Title: It's Always Darkest Before The Dawn

Paring: Tony Stark X Male!Reader

Warnings: Yes! This contains adult themes, such as drug and alcohol abuse, mentions of torture. If you are sensitive, or below age 16, please read at own digression. 

Spoilers: no. 

Request: Yes, for a_person_named_alex. I hope it lives up to what you requested!

Author's Note: I have no experience with or writing drugs, and even with my little research and help, I might have gotten things wrong. Please be gentle with me, Readers. 

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Some days were easier than others. That was the best thing to describe it; it was a hard thing to manage. Slowly, the testing out, the trying out had turned into what they warned about in after school specials and the Sesame Street adult 'Stay Clean!' pamphlets. Addiction. It was hard; that was for sure. You could hardly remember being the person before, the guy who had friends, who had a family who would call on Christmas and invite over for Thanksgiving. 

But it was years since those memories had taken place, and they had shunned you, phasing you slowly out without much help. Maybe it was because they didn't know how their little boy had turned to it. Maybe it was because they were ashamed. 

Oh, it was hard being _______, the guy who looked like a regular Joe, but craved substances that the government and all the men in suits called illegal. You fell from grace with a particular gracelessness you would have expected, and landed in the lowest of the lows. You stole, and once, fought someone for food. You were abducted, too; doped up while in their facility, and pumped through with steroids and stranger liquids that made your stomach drop and nose water. But that was in the past; you had been rescued by the Avengers, cleaned out from what mixture HYDRA had flowed through you; given a second chance to live.

You had super powers; you could fade into the background at any moment you willed it. Yet, you still craved the dosages.

"Hey, ________, feel like a round of video games before practice?" Your boyfriend, Tony Stark waltzed into the lounge room like he owned the place. He did own the place; but that was besides the point. He wore slacks and a t-shirt that had Astro Boy printed, and a picture someone drew of Iron Man below. "_______? Dude?"

You finally met his eyes. You hadn't seen yourself in the mirror for a couple of days, but from what you saw from Tony's reaction, you must look pretty bad. It had been more than a few days since the last time you had doped up, felt the heavens in your blood; maybe a week since you'd eaten something more than cup-a-noodles and coffee. A day since you recalled - 

"You're back on it, aren't you?" Tony sighed, squatting by the side of the armchair you inhabited. 

You sighed. "I don't want to be. It's hard, Tony..." Your stomach rolled at the words that were to come from you. Your mind was hurting, stinging, buzzing...it needed it. Like it was the thing it needed to keep going. But you knew what the doctors had said when you had come in; any more of it could be fatal. You could die. And there was nothing to stop you from that. "I...I don't want to burden you...could you -,"

Tony nodded. "Not many people know it, but I've been to rehab a few times. I can help you through this, ______." He vowed, and lowered his squat to leaning on one leg, as if proposing. "Will you take me, as your lawfully, helpful boyfriend?" 

You rolled your eyes, but even at that, you had to agree that Tony Stark was one handsome on of a bitch; even with his cocky side, his lovable jokes. You nod. "But only if you agree to take me out on a date when I'm clean. And I mean, clean."

The billionaire playboy philanthropist superhero slash Avenger nodded. "It will be the best date to rival all dates. Better than that one I took you out to the drive-in see American Graffiti." He promised.

You laughed, but it sounded wrong to your ears; like a man three times your age, someone on their deathbed. "No-nothing can beat that date." 

You would wake in the mornings to the smell of breakfast, Tony dancing around the kitchen in his novelty apron (an apology gift from Steve Rogers) that read will cook for kisses and whiskey, shaking his booty to a radio tune mostly every day. He would pepper you with kisses when you became fidgety, fingers twitching in the pain of withdrawal, wishing for the itching beneath the skin to quell itself. He threw away all the equipment, cut ties with the dealers, burned your past from existence. 

It was more than any other boyfriend would do, and you were very, very grateful. 

It was sixteen months later when you could say that it had passed. You no longer felt the urges, the need. Over this time, you seemed to return to the land of the living, your skeletal figure fleshing out to become human in appearance once more, your fight training as a part of the Avengers accepted into once again. 

You turn to Tony, nudging him with your cheek upon his shoulder. You're both standing at the top level of the Avengers Tower, watching the city wake up, a sunrise on the horizon, sending pretty colours over the skyscrapers and buildings, taxis racing around, pedestrians late for dawn meetings. You are watching the world of New York, but Tony is not. 

"It's a pretty sunrise," you murmur, taking a breath, smelling the scent of a new day.

Tony hums, running a hand through your hair. "Yeah, it is." 

All is good.