They were supposed to be celebrating and giving away free stuff and taking advantage of a golden opportunity to destroy unneeded stuff; basically the absolute opposite of crying, which was Tony's goal every day and, eventually, he just knew he would achieve it if he believed hard enough. Or just didn't go outside. He saw it coming as Cassie geared up for that assault hug, already recoiling before she had to push him and raising his hands to...to... They anxiously fluttered to Cassie's shoulders, then back and didn't quite settle in a way that might have been an attempt at a comforting pat.
"It's not--" he tried to interject, but Cassie was powering on and Tony had already said more than enough to make this whole thing awkward. And yet he couldn't stop himself from repeating, "Dad...?" with an uncomfortable chuckle. All he wanted to do was help her thrive, and he supposed it wasn't such a radical leap from Unca Tony and without Scott to remind her what a good father was really like, but it did fill him with an as yet inexperienced sense of relief for her independence and maturity. Without it, she'd be calling him dad and actually depending on him to do the job and that was a straight shot to irreparable damage. This business venture really was turning out to be therapeutic.
"I know that," he answered when he could get a word in, airily and with his chin raised to pass a fussy hand over his collar where Cassie had to slobber all over it. "I'm your boss now, you have to give me two weeks' notice." It wasn't really Cassie that was making him 'all sad and weird', and Tony hadn't really figured it all out himself, but she definitely wasn't the person he should have been dumping his damage on. Tony just knew that without her he'd be in the shop talking to scrap metal and hitting his prime Hughes years way too early. He was lucky to have some meatbag family left to micromanage. "Come on. You're never going to earn a promotion standing around back here," he instructed, snapping his fingers to put her to work. There were a billion hungry college students clamouring for free food. Cry break was over.