It had been a remarkably terrible day, and at the end of it all Tony wanted was some company - but his girlfriend had dumped him and Rhodey was out of town, so all he had was the robots and AI in his lab. The lab he might be losing soon if his adviser carried through her threat to expel him.
"Hey, guys," he said, turning things on. "Shitty day. I'm just gonna sit here and drink for a while." He sat down on the floor between the server box for JARVIS and Dummy's armature. The robot arm moved to touch him, and he put an arm around it. Tony had never told anybody how the machines 'talked' to him. It had started when he was around ten years old... he could see into them somehow. They 'told' him what was wrong with them and how to fix it. They had personalities - JARVIS was that polite friend who was always slightly exasperated but put up with you anyway, and Dummy was like a big, stupid, well-meaning dog. He'd been able to ascertain that it didn't work that way for other people, not even for Dad, so he'd never told anybody.
Right now he didn't care anyway. They were the only friends he had. He sat there talking to them aimlessly as he drank himself to sleep.
He woke up late in the morning with a pounding headache, and a dog licking his face.
