Akrasia

Chapter 22

Lainey woke up exhausted. She probably only got 5 hours of sleep, which is not good for her by any means. When she mustered enough strength to climb out of her warm haven underneath all her blankets, she went slowly towards the kitchen.
When she arrived Nat was sitting at the counter eating eggs. Lainey decided that she'd not pay attention to Nat and daze off. That worked during the beginning of her breakfast until Nat left. Then came back in.
   "You look exhausted, and I'm not surprised. With what happened last night." Nat said throwing a box next to her. Lainey didn't even acknowledge Natasha and just glanced towards the box. "You know you could answer me."
    "What am I supposed to say?" Lainey asked.
    "Good morning or agree with me at least." Nat stated.
    "Well good morning. And yes, I'm tired." Lainey said returning to her bowl of cereal.
   "Your old suits in that box." Nat commented gesturing to the box next to Lainey.
   "Oh, okay." Lainey replied standing up to put her dishes in the seat. An eyebrow was raised from Nat at the sight of how exaggeratedly slow Lainey was walking.
    "You might want to take a nap." Nat added taking in Lainey's puffy eyes.
    "Why? I'll wake up eventually."
    "Yes, but we're leaving at 1 am tomorrow. Which means you're not sleeping, or you're going to bed at 4 pm which I doubt is going to occur." Nat explained.
   "Oh yeah." Lainey said remembering the whole plan for the mission. "Thanks for the suit." Lainey started walking away with the box.
   "Your welcome." Natasha responded walking away. Before she left she turned around and asked, "You sure about this whole Night Rider thing?"
    "Yeah. What more could I do." Lainey replied with a heavy breath.
    "I don't know. But it might be hard for you, to go back there. I just want to make sure your fine with it." Nat explained watching Lainey staring out the window.
    "I'll get through it, and who knows, maybe it will help me get over all this Hydra crap."
    "Yeah, Okay." Nat said before walking off still unsure about her decision:
    As much as Lainey didn't like the idea she knew she'd have to do it. It was the best way for them to complete the mission. Then she'd be useful for once in her life too. Lainey doesn't believe that she already is, she's been told too many times that she's useless, so doing this will clear her conscious in a way.
    The box was thrown onto her bed without getting an ounce of attention from Lainey. Lainey was too busy having her head run over everything that needed to be done before tonight.
    Her next destination was Tony's lab. When she made it there she found both the science bros working together.
   "Hey guys." Lainey said just loud enough for them to hear.
   "Oh hey Lainey. What do you need?" Bruce greeted smiling with some technology in his hands.
   "I was wondering if the flash drive is ready. Or whatever you want to call it." Lainey stated walking towards him.
   "Oh yes. It's almost done. I'm just having my computer run a few diagnostic checks which will only take a few moments. Then I'll show you." Bruce explained returning his attention to another screen as it beeped.
   "Mkay." Lainey said walking towards a chair to wait.
   "By the way Lainey, I've got something for you." Tony said in a mockingly voice. Lainey turned her attention to him and replied,
   "And That is?" Tony just laughed and said,
    "I guess you'll have to walk over here to find out." Lainey rolled her eyes and walked over to Tony. Tony had is fists closed behind his back.
   "Puck left or right, and you'll get to keep what's in the hand." He stated dramatically. Once again Lainey rolled her eyes, but she chose, "Left."  
    Tony drew his left hand and opened it up. "Congrats. You get to keep them!" He yelled sarcastically. Lainey grabbed them and realized that the tiny spheres were the earpieces.
   "Thanks Tony. But you realize how pointless that little game was right? It wouldn't have changed anything because I'd still have been given these." Lainey commented.
   "Was it though?" Tony just said sassily making Lainey not even wanting to argue.
   "Anyways. You'll just stick them in your ear right behind that flap." He said touching Lainey's ear and pointing to the area.
   "Flap? Seriously!" Lainey commented grinning at the fact that tony used the word flap to explain an ear.
  "What! I'm no doctor. Do you know what it's called?" Tony asked.
   "No."
    "Exactly because you're not a doctor." Tony mocked before returning to his explanation. "It's smaller and better quality than your last ones. Which is hard to beat because all of my invention are amazing."
   "You do know Bruce helped you too. Right?" Lainey added pointedly.
   "Yes, but he only did 12 percent of the work. I did the other 88." Tony stated hurt, or faked hurt.
    "Okay, well thanks anyways." Lainey said walking away from the man with an ego taller than himself with heels on. Which Lainey has found out he does quit a lot.
"Oh, by the way. If you need Tylenol just ask Friday and she'll direct you to some in a random cupboard." Tony added grinning.
"Why would I need Tylenol?" Lainey asked suddenly confused.
"Because of your head. It must hurt terribly after last night and all that pulling on your scalp." He commented slyly holding back a laugh.
"How did you know about that?" Lainey whispered threateningly making sure Bruce didn't hear.
"I have cameras all over this place. Plus, I heard you two and sense you disrupted my sleep I decided to figure out why. It was very entertaining." Tony mused with a large grin. Lainey just stared him down, but he made no thought of her as he kept grinning.
"Don't bring it up around anyone." Lainey ordered. It wasn't the fact that she was mad at him for snooping. But the fact that he saw her with her guard completely down and acting like a child. She was embarrassed none the less, and wanted to make sure no one other than Steve, Nat, Bucky, and apparently now Tony knew of their little hair situation
"If it does come up it will be an accident." Tony stated sarcastically. Lainey just gave up with Tony and stormed off to Bruce. Bruce just smiled at her and sympathetically said,
"One minute and then it's done."
"Okay." After a minute the computer beeped and ejected the little flash drive looking thing from its input area.
"Let me explain this to you." Bruce said grabbing the flash drive device. "This has to be plugged in basically and it'll do the work for you. Although, you'll need to make sure the computer is on and the password screen is on. Tony came up with a way to have it hack into the main computer without the password. Once you're in, you need to pull up the app that comes up when the flash drive in inputted. It will show up on the right hand corner. On it there will be a button that asks for search approval. Click yes. Then the drive will do the rest. When it's done it'll beep at you and pull up the same tiny notification in the right hand corner. Click eject so you don't loose the information. Then you're done and get out of there. Okay?" Bruce explained as briefly but throughly as possible. Lainey just hoped she'd remember the direction as she replied,
"Got it. Thanks a lot too."
"Of course."
"Bye guys, see ya later!" Lainey called out behind her and she heard some quiet good byes back. Once she was in her room Lainey switched out her earpieces. The new ones were way more comfortable. Plus, you couldn't see them, which was great in Lainey's mind.
Lainey decided that she'd take a nap for a couple hours so she'd actually be able to complete the mission with out horribly messing it up. When she woke up it was 4:00 pm. Which meant she slept for a decent 5 hours. Which also meant that she didn't take a nap, she full on slept as she would a night.
Lainey was bored and was not looking forward to later. So she pulled out her phone and decided to text Peter.