"Yeah." Tony let her look over his shoulder at the pokeball he was fiddling with. "Heavy Balls tend to be on the more expensive side," he said. "I'm seeing if I can modify a pokeball or make a different variety of a Heavy Ball that's cheaper to produce and cheaper to buy."

"Heavy Balls are made of apricorns," Maeve pointed out. "So you have to grow them, harvest them, dry them, and then fit them with the right electronic bits for them to work. So it makes sense that they're a bit pricey." She grinned. "Lucky for Sean, he only has Landslide that needs it. Cutter and Buzzer have regular pokeballs."

"Yeah, well, I bet I could make the equivalent of a Heavy Ball without the whole apricorn thing," Tony grumbled. "Cheaper and with less time involved."

"Don't," Maeve advised. "Times are tough enough in this economy without you putting the entire apricorn industry out of business."

"I won't put them out of business," Tony protested. "Besides, now that I've had the idea, I have to see if I can."

"Fine, try it," Maeve said. "We'll even test it for you. But don't put it into big production. There are too many jobs in the apricorn-pokeball industry to do that." She looked at him. "I'll have a memo about it sent to Miss Potts, if I have to."

Tony Looked at her. "Miss Whitmore. I realize you haven't known me for very long, so I'll tell you once. If I say I'm not going to put them out of business, I mean it. Furthermore, I do not need one of my own employees threatening me. Now kindly be on your way before I lose my temper."

Maeve almost quailed. Almost. But she was used to people trying to intimidate her, and she'd had employers get annoyed with her before.

"Mr. Stark," she said, "my job is actually to stay here. I apologize if you took what I said badly, and I acknowledge that I could have chosen my words better, but as someone who needed two jobs before this just to keep an apartment, I know how valuable a job, any job, can be."

"Yeah, sure, whatever, just go find someone else to bother. Jarvis, ask Peps to find somewhere else to put her for the rest of the day." Tony didn't even look up from his work.

"Of course, sir. Miss Whitmore, if you'll please wait in the hallway for Miss Potts?"

Maeve was quiet for a moment before she nodded and left the lab.

Pepper came down a few minutes later, looking at Maeve for a few moments before she sighed. "What did you do to piss him off?" She didn't sound accusatory, though.

"I opened my mouth," Maeve said, wincing just a little. "Probably my first mistake, huh?"

"Tony normally doesn't mind people expressing their opinions," Pepper said carefully. "As long as they're constructive criticism rather than just an outpouring of hate."

"Of which I was neither," Maeve said. She sighed. "I don't even know what I'm doing here, clearly I was better off in retail."

Pepper waved her off. "Don't worry about it, when I started I had no idea what I was getting into. You'll get used to Tony and his quirks. Besides, if he didn't have security throw you out of the building bodily then you're probably okay. He'll get over it."

"He wants to make something to replace the Heavy Ball," Maeve said. "He took it badly when I said it was a bad idea to put an entire industry out of business. Although I may have said it twice."

"No, that's not enough to make him kick you out," Pepper said, shaking her head. Then she paused. "What else did you say?"

"...That if he was going to try to mass-produce it I'd tell you," Maeve said quickly, cringing. "Like I said, I opened my mouth. That was my first mistake."

Pepper sighed. "First rule with Tony: Don't ever threaten him. Especially not with me. He values input, not threatening. He's had more than enough of that for a few lifetimes."

"Yeah, I was better off in retail," Maeve said. "Maybe there's time to get my old job back..."

"I doubt it," Pepper said with a shrug. "One screw up isn't the end of a career." She paused for a moment. "Besides, SHIELD won't let you go that easily, they'll just reassign you if Tony really refuses to work with you."

"Yeah, where are they going to reassign a TM specialist?" Maeve muttered. She shook her head a bit. "Now if I was smart, I'd just head down to the TM labs and stay there."

Pepper shrugged. "It's up to you, but I doubt Coulson will let you stay down there for long," she said. "If I were you, I'd give Tony the afternoon to cool off. By tomorrow he'll be fine."

"Then I'm going to go barricade myself in the TM labs and see if I can't get Signal Beam into a TM," Maeve said, taking a step back. "It would be useful to a lot of trainers, since a lot of pokemon can learn it through tutoring."

Pepper nodded. "Alright. I'll let you know if we need your help somewhere else. Try not to be too hard on yourself."