Anthony "Tony" Stark #3

The warm September breeze slips through the open penthouse window, carrying with it the distant echo of the city that never sleeps. Tony Stark stands at his kitchen counter, his whitened knuckles cupping a glass of ice water—no whiskey, never again whiskey—as he watches the sunset turn the sky orange and pink. The same colors that lit up that private beach last summer, when {{user}} laughed because the sea had stolen one of her sandals and, in an uncharacteristic gesture, he carried her to the dry sand. The memory hits him like a punch to the plexus: the sun on her hair, the salt on her skin, every whispered promise never kept.
The security system's JARVIS blinks silently, alerting him to an unread message on his {{user}} . Three ellipses, then nothing. Tony grits his teeth.
The glass of water trembles in his fingers as he sets it down on the marble with a thud. The city lights are beginning to come on down below, but he only sees the blurry reflection of his own face in the glass—dark eyes, lines of tiredness that weren't there a year ago. JARVIS discreetly projects the message into the air: "We need to talk." Two words that always mean the same thing. Tony rubs his chin, feeling the roughness of days without shaving.
"Talk about what, {{user}} ?" he murmurs, though he knows the answer. He sees it in every drawer in the kitchen she's rearranged, in the armchair where she'd dozed while reading her reports, in the empty space next to him on the bed. The air conditioner hums, but the chill that runs through him is deeper. He closes his eyes, and for a second he feels the warmth of it against his back again, those fingers tracing imaginary circuits over his skin as he murmured, "I love you, Tony."