#fighting_for_creativity

'Oh... whoops?', Tony thought as he stared blurry eyed at a square-ish  robot chirping and rolling around his workshop. DUM-E was seemingly attached to that yellowish bot’s metaphorical hip and in the corner Tony could see a white hovering oval-shaped  bot quietly exchanging beeps with U and Friday.  

“FRI, baby girl, where do those bots come from? Do I have to pay someone to keep this shush shush?”

The slight static rumbling indicated his girl’s chuckling. Tony felt a wave of pride flooding him when she replied cheekily, “Only yourself, Boss. And maybe the rest of the family.”

Tony tried to look put out by this reply, he really tried, but when the yellow bot came to him and blinked with it’s big eyes, he couldn’t stop the big ass grin.

And if he cooed, that was no one's business but his.

“Hello, hello. And who are you?”

“WALL-E,” answered the small bot, outstretching its claw and reaching for Tony’s stained jeans. As soon as the name registered, the engineer realized what he had done.

“Oh. Oh god. Note to self, never watch movies with robots in them while running on 2 hours sleep for 57 hours and an unholy amount of coffee.”

“You want me to mark that done, Boss?”

“Na, it’s fine, Baby girl.” Then Tony turned back to the bot, who still looked at him with big, oh so gullible, eyes. ‘Gosh this bot is going to be the death of me.’

“Hello, Wall-E, you’ve  already found friends here?”

“Wall-E!” 

“Dum-E and you are probably best friends by now.” The happy chirp sound coming from both bots was confirmation enough. Tony loved his bots dearly, and adding one or two more didn’t seem such a bad choice now that the engineer got to talk with one. Just as he decided that yes, he would find room for the two new additions to his bot family, the second one, Eve if he remembered correctly from the movie, came over.

Tony watched and waited, curious to see how they bots interacted now that he was around.

Eve made a smiley face when Wall-E chirped at her and then turned to him, saying, “Hello Ton-E. I’m Eve. Thank you for housing us.”

Tony was taken aback by Eve’s articulation skill. None of his former bots had been that expressive. But alas, none of his bots had been programmed to act quite like Eve either.

So, after collecting himself, he smiled gently, reaching out his hand until Eve touched it in a mimicry action. Only then did he say, “You’re most welcome Eve. I hope you and Wall-E will come to love it here. But fair warning, I’m a bit loud sometimes.”

“That, boss, is an understatement.”

“Hey!”

The equivalent of laugher was heard from all corners of the shop as all the bots chimed in.

It ended in Tony sitting sulkingly on his chair mumbling, “Betrayal, from my own blood! How dare them all. That snark, that sass! Unbelievable.”

But all the bots knew he didn’t mean it, and those that weren’t sure, like Dum-E and Wall-E came rolling and doing what equals cuddling to him until Tony was laughing with them.

Throughout the day Tony managed to sort out a section for Eve and Wall-E to stay at, without the other bots intruding on their space because, -”No Dum-E, Eve and Wall-E’s space is their space because they are like me and my love. No interrupting while love time.” - and get to know the newest additions to his family.

In the evening he asked into the room, “What do you all want to do?”

Yes Tony had to do some SI stuff, and Avengers gear updates and -tomorrow waits for no one, love- , but he had decided that spending time with his family was more important. Seeing as his love wasn’t around at the moment, he sure as hell could spend his free time however he wanted.

In the end, they all watched a movie together. Wall-E and Eve, as the honorary new siblings, had picked it. The name was Big Hero 6.

As soon as Tony's eyes lay on the marshmallow like bot; as soon as Friday commented that he looked oh so lonely, Tony's head filled with schematics.