Thanks to everyone who read and Qweb, Zarohk Korobase, Harm Marie, and Alien Tourist for reviewing.

Steve was awake at his usual hour the next morning, and since he now knew where a track was, he headed down to the public gym for a run before breakfast. There were a few people already there despite the hour, scattered among various machines, but the track itself was empty, which suited him perfectly. With no one to share it with, he could run as fast as he wanted to.

By the time he finished his stomach was informing him that it was time for breakfast, and he took the elevator back up to his rooms and showered and changed quickly. And realized as he did so that he was running dangerously low on clean clothing. Fortunately taking a good look at what was around the tower had been on his list of things to do today anyway.

"JARVIS?" he asked, heading back into the kitchen and pulling out eggs.

"Yes, Captain Rogers?"

"Is there a Laundromat near here?"

"There is, but Stark Industries has a contract in place for cleaning services. If there is anything that you would like washed, you can put it in the appropriate receptacle in your bathroom and it will be returned to you within twenty-four hours. Unless, of course, you need something dry cleaned, in which case it can be left at the front desk or I can arrange for a pick up."

Steve nearly dropped an egg onto the counter instead of into the pan as he'd intended. "I can wash my own clothes. I just…I need a Laundromat."

"As you wish."

That was the same thing he'd said yesterday when Steve had asked about a grocery store, and as he finished cracking his eggs into the pan, Steve wondered if that was JARVIS' idea of subtle disapproval. Well, if it was, he didn't care. The new washing machines and dryers were improvement enough, he didn't need someone else loading and unloading them for him.

"Would you—I beg your pardon, sir, but Mr. Stark is requesting that I put him through. Do you mind?"

"No, please do." Steve felt better now that his apology had been offered and accepted, and while Tony might have denied that he was apologizing in return, the conversation afterwards while they finished off the pizza had been considerably more pleasant than any they'd shared thus far. They hadn't talked about anything serious, granted, Steve's trip and some projects that Tony was working on for the most part, but for two people with very different personalities it hadn't been uncomfortable.

Steve still found Tony brash and more than a little arrogant, but the man was legitimately a genius, and when he wasn't deliberately baiting Steve he was also rather humorous. And apparently either their battle together or the fact that Steve had deliberately slipped away from SHIELD and Fury or some combination of the two had convinced Tony that he wasn't a complete drip and therefore didn't need so much baiting.

"Hey, Capsicle, are you up?" Tony asked, his voice coming through the speakers JARVIS that usually used."

"I'm awake. And it's Steve." 'Cap' he didn't mind, 'Capsicle' on the other hand….

"Right, you mentioned that. Well, apparently I'm going to have to go to Malibu later today for some PR thing that Pepper set up and I didn't even know about it until this morning."

"She put it on your calendar over a month ago," JARVIS interrupted.

"Did anyone ask you? I don't remember anyone asking you. Anyway, there are a couple other things I should get done as long as I'm on the west coast so I'll probably be out there for a couple days, and I was thinking that if you wanted that lab tour, we could do it this morning. Unless you've got other plans."

Steve shook his head automatically. "No, I haven't got any other plans." He could go to the Laundromat just as easily in the afternoon. "But I was just about to eat breakfast so do you mind if I come down afterwards?"

"That's fine."

It didn't take him long to finish his meal once the eggs were done, and this time when the door opened on Tony's lab he had a chance to look around. What he saw, though…well, he knew that Tony had been simplifying things a great deal last night, and as much as he was genuinely interested in a few things that Tony had talked about, he had a feeling that this tour was going to be even harder to follow than the one of Bruce's labs. He stepped cautiously into the room, peering through the low lighting. "Tony?"

"Over here."

Steve stepped around tables laid out with bits of machinery, some of which had diagrams floating above them—projections, Fury had called the technology, when Steve had first seen it on the helicarrier—some of which didn't, and none of which were particularly comprehensible, heading in the direction of Tony's voice.

Tony was beside a platform with an almost life-sized three dimensional image of a suit hovering above it, his finger tapping absently against his jaw, and Steve frowned as he stepped closer. "Is that your new Iron Man suit?" It was just another projection, granted, but if it was going to be Iron Man, he couldn't say that he liked it very much. Not that he knew anything about designing suits, but it was far bulkier than either of the two suits he'd seen Tony in previously, with more guns than one person should reasonably need. Including what looked like a cross between a rifle and a small cannon attached to the back with hinging almost certainly intended to make it rise up and fire over the helmet. The coloring wasn't even right; it was black and grey instead of red and gold.

He reached out without thinking to see if he'd been right about the cannon, only to pull his hand back quickly as his manners reasserted themselves. Except he'd apparently touched something without realizing it because the projection suddenly spun and inverted and shrank down to less than a quarter the size it had been, and he felt himself flush as he stared at the image now floating in the air in front of them. "I'm sorry, I…." His first instinct was to fix whatever he'd done, but that generally required knowing what he'd done, and right now he didn't have a clue.

"No one can ever keep their hands off my technology."

Steve felt his flush deepen.

Tony grinned. "Relax, Spangles, you just got your hand inside the receptor feed. " He reached out and making a twisting, pushing motion with one hand that somehow made the image shift back and around to the size and position that it had originally been in. "See, all better. And for the record, that is most certainly not my Mark VIII. I have taste."

Steve might have debated that—after correcting another nickname that he didn't go by—but Tony continued too quickly for him to interrupt.

"That's War Machine."

"War Machine? I saw him flying away from the tower yesterday." And maybe JARVIS had given the impression that questions weren't welcome, but there had been no hesitation in Tony's voice when he'd said the name.

"Yeah, Rhodey had to get back to I'm-not-supposed-to-know-istan ASAP so it's been a marathon repair session these last couple days." A pause. "As soon as possible."

"I knew that one."

"Great, ASAP and flying monkeys, I'll make a note. The repairs shouldn't have taken anywhere near that long, but General Jackass let some particularly moronic tech throw a patch on the knee joint where it took a direct missile hit a few weeks back." Tony glared at the display. "The original design is mine so obviously it's good, and when Rhodey's using his brain he vets his own techs or comes to me for particularly tricky repairs, but oh, no, he just had to follow orders. He could have lost his leg if the couplings had burst inward instead of outward when they failed , and as it was I had to rebuild damn near everything down the left side from scratch because the tech got that wrong too and the overload caused a chain reaction all the way back to the reactor. Not to mention that I had to fix all the crap that went wrong when he hit the ground."

"That sounds bad." At least the losing the leg part did, even if he hadn't really followed the rest. "But I didn't know that you built suits for other people."

"I don't."

His confusion, especially since Tony had just admitted that the original design was his, must have shown on his face because Tony waved a hand at the projection.

"JARVIS, pop up the Mark II."

Steve glanced guiltily upwards—he should have realized that JARVIS was 'here' too—but if JARVIS disapproved of Steve's question, he didn't say anything. Instead the image of War Machine shrunk and shifted to the side, and another image appeared beside him. This one looked more like the Iron Man that Steve was familiar with, albeit clearly an earlier model, and he frowned and leaned closer. But kept his hands firmly at his sides, just in case. "They're the same." Or they were similar, anyway; he could see the lines of Iron Man underneath War Machine's bulk. He straightened and looked back at Tony. "You turned an Iron Man into War Machine?"

"Technically the engineers that that idiot Hammer pulled in did." He rocked a hand. "It's a long story, but I got a little drunk at the expo a while back, and Rhodey borrowed my Mark II to keep me from doing anything exceptionally stupid. Not that I was going to, you understand, but he worries. Except then afterwards he wouldn't give it back." Tony shook his head, and something darker than his earlier glare passed across his face. "The military had been drooling over Iron Man ever since they saw him, but it's just not cool when your friend steals your tech. Anyway, they made most of the modifications while trying to reverse-engineer it, although 'modifications' in this case just means that they added some armor and stuck on a hell of a lot of guns. The only things they succeeded in doing on their own were building the world's most hackable drones which were, of course, promptly hacked, used to shoot up a bunch of civilians, tried to kill Rhodey and me, and, oh, yeah, all exploded in the end."

"He gave me some footage of the drone fight," Steve admitted. "I just didn't realize that there was a second suit there."

"He as in Fury?" Tony shrugged. "I told you, his secrets have secrets. Even when there's no good reason for it. Anyway, my Mark II has been War Machine ever since."

"I can't believe you let them keep it," Steve said after a minute.

"I didn't let them keep it, I let Rhodey keep it. If it had been anyone else I'd have figured out some way to get it back or permanently disable it, but he's…." Tony trailed off with another shrug and a shake of his head.

As far as explanations went that wasn't much of one, but before Steve could press, Tony started speaking again.

"Anyway, I rewrote the code again, and the persona lock I had JARVIS jam in is nasty enough that nobody besides Rhodey or myself should ever be able to fire one of those weapons which means that it's about as safe as it can be. Even with General Jackass officially in charge."

The fact that some random person couldn't just come along and use it was a relief, although Steve would hope for better from soldiers anyway, and he tilted his head. "The general's name isn't really—"

"No," Tony said with a snort, reaching out and swatting the Iron Man image aside into nothingness with one hand while the other magnified War Machine again. "But it damn well should be since he not only didn't get Rhodey back here pronto after that hit to the knee, he sent him out on another mission."

Steve debated pointing out that you couldn't go around calling a general 'jackass,' but he had a feeling that under the circumstances—and given who he was speaking to—it would just be a waste of breath. "So what's wrong?" he asked instead as Tony began to frown again. "Did you not get all the repairs done before he had to leave?"

"Oh, they're done. If they weren't, I would have spent a couple hours overriding my persona locks and put him in the Mark VIII, and never mind that he has no taste and would want to repaint it and add a ridiculous number of guns."

Steve stared. "You would have given him Iron Man?"

Tony glanced over and then away. "Loaned. And officially I have no idea what's going on over there, but unofficially there's no way in hell I'd send him back out in a suit that's less than a hundred percent, especially since I know damn well that not only is he still hurting from the crash, he's also going to be on point for the next offensive. Which, for the record, I also know nothing about. And even though I don't think that colonels are supposed to be doing that sort of thing anyway."

Steve frowned, and then his mind finally put two and two together. JARVIS had said Colonel Rhodes was War Machine, Tony said Rhodey. The fact that Tony's friend was a colonel was a little surprising, particularly given his obvious disrespect for the general and military-type authority in general, but it still wasn't nearly as surprising as the fact that the man been allowed to steal an Iron Man and keep it so Steve let it go. "So what's bothering you, then?"

"That." Tony reached out and made a grabbing, twisting motion and the suit rotated and magnified, showing a much closer view of the miniature cannon that Steve had originally wanted to look at. "Rhodey says they want to up the minigun payload again, and I'm already not happy about the force it's putting on the suit."

"What do you mean?"

"JARVIS, bring up the specs from the last firing test."

Steve expected a graph or something like that and was surprised when the image of a static War Machine was replaced with a mobile one. Nothing else was visible in the projection, including whatever the target was, but the image showed the minigun flipping forward and firing, and as it did so a number of bars appeared overlaying the suit in various directions. Most were green or yellow, but there was a shallow red V across the shoulders with a thin but equally red line extending down the back.

"See, right there." Tony reached out and tapped the V, and a table of numbers popped up to one side. "These were taken during the last firing test, and take a look at those torque readings. He's already using the repulsors at almost full power to keep from getting thrown or spun like a damn top every time he has to burst fire."

The numbers didn't mean much to Steve, but the comment about being thrown did. "You're worried about the recoil?"

"Exactly. Like I said, right now he's offsetting with the repulsors, and it keeps him upright even if it isn't particularly elegant, but they've been upping the payload bit by bit for a while now, and that offset is putting a lot of tension on the suit."

"But they've had recoilless weapons for years," Steve pointed out. They hadn't been common during the war, but he knew they'd existed.

"No such thing as truly recoilless," Tony sad with a shake of his head. "Physics doesn't like it. There's just recoil that's compensated for, and the design of the minigun nullifies almost all of the conventional mitigation techniques. Even though it's fixed to the suit it's hinged for 360 degree firing so dispensing a blast out the back is out, and what little compression chamber it had was removed in the first redesign in favor of a better connection to the ammo chain. Because hey, he's firing from a metal suit so he'll be okay."

"You can't add more power to the repulsors?"

"I could, but not without putting a drain on the power levels as a whole, and from what Rhodey's said he can't afford to lose much battle time. And it doesn't change the stress it's putting on the suit. Right now it's holding together, but enough of that and a tension fracture isn't out of the question. Although the thing that's most likely to go first is the hinging, and I don't see a gun swinging around by the ammo strap and still firing ending well for anyone."

"Well, can't he just tell the general that? I mean, isn't it working fine as it is?"

"He could, but he won't. Partly because he likes big guns—I'm pretty sure that he's the one who wanted it there in the first place—and partly because it wouldn't matter anyway. A heavier payload means more damage faster, and that's what the general wants."

Steve frowned as he considered the image. "Do they really want you to figure out a way to fix it, or do they want you to design a round with a heavier payload that isn't harder to fire?"

Tony glanced over, a wry smile crossing his face. "Well, give the kid a cookie, you got there almost as fast as I did. Officially they don't want me to do anything yet, I'm not even supposed to know there's a problem although I'm not sure how any engineer could look at those numbers and miss it, but you can bet that when the recoil finally becomes a problem that they can't fix—which, I'm damn sure this next upgrade is going to be it—that's the 'suggestion' that they're going to make. Since it was my suit to start with, you know. And never mind that the obvious solution is to stop making the gun bigger."

"Are you going to do it?" Steve asked, trying to keep the judgment out of his voice.

"No. I'm not supplying anyone with any more weapons. But I do want to find a fix for the recoil problem, even if it does drain the power supply." He tilted his head. "What did you do for the shoulder mounted guns back in the dark ages?"

"Mr. Stark, you will need to leave now if you wish to arrive in Malibu on time."

"Oh." Tony's shoulder twitched. "Well, I don't, so that solves that. What about shifting the ammo—"

"Miss Potts asks me to remind you that this event is very important, especially after you so conveniently missed the dinner party last month."

"I had a flat tire."

Steve turned to stare at him, and JARVIS declined to comment.

"You should go," Steve said. "War Machine isn't even here right now. You'll have more time to tweak it later."

"But I'm tweaking it now. Besides, didn't I promise you a tour of the lab?" A triumphant grin crossed his face. "See, I can't possibly go."

"Tony, get out of here. I'll still be here when you get back."

Tony scowled. "You're all conspiring against me."

"I don't think myself, a woman I've never met, and a…JARVIS…really counts as a conspiracy. Besides, even I know it's not a good idea for a man to make his girl angry."

Tony sighed. "All right, all right. What is it with all the annoying responsible types moving in, anyway? JARVIS, prep the Mark VIII."

"Already done, sir."

Even if Tony would let him, Steve had no desire to remain in Tony's lab without him there—heaven only knew how much trouble he might cause, all of it entirely unintentional—so he followed him into the elevator. And then frowned. "Where is Iron Man, if not in your lab?"

"Private workshop."

"Ah." Presumably that was on one of the levels reserved for Tony's use, and there was no invitation attached to Tony's answer, but even if there had been Steve would have declined since he didn't want to be the cause of Tony being late. He got out on his floor after wishing Tony a pleasant flight, running through his tasks for the rest of the afternoon. If he took his laundry down to the Laundromat now, he could get lunch at a café while it washed and then take a look around and see what types of employment might be available while it dried.

It had been fun working on War Machine with Tony, even if it had taken up the entire morning. Tony had done most of the actual work, moving projected things around and telling JARVIS to shift material compositions and change thrust coefficients and do a bunch of other stuff that Steve hadn't really understood, but Steve had been able to offer some tactical insight especially once Tony had shown him footage of War Machine in battle. And, somewhat to his surprise, Tony had listened. It had been interesting to see how the changes the two of them came up with had worked out in simulations, even if they hadn't reached a perfect solution to the recoil problem yet. Not that he wasn't in agreement with Tony that the suit didn't need a bigger gun, but the whole exercise was something that he'd never done before. Something that he wouldn't mind doing again if whatever Tony was working on happened to align with his abilities.

JARVIS brought up a map showing two nearby Laundromats when Steve requested it, and if he disapproved, he didn't say anything else when Steve stuffed the clothes that needed cleaning into his pack. Given the time of day there was no competition for machines when he got there, and while he did have to wait for a table at the little café in front of the tower, he'd gotten there before the majority of the lunch crowd so he didn't have to wait long. He'd actually visited the café before, back when he'd been living in the SHIELD-supplied apartment, and while he could pick out a few things that had changed since the battle, most of the area looked basically the same. Had been repaired to look the same given all the damage that had been done.

As he took a seat, scoping out the area automatically, he accidentally caught the eye of one of the women at the table in front of his, and her eyes widened. "Oh, my God, that's—it's Captain America. Look, look," she hissed to the other ladies at her table, pointing at Steve.

The three women she was dining with all turned at once, and he fought down a flush. And the urge to hide under the table. Even back when he'd been touring with the USO and deliberately putting himself on display he'd always been glad to get back to whatever room he'd been assigned at the end of the day, and after the battle here…well, he'd been lucky to get out of the city quickly. Not that people across the rest of the country hadn't seen footage—as far as he could tell, snapshots of the battle, including several of himself after he'd lost his helmet, had been on television everywhere for several weeks—but no one expected to see Captain America sketching in the Painted Desert so aside from a sidelong look now and again he'd been able to stay mostly anonymous. Now that he was back in New York, he should have known that people would recognize his face more often.

"Would you like to move to a different table?" a quiet voice asked, and he looked up to find a young woman, the same one who'd waited on him once before unless he was mistaken, smiling sympathetically. "There's one in the corner that'll be freeing up in a minute."

"Thank you, ma'am, but I'll be all right." As much as he might want to, hiding wasn't an acceptable option. And fortunately, while the woman had pointed him out to the other ladies at her table, she hadn't been loud enough for other tables to hear over their conversations.

"Can I get you something?" she asked.

"A club sandwich, please. And a cup of coffee."

"Coming right up. And…well, thank you."

He tilted his head.

"I was one of the ones that they had cornered in the bank that day. A lot of us here were."

"Oh. Well, no thanks necessary, ma'am. I'm glad you're okay."

She smiled and then stepped away with his order, and when he caught another look from the women at the next table he suddenly wished that he hadn't been quite so thorough when he'd emptied his pack in preparation for doing laundry. At least if he had his pencil and sketchpad he'd have an excuse for keeping his head down.

His sandwich and coffee came quickly, along with a piece of pie, and she smiled when he looked up questioningly. "From all of us. And don't worry about the check."

"I can't accept—"

"Really. I know it's not much, but we want to."

"Thank you," he said after a moment. He felt a little guilty accepting it, but refusing would just be ungracious. At least he hadn't ordered anything particularly extravagant.

"Is there anything else that I can get you?"

"No, thank you. Oh, but would you happen to know if there's an art store anywhere near here?" He should have brought a pencil and paper with him anyway, just in case he needed to take notes for a job…he could always go back to the tower before moving his laundry, but since he only had a few pages left in his sketchpad, he might as well pick up a new one.

"That's right, you were sketching the last time you were here."

Steve was surprised she remembered when she hadn't even known who he was the first time he'd come—he was surprised that she even remembered him being here at all—but he nodded anyway.

"Well, it's not specifically an art store, but the Greens have been running their hobby shop for as long as I can remember, and I know they have a drawing section. If you go down to that corner and then two blocks west, it's just past the pizzeria."

"Thank you."

"Not a problem. Enjoy your lunch."