Lamborghini | Tony Stark

TEN - LOST FOR WORDS

Sasha was stood in the elevator inside the Stark Tower with a huge bouquet of red and yellow roses in her hands, barely able to see over the heads of the flowers that covered her face as she tried her best to not drop them.

Her three weeks of sick leave had ended five days ago, meaning by the time that Saturday evening had rolled around, she'd completed her first week back at work.

Tony had called by Sasha's apartment almost every other day since he found out what had happened to her, visiting with a Cuban sandwich from a takeout he remembered her talking about and a bottle of wine he recalled her pointing at on the shelf in a store one time.

He spent evenings and sometimes days with her if he wasn't busy, knowing that without work, she'd be driving herself crazy. Pity wasn't the sole reason for his visits, though. In fact, Tony loved spending time with Sasha. He found himself looking forward to walking a few blocks to her place with the intention of watching a movie together or arguing over what pizza they wanted to order, sometimes laughing at her when he beat her at Monopoly for the third time in a row.

At first, Sasha was hesitant to accept Tony's help. She felt as though he was treating her like a charity case, like perhaps guilt was the only thing forcing him to drop by in the evenings, as if checking up on her would somehow ease the weight of Phil's death on his conscience.

She soon realised, however, that Tony did actually like hanging out with her, and that the prejudiced conclusion she'd drawn couldn't have been further from the truth. Sasha saw the way Tony's eyes would light up when she opened the door to him and how wide his smile was when she told him that she'd found another board game they could play while finding the bottom of a bottle of wine.

Before Sasha's absence from work, she and Tony would see each other once a week, sometimes less if their schedules didn't allow the time. They would catch up in O'Shea's on a Friday or Saturday night and not speak again until one of them sent a text the following week asking if the other was free to go for a beer.

Both of them had grown used to spending more time together, their company slowly becoming a routine in their lives over the course of the three weeks. Sasha naturally had bad days when she woke up without work to distract her, though the dark cloud that hung over her head seemed to almost always disappear whenever she saw Tony, his kind smile and warm embrace making every ache and pain inside her chest melt away.

There was a party that evening at Tony's place and although Sasha had tried her best to decline the invitation, adamant that she needed to use her weekend to catch up on lost ground at work, Tony didn't take no for an answer, knowing that there was no way in Hell he'd allow his friend to fall back into her old habits again.

Feeling slightly uncomfortable in a black dress and heels, Sasha tottered out of the elevator and made her way down the hallway towards Tony's lounge. Everyone else was a couple of floors down already in the party, but Maria had told Sasha that Tony was still upstairs getting ready.

With the bunch of flowers still in her arms, Sasha leant on the door to push it open, not having the means to knock, though the sound of her stilettos on the marble floors drew enough attention to her anyway.

Tony was stood behind his bar when he spun on his heels at the noise. He had a white shirt on with the top button undone and collar upturned, pouring himself a drink before attempting to fix his tie.

Sasha craned her neck around the side of the obnoxiously large bouquet, grinning widely at Tony who impulsively reflected her expression, feeling heat flush to his cheeks at the sight of her bare legs and bronzed chest, her dark hair straight down her back and her eyes lined with a sharp, angular wing, her lips stained blood red.