Sasha didn't return to her apartment, instead deciding to check herself into a suite at The Plaza while she figured out what her next move was going to be.

Fury had told her that he'd had a team of people collect her belongings from her old apartment and box everything up, locking it in a storage unit at the Avengers Compound upstate. She had a suitcase full of necessities with her, as well as the photo frame that Tony had rescued from her place when he first went to assess the damage.

The Plaza was nice, homely enough for the time being. Sasha was used to large, bland open spaces in the apartments she chose to live in, making the vintage decor style in the hotel a welcomed change.

Sasha didn't want to go back to how things before, since that clearly wasn't working out for her. For the second time in a year, she had found herself without a true place to call home. Numbness was a familiar feeling to her by that point and although Sasha felt as though she should have been desperately weeping into her pillow after everything that had happened to her, there was simply no emotions left for her to express.

Understandably, Sasha had taken a temporary leave of absence from her work. The firm were more than cooperative given the situation, though she didn't wallow in their sympathy, wanting to forget about the whole ordeal more than anything.

Sasha spent her days researching homes on the coast in Maine. She'd had a calling in the back of her mind since visiting that echoed consistently, brewing an urge to return to the placid seaside town she'd grown fond of during her short stay.

If there was ever a time for a fresh start, Sasha decided it was then. Her job was transferable but apart from that, she had nothing keeping her in New York, not anymore. Her home was no more and her relationship was even less, leaving her completely alone all over again.

Sasha wasn't one to bathe in self-pity, deciding to diminish the time she should've spent feeling sorry for herself and instead spend it focusing on how to get her life back on track. Crying wouldn't change the trauma that made her unable to sleep at night, and neither would wondering how different things might be if she'd had changed her actions even the slightest bit.

She had learned by now that she didn't enjoy living in a world full of what ifs, Sasha feeling far more comfortable wrapped in certainties and exclusivities. She likes to steer and guide, decide and dictate, manage and control. Dreaming and desiring had become a taboo subject for her to think about by that time, knowing now that some risks weren't worth taking, no matter how good the odds might've seemed.

Sasha hadn't spoken to Tony since leaving the hospital. She'd watched tears falls from his eyes as she turned her back on him and walked away, not letting him see the ones that fell down her own face to match.

There wasn't enough words in the English language for Sasha to describe how Tony made her feel. He had been the first man to show her what being in love, and being loved, truly felt like. Yet in the same breath, he had destroyed every ounce of trust and broken down every bridge she'd built to let him into her heart, setting fire to the very path he'd worked so hard to be able to walk.

Sasha thought about Tony day and night. Her heart ached and her mind tortured itself with memories that were now haunted. She recalled nights they'd shared in her bed, only for them to now be tainted with the thought of the hard drive that caused their downfall to be just inches below their bodies.

Sasha had been hurt before, she'd been betrayed by boyfriends and let down by friends, though none of her past experiences hurt quite as bad as Tony's actions did. The memories burned like hot fire and left scars itching, making it impossible for Sasha's mind and body to rest for even a second.

As she glanced around the lavish hotel suite, Sasha couldn't help but feel like she was back at square one with her life. The ups and downs of the past year had drawn more blood sweat and tears from her soul than she could've ever imagined, though there had been one constant stability that kept her wheels turning through it all.

The roar of the engine made the hairs on the back of Sasha's neck stand up. She wasn't supposed to be driving for another week since her ribs weren't fully healed, though the pain had practically disappeared by that point and quite frankly, Sasha felt like there wasn't much else she couldn't take.

The seats smelled like fresh leather with a hint of pine coming from the air freshener jammed into the vent, a photograph of herself and Phil was stuck beneath the sun visor on the drivers side and an emergency lipgloss was in the pocket by the door handle, just where she'd left it.

Although it might've been the second version of her car that she'd owned, Sasha had learned to love the vehicle as if it were alive. The loss of a memory with her old car had made hitting the gas pedal in such an exquisite machine rather daunting, though she soon found her footing with the beast and quite quickly fell in love with it, the car feeling like a piece of comfort that nothing else quite gave her.

She took off out of the city, driving down the freeway towards the cemetery. It was late afternoon and Sasha hadn't done a single thing all day, nor had she spoken a single word out loud. She didn't necessarily want to have a conversation, but her mind did need emptying to somebody that she knew would always be around to listen.

"Shit," Sasha grumbled beneath her breath, pulling the car onto the side of the road, just a half mile away from the cemetery she was heading towards.

Sasha sank down into the seat with a heavy sigh, rolling her eyes at the dashboard and at her own stupidity. The petrol light was blinking and the meter was down to zero miles, the car seemingly running on fumes for the past handful of minutes before finally automatically slowing the engine and displaying a message on the dash that the tank was empty.

She pondered in thought for a moment, knowing exactly what her options were yet debating between the right one and a more ridiculous one.

Sasha swallowed her pride and reached over to the passenger seat, brushing aside a bunch of roses to retrieve her mobile phone. She tapped on the screen a couple of times before holding it to her ear, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip as she listened to the dial tone.

"Stark."

"Hey Tony," Sasha cleared her throat, cringing at herself as she spoke with her eyes squeezed tightly shut, "It's Sasha, could I ask you a huge favour?"

"Anything, you alright?"

There was an urgency in Tony's voice that made Sasha reminisce for a blissful moment, her heart swelling at the idea he was still her first port of call for any kind of happening, good or bad.

"I'm fine, it's just my car, it's ran out of gas. I should've checked before I set off but I didn't think and-"

"You know you've still got at least a week of recovery before you should be driving, right?"

"I know, I know, I just really wanted to - wait, you remembered that?"

There was silence for a moment on the other end of the line before a call transfer sound and an electronic synth that connected her back to Tony, the call seeming more distorted than a few seconds before.

"I'm on my way, about a half mile back from the cemetery?"

"That's me."

"Be there in ten."

Sasha grabbed the roses from the passenger seat and jumped out of the car, heading down the street towards the cemetery. It didn't take her long to walk through the iron gates, feeling an overwhelming sense of peace as she did so.

The cemetery was always blissful in the darkest way, though equally comforting, too. Sasha enjoyed the way it was always constant, despite wishing things could change. Consistency made life easier for her and she was grateful for places like the cemetery and assets like her Lamborghini, both of them providing an always in a universe full of endings.

Her feet soon came to a standstill not long after walking down the cemetery path. The place was deserted that afternoon and although she had visited countless times before, Sasha was stunned still by an empty mind.

For the first time in a long time, her mind was silent. Her thoughts had vanished and as hard as she tried to remember which direction to carry her feet in towards her brother's resting place, she simply could not think.

An crushing amount of guilt made a lump rise in Sasha's throat, the thorns on the stems of the roses cutting into her skin as she anxiously clutched them in her palm, growing increasingly angry at herself for not being able to remember such an important thing.

Her eyes scanned the acres of flat land ahead of her, thousands of names jumbling the alphabet together and spitting out directions in her mind that made no sense. She couldn't remember trees or benches, certain flower beds or the direction that the sun fell on Phil's grave at that certain time of day. Sasha felt helpless, and in that moment, she felt ashamed.

"Sasha?"

She spun on her heels to see Tony stood a few feet away from her, hands in his pockets as he stared at her with a raised eyebrow.

Sasha simply said nothing. Tony tilted his head as he noticed the way her eyes were wide and glazed over in tears, a small stream of blood trickling down her wrist as she held the bunch of flowers, a blankness behind her gaze that told him everything he needed to know.

"It's alright, come on," Tony smiled warmly and placed a hand on Sasha's back, "Let me take those for you, it's this way."

Sasha let Tony take the flowers from her hand, feeling him wipe away a warm streak of blood from her skin. She still kept her lips sealed, the two of them walking in silence as Tony guided her down a path that soon began to become familiar to her.

Tony's heart had broken when he saw Sasha's face, and not just because he knew how lost she felt in that moment. He had missed her like a desert misses rain, feeling as though all purpose in his life had vanished in the blink of an eye.

He always checked his phone to see if Sasha had called or texted and up until that day, he hadn't had a single notification from her. When her name flashed up on his screen, Tony had never been so frightened yet relieved in his life.

"Here we are, you want me to give you a minute?"

Sasha swallowed, taking the flowers from Tony and placing them against Phil's headstone. She wasn't exactly sure what she'd planned on saying that afternoon on her visit, though as soon as she stood in front of her brother's grave, Sasha couldn't think of a single word.

"It's alright," she shook her head, turning to look at Tony who was stood two feet away from her, "Thank you."

Tony wasn't sure whether Sasha was thanking him for coming to fix her car, for helping find her brother's grave, or for something else, but it didn't matter. He had missed her voice and the way he felt inside whenever she looked at him, happy to feel something because of her for the first time in a painful amount of weeks.

The sun was setting and pink glistened across the cemetery, leaves turning a collage of red and orange, only a small handful floating to the ground at the whisper of a breeze.

"It's been a year since we met, a year exactly. Right here." Tony said.

Sasha let out a small sigh, a sad smile on her lips as she gazed at the way the sunlight made Tony's eyes look like liquid gold staring back at her, his skin like an angel's in the evening's blush.

"So much has changed." Sasha whispered.

"One thing stayed the same," Tony said, drawing in a deep breath before deciding to continue, his eyes softening as he looked at Sasha and the way her lips pouted as she waited for the rest of his words, "I loved you then, and I love you now. That will never change, that's a constant you can take comfort in, Coulson."