Tony wasn't sure whether he was awake or trapped inside a never ending nightmare sprouting from the darkest memories of his own past as he stood in the middle of Sasha's apartment.

He'd fought his way past an army of SHIELD agents guarding the entrance without saying a word, letting nobody stand in the way of seeing what he was sure would've been the last thing Sasha saw before she was torn away from her home against her will.

The couch they'd spent hours on end on together was on it's side and the coffee table they'd spilled wine on and played board games on was overturned. Records that Tony had bought as gifts for Sasha were snapped in half and the vinyl player itself had been smashed into pieces.

Pillows that Sasha had thrown at Tony with a childish grin on her face had been sliced open with a blade and photo frames shattered, their pictures torn into something incomprehensible.

As he walked over broken bottles of wine and liquor spilled onto the kitchen floor, Tony's heart sank even further towards the soles of his feet when he saw the navy velvet dress Sasha had worn the night he'd realised he'd fallen in love with her on the floor, a black boot print staining the precious fabric.

Her jewellery was scattered across the dressing table which made the scene clearly not a robbery, with hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of rings, watches and necklaces laying out in the open.

Almost every picture frame had been broken, all except the one Tony had gifted Sasha for her birthday. The short video clip of her and Phil was still playing on repeat on top of a chest of drawers as Tony took a step closer. He glanced over his shoulder before picking up the frame and sliding it into the inside pocket of his jacket, not risking losing the one thing he knew Sasha would want back the most.

Tony braced himself as he bent down onto his knees, sliding his hand across the underside of the bed frame and feeling nothing but cold metal against the tips of his fingers. He cursed under his breath before looking a second time with the light from a torch on his phone, only to find nothing.

As soon as Peter had called him a few hours ago to let him know what had happened, Tony's mind jumped straight to one painful conclusion, instantly dousing him in a gasoline-like guilt that could catch fire with the smallest of sparks from that moment on.

He'd hidden a hard drive on the underside of Sasha's bed frame months ago and not told her. The drive had inside intel on Stark Industries and more importantly, how to harness the true power of an arc reactor. Tony hadn't ever trusted the idea of keeping the information safe at his own home, deciding that the best bet was to keep it somewhere nobody would ever think to look.

Only that time, Tony had been proven wrong.

He stood at the foot of the bed with his arms folded, staring at the unmade sheets and picturing so hauntingly easily the way Sasha looked laid in that exact spot. He could recall her smile and the way her hair fell across the pillow, how her voice sounded when she first woke up and how soft her lips felt in the early morning, how cold her hands always were in the dead of night. He looked at the empty space and saw himself holding her, tighter than any man could hold a woman, only despite the superhuman strength that he protected her with, the longer Tony stared at the bed, the quicker the image of Sasha faded away, leaving him alone once more.

It was Tony's mobile ringing that snapped him out of a hair raising daydream, blinking back a few tears as he pulled the phone to his ear and turned his back on the bed, staring out the windows at the city below him.

"Stark."

"Are you heading back over here? I've got something you'll wanna see."

"Give me five."

Nick Fury was the caller that time. Tony had notified him about Sasha's disappearance and the ex-SHIELD director had made a special dash to New York, heading straight to the Stark Tower to help find his late agent's sister.

Tony hadn't spoken a word to anybody on the flight home from Oslo, sitting by himself with his eyes fixed on the landscape ahead of them, barely blinking. He felt time truly passing him by for the first time on that flight, feeling the weight of a single second knowing that time was the matter between life and something more sinister for Sasha.

He arrived back at the Stark Tower in less than five minutes, landing fifty floors up and walking straight down a hallway as his suit retracted, heading in the direction of Fury and Hill who were both sat surrounded by holograms filling the room full of information.

"About damn time, son."

Tony said nothing as he walked over to Fury, simply extending his hand and giving his friend a warm, firm handshake. He wasn't in the mood to speak but Nick knew that the gesture was Tony's way of saying thank-you for his knee-jerk reaction of dropping everything to get to New York as soon as he could.

"Check this out," Agent Hill said, pulling five photographs from the background into the foreground with a flick of her wrist, swiping past irrelevant information until she found what she was looking for.

Tony narrowed his eyes at the blurred images before him, squinted with his head tilted to the side and lips firmly sealed.

"Obadiah Stane had a whole group of people working for him, the ones that ended up in jail, remember?" She continued, Tony nodding, "Well five of them were released from prison last year, these five here. Carl Thomas, Hank Fletcher, Sean R-"

"Woah, hold up, focus in on that guy?" Tony said, holding up his hand as he stopped Maria mid-sentence.

She enlarged the photo of the third felon to be released, taking a closer look for herself before turning back to look at Tony.

"What is it? You recognise him?"

Tony's jaw was clenched as he looked at the picture. His eyes had narrowed and almost turned black as he stared at the face of the man before him, being able to recall every detail of him now so terrifyingly clearly, his gut twisting at the sensation.

"That son of a bitch is Sasha's neighbour, her fucking neighbour."

Tony stormed out of the room without waiting a second longer, infuriated from the inside out and finally feeling like the gasoline guilt had caught fire.

He paced back down the hallway with haste, his shoes echoing against the floor as a second pair of footsteps dashed to catch up with him, though Tony ignored the calls of his name as he tried to focus on breathing, feeling as though his lungs were both on fire and submerged under water at the same time.

He headed out onto the landing pad and felt the cool evening air hit him, crouching down onto the ground with one hand flat on the floor beneath him, sirens and cars and voices all orchestrating loudly as he tried to just think for a moment, though found it impossible.

"Tony!"

Fury put a hand on Tony's shoulder once he finally reached him, also crouching on his knees to look into his friends' eyes as he shivered under the moonlight of a once light, now deathly dark city.

"It's my fault," Tony whispered, turning to look at Fury through wet eyes with a shaky voice, "I left that drive in her house, I looked into that guys eyes and let him walk on by. It's my god damn fault that she's gone and I promised her that I-"

Tony drew his fist between his teeth as he cried silently, a bone breaking pain cutting through every vein and every vessel in his body, peeling away layers of his heart one by one, as cruelly slow as possible.

"I promised her that I'd never let anything happen to her, not again."

Fury pulled Tony to his feet and let him fall against his chest, holding him as he sobbed hysterically high above the rest of the world. He had known Sasha for a long time, far longer than Tony, and although he too felt like he owed it to Agent Coulson to protect his younger sister, Fury couldn't begin to imagine the pain that Tony was going through at that moment, the sound of his cries only hinting towards what he truly felt like inside.

"You do not blame yourself for this, you hear me, son?"

Nick held Tony by the shoulders, raising his eyebrows at him with a forceful look on his face. Tony looked back at him, completely broken and beaten in that frame, looking defeated for the very first time in his life.

"But it's my fault," Tony whispered.

"No," Fury shook his head once, squeezing Tony's shoulders with strong knuckles as his tone forced Tony to lift his head up and keep his eyes fixed on him, "What will be your fault is whatever happens now if you don't get yourself back in there with Hill and find your girlfriend, alright? And we will find her, Stark, we will."

Tony wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and nodded once, brushing past Fury before jogging back inside without saying another word.

As Nick took a minute to compose himself, admittedly caught up in the emotion of the sudden turn of events that evening too, his memory ran back through all the moments he'd shared with Phil Coulson. Every laugh, every tear, every time he'd had to scream in Agent Coulson's face to get his words to truly sink in to the optimist's cloud-free mind, all of it washed over Fury at once.

"I'm gonna find her, Phil," he mumbled to himself, looking up at the sky and seeing a mirage of stars sparkle against the black, "I swear to you, I'll find her."

an;;
okay why am I getting emotional over Tony AND Fury??? I love them seriously  but anyway I hope you guys are enjoying, plenty of updates to keep coming!! Send prayers for sister Sash xoxoxo