Awakening

Sorry for the wait again...the end of the semester was completely insane. Man, it was really bad, and I had a cold on top of it…*shivers* yeah. Then, my brain had to go and shut down, leaving me in one of my writing funks for over a week!

Anyway, Merry Christmas! Even though technically it's still Christmas Eve for me...Eh, oh well.

I'm just going to warn you now, my holiday mood might creep into the chapters. :)

Penny's POV

By the time I became aware of my surroundings, I knew that I was in my mind. I wasn't exactly how I had gotten here, but I would recognize my mindscape anywhere.

Even if it was a bit of a mess at the moment.

I grimaced, gazing around at the piles of stone that were slowly lifting themselves off of the ground and floating back towards Hogwarts castle. It looked like the Great Hall had exploded, and it probably had.

I shook my head, or rather the head of my mental manifestation of my consciousness; it was easier just to say my head... and started directing repairs. My mind was a mess. The normally bright sky was grey, and all of my defences were in full view, on high alert. The Black Lake was bubbling, and the grass was brown. The Forest in the distance seemed to warp, and the colorful orbs that were my memories were floating everywhere. It was random chaos...no wonder I had passed out.

Or at least, I think I did.

I still wasn't all that sure about that. I remembered feeling odd in the Lab with Dad, and then pretty much nothing.
If I had to guess what happened, it would be that my brain overloaded from the strain of having so many unsorted memories and shut down. It had happened before; before I had started sorting all of my memories by lifetimes.

At least this time I didn't have to rebuild my mindscape from scrap. That had been less than pleasant.

I pulled myself together and refocused as I was forced to dodge three fast flying memories. Great, now not only was my mindscape riddled with memories, but some of them were still mobile.

Lovely.

"I definitely have my work cut out for me." I grumbled, before giving Hogwarts one last mental shove. Nodding at the completed castle, I sighed. "Well that's what I get for putting it off. Stupid memories."

Ok, I wasn't really all that disgruntled, it was just easier to complain than it was to sort through all of the orbs flying and floating around.

Deciding that it was time to just get it over with, I reached out and plucked a pale yellow orb out of the 'air'.

As the memory consumed my view, I couldn't hold back a sigh. This was definitely going to take a while.

Third POV

Tony had to bite back a sigh as Romanoff somehow managed to cut him off before he even got out of the elevator on Penny's floor. He assumed that she had taken the stairs, but she must've sprinted to be blocking the hallway when the elevator doors slid open. Though it was extremely hard to spot Romanoff's slightly labored breathing. She didn't look out of breath at all.

In fact, if Tony hadn't known otherwise, he would've assumed that she had somehow founded a form of teleportation as it did not appear that Romanoff had just dashed up about 50 stories of stairs.

Of course, this led to the question of jut why Romanoff would try to beat him up the stiars in the first place. It was obvious she wanted to talk to him, from the way her arms were crossed over her chest and her jaw was locked a bit more than usual, he could see that she was not entirely happy to be here.

He had been able to get used to reading her body language when she played undercover as his assistant three months ago. Not that she had succeeded with the spying, she hadn't even figured out Penny was living in the mansion, or that he was aware of her cover.

Not that Tony was really disappointed in that fact. It had made things easier for Penny and him, not to mention that it had caused SHIELD to underestimate him.

And if there was one thing Tony liked using, it was other people's low expectations of him. He liked being underestimated. It made everything so much more fun when he showed his hand, or at least some of his hand.

But that didn't really didn't matter at the moment, Tony was forced to remind himself when he realized that his thoughts had dragged on a bit longer than they should've.

"Agent Romanoff," Tony stated coolly as soon as the doors settled into place, his mind clicking back into attention, and Tony trying to stuff down the pride at the fact that his mind was so much faster than anyone else's.

Ok, any other mortal. Penny and her Siblings didn't count.

"Stark," Natasha said curtly as she nodded her head. "We need to talk."

"Yes," The word slid out of Tony's mouth, a barely hidden hiss. His dark eyes narrowed as he pushed past Romanoff. "I suppose we do."

But Tony didn't want to talk! He was cursing mentally, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his typical sunglasses still sitting on his nose. He really didn't want to deal with Romanoff right now.

He had to keep himself from shaking his head as his fingers brushed against the small, cold metal bullet that he still had in his pocket. Jarvis had told him to put it aside, even suggested melting it, but he couldn't. For some reason, he couldn't give up the painful, burning, solid reminder of what had happened to his baby girl.

This just made his desire to not deal with the Russian woman even stronger. He wanted to check on Penny, maybe sit with her for a bit while working with Jarvis. Not to mention he needed to call the construction company that was working on NY and the Tower to check on the progress, make sure that the Mansion would be in a livable state when Loki and his family appeared, give SHIELD's systems a once over, put the final touches on the plans for the Council, triple check that their security was up to date, make sure that certain knowledge and footage hadn't gotten into the wrong hands, and then make sure that SHIELD didn't have any nefarious intentions with or towards his daughter.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Phil, he did actually, or Fury…ok, he trusted Penny enough to give Fury the olive branch. If Penny was to be believed, and he did believe his daughter, than Fury actually wasn't a bad guy.

To be honest, he had never had a serious problem with the director…ok, he did; who was he kidding?

But he didn't always hate Fury, and if Penny said that they should be able to trust Fury then he'd try. Though he'd still eradicate the man and his agency if they tried anything.

And there go his thoughts again.

Blinking to get his mind back on the things in front of him, Tony forced himself to put down the bullet. Getting dragged away wouldn't help right now.

"Ok Romanoff, you have two minutes," He said as he turned around, realizing that he wanted this over and done with.

Romanoff froze, obviously been expecting Tony to keep walking, and having to chase him down. Blinking and slipping even deeper behind her own impressive mask, Tony saw Natasha barely hold back a flinch.

Now his curiosity was spiked, even more so when she sighed and spoke softly, "I need to apologize for my actions over the past few days."

Ok, now Tony was really curious. His head tilted to the side just slightly, and his eyebrow quirked as Romanoff swallowed. Something had pushed Romanoff into doing this; something had caused her to realize her mistake, to swallow her pride…

Someone had gotten to her before he had been able to. Tony wanted to growl at that, he had wanted to torment the agent!

If he was honest it was probably one of the Immortals, and if Mortem didn't know what had happened then Tony was intellectually challenged.

"Damn," he thought to himself as he watched Romanoff twitch again Tony crossed his arms over his chest. "Someone had seriously gotten to her; and no damn it I'm not pouting!"

"Yes, yes you do." Tony agreed, keeping his face blank and his voice cool. He tried to be angry at Romanoff, but he couldn't help but just feel tired.

The last few days had been hell for everyone, but Tony felt like he was tittering on the edge of this giant cliff of exhaustion, and he really didn't want to know what was waiting for him at the bottom.

He already had one edge in his mind, he really didn't need another one.

SO while he tried to be angry at Romanoff, at this point he was just tired. He was worried about Penny, and he was tired of being worried about her. He wanted her to be safe, he wanted Pepper to be safe, he wanted SHIELD to just vanish, NY to rebuild itself, and if he was perfectly honest, he wanted to take Penny, Pepper, and Happy and just vanish back to Malibu.

He was too fucking tired.

"I…I should've have acted like I did to you or your daughter, and I shouldn't have thought myself above Coulson's orders. I…caused you pain. I hurt a child, something that…one of the few things I was able to claim that I hadn't done." Romanoff's voice broke and Tony sighed as he took off his glasses.

"Even after I saw the error of my actions…my pride kept me from admitting any fault. I let my emotions cloud my judgment; and this is something that I will not allow to happen again." Her voice hardened, and Tony winced. She was extremely serious.

He could see her cracking mask from here, and her eyes really did reflect the guilt she felt. Man, he didn't know what Pen's Siblings and Bonded had done, but they had hit the agent hard.

"I know you won't be able to forgive me…or trust me again…but whether or not I was in complete control of my actions…there've been some whispers that whomever was controlling Loki also had a hand in the rest of our actions…it does not excuse my actions. I am not coming to you for forgiveness, and nor will I go to your daughter for forgiveness. I just wanted to give you my oath."

Romanoff's eyes hardened and Tony was slightly surprised at the look in her eyes. He had never seen the agent this serious, not even when she had been taking down Hammer, or speaking about Loki taking control of Barton.

No matter how hard the two agents would protest, he knew that there was history there; and if they weren't in a relationship, then he would admit to Fury that he had been the one who had told Phil the password to his blackmail stash and then helped him copy it. It didn't matter that Penny was actually the one who had done it.

"I will do everything in my power possible to make sure that no harm comes to your daughter by my hand, or a hand of any other member of SHIELD; and I shall do my hardest to make sure she is safe from any other threats as well. What I did was wrong, and I shall spend as much time as I need to make up for it."

There was a silence in the hall as Romanoff finished speaking. Her head was held high and her face once again a mask. Tony knew it would be a good idea for him not to mention that he had seen the cracks in her armor. He wasn't certain, but he had a feeling that messing with the Widow would have an angry Hawk on your tail, and vice versa.

Tony sighed, giving the woman a hard stare. He still wasn't happy with her damn it, and he was still was far from being able to trust her…but he couldn't be mad at her any more.

Especially when he knew it was very likely that Loki's Immortal puppetmaster had been pulling on her strings.

"Fine," He finally said just as the silence was about to get too much. "I'm not going to say that you're forgiven, and I sure the hell won't trust you with anything important outside of the Avengers for a while, but damn it all I know what you're saying."

Taking a deep breath he tried not to wince at the slightly hopeful look that had flashed in Romanoff's eyes. What? Sure he was an ass but even he would've stretch out someone's punishment after Immortals got through with them, especially the very overprotective Immortals that hung out with his daughter. He wasn't that much of a bastard.

"You still have to apologize to Penny," Tony continued, now sounding as if he was talking about the weather and not to the woman who had put a bullet through his daughter's Arc and chest. "Don't expect me to be friendly, or nice, and expect to still be pranked…but you're no longer on my 'kill, maim, and torture on sight' list."

Tony raised an eyebrow, as if to say you got it, and Romanoff nodded simply. Tony sighed and slipped the sunglasses back on, needed the extra layer between him and the agent.

Tony paused as he turned to walk away and said without looking at her, "Oh, and if you ever even think about hurting or threatening my daughter again, I will kill you."

And as Tony walked away, Romanoff tried to unlock her stiff muscles and calm her raising heart.

A threat from Tony Stark, one that hadn't even involved eye contact, scared her more than anything else she could remember.

She shivered as she turned away.

She was certain of three things.

One, she was extremely thankful to still be alive.

Two, she was never hurting Penny or anyone Stark cared about ever again.

And three: her two greatest fears right alongside loosing Barton, even competing with that one, were Rubber Chickens, and Tony Stark.

But of course, she was never admitting that to anyone.

Well, this chapter didn't go as planned at all. But hey, at least I updated! XD Like I said above, Merry Christmas, and I'm going to try and get a few Xmas specials out in the next twenty-four-ish hours.

Happy holidays! There'll be more Penny next chapter.
Cp