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Tony Stark was not having a good day, and that was before Captain America tried to get on his last nerve.
He’d been about to call it a day with Pepper and a bottle of champagne because the paperwork for the proposal of the arc reactor installment alone had taken over three filing cabinets because New York City’s code enforcement department refused to communicate in anything other than paper and probably killed more trees in a month than SI’s Legal department did in a year— and then Agent had barged in without so much as a by-your-leave.
There were some highlights to being called in, sure, but the shine was wearing off pretty damn fast because no amount of lab geekery with Dr. Banner made up for having to deal with some of these other people.
Case in point.
“The only thing you fight for is yourself,” Steve Rogers had snapped at him, as if he knew Tony’s life story and it took everything he had to rein in his temper because he’d been called in to do the thing, and he’d done as much as he could with the resources he had on hand and while having to deal with SHIELD’s shadiness and the embodiment of his latent daddy issues over here and—
“—you better stop pretending to be a hero.”
Oh.
Okay.
Fuck this.
For a second, Tony thought about snapping back. He really did, had something just as sharp and cutting on the tip of his tongue— but then paused.
Why was he even here, then?
Captain America here clearly didn’t like him, SHIELD obviously didn’t want him around now that he’d done the thing he’d been called in for. Dr. Banner was the only one who seemed like he’d want him around, but he was also undoubtedly dealing with his own issues, so…
With a smile that was so bright it felt three different types of artificial, Tony gave him a quick clap on the shoulder. “You know what? That’s the best idea you’ve had yet, Cap!”
Everyone paused. If they were reacting to the cheer in his voice, or the fact that he was agreeing with the guy he’d been arguing was anyone’s guess, but Tony ran out of fucks approximately five minutes ago and could not care less. Even if he could admit that seeing Captain America look like he’d been slapped with a fish was pretty entertaining.
He glimpsed the bafflement on Director Fury’s face, and his smile only brightened even more as he continued. “After all, you guys clearly don’t need me anymore. Doc? You’re cool, give me a call whenever. Fury? Lose my number, I’m out.”
“Wait, Stark—” Director Fury started, eye wide but Tony powered on with only the barest hint of venom in his voice.
“’Not a team player’, remember? Should’ve remembered that.” He gave them all one last tight smile, before he turned on his heel and almost made it out the lab before he remembered. “Hey, doc? If you need a ride off this mess, I can’t guarantee it’ll be first-class but—”
“Yes,” Dr. Banner said immediately, looking between him and the still-stunned but visibly armed SHIELD agents in the room who all jolted at his voice, “yes, please, take me with you.”
“You can’t do that—” Agent Romanov tried to cut in, but Dr. Banner snorted.
“We did everything we could, now it’s just a matter of letting the code run for you to track down whatever it is you’re looking for. And where else am I supposed to go? You rented my room.”
“The cell was just in case—” Director Fury started, and Tony snorted as he ushered his new friend out the room.
“Yeah, no. C’mon, doc, let’s go.”
For some reason, it was several sorts of satisfying that it took the door so long to close. If only because Tony managed to catch Point Break’s “—do you always treat your allies thusly—” before it did.
…not ten minutes into his and Bruce’s flight to New York, and apparently everything goes to hell.
Tony was not impressed.
Just what kind of ship was SHIELD running, anyway? Oh, not his business, the failsafes kicking in should buy them enough time that Tony could drop Bruce off and head back to play tech support to these ungrateful jerks.
“Sorry about this.” Tony said with a rueful smile as he handed Bruce the spare cash he had on him. “But if I don’t go back, odds are they’ll manage to fuck up something else and I designed the Helicarrier to be as idiot-proof as possible but you never know.”
“You designed— you know what, I’m not even surprised. And no, I get it.” Bruce Banner gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks for the ride. And don’t listen to Captain America, you’re definitely not a bad guy.”
“Oh, I won’t.” Tony’s eyes were flinty for just a second, before he shook his head and finished his systems check. Then, he paused for a second and handed Bruce his phone too. “Hope I’ll see you again, you’ve got an open invite to my place and I’d love to brainstorm with you sometime. Please, keep in touch, it's not every day that I get the chance to do science.”
“We'll see." Bruce took it gingerly, before shrugging. "It was fun, all else considered. Good luck with playing tech support.”
Tony waved a hand in acknowledgement half a second before he took off. “Thanks. I’ll need it.”
Captain America made a face as if to want to talk to him, once they were done with the last of the emergency fixes— because of course there’s a round or three of sabotage to deal with now too, why the hell not— but Tony’s patience was. Not at its best, to say the least.
“Wait, Stark— Tony—”
He hadn’t quite finished the repairs to his suit, but fuck it, he’d take his chances. Without looking back, he carefully deactivated the blowtorch he was holding and, without further ado, let his mask slide shut and took off.
Tony had better things to do than stick around and listen to someone like him.
On the way home, Tony reviewed the things his remaining bugs had picked up about the whole Loki situation. Apparently Agent was in critical condition, everyone else was banged up but mostly okay, the alien prisoner had somehow managed to break out with the Scepter and the Tesseract, and… Wait, hadn’t they mentioned something about an energy source earlier?
Bruce's words echoed in his ears for a moment as he put two and two together.
Oh, goddamn it, he’d just installed it.
Loki was as surprised to see him, as he was to see Loki. Which seemed just a tad bit unfair, considering Loki broke into his penthouse.
…fuck it, this day was way too long.
“Drink?” Tony asked, aggressively pleasant and he didn’t know what it was about his smile that had Loki flinching back for just a moment, but he’d take it.