"I'm sorry, I don't take orders," Tony said, his eyes flashing as he looked up. "From anyone, let alone a SHIELD agent."

"Honestly, Tony!" Maeve retorted. "I want you to eat because you haven't had anything in probably thirty hours and that's not good for you!"

"I have had my shakes, which is better than nothing, and Jarvis has been monitoring me," Tony said, his voice still cold. "What's not good for me is following orders. Not my style."

"I'm just trying to look after you," Maeve said stubbornly. "And that includes making sure you don't run yourself into the ground."

"Are you really?" Tony kept his focus on her. "Because looking out for me doesn't include spying on me or reporting back to Fury on what I do, because that is none of his business."

"Yes, I am really!" Maeve retorted hotly. "And nobody would need to keep an eye on you if you didn't do stupid, dangerous shit all the time!"

Tony went absolutely cold at that. "If I didn't do stupid, dangerous shit all the time." He looked at her for the moment. "That's ironic, coming from you. You who joined SHIELD and not only work for them and get into dangerous situations all the time because they tell you to, but you also decide to join the fight when the Avengers have something to deal with. If that's not stupid and dangerous by itself then I don't know what is, especially considering your joining the fight knocked you out of commission for six months. At least I've never been down for that long." He stood finally, approaching her. "Get the hell out of my lab."

"Fine." Maeve set the plate down hard and stalked out of the lab, Gardevoir close behind her. Instead of heading back upstairs, though, she detoured to the gym. She needed to hit something.

"Jarvis, revoke her entry code until I say otherwise," Tony said.

"Yes, sir." Jarvis didn't really agree with either of them, which is why he did as Tony said. He understood Tony's position more than Maeve's, though. And he knew for now there was nothing to be done. For now.

Down in the gym, Maeve took out everything on one of the punching bags. It didn't take her long before she found herself sitting on the floor, though, more upset than angry. Gardevoir just stayed near her, trilling softly and trying to help, and Ditto crawled into her lap.

Julie made her way down to the gym when Jarvis told her that she should, blinking when she found Maeve there.

"Maeve? What's going on?" She rarely spent time in the gym, at least the one at the tower.

"Oh--" Maeve looked over, still sitting on the floor. "I'm-- It's--" She slumped a bit and looked at Julie helplessly. Her face was pale but her eyes were red. She'd clearly been crying.

Julie moved over and sat across from her. "What happened?" she asked quietly. Because of course she could tell Maeve had been crying, and that didn't happen often.

Maeve mentally scrambled for an answer.

"I don't know," she finally offered faintly. "We-- we fought. I made him mad. He kicked me out."

"Tony?" Julie blinked. "Well, that's new. Especially considering how worried he's been while you were healing."

"I don't know what happened," Maeve said, tearing up again. She blinked and the tears spilled over, and for a moment she seemed a little bewildered as to where the tears were coming from.

Julie sighed and sat next to her, hugging her briefly. "Tell me what happened. Maybe I can help get things figured out."

Maeve didn't move, but Gardevoir flinched when Julie hugged the other agent. The Ralts line were empathic pokemon; Gardevoir was likely feeling everything Maeve was.

"I got orders," Maeve said quietly after a few long moments of silence. "They wanted me to keep an eye on him, I don't know why. It seemed weird, so I asked when I came back if he was doing anything unusually dangerous. He got offended, and kept taking jabs at me for it." She wiped her face on her sleeve. "I brought down some dinner, and everything just... exploded."

"Ah." Julie had noticed Gardevoir flinched and let go, giving Maeve room instead. "Alright. Give him a couple of days to calm down and get his head on straight again. I don't know what's bugging him, but I can talk to him or I can ask Bruce or Steve to."

"He kicked me out of the lab," Maeve said. "It wouldn't surprise me if he kicked me out of the tower, as well."

"You're still in the tower," Julie pointed out. "If he wanted you out of the tower, he could have had the elevator take you up to the landing pad or all the way down to the front atrium."

"I know, but maybe he hasn't decided to yet," Maeve said, biting her lip. Clearly, she wasn't thinking quite straight.

Julie snorted. "When Tony's mad, he does everything right then," she said. "He hasn't kicked you out yet, as long as you don't go back in and piss him off more, he's not going to. Trust me on this. You're a little too close right now to see."

Maeve just hunched down a bit, cuddling Ditto for comfort.

Back in the lab, Jarvis had sent something of an SOS to the one person who could actually get through to Tony with any sort of success. And so Pepper was calling.

Tony ignored the first two calls. By the third call, though, even he knew he couldn't avoid Pepper forever.

"Kinda busy right now, Peps," he said when he finally answered, up to his elbows in a car.