It had been...weird, to be young, and have people around him as young. Some of the challenges - the Dating Game, even the BuildAMech - hadn't been bad. But then the other challenges had been worse. It had been seeing people he knew corrupted and knowing he had to destroy them, one way or another, and the thin hope that it was constructs with their face, not them.
He couldn't promise that it was any better, to know what it was like to come back from something like this; in time, it would be better. But it would take so damn long; he really wanted it to be a quick fix, the way it was for the armor. Sure, he'd struggled with it, but then he'd solved the problem, and now he was reversing the problem: add or remove the necessary parts, and it was back to running at full capacity. Simple. Done.
He couldn't push out the thoughts running through his head. He couldn't defrag. None of his usual options were working, or were even viable considerations after he thought of them.
He heard the heels, and glanced briefly at the reflective screens to ascertain that it was the only person who should be walking in heels in the shop, which should really require steel-toed boots, but he was lazy and making Pepper wear them would take a great deal of fun from his life, so he never got around to enforcing it. The bots were there to clean up, right?
She slid something next to him, and he reached for the drink on reflex. He didn't really want it, but he drank, and felt a little better. "Unless you have degrees in physics, mathematics and/or engineering, not really," he said bluntly. But because they'd come far in being open, he added, "Thanks."