Who: Tony and Rhodey NPCs: Bots When: 8/16 Where: Tony's lab What: Tony actually does what the government wants. For once. Ish. Rating: Fairly low: swearing.
He wanted it on record that he didn't like doing this. But then, he didn't not like it either. If it had just been a matter of the government asking for his armor, he would have been very happy telling them to go to hell. But if they didn't get his, they'd go to Luthor and his hacked version, with HammerTech given them even more reason to spontaneously combust. Then there was the tug of worry and unhappiness he got every time he remembered Rhodey in that sling, and for once in his life he thought about what would happen the next time, and then the next time.
It was wildly confusing, and so he set it aside and focused all his attention on the series of steps that had to take. He sat down and designed, fiddling with the basic elements and adding and subtracting the additional elements as needed, doing the math on the weight and the aerodynamics, working with the robotics of the movements. Most was familiar; there was enough different for him to lose himself in the problems. Coding the interface was enough of a challenge to keep him in his shop for days at a stretch.
Then it was just a matter of machining the parts and assembling and tweaking and running the virtual tests.
The final tweaks, however, would need the operator. Specifically, the part where only the operator could fly it.
"JARVIS, call Rhodey," Tony said as he cleaned his hands and wandered over for an energy shake, finally aware enough of his surroundings to be hungry. When had he last eaten?
"Done, sir," JARVIS announced, and he forgot about hunger again. "Rhodey, you want something to make the Committee happy, come by the shop; I've got something for you to try."