Natasha's vision was swimming. She was in the parking lot, in Russia – and then she wasn't, she was somewhere underground, somewhere with stone walls and a stone floor, then she was in a room with wooden floorboards and shimmering with mirrors, she was pirouetting and the Natashas in the mirror pirouetted with her and the room wavered like in a dream, and she was back in the stone chamber –

The images before her eyes wavered, unable to decide where she was. She couldn't trust her anything anymore – nothing was real, not even what her senses were telling her. She couldn't breath. Not like a band was around her chest, but like her lungs had hardened and were unable to expand. She breathed through her mouth, rapid and shallow. Each breath of air was barely in her throat when she exhaled it, before it ever reached her lungs.

"Take a deep breath," a voice said. She didn't know who it was, where it came from, whether it was a friend or foe… or even if it was male or female. "Deep breaths," it said again. So she forced herself to take a deep breath. Forced the oxygen to stay in her body for more than a second before breathing out. Her breathing was shaky, like a shuddering machine too out of use to function smoothly. But still she breathed. Deep breaths, she thought, deep breaths. She had done this before. Had pulled herself out of what was fake and back to what was real. Deep breaths, when the images came back. The images from when they brainwashed –

No! She slammed that door in her mind, blocked out that memory with the force of a mental battering ram. No, don't think about that. Just keep breathing. Deep breaths. Inhale… and exhale. Inhale… and exhale. A conscious act that took all her effort. In, and out. In, and out.

And slowly, her vision began to sharpen, liquid lines solidifying into firm shapes and sharp angles. The room around her – and it was clearly somewhere indoors, somewhere made of stone and smelling like must and earth – swayed slower. And in front of her was Tony's face. She focused on that. On his brown eyes, dark with concern. On the crinkle in the centre of his forehead. On the weight of his hand on her shoulder. "Deep breathes," he was saying, and she watched his lips move. "That's it." Breathing was easier now, required less effort though she still had to concentrate to do it. Her heart was still racing, and her limbs shaking. She was aware that she was lying on the ground, curled up in a fetal position, her arms and legs limp. She slowly pushed herself up, and immediately the room started tossing violently again. She groaned and closed her eyes, and Tony helped her sit up and lean against him. He was warm and solid and she buried her face in his shoulder, eyes half-closed until the lurching became bearable, always conscious of her breathing.

He had his arms around her, one of his hands on her back, the other at the rear of her skull. This was real, she reminded herself forcefully. This was what's real, what's present. This, not the parking lot in Russia, not Sophie's body torn through by a weeping bullet hole, not Ivanchenko's sneering face, not the ballet lessons –

She threw her arms around Tony's neck, shaking. She anchored herself to him, to the present. She didn't know if he understood why she needed it, but she did know that he simply understood the need for it, because he wrapped his arms tighter around her in return and murmured in her ear, "I'm here, Tasha. I'm here."

She was becoming more clear-headed now; she could open her eyes all the way and the room didn't do much more than waver uncertainly, like it didn't think it could get away with rocking again. She drew back to look at Tony, her arms still around him, and examined his wounds. There was a cut on the edge of his lip, dark red with dried blood, and his face was purpling with an assortment of bruises. The sight of his wounds awoke in her an anger that burned away the haze of confusion. She was suddenly fully aware of everything. Her senses sharpened and her mind focused.

Tony clearly saw the anger in her eyes. "Hey," he said, cradling her cheek in a calloused palm. "I'm okay."

"I was coming to rescue you," she said. Her voice was hoarse. Her eyes narrowed. "They hurt you." Her eyes suddenly hardened, there was a shadow of menace in her voice. A promise of violence.

"I'm fine," Tony said. He gave her a once-over. "I'm not so sure about you," he said skeptically.

She flinched at that; she hated how weak she had been, how Tony had just seen what she never wanted anyone to see. "I'll be okay," she said, reassuring herself as much as Tony. She turned her gaze towards the rest of the dungeon. "Where is she?" Natasha demanded. The woman in red had disappeared, like she'd melted into the shadows. The only people there were herself and Tony, and Jenson locked in the cell, apparently unconscious. "Goddammit, where did she go?!" She needed to physically hurt her for what she did to her and to Tony. For making her relive her worst nightmare, and for causing Tony pain beyond anything she had seen in him before. She clambered to her feet, but her legs were too shaky to stand and her knees buckled. She caught herself only by bracing against the stone wall, and by Tony catching her around the waist from where he still crouched on the ground.

She snarled a curse in Russian under her breath, her legs still quivering. Standing wasn't an option, so she let herself sink to the floor again. His arm around her waist, Tony drew her closer to him, tucking her against his body. She felt like she was burning with shame, a heat that started from her chest and stretched over her shoulders, spreading up her throat to her cheeks and down to dull embers in the pit of her belly. She hated how weak she was, how susceptible to these mind games. How easily she was unsettled by that... hallucination. She focused on what came before – the long, dark tunnel leading underground, the Hydra fortress, being attacked by the suit, the battle outside. And Tony – the worry of not knowing if he was alive, the gnawing pessimism that he was dead or being tortured.

"I thought I lost you," she whispered half to herself, pressing a palm against Tony's chest. To remind herself never, ever to take this man for granted again. In the past months she had begun to normalize their relationship, to forget what her life was like without him. The hallucination had reminded her of the price she had to pay to get here, the price in blood. She didn't deserve the happiness, the love, the trust Tony gave her.

"I'm not going anywhere," Tony reassured her. His voice was hoarse. "In fact" – his laugh was hollow – "I don't think either of us can do that right now."

"That little witch," Natasha growled, shoulders tensing once again with anger. Her eyes rested on Jensen's still form behind bars. "What happened to him?"

There was a hint of smugness in Tony's voice. "I beat him up. Shoved him in there."

Natasha managed a shaky smile. "Really? Good work."

Tony's laugh was hollow. "I try. Even though you did end up having to rescue me."

Leaning against him, Natasha craned her head up look at him. "Does that hurt you man-bits? That your girlfriend has to rescue you?"

This time his smile touched his eyes, driving away some of the haunted look in them. "Nah, it just makes me even more in awe of you." And with those words it was Natasha who was awestruck. Her mind was still too scrambled to compose a reply, so she blinked up at him, half-open-mouthed, her heart swelling with affection for this man who was warm and soft underneath a brash exterior of crimson and gold. It was a soothing feeling, like a warm fire in a Russian winter rather than a wildfire blazing through dry bushland. It drove away the remaining vestiges of the cold fear that clamped her down in an uncertainly swaying timeline that disappeared or crossed over itself. It caught her and steadied her when everything and everyone else was trying to topple her.

But she couldn't say all that to him, she didn't have the words. So she kissed him, close-mouthed and grateful and reassuring. His fingers curled under her jaw, his lips telling her that he understood. And that was the final thing that she needed to feel – not well, but well enough that she was halfway functional. She stood up, this time successfully, her legs only slightly wobbly. She'd dealt with worse before. She would live. "Come on," she said, offering her hand to Tony, who took it and she pulled him to his feet. "Let's get that asshole" – she tilted her head towards Jensen, who was starting to regain consciousness – "and get out of here."

"And then," Tony said, squeezing her hand. "We can go home."

"Yes," Natasha agreed, thinking not only of the Tower but of their team. "Home."

Notes: Sorry for the long wait again. I had a lot of work and several panic attacks, followed by a trip to Budapest and Sweden over the last two weeks.

I just finished writing this so it may be kind of unedited, so sorry for that.