Sasha was fed up. She'd grown used to the warmth of the Stark Tower and being able to call it home indefinitely, though ever since the night of the second attack on New York, the entire city seemed cold.

Wintery clouds greyed the skyline and snow began to fall towards the end of November. Evenings were spent in O'Shea's alone or still in the office until the building was locked by security close to midnight. Tony was nothing more than a shadow down a long hallway after that night.

He'd kept an unnerving distance from Sasha, making her begin to question every decision she'd made since crossing paths with him. There had been rain droplets of moments with Tony that had made a version of Sasha's future flash before her eyes. They were dismissed easily at first, blamed on alcohol or exhaustion, even lack of physical and emotional love from another person, though those same rain droplets soon turned into thunderstorms, and the clouds hadn't shifted an inch, drowning Sasha more and more each day.

She couldn't look Tony in the eye without her stomach rising into her chest and her heart thumping so hard her head began to spin. The pen writing the next chapter of Sasha's life had been but a centimetre away from touching the paper, only to be pulled away at the last second and placed down on the desk again.

Sasha realised slowly but surely that the thing she'd feared most had happened. She had grown to like Tony, more than one friend should like another. She missed him when he wasn't around and craved his company like a human craves air to breathe. She missed talking to him and laughing with him, watching movies with all the lights out and drinking wine while playing cards.

It was the little things that changed the way Sasha looked at Tony, but what changed it most was when she realised the way he looked at her, too.

Which was why Tony's sudden step back was so hard to comprehend. Sasha couldn't work out why he was on the cusp of finally letting go of the worry and kissing her like she knew both their hearts willed him to, only for him to act like they were ships passing in the night whenever he saw her around the tower afterwards.

He was cold and seemingly resentful, refusing to look her in the eye or hold conversation. Sasha had tried to talk to him the morning after when she woke up on the couch, only to find a note on the kitchen counter that said he'd be back in a couple of days after going out of state for work.

Nothing made sense for Sasha anymore and as she sat on the edge of the bed she'd been sleeping in for the past month, she allowed herself to mourn the loss of another person, realising then that she'd lost Tony, too.

Though that time, there was no explanation.

Tony was walking down the hallway when he noticed Sasha's bedroom door wide open. Her clothes and belongings were strewn across the floor and two suitcases were open. She had her hair tied back and a track pants on, ironically wearing one of his sweaters that reached halfway down her thighs.

He sighed, pausing as he watched her continue to sit on the floor folding clothes and packing them away inside the cases. He knew exactly what was going on and ultimately, he couldn't blame her.

Tony had kept his distance from Sasha since the night of the second attack after making himself believe that the universe was telling him to keep Sasha at a friendly arms length, nothing more, nothing less.

The only problem was, Tony didn't see her as a friend, not anymore. He couldn't look in her direction without wanting to grab her face and kiss her. He couldn't hear her name without feeling his insides twist or his heart ache, he hated people asking about her because he hated the way it made him feel, despite the pain being caused by his own hand.

"Hey," Tony said, clearing his throat as he leant against the doorframe with his arms crossed at his chest, "What are you, er, what are you doing?"

Sasha looked up at him from across the room and, as expected, Tony's entire soul froze. Her face was emotionless but her eyes were red, clear that she'd been crying not too long ago.

He felt sick to his stomach knowing Sasha had been upset, wanting nothing more than to comfort her the way he knew nobody else could. Though he also knew the reason she'd been crying was more than likely himself.

"What does it look like?" She replied, returning her attention to folding the same velvet dress she'd worn that night, "I picked up the keys to my new place earlier, I'll be out of your hair soon."

Tony drew in a sharp breath, her words feeling like a thousand needles pricking his skin at once. She spoke as if she was doing him a favour, as if leaving was what Tony wanted, when in actual fact, that couldn't have been further from the truth.

"Don't go," he said, swallowing as the words passed his lips, "I don't want you to go."

Sasha scoffed, shaking her head without saying anything in response. She closed one suitcase and locked it shut before moving onto the second, grabbing a jewellery box from the dresser and placing it inside the case, not bothering to glance at Tony once.

"Look," he sighed, taking a few cautious steps closer to her, "I'm sorry for how I've been acting. I know I've been cold and ignorant and-"

"You've been acting like you can't stand the sight of me, Tony. Every time I walk into a room you walk straight out, you won't look at me in the hallway, won't answer my text messages when I ask if you need anything from the store. You don't even talk to me, when was the last time you said anything to me, huh? I don't even remember. I thought you were supposed to be my friend."

The way Sasha snapped suddenly made Tony's body tense up. Her tone forced him to lock eyes with her and despite the combination of heartbreak and fury that burned behind her pale eyes, she still took his breath away.

She looked small and frail buried in his sweater, calling out to his instinct to protect her and take care of her, even though he knew she was more than capable of doing both of those things herself.

He despised himself for inflicting the mental torture upon her, knowing she'd have driven herself insane overthinking what she could've possibly done wrong to make him fall away from their relationship so suddenly when the only thing she'd ever done wrong was make Tony feel the way he did about her. Though even that was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

"I am your friend. That's exactly why I've been acting the way I've been acting lately. Because I can't-"

"Can't what?"

Sasha was stood in front of him now, six feet between them. There was a dim floor lamp adding low, yellow light to the room, otherwise illuminated only by the city behind the floor to ceiling windows than ran across the back wall, the moon hanging low in the dark sky that rainy night.

She stared at him, waiting for an answer. Tony wasn't sure whether it was better to let her go knowing the truth, or better to let her go without adding even more hurt to the wounds he'd already given her.

The desperation in her expression pulled on Tony's heartstrings, knowing that she was agonisingly waiting for him to say something, anything to make her feel better, to make her understand.

He knew exactly what she wanted to hear and it was exactly what he wanted to say, but he didn't know whether it was right or wrong to actually say it.

Sasha felt sick as she stood before Tony. She'd spent half an hour crying silently in her room before starting to pack away her things, grieving losing someone who told her they'd never not be by her side.

She didn't want to force anybody to stay in her life that didn't want to be there, but Sasha would've been lying if she'd have said she wasn't hoping with every fibre of her being that Tony would explain his actions and that everything could go back to the way it was at the beginning, settling for a friendship with him if that was all she could ever have.

He had changed her life in the best way possible, taking her hand and pulling her out of the darkest hole she'd ever been in. Tony had learned her mind inside and out, knowing how to make her laugh and to stop her crying. He cared about her and even though it took a while, Sasha let herself trust him, thinking that a man who could make so many promises about never leaving wouldn't break them.

Only, she'd been wrong.

"Well? Do I not deserve an explanation?" Sasha pushed, shrugging her shoulders as she waited for an answer.

Tony stared at her, watching her eyes go from dry to glassy in seconds. He could tell by the quiver of her bottom lip that she was holding back another flood of tears and the way she was clenching her jaw and balling her fists tightly only made him feel more guilty, his strength shattering at the sight of her breaking inside.

"You deserve so much more than that, Sasha." Tony said quietly, his voice shaky as he tried to compose himself.

She just stared at him, the anger in her eyes had been replaced by pure sadness tinted only by burned out hope, a sight Tony wished he'd never had to see.

"You were going to kiss me," she whispered, blinking as the first tear fell down her cheek, "That night, you were finally going to kiss me."

Tony's heart melted inside his chest, feeling every emotion coat his bones like a thick oil that held him rooted to the spot, even though he wanting nothing more than to take her into his arms.

"Yeah," he whispered back, nodding, "I was. But the universe had other plans. I took that as a sign that I wasn't supposed to cross that line with you, that we're supposed to stay as friends."

Sasha furrowed her brows, "So what, you, you decide to pretend like I don't exist? Like you can't stand the sight of me? Is that what the universe told you to do?"

Tony squeezed his eyes shut, throwing his head back for a moment before looking at her again, "I can't look at you without wanting to grab your beautiful face and kiss you, Sasha. I want you with me all the God damn time, I want to hear your voice and your laugh and see your smile. I don't trust myself around you anymore, I can't look at you without feeling all of that inside me, do you understand what I'm saying?"

Sasha just shook her head, a soft gasp escaping from her lips, "So an attack on New York, that's a sign. But your own feelings, Tony, they're not a sign? They're not a strong enough sign for you? Did you even hear what you just said?"

Tony stayed deadly still while he listened to her speak, watching more tears trickle down her skin in the glow of the moon. He had no idea that his feelings for Sasha had been reciprocated as strongly as they evidently were. Tony thought he'd been dreaming the way Sasha looked at him, his imagination conjuring up a reality that he'd wanted, only clearly, Sasha's heart was beating just as strongly for the same cause as his was.

"God Tony," Sasha huffed, running her hands across her face in frustration as she started to piece everything together in her mind, "I can't believe you. You act like you want me one minute and then the next-"

"Oh my God, did you see that?" Tony's eyes widened and he turned his head to look out of the window.

He waited for a second until Sasha imminently panicked and turned to look out of the window too before throwing away every rational thought he'd forced himself to believe in the recent weeks and walked over to her, grabbing her face and pressing their lips together, finally.

She froze for a moment, having but a split second of a glance to see Tony's face a breathless inch away from her own before she closed her eyes at the warmth of his hands on her skin and his lips on her own, a calmness suddenly washing over her as the same weightless feeling returned to her soul, only one million times more powerful than any stolen glance had given her before.

Tony relaxed as he felt her hands touch the sides of his neck, her nails gently grazing his skin as he let his grasp fall down to her waist, pulling her closer as he kissed her deeper, feeling her slowly begin to smile against his lips.

They pulled apart for a brief moment, their foreheads resting against one another's with shallow breathing and shaking hands telling them everything that they needed to know.

"I'm sorry," Tony whispered, looking into her eyes closer than he ever had done before, "I'm sorry for how I've been acting around you, and for making you wait so long for that to happen."

Sasha wanted to still embody the fury he'd made her feel over the recent weeks, but no matter how hard she tried to use her independent, strong-willed nature, there wasn't a glimmer of hope that she'd be able to feel anything but euphoria as she looked at Tony in that moment.

"You're a fool, Tony Stark, do you know that?"

Tony allowed himself to smile ever so slightly, a smirk pulling his lips gently to one side as he squeezed her waist.

"Only for you, Coulson."