The lab was silent, save for the ticking and petite clinking of machinery and tools. Dr Banner, intent on his work, looked up to Tony then back to the synthetic chest cavity he was tinkering with. He looked up at the face, then back to the battery he was testing. He sighed, and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. The robotic arm named DUMM-E was attached to the synthetic body by at least a dozen wires, the thing put into sleep mode while they worked. Dr Banner glanced at the face again.
"Why did you make it female?" He asked, in a half-hearted complaint. They had been testing for weeks, calibrating and transferring data. The only outside contact came when Pepper would come to consult Tony or Steve would wonder in, bored. They left because of the thing that lay on the operating table Tony had set up. It was unnervingly real, the skin and face an uncanny similarity to an actual human. The only flaw was that it was completely symmetrical. Utterly flawless, which isn't exactly bad, but it made looking at the android too long, unsettling.
"Females are more trustworthy in the eye of the public. I did some market research. Plus we need the female model for the full extent of the prototype capabilities. We need to fully test out this beauty's full capacity, we need a woman." It was no big deal to Tony, he thought nothing strange about this while set up. It still gave Dr Banner the creeps to no extent.
"But why DUMM-E? I mean couldn't you just make a new AI and just tweak it as you go along?" Bruce asked again, now closing the chest cavity cover and moving to the abdomen. Lifting the hatch slightly, the skin slid aside, making Bruce grimace.
"Do you realise who you're talking to? Don't be a dunce Bruce, I know your intellect extends past the gamma radiation." Tony said, not even looking away from the console he had hooked up to the AI's mainframe. "Simply, I could not be fucked to design a new interface with new protocols and human interactions. That takes far too much coding and my time is literally worth billions. Also, I'm impatient and I want to play with this new toy." He added the last part sounding much like a five year old. Bruce thought on it a while. DUMM-E did have the basics already needed to make a half decent protocol droid. Tony was just refining the commands and expanding the range. Twenty Six days they'd been at this. Finally, it seemed, today would be the day that the project would be complete.
"Okay, so she's physically ready. The rest is up to you. Nothing seems faulty and all of her hydraulics and wiring seems perfect." Bruce said, now sitting back in his chair and replacing the abdomen access hatch. He removed his glasses and cleaned them then rubbed his temples.
"She's perfect because you wired her yourself. Don't doubt your abilities. I just have a few more things to add here and I'm done." Tony replied distractedly, a wicked grin on his face.
/Sir, Miss. Potts is here to see you./ JARVIS suddenly announced, making Bruce jump. It was the first time the mainframe had addressed them all day, it really was easy to forget it existed. Tony chuckled and entered the command to let Pepper in.
"Be cool Banner." Tony said a smile still on his face. Bruce shook his head and laughed a little. His eyes landed on the Synthetic life form and the reality of the situation hits again. They're creating a competent AI, something that might change the world. So far the Japanese hadn't come too close to what Tony was doing right here but they weren't far off. If it's one thing Tony liked more than scotch, it was competition. Pepper entered and surveyed the chaos around her, looking pinched.
"What's up, Pepper Potts?" Tony asked, still not looking from the console.
"The Weyland Company is pressuring me to get this thing done and ready for showcase." She said, her face looking pinched but professional. Her stance was formal and stiff, obviously she was under a lot of stress. Bruce, recognising this, got up and offered her coffee.
"You don't have coffee down here." She stated simply.
"He's not moving any time soon, trust me. Not once has he looked at my face for the past three days." Bruce ushered Pepper out, a hand at her back rubbing small, comforting circles.