[ 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. ]
[ She's good at putting on a front, too, good at making herself look like someone relatively normal and at ease. To genuinely know how much he's given her he would have had to know her still in the middle of everything, still caught up in something that seemed to have no end and no escape, and really know her then. She could show him, but showing anyone her past on purpose is a no-go for multiple reasons, starting with she's never wanted pity and ending with she doesn't think anyone deserves to feel the inevitable emotional barrage that would come with those memories. And mostly she doesn't even realize that he doesn't get it because to her it's just so obvious.
In this case it's pretty clear he hasn't run her off at all, her mind still open to his and lightly casual about it, no attempt to move away, her eyes holding his when possible and then watching him watching her and goddamn the attention in his eyes. It's a strange feeling, having him so focused on what she's doing to herself as well as to him, but she finds she doesn't mind, even likes it. She trails her hands up to her breasts, closes her eyes now for the moment because him watching her and him in her and all of this, it's a lot all put together. When she finally lets herself make a sound it's his name on an exhale, a little ragged and half a plea. ]
[ Right now an emotional barrage like that would be a super bad idea anyway - I know you didn't mean 'well here now i'll show you mine' but still - talk about overwhelming.
That's how Tony works though, his mind is everywhere when he's not focused, and when he is, it's laser beam intensity and precision and complexity, and getting it to switch from everywhere to laser when he isn't inclined to do so or is just not given the right set of catalysts is more or less like trying to turn on the sun. She has, in this moment, by taking away half of his ability to scatter, holding him in place, silently, even holding his head so he looks more or less where she wants, he has to focus, on her. And then she does things and he just wants to focus on her - he is already, after all.
The sound of his name, like that, he makes an almost silent whine, because he wants to touch her - the way he's flexing and then grasping the headboard he's cuffed to indicating his need to touch things - and he needs movement, just a little, trying not to shift in anticipation and almost, almost managing it entirely. ]
[ Yeah, seriously. If she ever did, she'd pick sometime with much less going on. But, well, she won't. Not without a very very good reason.
She wasn't really sure if this would work, if this was a way of getting his attention that would work thoroughly, would work the way she wanted it to. That it has and that he seems to be okay with it, it's kind of really good. It's confirmation of this working (if working in unconventional and complicated ways), that she can help. She's not going to lose him because she's done something stupid.
And fuck, that noise and his hands clenching and grasping and the things they could be doing, she has to close her eyes again as she moves again, puts her hips into it and lets one hand drift lower. It's hard to coordinate movement between her entire body and then also just her hands specifically, but so long as she doesn't look at the expression on his face she can manage it, can keep pulling them both further along, can start to share how she feels at this moment with him silently. ]
can't tell if that's actually reassuring or somewhat disappointing
[ He's totally okay with it, which is in itself a little strange, given his penchant for ostensibly controlling most aspects of any given situation, but hey. If it works. And this is working, pretty damn well, even. He's radiating relief not only from the advancement of their respective situational state but also just from the sheer weight relieved from having to handle everything by himself, or on his own at all. Occasionally Tony requires - no matter how dependent the relationship might be otherwise - a firm grasp on the literal and physical responses in one way or the other. It's just easier when it's from him outward. Not to mention, she doesn't seem the sort to comfortably relinquish control.
But for the moment, he'll have his hands on her soon enough, be it this experience or the next, there's little need to worry as to how thoroughly he'll repay this altercation between them. As much as he enjoys relinquishing control, he enjoys the play back and forth of such, so in as much as it's unlikely he'll ever see fit to restrain her, he wouldn't mind showing a certain level of dominance another way. It's just that it's far more comfortable in this direction. Like, unreasonably more comfortable. It's dumb how happy he is about this series of choices. But he's also happy to provide whatever is needed for the partner, be that any sort of partner. It's a weird area in which he's willing to give more than anything, even if he prefers the opposite. Interpersonal relationships, man. They're oomplicated things.
In the moment, his breathing goes a bit heavier with more movement, still watching her carefully - what else does he have to do right now, at least when she's not hitting the right spot to make him close his eyes and clench down further - and, really, what else, continue to watch her. The sharing of emotion, almost overwhelming in itself, and for a little while he does close his eyes, because processing is difficult enough when you have extraneous sensory input. ]
kdhfd would you like me to threaten your honor i could do that
[ That relief is really good to feel, mingling in with the emotional input and output she's moderating, and it really is a lot all together. She shudders, keeps moving and leans back just a little to adjust the angle. She hadn't been sure, at first, if this would even work, and that it has is enough for relief to fill her emotional output as well, mingle in with the pleasure and the feedback is - god, it's strong, she slows for a moment with a moan before she can continue at pace.
He'd be right in guessing that she's not the sort to easily let go of control. Trust is hard. Trusting that you can put yourself in someone else's hands at your most vulnerable and they won't hurt you sometimes approaches impossible to believe for her. With him it's mildly easier to believe, as in if the possibility came up she wouldn't immediately dismiss it with extreme prejudice. Sometimes she wonders if it's comforting, to be able to do that. To let someone else make decisions for you for a little while, to have things out of your hands. She can never make up her mind.
Seriously, interpersonal relationships. She'd sworn off of those before him, and half the time here she's still sure she's about to fuck things up somehow, horribly, make it all go wrong because her experience in genuine relationships is limited and in the 'doomed' category. She can't help that she's sometimes terrified this will go the same way. But for right now it seems to be going pretty okay, in this moment. She got this bit right, very right it seems, and she can't stop being happy about it. ]
[ Comforting on some level. On another there's a sense of danger that's hard to dismiss, but for some people that sense in itself is helpful. You wouldn't really think that someone who appears at face value to put so little thought into their personal well-being would really consider something so moderately mundane as this to be dangerous, but the act in itself is a level of opening up that he does feel out of his comfort zone with. Their conversation and his own subsequent display of motives being a fairly good indication of that. It's not as though he actually thought she would do anything, but the sheer fact that he put himself in the sort of situation where she might be able to stand above him and demand some sort of apology or rebuttal to his own actions is worrisome enough to elevate the situation to something a little bit beyond kinky. It's not the physical he's worried about - he's already done that, and while it would still suck, there's other things that beleaguer his mind first.
But for the moment, hey, she should totally be happy about it. He's fairly pleased with things right now too, so there's that, at least. The memories aren't particularly assuaged, nor have they faded, but there's a level and manner of intensity faded to speak to the sheer weight resolved in showing someone else something that's bothering you, or allowing them to have all the pieces involved in understanding your motivations. Even criminals have that, to the point where it's a trope. Granted, a lot of the time they need people to see how clever they are, but he's got an outlet for that. In this case, it's more a matter of needing people to see how screwed up they are, why they act the way that they do, and not just their intellectual reasoning for doing so.
The shift in angle is a beautiful thing, and he makes another sound in appreciation - most change is a good thing at this point. Not that anything needs changing, just that the difference in stimulus, the inability to get used to any part of it, that's never going to be something he complains about. His breathing is a fair bit faster now, deeper, chest and torso now involved in the push and pull of air in and out, and he's intermittently pulling against the handcuffs so hard that the bed has made its own sounds of protest once or twice. ]
[ It's something she would consider dangerous herself if she did it, and it's something she's not entirely certainly she's pleased he's apparently willing to do - for her? with her? at her demand? She is pleased, in some respects, particularly the ones where it got her teh results she wanted, but on another level it bothers her a little. Not that he was willing to listen to her, because that's great, but that he was willing to give her so much control. Even with the failsafes, even with the fact that deliberately hurting him would be so so difficult for her even if only because of instincts, it's still. It's complicated. But she wouldn't have liked it if he'd contradicted her, so she's not entirely sure how she feels about this entire thing yet other than pleased it's worked. She'll sort out other feelings later.
So for the moment she is pretty happy about it. Anything else, any dissection of it, that has to wait for later. For right now she's a little bit busy with him, with understanding and processing what he's given her even as she continues to move. Some of it will have to wait for later. Most of it, really, because she's slightly preoccupied at the moment. But it's still good to have, that knowledge, something more to add to how she can help him best. And that's really what she wants, most of all. Not even as repayment for all he's done - just because she can. Because she likes him, a lot, and therefore he deserves this.
The flex of his muscles with his breath gets her attention, her eyes flickering across him, across his hands and the headboard where he's straining it, how he's trying to touch her. Concentration on any one thing is difficult at the moment. It's fallen to the wayside beside searching for the perfect angle for both of them, adjusting minutely as she gets feedback from her own body and through his mind his, a low sound in her throat at his attempts to move. ]
you're going to threaten my /love/ now that's just mean
[ Any or all of the above. If she needed it, if she wanted it, if he wanted it, if he needed it, if she felt like trying it, if she thought it might work, if she just had a passing fancy, if she had a passing fancy that didn't pass and stopped, if it was the control necessary, if it was the care-giving necessary, if it was with her, if it was for her, if it was demanded, if it was requested - honestly. At this point, basically any or all of those reasons would be legitimate enough. He doesn't understand all the fail-safes, just that they're there and she experiences pain and extreme discomfort if she physically harms him - maybe she likes that feeling, he doesn't know. She's never pegged as a masochist, or a sadist for that matter, but hey. People can surprise you.
This time though, only in as much as they can meander outside a usual relationship while remaining within boundaries that go along with said relationship. His eyes flutter shut without thinking about it as she gets close - maybe even hits once or twice - that perfect angle she's been looking for. One of them anyway. There's probably one that's perfect for each of them individually and one that's for them both, he has no idea which one that was, just that for a moment he wasn't sure whether to relax or tense further or what. ]
no i will threaten you with love. somehow. i'm still not clear on details.
[ That's a long list of reasons that mostly involve her. If she knew that she wouldn't really know how to feel about it. She's stopped refusing to let herself think about precisely what this all means to her, because it means too much now for her to just refuse to acknowledge the depths of it, but that would still be a slight moment of pause. How did they do this to each other, this thing where they're both willing to do so much for each other? She'd told herself that was never going to happen again. It wasn't supposed to ever happen again, but here she is and here he is and it did happen.
There probably are somewhere guide sentinel pairings who take advantage of that, but she's neither a sadist nor a masochist and the thought of genuinely hurting him in any way terrifies her more than a little bit. She can't do that. She's hurt too many people, she refuses to add the person who genuinely means something to her to the list.
And oh god, that's good. She rocks down again, a little harder this time, her pace quickening because that feels amazing and she wants more of it, wants him in ways she can't even articulate at the moment, just hope it gets across in the way she says his name, low and drawn out, her own eyes closing again because it really is a massive amount of stimulus all at once and it's almost overwhelming. ]
[ They did mostly involve her, didn't they. Weird. But hey, refusing to think about things works pretty well for him, it's how he handles basically everything that can't operate in binary, so, that's pretty cool. The whole situation is a little confusing in general, and add in all the crap about feelings and instincts tied up in it and it's just an over-sensitive little ball of conundrums that neither one of them ever really seems all that keen on exploring to any great extent. Tony does tend to defy expectation though, so it's not all that surprising to him that a fairly surprising situation in itself seems to have developed. Those seem to happen around him more often than not, anyway.
And hey, maybe there's an innate understanding of that beyond everything else, that she's always been extraordinarily cautious and careful around him, with him, and he doesn't really feel such an overwhelming need to make himself safe around her because he already knows she's taking care of it. Not that he's always just going to be ridiculous and make her see to their safety, but the sense that it would be possible, that's got to be pretty relieving.
It definitely gets across, that much is pretty obvious in the way he responds to her, mentally opens up a little more as he blinks his eyes open the same way, watching her move. His breathing attempts to be a little more controlled as he feels himself start to draw up, getting closer to a release, and honestly he'd prefer to draw this out a little more, this closeness, the forced vulnerability, the sensation of it all. Focusing really on either one of them too much is going to bring an end faster, but switching between them both, distracting himself with the pair of them, that might help. ]
i think i will just stick to never threatening you at all i like it better
[ They really do seem to happen around him a lot. Like, all the time. She probably should stop being surprised sometime, but it still does surprise him sometimes. Almost nothing in this relationships has progressed particularly normally, really, maybe she should have expected something like this to happen actually.
She doesn't generally mean to broadcast, or even to extend much of herself outwards, but over time more of her feelings, more of her intentions towards him and determination to keep this safe have probably leaked than she meant to. It's not that she doesn't want him to know those things, but saying them out loud or communicating them would mean reactions, and she'd never felt up to handling that, so any leaking has been more or less subconscious.
She can feel that in his mind too, the openness and the unwillingness to let go, and it's almost impossible but she slows down again some, a little more steady and even, her eyes flicking open and meeting his, her own more than a little blown and wide but still perfectly aware, both of what she's doing to him and what she's doing to herself. There's heat pooling in her belly, body a mass of nerves, but she has good self control, she can draw it out a little longer for them both. ]
[ And that's good, because saying them directly would probably freak him out a little bit. Having received them sub- or unconsciously, they were allowed to just... settle. Passive. Neither one of them does particularly well with direct, it's kind of hilarious. But this, this is a good place to be, wherever it is that they are. However they've reached it, it's a good place.
Oh, god, slowing down, he wasn't intending to broadcast either - it's very infrequent when he does intend to, and somewhat more infrequent still that he actually manages it well enough to be distinguishable, since more often than not he just winds up broadcasting everything and the cacophony tends to be more than a little overwhelming. He wasn't intending to broadcast, but she apparently got it anyway, and now she's slowing down, even though that look in her eyes and on her face sort of counteracts her measure taken against completion - maybe he'll just casually start running through chemical reactions in his head, concentrate on his breathing, not the way her curves move when she bends this way, or that, the way her hands are shaped in the heat of the moment, or the dark dark color of her eyes as she looks down at him. ]
[ They seriously are just totally allergic to the concept of saying things directly and straightforwardly, which makes it very much so for the best that they don't ever have to. With as much closeness as they have and as many tools for knowing what other people are and aren't saying, things can get noticed and stored half the time without them even noticing. Whether they ever consciously realize it perhaps doesn't even matter, in some ways.
She swallows down the noise she wants to make, thins the exchange of sensation between their minds a little at a time until it's lighter, enough to be there and pleasant but not as much of a spur towards this ending. There's a sense of loss with that, but at the same time she doesn't mind. The slower pace and the dragging it out means more time to look at him, at the strain of his muscles and the look in his eyes and the lines of his body. God, this moment should last forever. ]
[ Conscious, subconscious, unconscious - they tend to have a pretty good thing going on as long as some form of -scious is used. They're just that good.
Tony doesn't quite notice the thinning as much as she does, likely, because he's not as attuned to that aspect of it. He is, instead, trying to not focus on all the messages his body is sending him. Sight on alert, touch electric with stimulation to the point where he feels like he's practically buzzing even in areas she has yet to touch, hearing catching that swallowed sound regardless of her efforts, every single hitched or halting breath ringing true in his ears. It's not that he's in any danger of overload, this is just how they were supposed to be used, in his opinion. He can't help the alert state of them, but he can appreciate it while it's there. Unfortunately, it does mean that it's harder to concentrate on those chemical reactions. Perhaps the mental bond between them was actually serving a purpose. Without that to also concentrate on, as unhelpful as it was, there's little else but the sensate and senseful.
Not that he minds. Just that it means even despite their efforts to drag this out as long as possible, as long as possible isn't going to be that much longer. ]
[ If there's one really good way to use his senses, she's pretty sure this is it. Even through the slightly lessened link she can feel a little bit of how they feel, of the extra sensation they allow. She can only compare it to what an empathic feedback loop gives her in terms of pleasure, and anything that can be compared to that feels pretty damn good.
It isn't going to be able to, and she knows that, can feel herself so close, the urge to speed up again that she's barely tamping back, the crush of sensation as her breath stutters and stumbles it's way out. She can't hold herself back almost any longer, she thinks. Though that will mean she can keep a slower pace for him without having to exert all her self control to not try for more. ]
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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
In this case it's pretty clear he hasn't run her off at all, her mind still open to his and lightly casual about it, no attempt to move away, her eyes holding his when possible and then watching him watching her and goddamn the attention in his eyes. It's a strange feeling, having him so focused on what she's doing to herself as well as to him, but she finds she doesn't mind, even likes it. She trails her hands up to her breasts, closes her eyes now for the moment because him watching her and him in her and all of this, it's a lot all put together. When she finally lets herself make a sound it's his name on an exhale, a little ragged and half a plea. ]
okay true i'll go with that
That's how Tony works though, his mind is everywhere when he's not focused, and when he is, it's laser beam intensity and precision and complexity, and getting it to switch from everywhere to laser when he isn't inclined to do so or is just not given the right set of catalysts is more or less like trying to turn on the sun. She has, in this moment, by taking away half of his ability to scatter, holding him in place, silently, even holding his head so he looks more or less where she wants, he has to focus, on her. And then she does things and he just wants to focus on her - he is already, after all.
The sound of his name, like that, he makes an almost silent whine, because he wants to touch her - the way he's flexing and then grasping the headboard he's cuffed to indicating his need to touch things - and he needs movement, just a little, trying not to shift in anticipation and almost, almost managing it entirely. ]
i wouldn't threaten you promise
She wasn't really sure if this would work, if this was a way of getting his attention that would work thoroughly, would work the way she wanted it to. That it has and that he seems to be okay with it, it's kind of really good. It's confirmation of this working (if working in unconventional and complicated ways), that she can help. She's not going to lose him because she's done something stupid.
And fuck, that noise and his hands clenching and grasping and the things they could be doing, she has to close her eyes again as she moves again, puts her hips into it and lets one hand drift lower. It's hard to coordinate movement between her entire body and then also just her hands specifically, but so long as she doesn't look at the expression on his face she can manage it, can keep pulling them both further along, can start to share how she feels at this moment with him silently. ]
can't tell if that's actually reassuring or somewhat disappointing
But for the moment, he'll have his hands on her soon enough, be it this experience or the next, there's little need to worry as to how thoroughly he'll repay this altercation between them. As much as he enjoys relinquishing control, he enjoys the play back and forth of such, so in as much as it's unlikely he'll ever see fit to restrain her, he wouldn't mind showing a certain level of dominance another way. It's just that it's far more comfortable in this direction. Like, unreasonably more comfortable. It's dumb how happy he is about this series of choices. But he's also happy to provide whatever is needed for the partner, be that any sort of partner. It's a weird area in which he's willing to give more than anything, even if he prefers the opposite. Interpersonal relationships, man. They're oomplicated things.
In the moment, his breathing goes a bit heavier with more movement, still watching her carefully - what else does he have to do right now, at least when she's not hitting the right spot to make him close his eyes and clench down further - and, really, what else, continue to watch her. The sharing of emotion, almost overwhelming in itself, and for a little while he does close his eyes, because processing is difficult enough when you have extraneous sensory input. ]
kdhfd would you like me to threaten your honor i could do that
He'd be right in guessing that she's not the sort to easily let go of control. Trust is hard. Trusting that you can put yourself in someone else's hands at your most vulnerable and they won't hurt you sometimes approaches impossible to believe for her. With him it's mildly easier to believe, as in if the possibility came up she wouldn't immediately dismiss it with extreme prejudice. Sometimes she wonders if it's comforting, to be able to do that. To let someone else make decisions for you for a little while, to have things out of your hands. She can never make up her mind.
Seriously, interpersonal relationships. She'd sworn off of those before him, and half the time here she's still sure she's about to fuck things up somehow, horribly, make it all go wrong because her experience in genuine relationships is limited and in the 'doomed' category. She can't help that she's sometimes terrified this will go the same way. But for right now it seems to be going pretty okay, in this moment. She got this bit right, very right it seems, and she can't stop being happy about it. ]
what honor
But for the moment, hey, she should totally be happy about it. He's fairly pleased with things right now too, so there's that, at least. The memories aren't particularly assuaged, nor have they faded, but there's a level and manner of intensity faded to speak to the sheer weight resolved in showing someone else something that's bothering you, or allowing them to have all the pieces involved in understanding your motivations. Even criminals have that, to the point where it's a trope. Granted, a lot of the time they need people to see how clever they are, but he's got an outlet for that. In this case, it's more a matter of needing people to see how screwed up they are, why they act the way that they do, and not just their intellectual reasoning for doing so.
The shift in angle is a beautiful thing, and he makes another sound in appreciation - most change is a good thing at this point. Not that anything needs changing, just that the difference in stimulus, the inability to get used to any part of it, that's never going to be something he complains about. His breathing is a fair bit faster now, deeper, chest and torso now involved in the push and pull of air in and out, and he's intermittently pulling against the handcuffs so hard that the bed has made its own sounds of protest once or twice. ]
... good point. i got nothing. nothing but looove
So for the moment she is pretty happy about it. Anything else, any dissection of it, that has to wait for later. For right now she's a little bit busy with him, with understanding and processing what he's given her even as she continues to move. Some of it will have to wait for later. Most of it, really, because she's slightly preoccupied at the moment. But it's still good to have, that knowledge, something more to add to how she can help him best. And that's really what she wants, most of all. Not even as repayment for all he's done - just because she can. Because she likes him, a lot, and therefore he deserves this.
The flex of his muscles with his breath gets her attention, her eyes flickering across him, across his hands and the headboard where he's straining it, how he's trying to touch her. Concentration on any one thing is difficult at the moment. It's fallen to the wayside beside searching for the perfect angle for both of them, adjusting minutely as she gets feedback from her own body and through his mind his, a low sound in her throat at his attempts to move. ]
you're going to threaten my /love/ now that's just mean
This time though, only in as much as they can meander outside a usual relationship while remaining within boundaries that go along with said relationship. His eyes flutter shut without thinking about it as she gets close - maybe even hits once or twice - that perfect angle she's been looking for. One of them anyway. There's probably one that's perfect for each of them individually and one that's for them both, he has no idea which one that was, just that for a moment he wasn't sure whether to relax or tense further or what. ]
no i will threaten you with love. somehow. i'm still not clear on details.
There probably are somewhere guide sentinel pairings who take advantage of that, but she's neither a sadist nor a masochist and the thought of genuinely hurting him in any way terrifies her more than a little bit. She can't do that. She's hurt too many people, she refuses to add the person who genuinely means something to her to the list.
And oh god, that's good. She rocks down again, a little harder this time, her pace quickening because that feels amazing and she wants more of it, wants him in ways she can't even articulate at the moment, just hope it gets across in the way she says his name, low and drawn out, her own eyes closing again because it really is a massive amount of stimulus all at once and it's almost overwhelming. ]
that sounds kind of emotional blackmaily, js
And hey, maybe there's an innate understanding of that beyond everything else, that she's always been extraordinarily cautious and careful around him, with him, and he doesn't really feel such an overwhelming need to make himself safe around her because he already knows she's taking care of it. Not that he's always just going to be ridiculous and make her see to their safety, but the sense that it would be possible, that's got to be pretty relieving.
It definitely gets across, that much is pretty obvious in the way he responds to her, mentally opens up a little more as he blinks his eyes open the same way, watching her move. His breathing attempts to be a little more controlled as he feels himself start to draw up, getting closer to a release, and honestly he'd prefer to draw this out a little more, this closeness, the forced vulnerability, the sensation of it all. Focusing really on either one of them too much is going to bring an end faster, but switching between them both, distracting himself with the pair of them, that might help. ]
i think i will just stick to never threatening you at all i like it better
She doesn't generally mean to broadcast, or even to extend much of herself outwards, but over time more of her feelings, more of her intentions towards him and determination to keep this safe have probably leaked than she meant to. It's not that she doesn't want him to know those things, but saying them out loud or communicating them would mean reactions, and she'd never felt up to handling that, so any leaking has been more or less subconscious.
She can feel that in his mind too, the openness and the unwillingness to let go, and it's almost impossible but she slows down again some, a little more steady and even, her eyes flicking open and meeting his, her own more than a little blown and wide but still perfectly aware, both of what she's doing to him and what she's doing to herself. There's heat pooling in her belly, body a mass of nerves, but she has good self control, she can draw it out a little longer for them both. ]
okay that sounds better
Oh, god, slowing down, he wasn't intending to broadcast either - it's very infrequent when he does intend to, and somewhat more infrequent still that he actually manages it well enough to be distinguishable, since more often than not he just winds up broadcasting everything and the cacophony tends to be more than a little overwhelming. He wasn't intending to broadcast, but she apparently got it anyway, and now she's slowing down, even though that look in her eyes and on her face sort of counteracts her measure taken against completion - maybe he'll just casually start running through chemical reactions in his head, concentrate on his breathing, not the way her curves move when she bends this way, or that, the way her hands are shaped in the heat of the moment, or the dark dark color of her eyes as she looks down at him. ]
see? totally reassuring instead of disappointing
She swallows down the noise she wants to make, thins the exchange of sensation between their minds a little at a time until it's lighter, enough to be there and pleasant but not as much of a spur towards this ending. There's a sense of loss with that, but at the same time she doesn't mind. The slower pace and the dragging it out means more time to look at him, at the strain of his muscles and the look in his eyes and the lines of his body. God, this moment should last forever. ]
'totally'
Tony doesn't quite notice the thinning as much as she does, likely, because he's not as attuned to that aspect of it. He is, instead, trying to not focus on all the messages his body is sending him. Sight on alert, touch electric with stimulation to the point where he feels like he's practically buzzing even in areas she has yet to touch, hearing catching that swallowed sound regardless of her efforts, every single hitched or halting breath ringing true in his ears. It's not that he's in any danger of overload, this is just how they were supposed to be used, in his opinion. He can't help the alert state of them, but he can appreciate it while it's there. Unfortunately, it does mean that it's harder to concentrate on those chemical reactions. Perhaps the mental bond between them was actually serving a purpose. Without that to also concentrate on, as unhelpful as it was, there's little else but the sensate and senseful.
Not that he minds. Just that it means even despite their efforts to drag this out as long as possible, as long as possible isn't going to be that much longer. ]
yes totally. /for sure/
It isn't going to be able to, and she knows that, can feel herself so close, the urge to speed up again that she's barely tamping back, the crush of sensation as her breath stutters and stumbles it's way out. She can't hold herself back almost any longer, she thinks. Though that will mean she can keep a slower pace for him without having to exert all her self control to not try for more. ]
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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