Evolution // An MCU Story (Book Two)

ii

I squinted down at the project I had laid out in front of me, leaning a little closer as I worked on finishing the last of the electrical work.

"Ow!" Tony exclaimed from his desk for the millionth time.

Fourty-six. JARVIS counted, and even he sounded like he agreed that this was, in fact, a bad idea.

"Ugh." I grumbled understand my breath as my hand slipped. I bit my lip in concentration as I leaned forward even more, trying not to mess up and avoid being distracted by the constant shouts of pain.

"Ow."

Forty-seven. JARVIS continued.

"Ow!"

I groaned in frustration, rolling my eyes as I messed up again. "This is ridiculous." I told him, trying to focus.

"Wrong." He said simply, and I finally gave up and set down my tools, sighing as I looked over at him, blinking as my vision clouded for a split second from lack of sleep.

"Do you need help with that?" I asked, and he just shook his head as he wiped the blood off his arm. 

Sir, please may I request just a few hours to calibrate- JARVIS started.

"No." Tony interrupted, aiming the device to his arm. "Forty-eight." He yelled out in pain again, making me wince. "Micro-repeater implant sequence complete." 

As you wish, sir. JARVIS responded. I've also prepared a safety briefing for you to entirely ignore.

"Which I will." He agreed before looking over at me. "All right, let's do this."

I nodded, giving a small smile before he looked up and noticed DUM-E sweeping on the other side of the room.

"DUM-E." He called out, and I followed his gaze and tilted my head to the side as I watched. "Hi, DUM-E. How did you get that cap on your head? You earned it."

A smile spread across my face and I held back a laugh, not wanting to hurt the robot's feelings. But he looked ridiculous, and I was living for it.

"Hey. Hey!" Tony exclaimed getting up and hitting a piece of wooden training equipment on the way to the robot. "What are you doing out of the corner? You know what you did." He pointed over at his desk as I got up to follow him for the next test run. "Blood on my mat. Handle it."

Sir, may I remind you that you have both been awake for nearly seventy-two hours? JARVIS announced, and I couldn't help but laugh.

That was a very embarrassing issue I had been facing lately. I cannot stop laughing. 

Like seriously, it's a problem.

When I stay up for this long, I go from normal, to grumpy, then spacey, and finally I become absolutely delirious and find everything just way too funny until eventually I pass out because my body just cannot take it anymore. Then I'll sleep for a few hours and start all over again.

Tony had just way too much energy all of the time, and would do literally anything to prevent having to sleep, the same as me.

I'd known for years that I'd gotten my bad habit of burying myself in any project I can get my hands on to avoid sleeping or thinking or dealing with my issues from my father. But if he hadn't figured that out before, it was glaringly obvious now. 

Especially with how much time we spent together avoiding sleep, it was very clear that I was his daughter. The similarities almost freaked me out sometimes.

We were down in the workshop pretty much all the time, and even through the exhaustion and panic attacks, I still loved every second of it.

He completely ignored JARVIS and I snapped out of my thoughts when he started to speak again.