Steve almost thought what he'd done was right. Until Natasha punched him in the face hard enough to break his nose. Steve fell backwards, clutching his face.

"You utter bastard, Steven…" Natasha growled, closing in on him, "You," she kicked out one of his legs, flicking him over onto his back with a twitch of her foot as the he started to collapse even further to the floor, his hand covering his bloodied nose, "you complete bastard. You took it from him, Steve, and you spat in his face! He was wrong to choose it, but fuck you for taking his choice from him!" Natasha was more shaken than even Clint had ever seen her, her pale skin devoid of all colour in the face of her rage. Her green eyes were almost black with fury, and her whole body was trembling slightly. She bent, scooping him up and slamming him against the wall, crowding him into being pinned, "You brought him to destruction and now you're trying to make him trapped, with no way out?!"

"Natasha." Tony spoke from the speakers, "Natasha, stop." He sounded exhausted, "Stop, it's okay."

Natasha had tears in her eyes, "It is not okay, Stark."

"Tash, please. Doing this will solve nothing."

"It'll make me feel better." Natasha growled, and Tony made a sound like a sigh over the speakers.

"Tash-"

"He killed you, Stark! He killed you! You were alive, and you were there at three in the morning when I needed to have someone be there, and you are dead now because he took you from us and put you in this box meant to bring you shame, and now he's done a weak, pathetic and demeaning attempt to bring you back-"

"Tash, that is enough! Ice him out, ignore he exists, but, by god, don't let me be subjected to this. I made my choice, and it was never just him, you know that!"

Steve looked up at the ceiling, hearing Rhodey's intake of breath somewhere down the hall.

Tony would have swallowed, looking reluctant to continue because this was something he didn't want to say, of all the things he couldn't shut up about, "You know me second-best only to Jarvis, Tash. And I won't apologize for the choice I made because I needed to make it, and I needed the out, but I am sorry that...that I'm here, that you can't just...move on."

Natasha looked angry and hurt and more deadly than Steve had ever seen her, "You don't get it, Stark. I wouldn't've moved on, even if you had fully left us."

Steve hadn't realized they had even tolerated each other, let alone that they'd gotten so close. Natasha released him and left, Steve slumping down the wall limply.

Natasha was thankful when Pepper didn't come to her that night, thankful that she didn't have to deal with anyone.

At three in the morning, there was a knock at her door, and, for a moment, she almost wished that it would be Tony.

In a way, it was. Dummy handed her a pair of headphones, a note taped to his servos in a printed form of Tony's usual scrawl,

'Tasha, when you need me, I'm here for you. Put on the headphones, and you'll be the only one that can hear what I say to you. I can make tea, and I can talk to you like I used to, and I hope that's enough, and I'm sorry if it isn't.'

Natasha sighed, thanking Dummy and sending him back to the workshop quietly as she returned to her bed, the headphones and the note clutched in her hand, slipping the headphones on, "Start talking, Stark."

"You...are my hero, Tash." Tony's voice sounded like it did when he was having an epiphany, and Natasha's lips quirked up fondly, feeling even more safe now than she had before, "I think you're JARVIS's hero, too. He was cursing me out earlier for not making him a robot body."

"Jarvis would be...elegant, but frightening."

"Thank you, Agent Romanoff." JARVIS piped up, barely audible through the headphones that piped in Tony and Tony alone.

"Between the two of you, I think I'd have nightmares. And I can't even sleep anymore." Natasha rolled her eyes, but she could almost hear Tony's overdramatic shudder, "Hey, I saw that! Think I can get a laugh by the end of the night?"

"I don't know. Do you plan on dressing up as Venkman and dancing to the Ghostbusters theme song again?"

"That was not Venkman, that was Spengler! I am aghast-"

"The glasses weren't big enough to be Spengler, Stark." Natasha purred the retort, stretching out on her bed.

"Come down to the workshop." Tony requested quietly, "I think I might be able to get a laugh out of you yet." Natasha sighed quietly, willing there to be no one for her to run into on her way. Making it into the darkened workshop, Natasha punched in Tony's own access code, "You weren't supposed to know that."

"Well, I don't particularly like re-enacting Pirates of the Caribbean with Dummy being the dog with the keys and Pepper and I being Jack with a bone." Natasha murmured wryly, "Now, why am I down here?" The floor lit up with the holographic interface, and Natasha wasn't alone anymore, Tony standing before her, luminescent and blue. He smirked at her, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Better or worse?"

Natasha had to swallow before answering, "I don't know yet...I'm going to miss those neck massages."

"Well, I can work on that. I plan on working on a lot of things to replace me."

Natasha visibly flinched, moving like a ghost towards his couch as a swivel chair materialized for Tony's image to sit on across from her. "You can't be replaced, Tony...that's the thing." She paused, looking down at the ancient, dilapidated fabric for a moment before looking up at the genius, tears in her eyes and constricting her voice, "Did you really believe that...that dying...that I could just shrug your death off?"

Natasha bit down on her lip, not quite comprehending how it was easier to tell him that she cared for him as a machine than she'd ever been able to find the words when he was a man.

Tony leaned forwards in his seat, resting his forearms on his knees, "I've been thinking about that. And when you computerize a brain like mine, keeping up with me is all my systems can do anymore. ...I've been thinking about what I expected. I thought I'd have an empty funeral…"

"Like your father's." Tony smiled wryly, and Natasha's expression darkened.

"I thought that the only people in attendance would be there for the money and the name: not there for me." Tony's shoulders slumped slightly, and Natasha felt a painful kind of amazement that Tony had created such a perfect image of himself, reactions and all: That he'd gone for that, and embraced it all. "I never...I thought you didn't care so much. I thought I was a necessary evil to you, for you to be near Pepper. I thought that those three AMs were...were you trying to find something that didn't drive you away, when I was half-gone and almost incoherent. I thought you'd feel unburdened, I guess. When I told you that you know me second-best, I wasn't lying, either, Tash. And I thought that you'd hate that-"

"But now you know that I don't." Natasha pointed out softly, "Tony, I...I did care. Even with Venko, I cared. When you asked me what I'd do if I was celebrating the last birthday party I'd ever have, I...I wasn't Natalie Rushman anymore. You made me slip, made me break cover. You keep doing that and getting under my skin, and-"

"And not relenting until you're ready to kill me."

"Until I'm ready to talk." Natasha corrected, "You'd come at me, until there was nothing left but to tell you what I had on my mind."

Tony smiled softly, and for a moment, Natasha wished he'd reach out and touch her, ground her and give her a wall to fall back and climb against, something to lean on.

"When you asked me to move in with you so that I'd have more than a barrack between ops, you told me you'd make me a home...You did that, Tony. You gave me a home, and you made yourself a part of my family. An annoying part, but a part."

Tony flashed a grin, chuckling quietly, "Does that mean I'm related to Clint?"

"Ugh, you two are the brothers I wish I could maim." Natasha joked, rolling her eyes, but not with venom. "What five billion things are you doing and working on with that infinite brain of yours?"

"Right now? I'm focussing on you. I'm sorry for how much pain I've caused you, Tash."

Natasha thought of all that she'd just said and admitted; of the thousand things that she was realizing now, that she'd have to do and change and grow with in order to keep herself from losing everything that she'd never realized she'd gained until now, "In a weird way, I'm not."

Steve would see Natasha with headphones on a lot, and, occasionally, he'd see her laughing at whatever she was hearing. He didn't dare to ask, because he knew he had no right to, but it made him curious.

When he started sleeping in the workshop as it was in full swing in the early hours of the morning, Natasha maybe didn't laugh as much: but she also frowned at him a little less.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who's been reviewing and following, I'm really glad you guys are interested and that you like the story.

Let me explain a little bit about what's going on here for me:

Natasha's human. She feels, as much as she hates to admit it, and she feels passionately because she's never been able to properly deal with it. When presented with a creature like Tony, who not only feels flagrantly and flamboyantly, but forces the thoughts and feelings of everyone around him to the fore, it's like being put-upon by some sort of hellaciously persistent Jiminy Cricket with an even more fucked up moral compass than your own. He makes her feel, makes her think, and makes her react. But, worst of all, he gives her a home and a family, which is something that she has never had before. Natasha knows Tony, has pegged him and figured him out and gotten into his head: and though she'll never let him know that he's under her skin and that she's so changed by him it's astounding, she is more than willing to do what she does for anyone she-dare I say it?-loves. She takes care of him. She watches out for him. She makes sure he'll be alright. It's practical to the point of impersonal, but it's there. So, because Tony needs love to hit him over the head, in the nuts, and then leap on him like Scooby Doo after a fright before he'll realize it's there, Tony doesn't think she loves him. Doesn't realize that even though they kind of hang out, it's more than just a tolerance for her to build up. He's one of her favourite fucked up people, and he took himself from her because of something that she never should have let Steve get away with saying.

So, because Natasha is nothing if not vengeful, expect her to revenge.