Do some studies (Tag Tony)

[st_hotflashes]

Liz had a small vial of her own blood she had taken from the infirmary. It reminded her of when she had to take blood from Alex to switch with Max's at the hospital. It seemed like a really long time ago now and Alex... well, Alex was dead.

She pushed the thought away as she rounded toward Mr. Stark's room. She knew he mostly used it for work and she hoped he was working today. She also hoped he would be willing to run some basic tests on her blood.

Liz paused outside his door, then knocked. She briefly wondered if Peter told him what had happened to her. She also wondered if Mr. Stark was aware of how they hadn't been kissing for practically two months and now they were again.

Comments

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"You might wanna sit down for this one." The AI gestured and prompted the armor to pull the rolling office chair around for her. "Good news: you're not dying. Well. Not any faster than the rest of you."

[st_hotflashes]

Liz sat and readied herself for some sort of answer. The fact that she wasn't dying was good. "Loki said the fact I was starting to do things could signal changes..." And she was a little worried what that meant exactly.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

“You’ve got a funky DNA portrait going on.” The AI flitted a few feet to his right, surrounded by a backdrop of protein sequences. “Did you get a blood transfusion recently?”

[st_hotflashes]

Her brow furrowed for a moment and she shook her head, though he mind raced. She'd been coming back to the same thing for a while now, though she had no way of understanding it.

"When I was home, I got shot. I'd have died, but Max - he healed me using his alien powers."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

“Uh-huh. That explains it.” Nodding as if he knew it all, Tony’s AI tapped a floating protein and zoomed in. “Your DNA got mixed up with his.”

[st_hotflashes]

She took that in, trying to look like she was okay with the news, but she was quietly freaking out a little. Somehow the idea of Max's DNA mixing with her own felt intrusive and she inexplicably felt guilty.

"Do you... Do you think it's temporary or, am I going to be like this forever?"

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Excellent question." The AI reappeared at Liz's side while the armor approached to set a hand on the young woman's shoulder. The closest thing he had to a physical body, after all. "I could take samples over a period of weeks and monitor for any changes."

[st_hotflashes]

It was definitely a little weird being comforted by a suit of armour, though she appreciated the sentiment. She considered the offer and nodded. "Okay..I should, um. I should know, right? In case things get even weirder or something... or I get sick and regular medicine stops working." Or she started to crave Tabasco sauce.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"Loki give you a formal diagnosis?" The armor tapped the top of her head lightly. "You've visited him already, right?"

[st_hotflashes]

"He said the reason why I get sick sometimes and have pain is from my body changing and trying to cope with new abilities." Which was a sentence she didn't know she'd ever actually say. "He wasn't sure how to help yet, though."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"So like puberty. With superpowers." A tale as old as time. "Well if 'ol Hippocrates didn't make it sound terminal, I'm inclined to follow his lead. With some procedural steps thrown in, naturally."

The Iron Man armor kicked back on a seat beside Liz as Tony's AI snapped his fingers soundlessly. "This is gonna sound passé, but have you tried meditation?"

[st_hotflashes]

"Meditation?" She looked to him with slight confusion. Did he think it would help in general or somehow fix the DNA problem?

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

“Would you say your powers feed off your emotions or vice versa?” It was hard to not notice that little spark from earlier.

[st_hotflashes]

"I think... I think it's my emotions. They come out a lot when I'm worried about Peter, for one." So the fact they hadn't been kissing for a while had been a big one. Now it was just when she really thought about how he was going to die back home if they didn't find a way to change things.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

The AI rubbed his neck sheepishly, weighing his options.

“Can I let you in on a secret?”

[st_hotflashes]

She looked a little apprehensive, but she nodded. She never thought she'd be taking advice from her boyfriend's mentor's AI, but there she was.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

Tony’s projection sighed and shrugged. “Anxiety is Tony Stark’s default state of being. Life at this point is nothing but a series of stratagems to outsmart it.”

[st_hotflashes]

"He hasn't found a moment of peace?" She knew he was worried about the future and about Peter, but before the knowledge of that, hadn't he found some peace at all?

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

"I wouldn't go that far." Nonchalant, or bearing the appearance of it, the clone leaned his head from side to side. "Well. Not quite. Hope. That's at the bottom of it."

[st_hotflashes]

"I have hope.... do you know how many people here told me that Peter and I were just some... temporary thing? And the idea of even maybe being able to be together outside of this place was impossible and stupid to think?" She managed to keep most of how she felt about that out of her voice, but it had hurt to hear from some of the people.

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

The armor rested its hand on her slight shoulder as a response, the touch surprisingly gentle. "Good. Keep it. Barring a flat mathematical rejection of our running hypotheses, there's no reason not to hold onto it, you get what I'm saying?" The image of Tony Stark was thoughtful, staring ahead as the projected portrait of proteins turned into a sprawling spiderweb representing each separate universe connected to their dimension.

[st_hotflashes]

She looked out at the image and even lifted her hand to touch the image with her fingers. Her fingers, of course, went right through the image. This was string theory in its core - she probably learned more about that theory here than most back home could dream of. "I'm going to find a way, even if I have to go home first. My world has aliens in it and a machine capable of time travel. I don't think it's too far fetched to think it could do more than that."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

“And after?” The AI asked as he suddenly turned to glance down at the young woman.

[st_hotflashes]

She looked at him. "You mean, after I get to your world?" Some might think she hadn't thought about that part. A lot of people seemed to think that Liz hadn't thought about her family, either, but she had thought about that as well.

"I want to be with Peter. I want to support him. I'd like to get into molecular biologist. I want to get married some day and have kids."

[st_arkravinghazelnut]

“Accommodations? Citizen registry?” The strings magnified rapidly into an image of 2017 New York, bearing a rich landscape view of the city as if taken from the Empire State Building. Countless lights within a cluster of scyscrapers shine brightly.