Hello everyone! So I knew I wouldn't be able to finish Whumptober, but I'm going to keep adding some new chapters this month as often as possible since I had to miss out on a lot of the challenge. This is a prompt from the Comfortember prompt list from Tumblr. I hope you enjoy!

Nightmare

Penny's eyes snapped open, gasping as her lungs screamed for air. Fingers digging into the mattress beneath her, she realized she was sitting upright, chest aching. Had she been holding her breath in her sleep? Pressing a hand to her chest she closed her eyes and focused on taking deep, regular breaths.

"You're okay, you're okay," she muttered to herself, bringing a hand to her face and rubbing at heavy eyelids that seemed to be weighted down with lead. She wanted to sleep...needed to sleep. But she also had to use the bathroom, and her mouth felt like a desert, her cells screaming for water. So she swung her legs over the side of the bed, keeping her eyes shut as she made her way to the bathroom.

She didn't need to look. She knew the way very well by then.

Once she was done, she washed her hands and rubbed her eyes once more, stumbling out of the bathroom attached to her bedroom and then out into the hallway. Water. She needed a glass of water. And then she could go back to sleep. She wouldn't have the nightmare again. Even if she knew better, even if she'd had the same nightmare for almost a week now, she told herself that it wouldn't happen again.

What else could she do?

The kitchen floor was cold under her feet, waking her more than she wanted to be woken. Shivering a little and wishing she'd thought to put on a pair of socks, Penny grabbed a cup from the cabinet and filled it straight from the sink, guzzling down the water, then filling it again. The nightmare flashed in her mind but she tried not to think about it. Tried to push the thought away. She was fine. She was safe. She was…

"Kid?"

The voice made her jump, which was a testament to how tense she was...how fried her senses were. Putting a hand on the counter and deliberately placing her cup down lest she crush it, Penny turned to find Steve Rogers standing in the doorway, his eyes narrow, that familiar concern painted all over his face. It was the same concern she'd seen on his face on that night four days ago. It had been the last thing she'd seen when he'd ripped the door off of their cell...when he'd dropped to her side, and when she'd begged him to help Mr. Stark before the world had gone black.

Never before had she hated her enhanced healing as the moment she'd woken and had stood at Mr. Stark's bedside, listening to the promises that he would be fine, that he just needed time, that he was going to wake up. All she'd wanted was to be in a hospital bed, unconscious, unaware that Mr. Stark had borne the brunt of it all...unaware that her mentor and the man who had become like her father was unconscious in a hospital bed right along with her. She wanted to wake up later, at the end, when Mr. Stark was fine and sitting by her bed, waiting for her to wake up. It was selfish, but she wanted someone else to worry. Not her. She was so tired of worrying about the people she loved. From May, who hovered and cried and cupped her face in her hands to Ben, who she'd only worried about for a few minutes before she hadn't needed to anymore.

"Penny?"

Her name made her jump, even though she was looking right at the man, and he took a hesitant step forward, reaching out and touching her arm. It was as though he were checking to make sure she was awake...that she wasn't sleepwalking. She wanted to tell him that she'd never sleepwalked in her life, but her senses were fried and she was exhausted and she kept having the same nightmare.

Mr. Stark sitting beside her on the floor of that cell, their shoulders touching, his arm around her...then him falling over. Blood bubbling from his lips, from whatever they'd given him or the beating, she wasn't sure. And her own voice screaming, her hands pressed against his chest. Then the pleading. She had begged and sobbed and screamed for them to help her. To help him. She'd told him that she loved him. That she couldn't do this without him. But in her nightmare, and in her memories, the man just lay there, bleeding and dying, and no matter how much she'd shaken him and no matter how much she'd begged, he hadn't woken up.

And then Steve had come.

"Penny!" His voice was forceful and worried and she blinked, nodding.

"Yeah. I'm...yeah. I'm fine."

The man sighed, shaking his head and gripping her arm. "I asked what you were doing up?"

"I...I was thirsty." Penny sniffed, trying to fight back the tears. There was no reason to cry. Not yet. Mr. Stark was going to be okay. Everyone had promised. But the tears came anyway and Steve moved forward, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and leading her into the living room, the two of them moving easily through the dark. Steve wasn't the one that comforted her. Mr. Stark was. Mr. Stark was the one who put an arm around her shoulders and assured her that everything was okay. He was the one that had let her cry on his shoulder in that cell, when the hunger and thirst and the pain...the overwhelming pain in her ankle that was no in a walking boot, had seemed to drown out everything else.

When that had happened, he'd held her and he'd kissed her hair and he'd promised that everything would be okay, just like Helen had promised her the moment she'd seen Mr. Stark in that hospital bed. They'd been in that cell for six days. Six days of darkness and hunger and a thirst like she'd never known. And Mr. Stark had held her.

Now Steve Rogers held her as she shook, her whole body trembling, her face hidden in his shoulder. "I can't sleep," she whimpered, her tears soaking his shirt, but he just held her on the sofa, rocking her back and forth as though he were Mr. Stark. As though they hadn't properly met for the first time after she'd woken up in a hospital bed, May at her side, and Mr. Stark conspicuously missing. "I keep seeing him...in that cell…"

"Hey...you're safe. You're safe now."

Penny wanted to argue that he wasn't safe. That nothing felt safe anymore, and that until he woke up, she didn't know what she was going to do. That if he didn't wake up, she didn't think she could keep doing this. Any of it. He and May were the only family she had left, and they weren't even related to her. For a moment, the pain of it hit her right in the chest, making her whole body radiate the ache that seemed to consume her. He'd held her. He'd held her until he couldn't anymore.

And now Steve was holding her. Now Captain America was sitting with her and she barely knew him, had barely spoken more than ten words to him before tonight, minus the ones spoken at that airport what felt like so long ago, and but he was rubbing her back, rocking her back and forth and she felt safe, almost like Mr. Stark was really there. Almost like she was actually safe.

And somehow, despite everything, she slept. She slept deeply and totally, a sleep without dreams, until someone lifted her. Carried her down a hallway, but she didn't care because she hadn't slept in days. Not really. Not without those nightmares that reared their ugly heads every night. It wasn't until a familiar voice spoke that her body fought it, struggling to wake her, because that voice was important. That voice meant something.

"What's wrong with her?"

"She's fine, Tony. I promise." Steve's voice was almost amused as she was placed on a bed, a blanket pulled over her. Her back had been aching, her neck cramped, so it was night to stretch out. To be comfortable. She wanted to bury her face into the pillow and pull the blanket over her and hide from the dim light filling the room, but something was nagging at her. "She hasn't been sleeping. She's been worried about you."

There was silence in the room for a moment, and Penny blinked, forcing her eyes open, heart practically stopping in her chest when she saw Mr. Stark sitting up in his hospital bed, a nasal cannula looping under his nose and over his ears. "Mr. Stark?"

"Hey, Pen. Are you...okay…" He let out a breath with an 'oomph' as she threw herself as carefully as she could into his arms, hiding her face in his shoulder as he lifted his arms to held her. "Oh, sweetheart. I'm okay. I'm fine."

Penny nodded, fighting to believe that as she cried silently into his shirt. He was okay. She was okay. They were both okay.

Thanks for reading!