Chapter Text
“I’m just worried.” Steve was punching, a thwap-thwap underscoring his conversation with Sam. “I mean, he just seems to be preoccupied.”
“Maybe it’s SI?” Sam offered from where he was stretching after their run. He eyed the punching bag, but it was not yet parallel to the ceiling, so Steve wasn’t incredibly upset. Then again, if he was that upset, their omega would be done here in a hot second. He grinned suddenly, remembering when he had believed that his mother was omniscient since she appeared in an instant when he got hurt. “Tony generally doesn’t really share about the company.”
“Nope.” Steve blew out, “Talked with her earlier this week and she was saying how well everything was going with the new CFO. And she’s in Japan this week.”
“OK, still could be SI. Maybe it’s the guys in R&D or the ones in production?” They both made a face. None of the Avengers, except for Natasha, ever had much to do with SI, but they had all heard about Production. Tony went on long rants about their incompetence that were very entertaining, if completely incomprehensibly to all of them, except Bruce. The omega had sworn several times that Production existed to make his life a living hell. The Hulk and Thor had once offered to go visit, but Tony had stopped that.
“No, he’s being quiet. I mean, he isn’t upset; it’s more like he is concentrating on something else. And before you say it, this is not his ‘I’m having a genius moment’ concentration.”
“Since he was in the kitchen this morning, getting Clint to make him French toast, it never crossed my mind that he was in genius mode.” They shared a grin at that. Although Sam had only been with he Avengers Pack for a couple of months, he had already seen several ‘genius moments’ including one where Tony had to be gently dissuaded form creating a sentient Von Neumann probe by Bruce (who was the only one of them who knew what it was and why that was such a bad idea for sleep-deprived engineer to create).
“This is generally the point in the conversation where you start telling me to go and talk to him.” Steve prodded, having finished with his boxing workout and moving on to weights.
“Take it as read.” Shot back Sam. Who was now on to stretching and thinking about a snack. “But, as usual for me, it’s the best idea.” And he sauntered out the door.
Steve wandered over to the special weight set in the corner that Tony had designed for the super-powered members of the team. As he set up the ultra-heavy weights (and in the back of his mind, he could hear Tony complaining/boasting about creating the set), he turned the behavior of the omega over in his mind. Tony had been acting strangely the last few weeks. He would spend hours peering at his tablet – which was not that unusual. But he didn’t seem to be creating anything, just watching videos. And that was very unlike him. Steve had asked casually (and he hoped subtly) what Tony was watching. But Tony had been evasive in his replies.
Of course, Steve hadn’t been subtle enough as Tony had started retreating to his lab, as opposed to working in the pack room. JARVIS hadn’t been any help either. Any query to the AI had just brought assurances that his creator was fine and there was nothing happening that needed to worry Steve. Steve had figured that he was getting a little too pushy when he found out that he had been locked out of the labs after his last clumsy attempt to figure out what was going on.
“It’s your own fault!” he scolded himself to the tune of the clanging weights. “You know that Tony has been trying to draw more lines with the Pack and you just blundered all over his boundary signs. Besides, it isn’t as if he isn’t paying attention to the Pack.” Tony was still around and available and the Pack was humming for the most part. But Steve could just tell that something was distracting the omega and it was going to drive the alpha crazy until he figured it out.