The World Keeps Changing

Chapter 2

The alarm went off at 5am, and I rolled out to do it again. I took care of the penthouse, and went back downstairs to help with the general operations of catering and cafeteria. The handshake happened, as I expected, and I spent 2pm to 7pm prepping a pop up executive dinner, 7-9 overseeing it, and 9-midnight making sure the party flowed into the afterparty and the after-after party seamlessly.

The next day was much the same, except I woke up to my leg aching. I did my best to stretch it out before I rolled out of bed, donning my standard chef uniform and beanie because I hated chef toques. I reviewed the POs for the day around 6, stocked Chuck, and headed upstairs to stock the Avenger kitchen with grab and go meals and snacks and protein shakes and smoothies. Then, I made a couple of wraps and a tea and invaded the lab.

"What's up, Cookie!" Stark didn't look up and Banner didn't acknowledge me.

"Tony, Pepper told me to force feed you if necessary. Take 10, dudes."

Now Dr. Banner looked up from the holoscreen he was looking at with Tony, obviously just noticing me. "Oh, hi."

"Good morning, Dr. Banner." I chuckled. "Come on, you two. The quicker you eat this, the quicker we can all go on about our business." I liked Banner, he reminded me of a lot of academics I knew, passionate, divergent, and generally disheveled. But, I limited interactions with him, without actively avoiding him, because he reminded me of my late husband Paul sometimes in a way that made my chest so tight it was hard to breathe. I too quickly fell into easy conversation with him, his quiet but intense energy and gentle demeanor was so familiar. His ever tousled hair and slightly rumpled shirts begged grooming and his loneliness was so palpable it made me want to hug him, rather than watch him nervously hug himself.

I shoved the Darjeeling and a wrap in front of Banner and got his attention. Stark was always more difficult. He tried to absently grab the tea and I moved it quickly as I led Bruce away. "No caffeine for you. Pepper says you need to go home tonight."

He made a non-commital noise.

"Mr. Stark, may I remind you, you do not pay me, Pepper does. Because she knows I will not hesitate to put hands on you in a way you Do Not Enjoy." He ignored me, so I walked over and stuck my head through his holodisplay and directly in his face. "Ten. Minute. Break. Sir."

"Jesus, Cookie, fine! Ten minutes." He threw his hands in the air as if he had been about to comply anyway.

I handed him the other wrap and two bottles of water. "Make it happen, boss." I only had to poke Tony twice to stop looking at his watch readout and finish eating, so it went pretty smoothly.

Bruce was basically done at this point and I tricked him into a slightly longer break by engaging him in conversation while Tony was eating. I just asked him what they were working on, and he was off and running. I never fully understood the material, but I knew a little about a lot in a general sense and usually knew what to ask to get the gist of where things were going, if not where they were.

They were working on a cure for Bucky. How to deprogram him. The theory was the trauma induced by "the chair", whatever horrific Hydra invention that was, to his brain and limbic system was being healed by his serum enhanced physiology and that's why he seemed to be improving on his own. They still had to figure out how to break down the baseline Winter Soldier programming, and they were running a lot of tests to figure out how that was stored in his brain so they could basically erase it in a targeted way.

I took up their dishes and headed back to the kitchen, leaving them to their work.

Sergeant Barnes was standing in front of the fridge, looking lost. "Good morning," I said quietly as I walked in behind Chuck, who had probably already announced my presence to his super soldier ears before I ever showed up, but I generally made a point not to startle people who could rip me in half without effort. I walked around and came to the sink the other way so I wouldn't have to make him move. Then, I pulled the dirty dishes from Chuck and set them in the sink to be washed.