om_main | Tony and Noriko, backdated to September 27

Following Philip's advice, Noriko goes to talk to Tony about upgrading her gauntlets. He agrees, but his attitude is less than comforting to her, so much so that she ends up walking out in a huff.

Noriko knew where the lab was, even though she had never set foot there. She'd seen Kitty phase in and out of it often enough as she walked by, and her voice or the Stark guy's could often be heard through the door, talking excitedly about whatever they were up to - sometimes to themselves, from what little Noriko had heard.

It was her first time knocking on the door, though, the metal of her gauntlet making it a different-sounding knock than most.

The clanging at least got Tony's attention in a hurry, fast enough that he nearly slammed the top of his head into Dummy's outstretched arm. "Sarah Connor's in the next room over," he called back with a faint grimace.

Noriko rolled her eyes, and opened the door to walk in. "Hey," she greeted Stark, her tone as wry as her appreciation of his 'joke'. And then she went straight to the point, because it was what she did. "Philip suggested I talk to you about upgrading these." She held up her hands, wiggling her fingers. "If you have time for a side project," she added, especially since wow, the state of their lab. It looked like they already had a thousand and one projects going on.

He'd been about to glance over and say something suitably clever about exactly how much time he had, but the sight of the metal encasing her hands killed the statement before it could even register. "What," Tony ended up saying instead, staring at her, "the hell."

Awesome. He was one of those kids too self-absorbed to ever really pay attention to the other students. Good thing Philip had warned her about him. "They regulate the way I absorb and release electricity," Noriko explained. "Without them, I'm an electrical freak accident waiting to happen."

"And they...have to look like oven mitts because you like the fashion?" Tony gave her a deeply skeptical look.

"I was grateful they managed to pull together anything that would work," Noriko replied wryly. Honestly, she'd gotten used to them, although her first impression had been less than favorable. "I was mostly hoping you could make them combat-ready, but if you wanna improve their style while you're at it, knock yourself out."

Now they were talking. Tony dropped into his seat with a somewhat self-satisfied grin. "And what's your version of combat ready? Just punching people in the face or what?"

Noriko walked over, unfastening the gauntlet that had taken the worst of the impact, that day in the City. "Ideally," she confirmed. "They got jostled, nothing as bad as punching someone," they'd been in her bag, after all, "and the finger joints are already stiffer than they used to be." As she spoke, she showed him what she meant, then relinquished the gauntlet to him entirely.

He gave her a bit of an arched eyebrow as the thing came off -- so it wasn't a 'wear all the time or you're dead' thing, good to know -- but accepted the hunk of metal with equanimity. "So basically something a lot smaller that won't break randomly, yeah?" It got a flash of a grin from Tony. "I think I can manage that."

"That won't break even not randomly would be better," Noriko replied. "I told the Doc I was gonna talk to you about them, so you can get the blueprints, if you need them." It was because of the way Tony was, and her overly cautious nature when it came to her powers, that she added, "I really don't care about their looks that much, mostly what they do." If he wanted to revamp them, fine, especially if the new and improved version turned out to be wearable in public, but efficiency trumped style any day.

"Cool," Tony said distractedly as he eyed the thing, then turned back to her. "Take 'em both out and hold you hands up. Palms down, fingers spread," he said, holding his own out to demonstrate.

Noriko really didn't like the way he wasn't listening to her all that much, but for now, she complied, unfastening the second gauntlet and pulling it off before holding her hands the way he had instructed her to.

He made a sound of faint approval and spun around to do some rapid typing on the keyboard. Which promptly produced some glowing green lines that wrapped themselves around her hands to form a perfect wireframe outline. "Excellent," Tony said in a tone of deep satisfaction.

"O-kay," Noriko replied doubtfully, and dropped her hands once the green lines disappeared.

"Keep your pants on, it's just a mold. Sort of. In that it's not that at all but will at least let me build something that will fit," Tony said without looking at her.

Sure, whatever. Noriko picked up her gauntlets. "Do you need to have a look at those, or...?"

That did at least earn her a raised eyebrow. "Don't you need them for the no-electrical-accidents thing? I got to tell you, there's a lot of stuff in here I don't really want zapped."

"I can do without for a while," Noriko replied. Or she wouldn't have asked. "My body self-regulates up to a point." She could sleep without them, for one thing, unless she'd spent too long without them before going to sleep.

"Yeah, but I'm guessing you probably don't want me to take them apart," Tony said, suddenly taking a turn for the oddly reasonable.

"I really don't," Noriko confirmed, extremely dryly.

"So won't help me much. I'll talk to MacTaggert, you said she set them up in the first place, right?"

"With the Professor," Noriko elaborated, but she was more in touch with the Doc than the Prof. "They'll get you the blueprints."

"Same difference," Tony said with a dismissive wave. "Some adult somewhere, whatever. I could probably just go find them myself, but asking works too."

Noriko didn't really care very much how he went about it, and she finished fastening her gauntlets back on. She wasn't sure what to make of Tony, and probably would have told him to forget it if it hadn't been Philip recommending she talk to him. "You get that this is important, right?" He seemed not to give a shit about anything; she had to ask.

"Really? I generally think spontaneous electrocution looks a lot like fireworks," Tony said in as deadpan a tone as he could manage.

Seriously, was there anything that wasn't a joke to this guy? "I'm serious," Noriko pointed out, probably unnecessarily, but what could she say. She wanted to know that he took it seriously, too.

"Congratulations. Did you want me to get to work or would you rather just stand around and state the obvious? Because that's fine, I'm sure Dummy'd love to hear it."

"You know what, forget I asked," Noriko replied as a wave of anger surged through her, and she turned on her heels to get the hell out. She would just ask Kitty. Screw this guy.