Chapter Text
Sometimes—not very often anymore—Toni Stark would decide to walk from her Malibu offices back to her mansion. It’s not a trip anyone makes in an hour or two, unless they were a god of some sort; no, it was well after ten, and she was fully expecting to still be walking when ten rolled around the next morning. She didn’t have anything, or anyone, waiting for her at home, and for once she just didn’t want to be at work. So, walking home in the middle of the night was, sadly, her best option.
Peter had gone back to New York. He stayed with Toni for a week, missing school the entire time, and Toni wasn’t going to let him miss the rest of the term, no matter how much he wanted to (and how much she would have loved to have him there with her). She didn’t make him go back to the mansion; he chose to go on his own.
“Clint said Steve’s been staying at SHIELD,” Peter told her.
“That’s not fair,” she replied. “The mansion’s his home too.”
“He hurt you…”
“Doesn’t make it right. Tell someone to bring him home.”
“What about you? It’s your home too…”
“And I’ll come home when I’m ready.”
That was two months ago; Steve was back in the mansion, but she still wasn’t ready.
Which was a shame, really; she loved New York in the winter. Pepper had called the other day and said it was snowing. She could imagine a light dusting around the city, the frost patterns on the windows, the clouds of breath coming out of a stranger’s mouth…
The thoughts of winter and longing to enjoy it made her miss the man following her. She’s not proud of it, but that’s what happened. She didn’t know he was there until she felt a gun press into the back of her neck and heard a voice tell her not to move. She could hear the footsteps of more people surrounding her, leading her to decide to actually do what she was told.
Which made them knocking her unconscious completely unnecessary.
Toni woke up with a headache that she could unfortunately liken to her last hangover; the one she’d drank herself into over Steve, the one she reminded herself of when she wanted to drink after the break up. The one that would always remind her of how low she could get if she let herself, because honestly? To go through your dead father’s study just to find the quality whiskey you knew he’d stored there once upon a time for the sole purpose of drinking yourself stupid meant you were pretty damn low.
She could feel blood trickling down the back of her head, likely from where the rifle butt struck her (she thinks it was a rifle, anyway; it’s not like she saw it strike her from behind). She could also feel it pooling against her neck. She was lying down, then. She tried to push herself up, only to find that she was strapped to whatever she was lying on. Whoever brought her here didn’t want her moving.
She didn’t like the sound of that at all.
Toni knew what this was all about, of course; it was about The Question. The question she’d been asking herself since October, since she base jumped into a canyon to find a frozen soldier. Since she’d found that frozen soldier and managed to get him out safely… and back to the arms of his loving boyfriend, who had once been hers. The question that no one else was asking; if they had, they would have contacted her about it, gotten her thoughts and probably told her to stop looking into it. The question that wouldn’t leave her alone.
Who left Sergeant James Barnes in that canyon as bait for Steve Rogers? Toni was certain she was about to find out.
But that’s not what made her blood run cold, what made her want to get sick… what terrified her the most. The air around her was hot and thick, and held the familiar taste of sand, gunpowder and blood.
Toni Stark was back in Afghanistan. And this time, she was alone.