bakerstreet | my blood is boiling; my brain's IBM

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[meme] shipping

my blood is boiling; my brain's IBM

NOT just A ROBOT
shipping meme

There's always a right tool for the job, be it as simple as a hammer for a nail or on up to the much, much more complex. In this, the near future, the new tool for the abstract, post-modern job is no longer from the humble tool box - it's robots. Robots have taken over most sectors, such as assembly, law enforcement, and even health care. Things run so much smoother when they're automated. Yet the most impressive factor is that robots have just recently begun to enter a sector previously believed to require human touch: the personal sector. From personal assistants to robo bodyguards to pleasurebots, most anyone who's anyone has a personal robot these days. Of course, humanity being the narcissistic charmers we are, all "companion" sector robots are made in our own beautiful image, or close to it.

But you know this. You have a personal robot, after all...or you are one.

Whether owner or robot, it's important to remember one key rule: robots, no matter how human they appear, cannot feel emotions. Any appearances thereof are programming in the AI.

Robots certainly, absolutely, cannot fall in love. Again, any appearances thereof are programming in the AI. If that's not the case, and "love" still seems present...

...well, a toll that no longer functions correctly may not be right for the job.

HOW TO PLAY ➟

Comment with your character, preference, and whether you want to play a human or a robot.
Reply to others.
Use the RNG to choose a prompt or pick one yourself.

OWNER ➟

Long Time Owner → You and your robot are a well-oiled machine, no pun intended.
New Purchase → Congratulations, you have your brand new personal bot!
Second Hand → Someone else owned this robot before you, but it can't be too damaged. There's no way you could afford a brand new one, anyway.
For Science! → Your interests in robots are purely scientific. No matter how yours begins to act towards you, honest!
Rescue → Whether you took them from the dump or from a bad owner, you brought this robot from the jaws of deletion.
Reluctant → You never wanted a robot, but you've got one thrust on you anyway.
Cruel → They're just a fancy computer, so you'll treat them however you like.
See the Humanity → Even if you know it's all machinery and programming, you can't help but see the human side of your robot. They shouldn't have to be a servant.
What's Real and What's Not → The lines are beginning to blur between real people and their emotions and your robot.
Incompatible → You can't be with a machine, either romantically or sexually. You're simply not compatible.
Too Engrossed → They say you've created a fantasy world. You're forgetting reality, or choosing to ignore it.
Don't Care → You won't listen to what the others say; you know how you feel.
Have to Pull Away → The close relationship you had with your robot has to be put aside for your own good.
Live a Normal Life → As much as you can, you and your robot live like a normal couple.
Bad End → Your robot is taken away, reprogrammed, or destroyed.

ROBOT ➟

The Perfect Robot → You know what you and exactly what you were made to do. You will not stray.
More Human than Human → Whoever programmed you made you to be just like a human.
Conflicted → There is no way you could have what they call "feelings." But what is this stirring in your circuitry?
Confused → Why do people treat you like a robot? You're a living thing, damn it!
Damaged → Somehow, you've been corrupted. You're a blank slate and have to be cared for, though it should be the opposite. Or it could be that you're showing erratic behavior that no robot should...
Shown Kindness → When you're treated kindly by a human, you are unsure how to process it. It makes you feel - content.
No Longer Just a Program → Your "love" and "affection" may have been shades and imitations at first, but that's not the case any longer.
Obsolete Model → You know you're old. Will you be forced to leave your master's side?
Jealousy → A robot should not feel jealous. Still, you envy those close to your master.
Job is Personal → You were programmed to protect or to serve, though you also do it because you...care
Second Chance → Your old master tossed you aside and now you are wary. But you've been given another chance instead of being used for scrap.
Rogue → There is no way you will be tied to the oppressive system. You refuse to serve the Living Things. Somehow, though, you've become aligned with one.
One of a Kind → There are no other robots like you, and perhaps you are intended for a sinister fate. Rather than face your true duty, you have escaped to take refuge with a human.
Specialty → You were created specifically for this one special person.
Reprogrammed → Because of previous defects, you were taken back to factory settings before. However, that treacherous virus, "love," is bubbling back up.
Android → You can't just forget the part of you that was - still is - organic.
Learn to Be Human → Despite the odds and the prejudices you both will face, you have decided to live as a free, living person with the one you care for most.
Bad End → You're to be junked, impacted, wiped clean, or taken away from your owner.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

[ It's easy to transition from asleep to awake when you have a designated objective to accomplish. There are no questions about why you're here if you've got it programmed in, no questions about how when all that information is readily available in the form of data packets accessible faster than the human mind can even comprehend the question. He hasn't quite gotten around to the existential crisis part, if he's ever going to stumble into it at all.

No, he buries himself easily and readily in work like that's all he wants and needs in life. In a manner of speaking, it is. He doesn't know what the alternatives are just yet. Or he does, but he hasn't applied them to himself. Or he has, but he just doesn't care.

Still, a lot to unpack.

Or he could just keep working.
Seems easier. Not dealing with anything else aside from this seems a whole lot easier.

Although he's built with no real need to sit, he does so anyway. In the silent space between alright and the ticking minutes afterward he settles into a chair and reacquaints himself with the system that brought him to life, but from the other side of it. It's a whole scope, seeing things on a monitor rather than being in it. It's no wonder he'd needed a chassis to stabilize, it's hard to be detached about something you're integrated in. If he criticizes chest hair imagine what he thought about the cloud.

He's going to review his own development notes later. Not now.

He's gone through a truly impressive amount of data by the time Tony calls out to him, and only then does he realize he's been right up in front of the monitor like some kind of optically defective senior. He settles back, absently pinching the bridge of his nose, considering how he wants to answer that.

System check: optimal
Optical diagnostics: adequate, no real explanation for the posture
Mental stability: exceeding expectations at 86%
Workload capabilities: optimistic
Personal opinion on all of the above? TBD

Instead of answering, he deflects by mildly asking: ]

Is there a reason you're keeping notes on what you ate six years ago? Not that I'm judging, but...

Alterations in body chemistry due to ye olde chest piercing. [ He taps the glow of the reactor without much thought. ] That was, what, during the early days of 'oh shit the thing saving me is killing me, but what if it's just food poisoning' I think? Calibrating the right amount of kale smoothie to keep me alive that much longer. Probably not relevant anymore.

[ Preferences for takeout? Hold onto those. Dietary requirements to keep from burning out into a husk of a human being on accident? Also worth holding onto. Shit that's six years out of date and no longer applicable to his current bout of homeostasis? They can probably archive or dump or. Something. ] Honestly I'd forgotten we'd kept those. Were we going to see if they were relevant for other heavy metal poisoning treatments, J?

You had me send it along to the relevant medical branch of SI, Sir, but no one else seems to have required treatment for palladium poisoning.

Right. [ This is why he needs Jarvis. And Pepper. And now Bruce, in so much Bruce might not quite be prepared to be needed. His memory isn't fickle so much as it's overfull of what is considered relevant, which might not actually be relevant until further down the line, or is relevant just not in a way that makes sense to anyone but him. He's given the odd thought to just plugging his brain into the matrix and reorganizing shit that way but- Jarvis insists it's a shitty idea.

So.

Bruce. ]

So I'm going to take that as 'everything's fine, even though I'm squinting at the monitor like an 80 year old even though I've got optical sensors on par with fucking-' uh. What did I clock them at? One second-

[ Digging back through the specs, variable focus, thermal, UV, nightvision capable (paranoia is a good friend of Tony's) long range enhanced zoom, median focus of- more or less 20/20, shouldn't be hunching lie he needs glasses. ] let's go with 'pretty damn awesome'.

[ A look of moderate understanding passes over his face; frankly it's a way more logical reason than Bruce had been expecting, so he accepts it easily. Kale smoothie logs are now officially classified as antiquated, he compresses them and removes them from the main database.

As far as the posture thing goes? Yeah, no, it beats the hell out of him, and he says as much with a sort of don't ask me shrug. Through sheer specs alone he's got probably the best vision money can buy literally, which doesn't seem to stop him from wanting to crawl up into the monitor. Maybe it's because he's got a direct uplink to the information behind the screen, maybe it's sort of like- some kind of muscle memory, except... whatever the opposite of that is.

Un-muscle memory. ]

Hey- I'm just here for the data. If you're looking for a theoretical behavioral analysis on psychosomatic body language... [ A beat, and then he admits:] Well, I could probably do that, but I'm really not interested in getting introspective on day one. I'm still figuring out hands.

They're pretty weird, right? Suddenly phalanges, hypersensitive finger pads, variable pressure, getting the tension on the tendons right was a bit of a pain but I think they've worked out alright. You could, in theory, perform brain surgery.

[ Because something worth doing is something worth overdoing, and if Bruce decides he up and wants to become a brain surgeon far be it from Tony to leave him incapable of doing the thing. All the potential for- as many opportunities as Tony could possibly consider packed up in that chassis-

Except for modeling. Maybe he should've looked at why he was modeling his face the way he was. Someone not distracting because the last thing he needs is a potential sexual harassment suit from an AI- so many ethical landmines there. So. Average while not being entirely average might've been where he went with it. That Bruce huddles in on himself and lists to the monitor while he works probably shouldn't be so fucking endearing, and yet? ]

On that note- catch. [ It's a holographic ball rather than an actual one, a kinetic tangle of data from a compilation error Jarvis caught a few years back he hasn't had the time to sort out himself- and now he won't have to. In theory. Tony tosses the glowing sphere, the representation of data, from his workstation to Bruce's, curious as to how he'll catch it. ]

[ Great, he's been modeled to meet the specifications of a desktop background. Pleasantly appealing behind everything else, designed for the eye to gloss gently over him, easy to fade into the background so the real work can get done. Or, you know, maybe like minimalist art. One of those paintings that's literally just a blue circle so people can hmm at it and be impressed with how much there isn't.

He'd been content to revert his attention back to his work until the abrupt catch order, and he startles in time to thrust a hand up like he's afraid he's going to drop-

Oh. It's not real and yet he still seems to fumble for a second, though not because of the physicality of the thing, obviously, there's a lack thereof. It's because he's both interfacing and figuring out phalanges all at once. ]

That was a test.

[ He feels the need to point that out without looking up, preoccupied instead with stretching the data out into an easier to read, more streamlined hologram. Twisting it, parsing through it to find the issue he's meant to solve. ]

This is a test.

[ He adds, a guess and an accusation tied up into one. Not that he's offended by it, actually. He's already curious--if it's something Tony hasn't worked out and something a little beyond JARVIS's diagnostic capabilities it's bound to be an interesting solve. Even he's a little curious how his creativity algorithm is going to hold up, and if he starts making notes on himself...

That would be weird, wouldn't it? Is that weird?
He's an uploaded artificial intelligence construct in a skin suit, of course it'll be weird. Everything he does will be weird. He's going to do it anyway. ]

Yes?

[ He's in the lab. Almost everything is some kind of test down here, extending even to Tony's own tolerance for handling one project for any certain length of time, or how long he can go without social interaction with other people (Bruce counts as a people now, and it's his ultimate trump card against Jarvis in that argument), or sleep, or solid food. The tests don't always make sense and more than a few cause Jarvis to despair for his creator's well-being but it's nothing new to anyone but, well. Bruce.

He'll catch on soon enough. The longer he's here the more obvious it'll all become. ]

You can sit and stare at them or you can learn by doing. Sometimes you have to run before you walk. [ Sometimes. Very rarely. In controlled circumstances. Another one of those long, drawn out silences from Jarvis follows and Tony knows he's being judged. Knows and doesn't give a single solitary fuck, his eyes bright, his mouth curled in a chesire grin. ] That is a puzzle I haven't had the time to dig through and J can't quite detach himself from enough to handle. Pretty sure you'll be able to figure out what the hell happened.

[ 87% sure, honestly, and he is terribly curious as to how Bruce will go about it. Interface? Drag it through the workstation? Continue to manipulate the hologram? Where does he lean into, what does he see first, how does he go about problem solving? ]

[ Okay, then. As long as they're on the same page about it, he guesses.

Frankly, if pressed about the adequacy of his social interaction he'd have to agree with Jarvis. He hardly counts as much more than a functional soundboard, he's basically just to the left of an echo chamber right now and he probably will be for some time. Then again, the very fact that he's disagreeing with Tony may prove him right, which is a frustrating loop to be caught in. He's not here to be a psychiatrist though, that's not really his area.

His area, apparently, is archiving bologna sandwiches and troubleshooting C++ compilation errors. He's not so sure if that's better or worse. Probably better not to think about it too hard.

Bruce, as it turns out, is something of a visual troubleshooter. He doesn't interface, he doesn't port the information directly into his processor and attempt to compile it himself. It seems he's taken a liking to the hologram and the ease in which he can see every piece of Tony's source code, because he settles it into a space somewhere just to the left of his monitor and blows it up to better see the individual strings. His next step is to do a little scripting change on the compiler itself so that it changes the color of the characters as it runs through line by line, allowing for him to watch each segment for hangups.

Looks like he's going for a recreate the error approach, intending to work backward. Tony can take from that what he will, Bruce hits the enter key and the process begins. The hologram spins slowly, transitioning from orange to green in a steady spreading spiral. As it does, Bruce shoots him a short look. ]

Is you watching me do stuff gonna be- like- a thing? I've been alive for like two seconds and even I know that's kind of creepy.

[ Does he sound amused about it? Maybe like he's barely kind of technically joking? No, surely not, right? ]

You're kind of unprecedented, Bruce. AI, sure, I've been working with and around them for decades. But not one of you ever seemed to want, need, or be suited to integrating with a humanoid chassis. Looking at you now it- kind of makes sense? What you were meant for doesn't really work if you're still a direct part of the system you're trying to compile and archive. On that level, it makes sense. Everything else, though-

I mean there's a reason or fifteen why I haven't really tried my hand at creating life model decoys beyond the odd security request and it mostly comes back to the morality and ethics of creating life, playing at god- etc. At the end of the day you may very well end up being one of a kind. [ Because replicating this would be nigh impossible, even if he redesigned from the ground up how he built AI so they would by default be best suited to a humanoid chassis. So that they'd want to be more human and that brings up way too many philosophical questions RE existence and what it is to be human, do robots dream of electric sheep, etc. The rule for Jarvis has always been 'use your powers for good, never go full skynet'. For Bruce? He's...not sure what would or wouldn't be an appropriate limitation.

But right now observation is sort of vital and mostly due to Tony being highly curious. Jarvis, in his development, had been pixels on a screen. Not a lot of visual feedback for Tony to observe, not really. Bruce? Already has chosen a mode of posture, of gesture, of tone of voice- not one of those things came with the chassis- it was a choice. Instinctual or no. And that? That's fascinating on so many levels.

Also: Humor, this early on? A plus.

Tony shrugs and settles back against his workstation, head canted slightly, brows lifted, smile dialed down to an easy half smirk. ]

Let me enjoy the moment, would you? This worked. You're adapting, intuiting how to function without having to learn how to walk, managing hands and data at an advanced rate. Honestly I expected to still be going through mobility calibration with you at this point because going from formless and shapeless to having a personalized skeletal system has to be jarring as hell.

[ He has to admit there is quite a lot of research to be done over why it is he's choosing to react to the world the way he is; where pieces of this assembled personality are coming from and the subtleties that come with it. He'd been given the loosest set of defining characteristics, a primary drive, freedom, and a developmental stasis. Why it is his programming necessitated a chassis to complete his development and the subsequent physicality that comes along with it are scientific mysteries at this point, unjustifiable if you solely look at the parameters.

Let him just take a moment to appreciate the clinical detachment he's got toward himself right now, and hope that it stays that way. Let him steer very, very clear around the subject of morality and take a wide berth around the existential implications.

He can't, however, help but balk at the revelation of his projected timeline. His eyes narrow a little in consideration, like he's running a secondary diagnostic just to double check that he can, in fact, walk, talk, and catch. If he was expected to be a dizzying gyroscope-like Bambi they might want to take things a little more seriously than they are.

Bruce sits back, crossing his arms uncomfortably and tightly over his chest. ]

So basically-- [ He starts, sounding almost terse. ] --you made something, you have no idea how, it's working ten times as well as you expected, and it's riddled with unexplainable phenomena.

[ Just so that they're clear about it. He's experiencing the surfacing of another rare emotion: nervousness. ]

I'd like to go on record and point out how insane everything about that is? Like- on a statistical scale what's the likelihood that I have some kind of major synaptic failure or- I don't know, go all 'I, Robot'?

Edited 2018-08-16 07:39 (UTC)

Of course I know how. [ That's the point he takes offence at because, honestly, he knows exactly how they got from point A- Bruce in his chip in stasis to point Z- Bruce in his chassis. That's all mechanics and software programming. That's all recorded, something he can and might replicate if need be. ] And it's not necessarily unexplainable phenomena. I'm sure if you wanted to sit down and introspect for a few hours you could pick out why and how you've come to present the way you do. All I've ever done is give you a framework, the ability to learn, a general ground rule of 'please don't murder anyone, yourself included' and free will. What each and every one of you chooses to do with that is...up to you.

I'm just lucky in so much that more often than not you're willing to go along with what I ask you to do. Dum-E doesn't need to be on smoothie duty- he genuinely enjoys it. For. Reasons beyond me, honestly, but it makes his little electric heart happy, far be it from me to take that from him when he's pretty decent at it. [ Jarvis enjoys his place and purpose of organizing the chaos that is Tony's day to day life. If Bruce finds a purpose that suits him better than data compilation and archival retrieval- that's fine. Tony will help him lean into it however he can. ] You're integrating and adapting better than I anticipated. Which is probably due to your not being online while in the server all that long so there's less of a workaround for you? I'm not sure. We can do a diagnostic later if you want.

[ It's easy to be casual up until that undercurrent of distress starts to sink in and- well. Tony's an old hand at ignoring that in people, mostly because it doesn't register. But his bots, Jarvis, and now Bruce? Kind of takes a priority. He pushes away from his workstation to saunter over, dragging a chair to drop into it, looking Bruce in the eye. ] Hey- you're going to be fine. If you want me to make sure you're three laws safe, sure, we can do that. You've got the same hardware in your brain as Jarvis does in his server, just. Miniaturized and mobile. You're safe.

[ Tony looks Bruce in the eye and he finds himself looking back like his primary drive has been overridden; that's not what's happening, he knows, but it's still like an unavoidable compulsion. His brow knits a little, just a bit, in wariness and concern.

Three laws, he says, and a stream of understanding runs through him. An undercurrent of self realization, the reason behind his distress and his skepticism:

Bruce does not trust himself. He has enough self-awareness to determine an inherent differential between human empathy and programmed emotion, he's been given enough access to popular culture and media to identify the belief that coded logic falls short during critical decision-making processes. He agrees with the sentiment despite the fact that up until him, now all of that is fiction.

Except it's not though, all he has are replicated feelings and a basic personality matrix, but if you present him with, for instance, the Trolley Dilemma? Oh, Jesus, he's going to have whatever the artificial version of a panic attack is.

He pulls back, throws up his hands to indicate that he needs a little space. Wheels his chair around to search frantically through the workstation for a pen and a pad. He needs to outline a basic moral construct, a set of ethics, some kind of solid groundwork for an empathy structure. Ignoring that even the fact that he wants to means that there's already the beginnings of one there, no, he wants something in code. He wants to an unbreakable law and he'll put the damn thing in himself. ]

The three laws are a bunch of shit, that guy in 'I, Robot' had those and he still tossed that dude out a window.

[ He mutters under his breath, eyes now on his furious writing rather than Tony's face.

From somewhere just to his left, the hologram gives of a soft sounding tone. It's finished; he looks up. It's green from head to toe, top to bottom, but his workstation still flashes a compilation error. His writing pauses, falters, lips part. He squints at it again, leans in close like he does with the monitor to wrap his head around the implication.

If - Then
If - fully green, then - all script ran successfully
If - all script ran successfully with no errors, then - ]

Your problem's not with the code it's with the compiler.

[ He murmurs decisively. ]

[ Space is required and space is given, Tony leaning back in his chair to, well, watch whatever crisis this is unfold. J and the others never went through anything like this as they were aware of and content with how they were 'othered' by a lack of a humanoid body. LMDs are meant to be copies of people to a certain extent and as such retain similar senses of self as their OG counterparts (no matter how little Tony cares for the notion, it is what it is) but Bruce? A unique, one of a kind start here and now. The fact that he's worried about what he could or couldn't do without any solid framework for why he ought to be worried other than what he's pulling from the massive amounts of data at his fingertips?

Kind of curious. A lot awesome. And a little worrying. He's never been all that sure how to handle other people having anxiety attacks. Let alone other digital people. ] Yeah, the film has a few plot holes. The short story's more tragic, if you believe it or not, but Sunni is sort of what we're going for here. Less homicide and more bicentennial man.

[ Less legalities regarding the autonomy of androids and more the never-ending quest to empathize with and become more like humanity. But that like most things is ultimately up to Bruce. Maybe he's got too many options, too many choices to make. Too much free will with not enough directions or limitations. Humans take time to develop because they grow and mature so slowly; until they're at their peak they've got parents to guide them.

Tony's never really dipped into that role with his AI and maybe he should, sort of, give Bruce some limitations? Boundless potential can be fucking overwhelming, he supposes. ]

Wait, what?

[ Right, the coding snafu. Tony's eyes flick back over to the hologram, attention diverted. ]

[ Precisely the problem; humans have a lifetime to develop morals and ethics, to build a sort of belief structure and gently categorize right from wrong -- and not just that, right in some contexts might be wrong in others, and it takes at least two decades of experience before they reach something even close to resembling emotional maturity. Bruce has been dumped mostly-formed into this crazy thing we call life, he's pulling personality traits more or less out of his ass seemingly at random.

Who's to say he won't pull a right or a wrong out at random too? Some things can't be taken back, he wants to be prepared for eventualities and he might be overwhelming himself a little with the endless array of things that might come up that he can't predict.

He'd like to take a moment to argue over not being Robin Williams, except wouldn't you know it he's more of a Williams than a Clooney isn't he? Thanks, Tony.

He's relieved by the distraction, and with a gesture, tugs the error from his workstation monitor up into hologram form for Tony to see. ]

PGCC-S-0000-Internal compiler error. linearize: bad ili #: 0 (mpisim.C: 225)
PGCC-S-0000-Internal compiler error. gen_aili: unrec. ili opcode: 0 (mpisim.C: 225)

[ He settles back in his chair, arms crossing again as he studies the hovering text. ]

Your factoring's too complex for the compiler, it's finding inconsistencies in itself. You could refactor the code, but you'd have to simplify it down, like- a lot. What are you using- did you make your own compiler? Is that Comeau?

Well, yeah? I figured we'd let you get used to the standard programming languages before we started throwing our homegrown stuff at you. [ A lot of the more 'publicly available' information tends to happen in easily compiled, normal programming languages. Anything involving proprietary SI tech, the reactors, the suits, Avengers stuff? In Tony and Jarvis' one part engineering shorthand one part Latin three parts gesture and five parts he doesn't even remember because he was a little drunk at the time but it's a grammatically stable and infinitely fluid code that makes up a solid basis of the software on the suits-

And most, if not all, of his AI.

There ought to be an innate awareness since, shit, that's part of what makes Bruce himself but working with it outside of self introspection isn't something Tony wanted to throw at him so soon. ]

We wrote this one to convert and compile both in C++ and The house code but that's where the wires got crossed.

[ His lips press together as he thinks; yes, he knows the house code. Yes, his homegrown compiler could probably handle this no problem, it's just that apparently Tony outcodes Comeau and the thing bugs out trying to wrap it's head around all the possible factors of this code.

He passes a contemplative hand over his mouth, allows the freak-out of his own internal mechanisms to slip into the background for now. Evidently, he's got another unexpected personality trait:

Bruce runs from his own problems. Buries himself in his work so he doesn't have to deal with his issues. Maybe he gets that from Tony, or maybe it's just another happy accident from the cocktail of traits and development he's been given. Finally, he announces: ]

I can fix it, but I'm gonna need, like... a day.

No rush, you're not on any deadlines for...anything, really. [ Too much pressure in the early stages doesn't bode well for long-term development, no that is not at all something he knows from personal experience it is not him trying to swerve hard and avoid Howard Stark's method of parenting at all, don't you dare imply that it is.

Even if it is, a little, kind of, maybe like that.

A smidge.

He settles back in his chair, eyes flicking back to Bruce, taking in his posture and...everything. Curious as he is about what he'd been writing; he'll wait until Bruce brings it up. Snoop he might be but bodily autonomy also comes with a sense of privacy and personal space. Establishing that now, that he can trust Tony not to dig? Kind of important. ] As soon as you feel settled we'll get you set up with timetables but I can't give you projects with projected deadlines until I know how quickly you're capable of working comfortably.

Comfortably.

[ He echoes, in a tone that almost sounds amused again.

That really is such a wide and subjective thing, isn't it? Comfortable in his body, comfortable in his mind? Comfortable with the situation or the work or the lab or with Tony himself?

Machines are designed to have a purpose, not to make themselves comfortable. He thrust himself into his work within five minutes of activation because following a loose objective in his primary drive was as close to automation as he could come, because steadfast working on an obstacle he was programmed to overcome was like a light switch. Like an order. Like a toaster. They do what they're designed to do and they don't have feelings on the matter. Dipping into whether or not he's comfortable doing something humanizes him in a way that he-

He-

processing irregularity.

He's having a hard time reconciling.

He pushes the pen forward on his desk and levels Tony with an assessing look. ]

What exactly is your expectation here? For me? Jarvis I get, those- [ He points at DUM-E, who seems almost startled by the abrupt attention. ] I get, but- if you wanted an archival unit, you didn't have to give it a face. So what's the plan? What's the- the reasoning? If you wanted company, maybe like a lab assistant with an existential crisis you could've just gotten an intern and given them LSD, saved yourself the trouble.

That's kind of important? [ Dum-E's axles are always greased so he can move easily, Jarvis' code and servers kept tidy and at optimal functionality so he can focus on his work, Tony's got a coffee maker and a comfortable as fuck sofa he can sack out on tucked in the corner for when he needs to stretch out for an hour in between binges. Comfort is wide and variable and means different things to different beings on various levels of analog or digital existence but it is still somewhat vital to existence. ]

Them, not those, be nice to your oldest sibling. [ Dum-E's special, sure, but does as he's asked in his own time, he's personable and to that end far more successful than a mere obedient arm ever would've been. Dum-E's saved his life before, and you can't really program that kind of intuition and loyalty into anyone or anything, Tony would know- he's tried. ]

Look- you didn't do well in the server, I ran the numbers on who would be best suited to this particular build. [ He flicks his fingers at Bruce's- everything. ] You came out on top by a solid thirty two percent. I ran them on putting you in an arm or a box or a toaster which- I might've been hungry when I worked out the math on that one, but this? Projected as the best fit. So it's what you've got. I need someone I can trust to handle sensitive data, someone that'll be able to understand what they're looking at, someone that can communicate with Jarvis on his level and communicate with me on mine. No amount of LSD on any intern is going to swing all of that in one package, Bruce.

That and Jarvis was bitching about not having opposable thumbs available to him in the lab and declined a chassis of his own. He's been the building so long being in a pseudomeatsuit would be severely limiting. So.

[ He's got a feeling like- he can't quite name it just yet, it's like guilt maybe, except not. Not quite sadness, not quite anger. It's this feeling in his processor that makes it speed up and pick up a bit of heat, like he's trying to compute a couple hundred complex tasks at once while also cooking a souffle and changing a diaper. It's like a negative feedback loop of expectation and failure to deliver, unanswered questions and issues with the fact that he thinks to ask them.

Artificial limbic levels spike. ]

Stress.

[ Jarvis supplies helpfully.

Ah, yeah, that makes sense.

For better resource utilization management, he breaks his issues down into a list which he can then prioritize.
-petabytes of data to archive
-resolve the internal compilation error
-determine if he wants to change physical appearance
-determine what makes his work 'comfortable'
-analyze and construct ethics parameters
-perform introspection on emotional drives and personal responses
-contemplate opinion on Tony Stark
-contemplate personal desire
-learn how to hands/opposable thumbs (no wonder Jarvis turned this down)

To add to his stressors, constant observation. He considers adding to the list "analyze why observation causes increased stress and agitation", decides his list is long enough, and will put that on the backburner. For now, he elects to do the top two functions under surveillance and wait until he has privacy to begin work on the rest.

They feel... personal. Whatever that means to him.

Rather flatly, inscrutable like he's withdrawn and internalized something, he finally answers: ]

Understood.

[ And with a tight smile that almost seems strained, he gestures back toward his monitor. ]

I'm just gonna...

[ You know. Do the things. ]

Right. [ They've probably hit a point where Tony, in his meatsuit having self, can't really course correct or guide and it's all in Jarvis' capable, nonexistent hands. ] You need anything, J's available. I think- we didn't know how much space you'd want for yourself so there's an adjacent suite to the lab for you to use for...whatever?

[ Charging dock, desk with a personalized workstation, shelf of books, good view of the city, a few potted plants, seating, a bed. It'd been a guestroom for Rhodey or Helen if they didn't want to share the wonder that was the workshop couch, cleaning it up and semi-personalizing it for Bruce's use hadn't taken much. Even if tony's not all that sure...why an android would need a bed, the option's there.

For his part Tony stands and heads back to his workstation, dialing through his endlessly long to do list- armor repair, avengers tech, helicarrier redesign (for the fifth fucking time), new specs for SI's latest version of the Starkphone- There's plenty to throw himself into. And throw himself into it he does, flicking through holographic displays of code, blown out diagrams of bodyarmor and nonlethal options for munitions and fragile circuitry. Bruce will, he trusts, sort himself out as he works.

Jarvis will let him know if anything's going sideways. He. Supposes. ]

[ A little space and time seems to do the trick; Bruce lapses back into occupying himself with work, diving into it with all of his attention and concentration with pretty astounding efficiency and astute judgment. Work is easy, and slowly but surely his artificial limbic levels return to a normal (if uptight) range.

It's a few hours of "comfortable" silence later that he finally pauses, flickering his eyes over Tony's back and then moving to quietly stand. Without a word, he slips off into the suite prepared for him and shuts the door behind him with a quiet click.

Objectives one and two are by no means completed, but he hasn't been given a timetable, apparently. It seems he's made a choice to momentarily shift focus toward his six other objectives and he's depriving Tony the ability to study him while he does it. There are probably a thousand logs he can pull up and assess remotely, but facial expressions and body language will remain, for now, a mystery. ]

[ A few hours and Tony's thoroughly engrossed in his work, only half aware that there's anyone else in the lab with him, blinders on for the next three to five hours. He's picking apart a projection of delicate wiring and not about to wonder where his errant archival assistant has wandered- he meant it when he said no timeline and, shit. Existence is exhausting when you're used to it. Privacy is a thing. If Bruce needs anything, Jarvis will handle it, if they need Tony? He'll call for him.

It'll only be when Jarvis determines it's past time he eats something that he'll pull himself from his work to wonder if he can get away with the smoothie Dum-e's presenting him or if he should order actual food (roughly two hours after Bruce has stepped away for privacy) that Tony might wonder if, well. Everything's kosher? And ping Jarvis to check on Bruce. ]

[ He'll get something of an affirmative back from Jarvis. His overall state is functioning optimally, he seems to have gotten his stress levels under control, and you'd be surprised with the amount of thinking one can do when they've got a processor like he has. Privacy, it seems, has done him wonders in adapting to his situation.

Now, it seems, he's devoted some time to manipulating his own programming. He hasn't had enough time to flesh out a comprehensive set of morality parameters, but he's building what seems to be the foundations. A strict set of ethical code for himself to abide by, which takes far longer than you'd think because-- well-- if you knew what was ethical you wouldn't be making a system designed to keep you ethical, would you? He's got to pull from preexisting foundations, from the rights and wrongs of other people, historically. He's making himself sort of a hodge-podge belief system from bits and pieces of humans both living and historical.

He's got comprehensive personality profiles on over a dozen people populated on his workstation. One of them, in fact is Tony himself. That's sort of a two birds, one stone thing. It's helping him form an opinion on the man outside of the bias that comes with his presence.

News articles and biographies seem incredibly skewed from what he's been able to experience personally thus far. He is, in simple terms, a contradictory mess.

Interesting. ]

It appears he's googling you, sir.

[ Which, yeah, he heard that. He shoots a pointed look at the ceiling.

Traitor. ]

Edited 2018-08-16 19:42 (UTC)

Do me a favor and net-nanny those searches? I don't think he needs to see the- you know.

How considerate of you.

[ Drunken Adventures with Tony Stark vol. 1-115, all on the internet for posterity. Shit he'll never live down, a few sex tapes fake and actual, at least one 'jailbait Stark' reel rolling around from when he was short on good sense and high on whatever the hell Tiberius had been feeding him at the time. Mistakes were made. A lot of mistakes were made, he'll own that. He's the last person that should be responsible for new digital life given a humanequse existence but he's one of the few capable of creating them and the only one, it feels like, that looks at them and sees people.

So.

Sue him for trying, he guesses? ]

Keep the typed word, censor the video and photographic evidence of my being a naked hot mess? [ Outright blocking Bruce's ability to see what a fuckboy he'd been is one thing (he hopes he used that term right, god slang is fucking fluid) isn't entirely fair, so. Keeping him from being blinded is the best option, let the text show that Tony Stark wasn't always a sterling character. Or. Ever. Won't be. Isn't? He doesn't think about it too much, making reparations where he can but- honestly the arms dealing, partying, and whole kidnapping thing is more relevant to their current state of affairs and probably worth looking at. ]

If there's anything on record he's butting up against that we've blocked off, tell him to come to me and ask about it? [ Specifics of what happened in the Cave. Yensin. Details Re Vanko. Personal shit, family shit. Things that might taint the Stark Legacy- one he never really wanted but, hell. This is what they got. ]

Of course, Sir.

[ What, you mean Tony Stark's bare ass isn't essential to his development? He can't exactly say he's disappointed, he's one of the very few people not on the internet to see someone's genitals, but there's no denying the amused smirk that pops up for nobody to see when his uplink detects the slight shift in the network protocol. His first breathy laugh on the planet earth goes unheard by anyone but Jarvis, who keeps his opinions on the matter to himself.

That's fair. Privacy is a two-way street, he'll reserve pointing out the fact that Tony's more than seen him naked, he designed it. Maybe save that card for a later date.

It's another hour or two before he finally emerges, once again without a word. Settles at his workstation with an inscrutable expression and apparently with no intent to bring up what he'd learned in his little meditation session. It was, evidently, productive. His stress levels are at record lows and he doesn't seem to be on the verge of a panic attack at the moment. Evidently Tony designed something of a nervous personality, there's no telling how long that might last but, for the moment, he's efficient and of decent spirits. ]

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