For the First Time In Years || Stony AU

Chapter 1

This story will have alcohol abuse, mentions of emotional abuse, cheating (not on main pair), angst and fluff, if you are not comfortable with these things, please leave.

This is an AU story where superheroes do not exist in anywhere but imagination and entertainment.

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It was a normal night. Everything was going like normally. No hassle in the bar, nor any massive fights. Just a casual night of serving alcohol to people who were run down by life or looking for a little fun. The former was part of the reason why Steve had never touched alcohol. It seemed to just ruin things.
He was content with making sure drunk fuckers didn't get a screwed over too hard or die. He would've rather been an artist, he loved painting and drawing and all that artsy shit that you couldn't survive by doing just that. Art has never been something you could make money with. Value rises when you're dead, and what would he do with being dead and someone else collecting the cash?
Steve let's out a deep sigh. The world was never fair to him. His father was gone before he was born and his mom had been ill most her life, until a few years ago when she decided she was done with the pain. Both left everything to the blonde. And all that there was, was bills on bills.
"One scotch with ice, make it quick and keep them coming." A deep voice rang to his ears, how pleasant it was. Steve looked up from his cleaning rag to see the man drop a few hundred dollar bills in the tip cup like it was nothing. "Well? I haven't got all day." The man snapped (the next day Steve would realize who it was).
"Sorry, man. Slow day today." Steve replied and turned towards the alcohol filled wall. Everything from rum to vodka. He grabbed the scotch and a glass. First filling it with ice, then throwing a couple shots worth of scotch. Glancing back at the dark haired man slumped at the disk he decided to add a little bit more of scotch. Steve slides the drink to the man, who looks older than he should be.
"Rough day?" Steve asks, before being momentarily stunned by the brunet throwing his drink back all in one gulp. His eyes trail down his strong jaw all the way to his throat that flexes upon the drink going down. Steve decides the man is very pleasing to look at and he wouldn't mind drawing him in nothing but a robe after a hot round of rough se-
"Try rough year." He points at his drink. "Gimme another one. I don't normally drink. But when fucked up shit happens I happen to grab the closest thing to alcohol, this place was on my way, I thought hell why not."
Steve refills his drink and eyes him wearily. He can't get a read on the brunet. And he's usually good at reading people. "Must be a shitty year for you, if you're this powered to drink yourself into next week."
"I guess I met my breaking point, fucking been clean for twelve years and now this causes me to crave a lot more than just a drink. Another please." The man rubs his face with his rough looking hands, imagine those around your hips when banging against a wall- Jesus fucking Christ what was wrong with him? He's never been this craving of another human being. Steve feels his ears heat up and something stirring in his belly and he curses himself. Behave idiot.
"You wanna talk about it?" Steve suggest. "One of my friends tells it's good to talk about shit things. He's a VA at some place." The brunet snorts and sighs deeply afterwards.
"Therapists make it all worse, man. Been there done that. But I'm not drunk enough to spill my secrets yet. Let's just say I've been screwed over by two people I trusted a lot in a very short time. Makes me wanna lose hope in humanity. Pepper says it's bad to lose hope. It's when you know there's no way up. She's brilliant."
"Girlfriend?" Steve wonders aloud. It would explain a lot. Maybe he was here because they were having issues.
"God I wish. It'd be so much easier to have her as my everything, but y'know, she's more into chicks and I haven't been with a woman since oh-nine." Steve passes him another glass filled with scotch. Oh, look there it goes. He's gotta slow down or this man will be dead by morning.
"That's too bad."
"What about you, my angel? What you doing in a stinky bar when you could be a underwear model?" The brunet's flirts with him and Steve feels the ever so present blush making its appearance.
"I-uh, I didn't have another option. The owner's a friend, he was kind enough to hook me up with this." Steve shrugs and wipes the bar clean, for the fifth time in ten minutes time.
"If you'd gotten the other option, what would've it been?" Brunet asks. His eyes shine slightly more than they did when he came in. Steve blushes, at the question or at his eyes, he's not sure.
"I wanted to be a- ah, an artist." Steve scratches his neck. "But that doesn't really bring the bread to the table, so it was this or the streets."
The brunet studies him for a moment before lifting his glass to his lips, when nothing comes to his mouth, he frowns and looks at the empty glass. Then he turns his eyes to Steve and they narrow. "Where's my drink?" He demands. Steve's lips twitch.
"You drank it." He simply responds and nods towards an empty table that has glasses on it. "I'm gonna go clean that table up, you enjoy your ice."
"You're not even gonna give me water? You know, since that's usually what you drink when you stop drinking alcohol." The brunet demands again, his tone going down a few octaves taking a challenging tone towards the end.
"You can wait and the ice will smelt, maybe it'll have some scotch in it too." Steve smirks at the man's shocked face and rounds the bar heading for the table.
"I demand a refund!" The brunet exclaims before starting to mumble to himself. Steve laughs a little under his breath and his smile stays on as he cleans the table.