Lamborghini | Tony Stark

THIRTY ONE - REMEMBER

When Sasha woke up, the sky outside her window was dark and a mirage of flickering lights reflected against the glass, blurred slightly by her tempered vision and tired eyes.

She was alone. The room was silent apart from the monotonous drone of her heart rate monitor ticking over every second, though she'd grown used to the sound enough by that point to pretend like it wasn't there at all.

Considering the surgery on her shoulder she'd had earlier that day, Sasha felt stronger when she awoke than she had done before she'd gone into theatre. She still hated being cooped up in a hospital room, but she liked the view from the window because from there, the city was intact, just as it was before the attack had happened.

Sasha spent her days looking out at the world passing her by like the pain on New York was never there at all. She immersed herself in a headspace of peaceful delusion, something that brought her solace in a time when she needed it most.

Peter had been with her every single day without fail. It pained Sasha deeply to listen to the boy apologise over and over again, showering himself in sharp guilt that didn't belong to him. She tried to remind him that she was glad it was her in that hospital bed and not the other way around, but Peter never accepted it, his eyes always hauntingly solemn.

The lamp in the corner of the room was turned on and there was a jacket over the back of the chair beside her bed, a mobile phone on the table and a styrofoam coffee cup that was now empty.

Still slightly hazy from the anaesthetic, Sasha felt her eyelids flutter every few seconds, slipping in and out of sleep for uncontrollable moments until the sound of the door opening made her brain switch on properly.

Tony was stood in the doorway with a fresh cup of coffee in his hand, his face as white as snow, almost as if he'd seen a ghost. His eyes were wide and lips parted slightly, a look of fear tainted his expression as Sasha noticed water slowly glaze over the brown hues she'd missed so painfully much.

She wasn't sure if she was hallucinating, knowing that there was a high chance she could be simply conjuring up the thing she wished for the most helped by the intense power of all the medication helping to keep her alive, but he seemed too real as he stood by the door, almost scaring Sasha.

It was the increased beat of her heart monitor that made Sasha realise she wasn't dreaming, the sound growing faster and faster as she stared at Tony, feeling like her heart was either about to be put back together or broken all over again.

"Tony," she whispered, her eyes looking up at him like a hopeful child.

He exhaled a breath he'd been holding in, having nothing else on his mind apart from worrying if Sasha would remember him after Peter told him about her unreliable memory.

Hearing Sasha say his name made Tony crumble. He began to cry, rushing to her bedside and gently grabbing hold of her hand as he crouched beside her, brushing strands of hair from her face, careful to not graze past her wounds and injuries but wanting to be as close as he physically could get to her without causing her pain.

"I'm here, Sash, I'm here."

With a shaky hand, Sasha reached out and touched Tony's face, her fingers nimble against his overgrown stubble and greyed bruises, cuts that had healed and scars that had weathered. She let herself cry when her skin finally graced his, knowing then that he truly was there with her.

"You're back," she whispered, laughing weakly through tear-filled eyes.

Tony just nodded, clenching his jaw to stop himself from crying any more. He cursed himself for leaving her, for not staying to protect her. He thought he was doing the right thing and maybe when it came to the bigger picture, he did, but Tony couldn't shake the feeling of guilt as he looked at how broken Sasha was, wishing it was him hooked up to wires and machines instead of her.