st_arkintern | (no subject)

(no subject)

It is a clear, windless day when Peter Parker steps outside the Madonna Inn, a backpack slung over his shoulder. Peter is grateful for the good weather. It's still a little nippy out (his nose tickles from the cold), but it's nothing that Peter can handle after fifteen New York winters.

Peter quickens his pace afterwards and jogs over to where Tony Stark is already standing on the Madonna Inn's mostly-empty parking lot. "Hey! Ready to get started?"

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“Same story. If you can navigate around the suspicion.” The AI shrugged one shoulder. “Look, Pete, I’ve only got one reservation. Just the one.”

Peter looks over at the AI. "What?"

“It’s new life we’re creating, here. Like adopting a puppy—you don’t just do it on a whim.” Tony blinked out of sight and reappeared as a separate visage of himself, except younger and sharply dressed (and somehow wielding a martini.)

“I know who I am, I know what my purpose is. That’s more than what most people can say. But Tony Stark had to dig deep. If you’ve got any doubts that’ll get inherited by your AI.”

"What kind of doubts do you think I'll have?" he asks, because he's sure that the Tony AI wouldn't have mentioned it if he didn't think Peter had doubts.

Or maybe...

"Did Tony have doubts that you have too now?"

“None.” Tony blinked out again, re-appearing at Peter’s side. “But if even a tiny part of you thinks this is a bad idea...you’ll have a sentient being with existential doubts.”

Peter spins to face him, his lips pressed tightly together; the Tony AI's sudden changes are putting him a little on-edge.

"I don't," he says. "I know that how I feel right now is how I'm going to feel forever. Seeing Tony... seeing Liz... seeing Alec and knowing how exactly they felt when they found out I was going to die --"

Peter tenses.

"-- I don't want anyone to feel that way."

Tony passed through Peter as his drink disappeared. The gesture would have to do without a body to comfort him with. “I’m a contingency. You’re talking something else. Just think about that.” He could count the minutes turning to seconds, and the payment for extra time was a sour edge the original would likely bear due to the lab mishap. “If you still wanna go through with it, find an excuse to speak in private.”

When the AI passes through him, Peter spins around, brows furrowed.

"You think he'll allow that?" Peter was surprised he allowed him any alone time with the AI at all.

“Perhaps!” The moment after the program proclaimed that, the front doors shoved open.

“Technical difficulties.” Tony kept his expression controlled as he approached, but the subtle tension in his face gave him away.

"Everything okay?" he asks, trying to will down his nervousness. He felt like he had done something wrong, even though he didn't think that he did.

“Peachy keen.” Tony replied tersely, but he left it at that. WALL-E was FAR overdue for coordination calibration.

“How was he?” By the time he’d emerged from the double doors, his clone made of light had vanished from existence.

"He was --" Peter finds the words catch in his throat. "He was fine. Seemed a lot less stressed out than you, though."

Especially right now. Tony didn't exactly seem like he was in a good mood.

"Don't worry about it." Readjusting his collar against the slight chill, Tony made a beeline for his arc reactor, now sitting by its lonesome upon the table. "Didn't...freak you out too much?" He kept turned away as he fitted it back into its home in his chest.

"No," Peter says, shaking his head. "I'd like to speak with him more sometime. It's really cool how much he's like you."

Now there was some enthusiasm. Definitely a better showing than from Thor. "Well, he is me. My essence. In essence." He ran his fingers over the smooth surface of the arc reactor that the AI called home. "I wasn't planning on breaking him out other than to test drive a few concepts."

"Don't you think it'd be good to socialize him?" Peter asks. "I think it's good to let him out more. If he has any glitches, it'll be hard to find them if you only take him out when you need him."

“Socialize him, he says. You know he doesn’t need the help adjusting.” Tony gave Peter a light noogie. “Ironing out the hinks, though...yeah, maybe. Why? You catch any?”

Peter simple accepts the noogie.

"Well, he's more well-adjusted."

“You just lost your AI privileges for that one, kiddo.” Tony took up the pen once more, flicking Peter in the nose with it.

"Come on, I was just joking!" Peter protests.

"Well, let's ask Me for the final verdict." Tony's helmet enclosed his head, projecting a familiar image into the fray.

"I just got comfortable." His other self lazily protested, flickering into an image of himself in casual robes.

Shit.

The words are halfway out of his mouth when the Tony AI projection flickers on:

"You shouldn't bother him."

When the Tony AI issues his protest, Peter's head spins to Face Tony.

"See? He's already comfortable."

"I don't need to dignify that sentiment." Tony rolled his eyes where they couldn't be seen, gesturing impatiently at the projection.

"Mmm...what was the question?" He yawned, mussing his loose, dark waves. "Oh, right, Pete and his AI privileges. Why not? There's virtually no downside unless you're worried about me going maliciously rogue like some bronze-age comic cliche."

Peter chokes back a laugh.

"Am I getting ganged up on? Is that what's happening?" Tony cocked his hip out as his mirror image shrugged innocently.

"What can I say? Pete likes me. Of course he does--it's me." Clearly gunning for posturing points, the AI smoothed his hair back in one clean sweep. "But hey, this isn't all altruistic on my end--if I handle well, maybe you can upgrade me into a physical body as handsome and classy as any Tony Stark deserves, you dig?"

"That'll get confusing real quick."