capeandcowllogs | You Better Find Someone to Blame;

WHO: [Bad username or site: his_mothers_son title=John_Connor @ livejournal.com] and [Bad username or site: iron_liver title=Tony_Stark @ livejournal.com]
WHERE: Stark Tech building, under a desk
WHEN: September 19th, 2009
WARNINGS: None (we can all hope)
SUMMARY: John has some really shitty ideas sometimes. Like breaking into Stark Tech.
FORMAT: Paragraph.

This is likely a terrible idea, but then without his mother around, John Connor isn't always a bastion of brilliant ideas. This ranks only slightly below following a shipment of coltan carried by a terminator whose override is to kill John Connor, but only slightly. He's currently curled up under a desk, his communicator downloading schematics for the suit, that suit that John is convinced might help him, if it doesn't kill him first.

He processes the binary, and maybe that's what distracts him. It's new for him to see binary and understand it, not read it like letters or a book but to see it and understand it, immediately, the words and ideas and codes in his head. It's only a mild perk of being here, in the place, though.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tony's lips fell to a frown. "I will have you know that in a world of Superhumans, I was one of the very few who could stand toe-to-toe with all of them, and without abilities," he said simply. "The porter gives everyone abilities, so you're in the same boat as I am, kid."

It was a nasty reality check, a very nasty one, and one that he had bent the truth of slightly. He had been that way, until the Extremis. Until he had stupidly shot himself with an experimental, modified virus.

"What information are you looking for? My suit? That's the cardinal sin of stealing from Tony Stark, I'll have you know."

John looked Tony in the eye. There was no way that this guy, whoever he was, whoever he could be, was going to scare him. John wasn't intimidated by guys like this. Whoever Tony Stark was, he was a man.

"So?" he said, levelly. "That doesn't mean anything to me." Maybe it was youth that made John this way, but more likely it was character. "You're not stupid, you know that your encryptions aren't easy access." Which meant, also, that Tony probably realized what John would be capable of, once his technopathy was under his control and fully realized. But John didn't say that.

"I don't want to rebuild it. I don't want to build anything with an AI even remotely this sophisticated." An AI that could kidnap people from other worlds. It might not be the same suit but...the information was there, somewhere.

"You're right, I do know. I also know that even when someone gets in, when I get my hands on them, it's another story, and I'm sure you're well aware of this now, aren't you?" he asked.

"I don't care that you don't want to rebuild it. The Technology is for nobody's mind but mine, and that means that if there's something you want to know, you come to me, not sneaking in and trying to steal it like a rat," he stated. "The suit's AI isn't something you could even understand, it's fully integrated to me, and me alone," he explained.

The AI of this suit wouldn't make sense, not unless one understood the way Tony's brain works, and very, very few people understood that.

John takes a moment and looks at Tony, then around. "Look, if you going to kill me, just do it," he said. His comm unit, on the other hand, said something different - it had already begun to wire the information to his personal computer, the one locked up in one of the bunkers that John had found when he had been looking for a place for George.

He hated being teased.

Maybe John couldn't understand the AI - more likely than likely. But he also didn't think that anyone would give him the information he wanted just because he asked, except maybe GLaDOS, and John wasn't in the habit of asking GLaDOS for favors - that wasn't why he liked her. He knew that she would triangulate the location of his processor - she knew how, she could always find him - if he went missing.

"So what are you going to do?"

How dumb was this kid? Interfacing with the comm took nanoseconds, and then it was a quick cut transmission, before he leveled his eyes on him.

"Kill you?" he asked, a bit incredulously. "Who gave you the impression that I'm in the business of doing that?" he asked. Who would dare assert that? He may have to make some tough decisions, but he had never been one to go for that path, and he wasn't about to start now.

"What am I going to do? That really depends on how far you're willing to concede to me," he said simply. "Are you willing to accept help? Not try and hack into my suit again? Or am I just going to need to put you in jail?"

"It's not personal," popped out of John's mouth way before he could even process it. It was simply that everyone seemed to be in the business of killing John Connor. It was a fact of his life. Fuck up, options usually were death, or running.

He ran a lot.

"What kind of help?" The question was wary, his eyes narrowing just a bit. He thought about it, for a minute. "I know what I need to know about it," he said by way of response, however. "It's not what I'm looking for."

John refused to go to jail.

Tony tapped the side of his head as he looked at the guy. "Look, you obviously need help with your powers, and I've been there before," he explained. "You think you're going to be able to learn to think like computers on your own? It's not easy, and it's better when you have someone who thinks like computers as well," he explained.

John raised an eyebrow, and thought about it. He wasn't sure if this was an offer, or not. He knew for a fact that GLaDOS wouldn't like it at all, but then, John wondered if she had to know. There wasn't much she couldn't find out, though.

The temptation was there.

This wasn't a computer turned into a person. This was someone who actually knew what he was doing.

"No one would have to know?"

"Nobody would have to know," he confirmed, outstretching his hand to the kid.

This was what he did, surprisingly. John was young, and scared. He was trying to figure things out that were probably beyond what he was used to, and to be thrust into this world where computers and robots were turned human, and everyone given superhuman abilities? Well, it was enough to make a head spin. Tony realized this. If he hadn't spent years in this sort of situation, he would be in the exact place John was right about now.

John stared at it for a minute, and finally he took Tony's hand. GLaDOS would have to know, John realized in that instant, as he shook it. If she didn't, and she found out, she would be beyond angry, and John didn't want her to be upset.

"Okay," he said, finally, and crossed his arms over his chest. "You tell me when and where, and I'll be there."

If there was anything John could do, it was this. Learning something new could only help.

He just hoped his mother never showed up here. He didn't want to imagine Sarah Connor versus Tony Stark.

"You'll begin Monday morning, at 10 in the morning," Tony prompted, shaking his hand, and programming the meeting into his schedule.

"It will be a bit of shadowing, as well as work with the Initiative, where you'll be learning to use your abilities with other people at your age," he explained.

Then, he paused, a smirk curling up his lips. "Don't look so upset, it's not like you just made a deal with the devil," he prompted. "Actually, he wasn't too bad," he added, tapping the side of his chin. "Didn't kill me, at the very least."

John couldn't help but laugh, a little, through his nose. "Yeah, I'll see you then."

It wasn't Tony that he was afraid would kill him. If Tony hadn't killed him about this, then John had nothing to worry about. "Show me out?" he asked, his voice still quiet.

Now his only worry was telling GLaDOS.

Tony turned, the door unlocking as he did so, before he opened it for John. "Come on, I'll show you the way, and if I see you trying to pull another stunt like this again," he paused for effect.

"Well, I think you know what will happen."

John took a breath, a pause, and nodded. "Yeah, I know," he said. "I'll see you on Monday?"

He watched Tony's body language, and walked through the door. "You don't have to worry," he said, but privately, he thought, that if he ever tried it again (which he wouldn't promise not to do, but it was unlikely), he wouldn't get caught.

You Better Find Someone to Blame;

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I'm so sorry I didn't tag back yesterday! It was a busy day!

Hahaha s'okay!

no subject

no subject