Tony didn't come back for Esté. In fact, Tony didn't come back at all.

Panic ensued through the city of London though Esté saw none of the action after she was ushered out of her hotel room by the staff and into a vault beneath street level, armed guards there to protect her and the other guests.

She waited and waited, prayed and prayed that whatever was going on outside would stop and that Tony would burst through the door at any moment to take her home, but that wilful moment never came. 

Tony had tried to call Esté while he still could, instructing FRIDAY to dial her mobile while he scaled the outside of whatever it was that had descended onto Tower Bridge and then ascended again past the clouds, but he didn't get an answer.

Esté didn't have signal while the saga shook the streets above her and so she never knew that Tony had tried to call until she saw daylight again five hours later, walking out into a city that had been turned upside down.

Of course Estélla immediately called back, but the pain of not getting an answer that time was perhaps worse than when Tony didn't pick up the last time she'd tried to call him back. Once again, Esté was left with a gut wrenching voicemail that she couldn't listen to more than once.

"Honey, I'm so sorry. I don't know what's happening but I have to fix this. I know you're going to hate me and rightly so. When I get back, because I will get back, I'll let you shout and scream in my face all you want for leaving you. I'm so sorry, Stella. I love you, please don't worry about me."

But Esté did worry. She worried day and night for the three weeks that followed, barely sleeping at all because the nightmares that plagued the darkness when she closed her eyes were too horrific for her to contend with, choosing to go without rest rather that be tormented by her own hateful imagination.

She hadn't heard from Tony but what she did get was a pulse sent to her phone every day, letting her know that he was still alive, wherever he was. Esté knew that that was all she was going to get and while she just wanted to talk to him for five seconds, to hear the words that he was okay come from his own lips, she accepted the heartbeat notification with a flood of relieved tears and a heavy exhale every single time.

Esté did want to scream at him, she wanted to shout until she was blue in the face about how much it cut her open and bled her dry to know that he'd gone off on a mission by himself. Tony had always been her protector and that hadn't changed, but if there was one time Esté wished their roles could have been reserved, it was right then, guilt-ridden at the fact she couldn't convince him to stay, couldn't keep him safe.

Steve got the initial burns from Esté's wrath upon her return to New York, but he'd had a feeling that he wouldn't be getting a welcoming hug from her and so wasn't shocked at what happened when she stormed into the Tower.

"You better find him," she shouted, jaw clenched and eyes wild with anger as she marched over to Steve, "You better find him and you better bring him home to me, you understand?"

"Estélla, I'm so sorry. I know that-"

"I don't want your apology, Steve. I want you to bring Tony home safe, right now."

Steve's eyes softened as he looked down at Esté. Her face was flushed red with anger, an emotion he'd rarely ever seen her emit, usually such a calm and gentle presence. That afternoon however, all her rationality had been tossed aside and there was someone else behind those crystal blue eyes, someone broken.

"We're doing everything we can." He said calmly.

"No you're not," she shook her head with a scoff, "Go out there and find him. Fly up there like he did, staying down here isn't going to do shit, Steve. That's why he went, because he knew that he had no choice. Now I need you to know that I'm not giving you a choice either. Bring him home."

Steve just stared at her, silence between them at the other Avengers stood behind him, pausing their work to listen in on the conversation. He watched as her bottom lip trembled and the redness in her face drained away, tears pooling in her eyes and eventually falling down her cheeks.

He didn't wait to grab hold of the girl and hug her against his chest, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her back while she soaked his t-shirt through with her silent sobs, barely being able to catch her breath as her hands clung weakly to his shoulders, body shaking more with each cry.

"Please," she said, her voice breaking, "Please bring him back to me, Steve."

Steve had witnessed Tony's attempt to move on after Estélla and he'd also witnessed her attempt to do the same thing. He'd met both Christian and Lola and while it seemed like they were both happy and in love, the connection never struck him to be as deep as the one that lay between Esté and Tony.

Tony paraded round a girl that you could've mistaken to be Estélla if you looked for only a split second, and Estélla clung to the arm of a man that had all the charm of Tony but none of the heart. It was obvious that both of them filled a void, realising eventually that the void that the other had left them with was in fact endless, and nothing and nobody could ever replace what they had together.

Estélla was proud and she kept her reputation solid, sheltering her emotions and her reactions to the public and most of the time to her friends, too. Steve knew how Katy and Alicia had eventually got Esté to spill her truthful feelings and get a weight off of her chest about things that kept her awake at night, but that time, there had been no convincing necessary.

"I will," he nodded, holding her shoulders with a faint smile, "I promise you right now, I'll bring him back to you."

Estélla didn't want to trust people's promises anymore, but she had no other choice. If she didn't put her faith in Steve, she was sure she would lose her mind. She needed something to believe in, some hope to hold onto, and she took those words from Steve's honest lips and treasured them like precious gold.

Every news station was churning out the same report about Tony Stark being missing, which made it impossible for Esté to turn on the television or go on her phone without fighting the urge to throw up.

She couldn't watch the footage of him fighting in London, feeling herself break apart inside after seeing the clips of him being thrown through walls and narrowly avoiding an early grave. The whole thing felt like some kind of nightmare, some kind of sick and twisted joke that the universe was playing on her, dangling happiness on a string and snatching it away from her hands just when she started to reach out to grab it.

Of course, nobody but her closest friends knew about her relationship with Tony and so, while the world wondered about and mourned what could be the loss of their hero, Estélla had to carry on.

She turned up to her meetings and photoshoots on time and not a minute later, smiling and laughing like she wasn't dying a slow and painful death on the inside. People often asked her about Tony and while the mention of his name jerked tears into her eyes, she blinked them back and said she didn't know anything more than they did, but that she hoped he'd make it home safe and sound.

Day after day, Esté's facade dropped when she walked through the front door to her dark home. Her fake smile faded and her shoulders slumped, the meals she cooked for herself became smaller and the amount of sleep she got became less while the strain on her heart only became more.

His mark was all over the house. His clothes were in the hamper and hung up in the wardrobe, rings and watches left on top of her dresser and coats left on the hook by the front door. Fresh flowers he bought for her every week sat wilted in a vase in the kitchen and cans of his favourite beer were stacked untouched in the fridge. His favourite TV shows were unfinished on her Netflix account and a Led Zeppelin vinyl that he'd been listening to one afternoon was still in the record player by the fireplace.

As the days passed by, Esté wondered how she'd ever managed to smile without loving Tony. The world seemed so bleak now he wasn't walking it, the skies grey and the rain heavier, things that had once made her happy like walking along the beach in the Hamptons reminding her of nothing but him, and more so, the fact that he wasn't there.

She could recall the way she'd felt after first moving to Switzerland and perhaps that was the closest she could remember feeling to her life right then. Leaving Tony behind was like leaving the sun to live in darkness, leaving warmth to live in the cold and leaving happiness to live in pity. She'd gotten over it, at least her growing from a girl into a woman had convinced her that she had, but as Esté thought about all the times growing up that she wished Tony had still been around to hold her hand, she realised that she hadn't really ever gotten over him, and never would.

While part of Esté felt guilty that Katy and Alicia had had to say goodbye to their other halves when Steve, Bucky and the team did leave to go after Tony, the selfish part of her that loved her boyfriend was relieved, and the hope Steve had given her blossomed.

The days were still clouded by a false bright sunshine and the nights were still long and sleepless, but Esté waited for that pulse to be sent to her phone like she was waiting to take her next breath, not caring about anything else. So long as it continued to come, she continued to live, and she continued to leave her house and work and plaster a smile on her face like the world wanted her to.

Esté wore Tony's clothes around the house and tried to sleep in the blanket they shared on the couch, aching to feel any piece of him, even if it was just the scent of his cologne that was starting to wear off day by day. She didn't always cry but she always wanted to, though eventually turned numb to everything after Halloween came and went and the costumes they'd planned to wear together stayed hung up in her closet.

The sun continued to set and rise and the pulses continued to light up Estélla's phone at the darkest hour of the night, but Esté felt herself falling away from her own body with every gust of wind that rattled her windows and twirled her golden hair.

Estélla didn't need Tony to live, but God she needed him to feel alive.

an;
I'm literally sobbing at this chapter I'm so sorry it's so sad??? I'm imagining Esté alone in the dark wearing Tony's tshirt and it's ripping my heart to shreds :))) sorry for the trauma lol but thank you for reading!! Hope you don't hate me <333