Arranged Affair

Chapter 8: Useless

A/N: Two updates in one day. Please read the chapter before this one!
Warning a bit mature chapter
Part Eight

Tony Stark didn't lie. He had never tried to get rid of something by lying. He was absolutely sure that lies would only make every situation worse, and this situation wasn't an exception.

He absolutely hated feeling alone. He had experienced it first when his parents died. For five straight months he'd learned how it felt like having no one beside him. It felt terrible.

He remembered the first time he'd had a drink. Every since he was a teenager he prided himself on his restraint. He didn't drink, he didn't smoke and most important, he didn't have sex. How could he, anyway? His father was an important business man and his mother was the same. He wouldn't have disappointed them.

The accident happened three months after he'd graduated MIT. He remembered how happy he was and how proud his parents were. They even promised him that they would get him a gift from their heart, Tony's favourite car when they will be back from Bahamas. Little they knew they didn't even make the highway from the Stark Mansion.

He had been sleeping when his butler, Edwin Jarvis had knocked at the door of his room. He had told him not to panic and that his parents had an accident. He remembered the awful pain of panic spreading from his chest towards his brain. Everything seemed surreal afterwards.

For five years he'd tried to put on a brave face and confirm himself and his genius. He'd managed that incredibly well, according to Obadiah's belief. He didn't really know how it all worked, but it did. After he'd turned 23 he'd grown a goatee. He had tried more than fifteen types until he settled with the one he's sporting now.

Women seemed more interested in him after that. The parties kept coming and he attended each and every of them. He couldn't put his finger on it, but drinking was always welcomed even at the darkest times. It usually went like this. He would wear a nice suit, one of the Armani ones, he'd pass a hand through his thick hair until some of it fell on his forehead, he'd put on some dark shades and he'd be ready in no time.

At first he'd chocked on the first gulp of his scotch. It burned his mouth and throat really badly. It took him fifteen minutes to finish his first glass, but he had ordered another one after that.

Women were easy. They were many and that helped a lot. After a few drinks they would come at him without an effort. They would find a private place – the back of his limousine, perhaps, and they'd be getting it on in less than thirty minutes. He had never been a fan of foreplay, but he supposed that women thought otherwise.

During a couple of years he'd managed to set a new record. He managed to get laid between three and four times a week and it really wasn't bad. That habit of his lasted for about eleven years until he was kidnapped and forced to build a missile.

He had realized then that everything he did was worthless. He was just wasting his life. He had no one.

It wasn't until the one he'd considered his second father betrayed him and tried to kill him. It wasn't until he'd built the Iron Man suit that everything seemed to run smoothly.

Meanwhile he had tried to tell his assistant many times how he felt about her. He failed every time, though. The last time he'd failed so badly that she ended up going home with another man, whom she married nearly a year after. It hurt. It fucking hurt very much.

He hadn't really thought about how he would manage to survive without her. He only knows that he somehow managed to survive until now.

His birthday was last week and he didn't know how he was supposed to feel like. He most definitely didn't feel a year older. And he didn't feel anything different than two years ago when he'd still been an arrogant, self-centered playboy.