WHO:Yuffie & Tony WHEN: Today; early WHERE: UCI campus WHAT: Yuffie's running late and Tony's sort of there. It turns into the greatest day ever RATING/WARNINGS: Fangirling STATUS: Complete
Tony had been invited to speak in the class of a physics professor he knew who worked at the University of California in Irvine. It was a quid-pro-quo deal, as Tony rarely did favors like these without getting something in return. The quo, as it were, was the names of all the finest students in the department so he knew who to look for for interns. Tony took a particular interest in interns--he wanted to have a thumb on the pulse of the up and coming talent, see? So he came out once a semester to meet some of the students, keep up with the professors in the department(s), and fulfilled his half of the deal.
He was on his way out of the professor’s office, patting his pockets to find his sunglasses. Funny, he thought he had them a moment ago.
Yuffie was late. Like straight up, I missed my alarm because I was up until four in the morning working on my project and then I face planted onto my desk and slept straight through three alarms, kind of late. Which blew! Because she’d stayed up so late reworking her project because D-Bag Michaels had stolen her idea!
She was clutching her back with her notes and class books while balancing the plastic box with her project in it, skidding along the halls in an effort to at least make it to her next class. “Sorry! Coming through! Please don’t make me hit--” Of course, the problem was corners, and she slammed right into one of the jocks, spinning around to twist and hit the deck but thankfully managing to keep her box upright.
“Jerk face.” She muttered it under her breath while she rubbed her butt, pulling her bag closer so she at least didn’t trip anyone up. “Sorry, sorry, um…” Looking up, Yuffie tried a smile, even through her frustration and embarrassment. “There’s a bolt between your shoes that I kinda need, please don’t stand on my fingers?”
The hallway was a little more crowded than Tony would have expected. He turned to head out, but then paused when he saw a young girl slam into someone else, go sprawling to the ground, and then start collecting things from… the floor. And he glanced down. There was something on the floor between his feet. He reached down to pick it up and hold it out to her.
“You all right?” Actually, the fall was pretty spectacular. Tony was surprised she hadn’t lost more of the project she was carrying.
“Yeeeeah.” Ego be damned, Yuffie was lacking in that anyway. She was tiny and half these butt-faces were massive big linebackers or whatever on the stupid football team. “Bruises are part of my life now. I’m good, thanks very--” And the smile attempted to crawl onto her face before she actually looked at who was offering her the top of her project back, “Meep.”
Totally a word, not a noise. She didn’t just squeak at Tony Stark. “Um… I mean, thank you, very much, for that, yes. I’m fine. Not butts. Just… I mean, hi.” Leaving her bag for a moment, Yuffie snatched the bolt, grabbing the loose arm that was in the box and tightening it as much as she could without a spanner. She’d tweak it in class.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t scuff your shoes did I? Am I in your way? I’m sorry.”
This wasn't the first time Tony Stark's presence had elicited such a response from one of the college kids he came here to see. It was always amusing when people fell over themselves in front of him. He couldn't help but smirk a little, and held out the bolt to the girl. She looked like she was having a particularly rough day, so he wasn't going to take the mickey. Last thing he wanted to do was compile more stresses on for this poor girl.
He held out a hand to help her up. "Meep's right." Okay, maybe he'd tease a little. "You're welcome. You're not in my way. What are you working on? It's not broken, is it?"
Yuffie managed to gather herself somewhat, grinning broadly as she got herself together, making sure the device was still intact. “Oh, yeah, it’s fine. It comes apart pretty easily right now. I’m still in the beta testing stage, but I’m hoping to finalise the exoskeleton design soon and move on to grafting the outer-shell.” Having things come apart easily wasn’t ideal, but it made it easier for tinkering or redrafting the layout.
“It’s my engineering media lab project, the Huggable. It’s still got a few flaws, but we’re getting there.” A flaw was probably what someone called it when the machine meant to give hugs to sick children who might not be able to see parents or other people squeezed so hard it busted a watermelon up real good.
Well, things falling apart easily meant less cracks if they actually broke, so Tony could appreciate that. His attention was caught on the words beta testing and exoskeleton. “The Huggable, huh?” Tony asked. He glanced up and down the hallway, and then motioned for the girl to follow. There was an empty classroom nearby, so he stepped inside, holding the door open for her.
Inside they were less likely to be bumped into or overheard. “Let’s see your project.” He wasn’t concerned about her being late to her next class. He figured he could just show his face and her tardiness would be forgiven. (Yes, Tony Stark was vain that way.)
Suddenly, Yuffie wasn’t even all that sure if she had a class! She had no problem with following Mr Stark into the empty room and, at his nudging, get her project placed together on the table and tightening everything. It didn’t take too much, and then Yuffie stood back. It was a machine that sort of resembled the upper half of a doll, the torso, arms and the start of a head. “Okay, so, you know how there are lots of kids out there who have these horrible autoimmune diseases, which mean that they attack themselves? And kids that don’t have any immune systems at all? So they get really sick and can’t fight diseases? Well, the Huggable is a prototype for some level of comfort for the kids.”
It took another button or two to press and the arms of the Huggable opened up, then encircled air before one of the ends jerked back and forth in a small tapping motion. Then they just…. Closed on themselves. “Heh… There’s a few bugs.” Since that right there would’ve crushed someone.
Tony was torn between enjoying the advanced robotics in the thing (this kid had some talent there) and imagining about a thousand other applications that this thing could be used for. If she worked out the bugs, anyway. It could cook or craft, perhaps. It was a good start toward a lot of things.
“Hey, the best ideas come with bugs attached.” He said, and took a step forward. He nudged his glasses up his nose, then reached forward to tweak a few things in the device. The robot. He stepped back again, having fixed one or two of the mechanical bugs she had going on. He wasn’t about to do any software tweaking. “Try it again.”
So far, Yuffie was thinking smaller. Her trash compactor idea had been stolen, and this was something that came to her while she was cursing out her classmate that pinched her idea, she knew she had some things to sort out, but that was the point of the prototype stages after all.
Giving it another reboot when Mr Stark poked a little, Yuffie grinned as the bot stopped at the hugging phase, at least it didn’t keep squeezing. “I think I need to tweak the program, so it remembers to let go, although some people like really long hugs.” Probably not that long, but sure. “Um, thanks.” And the grin was probably going to split her face soon. “This is probably like super low tech considering what you work with.”
“I’m sure you could tweak the software to a point where the machine would understand the person pulling back’s cues and end the hug at the point where the client needs it.” Tony mused. “This design you have here? Where the joints meet?” He offered, pointing. “Do you have a patent application in for it?”
That would probably be a good way to figure it out, the pull back cues would be easier to read than trying to set up a timer, and if she could put some sensors in so that the arms could feel the subject beginning to draw back that could set the time for when the arms should withdraw!
“Oh, um… No.” She hadn’t really thought about the patents at all, because… “I sort of spent the last three nights making it, and it was a bit of a last minute thing because that first idea I had got stolen by a douche in my class that can’t think of a single thing for himself.” And Yuffie was totally going to be writing in code from now on, or just making her handwriting utterly incoherent. “I um… I wasn’t really sure how to actually do that or when to do it or… any of those things.”
Tony’s eyes went slightly wide--a sign of surprise--but he was able to overcome it quickly. Then he cleared his throat. “You made this in three days? Nights?” He corrected himself. Then he dug into one of his pockets and drew a small, metal, card case. Inside the case were a variety of business cards, but buried at the back was one with his personal information on it. His cell phone number, email address, but never his home address. He held the card out to the girl.
“I can walk you through it, Kid. Give me a call after you do your presentation in class, and I’ll help you get the patents you need to protect yourself from thievery.”
“Well, yeah.” Yuffie knew that her mechanics abilities were fairly good. She was focused on that, on how to better herself, on how to build and create things. She’d always wanted to build big, but the more she progressed through her class she was seeing ways to help than just screw it to her dad about her being better than him. “I had started my other one, when Trevor or Travis or Tucker -whatever his douchey name is- pitched his one, which was mine. So I had to come up with this.” And she thought she had done okay in a short time right.
Taking the offered card, Yuffie stared at it with wide eyes, “Thank you so much.” Tony Stark was going to help her patent her work. How cool was that? “This is so awesome, thank you so much, I mean, wow. You’re just amazing.”
“Them’s the breaks, kid. There are a bunch of shady people in the world. I can see that you’ve learned from this lesson, and are already taking steps to correct your own behavior to make yourself safer. Protect your ideas.” He replied.
Tony loved that reaction in people. The wide-eyed stare, the disbelief when he extended some generosity. It wasn’t as if people thought him incapable of it, he surmised, but that they never expected that sort of thing to happen to them. Being the recipient of such generosity was a little overwhelming. “It’s nothing. Don’t mention it.” Beat. “Or, well, do. Contact me when you’re ready. Don’t show off your invention to too many people before you get that patent in the works.”
It was crappy that her own classmate stole her idea and pitched it as his own, but it wasn’t like he’d get far stealing other people’s ideas, if he didn’t have any of his own he’d be stuck at the bottom rung, and Yuffie wasn’t going to be like that at all. “You bet I have.” Her ideas would remain in her head from now on. Or maybe talked about with Tifa and that was all.
“Are you kidding? Tony Stark gives me help on patenting? Everyone is gonna hear about that.” If Yuffie could she’d sky write that. “You probably know that you’re like a super big deal, but you’re kinda one of my idols so, just this? This is amazing for me.” And yeah, Yuffie didn’t expect this sort of thing to just happen, that made it all the more special. Right?
Tony chuckled at that. This was exactly the kind of reaction he was hoping for, expecting from… well, pretty much everyone. She wasn’t disappointing him in the slightest. “I think you’ve got a bright future ahead of yourself if you can construct intricate robotics like this in a couple of days on your own.” He moved to help her put things back together so she could transport the thing to her class for her presentation. “Are you going to be late?”
Really, it was probably completely normal for Stark to get the fawning adoration, and maybe Yuffie could’ve reeled it in a little but, but she wasn’t overly great at that. Of course, he complimented her and then reminded her that she was late in the same breath and Yuffie attention instantly went elsewhere. “Oh shoot, I am. I’m already late, super late, okay. It’s okay! I’m last anyway. We alphabetise.” Having a Y name meant she at least didn’t need to worry like Aaron or Abby.
Fitting all the parts back into her box, making sure it was all nice and easily reassembled and she didn’t mess up the very helpful tweak, Yuffie just gave herself a nod. “Um, so like my class finishes as four, or at least we aim for that, it might go a little longer, because we all talk a lot.” Rambling, or explaining or just things going a little wrong, no one really had smooth sailing on their first presentations really. “Is that still an okay time for like… for the patent stuff?”
“Do you want me to walk you to class?” Her professor surely couldn’t be angry with her if it was Tony Stark who’d made her late to class, right? Either way, he held open the door for her so she could head out into the hallway. “That’s an excellent time for the patent stuff.” Now he was sort of wishing he could sit in on her class and witness the presentations. At the same time, that would probably be too much of a distraction for Yuffie and her classmates. He could go back to Stark Tower and send a car for her at four to bring her to his lab.
“Um...would you mind? Cause that’d kinda be great, if you could.” Um, walking up to class with a Tony Stark escort? Hello there no yelling at for lateness! Damn right her professor would be mega chill about that. Tony freaking Stark!
At least the halls were a little clearer by now and Yuffie wouldn’t be hitting people in a rush to get to class. Why would she rush? “That’s great, I sort feel like they should have a class on that stuff, getting the patents and what not, but they sorta cram so much in that it’s hard to tell where the time would be.”
The class door was shut, but that was par for the course, “That’s me right there.”
“It's probably taught in business classes, instead of engineering,” Tony mused, walking the girl down the hall. He stopped when she motioned to the door, then reached forward and opened it. The professor was in the middle of explaining something, and Tony poked his head in.
A collective gasp came from the students and the professor stopped talking abruptly.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Tony was amused by the reaction and trying not to show it. At least, not too much. “I borrowed one of your students. Don't worry, she's none the worse for wear.” He pushed the door open the rest of the way so Yuffie could walk through.
“Have fun in class, Dear,” he teased without sounding like he was teasing. “I'll send a car around to pick you up after.”
Yuffie couldn’t keep the grin off her face, she couldn’t wait to text Tifa about this, oh god, she was so going to live it up. “Awesome, thank you, um… See ya later!” That sounded casual without being overly friendly right? Screw it, people were going to think she was friends with Tony Stark, she’d ride that bus to the end of the line damn it!