fe_male | memeboxing

[ 'Advantage' and 'discriminate', both ruined by misconceptions of their own meanings. It's sad.

Yeah, he's probably not going to be able to follow that very well, especially if she starts talking to him, even idly. (although also especially if she doesn't say anything at all, so. whoops.) For the moment though, he lets his eyes track the movement the way he wants his hands to be, occasionally glancing back up to watch her face, because he's interested in her face and how it reacts to what its hands are doing. And he's shifting under her a little bit, not hard yet but still looking for some sort of pressure or friction to help that along. Or just feel good. He's impatient, and he has the feeling she's going to be moving quite leisurely. ]

[ There's just no way to win with the talking without finding a way to make sure he doesn't have a choice, is there. But for now she doesn't have to consider that. As soon as he shifts she stills, lets her hips become immovable. It's her pace they're going with here, not his, and that's good intuition of his right there. Leisurely is in fact the plan. Very much so.

Her face isn't particularly reacting to what her hands are doing yet, still watching him like a hawk, serious and tracking every flicker of his eyes back and forth. She slides out of the shirt, lets it drop to the floor, and her hands move to her back, unhooking her bra and taking it off about as slowly as she can. Her eyes do flicker closed for a moment, now, as she runs one thumb over a nipple, but her voice remains even. ] You've been being kind of an ass, Tony.

[ Probably not, but at least they have the unique relationship to where if the choice was removed, it isn't as though any potential distress couldn't be communicated otherwise. If he actually wants her to stop at any point, directing the emotion towards her is probably more straightforward than actually saying something. Similarly related is likely one of the other contributing factors to why he listened to her in the first place - if he actually does feel like he needs to, there isn't much that's going to stop him getting out of this. Although that would obviously take quite a bit of needs-to.

Immovability makes him stop shifting, releasing the rest of a breath quickly through his nose to vent the frustration but otherwise taking the hint well enough. It doesn't mean he stops watching her, even when he knows she's doing the same to him in return, and for similar reasons. At the words though, he's back up to her face, no flicking around, raising his chin a little and setting his jaw, because yeah, okay, he has been, he admits it, but he still feels justified in his reasons. Maybe not quite to have been an ass to her, since she didn't know, doesn't know, what or how many his reasons are, but part of being an ass is not explaining yourself and he's never been very good at that, just ask his geometry teacher, and he isn't about to start right now. For the moment, he still doesn't say anything, but he keeps looking at her for a few seconds before looking off to the side instead. ]

[ There is that, which is really definitely useful. It helps alleviate a lot of any discomfort or worry she would feel doing this, because she can monitor how he feels and whether anything is going somewhere he doesn't want it to go. Extra reassurance, for her and for him, because even in the never-going-to-happen scenario of her not wanting to listen to him knowingly causing a Sentinel distress would be really hard for her.

Taking the hint is good, but the shift in gaze isn't so much. She leans down, plants one hand to the side of his head and grasps his chin with the other in an attempt to get him to face her again rather than looking away. ] You look at me. [ She's going to get this resolved, one way or another. Though he is still listening to her and not talking. She's just not sure if that's because she told him not to or because he doesn't want to discuss it at all. Probably a mix, she thinks. There's no real anger in her face, but it still holds a distinctly stern cast to it. ] There had better be a damn good reason for treating people like that. Is there?

[ Exactly. They have a lot of failsafes here even if he can't physically talk.

He resists that, if for no other reason than because he feels like it, but the resistance doesn't last for very long before he lets her readjust his viewpoint. He still has the same set to his jaw, but he's looking at her again. For a moment. He doesn't want to face that sternness in her eyes, because he knows what it's there for and how he put it there and fantastic this was a lot even without that. He looks down near the end of her statement, and keeps looking down after she asks the question, somewhere around her collarbone. His own eyes give him away too often - more prudent to avert them as much as possible. Not to mention he's still not supposed to talk, so he can't answer the question very well. Just keep flicking his gaze back and forth between her face, and whatever's near to her face but not actually her face. ]

[ She doesn't put a great deal of force behind her hand, but enough that there's pressure against his resistance. And controlling precisely where his eyes go, that's a little bit harder, but she can lean a little more and make it harder for him to evade her eyes, though still not impossible. His eyes do have a tendency of giving him away, telling her what she wants to know without him needing to say anything. They would be pretty helpful here. ]

Yes or no question, Tony. Shake no or nod yes. [ It would have to be a very, very good reason indeed to get her to actually stop looking the way she does, or to arrest her free hand from starting to move down his chest, drawing light fingers over the sensitive places she's come to know quite well. For all that her touch is fairly light, it's not particularly gentle, aimed solely at stimulating him. ]

[ There's a very long moment, at the tail end of which he finally does meet her eyes for a split second, because he needs to see her expression and it's overpowering his desire not to let her see the final aspects of his. This very long moment, and then he's looking off again and nodding like she's somehow dragging the answer out of him rather than her having simply asked a question and getting an answer.

And they're not... very good reasons. One even he knows is kind of juvenile or something, and the other shouldn't bother him. He should be over that by now, Tony Stark gets over everything pretty quickly. (Or under it.) But they're reasons and they're what he has even if all his bravado for maintaining them is dissipating into general irritation and something he doesn't know how to explain very well.

That's helpful though. For her, at least - it's nice, and totally cheating, and it's hard not to move under her as she does it, even if it's not lower stimulation he's looking for and is simply a reaction to what she's doing higher. ]

[ She shakes her head, because he may think he has a reason but she's about as convinced by that glance away as to its validity as she would be by someone telling her the sky was neon green. She leans closer, brushes her lips against his ear. If he's going to keep looking away, she's going to come closer so there's no choice but to either see her or feel her, right there. ]

I'm pretty sure it's not a good enough reason.

[ Calm, unhurried, as her hand slides across his chest, continues its methodical exploitation of the nerve clusters she knows so well. She settles herself more firmly, pressure against him but also making sure he can't shift his hips, and nips at the side of his neck. ] Do you want to try to prove me wrong? [ It's an offer she doesn't think will be taken up on, but she's going to extend it regardless. If he does want to talk, right now, she'd be happy for him to. If not, then she'll just keep going. ]

[ That's... annoyingly well thought out. She understands people too well, understands him too well. There isn't any good way to be evasive when you're this close and exposed and not even talking. He swallows, tries to work out where the good balance between hiding everything away and giving in to the sensate happens to lie. ]

I'm good. [ There have been things that sounded more confident, but on the whole it's decisive, even if it doesn't carry too much weight. ] Some other time.

[ She likes knowing things, and how they work, and people and how they work, and when you're an empath it's actually just really hard to escape the second one. So when she lays plans, they tend to be thorough ones. ]

Thought so. [ She stays close but their skin not quite touching, her mouth on his neck the only point of contact between them other than her hips over his as she plants her hands on either side of his head, another way to keep him from looking away. ] Never can take the easy route. [ This kiss on his neck is going to bruise, by intent, her teeth and lips more forceful than normal. ]

[ Eyes drop lower when she speaks, confirming that he didn't have good reasons and didn't even want to try and defend them to make them better. It helps, when she forces him to face her completely - at least, will be, when she's no longer paying special attention to his neck. And oh, such special attention. His hands tighten into fists in the handcuffs, a muffled sound from the recesses of his chest, because yes okay, keep doing that. ] S'boring. [ Lower, and a little tight, compared to his usual tone. Also losing the memory of being told not to speak. That was fast. ]

[ She flicks her tongue over the mark she's made for a moment, salve, and then lifts her head back so that she's facing him head on again. For a moment she leans in and captures his mouth, rough and controlling, claiming, both as a way to shut him up and a way to keep him looking up towards her. ] Not. A word. [ It's a harsh murmur as she pulls away, not touching him at all for a long moment as she watches to see if he's gotten the message. ]

[ Tony swallows as she does, because that was delicious, and he's not sure what she's doing now but that was nice even if he does have to look at her again, but then she's doing that and okay. He lets her, playing back when it's right but for the most part being claimed and controlled, trying to follow her when she pulls away and stops touching him entirely. He wants to protest this loss, but her words. He decides that his best course of action here is to stay where he is and continue looking at her, no moves made to speak or lean towards her again for more. Message received. ]

[ She nods just a little, because there you go, that's the right response. Perhaps easier than she'd been expecting. ] Good. [ She presses her lips to the corner of his mouth for a moment before ducking down to return to his neck, one hand wandering down his chest again, searching for reactions, for ways to make him want to talk. She knows how to press him, wants to see what he'll do when she's given him an order that goes against his normal actions. ]

[ If anything, he's going to give up the juvenile reason before he gives up the other one, because he's Tony Stark and Tony Stark doesn't show that sort of effect the past can have on him. Not to mention he just thinks they're both dumb reasons, probably, from an outsider's point-of-view. They're good enough for him, but other people? He's used to other people and himself not really being on the same page, regardless of whichever one of them was actually ahead in the book.

Some of those areas are just sensitive, some of them are ticklish, some of them have no feeling at all, but whichever way they go, it's enough to make him squirmy. Trying not to say anything, but you've created both a void and a stimulus, and he does all he can to avoid or react to both, so it's hard. Pretty obviously hard, since more of the effort's going into suppressing the reaction itself, over suppressing the signs of the reaction.

Mostly though, what he does is make noise and let the handcuffs bear the brunt of his venting, muscles in his arms and chest tensing with the reaction, abdomen with the shift in breathing she accrues. It doesn't take particularly long for Tony to fill in a gap when he's not concentrating on anything, and right now the only significant thing he has to concentrate on is her. ]

[ She'd like to think he knows better than that by now, knows that she knows precisely the effect the past can have on people and wants to be there for him, but if she knows the effect the past can have on someone she knows equally well how hard it is to tell others about it, the idea that no one else will really understand. It's a peculiar sense of isolation, and one she wants to strip from him.

But she can see and feel those muscles tensing, the abdomen under her hand, and she smiles and presses herself closer against him, skin on skin for a little while, her heartbeat against his chest. ] What am I going to do with you?

[ Low and quiet, and she pulls away so that she can trail kisses down his chest, nipping at the spots she knows are most sensitive, hand sliding slower around his hipbone. ]

[ That's actually almost worse than when she was giving him stern looks. Disappointment, irritation, negative attention; he can handle all that. Intimacy, of the sort that isn't vapid and fleeting - that's a different story altogether. In respect, talking when that happens is really more a defense mechanism than anything else. ] Well I feel better knowing there's a solid plan in place here. Knee-jerk disciplining always turns out so well.

[ Basically just reverting back into being an asshole, whoops. He doesn't mean it though, honest, and that's even not all that difficult to figure out based on his reactions in every area except his mouth. Just trying to make some more distance there. ]

[ But talking is also the thing that's strictly not on the menu, and she nips a little harder when he does before pulling thoroughly away to look at him again, stern. Really, already? That took a grand total of no time at all. ] What did I say about talking?

[ Because seriously here, flouncing the rules this early in is not calculated to make her pleased here. Her free hand slides into his hair and tugs a little so he can't avoid her eyes, frowning down a little in resigned disapproval. She can't say she wasn't expecting it, really. But still. ]

[ The sudden loss almost makes him gasp but he manages to restrain himself from an out and out gasp. The hand in his hair, the direction - he does have to look her in the eyes now, and face the emotion in her face, and indeed in his own that he'll see mirrored in her own.

He gives it a couple of seconds - that tug in his hair, he likes that - before reacting. ] Not to do it. [ How's that. Still toeing the line, just a little one way, and then a little the other. ]

[ She can see his eyes, really see them for more than a few moments before they flick away. It's the first time since she came upstairs, and she takes a moment just to study the expression in them, her own shifting mildly in response. She doesn't think she likes what she's seeing there. There's something going on here she's not sure of, somewhere among the things he won't tell her.

And there. Not entirely following the rules, but she'd asked a question with the expectation of response this time. She waits a little bit, still watching him, weighing up what he'd said and letting him stay right there, pinned under her gaze. ] That's right. [ Now she leans closer again, shifts her hips to add a little pressure as she brushes her lips across his jawline, the hollow behind his ear. ] That's your only warning. Don't talk again.

[ It takes a lot to keep looking at her under the weight of that gaze, knowing that she's looking further than the surface by the minute changes in her expression, totally aware of how well and intuitively she understands people, and especially in the absence of any other communication - just one long, heavy moment between them. Instinctively, he pulls up blankets around whatever he might be broadcasting, not quite good enough to actually qualify as shields owing to a lack of training and his present distraction, but enough to muffle whatever he wasn't trying to show her in the first place. And it's not to be mean; it's not even something he does on purpose, just another defense mechanism. Tony is effectively built out of a series of defense mechanisms. It's one of the reasons he's so good at making bombs.

At the instruction, the contact, he swallows once, taking the moment where she's beside his face to vent a little more reaction through it before she straightens back. There's got to be a give somewhere, if he can't talk and she's going to keep shifting like that, because soon there's going to be a filled out response to it and then he knows he'll be in far less a state to control himself. Better to get some of it out now. ]

[ She can understand those blankets, as frustrating as they are, so she doesn't comment on them or try to go any further. In fact she's holding off on looking very closely with her mind at all, because she'd prefer that if he talks he talks without any Sentinel or Guide instincts pushing it out of him, that he talks because he wants to. Because he believes she'll listen. She's willing to wait for that, willing to watch him and study the shifts in his expression. That he keeps looking at her is a good step at least, less of the turning away that had bothered her so much at first. She wants him to look at her, to see that there might be frustration in her expression but there's sincere concern too, that she wants to help.

She is going to keep shifting like that a little bit at a time, meanwhile turning her attention back to his neck and where it runs into his collarbone, the hollow of it, the side, at first scattered and brief before starting to put more thorough effort into it, nothing particularly gentle about her motions or her free hand still in his hair. ]

[ His eyes eventually close against the pressure, reacting physiologically and distracted by everything she's doing to his neck. While she's doing this to him, he has nothing to dwell on but the way it feels, and the look in her eyes beforehand. The look on her face. He can't. Tony can't handle that kind of affection, that level of help to be offered.

What he wants out of this, he doesn't know. What does he need from this? That's something entirely different. But he reacts to her, melting underneath her, a little, tension draining away, He wants to touch her, to feel her skin, warm behind his own, drops his shoulders a little and turns his head against her pull to give her more room to touch him instead, since that's all the halfway meeting he's capable of right now. ]

[ He's going to have to handle it, because that's all he's going to have to think about for a little while. How it feels and the look on her face and the intent behind her actions, nothing about her own reactions because if there are any she will do her best to keep them well hidden, nothing about what he's doing because there's very little he can do. She'll just keep offering and offering, giving him what she can even if he won't accept it because she wants to, not because she's trying to fix him but because she wants to give him a means of release.

That release of tension, even just a little bit, she can feel it through his skin, softens her actions for a moment but not entirely. That slight give is perfect. Her fingers on his hip dig in as she turns her attention to the space he's exposed further, teeth and lips and tongue and just a little bit a broadcast of the sincerity of what she's offering. Just let her help. ]

[ Seriously not helping. At least, not in the way he was wanting. You're supposed to get angry and irritated with him - that much he was expecting, eventually. Even hoping for, because anger is easy. Compassion? Like, basically the exact opposite. Compassion is hard, and not nearly so easy to understand, much less the level she's reaching here.

Pressing back into the bed doesn't really do much for him either, because he physically can't, but because he also doesn't entirely want to. He wants to push up, meeting her more fully and getting more out of all this, but he knows that doing so is going to result in less, so maybe if he tries for less he'll get a little more. It's all he's got right now, and he needs to do something. All of that offering, all that generosity and caring - he's got to do something about it somehow. ]

Why? [ It comes out a bit later, not immediately linked to the intensity but really more a matter of when he decided he couldn't be quiet anymore. It's almost a statement too, less expecting an answer than it is expecting some sort of punishment for talking again, because that too, makes more sense than the sheer level of giving she's putting out. ]

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