Room 307, Wednesday Evening

[dollpocalypse]

Freshly back from what had been, without a doubt, the coolest class ever, Topher was back in his room, playing around with his AI schematics. Yes, strictly speaking, those had been part of a collaborative project with Tony -- or even loosely speaking, really, because the project had been sort of for Tony in the first place -- but come on, could you resist the appeal of poking at artificial intelligence schematics right after having a class taught by someone who was, to all appearances, an actual artificial intelligence?

Didn't think so.

And it wasn't like he was going to actually implement them, or anything. But if he was working on coding a distinctly terrifying personality just to see if he could, then that was totally okay.

Yup. Totally okay.

[[door and post open!]]

Comments

[ultron_junior]

"It's been a weird month," Victor shrugged. "I can see letting stuff kind of fall to the side."

[dollpocalypse]

Topher nodded. "Especially, uh, Tony stuff."

Wow, that nervous tic of wringing the hell out of his hands was really something.

"So yeah."

[ultron_junior]

Victor was, for a 17-year-old left-brained half-android, a fairly intuitive person.

However, he was still 17 and left-brained, and the only times he'd seen Tony and Topher together recently, there had been a lot of other distractions. So: "... there's a Tony problem?"

[dollpocalypse]

"Um." Now, it was possible that Topher was a drama queen, mind. "In the other world? And stuff? There was... fighting and stuff. And he and I haven't really talked about it, so..."

[ultron_junior]

"So, he's probably cool with it, right?" Victor guessed. "I mean, if he wanted to say something, he would. It's not like it was totally us."

Repressing and being cool with something were totally the same thing, right?

[dollpocalypse]

Topher mumbled a slightly-less-than-fully-intelligible version of-- "Well for me and him it sort of almost was."

Awkward.

[ultron_junior]

"Except with a whole bunch of experiences you hadn't had," Victor said, a bit unsteady, and now he was rubbing at the spot of skin inside his elbow that hid his access port. "I don't know. I'm just saying, to him it's probably over."

[dollpocalypse]

"Maybe," Topher mumbled, but he wasn't quite convinced. On account of having the weirdest guilt issues ever. He'd never had a moral crisis before, okay? "It's hard to tell. He's all... Tony."

Eloquent.

[ultron_junior]

"Still better than the one at home," Victor mumbled back, and sighed. "Look, you think he'd even take the time to talk to you if he thought you were broken deep down?"

[dollpocalypse]

"Kind of," Topher said. "He talks to his supervillains, probably. Provides banter and stuff."

Topher, really.

[ultron_junior]

Victor reached over to swat Topher lightly on the shoulder, rolling his eyes. "Right. And he also takes supervillains to the Savage Land. For banter."

[dollpocalypse]

Topher had to admit Victor had a point there. "He might if he's trying something strategic with them?" he tried, but without much conviction behind it. Because... no. "Okay, I see your point."

[ultron_junior]

"Good. Sometimes I have one," Victor said firmly, and ran a hand back through his hair before something else occurred to him. "Are you still mad at him?"

[dollpocalypse]

"What? No." Topher blinked. "He was all... you know, doing good stuff. Like. Anti-me stuff. Which was good."

[ultron_junior]

"Oh! Right." That actually made sense. "So ... I dunno, man. I think it will be okay."

[dollpocalypse]

"If you say so," Topher said, a little dubiously but not nearly as much as he would've been at the beginning of the conversation. "Man, Fandom sucks sometimes."