“Okay,” Tony gasped hoarsely in between hard coughs. “I’ll just…suffer in silence.” He let out another long series of coughs, but the corners of his mouth were turned up in a smirk, and he was looking at Carlos with a merry gleam in his eyes.
Carlos snorted softly and reached to take the offending cup of coffee away. “You want me to make you a new one?” he asked.
“That depends,” Tony grinned without coughing this time, “are you going to run a sample of it through the chem analyzer before you give it to me?” He was laughing silently, kind of enjoying Carlos’s unintentional knack of breaking him out of a rut.
Carlos smiled sheepishly, glancing away. “Uh… would you like me to?” he asked. It was a joke, obviously, but Carlos was playing along. Maybe he’ll do it just to make sure Stark knew that it hadn’t been on purpose… Carlos didn’t know what the hell happened. He suspected his own cup was also compromised.
Tony flashed a fond grin at Carlos and chuckled. “Either you’re stumped on something, have one of your not-fully-formed ‘Eurika’ ideas, or someone has become your latest distraction. Which one is it?” He asked teasingly.
“Huh?” Carlos asked. “Oh, no, I was just wondering if I have to make myself a new cup too. Probably… heh. I like my sugar.” What did Stark mean by ‘someone’?
“I’ll, uh… take this and be back in a bit,” he then told his boss, lifting the cup in illustration.
Tony glided out of his seat and to the other side of Carlos. "Aaaah-d-d-d-d-nah-nah-nah
-nah,“ he halted in front of Carlos with glittering eyes and a boyish grin. "Didn’t anybody tell you it’s very bad manners to completely dodge an employers question when he’s trying to show interest in your work and or personal life.” He put up his hands to emphasis a ‘pause’ in the currently one-sided conversation. "Granted, I have no business asking about your personal life, although, should you happen to want to share details about any good fortune you may have had, I’d be more than happy to join celebrating your reason for happiness. Even if it’s work happiness, I more than understand that, so don’t feel the need to keep it to yourself, that is, if you don’t want to.“
Carlos had only barely stopped before running into Stark when he stood in front of him. Carlos was honestly a little confused – his personal life? Why would anyone want to know about that?
“Heh, I have a personal life?” Carlos asked facetiously, matching Stark’s grin. He wanted to know about happiness in Carlos’ life? “As for good fortune… you know, I accidentally gave my boss a cup of coffee with salt in it instead of sugar today. But the kicker is he didn’t fire me! Talk about great luck, huh?” Carlos was still grinning to show that he was joking.
Because that’s what he did – he joked. Carlos didn’t know where Stark’s concern was, if he had any, so he wasn’t sure if he should take the other man’s comments in sincerity. He’d see how his boss reacted to the joke first.
The Perfect Scientist 