"So you just have a corpse in there." Banner looks directly into Tony's eyes, trying to wring the answers out of the eccentric man.
"It's Connor." It's a start, but barely enough information in Bruce's eyes. Besides, knowing the name of the corpse just made it more personal to him. Who even was Connor?
"Who? And why does knowing their name make it better?" Knowing the name doesn't make it better, and it doesn't justify having their fucking body in your lab. Tony had a lot to answer for, even after Banner got the answers to these there'd still be something else.
"You've met him. He was comforting Peter that time in the medical wing." Banner does remember briefly seeing Connor before and was a little saddened that he had died so quickly
"We barely acknowledged each other. Tony, seriously, what's going on?"
"He's not a corpse. He's an Android and Peter's friend." Bruce's mouth is agape.
"An Android?! What are you doing with it? Repairs?" Tony shrugs. In a way, he is repairing the Android, so it's not a lie. Tony doesn't know why he does it, but he decides to remain quiet on the topic. He guesses he just doesn't want to drag Bruce into the matter. It's bad enough that Peter's got himself all caught up, but he can't pull in the rest of the Avengers for a matter that looked like it wasn't threatening in the slightest.
"He's not an 'it'." Tony insists. He places the bag of Peter's homemade Thirium onto the IV hook and inserts the needle into Connor's forearm. With the drip steadily filling up Connor's lost Thirium, he should be waking from three minutes from now.
Tony sets up a timer, that should go off approximately when Connor should be just ready to awaken from this comatose state. Peter's in the other room calming down, and Bruce looked like he still had a million different questions.
He wasn't the only one.
Tony shrugged off each and every one of Bruce's questions, in a clear show to say that he too had no idea what the hell was going on. The last minute of waiting is in silence, as the only sound they can hear is a small beep coming out of Connor somewhere, and his LED whirrs to life, flickering in between the two alternating colours of stress, an angry red and an amber yellow.
Connor's pupils seem to come online, as his eyes alternate in and out of focus. In sharp robotic movements, he stands up from the glass casing, with paces that seem too abrupt and jagged to seem human.
"What systems are online?" Tony asks him, carefully enunciating each word clearly making sure he would be understood like somebody would when talking to the artificial intelligence that comes in their phone software. Although he knows Connor has understood slang before, he wonders if in their initial startup if they understand right away, or if they have to wait for their communications software to warm up first.
"Auditorial systems - Online. Speaker Systems - Online. Standard Investigation Systems - Online. Navigation Systems - Online. Server Coolin-" Tony cuts Connor off, it seems like the list of everything that he's going to say is far too long, and Tony doesn't have all the time in the world. He's tired and wants to cut straight to the chase.
"Okay, what isn't online?" If there's something wrong, Tony needs to make sure Connor's in working order, although he's reluctant, he still doesn't know exactly what Connor's doing with them, or if he's even sent with any good intentions.
"Everything is online." Connor's stare is blank, as if every time he gets involuntarily shut down, he loses a piece of humanity that he's built up.
"Any warnings?" Tony's still incredibly curious.
"Yes. An alarming amount. High amounts of Software Instability have been detected." Tony buries his head in his hands. Software Instability couldn't mean anything good, could it? He almost groans in frustration. Maybe it wasn't a huge threat, and he could let the software instability slide as a result of the software instability simply mistaking itself for self-learning technology?
"Can you speak… Italian?" Tony asks, maybe it would be much more convenient for Peter if more people could effetely communicate with him in Italian. He feels relieved when Connor nods his head.
There'd be another person in the compound who Peter was 100% comfortable talking to.
"Can you function, with the software instability warnings in place, or will I have to fix that?" Tony wants to know, after all, he didn't have all the time in the world, and tinkering with an extremely advanced Android's innards was not on his bucket list.
Connor once again acknowledges his question with a nod, confirming that he didn't need any repairs and could totally function with software instabilities. Tony supposes that's good, but then there's the mystery of where the hell Connor had come from.
"Do you pose any ill intentions to the Avengers or the citizens of this planet?" Bruce asks, and Connor looks at him like he's off his head, and the emotion looked so raw and out of place for a so-called unfeeling machine. His face is incredulous, and Dr Banner has the dignity to look sheepish.
"No, I do not pose any ill intentions to anybody on this planet." Banner didn't look convinces, as if he knew that Connor wasn't really talking to him, and he was just being remotely controlled by an outside force.
They're not sure if they can trust his own judgement at the moment, but Connor's done nothing to prove that he's harmful towards anybody else. Tony reasons with himself and decides to give Connor the benefit of the doubt towards the situation like he would with a human. But that was the variable. Connor wasn't human.
He had never really thought about what he should do in this situation, there wasn't exactly a protocol for 'Futuristic Robot gets shot and I help him repair'. Should he hand Connor over to SHIELD? Should he keep it under wraps? Tony knew that his he handed over Connor to SHIELD, there wasn't a likely chance that they'd be seeing each other again.
SHIELD didn't like sharing lots of information with Tony, and he'd probably had to resort to breaking into their servers to figure out what happened to Connor at the end of it. Tony decided it would be best if they just kept on going like they were before they'd found out Connor wasn't really a person at all. He'd tell them all about him in his own time.
Tony types up a quick message on his phone to Hank… Connor's father. If Hank was Connor's father, was he also a Robot? Or was he a person who made Connor? If so, Tony wanted to hire this man, he was wasting his life away working in the police force.
"I've sent a message to your… father." Connor looks up at Tony, at the mention of his pseudo-father, Hank. "He's picking you up in about 40 minutes." Connor nods slowly and obediently waits in silence. The others look uncomfortably at him.
"Do you want to speak with Peter?" Bruce offers him, and Connor knows that he does want to, but it's not vital to his mission right now, so he doesn't see the purpose or benefit of talking to Peter right now. Connor replies in an even tone, with a simple 'No' to get it across. Tony almost looks shocked, but he suppresses the urge to shape his face into any particular expression.
"Well, Peter would like to see you, so tough luck." He doesn't give Connor any chance to respond negatively or any choice in the matter, as he gestures for Connor to follow him, into the lounge room where Peter is waiting.
It's a long stretch of hall that they walk through, and Connor notices the walls are littered with what appears to be pictures of Peter, and many of the times Peter's shared with the Avengers. Most of the pictures are in the perspective that you can almost definitely confirm that it was Peter who took the picture. The pictures of Peter in them, are taken from a selfie point of view.
Connor glances over most of the photos, except a single one he sees when he comes near the end of the hallway. It's in the corner of his eye, but it catches his attention anyway. It's a group photo that he can vaguely remember Peter taking once at lunch at school. Peter's arm is extended out from behind the camera, presumably holding it to take the image, and just fits himself in the frame. The rest of them were there, Gwen, MJ, Ned, Connor and Peter himself. When the whole group were together before shit had hit the fan.
The picture, as Connor recalls, was taken one month before the tragedy of Gwen Stacey's death. You could almost consider that one single event in time the turning point of when everything spiralled out of control. First, it was Gwen, then it was Aunt May. Then Peter had become overly stressed out, turning to rather unsavoury outlets.
Connor got shot, was comatose for an extended period of time and Peter barely made appearances at school anymore, too occupied with other Avengers-related problems, and trying to cope with all the events that had befallen upon him.
Everybody in the picture was smiling, and so carefree, unknowing of the horrors that the future months awaited them. Tony notices Connor's pause near the end of the hallway and takes the opportunity to say what's been in the corner of his mind for at least five minutes now.
"So your father… is he…?" He waits for Connor to finish the sentence, clearly not knowing if he should be careful around Connor from now on, if being an android was a touchy subject for Connor, was only something Tony could assume to know. He could never be too careful about this kind of thing, right?
Connor immediately seems to catch on and shakes his head.
"Oh, Hank? No… He's just human." The way Connor says 'Just human' is as if he believes that being in Android is far more advanced than humans in every fact of the matter, but not in a way that he believes himself higher than humans, or that he thinks they should be looked down on.
Tony hums but clearly shows that he doesn't quite understand yet. He doesn't know how that would work unless Hank was the one who had made Connor or that Androids could develop emotional attachments to others around them.
It's only a moment more they stand in this now comfortable silence, that Tony reaches for the door handle to the door located at the end of the hall, and ushers Connor in. Connor can see that Peter's sat down at a rather comfortable looking couch, looking up at the television watching an episode of Futurama that's dubbed in a popular romance language, that Connor recognises as Italian.
Peter acknowledges their arrival but doesn't move his eyes away from the screen. It's a quick thumbs up and a small 'Hello Tony, Connor' before he realises something. It takes him a few minutes more for him to comprehend that Connor's woken up and actually in the same room as him.
"So who shot you?" Is the first question that leaves Peter's mouth before his mind can bother to stop himself. He's immediately mortified at what he just asked. Tony gives Peter a shocked, and almost dirty look. Peter goes to apologise when Connor interrupts him to answer the question.
"A Hydra asset known as the Winter Soldier." He doesn't elaborate, and nobody makes him elaborate, but Tony would like to know eventually, even if it would be in Connor's own time and on Connor's own terms and conditions.
Tony's been becoming more and more patient over the years of dealing with multiple instances of various children and teenagers as Iron-Man, and he'll be extremely patient with Connor.
He won't try and wring answers out of him.