It had been an hour since Stephen had found the ladder and left Arianna to her work. While he had no expectations of how long it would take her, he was thinking about the fact that it was almost 11pm New York time and he thought perhaps he should check to be sure she wasn't tired and in need of a break. He hunted down the halls till he came around a corner and paused. Up on top of the ladder, headphones on, music blaring loud enough that he could hear the deep bass sounds where he stood, was Arianna. She was—swaying—back and forth on the ladder as she stuck her head up through an access panel in the ceiling, shining a flash light around. He smiled as he heard her singing along under her breath to the song she listened to. He watched as she took a step down on the ladder, back out from the ceiling, and then leaned over precariously trying to reach the…access point…he remembered her calling it that. He watched as she frowned and pulled back to stand straight on the ladder, then shuffled closer to the edge of the step and leaned out again. She was only inches away from being able to touch whatever the button was on the device she was trying to reach. He frowned as he realized she was very close to toppling and came up quickly and grabbed her around the waist. "Arianna!"

She froze and stood straight, then quickly pulled her headphones off. Stephen quickly dropped his hands, blushing, but scolded her nonetheless. "You were about to come crashing down. It wouldn't do for me to allow one of Tony Stark's best IT personnel to get injured on her first day assisting me with technical matters."

She swallowed and tried to overcome her own blush. "Um…sorry."

"Here," he stood beside the ladder. "Use my shoulder to lean on, it should give you just enough distance to reach the device."

"Oh…um, yeah, that would be great." She leaned over and planted one hand on his shoulder. "Normally I would move the ladder, but this is the last access point I wanted to reset before we get to the router and I didn't want to take the time to get down and move it."

His eyebrow perked up. "So instead of a 60 second adjustment of the ladder, you chose to endanger your own life?"

"Oh, come now, Doc—" she said as she stretched out. "Don't be dramatic—ah hah!" At last she had success and hit the reset button on the device. Then she looked down at him from where she was. "It might have been endangerment of a limb or two, but not my life." She found her way back to standing firm on the ladder and came down the stairs.

"All the same," he said, not thinking about how close he still stood. "I'd prefer you keep your limbs just where they are."

She smiled. "Thanks, Doc."

"It's Stephen."

"What?"

"Doctor…Stephen…Strange." He gulped. "Call me Stephen."

"Sounds good—Stephen." She smiled. "Now, follow me. So, if I'm correct, then, right around this corner…" She quickly frowned. They'd walked around the corner but there were no doors, no tables, and certainly no routers or modems. "I don't understand. This should be where the modem is. Just on the other side of this wall. I thought for sure there'd be a closet door or something here."

Stephen frowned as well. "If I'm correct—this is the other side of the residential hallway. Perhaps—yes, follow me." They went down and around to the residential hall and as they came back up the hall, Stephen traced a hand along the wall. "Should be right about….here." He stopped and frowned as he looked at the door.

"Whose room is this?"

"It's…mine."

"Your room?"

He nodded and opened the door, hesitating a moment before he opened it wider for Arianna to enter as well. She glanced around and tried to fake her reaction. "It's—nice?"

"The rooms of Kamar-Taj aren't made to be luxurious. The goal is to focus on ones studies, the mind, the well-being of the body—not on having a mini-fridge and cable access."

"Still, I think I'd be able to focus better if I had a comfortable bed to sleep in."

"You'd be surprised, the beds aren't too bad. You should try it sometime." She turned, a raised eyebrow, and his eyes went wide. "I only meant—"

She grinned. "I know, I know, Stephen. Breathe. I know what you meant." She then turned and looked around the room before walking over to a door. "What's in here?"

"I'm not sure."

"You stayed in this room how long? And you never thought to open this door and see what was on the other side?"

"I had other things on my mind."

"Well, would you like to do the honors or should I?"

"Please, go right ahead."

She slowly opened the door, which, not surprising to her, creaked as one expected an old mysterious door to, and her eyes lit up when she saw what was on the other side. "Jackpot!"

"The…router?"

"Yes! Let's see—wow, this is old…I mean really old. I can't believe this thing has worked as long as it has. Let's try a reboot…" A few moments later, she closed the door back. "Alright, let's go back to the library. By then things should be back up and running."

They made it back and sure enough, wi-fi was back up. Stephen smiled. "Fantastic!"

She packed up her bookbag and they were stepping back through the portal into the New York Sanctum when she spoke back up. "So, I've got you back up and running, but there's no telling how long it'll last. I have some thoughts—some recommendations—I'd like to make regarding upgrades. If you'd like, I could come back by tomorrow afternoon and go over them with you. See if it's something you're interested in."

"That sounds acceptable. The afternoon then?"

"Yeah," she glanced at her smart-watch, "I'll probably be working another few hours on the layout and schematics and come up with a plan. It'll be a late night so it'd be best if I didn't plan anything till the afternoon."

"Don't stay up too late on my account. We've made it this long on what we've got, it can wait a few days if needed."

"It's really no trouble. I'm up pretty late anyway."

By now, they were back to the front door. It wasn't till then that Stephen frowned. "I should have offered you the spare room here at the Sanctum for the evening. It's so late, I hate to think about you traveling back home this late."

"I'll be alright, it's a short walk up to the Metro Station and I've learned several forms of self-defense thanks to Stark Industries training programs."

"I hadn't thought to ask…where do you live?"

"Just across the Hudson, actually. In fact, if you had really good vision you could look out that big giant gorgeous window of yours and almost see my apartment, I bet."

"I should—I mean, I could get you there quicker, if you like."

"You mean with one of those portals?"

He shrugged. "It's the least I can do. That, or walk you to the station. I won't let you walk these streets in the middle of the night, no matter what you tell me about your self-defense skills."

"Okay then, portal it is," she said with a smile.