om_main | Steve and Tony, Friday, May 2 (albeit barely)

Tony runs into Steve at 2 am, the two talk, then fight. Also, motherhenning and coffee.

Steve tugged at his hoodie string as he flipped the quesadilla he was cooking in the pan before leaning back against the counter and continuing his sketch practice. He'd been at it for a while, not wanting to go to sleep before he had his 2 am meal. He had already cooked three, but was waiting for them all to be done before eating, and was passing the time by working on his sketches. Using a homemade reference sheet of eyes cut out from magazines and pasted into a collage, he was drawing eye after eye with his charcoals, his fingers and chin smudged with grey.
Just as he finished another, his quesadilla was done, and he scooped it out before dropping another into the pan.

It was...actually, Tony had no idea what time it was. He'd muted JARVIS hours ago, or at least what seemed like hours ago, when the AI had refused to stop badgering him. It had only been nearly winding up face down on his keyboard that had prompted Tony to go in search of refueling.
He yawned absently as he made his way into the kitchen, eyes barely open. Though he did take a moment to make sure there were no flying appliances this time. He honestly wasn't sure he'd be able to put anything back together at present. Satisfied, he meandered his way over to the coffee machine, setting it to go on pure instinct.

And nearly ran himself right into Steve. Tony stumbled back, blinking blearily. "Where'd you come from?"

Steve had heard Tony come in, of course, and had been about to say something when he realized the other boy looked half asleep and seemed to be going on autopilot. Amused, he watched, wondering how long it would take him to notice him. A while, it turned out.

"Brooklyn," he answered, deadpan, though he was just barely smirking. Then, more seriously, he added, "I don't need much sleep." He flipped the quesadilla, trying to decide if he should make himself another one, or if he had enough. "Hungry?"

Tony narrowed his eyes suspiciously at him. "It is...early," he declared, like he was making some grand statement. "Why are you eating."

"I always eat around now," he said as he went to the fridge, pulling out the sour cream and guacamole, plus one of the 2 liter water bottles he always rotated to keep them cold. "I have to eat at least six meals a day."

He got out another small dish and scooped the condiments onto it, a healthy spoonful of each. "Quesadilla, yes or no? I'm about to turn off the eye."

"No," Tony said instantly, eying the food like it might jump up and bite him. "Eating before noon is unnatural." He paused for a moment as the coffee maker sputtered at him.

Though maybe it was the scent that woke him up a bit more. "Wait, six? Seriously?"

"Well, to be fair, I haven't gone to bed yet." He chuckled a little as he turned off the stove, moving his food and sketchbook to the island. "But neither have you, it looks like."

He took a bite of his quesadilla before nodding, making an affirmative hum. "And yeah," he said after swallowing, and he looked a little embarrassed as he added, "I have to eat at least 20,000 calories a day to keep up with my metabolism and training."

Attention back on the coffee machine as it finished, Tony flapped a dismissive hand in Steve'e general direction. "Don't sleep much. Too much work to do."

Though once he finally had the coffee in a cup and cradled against his chest, he turned to peer at Steve again. "Right. Crazy metabolism...thing. That's your power."

"Among other things."

He steadily worked through one of his quesadillas before speaking again. "How much work can you get done if you don't sleep? I wasn't sure you weren't sleepwalking when you first came in."

"Coffee," Tony said as if it should have been obvious, holding his cup out a little like Steve might have missed seeing it.

"Stimulants can only hold you up so long before you crash," he stated before going back to his sketch and frowning. The eyes were uneven and there was nothing he could do to save it, better to start over. "People get sick from not sleeping."

"Thank you, Dr Oz," Tony snorted before practically burying his nose in the cup. "I think I've got enough things to worry about that getting sick doesn't really rate."

"But if you get sick," he countered, glancing up from his sketches, "Your productivity goes down. So it's basically just borrowing time- you're just burning tomorrow's time today." He shrugged and took another bite of his quesadilla. "Any coffee left in the pot?"

Tony instantly gave him a suspicious look and clutched his cup closer to himself. "Why?"

Steve couldn't help but laugh at how protective he was of it, reminding him vaguely of Gollum with his Precious. "Thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. I've never had it before."

"Seriously?" Tony blinked owlishly at him. "How can you not have had coffee? Like ever?"

Steve just shook his head, looking a little amused. "Well, I couldn't have caffeine before. Used to have a heart problem." He shrugged and wiped the loose charcoal on his pants leg before taking another bite of his food. "And now the caffeine doesn't work for me, so I guess it doesn't matter, but I still wonder what it tastes like."

"So...make some?" The baffled tone to Tony's voice was impressively enhanced by just how out of it he still looked. "The machine can't be that hard to use."

He laughed and rolled his eyes, shooting Tony a look. "It's not like I'm carrying the thought around with me at all times. I'll make some if there's none left in the pot." Which he could see now that there wasn't.

More to show Tony he could than an actual want for coffee, he got it started, using the amounts Tony had used before, and flipped it on with a pointed look before going back to his food.

Tony, in turn, gave him a hilariously exaggerated look of shock and sipped pointedly at his own cup. Once that got boring, considering Steve wasn't even looking at him, he wandered vaguely over in the other boy's direction. And promptly snagged the sketchbook to pull it to face him, given it looked like the most interesting thing there.

"These are pretty good," he said with mild surprise.

Steve made a move to grab it as Tony was taking it, but resigned himself once he finally had it. "Thanks," he said with a little smile, though he was glancing away, feeling a little shy. He normally didn't let anyone look at his sketches, especially the things he did for practice.

"I'm better with pencils," he added after a moment, still focusing on his food so he didn't have to look at Tony looking at his work.

"So you're what, an artist?" With another quick look, Tony nudged the sketchbook back in Steve's direction, not even glancing at the other pages. He did have some limits.

Steve nodded as he pulled it back, thankful that Tony left it there. "I was thinking of going to art school after graduation." That probably wouldn't be happening anymore, though. Since he could do more, he felt like he should. "I mostly use pencils, charcoal, and watercolors. I'm thinking of getting a tablet, though, since I have a computer now."

He glanced up at Tony with a smirk, since he wasn't allowed to thank him again.

"Why stop there?" Tony said almost absently, leaning his elbows on the countertop. "Could let you paint on thin air if you want."

Steve hesitated. He was going to say no, because, really. Tony had done too much as it was, Steve couldn't let him do anything else for him. But even though he wasn't going to let him, it sounded interesting.

"How would that work?" he asked, between working through yet another quesadilla. "I don't see how it could work, you'd need to be able to apply pressure to alter the brush strokes."
Tony hummed thoughtfully, as if the idea hadn't occurred to him. "The holograms would have to have extremely sensitive responses," he said, almost more to himself. "Could probably tweak the Danger Room ones some."

"It sounds like an interesting idea," he admitted, letting himself imagine , for a moment, just how amazing that would be. "But I need to know how to use a standard tablet anyway. The industry is built around them now, from what I understand."

"I guess," Tony said, sounding slightly dubious. Industry standards sounded boring to him, but what did he know? "So that's your thing? Become a graphic artist?"

Steve nodded again, his mouth full, and relaxed a little now that Tony seemed to be off the idea. "Yeah," he admitted, rubbing his neck and leaving smudges of charcoal behind. "I've always loved the idea of illustration, in either comics or children's books." He shrugged casually and took another sip of water before adding, "It probably won't happen now, though."

One of Tony's eyebrows lifted at the 'comic book' comment, but all he said was, "why not?"

Steve looked at him with his eyebrows pursed, as if it were obvious. "Because I'm not sick anymore. I've been given the opportunity to help people; it'd be wrong of me to waste it, especially considering we're on the front lines of mutantkind. These days will shape the ones to come."

He finished off his food, using the final bite to gather the rest of the avocado before eating it and pushing his plate aside. "Some things are more important than personal ambitions."

The other eyebrow climbed to join the first one, both of them making a break for Tony's hairline. "So you're what, gonna go public like the others? Join up with the whatsit in Canada?"

"It's hard to say." He leaned forward in his seat, elbows on the table as he looked at Tony. "Not with Canada; I wouldn't want to leave the country, and I don't know enough about them. Anything I'd join, I'd want to know exactly what they stand for. Besides, I'm fairly certain they're only accepting Canadians at this time."

"It won't be any time soon, no matter what I do. I have to train, I'm no where to the point where I need to be." He gave him a little half smile and shrugged, leaning his weight against his forearms. "I just want to serve. Do something good."

"Serve," Tony echoed with a somewhat derisive snort. "You mean you wanna be told what to do. And I'm sure there'd be plenty who'd be happy to make use of you, so you're in luck. Godspeed."

Steve immediately sat straight up, the little smile dropping into a frown. "No, to serve. You're smart, Stark, surely you know the difference." He couldn't quite manage to keep the sarcastic time out of his voice.

"Do you?" Tony shot back, eyes brightening into awareness even
as his tone sharpened. "You better hope you find the right masters, then."

Steve's jaw clinched and his muscles twitched unwittingly. "I think you're confused on who I would be serving," he said, his voice stern. "I want to serve the people, for the good of mankind. Not these 'masters'."

Tony groaned, barely resisting the urge to knock his head against the counter. "Even worse. You seriously can't have not noticed that people are, by and large, morons."

Steve laughed, he couldn't help himself, but it was a joyless sound. "No, we aren't. Some are. Some always will be. But people- people are wonderful, Tony. We're capable of horrible things, stupid things, but we're capable of doing great things, too."

"When I say I want to serve for the good of mankind, I don't mean forwarding an agenda or increasing a person or even a nation's power. You ask yourself, 'is this good for mankind', is this the way we should be going as a nation, as a species. And if it is? You fight like hell to make it happen." His voice got louder, stronger, the more he spoke, as if strengthened by the depth of his belief in what he was saying.

"You know," Tony said after a moment or so, bracing his elbow on the counter and resting his chin on his upturned hand, "I think you genuinely believe that. I can't decide if that's adorable or just plain sad."

He regarded him with a sharp smile. "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."

Steve had been laughing again, formulating a comeback, when Tony hit him with that. His posture immediately changed, arms drawn in and crossed against his chest, leaning back on his stool just slightly, away from him.

"I do know that," he said after a long silence, and most of the strength from his voice was gone, still firm, but replaced with a sad quality. "Maybe better than you do, Stark. But that's no reason not to try and make things better. It's the opposite, actually."

He stood up and took his plate to the sink, adding it to the basin with his cooking utensils before starting to fill it with soapy water.

Tony blinked after him, more than a little thrown off by that particular reaction. "Jesus," he said with a huff. "What's got your panties in a twist?"

The plate was already in the dish strainer when Tony spoke, and Steve froze where he was washing the pan, the muscles in his shoulders and back tensing. Tony didn't mean what it meant to Steve, he knew, it was just a horrible word choice, but that didn't make his tension to die down.

"You know, I'd have thought a soon-to-be MIT graduate would have better insults," he said, wiping down the counter more thoroughly than it really needed. "Falling back on misogynistic undertones? That's just lazy, Stark."

"What?" Tony's face went blank, but it was out of confusion rather than anger. "Okay first off, that's a hell of a lot to read into a figure of speech and second, if I'm insulting you? You'll know it.

"Also I don't know what the hell you're all up in arms about," he added with an absent sip of his coffee. "Those things can be extremely comfortable if you wear 'em right."

Maybe for some people was almost out of Steve's mouth before he thankfully realized how that would sound. It would almost be funny, if he wasn't too busy asking himself how the hell they'd gotten to this point.

" That's not what I-" he huffed out a sigh and turned around, considering Tony for a long moment. He was at a loss for how to explain why what Tony had said bothered him without either sounding like an asshole, or coming out. He hadn't really had the option of being stealth before, there were plenty of kids who had gone to school with him when he transitioned, but he liked it so far. But sometimes he didn't, too. So he just stood there, considering Tony, and his options.

And then decided that 3 am wasn't the right time to make that kind of decision. Instead, he turned and got to work putting up the ingredients he'd used for his food. "I just don't believe that mob mentality is a reason to not to do something good."

"Better you than me," Tony said with a shrug, abruptly done with the whole conversation. Optimists. Go freaking figure. "But I'd keep both eyes open, you adorable little lamb you. Sheep's clothing is easy to come by. Slimming, too."

"I'll keep it in mind," he said, glad that this seemed to be done. He was tired, suddenly, and just wanted to bed.

He flipped off the coffee maker- it was done, but he didn't feel like it anymore- and gathered up his art supplies. "Goodnight, Tony," he said, sparing the other boy a final glance before he headed out. "Get some sleep, at some point."

Tony just snorted, already nose deep in his mug again. "I'll sleep when I'm dead," he called after him almost mutinously.

Steve let him get the last word, even if he was rolling his eyes, and Tony could probably hear him laugh as he headed towards the dorms.

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om_ghost

Noooo no boys don't fight. <3 I need a backup OTP while my ship is in limbo. :(

Also the "A person is smart" quote is up in our team room at work, and I had forgotten it was from MiB!