Three days later I ran out of pain meds. The little sleep I was getting turned nonexistent. I spent most of my time in my lab. Tony had regifted it to me and I plunged headfirst into working to chase the exhaustion away.

I had to ban Loki from my lab because he kept touching things and annoying me. With the lack of sleep, I was easily irritated. I knew he was trying to prove a point, that I needed sleep, but I couldn't... I just couldn't.

Back home, on my earth, I was working on a spray that sealed wounds instantly. I was only halfway through the chemical process on my world, but I had to completely start over from scratch here. Luckily, I had a helper here.

"Try adding 40% Ethyl Acetate and run it again." I watched as the simulation in front of me went through all the information again.

"40% Ethyl Acetate causes the mixture to be extremely flammable. It will be harmful if exposed to internal organs. Ethyl Acetate is also an irritant. It does, however, create the hydrophobic seal against the skin." JARVIS informed me. I huffed and rubbed my forehead.

"Ok, scrap that, but keep the 8-Hydroxyquinoline." I said and added to my notes. I needed to find a nonflammable hydrophobic solution. "JARVIS," I asked and leaned back in my chair, twirling my pen in between my fingers. "Could we use artificial T-cells and keratin?"

I watched JARVIS add in my notes and run the simulation again.

"Keratin works as a hydrophobic seal, but the T-cells do not take to the open wound." JARVIS said making me groan.

"Run it again but with artificial stem cells instead." I suggested and waited for him to run the simulation once more. The green light that flashed made me sit up straight.

"Artificial stem cells take, Ms. Sammee."

"Fuckin finally!" I yelled, but this was only the first step done. I still needed to find a binding agent, figure out how to turn it into a spray, and store it.

Before I could continue on my small breakthrough, the door to my lab slid open.

"Pause whatever she's doing, JARVIS. She's taking a break." Tony said as he waltzed in. I spun in my chair to glare at him.

"I'm not taking a break. I finally have something."

"And it will still be here when you get back." Tony told me. "Come on, Skydive. Lover boy is getting all antsy upstairs since you kicked him out..." Tony explained. "Two days ago." He frowned at me.

"Then he shouldn't have pissed me off." I grumbled back.

"You look awful." Tony commented.

"Wow, thanks." I sarcastically said. "As long as we're stating the obvious, you're an egotistical asshole."

"When was the last time you got a good nights rest?" Tony asked, ignoring my comments.

"Uh, let's see..." I started and looked up like I was thinking. "Today is Wednesday, so... when did I wake up from that coma?"

Tony didn't look amused. It was a joke, but also very much not.

"When was the last time you got any sleep?" He emphasized with a scolding look.

"Uh, well, the hallucinations are still friendly, which is a good sign."

Again, Tony wasn't amused.

"You're trial is in three days. You need to sleep." Tony told me. I stayed quiet because I agreed. I needed sleep badly, but I couldn't. The nightmares were back and in full swing.

The first night off of the pain meds, I tried to sleep some. I woke up crying, with my fingers digging into my palms. Loki woke me up and held me as I tried to calm down, but, as soon as I woke up, I went straight into a panic attack. It was so bad that I made myself sick and had to run to the bathroom to empty my stomach.

I spent the rest of that night sitting, curled up into a ball, on the shower floor, the water spraying over me. Loki tried to help, but he didn't know how.

The nightmares were worse since I was no longer stuck in survival mode. So much worse...

"Come on, Skydive. You can't live like this." Tony sighed.

"I know." I finally said in a small voice. "But I can't keep seeing their faces." I swallowed hard. My eyes were far off, just staring, but not actually looking at anything.

"Have you tried drinking some of Thor's stash and knocking out?"

"That will either work amazingly, or make things way worse." I chuckled mirthlessly.

"Worth a shot. Especially if you can actually get some sleep." Tony told me.

"And if it works?" I asked and turned to look at him. "Do I just drink myself into a coma every night? Or do I time it out? Drink myself into a coma every other night?"

"I don't know, Skydive." Tony shrugged. "But, I know this isn't going to work." He said, gesturing around my lab.

"That was literally your main personality trait in Ironman three." I grumbled. "Stop being a hypocrite."

"Just an hour." Tony told me. "Sleep for just one hour."

"Tony-"

"I'll even hook you up to an EEG. As soon as you start dreaming, I'll wake you up." Tony promised. I sighed, my body deflating. It could work...

"Ok, fine." I agreed. "But as soon as you see something, you wake me up." I said firmly.

"Absolutely, Skydive." Tony nodded. "When have I ever done you wrong?"

I raised an eyebrow at him and was about to give... so many examples, when he quickly talked over me.

"Don't answer that." He deadpanned. "It was rhetorical."

Twenty minutes later, I was lying on the soft red nap couch Tony kept in his lab. I had electrodes stuck to my head and I groaned as I felt the gel from the electrodes squish in my hair.

"Drink this." Tony said and handed me a glass 100ml beaker.

"You're really not supposed to drink the experiments. You know that, right?" I said skeptically as I eyed the seemingly clear, harmless liquid.

"It will give me a better picture of your brainwaves." Tony explained. "Bottoms up."

I sighed before I brought the glass beaker to my lips.

"Salud!" I said and cheered Tony before tilting my head back and swallowing the suspiciously sweet liquid. "What now?" I asked and cleared my throat, wiping my lips with my hand.

"Now," Tony started. "You go off to dreamland."

"I thought the whole point was to keep me from dreaming..." I said hesitantly.

"Well, ya, but sleepland doesn't sound as good." Tony said with a straight face causing me to laugh.

When I stopped laughing, Tony had me lie down and close my eyes. I was asleep almost instantly and, almost instantly, the nightmares started.

Tony woke me up almost three hours later. I was shaking and sweaty, and upset that he didn't wake me up sooner. I turned to yell at him and was surprised to also see Bruce here.

"No offense, Skydive, but I never want to look into your brain again."

"What are you talking about?" I asked with a yawn. Tony twisted the computer monitor they were looking at of the EEG towards me and my eyes went wide when I saw it. "What the hell am I looking at?" I asked.

"So normally when we look at an EEG of someone who is sleeping, we look at their theta waves." Bruce started. "Your brain waves seem normal until about here where we see a presence of IED." He said and pointed to a very strange spike in the graph.

"Ok, so what does that mean?" I asked and looked sideways at him. Bruce pressed his lips tightly together and looked back at the screen, making me nervous. "Bruce, what does that mean?" I asked more sternly.

"It means that you're having small seizures in your sleep." Tony said for him. I turned to look at Tony.

"Ok, so how do we fix it?" I asked.

"We'll need to run some more tests." Bruce told me. "And a full EEG." He emphasized the word 'full' so I would get the message.

"No," I said and shook my head. My muscles already tensing. A full EEG would mean a full nights sleep. The longer I sleep, the worse the nightmares got. A full nights sleep wasn't happening.

"You need this, Skydive." Tony sighed.

"No, no I don't." I told him, still shaking my head no.

"Sammee, we need to figure out what's causing them, so we know how to stop them." Bruce explained.

"Use that." I said and pointed at the screen.

"It's not enough to-"

"Alright." Tony told me, interrupting Bruce. Bruce looked at Tony, confused. "Alright." Tony said again and glanced at Bruce, shrugging his shoulders before looking back at me.

"Tony, she needs-"

"We'll figure it out." Tony said and raised his hand to cut Bruce off. Bruce huffed and looked at my EEG results. "Go upstairs and see lover boy. He's causing a draft with all of his pacing." Tony told me as he pulled the electrodes off my head. "And take a shower." He added. "You're all... gross." He said and gestured to my hair that still had gel in it. I rolled my eyes and flipped him off before getting up and leaving. I didn't want to stay incase they changed their minds.