This is a super short chapter but I wanted to get something published. I'll make it up to you next time.
Tony managed to calm down after about an hour. His nerves were shot. There was no hope of sleeping now, and he was too busy to anyway. With the company already losing money, this project had to go through. Not that he didn't have enough money to last him the rest of his life, but seeing the balance go down by hundreds of thousands each month was not a fun experience. He had stopped reading the reports a while ago.
He got dressed to help make him feel more productive and headed down to his lab to continue his nonstop work.
"Sir," Jarvis's voice interrupted Tony's loud music, and he already knew why. "The sun is rising." He had asked Jarvis to tell him when the sun rose and set, when it was 9:00am, 9:00pm, noon, and midnight if he was working. Otherwise, he would be at a complete loss as to how long he had been working and whether he needed to eat, sleep, or drink. It got messy when he put the AI on mute and forgot about it.
"Thanks, J." He slid his chair away from the desk and spun it around, running his hands over his face and through his hair. Coffee. He needed coffee.
The kitchen, unfortunately, wasn't as empty as he thought it would be.
Tony stopped dead in his tracks. "What are you doing up?"
Steve looked up from tying his shoe. "Going for a run."
Tony looked the captain up and down to try to judge whether he was going to say something about the events of the night before, or whether he was on edge at all. It didn't seem so. Tony froze and continued on his way to turn on the coffee maker.
"It's pretty early," Tony commented casually. He drummed his fingers on the counter a few times out of impatient boredom.
"I'm a morning person." He finished adjusting his socks and laces to perfection and stood, shoulders back and hands on his hips, looking every bit of the hero he was. Tony slouched against the wall and waited on the coffee machine, feeling completely useless in comparison.
"I'm barely a person." Tony checked on the coffee again, as if it had finished within the last five seconds. Steve wasn't leaving. "Do you have something to say, or...?"
Tony could see Steve searching for words, or maybe the will to say them.
Tony sighed and gave in, pushing himself off the wall and wandering towards Steve, arms crossed. "You know I have security cameras all over, right?"
Steve looked down for little more than a second. "You saw."
"Well there was more to listen to than to see. But yeah." He pressed his lips together, raising his eyebrows and blinking for a second too long. "Thank's for not kicking me off, I guess," he sassed with a scoff.
"If age meant anything, I wouldn't be here. It's about capability."
"Alright, Spangles. Thanks for the pep talk, or whatever. Now go for your run, you morning freak."
"I could kick you for your attitude, you know," Steve mockingly threatened.
"You love me too much to do that." Tony pouted, then turned to retrieve his coffee.
"Hey, Tony." Steve caught his attention and he turned around. "You do still need sleep like the rest of us. You can't run on caffeine."
"Yes I can. I have been for, like, sixty years." He poured his drink with a smirk that was only for show.
"Just take care of yourself." The super soldier jogged off at a speed that would match Tony's sprinting.
He shook his head and brought his mug and the whole pot of coffee down to his lab.