Lamborghini | Tony Stark

THIRTY SEVEN - ALL HANDS ON DECK

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."