I was made to keep your body warm, but I'm cold as the wind blows so hold me in your arms - Ed Sheeran, Kiss Me

The familiar sounds of the workshop – the whir of machinery, the fizz of sparks, Black Sabbath blasting from the speakers – drove the vestiges of the nightmare from Tony's mind. He had been jolted awake sometime between night and morning, on the verge of throwing up. The sight of Natasha asleep next to him, for once not woken up by his waking, had calmed him.

Usually he would cuddle up to her after a nightmare, let her presence soothe away the fear. But not this time, not when she had looked so tiny and precious – red hair spread out over the pillow; her face serene in sleep; all her limbs tucked in under the cocoon of the duvet. She always slept like that – on her side, curled up like a cat, taking up as little space as possible, or maybe it was for preserving warmth; there were things about his wife's past – dark, cold things – that Tony would never know.

Knowing that his touch would wake her, he had slipped out to the workshop and worked on things that could calm him. Things that could protect Natasha, and protect their baby.

You can't protect them from yourself. No, no no –

Howard's stern face scowled at him, his breath sour with drink. A seven-year-old with brown curls and knobby knees cowered on the floor. The adult Tony was frozen in place as he watched his father punch his younger self and felt the blow as sharply as he did over thirty years ago. "Can't do a damned thing right," Howard growled.

"Don't, daddy, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" The boy cried, skinny arms powerless to stop his father's heavy punches.

"You call yourself a Stark?" Another blow and Tony – both Tonys – reeled from it. Tears glittered from the boy's cheeks and eyelashes and his father hit him again. "Stark men don't cry, boy!"

Then it was Tony's voice, the adult Tony's, snarling those words and for a second he was the boy, the father, and the observer all at once. He looked down the boy at his feet with his arms up to block the blow. Looked up with the boy's eyes to his own face, so like his father's, screwed up with rage and drunkeness as he took a swing. And he was without, as Tony from the dream, watching it all happen.

He dealt the blow, felt it and saw it, all at the same time. "Stark men don't cry!" Then he was his father, and none of the others. In the same moment, the boy before him – he was looking through Howard's eyes now, or where they his own? – changed to a child's that he knew was his and Natasha's. He could feel Natasha's gaze on him from behind, and he knew that she was the observer, standing where the dream Tony had stood to watch it all.

"Stark men don't cry!" He heard the words – whether it was from his own mouth or his father's he didn't know. Then the child was screaming as Tony swung his fist, and he could feel Natasha's eyes judging him, judging him, judging him.

"No!" Tony shouted and shoved himself away from the workbench. His heart was hammering. He could feel the erratic pulse in his neck, his wrist, his chest. The images from his dream haunted him, even down here in his workshop. Where it was supposed to be safe. Where things were supposed to make sense. Where he didn't have to worry about people hurting him or him hurting other people.

He threw himself back into his work. Better suits, better weapons, better defense. Upgrade Jarvis again, tune him in to Natasha's vitals as well as his own. Working with his hands, with hardware or with holographic projections, made sense. These were things he could control, things he could predict.

It was calming, the hum of machines, the pulsating light from the holographs, and the Fall Out Boy album that Jarvis put on the speakers. It was just him here – just him and Jarvis and Dummy and the machines. No Howard Stark. No nightmares.

"Sir, Ms Romanoff is on her way down," Jarvis announced. Natasha had kept her name when they married, though they agreed that their child would have Tony's name. A few minutes later, the glass door slid open and Natasha went in, clad in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt – one of his, Tony noted – that stretched a little too tightly over her midsection. Her hair mused and her eyes hazy from sleep, she had never looked more delicate, and Tony's heart gave a wrench of love that was so strong it almost hurt.

"What are you doing down here?" he said. "It's the middle of the night."

"Technically early morning," Natasha said, her voice still husky with sleep. "It's five."

"That's semantics." Tony waved a hand dismissively. He got up and moved walked towards her. He laid a hand on her hip and drew his fingers over her round belly. "You still shouldn't be up." She shrugged, and that was when he noticed the hollow look in her eyes that she was hiding. He knew that look well, and he would be surprised if it wasn't in his eyes, too. It was the look of someone trying to banish a fear that was within, and Natasha only ever showed it when she was truly shaken.

Natasha closed the distance between them and hugged him, her head on his chest. He lay his chin on top of her head and for a moment they stayed like that, arms around each other, breathing in the other's presence. "You okay?" he murmured.

She nodded. "It's nothing." That she had a nightmare went without saying, and she never said it if she could help it. She looked up at him, green eyes imploring, and he was tempted to comply her when she said, "Come back to bed."

"I –" Reluctantly, Tony pushed her away and turned back towards his workbench. "I have work to do."

The anguish that gnawed at his heart must have been apparent in his face, or his wife was simply as perceptive as she was alleged to be, because her brow creased and she said, "Tony, tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing!" It came out more brusquely than he intended, but Natasha was not the kind of woman to be quailed by a harsh word. But neither was she the kind of woman who would press her lover for answers when he wasn't ready. He saw the wall go up behind her eyes; he knew that meant she was repressing her emotions. Tony sighed and turned back towards her, reaching to take her hand. He traced the scars over her palms, her callused fingertips with his own. He repeated, more gently this time, "Nothing. Just a bad dream."

She turned his palm over and ran her hand up his arm, tracing the veins on his inner wrist with a touch light as a spider's kiss. "More than bad," she said, worry clear in her eyes. She knew him well enough to know that he was more shaken up than normal.

Tony gave a shade of a nod. "Yep." The word was less than a whisper. "It was my dad," he continued, "and I was him. Hitting me, telling me I'm worthless. And what if I – what if I do that to our kid? What if it's in my DNA?"

Natasha's hands came to a stop at his upper arms and she leaned back to look him in the eye. "It's not," she said with conviction. "You're not Howard, Tony. You're not… not any the things that he was. Mean, cruel, bitter… you're better than that."

"But what if I'm not?" he insisted, his panic climbing and bordering on hysteria. "I'm scared," he admitted, his voice cracking on the last word. Tremors ran uncontrollably through his body and he leaned against Natasha, letting her hold him tight against her so that they meld into a single form. Her touch was cool, and gentle, and he could breathe easier when her arms were around him. "I can protect the kid against our enemies, Tash, but I can't protect it against myself." He laid a hand against her belly, still small enough for him to cover if he used both hands. It wouldn't stay that way for long, and all too soon the child inside her would be born, at the mercy of all that was ruthless and dangerous in the world – including its father.

"No, you can't," she agreed, "but I can." Her green eyes gleamed with defiance. "I'll stop you if you ever come close to hurting it. And that's a promise."

He let out a shaky ghost of a laugh. "At least that's comforting."

She smiled wryly and entwined her fingers with his, over her stomach. "I have faith in you, Tony," she said softly. "You know I'm just as fucked up as you are, probably more, what with the – the brainwashing and the memory gaps and…" Her brow furrowed at the thought of what she'd gone through early in her life.

"Hey." Tony took her chin with his free hand to angle her face up to his. Then he smoothed out her creased brow with a kiss to her forehead. "We'll figure this out together."

"Yeah." She gave him a little smile. "Together." And that was a promise for the future, as much as the promise of the new life in Natasha's expanding belly. It was what reassured Tony that he stood a chance against the coldness and cruelty in his genetic code, that his child might have a better childhood than he did. Because he had Natasha, and no matter what happened from now they would face it together.

The closest thing ahead, though, was – "bed," Natasha urged, tugging him towards the door.

"Bed," Tony agreed tiredly, letting her lead him away from his workbench and the machinery. They would still be there when he needed them. For now, he had Natasha, and the promises they made together. And that was enough to assuage any fear.

Notes:

Happy Father's Day!

I struggled with this one for a long time, and most of it ended up being really last minute work. I'm not happy with it so I hope you'll like it more than I do.

I promise that an update for Strings (or maybe Broken) will come this month. Please be patient with me, I'm working on some original stuff and stuff for my internship, which is taking a lot of time.