I am still not nearly crazy enough to think I am Marvel and so claim no copyright on anybody but my OOCs.

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Crossing her twenty-pound boots, which were followed by thousand-pound jeans, Claire tilted her head and authorised the transfer of funds worth millions of dollars from one part of the lab budget to another. Not that there was really such a thing as a lab budget in the internal R&D. Tony Stark owned the company; he did what he pleased.

Claire personally believed that even if he hadn't, it would have been sheer malpractice to even attempt to restrain the man, what with how many lucrative patents he produced on an average work day. She had seen him beat Hammer Industries' yearly figures during one single inventing streak.

It was a sunny, pleasant day, about two weeks after she had had her epiphany, and she had tryingly settled into her old philosophy: money only mattered if you did not have enough of it. If the lack restrained you in some way. She had realised, as the days went by, that nothing had changed in that respect, just because she was not restrained by their lack any longer. Possibly ever.

Of course, because Claire's world was sunny, somebody else's had rain. Just who that somebody was was made apparent not ten minutes after she had finished her task and gone on to clean out the coffee pot; something she did regularly as it had a truly spectacular amount of coffee brewed in it and nobody else frequently frequenting the place had the capability of doing so. (Dumm-E couldn't do it because he did not have opposable thumbs. Tony was just so uninterested that he became almost physically incapable.)

Just as she put the coffee pot back, Steve banged into the workshop; smashing the door open so violently in his anger that he startled the absorbed Tony and almost made him drop the soldiering iron. (Claire had no idea what he was doing with it, but she also had no doubt that it'd be brilliant.)

Looking up, observing and shaking his head, all the genius did was send his assistant a look that said, "You deal with whatever that is," and then he went back to work.

"Steve?" Claire asked carefully, walking closer cautiously. As if awakened by that action, Steve looked appalled at the fact that she clearly felt the need to be careful around him. Ignoring the man's shame, she gestured out towards the elevator leading upwards in the tower. "Shall we?" Gratefully, he let her lead him upstairs.

Ten minutes later - joined by Bruce and Bucky, both looking very concerned - they had settled down in one of the massive couches in Claire's suite, accompanied by a lot of sandwiches, crisps and - for some reason - popcorn. Apparently, Bruce and Bucky shared the view that there needed to be food if somebody was upset. Claire didn't bother arguing - they were probably right anyway.

Steve was near enough crying on Bucky's shoulder, but none of them had anywhere to be. They didn't mind waiting.

Letting Steve cry himself out, Bruce started helping Claire with some calculations she'd left at her coffee table while Bucky just held his boyfriend. There was no hurry. Steve could talk when he was ready - they were not going anywhere.