"I can tell," Pepper replied. "What's going on?"

"I'm gutting a car," Tony said, briefly making a face. "It needs some work, so it's being temporarily gutted, so if this isn't life or death you can call back later. Unless it's about a meeting I'll dodge anyway in which case you can schedule with Jarvis."

"Tony, I know something is wrong," Pepper said. "Jarvis wouldn't have left me a note otherwise. And you only gut your cars when you're agitated. Now come on, tell me what's going on."

Tony gave up abruptly with a sigh. "Just got into a fight with Maeve." That would tell Pepper all the pertinent information.

"A fight or a Fight?" Pepper asked. There was a serious difference between the two, and his answer would tell her exactly how much damage control she had to do.

"A Fight," Tony admitted with a sigh. "If you really want details I'm sure Jarvis can replay it for you."

Oh that sounded even nastier than normal.

"I'd rather hear it from you," Pepper said. She paused for a moment. "Give me fifteen minutes, and I can be there." Long enough for Tony to either drink another pot of coffee or crack open another bottle of scotch, and at this point Pepper would allow either one. To a point.

"You might not want to come down here," Tony said. "It's not pretty." Meaning not only was there more grease around, but he wasn't in a social mood. Still. He'd likely go for the scotch instead of the coffee.

"Tony, when have your moods ever been anything resembling 'pretty'?" Pepper asked as she got up and gathered her things. "I'll be there soon."

Tony hung up without saying anything else. Instead he went to go clean up some and break open the scotch. He had his first glass still when she arrived.

As soon as she was in the lab, Pepper went right over to him.

"Hey," she said quietly. "Talk to me. What happened?"

"Fury decided it was time to try spying on me again," Tony said, taking a sip of his drink. He was taking his time for once. "Ordered Maeve to keep an eye on me. You know how well that went over when she told me."

"I can imagine," Pepper said. "She told you, though, that's something, right?"

"She told me after asking if I was doing anything dangerous or stupid." Tony shook his head. "And then defended Fury's orders." If it had been just that, though, Tony would have simmered down by the next morning.

"I see." Pepper didn't comment on that; right now, it was just time for Tony to vent, not for her to try to analyze what was going on. "I'm thinking that's not all of it."

"She came in a little bit later and ordered me to eat. Suggested first, then ordered." Tony sneered. "I don't need people telling me what to do. I'm not as stupid as most people seem to think; I've got Jarvis monitoring me all the time and he makes sure I eat when I need to. I don't need anyone else trying to do that job, especially not if they're going to order me to."

It all came down to orders, apparently. That was good, it meant that Tony was chafing against authority, rather than against Maeve herself.

"So she tried to get you to eat something," Pepper said. "And then what?"

"I disagreed. She yelled. Something about people wouldn't need to step in if I didn't do stupid reckless dangerous things all the time." Tony's eyes flashed again at that, his voice chilly but not cold. Yet.

Pepper raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment on that. Personally, she agreed with that assessment, but that was definitely not something to say aloud at the moment.

"I take it she left after that," she said instead.

"I kicked her out of the lab and revoked her pass code," Tony said. "Don't look at me like that, Petter, you've known me a long time. You know I do things that most people would consider stupid. You also know that I'm a freaking genius, I now have Bruce around to help me a lot, and Jarvis keeps track of everything. I've almost died too many times to try in my own goddamn lab."

"I know that your brain never calms down enough for you to relax," Pepper replied calmly. "I know that you need to keep your hands busy with something all the time. I know you run equations in your head that would make average people cry just to amuse yourself." She put a hand on his arm gently. "And I also know that this isn't about Maeve. This is about you and your problems with authority. I'm not accusing you of anything," she added before he could protest, "we all know that it's just how you are. But think about it, Tony. She got orders to spy on you, and instead of spying, she trusted your judgement enough to ask if you were working on anything unusual, and then told you what she'd been ordered to do."

"And then, after I outright told her I don't follow orders, she ordered me to eat dinner," Tony argued. "If she had stopped after the first fight, yeah, okay, I'd still be messing around in here but I wouldn't have done anything else. I can admit that you're right about that much. But she didn't stop, she didn't listen to me."

Pepper looked at him for a moment.

"Alright," she said simply. "I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm not saying she's right. But did you think for a moment that maybe she was just as angry and frustrated from the first fight as you were?"

"Yes," Tony said. "I have. I've been running through it while working on the car." But he wasn't going to say he was wrong, and he wasn't going to forgive Maeve.

Not until tomorrow at least when he'd had a chance to properly wear himself out.

Pepper nodded. At least he was thinking about it, that was a good sign. Stretching a bit, she finally let Espeon and Milotic out of their pokeballs. They knew not to get in Tony's way, and it seemed like she was going to be there for a while yet.