The trip had been rather uneventful. It wasn't until they arrived at the tower that Tony remembered he didn't have any cash on him so he couldn't tip George and promised himself to send the man some when he got time. He also managed to get into the tower without anyone seeing him. But, instead of heading straight to his penthouse, he set the destination his lab. He'd already seen? Heard? Friday and now he wanted to meet the bots. He didn't doubt that they had missed him.

The elevator opened to reveal an already lit workshop. Though he dimly remembered that he had been in the middle of a project before his capture, the workshop was in a completely pristine condition. Tony felt a twinge of guilt as the bots clearly had been doing nothing but cleaning to keep themselves busy. He had never left them alone for so long before. Immediately, curious chirps came from the charging ports at the edge of the workshop and a gangly claw came into view, the chirps turned from curious to pure excitement as Dum-E rushed over to Tony bumping into several worktables on the way. Tony crossed the rest of the distance and gave Dum-E a pat on his arm.

"Hey, buddy! I've missed you so much, looks like you and the other have been busy," murmured Tony to the robot, who - surprising Tony – curled his arm around the mechanics body in a sort of makeshift hug. He felt tears gather in his eyes as Dum-E continued to chirp. "Ye-yeah. Yeah, love you too, bud." He wiped at his eyes and pulled away, Dum-E reluctantly let go, and looked around the workshop, "so where are your siblings?" Dum-E beeped a couple of times and his claw swung back to the charging stations.

"Dum-E has been waiting late each night to see if you were returning," came Friday's voice, sounding softer than it had all day. Tony gave Dum-E another affectionate pat on the head and felt his heart lighten.

"Thanks bud," was all he said before walking deeper into the workshop, stopping at one of the tidied benches and flicked through the neat pile of ideas he'd roughly sketched out before his capture. Tony felt slightly sick at the number of Avengers designs he had done and placed them in a separate pile to the SI related work. Hesitantly he added the new leg braces for Rhodey and an arm improvement for Bucky on his SI pile. While the other things were Upgrades the others could get from Shield, Tony thought, for Bucky and Rhodey those were lifechanging issues and he didn't want them to suffer. A new idea quickly went through his mind, and he scribbled down on an empty sheet. Something to come back to later. With that done he was slightly at a loss of what to do.

Tony started to slowly wonder around the workshop in thought. Smiling slightly as he heard Dum-E repeatedly bump into everything as he tried to follow the mechanic. Finally he came to a stop at the outskirts of an empty circular space at the far end of the workshop. His fingers fluttered over a simple indent in the metal table was at the edge of the empty space. He sighed and pressed his index finger into the indent.

"Authorised access," came a cool voice. The metal platform hissed as it went down a few inches before disappearing under the floor. Seven glass cylinders slowly moved out from under where the platform had been and with a gentle thud the floor returned to normal except now seven cylinders each filled with an iron man suit stood before him. Tony stepped onto the platform and wondered through the suits, subconsciously rubbing at his arc reactor. He came to a stop at his 'current' suit and stared at it. Hundreds of memories darted through his mind, and he ran a shaky hand through his hair. He…he couldn't do this anymore. A prod made him turn around too quickly, and he knocked into the display case behind him. A concerned chirp calmed his racing heart somewhat. Dum-E cautiously gave him another prod his claw twisted slightly, as if he was confused.

"I'm alright, just got a bit caught up in my head," Tony told him, stroking his arm. He wondered of the platform and waited until Dum-E sped of it as well. The suits were hidden once again and Tony turned back to Dum-E, "Something up?" Dum-E whistled and swung his claw towards the charging stations. "The others up?" Dum-E dipped his claw and swerved his way to the charging ports. Tony followed him over to meet the other two bot's who immediately skidded over to him, chirping, and whistling as they circled him. Tony chuckled and tried to pat them without getting his hands ripped off.

"It's really nice to see you guys again," Dum-E pushed himself through his brothers and presented Tony with a smoothie precariously held in his claw. Tony took it with trepidation and looked on in dismay as Butterfingers and U chirped angrily at Dum-E and all three bots fought their way over to the smoothie machine. "Err…Fri, what's in this?"

"Expired milk from two years ago and motor oil boss,"

"Ah…" Tony glanced again and the dark curdled mixture and placed it on one of the tables. Dum-E's claw poked up from working on another smoothie and Tony sent him a thumbs up. Tony wiped his now greasy hand on his borrowed (See: stolen) tracksuit trousers. Tony stretched his left arm and frowned when something in his back cracked at the movement. He then rubbed at is eyes and yawned, "Fri, could you scan my arm and tell me how long I'm going to have to wear this cast,"

"Right away boss… it appears the arm is already healed."

"What?"

"I cannot find any evidence of a broken bone or fracture," Tony paused before shaking his head, they must have made a mistake then, he could deal with that tomorrow, it seemed that he was going to be doing a lot tomorrow. "Also, Mr Barnes is calling you, do you want to talk to him?"

"What does he want to talk about?"

"He hasn't told me boss." Tony quickly evaluated himself and decided that he wasn't in the perfect condition to talk to Barnes right now, maybe after some sleep he could see what the other man wanted,

"Tell him no Fri,"

"Of course boss." Tony turned and glanced at one of his monitors. Tony blinked at it. No way it was already 1 in the morning.

"Okay, well I'm going to head to bed and sleep off the rest of the painkillers," turning to the bots he said, "sorry guys but I don't think I'll be having those smoothies, thanks though," the bots all let out equal chirps of displeasure causing Tony to chuckle again. He headed to the bed he'd had installed in the workshop, feeling a lot more secure in the workshop, then on one of the higher floors. He could deal with everything tomorrow.