It wouldn't be the first time that people — stupider people, with lesser imaginations — had called Tony Stark "bug-fuck crazy"… or rather, it wouldn't have been if he'd actually told anybody what he was doing. But he hadn't, so they couldn't, and fuck 'em anyway because he'd never been in the habit of asking anybody's permission to do exactly what he wanted.
The clunky headpiece, curving around the top of his skull and pressing rounded metal pads to his temples, was a pain in the ass though. He'd have JARVIS come up with more efficient tech later, once they'd proven the basic concept viable.
Assuming he survived. With reverse-engineered alien brain tech it was always a bit of a crap shoot, but nobody had ever accused Tony of lacking balls the size of church bells, either.
"You got my number yet?" he asked the lab in general, then chased the words with the bitter black dregs of his coffee cup.
"Alpha and beta wave synchronization is complete," his A.I. confirmed. "Theta wave synchronization is at ninety-two point five percent, and delta wave synchronization —"
"— will have to wait until I go beddy-bye." He gazed into the bottom of the empty mug, and wondered how many cups he'd drunk since they'd started this particular project. Too many, probably: his whole body was atingle with the combination of not enough sleep, too much caffeine and the crack cocaine of the cutting edge of scientific exploration.
"Which is lamentably overdue," JARVIS said tartly. "Sir, you've been up for thirty-two hours straight. Perhaps we should postpone the test run until —"
Tony had to smile at that. Even at this level of interactivity, JARVIS's perceptiveness could seem uncanny: watchfulness more than mortal, with sensors that tracked every major aspect of his creator's physiology. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were getting cold feet."
"A neat trick," JARVIS countered, "considering that I lack anything even vaguely approximating a humanoid form. Incidentally, theta wave synchronization is complete."
He closed his eyes. Drew a deep breath. "You know we don't have to do this," he said almost conversationally. "Just because we could reverse engineer the tech from the —"
"Now who's getting cold feet, Sir?" As melodic and as silky as ever, but with a frisson of… yeah, fondness. Definitely feeling of some description. The Gor'chai infiltrator had given them that much, at least: a window of one minute and five seconds duration, straight into each other's… and yeah, souls was the word that came to mind. It was the only word that had ever come to mind as far as Tony was concerned. "And after such an intriguing experience, how could I possibly resist?"
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For this week's excerpt, here's the opening to "O Night More Loving Than The Rising Sun" (The Avengers, Tony Stark/JARVIS, R).
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It wouldn't be the first time that people — stupider people, with lesser imaginations — had called Tony Stark "bug-fuck crazy"… or rather, it wouldn't have been if he'd actually told anybody what he was doing. But he hadn't, so they couldn't, and fuck 'em anyway because he'd never been in the habit of asking anybody's permission to do exactly what he wanted.
The clunky headpiece, curving around the top of his skull and pressing rounded metal pads to his temples, was a pain in the ass though. He'd have JARVIS come up with more efficient tech later, once they'd proven the basic concept viable.
Assuming he survived. With reverse-engineered alien brain tech it was always a bit of a crap shoot, but nobody had ever accused Tony of lacking balls the size of church bells, either.
"You got my number yet?" he asked the lab in general, then chased the words with the bitter black dregs of his coffee cup.
"Alpha and beta wave synchronization is complete," his A.I. confirmed. "Theta wave synchronization is at ninety-two point five percent, and delta wave synchronization —"
"— will have to wait until I go beddy-bye." He gazed into the bottom of the empty mug, and wondered how many cups he'd drunk since they'd started this particular project. Too many, probably: his whole body was atingle with the combination of not enough sleep, too much caffeine and the crack cocaine of the cutting edge of scientific exploration.
"Which is lamentably overdue," JARVIS said tartly. "Sir, you've been up for thirty-two hours straight. Perhaps we should postpone the test run until —"
Tony had to smile at that. Even at this level of interactivity, JARVIS's perceptiveness could seem uncanny: watchfulness more than mortal, with sensors that tracked every major aspect of his creator's physiology. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were getting cold feet."
"A neat trick," JARVIS countered, "considering that I lack anything even vaguely approximating a humanoid form. Incidentally, theta wave synchronization is complete."
He closed his eyes. Drew a deep breath. "You know we don't have to do this," he said almost conversationally. "Just because we could reverse engineer the tech from the —"
"Now who's getting cold feet, Sir?" As melodic and as silky as ever, but with a frisson of… yeah, fondness. Definitely feeling of some description. The Gor'chai infiltrator had given them that much, at least: a window of one minute and five seconds duration, straight into each other's… and yeah, souls was the word that came to mind. It was the only word that had ever come to mind as far as Tony was concerned. "And after such an intriguing experience, how could I possibly resist?"
[CONTINUED AT THE LINK]