Tony Stark (616), cool exec with a heart of steel (tonystark) wrote in marvelesque,
Tony didn't hear the door open, absorbed as he was in yet another project that required his full attention. Well, "required" might have been a bit of a stretch, given that it was — technically — a zombie preparedness system, but you never knew what sort of day you were going to have. Sure, his Buffy the Vampire Slayer protocols had not yet proven useful, but where would they be if he'd listened when people laughed at his 2001: A Space Odyssey Evil Robot Emergency Taskforce? He liked to be prepared for every eventuality: that certainly wasn't a crime. Although calling it the Walking Dead Protocol might have been a copyright violation.
Anyway.
When he heard Steve poke his head into the laboratory, coffee in hand, Tony dropped his tools down on the table and swiveled around on the work bench to get a look at him. He didn't look half as tired as Tony knew he must have been. Between the dissolution of his marriage, the recent loss of Bucky Barnes (again) and the general atmosphere of Everything Awful Oh God Somebody Do Something, Steve hadn't been in the highest of spirits. But then, who had? Getting what you wanted — whether or not it turned out to be what you expected — had a way of coming back to bite you in the ass, particularly when magic was involved. Nothing came without a price, and they were all paying the piper in different ways. But he'd worry about that piper another time. Currently, Steve was woefully underpaying this one.
"Three dollars won't buy you what it did when you were a kid, back in 1776," Tony leaned back on his elbow propped up against the edge of the table, regarding Steve with a wry smile. He rose to his feet, reaching up to wipe a smudge of black grease from his cheek with the hem of his tank top, before crossing over to where Steve stood and accepting the coffee. "Don't think this means I've accepted the terms of your deal, by the way. This is just a down payment. We'll discuss my fee once I know what's up."