Who Am I? » [Stucky]

92. Five Stages of Grief

"Hi, Tony," Steve greeted Tony somewhat glumly, with soppy sad eyes and a melancholic face.

Tony spun unceremoniously, toppling slightly, then his dark brown eyes pinpointed the owner of the downbeat voice. He smiled fondly, then as he registered the sombre mood Steve was radiating it dissipated into a frown. "How did it go?"

Tony reached beneath the bar desk in the lounge area, fumbling blindly with the collection of glass bottles as he laid all his attention on Steve. He withdrew an expensive bottle of whiskey, the burnt gold liquid sloshing wildly around in the bottom of the bottle as he uncorked it. It gave a ripe pop and flecks of the drink showered the work-top.

"Whiskey?" Steve raised an eyebrow of questioning judgement. "Really..? At eleven-thirty in the morning?" Steve's lip curled in disagreement with Tony's habits.

"It's not for me," Tony murmured, plucking a shorts glass off the shelf of expensive hand-crafted glassware. He dropped a singular spherical ice cube into the bottom, and it spun about recklessly, slippy on the surface. The liquid gave a satisfying glugging as it chucked from the thin neck of the bottle and into the glass. The liquid rode up the sides of the glass like rolling waves, disturbed by a current, and crashed up over the rim like waves of rocks.

"I can't get drunk you know?" Steve reminded him, pointing to the glass of alcohol, his keys peeking out from between his fingers from where it was still clutched in his hand.

"I know." Tony nodded confidently. "But I figure you used to drink this stuff back in the day, and maybe it would have a placebo effect on you... Or a Pavlovian one." Tony shrugged in dismissal of his ramblings and stretched out a stubby arm to offer the drink to Steve. "Either way, it tastes good and you look dehydrated," he remarked, having noticed the angry red tear tracks still raw on Steve's face.

"Thanks," Steve scoffed at the insulting comment and exchanged his handful of keys for the glass of liquor.

"So, how did it go?" Tony repeated the question with a little more insistence and urgency.

"Yeah, not so good..." Steve admitted, taking an obnoxious healthy slurp at the drink and humming with contentment at the bitterness residing on his tongue. Even with the serum, it tasted the same: the back of his throat was warm as the alcohol hit it and he could feel the heat as the drink travelled from his throat to his stomach. It was the same notwithstanding one feature, the relieving wooziness, but it served to hydrate his dry throat.

"And?" Tony pestered, trying to fish a more wholesome story out of Steve.

"Sadly, it seems to me like he's scared of himself. We spoke for a good ten minutes... I say spoke, I just kinda talked at him for ten minutes and he muttered some apologetic words through the door before leaping out of a window and making his exit." Steve took a small graceful sip at the liquid, seething as he sucked it in.

"And did you achieve anything, is he going to come back?" Tony prompted, titling his head and leaning against the bar.

"I don't think so, Tony," Steve said in a weak voice, smiling to be brave, but looking away, breaking eye contact with the genius who could see right through his mask.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Steve," Tony patted him on the shoulder.

"But if you could, I'd like you to keep up the search... We didn't speak long enough to do anything truly constructive, and I want to be able to see him again; to talk things over and know where he is. I need to know that he's safe, Tony. You can understand that?" Steve's voice had a whispery quality as he forced the words out through tight vocal chords. It was scratchy and forced and trembled at times as he attempted to be brave.