"Eight, seven, six, five..."

It was rare for the Starks to host any kind of occasion at their house, but that New Years Eve they had taken on the challenge themselves, giving George and Leonie Goldwyn a welcomed break of being the usual hosts for the most sparkling night of the year.

Although the family's friends ran in mostly different circles, it was hard to come across somebody that at least wasn't familiar with the name of another guest, even if they hadn't met before. New York was an enormous place, though had the ability to feel like a small town on nights like that.

The theme was glitter and gold and of course, a fifteen year old Esté revelled at the chance to pull out her new favourite dress. She'd seen it on a mannequin in Saks while shopping with her mother just before Christmas and practically begged on her knees to have it as an early gift. Once Leonie saw just how bright her daughter shined in the piece, she simply couldn't say no.

Tony was noticeably less glittery and gold than his best friend that New Years Eve, the only thing shimmering on him being the rather expensive watch he'd unwrapped six days earlier. That didn't matter though, since the way he smiled and the sound of his laugh seemed to shine brighter than anything else could, even Este's dress.

The two of them had spent the evening together like usual, trying to avoid being strung into boring conversations with their parents' friends and colleagues. They'd been tucked away upstairs for most of the night, sharing a bottle of champagne sat by the huge window of Tony's bedroom that overlooked the city. Together they talked about their resolutions and watched civilians dance down the streets singing, an excitement clear in the atmosphere that they felt too.

It was three minutes to midnight when they finished the last of their champagne and Tony decided that he'd sneak downstairs to try and steal another bottle, hoping everyone would be far too distracted by that time to notice.

"You'll be back before midnight, right? We can watch the fireworks together, make sure you hurry."

Tony pulled himself to his feet with a nod, "Course I will."

"Promise?" Esté said, looking up at him with a smile.

Tony smiled back, placing a hand flat on his chest, "Hand on heart."

And so he left Esté sitting on his bedroom floor with her legs stretched out in front of her and her palms flat against the carpet behind her, smiling through tipsy eyes at the stars outside.

Having drank slightly too much already, Esté didn't realise that Tony had been gone a little while longer than she thought it should've taken until she began to hear the countdown to midnight coming from downstairs, immediately worrying that they'd miss seeing the new year in together but also worrying that he'd been caught by his father.

She left the bedroom in search of him, heading down the spiral staircase only to pause halfway, hands on the banister to steady herself as she saw what felt like a train hitting her, stealing the breath from her lungs and snatching any happiness away from her heart.

"Four, three, two, one...happy new year!"

Estélla watched as Tony, new bottle of champagne in hand, held the face of a brunette girl while he kissed her. She didn't recognise her from school and had never seen her at any of her or Tony's parent's parties before, but none of that mattered.

Celebrations erupted around her but Esté couldn't hear them. In fact, she couldn't see them either, being unable to tear her eyes away from watching the girl push up onto her tiptoes and kiss her best friend.

Estélla wasn't sure why the sight made her feel so sick, made her feel like she was choking on air and that a waterfall of tears was building behind her eyes. She didn't want to kiss Tony, she didn't like him like that and was certain that he didn't like her in that way either, but the twist in her gut was perhaps the most painful thing the teenager had ever felt, something she wished right then that she'd never have to feel again.

Esté didn't talk to Tony for the rest of the night, hiding out in one of the other bedrooms alone until her father finally found her when they were calling a taxi to take them home. She hadn't been crying but she'd fought hard to blink back her tears, confused as to why the feeling of betrayal had hit her so hard when she was so sure there was no reason to feel that way.

She never mentioned that night to Tony, but seeing him again afterwards had been the most awkward Estélla had ever felt around her best friend.

That was, until the night of his birthday party.

"What do you mean you just left him?"

Estélla, Katy and Alicia were sat in a circle on Esté's living room floor in their pyjamas, hair unbrushed and blankets pulled over their shoulders, a delivery order of Starbucks sprawled out between them while they tried to cure their hangovers.

Sighing with her head in her hands, Esté pulled lightly at her hair in frustration before looking back at her friends with desperately lost eyes.

"I didn't know what to do!" She pleaded, "I looked at him and, and he looked back at me the same way and it was so weird. There was this awful tension that made me feel like I couldn't move and I felt myself almost giving in but..."

"But what?" Katy pried, brows furrowed as she sipped on her tea.

Esté let out a deep breath, "But it's Tony. He's my friend, he's always been just my friend. I don't like him like that and he doesn't like me like that. I think we were both just too drunk or something, it felt so strange, I had to snap myself out of it. God, I hope he doesn't hate me."

Truthfully, guilt had eaten Estélla alive since abandoning Tony on the dance floor on his birthday. She'd been unable to think about anything else since, wondering where the sudden urge to kiss her best friend had come from and why it looked and felt like he wanted to kiss her, too.

Their relationship had never been anything but platonic and although Esté was sure she'd had moments as a curious teenager where the thought of Tony being her boyfriend had crossed her mind, though she'd always talked herself out of that way of thinking, reminding herself that he was her friend, and that was all.

"Of course he won't hate you, he probably feels awkward too," Alicia reassured her, "But are you sure you really do see him as just a friend?"

"Yes," she answered quickly, perhaps a little too quickly, "That's how we work, that's how we've always worked. I don't get those feelings about him normally, it was just in that moment, I can't explain it."

Katy shared a knowing glance with Alicia while Esté was distracted tucking into an almond croissant, both girls knowing that their friend was being a little naïve. They'd witnessed the chemistry between Esté and Tony first hand at his birthday party, and while of course it was as strong as it should be between two lifelong friends, it almost felt shocking to know that they'd stopped at the line they had, a clear progression feeling obvious to people that witnessed their electric dynamic.

"Why don't you just call him? You can-"

"Absolutely not," Esté shut Katy down in an instant, "I don't even think I can look him in the eye. Anyway, why don't you call Steve?

Katy blushed and rolled her eyes with a timid smile, "He actually already called me, asked me out to dinner tonight. What about Bucky, did he call you? In fact, where the hell did you two go for like half an hour last night?"

Alicia sighed and leant back against the couch, picking at a blueberry muffin with a smug smile behind her eyes, "We hooked up in one of the bathrooms."

"Alicia!" Both Katy and Esté exclaimed at the same time, jaws dropping and laughs breaking from humoured lungs.

"What?" She just shrugged and laughed along with them, "Can you blame me? He's hot. And he did call me about an hour ago, actually, we're getting drinks in SoHo tomorrow night."

The girls' debrief lasted another hour, the three of them laughing until they couldn't breathe when they remembered things one of them had said or done while they'd been far too drunk the night before. They recalled stories and shared pictures, going off on tangents about other wild nights they'd shared together, too.

Esté didn't have many girl friends in her life, she never really had done at any stage. Living in Milan with Giovanni had stripped away that side of her life, and while she'd been happy spending her time with him and living her life that way for six years, she had certainly felt like she'd missed out.

Katy and Alicia were trustworthy, they were kind and supportive and turned any situation into a good one. Estélla adored both of them and had grown much closer to them both since moving back to New York. Although they both had homes in London, they were in the US more often than they were in England at that time, which made for a perfect fate to form an unbreakable trio.

Esté was grateful for that as she sat in her living room that morning with a stomach that hurt from laughing so hard, wondering what her life would be like if she'd not met the girls that made her days a little bit brighter.

The thought also made her wonder what her life would be like if she hadn't reconnected with Tony Stark, too.

The ringing of a phone made all three girls jump out of their skin, still laughing about something that had been funny for the past ten minutes. Esté grabbed her phone from the couch and wiped her eyes dry with her sleeve, taking a deep breath to calm herself down before she looked down at the screen.

The scream she let out was like something out of a horror movie, which in turn made both Katy and Alicia scream too as Esté tossed her phone into the middle of the room.

"What the fuck did you scream for?" Katy said as she gasped for breath.

"You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Alicia stared at her with wide eyes and a hand on her beating chest.

Esté just swallowed, laughing slightly to herself at her reaction though still feeling the panic that had warranted the scream.

"It's him calling, it's Tony."

Alicia rolled her eyes and picked up the phone that was still ringing, throwing it back across the room into Esté's lap. She jumped as if a piece of hot coal had just scorched her skin, worry evident in her silence and frantic demeanour.

"Answer the damn phone, you idiot. It'll be fine."

"She's right," Katy nodded in agreement.

Esté stared down at the phone for a long moment, teeth sunk into her bottom lip before she quickly jumped to her feet and walked out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

She cleared her throat, rushing up the stairs and pacing around the landing before finally accepting the call.

"Hello?"

"Esté? I-it's me, you alright?"

She closed her eyes when Tony's voice drifted into her ear, sighing quietly as the panic that had been building up inside her since last night almost seemed to disappear.

"Yeah, I'm good. Little hungover, that's all."

"Good, good. Listen, uh," Tony paused for a moment and Esté found herself holding her breath until he spoke again, "I wanted to apologise for last night. I think I was a little drunk and...I guess things got a little too heated when we were dancing, I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. You're my best friend and um, I don't want to lose you over some stupid, drunken thing that actually didn't even happen."

"You're right," Esté let out a sigh, "Nothing even happened, there's nothing to worry about really. It's not going to be awkward between us, is it?"

Tony let out an audible sigh too, relief hitting him as soon as he heard Estélla's voice on the other end of the line. He too had driven himself insane feeling bad about the night before, wondering why they'd ended up so close together and so close to the edge of something, too.

He wasn't sure why he suddenly wanted to kiss her, the desperation seemingly coming out of thin air. Admittedly at the time, the way Esté had taken a step away from him had felt like a shot right though the heart, but he was grateful for that when he awoke in the morning, thankful that he hadn't crossed a line with her that two best friends shouldn't, even if it had felt like the most soul-forgiving thing to do in the moment.

Sure, Tony kissed women all the time when he didn't have feelings for them, he slept with a lot of them, too, but Estélla wasn't one of them, she couldn't be. She had been his best friend for his entire life and regardless of how beautiful her body and soul was, Tony held her as a friend. She always had been, and always would be, even though flurries inside his heart had told him differently throughout his years.

"It could never be awkward between us, Stella. I promise you that, hand on heart. But you have to say it too."

Esté smiled to herself, looking down at the seashell-adorned bracelet on her wrist, "I promise, Tony. Hand on heart."

an;;
I'm obsessed with them!!!! I love writing this it's so so much fun, I really hope you're enjoying, even if it is a lil bit of a slow burn (apparently that's all I seem to write lmao)
Tysm for all the love <3