amazing and a little not fair, really, for someone to have such a good memory, to know precisely where to put their mouths like that. The hand though, that's just a tease, and he'd really like her to do something a little more about it, even if as it stands right now it's a pretty good source of motivation. ]
[ Not even with her. Sometimes people just need to stop talking and listen for a little bit, or find release some other way than pushing people around them away. He's wound too tight, right now, and she's just looking for the buttons to push to release that.
She doesn't know what to do with the expression on his face, really, other than what she's already doing. There had been anger, before, to some extent. She wants to empty that out, replace it with anything else. For now, want will do. Want and her quiet persistence in being here, and whatever she can offer to prove she has no intentions of leaving this unfinished or going anywhere. She keeps up her actions, slowly turning up the intensity, her free hand sliding up his arm and over the handcuff to lace her fingers through his for a little bit.
And as for that hand on his thigh, he'll get at least part of his wish. It is a tease, purposely so, but that doesn't mean it can't be a slightly more active tease as it travels lightly up sensitive skin, closer and closer. ]
[ You know, sort of particularly not with her. She's impressively good at not tolerating his bullshit most of the time. Basically all of the time when it matters. It's an unnerving quality of hers he's never really been able to attribute to innate skill or guide instincts one way or the other.
A fair bit of it's been replaced by this point, yes. Anger is still easily recalled, but it isn't really showing as much as the want, or the peculiar look that evasion springs forth, the one that tries to look like eight different things at once and ineffably becomes unavoidably itself in the process. A certain level of having been caught - guilt, really - because she didn't deserve the treatment he exposed her to and while he wouldn't have changed his actions he's still moderately apologetic for them, or will be, after the fact. Tony's very expressive, very emotional, feels a lot of things when he doesn't want to, and as a result, tends to be overwhelmed and overwhelming.
Holding onto her hand in return is little more than instinctual, although he wouldn't have stopped it if he'd noticed beforehand anyway. It's more contact, and he'll do with any amount of it he can get right now, eyes sliding shut again with nothing to look at and too much to feel - squeezing shut, even, as her hand moves closer. At this rate by the time she gets there, he'll be solid as a rock. ]
[ Life's too short to put up with that shit, and she's spent most of her life understanding how the inside of people's heads work. At some point you reach the stage the understanding becomes instinctual, even without empathy.
She keeps glancing up for tiny moments to catch the expressions on his face because whether he intends it or not his face is fairly telling right now, gives her a frame of reference to keep working from. So far, so good, she thinks, and besides even that she's cataloguing his feelings in this moment, keeping them for future consideration. Her grip on his hand is firm as she keeps on, offering an anchor against everything else she's doing to him, her hand and it's purposefully slow trail, her mouth looking for nerve she knows to exploit, her knee sliding between his and nudging his legs open further. She's going for reactions, now, for whatever she can do to tip him over that edge of balanced control. ]
Just let it go, Tony. [ A quiet warm murmur against the edge of his jaw for a moment. ] Just let go. [ Her hand finishes it's trail, touches raw nerves as her mind reiterates the message. Just let go. ]
[ Just let it go. The first time she says it and the first time he hears it, he's not sure what to do with it. He's still overstimulated and underinteracted with, and he's not sure what do with this instruction. Let it go. Let what go? Let everything go? He doesn't have that much to let go, and what he does have, he's fiercely holding on to. He doesn't want to let it go. His hand grips hers harder because he doesn't have another out, and handholding is always a good thing, right? Her lips around the reactor pulling muffled grounds from him, around the gag. He doesn't remember anyone else paying such special attention to it, and that in itself is sort of significant, isn't it?
Legs easily nudged wider and again told to just let it go, and he's a little more pliable but still not entirely sure what it is he's supposed to be letting go. What? Let go of what? His stress? His reasons for acting this way? His fears, his desperate attempts to keep things hidden, even badly. He doesn't know. But there's a little more tenseness bleeding out of him as she continues, the blood instead moving into his cock and hardening it further.
He swallows instinctively with the last one, 'Just let it go', and seriously, he isn't sure what this means. Just let it go. But he doesn't have any reaction available to him except a hardening further, like he hadn't thought he'd be able to, a squint and then a look, right at her, because she's saying this and maybe there's more direction on her face or something - no, she just seems content on the 'it' he doesn't know about - and he makes noncommittal noises against the gag, because he can. ]
[ Let go of everything. Just be, for a little bit, unhampered and unobstructed by the worries and fears and stress and whatever it is that's been biting at him. Let them fade away into this whole moment, because it's not necessary to carry things with you always. Because you can't, it's too dangerous and she knows that well. But she's content to leave it nonspecific right now, to let him read into it what he wants or what he needs or just what he thinks she means. Whatever way, it's all right. She squeezes his hand back briefly, because handholding is nice, but then slowly slips it from his grip. She needs that back so she can use her hands to balance on his hips as she moves to straddle him, still staying just out of reach.
His look at her she meets with a calm and steady one of her own for a long moment before she leans to kiss the side of his neck, his cheek, feathery light, hands wandering up his chest now that her knees are supporting her. ] Patience. [ Gentle against his ear as her hands follow the path her mouth had been taking. ]
[ Of... Everything. He doesn't think he can do that. He's actually pretty sure he can't do that. Like, at all. That's like, so far outside his comfort zone, it's actually still in the states of being demilitarized. His eyes open a little bit as she takes her hand away - he was enjoying that perhaps a little more than he thought he was - and glances at her for a moment or two again, basically in the time between removal and straddling, which just makes his eyes shut all the faster.
As a result of that, he doesn't see when her hands are about to hit his chest, the skin twitching with the initial contact. Patience, she says, and his eyes open again to look at her, and he's not sure to whom that's directed, but it sure can't be him. It can't be Tony, because there's no way she's actually expecting him to be patient with all this crap happening. He makes a few muffled sounds into the gag, because continuing to be all stimulative despite the mixed signals likely still means 'shut up', even as unlikely as that is to be achieved. Muffling into the muffler is about the best he can do right now. ]
[ She knows exactly how hard that is to do. A little bit at a time, that's enough though. Small steps. One thing at a time. Today maybe he can stop worrying about whatever it is that has him so wound up and difficult, even if just for a small space of time. Some other time, more. She meditates, has since she was 18 and nearly died and the woman who taught her how to kill a man taught her how to be still and accept the things her mind didn't want to, but she doesn't think Tony's likely to get much out of meditation. So this, because after meditation the next best thing for not thinking about anything is definitely sex.
She expects him to be patient because in this moment he really doesn't have a choice about it. He may not feel patient, or want to be patient, but he has to wait regardless because she's decided so. The muffled noises are a little gratifying - more than a little gratifying, the knowledge that she's affecting him how she wants to. One hand stays on him, the other sliding down her own stomach and then lower, only just a little above him as she makes sure she's ready. She sets her jaw firmly against any noises, keeps her expression neutral as she watches him. ] Don't close your eyes.
[ Patience by virtue of force doesn't really seem very fair. And no, meditation... Not specifically, anyway; ordinary meditation wouldn't work for Tony, but he does have his forms of it regardless. When he's been downstairs for three days and the house has been quiet because he hasn't come up for food or to sleep, that's a form of meditation. Active meditation. In that way, you can argue that sex isn't just a good alternative, it's even an alternate form of the same. Granted, his form of meditation tends to entail its own form of stress, but it's good stress. Tony with no form of stress whatsoever is a shapeless, unmotivated void waiting to fill itself up with enough dynamite to blow a new shape into the coastline that then goes out and makes people prod it with sticks until something along those lines takes place. But really, a lot of the things he does are based around some form of escape.
He blinks his eyes open at the instruction, darker than they had been just a few moments ago. They glance around to see if there's something in the immediate field of vision that's a little safer to look at than her face, because simply looking back at her for any indefinite period of time is just asking her to read him, and he's not quite had his patience forced high enough or his mind wound down enough to really be in favour of that just yet.
But, she's moved, and moving, and that's really quite difficult to not look at in itself. The net result is effectively a lot of eyes bouncing back and forth - her face, her hands, the room when either of those feel like too much. ]
[ It's not at all fair, no. Not even a little bit. Active meditation does work too, though unless you count her fixing of things she doesn't tend to do it herself. Whatever works, though. She knows escapes and the way they become the only response that seems feasible, but she doesn't want him to escape this time. She wants him to accept. Running away only fixes some things, and god knows she's done it plenty herself over the years but sometimes you need to do something that actually gives a try at fixing the problem.
Her own eyes are darkening now, though her attention remains fixed on him and on watching his eyes flicker around, waiting for the moments he looks back at her, the moments she can gauge the expression on his face, let him see her own growing arousal in her eyes as she bites her lip. Her breathing quickens just a touch as she drops her hand to slide along his cock, fingers a little warm and slick. ]
What do you want, Tony? [ Quietly as she lowers her lips back to his throat. He can't answer, of course. At least not particularly audibly. That's a smile curving against his neck, her teeth nipping at his skin. ] What do you need?
[ When he meets her eyes there's a level of darkness reflected, one into the other, and for a moment it's almost hypnotism, dark on dark and pushing the worldly environment away just to be with each other, or something like that. He doesn't know what to do with all of this right now, and all he has to do is let it keep coming. Continue to allow her to stimulate and interact with him, and he's not sure how to work with it.
'What do you want, Tony?', she says, and he doesn't now. He also can't answer, but beyond that, he doesn't know what he wants right now.
'What do you need, Tony?', again, he doesn't know. He hadn't realised how much an ass he was being until she'd told him to come up here and strip. He can't answer physically, but mentally.... Maybe he can show her. Maybe he can give her very carefully chosen glimpses into why he acts this way this time of year. Maybe that'll work. He very, very, super cautiously opens his mind up a little to her, to allow for a very very well controlled series of memory shots or feelings to be pulled from, should she so desire.
But mostly, he's just responding physically. Cock hard and at attention by now, good job, torso taut with all the stimuli and unsure if more of not is coming again, eyes open by direction, mouth biting down on the gag for a moment just because he can and it relieves pressure. ]
[ And there it is, there's the sharing she was hoping for, the willingness to show her at least something, anything. She's careful about her slow acceptance of what he's showing her, delicate in how she goes about looking at the memories he's offering up, reassurance and warmth in the touch of her mind against his. She wants to look at them, but more importantly she wants him to know that she's not judging, that she's just looking to understand. She brings her head up again so that she can look him in the eyes, watching steadily, her expression softened. There's no need to say anything right now.
Her hand's grip firms, still too light to be truly satisfying but enough for now, her stroke purposely very slow and even. She wants to make all those taut muscles twitch, wants to drag it out so she can watch all his reactions bit by slow bit. ]
oh btw i gave him a slightly more substantial secondary reason hope you don't mind
[ Not particularly something he wanted to show her, given that it requires at least the faintest hints of flashbacks even beyond that to fully grasp the meaning involved, but it's only the span of a few moments - sight, sound, and emotion - to understand the entire extent of the problems therein. To be honest, he attempted to go with the superficial reason - denial, teammates - but when you're sharing a motivation, a memory, it's hard to actually pick and choose what you're showing and hiding. Not when everything is this close to the surface and you're not the best at this sort of evasion anyway. He's put far too much effort into the verbal and facial versions; the emotional one barely has any work at all. It hasn't really been needed, until her, and even then there was quickly a level of security that meant it wasn't necessary.
Eye contact just makes him try to avoid it more, although he manages to hold it for all of about six entire seconds. Depending on where the gag has fallen, she might see the muscles in his jaw tighten, and after a few moments watching him it's kind of obvious he's working on sticking to that whole 'don't close your eyes' rule.
Which isn't helped by her firming, albeit for entirely different and much more obvious reasons. His breathing goes a little more uneven every time she gets closer to the head, although it's not as though it's all that even to begin with right now - there's too much emotional, physical, somewhat even mental stimulus going on. By this point, he's starting to tense all over, arms and chest first, and then down gradually from there. ]
[ Emotional evasion is generally fairly hard, and she knows his mind by now, knows the ins and outs of it all. She's taking her time processing what he's giving her, figuring it out and going slowly about even accepting. She doesn't want him to feel hurried or rushed, wants him to understand that she's not taking the trust he's extended in every way this past bit lightly at all. That it means a great deal to her, that she's going to be careful about it all.
She reaches her free hand up, brushes his hair back and runs her thumb across his lips. ] You could be touching me right now. [ Her voice even, almost thoughtful, as if she's just making a passing observation. ] You could have your hands on my skin. You could be finding out exactly how wet I am yourself.
[ And isn't that a beautiful sight, all that tenseness, all that holding himself together. She thinks maybe she taught herself temporary patience just for this sight. Her stroke stays steady, slow, but on the upstroke she slides her thumb up just a little further, closer to nerves, still keeping herself just out of reach of him otherwise. ]
do you need to know what it was or do you want it amorphous?
[ Yeah, and he's still not totally sure whether or not this is something he wants her to see, him at this absolute weakest, the lowest part of all this, the betrayal, the feeling of life ticking away from him with every pulse, getting colder, getting more painful. He doesn't really know how to describe it.
Her words, he's looking at her eyes when she says them, and they dilate perceptibly, because jesus, he could be, that's so not fair, and his eyes skirt over the area he could be touching. He groans, blinking to keep his eyes open and tensing further. The teasing hardens him further, a few drops of precome showing up at the tip, waiting on her hand and the nerves and all his tenseness and all that vulnerability and just so much. ]
[ If he's going to show it to anyone, it might as well be someone who knows the precise taste of death so close the only thing left between you and it is your own will to stay alive and hope. She's not going to think less of him for it. She's more likely to respect him more, because she knows the level of willpower needed to keep struggling when just lying down would mean it was all over in a moment and doesn't it being over sound so good? She lets that sense of understanding and awareness touch his mind, the consideration she has for that moment.
There's a moment where she just watches his eyes do that and smiles, and then quietly she takes her hand away, waits a long beat and watches him again before she shifts herself until he's just lined up with her. Her hands move to his shoulders, support and a grip for the moment. ] Do you want to know? [ Still quietly calm and steady, like she isn't asking questions of someone who can't answer out loud. ] Do you want to be in me, Tony?
i was about to run this by you and then you had to go to german class sooooo
[ When he swallows this time it's because his throat is tight just as much from restraint as it is by anxiety, because, hey, opening up to people. That's some hard shit to do.
But, okay. A deep breath - a little shaky but there's a number of reasons for that right now - and here goes. Extremely short snapshots of the initial incident; Stane's sendoff, humvee explosion, rock-bottom table-top operation - flashes of emotion more than anything, to give her an overarching sense of it, because while he wants to mak--- no, he doesn't. He doesn't want to make it clear. Suddenly, he doesn't want to. They cut off, the emotion dampening with them almost immediately. He knows he's committed now, but that's still a level of sharing that's a little higher than he's willing to reach right now. Or maybe he just wants to make her irritated with him again, because that feels safer too - more so than all this understanding, anyway.
So, okay. Take two. After a few moments of pause and relatively nothing at all from him, he carefully tries again. Not that any of this has been particularly well-organized, he doesn't think in paths that most people would consider organized and he's left all of these memories to run and bleed into and onto each other as quickly as he can run away from them. So when I say that he shows her specifically just what he remembers of Stane removing the reactor, stumbling down to the shop, the blood in his ears and hole in his chest, I mean that it's coming to her disjointed, not all together, with comparative or contrasting images in between. Stane looming over, Obie clapping him on the back. The slow crawl of metal towards his heart, the blast that knocked him down and put it there. It's the feeling that's more important anyway, and that doesn't seem effected by the order the memories go in.
Abruptly, he decides that that's enough sharing, again, he'd much rather focus on the here and now, thank you, there's a reason time goes in the order that it does, and it's so that it's easier to deal with. All he can really do right now is nod, an attempt to not be too encouraging of this idea that sort of fails because yes, he does, a lot, right now. It's a fair amount of effort required to check the urge to thrust up and try to meet her properly. ]
[ She waits at the pause, watches him seriously and runs a thumb over his pulse point. She can be patient, sometimes. There's a little sternness in her eyes, because he is committed, no backing out now allowed, but she'll wait. So long as it still comes, she'll stay here and stay close to him.
And it does come, emotion and memories tangled together as they do, out of order but the meaning clear enough, the feeling coming through and perfectly understandable. Betrayal, and from so close, and hers were never that intimately designed to be cruel, they were on accident. She's never known that feeling, certainly not this searingly close, and she takes the memories and slides herself between them as she can, warmth and presence and a promise of continuing to be present.
She lets it fade, lets the focus return to the present because explanation received thoroughly, and she watches him for a long moment, shifts against him just a little bit before she finally finally slides down, swallows down her own moan and watches him as she pushes against him as far as she can, takes a moment to feel him in her and just look at him because that will be harder once she starts moving and she wants to see his face here. ]
[ The waiting is also weird, but ultimately a good thing. Tony will totally turn on you if he feels at all cornered, and pushing him is a pretty fast way to produce that feeling. So, waiting, while it makes him feel weird, is better than pushing; which she obviously knows already, but still. He takes the reassurance, if for no other reason than because right now he technically has to, and runs with it.
But it's hard to mask the sheer weight of the reaction he has to her acceptance. There's just too much of it, and to a level he's not sure what to do with. It doesn't really help that there's a handful of people who know about the basics, but there isn't anyone else who was there, or saw the events, and there wasn't any video, so. The pure level of relief that comes with a lack of any negative response is almost palpable, even if she weren't currently attuned to his state of being. The addition of positive things between everything else doesn't help that much. You're going to make him overdose on emotional positivism.
The physical though, overdoses there are okay. He goes as squirmy during that long moment as one can reasonably go while handcuffed to a headboard and effectively pinned underneath someone else - you can't look at him like that after he's shared so much like that, okay. He'd sort of prefer you didn't look at him at all, but hey. Pickers, beggars, choosers, things people can't be. Tony doesn't have to work so hard to smother his own reactions, although his eyelids do go a little fluttery again, trying to keep them open, hands clenching into fists for a few moments. More relief. Just saying. It's a pretty good outlet for all that tenseness. ]
[ She understands that instinct to turn and lash out, doesn't want to give him any reason to do that because it would defeat almost the entire purpose of this. She refuses to get this far and mess it up now, that would be incredibly frustrating and difficult and she just refuses. So she's being careful, not pushing, not crowding, letting him set the pace and do whatever keeps him comfortable, because he might be letting her tell him what to do with his body for the moment but she's not going to do the same for his mind, ever.
With being attuned to him, and so acutely in this case because she's been looking for every little bit there was, trying to detect the smallest change, the relief is almost overwhelming for a moment there. But it's good, it's really good, and her smile curves up for a little bit. Relief means something's worked at least a little bit, and hopefully it'll continue to work. Hopefully this will all work out just fine. That's what she hopes for most of all. She just wants a solution to this, an explanation and hopefully then an end to that whole moody assholeishness.
Yeah, there's no choice involved in whether she's looking at you or not, but it's not quite the stern determining gaze of before. There's more lightness to it now, more slightly pleased openness of her own, and then after a long moment of just looking at those reactions she starts to move, starts to work at setting a rhythm. ]
[ JUST ANOTHER REASON WHY THIS IS WEIRD. He keeps waiting for the catalyst, for the reason she's surely going to give him to flip out, and then.... Nothing happens. Just more understanding, more patience. More kindness. It doesn't make sense, lady.
Well, he was scared you'd find his reasons wanting, or wouldn't understand, or, worse, would have had your own experiences that had been to greater scale in breach or scope and look here you were being okay with it so he just needed to get over himself. He's just never going to be able to get over the fact that a man he thought of as almost more a father than the one he was assigned actually made a device specifically designed to take his heart out without even having to touch him. It even burned a perfect circular hole in his shirt. No muss, no fuss. Who plans their betrayal so specifically? Understanding comes at length.
And it doesn't take very long before he does finally come back up out of it enough to see her own shift in expression, subtle though it is. It helps him rise to the normal that much faster, looking to join her back up on the superficial surface level of things. Moving, finally, and he lets a low sound out of his chest because finally, jesus, thank you. ]
[ Empath, Tony. How to treat emotions and keep people from flipping out is one of those things she gets. Kind of really well. Doesn't mean she always employs that knowledge, but when it matters she does. And he matters.
She really doesn't have much experience on this subject - on the near death experience part of it, sure, she's had more than a few of those. Too many, really. Betrayal, though, not so much. Her only real betrayal was meant to save her, she's not sure if it even counts as a betrayal. She might not have the experience to fully understand it but she's in his head, she can see how much it's affected him and she can at least see the feelings as he has them if not have a precise personal understanding of them. She's hardly going to dismiss that lightly, the feelings themselves or that he was willing to give her the context of his behavior even when she'd stopped pushing for it specifically, but for the moment she can let it fade into the background, instead smiling at that low noise as she sets a slow and steady pace for now, pulling away and pushing back, breathing starting to go a little uneven. ]
[ Yeah. Well. People aren't supposed to make sense, much less their emotions. And he doesn't matter that much.
There's yet more relief at her allowing it to fade into the background for the moment, even while he can't really manage to push it all away himself. He tries to, because holy god he's in her and all the anticipation and this is what he was waiting for, he doesn't really know what else to do with that except let her ride him out, so that's what he aims for, but all told, he's hers. Right now, he's almost entirely hers. A little obstinately every now and then, clearly, but on the important matters, or anything else, he's hers. Keeping his eyes open as she sets up a pace is a little more difficult, but if he grounds them on hers and then tries then it goes a little easier. Good luck, hope you wanted eye contact. ]
[ Maybe not to him they aren't, but emotions not making sense would be as weird to her as not being able to hear would be to him. And okay, see, that's a notion she's going to disabuse him of someday. Because he does matter. Of course he matters, how could he not? Even if they were only talking on a completely personal level, he's made her happy again, and that's something she'd started to believe wasn't possible. But it's not just personal, it's all the people he's saved, the things he's made possible. He matters to her immensely, to the world plenty as well.
She hadn't been expecting eye contact, given his avoidance of it before, but she's more than okay with it even if she can't maintain it quite as consistently as he can. But she likes it, likes the intimation of closeness and the continuation of faith put in her, the feeling that he is hers, in this moment at least. It's as good as his hands on her, and for now she can substitute her own for those, sliding down his chest and up her thighs as she moves, helping herself a little like she'd been helping him earlier. She has a little catching up to do. ]
[ Yeah but he's the sort of person who needs to see something before they can really start reacting to it. He needs to actually see the blood poisoning gridlining through his skin before he'll acknowledge the problem; he needs to lay eyes and track the difference in someone who's just been told something to actually fully get the impact it had on them, otherwise it's theoretical, it's all just theoretical. He knows on some level he makes her happy because look, she's here, and she's happy, but he doesn't really get the level to which that's changed because he didn't know her well enough until they were a little ways in to start seeing it. And the people he's saved, they're recompense for all the ones he's killed, even indirectly. It's all a balance, and it doesn't tip in his favour either way.
Yeah, well, he had a secret to be squirmy about before, but now he wants connection. Needs it, because you hide things before you share them, and after you share them, you watch, to make sure that you haven't just run the other person off. Another tracking of reactions, gauging and measuring to see if it was the right choice. The path of her hands is a fairly good way to break it though, and he switches to following their smooth ascent up her thighs with just as much attention as he was using to look at her eyes a moment ago. If it's actually even possible at this point to get any harder, that's definitely happening. ]
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no subject
And see, there's more of that contradiction, the rough and the gentle right after each other, and you'd think that they wouldn't both be so inordinately necessary at the same time, but there they are. If she's been trying to find ways to catch Tony Stark off guard, she's hit on one of a handful of jackpots. His eyes just keep tracking her, and after the words he wouldn't have known what to say anyway, so it's really just as well that he's devoid of the choice right now. But there's more movement, and fuck, she has such a great memory, it's kind of amazing and a little not fair, really, for someone to have such a good memory, to know precisely where to put their mouths like that. The hand though, that's just a tease, and he'd really like her to do something a little more about it, even if as it stands right now it's a pretty good source of motivation. ]
no subject
She doesn't know what to do with the expression on his face, really, other than what she's already doing. There had been anger, before, to some extent. She wants to empty that out, replace it with anything else. For now, want will do. Want and her quiet persistence in being here, and whatever she can offer to prove she has no intentions of leaving this unfinished or going anywhere. She keeps up her actions, slowly turning up the intensity, her free hand sliding up his arm and over the handcuff to lace her fingers through his for a little bit.
And as for that hand on his thigh, he'll get at least part of his wish. It is a tease, purposely so, but that doesn't mean it can't be a slightly more active tease as it travels lightly up sensitive skin, closer and closer. ]
no subject
A fair bit of it's been replaced by this point, yes. Anger is still easily recalled, but it isn't really showing as much as the want, or the peculiar look that evasion springs forth, the one that tries to look like eight different things at once and ineffably becomes unavoidably itself in the process. A certain level of having been caught - guilt, really - because she didn't deserve the treatment he exposed her to and while he wouldn't have changed his actions he's still moderately apologetic for them, or will be, after the fact. Tony's very expressive, very emotional, feels a lot of things when he doesn't want to, and as a result, tends to be overwhelmed and overwhelming.
Holding onto her hand in return is little more than instinctual, although he wouldn't have stopped it if he'd noticed beforehand anyway. It's more contact, and he'll do with any amount of it he can get right now, eyes sliding shut again with nothing to look at and too much to feel - squeezing shut, even, as her hand moves closer. At this rate by the time she gets there, he'll be solid as a rock. ]
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She keeps glancing up for tiny moments to catch the expressions on his face because whether he intends it or not his face is fairly telling right now, gives her a frame of reference to keep working from. So far, so good, she thinks, and besides even that she's cataloguing his feelings in this moment, keeping them for future consideration. Her grip on his hand is firm as she keeps on, offering an anchor against everything else she's doing to him, her hand and it's purposefully slow trail, her mouth looking for nerve she knows to exploit, her knee sliding between his and nudging his legs open further. She's going for reactions, now, for whatever she can do to tip him over that edge of balanced control. ]
Just let it go, Tony. [ A quiet warm murmur against the edge of his jaw for a moment. ] Just let go. [ Her hand finishes it's trail, touches raw nerves as her mind reiterates the message. Just let go. ]
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Legs easily nudged wider and again told to just let it go, and he's a little more pliable but still not entirely sure what it is he's supposed to be letting go. What? Let go of what? His stress? His reasons for acting this way? His fears, his desperate attempts to keep things hidden, even badly. He doesn't know. But there's a little more tenseness bleeding out of him as she continues, the blood instead moving into his cock and hardening it further.
He swallows instinctively with the last one, 'Just let it go', and seriously, he isn't sure what this means. Just let it go. But he doesn't have any reaction available to him except a hardening further, like he hadn't thought he'd be able to, a squint and then a look, right at her, because she's saying this and maybe there's more direction on her face or something - no, she just seems content on the 'it' he doesn't know about - and he makes noncommittal noises against the gag, because he can. ]
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His look at her she meets with a calm and steady one of her own for a long moment before she leans to kiss the side of his neck, his cheek, feathery light, hands wandering up his chest now that her knees are supporting her. ] Patience. [ Gentle against his ear as her hands follow the path her mouth had been taking. ]
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As a result of that, he doesn't see when her hands are about to hit his chest, the skin twitching with the initial contact. Patience, she says, and his eyes open again to look at her, and he's not sure to whom that's directed, but it sure can't be him. It can't be Tony, because there's no way she's actually expecting him to be patient with all this crap happening. He makes a few muffled sounds into the gag, because continuing to be all stimulative despite the mixed signals likely still means 'shut up', even as unlikely as that is to be achieved. Muffling into the muffler is about the best he can do right now. ]
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She expects him to be patient because in this moment he really doesn't have a choice about it. He may not feel patient, or want to be patient, but he has to wait regardless because she's decided so. The muffled noises are a little gratifying - more than a little gratifying, the knowledge that she's affecting him how she wants to. One hand stays on him, the other sliding down her own stomach and then lower, only just a little above him as she makes sure she's ready. She sets her jaw firmly against any noises, keeps her expression neutral as she watches him. ] Don't close your eyes.
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He blinks his eyes open at the instruction, darker than they had been just a few moments ago. They glance around to see if there's something in the immediate field of vision that's a little safer to look at than her face, because simply looking back at her for any indefinite period of time is just asking her to read him, and he's not quite had his patience forced high enough or his mind wound down enough to really be in favour of that just yet.
But, she's moved, and moving, and that's really quite difficult to not look at in itself. The net result is effectively a lot of eyes bouncing back and forth - her face, her hands, the room when either of those feel like too much. ]
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Her own eyes are darkening now, though her attention remains fixed on him and on watching his eyes flicker around, waiting for the moments he looks back at her, the moments she can gauge the expression on his face, let him see her own growing arousal in her eyes as she bites her lip. Her breathing quickens just a touch as she drops her hand to slide along his cock, fingers a little warm and slick. ]
What do you want, Tony? [ Quietly as she lowers her lips back to his throat. He can't answer, of course. At least not particularly audibly. That's a smile curving against his neck, her teeth nipping at his skin. ] What do you need?
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'What do you want, Tony?', she says, and he doesn't now. He also can't answer, but beyond that, he doesn't know what he wants right now.
'What do you need, Tony?', again, he doesn't know. He hadn't realised how much an ass he was being until she'd told him to come up here and strip. He can't answer physically, but mentally.... Maybe he can show her. Maybe he can give her very carefully chosen glimpses into why he acts this way this time of year. Maybe that'll work. He very, very, super cautiously opens his mind up a little to her, to allow for a very very well controlled series of memory shots or feelings to be pulled from, should she so desire.
But mostly, he's just responding physically. Cock hard and at attention by now, good job, torso taut with all the stimuli and unsure if more of not is coming again, eyes open by direction, mouth biting down on the gag for a moment just because he can and it relieves pressure. ]
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Her hand's grip firms, still too light to be truly satisfying but enough for now, her stroke purposely very slow and even. She wants to make all those taut muscles twitch, wants to drag it out so she can watch all his reactions bit by slow bit. ]
oh btw i gave him a slightly more substantial secondary reason hope you don't mind
Eye contact just makes him try to avoid it more, although he manages to hold it for all of about six entire seconds. Depending on where the gag has fallen, she might see the muscles in his jaw tighten, and after a few moments watching him it's kind of obvious he's working on sticking to that whole 'don't close your eyes' rule.
Which isn't helped by her firming, albeit for entirely different and much more obvious reasons. His breathing goes a little more uneven every time she gets closer to the head, although it's not as though it's all that even to begin with right now - there's too much emotional, physical, somewhat even mental stimulus going on. By this point, he's starting to tense all over, arms and chest first, and then down gradually from there. ]
i do not mind at all in fact i welcome it
She reaches her free hand up, brushes his hair back and runs her thumb across his lips. ] You could be touching me right now. [ Her voice even, almost thoughtful, as if she's just making a passing observation. ] You could have your hands on my skin. You could be finding out exactly how wet I am yourself.
[ And isn't that a beautiful sight, all that tenseness, all that holding himself together. She thinks maybe she taught herself temporary patience just for this sight. Her stroke stays steady, slow, but on the upstroke she slides her thumb up just a little further, closer to nerves, still keeping herself just out of reach of him otherwise. ]
do you need to know what it was or do you want it amorphous?
Her words, he's looking at her eyes when she says them, and they dilate perceptibly, because jesus, he could be, that's so not fair, and his eyes skirt over the area he could be touching. He groans, blinking to keep his eyes open and tensing further. The teasing hardens him further, a few drops of precome showing up at the tip, waiting on her hand and the nerves and all his tenseness and all that vulnerability and just so much. ]
knowing would probably be good
There's a moment where she just watches his eyes do that and smiles, and then quietly she takes her hand away, waits a long beat and watches him again before she shifts herself until he's just lined up with her. Her hands move to his shoulders, support and a grip for the moment. ] Do you want to know? [ Still quietly calm and steady, like she isn't asking questions of someone who can't answer out loud. ] Do you want to be in me, Tony?
i was about to run this by you and then you had to go to german class sooooo
But, okay. A deep breath - a little shaky but there's a number of reasons for that right now - and here goes. Extremely short snapshots of the initial incident; Stane's sendoff, humvee explosion, rock-bottom table-top operation - flashes of emotion more than anything, to give her an overarching sense of it, because while he wants to mak--- no, he doesn't. He doesn't want to make it clear. Suddenly, he doesn't want to. They cut off, the emotion dampening with them almost immediately. He knows he's committed now, but that's still a level of sharing that's a little higher than he's willing to reach right now. Or maybe he just wants to make her irritated with him again, because that feels safer too - more so than all this understanding, anyway.
So, okay. Take two. After a few moments of pause and relatively nothing at all from him, he carefully tries again. Not that any of this has been particularly well-organized, he doesn't think in paths that most people would consider organized and he's left all of these memories to run and bleed into and onto each other as quickly as he can run away from them. So when I say that he shows her specifically just what he remembers of Stane removing the reactor, stumbling down to the shop, the blood in his ears and hole in his chest, I mean that it's coming to her disjointed, not all together, with comparative or contrasting images in between. Stane looming over, Obie clapping him on the back. The slow crawl of metal towards his heart, the blast that knocked him down and put it there. It's the feeling that's more important anyway, and that doesn't seem effected by the order the memories go in.
Abruptly, he decides that that's enough sharing, again, he'd much rather focus on the here and now, thank you, there's a reason time goes in the order that it does, and it's so that it's easier to deal with. All he can really do right now is nod, an attempt to not be too encouraging of this idea that sort of fails because yes, he does, a lot, right now. It's a fair amount of effort required to check the urge to thrust up and try to meet her properly. ]
/curls up with
And it does come, emotion and memories tangled together as they do, out of order but the meaning clear enough, the feeling coming through and perfectly understandable. Betrayal, and from so close, and hers were never that intimately designed to be cruel, they were on accident. She's never known that feeling, certainly not this searingly close, and she takes the memories and slides herself between them as she can, warmth and presence and a promise of continuing to be present.
She lets it fade, lets the focus return to the present because explanation received thoroughly, and she watches him for a long moment, shifts against him just a little bit before she finally finally slides down, swallows down her own moan and watches him as she pushes against him as far as she can, takes a moment to feel him in her and just look at him because that will be harder once she starts moving and she wants to see his face here. ]
who is the little spoon
But it's hard to mask the sheer weight of the reaction he has to her acceptance. There's just too much of it, and to a level he's not sure what to do with. It doesn't really help that there's a handful of people who know about the basics, but there isn't anyone else who was there, or saw the events, and there wasn't any video, so. The pure level of relief that comes with a lack of any negative response is almost palpable, even if she weren't currently attuned to his state of being. The addition of positive things between everything else doesn't help that much. You're going to make him overdose on emotional positivism.
The physical though, overdoses there are okay. He goes as squirmy during that long moment as one can reasonably go while handcuffed to a headboard and effectively pinned underneath someone else - you can't look at him like that after he's shared so much like that, okay. He'd sort of prefer you didn't look at him at all, but hey. Pickers, beggars, choosers, things people can't be. Tony doesn't have to work so hard to smother his own reactions, although his eyelids do go a little fluttery again, trying to keep them open, hands clenching into fists for a few moments. More relief. Just saying. It's a pretty good outlet for all that tenseness. ]
idk man you're smaller but i sleep curled up
With being attuned to him, and so acutely in this case because she's been looking for every little bit there was, trying to detect the smallest change, the relief is almost overwhelming for a moment there. But it's good, it's really good, and her smile curves up for a little bit. Relief means something's worked at least a little bit, and hopefully it'll continue to work. Hopefully this will all work out just fine. That's what she hopes for most of all. She just wants a solution to this, an explanation and hopefully then an end to that whole moody assholeishness.
Yeah, there's no choice involved in whether she's looking at you or not, but it's not quite the stern determining gaze of before. There's more lightness to it now, more slightly pleased openness of her own, and then after a long moment of just looking at those reactions she starts to move, starts to work at setting a rhythm. ]
i do not. so i am the big spoon! \o/
Well, he was scared you'd find his reasons wanting, or wouldn't understand, or, worse, would have had your own experiences that had been to greater scale in breach or scope and look here you were being okay with it so he just needed to get over himself. He's just never going to be able to get over the fact that a man he thought of as almost more a father than the one he was assigned actually made a device specifically designed to take his heart out without even having to touch him. It even burned a perfect circular hole in his shirt. No muss, no fuss. Who plans their betrayal so specifically? Understanding comes at length.
And it doesn't take very long before he does finally come back up out of it enough to see her own shift in expression, subtle though it is. It helps him rise to the normal that much faster, looking to join her back up on the superficial surface level of things. Moving, finally, and he lets a low sound out of his chest because finally, jesus, thank you. ]
i'm cool with this /shakes fist at distance
She really doesn't have much experience on this subject - on the near death experience part of it, sure, she's had more than a few of those. Too many, really. Betrayal, though, not so much. Her only real betrayal was meant to save her, she's not sure if it even counts as a betrayal. She might not have the experience to fully understand it but she's in his head, she can see how much it's affected him and she can at least see the feelings as he has them if not have a precise personal understanding of them. She's hardly going to dismiss that lightly, the feelings themselves or that he was willing to give her the context of his behavior even when she'd stopped pushing for it specifically, but for the moment she can let it fade into the background, instead smiling at that low noise as she sets a slow and steady pace for now, pulling away and pushing back, breathing starting to go a little uneven. ]
yeah we need to fix that part
There's yet more relief at her allowing it to fade into the background for the moment, even while he can't really manage to push it all away himself. He tries to, because holy god he's in her and all the anticipation and this is what he was waiting for, he doesn't really know what else to do with that except let her ride him out, so that's what he aims for, but all told, he's hers. Right now, he's almost entirely hers. A little obstinately every now and then, clearly, but on the important matters, or anything else, he's hers. Keeping his eyes open as she sets up a pace is a little more difficult, but if he grounds them on hers and then tries then it goes a little easier. Good luck, hope you wanted eye contact. ]
we're going to fix it so much it ceases to exist
She hadn't been expecting eye contact, given his avoidance of it before, but she's more than okay with it even if she can't maintain it quite as consistently as he can. But she likes it, likes the intimation of closeness and the continuation of faith put in her, the feeling that he is hers, in this moment at least. It's as good as his hands on her, and for now she can substitute her own for those, sliding down his chest and up her thighs as she moves, helping herself a little like she'd been helping him earlier. She has a little catching up to do. ]
that sounds quite... threatening
Yeah, well, he had a secret to be squirmy about before, but now he wants connection. Needs it, because you hide things before you share them, and after you share them, you watch, to make sure that you haven't just run the other person off. Another tracking of reactions, gauging and measuring to see if it was the right choice. The path of her hands is a fairly good way to break it though, and he switches to following their smooth ascent up her thighs with just as much attention as he was using to look at her eyes a moment ago. If it's actually even possible at this point to get any harder, that's definitely happening. ]
it is only threatening to the space between us
okay true i'll go with that
i wouldn't threaten you promise
can't tell if that's actually reassuring or somewhat disappointing
kdhfd would you like me to threaten your honor i could do that
what honor
... good point. i got nothing. nothing but looove
you're going to threaten my /love/ now that's just mean
no i will threaten you with love. somehow. i'm still not clear on details.
that sounds kind of emotional blackmaily, js
i think i will just stick to never threatening you at all i like it better
okay that sounds better
see? totally reassuring instead of disappointing
'totally'
yes totally. /for sure/
uh huh
;; someday you will believe me when i say things
somedaaaaaaaaaaaay, over the raaaaainbowww
just you waaaait
i have to go back further for the subject line conversation than the actual tags to get context now
lakhdf 8D look at these great life choices we make
i question the words 'great', 'life', and 'choices' in that sentence
that's like the entire point of the sentence you're questioning there
oops?
oops is for accidents you totally didn't disagree on accident
what. wait, what.
i'm no longer sure
i'm glad that makes two of us
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idek man
shhh ily it's fine
;;
/wraps up
/clings to
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