The Hacker and The Heroes

The Confrontation

"Hello, Dollface," Tony smirked as he brushed past Nadia into her apartment. "I was beginning to think you had fallen off of the face of the earth. You wouldn't happen to be trying to avoid me," he turned towards Nadia was his eyebrows cocked "would you?"
Tony glanced around the apartment, taking in the details. He had found it almost impossible to hack past her defenses. In fact, if he didn't have access to so many resources, he doubted he would have been able to at all. Ah, the luxuries of being rich. He found himself drawn to this intriguing woman. First, she brushed him off- THE Tony Stark. Not only that, but he found out she was a genius that had created a system to find soulmates. However, the real icing on the cake was that she had promised him results, and she never delivered.
With all of his confidence, Tony did have a tendency to be paranoid- it came with his standing in life, so after a while of Nadia not contacting him he began to think maybe she was intentionally withholding information concerning his soulmate. Why? For money? As he looked at the apartment, it didn't seem like that was a motive. She was relatively well off. So what did that leave? Power? She didn't seem the type, but still, he was convinced it had to be something along those lines.
"Me? Intentionally deprive myself the pleasure of your company? Why, Mr. Stark, I would never dream of it!" Nadia said as she placed her hand over her heart in mock hurt. By this point she had made her way from where the billionaire had left her by the door and she now stood leaning against the kitchen island.
Tony was in deep thought it seemed, and as he examined the room, she took the time to quietly observe him. Surprisingly, he had forgone a suit tonight, and he was dressed simply in an old, black, band t-shirt and jeans. His signature colored glasses were pushed back into his tousled hair, leaving his warm, brown eyes on full display. Nadia had to admit- if his mouth didn't make people go blind with fury, he would be quite handsome. But then he started talking again, and that thought was shattered.
"Then why haven't you delivered my results? I know you said it would take some time, but it has been over a week. Surely that is time enough."
"Why of course it is," Nadia breathed out. "In fact, I had your results the very same day on which we had met—"
"Are you playing a game?" Tony's eyes flashed as he turned to face her. He had decided that direct was best, and he was not holding anything back. Tony watched as her eyebrows furrowed together.
"Pardon?"
"I said 'Are you playing a game?'" He repeated, being sure to emphasize each and every syllable as if he was talking to a child. "If you have the results, then why haven't you delivered them? What do you want? Money?"
"Please, I am perfectly capable of making money in a tasteful manner. I don't need blackmail to survive. Now, before you so rudely interrupted, I was going to tell you that the system didn't work." By this point, Nadia was starting to get angry. This was her home, and while, admittedly, she had expected some sort of confrontation, she refused to let him barge in and accuse her of being driven by something as basic and mundane as money.
"It didn't work?" Tony almost took a physical step back. Of all the outcomes and reasons he had imagined, the system not working hadn't been one of them. She had seemed so confident in it that the possibility had never crossed his mind.
"No, it didn't work. And as you can imagine, I wasn't eager to rush out and admit that my system failed, so I have been holed up here for the past week running through the coding to find the error. Would you be eager to rush out and admit to others when your suits malfunctioned, or would you simply sit down and fix them yourself?"
"Well, what do you need? I am sure that there is something I can get you to help this process along." Tony had to admit that she had a point, but something still wasn't sitting right with him even with that explanation. So, he decided how would play along for a bit until he figured it out.
    "All that I need, Mr. Stark, is more time. I have to get the coding down perfectly before we proceed. I suppose a sample group would be nice if you can persuade the University. They never let me test the program on actual humans. Up until this point it had been theory. Variables I would input to see if the system had the capability to track down complex entities and matches, you see? After the recoding and testing have been completed, the next step would be another blood sample from you and - Voila! You shall have your results."
Stark stared into her eyes as if he was trying to uncover some hidden truth or falsehood in her words. Something didn't add up to him. In her rambling request, she had asked for human testing. Tony knew from his research during the past week that she had, in fact, tried it on several people, and all but one (the very first one) was matched correctly. He also knew that if the system didn't work, the university never would have asked him to the labs to begin with. They were careful to only reveal successes to the billionaire so that he would continue to donate. It was a basic business strategy.
Furthermore, Nadia was right- they were very similar when it came to their inventions. If one of his suits hadn't worked, he wouldn't exactly be eager to share that information. Still, there was the matter of the unexplainable degree of confidence Nadia had possessed when they had first met. The only way that much confidence was had for an invention was if it had already been tested and they were confident in it's ability to provide results. With both of these points in mind (and a less logical "feeling" rushing through his veins), Tony decided to call her bluff.
"You know, Doll, it isn't very polite to lie."

A/N:
Oh my gosh, this chapter was so hard to write! I wasn't quite sure how I wanted this interaction to go, so I had several different versions typed up. Eventually they came together to make this! Please let me know what y'all think. Your feedback would be incredibly helpful. Also, special shoutout to everyone who has voted and all my silent readers! (@Vivianna-8 complimented my writing and it made my day :))
I was so tempted to add "You know, Doll, it isn't very polite to lie- unless you're lying in my bed" to the last sentence, but I figured the situation was a bit too serious for that. It's such a Tony thing to say.
Anyone have any thoughts on the POV switches? I know I asked a couple of chapters ago, but this is my biggest.... I don't know if insecurity is the right word. I took y'all's silence to mean it isn't too terribly hard to read.