Tony worked the rest of the day against the orders masked as advice from every person he knew. All he was told to do was rest and heal but just the thought of lying around not being able to work sounded like torture to him right now. He felt as though working was the only thing keeping him grounded as long as his hands were busy his mind was too.

So when the door to the lab opened and his music once again turned down Tony was already annoyed. "On contrary to public belief I can actually function on my own for at least a few hours."

"I highly doubt that." Natasha said from behind him. She took into account the state of his workshop from the hole that remained in the ground from that morning to the wide array of parts scattered about. "Looks like you've been busy."

"I've got two busted suits and one new one. As well as more plans for at least three more so I guess you could say busy." He said without looking up from the helmet he was working on.

The assassin took a swivel chair and sat on the other side of the table from the distracted man. "Any plans for sleeping in there?"

"I can sleep when I'm dead. And since I just died I've had enough for the moment." Said Tony while connecting the hard drive he had gotten from the floor to the helmet in front of him.

"Stark you know that if you need help you can talk to me right, you can talk to any of us." Out of nowhere Tony slammed the table scattering a few tools. Internally Natasha jumped but she didn't show it out of years of training. She tried to catch his eyes but they were intent on the work in front of him. "Tony, what's wrong?"

"The drive doesn't fit." Tony's voice was barely above a whisper as he closed a shaking hand into a fist while motioning towards the helmet. "Damn it!" He yelled as he wiped everything off the desk in front of him.

The funny thing was that Tony knew he was overreacting, yet at the same time he couldn't stop himself. He felt like he was out of control of his own body as his legs stumbled across the floor trying to get as far away from Natasha and the damn hard drive as he could. Tony could feel as his heart did jumping jacks in his chest and his breathing ran a marathon. His legs gave out and he found himself kneeling on the cool cement floor.

"Tony," Natasha's voice was calm and broke through the storm that was his mind. She kneeled in front of him meeting his panicked brown eyes. "Breathe with me."

Hesitantly Tony followed her exaggerated breaths. Each breath he took calmed him to the point where he felt as though he was in control in his own body. Only when that happened Tony could appreciate how embarrassed he felt. Standing up awkwardly from his shaky legs he tried to brush off what just happened to him.

"Well it's always a great time with you Agent Romanoff. Now if you'll excuse me." He attempted walking away but she only grabbed his arm and pulled him back to face her.

"Nice try Stark. But I'm not going to turn a blind eye just because your ego is hurt. Tell me what happened." Her voice never went above a yell and remained cool toned.

"I can't because I don't know alright." Tony blurted out trying to keep his heart rate down but failing miserably. "I was fine until I was not fine."

"You had a panic attack Tony."

"And how do you know?" He asked irritated. But there was something in her eye that held the answer; one Tony didn't push on. "Alright so there's that."

There was silence for a few moments that was happily broken by Natasha. "There's a storm over the ocean that Pepper can't find a flight to avoid. If you want I could get a S.H.I.E.L.D. jet to bring her back."

"No. It's too dangerous here." As much as Tony wanted to see Pepper right now he just wanted her to stay safe. "She's better off where she is."

"She doesn't agree." Natasha told him watching a blur of betrayal flash past his eyes. "She has a right to know what's going on Tony."

"Yeah I know she does." He sighed looking at the mess of stuff that he threw on the ground. "Dummy pick that up, and be quick about I have work to do." Natasha tried to cut in and tell him that he had to go rest or do anything else but Tony stopped her. "I'm just going to finish up the helmet then I promise I'll go straight to bed. Come on five more minutes."

She could see right through him and knew he would likely be up all night. But she also knew it would be cold day in hell where he would do something he didn't want to do. So she left, of course she had Jarvis send a surveillance feed through the tv in the main living room, but she left him to his tinkering where he felt most at home.

So how is he?" Hawkeye asked as Natasha came up the stairs from Tony's workshop. The other two Avengers who were standing nearby came over to hear how their team member was doing.

"He's been better." She told them all about her conversation with Tony. No one had interrupted her when she told them of Tony's panic attack but did put his head in his hands. "Do you need a minute?"

"No," Bruce sighed, "I just didn't know it was that bad."

"What can we do about this." Steve asked. "Is there anything we can do to help? Does he even want help? Every time we try he pushes us away."

They all took a glance at the footage of Tony on the huge monitor in front of them. He was currently yelling at Dummy who was knocking over as much as he was picking up. Looking at him one could hardly tell he had been shot and nearly dead less than a day ago.

"All we can do is try to be there for him." Bruce told them. "He knows he can trust us. Even though his ego is large enough to block out the sun he isn't an idiot. He knows when to ask for help."

"Does he?" Clint asked shocking them all. "I mean this is a man who was dying for a year and didn't tell anyone." It was true and they all, with the exception of a particularly shocked Steve, and that didn't make any of them feel any better. "Did you tell him about Pepper?"

"Yeah he said that he didn't want her to come back until it was safer." Natasha said with a grimace. "I'm going to ask if we can keep an agent on her just in case whoever tried killing Stark goes for the next best thing."

"That's probably best." Said Steve. "We also need to figure out who would want to kill Stark. It can't be that long of a list can it?"

The two agents collectively laughed. "Well," Barton started with a grin, "we could start with the people who want to kill him so Stark Industries would bottom out. Then we have every person who wants Iron Man out of the way. We also have the stalkers, old grudges, one night stands, and everyone who was every laid off by his company. Honestly there are probably more people in the world who want to kill him than Tasha and me combined."

"Really," The Captain asked not believing what he was hearing, "that many people want to kill him? How does he even go outside?"

Clint shrugged. "He's Iron Man."