om_main | Tony and Dana, Thursday Evening

Dana finally meets the famous Tony Stark. How does she keep finding all the borderline insane geniuses?

Dana hadn't known quite what to make of her roommate when the other girl had showed up nearly vibrating, saying something about working and Tony Stark. She smiled affectionately even as she shook her head - everyone had their trigger, she guessed. That one thing that turned them into a...well, into a pre-pubescent girl.

Hey, she could admit it. To herself. Silently.

Anyway, Kitty had been so excited about it all, that Dana knew she had to go down and see it all. She spent plenty of time down in the labs anyway, with Lydia, so she knew her way around the place. Why not go visit and see what Kitty was doing?

She rapped briskly on the door as she let herself in. "Hello?"

For once, there was no cacophony of noise coming from Tony's general direction. Possibly because the boy himself was passed out face down on his worktable, just narrowly missing his own tablet.

He jerked upright at the banging on the door, just in time to squint narrow-eyed in it's direction as someone stepped in. His brain just about managed to register that it was small and female but not Kitty. Which wasn't all that helpful. "Yeah?"

"I was looking for Kitty," she said, taking a few steps closer. It looked like he'd been in a deep sleep, almost unnatural. Getting a closer look to make sure he was okay wasn't really an intrusion, then. "But I'm guessing she's not here."

"Uh," Tony said, looking quickly around, "no?" Pitched just high enough at the end to make it an actual question.

"I don't think she's learned to become invisible quite yet," Dana offered helpfully. She came in a bit further. "So I'm guessing, then, that you're Tony Stark."

"Usually," he agreed around a yawn. "Did you need something?"

Dana shrugged. "No. I was just going to see Kitty's lab."

Which wasn't her focus anymore, because something curious had already caught her attention. "Are you always tired like this?"

"You stay up for a good twenty hours or so and tell me how tired you are," Tony snorted, rolling his shoulders a little as he straightened further. Sleeping on a desk, not comfortable.

She gave him a Look. "Why were you up for twenty hours?"

Tony gave her a look that said he was doubting her intelligence more than a little. "I was busy."

Dana considered pointing out to him that that was hardly an answer, but she let her expression say that for her. Why waste the words? Especially since everything about him so far indicated he wouldn't care all that much.

"You realize, of course, that sleep deprivation decreases cognitive function," she said instead. Which he likely did - he was a prodigy, after all - but it bore repeating. Clearly.

"Sure," he said with the kind of shrug that meant he didn't much care, "but it also means that I get stuff done. Come on, tell me you've never gotten into a good groove you didn't want to lose."

Insane genius. He and Fox Mulder were two peas in a pod. Lord forbid they should ever meet. "I've never gotten into a groove so good I was willing to lose sleep for it," she replied, deadpan.

"Too bad. It's pretty awesome," Tony said with an easy grin. "So remind me who you are again?"

Dana pushed her hair over her shoulders, so she could look him in the eye (or do better at it, in any case, since he was still taller than her). Offering him her hand, she offered, "I'm Dana Scully. Kitty's roommate. It's very nice to meet you, Tony."

"You too," he said as he took her hand and then stopped. "Right! You were looking for Kitty. She's not here," Tony said with a slow nod. Really earning that genius tag, he was.

"Yes," she agreed. Dana wasn't smiling, but the crinkle at the corner of her eyes gave away her amusement. "We went over that. You're sure you're some kind of child prodigy? Because if so, it might be worth looking into the damage done by your groove."

"My brilliance will not by limited
by your social conventions," he declared, slightly broken up around another yawn. "Also you came into my space, so. Give me a break."

She quirked an eyebrow. "Don't want to share your toys?"

"Did I say that?" Tony gestured vaguely around them. "Pick something. Except Dummy, you can't have him. Probably don't want him, anyway."

"Dummy?" Dana repeated, the spark of curiosity evident in her voice.

Tony gave her a look and sighed a little before whistling sharply, though the robot in question did raise his 'head' promptly enough. "Dummy," Tony said by way of explanation. "And please don't try to rename him, I get enough of that from your roommate.

"I...don't know why I would rename him," she promised, walking over so she could look at the robot more closely. It looked simplistic, from the outside, but already she realized it was remarkable. AI did not need to look like a person to be amazing.

"Apparently it's mean to him? Or something? I don't know, ask Kitty," Tony said with a shrug as he watched Dummy twist to point his camera at Dana in turn.

It was looking at her. It definitely was. "Is he a prototype?"

"I guess you could say that," Tony agreed after a moment of thought. "More like a first try, really."

She turned to give him a Look. "First try?" Dana sounded skeptical because she was. Nothing was built overnight. "In what sense?"

"In...the sense that he was my first attempt at an independent AI?" Tony said, sounding just a bit puzzled at the need for explanation.

Dana couldn't quite help admitting, "Impressive."

"He does okay," Tony said with a smile he'd never have admitted was on the fond side. "Dumb as a brick, of course, but what can you do?"

The corner of her lips quirked upwards. "Well, I can't do anything about it. Programming isn't my thing. Still," Dana looked up at 'Dummy' again, "I can recognize some really good work."

"Eh, he's past fixing anyway. Better just to move on." Though the fact that Tony hadn't bothered scrapping the earlier version probably said a lot. "He makes a decent lab assistant when he's not breaking things."

"So you build your own lab assistants?" She guessed it made a kind of sense, but the idea still kind of amused her. Not that she showed it. Or at least not much. "What else are you working on, when you aren't building your lab army?"

Tony shrugged a little and leaned back against his workbench. "Lots of stuff. Why?"

Dana quirked an eyebrow. "Would've thought someone as famous as you would be used to people asking him questions."

"Generally because they want something," Tony agreed with a grin that was mostly teeth. "Mostly I'm curious why you ask."

She shrugged. "I ask because I want to know. Because I'm curious. What other reason is there?"

"Oh, tons," was the airy reply, never mind that Tony was actually somewhat serious about it. Not that you could tell by looking at him. A moment later, he just held up a hand to count off his fingers "But fine, so.
Robotics, car maintenance, product development and making an AI that can kick the Turing Test's ass," he finished, tucking the last finger down.

Her voice was dry. "Is that all?"

The last task alone was enough to take up years, a lifetime even, and Tony Stark ticked it off the list like he was reading what groceries he was going to get. Which probably wasn't an analogy that made much sense here, since she doubted he'd ever actually gone grocery shopping.

"Nope, just what I've got at the moment," Tony said, either not noticing or not caring about the sarcasm. "What can I say, I like to keep busy."

Dana kept her voice somewhat nonplussed, though she was still really curious. "How can you find the time to end up in the tabloids with a to-do list like that?"

"Talent?" He shrugged. "The fact that they're willing to make anything I do sound a lot more interesting than it is"

"That's awfully obliging of them," she commented. Finally unable to quite help herself, she reached for Dummy. She wasn't going to shake him or anything, but...he was really freaking cool.

The robot twisted in her direction in turn, camera shifting like he was trying to get a good look at her.
Tony just huffed something that might have been a laugh. "You get used to it."

"The sci-fi technology, or the press?" Because honestly, Dana was not entirely sure she could get used to either. Though she guessed, living in a house with Tony Stark, she was likely going to have to. He didn't seem the type to keep his toys neatly confined to one area. The press, though, she was fairly certain was not going to be her problem. Even if they found this place, which they hadn't, the number of people who qualified as 'rich and famous' would undoubtedly keep 'random girl' from serious scrutiny.

She carefully slid a hand over Dummy's...well, she guessed it sort of qualified as a torso?

Tony shifted to give her a look, partially curious and all amused. "You live in a house of people with superpowers
. How are you not used to Sci-Fi yet?" Though he could possibly grant, that his stuff was slightly on the weird side, even for that. The price of being bleeding-edge.

"Biological evolution and man-made, what look like, astounding leaps aren't quite the same." Of course, she realized, they might not be astounding leaps. For all she knew, they had been worked up through stages like anything else. But because the intervening steps were also beyond what was currently available to non-Starks, it appeared to be out of left field.

"I guess," he said a little doubtfully. "It's just about improving things. I can, so I will. Not much else to it."

Dana looked around the lab speculatively. "Do you have tech that generates a 3-D image?"

"What, holograms? Sure." Tony slid his way over to his computer and spent a moment or so typing before a wireframe flicked into view, spreading throughout the room. "Anything in particular you want to see?"

Her eyes went slightly wide as she took it in. No computer could do that. Except, of course, that one just had and now there was the proof.

Where the hell did she go to school?

"How does it scale? Is it automatic, or do you set it yourself for each individual hologram generated?"

"Think of it more as a really hands-on tablet screen," Tony said, and reached out to grab a handful of the frame, collapsing it into a ball. "Really hands on. Here, catch."
And he tossed it to her.

Her hands came up to catch it automatically - she'd grown up with brothers whose instructions to 'catch' were usually better heeded than not - even though, on reflection, she suspected nothing terrible would've happened to her if she hadn't. This was...unbelievable. There was a hologram, nothingness illuminated with light and form, just resting in her hands. It felt like nothing, but as she moved her hands around the image shifted.

Okay, she had to admit, this was really cool.

Dana expanded it upwards and outwards, and then back in. Like a holographic accordion. "That's amazing."

"It makes designing a hell of a lot easier," Tony agreed with an easy grin. "Well, and generally more awesome, but you get the point. I'm working on miniaturizing the
whole thing and putting it into handheld stuff. Prototype's doing okay so far." Not that 'okay' generally meant a lot when it came to electronics. When they failed, it tended to be spectacular.

Caught up in discovery of it all, Dana actually smiled back, dimples showing and all. "You have anything that looks inside something?"

"What," Tony blinked, "like an X-ray?"

"Or an MRI," she agreed, nodding.

"Uh." He considered that for a moment or so. "Not at the moment? I could try to work something out for you, though."

Dana blinked. She hadn't meant he needed to make something like that right this moment. She turned a little pink, and was quick to explain, "Oh, no, I didn't mean you had to. I doubt I can afford you. Just...think of the possibilities! If you combined those two things - an internal view and the ability to project it like this. You could revolutionize medicine. Law enforcement. Warfare."

"Breeches of privacy," he countered dryly, but shook his head. "Like I said I'll play around with some things. See if I can get someone to donate a backscatter to the cause or something."

"Only a breach of privacy if it's done illegally," Dana countered. "But...thanks. Really. I mean...it's really, really nice of you."

"Is it?" Tony grinned easily. "Seems to me like it's just another excuse to play with expensive things. Such a hardship, lemme tell you."

"Well, hardship or not, it's still nice of you." She wasn't generally all that effusive in her thanks, but the possibilities of what could be done with technology like that? It could save lives! It could stop criminals! It could make warfare infinitely safer - albeit infinitely more destructive.

"I am an extremely nice person," Tony agreed with great solemnity. "I don't know why people insist on saying otherwise. Anything else, while you're down here?"

Dana snorted lightly. "Are you always this humble, Mr. Stark?"

"Always. It's part of my extreme charm."

"Extreme charm," she repeated, her voice skeptical but edged with amusement. Dana didn't smile, but the corners of her eyes crinkled as though she wanted to. "I have to ask...does that usually actually work?"

That actually got Tony to pause for a moment. "Does what work?"

"Your supreme, somewhat over-the-top, confidence," Dana explained. "Does it usually actually work? Are girls...dumb enough to fall for that?"

"What would be the point of not being confident?" Tony shrugged and dropped back into his chair. "I've got the goods to back it up. Not seeing a problem."

"I never said it was a problem." Though clearly someone somewhere had, if that was his first assumption. Dana wondered what it might be covering up for. Could be anything, really, she didn't have enough information to know for sure. "I was just curious, since it seems like something you try and use to get girls."

He just snorted. "Pretty sure 'try' isn't the word I'd use," Tony said, slightly sing-song. "Since you brought it up. Mostly I'm awesome, and people recognize that. Girls or not."

She couldn't help laughing at that, softly. "You cannot be for real."

"Why not?" He tapped his chest, ignoring the slightly metallic sound. "Seems pretty real to me."

Dana was about to tell him exactly why there was no way he was for real when the sound registered. "Wait...was that...metal?"

"No idea," Tony said, cheerfully enough to hopefully cut that conversational topic off right there.

She was clearly suspicious, her eyes narrowed as she considered him for a long moment. But Dana supposed she didn't have enough proof to keep pressing him on it. This time. "Of course you don't."