"Mr Stark? You can go in now."

Tony's head snapped up from the white tiled floor of the hospital waiting room when a nurse called his name.

The ticking of a clock had driven him insane and coerced him to begin to dive deeper into the concept of how quickly life and time move, despite the hours he'd been sat waiting that had felt more like days.

Fury had met him in the waiting room after Sasha had been taken in for some tests, saying nothing as he took a seat beside an equally silent Tony.

The two of them were both hurting and relieved at the same time, grateful that Sasha was alive and safe, though aching furiously that neither of them could've prevented the whole ordeal from happening in the first place.

Nick Fury felt responsible for Sasha Coulson and although Phil had never once asked for him to watch over his sister should anything happen, Fury knew that it would've been what he'd wanted.

Sasha was more than capable of taking care of herself, that much was proven. The sad thing was, her safety and security had only seemed to decline once she opened up her arms and her life to other people, which was the one thing she'd sworn off doing since losing her brother.

Nick had left Tony with a pat on the back and a mumbling of something beneath his breath, realising that there was a conversation between Sasha and Tony that was both inevitable and imminent.

Fury felt the way Sasha had clung to him, he'd seen the relief on the poor girl's face at the sight of a saviour walking into the warehouse, and he also saw that she didn't look at Tony the same way she looked at him. There was no exasperation, no elation at seeing the man she loved, no overwhelming emotions or tears, no desire to touch or be touched by hands that she should've wanted to hold for safety.

Something had changed in Sasha that Fury had noticed, and Tony had noticed too.

The walk down the corridor towards the hospital room was long. The white walls were dull and bland, making Tony's eyes blurry as he tried to keep his mind quiet for just a few moments.

He finally reached Sasha's room, reading her name that had been messily scrawled on a whiteboard pinned to the wooden door. The blinds were almost fully closed but he could just make out her figure sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out over New York.

He couldn't see much of her but he paused for a moment to stare, having a terrible gut feeling that his world was about to crumble like sand and fall between his fingertips.

Sasha turned to look at the visitor when she heard the sound of the door opening, wanting to serve a smile though being unable to change her sealed lips.

Tony looked tired. His under eyes were dark and the whites that once gleamed were dull. His radiant smile and flushed cheeks were nowhere to be seen, replaced only by a haunting shadow beneath his cheekbones and a frown that echoed worry and fear, a knowing glaze over his eyes that told Sasha he knew what was about to happen, though hoped that for once he'd be wrong.

"What'd the doctor say?"

Tony cleared his throat and walked around in front of Sasha, folding his arms at his chest and leaning against the window. New York was sunny then, a cloudless sky that flooded the city with a bright blue hue that most people would've been happy to bask in, only Tony felt like a rainstorm would've been more fitting.

"He said I'm fine. Couple of cracked ribs and a concussion, nothing I haven't had before. Discharged me, too."

Sasha shrugged her shoulders once as she clutched a black overcoat that was laid across her lap, one that Tony recognised belonged to Nick Fury. She was no longer in the clothes she was wearing when they'd found her, instead she was dressed in dull pair of cotton pyjamas the nurses had given her. Tony knew she'd never had picked those out herself.

There was a hostility in the room that made both of them uncomfortable. There was a space between them that never used to be there, a lack of touch and lack of smiles, laughter and love. The room felt cold and they both shivered, silence melting away any warmth that had thrived in their chests since the day their paths had crossed.

"You're coming home, right? I mean, with me? I-I want to take care of you, make sure you-"

"Tony," Sasha whispered, her head tilting and her gaze softening, making Tony's intrusive thoughts infiltrate the entirety of his mind and make themselves at home.

"I-I can't tell you how sorry I am, and how much I despise myself for everything that's happened to you. I should never have left the hard drive at your place, I should never have not told you about it, I should never have left you alone, not again. If I could go back and-"

"But you can't, Tony."

His mouth fell closed when Sasha interrupted him. He had taken a couple of steps closer to her whilst talking and his eyes had finally settled upon her own, though her blue was grey in that moment and the look that once made his heart beat, now made it freeze.

Sasha was cold, almost emotionless as she sat on the edge of the hospital bed. She seemed afraid of Tony, her body language closed and standoffish. She was angled inwards and her eyes were avoidant, a softness to her voice that shared exhaustion and defeat.

"I told you that I was fine alone, that I was afraid of letting people in because it always ends in me getting hurt. I told you that I was better off by myself."

Tony's face fell as he listened to Sasha speak, her eyes staring blankly out of the window as he stood in front of her, seemingly looking through him like he wasn't even there.

"But I said that you didn't have to be alone, and that you don't have to face your hardest moments by yourself, and that it's okay to open up and trust people. It got brighter, didn't it, with me? Do you not feel the way I love you, the way I see my world looking back at me when I look at you?"

Tony sat himself down next to Sasha, carefully reaching across her lap and placing his hand on top of her own. There was a bruise on the upside of her palm where a cannula had been and scratches that were healing that he knew would leave scars.

Sasha didn't look at Tony when he touched her. She felt the warmth of his hand, that much she couldn't deny, but she was unable to shake the way she'd been feeling since the moment Sean had pressed the barrel of a gun into the back of her head, knowing then that if she had simply trusted her head over her heart all those months ago, she wouldn't have been on the brink of death.

"I've just killed a man, Tony," Sasha said in a low tone, her face solemn and dry, "I've killed someone, I don't know how I can ever live a day of my life the same way ever again after that."

It had never occurred to Tony that ending another's life to save your own in self defence would be a difficult thing to process since for him, it had become a norm. He'd fought monsters and aliens and the things children fear hiding underneath their bed at night, but killing had lost meaning at that point, a numbness in the part of his brain that once felt guilt, even if he shouldn't.

Though as he felt Sasha's hand shake inside his own, it brought his head back down from the clouds and planted his feet firmly on the ground.

Sasha wasn't him. She was sharp and witty, intelligent and funny, loving and kind, all the things that Tony knew he was too, though she was a million and one more things on top of that. She still had her empathy intact, she had emotions that hadn't been discovered before and feelings that she'd never felt, all while Tony was sure he'd experienced everything it was possible for a human to endure, and he'd made it out the other side alive.

"You had no choice, Sash," Tony whispered, gently squeezing her hand and shuffling to face her on the bed, "You did it to protect yourself, you did the right thing."

Sasha sniffed, swallowing once. She was still looking out the window while Tony traced his thumb back and forth across her hand, his heart breaking at the sight of her eyes growing increasingly watery and her bottom lip quivering ever so slightly.

"Tony," Sasha said in a breath, finally turning her head to look him in the eyes, "I killed a man."

As Sasha began to quietly sob in front of him, Tony felt himself watch a human go through an entire lifetime of emotions right before his very eyes. She was confused, in denial, aware, and broken, all within a handful of painful seconds that made Tony want to tear away all the bad from her bones and plaster the cracks with goodness.

He despised seeing her cry and he hated the way her eyes would fall softly as she began to crumble, knowing that her soul was seeping from her body like wax down a candle, agonisingly slowly.

Tony wrapped his arms around her, pulling Sasha onto his lap while she sobbed into his shoulder. He cradled her like a child, rocking her frail body back and forth while being cautious to not hurt her injuries, feeling as though she was as delicate as angels wings right then.

"You didn't," he whispered in her ear, "You saved yourself. That's all you did, baby, you saved yourself."

"But I wish I didn't have to."

Her words made Tony's heart stop beating again. They were like pins pricking every inch of his skin of knives slicing at his nerves, severing anything that was holding him together in that moment.

He realised then just how much trauma he had caused Sasha, how much pain he'd inflicted on the woman he vowed to never hurt. Tony had gone back on a promise that should never have been broken, taken back a word he'd spoken in candlelight and beneath bedsheets, whispered between I love yous and exchanged with stolen glances in crowded rooms.

Tony had destroyed the woman he knew Sasha had worked tirelessly to become, and although redemption and selflessness had always been a natural reaction to breaking something, Tony wasn't sure he could ever fix the mess he'd made that time.

"It's my fault," he whispered, taking her face into his hands and pressing their foreheads together, "I'm so sorry, so, so sorry, Sasha. Please, just, let me help you through this, I have to help you, you can't do this alone."

Sasha dried her eyes and let go of Tony's hand, rising to her feet. She drew her eyes towards the ceiling for a moment as the last of her tears trickled down her pale cheeks, sighing loudly before looking back down at Tony with a heartbroken frown and hollow eyes.

"I'm safer alone, Tony. I know that now."