"Pull up the results to the blood scan." Tony sighed. It seemed like this kid was getting more and more complicated than he originally thought.
But he was too emotionally invested to drop this and let it become another person's problem.
"I couldn't seem to find any blood in the scan per say, but there was a different liquid replacing what should be known as the most vital liquid produced by the body."
Tony's eyes widen in shock. Okay, so maybe he was expecting Connor to be having a lot of deficiencies in his blood because of the fact that he didn't eat, but he didn't expect Connor to lack… well, blood!
"It's a blue liquid made up of the chemical compound phosphorus as well as mercury and argon. The argon seems to be in a liquid state, even at room temperature, probably kept in that state by a stabiliser."
Something happened to this boy, his very blood was changed from that of normal blood. It didn't even seem like it was made of similar compounds that other species blue blood was made of.
How his heart survived with that kind of… blue blood pumping through it was a mystery to Tony.
"Did you get anything else?"
"No, only the blood scan, as you requested, sir."
The pieces were slowly filtering through Tony's mind, putting them together. He'd already assumed that this boy had been psychologically conditioned to believe he wasn't worthy of the food that he should have been eating on a regular basis, but put together with the blue blood - damn.
"Jesus," Tony curses. "this boy, Connor;… was he an experiment?"
And Tony wouldn't put it past Hydra.
Connor fumbled with the armband in his hands. Once he'd been approached by the shady group, they had given it to him, as a show of acceptance into their ranks.
The armband was a dark green, unlike the bright blue one he'd worn during his time in the future - 2038. On the side, the part that was meant to stick out, was the emblem of the group. A skull with six tentacles curling out underneath and a circular red background.
After a quick background search, he concludes that this organisation was involved with crime, but if that was how he was going to achieve his end goal, then so be it, but the second they were going to make Connor involved with a crime, Connor would immediately back out.
Because that is when it's officially gone too far.
He goes outside, and checks the mailbox, enclosed is a funeral invitation, to the Stacey's. A joint funeral for Gwen and her father. The funeral was scheduled for the following Monday afternoon.
Connor put in a quick note about it in his inner calendar, ignoring all the messages from Tony.
There must have been at least twelve messages, asking him to come back in. He'd answer them later, but for now marked them as read.
Connor walked out the door in his usual get-up - jeans, suit jacket, dress shirt and tie - and went to the spot their little 'squad' met up to walk to school together.
It felt oddly empty seeing their spot void of Gwen and Wendy. Peter hung his head low, looking a mess, and he smelt like he hadn't showered in days. Ned sat there, unknowing on what do to. Connor wisely kept the silence unbroken as they wordlessly started to walk towards the direction of the school.
Michelle didn't even crack up one of her sarcastic jokes.
It was just the four of them, Ned, Peter, Michelle and Connor walking a dull silence. The business of New York City finally filters in, the cars beeping and ferries honking loudly just add character to the city.
There's a lot of construction work going down, to fix the city after the mess of what happened between Spiderman and the lizard. Peter, Connor notices, has a large bandage over his left forearm, with dried caked blood visible on the outside of the bandage.
Michelle also seems to notice that.
"How did you get that?" She asks Peter, not loud or harsh, but more of a soft curiosity.
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Peter flinches and brings his arm closer to his chest.
"Some of the damage from the buildings fell on me. I was in a corner store and a metal pole scraped it." He explains, and Connor scans him, noting how his heart beats irregularly when saying this. A lie, perhaps?
Michelle nods to the lie, not showing whether or not she believed Peter, while Ned just blinked dubiously. Connor still hasn't said anything.
Connor once again receives a message from Tony, except this one is different than the others.
Since Gwen and one other person had died in the aftermath of Spiderman's fight, he automatically got the position of intern. The attached file to the message was his new work timetable.
Saturday nine to five and every weekday from four to eight. The pay was sixty dollars an hour, pretty generous, but money was something Tony had a copious amount of.
Connor's mind froze, wondering if why everything felt right. Acting like a teenager made him feel like he had more freedom than he ever had working with Cyberlife.
He didn't ponder over it for long, internally correcting himself that no, Androids were designed for a purpose and he would fulfil his purpose, he just needed to get back first.
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Its period two when he gets another message from Tony, asking him if he could begin work right after school, which Connor immediately responds with yes, he was free to work after school.
He doesn't eat that recess either, and it's starting to look like Ned and Peter are beginning to notice his strange lack of eating. Peter takes out five dollars and passes it to Connor.
"Did you forget your lunch or something? Go buy yourself something." He tells Connor, but Connor simply passes it back, once again saying he wasn't hungry.
But Connor knew it isn't exactly that, as much as he would love to have the extra energy stores in him for later use, he just couldn't. Eating was a human act, and he wasn't human, no matter how much he looked human. He would never be on the same level as a human.
The churning of food entering his system would be enough to send him into a panic. Amanda would never be pleased if he decided to eat like a human.
He couldn't. Besides, it wasn't even his money. He couldn't take it.
Peter looks at him, in doubt but reluctantly takes his money back.
Peter and his friends are getting increasingly worried about Connor, but it isn't like they can force him to get 'better', and they didn't have all the facts. They could be severely misreading the entire situation, but Peter had a really bad feeling that Connor desperately needed their help and support.
None of them have any periods together after recess, and they don't catch the same buses after school, going their separate ways.
"Tony, whose suite are you setting up?" Steve asks, watching Tony talk with an interior designer, pointing wildly toward one wall and holding up a bunch of colour palate samples against it, growing continuously.
"Connor's." He answers, and honestly, Steve's still confused. "Hey - Steve - which do you think suits this wall better?" He holds up two colour cards against the wall opposite to the large window.
"Um, the left one," Steve says, still not quite sure what's happening. Tony nods, ignoring Steve's look of confusion and barks out 'Slategray' to the interior designer who proceeds to scribble down the order.
He then goes through a series of different carpets before just settling on a dark oak timber. A group of men already begin to arrange the room to Tony's request. A large queen bed is pushed up against a wall that is adjacent to the window, and the sheets are also grey with one small blue pillow to add a splash of colour.
A desk is being placed near the bed and has floating selves nailed into the walls, filling them with literature in both French, and English.
"Tony-" Steve is ignored, but Steve's had enough. "Tony!"
Said person now finally decided to pay attention to Steve.
"Yes?" He sighs, annoyed that Steve had stopped him from further continuing to aid the room development. The wall was already being painted and fanned to dry and the floors almost completely timbered, with somebody placing a grey rug on it.
"What are you doing - and I want a proper explanation." Steve gives Tony a stare.
"You know how Peter has a room? Well, Connor - my new intern - is getting one as well. Because I feel like he's being abused or something at his home and I want him to have a safe haven if he needs one-"
Steve exhales loudly, signalling for Tony to stop.
"Tony, you can't just… adopt a kid. Even if he is 'abused' you don't really have evidence." Steve tries to explain, and Tony just raises an eyebrow.
"Jarvis, pull up my revised file on Connor Anderson." A document projects itself in the air in front of Tony, at eye level, and Tony steps aside to bring Steve to read the document.
Steve's eyes dart across the document, and his eyes widen, not unlike Tony's own when he first found out.
"Yeah, I even wrote what I propose happened. I think he may have been… an experiment of some sort and mentally conditioned to not eat anything. Hydra is a candidate for said experimenters but we need more evidence on that."
Steve does a double take and he looks at Tony in all seriousness.
"If Hydra's involved, we could all be in big trouble. We need to investigate further, immediately." Tony looks back at Steve.
"What do you think I'm doing! I'm doing my best but we have to tread carefully if Connor's truly been psychologically conditioned." Tony says, with a chuckle trying to add light to the conversation, and if Steve's stare is anything to go by, it didn't work.
Peter bumps into Connor, surprising both of them, at the Stark Tower Foyer after school. Peter's about to ask Connor about why he's there when Connor takes out an access and taps it against the chip reader by the elevator. Peter frowns but does the same, and they both enter.
Jarvis greets them both and Peter breaks the silence.
"What are you doing here?" Peter's facial expression isn't accusing, but more surprised.
"I'm Dr Stark's new intern, and you?" Connor remains neutral and smiles at the end of the sentence. Peter frowns a little.
"I'm the… other intern." He says, almost feeling betrayed that Tony would hire another intern.
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"Seems we're going to be working together, then." Peter nods, not really paying attention anymore. When the elevator opens again, Peter immediately speed walks out and walks into another room, slamming the door and shooting a guilty look at Tony, who is leaning against the wall waiting for them.
"That's Peter," Tony says. He looks nervous, as if he really wants to tell Connor something, but doesn't say anything.
"I know, Dr Stark. He's in my homeroom at school." Connor clarifies the established friendship between Peter and himself. Tony nods, and motions with his hand for Connor to follow him.
Tony leads Connor down the hallway and opens the door the furthest down the hall. It's the room he was preparing for Connor. He briefly explains.
"It's a room for you, and you only. The door on that wall to the left is the walk in robe and the door to the right of that door is the bathroom. Interning with me is really random because I don't follow a schedule so you're only needed when called, or when Jarvis tells you you're needed."
"Sometime's you're going to have to work overtime but you will be compensated with the regular payment per hours of overtime. This may mean you might have to stay overnight, I'm sending the contracts to your legal guarding and a contract to you."
With that, Tony shut the door and left Connor alone in the large homey room. Connor dropped his messenger bag on the floor and took out his homework assigned to him from school. If he had nothing else to do, then he should get to doing his Italian homework.
Connor was fluent in almost every human language, it didn't take long to write his public speaking assessment on vigilantes in Italian, and he already moved onto mathematics.
Peter walked in with his own homework, asking Connor if he wanted to do it together.
"Sure."
They noticed they were doing the same sheet of mathematics, and Peter was about to grab out his scientific calculator when out of the corner of his eye, he saw Connor taking a quick glance at the paper and write all the answers down.
It was almost impossible, and Peter wouldn't have believed Connor could do it if he hadn't seen it with his own two eyes.
At first, he didn't think Connor was actually writing down the answers to the equations, and just writing random numbers and letters down, but after solving the first few, Peter realised Connor was getting them all correct.
"Hey man, how are you doing that? That is crazy?" Peter was absolutely amazed at how Connor was solving the equations, and Connor obviously couldn't tell Peter that his inner algorithms could work them out in a split second, so he decided the next best thing.
"Ha- Father sent me to mathematics camp during the Summer in Detroit."
Peter falters at that, feeling sorry that instead of an actual relaxing Summer, Connor had been sent to a maths camp.
"Aw, that sucks man, well there is always next summer. Maybe you can convince your dad to let you go to an adventure camp, or even stay here with Tony, he wouldn't mind." Peter offers.
Connor looks at Peter incredulously.
"I requested to go." He deadpans. "Dad wouldn't send me to an expensive camp just because he wants to send me off."
Peter awkwardly smiles, silently apologising for misunderstanding.
Connor forgives him immediately.
After Connor packs up and leaves to go home once his shift has ended, Tony checks the room and notices something on the floor that makes his heart stutter.
A Hydra armband.
This was definitely not there before.
"Jarvis, tell Rogers we may have confirmed our theory."