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Ms. Horace looked around the storeroom again and then back at Steve, and Steve did his best to look as if things were absolutely normal.
"You've already finished unloading the truck?" she asked after a moment.
"Yes, ma'am. It, uh, came early today."
She didn't look entirely like she believed him—which was more than fair because while it had been early, it had only been early by about two minutes and two minutes did nothing to explain how he'd gotten in unloaded in half the time it normally took him—but after a moment she nodded and signaled for him to follow her inside for his pay.
He accepted it with automatic thanks and gave a guilty glance back towards the storeroom before heading out into the street. Not that he hadn't done his job, of course, but he had been a little rougher on the boxes than he really should have been. To the point where he was thankful that the supplies delivered today had been mostly canned and boxed goods because if there had been any apples they'd be pre-smashed for sauce and Heaven knew not a single egg would have survived.
As he made his way to the tower he felt a little better than he had a few hours ago, but he suspected that that had more to do with the sun finally rising than anything else. Light always seemed to make things better, even when it didn't really make things better at all. He was tired when he arrived—then again, he'd been tired when he'd left—but he still wasn't exhausted to the point where he'd be able to go back to sleep without risking dreams, and with a sigh he headed down for the private gym. The empty space where the bag used to hang mocked him silently, and he loaded up the free weights and lay down on the bench.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been at it but it was long enough that even his arms were starting to tremble when he heard the scuff of footsteps behind him, and he was stretching to rack the weights when a familiar voice spoke.
"I hear that somebody's been breaking my toys."
Steve felt his face going red as he sat up and turned. "I really am sorry, I didn't mean to. And I can replace it, I swear, but JARVIS thought—"
"Easy, Capsicle," Tony cut in, grinning as he held up his hands. "I was just teasing. I've got a better one to replace it with mostly built anyway. But what happened? Visions of Fury dancing in front of your face?"
Steve shook his head, declining to rise to the bait. "I don't…I just..." He shook his head and looked away. "Nightmares. I don't really want to talk about it." It was exactly what he didn't want to admit to Tony, who'd probably never had a nightmare in his life, but Steve did owe him some sort of explanation.
Tony tilted his head and then shrugged. "Eh, probably just as well. I'm a horrible listener. Ask anybody. Ask Pepper." A pause. "I take it back, don't ask Pepper. She likes to elaborate."
Steve felt his lips twitch despite himself.
Tony took a step back and waved a hand. "Come on, Spangles. If you're going to be breaking my toys, you get to help me replace them, and I don't have much time before I have to get to prototyping or R and D will try and do it themselves and that never ends well." He sighed and shook his head. "That poor little car."
"I…." Steve decided after a moment of reflection that he didn't really want to know what happened to whatever car Tony was talking about, but him helping Tony fix and hang a new bag was a more than fair expectation after he'd broken the last one, and he grabbed his towel and water bottle and hurried after Tony to the elevator. "It's Steve, you know."
"Right, right, you've mentioned that."
Steve rolled his eyes and didn't pay much attention to where JARVIS was taking them until Tony stepped out, and he frowned as he followed. "Tony?" This wasn't the same lab that he'd visited before.
A beeping…arm?...nudged him before Tony could answer.
"Dummy, leave him alone," Tony ordered. "Steve, Dummy; Dummy, Steve. Just give him a shove if he's pestering you. And those two are You and Butterfingers, the same goes for them."
"He's—they're robots!" Dummy poked him, and Steve poked back lightly, getting a chirp in return. The other two Tony had indicated were doing something on the far workbench, and as much as he wanted to go look at them more closely—he'd talked to JARVIS, sure, and he'd seen the computers on the helicarrier, but these were real robots—he stayed with Tony. And Dummy, who didn't seem to mind Steve's scrutiny.
"Be careful or he's likely to go after you with the fire extinguisher," Tony warned as Steve poked Dummy again.
"Why would he do that? I like him."
Dummy beeped, and Tony muttered something under his breath and then signaled to Steve to follow.
Steve tried to take in the entire lab without making it obvious that he was doing so as they crossed the room, but he was no more successful than he had been in the other lab. Probably less so given that this had to be Tony's private work area. Unless he was very much mistaken that was the torso and arms of another Iron Man suit propped up on a table, and that—"Hey, is that my shield?" he asked as his eyes caught on a familiar shape. "Why are you using it to hold up…what it's holding up?" He'd thought his shield was still with SHIELD. And what had happened to the paint?
"Hm?" Tony glanced where Steve was pointing and then shook his head. "No, no, that's just a prototype. One of a couple. I didn't like the angles at the edging on that one—figured you'd probably like to keep your fingers, just generally speaking—and I keep meaning to either melt it back down or figure out a way to salvage it, but then I forget. And for now it's handy enough there. Now, look."
The item on the table was the core of a punching bag, that much was obvious, but it equally obviously wasn't sand-filled, and when Tony waved his hand and made diagrams spring to life off to one side, Steve reached out and gave it a light shove. "This is heavy." He wasn't sure what the fill was, and pressing on it didn't give him any real clue aside from the fact that it clearly wasn't sand. Or at least not normal sand.
"Mm. Yes. Kind of the point given that ordinary punching bags don't seem to hold up so well against you." Tony turned away from the hovering images. "Now, I've got a sand-wrap that I can put on if you like the standard feel—the material is reinforced—or I can put on a wrap with the same gel fill as the core. The canvas will feel the same, the inside not so much."
"This is gel?" Steve pressed a little harder. "It doesn't feel like it."
"My special recipe. The wrap has a little more give; your hands might be able to handle hits against the core for an extended period, but I like my knuckles. So, I need you to pick sand or gel, and then I'd prefer if you gave it a test run here before I have it moved down to the gym."
"I guess I'll try the gel," Steve said after a minute. For one because Tony had gone to the trouble of inventing it, and for another because he was getting sick of seeing sand spraying across the room.
"The gel, then. Can you get it hung up up there, or do I need the suit?"
Steve glanced up where he indicated and realized that there was a hook already set up. A harder shove gave him a better approximation of the bag's weight, and he nodded slightly. "I can do it." It required a lot more effort than a standard bag—two arms to get it up and over the hook—and then Tony was there with a cover. It was actually pretty heavy too, and Steve suspected that even if Tony had been tall enough to reach the catch on top of the core he'd have had to be the one to hang it, but he didn't comment.
"Are you really sure you want me to test it, though? I mean, in here?" He might not know what all the electronic stuff was, but he was reasonably certain that Tony wouldn't like it getting all smashed up.
"Point that way," Tony said with a wave towards the window. "But it'll hold." He smirked. "I designed it, after all."
"Uh, right. Do you have—oh. Thank you." His hands would heal even if he didn't use wraps, but he shared Tony's desire to keep his knuckles intact all the same.
Tony clapped his shoulder and then stepped back. "All right, Capsicle, do your worst."
Steve shook his head and tied off the wraps quickly and then took a couple cautious practice hits. As Tony had said the outer layer felt like the canvas he was used to, but the bag itself felt sturdier, and he set his feet and began to increase pace and force. The bag still felt good when he passed the point where canvas usually split, and he set his teeth and let himself continue to increase the force. Those damn nightmares that hadn't come for so long and he'd thought might be gone and they just had to reappear and hit him here and—
The bag flew away from him suddenly and he stared in horror as it slammed into the window. And…bounced. "Tony?"
"Huh. Top points for the bag. Probably should have reinforced that hook, though." Tony frowned, staring upwards. "JARVIS, make a note."
"Already done, sir."
"But…." Steve gestured forward. "The window's still there." And the punching bad was on the floor in front of it and intact, but that wasn't really the major surprise of the moment.
"Oh. Yeah." Tony waved a hand. "After Loki decided I should take a trip out my own window I did some work on the new glass we were putting in. Which isn't really glass any more." A flicker of something crossed his face but it was gone in an instant and when he looked back up at Steve a familiar smirk was back in place. "Patent pending."
"Okay, then," Steve said after a moment. "Uh, the punching bag feels really good. Or it did until..." He waved a hand.
"You can take that down to the gym now, then, if you want," Tony said with an offhand gesture towards the bag. "But take it a little easy on it until I have time to get the hook down there fixed, all right? I'm not sure it's rigged any sturdier than the one up here."
"Sure," Steve agreed. "I…thanks."
"Mm." Tony shook his head and then shrugged. "Well, it's not like I need the inconvenience of keeping a dozen bags of sand lying around my tower. Now, I must go terrorize Doctor…somebody. JARVIS?"
Steve decided he was probably better off not knowing who Tony planned to terrorize and hefted the bag, turning for the elevator and letting Tony's mutterings to JARVIS fade into the background. Unusually the elevator took several minutes to arrive, and when it did, Miss Potts was already in it.
Miss Potts was in it and unhappy if her expression was any indication, and he paused, unsure if he should enter. A sharp 'no' contradicted her smile and quick beckoning gesture as she stepped back to make room for him and the bag, and it wasn't until she tapped the side of her face slightly that he realized that she was wearing one of the phones that attached to the ear.
He nodded politely and kept quiet as he stepped inside, lowering the bag so he didn't accidentally turn and hit her with it, and she smiled in return before the frown came back to her face.
"As I've told you three times, the deadline is Friday," she began as the elevator began to sink. "That was made very clear, and I would like to point out that all of your competitors were able to submit their bids on time."
Whoever was on the other end of the call didn't sound very happy about that if his tone was any indication, although Steve couldn't make out the actual words, and her lips thinned.
"If you choose not to submit a bid, that is, of course, your decision." She tapped her ear a moment later and then sighed, leaning back against the wall of the elevator.
"Is something wrong, Miss Potts?" Steve asked politely.
"It's Pepper," she corrected. "I believe we've been over that a time or two. And, unfortunately, it's also corporate politics. And the fact that some gentlemen are not."
It was Steve's turn to frown—Miss Potts was a lady and ought to be treated as such and he didn't have much use for anybody who couldn't figure that out—and she shook her head.
"Never mind, I've been swimming in these waters for a long time." She straightened. "But you, you look like you didn't get any sleep last night. Are you all right? Tony hasn't had you lugging things around for him all morning, has he?" She waved a hand at the bag. "Oh, and before I forget, if you don't want to pick Bruce up at the airport, just let me know. I know Tony railroaded you into that last night, but we can send a car."
"No, no, and I really don't mind picking Bruce up, especially since Tony said I could borrow a car." Because picking Bruce up on a bike really would be a problem. "I just…I couldn't sleep, and then I accidentally broke the punching bag in the gym last night. Tony made this one to replace it." Steve patted it lightly. "He doesn't think I can break this one."
"Hm." She tilted her head. "It's none of my business and you're welcome to say so, but is there any particular reason that you couldn't sleep?"
"I…." He flushed and shook his head. "Just an old nightmare. Nothing important." The elevator came to a halt, and he hefted the bag again, taking care not to hit her with it. "This is my stop."
"Well, if you ever want to talk, you know where to find me," she said as he stepped out. "Although I'll admit that wearing out a punching bag after a nightmare is probably healthier than Tony's habit of attempting to reinvent the wheel."