AN: Happy times. Watched the Hurt Locker; oh Jeremy, you crazy fuck.

Also, on that note; bad language warning. Now polished. Nothing changed but some substitution errors and some hyphenating; thank you Qweb.

Chapter Ten: Good Morning

Tony had woken up four times, possibly five, he was a little fuzzy on that, to get up and wander 'round. It helped, as did his stack of pillows and he didn't have to wake up so suddenly, or so traumatically, again. He finally rolled out of bed for good at seven, feeling groggy and wishing he could have coffee. Steve, fucking Steve, was a morning person; one of those people who went straight from sleeping to obnoxious, jogging-through-the-streets wakefulness in under a minute, so he was bumping about the kitchen putting away enough food to power his metabolism through his morning run.

Tony glared, remembered being manhandled to bed, glared again, and then realised that Steve had his own floor, so why was he up here?

"JARVIS has started making me protein milkshakes." Steve answered, alerting Tony that his brain-to-mouth filter was down. Steve's kitchen wasn't as automated as the penthouse, so that was fair enough. Tony stopped his glaring and slumped at the table, mumbling incomprehensibly.

"Natasha left on her mission at 0-500, so expect Hawkeye when he gets off the range." Steve commented as he sealed up his sports bottle, now full of... strawberry? flavoured shake. He gave his bacon-grease smeared plate to the dishwasher, which wasn't actually sentient, but only because JARVIS found washing dishes therapeutic. Who programs his AI to need therapy, anyway? And that whole thought got away from him, didn't it?

Steve hadn't left any tasty, tasty bacon, but there was eggs and toast, which would do, and besides, JARVIS would withhold music if he ate something with as much salt in it as bacon. He was nice like that.

"Alright, I'll be back in an hour. Don't save the world without me!" Steve called, leaving Tony to his breakfast. He just grunted in reply, because coffee.

Once he'd eaten enough that JARVIS would actually let him into the lab, he stumbled his way down stairs; why had he not put a in lift between the penthouse levels? That didn't seem like something he would have done. He grunted at Clint, who had somehow invaded and was picking mournfully through his disassembled trigger mechanism.

"'morning." The archer murmured, "Where is it, then?" he said more loudly, brushing his hands off and looking expectantly at Tony.

Tony, with little time for archers at eight in the morning, beelined it to Abby's charging station. It was still a temporary mash-up of parts, wouldn't last five minutes if he lowered the virtual cordon around it and Abby's big brothers were free to bumble; they'd see it as an affront. Which, now he thought about it, so did Tony. He'd make a better one when he had the time.

He crouched in front of the little matte-black box and reeled her out of the station, flipping her over to begin her start up. There was the immediate hum of capacitors and he turned her the right way up.

"Integration complete, sir. I believe she is a morning person." JARVIS intoned wryly as first one, and then the other forward sensors rose from standby.

"Wonderful. You'll get along swell." Tony grumbled.

"Indeed sir."

Barton crouched down next to the bot and Tony stood and wandered away, ignoring Clint as he introduced himself, of all things. Abby trilled happily back, so no harm done.

"J, give me the 'prints for the control unit?" He asked, pulling a stool up to the bench covered with Clint's trigger mechanism. JARVIS obliged, and Tony sneered; amateur hour at the science-fair. He swiped the circuit board into the trash, both on the plans and of the bench, and set about redesigning the chip set completely, it was useless.

He was well into designing a new board, half the size, when Clint's hand landed on his shoulder. That was, wow, Clint just didn't touch people; now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen Clint just casually make human contact, not in the three weeks since the Chitauri incident, not in the two since the tower refurbishments had been finished and they'd all moved in. Tony appreciated that; he hadn't felt like getting all touchy-feely for a long time after Afghanistan, so this was a serious surprise.

He turned to look and the man was smiling, left thumb held between his teeth and the hand that had been on his shoulder curled around his ribs. "She's great, man." He said with a laugh in his voice and a flick of the eyes towards the little robot, which was totally cleaning his boots. Tony humphed at them both and turned back to his work, waving them off.

"Fine, great. Off you go." He said, fingers flying over the circuit design again. If the archer didn't leave now, Tony's absurd smile would ruin his reputation.

"What?"

"You heard me, Barton. Into the ducts with you. She needs to learn her way around, go on." He said, not looking at him again until he'd acquiesced and there was the rattling of a vent grate. Abby's chirping went into cheerful overdrive and there was a buzzing as she reorganized her wheels to follow. She was equipped to close of the vents again, something Clint often forgot in the safety of the tower, and soon there was no evidence that the pair had been there at all, except a hodge-podge charging station next to Dummy's.

Tony shuddered briefly, putting a hand on his chest and grinning despite everything; Clint was just one of those guys who exuded bromance where ever he went and Tony was hooked. He spent a long moment leaning against the bench and massaging some of the ache out of the scars around his arc reactor; he'd have the new trigger circuitry ready to electroprint in a few hours and then he could start on Natasha's new tazer. They were totally worth every minute.

Bruce would find him when the scanner was done, he could forget about it for now.

Quarter past nine and Pepper was checking up on him; her face appeared on a monitor and he rolled past with a quick greeting.

"I'm heading downstairs, Tony, I need to get some work done before the two o'clock board meeting. I've set us up for five at SHEILD medical for-"

"Nope." He said sharply, "Not going. Take the Cap."

She spluttered over the line, struggling to construct a sentence that worked with that information,

"Seriously, take Steve. I don't trust the doc's, but I trust Steve, and I trust you. Don't screw up." He bit out, head down and grabbing a wrench from a rack to make loud and purposeful noise with until she stopped blinking and spluttering. If that meant taking his smelting forge apart two jobs before he otherwise would have, then so be it; the lining needed changing out anyway.

"Ok. I can't say I'm surprised you said no, but that's a new one." She said after a minute. "What does Captain Rogers think about this?"

"No idea. Have a nice day." He said, actually genuine for once, and shut the connection down. Her image vanished and he pulled the lining out of the crucible to smash onto the concrete. The noise was excruciatingly satisfying but it didn't quite make up for the fact that his girlfriend was going to be interviewing people who wanted to cut open his chest. Fuck.