Yup, so you guys all have every reason to be mad at me for my lack of updating. I am truly sorry, I will be udating more frequently from now on. Please read and review and feel free to be angry at me.

The severity of Tony's nightmares was not completely apparent to Natasha until a few nights before the couple were due to leave their tropical island. The holiday had achieved its goal for the most part, given them both some much needed rest and relaxation away from the danger and drama that would have been distracting them back home. They both stayed up late most nights, whether it was to lounge out around the beach or curl up in front of the TV, neither of them seemed particularly happy with going to bed at a reasonable hour. Though neither of them ever had. The sex was frequent, the high libido of Natasha was certainly matched by Tony's and she found she needed to do little more that flash him a smile or make a daring comment before he all but tackled her onto whatever surface was closest. It was the same for her as well. Tony was an attractive man and he was wonderfully toned, the sight of him flexing or flashing that grin at her was enough to get her excited.

He seemed remarkably edgy sometimes, it was not usual for her to look over at the carefree billionaire and see a dark frown etched across his face, or to notice his eyes darting around suspiciously. It concerned her more that she was initially willing to admit and she couldn't help but recall how she had walked into his lab after Bruce released her from the medical ward. The heavy lab doors had shut almost the moment she stepped through, clearly on a brief timer. That had never been there before, the internal motion sensors were enough to keep the doors open for as long as needed.

Yes, Tony's systems had been hacked and she would have expected him to make some serious changes but not a timer on the doors. Considering they were automatically rigged to shut if there was any threat to the tower.

She did consider the possibility that he was getting jumpy over what had happened to her, after all she had been through and how many times he swore to protect her, perhaps he was getting more and more serious over the subject. He would mumble in his sleep at night, sometimes it was completely coherent and sometimes she could catch words but they made no sense anyway. A few times he had been jerking around and while he never thrashed uncontrollably, she was still worried about what horrors he was dealing with when he slumbered.

After the particularly bad nights, he was never in the bed when she awoke –no matter how early the assassin decided to get up. Usually she found him down on the ground floor of the luxury holiday house, tinkering with the suit he had brought with him. He didn't seem to be altering it much physically, but he spent a good deal of time trading calculations with JARVIS in order to upgrade one of the security programs.

On those mornings he would grunt an apology when she came to find him and while it didn't seem sincere, she could see in his eyes that he meant it. Often it was plain across his face that he hadn't slept for much at all, the shadows and the tired lines indicated as much. She usually tugged at his arm to bring him into the kitchen, he needed to eat and if he didn't bother then she wouldn't put in the effort to feed herself either. They were about as useless as each other when it came to sleeping or eating properly.

During the worst night, Natasha had found herself awakened by Tony's fervent grunts and panicked gasps. Immediately she had worried about an attack, but as soon as she sat up and grabbed her gun from the side table she realized Tony was uttering the worrying sounds while in a violent sleep. She was relieved for just a moment, as horrid as his nightmares may have been.

The sheets of the bed had been kicked off at one point so she and Tony were both exposed. He wore nothing more than a pair of black satin boxers and she was adorned in one of his larger t-shirts, long enough on her to reach her thighs if she had been standing. The night was as warm as it had normally been during there stay, but she knew the temperature had nothing to do with how much sweat was glistening across Tony's body.

"Tony." Her voice sounded oddly soft in comparisons to his hurried grunts and subconscious noises. "Tony. Hey, it's alright." She leaned over him a little, wishing the sound of far off waves would be as relaxing to him as it had been to her. He had made attempts initially to keep himself clean shaven at the start of their holiday, but the neatness of his facial hair seemed to have deteriorated with his mood as time wore on. His hair was mess, ruffled relentlessly from the sex and the way he always put his hands through it when thinking deeply.

Very gently, she wrapped a bare arm around his torso and tried to move him onto his back, seeing his face was contorted so tightly she would have thought him to be in physical pain. She could feel his heart racing in his chest, seeming so impossibly fast and hard even for a nightmare. "Tony.." She whispered his name, though a little louder than before in hopes to stir him. The arc reactor shone brightly in her eyes and she placed a hand over it to shield the light so she could focus on Tony instead of being half blinded.

In hindsight, she was able to look back at that exact moment and understand her mistake. She had not put down her weapon after reaching for it upon wakening, it was still in her hand as she covered the light stemming from her chest. The barrel was of course not actually pointing at Tony and her finger was no longer on the trigger but apparent that was not important.

The Iron Man Suit had been in another room, certainly on the same floor but Natasha did not know where at the time. Instead of using the doorway, the larger-than-life sized machine suddenly slammed through the west wall of the bedroom and showered Natasha and her counterpart in pieces of rubble and plaster dust. Natasha barely had time to even make a surprised sound before a metal hand was closing around her arm and yanking her roughly to the side.

The Russian was slammed unceremoniously against the wall and her weapon removed from her grip by the force of the metal fingers that were constricting around her wrist. She yelped and kicked out pointlessly, with bare feet she might as well have been trying to kick a car as though it were a football.

The nerves in her wrist were being manipulated as they were crushed, causing her weapon to fall instead of the actual pain, but that was quickly becoming unmanageable. The unmanned suit slammed her against the wall again, sending wave of agony down her spine which quickly made her pray there was nothing damaged. Not that she couldn't heal from almost every possible injury, but she didn't fancy being stuck in a wheelchair until she was good as new. Not after she had just been incapacitated for so long.

As she was struggling with the fingers around her wrist, the other hand shot to her throat and squeezed tightly, lifting her up the wall at a slow and torturous pace. She gasped and clutched at the suit, anywhere she could reach while her feet scrambled to find a position on the wall to gain an advantage. But there was nothing, the wall was smooth and the harsh kicks to a metal abdomen made absolutely no difference to the situation. A couple of her fingernails cracked as she clawed at the suit desperately and while the eye shape was the same as it had always been, suddenly the expression of the helmet seemed somehow evil.

It was at the last possible moment before she lost hope that everything suddenly changed. Her lungs were burning and her throat was being crushed, the pain from her wrist and spine was almost enough to focus her whole attention on, but she still heard Tony speak.

"STOP!" The word was bellowed, even through her struggling sounds she could hear the confusion in his voice. The suit obeyed the command with absolutely zero hesitation, both hands releasing their hold on Natasha at once. The Widow had been more than her own height off the floor when she was dropped and there was no way to prepare herself from falling onto a small beside table. Her uncontrolled body crashed down so her head hit the piece of furniture and it was toppled over, the contents of the surface falling to the floor in a series of bangs.

It was not a dignified moment for the proud assassin.

Even injured, she scrambled backwards against the wall in a hurry, her eyes narrowed and darting around in a frenzy as she watched Tony slam his fist into the chest of his suit, connecting with the point where his arc reactor would normally have been lined up. The well-made machine suddenly fell apart, seeming as if it was built from nothing but Legos. Metal chunks toppled to the floor and Natasha shrank back against the wall in an effort to keep herself away. It was clear that Tony had initiated that scenario, she knew the strength of the Iron Man suit, she had seen it in battle plenty of times. The punch to the chest area must have been some sort of signal.

"Natasha.." Tony lunged beside her before parts of the suit had even finished falling, his eyes were impossibly wide and his face was mixed with a full range of emotions –fear, anger, confusion, worry. She must have been shaking because he seemed hesitant to touch her at first, though his worry for her quickly overthrew that and he pulled her forward so he could check her for injuries.

"Tash you got to talk to me." He pleaded, cupping her cheeks with both hands and catching most of her flaming curls that had been thrown around during the altercation. "Natasha talk to me, are you okay? Where did it hurt you, I am so sorry babe, I am so sorry that happened, I installed a programme to recognize my stress patterns and imminent threats to my safety, I didn't yet include your exceptions in those rulings, Tash I am so sorry…" He babbled on senselessly as he held her and tried to get her to speak.

"Jesus Christ Stark I almost died!" She suddenly yelled at him, breaking out of her daze with a sudden thump to his shoulder, more of frustration than any desire to actually hurt him. Her voice sounded broken enough to emphasise her point and she damn well knew there would be dark shaded bruises already welling up on the skin there as she could see the same beginning to form on her wrist.

"Tash, I know, I'm sorry!" He exclaimed quickly, still holding her cheeks as if it was going to placate her, which it clearly wasn't going to do. The look of utter regret was so blatantly obvious across his tired face that it almost made her rethink her rage but the pain was enough to rekindle whatever faded.

"What is wrong with you!" She found herself yelling hoarsely, though their faces were inches apart. "How could you do that to me!"

"I didn't program it to attack you directly Tash!" His voice was pleading, so much quieter than hers, his eyes begging her to believe him. "The program sensed I was in danger and acted!"

"Your suit tried to kill me!" It would have been a shriek if her voice had not broken and her throat seized in a way that launched her into such a violent coughing fit that she was almost dry retching.

Tony took her weakened moment to quickly wrap his arms around her and pull her close to him. She was not sure if he was doing it in hopes to calm her rage or ease her body from coughing but it did little to either feeling.

It hurt, emotionally, to have been attacked by something that Tony had created to fight his enemies. It was his protection in so many ways and now it had been used against her. The metal fingers had felt like his, as if he had been the one squeezing the life from her lungs himself. She was torn between shaking him off or pulling him close to her. His arms around her felt both threatening and painful.

"How could you…" She murmured painfully when her body had calmed from the spasms, though her croaking voice was still raw.

Tony could not stand the way her voice felt so betrayed. She was shaking in her arms, she was fearful and she had been physically hurt by his creation. He had sworn to protect her and he had every intention of carrying through that promise. His nightmares had caused the suit to react in such a way, he had been able to figure that out the moment he saw his machine strangling her. That was something he built to protect himself, never had he wanted to protect himself from Natasha. She was no threat to him. But he had seen the gun be forced from her hand and the stinging images of his nightmare were still fresh in his mind.

All of his body signs would have clearly been pointing to danger and he had designed part of the AI program to act if Tony was being threatened.

He let out a shaky breath and slowly pulled back so he could look at Natasha. She looked more angry than afraid, good. Angry he could deal with. Her eyes were swimming, but he wasn't a fool and he knew that was from the strain of her coughing, not from any sort of tearing up.

She had every bloody right to be angry, Tony was furious at himself. He had been so stupid, so reckless. His spiralling nightmares had caused him to begin taking stronger security measures so he could protect himself and of course Natasha. With all of his famous genius he was still so stupid, he had never envisioned a scenario where Natasha could have posed any sort of threat that the suit would have responded to like that.

"Natasha. I am truly, so very sorry." Tony never liked to apologize yet he found himself having to do so rather frequently with Natasha. "If you want to hit me, go ahead. I deserve it, I know." There was no sarcastic flair visible in Tony's eyes, or in his tone. He was not making an ill-timed joke or a classically stupid comment. He loved her and he had hurt her by not picking up on such an obvious programming flaw.

Her eyes seemed to narrow a little, waiting for the punchline, but there was none.

For several seconds he said nothing and just gazed at her so she could see he was being truthful.

"I fucked up. I swear I will make this up to you." He vowed solemnly and watched her intently, waiting for the backlash, waiting for her to knock him out or something.

But nothing like that happened.

To his utter shock, a very small smile started to creep onto the edges of her lips. He nearly fell back in surprise as the anger started to fade as well as the small amount of fear that had been there. Her wrist and throat were sporting some clearly painful bruises and where she'd hit her head on the fallen bedside table, there was a purple mark as well. He assumed she had other injuries, whether minor or not, she should not have been smiling at him.

"You are such an idiot." She said in very clear and slow syllables as if he really was dim-witted and she needed to be incredibly patient with him. "I mean for fuck sake Tony, that thing nearly killed me. You should have told me you made a security measure like that, I would have been more careful." She rolled her eyes and then felt up where the dark hue on her temple was, wincing slightly when her fingers glosses over the bruise.

"Good the skin isn't broken." She muttered quietly, clearly to herself and then checked her other injuries. She shifted a little awkwardly and then nodded to herself, Tony had the impression she was checking the status of another injury that he hadn't been aware of but had expected anyway.

"Help me up." She then said and extended the hand to him that hadn't been raped by metal fingers.

Tony stared at her bewilderedly and eventually conceded, taking her hand gently and pulling her to her feet as he rose as well.

"Tash I-" He didn't even know what to say.

"I want diamonds." She said quite seriously. "Or a car. Something fast and preferably red." She looked at him with absolute severity in her eyes and Tony didn't dare disagree.

That classic grin flashed across his lips and he held his hands up innocently, though he was of course anything but. "You got it babe, name it." He said quickly and he was clearly as serious as her.

Once again Tony was completely astounded by the strength of Natasha's character and her unyielding resolve. Once again he was reminded of his overpowering love for this stunning Goddess that dared to put up with all of his shit.