Me, quietly chanting to myself as I wrote this: I will not write angst, I will not write angst, I will not write angst...
Me, reading the final product: Thank God I didn’t write angst.
Word Count: 2417
Based on this prompt by @thefandomimagine
The lights in the lab were always dimmed at night. Not that that gave you any indication that Tony wasn’t in there, working away on whatever project he thought best suited him. Or the world. Whichever.
Not that you minded, obviously. It was his lab, this was his compound (since he’d been the one to buy it ). He could do whatever he wanted all night long. He knew what he was capable of, what he could handle. You literally had no place, at all, to tell him that he should probably be sleeping, rather than working.
Of course, recognizing this did not stop you from approaching the lab on the fifth night you noticed he was in there. Curiosity mostly made you peer inside, and you caught sight of him, sitting at one of the many worktables in the large space, bent over it.
Carefully, so as not to startle him, you raise your fist and knocked lightly on the window. Tony straightened up, and glanced over his shoulder. You waved at him, head tilted, and he visibly sighed, before waving his hand, indicating that you should go.
You remained where you were, however. He definitely wasn’t going to get you to leave that easily. He did not look at you again, however, and you backed away from the window. Maybe he’d be more susceptible to a bribe.
You returned about five minutes later, holding a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. You tapped once more on the window to get his attention. When he turned, you held up the offering, and then tilted your head in the direction of the door.
You watched Tony’s expression change for a minute or two, going between multiple different emotions, before his shoulders dropped, and he stood up from the worktable. He walked over to the door, and tapped some buttons on the keypad inside. The door slid open, and you quickly hurried into the lab, before he could change his mind.
“And this is why I made sure to have two separate labs,” he said, taking the bottle of whiskey and one of the glasses from you. He turned and walked back towards the workbench. It was lit by a single lamp built into its base, casting just enough of a glow on the workspace to get things done. “One for Bruce and his interns -”
“I’m not an intern.”
“- and one for me,” he concluded, ignoring you. He twisted the cap off of the bottle, and poured himself a measure of whiskey. He took a drink from it. “Should’ve brought ice.”
“Well, excuse me,” you said, rolling your eyes. “The Compound, unfortunately, does not carry ice buckets, even though every other aspect of it could be considered a hotel.”
“Oh, you weren’t told about the complimentary ice bucket under the sink in your bathroom?” Tony asked, glancing over at you.
You stared at him for a moment. “Why don’t you like me?” you finally asked, and Tony let out a small chuckle, finishing off the whiskey in his glass before he poured himself some more. “I’m being serious, I want to know.”
“Listen, Goggles,” he began, swirling around the whiskey. “It isn’t a matter of liking or disliking a person. It’s a matter of recognizing when you’ve been replaced.”
You frowned. “You think I replaced you? You literally built two separate labs so that you and Dr. Banner could have different work spaces.”
“See, that was for the purpose of researching different things,” Tony said. He gestured around the lab the two of you currently stood in. “This is for the mechanical stuff. Weapons, upgrades to the Compound, everything like that. Bruce’s lab is a safer space, do sit behind a microscope and examine specimens, look into anything we find at a crime scene that might lead us to the guy we’re after.” He waved his hand around again. “Separate spaces for separate work. Before you came along, Bruce would ask me to help him with that forensic stuff, if he needed it, and then I’d ask him for help on the mechanical stuff, if I needed it.”
You crossed your arms. “Well, I’m sorry if Dr. Banner thought that his workload was enough to take on an extra set of hands to help,” you said.
Tony rolled his eyes, poured himself more whiskey. “Are you even qualified to do the things he asks for help on?” he asked, and you huffed out a breath.
“I worked for SHIELD. And besides that, Dr. Banner wouldn’t have hired me if he didn’t think I was qualified.” You raised an eyebrow. “Or don’t you trust his judgement? I’m sure he’d be glad to hear that.”
Tony’s head snapped in your direction, his eyes burning with anger. “Don’t,” he warned, his voice a low growl. “Just… don’t.”
You uncrossed your arms, very aware that you stood in his territory, surrounded by his creations, many of which he’d just informed you were weaponry. You didn’t think he’d hurt you, but it was best to be wary, all the same. Maybe the whiskey had been a bad idea.
“I don’t want us to not get along,” you told him. “Honestly, Stark.” You gestured to the bottle of whiskey. “I meant that as a peace offering. I wanted to see what you were working on.”
He stared at you for a moment longer, before snorting and turning away again. “And for what?” he asked. “So you can report it back to Agent One-Eye?”
“Nick Fury is no longer my boss,” you said, patiently. “I haven’t been in contact with him since SHIELD went down. The only person I might tell, if I told anyone, would be Dr. Banner. And you wouldn’t mind him knowing, would you?”
Tony did not reply, and you took a chance, walking closer to the worktable. You grabbed for the bottle of whiskey yourself, and poured some into your own glass, which you still held in one hand. As you did so, you looked down at the worktable, eyeing the schematics he had pulled up there.
“You’re working on a new suit?”
Tony sighed. “I’m trying to figure out nanotech,” he explained. He ran his finger across the table, effectively spinning the model of the suit around in a rapid circle. “I’ve hit a snag.”
You examined the schematic for a moment, head tilted thoughtfully. “What made you think to use nanotechnology?”
“Speed, mostly,” Tony replied. “Surface area coverage.” He paused, and then admitted, “I want to make it so that I can have this thing on me in less than fifteen seconds.”
“So what’s the issue?”
He gestured towards the display. “I don’t know how to get it from storage, I suppose we can say, to actual suit. I’ve gotten the basics, it can work, I just don’t know the best way to make it work.”
“So you don’t have a way to store the nano-particles? In such a way that you can get the suit on in the time you want it on,” you clarified, and Tony nodded. “Can’t you, I don’t know, design a cool, like, watch or something?”
Tony offered you a look. “We’re talking about billions of nano-particles, Goggles,” he said.
“And?”
“And we’ll still need a power source. A ‘cool watch’ probably wouldn’t work out for containing the arc reactor and all of the nano-particles.”
You sighed. “So turn the arc reactor into a storage unit, too.”
“You say it like it’s easy,” Tony said, and you lifted your shoulders.
“Isn’t it?”
He gazed at you for a moment, before sighing, and turning towards the worktable. After a moment, the images on the display were blown up in front of the two of you instead, and you found yourself looking at the latest version of the arc reactor.
He gestured towards it, looking at you again. “What do you have in mind?” he asked.
The two of you worked hard for the next two weeks, making progress and then taking three steps backwards in a single day. Nothing deterred either of you, however, and you began to see why so many people whom you’d talked to who knew of Tony Stark found him to be so impressive. His worth ethic, his desire to accomplish a task, was unlike any that you’d ever encountered before.
You had to admit, by the second week of working non-stop in Tony’s lab, that you admired him. You hadn’t expected that to happen, although, to be fair, you hadn’t expected him to accept your help in the creation of any of his projects, let alone an Iron Man suit.
You began tests with the arc reactor storage unit you’d designed in the middle of the second week. By the start of the third, however, none of the tests ended with the results that had been desired, and you were beginning to feel a bit burnt out. Tony, however, and his seemingly never ending energy kept you going.
“Okay, so… test 23, fail,” you said, marking it down before turning back towards the terminal. “What are we missing?”
Tony stumbled over to join you, kicking off the last bit of smoking armor. He peered at the screen himself, and shook his head. “It has to be something with the tech itself,” he said. “The arc reactor stores the particles fine, but something’s lost in translation when it comes to forming the armor.”
The door to the lab opened, and Peter Parker entered the space. “Hey, Mr. Stark,” he began, and then he looked up from the StarkPad he held, catching sight of both of you. “Oh, hey, Doc, I didn’t - I thought Mr. Stark would be in here alone.”
“We’re working, kid,” Tony said to him. “What do you need?”
“Uh… y’know, it’s not important,” Peter said, lowering the StarkPad. He attempted to peer over your and Tony’s shoulders, at the screen. “What’re you guys doing?”
“Nothing that you can help with, unless you’re suddenly well-versed in nanotechnology,” you told him. “Are you?”
Peter’s shoulders fell. “No,” he sighed.
“There you go, then,” Tony said, and he waved a hand at him. “Off you go.”
Peter started to, and you saw his eyes fall on the part of armor that Tony had kicked off. He bent down to pick it up, examined it for a moment, before looking over at the two of you again.
“Nano-particles aren’t fire resistant?” he asked.
Tony’s eyebrows raised, and he looked at you. “Fire resistance,” he said.
You suddenly felt revitalized, the solution to the major problem that had been ruining the tests thus far within sight. “Is that even possible?”
“I don’t know,” Tony replied, “but it would make sense, wouldn’t it? Whipping them out at the speed we’re going for requires a lot of friction, heat, energy. Some combination of that starts a fire, and everything goes to hell.” He typed some things into the terminal. “If we could find a way to avoid that…”
“Did I help?” Peter asked, hopefully, and you grinned over at him, nodding. He smiled back, looking pleased with himself. He scampered out of the lab, and you turned back to the terminal to help Tony.
“Test 43,” you said, watching Tony where he stood in the center of the lab.
You saw him inhale, and then he tapped the arc reactor in the center of his chest. Immediately, colored particles began to spread outwards from it, crossing over his chest and spreading downwards and out. They came together on his shoulders, down his arms, all over his legs. Lastly, they came together on his head, forming the helmet of the Mark 50.
“Holy shit,” you said, and you grinned, throwing up your hands. “It worked!”
“Don’t get too excited,” Tony said, his voice muffled. “Let’s see if everything else works, too.”
You watched him go through several different motions, first deforming part of the gauntlet, and then pulling some of the particles from around his thigh to form a new one. He held up the new gauntlet, and prepared a repulsor blast, but did not actually shoot it, instead lowering his arm at the last second, the glow dying down. He flew into the air a few feet, zoomed around the cleared space in the lab for a moment, before landing again.
The helmet deformed, and he looked over at you. His eyes were bright, and he smiled.
“All right,” he said. “I think we did it. Feel free to celebrate, now.”
You laughed, and clapped your hands, applauding him. “Sheesh,” you said, as he tapped the arc reactor again, and the nano-particles disappeared back into it. “I can’t believe we actually did it.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, walking over to where you sat, “I can basically do anything, so.”
“Mm, right, yeah,” you agreed, smirking. “So failure was never a possibility.”
“Exactly,” Tony agreed. “You get it.”
“Yeah, I think I’m starting to,” you replied, shaking your head to yourself.
Tony glanced sideways at you. “I guess I should say thanks, for your help,” he said, and you raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t think you were capable of thanking someone,” you told him, and he made a face in response. You smiled. “You’re welcome, Stark. It was a privilege to work with you.”
You held out your hand to shake, and he glanced at it for a moment, before he took it in his. “You say that like you don’t plan on doing it again,” he said.
“Well, I figured you’d want me to go back to working with Dr. Banner,” you said, “since this is your work space.”
Tony shrugged, glancing down at your hands, which were still joined. “Yeah, well… I learned to share at the Tower,” he said. “Maybe I could learn how to do that here, too.”
“Learning to share is different from being good at sharing,” you told him. You pulled your hand from his. “Are you good at sharing, Stark?”
His eyes lifted, met yours. Before he could respond, however, the door to the lab opened. You immediately took a step backwards from him, and turned towards Peter.
“Hey, kid,” you greeted, walking past him in order to leave the lab.
“Doc,” he replied, turning to watch you go, something that Tony was already doing. Once you were gone, the door closing behind you, Peter turned to look at Tony. “Did you figure it out?” he asked, and Tony let out a breath.
