"And what's that one? That one right there, see?"

Tony tilted his head, squinting as he followed his eyes down Estélla's outstretched arm and past her fingertips, both of them gazing up at the clear night sky above them.

They had been outside all day, basking in the golden sunshine on the white sand and pure waters on the coast of East Hampton. It was summertime and the days were long but they cherished them, waking up early and staying out late, sleeping for as little time as possible to make sure they didn't lose even a second of fun.

"That one's called Draco, I think," Tony said, "And the one next to it, can you see?"

"Where?"

A sixteen year old Esté was laid on the sand beside Tony, a beach towel beneath them and his hoodie covering her bikini while he chose to shiver in his shorts and t-shirt.

There was a fire roaring beside them and a gentle breeze, the smell of smoke and burning wood reminding them of all the summers they'd shared before, doing exactly the same thing in exactly the same spot.

"Look," Tony took hold of Estélla's hand inside his own, guiding it to point at the constellation he was talking about, "This one. It's called Ursa Minor."

"Oh," Esté smiled up at the stars, "I see it."

Truthfully she didn't have much of a clue what it was she was looking at, but she enjoyed listening to Tony talk about space all the same. The sky was pretty and the stars reminded her of diamonds, and although she was envious that Tony was able to see something that she wasn't, she believed what he told her anyway.

"I wonder what it would be like to hold a star," Esté pondered out loud, watching as they twinkled above her.

"Probably awful, they're almost entirely made up of burning hot gas and-"

Esté turned her head away from the stars to glare at Tony. He too pulled his eyes away from the sky to meet her unimpressed stare, one so powerful it silenced his intellectual rambling instantly.

"I'll get you one some day and you can find out yourself, how about that? I'll go up into space and grab you whichever one you want."

Esté smiled. They lay beside each other, both with one hand resting on their midsections but the other laying between them, fingertips brushing together that neither of them pulled away from.

"Really? You'd do that for me?"

Tony laughed quietly to himself, a smile spreading across his cheeks. He stared at her with moon-drowned eyes and felt his heart slowly beat less and less until he was sure it had stopped, though his breathing came in sync with the rise and fall of her own chest, feeling as though in that moment, she was all he needed.

"Yeah," he whispered, a sudden flash of bravery making him gently lace his fingers through hers, clasping their hands together beneath the stars, "I'd do anything for you, Stella."

"Hasn't changed at all, has it?"

Tony drew in a sharp breath when Esté joined his side, both of them standing at the French doors that ran the full length of the back side of the house, staring out down past the patio and the pool, along the green grass to where the pearly sand met the ocean.

The Goldwyn's vacation home in The Hamptons had been the one property in the United States that her parents had kept. They'd sold their home in Manhattan when they made the move to Europe, but decided to keep the beautiful beach house upstate.

Despite that, they hadn't made a single trip back there after leaving, spending their summers mostly in the Mediterranean or wherever it was George's work pulled them to.

It felt good to be back, Estélla enjoying the essence of freedom she found in being there. It was a place she'd grown up in, celebrated birthdays and Christmases, cold winter nights and hot summer days. There were no cameras or prying eyes, just endless space for the family to be together, to be themselves.

She was in the process of moving back to New York by then, the movers shipping all of her belongings across from Milan to her new townhouse in the West Village. Until that was ready, she decided to take a break in the one place that she truly felt at peace.

"Not one bit," Tony said, almost being able to see younger versions of himself and Esté running across the grass with a soccer ball or pushing each other into the pool, "How you finding it? Being back?"

"I love it," she said with a breathless smile, "It always felt like a safe haven as a kid, my dad would switch off from work and spend time with us, we'd laugh and be happy, be normal, I guess. It feels like that still, too. I'm here and I don't feel the pressures of the outside world, the media or from my job. I just feel like me. It's a little slice of heaven, I guess."

Tony hadn't ever been one to shy away from the media. In fact, he adored the flashes of cameras and people begging for just a moment of his time, some reduced to tears if he even looked in their direction. The circus fuelled him and his ego, giving him confidence and direction that he probably didn't need, but still wanted anyway. He'd never really struggled with being hounded by the press and most of the time would've been more irritated if he hadn't been blinded by paparazzi's cameras, and so it interested him to hear just how sacred privacy was to his friend.

He vacationed without security and went jogging around Central Park every weekend, not thinking twice about what anyone might say or do, and not caring, either. Estélla however, she valued the part of her that she kept hidden, the friends the family, the relationships that she didn't want to share with the world, whereas Tony had never known anything but sharing everything about himself.

Sure he liked the peace and quiet sometimes, but he didn't care what girl he was pictured making out with or what friend he was seen having dinner with, when Estélla clearly did.

"Is that the old treehouse? How is it still standing?" Tony stared with furrowed brows halfway down the lawn and across to the row of old trees gathered by a shed that had seen better days.

"Looks like it, come on."

With a grin, Esté pulled open the doors and headed out into the mist of the cool sea air. It was early morning in April and she was hosting a party that night, though had accepted Tony's offer of helping to set the place up since she was all by herself.

They hadn't spoken too much since their dinner in February with Estélla being quick to leave New York and head back to Europe for work afterwards, though she had kept her promise that time of getting in touch when she came back to the city.

He followed her outside, taking his time to admire the nostalgia-inducing surroundings that made him too begin to appreciate the how secluded the place was, realising then how much he took for granted in his younger years.

"Go on, go up."

"What?" Tony said, pulling a face of disgust at Esté when they reached the foot of the tree, the treehouse her father had built still standing strong, or so it appeared, anyway, "Why do I have to go first?"

Esté raised a brow, pointing to the arc reactor that was glowing beneath his white t-shirt, "Hello? You're a superhero? You can survive the fall if the floor collapses."

Tony scoffed, "You know that's not actually what makes me a superhero. It's the suit that-"

"For God's sake just climb the damn tree, would you?"

"Fine, fine," Tony groaned and pulled on the ladder to check it was still stable, "You didn't have to shout."

Once he was sure the old structure was safe and intact, he held out a hand and pulled Estélla up the rest of the ladder, helping her up into the treehouse. They both sat for a moment, eyes wild with memories as they gazed around the uneven planks of wood and loose nails, jagged holes cut out of the walls that looked out onto the sea.

There were carvings in the wood of Tony and Estélla's names, little drawings and markings of their heights at different ages. Esté ran her fingers across them, smiling to herself as the feeling of the wood inspired a recollection of happiness from years ago, the ability to recall exactly how Tony had looked as he carved his name into the treehouse at seven years old with short dark hair and a dirty Black Sabbath t-shirt.

Tony remembered it all, too. He remembered how Estélla flipped her head upside down to tie her blonde hair back into a ponytail and how he had to help her press down with the knife onto the wood so it had enough force to carve her name, the smile on her face when they'd finished being the brightest thing he'd ever seen.

"I wanted to call, you know. I wanted to reach out."

Estélla looked up, leaning back against the wall with her knees pulled up to her chest. Tony was sat across from her with his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms crossed. The wind blew gently through the trees and made the wood creek, a gentle lapping of the waves meeting the shore not too far away wrapping their moment in serenity.

"After we lost touch and I saw that first campaign you did with Calvin Klein, I wanted to reach out. I wanted to talk to you but it had been over two years and I guess I didn't want you to think that I only wanted to be your friend again because you were some famous model now. Sounds dumb, I know, and it is. But that's how I felt."

There was apology spilling from Tony's dark eyes as he looked at her, and a weight held in his words, too. He had debated trying to get in touch with Estélla too many times for him to count, but each time, he'd come to the same decision.

"I wanted to reach out to you, too," Estélla said with a gentle laugh, "I missed you a lot but the more time passed the more I guess I just accepted it. When I found out what happened to you, what happened in Afghanistan I, I'd never been so sick in my life. I couldn't sleep or eat, I was worried night and day and then when you were finally back home safe and you had the whole superhero gig going on...I thought the same thing as you. I didn't want you to think I only wanted to be your friend because of what happened to you and because of Iron Man, you know?"

Tony let out a silent breath, his face still as he listened to Esté's words. He had often thought about whether she still thought about him, whether she missed him like he missed her, whether the memories they'd made were held as close to her heart as he held them to his.

As they sat together in that treehouse, however, and he watched the way her eyes lit up when she touched the carving of their names from lifetimes ago, he got his answer.

"I never would've thought that, Esté," Tony said, shaking his head with a sad smile.

She just laughed to herself, both of them feeling regretful at what they'd let slip and how their minds had deceived them from a relationship that had fuelled their lives for their first seventeen years, and surely would've fuelled everything that came after.

"I never would've thought that, either."

an;;
why is this so cute I'm CRYING omg
So obsessed with these two and writing their story, I really hope you're enjoying so far, I know it's been a little bit slow but like I seem to always say, pls stick with me!! Thank you so much for all the love so far, it truly means so much <3